5 karma · joined March 29, 2020
It all seems to hinge on the assumption that with the implemented "strategy A", nobody with pneumonia would be tested for Covid19 unless they have a known connection to a symptomatic case. That of course would be a mistake. But were people really that complacent that it would never occur to them to test for Covid19, even as the rest of the world is talking about nothing else? (Availability of tests is of course a factor here, but should only be a temporary impediment).
I am interested in it, because here in Germany there also is currently a discussion of the virus spreading silently, only to come back in full force in fall if we become complacent. I must admit I don't fully understand the logic behind that, as surely when it spreads silently, it also has a proportion of symptomatic cases in its wake, so that in the end, it doesn't spread silently after all.
That's another claim you make, that you should be able to support. Have people been denied hospital care and therefore died at home?
"the trend is nearly always that more cases at once translate to much higher death rates"
Could have any number of explanations, like maybe infected old people homes.
"it's nonsensical to think that quality of medical care will not have an effect."
Again - are there cases of people dying because they couldn't receive care in the US, and how many?
"but mostly due to the availability of medical care."
Again, can you give any examples of people dying because they couldn't receive care? Especially in the US. And show that it is a significant number of people?
No. You can not simply calculate the death rate by dividing known deaths by known cases. Those numbers depend on who got tested and on how deaths are being counted, which also varies greatly from country to country. For starters, people who have severe symptoms are more likely to show up at hospitals and get tested. That introduces a huge bias already.
"You're citing that 0.5% figure incorrectly"
No I didn't, read what I wrote. And ALL numbers are projections. Even your calculation is a projection. Your calculation is an extraordinarily simplistic projection. Scientists hopefully make better projections, because they account for more influencing factors.
"The recent results that have shown 50% asymptomatic cases are not conclusive yet, because it's too soon to say that all of those people will never have symptoms"
What makes you so sure? It seems possible to make an estimate of when somebody got infected, especially in those studies of closed communities. After two weeks or so (scientists would determine a more prices number), it would be reasonable to assume they won't develop symptoms.
Not really, actually. At least I haven't seen a number of "people who died because they couldn't receive care" - do you have one? It seems possible that once health care systems are overwhelmed, more people die. But how often, if ever in this pandemic, has that point been reached? I don't think that often - there is no good treatment anyway.
"only a sample size of 500"
It's science. 500 can be a lot, or few. It was a sound and thorough study by acknowledged scientists.
So saying there is "no basis" is a bit rich. There may still be uncertainty.
Edit: this (just googled) article cites Diamong Princess to lead to an estimate of 0.5% death rate https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-dia... (the percentage of deaths on the DP was higher, but the passengers were also comparatively old on average).
Edit 2: lol for the downvote. What the fuck?
Edit 3: about the study in Germany https://www.theblaze.com/news/german-study-shows-coronavirus... (don't know "The Blaze", but if you care, you can google for better sources - google for "Streeck").
Edit 4: Theodore Roosevelt carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_on_U...
I fear that in the reasoning like in the article, many things remain unclear or nontransparent.
Maybe there is an error in picking misleading metrics and running with them?
As an example, what if you were selling a product, and you were giving people unlimited credit to buy from you. Like you suppose everybody could buy a new iPhone on credit, that never needs to be paid back.
I can imagine iPhones selling like hotcakes in that scenario.
Now the question is, in that scenario, would Apple be doing great? They'd be selling a lot of iPhones, after all. And in the books, they would have the claim to a lot of money from the people who bought on credit.
Realistically, though, they might not be doing so great, because most of their customers would end up unable to actually pay back the credit.
Maybe something similar tends to happen on a larger scale, when the article says "a weak dollar is good for the economy" - it's just that "people" (in other countries) got access to free money to buy. Whether those sales turn out to be really good ones will only become clear in the long run. Money (dollars) is just debt, so "a weak dollar" may just mean it is cheap to borrow, a ka buy stuff for almost free.
I don't know what the best metric for understanding such a situation, but it seems to me simply calculating in dollar values is rather misleading. It is a much more complicated question involving the ability of debtors to actually pay what they owe.
In any case, why not make an effort to reach out to the cities in question and ask for an explanation?