This is a very valid point but the problem is that if they just allow the virus to run unchecked it won't stay in those countries. India while having a lot of very poor people also is a modern country plugged into the global economy. Mumbai is a major travel hub and there is a lot of movement of people from India and into India. Africa is the poorest continent but countries like Ghana, Kenya and South Africa are developing rapidly. Nigeria has the largest population and there is a large Nigerian diaspora including here in the US. Also just allowing the virus to run it's course isn't without economic consequences. Many ill people and dying people will drag down productivity. For example look at what just happened with the Smithfield Meat processing plant. Dealing with the sudden rush of ill people will overwhelm the medical system. It will both be a massive drain of resources while not able to save that many. Even accepting the idea that it will just be elderly who aren't as productive killed ignores that elderly can and are still productive but also hold a lot of institutional memory. Given how complicated our technology and infrastructure is we still need people who have knowledge of what was done decades ago to help repair and maintain old technolgy and manage smooth transitions to new technology. The nature of the global economy makes it difficult or even impossible for nearly any country to survive on their own. Especially India. If they or the rest of the World were to cut them off to prevent transmission outside their borders it would be devastating. With a population of over a billion it would be hard to feed everyone there just relying upon internal resources. In this age without trade and the movement of people and capital it is very hard to maintain large populations. Even if you have the resources to grow enough food to feed your population you are at the mercy of local weather events and counting on your government to manage things. This is a pandemic and no country can single handedly stop it.
I don't think we need a one size fits all but we need to be careful. There is a lot of movement between states and it is almost impossible to keep this virus contained in a single locality. For example SD is one of the smallest states by population and has been very lax in fighting this disease and even now there isn't a stay at home order in the state or in the largest city Sioux Falls. This week they've had a major outbreak which is crippling one of their largest employers. I heard an interview with the mayor of Sioux Falls and he is pretty much helpless to stop this with the tools of other states because just putting a stay at home order in Sioux Falls doesn't mean that the suburbs or the rest of the state follows. He also stated that because Sioux Falls is right on the MN border there has been a lot of traffic from people from MN coming over. MN has essentially been locked down for a month but he notes there have been people coming from MN to escape it's lockdown to Sioux Falls and those might be bringing the virus. On top of all of this SD has far less medical resources to deal with a surge in illness than larger states. This disease isn't a localized issue and we can't stop it localized to states or even to countries.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...ro-bus-drivers-test-positive-for-15200531.php 3 more Metro drivers in Houston tested positive. Heads up to any Metro riders recently. One worked 10 different routes
There will continue to be infections and deaths. We aren't going to stop them all. There will be deaths from destruction of the economy as well if we continue this for another quarter simply because we aren't willing to try something else. Also, with my point I'm assuming that we will continue being careful going forward and we aren't returning to pre-virus lifestyle for awhile. I own UPS Stores in Austin and we are making sure we take adequate safety precautions with masks, cleaning, etc. We have decent customer volume. We are nowhere close to the major retailers which have stayed open and minimal infections have been spread thru them. Also, it might be worthwhile to look at the Swedish example rather than dismiss it. I don't think this model is the "right" answer for all societies and cities, but seems to be a valid one and can definitely be applied in different states/regions of the US.
Had to edit out some of the article because it was too long for one post https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-response-sweden-avoids-isolation-economic-ruin/ Has Sweden Found the Right Solution to the Coronavirus? Spoiler In theory, less physical interaction might slow the rate of new infections. But without a good understanding of how long COVID-19 viral particles survive in air, in water, and on contact surfaces, even that is speculative. Without reliable information on what proportion of the population has already been exposed and successfully fought off the coronavirus, it’s worth questioning the value of social-isolation controls. It is possible that the fastest and safest way to “flatten the curve” is to allow young people to mix normally while requiring only the frail and sick to remain isolated. This is, in fact, the first time we have quarantined healthy people rather than quarantining the sick and vulnerable. As Fredrik Erixon, the director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, wrote in The Spectator (U.K.) last week: “The theory of lockdown, after all, is pretty niche, deeply illiberal — and, until now, untested. It’s not Sweden that’s conducting a mass experiment. It’s everyone else.” We’ve posed these simple questions to many highly trained infectious-disease doctors, epidemiologists, mathematical disease-modelers, and other smart, educated professionals. It turns out that, while you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict a person of theft and throw them in jail, you don’t need any actual evidence (much less proof) to put millions of people into a highly invasive and burdensome lockdown with no end in sight and nothing to prevent the lockdown from being reimposed at the whim of public-health officials. Is this rational? When we asked what evidence is available to support the utility of quarantine and social isolation, academics point to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, with 700 COVID-19 passenger cases and eight deaths. But the ship is an artificially engineered, densely packed container of humans that bears little resemblance to living conditions in most countries. The other major evidence academics often cite is the course run by the 1918 swine flu, which swept the globe 102 years ago and was not a coronavirus. Philadelphia did not practice social distancing during the 1918 pandemic, but St. Louis did and had a death rate lower than Philadelphia’s. But how is that relevant to today’s crisis? Apart from the post hoc, ergo propter hoc nature of the argument, a key difference was that the GIs returning from World War I Europe who were carrying the swine-flu virus couldn’t fly nonstop from Paris to St. Louis. They had to land at East Coast ports such as Philadelphia. It’s therefore not surprising that the sick GIs rested and convalesced while spreading the virus on the East Coast, and they got better before continuing to St. Louis and other interior cities. Basing the entire architecture of social distancing on the evidence from the 1918 swine flu makes no sense, especially when that architecture causes significant destruction in the lives and livelihoods of most of the American population. But the social-isolation advocates frantically grasp at straws to support shutting down the world. It bothers them that there is one country in the world that hasn’t shut down and that hasn’t socially isolated its population. It bothers them because when this coronavirus epidemic is over, they would probably love to conclude that social isolation worked. Sweden has courageously decided not to endorse a harsh quarantine, and consequently it hasn’t forced its residents into lockdown. “The strategy in Sweden is to focus on social distancing among the known risk groups, like the elderly. We try to use evidence-based measurements,” Emma Frans, a doctor in epidemiology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, told Euronews. “We try to adjust everyday life. The Swedish plan is to implement measurements that you can practice for a long time.” The problem with lockdowns is that “you tire the system out,” Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, told the Guardian. “You can’t keep a lockdown going for months — it’s impossible.” He told Britain’s Daily Mail: “We can’t kill all our services. And unemployed people are a great threat to public health. It’s a factor you need to think about.” If social isolation worked, wouldn’t Sweden, a Nordic country of 10.1 million people, be seeing the number of COVID-19 cases skyrocket into the tens of thousands, blowing past the numbers in Italy or New York City? As of today, there are 401 reported COVID-19 deaths in Sweden. The really good news is that in Sweden’s ICU census, which is updated every 30 minutes nationwide, admissions to every ICU in the country are flat or declining, and they have been for a week. As of this writing (based on currently available data), most of Sweden’s ICU cases today are elderly, and 77 percent have underlying conditions such as heart disease, respiratory disease, kidney disease, and diabetes. Moreover, there hasn’t been a single pediatric ICU case or death in Sweden — so much for the benefits of shutting down schools everywhere else. There are only 25 COVID-19 ICU admissions among all Swedes under the age of 30. Sweden is developing herd immunity by refusing to panic. By not requiring social isolation, Sweden’s young people spread the virus, mostly asymptomatically, as is supposed to happen in a normal flu season. They will generate protective antibodies that make it harder and harder for the Wuhan virus to reach and infect the frail and elderly who have serious underlying conditions. For perspective, the current COVID-19 death rate in Sweden (40 deaths per million of population) is substantially lower than the Swedish death rate in a normal flu season (in 2018, for instance, about 80 per million of population). Compare that with the situation to Switzerland, a similar small European country, which has 8.5 million people. Switzerland is practicing strict social isolation. Yet Switzerland reports 715 cumulative Wuhan-virus deaths as of today, for a death rate nearly double the number in Sweden. What about Norway, another Nordic country that shares a 1,000-mile open border with Sweden, with a language and culture very similar to Sweden’s? Norway (population 5.4 million) has fewer reported COVID-19 deaths (71) than Sweden but a substantially higher rate of coronavirus ICU admissions. On Friday, one of us spoke with Ulf Persson in his office at the Swedish Institute for Health Economics. He said that everyone he knows is calm and steady, behaving with more caution than normal, following such government-mandated social controls as a 50-person limit on gatherings and only sit-down service at bars and restaurants. Persson estimates that the Swedish economy will drop about 4 percent because of the global economic shutdowns. But that’s nothing compared with the Great Depression unemployment levels of 32 percent that the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of St. Louis recently forecast for the United States. Nature’s got this one, folks. We’ve been coping with new viruses for untold generations. The best way is to allow the young and healthy — those for whom the virus is rarely fatal — to develop antibodies and herd immunity to protect the frail and sick. As time passes, it will become clearer that social-isolation measures like those in Switzerland and Norway accomplish very little in terms of reducing fatalities or disease, though they crater local and national economies — increasing misery, pain, death, and disease from other causes as people’s lives are upended and futures are destroyed. John Fund is a columnist for National Review and has reported frequently from Sweden. Joel Hay is a professor in the department of Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy at the University of Southern California. The author of more than 600 peer-reviewed scientific articles and reports, he has collaborated with the Swedish Institute for Health Economics for nearly 40 years.
The Swedish example has been brought up before and it doesn't appear to be working as well as it's neighbors.
I haven't analyzed the numbers. Are they a lot worse? If not, then maybe all this isolation isn't worth it.
I have been watching Sweden to see how they compare. They have close by neighbors that is under lockdown while they take a less restrictive approach. Similar culture and physically close by provide somewhat of a good comparison. And the comparison of the economy "death" vs lockdown "death" maybe a fair point, although I suspect they are closely related to each other and aren't so de-attach and independent.. IOW, they go up and down together. So far, they are doing way way worse then their neighbors but it's still early (they should do even worse if they continue the same path - but to what point.... to be seen). BTW, that article was 9 days ago and the author said the below. 9 days later, it's at over 100 deaths per million. Exponential growth is a b*itch. I point this out because it's silly to still compare this to a flu and if that's how they are approaching this, they are in for a rule awakening. "For perspective, the current COVID-19 death rate in Sweden (40 deaths per million of population) is substantially lower than the Swedish death rate in a normal flu season (in 2018, for instance, about 80 per million of population). "
Sweden isn't the worst country but compared to it's other Scandinavian neighbors it is doing much poorer. I don't know if it's economy is doing better but given that Sweden is very dependent on trade it is probably suffering as it's trading partners close down. This is from a day ago. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidn...y-has-failed-as-deaths-top-1000/#735ade767b6c Sweden: 22 Scientists Say Coronavirus Strategy Has Failed As Deaths Top 1,000 Sweden's relatively relaxed approach to controlling the spread of the coronavirus has come under fire in international media and from many locals in the capital Stockholm, where more than half the country's deaths have been recorded. Now, 22 researchers have publicly criticized the strategy and called on politicians to make changes. Harsh criticism from research scientists In an opinion piece published today in Dagens Nyheter, the group of researchers from a range of top Swedish universities and research institutes make harsh criticism of the Swedish Public Health Agency and their present coronavirus strategy. They say that elected politicians must now intervene with "swift and radical measures." The researchers say the agency has claimed on four different occasions that the spread of infection has levelled out, despite evidence to the contrary. They point out the slowdown in infections and deaths in Finland, which has implemented much more restrictive measures. Major public events such as the start of the Swedish soccer season are postponed and the physical buildings of universities are closed, but otherwise everyday life continues. Schools remain open. The Swedish Public Health Agency hit back at the criticism, calling the claims inaccurate. Sweden deaths much higher than neighboring nations The researchers highlight Finland, which has recorded ten times fewer deaths than Sweden on a per-person basis. Sweden's deaths as a percentage of population is also much higher than Denmark and Norway, which have also introduced strict measures. The group highlighted the last three days before the Easter vacation began. In the period April 7-9: "10.2 people per million inhabitants died of COVID-19 each day in Sweden. In Italy, the figure was 9.7. In Denmark it was 2.9, in Norway 2.0 and in Finland 0.9," stated the letter. Not taking it seriously enough While Swedish authorities have stopped short of implementing many of the emergency measures seen in neighbouring countries, they do recommend that people stay at home and avoid unnecessary travel. According to Aftonbladet, Jan Lötvall, a professor at the University of Gothenburg, said that Swedish people have not understood the seriousness of the situation because they have received unclear messaging from health authorities and elected officials. The researchers now want rapid change. They suggest that schools and restaurants should be closed as in Finland. In addition, healthcare professionals working with the elderly must use proper infection control equipment and a mass testing of health personnel must be carried out. Health Agency hits back The Swedish Public Health Authority’s Anders Tegnell has responded angrily to the criticism. At a press conference covered by SVT, he said their strategy was well-developed. Tegnell believes the figures used in the article are not correct. He claims there are “a number of fundamental errors.” He also pointed out that some countries, such as Italy, only record deaths that occur in hospitals. This makes it difficult to compare the number of deaths between different countries. “The death figures they quote are incorrect, they do not match the Swedish death figures,” he said. April 15: This article has been updated to include the response from the Swedish Public Health Agency. The criticism comes as the Swedish death total hits new heights. 1,033 people have now died from COVID-19 in Sweden, according to the Swedish Public Health Agency. That's an increase of 114 in the past 24 hours. The daily update also confirms that 11,445 people have tested positive in Sweden with 915 receiving or having received intensive care treatment.
of course their economy is doing better as opposed to shutting everything down for 6 weeks. they've now lost .01% of their population to this virus, while building up herd immunity -- they're sitting pretty imo
This is the second interview (4/9/20) with the same doctor, following the one previously posted here (Post#5412 / 1st interview 3/23/20) Prefer reading this interview? Pho6's notes in detail in the comment section of the YT vid. (This got more than 10k characters so has to be divided into multiple posts.) Q: Any updates or new information about Covid-19? - During incubation period before any symptoms start showing up, you start being infectious 2 days before you get a fever or other symptoms. - Before, some suspected that people were infectious throughout the whole incubation period while others argued that they weren't infectious at all during that period. Q: Dr Fauci seems quite confident you cannot get reinfected once you get the virus, is that true? - In Korea, they have experienced cases where people get reinfected and would develop a fever or have cold-like symptoms for 5 or 10 days after getting discharged. - Therefore, patients are testing positive, then negative, then positive again. Two reasons for this: 1. Relapse - when virus gets treated, symptoms go away, and the patient even test negative. But it comes back again. i. This happens because the number of virus copies in the system becomes so small that it can't be detected. Usually you need 3000 copies of virus in order to detect. That means the virus was never completely gone.2. Reinfection - when you completely get rid of the virus but you get infected by someone else again. - Dr. Fauci referring to reinfection, but not referring to relapse. Q: If your body develops antibodies shouldn't it not relapse? - It is still not clear, but there are studies that show that after you get infected with Covid-19, your body normally starts producing antibodies by end of the first week. ○ In a recent test on monkeys, researchers infected monkeys with Covid-19. One of the monkeys produced antibodies in its blood and the blood was confirmed to be the antibodies which neutralize the virus. ○ When they injected the monkey with the same virus, it didn't get reinfected and no symptoms came up. ○ Therefore, we can draw conclusion antibodies prevent reinfection. ○ This was the basis of Dr Fauci's claim. - In the case of relapse, the number of virus copies went down and then came back up again causing symptoms to come back. ○ They're still not sure what's causing that. ○ If external factors like medication (e.g. Kaletra or chloroquine) help suppress virus until no symptoms, they will be discharged. ○ But when going back to their lives, virus could start replicating again and person could get symptoms again. ○ These relapse cases seem to come up when your own immune system cannot fully eradicate virus by itself. ○ Just because you are discharged does not mean virus is gone, it could be that medication is merely suppressing it. ○ Virus can multiply again. Q: How long does virus stay in body? In some countries people don't know what to do with the dead bodies of the infected. - In Asia we usually bury, but one common thing we see in corpses is that it doesn't just infect lungs, but also the entire body. ○ So there is a concern that touching the corpse will lead to infection. ○ So in Korea, they cremate all corpses. Q: How long will virus remain in the corpse's body? - They can't test for that. They'd have to take the temperature, humidity, and weather conditions into account. - From stool tests, the longest period in the virus has stayed for 26 days. - When a person dies, the bacteria inside them will decay the body quickly. So if bacteria is faster than virus in taking over, then virus can't last because it can't survive long outside of a living cell. - As a result, it could die in a couple of days. Q: We are now hearing people in 20s and 30s are dying from virus, can you provide an update on this? - Young people can still die from the virus. We can't say it's safe for all young people. - Younger people can still end up in critical condition if they get a serious condition of covid19 and go to the hospital at a later stage. ○ The sooner you get treated, the higher your chance of recovering.- There is also something called "Cytokine storm" where a perfectly healthy young person's immune system overreacts when they get the virus, and the pneumonia can lead to inflammations all over the body and even death. Q: So a healthy person can die from covid? - Yes. It's called the cytokine storm. It is nothing new. - The H5N1 avian flu infected 18 people in HK and 6 passed away. All 6 were healthy people. Q: Why does Cytokine Storm happen? - The fundamental goal of immune system is to protect your body from external agents like bacteria and viruses by attacking them. ○ Imagine the cytokine is a bullet. The lymphatic system and immune system are shooting these bullets at the virus. ○ If the cytokine only attacked the virus, that's the ideal situation, but sometimes it may overreact and damage not only the virus but your own lung tissue and other parts of your body.- So you can say younger peoples bodies are so active that they overreact to the virus and their attacks are so excessive it leads to side effects. Q: Is there a way to predict Cytokine storm? - No way to predict right now. Q: Is it true that people with different blood types (i.e. A, O, B) get infected differently by Covid, is this true? - This is a thesis from China primarily from patients in Wuhan which said there were more A blood patients than O, and therefore A must be more susceptible to the virus than O. - It's a speculation but not conclusive data. Q: Last time, we mentioned that the skin doesn't have receptors so the virus can't enter the body through it, but what if you get an open wound or cut? Can virus penetrate that? - No current reported cases like that so far, but in my opinion, when you get an open wound, then your blood vessel can be exposed and there are receptors in your blood vessels and the virus can bind to that. - Probability is very low, but in theory you can still get infected like that. Q: Can a human infect another animal? Like dogs or pets? - Recently, a dog in hong kong got infected and passed away. - There's another case that a tiger got a virus too in new york. - So yes, it can be passed to other animals. Q: If I have Covid and don't have symptoms, how long does it take until I can be sure the virus is gone and out of my system? - Virus stays in body for 2-3 weeks. - With stool tests, it was found it stays in stool for up to 26 days and in some cases even longer than that. Q: So then can we say the virus will be gone in a month? - Can't say for sure. - That's why even when there is no pandemic, you should have social distancing. Q: How long should we social distance for? - The virus is only 100 days old and we still have alot of questions. We don't know how many months it'll take until the virus is completely out of your system. - In Korea, the longest case so far from the point the patient got diagnosed until now is 52 days. - But the duration could vary especially for people who have low immune system.
Q: How do we make our immune system stronger to help fight Covid? Does flu vaccines work? - No. Flu vaccines don't work. - To have immunity against Covid you need specific neutralizing antibodies. If you have those specific antibodies, that means you have immunity. - But most people don't have those antibodies unless you've had it or are currently fighting it off right now. Q: So no way to boost immunity? - No natural way. Only if there is vaccine or if you have that specific antibody. - But most people don't have that antibody. Q: How effective are cotton masks? - In theory, a mask is supposed to protect us from droplets of a size of 5 microns or bigger. - But those droplets can penetrate cotton mask. - But in the end, cotton mask is better than nothing but not as effective as the medical grade masks. Q: Are masks effective if we wash and reuse them? - For KF80 masks, they did a performance test when reused and found that its efficiency dropped by 1/3rd - So it was proven that its protection efficiency dropped by 30% Q: Is the virus affected by any other factors besides temperature and humidity? What causes the lifespan of virus to differ between different surfaces? - Depends on characteristic of the material. The virus can live long on a hard surface like a wooden table or stainless steel, but on fabric or paper, it will die quickly. ○ This is because on fabric or paper, it gets absorbed and dried out quickly- On hard surfaces, the droplet won't get absorbed by the material so it will survive longer. - So on phone surfaces, it could last longer. Q: Recently Trump recommended hydroxychloroquine as the "game changing" drug. What's the difference between chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine? Can we go ahead and use it now? Does it work? - Chloroqine is a medication for malaria and treats malaria in the human body. - There's a product called chloroquine phosphate and another product called hydroxychloroquine. ○ But both just act as chloroquine when it enters the body.- In france, they tried treating Covid19 patients with chloroquine in combination with an antibiotic called azithromycin and it was found effective when compared to patients who didn't get it. ○ That's why Trump said it's a game changer and that every American should stock up on it.- But, there was a case where one person passed away and another in critical condition after using it. § Therefore, this is not an official treatment, and the President should be careful about things he says. Q: So should people stop consuming chloroquine? - Chloroquine is a prescription drug so a doctor needs to prescribe it - But Chloroquine Phosphate powder is informally used to disinfect so it might be impure in that it contains other substances and people could overdose it. - The person that passed away that took Chloroquine died because it caused irregular heartbeat as it is very toxic to the heart. - Right now doctors using hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with Covid19 when needed. Q: Does hydroxychloroquine work 100%? Is it effective? - It's not proven. We're just grasping at straws. Q: Are there any side effects of hydroxychloroquine? - But if patients like these use medication longer, the side effects will be more prominent and risk will be higher. ○ The drug might not only attack the virus but other parts of the body as well, like the cytokine storm mentioned earlier. ○ Overdosing chloroquine can cause damage to your heart, and it may be toxic to your eye and retina and you may end up visually impaired- Overall it is dangerous for public to consume without doctors prescription and proper dosage. Q: How long will it take for the clinical trials to be completed for hydroxychloroquine to be approved? - Guessing maybe 3-4 months. - They are testing a few drugs at once to repurpose in case hydroxychloroquine doesn't work. Q: How many years do you think it'll take before we're faced with another virus of this magnitude? - In 2003 we had SARS, in 2009 we had Swine Flu, and in 2015 we had MERS-Cov. ○ Now in 2019/20 we have Covid.- So historically it has been 6 yrs, 6 yrs, and now 5 yrs. The duration got shorter. - We can predict the next one will come even sooner.
i assume it's too early to prove anything yet, but respiratory viruses 'typically' fade out after about a month, when a significant percentage of the population (especially young kids) has already carried it
