re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) ***W.H.O. DECLARES A GLOBAL PANDEMIC***

Series of 12 autopsies in Germany showed that:

"In this autopsy study of 12 consecutive patients who died of COVID-19, we found a high incidence of deep venous thrombosis (58%). One third of the patients had a pulmonary embolism as the direct cause of death."

Interesting, and in line with other studies showing that clotting is the major problem (maybe THE major problem) with COVID-19.

LINK

Is it practical to put anyone diagnosed with Covid on blood thinners as a precaution? I don't see why that wouldn't be done.

New research predicts suicides could double across Australia due to COVID-19

Modelling shows suicide rates could be four times higher than corona deaths

Experts are concerned there could be a generational mental health crisis

The original Australian article is behind a paywall

Amen to that.

quote:

---

We do? Our results there have been pathetic. As we've recently discussed, there aren't even standard testing protocols for nursing-home residents.

---

Yes, IMO it would be much easier and less expensive to focus on LTCFs, maybe 1.5 - 2 million residents in 15,000 facilities. Our healthcare experts and politicians have been trying to control a mobile and energetic population of 330 million spread out across the entire country, while subjecting them to an overall worsening of health care delivery and damaging their livelihoods in the process. Massive waste of resources, not to mention the uncounted present and future death toll from the resulting disruption. In retrospect, a more practical plan would've focused on at risk populations from the outset. But now we have more data, we've identified the real problem areas and it's time to end the destructive parts of this plan.

quote:

---

I will agree that we should be able to do a better job of protecting those people, but we aren't. In fact, we've done the opposite of protecting them.

---

Because policy makers decided to follow one dubious example in one province of an authoritarian country, and chose to lockdown hundreds of millions of people across the breadth of a continental landmass, instead of choosing an achievable goal. As a result they've somewhat "flattened the curve" while damaging nearly every aspect of our economy including healthcare, food and energy production, and then decided "flattening the curve" wasn't the goal after all. I shouldn't have to point this out, but the China model isn't working and won't work here.

If you're saying that our public health policy has been focused on the wrong goals to date, I'd agree. Either way, they need to remember that extreme economic disruption has public health implications too. We do not have the ability to establish control over this virus spread, haven't from the moment we finally began testing of suspected community cases, so it's time to narrow the focus and limit the losses without causing greater harm than already done.

quote:

---

I just don't think that a "herd immunity" strategy makes any sense whatsoever.

---

I disagree. The original goal was stated as saving lives by flattening the curve, preventing overload of ICU's and making sure we had plenty of ventilators. Now we have more data that says great majority of cases are mild or asymptomatic. We have very good data about who's at risk. We haven't had ventilator shortages, production is underway and we now know that mechanical ventilation won't save 80-85% of the patients who reach that point. I think ending the lockdown/herd immunity is our best option and will actually save lives.

quote:

---

And you can't save the economy in any meaningful sense while you keep those over 65 all cooped up -- those are the people who actually have money! Median wealth for a family with a head of household younger than 35 years old in 2016 was $11,000, while median wealth for a family with head of household age 65 to 74 was $224,000.

---

I generally try to respond without sounding dismissive (at least with folks like you who can have a civil debate), but I honestly can't make any sense of this section. First, we already have the people over 65 cooped up. Continuing lockdowns means keeping them cooped up for even longer. Herd immunity moves their liberation forward. Second, retirees with savings tend to be savers, not consumers who spend every penny. Housing, transportation, healthcare and food are their main contributions to our "consumer economy", and their transportation and food expenses are well below US average.

We were headed for an economic reckoning either way, IMO. But this lockdown has the potential to make outcomes a lot worse than most people can imagine.

quote:

---

The only way to get the economy back is to get rid of most of the virus, as they have done in places like South Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

---

I guess people could debate whether this approach was ever feasible in the US (I believe it was not). But it should be clear to everyone that the toothpaste is out of the tube on this one and can't be put back in. We can't isolate and eradicate this virus through testing and tracing or any other means. We are just going to have to carry on and live with it until there is a vaccine. We should have been doing that for at least the last several weeks now.

Don't get me wrong--I'd love to be proved wrong on this. But as wide spread as this is and with so many asymptomatic positives I just don't see it. I'll have to read up on Austria.

Random thought, there are people who have been hospitalized and diagnosed positive that are being tested multiple times. Am I correct that ever single test is reported on the LDH site, and that it is possible that on a day where 250 positive tests are reported there may only be say 150 new cases? (And 100 repeat positives)

quote:

---

The only way to get it completely back is to get rid of the virus, as those countries have done. Unfortunately, the virus is way too prevalent at this point (and was probably always going to be way too prevalent in the U.S. unless we had done things very differently back in late January), and the country is way too big and mobile for us to do what those countries have done. The only measures that would get the R0 down low enough and long enough in the U.S. are to do what they CCP did in Wuhan - how likely do you think it really is for our governments to do that? It was never realistically an option.

---

People who don't want to get rid of the virus often talk about the "Wuhan option," and I don't understand why they don't talk about the "Korean option."

First of all, they actually quarantine positive people, do contact tracing, and then quarantine the contacts. That last part is critical and leads to a rapid decrease in transmission.

I sometimes hear people say, "Oh we couldn't lock people up who test positive." and my response is "As opposed to locking up the entire population?"

Read Lyman Stone on why a real quarantine is the normal way to address communicable disease, why it's perfectly legal, and why it works. LINK But even voluntary quarantines would work if we gave people free food, wifi, and $100 per day that they are in a quarantine hotel, and we'd get rid of the virus much, much faster.

But I personally believe that we've already eliminated a lot more COVID-19 than people realize. We're testing more people than ever (record number of 318,720 today), and getting lower and lower percentages of positive cases. And, a month ago, a lot of people had the flu or RSV or other seasonal diseases, and those are gone now, so the decrease in the percentage of positive tests is even more impressive.

And I personally think that summer is going to help a lot. And we already have a lot of immunity built up among key vectors -- the virus has already picked the low-hanging fruit, so to speak. And we have a lot more testing on the way, along with contact tracers.

Opening up retail, restaurants to interior table service, salons, etc. isn't going to cause enough increase in R value to counteract the downward pressure that we're going to get from the factors above.

So, I'm in complete agreement that we should open lots of things up, while we still gradually eliminate the virus over the summer. We obviously have to be more careful with things like bars (where the entire point is often to get in crowded spaces close to people), and also things like churches, concerts, sporting events, etc. Groups of 50 or more aren't going to be able to "open up" without causing problems.

I've read enough on transmission to be convinced that brief interactions with people in retail or restaurants (not at the same table) are unlikely to infect others -- it's possible, but those are not going to amount to a lot of infections.

quote:

---

I've heard a number of people say something like: "All we need to do is lock up old people and we can open everything up without the virus spreading."

But the truth is that it just doesn't work like that. Absent a massive increase in testing, we simply can't isolate and protect the elderly. It certainly doesn't work in nursing homes, which are essentially deathtraps.

---

And the next deathtraps, sadly, will be the churches when they open again.

Think about it. They start by standing up and singing 2 or 3 songs. Spittle everywhere! Then, sit down for 30 plus minutes as the cloud descends upon all the old people in attendance. Then, for good measure, up again and sing some more. I'm not anti-religion, but I just don't get how it isn't just sickeningly obvious that churches will be like mini-quick-death-nursing homes for the elderly.

And, when they get the testing up, can you imagine all the people's reactions when they realize they were the ones spittling the elderly in their congregations to death?