shoshin

Do you think we should not try to minimize deaths of the group of people most affected by this? We have two groups of people in the US right now: (1) Those that will not be affected by this almost at all or will just get an illness they can manage with OTC meds, and (2) Those that will end up in the hospital and/or die. Group 1 >> Group 2. We need to let the people in (1) get back to work in a reasonable way that minimizes spread to the people in group (2), and for those in group (2), we need to take better care of them.

Given how this disproportionately affects people who are obese, diabetic, or have hypertension, we have a good line already on how lifestyle matters. Not all of those conditions are brought on by lifestyle but many are.

Good Covid model summary here on death projections through May 23 showing mid 90K dead with number still climbing. The reopening will drive up June numbers faster than we climbed before ( we started with many fewer cases on March 1). Peak average deaths haven't declined noticeably yet. I expect there will be a slow decline than an increase through the summer rising into the fall.

The overall death rate is maybe the wrong stat to focus on. Hospitalization usage affects us all and death rate among older and at risk people are the concerning numbers to manage.

The way the poster characterized what the governor did is not accurate. She extended the state of emergency. Oregon is starting to open May 15 and she is talking openly about her plan to reopen.

You're missing the point. Reopening has to happen, and quickly, but the virus will be there and case counts will go up along with deaths when we do.

Physical stress, as I'm sure you understood, is often the immediate predecessor to a heart attack. Read my post, the article in the link, or the paper within the article for info on the Covid undercounting problem.

For some of those (heart attacks and strokes), they are brought on by activity and stress. Other things too. Those are the deaths that have been decreasing. And then there's this: Not to mention the NYC morgue and burial/cremation issues in the place where it spread the most (as much as 20%). Should this spread to 20% elsewhere from the 1-3% it may be now, expect those areas to follow.

No. Hospitals are seeing much fewer deaths from heart disease complications and strokes while people sit at home. I have not seen the same evidence from cancer deaths decreasing.

It shows the severity of the Covid impact on deaths. When you shut down the country, deaths should drop off a cliff. In this case, they didn't. We know heart disease, stroke, and other deaths are down...yet total deaths are level. That shows the brutal impact of Covid and why Trump says he did the right thing shutting down the country. GG is right that it's time to reopen, but whether the change in weather that should suppress spread offsets the increased transmission from more contacts remains to be seen.

For sure. We have a huge problem keeping those people safe from this.

Not surprising to most. The nearly nationwide shutdown had almost no effect on total deaths. You would expect a shutdown this dramatic to have a big effect on total deaths. That supports what other studies have been saying: We are massively undercounting Covid deaths.

Mississippi gov decided not to reopen after case spike. When the reopening states see the spread inevitably increase, it will be an interesting political moment as govs weigh what to do.

Data from 60% of the states but still an important trend to watch. https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1256308870810656769?s=20

Healthcare is the resource that is the most limited and I agree with this. But even healthcare is a downstream resource from infection. I hope that we can work towards the system Trump envisions in the guidelines with enough rapid testing (not the 3-4 day stuff) and contact tracing because that would give much more instananeous feedback and allow healthcare systems to react faster. Moving from our current case tracking as any measure of progress is important right now because it's not helping until we are doing a lot more and faster tests.

The cases declining over 14 days is only one factor in the Trump guidelines. The others are just a few posts upstream but include hospitals not in crisis care, testing, and also (not pasted above):

That feature is in beta so developers can make tools. The Tweet and his post didn't note this. Not yet ready for primetime unfortunately.

I think objective measures will keep reasonable people reasonable. The best measure of all is hospitalization ICU usage or whatever the limiting resource is on hospitalization. The Trump guidelines consider this as an "always-on" prerequisite that hospitals are not operating in crisis care mode (a vague standard but one hospitals can measure somehow based on availability of resources). But the Trump guidelines have the hospitalization as an "and" with other things:

Fault the guidelines, not me. I'm pointing out that these states are not meeting the guidelines that require a standard of fewer positive cases as tested OR fewer positive % of cases of time (the later becoming more relevant as the case measurement increases). I can tell you in my state that shows level, we meet neither one. Our state is not following the guidelines anyways so it doesn't matter.

I agree re hospitalizations--I was using the Trump guidelines measurement that the states have to meet case counts declining before reopening (or % pos decreasing).

Your statistics by age don’t line up with the world or CDC stats. About 27% of all Covid deaths are people under 65.

The other piece, and this is the one that concerns me about colleges this fall, is infecting the person who takes care of the at risk person. The masks slow transmission from everyone, which is why they make sense until the case counts are way down. And they make the most sense right now as we emerge from our caves. Case counts are not going to go down as we start interacting again, though weather may help. They will go up. So let’s keep things in check as best we can. With masks. They are itchy. The government doesn’t have the right to tell us what to do. Ok get all that out of our systems. Then let’s put the masks on! I don’t have that update yet. Hopefully it installs soon. I’ll try to get it now. It is an important install.

Some good graphs here to show what states are meeting the Trump guidelines and really should be reopening. Not as many states trending down over 14 days as I suspected. Many like PA and TX trending level to only slightly down in recent days and others (MA, NC, and MD) with clear upwards trends. Based on those, the Trump guidelines would say they are not ready to start Phase 1.

Bully for you. The rest of us will take the small step of wearing a mask to try to keep everyone safe. Another thread perhaps? No, because when you don't wear a seatbelt, you don't harm other people particularly.

Have more feeling for 60,000 dead Americans over the last 3 months than to call them statistically insignificant.