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The Virus - Are You Affected?

So what? Those numbers do not include context.

Incorrect. You claimed Sweden avoided crippling their economy, a claim that's not borne out by anyone's protections. Now maybe you have done divinely revealed knowledge about how Sweden is going to bloom shortly and rye EC is all wrong in their predictions, I don't know.

Having followed the news about Sweden, since I until recently lived there and still have property there, I am just up to date with what is going on in the country. Doing one's homework is not miraculous nor magic. You should perhaps try that instead of talking about things you only have a superficial knowledge about?

So a random IT guy out of Copenhagen is better qualified to comment on the Swedish economy than the top economists contracted by the EC to project the country's economic trajectory, because he "used to live there" and "has property there"? By the way, it doesn't even appear to be true that Sweden's economy has been growing slower before the crisis than Denmark, at least not up to 2018 inclusive: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2018&locations=SE-DK&start=2008

I'm not an economist, and if you want to make the argument that a lot of what we see under the heading of economic theory is pseudoscientific at best, I'm not going to debate you. But there's degrees of fishy pronouncements, and an IT guy who "used to live there" is still a bit fishier a source for unevidenced claims than the EC's experts.

Yeah, right.
 
By staying home until it goes away ? Until a vaccine is found ? Until we achieve immortality ? No one dies ever of a virus ? How flat does the curve need to be exactly before I can get a haircut, play a game of tennis or a round of golf ?

Until we limit the spread enough to prevent an explosive growth.

With the vast, VAST majority of people who contract this virus recovering unscathed etc, this is not necessary.

The vast, VAST majority of people who enter a car get out alive. Should we therefore scrap speed limits, safety regulations, and the requirement that drivers pass a test to get a license?
 
By staying home until it goes away ? Until a vaccine is found ? Until we achieve immortality ? No one dies ever of a virus ? How flat does the curve need to be exactly before I can get a haircut, play a game of tennis or a round of golf ?

Until we limit the spread enough to prevent an explosive growth.

With the vast, VAST majority of people who contract this virus recovering unscathed etc, this is not necessary.

Can you ball-park a percentage range for what you consider a "vast vast majority" to be?
 
And the reality is that this virus poses very little risk to most people.

What do you consider risk? Are you only considering death?

Yes, the mortality rate for COVID is moderate, and is highly correlated with age. Unfortunately, morbidity is a completely different animal. Here are some things that might be worth consideration:

People can be contagious, spreading the illness to others, for about a week and a half before they develop any noticeable symptoms. This has two major consequences. First, it means that an infected presymptomatic person can infect a lot of other people that they come into contact with because neither they nor anyone else realizes that they're infectious. Secondly, it means that the early reports of large volumes of people being asymptomatic were overstated, and that a lot of those people who tested positive and had no symptoms later developed symptoms.

About 20% of symptomatic cases end up admitted to the hospital. Of those admitted, about a third of them end up in ICU with extreme respiratory distress. Unlike the mortality rates, admission rate is a lot less correlated with age. It turns out that the rate of admission varies between about 15% for people between 20 and 45, and about 30% for people over age 65. That's a pretty significant amount of people, especially because symptomatic cases aren't correlated with age (with the exception of children under about 10 or so being very rare to have COVID).

Symptoms for COVID can last a long time. Seasonal flu usually lasts about a week with severe symptoms for only a couple of days. It's rare for flu cases to last closer to two weeks. COVID, on the other hand, frequently has severe symptoms lasting over a week, and lingering symptoms like fatigue and trouble breathing that last three weeks. For people who are admitted, it's not uncommon for them to be in the hospital for two weeks, ICU admissions are even longer.

There's growing evidence that COVID damages internal organs, especially lungs, in ways that can have long-term effects. It's fairly common to see lung scarring from pneumonia, and COVID does the same thing. Because of the particular way that COVID attacks lung tissue, there's concern that the long-term effects might be worse than for more common forms of pneumonia. There's also suggestions that COVID (or the immune response to it, cytokine storm) damages other internal organs that weren't directly involved in the illness.

One of the most worrisome things, to me, is that getting and surviving COVID may not make you immune. Most of the strains in the coronavirus family don't confer lasting immunity. The group that is included in the seasonal common cold tend to last for less than a year. I don't recall which is which, but SARS1 and MERS only confer immunity for 18 months and about 3 years IIRC. So even if you get sick, that doesn't mean that you're safe. It's far too early to tell, but it's a definite risk for this family of viruses.

Finally, I think it's important to note that it's not just personal risk that we're talking about. Honestly, I'm not overly concerned about getting COVID myself. It would suck, and it would be expensive, and I definitely don't want to get sick... but odds are that I would survive. But it's not just my health that I put at risk when I go out in the world - it's everyone else's health as well. Infectious diseases end up being a lot like drunk driving and cigarette smoking. The general public doesn't give a damn if you injure yourself if you drive while intoxicated; the public cares about the other people who could be hurt by your negligence. The general public doesn't really care if you get lung cancer from smoking; the public cares a lot if a non-smoker who's been exposed to your second-hand smoke get cancer because of it. It's the same thing with COVID. If all were were talking about was the personal risk to oneself, I think most people would say "go do whatever man, it's your life, your decision. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Unfortunately, that's not the situation. It's not like you're playing Russian Roulette all by yourself, with only one round in the chamber. It's more like you're playing Russian Roulette with two revolvers, both of which only have one empty chamber, and you're pointing them randomly around a room full of people while you pull the trigger repeatedly.

Nice post. Very informative and educational.

aa
 
I saw your post, Emily, you're right that the virus has significant harmful impacts on top of the deaths. But the deaths are significant enough on their own, which apparently still needs to be said. Overall, it's looking to be about a .5% fatality rate. Would anybody ride in a plane that has 1 in 200 chance of killing you? Of course the risk is not the same for everyone, but the higher risk population is not a small number. Over 100 million Americans are over age 50. The numbers of people with diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. are also big numbers. If the virus was allowed to run free and assuming we can reach herd immunity at 60%, and even assuming no overshoot, that's a million deaths. And then there would be many more with the potential long terms problems you mentioned.
 
Would anybody ride in a plane that had 1 in 200 chance of killing you?
Well, first of all, people are bad at statistics, and may be underestimating how likely they are to board the plane in the first place.
But even so...

If it was the only way to keep a job that pays double minimum wage with benefits? I bet you'd be surprised how many people would put in an application. The desperation people feel to return to work is a major factor in why they want the quarantine to end.

Non-virus example. Here in the U.S., Lumberjacks work one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. Not 1 in 200, but there is a bit under 1 in 1000 chance of death on the job once you take up the saw, and they are barely compensated for the extra risk, with average pay being about $16/hr. But not only do the people of the Pacific Northwest flock to work that job, trying to "save" the logging industry from real or imagined threats is a major political motivator across the whole region, and has been throughout two centuries of inherited loss. The fact that everyone knows someone who has died working big lumber just makes people more committed that they must somehow save it. Similar problems plague coal. People who are begging for the right to do dangerous things usually aren't visualizing themselves as adding mortal risk where there was none, but rather trying to balance one kind of mortal risk against another kind of mortal risk.
 
By staying home until it goes away ? Until a vaccine is found ? Until we achieve immortality ? No one dies ever of a virus ? How flat does the curve need to be exactly before I can get a haircut, play a game of tennis or a round of golf ?

Until we limit the spread enough to prevent an explosive growth.

With the vast, VAST majority of people who contract this virus recovering unscathed etc, this is not necessary.

[Citation needed]

I have seen no data whatsoever on what % of victims suffer lasting damage from the infection, only that harm is often done.
 
By staying home until it goes away ? Until a vaccine is found ? Until we achieve immortality ? No one dies ever of a virus ? How flat does the curve need to be exactly before I can get a haircut, play a game of tennis or a round of golf ?

Until we limit the spread enough to prevent an explosive growth.

With the vast, VAST majority of people who contract this virus recovering unscathed etc, this is not necessary.

Please list your family members, friends and co-workers you are willing to risk to open back up.
 
I was in Sweden this morning. My doctor is in Malmö. I live in Copenhagen. Lucky I had no pressing needs until the border opened last week.

With some minor inconvenience, it was really smooth travelling across the border. Scandinavians know how to design a beaurocracy with minor annoyances for it's citizens.

That may change.

Now, as lawmakers in Denmark, Finland and Norway mull whether to extend or relax regional travel restrictions, there have been mutterings that perhaps Sweden shouldn’t be included. Finland’s Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo raised the issue at a recent press conference, calling the Swedish situation “a concern.”
Ohisalo declined a request for interview for this piece, but her special adviser Jarno Lappalainen told POLITICO that Finland would make a decision about border restrictions with Sweden before June 15 and would take into account the “epidemiological situation” as well as economic and social factors and recommendations from the European Commission.

Politico
 
Supreme Court, in rare late-night ruling, says California may enforce certain restrictions on religious gatherings

The Supreme Court late Friday rejected a California church’s challenge of the state’s new pandemic-related rules on worship services, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s liberals in the 5-to-4 vote.

Roberts wrote that state officials such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) had leeway to impose restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and had not singled out places of worship for unfair treatment
 
So what? Those numbers do not include context.

Incorrect. You claimed Sweden avoided crippling their economy, a claim that's not borne out by anyone's protections. Now maybe you have done divinely revealed knowledge about how Sweden is going to bloom shortly and rye EC is all wrong in their predictions, I don't know.

Having followed the news about Sweden, since I until recently lived there and still have property there, I am just up to date with what is going on in the country. Doing one's homework is not miraculous nor magic. You should perhaps try that instead of talking about things you only have a superficial knowledge about?

So a random IT guy out of Copenhagen is better qualified to comment on the Swedish economy than the top economists contracted by the EC to project the country's economic trajectory, because he "used to live there" and "has property there"? By the way, it doesn't even appear to be true that Sweden's economy has been growing slower before the crisis than Denmark, at least not up to 2018 inclusive: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2018&locations=SE-DK&start=2008

I'm not an economist, and if you want to make the argument that a lot of what we see under the heading of economic theory is pseudoscientific at best, I'm not going to debate you. But there's degrees of fishy pronouncements, and an IT guy who "used to live there" is still a bit fishier a source for unevidenced claims than the EC's experts.

Yeah, right.

Your assumptions did not come from the European economists. You just inserted that and asserted it as true. How about assuming less?

I'm Swedish. Io until three years ago I lived in Sweden. I live right on the Swedish border and spend a lot of time with Swedes
 
I was in Sweden this morning. My doctor is in Malmö. I live in Copenhagen. Lucky I had no pressing needs until the border opened last week.

With some minor inconvenience, it was really smooth travelling across the border. Scandinavians know how to design a beaurocracy with minor annoyances for it's citizens.

That may change.

Now, as lawmakers in Denmark, Finland and Norway mull whether to extend or relax regional travel restrictions, there have been mutterings that perhaps Sweden shouldn’t be included. Finland’s Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo raised the issue at a recent press conference, calling the Swedish situation “a concern.”
Ohisalo declined a request for interview for this piece, but her special adviser Jarno Lappalainen told POLITICO that Finland would make a decision about border restrictions with Sweden before June 15 and would take into account the “epidemiological situation” as well as economic and social factors and recommendations from the European Commission.

Politico

Nope. Reporting on political noise by people who won't get traction is nothing but manufactured news.

Scandinavians are an obedient people. We don't question our leaders. We might make a lot of noise. But if our leaders don't budge we'll roll over and take it.
 
It seems the ridiculous “social distancing” has gone out the window as people protest and riot. God forbid you sit down on the beach though.
 
It seems the ridiculous “social distancing” has gone out the window as people protest and riot. God forbid you sit down on the beach though.

Wait, you think these are the same people? :confused:

Most epidemiologists I know are incredibly worried about the effect these riots will have on the spread of COVID -19.

And many of the rioters are, surely, as angry as you about the shut down. People with money in the bank don't go looting their local Macy's when the rubber bullets start flying.
 
It seems the ridiculous “social distancing” has gone out the window as people protest and riot. God forbid you sit down on the beach though.

Wait, you think these are the same people? :confused:

Most epidemiologists I know are incredibly worried about the effect these riots will have on the spread of COVID -19.
Limbaugh thought the Covid-19 hoax was over because the media was reporting on the protesting. The right-wing is dumb.
 
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