Slitherine

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I did a quick catch-up and I see a lot of pessimism here. For instance, 100,000-200,000 deaths in the U.S.? How is that possible?

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ORIGINAL: Yaab

I had a lucid-covid dream last night.

Russell Crowe meets the infamous colonel Shiro Ishii and yells at him "Are you not entertained?!".

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ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

I did a quick catch-up and I see a lot of pessimism here. For instance, 100,000-200,000 deaths in the U.S.? How is that possible? Let me see what I can do to buttress Canoerebel's optimism.

Look, in Korea, although there are fears of a second round, we've been dropping about 200 cases a day (there are about 100 new ones and about 300 get well). I look outside from my office window and there are plenty of people out and about. We've still had zero government-mandated closures, although on a voluntary basis there are no concerts and cinemas are closed. Almost all churches have virtual services and shops have always had an adequate supply of tree-based products. The one thing being rationed is masks.

What seems to work? Well, about 95% of the people here wear masks in public. Our government has seen fit to allocate two masks per person per week, so that's 100 million a week at $1.25 each (KF94 for adults and KF80 for kids, if anyone cares). That's a lot of masks, but what's keeping 600,000,000 masks a week from being available in the U.S.? Not top-quality 3M N95 ones, but regular ones the general public can wear?

Another thing that seems to help a lot is very extensive contact tracing, by means of phone location, credit card usage, CCTVs, etc. The government will send an alert to your phone if someone nearby has the virus (maybe within 1/2 km), with details of when and where they've been since they returned to the country or since they were likely to have picked it up from someone in country. The government also has the manpower to individually contact everyone suspected of personally being in contact with each virus carrier. I think this system has given the general populace the confidence to go to work, go shopping and go out drinking and eating. People have some concept of the actual risks. Is Korea's contact tracing program a draconian loss of liberty? Well, you might argue the forced closure of business is worse. To me, it's a grey area.

Other things like testing have been well discussed. Today, I see an opportunity for the copious availability of masks and thorough contact tracing to make a difference in certain places.

Anyway, good luck and know that this thing is quite beatable.

Cheers,
CB

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

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ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

I did a quick catch-up and I see a lot of pessimism here. For instance, 100,000-200,000 deaths in the U.S.? How is that possible? Let me see what I can do to buttress Canoerebel's optimism.

Look, in Korea, although there are fears of a second round, we've been dropping about 200 cases a day (there are about 100 new ones and about 300 get well). I look outside from my office window and there are plenty of people out and about. We've still had zero government-mandated closures, although on a voluntary basis there are no concerts and cinemas are closed. Almost all churches have virtual services and shops have always had an adequate supply of tree-based products. The one thing being rationed is masks.

What seems to work? Well, about 95% of the people here wear masks in public. Our government has seen fit to allocate two masks per person per week, so that's 100 million a week at $1.25 each (KF94 for adults and KF80 for kids, if anyone cares). That's a lot of masks, but what's keeping 600,000,000 masks a week from being available in the U.S.? Not top-quality 3M N95 ones, but regular ones the general public can wear?

Another thing that seems to help a lot is very extensive contact tracing, by means of phone location, credit card usage, CCTVs, etc. The government will send an alert to your phone if someone nearby has the virus (maybe within 1/2 km), with details of when and where they've been since they returned to the country or since they were likely to have picked it up from someone in country. The government also has the manpower to individually contact everyone suspected of personally being in contact with each virus carrier. I think this system has given the general populace the confidence to go to work, go shopping and go out drinking and eating. People have some concept of the actual risks. Is Korea's contact tracing program a draconian loss of liberty? Well, you might argue the forced closure of business is worse. To me, it's a grey area.

Other things like testing have been well discussed. Today, I see an opportunity for the copious availability of masks and thorough contact tracing to make a difference in certain places.

Anyway, good luck and know that this thing is quite beatable.

Cheers,
CB

Comparing the US approach with that of South Korea is comparing apples and oranges.

As an outsider, there's been a strong vein of American exceptionalism in this thread. Things akin to "the US health service amazing and will easily cope", and other claims that aren't really supported by the international health rankings.

Granted, it's nearly twenty years old, but it does challenge these assumptions

https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf

Also, if anyone knows any more recent comprehensive comparison work on healthcare performance, please let me know.

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ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

I did a quick catch-up and I see a lot of pessimism here. For instance, 100,000-200,000 deaths in the U.S.? How is that possible? Let me see what I can do to buttress Canoerebel's optimism.

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What seems to work? Well, about 95% of the people here wear masks in public. Our government has seen fit to allocate two masks per person per week, so that's 100 million a week at $1.25 each (KF94 for adults and KF80 for kids, if anyone cares). That's a lot of masks, but what's keeping 600,000,000 masks a week from being available in the U.S.? Not top-quality 3M N95 ones, but regular ones the general public can wear?

Cheers,
CB

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing


Comparing the US approach with that of South Korea is comparing apples and oranges.

As an outsider, there's been a strong vein of American exceptionalism in this thread. Things akin to "the US health service amazing and will easily cope", and other claims that aren't really supported by the international health rankings.

Granted, it's nearly twenty years old, but it does challenge these assumptions

https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf

Also, if anyone knows any more recent comprehensive comparison work on healthcare performance, please let me know.

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ORIGINAL: alanschu

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I did a quick catch-up and I see a lot of pessimism here. For instance, 100,000-200,000 deaths in the U.S.? How is that possible?

For me it's just about looking at the current rates and making estimates based on expectations from China and Italy's reported progress (Increasingly have less confidence in China's accuracy, but Italy seems to possibly be following it).

US *has* slid from deaths doubling every 3 days to every 4 days according to our world in data (which is good!), so I shifted my numbers from 1.26 per day to 1.19 (this does make a pretty big difference) and updated the initial number to 3156. Assuming a plateau of about 10 days:

If we plateau in 7 days, 27k deaths when the US starts its decline.
If we plateau in 14 days, it's 93k deaths


To see how big of a difference a change in the rate makes, at doubling every 3 days it'd be:

7 days: 49k deaths
14 days: 245k deaths


The biggest x-factor for US I think is it's geography and how far had the virus spread to places that we are less aware of. The geographical distance is good to mitigate infection, but there may have been travel that delayed some of the outbreaks. It also will do weird things to the aggregate US numbers as a place like NY state may decline while for example Michigan's numbers get worse. I could see this meaning a peak that doesn't get as high but a plateau that lasts longer.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

MindMessing has misrepresented the truth of what has been said by his fellow Forumites and the spirit in which things have been said.

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I posted an article a number of pages back on the relative strengths of different health care types and systems across the world. It picked five of the top ones and ranked them in different categories. The US was one of them and it's research/innovation came out very high if I recall correctly. I think it was France on top though.

It's not always which works best in normal circumstances here, though. It's which can upscale, adapt, learn and grow based on other countries' experiences. South Korea has done that. Germany seems to be doing that well. Possibly some others.

I'm very encouraged, actually, by recent moves happening in the US to scale care, create more facilities and equipment. And testing.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

US also early in its progression.

The explosion in testing makes it hard for me to use the New Cases chart of the USA (I still prefer mortality, even though it has weaknesses). But its helpful to get insight from a Forumite like JohnDillworth, given his position, and from statisticians (like alanschu).

Speaking of stats fellows, where has Kull been the past few days?

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

MindMessing, we can sidetrack this thread with our personal views, but that'll be a disservice to everybody.

To everyone else viewing, click on MindMessing's links above supporting his claim of American exceptionalism run amock. Enough said.

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As an outsider, there's been a strong vein of American exceptionalism in this thread.

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ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
When this is over we need to confiscate every dollar in the Chicom national wealth fund.

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

Thailand's king self-quarantining in Germany with 20 women, servants: reports

It's good to be the king.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

Thailand's king self-quarantining in Germany with 20 women, servants: reports

It's good to be the king.

Well, it depends on how many of those 20 women are wives ...

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ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Isn't every death a "new death" to the victim? Unless you are talking about cats.

When this is over we need to confiscate every dollar in the Chicom national wealth fund. They may resist, but the aggrieved parties need to persist.*


*I stole this from the Lizzie Warren campaign, sort of.