WHO died of Covid?

[DaveB]

Well, guys, here's a view from a guy who is 72 years old and has diabetes,.  I'm chugging along pretty well for my age: still lift weights and work out, AIC is below 6.0.  But if I catch COVID, and that exacerbates my pre-conditions, and I die - what killed me?  I suspect my wife is gonna note that I was doing OK until I caught it - so I'd still be alive if COVID hadn't come along.  Did COVID kill me "statistically" - don't give a damn.  Moot discussion.  Still dead.

So...in that regard, why would I want to go around and tempt fate?  For those that think masks and prudent preventions are hooey - just ask yourself a simple question: what if you''re wrong?  If there's even a slight chance they help you stay alive a bit longer, shouldn't you just do it?  And I have no patience for the arrogance that says along the way it's OK to take the same chance in infecting your neighbors.  So...100% support here for masks and prudent interaction.

Having said all that, I think the pendulum may have swung a bit too far into the realm of hysteria with global governments.  At the beginning, they had a disease that was completely unknown, and in light of that, in an abundance of caution, health officials did the prudent thing: they jumped to the decades old proven preventative steps to curb a pandemic.  Everyone wear masks, practice social distancing, wash your hands.  What they forgot was the caveat "while we figure this out".  We're 10 months into this thing now and it's been studied to death, and better understanding is coming out.  It obviously more infectious than the "regular" flu (whatever the hell that is), and even if you quibble with the death count definition, it absolutely kills more people.  Tens of thousands of health care and epidemiologists world wide in over 200 countries are unusually cohesive and consistent across the board on most of the conclusions about the disease.  Against that backdrop there's a small collection of nay sayers bucking the trend but I see no rationale for believing those guys are right in their isolated viewpoints to the point of ignoring the aforementioned tens of thousands.

Now that the panic phase is at a point - or SHOULD be at a point - of understanding this beast, I agree it is time to start backing down on the first impression knee jerk actions and get realistic.  It's out there, you have a risk of infection, and yes...so is the flu and a bunch of other stuff.  There are established guide lines in place on how to live your life to minimize its affect - so follow them and get on with your life.  There is enough information around now on how to open a business safely with a minimal chance of causing disease spread.  And the operative word is "minimal" - no such thing, even with all the businesses closed, of 100% avoidance.  The 100% solution seems to be what's driving the government initiatives, and it's just not realistic.  Do smart things, minimize your chances of getting it, live your life, and hope it's enough...and if you get it hope it's the mild symptom variety.

[hk blues]

3 hours ago, DaveB said:

Well, guys, here's a view from a guy who is 72 years old and has diabetes,.  I'm chugging along pretty well for my age: still lift weights and work out, AIC is below 6.0.  But if I catch COVID, and that exacerbates my pre-conditions, and I die - what killed me?  I suspect my wife is gonna note that I was doing OK until I caught it - so I'd still be alive if COVID hadn't come along.  Did COVID kill me "statistically" - don't give a damn.  Moot discussion.  Still dead.

So...in that regard, why would I want to go around and tempt fate?  For those that think masks and prudent preventions are hooey - just ask yourself a simple question: what if you''re wrong?  If there's even a slight chance they help you stay alive a bit longer, shouldn't you just do it?  And I have no patience for the arrogance that says along the way it's OK to take the same chance in infecting your neighbors.  So...100% support here for masks and prudent interaction.

Having said all that, I think the pendulum may have swung a bit too far into the realm of hysteria with global governments.  At the beginning, they had a disease that was completely unknown, and in light of that, in an abundance of caution, health officials did the prudent thing: they jumped to the decades old proven preventative steps to curb a pandemic.  Everyone wear masks, practice social distancing, wash your hands.  What they forgot was the caveat "while we figure this out".  We're 10 months into this thing now and it's been studied to death, and better understanding is coming out.  It obviously more infectious than the "regular" flu (whatever the hell that is), and even if you quibble with the death count definition, it absolutely kills more people.  Tens of thousands of health care and epidemiologists world wide in over 200 countries are unusually cohesive and consistent across the board on most of the conclusions about the disease.  Against that backdrop there's a small collection of nay sayers bucking the trend but I see no rationale for believing those guys are right in their isolated viewpoints to the point of ignoring the aforementioned tens of thousands.

Now that the panic phase is at a point - or SHOULD be at a point - of understanding this beast, I agree it is time to start backing down on the first impression knee jerk actions and get realistic.  It's out there, you have a risk of infection, and yes...so is the flu and a bunch of other stuff.  There are established guide lines in place on how to live your life to minimize its affect - so follow them and get on with your life.  There is enough information around now on how to open a business safely with a minimal chance of causing disease spread.  And the operative word is "minimal" - no such thing, even with all the businesses closed, of 100% avoidance.  The 100% solution seems to be what's driving the government initiatives, and it's just not realistic.  Do smart things, minimize your chances of getting it, live your life, and hope it's enough...and if you get it hope it's the mild symptom variety.

A lot of pragmatism in the above quoted post. 

My main concern would be the simple fact that by learning to live with it, we are in a sense condemning a certain number of people to suffer and or die from it - collateral damage if you like. Europe is reporting record numbers of cases but much fewer deaths than before - sadly, that's because the at-risk group succumbed first time around.

I don't have any answers but I genuinely think a vaccine is essential - we will not be able to simply work with the virus and create a new normal that doesn't inflict suffering on too many people.

Yep...alternatively we hang out hats on herd immunity and hope it works but again that consigns a whole part of society to some form of suffering. I cannot imagine being pretty much written off by everyone for the greater good.

I am bewildered that we have not been able to marshall resources and make a combined effort as a global entity to crack this - still we see the pharma giants racing to be 1st when such a battle must be creating duplication of effort. Genuinely feel that at the only time in my life when a united front was needed, all we have seen is political posturing and point scoring across the globe. 

 

[Kuya John]

18 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Well yeah.  Have you ever tried to kiss the bride with a mask on.  But seriously, you should read my previous post again if you want to get a better understanding of what I was saying.

I have read it again Dave and it's the last sentence I can't agree on.......

 

On 10/14/2020 at 6:14 PM, Dave Hounddriver said:

The rest of the stuff, like quarantining everyone who is not sick, is just panicking.

If one person in a family has a cold or flu, maybe quarantining would be over the top.

But Covid19 is a different matter, this second wave of the virus has left my local hospital with more cases than the first time round and my wife risks contracting it by going to work at the hospital and then bringing it home to me, for that reason alone, I am not meeting close family or friends, I only venture out to the shops or take her to work.

No thank God I dont have Covid and I would dread to think that by disobeying the rules, I personally may cause the spread of it.

I truely believe that eventually, the financial cost will force Governments without a proven vaccine, to choose to opt for the "Herd Immunity,"

bringing about a every man for himself attitude, in a very selfish world.

I thank God for those people who care about others and the environment of the world we all live in. Peace be with you brother.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Kuya John

[Tommy T.]

10 hours ago, hk blues said:

It seems in the UK we have rules but they are very much not enforced. 

Gee... that sounds very familiar here...

[Dave Hounddriver]

6 hours ago, Kuya John said:

I have read it again Dave and it's the last sentence I can't agree on

OK I  see your point.  DaveB summed it up better in his post.

Perhaps I should have said:  Quarantining ALL the people and shutting down the world is just a panic reaction.  I do see your point about quarantining those who are likely to have come in contact with the disease.

[Snowy79]

Social media and peoples attitudes are making Covid pretty much uncontrolable. I for one can see a need for those that are vulnerable to be taken care of but they must also have some sort of quality of life. 

In an ideal World there would be one or two days of the week where the elderly and infirm who were in quarantine be allowed out and the so called healthy kept in. Get some fresh air and sunshine on their bodies.

The big problem is the media though.  If you look at it as an outsider you're bound to ask why were there videos showing people dropping dead in the streets and at shops at the start of the pandemic but it stopped within a week?  Why can you have large families where one member has it yet no one else catches it but it's highly contagious? If it's so serious why does a few thousand get it and only one or two die? Now try to convince the majority that it is so lethal that everyone must suffer to just try and control it, while at the same time being told the fastest vaccine ever produced took 4 years and still never fully worked but many suffered side effects.  Eventually the majority will just give up and try to get back to normal and even challenge the restrictions as we are seeing now and we will go back to stage one again.

 

[OnMyWay]

19 hours ago, DaveB said:

in an abundance of caution, health officials did the prudent thing: they jumped to the decades old proven preventative steps to curb a pandemic.  Everyone wear masks, practice social distancing, wash your hands. 

You left one thing out, the most important.  Lockdowns and closing of businesses.  That is not decades old and proven.  This has destroyed lives and those lives seem to be forgotten.  Can you imagine how a small business owner must feel when they are suddenly locked out of doing business "for the good of all" while the Walmart down the street never closes?  Years of work flushed down the drain.  It is no wonder that suicides have soared.

[GeoffH]

57 minutes ago, Snowy79 said:

Why can you have large families where one member has it yet no one else catches it but it's highly contagious? If it's so serious why does a few thousand get it and only one or two die? Now try to convince the majority that it is so lethal that everyone must suffer to just try and control it, while at the same time being told the fastest vaccine ever produced took 4 years and still never fully worked but many suffered side effects.  

In order of your comments...

You can have large families were many of the family get it but remain without symptoms (asymptomatic), unless everyone in the family is tested then no one really knows.

The case fatality rate is currently sitting at between 0.3% and 0.6% which means one person in 2 or 3 hundred will die, not one person in a few thousand (which makes Covid about 10 to 20 times more dangerous than seasonal flu or about twice as dangerous as Hong Kong flu was when it was new in the late 60s but still a long way less dangerous than the 1918 spanish flu).

The fastest vaccine produced was produced with 'old science', we've got computers which make the old ones look like Model T Fords compared to a space ship the difference in speed is so great.  And it's the ability to do those calculations that is the biggest factor in how long it takes to make a vaccine.

Vaccines aren't designed to 'fully work', they're designed to reduce the number of people infected, not stop people getting infected.

Side effects for most vaccines are rare when they're used how they're supposed to  be used (but some third world countries have given vaccines to people who should not have been given them, live attenuated vaccines for Ebola were given to immune defficient people which should never have happened for example).

None of the above means that I think everyone should be locked inside with businesses shut down, people need to be able to earn a living.

I believe in people wearing masks (properly, no under their chins) and I believe that social distancing will reduce cases and I am hoping for a vaccine that works well enough that we can slow the case rate enough that hospitals can keep up (the last one is looking more and more likely as time goes by).

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by GeoffH

[DaveB]

I'd sent a post last night from my phone but looks like it didn't hit, so I'll ty again.  Kuya John brought up a point that needs to be kept in mind: the hit on the medical community.

From my knot hole, I think a major adverse impact on how the world populations react to the virus and its management is dead center on the politics that got inserted into the discussion.  It's a bit schizophrenic: on one hand we have politicians down playing the impacts and fudging statistics so they can look good - note the US.  On the other hand we have politicians exaggerating the impacts so they have rationale for introducing even more controls over their populations - note Russia and China.  Hard to know what to believe.  But one fundamental, undeniable impact is obvious anywhere you look: there has been a major hit on the basic capacity of the medical community deal with it.  I think that is a legitimate worry for governments, and might be a major player in the perception of overly panicked reaction.  

The message has been muddled in that regard.  If you listen to the rhetoric, you get the feel that they are driving for 0% disease spread.  Skepticism kicks in then, because it's probably an impossible dream  But if you look hard at what  many are pushing, it's the actual realization there ARE going to be infections - but we do have the ability to try and keep them at a manageable level.  The issue from that starting point is just how much and what to do to attain that goal.  

Without the true insights of science to prove it - in other words, my personal conclusion - I believe that can be attained if responsible people act responsibly.  Wear the mask, manage crowd situations, look after you and yours with proven choices, and the infection rates will be less.  But that implies 100% cooperation from the populace.  You'd think anyone with a reasonable IQ wouldn't HAVE to be told to wear a mask - at least not these days as we've really come to see so much evidence that it does tone down the spread of the virus.  But some people just won't do anything that annoys them unless you kick them in the butt.  Globally I don't think it's a coincidence that the second wave is hitting the western countries so hard, while the Asian countries so far seem to be so much better.  You only have to ask yourself just which culture tends to have a greater view that they are supposed to do what is right just because its the right thing to do.

I think governments have tried to define just how much butt kicking is needed to quell the adverse impacts of just how many rebels.  There is a balancing point somewhere where the deterrence actions simply replace the damage of the disease with an equally bad level of damage due to the deterrence actions. I don't know that anyone has found that yet.  You have to have at least appreciation for the fact that they're trying, flawed as their attempts may be.  The alternative is the "herd immunity" approach - which is tantamount to saying "screw 'em...let 'em die".  A true moral abdication.

I just come back to a simple punchline: despite the best efforts, this thing it going to keep playing itself out, with some level of infection.  I don't depend on the government to be my prime source of relief.  I think it is more likely to be mitigated by the degree that individuals take it seriously and follow guidelines themselves.  I don't need to be told to wear a mask when I'm out.  I don't need a restaurant closed - if it looks dangerous to me, I don't go in.  And I think a restaurant owner knows how to space out tables so I can make that assessment.  I also think it is prudent for government agencies to be defining what are proper operating procedures - both to individuals and businesses - so everyone knows the best practices to follow., and maybe do some butt kicking when they aren't followed.  But there's a point where going to absolute extremes is not only damaging, they probably aren't doing much more to actually help.  So the question on the table is always going to be just when do they cross that line? 

I fI could just define that, man would I get rich.

[Snowy79]

14 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

In order of your comments...

You can have large families were many of the family get it but remain without symptoms (asymptomatic), unless everyone in the family is tested then no one really knows.

The case fatality rate is currently sitting at between 0.3% and 0.6% which means one person in 2 or 3 hundred will die, not one person in a few thousand.

The fastest vaccine produced was produced with 'old science', we've got computers which make the old ones look like Model T Fords compared to a space ship the difference in speed is so great.  And it's the ability to do those calculations that is the biggest factor in how long it takes to make a vaccine.

Vaccines aren't designed to 'fully work', they're designed to reduce the number of people infected, not stop people getting infected.

Side effects for most vaccines are rare when they're used how they're supposed to  be used (but some third world countries have given vaccines to people who should not have been given them, live attenuated vaccines for Ebola were given to immune defficient people which should never have happened for example).

None of the above means that I think everyone should be locked inside with businesses shut down, people need to be able to earn a living.

I believe in people wearing masks (properly, no under their chins) and I believe that social distancing will reduce cases and I am hoping for a vaccine that works well enough that we can slow the case rate enough that hospitals can keep up (the last one is looking more and more likely as time goes by).

 

I can only go from general comments by people and so called experts that have openly commented in live media compared to the usual, thousands of experts have said X,Y and Z.  Case fatality numbers I'm taking with a pinch of salt as many have highlighted and published policy on the diagnosis of covid which leaves it wide open to manipulation. Diagnosis by symptoms and no testing or any autopsy should be seperated from those 100% proven inconclusively to have had it. Then seperate those with financial or political benefit and the numbers may change again.

Close to home in my previous residence there has been many cases where 100% proven covid patients from large family units all living in the same home have resulted in only the initial patient having it.  All family members had been in strict quarrantine and had two confirmatory negative tests.  In one case it was a baby that had been passed around the family.   

As for vaccines I'm aware that with Covid many Governments are pushing to accelerate the licensing which will include a non liability clause as historically up until the Ebola vaccine it took between 15 to 20yrs to produce a vaccine without the get out of jail free card. I know what one I'd take.

I'm definitely in favour of masks and disinfecting hands etc.