I understand that this is hard on the economy. And its easier to wonder what to do for the economy. But what you are talking about is basically infecting everyone in a short amount of time. This has two consequences. First this is not a 3 day flu, people are sick with this 4- 6 weeks before they start to recover. Also, even if everything was running you would have 60% out sick. And the worst part is things would still suffer economically. Maybe not as bad as now… But the hospitals would be so over-filled… who would you turn away? how do you make the decisions who gets the bed? highest bidder? really, what is going to happen? drs and other walk off the job? I think you are missing the picture like you wont hammer the health system to heck. I think you are just looking at deaths… from this … and not other causes and not how many would die needlessly if they did not have supportive care… its a lot more than 80 plus people. and the numbers do not reflect the stories we are hearing like the one i posted. or the italian family that was left with half the clan dead… and all young except the matriarch. Its not right. I do not see stories of just old people dying or getting sick… I remember one of the first NY cases that attorney … barely 50. with highschool and college children… at the prime of his life… on a vent in the ICU// these are not the wheelchair feeble people you are imagining dying. or certainly needing supportive care… and they have much greater chance of recovering than old with that intensive care… so if you do not see the numbers for them dying… i wish the would seperate out a more meaningful number - age rates of serious cases… not death. Because once the system is over-loaded… this people will parish… not just elderly… And what about all those people in the hospital for surgery, immune conditions, cancer… heart disease. all in weak states… when an mass infection is circulating in the hospital… how many of those will die? this had much further consequences. I know if you are healthy and young, and ill informed , you are like, just open the flood gates… i am good. its just a mild cough, i ll be fine. screw everyone else. we dont need old - they just drain our society// -------- Maybe you can live with this ethically… But most people cannot. And I think they(govt) realize the economy will suffer whether we open the flood gates or not. The truth is you can get more social unrest - when the guy goes to the hospital and child is turned away, you will have john Q times 10000000.
I would not worry about this. I have this too, as does 45% of the poplulation. This has no effect on health, except in the presence of folic acid… but folic acid does not exist in nature. So it is in effect a toxin … that half the population can turn into a nutrient. Does this effect your health in the US where we have folic acid in everything. even things that dont need it.? sure, but in other countries , they dont add as much , and in th EU its now banned. I do not think its going to effect your immunity … but perhaps if you have lived very unhealthy life-style then the cellular house-keeping ( methylation ) has fallen behind.
Nordic,
I think you are being a little unfair to me. I don’t think we should do nothing at all. I am also well aware of the suffering that is going to be caused and I wish it were not.
However I am saying that there will be suffering no matter what we do, and we should try and choose the path that results in the least suffering. The “economy” is not an evil thing for greedy people, although our society is corrupt and evil people exploit our economy. The economy is how we all interact to live our lives. If we close businesses down in the way we are currently doing, people will die. Not thousands of people, nor tens of thousands of people. Millions of people will die as a result of what is being done to the global economy. Even the simplest first order effects like drugs not being available will have a huge impact. Global spending on healthcare, in real terms, will have to fall for years. Poorer countries will be unable to supply food, or sanitation, or other basic necessities to the people.
Millions more will have their livelihoods destroyed, their hopes, their dreams ruined. It is not a question of a few dollars in the bank accounts of rich people. Pension funds will fail. People will lose their homes, farmers will lose their farms, people running bouncy castles for childrens’ parties will lose the bouncy castles. Governments will fall. Rebellions may occur. Looting, crime. We are potentially talking about an economic disaster on a scale we have not seen in our lifetimes.
The path we are choosing has its own cost, and in my view it is very likely to be higher than the cost of the virus.
Rebel
PS It’s also worth noticing that already the greedy banks have exploited the fear to print themselves close to $2 trillion. And they’ve hardly got started yet.
I think this is part of the propaganda we are being subjected to.
The press is desperate to make sure that we are afraid, so there is a headline for any victim is under 55. I saw a headline from Italy the other day. “627 new deaths including a 48 year old and a 54 year old” - or something like that. Why didn’t the headline say “627 new deaths, 625 were over 60 and 607 were over seventy, 500 were already seriously ill”?
You’ve got to look at the numbers - not the headlines. And the numbers from the large scale studies tell the tale pretty clearly. Young people are NOT getting sick in significant numbers. People between 50 and 60 appear to be at some small, but significant, risk although that may well be only if they are already ill. People over 70 are clearly at a larger risk - but they are at a larger risk of dying from anything else as well.
And I’m not saying we should do nothing either. I think there are plenty of things we should be doing - but closing down all restaurants for example, or completely closing down schools and workplaces, are NOT amongst them.
I am sure the govt, as reckless as it can be sometimes, has a think-tank working all the scenarios. We are going to have a mess one way or the other - it should be a wake up call of how ill-prepared we really are/were. The problem is we have a bubble type financial system that is very fragile, our healthcare system is fragile, and social issues are abound.
I am not sure this is such a bad thing for the economy. We have been moving the wrong direction , at light-speed, for about 20 years. The only way things will correct is if we have a reset. Might as well be now , rather than later.
Hello NorthElkhound:
Did you even read the article I linked? It seems not… Here is a relevant quote (bolded parts my emphasis):
Founded in 2012, Oscar Health has been described as the Uber of healthcare, and like Uber, it has been criticized for unethical business practices. In 2018, for instance, it was condemned for selling an Obamacare insurance package with a massive $15,800 deductible. Also like Uber, it has received enormous cash injections from notable investors, including in this case Alphabet (the parent company of Google) and billionaire tech tycoon Peter Thiel. Jared also had a large share in the company. And like Uber, it continues to lose money, posting a $57 million loss in 2018 and a $110 million in 2019. Even superficially tested, the product Oscar has come up with has serious flaws; Mother Jones noted that the locator incorrectly advised a Maryland resident that the nearest coronavirus test facility was in Kansas, over 1,000 miles away.I could not care less about the political angle - as I have stated before, it does not matter who is in power, they are all the same - CORRUPT! The core issue is, once again, lack of integrity, and how the elites just keep on scheming to enrich themselves at our expense. Peter Thiel is implicated as a major player in the Epstein saga. The Mint Press series on that topic illustrated well the deep levels of corruption, lying and cheating going on all across the corridors of power - things everyone should be deeply concerned about. This is so not about politics. You should be paying attention to this stuff - unless of course you are okay with being given incorrect or false information, doubtful testing, and exorbitantly priced treatments and medications. You can be certain the elites are in on this crisis, planning & scheming to exploit it every which way they can to make money at our expense. These things exist because the sheeple do not pay attention, do not ask questions, and do not hold people, politicians or organizations accountable. The elites count on us not paying attention to their unethical practices and ill-gotten gains, and not doing anything about it even when we are aware of it. They count on us accepting and condoning their lack of integrity. Sure there are immediate problems like the possibility of the FedEx delivery person being infected. That is something you can actively manage and control through self-protection measures. But your issues are merely a small symptom of the much, much larger problem of why we are in this crisis. It did not happen in a vacuum. It happened because people did not pay attention, and did not want to discuss serious, important matters that affect all of our lives. If that sits well with you then so be it. It does not sit well with me. You are new here. I do contribute a lot of positive things on this site - I have been doing so for many years if you care to check, and I have earned a lot of respect along the way. I will continue to contribute articles and post comments as I see fit so as to stimulate discussion and help connect the dots of understanding this complex world that we live in. We absolutely have big short term problems to deal with, but we also need to have strategic awareness and planning so that we can rebuild a better world after this thing plays out, however long that might take. You can't make solid strategic plans without a solid understanding of the problems need to be eradicated. Take care and stay well, Jan
Vaping, or a history of vaping, may be a serious, “co-morbidity”. I don’t know too many 50 year olds who vape…
https://www.webmd.com/lung/features/vaping-illness-symptoms#1Edit: Just saw thisWho’s Most at Risk
Anyone who’s vaped in the last 90 days is at risk for EVALI. You don’t have to be older or already sick. “Many of these patients were normal, healthy people,” Tsai says. The average age of people with EVALI is 24, and almost 4 out of 5 are younger than 35. Rachel Boykan, MD, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, says that might be because vaping products are most popular with younger people.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/21/vaping-may-be-cause-of-coronavirus-cases-in-young-americans-experts-say/ US doctors are reportedly eyeing vaping as a possible factor in the alarming number of hospitalizations among young adults diagnosed with COVID-19. Medical experts began floating the theory last week after the US Centers for Disease Control reported that up to 20% of people hospitalized with the virus were between ages 20 and 44. “When someone’s lungs are exposed to flu or other infections the adverse effects of smoking or vaping are much more serious than among people who do not smoke or vape,” Stanton Glantz, a professor and director of the Center for Tobacco Research Control & Education at University of California San Francisco, wrote in a blog post. Glantz said vaping can hinder the nasal cavity’s ability to ward off disease by damaging the microscopic hairs, or cilia, in the upper airway, he told CNN. “Some of my [colleagues] have noted people under 30 ending up in hospitals and a couple were vapors,” Glantz said, noting a link has not been confirmed. In China, smokers were 14 times more likely to develop severe cases of COVID-19 than those who did not smoke, according to a February study published in the Chinese Medical Journal.Did you see that last line? First time I have seen that stat from China... 14X... Holy S*^t.
WATCH THIS CHRIS OR ADAM!. i’m an Australian and this is “a national press club” interview with “experts” in epidemiology etc and in particular at around the 36 minute mark where 2-3 of these experts say masks don’t matter:
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/national-press-club-address
all i can say is Wow!. thanks for your material which overwhelming supports mask usage
I know its headline stuff again. But doesnt make it not important. Again, I said, I was interested in serious case count not so much death count - this article addresses that specifically. And it talks about what i have been trying to say.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-young-people.html
Two points:
- The economy is not being “reset” in a good way. It’s being destroyed. Instead of being decentralized - it is all the small businesses which are going under. Instead of eliminating the debt we are doubling down and bailing out all the politically-connected, wealthy, powerful, and corrupt with more debt payable by the middle class. Big war, big pharma, big-parasite-at-the-expense-of-the-rest-of-you - that’s what’s being preserved. Little-guy-who-adds-value-to-his-community not so much. What is happening is a massive acceleration of all the bad trends - not a reset.
- The story you posted links to the underlying data I posted a few posts higher. The headline is entirely misleading. Even the text in report itself is confusing. You have to dig right down to the data table to see that the true story is the opposite of what is being said in the newspaper!
Here’s the study.
https://journals.lww.com/cmj/Abstract/publishahead/Analysis_of_factors_associated_with_disease.99363.aspx
It’s based on 78 patients. 11 got worse including 3 smokers. 67 got better including 2 smokers. My view is that the sample is too small to draw any significant conclusion.
Also there was no discussion of whether the smokers were also in other risk groups. In other words, were all the smokers also over 70? Or did four of them have diabetes? We don’t know.
So it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that smokers are at greater risk than non-smokers, but I doubt it’s really 14x more risk. General studies on pneumonia and smoking have shown (and this is from memory - apologies for not providing a link) that smoking increases risk by about 1/6 or so.
On the vaping deaths from the fall. If they were truly COVID-19 then clearly the virus isn’t dangerous at all. If we had hundreds of hospitalizations back then, and we took no special measures, and our hospitals have not yet been overwhelmed - then they aren’t going to get overwhelmed either.
So either they were not this virus, or the virus truly is nothing other than the seasonal flu. I think in this case that the explanation at the time - bad weed 
- is probably the correct one.
I am not saying headlines can be misleading but there is nowhere in the article its not consistent with the headline and certainly not opposite.
Half the patients admitted to the ICU where under 65 - this is working age and many work healthy and are active and functional well beyond that .. if you think 65 is old, I will give you just a few years to see what 65 really is. You are probably a child. As for the economy. Exactly, we are going the wrong direction faster and faster. Ok not a reset - it needs total destruction.. so you want to save a system that is as you describe? and you think this is just going to game and make rich, richer again? Yes you are probably correct.. But before change it has to get bad enough for the masses, they have supported us just barely enough to keep breathing.. so they will either do it again . or waste us.. and in the end , if we are wasted.. it will be their demise. WIN WIN... it will take this to wake up people..But of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized, 38 percent were notably younger — between 20 and 54. And nearly half of the 121 patients who were admitted to intensive care units were adults under 65, the C.D.C. reported.
“I think everyone should be paying attention to this,” said Stephen S. Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “It’s not just going to be the elderly. There will be people age 20 and up. They do have to be careful, even if they think that they’re young and healthy.”
This is the table that underlies those words:
That’s the interesting data to me.
Getting to the headline from there requires manipulation. Uniquely amongst any study I have seen this one shows a much greater number of cases amongst younger people. In other words this study is claiming that
- a lot more young people get infected than older people
- young people who get infected are still pretty safe, but since so many of them are getting infected they make up a larger proportion of the hospitalized and ICU patients than they otherwise would.
That contradicts everything we’ve seen anywhere else. All other studies - based on much larger datasets and far more widespread testing - from other countries (including much larger studies from Italy and China) have not shown that younger people are more likely to become infected.
I think it is highly unlikely to continue to be the case that young people get infected at a higher rate than old people; it’s much more likely that this is the accidental (or even possibly deliberate) result of the data being skewed somehow. There are a million ways this could happen - but one obvious one might be if more young people travel to China than older people. Combine that with the fact that early on tests were only given to people who had traveled to China and that would skew the results in exactly this way.
Look at the results from China here, based on a much larger data set:
Or the results from the Diamond Princess where everyone was tested so there is no skewing based on how tests were applied:
Where it is pretty clear that the chance of becoming infected rises with age except for the teenage group which is likely an anomaly based on tiny sample size.
So the important number for me here is the rate at which people who test positive end up getting hospitalized or into intensive care. And this study is pretty clear - if you get infected and you are young - your chance of the disease getting worse is tiny. Again remember you need to take the ICU rates and divide by 10 - 20 to get the real rate to allow for undercounting of cases.
“You are probably a child.”
I wish I were, but even if I were - I’m not sure that’s a strong argument for your case :-).
Rebel
Rebell, I am certainly not trying to imply that the, “vaping disease” was Covid. Rather I am suggesting that vaping may predispose one to not having an asymptomatic or mild case if exposed. Vaping will likely be shown to play a role in some fraction of the cases involving younger folks needing pulmonary interventions. As well, and I hinted at this in an earlier post, I will bet you real money that folks who take prescription immunomodulators like Humira to treat (autoimmune) conditions like psoriasis and arthritis will be more likely to have a bad time with Covid-19.
My picture of this is pretty simple; If your immune system is not up the task, this thing can and will invade your lungs. If you have certain kinds of underlying lung abnormalities caused by smoking, or vaping, or maybe even air pollution, you are more at risk of this disease taking ahold of your lungs, regardless of age. As with any human condition, there are most certainly a long tail of co-factors with smaller weightings in the equation that determines where you end up on the wide range of outcomes once exposed.
Agree with everything you said.
The Coronavirus Home Lockdown Survival Guide: How To Stay Healthy, Sane & Solvent (3/21/20)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6NnSbZicJU
First this table that you are using is not associated with study that was done by the CDC/ reported cases… I am not sure where that came from but it was no part of that article or research i posted.
as for the diamond princess, I like it because its a closed random sample. But the numbers there as you are using are meaningless garbage. The percent per age group that are symptomatic - is useless… if you test me today… and i test positive… but do not develop symptoms for a week or longer … i was listed as asymptomatic… you mean asymptomatic at time of test… its garbage has no value at all.
One other thing here… Is you fail to miss that there is a very high aging population that cruises… I doubt anyone will argue that this is not the 20 something cup of tea compared to the 55 over crowd. so that chart showing many more sick older folk , means maybe there are a lot more older folk on the ship. - really garbage data again.
In reality , what you have really been trying to debate, and your argument you suggest, is way scarier than what i am trying to suggest.
You are basically saying, Is this is a benign disease for almost all young people - in fact its asymptomatic is most - and most never even get a symptom. And its dependably really affects “old people” over sixty, with definite course and death in most. with very few exceptions… with no real explanation of anything in between - like its such a small tiny percent its not worthy of any implication.
That is a disease way scarier than what i am try to pose.