But they reversed that ruling.
But not until they’d sent 4500 patients. Or so I read.
This only makes sense if they’re distinguishing between asymptomatic cases and pre-symptomatic, since it’s already known that the latter shed a lot of virus. As others are pointing out (on Twitter, and probably elsewhere), it would be really nice to see the data supporting this statement.
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This is one reason I am confused. In the next to last paragraph, she says it is rare for spread to occur with both asymptomatic AND presymptomatic persons.
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That’s how it was when I was a kid, but we didn’t have a vaccine back then. The thought was that young kids have the fewest complications from chicken pox compared to older kids (tweens to teens) and adults. I still remember a few kids who had permanent scars on their cheeks from chicken pox.
I have been helping with testing, and that is close to what I have seen. We have had 1 to 3 asymptomatic positives in 1500 or so tests, and 10-15 total positives.
Somewhere I saw this… ‘In the press conference Monday, Kerkhove said there are fewer asymptomatic patients than previously thought. “[I]f you actually go back and say how many of them are truly asymptomatic, we find out that many have really mild disease, very mild disease, they’re not quote unquote COVID symptoms, meaning they may not have developed fever yet.”’
If they’re saying that these people spreading disease are just nearly asymptomatic, rather than truly asymptomatic, then they’re not doing a very good job of communicating the important information.
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The low mortality rate is with the assumption of good medical care. The earlier estimate was from the data in China. Obviously the mortality rate would be much higher without medical care such as in the case that too many people had come down with the virus too quickly and our medical care system was overloaded.
How do you know what the quoted rate is based on? What data supports it?
I never said anything about any quoted rate. I am not really interested in getting involved in your rants about the CDC.
The mortality rates I am seeing such as the one published by John Hopkins have the mortality rate varying by country from 1.3% to 15.3% (in which the US measure was 5.7%). If you want the methodology of their calculations I suggest you look it up yourself. In any case the difference in mortality rate could very well have more to do with differences in gathering data in these countries, but it stands to reason that when this is not the case that the availability of sufficient health care would be a part of the reason for such differences.
The CDC report seems to be from a study done in New York state showing that far more people (10 times) have been exposed to the virus than we thought. I see no reason to discount this. But this number is 1.4% mortality. I agree that the .28% caclulation dividing by the total population is a little weird – don’t see what purpose that number serves. Seems to me there is are a lot we don’t understand about this virus. We have a number of difficulties with classifying people as recovered because of unexpected relapse. This study in New York suggests we don’t fully even understand why only some people are getting sick at all. Perhaps the point should be that rather than answering any questions, the CDC study raises a lot more questions.
In any case, I think my original comment still stands. If for whatever reason we are seeing a lower mortality rate than expected then we should not overlook the fact that this was under the conditions of sufficient medical care available, something that would not be the case if the virus spread too much more quickly than it did.
Is there a BBC or other quality source link? Washington Post? I never read lying neo-fascist dross.
Worldometer is trusted and used by BBC as well as many others. What are you calling “lying neo-fascist dross?”
600K die from heart disease every year. Indeed! I guess we could say pizza kills more people than coronavirus. And there’s hardly a peep about it.
I was responding to the OP - I should quote it when I do that. I agree with your analysis.
I use the Worldometer and the Financial Times.
Because it’s normal and managed. Like alcoholism.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘hardly a peep’. Surely you’re aware that there have been decades-long (and quite successful) research and public education campaigns to reduce the toll of heart disease. And covid-19 is quite capable of killing several times as many in a year as die from heart disease.
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Yes, the virus is capable of killing many, many more. Nevertheless, 600,000 deaths/year is not insignificant. I learned a lot during cardiac rehab that would have been helpful to know beforehand. Many or most of those 600,000 U.S. deaths could be avoided (well, delayed) if the information provided during rehab was taught at say, the high-school level, or had more of an impact on the menu options available in many restaurants. So, “hardly a peep” is hyperbolic, for sure, but there’s so much that’s been learned from the decades of research that could be used to have a tremendous benefit beyond what it’s already doing to save lives.
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Yes – it is a fact about humans that we worry much more about novel risks than about familiar ones, and we often take steps to avoid smaller risks than larger ones. In fact, covid-19 is itself already becoming somewhat familiar and people are abandoning even simple precautions.
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I am sticking to the precautions much of the time and I am certainly not complaining against those who insist on them. Like this asian supermarket near my house… they require face masks, take your temperature, squirt sanitizer on your hands, and have you stand in line for limited entry. But… life goes on and we are not bugs to live under a rock. I may not care much about any feeling of social tribal belonging, but I am not inclined to whine and complain about official decisions for public health and safety. I will do my part to make such decisions work as much as I am able. Meanwhile I am watching the statistics like most people ready for a turn for the worse if it happens – don’t expect it though.
As for familiarity… I don’t deny it is a factor but it is also about whether or not we can do about it. When it only affects our personal health like eating pizza, then of course it is a matter of personal choice. And there are many things which are just inevitable one way or another and not much we can do about it without too great a price. Seems to me a pandemic is different than these other examples. This is all good practice for when something even worse comes along. Because that is a part of life too… same old same old interrupted by various disasters which we have to deal with as they come along.
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The psychology of human risk assessment results in some really bad decisions, and its also quite fascinating.
A really interesting comparison that popped into my head was airplane safety. Imagine if the fatality rate of flying was just 0.01%. During the normal times of the way-way back, there were about 100,000 flights per day. That means there would be 10 plane crashes a day that killed everyone aboard. How many people would refuse to fly if those were the real numbers?
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