FWIW
I presume this is accurate, from a coupla days ago, tracks with I am
told by Dr. Boy, YMMV:
Public
From one of the doctors here at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Julie
Silver and her friend Dr. Reem Ghalib. Please read the whole thing, it
is an important summary about COVID19, flattening the curve and what
will happen if we don’t take strict precautions now:
Julie said —“It has been years since I have posted anything on this
page. As a physician at Harvard Medical School, I have amazing access to
the best information and resources for #Covid19
<https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/covid19?__cft__[0]=AZVmJtN48VKSOSd9Annc4RuQsL5qHRN_49fzxk2-Eo3WGMh3XfINI25bY9K3hAeHCxMCgiE6H2ZsKCNQP5lHwizcxJn7NtmrLOEE92wMWGxAiKQvIxxv1kI_NIdBFQ7jez2Kh68t9FG8dXNV6aS1Hx_F0TxhwKri9KUVxk8QLNbgrA&__tn__=*NK-y-R>.
I know people are getting a lot of information, and not all of it is
accurate. My friend Dr. Reem Ghalib summarized the situation in one of
the best social media posts to date on this topic (copied/pasted below).
Please read what she has to say and share with your loved ones, friends,
and colleagues. Urge people to be calm and logical in their decision
making. Err on the side of caution. Re the info below--note that
"coronavirus" is used generically to mean the specific strain Covid 19.
I will apologize in advance for not responding to comments as work is
very hectic right now:
Dear Friends,
So much confusion, misinformation and denial is bouncing around on
social media about the coronavirus that I thought I would try to
explain, in plain language, why the experts see this as such an emergency.
You will see the claim online that this virus is a lot like the viruses
that cause colds, and that if you get it, it will probably just seem
like a bad cold and you are very unlikely to die. Depending on who you
are, these statements are probably true. But they are incomplete, and
the missing information is the key to understanding the problem.
This is a coronavirus that is new to the human population, jumping into
people late last year from some kind of animal, probably at a wildlife
market in Wuhan, China. It is related to the viruses that cause colds,
and acts a lot like them in many ways. It is very easy to transmit
through the respiratory droplets that all of us give off. But nobody has
ever been exposed to this before, which means nobody has any immunity to it.
The virus is now moving explosively through the human population. While
most people will recover, about 20 percent of the people who catch it
will wind up with a serious disease. They will get pneumonia that causes
shortness of breath, and they may need hospitalization.
Some of those people will get so sick that they cannot be saved and will
die of the pneumonia. The overall death rate for people who develop
symptoms seems to be 2 or 3 percent. Once we have enough testing to find
out how many people caught the virus but did not develop symptoms, that
might come down to about 1 percent, optimistically.
This is a large number. It is at least 10 times higher than the
mortality rate for the seasonal flu, for instance, which in some years
kills 60,000 or 70,000 Americans. So just on that math, we could be
looking at 600,000 or 700,000 dead in the United States. But it gets worse.
Older people with existing health problems are much more vulnerable, on
average. The mortality rate of coronavirus among people over age 80 may
be 15 or 20 percent. It appears to have 7 or 8 percent mortality for
people aged 70 to 79. Here is the terrible part: If you are a healthy
younger person, you can catch the virus and, without developing serious
symptoms yourself, you can pass it along to older people. In other
words, as the virus spreads, it is going to be very easy to go out and
catch it, give it to your grandmother and kill her, even though you will
not die yourself. You can catch it by touching a door knob or an
elevator button.
Scientists measure the spread of an epidemic by a number called R0, or
“R naught.” That number is calculated this way: for every person who
develops the illness, how many other people do they give it to before
they are cured (or dead) and no longer infectious? The R0 for
coronavirus, in the absence of a control strategy, appears to be a
number close to 3 – maybe a bit higher or lower, but in that ballpark.
This is an extremely frightening number for such a deadly disease.
Suppose you catch the virus. You will give it to 3 other people, and
they will each give it to three others, and so forth. Here is how the
math works, where you, the “index case,” are the first line:
1
3
9
27
81
243
729
2,187
6,561
19,683
59,046
177,147
531,441
1,594,323
4,782,969
14,348,907
So, in just 15 steps of transmission, the virus has gone from just one
index case to 14.3 million other people. Those 15 steps might take only
a few weeks. The index person may be young and healthy, but many of
those 14 million people will be old and sick, and they will likely die
because they got a virus that started in one person's throat.
The United States is not at this point yet, with millions infected, as
best we can tell. We don’t really know, because our government has
failed us. We are many, many weeks behind other countries in rolling out
widespread testing, so we don’t really have a clue how far the thing has
spread. We do know that cases are starting to pop up all over the place,
with many of the people having no known exposure to travelers from
China, so that means this virus has escaped into our communities.
We do not have approved treatments, yet. We do not have a vaccine. The
only tool we really have now is to try to slow down the chain of
transmission.
This can be done. In other words, R0 is not fixed – it can be lowered by
control measures. If we can get the number below 1, the epidemic will
die out. This is the point of the quarantines and the contact-tracing
that you are hearing so much about in the news. But the virus is
exploding so fast that we will not have the labor available to trace
contacts for much longer, so we have to shift strategies. This has
already begun, but we are not doing it fast enough.
It is now likely that the majority of Americans will get this virus. But
slowing it down is still crucial. Why? Because the healthcare system has
limited resources. We only have about a million hospital beds in
America. We have well under a million ventilators. If millions of
Americans get sick enough to need treatment, we will have a calamity on
our hands. What will happen is a form of battlefield triage, where the
doctors focus on trying to treat the young and allow the older people to
die.
This is not theoretical. It is already happening in Italy, where people
over 65 are being left alone on hospital gurneys to suffocate to death
from pneumonia. They basically drown in their own sputum. There is
simply not enough medical capacity to take care of them. The United
States appears to be about two weeks behind Italy on the epidemic growth
curve.
What do we need to do now? We need to cancel all large gatherings – all
of them. You have probably seen that the N.B.A. has postponed the rest
of its season. Other sporting events, concerts, plays and everything
else involving large audiences in a small space – all of it needs to be
canceled. Even if these events take place, do not go to them. No
lectures, no plays, no movies, no cruises – nothing.
Stay at home as much as possible.Stay out of restaurants. I would cancel
any travel that is not absolutely essential. Work from home if you
possibly can. You may have to go buy groceries and medicine, of course,
but make the trips quick and purposeful. Wash your hands assiduously
after you have been in public places, for a full 20 seconds, soaping up
thoroughly and being sure to get between the fingers. Sunlight and
alcohol will kill the virus.
And please stop passing around statements on social media claiming that
the situation is not serious or is being exaggerated. This is a national
crisis, and conveying misinformation to your friends and family may put
their lives in danger."
On 3/19/20 4:42 PM, Meade Dillon via Mercedes wrote:
First the good new: Cure?
https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/old-malaria-drug-hydroxychloroquine-may-help-cure-coronavirus-study/
Next the contrarian.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-epidemiologist-warns-that-coronavirus-crackdown-is-based-on-bad-data/
"A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal
influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with
potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally
irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated
and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff
and dies."
-------------
Max
Charleston SC
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