[LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

[Stephen Loosley]

Linkers, the following is a reddit post for which I have no further references.

Just wondering, does the content pass the pub (Link) consensus for reasoning?

“How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

® Franlilln veaus - Updated 6h ago  Professional Writer

There are two problems with this question.

1. It neglects the law of large numbers; and
2. It assumes that one of two things happen: you die or you're 100% fine.

The US has a population 328,200,000. If one percent of the population dies, 
then that's 3,282,000 people dead.

Three million people dead would monkey wrench the economy no matter what. That 
more than doubles the number of annual deaths, all at once.

The second bit is people keep talking about deaths, "Deaths, deaths, deaths. 
Only one percent die! Just one percent! One is a small number! No big deal, 
right?"

But, what about the people who survive?

For every one person who dies:

- 18 more require hospitalization.

- 18 of those will have permanent heart damage for all of their lives.

- 10 will have permanent lung damage.

- 3 will have strokes.

- 2 will have neurological damage that leads to chronic weakness and loss of 
coordination.

- 2 will have neurological damage that leads to loss of cognitive function.


So now all of a sudden, that ‘but it's only 1% fatal!’ becomes:

- 3,282,000 people dead.

- 62,358,000 hospitalized.

- 59,076,000 people with permanent heart damage.

- 32,820,000 people with permanent lung damage.

- 9,846,000 people with strokes.

- 6,584,000 people with muscle weakness.

- 6,564,000 people with loss of cognitive function.

That's the thing that the folks who keep going on about “only 1% dead, what's 
the big deal?‘ don't get. The choice is not "ruin the economy to save l% if we 
reopen the economy,” it will be destroyed anyway. The US economy cannot survive 
everyone getting COVID-19.



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Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

[Karl Auer]

On Tue, 2020-12-01 at 23:36 +, Stephen Loosley wrote:
> Just wondering, does the content pass the pub (Link) consensus for
> reasoning?

Seems plausible. The numbers are poorly expressed at best, for example
it says (but I presume doesn't mean) that all people hospitalised will
get permanent heart damage. It's also not clear whether or how much the
numbers overlap, I would assume there is a lot of overlap. And it
doesn't make clear that a sick person, especially a long-term sick
person, has (in general) a far greater impact than a dead person.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~
Karl Auer (ka...@biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

GPG fingerprint: 2561 E9EC D868 E73C 8AF1 49CF EE50 4B1D CCA1 5170
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Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

[Stephen Loosley]

Karl writes,

> Seems plausible. The numbers are poorly expressed at best, for example
> it says (but I presume doesn't mean) that all people hospitalised will
> get permanent heart damage. It's also not clear whether or how much the
> numbers overlap, I would assume there is a lot of overlap. And it
> doesn't make clear that a sick person, especially a long-term sick
> person, has (in general) a far greater impact than a dead person.


Yes. And, you’re also right, the numbers are poorly expressed. As you say, his 
health
concern categories are not mutually exclusive. According to scant available 
research
however it would seem that his main point is correct. The economies of many 
world
countries are in trouble ...

For eg: 
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-30992030701-5/fulltext

Weeks and months after the onset of acute COVID-19, people continue to suffer. 
Paul Garner, a professor of epidemiology (UK) wrote on the 95th day after the 
onset of symptoms that, “I am unable to be out of bed for more than three hours 
at a stretch, my arms and legs are permanently fizzing as if injected with 
Szechuan peppercorns, I have ringing in the ears, intermittent brain fog, 
palpitations, and dramatic mood swings.”

Other people also describe similar complaints.  78 of 100 patients in an 
observational cohort study who had recovered from COVID-19 had abnormal 
findings on cardiovascular MRI (median of 71 days after diagnosis) and 36 of 
those reported dyspnoea and unusual fatigue.


And: https://hmri.org.au/news-article/what-are-long-term-symptoms-covid-19

About 20% of those infected with COVID-19 require hospitalisation to treat 
their pneumonia, and many need assistance with oxygen. In about 5% of cases the 
pneumonia becomes so severe patients are admitted to intensive care for 
breathing support.

So far, only one peer-reviewed study has reported results on the long-term 
symptoms of COVID-19 infection: a single group of 143 survivors from Rome. Most 
of them did not need hospitalisation and all were assessed at least 60 days 
after infection. They reported a worsened quality of life in 44.1% of cases, 
including symptoms of persistent fatigue (53.1%), breathlessness (43.4%), joint 
pain (27.3%), and chest pain (21.7%).
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Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

[Kim Holburn]

Interesting.  If those numbers bear some semblance of reality, it makes me 
wonder:

Covid mortality goes up with age, is it the same age spread for people who get 
less fatal bad forms of covid?

For instance that illness (multisystem inflammatory syndrome) that covid causes 
sometimes in children appears to be just the young.


On 2020/12/2 10:36 am, Stephen Loosley wrote:

Linkers, the following is a reddit post for which I have no further references.

Just wondering, does the content pass the pub (Link) consensus for reasoning?

“How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

® Franlilln veaus - Updated 6h ago  Professional Writer

There are two problems with this question.

1. It neglects the law of large numbers; and
2. It assumes that one of two things happen: you die or you're 100% fine.

The US has a population 328,200,000. If one percent of the population dies, 
then that's 3,282,000 people dead.

Three million people dead would monkey wrench the economy no matter what. That 
more than doubles the number of annual deaths, all at once.

The second bit is people keep talking about deaths, "Deaths, deaths, deaths. Only 
one percent die! Just one percent! One is a small number! No big deal, right?"

But, what about the people who survive?

For every one person who dies:

- 18 more require hospitalization.

- 18 of those will have permanent heart damage for all of their lives.

- 10 will have permanent lung damage.

- 3 will have strokes.

- 2 will have neurological damage that leads to chronic weakness and loss of 
coordination.

- 2 will have neurological damage that leads to loss of cognitive function.


So now all of a sudden, that ‘but it's only 1% fatal!’ becomes:

- 3,282,000 people dead.

- 62,358,000 hospitalized.

- 59,076,000 people with permanent heart damage.

- 32,820,000 people with permanent lung damage.

- 9,846,000 people with strokes.

- 6,584,000 people with muscle weakness.

- 6,564,000 people with loss of cognitive function.

That's the thing that the folks who keep going on about “only 1% dead, what's the 
big deal?‘ don't get. The choice is not "ruin the economy to save l% if we 
reopen the economy,” it will be destroyed anyway. The US economy cannot survive 
everyone getting COVID-19.



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Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

[Tom Worthington]

On 2/12/20 10:36 am, Stephen Loosley wrote:


Linkers, the following is a reddit post for which I have no further references.


So is it a good idea to distribute this? Who was the original author and 
what was their motivation?



“How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down ...


Once medical facilities reach capacity, the mortality rate will climb, 
as those who would have survived with treatment don't get it.


The 2011 film Contagion depicted a disease outbreak. In one scene a 
contact tracer has the disease and is placed on a stretcher in a sports 
hall with hundreds of others left to die. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film)


To get back on topic for Link, any group or nation state, which is 
spreading misinformation online with the intention of worsening the 
contagion, it should kept in mind that the USA has a policy of 
reciprocity. An attack on the USA will be judged based on the effect, 
not the manner of delivery. US policy includes the option of a response 
to a cyber attack with conventional or nuclear weapons. 
https://web.archive.org/web/20110518153848/https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf


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Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

[Stephen Loosley]

Tom writes,

> .. is it a good idea to distribute this? Who was the original author
> and what was their motivation?

The author: https://www.quora.com/profile/Franklin-Veaux and, you tell me?

> Once medical facilities reach capacity, the mortality rate will climb, as 
> those
> who would have survived with treatment don't get it. The 2011 film Contagion
> depicted a disease outbreak. In one scene a contact tracer has the disease and
> is placed on a stretcher in a sports hall with hundreds of others left to die.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film)

Yes .. all probably true .. however, I do get the sense that this writer is 
concerned
mainly with the Covid-19 longer-term side-effects for survivors and the economy.

Particularly the U.S. economy if they re-open.  At the end he claims “The 
choice is
not ‘ruin the economy to save l%, if we reopen the economy,’ it will be 
destroyed
anyway. The US economy cannot survive everyone getting COVID-19.”  And, as is
reasonably obvious, this will not happen, now that we have multiple vaccines.

However the main point for me is that maybe we all will have a very heavy burden
of folk suffering greatly from longer-term Covid-19 side effects. This point 
seems to
have been greatly overlooked thus far. And it IS becoming true, no matter who 
says
it.  Hence, the writer’s motives seem irrelevant. Maybe, don’t shoot the 
messenger?

> To get back on topic for Link, any group or nation state, which is  spreading
> misinformation online with the intention of worsening the contagion, it should
> kept in mind that the USA has a policy of reciprocity. An attack on the USA 
> will be
> judged based on the effect, not the manner of delivery. US policy includes 
> the option
> of a response to a cyber attack with conventional or nuclear weapons.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110518153848/https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf

Tom, this may seem obvious to everyone, and I can not work out how this is 
relevant?

Cheers,
Stephen


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Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”

[Tom Worthington]

On 5/12/20 1:10 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:


The author ... you tell me?


Their profile says they are CEO of a company developing a "wearable 
device to help people born without a penis", which sounds interesting 
but not really relevant to COVID-19.



Tom, this may seem obvious to everyone, and I can not work out how this is 
relevant?


There is misinformation being spread about COVID-19 online. Before 
passing stuff on, I suggest checking if it is useful, who it is from, if 
they, and it, are credible. There are a lot of misinformed people out 
there passing on nonsense, but there may also be some deliberately 
spreading misinformation to cause harm.



--
Tom Worthington, http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150
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