Someone smarter than me did some numbers crunching if Sunday's coronavirus numbers as they appear on the state Department of Health and CDC websites. One out of 262 persons in the greater Lehigh Valley area has contracted Covid-19 thus far, and so far, one out of 13,662 people has died. The common flu kills 2 out of every 100,000 people, according to CDC. Covid-19 appears to be killing 7.32 per 100,000 here in the Lehigh Valley. This makes it a little more than three times as lethal as the common flu. Dr. Anthony Fauci has said Covid-19 is 10 times more lethal than the common flu, but it remains to be seen whether this coronavirus is actually as deadly as projected.
What's more interesting is an examination of the data from the New York and New Jersey The total population is around 21 million. Covid-19 has hit that dense population hard, infecting 825 people per 100,000. It has killed 6.28 per 100,000, making it about three times as lethal as the common flu.
In the rest of the country, the infection (97 out of 100,000) and mortality rates (3 out of 100,000) are much lower. This could mean things are about to get worse in those areas. It could also mean that, because the population is less dense, fewer people will get ill.
Time will tell. At this moment, however, the data show different stories for the New York area and the rest of the country. In New York, the disease is more prevalent and more fatal. Outside the northeast, it is much less prevalent.
If you are unfortunate enough to contract either the flu or Covid-19, the risk of contracting pneumonia increases. Here's an interesting piece of information. Fifteen out of 100,000 people who die every year do so from a flu-pneumonia combination. It has always been one of the top ten causes of death here in the US.
No one has ever shut down the economy over this concern.
I believe it's important to listen to public health officials and err on the side of listening to them. But just as the military should play no role in actual decisions concerning foreign policy, public health official should have no role in deciding our actual domestic policy.
That's why we have elections.
Well, at least we once did.
Interestingly, it appears that a group of experts and government officials are finally urging the Iceland approach, one which I have repeatedly advocated. As explained in The Washington Post, it "relies on the three pillars of disease control: Ramp up testing to identify people who are infected. Find everyone they interact with by deploying contact tracing on a scale America has never attempted before. And focus restrictions more narrowly on the infected and their contacts so the rest of society doesn’t have to stay in permanent lockdown."
Instead of limiting tests to those who are already at death's door, a concerted effort should be made to test everyone as quickly as possible. Thus far, just one per cent of Pa. has been tested.
Below is the latest coronavirus curve from Pennlive. It clearly demonstrates that the number of new cases is dropping every day.
45 comments:
It is about time this is taken seriously. I fear you have many who use reckless decision making and endanger others.
"No one has ever shut down the economy over this concern"
So what is the acceptable number of deaths?
How many die to make sure taxidermy shops are up and running?
BTW if the number of regular flu deaths can be lessened by vaccines should they be mandatory for everyone?
As to contact tracing and other measures-- seems big government following your every move and mandatory isolation backed up by say ankle bracelets is no problem for the "ben Franklin patriots of freedom"
Remember that those folks will defy any order they do not agree with.
So will they be arrested?
Iceland is a small population, and does not compare to NYC. that approach could work in many parts of the country. There has been a lot pressure by the media for Trump to lock down the whole country, he has not taken that approach as the situation in confined living areas of big cities does not apply to rural areas. We should have quarantined new York and New jersey and we would have less problems in eastern pa. This whole affair is a learning by doing. some believe they have all the answers, but there are a lot of issues to balance.
"But just as the military should play no role in actual decisions concerning foreign policy, public health official should have no role in deciding our actual domestic policy."
brilliant. statesmanlike.
So what is the acceptable number of deaths?
dunno. one hundred thousand?
I mean, about 90 thousand people die every year due to alcohol related deaths. i don't drink, so evidently the rest of you find this acceptable.
hell, we raised the speed limit from 55 to 65, for no other reason than we wanted to drive fast. that decision costs tens of thousands of lives every year (i read somewhere 20k, but i can't find the cite)
EVERY government decision has a mortality cost to it., so yeah, i'll play.
100k.
"So what is the acceptable number of deaths?"
You appear to be operating under the delusion that a business shutdown costs no lives. You are sadly mistaken. There already has been at least one publicized suicide in Wilson Borough as well as an attempted murder. There will almost certainly be starvation and crimes of desperation, leading to more loss of life. There will also be an increase in domestic violence, leading to even more loss of life. Those deaths appear to be acceptable to you.
In addition to those deaths, this state has failed in its obligation to provide an education to its children for a half year. It has failed to take adequate steps top ensure it has the infrastructure in place to handle the unemployment claims. I know numerous people who have yet to hear a word from bungling bureaucrats, despite having filed a claim three weeks ago. The telephone number is constantly busy or inoperable. This appears to be acceptable to you, no doubt bc you have no financial worries.
As I have advocated for some time, what has been shown to work is testing, contact tracing and isolation. This can be done without destroying both the economy and our civil liberties.
"Iceland is a small population, and does not compare to NYC."
Iceland is indeed small, but South Korea and Taiwan have fairly large populations, and have employed the Icelandic approach.
Just another caution, the method causes of death has been significantly changed to allow listing Coronavirus (assumed to be present) as the primary cause. Why? Maybe, because hospitals receive more federal funds for handling suspected Coronavirus patients. None of us really know everything that’s going on here. I suspect the accuracy of all charts and graphs.
Figures in comparison to other nations have little value. Populations can have greatly different diets, greater amounts of UV exposure from the Sun, dramatically different medical response capabilities over a period of many years, and governments who ‘twist’ numbers.
We have enough evidence on hand now, to focus more on comparing today’s medical America to a typical medical America of the past decade.
Time will tell what the true numbers are. It is irresponsible to draw specifics from generalities. The numbers are not drawn from the population as a whole but are worse case numbers. Questionable causes of death, those untested, those who have the antibodies, those who are asymptomatic, even unreported deaths. All of these unknowns heighten the uncertainty by orders of magnitude and it is irresponsible to claim otherwise.
7:43- Exactly! As time goes on, we are seeing the prior professional connections between those who MADE and now DEFEND those charts and graphs. This whole thing is based upon desired outcomes, beyond just healing sick people.
It's like 1 person from China, we have it under control and will be gone by Easter...
Trump Denied - Trump Lied - People Died
Will we all be microchipped? I get that it's worse than the flu, but we've gone too far and should stop surrendering liberties until all preparation teams are investigated, fired (probably), and replaced for their lack of readiness and horrendous handling of this.
https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/1249491774088896512?s=20
If you have common sense then use it. If you don't, then I guess your in trouble and the cause of spreading the virus. I prefer to use my so called common sense and will avoid as many people as possible, washee, washee, washee, etc.
8:25, President Trump is a problem because is one of very FEW people in Washington who has NO POLITICAL MOTIVE behind his actions. Can’t think of a better person to lead us out of this situation. The right decisions come with ‘no strings attached.’
YES, the politically driven ‘cures’ are FAR more dangerous than the illness.
Trump Denied - Trump Lied - People Died (22,109 & counting)
Trump should have shut down flights 10 days sooner. Dems were going to screech whenever he did it. He also should have realized Democratic-governed states are broke and essentially wards of the feds at times like these. He should have anticipated their utter lack of preparedness and emergency management bungling. They were busy working on plastic straw bans and diversity for 124 genders.
Bernie: did you see this over the weekend...
State Representative Michael Schlossberg posted on Facebook...
On a conference call with Dr. Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health. Some statistics:
- In Pennsylvania, we have over 16,239 positive cases of COVID-19.
- 1.9% of all people with COVID-19 die. That makes it roughly twenty times more deadly than the seasonal flu.
- 10.6% of all people who get COVID-19 are hospitalized. 30% of all of those are on ventilators.
- Lehigh County is one of the hardest hit in the entire state. Allentown is one hardest-hit cities.
- The rate of infection has slowed thanks to social distancing and stay at home orders, but we could still have a hospital-crippling surge within the next few weeks.
If you think this is fake or overwrought, or that social distancing isn't working and needs to end, defriend me now. Right now. On the spot. But, please do three things first:
1) Gag yourself. I mean that literally. Put something in your mouth so you can't talk anymore, and risk spreading your stupidity to others. I mean, you should be wearing a mask anyway. But, if you think this is faked, a gag would be useful for the continuity of civilization. Your stupidity risks killing vulnerable people, doctors, nurses, first responders and countless others.
2) Disconnect your internet. Then seek a court order which would prevent you from ever reactivating your internet present for a period of multiple years.
3) Delete your social media presence.
From a raw economics perspective, this thing will cost the country trillions, the state billions and our local tax base and school districts millions. It is hitting our poorest and racial minorities the hardest.
If you think this is fake, or don't take it seriously, you may kill someone, and you are too stupid to function in modern society.
Yes, 8:39’s first paragraph is a little confusing, but 99% of rest of the post is exactly what I see going on! If that makes me a ‘lunatic whack job” so be it.
Interesting numbers from Iceland indeed.
They have tested about 10% of their population. Of those tested, 5% tested positive. Their mortality rate is 0.5% of those confirmed, so perhaps mortality rate is about 5x the flu. Note that treatment regimens for CV-19 are still evolving.
Another interesting fact is that with testing 10% of the population and with no doubt a large success in preventing the spread of the virus, 0.5% of their population has tested positive. Presumably, the infection rate in places like NYC and PA is much higher than that, and the stated mortality rate can be expected to fall as estimates of people currently infected inevitably rise in the future.
8:39-- you are 100 percent correct the dems are willing to kill people because they hate trump--the left kills babies so they do not want to kill the virus.
Yet more "Fake" news by the liar-in-chief: He tweets that the OPEC oil output reductions are 20 million gallons per day when all news sources in the past 24 hours world wide state 9.7 million gallons. He makes this shit up on a whim just like his responses and denials meanwhile, 21,000+ Unites States Americans are DEAD! Go ahead, keep up the deceptions and falsehoods! Worry about the $$$$$, fuck the people right?
Trump Denied - Trump Lied - People Died
Bernie:
Check out this site: https://pennstate.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/9773ab96534c44b0b35e4d7aa8efc1cd
It has some great graphs and breaks down the virus in PA on a county basis. THe curve has trended down the last few days in NorCo and Lehigh, but is still going up in Philly, and Lackawanna.
Overall the state curve is flattening.
Urban areas have more close-quarters living conditions! More apartments, more people sharing bedrooms, more crowded elevators, more public transit,
You are a fucken whack job. You understand that, correct?
People living 10,000 per square mile should not expect people living 100 per square mile to require the same precautions.
9:20, I defriended Schlossberg long ago. I have no respect for him, either as a person or public official. As this post demonstrates, and using the DOH's own figures, Covid-19 is about three times more deadlky than the flu here in the LV wit the current data. That figure could go up or down. So Dr. Rachel Levine, fka Richard Levine, inspires zero confidence. I'd agree that social distancing and hand washing helped to flatten the curve, and that the business shutdown was totally draconian and unnecessary. But Schlossberg does not mind bc he's still collecting. If he really cared about the people he represents he's do something about the failure to process unemployment and SNAP claims.
10:27, Thanks for that link. Will check.
Folks, If you wish to post a comment, you're welcome to do so. But try to at least be informative. As I have told you many times, I delete all comments that make sweeping generalizations about Dems or Rs. Neither party has any reason to be proud.
Was Rachel's name really Dick? This is beyond parody.
There's no correlation between complete business shutdowns and lower virus numbers. Cancelled large events and handwashing without shutdowns have achieved the same rate of success. We went too far.
I thought Fauci was the real deal, having worked across several administrations. It seems he was more of an international cocktail circuit guy than a serious infectious disease professional. He's been comically wrong from the beginning. He's pulled numbers from his ass at every step. None of them have been anywhere near close. Old lawyer. Young doctor. Fauci's old.
Bernie O'Hare said...
Folks, If you wish to post a comment, you're welcome to do so. But try to at least be informative. As I have told you many times, I delete all comments that make sweeping generalizations about Dems or Rs. Neither party has any reason to be proud.
April 13, 2020 at 11:38 AM
Isn't this a sweeping generalization?
Both Fauci and Birx are heavily connected to The WHO, Gates Foundation, and Big Pharma. That fact is easy to find.
This link gives an impartial non-partisan look into the death rate in NYC. At the bottom of the page is a link to view the daily death statistics in NYC. It was last updated yesterday @ 5pm. It shows the overwhelming disparity between Covid-19 deaths with underlying conditions as opposed to the number without preexisting conditions. I think it is important to note that discrepancy. For many people that have underlying issues, any illness can have grave consequences. These stats need to be more widely presented.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
try
https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2020/03/25/are-stay-at-home-orders-constitutional/#7deaf16b104e
"The Court acknowledged that “the liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment . . . consists, in part, in the right of a person ‘to live and work where he will.’" But it added: “in every well-ordered society . . . the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.”
But we're not doing testing nearly as much as we should, so contact tracing is not going to be effective.
That's why people need to stay the hell home for a while.
But Wolf is doing a terrible job with unemployment and other safety net measures and is unable to even pay state employees.
That's why we need to get back too work. State government has failed already, and I have no confidence in Wolf or Levine.
3:38, As I said, I refuse to engage you in any additional discussion until you ID yourself
4:00 pm, and those restrictions on liberty are very strictly construed and require evidence of an overriding state interest. Take, for example, the reaction of a court when Louisville's Mayor attempted to stop a drive-in Easter service that complied with CDC guidelines. Judge Justin Walker enjoined the Louisville Mayor, and wrote: "An American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter ... . That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion. … The Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/11/louisville-church-coronavirus/
These guys did it better than The Onion ...
https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1249781966582493184?s=19
Every Governor and the courts are wrong. Bernie O'Hare, King of the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Does this have to do with the fact you can't roam the courthouse for free and go to the gym??
You are really over the top on this. It is a Public health crisis and you and your tea party trolls are just about yourselves. You don't give a crap about the Constitution or for peoples live, just you own selfish desires.
NO analysis of the nationwide death rate/totals is relevant without comparing all of 2019 with all of 2020. Right now, we are picking out small time periods that can be skewed to any desired result.
At the moment, COVID-19 is EXCLUSIVE to 2020. There is nothing of empirical value to compare with, if the goal is to show COVID-19 is creating an annual increase in death brought to this nation solely due to COVID-19, it is not yet possible to know.
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