MoMoney$$$;)0) wrote: ↑April 22nd, 2020, 8:17 pm
Things2do wrote: ↑March 12th, 2020, 10:34 pm
For those that have been chiding the US response and talking about how well China, Italy, South Korea, and wherever else have been handling the spread, what do you think of the far right column, "Total Cases/1M Population"? Even accounting for the approximate amount of time, since I have yet to find a graph of the various case rates by time of first case and country and these are therefore assumptions from here on, that the virus has been in various places, the case rate seems to be lower in the US.
Oh how the turns have tabled. I guess nobody would have guessed this happening though. :?:
The US is still doing better in cases per million population than Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Qatar, Switzerland, and Italy. There are more up there, but I threw out the countries with less than 4,000 cases. Also, now that data is available from many more large countries, I believe that I was mistaken in believing that China was factually reporting their new cases and such.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200428003 ... ronavirus/
I like what Sweden is doing, staying as open as possible without overrunning their hospitals, instead of shutting down nearly everything possible and increasing restrictions as numbers decrease. If you remember, the original reason for the shutdown was to flatten the curve, not to save every possible life from COVID-19 irrespective of the costs.
https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising ... cher-shows Remember, people will die from it. The longer this gets drug out, the longer the virus is around. The longer the virus is around, the longer it's possible for those susceptible to it to contract it. Not to mention how many people are going hungry; the people like the lady in town that died at home, in severe pain, from a bowel blockage because she didn't want to go to the hospital alone; the people that will die from heart attacks and the like because they can't get exercise because the parks are closed, the gyms are closed, the beaches are closed; et cetera...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/07/ ... wn-sweden/
Something else I've been looking at is the case data for Hamilton County, TN. On Easter Sunday, there was a tornado outbreak. In the days and weeks since, there have been church groups from all over the area, random volunteers from who knows where, line crews from all over, and more... I've been in one of the hardest hit neighborhoods on at least 5 different days, and we know someone that was carried out of her house. There was at least one group of neighbors that went around and carried people out of the rubble before the emergency crews could even get in there. There have been large groups of people everywhere, handshakes, hugs, and homemade food galore, no social distancing, and no personal protective equipment has been worn by 95% of the people, except for masks. The masks are typically only worn inside of buildings to protect from the insulation, possibly asbestos, and whatever else may be in the air.
During all of this, Hamilton County has been increasing their testing. On April 9th, three days before the tornadoes, they had 98 positive tests and 10 deaths. On April 20th, 8 days after the tornadoes, they had 121 positive tests and 13 fatalities. Today, April 27th, they have 149 positive tests and 13 fatalities. There were at least a thousand people around, by some estimates. With all of the disregarding of the protocols by so many people, where is the spike in cases? Given how many more tests they are running now, I believe that the percentage of positive test results is actually going down. One site conducted 1,377 tests this weekend. Half of those have results, and 4 are positive.
The blue in this graph is the new cases. The gold is the total number of cases.
http://health.hamiltontn.org/AllService ... D-19).aspx
https://newschannel9.com/news/local/slo ... e-positive
There's also this little thing about SARS-CoV-2 having a half-life of 2 minutes on surfaces and 90 seconds when suspended in the air in a sunny, high humidity environment. Which, if true, means that there was little to no reason to close outdoor, public spaces.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKCN2253SA
Finally, if you live in a giant apartment building in, say, New York City, and you stay home, you will most likely be riding the same elevator or walking the same stairs as everyone else, you will be confined to a building that probably has low to medium humidity, little direct sunlight, and air will circulate throughout the building, spreading any potential droplets far and wide. The more time you spend in such a environment, the more likely you will be to contact and potentially contract COVID-19. {No sources because this paragraph is just my opinion.}
Maybe I should write a book about this...