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How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

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Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#111

Post by albroland »

pbourke wrote: post #108
albroland wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even a matter of being equipped to handle it imo; all signs also point to COVID19 not being as serious as initially thought and far more mild than expected. Administrating the test for it is both expensive, and time consuming, so the gross number of known infections is likely to be substantially underreported because of selection bias (why run expensive RNA analysis on a blood sample if the person is having…

People who hold the above opinion, can you explain what makes you confident in your position, given that it’s in opposition to essentially the entire worldwide public health community?

Can you cite some of the worldwide public health community that disagrees with the assertions? All the alarmism I've seen is coming from a media, typically with wildly outdated or incorrect statistics.

WHO's clickbait ten tips for conoravirus include statements such as "Most people will have mild disease and get better without needing any special care." [1]

If you read the stuff they've been publishing, you'll get quotes such as "Most people infected with COVID-19 virus have mild disease and recover. Approximately 80% of laboratory confirmed patients have had mild to moderate disease, which includes non-pneumonia and pneumonia cases", and "Recognize that COVID-19 is a new and concerning disease, but that outbreaks can managed with the right response and that the vast majority of infected people will recover;" [2]

They also discuss how we're already seeing the death ratio dropping substantially, and treatment is being improved: "In China, the overall CFR was higher in the early stages of the outbreak (17.3% for cases with symptom onset from 1-10 January) and has reduced over time to 0.7% for patients with symptom onset after 1 February (Figure 4). The Joint Mission noted that the standard of care has evolved over the course of the outbreak." [2]

CDC publications and announcements follow similar sentiments.

Edit: adding NEJM quote that supports my assumption about sampling issues: "We found a lower case fatality rate (1.4%) than the rate that was recently reportedly, probably because of the difference in sample sizes and case inclusion criteria. Our findings were more similar to the national official statistics, which showed a rate of death of 3.2% among 51,857 cases of Covid-19 as of February 16, 2020. Since patients who were mildly ill and who did not seek medical attention were not included in our study, the case fatality rate in a real-world scenario might be even lower. Early isolation, early diagnosis, and early management might have collectively contributed to the reduction in mortality in Guangdong." [3]

[1] https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-diretor-general-s...

[2] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-chi...

[3] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#112

Post by moultano »

moultano wrote: post #13

For those of you reading this from the bay area, we already have suspected community transmission 50 miles away, in a town with a lot of people who commute to the Bay. If it's easy for you to work from home, consider doing so, giving explicit permission to your reports to do so, and asking your manager to give permission to their reports to do so. We're fortunate to be in an industry where WFH has relatively little c…

The WHO is now encouraging it. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1233488277363183617?s=19

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#113

Post by ternaryoperator »

nostromo wrote: post #84
js2 wrote: post #36

While doing ancestry research years ago, I learned I had a 2nd great uncle who immigrated to America from Romania aboard the RMS Carpathia in 1904. (Eight years later in 1912, this would be the first ship to come to the Titanic’s rescue, and six years after that would itself be sunk by a U-Boat.) He had left Romania likely to escape anti-semitism. He’d eventually find his way out to Denver. Sadly, he’d die in 1918 (t…

It's worth noting that the 1918 flu was unique in that it killed many young, healthy people. Corona virus is more typical in that it's primarily killing the very old or otherwise ill. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...

Nonetheless, the 34-year old doctor who first sounded the alarm about Covid 19 died from it--barely a month after contracting it.

It's hard to know whether the elderly and the ill are simply the first wave of casualties or not.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/06/whistleblower-...

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#114

Post by tkahnoski »

nostromo wrote: post #99
tkahnoski wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. I have this opinion of my dog. An extra year or two... not a big deal. I do not have this opinion of my parents or any other immuno-compromised individual. Your worst-case-scenario is absolutely the worst-case scenario in many individual's minds. If the greater good is not the extension of the life of those around us what exactly are we trying to do here? There are many things worth crashing the world-economy o…

Please don’t put words in my mouth.

I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. I can see other ways of interpreting what you said.

I originally took your point to be that the current risks, although sad, are acceptable and we face greater peril from slowing down economic activity.

Although I see trade-offs to everything I see economic activity fundamentally as in service to the quality of life of a person and would rather take the sadness of losing greater economic gains to the sadness losing significantly more people.

There is always a balance to this and I could interpret what you said as having a different perspective on what the current risks are but without additional context, I took it as I did.

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#115

Post by adventured »

macintux wrote: post #53
Loughla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you mean by this.

VP Pence has been given veto authority over all messaging, and the CDC’s funding in this area was gutted early in the administration.

The CDC's funding was not gutted in that area, that's a false propaganda point being shoveled by several prominent Democrats. Trump attempted to push cuts through and failed, fortunately.

> AP FACT CHECK: Democrats distort coronavirus readiness

> Democratic presidential contenders are describing the federal infectious-disease bureaucracy as rudderless and ill-prepared for the coronavirus threat because of budget cuts and ham-handed leadership by President Donald Trump. That’s a distorted picture. For starters, Trump hasn’t succeeded in cutting the budget.

> He’s proposed cuts but Congress ignored him and increased financing instead. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren’t suffering from budget cuts that never took effect.

https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#116

Post by phyzome »

lqet wrote: post #109

> history’s worst epidemic Come again?

I suppose it depends on whether you look at total killed or percent killed. The Black Death might have had a higher total body count, but smallpox hitting the Americas had a massive mortality rate, something like 50% or higher.

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#117

Post by MrGilbert »

js2 wrote: post #36

While doing ancestry research years ago, I learned I had a 2nd great uncle who immigrated to America from Romania aboard the RMS Carpathia in 1904. (Eight years later in 1912, this would be the first ship to come to the Titanic’s rescue, and six years after that would itself be sunk by a U-Boat.) He had left Romania likely to escape anti-semitism. He’d eventually find his way out to Denver. Sadly, he’d die in 1918 (t…

I'm impressed how far back you've managed to come in your history. An uncle of mine did something similiar some 20 years ago. He managed to get to the point by the end of 1890 where we realized that our grand-grandfather was a Kuckuckskind [1] - and part of our family immigrated to the US.

[1]: A "Kuckuckskind" (German for "cuckoo's child") is a child who's social father is not their biological father. However, this is unkown to both the child and the father, only the mother knows this. I didn't find prove if this is an actual english analogy, so... here you go.

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#118

Post by Anon84 »

MrGilbert wrote: post #117
js2 wrote: post #36

While doing ancestry research years ago, I learned I had a 2nd great uncle who immigrated to America from Romania aboard the RMS Carpathia in 1904. (Eight years later in 1912, this would be the first ship to come to the Titanic’s rescue, and six years after that would itself be sunk by a U-Boat.) He had left Romania likely to escape anti-semitism. He’d eventually find his way out to Denver. Sadly, he’d die in 1918 (t…

I'm impressed how far back you've managed to come in your history. An uncle of mine did something similiar some 20 years ago. He managed to get to the point by the end of 1890 where we realized that our grand-grandfather was a Kuckuckskind [1] - and part of our family immigrated to the US. [1]: A "Kuckuckskind" (German for "cuckoo's child") is a child who's social father is not their biological father. However, this…

Wouldn't this just be a bastard child?

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#119

Post by Seenso »

Anon84 wrote: post #118
MrGilbert wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm impressed how far back you've managed to come in your history. An uncle of mine did something similiar some 20 years ago. He managed to get to the point by the end of 1890 where we realized that our grand-grandfather was a Kuckuckskind [1] - and part of our family immigrated to the US. [1]: A "Kuckuckskind" (German for "cuckoo's child") is a child who's social father is not their biological father. However, this…

Wouldn't this just be a bastard child?

I don't think so. Isn't a bastard a child born to an unmarried mother?

In the cuckoo's child case, as far society knows the child has two legitimately married parents.

Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

#120

Post by svachalek »

albroland wrote: post #111
pbourke wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who hold the above opinion, can you explain what makes you confident in your position, given that it’s in opposition to essentially the entire worldwide public health community?

Can you cite some of the worldwide public health community that disagrees with the assertions? All the alarmism I've seen is coming from a media, typically with wildly outdated or incorrect statistics. WHO's clickbait ten tips for conoravirus include statements such as "Most people will have mild disease and get better without needing any special care." [1] If you read the stuff they've been publishing, you'll get qu…

So, a 20% chance of a severe case (which means hospitalization as far as I know) is no big deal?

Also am I reading that correctly that they are including pneumonia in the "mild or moderate" category?

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