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Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

reuters.com

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Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#111

Post by aphroz »

rsynnott wrote: post #97
aphroz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this chart you can see that this peak is normal for the period, even lower than 2016.

You’re reading it wrong. We’re on week 16. Week 16 is normally close to the low point, not spiking. The good news is that it seems to be starting to fall in most countries.

Yes, but this is my point, what if the peak just shifted this year. All the people that might have died because of the flu are now dying from COVID-19. People looking back at the data in 100 years won't probably notice that there was an epidemic.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#112

Post by raincom »

marklacey wrote: post #88
mchusma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the Sweden example. Their daily % increase in deaths is well below California. I don't know if there is a difference in counting deaths but Sweden seems to be doing ok relative to other countries. I have heard that they are effectively shut down voluntarily, so government action was not needed but the effect has been the same. Maybe a Swede can weigh in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavir…

Sweden has 1/4th the population of California. It looks like the total deaths is around 50% higher than California although of course California might have deaths that should have been attributed to COVID-19 that weren’t. It looks like it was estimated to have arrived in Sweden two days earlier.

Maybe, Swedish towns are denser than California ones.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#113

Post by marklacey »

raincom wrote: post #112
marklacey wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden has 1/4th the population of California. It looks like the total deaths is around 50% higher than California although of course California might have deaths that should have been attributed to COVID-19 that weren’t. It looks like it was estimated to have arrived in Sweden two days earlier.

Maybe, Swedish towns are denser than California ones.

The SF Bay Area has a population that is 75% of Sweden’s entire population.

SF itself is more densely populated than Sweden’s most densely populated city which appears to be Stockholm (7700/km^2 vs 5000/km^2). Stockholm has a population around 20% larger than SF.

According to Wikipedia, California is smaller than Sweden.

So there may be some dense pockets in Sweden but it certainly isn’t more densely populated than California and it doesn’t appear that there are large cities that approach the density of NYC/SF.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#114

Post by vanniv »

beerandt wrote: post #96
CydeWeys wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This turns out not to be the case. Ventilators don't actually help much with COVID-19. If you end up severe enough to not be able to breathe on your own you're likely to die, and the ventilator only prolongs it. So running out of ventilators won't actually cause many more deaths. The way to prevent a lot of deaths is simply to prevent people from catching it at all.

Most recent numbers I've seen are that if you go on a vent, you've got a 70% (San Fransisco) to 90% (New Orleans) chance of dying. Not great. Anecdotal word from family members working in ERs is that none of them have been on a shift with a successful code run on a covid patient. CPR is low single digits 30-day survival based on Chinese numbers released this week. It was something like (1) patient survived out of 37…

Given the misery and problems associated with long-term ventilator usage, I'm not sure vents for covid is a good idea at all

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#115

Post by vanniv »

save_ferris wrote: post #35
redis_mlc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish this b.s. would stop. Corona virus is so contagious and we're so unprepared that it will continue to spread in the US regardless of what we do. Yes, thousands will die regardless of what we do. But there is no way lockdown will continue until people starve. So end this timid lockdown before the total destruction of our economy. Start thinking about public policy instead of "my dear 80 year-old grandpa in the h…

There’s absolutely no guarantee that the economy will make a quick recovery if the lockdowns are lifted. If the death toll starts to spike, people are going to stay home anyway, and businesses will be bleeding cash hoping for a recovery that isn’t coming quickly enough.

If people will stay home anyway if need be, then there really is no reason for the authoritarian lockdowns, is there.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#116

Post by true_religion »

aphroz wrote: post #111
rsynnott wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re reading it wrong. We’re on week 16. Week 16 is normally close to the low point, not spiking. The good news is that it seems to be starting to fall in most countries.

Yes, but this is my point, what if the peak just shifted this year. All the people that might have died because of the flu are now dying from COVID-19. People looking back at the data in 100 years won't probably notice that there was an epidemic.

If nothing else, the virus is more effective at spreading than common influenzas so people who would have never gotten the flu, are getting Covid and dying from it.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#117

Post by beerandt »

vanniv wrote: post #114
beerandt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most recent numbers I've seen are that if you go on a vent, you've got a 70% (San Fransisco) to 90% (New Orleans) chance of dying. Not great. Anecdotal word from family members working in ERs is that none of them have been on a shift with a successful code run on a covid patient. CPR is low single digits 30-day survival based on Chinese numbers released this week. It was something like (1) patient survived out of 37…

Given the misery and problems associated with long-term ventilator usage, I'm not sure vents for covid is a good idea at all

Yeah, I started to go there earlier, but stopped myself.

Doctors seem to be doing a better job of informing patients (or families) of those issues before intubating, especially if they have multiple risk factors, and a surprising number of cases have opted not to vent.

But also:

1) There are quite a few really sad stories of patients getting dropped at the ED curb by a spouse as if they'll get checked out and be right back out to go home, only to be immediately intubated and sedated, and ultimately dying without family by their side and no chance to say goodbyes.

They now make a lot of effort to make phone calls or video chats to family before intubating anyone, but it's still rough without anyone being able to be there, and then not being able to speak either. And it just adds to the weight of what the nurses have to deal with, emotionally.

2)There's also the murky topic of straining hospital resources. You obviously don't know ahead of time who the 10-30% of survivors will be and you want to save whoever you can, and hopefully we never get to the point of true rationing. But...

It's hard to be blind to the fact that it's a huge amount of risk, resources, and physical & emotional effort that are seeing relatively little success. I don't have an answer. Hopefully we get better at it.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#119

Post by JamisonM »

vtail wrote: post #9
JamisonM wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Russia is already setting that example, really no need for two. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/covid-19-russia-spike-cases-1....

Moscow and most of the other places in Russia are on a complete lockdown for more than a week now - much stricter that eg. NY or California. I’m not sure what do you mean by your comment.

I think if you read the article I linked to you can see what I mean. They were forbidding medical staff from doing tests and treatments!

... In an interview with CBC News on Monday, Dr. Rimma Kamalova, who heads the hospital's rheumatology department and is quarantined in the facility, said when the outbreak started, regional health authorities refused to test patients for coronavirus.

"According to our policies ... we could not do testing on coronavirus," she said.

"We had orders, at that time, not to give this diagnosis and take the relevant [mitigation] measures." ...

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#120

Post by JamisonM »

jryle70 wrote: post #78
2019-nCoV wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is honestly handling the crisis better than most of the western world. They've done >1.6M tests with a positivity rate of 1.7%.

Moscow's metro has been a mess the last few days as big crowd waiting for permission checking: https://varlamov.ru/3860702.html

This is exactly why I don't understand where people are getting the idea Russia is doing a good job of managing this!

That looks like a lot of things, but it sure as heck doesn't look like a lockdown, certainly doesn't look like one that is going to be anywhere near as effective as the lockdowns in other jurisdictions. Crowding like that is absurd.

Add to that the fact that they share a large border with China and were pretending to have no cases for at least a solid month or so. As the article I linked to stated, they have even given up on the propaganda effort at this point. Even the authorities in Russia whose specialty is self-deception know which way this is headed now!

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