311–320 of 340 posts
Long term consequences are where it's at. This article talks none of it. Let's hope that Sweden doesn't have heart failure and ground glass lungs for the next decades at high rates. Such a gamble from one doctor.
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"Sebastian Rushworth M.D." clearly states at the beginning of his internet post that it's anecdotal, even though his bio suggests he's trying to correct internet misinformation with "science". It absolutely shouldn't be censored. I mean, if I was considering taking this guy's medical advice - I'd want to know about this.
I agree with most of the things in this article, but it smells an awful lot like a planted piece. The name is very unusual for a Swedish person, I can only find three people with that last name in Sweden, and none of them has the first name Sebastian. The image of him in a gas mask is vague enough that you can't identify the person based on that. The blog is a hosted wordpress that only has a couple of articles going…
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Life expectancy at 80 in the US is about 9 years. You have a remarkably cavalier attitude.
The same argument is made by the Swedish ER doctor in the linked article: “Considering that 70% of those who have died of covid are over 80 years old, quite a few of those 6,000 would have died this year anyway. That makes covid a mere blip in terms of its effect on mortality.” It’s just empirically true that dying at 80 is different from dying at 20 if you’re assessing the impact of a pandemic. I guess it needs to b…
It is surprising to hear someone who is supposed to care about the bodies and minds of people be such a cowboy when it comes to their lives. If it's not a big deal for people over 80 to die because "quite a few [of them] would have died this year anyway", maybe we should stop admitting people over 80 to hospitals and save the costs of their care? Does that really sound like a sensible proposition?
I am reminded of the Italian scientist, Rita Levi-Montalcini who receivead a Nobel prize in physiology of medicine at 77 and continued to work and make contributions well into her last years of life until she died at 103 [1]. Of course there are exceedingly few such exceptional people, but my point is that it is perfectly possible for someone to enjoy many years of a productive life after their 80'th birthday and perhaps we should be doing more to ensure that this is not such a rare occurrence, rather than assuming that all those old fossils are dying anyway and leave them to it because them young 'uns wants to go out dancin' and drinkin'.
After all, most people plan to grow old anyway. How many of us are comfortable with the idea that, in our old age, priority will be given to "the economy", not to mention the very economy we worked our arse off to keep going while we were young? What is this economy anyway, Moloch?
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" Covid has at present killed less than 6000 in Sweden. It is very unlikely that the number of dead will go above 7,000. An average influenza year in Sweden, 700 people die of influenza. " The average number of people who die of influenza in the US is about 35,000. So we should expect 350,000 deaths and then we'll be all good?
What Covid-19 made me realise is that there are tens of thousands of lives we could be saving each year by adopting some simple behavioural rules that definitely do not need to harm the economy. For example, stay home when you have flu-like symptoms, don't touch your face, wash your hands thoroughly, sneeze into your elbow or a handkerchief and get rid of it immediately and so on. No need for lockdowns or anything- just keep in the front of peoples' minds the fact that diseases can be carried around, are carried around, by people doing normal people things all together in a big place with lots of people.
In fact, I believe I've seen signs advising such measures to curb the spread of disease around the London Underground and I think also the Paris Metró, but I've always, until now, ignored them. When I had flu-like symptoms I've always soldiered on and went to work because that was expected of me and that's what my coleagues also did- and more than once I actually got sick after noticing someone sick at work [1].
Well, no more. Not for me anyway. I had no idea. But now I do.
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[1] And one time I got a real nasty stomach bug after I used the toilets after a coleague who had just recovered from a similar infection. I do always wash my bloody hands after, but it seems he didn't and well, there was one door handle in the loo. Yeeew dude. Yeew.
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Your numbers are way off. 25% percent of NYC was seropositive in May. So that works out to about 25k per 100k people. The reported cases have always been just the tip of the iceberg. And we never knew how big the underwater part was. We still down't. Take the current situation, is the disease penetration larger than that in March/April? Most likely not, not even close, yet the reported new cases are about 5x larger.
The most recent, randomized studies of the NYC metro area finds SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in about 14% of participants when they randomly solicit people directly. Prior studies put out ads looking for participants, naturally drawing in people who "had that unexplained thing a few months back". Even when directly appealing to people the participation rate is likely higher among people who suspect they may have had it. We…
Even at 14% seropositivity the true number of people that had the virus is likely larger. There are reports that some (many?) people that recover do so without needed antibodies.
Working backwards, taking the fairly accepted value of 0.6% fatality rate, the 30K deaths in NYC would indicate around 5 million infections. Now the the NYC fatality rate is likely higher due to Cuomo's mind boggling order regarding nursing homes.
Regardless I think it is fair to estimate that the true number of cases in NYC is likely to fall between the reported 400k and the upper limit of 5 million. At 25% seropositivity would be around 2 million, to me sounds believable.
"COVID is over in Sweden" is a pretty bold claim with ~400 daily infections, and increasing again as per https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6... Just like in other EU countries, it is now the younger population which seems mostly affected, and thus the mortality is lower - which is ultimately some good news. Summer holidays are now almost over though, so people are traveling home from vacation…
daily infections are irelevant if almost all of them are asymptomatic or extremely mild not requiring any hospitalization Czechia has 200-300 daily infections and we have like 30 hospitalized patients also in country of 10.7M, so there is pretty much zero chance of dying from COVID, from those 390 people who dies in those 4 months (where usually dies around 40000 people from all causes) had other issues and coronavir…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same argument is made by the Swedish ER doctor in the linked article: “Considering that 70% of those who have died of covid are over 80 years old, quite a few of those 6,000 would have died this year anyway. That makes covid a mere blip in terms of its effect on mortality.” It’s just empirically true that dying at 80 is different from dying at 20 if you’re assessing the impact of a pandemic. I guess it needs to b…
The Swedish doctor also has a remarkably cavalier attitude about mortality and I'm willing to bet quite a large sum that he wouldn't be so gung-ho about it if he were 80 years old himself. It is surprising to hear someone who is supposed to care about the bodies and minds of people be such a cowboy when it comes to their lives. If it's not a big deal for people over 80 to die because "quite a few [of them] would have…
This is miles from what he says. He is arguing for the adjustment of a statistic. He is arguing that Covid has had a minimal affect on the death rate and even smaller when you adjust for how many of the dead would already have been included in the much larger baseline number of expected annual deaths because they are over 80 and X% of those over 80 die each year even with no Covid.
I’m not even sure I agree with him on this or other arguments but it’s clear he values the life of the elderly. As an ER doctor he probably treats many (and many with Covid) each day. I think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt on valuing life, more than most of us here who treat and save no one.
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That's helpful as we Americans don't have much visibility into what it's actually like in Sweden. I think the big differentiator is that for California at least, people have been staying at home since late March, with the exception of essential workers (~20%?). Many are working from home, but many are unemployed too. So while Sweden still did a lot, the distinction is pretty large with regards to disruption to "norma…
In Stockholm (where I lived), the recommendation was to work from home if possible. My workplace had had >95% of staff working from home from the beginning of march. Most of my friends here, except for those in healthcare or education, faced the exact same situation. So, institutions did keep people at home if possible, and companies did too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same argument is made by the Swedish ER doctor in the linked article: “Considering that 70% of those who have died of covid are over 80 years old, quite a few of those 6,000 would have died this year anyway. That makes covid a mere blip in terms of its effect on mortality.” It’s just empirically true that dying at 80 is different from dying at 20 if you’re assessing the impact of a pandemic. I guess it needs to b…
The Swedish doctor also has a remarkably cavalier attitude about mortality and I'm willing to bet quite a large sum that he wouldn't be so gung-ho about it if he were 80 years old himself. It is surprising to hear someone who is supposed to care about the bodies and minds of people be such a cowboy when it comes to their lives. If it's not a big deal for people over 80 to die because "quite a few [of them] would have…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Swedish doctor also has a remarkably cavalier attitude about mortality and I'm willing to bet quite a large sum that he wouldn't be so gung-ho about it if he were 80 years old himself. It is surprising to hear someone who is supposed to care about the bodies and minds of people be such a cowboy when it comes to their lives. If it's not a big deal for people over 80 to die because "quite a few [of them] would have…
> If it's not a big deal for people over 80 to die because "quite a few [of them] would have died this year anyway" This is miles from what he says. He is arguing for the adjustment of a statistic. He is arguing that Covid has had a minimal affect on the death rate and even smaller when you adjust for how many of the dead would already have been included in the much larger baseline number of expected annual deaths be…
>> “Considering that 70% of those who have died of covid are over 80 years old, quite a few of those 6,000 would have died this year anyway. That makes covid a mere blip in terms of its effect on mortality
My comment:
>> If it's not a big deal for people over 80 to die because "quite a few [of them] would have died this year anyway".
Though I should perhaps not have paraphrased, I believe my comment captures the feeling of the doctor's statement well. Yes, he is making a point about mortality rates. Also, he's making the point that 6,000 people dead is a mere blip on mortality because most of them would be dying anyway. His entire post is a declaration that Covid-19 and the deaths from it are not a big deal because most were very old and on their way out anyway.