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Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

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Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#71

Post by phobosanomaly »

netsharc wrote: post #67
ynfnehf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to YouGov the latest numbers are 9% wearing masks when in public, it has become a bit higher lately (was 7% just a couple of weeks ago). But I think 9% is far too high. I very rarely encounter a mask while taking a walk in the city closest to where I live. Although that might be due to those wearing masks not being as active in public. https://today.yougov.com/topics/international/articles-repor...

I'm pro mask, but I don't get wearing a mask if someone is just walking outside with no one around them. It's not like the whole world turned to Pripyat next to Chernobyl...

Sometimes I leave the mask on outside, even though it's a little ridiculous, because I find it awkward when someone does show up and you both do the 'put on the mask dance.' I hate the mask dance. It makes me feel really uncomfortable. So, I just leave it on.

Sometimes I just forget too. I accidentally terrorized a young couple at Joshua Tree last weekend, because I didn't have my mask on, I was out climbing and in my 'happy place,' and I completely forgot there was a pandemic and just wandered right by them and waved and said 'hi.' It wasn't until later that evening that I realized why they were looking at me with wide-eyes and edging away from me. So, I wish I had just left the thing on in that case.

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#73

Post by superseeplus »

bradddd wrote: post #8
x87678r wrote: post #4

Its crazy they didn't talk about testing. In April if you were a 25 year old with a mild cough you couldn't get a test even if you begged for one. Now you can get a test easily, its little wonder the denominator has gone up a lot. Edit: Yeah I see its hospitalized and they tried to control. I'm not convinced its a useful study but at least dont upvote this.

Important to note that their findings are of hospitalized patients. Even back in April, nearly all admitted patients were being tested.

The criteria for being admitted was also stricter back then at least in NYC.

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#74

Post by techsin101 »

xpe wrote: post #2

Summary: > Studying changes in death rate is tricky because although the overall U.S. death rate for COVID-19 seems to be dropping, the drop coincides with a change in whom the disease is sickening. > So have death rates dropped because of improvements in treatments? Or is it because of the change in who's getting sick? > To find out, Horwitz and her colleagues looked at more than 5,000 hospitalizations in the NYU La…

is the reason better treatment or weakened virus?

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#75

Post by phobosanomaly »

yadco wrote: post #21
mikewarot wrote: post #14

I'm very glad fewer people are dying, but Most people didn't die with Polio... they were somehow crippled for life... I suspect the same is true with Covid-19. We need to eliminate it, not manage it.

It's impossible to eliminate it.

You're probably right, but I think you're getting downvoted because you're not providing a source.

Polio -

"Poliovirus causes acute, nonpersistent infections, virus is transmitted by infectious humans or their waste, survival of virus in the environment is finite, humans are the only reservoir, and immunization with polio vaccine interrupts virus transmission."

Dowdle WR, Birmingham ME. The biologic principles of poliovirus eradication. J Infect Dis. 1997 Feb;175 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S286-92. doi: 10.1093/infdis/175.supplement_1.s286. PMID: 9203732; PMCID: PMC7110371.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9203732/

Sars-CoV -

"Research so far suggests many species can be infected. In lab experiments, cats, fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus), ferrets, rhesus macaques and hamsters have been shown to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. Outside the lab, animals including pet cats and dogs, tigers and lions at zoos, and farmed mink have also caught the virus — probably from people."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01449-8

So, coronaviruses can hang out in animals, which makes it really hard to eradicate because it will just keep showing up. With Polio, however, if you kill it in humans, it's not hanging out in animals, and it's just goooone.

Plus, with Poliovirus, vaccine adoption was high because the thing paralyzes children. As a result, parents who were considering vaccination were sort of faced with a very straightforward question: "Do you want your child to be in a wheelchair for the rest of their life like the neighbor's kid, or do you want to give them a quick vaccine?." With COVID, we don't have such a clear-cut causal relationship in terms of "give your children this vaccine or XYZ really bad things will happen to your kid." If you don't vaccinate them now, as a parent, you won't have to explain to them 10-years down the road why you're the reason they have to spend the rest of their life in a wheelchair. So, although it's a bit premature to say anything, I think it's reasonable to expect that vaccine adoption will be a little lower.

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#76

Post by edw_ »

chrisco255 wrote: post #62
IgorPartola wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People who have survived severe cases of SARS1 apparently had lasting lung damage that put that at significantly increased risk with COVID.

Source on those numbers and how common that was?

There's lots of writing on this topic. https://www.immunology.org/sites/default/files/BSI_Briefing_...

"A longitudinal study of SARS1 patients from 2003 to 2018 found that more than a third had reduced lung capacity. Similarly, with MERS, a third of survivors had long-term lung damage."

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#77

Post by tinus_hn »

xpe wrote: post #2

Summary: > Studying changes in death rate is tricky because although the overall U.S. death rate for COVID-19 seems to be dropping, the drop coincides with a change in whom the disease is sickening. > So have death rates dropped because of improvements in treatments? Or is it because of the change in who's getting sick? > To find out, Horwitz and her colleagues looked at more than 5,000 hospitalizations in the NYU La…

Surprisingly the fatality rate is dropping because of all these treatments that according to WHO have no effect.

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#78

Post by tinus_hn »

mmastrac wrote: post #15

> Horwitz believes that mask-wearing may be helping by reducing the initial dose of virus a person receives, thereby lessening the overall severity of illness for many patients. Now if only we could drill this lesson into everyone's head.

It may or may not, the effect is the same in countries where nobody wears masks.

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#79

Post by HarryHirsch »

rossdavidh wrote: post #69
HarryHirsch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a virus new to humans, will evolve to become less likely to either kill the host Oh, come on, the pox had mortality > 30 %. Evolutionary pressure favours easy spreading.

Sure, evolution pressure favors easy spreading, but if sick people stay home or go to the hospital, and non-sick people go out, then that pressure is to make the host sick less often. Early estimates for mortality in Wuhan were 3-5%. Later estimates kept dropping, and are now at 0.39%. Most viruses do not make the host sick, and the longer it's been in humans, the more likely it is that this is so. If the mortality r…

Coronaviruses mutate quite slowly, this one has been around for less than a year, you would not expect to see much change in virulence over that timespan. Any lowering of mortality is best explained by more thorough testing.

Re: Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

#80

Post by chrisco255 »

tzs wrote: post #66
chrisco255 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see the same drop in death rate across the board, by state, by country, regardless of policy choices. Regardless of mask wearing. Sweden's daily death count has flatlined at near zero per day for over three months, Florida, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota, etc all seeing similar drop in hospitalizations and deaths.

You say "death rate" in the first sentence, but then talk of "death count" and "deaths" in the rest. Did you mean "death rate" in the rest too? If you meant "death count" or "deaths", then it is not the cast for South Dakota. Their deaths have gone way up per capita over the last few weeks. There are two big questions most people would like answers too: 1. What are my chances of getting COVID? 2. How screwed am I if…

Here's the numbers on South Dakota: https://doh.sd.gov/news/coronavirus.aspx#SD

You can see mortality rate plummeted shortly after the pandemic started and that it has stayed flat or dropped even in the face of the recent rise in cases.

While cases have gone up finally in South Dakota, the mortality rate is still less than a 10th of what it was in the beginning.

So meanwhile, they were open for 9 months. That is well beyond the incubation period for this virus so what changed to cause the spike?

They are still ranked 40th in terms of deaths per million by state. The worst states have been New Jersey and New York, and Massachusetts, by far, who failed to protect their nursing home and assisted living patients early on in pandemic.

Florida is completely open right now. Not only is there no mask orders, there are no restrictions on populations or businesses.

Deaths per day are down and mortality rate is down: https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/#latest-stats. New cases flat.

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