Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which would in fact be good news in a certain way, because either it's as deadly as reported and nowhere near as contagious as your last paragraph suggests, or its far more contagious and widespread but thus nowhere near as deadly as is being seen from case fatality rates derived from known cases. I'm not stating anything new with this really, but your case is likely one of many, many others in which a person felt my…
I believe there have been several random studies and very educated estimates that came from these that show that the mortality rate is about 0.5% or even lower, which might put it close to the same order of magnitude as the flu. However, crucially, it is much much more contagious than the flu. With an R0 of 2 or more (some estimate up to 6) the difference after a few days, because of exponential growth, is as much as…
Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
111–120 of 232 posts
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a matter of caution, I always keep psychostimulants handy. Particularly: ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, and amphetamine salts. Also keep some other beta receptor agonists, like Ventolin. You never know when it can save your life.
Are those medicines actually advisable for covid?
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
>we already have direct evidence that when it spreads without any containment it causes unacceptably extreme amounts of sickness and death That hasn't happened in Sweden.
Sweden didn't take no measures. Sweden took flexible measures[1]. Social distancing, allowing anyone who felt sick to stay home, encouraging people to work from home (and 50% Swedes apparently can do that[2]). The problem is that when American employers grant to no sick leave to employees and are brutally against ever doing so, applying the flexible Swedish model to the US would be extremely hard. The model involves…
There is no known method of stopping the spread of this disease. Even if you flatten the curve, without a vaccine, the area under the curve remains the same.
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#114I know this is not the main topic of this article, but I’ll steal this sentence to convey the importance of taking precautions against COVID-19 to people who feel that it’s statistically irrelevant.
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#115Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#116So he claims that he got it despite practicing all the social distancing protocols, hand-washing, etc. Has anyone calculated what are the probabilities of infection in an area with an active infection cluster while practicing social-distancing and other hygiene measures?
I don’t know but I’ve become aware of just how difficult it is to remain pristine. Touch a door handle? After that did you touch your phone, keys or wallet at the store? Did you touch your car door handle? When you washed your hands, did you disinfect the faucet handle and soap dispenser after? It’s always a game of percentages even when you’re careful.
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which would in fact be good news in a certain way, because either it's as deadly as reported and nowhere near as contagious as your last paragraph suggests, or its far more contagious and widespread but thus nowhere near as deadly as is being seen from case fatality rates derived from known cases. I'm not stating anything new with this really, but your case is likely one of many, many others in which a person felt my…
I believe there have been several random studies and very educated estimates that came from these that show that the mortality rate is about 0.5% or even lower, which might put it close to the same order of magnitude as the flu. However, crucially, it is much much more contagious than the flu. With an R0 of 2 or more (some estimate up to 6) the difference after a few days, because of exponential growth, is as much as…
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#118the word mask only comes up once in the entire writeup, when he went to the hospital. Did he wear a mask at all times when outside his house?
Should he have? The only person he mentions coming to his house is his friend who also had Covid-19.
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#119So he claims that he got it despite practicing all the social distancing protocols, hand-washing, etc. Has anyone calculated what are the probabilities of infection in an area with an active infection cluster while practicing social-distancing and other hygiene measures?
I don’t know but I’ve become aware of just how difficult it is to remain pristine. Touch a door handle? After that did you touch your phone, keys or wallet at the store? Did you touch your car door handle? When you washed your hands, did you disinfect the faucet handle and soap dispenser after? It’s always a game of percentages even when you’re careful.
Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19
#120I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about the psychological nature of this pandemic. The author of the article is 39 years old, I'm quite surprised by the severity of the experience that he reports. There was a similar article in the NYT recently by a woman whose husband contracted COVID, had a relatively 'normal' pneumonia, but the article read like a war report out of an Ebola zone, allusions to C…