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Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

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Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#161

Post by WalterSear »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #65
WalterSear wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't have easy remote-ok-browse-hacker-news-at-4pm jobs. They are at home, watching their debt grow and wondering how they will be able to find a new job to pay their bills.

Yeah, amazes me how many people think everyone is just relaxing at home playing Animal Crossing with paid time off wondering why we can't stay in quarantine indefinitely.

This country absolutely has the resources necessary to shelter in place as long as is required. However, it lacks the political will to do so.

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#162

Post by umvi »

pmiller2 wrote: post #150
umvi wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bold of you to assume that a disease can just run its course and then end. Not that bold, since it is how most diseases/viruses work (with a few exceptions like HIV, and there's no reason to assume covid-19 is an exception) > Would you say the same thing about the Chickenpox Yes, chickenpox is one-and-done. Once you've had it, you (basically) can't get it again. > Are you willing to bet on a far deadlier second wav…

> Yes - "Survival of the fittest" Are you suggesting that people who have the ability to isolate themselves at home while still earning a living are somehow "fitter"? As I suggested before, your argument as a whole amounts to nothing more than the woman who waves the sign saying "I want a haircut". Is your life more important than your barber or stylist's? If not, why are you asking them to risk it for you?

No, I'm suggesting those that are most vulnerable to covid-19 (old, immuno-compromised, etc) will die off in the first wave and won't be around if there is a second wave. You can't die twice. Thus the mortality rate would plummet.

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#163

Post by jfnixon »

roca wrote: post #136
6nf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To echo your point: In New South Wales, Australia the medical sector had 1000 ICU bed capacity in January. When covid hit, it was rapidly expanded and currently over 2000 ICU beds are available. At the same time all elective surgeries got banned (e.g. hip replacements etc) because some of those would end up in ICU. At the peak of the outbreak NSW used 100 of those 2000 beds. Currently only about two dozen ICU beds ar…

The good news for Australia is that you are probably eliminating the virus and will be able to reopen everything soon, safely. The key point of the comment you are responding to --- "If hospitals are empty, it's time to stop sheltering in place, because it means it's working too well" does not apply to Australia, because it assumes a "flatten the curve until we reach herd immunity" strategy which is not Australia's s…

Australia (and New Zealand) have no clear strategy to defeat the virus. They have won the opening battle and are claiming the war is over. Unless Oz and NZ cut themselves off from the rest of the planet, no, the virus war isn't over.

Herd immunity through vaccine or infection is the only rational strategy for a disease like C19. There is no vaccine, and possibly will never be a vaccine. Sorry to be a realist.

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#164

Post by partiallypro »

brianwawok wrote: post #134
partiallypro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what walk-in clinics (Urgent Care) are for. You can visit those often without insurance.

What? At every one I have been to (not a lot I admit, maybe 4 in my life), I had to both provide insurance card AND pay my copay before a doctor would see me. Without payment, they send you to go to the ER.

How do you know they would send you to the ER? Did you not have insurance? Did they actually send you to the ER for not having it? Honestly, sounds like you simply had insurance, filled out a form and just assumed it was required. I've been to multiple walk-ins, and you can visit without insurance. They will ask for insurance up front, but you can simply say you don't have any. Then you will offer payment options. The average Urgent Care visit is under $200. The point of Urgent Care is literally to handle things that don't need ER visits, and at a much lower rate. I don't know why I've been down voted above, you can simply Google/Bing/Duck "no insurance Urgent Care" and find tons. The CVS MinuteClinic, which is everywhere, doesn't require insurance for instance.

https://www.cvs.com/minuteclinic/insurance-and-billing

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#165

Post by jfnixon »

pmiller2 wrote: post #87
manigandham wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do cases matter? It should be the death rate that peaks, and that's measurable without testing. In fact it seems to be over-attributed since many deaths are now being classified to Covid even if there are many other factors.

Death rate is the proxy for cases. What matters when attempting to contain the disease is prevalence of the disease.

I think this is backwards. We have been using infection rates as a proxy for death rates, since deaths are a lagging indicator. It is certain we are missing a huge percentage of cases, and expanding testing will uncover those. It is completely unclear that uncovering more mild and asymptomatic cases will result in more deaths, so new cases are a bad proxy for future deaths.

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#166

Post by jfnixon »

umvi wrote: post #157
pmiller2 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, what knowledge and/or credentials do you have to base the conclusion that "public health experts (and basically all medical experts) are in over their heads" on? Do you know what contained the outbreak in China, South Korea, and other countries?

> And, what knowledge and/or credentials do you have to base the conclusion that "public health experts (and basically all medical experts) are in over their heads" on? Nobody alive on earth right now has ever experienced anything like this before at this scale. So by definition, there are no "veterans", there is no one with any experience whatsoever, just people who did case studies of past pandemics when air travel…

Bingo for the Japan observation.

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#167

Post by 6nf »

jfnixon wrote: post #163
roca wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news for Australia is that you are probably eliminating the virus and will be able to reopen everything soon, safely. The key point of the comment you are responding to --- "If hospitals are empty, it's time to stop sheltering in place, because it means it's working too well" does not apply to Australia, because it assumes a "flatten the curve until we reach herd immunity" strategy which is not Australia's s…

Australia (and New Zealand) have no clear strategy to defeat the virus. They have won the opening battle and are claiming the war is over. Unless Oz and NZ cut themselves off from the rest of the planet, no, the virus war isn't over. Herd immunity through vaccine or infection is the only rational strategy for a disease like C19. There is no vaccine, and possibly will never be a vaccine. Sorry to be a realist.

Australia's strategy started off as 'flattening the curve' and as far as I know officials never stated that eradication is now the strategy. There's still about a thousand confirmed live cases and of course there's many thousands more that are not symptomatic or otherwise carrying covid without being diagnosed. Eradication as far as I can tell is not realistic.

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#168

Post by newacct583 »

roca wrote: post #141
newacct583 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow that. Can you walk me through how making people go to work is going to make them less afraid? You make people less afraid by reducing the risk they'll get sick, not increasing it. Releasing lockdowns before the pandemic is controlled increases risk, by definition. This is the big flaw with the "open up" notion: it fundamentally won't work anyway. How is "opening up" the economy going to help Jet Blue w…

What does "well on the way to containment" mean? The new cases/deaths stats in California, for example, are not showing any long-term decreasing trend: https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-case...

California is split. The Bay Area is past peak, socal is still growing. Washington and Oregon are well past peak, around half of their peak new infection rate. New York is crossing under 1/3 now. Likewise New England and a few other smaller states are clearly over the hump.

This stuff works. All these places could have easily blown right through health care capacity like Milan, but they didn't. The really frustrating thing is watching it work, then watching everyone figure things aren't so bad and demand that we "open up", when the only reason things aren't so bad is because we didn't.

Another month for these early states. Just be patient. As for everyone else, it's going to be much longer than if they had just followed the lead of the lockdown set.

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#169

Post by newacct583 »

mrfusion wrote: post #108
guscost wrote: post #5

Dying at home, many of them. Excess mortality is way up, and it’s not all COVID-19: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/patients-with-heart-at... > The possibility that patients may be suffering — and even dying — at home rather than going to a hospital led the American College of Cardiology to launch a “Cardiosmart” campaign last week, attempting to reassure a wary population and encourage those with symptoms to c…

Should the media have some of the blame for these deaths by scaring people? Cherry picking young corona deaths, up playing tenuous studies saying corona causes diabetes and strokes, replaying stock footage of overloaded hospitals. If they gave people accurate statistics they could make an informed decision whether they want to go to a hospital.

This is objectively wrong, just by numbers. Covid deaths alone, in areas where this has been studied, are routinely outnumbering deaths due to all other causes. Even granting the premise, there aren't enough heart attacks and strokes to make these deaths "not worth it".

Re: Eerie emptiness of ERs worries doctors: where are the heart attacks and strokes?

#170

Post by JackFr »

newacct583 wrote: post #88
JackFr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A solid month of messaging “stay at home” and “hospitals are overwhelmed” and ratings driven fear-mongering been far more effective than policy makers ever intended.

Hospitals were overwhelmed in many places in the world. People absolutely should have stayed home. Or are you trying to claim that the virus is a hoax or something? This is a real risk. We've seen what happens in Madrid and Milan if you lock down just ~10 days too late.

You make my point more effectively than I do.
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