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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

#91

Post by aphroz »

jhwang5 wrote: post #79
aphroz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, is it significant compared to 2016 ?

Why are you glossing over the fact that the numbers were DESPITE having done a global lockdown? If we didn’t do a lockdown, it’d be way higher.

How are we sure about this? We cannot anymore but are we sure that the lockdown will lower the global mortality? Why are we not acting rationally anymore? Are we sure that fear did not take over and now we just do as everybody because nobody ever got fired for choosing the lockdown?

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#92

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

seppin wrote: post #81
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need to perform a lot of tests if their strategy isn't dependent on testing?

Every strategy is dependent on testing, because every strategy requires an accurate assessment of sickness rates. If you don't know the extent of the problem, how can you even formulate a plan to fight it? If by "strategy" you mean herd immunity, Sweden isn't doing that. No one is publicly claiming to be trying that anymore.

You can call it herd immunity or not, and Sweden has indeed picked "not". But their plan is to keep doing what they're currently doing. The Swedish government has no phase 2 where they expect to contain the coronavirus more strongly.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#93

Post by rwultsch »

jeremyjh wrote: post #38
spamizbad wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this kind of thinking. Earlier in the year it was this was a bad flu, no cause for alarm, no lockdown necessary. This has switched to the virus being too contagious to contain so you might as well do nothing major to address it and let it run its course. Truth is countries that took this seriously and acted swiftly controlled it. They’ll be reopening soon (Singapore already has, right?). I’m guessing the US wi…

Singapore had to tighten up again already. I think perhaps the only country with credible control and an open economy is South Korea.

Taiwan.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#94

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

LIV2 wrote: post #67
ashtonkem wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if there’s a giant spike of currently asymptomatic carriers, you’d want to know.

If they at least did testing + contact tracing (like NZ) they probably could have saved a tonne of lives even without locking down

Every developed country did testing and contact tracing, even the ones popularly seen as doing nothing. That was why leaders were saying it wouldn't be a problem in February; they didn't expect a magic cure, they expected their testing and contact tracing to handle it.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#95

Post by gtirloni »

soneca wrote: post #63

It is hard to predict the future, but despite the former Health minister indeed have being fired for clashing with Bolsonaro views, there is not much indication that the policy will in fact change now. It became a ego dispute in the last days, but original rumors that the role would be occupied by someone without health expertise that would follow Bolsonaro orders to the letter were wrong. The new minister is also a…

After having undermined most of the efforts of his own health minister, Bolsonaro can't do much worse, I agree.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#96

Post by beerandt »

CydeWeys wrote: post #64
ashtonkem wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that mortality rate is closely tied to the availability of ventilators, it would be catastrophically short sighted to not react to a spike with strong, short term measures.

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 attempts.

The question of if the 10-30% of vent survivors would have survived without a vent is fair, but that's a maximum efficacy at this point.

Vents are definitely not the answer everyone thought they would be.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#97

Post by rsynnott »

aphroz wrote: post #54
rsynnott wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... where are you getting that? See https://www.euromomo.eu/ About the only country significantly under normal is Ireland, which has a youngish population and a fairly effective lockdown.

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.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#98

Post by zzleeper »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #76
romwell wrote: post #3

Good luck to all Brazilians. They'll need it.

Heat is providing a lot of natural defense. Things are already going way better than predicted.

Why didn't weather help Guayaquil? It's the worst hit city in SA yet is one of the most tropical ones.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#99

Post by rodolphoarruda »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #83
rodolphoarruda wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this moment, full recovery is expected to happen no sooner than December 2022. Small business already bled out. If governors extend the lockout for another month, it will make it pointless to go back to work, as there will be no work to go back to. People will stay home until something else happens.

"Something else" being not necessarily external, much less staying passive. Example: post-WWII Germany. People rebuild everything from scratch by goverment just not being an obstacle to them.

I wouldn't say the government being much of an obstacle here, but the union as a whole. It represents ~60% of the Brazilian GDP. So even before rebuilding the country, people we'll need to keep collecting taxes to keep this huge public engine running. It won't be easy.

Re: Bolsonaro fires health minister, calls to reopen economy

#100

Post by sudoaza »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #90
soneca wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of worst Brazilian states is one of the hottest (Ceará).

You affirmation does not umake the reality of thermal sensitivity in this virus [1]. There are other factors involved in producing a higher mortality, like comorbidity and demographics. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25855727

Temperature might or might not help [1] and even if it does it may not be enough. Daily confirmed cases are still rising but effects of the quarantine should be visible soon since i think we are reaching the 3 weeks mark.

[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3079831/coro...

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