How about some facts on COVID-19?
I’ve written several posts already, trying to offer the main facts so far as they emerge. But I see so much stuff out there that’s not only obvious fear-mongering, but just plain incorrect.
It’s true that we don’t yet know exactly how this illness works and can come to no firm conclusions. That always takes a while with something that appears novel. But so far there’s been absolutely no indication that this is going to be an illness that’s hugely different and hugely worse than so many that have come down the pike in recent decades. However, you wouldn’t know that from most of the MSM coverage.
If you’re interested in voices that seem more fact-based, you should take a look at this from the New England Journal of Medicine. An excerpt (emphasis mine):
On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%.4 In another article in the Journal, Guan et al.5 report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively…
A robust research effort is currently under way to develop a vaccine against Covid-19.10 We anticipate that the first candidates will enter phase 1 trials by early spring. Therapy currently consists of supportive care while a variety of investigational approaches are being explored.11 Among these are the antiviral medication lopinavir–ritonavir, interferon-1?, the RNA polymerase inhibitor remdesivir, chloroquine, and a variety of traditional Chinese medicine products.11 Once available, intravenous hyperimmune globulin from recovered persons and monoclonal antibodies may be attractive candidates to study in early intervention. Critical to moving the field forward, even in the context of an outbreak, is ensuring that investigational products are evaluated in scientifically and ethically sound studies.
But that tone is much too sober to serve the twin MSM/left purposes of attracting viewers and hurting Trump economically. However, at least for the moment, something seems to be calming the stock market.
Maybe it’s even the fact that Biden won South Carolina and might have a whisper of a chance of stopping the Bernie runaway locomotive – although I’m not sure why the election of a somewhat-addled mediocrity such as Biden would be soothing. Perhaps the thought is that he will continue business-as-usual and be quite malleable.
The message to take from COVID-19 is that we are too dependent on China. Trump has long been aware of that, although not necessarily because of novel viruses. But let’s just add that to the mix, because novel viruses emerge from China with some regularity. COVID-19 may be the most recent, but it won’t be the last.
For those on this blog of a certain age, you can reminisce (like me) about the Asian flu of 1957 or the Hong Kong flu of 1968:
Asian flu of 1957, also called Asian flu pandemic of 1957, outbreak of influenza that was first identified in February 1957 in East Asia and that subsequently spread to countries worldwide. The 1957 Asian flu was the second major influenza pandemic to occur in the 20th century; it followed the influenza pandemic of 1918–19 (also known as Spanish flu) and preceded the Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968. The Asian flu outbreak caused an estimated one million to two million deaths worldwide and is generally considered to have been the least severe of the three influenza pandemics of the 20th century.
The 1957 outbreak was caused by a virus known as influenza A subtype H2N2, or Asian flu virus. Research has indicated that this virus was a reassortant (mixed species) strain, originating from strains of avian influenza and human influenza viruses. In the 1960s the human H2N2 strain underwent a series of minor genetic modifications, a process known as antigenic drift. These slight modifications produced periodic epidemics. After 10 years of evolution, the Asian flu virus disappeared, having been replaced through antigenic shift by a new influenza A subtype, H3N2, which gave rise to the Hong Kong flu pandemic.
In the first months of the 1957 Asian flu pandemic, the virus spread throughout China and surrounding regions. By midsummer it had reached the United States, where it appears to have initially infected relatively few people. Several months later, however, numerous cases of infection were reported, especially in young children, the elderly, and pregnant women. This upsurge in cases was the result of a second pandemic wave of illness that struck the Northern Hemisphere in November 1957. At that time the pandemic was also already widespread in the United Kingdom. By December a total of some 3,550 deaths had been reported in England and Wales. The second wave was particularly devastating, and by March 1958 an estimated 69,800 deaths had occurred in the United States.
There certainly was newspaper coverage then, and news filtered down to children – including me. But somehow the country didn’t self-destruct.
HK1968 nearly killed me, according to my mother. I was far too out of it to have known with an overlong period of high fevers mixed with chills, sweats, hallucinations, wracking body pain and the gods only know what else. Sickest I’ve ever been, hands down. So much for reminisces.
Within the last few hours Washington St. announces three more deaths to add to the first
twothree. Media will pile on that in a hurry: https://www.foxnews.com/health/washington-state-announces-3-new-coronavirus-deathsI had an opportunity to listen to Limbaugh earlier today. He posited a fairly likely scenario that COVID-19 has been here for a while. Keep in mind the ChiComs kept the outbreak under wraps. How many people went to/returned from China between when the outbreak in Wuhan began, and the ChiComs admitting they had a problem?
But until it became well known, many sufferers likely chalked it up to the current flu strain. How many will look back and say “oh, that’s what I had!”
All this talk of ‘novel’ viruses. Gosh dangit, can’t someone at least once talk about a non-fiction virus.
Now if I was going to politicize the deaths of the weak and infirm I might note that King County is heavily Democratic and Governor Jay Inslee is a Democrat and the state legislature is controlled by Democrats. But the virus and deaths must be the fault of the Republicans.
Our governor, Jay Inslee, wants emergency powers to address the threat of climate change; isn’t the virus a climate change phenomenon? The state legislature surely (don’t call me Shirley) must agree.
How many cases of all the other flu viruses have been recorded in the US this year? Deaths? That should give us a baseline for judging the severity of COVID-19.
I’ve written and rewritten this post a couple of times. I think I’ll just cut straight to the bottom line.
Why are people – both individuals and organizations – so unwilling to adapt to new information? We all “knew” – based on the initial information coming out of China – that COVID-19 was a deathly, life-changing viral apocalypse that was going to overrun hospitals with vast numbers of people needing care for weeks. (OK, maybe some of us knew even from the start that was hyperbole, but given the numbers of critical and dead from total cases, we were greatly concerned.) On fora – not so much here as other places where I lurk – a nugget of information, sometimes legitimate at the time it first made the rounds, sometimes purely fantastical based on someone’s misinterpretation of what someone somewhere said or wrote, would get into the body of knowledge and then never leave, even when subsequent information called it into question. Rather, what actually happens – most particularly on lay person sites, but even on sites where people clearly have better-than-layperson knowledge – is that instead of re-evaluating an existing idea based on new information, people question the validity of the new information because the old information says otherwise.
I’m not going to rehash all the stuff I’ve posted about before. The point is, a month later, new information is available that paints a different picture than the initial data. There was nothing wrong, back in mid and late January, planning around what was known then. But by late February, why was CDC still obsessed with looking for seriously ill people who just came back from China (or Italy, or …) or who at least knew people who were, rather than considering the increasingly obvious idea that the virus was already quietly circulating all over the place unnoticed, and likely had been for a while – because new, emerging information indicates that it’s readily transmitted, doesn’t make most people particularly sick and that people don’t have to be noticeably ill to be infectious?
I’ve been around the world of online debate so long that this is merely Exhibit 15,000,000 of how impossible it is to reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into to begin with, but to borrow a fellow poster’s comment from my previous post, when was the CDC planning to fight today’s battle, and not last month’s?
Paul in Boston: According to discussion in the original Washington state flu study data, there has been no uptick in “influenza-like illnesses”, which are, and have been for years, monitored regardless of diagnosis.
Are there any doctors or lab people here to answer a question on the testing for the virus?
What are the tests for the virus – nose swab, throat/lung, blood test, or something else?
Why does the CDC restrict the production of the testing kits? Are the “components” that unique or hard to get? Does the CDC ever publish the “ingredients” and procedures into the public domain?
Why do only certain labs perform the tests, other than for quality control? But, it seems that there are plenty of good labs around the country.
What would happen to a hospital or lab if they do their own virus testing in order to treat their patients?
Liz, here’s a link to the CDC “testing” page on nCov19. There are some answers there for you. Some you may have to work a bit to winkle out.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/testing.html
by March 1958 an estimated 69,800 deaths had occurred in the United States.
That’s far more than died in Vietnam.
That might be how many would die in the US if there wasn’t the almost panic we now see in the hospitals with an infected person trying to minimize it. The USA is just about taking maximum care, and paying $billions, to minimize the number of deaths.
Let’s say it might be only 698 with huge efforts, the theoretical minimum, but
6,980 with normal careful efforts.
How much should the USA pay, in attempts at prevention and high treatment curing/ treatment, in order to have fewer deaths? To save 90% with extra treatment over the death toll with “normal” treatment?
Nobody really asks these types of questions explicitly. But Trump asking for $2.9 billion, with Congress allocating more money, gives a range. Extra treatment to reduce deaths is expensive, but worth it. $3 billion / 6,000 is about $500,000 per person saved, spent by the gov’t to save the lives of normal Americans.
Even if it goes up to $1 million per person saved, I’d say it’s not too expensive. Tho maybe $10 million per person saved would be.
And of course we’ll never know how many are saved, since they’re saved mostly from never getting sick rather than treatment & quarantine when sick. So none will know, nor can know, what the price of saving a life is.
Just another unknowable known unknown.
And what is the price of Moon Cheese since we are speculating about the costs of unknowable known unknowns?
Moon pies are way better than moon cheese and only cost $0.50-ish.
You need a RC Cola with a Moon Pie. What’s the cost of that?
You need tea with Moon Cheese:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug8aM9v40Sg
(For the Crumbs) RC Cola, tv dinner, a plate of Twinkies and a Texas pink burrito: https://youtu.be/sAj82KGuoeM
“However, at least for the moment, something seems to be calming the stock market.
Maybe it’s even the fact that Biden won South Carolina and might have a whisper of a chance of stopping the Bernie runaway locomotive …” — Neo
The Federal Reserve has seemed to be extremely reluctant to cut the Fed Funds Rate without good cause. Now they have good cause and there is a 100% probability that there will be a cut. It might even be bigger than the usual 0.25 point move. Some have suggested that Trump could temporarily eliminate the import tariffs as an economic stimulus, though I’m doubtful that will happen.
I do think that Biden picking up some delegates and the recent candidate dropouts is part of the market soothing news, if only at a 10 or 20% effect level. Yes, even if Biden is only a figurehead president, at least it is not Sanders spewing executive orders.
The other factor is that the activity of hedge funds in the market does tend to magnify the speed and violence of the market moves. That the market is up big today doesn’t necessarily mean that all is calm now; just that aggressive traders are more long than short right now.
“I’m not sure why the election of a somewhat-addled mediocrity such as Biden would be soothing. Perhaps the thought is that he will continue business-as-usual and be quite malleable.” – Neo
Bingo.
Now, the business will change somewhat, because Biden is not Trump and Democrats are not Republicans (well, not any more, anyway), but he is part of the Old Guard, his supporters are Old Guard, and his keepers know “where the bodies are buried” in the idiom that didn’t use to refer to actual corpses.
As for malleable: his inner circle, picked by the DNC (or the handlers behind them) will choose all of his staff, cabinet, and agency heads.
Their biggest challenge will be keeping his increasingly visible dementia from becoming so evident they have to take him out. Hence the importance of the VP slot.
From a reliable source responding to the report about additional deaths in Kirkland WA, and who had just returned home from Vashon Island, WA.
“Earlier today, Providence announced a “presumed positive” at Providence St Mary in Walla Walla. Patient from eastern Oregon.”
“Their biggest challenge will be keeping his increasingly visible dementia from becoming so evident they have to take him out. Hence the importance of the VP slot.”
Amy goes to Biden’s rally tonight to campaign with him. Could be with a view to both problems, AesopFan. She edges in for the Veep role, as well as sucks up time on stage, thus reducing Joe’s time to gaffe about.
KyndyllG on March 2, 2020 at 3:50 pm said:
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I have seen the same thing, both in national-news-type situations and personal experience. It’s as if the first chunk of information becomes so insinuated into our brains that it takes massive effort to dig it out and replace it with better data.
The consequences can range from laughable to tragic.
Neo’s conversion story (and that of some others that this blog is familiar with) are about people willing to give credence to the new chunks and test them against each other.
Someone, somewhere, has undoubtedly studied this and written a doctoral thesis, scientific paper, or even popular book, but I don’t know of one off-hand.
It does have a proverb though, which has various formulations and credits, but is roughly “A lie gets half-way around the world while the truth is pulling its boots on.”
That phenomenon is also the reason that the “fake news” syndicate makes such an effort to get their take up before any actual facts are available.
sdferr – thanks for the link and it will take me a bit to figure out things. There is a lot of information on the site, including the procedures/supplies for testing.
One point that I didn’t realize was the need to have a control sample for each test one does, so that would be a limiting factor. Another point on the development of a blood test was the need to have blood from people who had the symptoms for 21 days. So, there really haven’t had that many US samples to be had. Guess that’s why I am not doing lab testing….
rd on March 2, 2020 at 3:21 pm said:
All this talk of ‘novel’ viruses. Gosh dangit, can’t someone at least once talk about a non-fiction virus.
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We’re all hoping this one will be a short story.
sdferr – a lot of us here are much of an age, I think, so the two flu pandemics (Asian flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu of 1968) covered our grade-school to high school years. I remember being so sick one time when very young that the doctor came to our house to give us shots (actually, Dr. Joe lived on our block and went to HS with my folks, so it wasn’t that big a deal), and having the old hot-steam vaporizers running 24/7 with Vicks Vaporub. But, I don’t remember anyone ever telling me that was part of the earlier plague.
If I was sick from the later one, I don’t associate it as being the cause.
More grist for the hysteria mills:
https://www.foxnews.com/health/cdc-lab-for-coronavirus-test-kits-may-contaminated-report
I ran a search on cost of the specified Applied Biosystems 7500 machines Liz, and it seems the can be had “used” for around $14-12.5 grand. New? Dunno, but much more, no?
AesopFan, I think “contaminated” in news lingo is put this way in CDC speak: “IRR began distribution of the test kits to states, but shortly thereafter performance issues were identified related to a problem in the manufacturing of one of the reagents which led to laboratories not being able to verify the test performance. CDC is remanufacturing the reagents with more robust quality control measures.”
Just in case you didn’t know, it takes 20 seconds to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” all the way through.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/washing-hands-stopping-coronavirus-are-you-doing-it-correctly
i brought up that excerpt mostly because it’s useful, and often overlooked, but especially because of an article I read recently about an experiment run in a grade-school to emphasize the importance of clean hands, where a piece of bread wiped along the kids’ keyboards had as much bacteria on it at the end of the week as the piece wiped on their obviously dirty hands.
https://www.today.com/health/school-experiment-shows-students-importance-hand-washing-t170186
“Even if it goes up to $1 million per person saved, I’d say it’s not too expensive. Tho maybe $10 million per person saved would be.
And of course we’ll never know how many are saved, since they’re saved mostly from never getting sick rather than treatment & quarantine when sick. So none will know, nor can know, what the price of saving a life is.” – Tom Grey
WELL, I know I’m worth at least $10 million of your money, so you guys hand it over!
Facetiousness aside, isn’t this exactly the major debating point about Single Person Payer aka Government Run Health Care / Insurance?
That some government functionary (those founts of wisdom and prudence) will be deciding the worth of your life and those of your loved ones.
Your other point is well-taken also: a lot of the cost is not directly for the known lives saved, but for the unknown ones, and the ones saved in the future because we developed better technology now.
SD – 14,000 for used lab equipment is reasonable, but it also depends what other test can be run on it. In other words, what is the cost-recovery time frame.
In the OKC Metro area, one lab company has about 20 collection sites. The local labs do some of the tests and there are cars going around all day picking up samples for delivery to the main lab in the health science center. So, one or two machines would be no big deal for the lab. And that’s not considering the major hospitals and their labs.
Down the road, it would be interesting to take the blood test to see if you had a mild exposure to the virus. This year, I took the MMR test to see if I needed to go for a vaccine. I had records showing that I had the measles in the early 50s. Nope, I still had great immunity. The weird thing is that my older sister would have had the measles or at least good exposure to them, but she tested as having poor immunity.
I live in the Seattle area and here are the facts so far.
King County: 14 total cases, 5 deaths
King County has now reported 5 deaths from patients suffering from coronavirus. The first was a man in his 50s on Saturday; the second was a man in his 70s with underlying conditions. Both were residents at LifeCare Center nursing facility in Kirkland, and died at Evergreen Hospital.
The latest deaths were announced Monday, including a woman in her 70s with underlying conditions who died Sunday. Another woman in her 80s was previously in critical condition, and also died Sunday. Details on the fifth death have not yet been released.
Three other new cases confirmed late Sunday were elderly residents of LifeCare; all three are in critical condition and had underlying conditions. They are currently at Evergreen Hospital.
Five other cases in King County are: A woman in her 40s who works at LifeCare being treated at Overlake Medical Center, a woman in her 70s who is also a resident at LifeCare, a woman in her 50s who traveled to South Korea who is quarantined at home (identified by KIRO 7 as a U.S. postal worker out of Federal Way), a man in his 60s being treated at Valley Medical Center in Renton, and another man in his 60s being cared for at Virginia Mason in Seattle.
Snohomish County: 4 total cases, 1 death
A case of coronavirus in Snohomish County was confirmed Sunday night — it is a man in his 40s, being treated at Evergreen. It is unknown at this time if he has underlying health issues.
A Jackson High School student was identified Friday — the teen is at home under quarantine and reportedly doing well.
The first case in Washington was reported in late January, in a man who had traveled overseas to China. He is fully recovered and doing well.
The sixth death in Washington was at Evergreen Hospital in King County, but was a Snohomish County resident.
These facts are a welcome change from what the Democrat leadership and spokespersons are putting out, with as much support as the fake news media can summon.
https://www.redstate.com/jeffc/2020/03/01/nbc%e2%80%99s-chuck-todd-pretends-the-left-isn%e2%80%99t-politicizing-coronavirus/
You’ve all probably seen the stories, but it’s nice to have a compendium in one place.
And some people are happy with the administration’s response.
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/03/02/dr.-marc-siegel-praises-trump-admin-handling-of-coronavirus-response-never-seen-one-handled-better
“Not helping” is putting it mildly.
Lyle – thanks for the info on the Seattle cases.
Re the high school student – Worldometer site reported that the student was sick, got tested, felt better and went back to school before getting the results. Now the school is being treated and everyone who was there is going to be worried for the next few weeks. What happened to common sense about staying HOME until the results come back??
About that care center – I checked the center online and it is both a short term rehab center as well as a long term care facility. But, the infection source really cannot be from the patients, but from the staff or visitors.
The stupidity in this country is amazing.
Here is a little bit of more detailed info. on why the covid-19 test kits weren’t working. Apparently, the first thing one does with the test-kit is to test the test-kit with a known positive sample. These preparatory tests were yielding inconclusive rather than positive results.
A few salient excerpts:
Liz,
The high school student’s family released a statement yesterday and if I understand correctly he got sick over the weekend of Feb 22/23 then stayed home from school Mon/Tue/Wed/Thur then felt close to 100% so he returned to school Fri morning and then the school sent him home and the testing process started. I think that sums it up. The family didn’t have any reason to believe he had this virus and the fact that he was recovered in days seemed to further prove that. He is now symptom free but quarantined.
In ’57, I was less concerned about the flu and more concerned about nuclear annihilation. Knowing what I know now though, I would have been stocking up on water and giving away my Corona Extra.
There’s an encouraging image embedded in my second RedState post above, which is a Forbes map of the countries best and worst prepared for an epidemic.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ER7Sx9_WsAAxZiA?format=jpg&name=large
Liz on March 2, 2020 at 7:16 pm said:
…What happened to common sense about staying HOME until the results come back??
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Griffin clarified the case with the student, but Liz is still correct about the sequence protocol.
A woman in San Antonio tested negative twice, but had a third test in the pipeline that they didn’t get back until after she was released.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/02/cdc-released-a-woman-in-texas-who-tested-positive-for-the-coronavirus-totally-unacceptable.html
The negligence means a hotel and mall have to do deep cleaning and sterilizing.
I wonder if any business has insurance for that kind of thing?
More facts –
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/03/02/stock-market-roars-back-in-response-to-overblown-coronavirus-fears-largest-point-gain-ever/
So strange to have a President who actually tries, and sometimes succeeds, in doing what he advertised during the campaign.
The 1957 Asian flu pandemic nearly killed my mother (1916-1987) — and left her with permanent heart damage.
There certainly was newspaper coverage then, and news filtered down to children – including me. But somehow the country didn’t self-destruct.
True. But we didn’t have so much globalization and air travel back then. It’s a different world now.
As I understand it, as a whole, the Chinese are still big smokers.
I wonder if that has anything to do with their susceptibility to the Corona virus, which apparently attacks the upper respiratory system?
There were also all sorts of public health problems that the Communist government had campaigns to try to stop, things like spitting on the street.
I wonder if they still have such public health problems, and, if they do, how such public health problems might contribute to the spread of the Corona virus?
Snow – PowerLine had a Top Pick today that addresses your questions.
https://regiehammblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/27/birth-of-a-virus/
The main thrust of the article, though is actually about the dangers of single-payer health-care, which is also single-buyer (for drugs, machines, supplies) and single-provider (doctors, nurses, hospitals) health-care.