Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

[Happy Monkey]

The flu season starts in October, and estimated deaths as of Mar 28 are 24000-63000. So, 4000 to 10,500 per month over six months. October and November are at the low end of the curve, so even putting the whole count into the December-March four months, the range is 6,000-15,750 per month.

Note that I made that four-month example because the first two months of flu season have relatively few deaths. the 12-13000 count for COVID-19 is for its first month.

[henry quirk]

"CDC in its latest report estimated that there had been at least 23,000 deaths related to the flu as of March 14."

https://www.advisory.com/daily-brief.../24/flu-update

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https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season.htm

[Happy Monkey]

My link was to an estimate, also from the CDC, which takes those weekly numbers as input.

Your links also reference my point that those numbers are for the 2019-2020 season; they are not solely 2020 numbers.

[henry quirk]

Your links also reference my point that those numbers are for the 2019-2020 season; they are not solely 2020 numbers.

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You have to note the month of (historically) greatest activity (February): not hard to imagine the bulk of those 23,000 deaths happenin' then

Anyway: I find it unseemly to argue essentially about which bug is gonna kill more people.

I'll continue, as I like, to post the John Hopkins global numbers (and the U.S. subset of those numbers and the flu comparison [both also from John Hopkins]).

Analyze or ignore as you like.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Since January, yet the WHO was tracking this local outbreak in Wuhan since November.

[Clodfobble]

We just lost an 8th grader at our school. There's going to be so much fucking sadness everywhere before this is over.

[Undertoad]

Sweden did not implement a lockdown. They have been considered the world's guinea pig in what might happen if you just go about your business

It's beginning to look like that was a mistake... compared to next door Norway which did lock down.

I do not believe this graph includes today's numbers...

Sweden... 721 new cases, 112 new deaths

Norway... 144 new cases, 7 new deaths



But then there's the long run. Their goal was to reach herd immunity quickly. Let's see how it works out for them...

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

We just lost an 8th grader at our school. There's going to be so much fucking sadness everywhere before this is over.

Are your schools still open??

My kids' school closed like a month ago and it's going to stay closed for the rest of the year.

[Griff]

Our Swedish friends are super defensive about this. They do a lot of things right there but this looks like a mistake. They tried to isolate their old-timers but it maybe isn't working. It seems reasonable that building herd immunity could work and maybe long term it will but right now that's an ugly graph.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

We just lost an 8th grader at our school. There's going to be so much fucking sadness everywhere before this is over.

I am very sad to hear this news Clodfobble. I do not have anything profound to say. I am full of sadness at almost every turn.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Flint

Are your schools still open??



My kids' school closed like a month ago and it's going to stay closed for the rest of the year.

Oh goodness, no, we haven't had classes since before spring break. Admin emailed parents about the death ahead of time, and will be reading a prepared announcement to the kids during their first period Zoom on Monday. But we had families self-isolating even before schools shut down because they worked at Dell and were exposed to a contractor from India who tested positive after returning home, plus one of the very first confirmed cases in Austin was an extracurricular teacher at our school. (No idea if this kid was connected to him, but for his sake I hope not--the teacher didn't show symptoms until school was already out and he doesn't deserve to go through life shouldering that kind of guilt.)

[tw]

I don't know about the so many liberal art majors. But I took classes only to learn something. What do they do? Do they get their tuition money back? Do they get a half credit for the course? In the courses I took, all that information was necessary for the next hundred level classes.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Flint

Since people are fascinated by comparisons to the flu, remember-- we do everything we can in response to the flu.

Every year, as a healthcare worker, you MUST get a flu vaccine or you are NOT ALLOWED to show up to work. Employee health will send you home and dock your pay. For the general public-- an awareness campaign of "get your flu vaccine" is broadcast to the public by every means possible, and you can go to the pharmacy, drugstore, many places to get the vaccine.

That's because we HAVE a vaccine for the flu. That's the tool we have.

For coronavirus, we are using the tools we have. It's the exact same thing-- the exact same response. A full-court press using the best tools available.

The best takeaway is that the flu response should be MORE robust-- we should focus MORE on hand hygiene, we should do MORE* to make sure workers are not showing up sick. If we are serious about public health, we could reduce the flu deaths.

*anything

This! This a thousand times.

It has been a constant source of frustration to me that standard absence management systems in most major companies inexorably lead to people attending work when ill -

Points based systems and 3 strikes and you lose your bonus type systems - regardless of whether all those absences were legitimate or not.

So - maybe you hurt back and have a couple of days off work, then a couple months later you catch a stomach bug - and then when flu season hits and you end up with a mild to moderate case of flu, do you call in sick to protect your colleagues, and in doing so potentially face a disciplinary warning and loss of your annual bonus - or, do you take lemsip or other flu meds to alleviate the worst of the symptoms and struggle on through the week til you can rest at the weekend?

We are so blase about seasonal flu, yet it kills thousands of people every year - and we just pass it around the office soldiering through the week with very little thought to how that virus may affect one of the people we pass it to, or the people they pass it to.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

We just lost an 8th grader at our school. There's going to be so much fucking sadness everywhere before this is over.

damn

[DanaC]

Damn that is so sad. 8th grader is what, 13-14?