Date total number of deaths in Vietnam and Iraq wars exceeded by American covid deaths: probably never
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There’s a limit to how far back this stealth spread could go - as in 2-3 weeks before hospital ERs get overloaded with patients needing ventilators. You just can’t hide that.
Unless there was some less virile form that mutated - but that is super unlikely.
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This whole debate about # of deaths reminds me in college debate when one side would play the “X will lead to nuclear war and annihilate the human race” card. My buddies came up with the trump card: “Y will lead to nanites which completely wipe out all life in the universe”. Checkmate.
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There is supposedly a milder strain, right?
Not enough to make a significant difference in lethality according to a bunch of scientists I’ve read.
Some people seem to show mild symptoms while others have a more severe experience. Has the virus already mutated?
RNA viruses all replicate with low fidelity. Mutations occur at pretty similar rates and these viruses typically don’t have proofreading functions. In contrast, we replicate our DNA with high fidelity and we have a proofreading function to fix the errors. So, every time they replicate, there’s a fixed rate of mutation. This virus is mutating but it has mutated very little so far. There are differences but probably they are functionally not important, so that’s not the explanation for why you see different disease courses among the infected.
For HIV it’s the same thing: 10 people could be infected by the same strain but you have very different outcomes. With HIV, genetics and environmental factors play a role. Some of the genetics has been worked out; we know that there are certain tissue types that would protect and others that would harm. I suspect it’s the same here.
And very very likely not something that was all over the world for months in milder form, but happened to evolve into a stronger strain in the same region where people sell bats and pangolins at wet markets, and the virus almost certainly evolved from viruses that live in one or both of those animals.
But who knows. Maybe the scientific community is lying to us about this the same way they’re lying to us about masks at the moment. There was that weird 3-4 month cold everyone got this winter.
I’d love it if someone told me I have even partial immunity now from that. It was a ton of dry coughing. But I know like 10 people who had it and we all had pretty much the same symptoms. No one had a fever. No one went to the hospital. Seems like it had to be something else.
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This is important because hospitals have been a prime target for hackers over the last several years, especially for ransom ware.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1244172481428099079
Yeah, the people I know who had that had a very low fever at times - like 99.5 or so. The weird thing was the thick, sticky mucous for me. For others it was a long-lingering cough, which is pretty standard for me when I get a cold.
Australia has introduced tougher restrictions. Public gatherings limited to two people. Public spaces such as parks closed.
From tomorrow, all Australians are urged to only go out to shop “for what you need, food and essential supplies”, shop as infrequently as possible, to attend medical care, exercise and work or education if you were unable to work or learn remotely.
Professor Brendan Murphy, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, said: "It is very simple. We need to all stay home unless we are going out to shop, to do personal exercise, to go to medical appointments, or to go to work or study if you can’t work from home.
“Anyone who doesn’t need to be out of their home should be in the home. This is radical.”
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I imagine staying indoors in this season is going to be anathema for many Australians.
What are the odds of a weird cold going around like that the same year as a pandemic? Preceding it by just a few months. Like I get that if it was COVID-19 we should have seen ICU’s getting slammed, but it’s just a crazy coincidence.
Didn’t they contact trace it back in Washington to six weeks before the first positive test? I remember reading that they thought they had six weeks of community spread before they identified it.
In theory if it was on the east coast in early January, we should have caught it in mid-February… But maybe a lack of testing hid it longer?
It does suck. Exercise is an OK reason to leave the house. I have a conservation park 20 mins from my house where I can go hiking and I’ll do some daytrips further afield.
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I remember a weird cold when I was younger. It was like one week, then an intermission of a few days, then it kicked in again. Everyone got it.
Also I heard a radio DJ describe the one this year exactly, then say his Dr. told him he had “the croup” (p is silent because lol English) - which apparently is common in kids but adults can get it. But no idea how accurate that is.
Um, I didn’t get whatever you guys got last December. It seems very anecdotal. Doctors ime test for flu/strep and then give u antibiotics if u don’t get better and then do chest X-rays for pneumonia if the chest sounds bad. The whole “they can’t figure it out” thing sounds like a billing trick - I mean were they studying it under a microscope ? They don’t ever “figure” anything out unless it is strep/flu
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President Donald Trump’s latest target, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, told a radio station Friday that medical supply vendors informed her they’ve been told “not to send stuff” to her state amid the battle against COVID-19.
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US next?
Portugal gives migrants residency
Portugal has announced that it will approve all applications for legal residence by migrants, because of a backlog of cases made worse by the coronavirus.
All asylum seekers who’ve begun their applications will now be eligible for resident status.
Officials described it as “an act of solidarity at a time of crisis”.
The country has reported about 5,000 infections and 100 deaths.
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At least the end of May for us UK’ers
UK to be in lockdown for ‘significant period’
The UK needs to prepare to be under strict measures for a “significant period”, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove says.
UK lockdown ‘could last until June’
Tough measures to tackle the outbreak in the UK have been in force for nearly a week - but a leading government adviser has warned they may need to remain in place until June.
Imperial College London Professor Neil Ferguson told the Sunday Times: “We’re going to have to keep these measures (the full lockdown) in place, in my view, for a significant period of time – probably until the end of May, maybe even early June.”
He added that even if the lockdown was lifted, people would probably still need to abide by social distancing measures for months to come.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove told Sky News that the length of the measures was not something that was “absolutely fixed”.
He said: “It depends on all of our behaviour. If we follow the guidelines, we can deal more effectively with the spread of the disease.”
Good news/bad news: using this model we’re 2 weeks away from half the US population infected, so we could be a lot closer to the peak than I would have thought, this could be over by summer and “only” losing 1% of the population sounds pretty great right now. Bad news is our time for mitigating this in any way has all but passed. US deaths in the 7 figure range seems locked in.
Reports stating Spain going to be potentially worse than Italy
Spain death spike continues unabated
Another 838 people died in Spain in the past 24 hours, the health ministry has announced - the highest daily rise in fatalities so far.
It brings the number of deaths from the virus to 6,528.
The total number of those infected rose to 78,797 from 72,248.
That is an insanely high mortality rate in Spain.