I remember back in the 80s when Fauci told us we'd all be dead of AIDS in 10 years.
This is why I love Sharyl Attkisson. If only there were candidates for president that would advocate even GREATER governmental power over the rest of us...
Anthony Fauci has changed his tune regarding estimates of the risk of CV that he gave to Congress from what he co-authored in the New England Journal of Medicine last week. Here's
reporting on his testimony:
"Fauci said COVID-19 is at least 10 times “more lethal” than the seasonal flu, even if the mortality rate drops far below the World Health Organization’s current estimate of 3.4%."
Compare that with his article. There, he qualified the above estimate with this:
"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 case fatality rate jumping from 0.1% to 3.4%! When a guy with his street cred flip-flops on his message only days apart, we're screwed.
I remember back in the 80s when Fauci told us we'd all be dead of AIDS in 10 years.
So, when potential disasters are avoided due to concerted forward thinking action, you like to spend your time retrospectively razzing those who originally raised the alarm? It’s one form of masturbatory entertainment, I suppose.
*concerted action and dumb luck, of course, because the nature of the early stages of disasters is a great deal of uncertainty...
Even in the quote you copied, he doesn't say it's 3.4% or flip-flop like you said.
According to what you wrote, he said it is likely to be 10x as fatal as flu. This would be 1% fatality. In his editorial he says that ultimately the death rate may be much lower. We will only know this when we can do widespread testing (including testing asymptomatic people to see if they are carrying). From a policy point of view it makes sense to prepare for the worse scenario. The NEJM editorial is for a different audience and is not meant as a policy recommendation for government agencies. To say that it is probably at least 1% fatal, but that we may find out after all this that it is much less, doesn't seem inconsistent to me.
In the 1980s, when there was much less known about HIV, and no treatments on the horizon, I am sure Fauci made some dire predictions but I doubt he said everyone would die. He doesn't seem to be an alarmist by nature.
My wife's cousin is a nurse in Bergamo, in Lombardy in the center of the Italian outbreak. She has the virus, had been riding it out at home in isolation, but is now hospitalized with pneumonia. She's in her 50s.
The problem is overloading of hospital resources, particularly respirators. If we can slow the outbreak, we can treat people as they get seriously sick. Otherwise, it's goodbye Grampa, you only had a few years left anyway.
I'm in favor of over-reaction. The chances may be low of terrible consequences, but the terribleness of the consequences is high enough to warrant severe measures.
Meanwhile, in our cities, we see U.S. Army tanks along the streets, many soldiers (without any masks on) and nobody's talking about it in the news. We would like to know why. Just now when we are living a very tough moment in Italy. Do you have any ideas?
In the 3/11 WHO SITREP, there were 10,149 confirmed cases of COVID19 in Italy (a country of approximately 60M people). I don't know anything about the Italian healthcare system, but those numbers would seem to suggest that their hospitals have the capacity to handle about 10,000 people total, and they were already at capacity when the outbreak started (assuming every COVID19 diagnosis is hospitalized).
Is that an oversimplification? Is only part of the hospital system at 200% capacity? Are only some hospitals at 200% capacity? Is my math wrong? A quick Google search suggests that there are slightly over 1,000 hospitals in Italy. Surely each hospital can handle more than 10 patients.