COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Yngvi]

I thought this paper was interesting:

ICU Occupancy and mechanical ventilator use in the United States

ICU occupancy rates and ventilator use.

We can do some useful calculations with the numbers from that paper:

Italy has ~12.5 ICU beds per capita
U.S. has ~35 ICU beds per capita

Italy's best hospitals appear to have .8 ventilators per ICU bed
Average US hospitals have ~1 ventilator per ICU bed

The math says the U.S. has 3.5 times the number ventilators per capita
*US numbers current as of 2014

In the Bergamo metro, there are ~500,000 people. More than 25% are over 65 years of age. Comparatively, less than 12.5% in the U.S. are over 65 years of age.

Median age of ICU admits for WuHan Virus is ~66 years
~about half of ICU admits require ventilator use
*CDC numbers

If we adjust for the comparative demographics of Italy VS. U.S., we can estimate that the U.S. effectively has ~7X times more ventilators per severe respiratory distress case than Italy does.

If you do the math, you should be able to see the very high probability that Italy's hospital system and ventilator needs would be overwhelmed by an only slightly worse than average flu season.

if we assume a .5% CFR and 3 months of peak cases, and that all of those patients required long term ventilator use of over 14 days, the Italian hospitals would have had a sufficient number of ventilators for all patients if they had the same number of ventilators as hospitals in the U.S. have.

Yngvi, I have posted lots of evidence of equipment shortages in the United States and elsewhere - PPE being the most important (and wholly ignored by you), but also ICU space and ventilators. 80 is a substantial, certainly higher than average, number of ventilators.

Since you can't fathom keeping a few weeks of resources (lest you be gripped by unproven projections of shortage!), I hope the upcoming recession doesn't hit you too hard. That's what I think will happen with month-long lockdowns. Not a depression, defined as over 2 years of sustained decline.

You don't get to take any more of my time.

[Shiva Kaul]

Mark, you don't seem familiar with how quarterly GDP rates are reported.

Yngvi, your estimate of 1 ventilator per US ICU bed is way off. And there are much fewer per capita in large cities, particularly New York.

[bearalift]

You think that a 30% drop in GDP is not a depression unless it happens over 2 years? What do you call it if it happens in one quarter? I really hope you are either very wealthy or being taken care of by somebody who is, because you're about to learn some new definitions.

I for one would appreciate those definitions. The thread so far has debated the health impacts of the virus in detail, but has only alluded to the potential real consequences stemming from a recessed economy. Assuming the ~4% hit to GDP and 9% peak unemployment with recovery in the summer as predicted by GS, what are the concrete impacts we should expect to see/fear in the US?

[Mark Le Comte]

You think that a 30% drop in GDP is not a depression unless it happens over 2 years?.

Technically correct, as the terms are defined by economists. What is happening now is a shock in that terminology (leading to a recession).

Whatever we call it, its bad mmmkay.

[Jovan Dragisic]

Best bits from the news around the world as of today:

Serbia has instituted curfews from 20.00 to 05.00 Zulu and has completely prohibited people over 65 to leave their houses. At first, they were allowing people a hour's worth of dog walking during the curfew, but they are disallowing that now. He says people are more important than dogs. Their president was quoted as saying - See, Europe can't help us, we should have listened to our Chinese friends (Serbia is a kind of EU candidate member, but their government is leaning towards Russia and China, it's really weird)
The Hungarian president has used his party to put to vote a law that would give him unlimited options to prolong the duration of the state of emergency without parliament consent. Dude is also a weird kind of small time dictator
The Croatian government just yesterday tried to pass a law that would enable them to continually monitor everybody's cellphone location, in order to "go after quarantine breakers"
They are firing tear gas at people in markets all over Africa in order to impose lockdowns
The Indian government issued a 21 day curfew for everybody with four hours notice. That's an actual don't leave the house, with four hours notice. People are obviously not complying, so the prime minister is threatening everybody on TV saying he has given police a shoot-on-site order. So far, the police are having everybody they catch on the street do jumping jacks and push ups.
Jordan tried to do a similar thing as India, but eased up on curfews when people started complaining they would starve to death, because they got nothing to eat in the house.

You can't make this shit up. Who knew that the apocalypse was gonna be so fun.

[PuliMorgan]

Tomas Pueyo, author of the 40+ million read article “Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now", has just written a new article “ Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance“ that I think is relevant to our situation NOW. He also gives prognosis for next 18 months.

This guy had predicted a worldwide lockdown two weeks ago. Do read the article. Quite long, a lot of charts and data, but please read.


Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance - Tomas Pueyo - Medium

[MWM]

The government of Sweden, many people's idea of a sensible and compassionate country, has announced they do not intend to implement a lockdown, are permitting mass gatherings, and are encouraging businesses to remain open:

Coronavirus in Sweden: why the largest country without any lockdown measures thinks its approach will pay off

[Gerald Boggs]

Yngvi, I have posted lots of evidence of equipment shortages in the United States and elsewhere - PPE being the most important

From the cynical, jaded point of view of my mind, there is no shortage. The hospitals have all the equipment they decided to have on hand and in stock. When I hear the medical profession acknowledge how shortsighted and incompetent was their planning, then I might listen. As for the rest of us, for many years, we've been happy to put all the responsibility of our well-being into the hands of others, how's that saying go? "Chickens come home to roost"

[ltomo]

The 'not the governments job' stuff is incredible. You mean not the American government, THE logistics and supply chain powerhouse of the world, could maybe prepare some PPE two months ago when it was blinking red? Biggest govt failure of our lifetimes.

It's the government's job to manage the logistics and supply chain for American companies? They decide which companies get what supplies? What? Do you seriously believe that? How retarded are you?

[Barry Charles]

Although COVID-19 does not appear to be mutating much, TDS-16 has clearly mutated enough to be classified TDS-20 by the CDC.

One of the most obvious symptoms is people laying on their backs and urinating into the air. Long term effects are record unemployment, reduced standard of living, and several years loss in aggregate life expectancy. People over 65 with multiple severe pre-existing conditions have seen their aggregate life expectancies increase by 6-8hrs however.