Coronavirus & Fear & our Future

 

    Somehow it seemed to all start with coronavirus.  Everyone got scared of the unknown with this virus believed to have started from China.  A virus with a 99.9 % survival rate but the effects were enough for a percentage of people with underlying conditions or conditions they didn’t know they had.  In a country like China with restricted freedom, I was horrified how the government treated their people.  Maybe more would have survived with the options to take care of their health etc.  I am not a scientist but I do use the knowledge I learned having a pediatrician that practiced the eastern and western medicine. Also as a writer, I have to do my own research for various areas of my stories to make them authentic.

Medicine has always been experimental until a procedure or study has the evidence that proves methods used helped the patient or group of people affected by disease or injuries.  

We know quite a bit about the human coronaviruses and many of us had them while younger.  How different is this virus?  Derived from an animal?  Is swine flu or bird flu the same?  

Seems like since the start of the pandemic had us hunkering down to stay safe or wear masks for our safety and those with health conditions around us.  

America is land of the free and the brave.  We are governed by the principles of the Constitution compiled by our founding fathers that saw the failures of other governments of socialism and the oppressed.  For awhile it seemed to work out great here in the US.    Then we had the 1918 flu pandemic.  Following that World War I and II.  

There were other wars we fought because other countries were oppressed.  

Today it seems like the younger crowd can’t imagine what a government like Marxism or Socialism is like yet they push it here in the US.  Although they read up on the styles it is pushed back by those who experienced it in their countries.  They come to the US for freedom.

    And yet those who are passionate for socialism integrated in our government hashelped families and other issues of safety seem right.  No drunk driving, go to school, pay our taxes.  

What has happened this past summer and into the fall is truly a realization that our freedom is on the line.  The young people have taken their freedom for granted and rely on science, not God.    So the virus that caused fear and those who are not relying on God are easy to control.  The mob we call are driven by fear and seeing their opportunity to push their socialist/ marxism agendas on those and challenge what we hold dear as we go by the constitution.   Will this time pass?  Perhaps.  Is God with us? Yes 100%.    

    My vote For Trump is that while so much is against him, he works tirelessly against adversity and I pray for the truth and the light, for the soul of our nation.  If he were like Hitler like some think, why does he embrace all regardless of their faith?  Making peace deals in the MIddle East and so forth?  Why does he help African Americans rise up who want to help themselves like all of us?  We all work hard every day.  I probably will never retire...until I know my kids have a good future of freedom and never take their freedom in America for granted.  All countries may fall suit because of Trump.  I recall even the Taliban that wanted to endorse him!  He turned them down, though. Of all groups of people.  He understands more than we know.  As a business person he’s been around with lots of people and can get a hint what they’re about in seconds.   He is not what the media portrays.

What do all these numbers mean?!

Putting all these statistics into context

(Brace yourself, I'm about to do math...  There are some numbers "out there" these days, but not much context.  It might be easier to understand them by comparing to something that people are familiar with:  The ones that we can be most certain about are historical flu data.)

Same as, worse than, or better than the flu?

Publicly available information about past flu seasons and their average values are what I'm going to use.  On average, the flu season lasts about 13 weeks (or 91 days).  It peaks some time between December and February, so it crosses over the new year and is counted like school years ("2010-2011").   The average number of deaths among the 2010-2011 season to the 2016-2017 season are 34,571 deaths per flu season.

The assumption I'm making here is that we pack all the deaths into that season, nothing falls outside of it.  (There are usually outliers, but I'm just spit-balling here.  Please bear with me.)

34,571 flu deaths in an average season / 91 days = 379.9 deaths per day in an average flu season—round up to 380 because we can't have 0.9 of a person. 

380 deaths per day, spread out evenly across 50 states:  380/50 = 7.6 deaths per state per day.  

If you have more than 8 people dying of Covid-19 in your state every day, this is worse than the flu.   That's averages, some states are less populous; some years are more severe (11 deaths per state per day in a bad year).  

The Covid picture right now - Assuming we have no more deaths from Covid, the deaths are spread out evenly over the 57 days since the first death, and the deaths are averaged over 50 states, we get the following. 

67682 deaths this Covid season/ 57 days of death = 1187.4 deaths per day.  (rounding down to 1187)

1187 deaths per day / 50 states = 23.74 deaths per state per day, right now.  (May the 4th be with you.) 

Conclusion:  This is not "just the flu".  If people stopped dying right now, it would still be twice as bad as the worst flu epidemic in the last 10 years. 

What about this death rate?

We can't get a 100% accurate picture of who had the flu, so estimation goes on based on surveys and past history.

Figure 1: Illustration of Influenza Burden Estimates Model https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

"The numbers of influenza illnesses were estimated from hospitalizations based on how many illnesses there are for every hospitalization"  (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm#References #5)

O.K.  For 2010-2017, the average number of symptomatic illnesses per season is 25,328,000.  Over that time, the average number of deaths was 34,571.

(34,571/25,328,000) * 100 = Estimated 0.13% death rate for Influenza infections.

One of the reasons the Death Rate for Covid-19 is so high is because we don't know the number of infected. Only the number of confirmed cases.  There hasn't been any past episodes of this disease to get a handle on how many people don't seek medical care.

We do know how many people are hospitalized and how many people have died with more accuracy. If we look at just deaths to hospitalizations, the flu looks like this:

(34,571 / 388,571) * 100 = Estimated 8.8% death of those that are hospitalized.

So how many people in the US have been hospitalized for Covid-19?    About 126,298 according to Johns Hopkins data as of 5/4/2020, and 67,795 dead. ( https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html )

(67,795 / 126,298) * 100 = Estimated 53.7%  death of those that are hospitalized.

Now we can compare apples to apples.  8.8% hospitalized death rate for flu, 53.7% hospitalized death rate for Covid-19.

Conclusion:  This is about 6 times worse than the flu.  i.e. If you get Covid and you end up in the hospital you got a little less than a 50% chance of going home just fine.

How many people are actually going to get this?

Let me back up for a second now that I got the 'more concrete' numbers out of the way. ('Still some wiggle room based on reporting to health departments.)

Average number of flu illnesses per year = 25,328,000

Statisticians are trying to get a handle now on how many people are sick, but not officially confirmed as having Covid.  "As of March 31, Vollmer and Bommer calculate, confirmed cases represented just 3.5 percent of infections in Italy, 2.6 percent in France, 1.7 percent in Spain, 1.6 percent in the United States, and 1.2 percent in the U.K. In other words, the true number of infections was between 29 and 83 times as high as the official tallies in those countries." [ https://reason.com/2020/04/12/official-covid-19-numbers-represent-just-6-of-total-infections-a-new-analysis-suggests/ ]

Now we're going out on a limb at making more estimates.  So don't take my word for it.

If these guys/gals are right then today's number of confirmed case represent  (1,161,804/ 1.6) *100 = 72,612750 suspected cases in the US.

The US has  328,200,000 people.    That's a suspected 22.1% of the population that is infected . . . seems a little high, but this is just an estimate.

If we assume all other things are consistent, and if we all just ran out and got infected on purpose to push that up to 100% infected, we could have the number of hospitalizations up to 571,484  (126,298 / 22.1 = 5714 hospitalized per 1% of the population;  5714 *100 if 100% of the population were infected).  And we could push the number of deaths up to  306,315.  (571,484 * .536)

People are "naive", immunologically, because there have been no previous Covid-19 out breaks and there is no vaccine.  So people will get it if they are exposed enough.

Worst case scenario, if confirmed positives only represent 1.6% on the infected, 238,521 deaths on top of what we have right now if we stop all the social distancing measures.

If the above Statisticians are wrong, and testing is actually more complete, say 10% of actual cases are confirmed, then the numbers change a lot.  Only 3.5% of the population is infected so far.  The number of hospitalized is closer to 3,608,514.  And, the number of dead is closer to 1,937,772.

So . . . how good is our testing Really?  How many people have really gotten this?  

~NG

Quarantine Projects

Good afternoon to all in Corona quarantine.  These are strange times but nothing like getting to home projects My weeks and days have been keeping up with the Homefront.  It doesn't seem like much, being home but I assure you we find quite a bit to do throughout the day since our quarantine started March 13th.   Long time but hope you all are getting progress done with your projects or started new ones.    

I have noticed a lot of people in our neighborhood are utilizing their time with yard projects or home projects.   Might you be one of them?  We transitioned our daughter's bed to a loft bed.   Anything inspiring you to do the same?  

We had to empty out the books to move the bookcase under the bed, but quite a nice little library for them and a little sofa on the otherside.  As you can see, quite nice!  It does seem like our quarantining is going to end soon and we'll get back to it soon.    Quarantining has its benefits if you are an introvert.  I know some who are not doing well and need more interaction.  Lots of people are making bread or cookies etc.   I tend to like putting meals together that are healthy and simple.   The best I could try to make is banana bread or green tea bread.  

Here's the bigger picture: "What we know about this mess." [by NG]

The motivating idea: Real facts about epidemiology, viruses, and disinfectants.  Ok:

Rule number 1:  Don't drink bleach. It could kill you.

Rule number 2: Don't inject any cleaning product.  It could kill you.

Rule number 3: Don't take random unrelated drugs because someone has a "good feeling".  You wouldn't jump off a bridge because someone told you to, would you?  It could kill you.

Rule number 4: Don't cut open your abdomen or chest cavity to insert a UV light bulb.  It could kill you.  And it will probably give you cancer if you live that long.

People with a background in logistics intelligence are not medical doctors.  People with a background in commercial real estate are not medical doctors.

Basics on infections (I'll keep this simple):

What does wearing a mask get you?

1. N95 masks block a portal of entry. (Keeps you from getting it.)

2. Cloth masks block a mode of transmission.  (Protects other people.)

Washing your hands and sanitizing door knobs block a mode of transmission.  (Protects you and other people from getting it.)

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Maybe  that's as much science as people can handle.  If not, continue below. 

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What does testing do? 

Identifies the infected. 

What kinds of tests are there, and what do they do?

1.  Molecular tests - run on swabs and sputum samples.  

• These tests directly test for the genetic material of the virus.

2.  Serological tests - run on blood

• a) Antigen tests look for fragments of the virus/viral proteins
• b) Antibody test looking for fast acting immunological response (IgM) indicating recent infection.
• c) Antibody test looking for slow acting immunological response (IgG) indicating past infection and current protection. 

What can this information do?  

1. Who needs to be isolated.

2. Who is recovered.

3. Who has not been exposed. (negative tests)  And, they are still in danger.

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Still good with the science?

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What is a "co-morbidity"?  

  ~This is something that weakens a person.  This could be obesity, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.  Anything that compromises a person.

What does having a co-morbidity at the time of infection do?  

~When the virus starts damaging the lungs and filling them with fluid, reducing the body's ability breath, those co-morbidities can add to the problem by consuming more oxygen, piling on the damage.  By itself, diabetes wouldn't have killed the person.  With the virus, they die. 

Doctors count the thing that pushed the patient over the edge, not the thing that put them on the edge. 

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Anyway,   That's enough for now. 

I would hope this would be helpful for people. 

by: NG