How can a disease with a 1% mortality rate shut down the U.S? Answered by Franklin Veaux:

[ehrnst]

There are two problems with this question.

1. It neglects the law of large numbers; and
2. It assumes that one of two things happen: you die or you’re 100% fine.

The US has a population of 328,200,000. If one percent of the population dies, that’s 3,282,000 people dead.

Three million people dead would monkey wrench the economy no matter what. That more than doubles the number of annual deaths all at once.

The second bit is people keep talking about deaths. Deaths, deaths, deaths. Only one percent die! Just one percent! One is a small number! No big deal, right?

What about the people who survive?

For every one person who dies:

-19 more require hospitalization.
-18 of those will have permanent heart damage for the rest of their lives.
-10 will have permanent lung damage.
-3 will have strokes.
-2 will have neurological damage that leads to chronic weakness and loss of coordination.
-2 will have neurological damage that leads to loss of cognitive function.

So now all of a sudden, that “but it’s only 1% fatal!” becomes:

-3,282,000 people dead.
-62,358,000 hospitalized.
-59,076,000 people with permanent heart damage.
-32,820,000 people with permanent lung damage.
-9,846,000 people with strokes.
-6,564,000 people with muscle weakness.
-6,564,000 people with loss of cognitive function.

That's the thing that the folks who keep going on about “only 1% dead, what’s the big deal?” don’t get.

The choice is not “ruin the economy to save 1%.” If we reopen the economy, it will be destroyed anyway. The US economy cannot survive everyone getting COVID-19.

The full post and sources are included here:
https://www.quora.com/How-can-a-disease-with-1-mortality-shut-down-the-United-States/answer/Franklin-Veaux

[Nevilledog]

1. Bookmarking.

Great post.

[uppityperson]

2. K&R with thanks

[bottomofthehill]

3. Amazing and frightening information

[empedocles]

6. Shocking. Quick estimate of victims with permanent disabilities is staggering.

[dem4decades]

4. well thought out

[bronxiteforever]

5. Kick and recommend.

[Leghorn21]

7. Holy COW

This is terrific, will be sending around, many thanks for posting, ehrnst!!

dayam

[SoonerPride]

8. Great. Bookmarking as well.

Highly persuasive post and data. Thank you so much.

[VA_Jill]

9. In other words

It's the the morbidity, stupid.

[niyad]

10. KNR and bokmarking

[sheshe2]

11. And all those that survive, with damage will...

die far earlier.

[Blue_true]

68. That is after many life disabled. nt

[Hoyt]

12. Basically agree, but with a few quibbles or slight bit of optimism.

It assumes everyone is going to get it and no effective treatments are developed.

If that is true, about all any government can do is flatten the curve so that health system is not totally overwhelmed and effective treatments can be developed.

Could probably argue the hospitalizations are high based upon evidence to date. Also suspect those with permanent health issues are not additive, in that most of the unfortunate people will have heart, lung, AND other conditions.

In any event, it’s devastating. But, I think we’ll survive, although with drastic change.

[Dream Girl]

101. Yes, they calculations are overstated by a factor of two at a minimum.

They are assuming that every man woman and child will get it. It make get to 50% worst case. So halve those numbers. It’s still devastating though.

[yonder]

13. Great post and bookmarked

[DBoon]

14. 1% is a horrifically high death rate

If your chance of dying in an airplane crash was 1%, aviation would shut down.

If every time you drove, you had a 1% chance of dying in an automobile crash, people would stop driving

A soldier serving in Vietnam had less than a 1% of dying in combat

I can't find any numbers, but I would bet a heroin addict has less than a 1% chance of dying of a drug overdose.

The US economy would not survive anything that results in a 1% death rate among the general population.

Our humanity would not survive if we deliberately allowed this level of death.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

22. Exactly, and it's so preventable too.

I'm pretty annoyed by people pointing to worse death rates, like the Black Death.

That's like an airline pilot getting on the intercom to mention their far higher rates of plane crashes compared to other airlines, but arguing that there's higher rates of death from non-flying events.

The USA is doing horribly compared to other countries, thanks to Trump and his cult!

[tblue37]

15. K&R for visibility. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

16. Also, I'd assume that the rate will be higher if the hospitals become inundated,

so that many who need hospital treatment won't be able to get it. If that happened on a large scale, there could even be substantially more deaths.

[NickB79]

35. That's what happened in Wuhan and Italy

Triaging the young and strong with the best chance vs the old and weak with the worst chance due to limited resources.

[subterranean]

83. ...on top of that, people will also die from other conditions who otherwise wouldn't.

[uponit7771]

89. +1,

[Rebl2]

17. How many

people who died at home and possibly don’t get counted. Another thing,
how many have it and don’t go to a doctor and we never know about them. I also will bookmark this. The numbers are frightening.

[FakeNoose]

95. Yes, and that includes everyone who wasn't tested

... because the government refuses to fund the testing.

Hospitals are covering the cost of testing as long as they can, but they have to pass the cost to a government program sooner or later. Back in March my good friend tried 3 times to get tested for Covid and she was displaying obvious symptoms of the virus. Each time the clinic sent her home, told her she had the flu and REFUSED to test my friend for Covid. She had it, and she thought she would die at home alone. It was terrifying for her.

If it weren't for her posting regularly on Facebook, none of Peggy's friends would have known about her condition. Thankfully she did pull through, but it was a scary and horrible 3 weeks for her. I keep thinking about Peggy and all the other Peggy's out there who weren't served by our shabby, inadequate health provider system. The victims have been under-counted, as well as the deaths under-reported.

[central scrutinizer]

18. Venn diagram best case

Is that the 59 million with permanent heart damage also include ALL of the others: lung damage,strokes, etc. So that’s 62 million (and their families) either dead or severely disabled. We’re fucked.

[bucolic_frolic]

19. Yes that is the way to think about it

The consequences will be felt for 50 years and more. This is like losing a war. There will need to be augmented health care just for COVID survivors.

[csziggy]

32. It will be like the survivors of polio or the thalidomide children

They will be around but not seen often and seldom discussed. Especially polio - once there was a vaccination and it was nearly obliterated, no one talked about the people who had it and survived.

The thalidomide victims have gotten much less press than polio survivors, but many are still alive.

COVID survivors will be shoved off into obscure corners and no one will talk about them ten years from now. In fact, that brings up survivors from the "Spanish" flu - did they have consequences similar to the coronavirus survivors, or were the people severely affected simply not recover given the medical science of a hundred years ago?

[Heartstrings]

80. Except now Covid becomes a pre-existing condition....

It’ll be with us for a very long time I fear.

[DBoon]

107. Yes, some suffered neurological damage for decades

May not have been specifically from the 1918 flu, but Oliver Sacks' book Awakenings details this

[erronis]

20. I'd like to see primary sources rather than some "quora" editor. I know he cites a few articles but

they don't add up to his conclusions.

Also, many of those categories of morbidities are overlapping. If you have lung disease you can also have heart, kidney, brain disease. These can't be added as f they are independent.

Still, shocking numbers. Like to see some governmental/NGO release the same.

[ehrnst]

44. The sources are included at the link. (nt)

[Buckeye_Democrat]

21. "19 more require hospitalization"

That fits with about 20% being hospitalized, which is what I had read previously.

[Historic NY]

34. Thats long term, just had a friend released from the hospital after 3 mos...

he had major difficulties. My friends wife 4 week ICU

[Buckeye_Democrat]

36. You'll never see me downplay this pandemic.

There's other long-term effects, like permanent organ damage.

Sorry about your friends.

Edit: I previously dealt with a person on DU trying to minimize it, and that poster argued about my 20% hospitalization claim that was based on various data.

[Historic NY]

37. He was the head of the entire county's fire services..

[Buckeye_Democrat]

38. Very sad.

The guy's job probably caused a lot of exposure.

[patphil]

23. Regardless of the robustness of these numbers, the premise is sound.

For every death, there are many other people who survive covid19 with serious, permanent health issues.
I expect as this pandemic winds down, perhaps a couple years from now, there will be studies that look at all the aspects of this disease.
I expect they will be an eye opener.
I expect they will show many more cases, and many more covid19 related deaths.
These studies will also show the true extent of the damage to people's health and lives.

The suffering of the victims will go on for decades.
Their lives will represent a true, permanent loss to the economy, in terms of productivity and the immense cost of caring for these survivors.

The tragedy of covid19 is still way beyond our comprehension.

[malaise]

24. Great post

Rec

[groundloop]

25. Isn't the mortality rate closer to 4 or 5 percent?

The US has had 137,000 deaths related to Covid-19 and 3.29 Million cases - that's 4.2%.

I assume the use of the 1% number is to counter tRump's argument that it's nothing to worry about since it's "99% harmless".... but IMO we should be using real numbers and not giving the light of day to lies and innacuracies.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

29. I'd look at the "cases that had an outcome" instead.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

That's around an 8% death rate now, BUT it's widely acknowledged that there's many infections that are never detected. Previous random sampling studies estimated about 10 times as many infections as the previously confirmed infections. So that would drop the estimated death rate to about 0.8%.

With more testing since those random sampling studies were done, perhaps the multiplier is less than 10 now? Regardless, the death rate seems to be around 1% which the experts have been estimating for months now.

[Crunchy Frog]

40. That's because the number of actual infections

is presumed to be many times the number of confirmed infections. The real mortality rate is the percentage who die out of the total number who are infected. The majority of them will never be tested or confirmed.

[obamanut2012]

49. no

[Bernardo de La Paz]

61. It's 4.2% of discovered cases. Actual cases may be 5 to 10 greater in number, hence about 1%. . . nt

[RVN VET71]

104. Per WHO 20% of afflicted require hospitalization

And 20% of the hospitalized die.

I cannot find specific numbers on hospitalizations in the U.S. I know they exist, but I've been unable to locate. But, per WHO, 20% of 3,250,000 cases is 650,000, 20% of which is 130,000.

So the data apparently show that if you do contract Covid 19 you have a 1 in 5 chance of requiring hospitalization and, in that case, you have a 1 in 5 chance of dying.

So, while most people who contract the disease do not require hospitalization -- although it is not unlikely that some of these "stay-at-homes" will later need medical assistance for the virus's after effects -- those who do form a very vulnerable population, 20% of which is statistically doomed to die from the disease.

Of the remaining 80%, does anyone know how many will suffer life-altering after effects caused by the disease?

[Pacifist Patriot]

26. I have tried to explain that countless times.

Even in these terms, it is almost impossible to get through to someone who thinks the inability to get a haircut for a month means the global economy will never recover.

[amuse bouche]

27. Ya it's not the flu

[TheRickles]

28. That's not what the 1% mortality rate means.

1% is in the ballpark of what is being reported for the case fatality rate (CFR) of Covid. This means that 1% of the people who get Covid die, not that 1% of the total population dies. So the question is, What % of Americans get Covid? That number is hard to pin down, especially since so few people are getting tested. In MA, where I live, we've had 100k confirmed cases in a population of 7 million, which is about 1.5% of the population.

8000 deaths have been reported out of those 100k Covid cases so far in MA, which comes to a little over 0.1% of the state's total population (that's an 8% CFR, higher than elsewhere). Because of the possibility that many people who die with Covid did not die from Covid (ie, they had other significant illnesses), these percentages aren't totally exact at this stage of the game.

In other words, Covid mortality may only be about 1/10 as bad as being projected in this post. That's still obviously very bad, but even if many more people die in the months ahead, the mortality rate will be nowhere near the 1% of the total population as described by Mr. Veaux and the OP. The situation will get clearer as we continue to learn more about what's happening, but it doesn't appear to be on course to be the full-blown catastrophe being described here.

[Kitchari]

51. Good point

Thanks for this clarification

[Blue_true]

70. Massachusetts did a pretty aggressive lockdown, based upon news reports.

If everything had simply been left open, then it was possible for all of Massachusetts’ citizens to contract the disease. At that level, we are talking about really horrible numbers.

If everything is left open and people do not wear masks, the probability of every living person and many newborns in the country contracting sar-cov-2 becomes a real possibility, with millions of people dying or becoming permanently disabled, assuming the virus doesn’t mutate to some less lethal form.

[dickthegrouch]

75. Until there's a vaccine, up to 100% of us could catch it

Which means that masks, distancing and lock downs are the new normal for a good long time yet.

While some people may be asymptomatic, we don't know how long that lasts.

What I can't understand is why we STILL don't have enough PPE for professional or personal use. This has been going on for 7 months. We cannot count on a vaccine, or even a palliative medicine, for many more months.

[Celerity]

81. +100000

also, Veaux, the author of the OP is pushing pure quackery

herd immunity would kick in well before you got to a 100% viral penetration rate

that is the most basic of epidemiological science

at what level herd immunity kicks in is determined by the R-naught value (basic reproduction number)

a simple formula for calculating the herd immunity threshold is 1 ? 1/R0

If the R-naught is 1.5.you need a 33.3% exposure rate to hit herd immunity
If the R-naught is 2.0 you need a 50% exposure rate to hit herd immunity.
If it is 2.5, then 60% is need to reach herd immunity
If it is 3.0, 66.7% exposure rate needed
If the R-naught drops under 1.0 and sustains at that level, the viral disease will burn out


also see this

Immunity to COVID-19 is probably higher than tests have shown

https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-than-tests-have-shown

New research from Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital shows that many people with mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 demonstrate so-called T-cell-mediated immunity to the new coronavirus, even if they have not tested positively for antibodies. According to the researchers, this means that public immunity is probably higher than antibody tests suggest. The article is freely available on the bioRxiv server and has been submitted for publication in a scientific journal. “T cells are a type of white blood cells that are specialised in recognising virus-infected cells, and are an essential part of the immune system,” says Marcus Buggert, assistant professor at the Center for Infectious Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, and one of the paper’s main authors. “Advanced analyses have now enabled us to map in detail the T-cell response during and after a COVID-19 infection. Our results indicate that roughly twice as many people have developed T-cell immunity compared with those who we can detect antibodies in.”

In the present study, the researchers performed immunological analyses of samples from over 200 people, many of whom had mild or no symptoms of COVID-19. The study included inpatients at Karolinska University Hospital and other patients and their exposed asymptomatic family members who returned to Stockholm after holidaying in the Alps in March. Healthy blood donors who gave blood during 2020 and 2019 (control group) were also included.

T-cell immunity in asymptomatic individuals

Consultant Soo Aleman and her colleagues at Karolinska University Hospital’s infection clinic have monitored and tested patients and their families since the disease period. “One interesting observation was that it wasn’t just individuals with verified COVID-19 who showed T-cell immunity but also many of their exposed asymptomatic family members,” says Soo Aleman. “Moreover, roughly 30 per cent of the blood donors who’d given blood in May 2020 had COVID-19-specific T cells, a figure that’s much higher than previous antibody tests have shown.” The T-cell response was consistent with measurements taken after vaccination with approved vaccines for other viruses. Patients with severe COVID-19 often developed a strong T-cell response and an antibody response; in those with milder symptoms it was not always possible to detect an antibody response, but despite this many still showed a marked T-cell response.

Very good news from a public health perspective

“Our results indicate that public immunity to COVID-19 is probably significantly higher than antibody tests have suggested,” says Professor Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren at the Center for Infectious Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, and co-senior author. “If this is the case, it is of course very good news from a public health perspective.” T-cell analyses are more complicated to perform than antibody tests and at present are therefore only done in specialised laboratories, such as that at the Center for Infectious Medicine at Karolinska Institutet. “Larger and more longitudinal studies must now be done on both T cells and antibodies to understand how long-lasting the immunity is and how these different components of COVID-19 immunity are related,” says Marcus Buggert.

snip


Publication

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.29.174888v1

“Robust T cell immunity in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19”

Takuya Sekine, André Perez-Potti, Olga Rivera-Ballesteros, Jean-Baptiste Gorin, Annika Olsson, Habiba Kamal, Sian Llewellyn-Lacey, David Wulliman, Tobias Kamann, Gordana Bogdanovic, Sandra Muschiol, Elin Folkesson, Olav Rooyackers, Lars I. Eriksson, Anders Sönnerborg, Tobias Allander, Jan Albert, Morten Nielsen, Kristoffer Strålin, Sara Gredmark-Russ, Niklas K. Björkström, Johan K. Sandberg, David A. Price, Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, Soo Aleman, Marcus Buggert, Karolinska COVID-19 Study Group.
bioRxiv, online 29 June 2020, doi: 10.1101/2020.06.29.174888

[a la izquierda]

90. Thank you for this.

I listened to two experts today on Andy Slavitt's podcast and herd immunity kicks in around 80%.
And basing the mortality rate on the total population as opposed to the total number of people positive is junk statistics.

[Celerity]

103. 80% is probably too high

That would mean an overall R-naught of 5.0 (1 - 1/5 yields .8 or 80%) R-naught is variable in certain areas and time frames, and not static in all cases, I am talking about culmulative R-naught for the pandemic as a whole.

Many large studies show an R-naught of between 2.2 and 2.8 so far, so splitting the diffrence yields 2.5, meaning 60% viral penetration needed for herd immunity. If it is 3.0, then 67% infection rate is needed, and 2.0 means 50% is the threshold. None of that is etched in stone obviously and viral mutations could affect transmissibility, whether for the better or worse.

Cheers

[NewEnglandAutumn]

30. The mortality rate is higher

The most recent numbers I found

3,408,641 cases
137,736 deaths

137,736 / 3,408,641 = 0.0404= 4.04%

Granted it is lower than during the earliest days of the outbreak but still very bad

[Hoyt]

50. Not really. That's based on confirmed cases by testing. Many more infected who are never tested.

[Blue_true]

71. You can't prove your last statement.

There was a recent study out of NYC where something like 4-5% of people in neighborhoods that had people who could stay at home (professional and wealthier) had anti-bodies to SAR-COV-2, whereas something like 50-60% of people in neighborhoods that were hit hardest by the virus had some level of antibodies - the article pointed out that most of the deaths and permanent disabilities took place in the areas with higher antibody levels, so they paid a steep price and still may get the virus on a second pass (whether that can happen or not is still an open issue).

So, you are at best basing assumptions on a situation that won’t exist if the entire country is willy-nilly opened.

[Hoyt]

73. The consensus among experts is that 10 to 20 times more people have been infected

than have tested positive. But, you are free to believe whatever.

[GulfCoast66]

74. I see your point. But your assumption, unless I read it wrong, in which case I apologize

Is that every case has been found. Even with the common flu there are lots of educated guesses made every year to determine the number who actually caught it. I agree with you that until we get lots of antibody test we will will never know. I am doubting we ever will. Antibodies don’t show up forever even if you have protection and this administration does not give a shit.

I suspect when it is all over the death rate will be below 1% but not by much. Which is a horrible death rate.

Not to even being up the life altering, and shortening conditions millions more are left with.

There are so many unknowns. And in a population that had purposely been denied any education in science(ok, my opinion) the lack of definite answer cast doubt on science. It’s like we are back in the Middle Ages.

Have a nice evening.

[Blue_true]

78. We have some empirical data that inadvertently got produced.

When Arizona and Florida went from partial lockdown to open (which both have pulled back from), the positivity rates went from around 3-4% up to close to 20% (I think Florida reached 19% before some restrictions were reimposed and the rate fell back to around 15-16% now). That data actually can be extrapolated with some degree of accuracy, it would imply that if everything remains open, from 1 in 5 to 1 in 6.3 people would contract the virus over a short-term (Florida was open for around 2 months). My guess is the annualized rates for a fully open country would run at about one of those levels, maybe somewhat worse. Something like 60-70% of people that tested positive were asymptomatic, if the higher level is used, that says in a country of 330 million people around 15-18 million people would show some level of symptoms, from mild to severe. We also know that around 5% of the 52-66 million will die based upon existing data, that works out to 2.5-3.3 million people, a little less than 1% to 1% of the national population. Now it is possible that Florida and Arizona are not representative because they are hot places with heavy AC use, which has been shown to be a contributing factor to spread, but even taking that into account, the numbers work out to something horrible.

Where am I? My belief, and it is only a belief, is that if everything opens up the way Trump seem to want it, the national death rate of Americans will run about 0.4-0.6% of the population, with millions more having shorter lifespans and severe disabilities during what is left of their lives.

[TheRickles]

92. Your stats are highly inflated

The test positivity rates grew higher as time went on because the testing in many areas became more targeted with a self-selected population, not a random sample. So it's not true to say that 20% of the general population would contract the virus. It's also not true that the case mortality rate is 5%. Dr. John Ionnanidis at Stanford puts the CMR at much less that 1% because so many cases are asymptomatic, so your stats are highly inflated on both counts. Covid is bad, but not "Black Plague" bad.

[Blue_true]

106. As a sample size grow larger, statistic taken from it more match a full population.

You can dismiss that all you want, it is simply science that has been proven over and over. As Florida and Arizona and Texas tested more people, drawing closer to a full population sample, their positivities soared. As more people are tested, the randomness of the test group increases, coming closer to matching what one would see if 100% of people were tested. The claim made that there are 10x or 20x more infections than found is not borne out by data, the positivity rate as more people are tested indicates that claim in highly inflated.

The date rate that I used include deaths from a time when hospitals were overrun by something that they had no idea how to treat, so now that therapies are better, the death rate that we will see soon is likely to be less than 5%, what it is remains to be seen. The death rate has fluctuated between 40% and 65% of what was seen during the worst of the earlier periods (April mostly), that would imply that the number is between 2% and 3.25% of people that test positive for the virus.

[TheRickles]

110. An assessment by Stanford epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v2

He puts the infection fatality rate at less than 1%, and as low as 0.1% for under 70s.

[Blue_true]

111. Others put it higher. Believe what you want to believe. nt

[Blue_true]

112. Hong Kong, one of the countries in the world with the best control of the virus

has a deathrate after infection confirmation of 0.53%. The country does exceptional contact tracing based upon news summaries, so I doubt there are many magically missed infected people running around there.

Maybe your Stanford expert relied on data from China?

[ProfessorGAC]

31. Somewhere Right Here At DU...

...there's a post where I did nearly the identical projection.
I reached an identical conclusion.
My post was couched as a rebuttal that "we couldn't afford to keep the economy down" because that argument always failed to consider the economic impact of 2 or 3 million dead.
Some who may have read it (and others) may recall my line of "dead people make rotten consumers and unproductive workers". I was looking for a gut punch to imoress the notion that rapid reopening had economic consequences.
I'm glad to see someone doing it to, and coming to the same answer.
Thanks for posting this.

[peggysue2]

59. A very grim but accurate statement, Professor

". . . dead people make rotten consumers and unproductive workers".

A punch to the gut that a swath of the population needs at the moment.

This should be the standard answer to anyone minimizing the economic effects of rising fatalities and/or suggesting (appallingly so) that the elderly or infirmed should sacrifice themselves on the Altar of Commerce, the cure-being-worse-than-the-virus theory.

Time to put the magical thinking away, the beautiful wave that presumably will wash over us, then disappear like a miracle. Even though this is a new virus, we know how these infections spread and what is effective to control that spread. We're just not doing it in a unified manner.

The leadership and will to act at the national level is nonexistent. We either get on top of this or we're facing a true catastrophe, medically and economically, one that could take the entire country down.

[Blue_true]

72. Every position that a person can take on this depends upon a lot of supposition,

as a result an end number depends upon the shade of glasses a person puts on.

The fact is that no country in the world has opened up without some attempt at control. Even Sweden had in place some voluntary procedures and a lot of people and companies there apparently locked down. So we have had nowhere the laize-fare approach that Trump seems to want - hence, we have no real data to base statistically sound projections on.

[paleotn]

33. Math.

[RiF]

39. Si

[EqualityNow]

41. Humanism, decency, logic, and math.. Doesn't work on deplorables.

So.. they don't believe in science.
So.. They believe the entire world, all normal news sources both nationally and internationally are fake news doing it just to get 45.
So.. they don't believe face masks help at all.

So.. what do they actually care about? Wall street, oil and gas markets, and their own jobs/financial security, and getting their fascist nationalist leader reelected.

45 is an incumbent, and they tend to win, especially if the economy is good.
What can make the economy improve? People going out again, and spending their own $$ on things.
What can make people go out again, and spend their own $$ on things? Feeling safer to do so.
What can make people feel safer to do so? Seeing everyone else wearing the masks wherever they do go to spend $$.

Their own movement to fight face mask and social distancing requirements is the ONE thing that they COULD control to serve their own selfish self-interests and political goals.

I do admit being fairly disingenuous when I use this argument with them, but I have found that it does sink in with some of them. First thing I've found that gets through those damn cold thick heartless skulls.

[Moostache]

56. That is not how they see things...entirely.

The deniers do not have a wide-angle or 30,000-foot perspective to balance conclusions against. Their view is more in the 6-10 foot distance between themself and the Moron-of-the-Hour on Fox News, spewing nonsense and bullshit at them for profit and power.

They do not see masks as providing safety, they see them as an admission of weakness in the face of the virus. They take their cues from the head painted clown and his mixed messaging nonsense for the last 150 days. In their warped world, it is entirely probable to them that EVERYTHING is a Soros-funded, Democratic Party-backed "hoax".

They believe that science is an enemy - of "Gawd", of Trump and of family.

They are worthless and need to be cast aside, sometimes the lame members of the herd serve their evolutionary purpose in the stomachs of the apex predators while the herd survives for another generation. We should immediately begin doing what is being proposed in India - not wearing a mask in public? You just volunteered for hospital duty or morgue duty at the nearest COVID-19 unit for a week.

I'd go even further for the "law and order" crowd...

Second offense?
You are now sentenced to a month of nursing aide duty to care for active patients, and since you do not 'believe' in the virus, we will preserve the PPE that would have been allocated to you for others.

Third strike?
Congratulations, you are now assigned to these duties for the remainder of the pandemic.

If we can't get these idiots to wear masks to protect themselves and others, then we can at least quarantine them to maximum societal benefit...

[krispos42]

42. So as of right now there are 137,765 known deaths in the US caused by Trump's incompetence

Which also means there are:

• 2,479,770 with permanent heart damage
  
• 1,377,650 with permanent lung damage
  
• 413,295 will have strokes
  
• 275,530 will have chronic weakness & loss of coordination
  
• 275,530 will have loss of cognitive function

All because 70 or 80 thousand voters in three states voted the wrong way.

[ehrnst]

45. And many Democrats were prevented from voting in those states. (nt)

[RicROC]

76. Trump Virus

It's time to call the Virus for what it really is. Not the region where it came from but the region where the effects are most pronounced.

Trump Virus.

Due to the Trump Virus, citizens of the US are not allowed to travel to Canada, Europe or Mexico.

Due to the Trump Virus, the strongest economy in the world has been severely damaged and will be lagging behind other economies for several years

Etc.

[BadgerMom]

43. Recommend

[WonderGrunion]

46. I am sharing this to Facebook

Too many virus deniers on that platform.

[Initech]

47. And yet we're currently being led by a guy who can't spell or understand basic math.

You think he could comprehend the exponential math of this? Hell no.

[irilli_hadenoff]

84. Understand exponential math?

Remember, he thinks the Dow Jones Index of 30 stocks is the measure of how well the economy is doing.

[warmfeet]

48. I am also on Quora.

I have been following Franklin Veaux for some 4 years now.

He is a fount of knowledge, and a very good person, in my humble opinion.

I think members of DU would find a lot of good information here as well.

After all, it is knowledge that will truly set us all free.

DU and Quora = increased knowledge.

Please don't forget to check out War Donkey and Dave Consiglio. Dave is another gem on Quora- a very strong Democrat, helping us in our cause.

[Dream Girl]

102. This is wrong. It assumes everyone will get it, it will be less tha 50%. Need to cut these estimates

[Mr.Bill]

52. When I hear people say that masks do nothing to prevent the spread

of the virus I tell them to immediately go to their local hospital and tell that to all the Medical professionals wearing masks.

[liberalla]

53. Very useful information. A guy I work with is one of those "only 1% die" people, and

we've had this conversation a couple of times. This may help in future conversations.

K&R

[w0nderer]

54. K & R N/T

[qwlauren35]

55. Hold on.

It's a 1% mortality rate of CASES and a 1% case rate.

This article assumes that everyone in America gets COVID-19. That does not appear to be happening.

So, this article is gloom and doom but doesn't reflect what is really happening.

In 4 months, we have had 3 million cases. That's 1% of the US. Of the 3 million cases, we have had 136,000 die. 4%. I haven't seen a hospitalization tracker, but looking at what happened to Boris Johnson, it's obvious that you can survive, but at a price. So let's say 20% are hospitalized for a month. That's 0.2% of the US population.

Now, there is another thing that isn't being taken into account. It's mostly the elderly and immunocompromised. So, our workforce is not so greatly impacted.

It's gloom and doom.

COVID-19 is serious, can be fatal, can do permanent damage to organs if you survive, and spreads rapidly if not contained with masks and social distancing.

But don't spin the numbers.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

62. The info is to counter "herd immunity" advocates who say let everyone get it and let 1% die. . . .nt

[Jillgirl]

57. What is the mortality rate?

Last edited Mon Jul 13, 2020, 06:06 AM - Edit history (1)

Good point that doesn't get enough attention: There is more to fear from covid than death.

But what is the source of 1%?

Mortality rate is number deceased/(number deceased plus number recovered). I don't know where you can get the best data. At this moment, the mortality rate based on data from this page is: 137,773/(137773+1515889)=8.3%

Reasons why the real number could be lower:
* These numbers can include only reported illnesses. Unreported illnesses are likely lighter cases with fewer deaths.

* These numbers exclude people who are recovering. If, as seems likely, those dying do so faster than those recovering, then when it's all over the death rate will include a lot more recovered people and therefore will go down.

Edited to remove a point that no longer makes sense to me.

[irilli_hadenoff]

85. Realize also that there are actually two death rates

One death rate is what occurs when there are sufficient hospitals, caregivers and equipment to treat all of those who need treatment. A second, higher death rate is what occurs when hospitals are saturated, caregivers are overwhelmed, and also sick and dying, and equipment and suppliers are depleted.

Watch Texas, Arizona and Florida (followed soonafter by California) as their ICU's and then general hospital bed supply is overwhelmed.

[live love laugh]

86. Even more complicated is that there are critically ill who recover

—or seem to — and who are no longer Covid positive and even are discharged from the hospital and still die soon after. I’ve heard of at least two cases of somebody knowing someone where that happened.

In cases like this the cause of death will probably not be listed as Covid even though it was the main culprit.

[Jillgirl]

98. Investigate Excess Deaths

Good point about deaths being caused by covid covertly. (gallows humor -- could not resist)

I think the best way to get an estimate of how many deaths are caused by covid is to look at data on excess deaths. That means the number of deaths this year minus the number last year. If there are no major forces besides covid causing people to live longer or less long, then that number is a good estimate of how many deaths covid caused. I don't have time to pursue that just now, but I did glance at that data about a month ago and it seems to suggest that covid deaths are more than are being reported.

Oh, I need to read more carefully before I reply. That's what you said in your last paragraph. But you are looking at data in England and I was looking at data in the US>

[Mosby]

58. He doesn't understand the theorem he cited in #1.

[bringthePaine]

60. superb distillation and extrapolation! thank you

[DeminPennswoods]

63. Mortality rate equals nr deaths/total cases

Based on the currrent numbers 135k/3.2M cases, mortality is about 4%.

However, we know many people who are or may have been infected who haven't been or have never been tested. We don't know how many people had the virus, never knew it and have subsequently recovered.
The denominator may be much larger, thus making mortality lower.

[Poiuyt]

64. This is the best explanation of what's going on with covid19 that I've seen

[ms liberty]

65. KR& Bookmarking.

[Cetacea]

66. Superb

Thank you

[modrepub]

67. They won't understand unless it's $

So, assume all have life insurance policies worth $100k and multiply that by 3M people so that’s what the life insurance industry has to pay

All those future hospitalizations are going to increase your health insurance premiums

Feel free to add on

[Collimator]

69. Whatever the actual mortality rate is, the fact is that it is lower than

it could be because of the efforts of hardworking people providing medical treatment.

The basic message of "flatten the curve" of months past is that we are equipped to treat and save only a certain percentage of people at a given time. Throwing prevention efforts to the wind will raise the mortality rate because more people will require the same degree of care at the same time.

Not only will care and equipment have to be rationed, but health care workers are a greater risk when they are spread too thin. When a health care provider dies, the life saving skills that they offer are lost to who need them.

It doesn't take a lot of thinking to realize that every effort at prevention cuts down on a ripple effect that can affect countless others.

[chwaliszewski]

77. Truth!

[Heartstrings]

79. Quora has some fascinatingly correct information....

Bookmarking!

[Warpy]

82. One county here in NM has been as high as 7.5% dead

Sure, some of them were cared for at home until it was too late to do anything, but that's still high. That's the kind of rate we're going to see in countries that don't have health care infrastructure.

This disease, if it's killing or injuring 20% of the people in this country, will pretty much destroy what's left of the economy. In addition, they're finding permanent injury to body systems in people who had mild cases, the 80% who are supposed to get through this without a problem. Um, problem. There could be subtle impairment in even more that will affect productivity severely. This disease is looking a lot more dangerous than it did 6 months ago.

Worse, thanks to Dumdum's total abdication of duty (he couldn't even bring himself to delegate anything), the USA is going to be the world's laboratory for the various forms this disease can take.

Now they want the country's children exposed.

I won't be here to see the story of this wretched time told in history books. I can well imagine some of what will be in it. I do know that we will be living in a very different country two or so years from now.

[Cha]

87. Bookmarked.. TY for some harsh reality, ehrsnt!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

88. Thank you. Many people are being so cavalier about this disease.

Especially those getting their "facts" from RW media.

Many acting as if the COVID problem is all but over. Meanwhile, the worst is yet to come, most likely.

[a la izquierda]

91. And who is this guy exactly?

A professional writer, sex educator and small business owner?

When he can add MD or PhD after his name, in a field like immunology or infectious diseases, then I'll take his writing seriously. He doesn't do statistics correctly (1% of the total US population WON'T die, because that assumes 100% of the population gets COVID).

[TheRickles]

99. Exactly right. n/t

[chia]

105. +1

[BComplex]

94. Those are terrifying numbers.

Almost 60 million people with permanent heart damage?

[JoeDuck]

96. Where does 1% come from?

According to CDC figures this morning, there are 3,236,130 cases in the United States. Of those, 134,572 have died. If I divide the number of deaths by the number of cases, I get .04. That seems a lot higher than 1%. Am I making a mistake in how I did the math?

[ancianita]

97. The thing is, 1% is a hypothetical. The current death total is 4% of the confirmed total.

The US's current death percent correlates with the world's.

The other thing is, hypothetical or not, this is STILL a good rubric for seeing the future death total's impact on the whole country.

The total confirmed count right now is not even 1% of the country, so more complete testing and more confirmations will come closer to the picture this rubric presents.

Thanks for posting this, even if it's a hypothetical.

It's still important to think about the effects on future generations. I'd add:

Assuming all the numbers above are WITHIN the top 62,358,000 hospitalized, who don't die, they are 19% of the American population.

Subtract 73,700,000 children under 18, and 254,500,000 adult workers are left. CURRENTLY.

Don't even assume growth in medical capacity.
Do you have evidence that new facilities are being built?
By whom? By the .01% who got the TRILLIONS that Americans should have gotten, instead?
Do you have evidence that a federally organized pandemic response even exists?

Reopen the economy, and the 19% who survive COVID
-- will not be able to work or pay taxes
-- will become the newly disabled class who cost society more than is paid now
-- will need Medicaid expansion or Medicare 4 All. Republicans who already hate taxation will not want to pay for them this side of death, anyway.

SO, the reopen issue is NOT "the economy vs 1%.”

The issue is what the remaining 78% can do to pay for the sickened economy AND still survive during the time it takes to revive what's left of the economy.

The answer to "What's the big deal of 1% death?" is this:
-- The US economy will not survive with the 19% survivor costs that the 78% will not be able to pay.
-- The US economy will not survive even 20% of Americans getting COVID-19.

If you want to bear that cost, then you will, while learning Russian for free, and while Russia's Putin reminds you that all the white supremacists' belief in "winning," and "great again" were worth the "sacrifice" for the Eurasian Project.

What an economic, political, social vision for the next four years. Russia and Putin are waiting for it.

[calimary]

100. Dear God...

[Caliman73]

108. That is what I said at the very beginning.

When the idiot and his administration cronies were talking about it "going away" or people were comparing it to the flu. Then they started talking about the damage to the economy from shutting down. My numbers were very rough but using that information, I had said that were were not only looking at the dead, which would have been bad enough if we had not shut down, but were were also looking at an infection rate that would have decimated the working population AND overtaxed our health care system creating even bigger problems. Just because we have COVID-19 doesn't mean that the 100,000 plus tobacco related deaths go away, or the heart disease, cancer, etc... related problems would just stop. It just means that we would not have the resources to deal with them.

[nilram]

109. And if we 'open up' and overrun the hospitals, the mortality rate will be even higher.