cone said:

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Quote:

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Fortunately, we are in a timeframe where buying time to roll out the vaccine means those people who didn't get it this time could be vaccinated and not susceptible to the next potential outbreak.

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if there ever was a time where lockdowns would be justified, it's now (in that respect)

the tech is here, just waiting to get rolled out. seasonal increase in infectiousness and susceptibility.

i don't know why that's not the case being made by the pro-lockdowners to be honest. the end is coming into sight. you'll get far more buy-in if people know this is the final push.

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I think people are better at making decisions about their lives than bureaucrats. And even if they are not equipped, it's still their life to risk or not. Ever person can make the decision to isolate themselves if they feel at risk. If they don't and get sick and die from COVID, it's their fault, not anyone else....we all have choices and have made choices to put us, individually, where we are.

I believe liberty restrictions should strictly be focused on health care capacity issues, where public health is impacted beyond COVID risks......situations where hospitals/health care capacity is so overwhelmed, treatment is no longer available for other life threatening diseases. This as always been the goal and it appears we are at this level in many places today.

We live in a society where most of, I wish all, don't want to be told how to live their lives regardless of the danger. Which means we must tolerate not telling other people how to live their lives. It's a slippery slope when you accept liberties being taken away because of the potential for danger or fear of it that has very limited impact on most of the population, at least until that point that overwhelms the health care system.

That said, you can educate, have a media campaign etc to sway public opinion for people to voluntarily take more precautions for the greater good. But we should not tolerate heavy bureaucrats unilaterally taking liberties without a clear and present danger to the majority of the population

I'm really tired of seeing editorials about articles and tweets about articles rather than seeing links to actual articles.

I'm grateful that this journal has open access so I could read it for myself.

Read the entire article for yourself and see if it's saying what this dude thinks it's saying.

They're not studying spread of the disease at all. They're studying mortality.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.604339/full

deadbq03 said:

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I'm really tired of seeing editorials about articles and tweets about articles rather than seeing links to actual articles.

I'm grateful that this journal has open access so I could read it for myself.

Read the entire article for yourself and see if it's saying what this dude thinks it's saying.

They're not studying spread of the disease at all. They're studying mortality.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.604339/full

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Try reading the article, and the other (19) like it, again. The initial reason for the lockdowns was to preserve capacity in hospitals but since then, it's been about 'saving lives.' Which is unadulterated bull**** unanchored in science, but rather grounded in a theological belief system/dogma.

Yeah, an exposed elderly population (as in western/wealthy countries) leads to greater deaths a la Cuomo (if also the contagious are deliberately thrown in), but that's not the argument for more lockdowns.

No lockdown has been shown to reduce deaths.

If it doesn't do that, why are we doing it, as it is exorbitantly expensive otherwise (in money and lives)?

Sorry not for lockdown but no one has evidence it costs lives. The fact that almost no one was driving reduced greatly the number of traffic accidents for instance. Cleaner air in most cities has to help those with lung and repiratory issues.

Livelihoods yes.

But it did not murder people or make those who caught covid sicker.

And the lives of our healthcare workers have to be considered. They must be on the brink of long term mental health and trauma issues. They have to be exhausted. Why not help them out by staying home voluntarily when possible, wearing the damn mask properly..I am so tired of seeing noses..and keeping social distances?

3rd Generation Ag said:

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Sorry not for lockdown but no one has evidence it costs lives. The fact that almost no one was driving reduced greatly the number of traffic accidents for instance. Cleaner air in most cities has to help those with lung and repiratory issues.

Livelihoods yes.

But it did not murder people or make those who caught covid sicker.

And the lives of our healthcare workers have to be considered. They must be on the brink of long term mental health and trauma issues. They have to be exhausted. Why not help them out by staying home voluntarily when possible, wearing the damn mask properly..I am so tired of seeing noses..and keeping social distances?

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I recommend you read more outside of your preferred outlets. Suicides, cancer, heart attacks, and yes extreme global poverty are outcomes from these policies (in the US). Lockdowns aren't virtuous; they cost lives, not just dollars.

https://redstate.com/michael_thau/2020/07/27/head-of-cdc-lockdown-suicides-drug-ods-killing-way-more-americans-than-covid-n248959

https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/11/17/world-bank-covid-lockdowns-likely-to-push-between-88-and-115-million-people-into-extreme-poverty/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-resilience/202006/the-impact-prolonged-school-closures-children

Or, heck, maybe even listen to WHO.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/who-official-urges-world-leaders-to-stop-using-lockdowns-as-primary-virus-control-method/ar-BB19TBUo

You're missing my point entirely.

I've only seen you post two articles, and in both cases, a snippet was taken from the article which spoke to the agenda of the person tweeting it. It's 100% clear in this case and very likely in the other case (can't read the original article), that the research studies being cited were investigating an entirely different topic. I'd be willing to bet that a good portion of the magical 20 articles face similar issues.

It is irresponsible to draw a conclusion from a study that was never designed to investigate that question.

This isn't an article about whether restrictive measures work or not. It should not be cited to support that claim.

As for the overall topic of lockdowns, I'll say this:

1) No one can "prove" they work or not at this stage. It will take years before any strong claims can be made on that front - and given how political it is, it's likely to be an ongoing debate for decades.

2) There is however, gobs of good research about quarantines, masks, etc, for previous pandemics throughout history. The people recommending these measures are basing it on this body of research.

3) Beyond all the above, it's common sense. If everyone on the planet stayed in our homes for 3 weeks while robot slaves fed us, the disease would literally die out. Obviously that's impossible and I think it'd be morally reprehensible for a government to mandate that even if it were possible. At a more reasonable level perhaps, is the kind of lockdown they had in China after they swept it under the rug. This article follows a city of over 6 million in China where they locked down outrageously tight and have had zero fatalities. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.562024/full

But given the fact that the authors mention that the government arrested those who weren't compliant - I'm not sure this helps the discussion for our purposes. I don't want to see that anywhere, but especially not here, and I'm a raging coronabro. And again, back to my first point, this one single article doesn't "prove" they work. Nor would it if I wasted my time to dig up 20.

But at least this one actually aims to investigate that question. Hopefully there are some in your 20 that do too. If so, they'll be valuable contributions to our overall understanding of this topic moving forward... but they don't "prove" anything right now.

deadbq03 said:

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As for the overall topic of lockdowns, I'll say this:

1) No one can "prove" they work or not at this stage. It will take years before any strong claims can be made on that front - and given how political it is, it's likely to be an ongoing debate for decades.

2) There is however, gobs of good research about quarantines, masks, etc, for previous pandemics throughout history. The people recommending these measures are basing it on this body of research.

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You're boring me. I'll post relevant pieces and you can believe what you want. The fact is the 2019 WHO pandemic guidelines specifically advocated against lockdowns. Why that was abandoned is not something for me to justify/criticize; those were the scientific principles we should have followed.

Scientists and doctors looking at the data clearly see the harm. That you don't, ok, I get it, you're passionate about your faith.

https://justthenews.com/nearly-50000-doctors-and-scientists-630000-citizens-have-signed-global-anti-lockdown-proclamation

You're obviously ignoring the massive harm done to literally billions substantially by our domestic lockdowns are/have done, out of a bias I don't care to debate. I'm not here to win an internet debate.

notex said:

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deadbq03 said:

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As for the overall topic of lockdowns, I'll say this:

1) No one can "prove" they work or not at this stage. It will take years before any strong claims can be made on that front - and given how political it is, it's likely to be an ongoing debate for decades.

2) There is however, gobs of good research about quarantines, masks, etc, for previous pandemics throughout history. The people recommending these measures are basing it on this body of research.

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You're boring me. I'll post relevant pieces and you can believe what you want. The fact is the 2019 WHO pandemic guidelines specifically advocated against lockdowns. Why that was abandoned is not something for me to justify/criticize; those were the scientific principles we should have followed.

Scientists and doctors looking at the data clearly see the harm. That you don't, ok, I get it, you're passionate about your faith.

https://justthenews.com/nearly-50000-doctors-and-scientists-630000-citizens-have-signed-global-anti-lockdown-proclamation

You're obviously ignoring the massive harm done to literally billions substantially by our domestic lockdowns are/have done, out of a bias I don't care to debate. I'm not here to win an internet debate.

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Please post the WHO guidelines again. Last time I saw something about that, it was specifically in regards to influenza pandemics, and even then they listed many restrictive measures that might be necessary for severe outbreaks.

That said, I'm inclined to agree that lockdowns cause more harm than good in this case, and I'm most certainly leery of government mandates.

But whether mandates are appropriate for this particular pandemic is an entirely different and appropriate discussion than making a blanket statement claiming that restrictive measures don't work. The mechanisms of viral spread and centuries of public health research make it clear that human behavior affects how germs spread. This concept is beyond the shadow-of-a-doubt true. We can slow the spread of germs. Period. If you disagree vehemently, please be consistent and tell your doctors and nurses that you don't want them to wash their hands and wear gloves before examining you.

Whether mandates are working is a valid question too - which begs the bigger question "if not, why not?" Maybe when certain world leaders and media outlets claim in February that there's nothing to worry about, and that this is just another flu that'll die out by April - that sets a tone that is irreversible. I'm inclined to think if a different tone had been set, we could've gotten away with voluntary measures only.

And so what I'm really addressing here isn't what works or what doesn't. I'm addressing scientific illiteracy. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way at all. I'm sure you're quite smart. The fact is, that most academic journals are behind huge paywalls so unless you're actually in academia, where your library card is basically solid gold, real people don't get to read these journal articles. Real people read articles about the articles or hear a 3 minute summary on cable news. I'm trying to point out to you that your sources (so far) are clearly not reporting about these articles in a responsible way. And on the other side of the coin, there are fear-mongers on the left taking articles out of context to drum up fear. I don't know how to fix this problem, but I do wish everyone would do a better job questioning whether what they're being pumped by any media outlet is being reported in a responsible way... they're clearly in it to just tell us what we want to hear and make us angry at others so we keep coming back.

Holding over two dozen COVID+ in ER with nowhere to put them. Many are doing OK and just need a bit of supplemental o2. Have to get some turnover on the Covid floors. These patients are not dying but are lingering.

Infection_Ag11 said:

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Capitol Ag said:

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Infection_Ag11 said:

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What he is saying is, technically, true. A 40 year old with no risk factors whatsoever dying of COVID is a statistical outlier. Where I disagree with him is the obvious intent of his posts, which is to parlay that fact into a conclusion about the pandemic that is unwarranted.

A healthy 40 year old dying of COVID is an outlier, but a healthy 40 year old experiencing varying degrees of ongoing morbidity associated with their infection is not. And that is where, in the younger populations, this really differs from influenza. Influenza does not regularly lead to previously healthy young people being unable to return to baseline levels of function months after their initial infection.

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I am not trying to parlay anything. I am tired of the overuse of statistical anomalies by many whether its the media or whoever. It would be essentially the same as using the threat of a plane crash to scare people into not flying. I believe the American people are being essentially lied to in many ways. By both sides at times. I want facts to set policy and to quell panic. Nothing more. This is worse than the flu. No doubt. But we cannot shut down again either, which too much of the country is still trying to or has done. That just causes more harm than good. And we just do not know the extent of severe long term issues. There are some. As there are with the flu. How that coincides with the flu would be interesting to study as well. Most still do not report long term effects, yet there are some, no doubt. Heck, there really are younger, very healthy people who die from complications due to influenza every year too. Just a fact. Not diminishing Covid, statistically for those under 50, the flu really is more dangerous. That is not debatable. It's how we use that data and information that really matters.

None of this is to take away from what the Doc is posting about in the OP and subsequent posts on this thread and that is not my intention. It was Bay Fan who hijacked what I was trying to say and totally misrepresented it. Not sure why. I had no beef with her on any of this. I hope this thread can proceed forward without much more debate as there are plenty of other threads available for that. These are just my opinions.

In the end, what we need is to get to a vaccine soon. It's the only way to quell most of this.

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The cutoff age where COVID is less fatal than influenza is in the 30-40 range depending on where your data comes from, but the thing that so many ignore is that death isn't the only thing to consider. Yes, if you are 30 you are less likely to die from COVID than from influenza. You are also exponentially more likely to suffer from a post-infectious syndrome that is debilitating for some period of time, and the concern is that some of these patients may never truly fully recover. I've seen plenty of patients in the 20-50 range who were previously healthy and didn't die but had to leave the hospital with home oxygen and many are still on it weeks to months later. I saw a 29 year old marathon runner over the summer who still can't walk from her front door to her care without getting winded six months later. And unlike death in younger populations, these scenarios are fairly common after COVID for weeks to months.

In younger patients the concern is chronic morbidity, NOT mortality. That doesn't mean I'm advocating for lockdowns, but we MUST get away from this idea that the only thing that matters is mortality. Just simply being alive isn't always a meaningful metric.

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Do we have any hard numbers or percentages of people with ongoing issues after surviving covid? Seems like this argument may be purely anecdotal.

The WHO NPI guidelines for a pandemic involving influenza clearly should have applied to COVID as it is, after all, an upper respiratory virus as well. But they were trashed.

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf?ua=1

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1309949958536204290.html

Quote:

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but the final takeaway is straightforward:

this has been panic driven policy in contravention of sound, evidence driven pandemic guidelines right from the start.

the science has not been followed.

it's been ignored to no good ends and at horrific cost.
stop letting people lie to you and tell you this was "doing it right" and "following the science."

this has been conking science on the head and dragging it into an alley while kidnapping whole societies and holding them for ransom while sense and reason struggle to recover.

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Rock1983 said:

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I believe liberty restrictions should strictly be focused on health care capacity issues, where public health is impacted beyond COVID risks......situations where hospitals/health care capacity is so overwhelmed, treatment is no longer available for other life threatening diseases. This as always been the goal and it appears we are at this level in many places today.

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Not arguing for more lockdowns, but if a lockdown is going to help in a hospital overcapacity situation, it would need to start weeks before you get to over capacity.

I think this is an inherent problem with a gov imposed lockdown, it is nearly always too late to do any good. I don't think people are going to do any better individually. You can't justify a lockdown early on with just a few cases per day. As the cases rise, you get to a threshold were it becomes obvious where things are headed. But with lockdown, you still have a 5-7 days for the people who were exposed the day before to get sick, and another 5-7 days for anyone they are living with to be exposed and get sick. The spike is consistently 8-12 weeks in duration. Because of the exponential nature in the front of the curve and the delay, lockdowns are consistently imposed about 2 weeks before the peak. Convenient, as they point to the peak following the lockdown by 2 weeks as proof the lockdown works. But that peak is in the same place and the shape of the curve is the same regardless of the level of intervention.

BiochemAg97 said:

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Rock1983 said:

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I believe liberty restrictions should strictly be focused on health care capacity issues, where public health is impacted beyond COVID risks......situations where hospitals/health care capacity is so overwhelmed, treatment is no longer available for other life threatening diseases. This as always been the goal and it appears we are at this level in many places today.

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Not arguing for more lockdowns, but if a lockdown is going to help in a hospital overcapacity situation, it would need to start weeks before you get to over capacity.

I think this is an inherent problem with a gov imposed lockdown, it is nearly always too late to do any good. I don't think people are going to do any better individually. You can't justify a lockdown early on with just a few cases per day. As the cases rise, you get to a threshold were it becomes obvious where things are headed. But with lockdown, you still have a 5-7 days for the people who were exposed the day before to get sick, and another 5-7 days for anyone they are living with to be exposed and get sick. The spike is consistently 8-12 weeks in duration. Because of the exponential nature in the front of the curve and the delay, lockdowns are consistently imposed about 2 weeks before the peak. Convenient, as they point to the peak following the lockdown by 2 weeks as proof the lockdown works. But that peak is in the same place and the shape of the curve is the same regardless of the level of intervention.

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I agree that our government is usually a day late and a dollar short in reacting to crisis situations.

I personally think a winter outbreak of covid is inherently going to be worse than the 1st wave in the spring or summer so I'm not sure those curves are going to look exactly the same. But hopefully I'm wrong.

We will see where we are in a few weeks but we are certainly headed in the wrong direction with Thanksgiving coming at a terrible time.

Agree. Pandemic fatigue + vaccine around the corner + holiday season is not a particularly good situation.

Think we'll see a very long plateau with this wave, unfortunately.

notex said:

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The WHO NPI guidelines for a pandemic involving influenza clearly should have applied to COVID as it is, after all, an upper respiratory virus as well. But they were trashed.

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf?ua=1

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1309949958536204290.html

Quote:

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but the final takeaway is straightforward:

this has been panic driven policy in contravention of sound, evidence driven pandemic guidelines right from the start.

the science has not been followed.

it's been ignored to no good ends and at horrific cost.
stop letting people lie to you and tell you this was "doing it right" and "following the science."

this has been conking science on the head and dragging it into an alley while kidnapping whole societies and holding them for ransom while sense and reason struggle to recover.

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Not all upper respiratory infections are the same, so it's not appropriate to assume that this same guidance would be appropriate for a novel Coronavirus. Influenza has been well studied and tracked.

Even so, it's also dishonest for the writer in your 2nd link to declare that this is a "moderate" pandemic without supporting that claim. So even if you want to use this guidance for Covid even though it's clearly just for flu, this guidance leaves the door open for both school and workplace shutdowns.

On both counts then, it's highly dishonest to claim that the WHO doesn't recommend lockdowns as a practice. They clearly make room for it with extreme outbreaks of the flu, and this is not the flu.

WesMaroon&White said:

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AggieAuditor said:

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culdeus said:

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Capitol Ag said:

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culdeus said:

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It's crazy how the attitudes for this changed so quickly.

Went from people sort of caring, to people literally not giving a single crap.

I don't have any idea what a world looks like with full hospitals and this bearing down, I would hate to think we are denying care and I would hate to think a Dr. has to make a live/die call. What a mess.

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We don't know that they are having to make a live/die call at this point. It sounds like overall, the treatment currently given has reduced the likelihood of death significantly. Obviously, this is very regional and local the way things pop up. One area can be exploding and a close area near there can have no issues at all. Hopefully a vaccine is introduced soon enough to help those most at risk.

Good luck Doc. We are all thinking and praying for you and your staff.

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This narrative seems a little stretched. Seems like younger people are getting it making it appear the death rate is falling on a broad level. It's hard to gather if let's say 65+ rate of hospital/death is better. Certainly it looked that way for awhile, but what could also be true is that it wasn't enough of an improvement to avoid over-run of hospitals which is by and large what is happening in the mid-size regional hospital districts in Texas.

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What attitudes are changing? There's almost nowhere you can go without a mask. People are wearing masks like they are told.

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I wish that was the case. People are gathering without masks. They are visiting friends and family inside homes without masks. Some are even having parties. Here in TN each county sets the mask mandate. One county will have a mask mandate and those that don't want to wear a mask go to the surrounding counties without mask mandates. I now shop in counties with mask mandates. And I already had COVID, end of July through early August, and I don't want it again.

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Why do you think you're going to get it again? I too had it in late June/early July - mild 2 week flu (51 year old male in decent shape with historical asthma). Been living as normal as I can (no masks unless absolutely required, getting together as much as possible with other people, 2 Aggie Football games, multiple HS football games, eating out in restaurants 2-4 times/week)....zero issues.

Has this virus and society's response to it made anyone else really worried for when the next, more dangerous pandemic happens? If this is how society/leaders/hospitals handle a virus that MAINLY affects people over 65 and has over a 95% survival rate, what happens when something comes along that affects all ages the same and has a much lower survival rate?

COVID has caused major economic/health/mental damage. I'm scared to think what happens when something much worse comes along someday.

Well this was a good thread for a while, but it seems to have been successfully derailed by the indisputable expertise of "@FatEmperor" on Twitter.

Sorry, docs and biochemists. The real expert has spoken.

John Francis Donaghy said:

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Well this was a good thread for a while, but it seems to have been successfully derailed by the indisputable expertise of "@FatEmperor" on Twitter.

Sorry, docs and biochemists. The real expert has spoken.

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We haven't heard from @GummyBear yet to bring the full messaging home on how we are all so dumb for not looking at tiny subsets of cherry picked data.

We were holding over two dozen positive patients in the ER today with nowhere to put them. A lot of them from rural areas coming in from all over the place. The rural hospital shutdowns over the last 10 years are killing us right now. Nowhere to spread the load.

cone said:

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Quote:

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Has this virus and society's response to it made anyone else really worried for when the next, more dangerous pandemic happens?

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yes and no

yes worried because our public healthy institutions so completely failed at managing messaging and maintaining morale. social media makes their jobs hard in many ways and they weren't able to handle it.

not as worried because infrastructure now exists that the west never planned for before. it's going to be like 9/11 aftermath. we're going to majorly shore up defenses (biosecurity state, for good or ill) and the population is going to have a much higher level of emergency preparedness (i.e. not going to get caught flat-footed on PPE again, companies will go work from home earlier/more willingly).

more worried than not, but not as terrified as i was in February when i thought we were flat-footed and in complete denial

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That is a great point about more prepared and the analogy to post 9/11. TAMU is testing an infectious disease breathalyzer on campus. No doubt they will eventually make their way into airports and people will breath through a straw before getting on a plane. Good thing is tech like that isn't COVID specific. Might not get the first early infections of the next disease, but much faster to develop a disease profile for the device than to develop new tech from scratch.

Tons of other tech like that being developed too.

My problem was not the initial COVID infection. I had lingering effects for 2 to 2 1/2 months afterwards. I am 55 and my wife is 47. We both tested positive on July 29. She was the first one with symptoms and we assumed it was a potential sinus infection as rageweed was in bloom. She had a fever of 100.5 and we tested because of precaution and my work requirements. She eventually had all the symptoms (except for the gastrointestinal) during the infection and no lingering issues afterwards.

I on the other hand had a very minor symptoms, I did not even lose my taste or smell or had a fever. I had a 2 day head cold that I was able to treat with DayQuil/Nyquill/musinex, one day after testing positive. After that I felt that I could have run a marathon. 7 days after testing positive, I had a day of weird sweats, exhaustion, with no fever (max temp was 98.4). My O2 levels were good.

Then the lingering after effects, I had random fatigue. And, I mean random. My O2 levels were often checked and were OK. Some days I had no fatigue at all. Other days, I had to sit down 3 times just walking back from my back yard to the house. I had a cough with chunky white phlegm that lasted until mid October.

Yes, doctor gave me antibiotics, a steroid for my cough, and a blood thinner after the infection and assume it was my body removing the damage the virus caused in my body. Like viral pneumonia, lingering effects can last for a couple of months. He did an X-ray, but did not see anything, sent me to a cardiologist to check for blood clots. Nothing was found and suggested waiting for 3 month before doing additional testing. And yes, I took musinex on and off for 2 1/2 months.

And since people have tested positive twice. I don't want the lingering effects again. So I am a little more cautious.

East of Dallas. Can't provide too much more information because our hospital leadership seems to be very keen on keeping things quiet. They aren't even releasing general Covid patient information to the public. Many in this area have no idea that the outbreak is this bad. It's a damn shame. Lack of information it's just going to lead to more spread.

Basically the exact opposite approach of TMC and others across the state. The issues in El Paso have been very well documented and very well covered. Guess what? Their cases are now plummeting. It isn't just because the virus ran it's course. People are taking it seriously.

That is ****ed up and morally inexcusable.

Your hospital is literally over run but the people in charge don't want to do anything to slow it down?

My parents are in el paso. They were yoloing it. Then the next door neighbor got it...I guess watching him drag his new o2 bottle outside to sit on his porch made an impression on my parents that I could never make.

Cactus Jack said:

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East of Dallas. Can't provide too much more information because our hospital leadership seems to be very keen on keeping things quiet. They aren't even releasing general Covid patient information to the public. Many in this area have no idea that the outbreak is this bad. It's a damn shame. Lack of information it's just going to lead to more spread.

Basically the exact opposite approach of TMC and others across the state. The issues in El Paso have been very well documented and very well covered. Guess what? Their cases are now plummeting. It isn't just because the virus ran it's course. People are taking it seriously.

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Figure out a way to anonymously leak it to the press or blow the whistle to authorities. If your hospital is withholding information and endangering the public to protect profits they need to be held accountable.