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Honestly, if you want to attribute the spread or spike of cases to anybody, a person going to a Memorial day parade or beach (left or right leaning) is as much as a spreader who is protesting on the streets for the racial injustice. It is interesting to see the argument that the spike is due to "early" opening of businesses when we can clearly see more evident reasons for possible spread/spike.
From my perspective, it is what makes our country unique. Personal freedom and right to speak your mind and assemble/protest is important for many of us. I do not agree with the timing of it though. Re-opening of businesses was proposed with appropriate social distancing, mask wearing, etc. The events of last few weeks were unforeseen and they were definitely not an effect of "early" re-opening of businesses.
While I do think there will be some effect due to protests, it is a bit early and what we are observing now is due to the rushed reopening and memorial day activities. Inconsistent messaging and irresponsible behavior does not help either.
Lastly, MN and NY had huge protests, no increases in new cases, at least not yet.
What is your perspective on daily new deaths in Texas? The spike that you seemed to be forecasting since April has never really materialized. We are already mid-June.
Also, can you please elaborate on your understanding of the objective of the shutdown in April/March?
Unfortunately, if the hospitalization and new daily case figures are an indicator, we're likely to see a death spike over the next week.
And to clarify, I never said we would have a spike. I said Texas was opening too soon, and that would result in significantly more cases and deaths than would have occurred otherwise. That can manifest as simply a much slower downslope rather than an actual spike. I certainly believe that is what has happened (and there may now be a spike as well), and on a national level, that's why we are likely looking at closer to 200,000 deaths than the 75,000 many were hoping for a couple months ago.
There are two separate questions regarding the shutdown's objective:
1. What were public officials intending with regards to the shutdowns?
2. What was the best justification for the shutdowns?
I don't pretend to know the answer to the first, so I'll address the second. One purpose was obviously to prevent the healthcare system from becoming overrun. That's well-known, and it's probably the answer on the tip of most people's tongues. But a major thing the shutdowns did is lower case numbers while mask availability ramped up and opening procedures were developed. By reducing the number of "seed" cases at opening, we significantly reduced the number of total cases and deaths that would happen in 2020. Remember, only 1 in 150 people have tested positive. If you believe that is 10x underreported, we still only have 1 in 15 people that have tested positive. A vaccine is likely not that far away. A plan in which we stay just below the capacity of hospitals is a bad plan because we would end up with far, far more cases and deaths than we would have otherwise. Just a couple extra weeks (which is basically what the White House recommendations were) of delay in the opening would have made a major difference.
In an nutshell, staying below hospital capacity was only one reason for the shutdowns. We could probably stay below hospital capacity and still end up with 30% of the population infected, likely resulting in 600k deaths. That's a low bar, and we wouldn't be successful if that was the outcome. Instead, the shutdowns should have gotten our seed cases at opening lower, leaving us with only 8% (hypothetical figure) of the population infected this year and "only" 160k deaths.
Agree with most of your points. Here is a point that I am trying to make. Shutdowns is an overkill. The hospitalizations is not happening at the same occupancy % across all hospitals across the state. So, you really have to see where these spikes are happening and target those specific areas. Like the governor said, the latest spikes in positive cases are in the prisons and if I remember correctly, in a couple of counties. The nursing homes are already being targeted for controling the virus. So, in my opinion, the current approach is the right balance in ensuring that we take care of the economy but at the same time minimize the impact of the virus.
Also, note that we (doctors, nurses, scientific community in general) are much better prepared in handling patients than what we were in March/April timeframe. Besides, there are new therapeutic cures already in use, inflammation related remedies being administered all over the world, which was not the case in the beginning. So, in effect, I do not see any kind of pattern between number of positive cases and the potential number of deaths. So, claiming that a spike in new positive cases today will lead to spike in new deaths 3 weeks from now, is not valid. Texas numbers have proven that. Remember that Texas new deaths went above 50 only twice and that was on 5/14 and on 5/15.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost
Unfortunately, if the hospitalization and new daily case figures are an indicator, we're likely to see a death spike over the next week.
And to clarify, I never said we would have a spike. I said Texas was opening too soon, and that would result in significantly more cases and deaths than would have occurred otherwise. That can manifest as simply a much slower downslope rather than an actual spike. I certainly believe that is what has happened (and there may now be a spike as well), and on a national level, that's why we are likely looking at closer to 200,000 deaths than the 75,000 many were hoping for a couple months ago.
There are two separate questions regarding the shutdown's objective:
1. What were public officials intending with regards to the shutdowns?
2. What was the best justification for the shutdowns?
I don't pretend to know the answer to the first, so I'll address the second. One purpose was obviously to prevent the healthcare system from becoming overrun. That's well-known, and it's probably the answer on the tip of most people's tongues. But a major thing the shutdowns did is lower case numbers while mask availability ramped up and opening procedures were developed. By reducing the number of "seed" cases at opening, we significantly reduced the number of total cases and deaths that would happen in 2020. Remember, only 1 in 150 people have tested positive. If you believe that is 10x underreported, we still only have 1 in 15 people that have tested positive. A vaccine is likely not that far away. A plan in which we stay just below the capacity of hospitals is a bad plan because we would end up with far, far more cases and deaths than we would have otherwise. Just a couple extra weeks (which is basically what the White House recommendations were) of delay in the opening would have made a major difference.
In an nutshell, staying below hospital capacity was only one reason for the shutdowns. We could probably stay below hospital capacity and still end up with 30% of the population infected, likely resulting in 600k deaths. That's a low bar, and we wouldn't be successful if that was the outcome. Instead, the shutdowns should have gotten our seed cases at opening lower, leaving us with only 8% (hypothetical figure) of the population infected this year and "only" 160k deaths.
Agree with most of your points. Here is a point that I am trying to make. Shutdowns is an overkill. The hospitalizations is not happening at the same occupancy % across all hospitals across the state. So, you really have to see where these spikes are happening and target those specific areas. Like the governor said, the latest spikes in positive cases are in the prisons and if I remember correctly, in a couple of counties. The nursing homes are already being targeted for controling the virus. So, in my opinion, the current approach is the right balance in ensuring that we take care of the economy but at the same time minimize the impact of the virus.
Also, note that we (doctors, nurses, scientific community in general) are much better prepared in handling patients than what we were in March/April timeframe. Besides, there are new therapeutic cures already in use, inflammation related remedies being administered all over the world, which was not the case in the beginning. So, in effect, I do not see any kind of pattern between number of positive cases and the potential number of deaths.
I agree with much of this, but to clarify, I'm not suggesting that a shutdown should happen now. My position is that the first shutdown should have continued for a couple more weeks and masks should have been legally mandated for any business that was opening to the public.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CDContribuitor
So, claiming that a spike in new positive cases today will lead to spike in new deaths 3 weeks from now, is not valid. Texas numbers have proven that. Remember that Texas new deaths went above 50 only twice and that was on 5/14 and on 5/15.
I agree that it is likely not the same, but when there are record hospitalizations for six of seven days in a week, there will be a spike in deaths. I'm not simply looking at new daily cases. Those are up, and they're up in a big way, but hospitalizations are also up significantly.
We'll of course see over the next week or so. Texas saw 46 deaths yesterday, though, which is the highest figure in almost a month. I'd be very surprised if things drop back down to normal over the next week (your use of the phrase "over 50" is interesting because had you said "50 or higher," the number of days would have been four rather than two).
While I do think there will be some effect due to protests, it is a bit early and what we are observing now is due to the rushed reopening and memorial day activities. Inconsistent messaging and irresponsible behavior does not help either.
Lastly, MN and NY had huge protests, no increases in new cases, at least not yet.
Heres the problem with that.
Its a way of trying to shift the blame for increased viruses in one direction. I am very much sympathetic to what the protesters are trying to accomplish, however you had a lot in politics and the media telling us we must stay home for fear of the virus one week and the next week cheering people to go protest. The virus doesnt care.
Frankly its somewhat annoying to imply that protesting was a great thing to do while at the same time saying reopening is killing people. Again, I must reiterate I applaud people for protesting police brutality and systemic racism, but I also applauded reopening.
The left and the right want to have their cake and eat it too but they cant.
Yeah, I get it. One is trying to fix a systemic problem and the other is cheering a racist. However, the virus doesnt give a flying you-know-what. So were either against people being out of their homes or we arent.
Its a way of trying to shift the blame for increased viruses in one direction. I am very much sympathetic to what the protesters are trying to accomplish, however you had a lot in politics and the media telling us we must stay home for fear of the virus one week and the next week cheering people to go protest. The virus doesnt care.
Frankly its somewhat annoying to imply that protesting was a great thing to do while at the same time saying reopening is killing people. Again, I must reiterate I applaud people for protesting police brutality and systemic racism, but I also applauded reopening.
The left and the right want to have their cake and eat it too but they cant.
Yeah, I get it. One is trying to fix a systemic problem and the other is cheering a racist. However, the virus doesnt give a flying you-know-what. So were either against people being out of their homes or we arent.
Again, I'm not trying to shift anything, I think there will be some increase due to protests. What I'm saying is that the current trend up in hospitalizations started around memorial day. And in the positive test rate.
I also noted that for now increases are not seen in NY and MN data, for that I just looked at daily new cases.
Its a way of trying to shift the blame for increased viruses in one direction. I am very much sympathetic to what the protesters are trying to accomplish, however you had a lot in politics and the media telling us we must stay home for fear of the virus one week and the next week cheering people to go protest. The virus doesnt care.
Frankly its somewhat annoying to imply that protesting was a great thing to do while at the same time saying reopening is killing people. Again, I must reiterate I applaud people for protesting police brutality and systemic racism, but I also applauded reopening.
The left and the right want to have their cake and eat it too but they cant.
Yeah, I get it. One is trying to fix a systemic problem and the other is cheering a racist. However, the virus doesnt give a flying you-know-what. So were either against people being out of their homes or we arent.
I don't applaud anyone who was out there and not wearing a mask.
I go out into the street, but I wear a mask.
I'm reopening my own business, but everyone will be wearing a mask.
It's not hypocritical to say that protest is warranted and to also say, "But wear a mask."
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