Covfefe-19 The 12th Part: The Only Thing Worse Than This New Board Is TrumpVirus2020

[Swansong]

EU predicted 60% IINM.

Topol doesn't usually underestimate things (most consider him on the alarmist side), but in this case, I would not doubt the EU's projections. I mean it when I say that Omicron will likely be among the most contagious/infectious diseases ever recorded.

https://www.healthline.com/health/r-...duction-number

That's from early in the pandemic looking at the OG strain (newer estimates suggest it may have been in the 2-3 range). Omicron's R0 is still being determined, but early estimates are that it is at least 7, if not substantially higher.
https://vitals.sutterhealth.org/omic...20is%2012%2D18


For perspective, measles is 12-18. Influenza is .9-2.1.
https://transportgeography.org/conte...ious-diseases/
This hasn't been updated recently (newer covid variants are obviously much higher), but it gives you some perspective to compare to other highly infectious diseases.

[ScoobyDoo]

Aaah yes. Someone is dead and the ******* comes in and ****s on it.

[Drew S.]

I know some folks on here have advocated for this: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a..._medium=social

[Jeb2020]

Have a chat with the CDC and the international studies that came out.

I wonder how many posts there have been on this board posting links of peoples deaths and then cheering it on? I bet at least over hundred. Sickening.

[Handyman]

Her school district has no idea what is going to happen so they gave them blanket guidance not to rile up the orcs.

Its almost like what some commenter around here said:

Districts would still tell teachers to avoid the subject until this nonsense goes away. Even if you are right this won't be the last time they try and you don't want to be the example they use...

But that can't be correct....SJHovey said so!

[dxmnkd316]

EU predicted 60% IINM.

Is it unprecedented? It sounds like the common cold (except it kills you if you're vaccinated). Is that all colds are? The mutated remains of ancient killer viruses whose morbidity dropped to 0.0 as their transmissibilty approached 1.0?

WHO I believe said 50% of everyone on earth by end of March. Five months, 4 billion people.

[dxmnkd316]

Topol doesn't usually underestimate things (most consider him on the alarmist side), but in this case, I would not doubt the EU's projections. I mean it when I say that Omicron will likely be among the most contagious/infectious diseases ever recorded.

https://www.healthline.com/health/r-...duction-number

That's from early in the pandemic looking at the OG strain (newer estimates suggest it may have been in the 2-3 range). Omicron's R0 is still being determined, but early estimates are that it is at least 7, if not substantially higher.
https://vitals.sutterhealth.org/omic...20is%2012%2D18


For perspective, measles is 12-18. Influenza is .9-2.1.
https://transportgeography.org/conte...ious-diseases/
This hasn't been updated recently (newer covid variants are obviously much higher), but it gives you some perspective to compare to other highly infectious diseases.

Worth noting that the effective R# makes it even crazier. The latent period is so insanely short coupled with the R0 being even a large fraction of measles. It just moves so fast.

[Swansong]

Worth noting that the effective R# makes it even crazier. The latent period is so insanely short coupled with the R0 being even a large fraction of measles. It just moves so fast.

Yeah, agreed. I've been trying to stick with R0 vs. Rt, as Rt is tremendously variable and R0 is ... not (heyoooo).

[MichVandal]

That means we still have a week of the death rate climbing, though...

I'm also hopeful that it stops in 2 weeks.

It will certainly be nice when we can stop talking about the million Americans that will eventually die from this. That's really sad. More sad is how many people have gone out of their way to make sure we clear 1,000,000 dead Americans when this could have likely stopped at somewhere south of 500,000.

[Jeb2020]

So Fauci speak for Pfizer, who speaks for the kids?

Fauci says FDA could authorize Pfizer's Covid vaccine for kids under 5 in the next month

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/19/...ext-month.html


These young kids will need three shots that was formulated for a variant that isn’t even around anymore…

To still be going along with this charade, you have to have your head so far up your ****ing as*.

[dxmnkd316]

Yeah, agreed. I've been trying to stick with R0 vs. Rt, as Rt is tremendously variable and R0 is ... not (heyoooo).

Even with an R0 of 7-12, it's in extremely rarified air and latent period doesn't really matter. It would be like the latent period being 4 hours. When either of those two factors is off the deep end, the whole calculation hits an asymptote and it gets hilariously grim.

[dxmnkd316]

this could have likely stopped at somewhere south of 500,000.

I actually wonder sometimes what the reasonable minimum could have been. Say this happened under a competent admin with a congress that still played ball. We know people would have still died. But what would this number have been?

• Death #1 was Feb 29, 2020.
• A month later it was 1,000 (officially).
• By end of May it was 110,000. I don't think any of these deaths were preventable. Even with a competent response.
• Between June 1 and November 30, we had another 175,000 deaths. We didn't have a vaccine.
• Between December 1, 2020 and March 30, 2021, we added 290,000 deaths. We started to vaccinate the most at risk and those death rates dropped to almost nothing.
• THen by 4/1/21, almost everyone was eligible for a vaccine and we've added 305,000 deaths. 90%+ of those were preventable. Easily.

But the damage had already been done. None of these numbers include what would have happened if the government treated this like an existential threat like we did after 9/11. If we spent $1T on expanding testing, ventilation, and education, we probably could have avoided even more. Instead, we've got a third of the country that thinks it's a hoax, 20% that are doomers, and 50% that are tired of the first two. We could have had a Japan-like response and cut our deaths by at least half. If you look at New Zealand, you have probably the most competent response and they've only had 52 people die from the measly 15,334 cases. Though, half of those deaths have come since November and >10k of the cases.

Anyways.... I'm SWAGing our theoretical minimum was somewhere in the range of 400,000 - 450,000 with a competent administration. With a competent admin and a functional congress, we probably could have cut that to 200,000-250,000.
Even with an incompetent federal response but one that simply didn't call it a hoax, we could have saved 300,000 people. Without even doing the math on 2020.

[MichVandal]

I actually wonder sometimes what the reasonable minimum could have been. Say this happened under a competent admin with a congress that still played ball. We know people would have still died. But what would this number have been?

• Death #1 was Feb 29, 2020.
• A month later it was 1,000 (officially).
• By end of May it was 110,000. I don't think any of these deaths were preventable. Even with a competent response.
• Between June 1 and November 30, we had another 175,000 deaths. We didn't have a vaccine.
• Between December 1, 2020 and March 30, 2021, we added 290,000 deaths. We started to vaccinate the most at risk and those death rates dropped to almost nothing.
• THen by 4/1/21, almost everyone was eligible for a vaccine and we've added 305,000 deaths. 90%+ of those were preventable. Easily.

But the damage had already been done. None of these numbers include what would have happened if the government treated this like an existential threat like we did after 9/11. If we spent $1T on expanding testing, ventilation, and education, we probably could have avoided even more. Instead, we've got a third of the country that thinks it's a hoax, 20% that are doomers, and 50% that are tired of the first two. We could have had a Japan-like response and cut our deaths by at least half. If you look at New Zealand, you have probably the most competent response and they've only had 52 people die from the measly 15,334 cases. Though, half of those deaths have come since November and >10k of the cases.

Anyways.... I'm SWAGing our theoretical minimum was somewhere in the range of 400,000 - 450,000 with a competent administration. With a competent admin and a functional congress, we probably could have cut that to 200,000-250,000.
Even with an incompetent federal response but one that simply didn't call it a hoax, we could have saved 300,000 people. Without even doing the math on 2020.

So I will admit at being very lazy....

But it seems to me that the potential of post May- look at DC. This is mostly a tightly packed area of people, much higher density than most of the country, and it has some of the lowest death rates. I very much remembering pointing that out when the Dakotas caught on fire later in the year. That may be not the best one to look at...

Looking at the data- it seems that the area that has the lowest overall death rate is Puerto Rico- where 3,563 died of a population of about 3.2M. If you extrapolate that to the rest of the country, it is just about 370,000 deaths. (have to update a spreadsheet to really model it) And I will say, I know the healthcare system there is not all that great. They did a lot to prevent the spread.

There's a lot of ways to model it, but I really think it's safe to say that under 500,000 deaths was very possible had it not been for the massive resistance. Which would also mean the economy would be a lot stronger at this point.

[Swansong]

I've thought a lot about this as well. I firmly believe the US (and the world) would be substantially better if Trump wasn't... Trump. But Delta developed in India, based off a UK variant. Omicron was noticed in South Africa (much less knowledge of actual starting point). These likely would still have materialized, but the US may have been much more vaccinated when they did and would have had much better outcomes.

I dunno. It's easy to blame the obviously incompetent evil that is Donald Trump, but this has been a truly global pandemic. I don't know how to quantify the improvement from Trump to even Millard Fillmore-level incompetence.

[Kepler]

First Boris, now this. It's almost as if the ruling class lacks even a semblance of empathy for their serfs.