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OT(?) Who gets to go back to work, and when? One perspective from Italy

Milland

Diamond
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Jul 6, 2006
Location
Hillsboro, New Hampshire
Italy is finally seeing a flattening of new cases, and thought is being given to "restarting" the economy. One possibility being considered is to issue "passes" to those that show antibodies in their blood, or other clear signs of having had and recovered from the virus.

In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies | Boston.com

This has really interesting practical and philosophical consequences, and is perhaps not such a clear cut way to do things. But it is pragmatic, at least from a mechanistic standpoint.

GATTACA, anyone? Gattaca - Wikipedia
 
Lick the door handles to get to work faster? :D

Now "CDC" have started to TALK about possibility of implementing the "Korean model" in here: large scale testing and limiting the spread of the virus instead of just slowing it down.
This was seen impossible 1 month ago when we had lot less cases but politics and local "CDC" are now starting to realize that this "slow burn" is not necessarily the best "exit strategy".
 
Yes, like GATTACA, where someone uses another person's "correct" DNA samples in order to gain access to travel that he wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

What's difficult about massive testing is that I don't know if you could "pass" a test for antibodies but still be a spreader. An inadvertent saboteur.

Then you have the imperfections in the tests themselves (especially false negatives), and the variations in test protocols. One version may pass you, one may give a negative. And it's not clear to me that everyone who was exposed and recovered expresses antibodies in the same way.
 
What's difficult about massive testing is that I don't know if you could "pass" a test for antibodies but still be a spreader. An inadvertent saboteur.

Then you have the imperfections in the tests themselves (especially false negatives), and the variations in test protocols. One version may pass you, one may give a negative. And it's not clear to me that everyone who was exposed and recovered expresses antibodies in the same way.
Agree.
This is pretty much shooting to running target blindsighted, not knowing what the target actually looks like and if we should employ Howitzers or .22LR
Strategies seem to evolve almost daily. We are lot wiser after 1 or 2 months but we are going to have totally new set of problems by that time(like economy sucking big time)
Year or two and we might be able to say what was wise strategy :skep:
 
Don't think anyone thought just a slow burn was the exit strategy. First step was always testing. One test for the virus to pull people out of circulation. Another test for antibodies to let 'em get back to work (assuming, as current data suggests, that confers immunity). Plus ramping up the availability of PPE, better treatment protocols, medicines, ventilators, ICU staff, etc. to cut the mortality rate while we work on a vaccine. All that pretty much known 90 days ago, even before it was just a liberal "hoax" to make the President look bad or no big deal - down to near zero in a couple days.

Due to the US' criminally late start, that testing still hasn't been ramped up. We'll get there; but not until many unnecessarily die. Plus the economic hit.

Meanwhile our President is busy seeing to it that anyone who reveals his numerous screw ups is fired. The battleship Captain who skipped his chain of command because nothing much was happening (his immediate superior was on the ship, apparently doing nothing) in order to save his men was fired for not following protocol. Our Inspector General who took a whistleblower complaint up the chain of command on the you-won't-get-aid-until-you-smear-Biden Ukraine thing was just fired for following protocol. Sad times for our nation. Most every bearer of Trump screw-up news gets shot these days. Someone like Fauci, too desperately needed to be fired, just gets death threats.
 
What was heartwarming was the cheering of his sailors as he was relieved of command: USS Theodore Roosevelt: Sailors cheer for aircraft carrier commander who was removed after issuing coronavirus warning - CNNPolitics

And yes, I wrote a couple days ago about Dr. Fauci's death threats. Just horrifying, but we see on this very forum how brainwashed some of the djt-ites are. Horrifying...

We need clear-eyed grownups in government. I don't care if they're Conservative or Liberal, but they need to be able to work from facts and reality in service to the country and its citizens. When dogma and fanaticism take over, we wind up with dystopias.
 
Very interesting that the usajobs.gov link I linked to yesterday, in less than 12 hours ago the listings disappeared over a Saturday night:

Health Advisor (Quarantine Program) Nov. 2019 - May 2020

At least 12 job positions all over the country.
San Diego
Washington
Texas
Florida
New York
and so on.

Removed from public viewing. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Must have had enough views to worry some administrators.

Regarding this hopeful but probably never ending thread:

1. Going back to work with a pass grade.
2. Re-test after a week or so. Fail the test because your virus has self-mutated.
3. Go into quarantine for a week or two.
4. Go back to step 1 if you are still breathing.
 
While flattening the infection curve with social distancing someone needs to:
1. Be making Billions of test kits/machines whatever. Multiple tests per person will be required.
2. Establish a tracking or verification system for test results.
3. Define risk categories so low risk individuals can be given the option of relying on the partial herd immunity.

High risk individuals will probably be hunkering down until vaccinated. At 60 years old, I may be in that group:(

Statistics:
I want to see more than four numbers. CNN & Fox show infections and deaths for world and US.
The world numbers are worthless. How many countries are both testing and contributing numbers?
Wikipedia has some interesting stats, attributed to the CDC. I didn't find what I was looking for on either site.
What is the success rate for putting people on respirators? Somebody knows that number now. What is it?
Most other statistics will take a few more weeks to gel into meaningful data.
 
I've been sort of watching that one, figuring half don't make it but that's actually optimistic ... Could be seriously tilted by Italy but still not an encouraging number. Maybe you don't want to know that one :(

Well, the lower that number turns out to be, the more right we have to ask if all this is worth it.
 
Well, if the mortality rate for the virus overall is 3% or so, and that makes "all this" worth it, what do you think the cutoff for ventilator mortality should be? I've heard numbers are presently around 50%. Regardless, once you need a ventilator, your odds really plummet.
 
Well, if the mortality rate for the virus overall is 3% or so, and that makes "all this" worth it, what do you think the cutoff for ventilator mortality should be? I've heard numbers are presently around 50%. Regardless, once you need a ventilator, your odds really plummet.

The Germans are testing like crazy, so have a better handle on actual infections than we do. Last I saw, I think their overall mortality rate was running around 1.4% Deaths to infections.
At 50% success, ventilators are way better than nothing. If we come out the end of this mess, and find the ventilator success rate was 5%. Well what are we going to make of that? I don't want to be making life and death value judgements, but I do want to know the numbers.
 
Anybody know the total death rate of the virus so far compared to the flu for 2019-2020? I read somewhere the global death from flu, just plain old average flu is between 300,000 and 700,000 world wide each flu season.

In USA the CDC info states that between 24,000 and 63,000 people died of flu in the 2019-2020 flu season. How many from virus so far?
2019-2020 U.S. Flu Season: Preliminary Burden Estimates | CDC
 
Anybody know the total death rate of the virus so far compared to the flu for 2019-2020? I read somewhere the global death from flu, just plain old average flu is between 300,000 and 700,000 world wide each flu season.
Easier to compare rates. US flu and pneumonia, 150 deaths per million in 2018.

CV, Italy and Spain over 250/million. US could easily hit that too, if our other metros do a New York.
 
Easier to compare rates. US flu and pneumonia, 150 deaths per million in 2018.

CV, Italy and Spain over 250/million. US could easily hit that too, if our other metros do a New York.

And the 250/million deaths have piled up in about two weeks, not entire year.
 
Some info is saying the virus caused death numbers may be inflated.
From Italy:

According to Prof Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health.... added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities.

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,” he says.


Report: Italian Adviser Suggests that Coronavirus Death Rates in Italy may be Exaggerated

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
 
Italy is finally seeing a flattening of new cases, and thought is being given to "restarting" the economy. One possibility being considered is to issue "passes" to those that show antibodies in their blood, or other clear signs of having had and recovered from the virus.

In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies | Boston.com

This has really interesting practical and philosophical consequences, and is perhaps not such a clear cut way to do things. But it is pragmatic, at least from a mechanistic standpoint.

GATTACA, anyone? Gattaca - Wikipedia

OH GREAT! So all those people who did what they were told to avoid exposure to the virus will now be "rewarded" by being locked down indefinitely?

And those who brought the virus into Italy and those who cheated on the restrictions and got exposed will get to be First Class citizens thanks to the magic antibodies in their blood while the others remain imprisoned.

If that goes through expect mass defiance and probably giant "coronavirus parties" for the young and healthy so they can become citizens again too.

Meanwhile, around the globe it is Palm Sunday and next week is Easter, the holiest day in the Christian calendar and millions are locked out of their churches by government edict. Nero would be so pleased.
 
My wife is a doctor. She was quoting some numbers like the ones some of you were asking about. She can't remember the source, but she'll try to find it again. As I recall, for my age range (60 to 70), around 15 percent of hospital admissions went on a ventilator and 1/3 of those died.

Not real encouraging.


Edited, 15 percent, not 85.


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