Best Posts in Thread: CDC's New Symptoms

Not really comparable:

Diabetes is a very serious problem and, as far as I understand it, people need to change their diets to help avoid it in many cases. But it does not rapidly spread (is not contagious) and so does not overwhelm hospitals in the short-term).

TB is a very serious illness and accounts for about 1.5 million deaths per year, but there is a vaccine already and, as it is a bacterium and not a virus, antibiotics can be used. Most infections become latent and these people are not spreaders. It does not overwhelm hospitals in the short-term.

Malaria is a major world problem but there are treatments available and new methods of prevention being used. But it does not rapidly spread (is not as contagious as Covid-19 as it needs a vector) and so does not overwhelm hospitals in the short-term).

The cost of Covid-19 per person does not take account of the even greater cost if the virus was allowed to spread unchecked, the fact that it could mutate (not a particular problem for diabetes, malaria or TB) and kill millions (even mutating to kill the young on whom the economy depends) and the fact that it overwhelms hospitals.

From a local perspective we see restrictions on the economy and education which are unnecessary (IMO) in most places as the country is composed of many separated and easily isolated islands. This is not the case in every country. In some countries very bad decisions have been made by people in power who have no knowledge and very little brains.

 

i understand completely where you are coming from re my last statement in my previous post on this matter. what i wish we all had were reliable statistics on other causes of death during the same period as the covid experience so we would compare the impact of those other mortalities with covid. so far i have not found any source for that information, bits and pieces here and there but no side by side data. i know you are not supposed to consider money when you are saving lives, but the US approved three trillion dollars just to help with the impact of covid. its not the total bill. that is 8000 plus in new debt for every man, woman and child in the US. it is twenty million dollars for every covid death so far. i will guess we do not spend anything like that to fight diabetes, tuberculosis or malaria on a per case basis. so i guess my question would be do we need to give away another twenty trillion or so in US debt to fight against these other causes of death so they are considered equally important to covid deaths, or do we need to back off of our investment fighting covid, or perhaps just let nature take its course which i believe is what is going to happen no matter what we do.

 

What you say is very true but it raises a question. Why would they say masks would not help? My guess (repeat GUESS) is there were not enough masks to go around and there would have been pandemonium, look at the toilet paper crisis.

The song "My Generation" by The WHO could be the theme song for some of the youth (covid party goers).

People try to put down.
Just because we get around.
You are old, you're so cold.
Hope I die before I get old.

Some of them are getting their wish.

 

You fail to consider other options demonstrated by other countries.

In your discussion you only give two options:
1) Spend 8,000 + per capita.
OR
2) Do nothing and let nature run it's course.

There are other options that you do not describe.

Many countries are able to cope with COVID at a very small cost. Taiwan, a country with a free people and democratically elected government, is able to keep their economy open with very minimal cost. The have implemented a low cost system of contact tracing and quarantine. The quarantine is government supervised.

To keep the contagion going, as a communicable disease, the coronavirus needs to communicate itself from host to host. Simply breaking the chain of communication is enough to stop the contagion and avoid all its costs.

Many simple minded people only see binary solutions. They only see one extreme or the other. Total lock down of the entire population vs do nothing. They are not able to see other options.

To be clear, contact tracing and managed quarantine only effects the very small percentage of people who are currently contagious and those who have been in recent contact with contagious people. It does not effect the entire population. This is why the costs are so low and the impacts to personal freedom are low too.

Implementing an effective system for contact tracing and managed quarantine would have a far lower cost than simply letting nature take its course.

This is a situation where a small amount of good leadership can avoid tremendous cost.

 

you know, you have really identified the reality in all of this. i am (or was) a licensed registered nurse in the US which i earned in night school when i was about 55 years old (out of boredom). when i was 31 i graduated from the university of missouri with two masters degrees earned concurrently, one of which was a masters in public health. i am a trained epidemiologist tho i never worked as one (and yes i have to look it up to spell it correctly still). the father of epidemiology was john snow and earned his fame by correctly identifying the broad street pump in london in 1854 as the source of the local cholera outbreak during the cholera pandemic of the time. what does this all mean? it means your asawa or my wifes albularyo or the politicians still decide what treatment will be for disease and problems like covid (or stiffness). nobody wants to consult a virologist or an epidemiologist in dumaguete city. hahaha, they want someone they can trust!! so, two friends who operate stalls at the dumaguete market are in despair this morning to me because business there is off by about half. where did it go? to roadside stalls springing up all over the city operated by desperate people either hoping to earn a little rice money or to avoid the strictures of the central downtown area. the roadside stalls to my best observation do not check temps, wipe things down, require masks (at least not all the time) and no log ins to keep the trackers busy. in addition, their wares are covered with a fine patina of road dust consisting among other things of as many as 1600 kinds of bacteria (see scientific american may 12), molds, fungus, heavy metals, dust, bugs and in dumaguete city a fair amount of powdered dessicated dog feces. so what are we accomplishing by the efforts downtown? its the law of unintended consequences at work my friend. a covid virus is to the human hair as a marble is to a saw log. we have no idea where the little buggers are hiding but according to the same scientifc american it only takes three of them to cause the disease in a human (how could they possible decide that). for me, let nature take its course as it has throughout all history. there is no way for us to stop it.

 

The CDC just added runny nose, congestion, nausea and diarrhea as the lastest symptoms of this virus.

I swear that I have had this virus at least 100 times in my life with all of these symptoms. I guess they just figured out what to call it.

If everything is Covid, then maybe nothing is Covid?

 

I agree with you totally - they did not stockpile any (even though they have stockpiled smallpox vaccine and so they understand the idea). When I tell people I bought masks in 2010, they probably think I am a 'smart arse', but my point is (even if I am a smart arse!) that I knew this would come and so did many others from reports I read in national media. It was 'when?' not 'if'. Btw, same with the 2008-2009 financial crisis which caught governments by surprise - I read many reports (esp by economic's journalist William Keegan) of this looming financial crisis as it was based on unsustainable debt. Same as now!

But I have been thinking if there was some resistance to masks in the West due to a perception of being bound and gagged as a form of assault. I note that people are becoming more accepting of a mask - perhaps because they now realise it could save them (I am reading reports of people who have been infected saying "I wish I had worn a mask" and that type of message has value) or perhaps, as many masks are being made to look fashionable, they broke the link with control (of which being gagged is a form). Of course the 'instagram generation' would even wear handcuffs is they were told it looks fashionable - as long as their ts and bs still show!

 

And they surely must have done modelling for this type of pandemic - surely! Even the UK government did one, in 2018, found the systems lacking and then put the report under the carpet.

 

They are suppose to be the world's experts. The best the world has to offer. They and Dr. Fucci and the CDC and many others. For the past 4 months we have seen their 'flip flop' on many aspects; mask are not necessary, then, yes they are......it's asymptomatic, no, yes......the virus stays active on surfaces for 72 hours, nope, just a few, nope, no on-surface transmission......no asymptomatic transmission, yes, no, yes but it's rare..........
Sorry, but in my mind, too many wrong guesses.

 

I know you are very serious about this crisis but surely you would have expected the WHO (not pop group) to have modeled for this scenario. Many knew it was coming - and so the WHO should have been at the very top of the list for preparation - which means thinking in advance. Military all over the World have their targets planned in a host of countries, their supply routes figured out - i.e. they plan ahead.

Actually, come to think of it, the WHO (the pop group) could have done a better job!