Best Posts in Thread: Rather disconcerting numbers

You express the hope of a vaccine being available for everyone before we reach the point of overwhelmed hospitals. I share that hope, but.......
a. It looks likely that there will not be a vaccine available until somewhere in the first half of 2021 at the earliest;
b. People will probably need 2 shots each;
c. Don't underestimate the growing strength in numbers of "anti-vaxers" in many countries;
d. Many people live in countries where the government can not afford to pay for the vaccine, or even deliberately doesn't want to;
e. Production capacity for a vaccine will be limited even if new factories are being rushed to completion already now (estimates differ, but it seems unlikely that more than 1 to 2 billion doses will be available in the first year of production)

So in all honesty I am not confident at all that this problem is going to go away any time soon. It may for some (those who can get their hands on an effective vaccine), but for a large majority it seems more likely that covid will remain a dominant issue in their lives for a much longer period.
My thinking is that by the end of next year it seems likely that most of the usual suspects (North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the rich part of the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand, maybe Moscow and the biggest cities in China) will have vaccinated a large majority of their population at least once. Other countries will be lucky to have enough vaccine to protect staff at hospitals and other essential workers. The rest of the population will have to wait, and if a rational decision is taken they'll vaccinate kids and teachers before seniors (who generally aren't productive anyway and can be told to stay home without causing much economic damage). For most people in Africa, South and Middle America and poorer countries in Asia this thing may drag well into 2023.

 

Against a backdrop of a serious increase in reported infections in Bacolod, with the mayor complaining about a lack of medical staff, and the city put under more strict MECQ quarantine rules,
and the Philippines yesterday reporting the 6th highest number of daily deaths in the world,
I came across a paper that causes me some real concern.
It was written by IHME, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research center at the University of Washington, and the source of the much quoted model/prediction that says total Covid-19 deaths in the USA might reach over 400,000 by year end.
They have written an update about their model and published it here:
http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/Projects/COVID/briefing_Global_091120.pdf

For those who can't be bothered to read the article (there's several more to be found on their models for different parts of the world, the one I linked to is the global piece):
1. They predict around 25 million new cases per day worldwide by the end of the year in their worst case scenario (if governments keep "easing" the rules). This contrasts sharply with the current number of new infections per day. In that same scenario the number of deaths is predicted to increase to 4 million in total until the end of the year, which would imply 3 million deaths between now and then.
2. Deaths in the Philippine would rise from the current 4,000 or so to 100,000 by year end in this same scenario of easing rules. New infections in the Philippines would peak at more than 1 million per day by end of November.

Even in their "reference scenario", which doesn't assume the relaxation of rules will continue, new cases and cumulative deaths are still expected to explode from current levels.

At first glance I thought these predictions are way too gloomy, they must have missed something crucial, but I can't put my finger on it. They appear to have incorporated all available information about improved treatment of patients, about seasonality, effect of government measures, behaviour of people in response to such measures, and whatever else one might think of.

Obviously, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but I can't help feeling a fair bit more uncertain after reading up about the IHME's modeling of the Covid Future.

 

Regarding prioritising first to last in who gets the vaccine, speaking only for Negros Oriental, I would like to see the first wave include health care workers, first responders, teachers, and elementary students, my family. Second wave secondary students, government workers, essential services workers, food service employers, employees. Third wave healthy senior citizens. Fourth wave ages 50 and above. Last wave the healthy fit 20-40, unhealthy 50+.

 

We would hope so, but has not happened yet. I also used to think the World will never allow another mass killing, as in the Holocaust, but they continue.

Countries are using MAD to crush weaker countries - as in China taking 'ownership' of anything actually belonging to weaker nations. Is that a process we can just turn a blind eye to?

 

They have to be sorted out before they dominate the World. Not an easy one, but something has to be done by a consortium of countries as currently they are trying to crush the weak.

 

The IMHE receives a sizable part of its funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among many other donations. Bill Gates doesn't "run" the IMHE, the Gates Foundation isn't even represented in the board of directors of IMHE.

 

Yes, but this is not a choice in modern society.

One could argue that there are casualties in war and a few old people is a small price to pay in the war against the pandemic.

One could argue that we would have been much better off if we simply let anybody over 65 fend for themselves without medical care. We would have avoided the enormous medical costs, the costs to shut down our economy and we would save again by not having to pay the ones who died their retirement.

But this is not a choice in today's society.

Sadly the spectrum of options and the resulting outcomes was not communicated well to society so there are many quacks creating misinformation to fill in the void.