Best Posts in Thread: Face Shields

hello mr phil. let me start please by saying as far as i am concerned we are in a friendly discussion about covid. if we have a difference of opinion, that is all it is. i have not asked anybody to follow me. when i see posts that i believe are in error then i feel compelled to address that and offer my opinion. i hope that is what this forum is about; an opportunity for us all to come away with more information than we came in with.

i have made i believe so far, two good friends here and would be happy if you are a third.

i have a reasonable level of curiosity and so i do like to track what is happening with covid (and other world events). i spent my life in healthcare and have worked a number of different positions including 30 years as an administrator, as a registered nurse after obtaining that degree at night when i was around 56 years old and 3 years as a long term care (nursing home administrator) one of my masters degrees in is public health where i was trained as an epidemiologist tho as i have noted here before, i never worked in that capacity except as those skills might have been applied in some of my other jobs.

so i just like to offer for your consideration the following thoughts.

1) if you talk about infections, that is a function of testing. the more tests you do, the more cases you will have. the US has tested more than 20 percent of its population, the phils less than 2 percent, just as an example. if covid is present in both populations the US percentage of population with proven infection will be much higher as a percentage. but that doesn't mean anything. it would only mean something if all countries had tested the same proportion of their population, using the same methodologies.

2) the same is true of "death rates" which are deaths as a function of proven cases (which in turn is a function of testing). what is more significant is the number of deaths per (in this case) 100,000 population. the US does have a proportially higher number than most countries. i think only ten or eleven countries have a higher absolute death rate per 100k than the US. why is that? (lets assume testing in all countries is as good (or bad) as all other countries.

3) what can make the US higher? one thing is an older population compared to many (most) other countries. of the highest 20 countries, 8 are in europe which shares the aging population issue. you are aware i am sure that older people are much likely to die from covid (probably more correct to say people with co morbidities ). the nyt report august 13 ath more than 40 percent of US deaths are nursing home associated. most citations i can find agree with that percentage which has held fairly steady throughout the pandemic.

4) enter president johnson. i offered this in a post a while back but had no takers. so the explanation is that president johnson offered a great leap forward in 1965 which started medicare and medicaid. i am sure only an epidemiologist would offer this to you for your consideration. please try to think of the facts involved. the medicaid program offered to pay for nursing home care. all fifty states i think now have nursing home care and more than 80 percent of nursing home patients are cared for under that program.

now, please stay with me. if it has not changed, medicaid patients are housed two to a room, with 60 square feet per bed and one bathroom for two rooms or 4 patients. further, most nursing homes are for profit so i can tell you from actual experience, that budget are tight and profits are encouraged. the US has warehoused its elderly in these cramped facilities since 1965, a high percentage of the US population than any country i think other than the netherlands. (this is all from memory so while the exact numbers might be wrong, the basis is correct i think)

therefore, when covid comes along, here you have this large part of the US population basically set up as covid feed lots. no other country has presented covid with such a fertile ground to grow and multiply and that is in a population that can only feebly resist.

so i only suggest to you and others with an interest in this situation, that it may stir emotions but that alone does not present us with an answer. as an epidemiologist i really am less concerned with cases than i am with the mortality per 100k. we talk here about the phils and also about the US. the phils is about halfway between all countries re mortality per 100 k at less than 3 people. the US with is aging population and warehousing of the elderly is more than 50 per 100 k or about 0.15 percent of the population (doing this in my head as i type)

i am concerned about covid. i am concerned about all disease, my entire life has been spent working in organizations devoted to eliminating or at least tempering the effects of disease.

as a trained epidemiologist, i see that the population of the philippines that i am in close contact such as my neighborhood and my early a m shopping, really do not see covid or covid prevention as an issue they are concerned about for the most part. therefore i believe it is pointless to destroy the economy of this country for 3000 deaths when the populace does not comply. if you are right that this is highly infectious, then i would have to say i think most people have already been exposed. it could not be otherwise if you are right.

i will not make fun of you for your opinions about covid. i just think they are largely misplaced and that the average filipino would much rather be able to fill the rice bowl for his kids than listen to all the "reasons" why he has no job and his kids are not in school

 

so ... we should just do nothing ? really ...? Maybe it is good that you retired when you did as that attitude would lend nothing to the current crisis ....

 

well, wait and see, the next step will be Saran Wrap cocoons. i think it is already true that if you are a heart patient or pulmonary patient you should think twice about wearing a mask. i still stand by my position that the whole covid response is absurd and that we will be the laughing stock of future generations. less than 3000 covid deaths out of 600k annual filipino deaths. more people are killed by falling coconuts each year. (ok, maybe not but you get my point)

 

i believe the answer to all of this will lay in the numbers that come out at the end of the third quarter. i predict another big loss in the phils with subsequent lowering of the debt rating from the present BBB+ (correct?) to something less. an immediate rise in the cost of money and continued decline in revenues. surely that will reverse the direction of this idiocy. for my part, i have not shopped at rob's mall in four months. i keep shrinking my world and moving down the food chain to smaller and smaller venues who could care less about covid. there are hundreds of little vendors now outside the downtown area selling all basic foods and lots of household stuff. "every life, every society, every species is an experiment. it all ends in death eventually." will durant from "the lessons of history"

 

Maybe, maybe not. But they may delay the start date instead of "immediately" to give people time to find/buy them (assuming the news story is true, at least about the "immediate" part).