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Covid 19 virus
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Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: mzzj on March 20, 2020, 06:02:23 pm ---I think its equally important to keep the existing government operational and healthy as the healthcare workers in a situation like this.
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I would put government officials secondary to healthcare workers and those who need to interact with people, like tellers and delivery people.


--- Quote from: mzzj on March 20, 2020, 06:02:23 pm ---If testing capacity currently is 1500 tests per day
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That, too, is completely arbitrary number.  There are several companies in Finland, including Aidian, that manufacture the tests in the millions, and export them.  While you do need trained technicians to run the tests, we could have crash-trained dozens of them in the past two months. 

My point is, the "we can't do any more tests" claim is bullshit, just like the claim "we cannot close our borders" was.  They lie, because they are unable to rationally examine the reasons for the decisions they are making.


--- Quote from: mzzj on March 20, 2020, 06:02:23 pm ---I have had corona-like symptoms(itchy throat, slight fever, chest pain and slight difficult in breathing) since last sunday and 2 of my close acquaintances have very similar symptoms but testing wouldn't make me feel any better.
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Me too, for over a week now.  I am not interested in getting myself tested either.

Look.  There is a concerted effort to keep the numbers artificially low, because those in charge are scared.  Because they are scared, they think that they are doing a good job by keeping the numbers hidden, so that people won't panic.  Unfortunately, as we are seeing in Helsinki region -- much of the rest of the Finland is doing much better, over half of the cases are within Helsinki-Uusimaa region --, the numbers shown are so small people do not think there is any reason for them to behave any different, and in doing so, they are spreading the virus at a rapid rate.

We won't know how bad the situation is, unless it is revealed by the number of dead (and it is possible to suppress those numbers too), or if we get incredibly lucky and the strain affecting Helsinki-Uusimaa regions happen to be less lethal than others.

To put it bluntly, I have already estimated about 2,000 dead in Helsinki-Uusimaa (HUS) before May.  This is based on just 15% of the region getting infected, and on just 1% fatality rate.  The only thing that makes me think this is a very unreliable estimate is the fact that I do not know the statistics on the typical duration (from infection till death), and have assumed it is on the order of 30 days.

If Finns were told point blank that we expect a couple of thousand to die before the summer, backed by wider testing numbers and statistics from other countries, don't you think more people would take the social isolation more seriously?  I do.

Instead, I predict that the tampering with the official figures is ignored, and the sudden start of deaths will be claimed to be "unforeseeable".


--- Quote from: mzzj on March 20, 2020, 06:02:23 pm ---If the purpose is to suffer through this disease there is no point to try to slow it down too much. Delaying tactics until vaccination don't seem probable.
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Except for the number of dead that would have remained alive with intensive care, of course.

There are only 228 intensive care beds, and a theoretical conversion capacity to around 400.  When we have that number of cases in intensive care, people start to die because of lack of intensive care.  Not just from Covid-19, but from other causes as well, because in triage -- choosing who gets the care -- misjudgements will be made.

I do believe that the Finnish path has two fatal errors.  First is the refusal to act early and strongly (and lack of enforcement of isolation).  We can't do anything about that anymore.  Second is the "finessing" of the official numbers to make this seem less dangerous than it is.  This is typical of Finns, and occurred even during the Tsernobyl incident; Finns were kept unaware of it as long as possible, because some idiots thought it would be better as people might panic otherwise.  This latter is what I think is something we could change.  Increasing the testing capacity so we had proof, so we could stop idiots from believing they can just go on as usual -- this being Somebody Elses Problem --, is the only way I see the change could happen.

TL;DR: It is the statistics from the tests that are important.  Right now, they are kept artificially low in Finland, leading to ignorance, and actually hastening the spread of the virus.  While it may help the epidemic to pass faster, a lot more people will die to lack of hospital resources that way, and not just from Covid-19, but from anything requiring intensive care resources.
mzzj:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on March 20, 2020, 06:42:30 pm ---
--- Quote from: mzzj on March 20, 2020, 06:02:23 pm ---I have had corona-like symptoms(itchy throat, slight fever, chest pain and slight difficult in breathing) since last sunday and 2 of my close acquaintances have very similar symptoms but testing wouldn't make me feel any better. 

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The purpose is not to make you feel any better, the purpose is to quarantine you if it's the corona, so that you won't possibly infect 1000 people more.

Case study: South Korea. Look it up. They have practically won already, and they did it with extensive testing, including drive-in free test stations.


--- Quote ---there is no point to try to slow it down too much
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Slowing down have worked great in China and South Korea, and the idea is that you don't need to choose who dies and who lives, and don't need the military to dump bodies in masses in makeshift creamatories, which is now the reality in Italy. Again, look it up.

It's possible there's second wave in China and South Korea, in which case, the inconvinience comes back again. It's still easier.

You realize that if we decide not to have the inconvinience, this means approximately 200 000 dead bodies in Finland within a few weeks, and assuming you are a healthy male, you will likely be one of those called in for military service to dispose the bodies. THIS is what no one wants, THIS is why the actions are taking place. With the actions currently in place, it won't be that bad, but it will be still bad. With heavier actions, like China or South Korea, it would be much better.

So believe or not, yes, it really is mandatory to slow it down, in fact it seems no country has decided not to take any action whatsoever. Luckily you don't decide. Luckily Sale decided.

I hope you and your friends are self-quarantining already. Testing would help set you free if it's negative.

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Korean and Chinese strategy was to contain it. In here at the moment we have choice left if we delay it for half a month or half a year. 100k or 50k in deaths. Option for 5k deaths went year ago.
2003 SARS was the wake-up call in Korea to make them improve their testing capacity and procedures.
 In here they would have needed to start building procedures and testing systems year ago. No doubt this is going to be our wake-up call for high capacity PCR testing.
SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: mzzj on March 20, 2020, 07:16:56 pm ---No doubt this is going to be our wake-up call for high capacity PCR testing.

--- End quote ---

I unfortunately have some doubts.
mzzj:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 20, 2020, 07:15:55 pm --- There are several companies in Finland, including Aidian, that manufacture the tests in the millions, and export them.  While you do need trained technicians to run the tests, we could have crash-trained dozens of them in the past two months. 


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Aidian quick-test is antibody test. Easy&Fast&Cheap but not great if  usable at all in early stages of infection. Takes something like 5 days from infection to get reasonably reliable results.
99% reliable testing is also maybe good on personal treatment level but not that great if you test 10000 infected and 100 of them pass the screen. 

They market it for  "rapid diagnosis of coronavirus pneumonia" ie when shit has hit the fan already. Pneumonia cases are probably tested even now.
What we miss is PCR testing capacity and its bit more complicated than antibody tests. Nothing impossible but not local healthcare center or "arvauskeskus" level stuff like quick tests.
Mr. Scram:

--- Quote from: not1xor1 on March 20, 2020, 07:10:24 pm ---
--- Quote ---19:37 - WHO: collapsed hospitals, it is not bad influence
«There are health systems collapsing. This is not normal, ”said Michael Ryan, WHO's executive director of the emergency health program in the usual daily briefing. “Look at intensive care in some parts of the world, completely overwhelmed. Look to the exhausted doctors and nurses. This is not normal. This is not a simple particularly negative flu season. "
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source:
https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&tab=wT&sl=it&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.corriere.it%2Fcronache%2F20_marzo_20%2Fcoronavirus-ultime-notizie-dall-italia-mondo-39828fbc-6a74-11ea-b40a-2e7c2eee59c6.shtml

according to Mr. Scram (and mr Trump) this is just like flu

thousands of experts saying otherwise, tenths of studies published recently... it doesn't matter... of course those are just opinions
you can't compare those to Mr Scram facts  :-DD

--- End quote ---
Time for some nuance. Having the disease is much like the flu. It could be somewhat more lethal than regular flu percentage wise but the difference seems minor and some say selective testing may mean it's actually less lethal as most patients are never recorded. A significant amount don't get sick which seems part of the problem. Most healthy people can just sit the disease out without issue. A few will need serious intervention. This is what I said before.

What's different is that it's more infectious which leads to more infected at once. This inevitably leads to more simultaneous serious cases and deaths in less time. So far it's all still fairly equivalent to a regular flu except that the time scale is different. World wide regular flu cases are estimated to be up to 5 million and deaths are estimated to be up to and over over half a million each year but these are spread throughout at least part of the year.

Why we need to take action is the risk of overwhelming our health care due to the larger simultaneous numbers of serious cases. If that happens the position of very treatable patients becomes much more precarious. This is why we need to slow the spread of infection as this allows health care system to keep up. Stopping the spread unfortunately seems unrealistic at this point in time but with sensible precautions and preparation we can hopefully get through it with the least amount of damage. It's still going to be a stressful time for especially doctors and nurses as a year's worth of care is going to be compressed into one or two months. The flu takes a significant cut every year just as Covid 19 will take its but with considerable effort we should be able to minimise the numbers.

Flu numbers: https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/219557-overview#a6
https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html
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