Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
Yeah, but you are focusing one one set of numbers with well-known inputs, and another with very poorly-known inputs, so the two don't really correlate.
I hope that the hospitalization rate for COVID-19 infection is far, far less than 20%. I hope it's less than 2%. But we don't yet know what it is. If it ends up being much higher than the flu, we're in serious trouble, especially as it looks like it might be much more infectious.
If, yes, if. So far, it hasn't gotten to that point. Let's hope it doesn't. In the meantime we have to focus on the actual numbers that are coming in and not react to what they might mean, maybe, later, if.
Trust me, our health system is prepping for the worst but that does not mean the worst is going to happen.
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It took me awhile to finally have this all connect in my head, and I wish someone would have laid it out like this early on to get people to stay inside. We are about to experience something horrible in NYC and the fear is it will be duplicated around the country because some people just aren’t getting it yet. I know this has been said but it isn’t the mortality rate or the groups being impacted or any of that. It’s the fact that hundred then thousands then tens of thousands are going to need hospitalization and there will be no beds or ventilators available:
Let me paint you a bleak picture...
The rate of infection will follow a standard equation governing the spread and other factors called the R-Naught.
Currently, with the exception of Asian countries that are taking draconian steps, we are seeing this doubling occur approximately every 2-3 days.
Currently we have around 5,000 per day in US.
2 days ago it was approximately 2,500.
2 days before that it was approximately 1,250.
It works the other way too - even with the limited social distancing slowing it:
In 4 days from now it will be 10,000.
4 days from then it will be 20,000 (we’re talking next weekend).
And so on.
This is if we did not shelter or develop “herd” immunity.
Herd immunity, as you all know, happens over time as more people are infected, become immune, and come into contact with fewer and fewer susceptible people who haven’t developed immunity.
So the spread will naturally slow over time.
And sheltering in place can slow down the rate of doubling. But this takes time to catch-up in the numbers since it can take a week or longer for the symptoms to manifest in new patients.
Why they are having everyone shelter in place is because 2 out of every 10 cases, on average, will require medical care at a hospital.
And on average 25% of those cases will need ventilators/life support to survive.
We have a limited number of beds and ICUs can be quickly overrun.
We’re seeing this in Italy at the moment.
Here’s where it gets scary:
In two weeks we will have the ICUs in NYC and possibly other major American cities filled.
But the spread of infection will continue to double (again, unless we are successful in sheltering in place and idiots aren’t going to beaches and out to parties) for a period of time before leveling off and hopefully falling.
What happens when the hospitals are full and can take no new patients?
Yet there are now 10,000 20,000 30,000 new infected each day?
And 5% of those require hospitalization to have a good chance to live?
We will have 500, 1,000, 1,500 or more people a day who need ventilators and critical care to deal with pneumonia and other ailments who simply won’t be able to get it.
And we will not have the beds, the equipment, or the staff to treat these sick people.
In Italy, where this is happening right now, people in this most dire group are being told to go home - many to die. Doctors and nurses are being forced to pick who gets a ventilator when one becomes available.
Some beds will become available but since the sick are sometimes on these machines for long periods the turnover isn’t great and capacity is reached quickly.
So unless we slow the rate of infection or the percentage of people who need hospitalization is reduced (which hasn’t happened quickly in other hot spots where the effects of staying home aren’t seen until weeks after it begins) you are going to be facing a reality in weeks where thousands of Americans are dying every day because the health care system is overrun. It will happen suddenly and it will be a shock to many who haven’t realized that this is why we are staying home.
As long as we are going out the spread will continue. Staying at home will slow it. Assembling more beds with more ventilators run by more medical professionals can mitigate it. But given that many of our doctors and nurses have no where near the level of protection that their Chinese counterparts had we are going to see the availability of doctors and nurses reduced as well as they get sick — further magnifying the problem.
The sheltering orders will stunt it, but we are now in a race against time that I fear we have already lost
Few seem to be feeling what is coming right now. Few seem to realize the math that’s involved and that the growing numbers of overall new cases will have around 20% of that total number requiring hospitalization to save their lives. Hospitalization that won’t be available in mere days and weeks in NYC.
Few seem to feel it. In two weeks it will be impossible not to feel it.
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