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OT: First US death due to Coronavirus

WhiteBus

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Oct 4, 2011
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Australia and Thailand had their first too.

50 year old from Washington State with health issues but contracted it here in the US not from travel.
The Life Care Center in Kirkland has 27 infected patient to go along with 25 members of the staff.
 
Australia and Thailand had their first too.

50 year old from Washington State with health issues but contracted it here in the US not from travel.
The Life Care Center in Kirkland has 27 infected patient to go along with 25 members of the staff.
Thailand was a guy that was 35 and had dengue fever as well and the Australian guy was in his late 70s from that cruise ship.
 
More people die of the flu per year in the US alone than have died from Coronavirus world wide....
That's true but what might the numbers look like if the extraordinary measures taken right now weren't being taken and it was just dealt with like the flu, where a flu shot is available. For the moment there's no vaccine and we don't really have a good idea on the mortality rate which could be 1-2% but possibly lower. Flu is .1% mortality.

A lot is unknown. In the future I've read and I kind of agree that this could be another annual virus of the "flu season" and by then hopefully more treatments will be available but for now that's not the case.
 
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That’s right down the road from where we live.....but there are probably many unreported cases out there given that so many had mild symptoms that are cold-like and probably didn’t seek healthcare. So the denominator used to calculate mortality is probably quite a bit more in reality than the 85000 cases being reported.
 
That’s right down the road from where we live.....but there are probably many unreported cases out there given that so many had mild symptoms that are cold-like and probably didn’t seek healthcare. So the denominator used to calculate mortality is probably quite a bit more in reality than the 85000 cases being reported.
Yup have said that but we don’t know yet. Only with time and research will more questions be answered.
 
More people die of the flu per year in the US alone than have died from Coronavirus world wide....
Right now coronavirys death rate is more than twice the flu and we don’t really know where it will go. Have a work associate who lives in China. She says take the announced number of deaths in China and multiply by 10. She can only leave her house once each week for 2 hours to shop for food.
 
Right now coronavirys death rate is more than twice the flu and we don’t really know where it will go. Have a work associate who lives in China. She says take the announced number of deaths in China and multiply by 10. She can only leave her house once each week for 2 hours to shop for food.
Right now it's 20× and as you said it China's # are much higher than reported.
 
I heard the Woodinville Costco was a madhouse yesterday too.....I kind of need to head over there but don’t feel like being stuck in a crazy line.
Costco on a weekend is a madhouse without any sort of rush for goods...I can just imagine now if people are rushing for certain items.
 
Yup have said that but we don’t know yet. Only with time and research will more questions be answered.

Agree.....it’s still early but to note the poster above re: multiplying by 10 the number of deaths in China that were reported we also would likely need to multiply by a similar factor or maybe more the number of unreported cases. Detection and testing capacity is much better and increasing so more data will be coming in.
 
Rhode Island reportedly has its first presumptive case....man in his 40s returned from travelling to Italy in mid February.

As to mortality rates that's just hard to gauge but if you don't like China, which is understandable, look at developed countries like South Korea and Italy. Korea has 18 deaths out of 3376 cases to date which is about .5% Italy has about 29 deaths out of 1100+ cases for around 2.5% so that's quite a variability even in developed countries...so it's hard to say.

EDIT: just saw updated numbers from Italy and it’s 34 out of 1694 for 2%.

Like I said in the other thread what could be hopeful is that in the southern hemisphere you're not seeing too many cases and many of them are "imported" from outbreak areas from other parts of the world. Not any reports of large community transmission yet either. Of course when their winter comes that could change. Also so far only 2 deaths outside of China that I've read about for people under 60 and many really in their 70s and 80s. 35yr old in Thailand who had dengue fever as well and the man in his 50s here who had other medical issues. Also read a 6 week old baby the youngest yet tested positive as well as both the parents all in stable condition in South Korea.
 
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Rhode Island reportedly has its first presumptive case....man in his 40s returned from travelling to Italy in mid February.

As to mortality rates that's just hard to gauge but if you don't like China, which is understandable, look at developed countries like South Korea and Italy. Korea has 18 deaths out of 3376 cases to date which is about .5% Italy has about 29 deaths out of 1100+ cases for around 2.5% so that's quite a variability even in developed countries...so it's hard to say.

EDIT: just saw updated numbers from Italy and it’s 34 out of 1694 for 2%.

Like I said in the other thread what could be hopeful is that in the southern hemisphere you're not seeing too many cases and many of them are "imported" from outbreak areas from other parts of the world. Not any reports of large community transmission yet either. Of course when their winter comes that could change. Also so far only 2 deaths outside of China that I've read about for people under 60 and many really in their 70s and 80s. 35yr old in Thailand who had dengue fever as well and the man in his 50s here who had other medical issues. Also read a 6 week old baby the youngest yet tested positive as well as both the parents all in stable condition in South Korea.

S Korea and Italy should give us a good idea as to how this may progress here in the US. S Korea especially, is known for the quality of its healthcare system and has done a lot of testing, thus probably identifying a higher percentage of cases compared to other countries.

The key thing to keep in mind when trying to estimate death rates is that these are the early stages of the outbreak, and the illness has a relatively long course often 2-4 weeks or more in severe cases. Taking S Korea as an example, they have identified 3736 cases with 21 deaths which you could argue is a death rate of 0.56%. However, 3685 of those cases are still active, only 30 have been declared recovered. There's lots of room for the death rate to move up.

Italy's numbers look a lot worse...1694 cases, 34 deaths (2%) with 140 serious/critical (8%). They probably haven't done as much testing as SKorea so perhaps they are only seeing the more serious cases and there are many other cases that are not as bad.
 
The government does not like to incite panic...the media does...the media during an election year against a president they loathe is tantamount to bloody and chum-choked waters...they probably see this as a huge opportunity to help their cause.

this a politically blunt and coldly accusatory statement on my part, but that’s because that is what we’ve become...

Just a generation ago (Clinton admin and before) both parties would have at least pretended to work together. I have little confidence either party frankly gives a ****!
 
The government does not like to incite panic...the media does...the media during an election year against a president they loathe is tantamount to bloody and chum-choked waters...they probably see this as a huge opportunity to help their cause.

this a politically blunt and coldly accusatory statement on my part, but that’s because that is what we’ve become...

Just a generation ago (Clinton admin and before) both parties would have at least pretended to work together. I have little confidence either party frankly gives a ****!
Hits the nail on the head.
 
I have little confidence either party frankly gives a ****!
The parties seem to most interested in reelection and power.. serving themselves.. not in serving the electorate. That's why we got Trump and maybe why we'll get Bernie next. I think the majority (or at least a plurality) of people on both sides feel pretty much as you do.
 
If we get large numbers of infections, and the hospitals get overwhelmed, the death rate will go up. 5% of cases need intensive care! If they don’t get it, they’ll die.
 
That's true but what might the numbers look like if the extraordinary measures taken right now weren't being taken and it was just dealt with like the flu, where a flu shot is available. For the moment there's no vaccine and we don't really have a good idea on the mortality rate which could be 1-2% but possibly lower. Flu is .1% mortality.

A lot is unknown. In the future I've read and I kind of agree that this could be another annual virus of the "flu season" and by then hopefully more treatments will be available but for now that's not the case.

Good post. This virus is as or more transmissible than influenza and has a mortality rate roughly 10-20X that of influenza (~2% vs. about 0.1-0.2%). So if we largely ignored it like the flu, we'd potentially have 10-20X the ~12K-60K deaths/year we have from the flu, which would give a range of deaths of 120K to 1.2MM if we did nothing.

That's why this is so serious and doing everything possible to slow/stop the spread is so important, from not allowing travel from countries with outbreaks, to very close monitoring of people who have been in high rate countries, to quarantining/monitoring/treating suspected cases here (and tracking connections), along with personal preventative measures like frequent hand-washing and wearing masks if you are symptomatic.

Only these measures will be effective in significantly lowering "effective" transmission rates to well below those seen for influenza, which will lead to far less deaths than there could be. The other thing we could have on our side is the possibility that transmission rates will decline significantly soon, as we transition to warmer/more humid spring weather, as occurs for influenza, but we don't know yet if that will be the case with this coronavirus.
 
Australia and Thailand had their first too.

50 year old from Washington State with health issues but contracted it here in the US not from travel.
The Life Care Center in Kirkland has 27 infected patient to go along with 25 members of the staff.
Impossible to contract without having some sort of contact with an infected person. The claims of “ I didn’t travel to or come in contact with a possibly sick person is just BS... some place or some persons who were in affected areas may be carriers and not show any symptomatic signs... it is a serious , serious thing but to think this shoes up with no contact is ludicrous...
 
Being far enough from Seattle metro do you think the risk is that high?
Quite a few people travel from the west side to the east side of the state and vice versa. I'm not anywhere near to panic mode yet, but an increasing number seem to be headed in that direction.
 
Impossible to contract without having some sort of contact with an infected person. The claims of “ I didn’t travel to or come in contact with a possibly sick person is just BS... some place or some persons who were in affected areas may be carriers and not show any symptomatic signs... it is a serious , serious thing but to think this shoes up with no contact is ludicrous...
I think the phrase you're looking for is "no known contact"
 
Was
Impossible to contract without having some sort of contact with an infected person. The claims of “ I didn’t travel to or come in contact with a possibly sick person is just BS... some place or some persons who were in affected areas may be carriers and not show any symptomatic signs... it is a serious , serious thing but to think this shoes up with no contact is ludicrous...
Didn't say or imply that at all. But it shows it's spreading in the US beyond people that were overseas. That center alone has near 60 people who have it and most were not out of the country.
 
Good post. This virus is as or more transmissible than influenza and has a mortality rate roughly 10-20X that of influenza (~2% vs. about 0.1-0.2%). So if we largely ignored it like the flu, we'd potentially have 10-20X the ~12K-60K deaths/year we have from the flu, which would give a range of deaths of 120K to 1.2MM if we did nothing.

That's why this is so serious and doing everything possible to slow/stop the spread is so important, from not allowing travel from countries with outbreaks, to very close monitoring of people who have been in high rate countries, to quarantining/monitoring/treating suspected cases here (and tracking connections), along with personal preventative measures like frequent hand-washing and wearing masks if you are symptomatic.

Only these measures will be effective in significantly lowering "effective" transmission rates to well below those seen for influenza, which will lead to far less deaths than there could be. The other thing we could have on our side is the possibility that transmission rates will decline significantly soon, as we transition to warmer/more humid spring weather, as occurs for influenza, but we don't know yet if that will be the case with this coronavirus.
What kills more flu patients the flu itself or pneumonia in compromised individuals...this particular disease impacts the lungs in some patients in a way that most have no idea about except some medical pros...instead of politicians politicizing this virus every chance they get perhaps a little across the aisle work togetherness would pay big dividends ... should we expect that to happen? ...it will only when some potential hierarchy types in DC develop symptoms and / or worse... truth be told we are basically somewhat on our own ...
 
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Good post. This virus is as or more transmissible than influenza and has a mortality rate roughly 10-20X that of influenza (~2% vs. about 0.1-0.2%). So if we largely ignored it like the flu, we'd potentially have 10-20X the ~12K-60K deaths/year we have from the flu, which would give a range of deaths of 120K to 1.2MM if we did nothing.
Serious questions:
Why do you think these #'s are accurate? Has there been a legit study or are these #'s just based on recent observations?

Almost everyone that dies gets screened/tested, but the large majority of folks with corona that have marginal flu-like symptoms don't. They just live life and probably don't even go to the doctor. Should we assume that the denominator is accurate? Unless we have a legit study, my answer would be no.
 
More people die of the flu per year in the US alone than have died from Coronavirus world wide....

Great point. Most everyone fails to put the severity of corona virus into perspective.

Think I read that the flu kills 18k per year, more than 5x the current loss from corona virus worldwide.

Corona will go away when the weather gets warmer in the next few months, but is likely to come back next year if a vaccine is not implemented. But this virus has opened the worlds eye to realize how all countries must share accurate data with health organizations on a current basis to fight these types of health issues.

It also raises questions about supply chain issues, and how dependent much of the world is on China. I hope the US makes some key decisions in this area to maintain our financial independence globally. Corona may yield many positives results along the way. I’m pretty optimistic that this will pass.

Favorite corona related story is that Corona Beer from Mexico is seeing a 40% drop in sales during this period. Consumers are finicky about their choices.
 
Great point. Most everyone fails to put the severity of corona virus into perspective.

Think I read that the flu kills 18k per year, more than 5x the current loss from corona virus worldwide.

Corona will go away when the weather gets warmer in the next few months, but is likely to come back next year if a vaccine is not implemented. But this virus has opened the worlds eye to realize how all countries must share accurate data on a current basis to fight these types of health issues.

It also raises questions about supply chain issues, and how dependent much of the world is on China. I hope the US makes some key decisions in this area to maintain our financial independence globally. Corona may yield many positives results along the way. I’m pretty optimistic that this will pass.
In total, the CDC estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-2019 flu season, 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. That's fairly on par with a typical season.
https://time.com/5610878/2018-2019-flu-season/
 
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Favorite corona related story is that Corona Beer from Mexico is seeing a 40% drop in sales during this period. Consumers are finicky about their choices.

I was talking with my wife the other day and we laughed about the idea that sales of Corona (and limes?) are likely taking a hit with consumers being irrational.
 
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I was talking with my wife the other day and we laughed about the idea that sales of Corona (and limes?) are likely taking a hit with consumers being irrational.
It’s not a case of irrational...this a case of plain stupid...like flat-earth stupid kinda people, or people who believe in the Bermuda Triangle or Bernie Sanders followers
 
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Good post. This virus is as or more transmissible than influenza and has a mortality rate roughly 10-20X that of influenza (~2% vs. about 0.1-0.2%). So if we largely ignored it like the flu, we'd potentially have 10-20X the ~12K-60K deaths/year we have from the flu, which would give a range of deaths of 120K to 1.2MM if we did nothing.

That's why this is so serious and doing everything possible to slow/stop the spread is so important, from not allowing travel from countries with outbreaks, to very close monitoring of people who have been in high rate countries, to quarantining/monitoring/treating suspected cases here (and tracking connections), along with personal preventative measures like frequent hand-washing and wearing masks if you are symptomatic.

Only these measures will be effective in significantly lowering "effective" transmission rates to well below those seen for influenza, which will lead to far less deaths than there could be. The other thing we could have on our side is the possibility that transmission rates will decline significantly soon, as we transition to warmer/more humid spring weather, as occurs for influenza, but we don't know yet if that will be the case with this coronavirus.
That’s my concern about this. There are still many questions. Will it subside when the warmer months arrive or will the opposite occur? H1N1 got worse in warmer months.
 
S Korea and Italy should give us a good idea as to how this may progress here in the US. S Korea especially, is known for the quality of its healthcare system and has done a lot of testing, thus probably identifying a higher percentage of cases compared to other countries.

The key thing to keep in mind when trying to estimate death rates is that these are the early stages of the outbreak, and the illness has a relatively long course often 2-4 weeks or more in severe cases. Taking S Korea as an example, they have identified 3736 cases with 21 deaths which you could argue is a death rate of 0.56%. However, 3685 of those cases are still active, only 30 have been declared recovered. There's lots of room for the death rate to move up.

Italy's numbers look a lot worse...1694 cases, 34 deaths (2%) with 140 serious/critical (8%). They probably haven't done as much testing as SKorea so perhaps they are only seeing the more serious cases and there are many other cases that are not as bad.
South Korean society is orderly,disciplined and cautious. In general they follow the rules. I would expect them to control something like this significantly better than a country like Italy. But who knows, they are extremely reliant on China.
 
S Korea and Italy should give us a good idea as to how this may progress here in the US. S Korea especially, is known for the quality of its healthcare system and has done a lot of testing, thus probably identifying a higher percentage of cases compared to other countries.

The key thing to keep in mind when trying to estimate death rates is that these are the early stages of the outbreak, and the illness has a relatively long course often 2-4 weeks or more in severe cases. Taking S Korea as an example, they have identified 3736 cases with 21 deaths which you could argue is a death rate of 0.56%. However, 3685 of those cases are still active, only 30 have been declared recovered. There's lots of room for the death rate to move up.

Italy's numbers look a lot worse...1694 cases, 34 deaths (2%) with 140 serious/critical (8%). They probably haven't done as much testing as SKorea so perhaps they are only seeing the more serious cases and there are many other cases that are not as bad.

Considering the amount of travelers from Italy showing up in other countries with the virus the number of Italian infections is far larger than the reported numbers. South Korea might give a more accurate estimate of the death rate considering they’ve tested almost 70,000 people and have a death rate of 0.5% which is close in line with what the Chinese death rate is outside Hubei province.

The cruise ship is interesting since the average age should trend higher and the deaths run at about 0.85%. It’s also a relatively well developed situation so it’s not recent infections.

Still 5-8 times more deadly than the flu. It will likely kill less Americans than the flu this year but not because it is less dangerous but because of people’s awareness of it is heightened and extensive efforts will be made to slow it. The Chinese look like they have increasing control of it day by day.
 
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