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| haxxiy said: I agree with the sentiment, but you are quoting older data from confirmed cases back in Wuhan I believe. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html">Data published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in late April reported a symptomatic case hospitalization ratio of 3.4% overall, varying from 1.7% in 0-49-year-olds and 4.5% in 50-64-year-olds to 7.4% in those 65 and over. Analysis of cases in France and the Diamond Princess ship estimated a 2.9% hospitalization rate, adjusted by cohort age, with 18.1% resulting in deaths (0.5%), which is somewhat similar to the CDC estimate (0.6%-ish). A UK study reported a lower 0.3% infection fatality rate during winter but that pertains only to deaths in the first 28 days of infection, which is how the UK counts them. As for the precise numbers of long Covid cases and other sequelae, we'll wait and see. None of the studies I've seen so far even had a control group, they were just doing meta-analysis of existing data or suffering from other sampling bias (studying only people who seek medical attention again, for instance). You can't have a statistically proven relationship between two phenomena without testing the null hypothesis. TLDR, I understand people have a strong impulse to pay attention to danger and thus is easier to argue that way against denialists, but one can take these things rationally and seriously without exaggerating them. Personally, I think SARS-CoV-2 is a trickster who punches way above its death rate but there are understandable reasons for that (such as an aging population in developed countries and the massive, prolonged burden to healthcare services that is treating pneumonia in a hospital context. Also, people are less likely in the 21st century to blindly accept massive deaths like it used to happen from tuberculosis, etc). |
The problem is more that the compromises, trying to keep as much as possible open, is only prolonging the pandemic and increasing the economic and social damage. There is a clear path to returning to mostly normal, but it only works if you're an island or if everyone works together. Well the latter one obviously failed.
The long term damage is not just from "long Covid", all the other problems keep mounting up and many other diseases are not getting the attention they need atm. Plus the sustained elevated stress level isn't helping either.
As for death rates, very crudely, US stands at 1.8% (deaths/cases), India at 1.2%. Of course that's just detected cases and confirmed deaths by Covid. Worldwide is sitting at 2.1%. Even when for every detected case, 10 go undetected, you're still looking at potentially over 10 million more deaths worldwide. Vaccines are helping fight Covid now, the worst should soon be behind. Atm records are still being broken and India looks especially concerning. 'Breeding' more effective versions of the virus was the worst thing we could do.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course. We started with models to achieve herd immunity, then mitigation to keep hospitals from overloading, but the best strategy was total suppression. The "Hammer and the dance" strategy has come back to bite us in the ass. It looked nice in models, but they didn't factor in the general public's attention span :/
The current 6 week lockdown we're having now with the most strict measures yet would not have been needed if we had waited a few weeks longer with re-openings last summer and had implemented tighter border regulations.
