COVID-19 in the United States

[shpalman]

Yes, you're right monkey. I suspect that the hospitalisation rate might be lower in the US than it would be elsewhere, while the death rate might be higher, all else being equal.

The US also has higher levels of things like obesity and diabetes, which are prejudicial - not that the Mediterranean diet seems to have helped Italy much

It's that whole how-many-more-years-would-someone-have-had-left thing that I tried to discuss in another thread.

Having an older population, which is more at risk despite having survived to such an age with "pre-existing conditions", ought to be balanced against the other country not having such an old population because they're generally unhealthy and die sooner, which covid ought to exacerbate.

More or Less, early in the pandemic, said that catching COVID-19 basically gave you a year's worth of mortality risk in a couple of weeks - whatever your mortality risk would have been

M.D. wrote a similar thing in Private Eye back then too.

It's why I did all this: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1891&p=57411#p57421

[bolo]

This isn't about science, or government policy, but it's a good read, so I'm leaving it here for anyone who's interested:

stories from seven U.S. ICU nurses

[Brightonian]

Florida whistleblower arrested: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1 ... 46562?s=19

[Martin_B]

Lack of health insurance is a huge problem, but the uninsured are "only" about 11% of the U.S. population, and they are almost all under 65 because most over-65s are covered by Medicare, so I would be surprised if lack of insurance was a big factor in U.S. hospitalization or death rates relative to other countries.

But you can be insured and still not go to hospital till it's too late because you're scared of going bankrupt due to the co-pay.

Or that the insurance company will deny your coverage, or that the doctor you see will be out of network, so you aren't covered, or that you can't afford your deductable, or a million other things.

Or that going to the doctor will hit you doubly, as it costs you time off work, and paid sick leave isn't anything like as common in the US as it is in other western countries.

[FlammableFlower]

It seems that in the summer, having ordered 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the Trump administration chose to decline the option to order 500 million more.

Now this could be a result of seeing other vaccine options appearing and deciding not to pour all their eggs in one (very cold storage) basket... but with this administration it's generally easier to assume mismanagement and later ascribe intelligence as more evidence emerges.

[shpalman]

It seems that in the summer, having ordered 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the Trump administration chose to decline the option to order 500 million more.

Now this could be a result of seeing other vaccine options appearing and deciding not to pour all their eggs in one (very cold storage) basket... but with this administration it's generally easier to assume mismanagement and later ascribe intelligence as more evidence emerges.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ine-pfizer

[shpalman]

Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data

[shpalman]

https://twitter.com/x_lenc/status/13360 ... 07360?s=19

Berkeley just sent students an email urging them not to go home for the holidays, and then *in the same email* told them that they still need to leave the dorms during the break.

[sTeamTraen]

3000 deaths in the US in the last 24 hours. A few days ago I saw a suggestion that they might hit 400,000 deaths by the end of January. That's 50 days away, they're just shy of 300,000, and cases are still rising. I think they are looking at over 400,000 by inauguration day and closer to half a million by the end of January. ICUs in California are starting to fill up.

[headshot]

3000 deaths in the US in the last 24 hours. A few days ago I saw a suggestion that they might hit 400,000 deaths by the end of January. That's 50 days away, they're just shy of 300,000, and cases are still rising. I think they are looking at over 400,000 by inauguration day and closer to half a million by the end of January. ICUs in California are starting to fill up.

I have a friend who works at a hospital in LA County. They’re full and have maxed out their extra capacity, they sending people to other hospitals.

They’re currently discussing how to prioritise patients for care. I.e: let people die who have a poor prognosis.

[Gfamily]

this on twitter earlier today

counts.PNG (21.52 KiB) Viewed 11362 times

[lpm]

Well that list is obviously flawed.

Where's the 1918-19 flu pandemic? That must have peaked at this sort of range even with the much lower population.
How about the other disease outbreaks of the 19th Century?
Where's the San Francisco earthquake?
D-Day was 2,500 US soldiers.
Hurricane Maria in 2017 was 3,507.

And of course you need to add deaths by natural causes each day, which must be 10,000 or something.

[FlammableFlower]

Having knocked out Arizona's legislature, it seems it's quite possible Rudi may do the same to Michigan's...

[geejaytee]

Having knocked out Arizona's legislature, it seems it's quite possible Rudi may do the same to Michigan's...

He's a proper Covid Rudy, isn't he?

[sTeamTraen]

Hospitals in Los Angeles are running out of oxygen.

[tenchboy]

Well that list is obviously flawed.

Where's the 1918-19 flu pandemic? That must have peaked at this sort of range even with the much lower population.
How about the other disease outbreaks of the 19th Century?
Where's the San Francisco earthquake?
D-Day was 2,500 US soldiers.
Hurricane Maria in 2017 was 3,507.

And of course you need to add deaths by natural causes each day, which must be 10,000 or something.

Yeah! And some of all those people who die at Galveston, Antietnam, 9/11 & Pearl Harbour w'd have died soon anyway so it's all fake.

ETA Sorry f'got we have an ironic typeface.

[Woodchopper]

Hospitals in Los Angeles are running out of oxygen.

California has also run out of ICU.

[sTeamTraen]

Hospitals in Los Angeles are running out of oxygen.

California has also run out of ICU.

In Covid-19 ravaged California on Christmas Day, remaining ICU capacity for the first time fell to zero across the entire state.

Some counties, like Los Angeles and Orange County have been at 0% for over a week, but the state at large has recently floated between 1 and 3%.

1-3% in a place the size of California basically means zero anyway. Doubtless the frootloops will say "Just fly someone from San Francisco down to San Diego, they have two beds there", but (a) f.ck that and (b) by the time they get there, two local people will be in those beds (and maybe someone in SF will have died, freeing one up). The fact that you can't have a negative number of ICU beds means that zero is mostly an symptote.

Also, ICUs are not designed to run at capacity, and certainly not with everyone having the same thing. Different conditions need different amounts and timing of care, and different equipment. Belgium's ICUs got to about 80% full at the worst point of their second wave, but people were dying because any given hospital didn't have enough of the right machines in some cases.

And staff are getting sick --- both physically and mentally. There will be a lot of PTSD when this is over; turning off ventilators is hard, and in a lot of places, support for "our brave nurses" has been replaced by family anger, especially when "the virus is a hoax".

I also saw a report last week (sorry, no reference) of Swedish ICU staff resigning in some numbers, partly from burnout and partly because of perceived lack of support from the health department. Sweden's latest response has been (1) sending everyone in the country an SMS last week to say "keep your distance", and (2) recommending masks... on public transport... during rush hour... starting on 7 January 2021.

[Woodchopper]

Race to vaccinate millions in US off to slow, messy start
https://apnews.com/article/public-healt ... dac055bff6

[Woodchopper]

Seniors begin swarming overwhelmed COVID-19 vaccination sites
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020 ... n-florida/

[Squeak]

I'm sure there was some conversation here about the Wisconsin pharmacist who removed 500 doses of vaccines from the fridge overnight to damage them, but I can't work out which thread it was in. So, this thread will do for an update on his likely motives - in news that will surprise nobody here, he's a conspiracy theorist who thinks the vaccines will damage people's DNA.

[Woodchopper]

LA Paramedics Told Not To Transport Some Patients With Low Chance Of Survival
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru ... f-survival

[monkey]

Uninversity of Alabama won at college not-football last night.

This is what happened in Tuscaloosa. Many of these people will be students returning to the university bringing with them whatever they picked up when they went home for Christmas. UA had an outbreak at the start of last semester, looks like they're going to have another.

[dyqik]

And of course you need to add deaths by natural causes each day, which must be 10,000 or something.

Those aren't included in any of the items listed, and are pretty much constant and proportional to population, and so can be ignored for these purposes.

Everything except the top item is now horribly out of date.

[dyqik]

Well that list is obviously flawed.

Where's the 1918-19 flu pandemic? That must have peaked at this sort of range even with the much lower population.
How about the other disease outbreaks of the 19th Century?

Not sure about 1918-19 flu, but it may never have spread as widely as fast, meaning the death rate might have been more spread out over the pandemic (675,000 deaths over just under a year, is 2000ish per day at a constant rate. We're not that high an annual rate yet, but give it a few weeks). Earlier outbreaks are unlikely to make this list, as the population was so much smaller, and travel so much less.

Where's the San Francisco earthquake?

Official death toll of 700, and an estimate 3-4 times that in total, over more than one day, means it doesn't make the list (any more, at least).

D-Day was 2,500 US soldiers.

Not in the US, although they are US people. Going down the route of "what does American History mean here?" probably means you need to include Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, etc. And D-Day will have dropped off the list now, as there have been 13 days of >3000 CoVID deaths now.

Hurricane Maria in 2017 was 3,507.

Not sure if that was all in one day, but yeah, that one may be missing.