1-2 point PSA rise

Georges Calvez said:

Next steps

Hi there,

The US government is taking steps like testing people for free, guaranteeing sick pay and moving towards free treatment for coronovirus.
No one really knows how bad it will be or what a government that is not China has to do to stop it.
The Chinese had some tough methods to ensure that people did not move around, the US and Europe will not be able to reach for the same playbook.
Besides the fact that they are not authoritarian regimes the security forces are nowhere near big enough.
In the worst hit Italian province they are now struggling to bury the dead.
I am hoping that it will not come to that in my corner of Brittany.

Best wishes,

Georges

New normal

I live in a little Southern town, but we are adjacent to a major city with vast health resources, including a medical School/Teaching Hospital.    Since schools are closed, I am noticing many more people outside, enjoying nature, walking dogs with their kids, etc.   This is a positive trend that I hope continues.   I buy groceries at Bi-Lo, which is in about ten states (it is the company that bought Winn Dixie several years ago, based in Jacksonville, FL).     My store is already recovering in terms of stocking shelves; I went and got the quota-allowed loaves of bread and ground beef today, with no real issues.   

I pray we have turned the corner, although isolated spikes are to be expected, which will receive massive coverage from the press.    I believe one (1) person has died of corona in SC, a state of about 5 million; the official count in the US yesterday nationwide was 130, in a country of 330,000,000.  In comparison, the average annual MURDER rate just in the City of Chicago is around 600.

Worldwide, corona annual deaths are extrapolated at about 20th in cause of mortality.    Perspective will eventually come out, despite the news agancies.

Next test &Next test & Next test

Hi Steve,

Would not get over excited until you have a couple more tests to determine a trend.  With radiation I don't think your PSA will ever go to zero but instead level off at some number which will be determined after a few more tests.  If it levels off and stays constant after several readings that is a great sign.

Dave 3+4

Flyer83948 said:

"Official stats in US

"Official stats in US currently rate the mortality of Corona at 00.9, or less than 1%. "

 

Yeah, that's the mortality rate averaged over all age groups. But for those people at age 60 and up I believe that the coronavirus mortality rate is about 5%, or one in twenty. So it is a significant threat to older citizens. At the same time, I tend to think that the coronavirus scare has gotten out of hand and I question the need to do things like close public schools and have large scale "shelters-in-place". Maybe a better strategy for future pandemics of this sort which predominantly threaten older citizens is to have 2-age-tier strategy in which people younger than age 60 do about their normal lives while taking extra precautions to take common sense measures like washing their hands frequently, while people older than age 60 or those with pre-existing health problems take further measures including sheltering-in-place in order to maximize their protection. Hopefully, the next viral scare will not be so disruptive to businesses and the daily lives of most people.

The R0 number means it

The R0 number means it spreads far faster and thus kills more people more quickly. The higher CFR / IFR compounds that.

Younger people do get the disease, do end up in ICU and do die from it.

The US CFR is more like 3.4% at the moment but will drop as numbers allow it to move to a realistic IFR.

It will likely not go below 1%.

Hospitals are overloaded and will get worse.

ITS NOT THE FLU.

Georges Calvez said:

La peste

Hi Max,

You might be lucky and so might I but it is pretty clear that some areas are going to suffer.
Some provinces in Northern Italy have a bad problem because they have urban centres with a lot of old people.
This is perfect for the virus to spread as the old folks give it to each other at church, taking coffee at the cafe, etc and they also have the highest death rate of any group.
Incidentally the murder rate for the whole of the UK, 68 million, is around 700, the murder rate for Chigaco is around 600 for 2.7 million.
That is a demonstration of how raw statistics do not say much about very different places.

Best wishes,

Georges

Sine wave stats

GC,

I read an article in a major journal Thursday, which was written a few years ago.  It documents that Italy, almost always, sufferes much higher mortality rates from flues than most other industarized nations.   Because it predates corona, it is effectively non-political.  I will try to relocate it and post.

What aggrevates me the most is the stupidity and hysteria that we see, perpetually stoked by a press which has little or no medical or scientific knowledge themselves.  People here are hoarding bottled water.  Totally moronic.   I have lived through natural diasters (hurricanes) that left the area without power for weeks.  This NEVER affected the safety or availability of public water at all.  Most natural diasters (at least in the US) do nothing to public water supplies.  There may be odd, rare exceptions, but a flu epidemic is most assuridely not one of them.   People buying bottled water or sodas increase their exposure to infection from the containers and expend cash on uselessness.

Do-gooders innundate us with the superiority of foresaking family cars to commute in crowded buses and trains/subways.  How is that working out ?   

The study attributed the disproportionate death rates in Italy to an elderly population in various villages and less-than-world-classs sanitation and medical availability. 

You confirmed and strengthened my own point about dung heaps like Chicago.... I recall being in a discussion with someone about ten years ago, and learned that the death rate among American troops in Iraq over a period of several years was much, much lower than the number of murder deaths in Chicago in ONE year.  But no one was fleeing Chicago in terror, and the government did not issue travel warning there.

max

hewhositsoncushions said:

I feel like Roy Schneider

I feel like Roy Schneider trying to tell the Mayor of AMity to close the beaches

Minibreak in Skegness
Hi Hew,

Unfortunately quite a few people in the UK seem to be treating this as an excuse for a pre Easter mini break.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/disaster-waiting-to-happen-visitors-flock-to-skegness

Best wishes,

Georges