Just something I was thinking about and googled was the approximate number of immunocompromised people in the US.
This study from 2016 says about 3 percent. Obviously, the number as a percentage goes up with age. But the raw or net number of immunocompromised is tough to tell as there are obviously a lot more 20–year-olds living today than 70-year-olds. So there could be more immunocompromised twenty-year-olds than 70-year-olds despite the lower percentage.
In any event, this study estimated around 30 million immunocompromised and climbing. If half are under 60 years old, that’s 15 million or so that are at high risk from coronavirus.
I’m not sure which is worse-the Corona or the stupid virus.
The president has assembled a team of outstanding scientists many of whom are noted authorities in the field of infectious diseases. He did not come up with the recommendations currently in focus. His panel of experts did.
I know there are those who for personal reasons do not support the president but you have to wonder if their opinions are motivated by personal rather than reasoned considerations.
I am neither a registered Democrat or Republican but do believe we need to let science lead the way on issues such as this.
I just now saw where the governor of New York has asked all to stay home, same as California has done. The governor of Pennsylvania has ordered all non-life essential businesses to close. Only if China would have told the world sooner maybe this all could have been avoided or minimized.
The moment China locked down Wuhan all countries should have started implementing pandemic plans. Our own leaders refused to accept there was a problem until then evidence was overwhelming they could no longer deny it. It’s not all on China.
The answer is… of course if China had been more forthright and aggressive this would’ve been contained. But that could be applied everywhere not named Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea. But once canaries start dropping in the mine, governments have responsibilities to act. And much of the Western governmentsv have simply failed to do so.
The single biggest issue with something like this is the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” paradox. Because if you overreact, you won’t really know it because the system worked. And people will be crying about the inconveniences. If you underreact you’ll definitely know it by the broken medical system and mountains of corpses. Then people cry for those reasons.
I was telling my brother at the start of last week that Americans love their freedom and it will take a lot of dying before the Gov’t could do anything. I really appreciate that we were able to mobilize and get slightly ahead of this thing based on Italy and other countries being devastated by it. Numbers are going to skyrocket here as the testing happens more.
I’m pretty sure mods aren’t blocking anything. Once so many people flag a post, the system does that.
So, it’s not the mods, it’s the users of this board.
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xsmithcoog116
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I think another reason this virus is dangerous is that it can cause pneumonia. I think there may be a too big of focus on the elderly when in fact pneumonia can take the life of younger individuals as well. Who remembers what recently happened to Edward Aschoff? He was one of my favorite ESPN reporters, and although Corona didn’t kill him he died way too early of a complication with HLH accompanied by pneumonia. No demographic/population of people are immune or not at risk under those circumstances. If it makes sense and keeps us all safe I’m all for it.
I think we all should be civil. I see the greater damage in shutting down the economy and the resulting after effects. BUT I understand people not agreeing with me on this. At the end of the day we need to be civil.
Have you seen the early press conferences from the President on this matter? Someone on twitter actually stitched together how the narrative changed, from there no problem, it’ll all blow over, to now how it is a problem and we need to take care of it.
Or how the white house originally DIDN’T WANT states to conduct testing?
P5, great points, and the answer to your last question is important. Clearly, we CANNOT go about business as usual if we want to bring an end to the crisis sooner than later. The potential economic impact of trying to avoid or downplay the virus, withhold or deny facts about much needed medical supplies, will be devastating in the long term. Getting anything other than the truth at this juncture is dangerous for the health, safety, and security of the country.
Who is right on all of this? We will find out. Sweden has become the baseline. We will compare their death rates versus the world. I am betting on Sweden.