Quote:
Originally Posted by alphasaur
Super interesting, I haven't seen that data yet. I think we sort of knew that covid would be the final nail in the coffin for people that are on death's door, but I would have expected there to be a larger number of deaths in that age group though. If anything that sort of cements what I'm saying regarding nuance.
Covid can simultaneously be dangerous to a community and not very dangerous to a high percentage of individuals. It's dangerous due to the fact that it spreads so easily and causes respiratory distress to a high enough percentage of individuals to overwhelm the medical system.
To illustrate this in another way, where I live there's a population of approximately 75,000 with two local hospitals with a bed count of approx 750 between the two of them. There's approx 40 to 50 ICU between both.
I've seen data suggesting that anywhere between 5-10% of people infected with covid 19 need medical attention (ranging from steroids & antibiotics on the less serious side to intubation on the more serious side). Let's assume 35000 people (50%) become positive within a small window of time, that would mean anywhere from 1750 to 3500 people will require medical attention. There are only 750 beds. 1-2% will require intensive care, or 350 to 700 people while there are 40-50 ICU beds. This is overwhelming and then you also have to realize people go to the hospital for things that are unrelated to COVID-19 (fractures, COPD exacerbation, cardiac arrest etc). This means numerous people will receive insufficient care.
This has been simplified but I think the point gets across.
|
Everything has definitely been over simplified but sometimes I appreciate it so I can live life and be less worried which is nice. (I worry very little but people who don't care at all and people who are 600% alarmists both worry me some lol)
I wondered from teh beginning why we were tracking cases instead of deaths like we do for everything else but that seemed to sway back to normal toward this ending of it. Like with flu, we don't track cases because tons of people get it and never go to the hospital. Ironically, the same could easily be said with covid though it seemed to be insanely contagious, it wasn't all that deadly for say, people under 50.
95% of deaths were 50 and above and 80% of deaths were 65+. (thanks study cited by AARP!) When I see numbers like that, I dont' worry at all. It does make me wonder if politicians (most in those age brackets for sure) weren't blowing things out of proportion because they were most at risk lol.
But you're right about nuance but nuance is dying. Everyone wants to stop reading books and go back to judging covers. It negates the need for nuance.