[Shop-talk] everybody OK with Covid-19?

[DAVID MASSEY]

  In 1918, the flu hit the east coast early.  The health commissioner in St. Louis took early and drastic measures closing public spaces such as pubs, libraries, theaters and such and took much derision as a result.  But, the death rate in St. Louis was 347 per 100,000 people, 1/8 of that of Philadelphia.  The results speak for them selves.
Dealing with this situation with wishful thinking is a recipe for disaster.
  
Dave 

 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Porter via Shop-talk <shop-talk at autox.team.net>
To: Jeff Scarbrough <fishplate at gmail.com>
Cc: Shop-Talk <shop-talk at autox.team.net>
Sent: Mon, Mar 16, 2020 7:46 pm
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] everybody OK with Covid-19?

 On 3/16/2020 6:06 PM, Jeff Scarbrough via Shop-talk wrote:
  
 
 
  
  On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 7:43 PM someone wrote:
    
This is no different then swine flu, bird flu, Sars, or any of the other types of outbreaks we have recently had.  But this one has the media waging the dog. 
 
 
  I am not an epidemiologist.  But I do help to keep a high-containment infectious disease lab running, so some of this has rubbed off... 
  This is, of course, very much like SARS - they are cousins on the virii family tree (Coronavirus is also called SARS-CoV-2).  It is like swine flu and bird flu, in that it seems to be transmitted as an aerosol. 
  What makes it different is that it is a novel coronavirus.  That means we haven't seen it before.   I'm thinking that history doesn't repeat itself, and doesn't rhyme (as Mark Twain averred) so much as it coughs up the same sort of phlegm every once in a while for the same reasons.  It's now right around 100 years ago that the "Spanish" flu killed an estimated 50-60 million worldwide, when the world population was about 35-40% of what it is now.  There are pandemics, and some of them have rather high death rates.  The rate of death from the Spanish flu was about 2%.  The CDC is estimating a rate of death from this virus of 3%, so it's nothing to sneeze at.  In hard-hit regions, the death rate is around 4-5%, probably because in those populations, malnutrition is higher and access to care is less prevalent, and people are dying at a higher rate from opportunistic secondary infections, such as bacterial pneumonia.  The death rate in this country each year from garden-variety influenza is about 0.1%, so we are dealing with something that is more virulent and has a much greater potential for harm, so, all in all, warnings to behave exceptionally because the threat is exceptional are appropriate.  Does the media magnify the threat?  Yeah, because getting eyeballs is the core of the business.  But, if the advice comes from reputable sources, best to listen to it, instead of the nitwits. 
  Cheers.
  
   
  -- 


Michael Porter
Roswell, NM


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