Federal documents: more than 300,000 likely to die if restrictions are lifted

I am not willing to let one person die to help the economy. This document puts forth the likelihood of 300000+ people dying in the US should we ease the restrictions, which is already happening. I remember when the GOP was Pro-Life, can't say that ever again with a straight face;

"Federal health officials estimated in early April that more than 300,000 Americans could die from COVID-19 if all social distancing measures are abandoned, and later estimates pushed the possible death toll even higher, according to documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. Some outside experts say even that grim outlook may be too optimistic.

The documents created by the Department of Health and Human Services spell out the data and analysis the agency is sharing with other federal agencies to help shape their responses to the coronavirus.

While the White House Coronavirus Task Force has cited other models created at academic institutions, the federal government has not made public its own modeling efforts. The documents paint the fullest picture yet of the assumptions underpinning the government’s response to the pandemic. "

https://publicintegrity.org/health/...000-likely-to-die-if-restrictions-are-lifted/

 

We're about to get a lesson in reality. Moron Red State Governors are going to follow Trump's lead and open up their economies prematurely...and the results will be apparent pretty quickly.

Sadly, people will die

Sadly that will delay the opening of the rest of the country

Some lessons are painful.

 

It's really too bad the governors think they know more then the doctors and scientists. All in the name of money (which happens to be the root of all evil in this country). I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect the states opening up once again may get hit really bad and as a results, unnecessary deaths may occur.

 

Is there an order that will force people to leave their homes? No. If you want to stay quarantined for another 3 weeks or 3 months, you will be free to. If you feel you will die by going outside there is no law or command that you must.

The restrictions will be lifted and those WILLING to adhere to social distancing guidelines and wearing masks will have the CHOICE to go back to work.

People are going to die. X number will die in car accidents. X number will choke while eating dinner. X number will die from ordinary Flu. X number will die from heart disease or skin cancer, and X number will from COVID19. It’s here to stay. Get used to it and strap in. You want to live in fear for the rest of your life? Don’t expect the rest of us to cover for you indefinitely.

We can’t wait until we have a vaccine to restart the economy. There won’t be an economy left to save. And sorry, 1 life ain’t worth **** in comparison to the lives of 300+ million. Every week is another X number of jobs lost, business that can’t recover, and lives lost. The healthy can’t carry the weak, selfish and fearful. Not forever folks. You’re going to have to pick your pathetic selves out off your couches and away from your TVs at some point. You’ll have to....gasp, WORK AGAIN!!!! I know that’s a poisonous word for some and many are happy to play victim. The majority will not be willing to allow you to play victim forever. Sorry.

Other countries are starting to open up. The wheels are turning. Be ready to get those hands dirty. I hope all the irrational TDS sufferers will be equally harsh on the leaders of those countries as well.

“Work”. What an ugly word. Economy, who needs that when we can pay people to stay home, eh? Whoops. Did you just learn that your ability to stay home will be on the backs of those who are working to support YOU. Yes. That’s how it works. People who work support YOU. YOU sitting at home, after a certain point, will help no one else except your own selfish, frightened, weak and essentially useless and meaningless life that you’re living by no longer contributing to society. Don’t be too proud of that.

This will be another measure of the takers from the doers. Not saying it should happen tomorrow, but over the next few weeks parts of the country that are able, need to get back to work. And methodically the rest of the country needs to open back up. Some sooner than others. But it’s time. NYC isn’t Idaho or Montana.

 

I haven't looked into the study being referenced in the OP, but my own take is as follows:

1- for the US, the worse case scenario from the virus would have been around 300-500 thousand deaths absent the social distancing measures taken.
2- the social distancing measures may not result, when looked at across a longer period of time, in a significantly lower number of deaths overall, but they will have helped spread out those deaths over a longer period of time across different seasons, until enough people are either naturally immunized by exposure the virus or there is a vaccine.
3- weather and climate do have an impact on how fast or slowly this virus spreads and is transmitted. The fact that we will soon see much warmer weather conditions, will probably prevent this virus leaving 300,000 deaths for this season from this virus even if social distancing rules and business closures are slowly relaxed.
4- the US (unlike some other countries which don't have the cushion provided by the fact that the US $ is the currency for international trade) has the means to be more cautious and wait for a few more weeks before opening up its economy. If it doesn't do that, it might find a few other major metropolitan areas ravaged by the virus before the summer, although the worse from this virus is already likely behind all those countries (including the US) which have hitherto served as its main epicenters. But there will likely be new hot spots elsewhere around the globe and, particularly, among those countries and region which will show averages temperatures ranging between around 35-55 degree F in April, May and then the coming months.

 

Unfortunately that early assumption that the virus doesn't like warm weather is proving to be incorrect. It's flying through equatorial zones (Indonesia, Singapore, etc), and India is on the brink of big problems.

It doesn't care whether your area is -5c, or 35c.

 

Maybe, but for now, my conclusions are along the lines I mentioned. The overall trends have shown the virus spreads much more efficiently in certain weather conditions and not others. But here the seasonal flu example is actually relevant: just with the seasonal flu, this doesn't mean that the virus won't have some presence even in warmer conditions. There are people who catch the flu even in the summer. It only means those warmer conditions deprive it of the conditions where it thrives the most. And those conditions, statistically, are places which fall within a certain temperature and humidity range.

In this context, relative to its population, and the absolutely horrid conditions millions of people in India live in, and all other facts and circumstances, the situation in India is hardly what I would expect from this virus if the climate in India didn't favor it. And to a lesser extent the same with Indonesia. As for Singapore, it is a rich, but small, city state with too many links to many hot spots for its present numbers to be a huge a surprise.

 

From the article:

"Federal health officials estimated in early April that more than 300,000 Americans could die from COVID-19 if all social distancing measures are abandoned, and later estimates pushed the possible death toll even higher, according to documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. Some outside experts say even that grim outlook may be too optimistic."

The models have changed since then. The model they are referring to in the article that you provided is the Imperial College model. It was determined that that model is flawed by several sources and has been abandoned by most.

Influential Covid-19 model uses flawed methods and shouldn’t guide U.S. policies, critics say
"IHME uses neither a SEIR nor an agent-based approach. It doesn’t even try to model the transmission of disease, or the incubation period, or other features of Covid-19, as SEIR and agent-based models at Imperial College London and others do. It doesn’t try to account for how many infected people interact with how many others, how many additional cases each earlier case causes, or other facts of disease transmission that have been the foundation of epidemiology models for decades."

"According to a critique by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London, published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine, the IHME projections are based “on a statistical model with no epidemiologic basis.”"

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/17/inf...d-shouldnt-guide-us-policies-critics-say.html

How One Model Simulated 2.2 Million U.S. Deaths from COVID-19

https://www.cato.org/blog/how-one-model-simulated-22-million-us-deaths-covid-19

Now let's look at the source of the article. It's from a leftist organization. Not saying they are fearmongering but they might be fearmongering.





https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/center-for-public-integrity/

 

Um, you do realize that people die because of the economy?

I feel your attitude is very naive and ignorant.

link to a thread here:
Why 'Deaths of Despair' May Be a Warning Sign for America

The plain fact is we ARE going to let some people die for the sake of the economy.
The question is how many.

300,000 old people having a few years shaved off their life is not that huge of a thing in a country with a population size of 300 million.

Go look up how many homeless people die from being on the streets every year.

 

There is no doubt that the coming weeks and months will provide additional data and input for us to test the validity of the correlation between weather conditions and the spread of the virus. But, at least until recently, the correlation was more or less very clear. It was the subject of several studies, including this study conducted by the University of Maryland in conjunction with researchers at several different Iranian universities.

The areas in "yellow" in this map would be the ones most susceptible to the spread of the virus based on prevailing weather conditions previously. The climate conditions indicated by the yellow in this map will shift to other places and will look different now than when this map was made.

 

Really?

And those are ALL Contagious Diseases that can be spread from person to person?

I didn't know that.

Thanks for the info.

 

Then they will claim that liberals are killing them somehow or the deaths are all faked.

The bs from the rw never ends.

 

Nobody has suggested all social distancing be lifted. Try again

 

That was the first thing I noticed, too. A foundation built on sand. (or a man of straw)

 

Its going to spread. The goal is to make sure it spreads slowly enough that we can care for them all. Protect your vulnerable and let's get to work. Most of us have probably already had it, especially in NYC.

 

That prediction says if all measures were abandoned right away. I don't know of any state that has suggested such thing. Most are opening in phases and social distancing measures are still in place, hand washing, sanitizing, masks, etc. So this entire post is bunk.

 

Clearly many on the left are willing to destroy the economy and have no concept of what will happen if there is total collapse.

 

Fantastic post.

 

The problem is that lifting stay at home orders would allow stupid businesses to open up again.

That means their workers are FORCED to go back to work or they lose their unemployment benefits.

 

Georgia is an interesting study. Their governor has stated that - as of friday - gyms, nail salons and tattoo parlours can reopen as long as social distancing measures and hygiene are in place. How is it possible to maintain social distancing in a nail salon or tattoo parlour? And hygiene is a major issue in gyms, with shared equipment. Sure, people can wipe down the equipment, but it isn't enough. And not everyone does it.

 

"Social distancing" was never implemented to save lives.
"Flattening the curve" does not save lives.
What part of that is difficult for you to understand?

 

As for hair and nails, I think you can minimize the risk if both wear a mask, both wash hands before and after the service. Gyms are easy. You wipe down the machine before and after you use it and the gym as a whole is cleaned regularly, keep your hands out of your face and wash them before you leave the gym, why is that not enough? It doesn't matter is the person before you didn't clean it, as long as you do it, it should be clean.

 

I can see that you and I disagree on this - so no point in further back and forth.

 

Yes it does that was the whole idea, making sure that enough critical care would be available for all those that needed it and would not be able to survive without it.

Say there is a capacity of 100 critical care beds and we have mortality rate of 50% if placed on critical care.

If flattening the curve means 100 people need critical care then 50 people survive and 50 people die, after these people either survive or die we can place another 100 people on critical care and 50% of those survive, so out of 200, 100 people survive and 100 die.

If we don't flatten the curve and 200 hundred people need critical 100 go on critical care and 100 people don't (not enough capacity at the same time). So 50 people on critical care survive and 50 people on critical care die, the 100 people who could not go on critical care all die,so out of 200 people, 50 people survive 150 die.

 

Typical fear mongering. Where were you when the AIDS pandemic was ravaging the gay community? Where were you words of outrage that even one life was too many? This is the BS that folks, like you, trod out as if just now you've discovered that something might actually effect you... And frankly, it's disgusting.