FWIW.



Dr. Drew: Media-driven panic over coronavirus is a bigger problem than the virus


Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky panned the media's response to the coronavirus outbreak, telling "The Ingraham Angle" on Monday that the root of the larger problem domestically has been the panic being spread by the mainstream media.

"Essentially the entire problem we are having is due to panic, not the virus," he said. "I was saying this six weeks ago. We have six deaths from the coronavirus, 18,000 from the flu. Why isn't the message, 'Get your flu vaccine'"?

Pinsky, host of "Dr. Drew After Dark," said the coronavirus impact has been milder than initially projected.

"The entirety of the problem now is that people are being pushed into bankruptcy. Travel is down. The supply chain is being interrupted because of panic," he reiterated.

"The flu virus is vastly more consequential and nobody is talking about that."

He said that people who are wearing respirator masks are engaged in "panic behavior" rather than preventative measures.

"It is a press-induced panic that will have real consequences. It will not be the virus," Pinsky said.

President Trump boasted of his administration’s work in combating the coronavirus during a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C. Monday evening, while laying into Democrats and his political rivals for trying to “politicize” the outbreak.

Trump promised that there will soon be a vaccine ready to deal with the deadly virus and said that his administration is working hard to contain the current outbreak in the United States.

“My administration has taken the most aggressive approach in American history to deal with coronavirus,” Trump said on stage at the Bojangles Coliseum. “We have strong borders and our tough and early actions have proven 100 percent right”

He added: “We closed our borders very early to certain countries. We took a lot of heat ... Washington Democrats are trying to politicize the coronavirus.”



https://www.foxnews.com/media/...c-than-the-contagion

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
"Situation reports from the World Health Organization provide an upper boundary of the mortality rate. As of Wednesday, there were more than 60,150 laboratory-confirmed infections around the world, resulting in at least 1,365 deaths. A bit of simple arithmetic indicates that slightly more than 2% of those infections were fatal."

https://www.latimes.com/scienc...avirus-fatality-rate

Actual World Health Organization situation reports:
https://www.who.int/emergencie...9/situation-reports/

"The Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission published on Feb. 28 by WHO [12] is based on 55,924 laboratory confirmed cases. The report notes that "The Joint Mission acknowledges the known challenges and biases of reporting crude CFR early in an epidemic" (see also our discussion on: How to calculate the mortality rate during an outbreak). Here are its findings on Case Fatality Ratio, or CFR (the mortality rate):
"As of 20 February, 2,114 of the 55,924 laboratory confirmed cases have died (crude fatality ratio [CFR: 3.8%) (note: at least some of whom were identified using a case definition that included pulmonary disease).
The overall CFR varies by location and intensity of transmission (i.e. 5.8% in Wuhan vs. 0.7% in other areas in China).
In China, the overall CFR was higher in the early stages of the outbreak (17.3% for cases with symptom onset from 1-10 January) and has reduced over time to 0.7% for patients with symptom onset after 1 February. " [12]"

https://www.worldometers.info/...onavirus-death-rate/

So, a question:

So far, all of the mortality rate estimates seem to be using the number of deaths divided by the total number of infected. It's seems that this would skew the numbers, as all of the recently infected would only increase the denominator value, with no corresponding change to the numerator.

Would it not be more accurate to divide the number of deaths by the number of cases concluded through death and recovery?

In that method, all newly resolved cases would increase both the denominator and numerator, and result in an increasingly accurate rate, as the sample size increases?

This is something I also don't understand. Should be deaths/resolved cases, not deaths/infected. If it were months from now deaths/infected would be fine, but for those who have yet to die/recover, why are they being counted?

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
"Situation reports from the World Health Organization provide an upper boundary of the mortality rate. As of Wednesday, there were more than 60,150 laboratory-confirmed infections around the world, resulting in at least 1,365 deaths. A bit of simple arithmetic indicates that slightly more than 2% of those infections were fatal."

https://www.latimes.com/scienc...avirus-fatality-rate

Actual World Health Organization situation reports:
https://www.who.int/emergencie...9/situation-reports/

"The Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission published on Feb. 28 by WHO [12] is based on 55,924 laboratory confirmed cases. The report notes that "The Joint Mission acknowledges the known challenges and biases of reporting crude CFR early in an epidemic" (see also our discussion on: How to calculate the mortality rate during an outbreak). Here are its findings on Case Fatality Ratio, or CFR (the mortality rate):
"As of 20 February, 2,114 of the 55,924 laboratory confirmed cases have died (crude fatality ratio [CFR: 3.8%) (note: at least some of whom were identified using a case definition that included pulmonary disease).
The overall CFR varies by location and intensity of transmission (i.e. 5.8% in Wuhan vs. 0.7% in other areas in China).
In China, the overall CFR was higher in the early stages of the outbreak (17.3% for cases with symptom onset from 1-10 January) and has reduced over time to 0.7% for patients with symptom onset after 1 February. " [12]"

https://www.worldometers.info/...onavirus-death-rate/

So, a question:

So far, all of the mortality rate estimates seem to be using the number of deaths divided by the total number of infected. It's seems that this would skew the numbers, as all of the recently infected would only increase the denominator value, with no corresponding change to the numerator.

Would it not be more accurate to divide the number of deaths by the number of cases concluded through death and recovery?

In that method, all newly resolved cases would increase both the denominator and numerator, and result in an increasingly accurate rate, as the sample size increases?

That's a question that I cannot answer. I do believe the number is a bit high (death rate) as there are plenty of carriers that simply aren't showing signs yet or sick enough to be counted in the total number effected or possibly don't get sick enough to ever be counted.

There is no denying that people are contagious far longer than normal FLU, and that it is a serious virus. If you look at the total number of deaths in the city it origionated in, it's a serious total number. The biggest issue is that nobody really knows it's depths as it's a new virus.

I wonder if China only counted the ones who died in hospitals, I'd imagine that'd be the case.

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
I wonder if China only counted the ones who died in hospitals, I'd imagine that'd be the case.

They probably only counted the ones they couldn't hide readily.

Yes, the flu, car accidents and many other things kill more people than has died from the Corona virus so far.

Obviously the concern isn't over the current number of infections and deaths. The concern is over the future possibilities.

If a quarter of the US population catch this every flu season for the next hundred years, a 2% death rate becomes concerning.

Hmmmm... I think that is in the definition of "panic" somewhere.

From dictionary.com

noun
sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.

I'm sure somewhere, people are panicking. But altering ones daily routine to mitigate risk doesn't necessarily meet the above definition.

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:

I'm sure somewhere, people are panicking. But altering ones daily routine to mitigate risk doesn't necessarily meet the above definition.

There is absolutely no good reason that people should be altering their daily routines. This media driven hysteria is shameful.

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:If a quarter of the US population catch this every flu season for the next hundred years, a 2% death rate becomes concerning.

Right. No vaccine or treatment in the next F'n century. That's realistic.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
2-packs of hand sanitizer from 3rd party on AMZN for $120.

At first I balked at the price. But hey, it is a 2-pack. Only 1 left. Need to act fast.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

This is something I also don't understand. Should be deaths/resolved cases, not deaths/infected. If it were months from now deaths/infected would be fine, but for those who have yet to die/recover, why are they being counted?

It has been decades since my last epidemiology course but as I recall this is the approach that we were instructed to use early in any infectious outbreak since you would have no idea what the actual number of infected was or how many have been killed by the infection. Early data is always incomplete and noisy. The calculation is: Deaths/(Deaths+Recovered)x 100. These data you can determine a little better - the patients are either dead or recovered/released at the point in time when you do the calculation.

Another important point was that as epidemic progresses and control actions are taken, this number should steadily decrease until the event is over and it reaches a steady state by disappearing or the agent/disease becomes endemic in the population. That is when the classic formula for CFR and other risk metrics become more reliable and informative.

CDC Measures of Risk

__________________________________________________________

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:If a quarter of the US population catch this every flu season for the next hundred years, a 2% death rate becomes concerning.

Right. No vaccine or treatment in the next F'n century. That's realistic.

Yea, no-one predicted that a vaccine wouldn't happen.

However, if a vaccine is 6 months away, and I happen to live a few miles from the nursing home where 9 people just died, do you really think I should just ignore it? Not take any precautions to keep my wife and kids safe?

Because that's what I'm hearing from some of you guys in ski town , Utah and the red part of Minnesota, who don't live next door to it.

I guess I don't get the prepping mentality here. It doesn't seem like this virus is really going to threaten us with food shortages (i mean, actual shortages, not panic-induced media-hyped runs on Costco). And if it did, a couple of weeks of rice and beans isn't going to make much of a difference.

Well, of course one should take certain precautions.

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
I guess I don't get the prepping mentality here. It doesn't seem like this virus is really going to threaten us with food shortages (i mean, actual shortages, not panic-induced media-hyped runs on Costco). And if it did, a couple of weeks of rice and beans isn't going to make much of a difference.

I agree. I'm not prepping, I havn't been to Costco in months. I'm not doing anything any different than ever.

But since I live right up the road from this outbreak that has killed 9 people, contrary to the opinions of some guys here from MN and UT, I don't think the people here in Western Washington are being unreasonable if they decide not to go to the movie theater or head down to TMobile stadium to watch a Seahawks game either.

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:
...
However, if a vaccine is 6 months away, and I happen to live a few miles from the nursing home where 9 people just died, do you really think I should just ignore it? Not take any precautions to keep my wife and kids safe?

Because that's what I'm hearing from some of you guys in ski town , Utah and the red part of Minnesota, who don't live next door to it.

Do you, your wife or kids live in a nursing home? Are any of you over 70 with underlying health conditions?

I'm tired of hearing about it, so I'm working hard to start the rumor that it can be killed by vaping. (But only with strawberry-kiwi flavor.)