Coronavirus

[Stebro]

In Sweden I think we have 3 deaths under the age of 50, and the ones who seem to worry the most are people under 50. Media is constantly posting articles about young people all over the world that die. So I hold media responsible if mental health issues increase a lot for young people, well the media and unemployment.

I sent critical comments with my perspective to a big paper here, and asked them to inform people that we have 3 deaths under the age of 50 of a population of over 10 million (obviously all of them are not 0-50). Kudos to them since they posted it, and just stating that what I said was correct, and they will try to lift that perspective more.

There's a fine line between being overly fixated on deaths and rates but also getting the message out there that nobody should take things lightly. Again, they are probably hoping to shock people into recognizing that this is a big deal. I agree that it's not accurate to fixate on cherry picking deaths of young people worldwide but I also wouldn't want there to be complacency amongst the young just because you are statistically less likely to die than someone who is older. For example, a 0.1% death rate still isn't a good death rate if we are looking at an illness that could affect 50%+ of a total demographic group.

I think more important data would be what proportion of people under 50 require hospitalization and ICU assistance. In Canada people under 50 make up 50% of confirmed cases and it seems like people under 50 are in the 20% of hospitalizations range. It is true that one of the primary factors of death is age, but it is also likely true that a good chunk of young patients do need medical help to pull out of this. What happens when there aren't enough hospital beds, oxygen masks, ventilators or health care staff? You get Spain. In Spain the death rate ranges from 0.2%-0.5% under 50. Again, that still isn't a good rate. If 1,000,000 get it you're looking at 3,000 deaths, how many would be prevented with stronger measures?

If people under 50 are worrying the most then wouldn't it stand to reason they would be extra vigilant? If they are the unwitting carriers of this disease that then kills a large portion of the older population and subsequently overloading the health care system then wouldn't it make sense for increased cautiousness on their part? Just because you probably won't die doesn't mean it won't have major butterfly effects elsewhere.

And I mean if you're going to use the Netherlands as a comparable they have one of the worst death rates per 100,000 in Europe. Sweden and the Netherlands are not on good trajectories regarding cases or death rates. Its not just about what's happened or what is happening now - this is what got everyone into this mess. It's about recognizing what will happen in 2 weeks, a month, 3 months from now etc. Let's see what the death rates look like when all is said and done. It won't be pretty, even amongst the young, who probably wouldn't die due to illness under normal circumstances anyway unless it was COVID related. We just got the epidemiological outlook for Ontario yesterday - it doesn't paint a good picture unless we really try to clamp down on this.

Most people here have respect for both the virus and the recommendations, there are some idiots yes, but they are very few. When I see people outside they usually keep a bigger distance than 2 meters, and you can tell my people's faces that they are taking this seriously. I don't think it's smart by media to scare people like they do, I think it's smarter to do what our public health agency did which is they told young people to be careful to protected their family and friends who are in risk groups, and people seem to have been listening. Our big problem attitude wise have actually been old people, early on a lot of old people were like "I'm independent, I've experienced more flu's than you, I can handle this etc". However the public health agency have constantly told old people that it's not only about them, and how they are risking other people's lives also if they don't follow the recommendations. Now we see in polls that old people are starting to listen more, maybe it's related to the death tolls among the old too.

One of the reasons why we have had a lot of deaths among the old people in residential homes is due to lack of masks. Part of the blame I actually put on France. Why? Because Sweden had ordered 1 million masks from China, that have been stuck in France for over a week while we have an acute need. After a lot of political pressure from Sweden, France finally decided to let the plane go. This is a problem I see internationally, I heard about the issue regarding 3M. Sweden also had problems within in the EU when we sent supplies to Italy, and they got stuck in another country refusing to let them go. Another thing that is important to note is that some countries are only counting deaths at hospitals, Sweden is counting deaths whether it happens in a hospital or a residential home etc. As for Sweden we have about 635 cases/million people, however this number is probably too low as it's also related to how much you are testing, the Netherlands are currently at 953 cases/million. As for ICU patients we've had 520 ICU cases in total, but currently have 373 in ICU. Important to note is that a lot of the people that died haven't received ICU care. The issue for us with residential homes is the lack of protective equipment, it's not related to the strategy itself. The thing is someone have to feed the old people at residential homes etc, and that is usually young, that's the most logical reason why we've seen a lot of deaths here imo.

The way I see it there are 3 solutions. Either you have a vaccine, which we wont likely have for a long time. Solution 2 is that we have some old vaccine or some other treatment that cures the disease which we currently don't. The third option is herd immunity in order to not take such a big hit if a second wave comes and we don't have either solution 1 or 2. So Sweden's strategy is to develop herd immunity among the ones who don't belong to risk groups in order to better be able to protect the risk groups when the next wave comes. If that works and people build up an immunity that will also mean that these people wont spread the virus to the old or other risk groups. So I'd say that the 3 solution is less risky if we don't have solution 1 or 2 by the next wave. Here's an interesting perspective on different strategies:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/03/how-to-prevent-overwhelming-hospitals-and-build-immunity/

But all in all there are too many unknown factors, and I agree that we should think in a long term perspective.

 

[Stebro]

You know, when all of this is over I really hope there's some real accountability for how this all shook down. And I don't mean accountability in the way people sometimes mean it politically as "I don't agree with the PM's politics so I hope this hurts his chances at the next election" because any fault in the Government's response can be equally thrown at the opposition parties who weren't advocating for anything better.

But, like, we're going to need to know why the reaction to this was so bad. Why everything that should have happened in early February happened in mid-late March. I'm not looking to score points here but the people who are supposed to be looking out for us should have been better prepared. Both federally and provincially. And not in a Bill Gates-esque "We know a pandemic is coming sense" but like, we knew it was here in February. All of those chances shouldn't have been taken.

I certainly hope that the international community looks at trade agreements so we don't see important goods being stuck at airports or being held "hostage" by other countries while not even being used in some cases due to restrictions. 

 

[Stebro]

Differing opinions and some confusion on just who is spreading the Coronavirus:  ?silent spreaders? a.k.a. people who are asymptomatic are at greater risk of spreading the virus.  At least that?s what the science is now showing.

Did many get it wrong?  And why physical distancing has become ever more imperative.

?The best evidence around the virus that we have is that the virus is not contagious when people are not symptomatic."

But a growing body of research indicates they were wrong. In fact, people don't have to appear ill at all to infect others.

Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University in New York, says he is frustrated when people deny that asymptomatic spread can happen.

Shaman and other researchers argue that even two months ago, officials like Tam and Hajdu should have been more open to the possibility of asymptomatic transmission, considering by that point there was a flurry of research being undertaken by scientists racing to understand how the virus was spreading so fast and far. Many of those researchers suspected asymptomatic transmission.

His research found that while undocumented cases ? those with mild or no symptoms who did not have a confirmed diagnosis at the time ? were only half as infectious as symptomatic ones, they were the source for nearly 80 per cent of documented cases. That's because people who feel fine are the ones out and about, travelling and interacting with more people.

Asked whether it's fair to say these so-called silent spreaders are "super-spreaders," Shaman replied: "Yes."

Dr. Allison McGeer, an infectious disease specialist with Sinai Health System in Toronto, argues while Tam's messaging about asymptomatic spread back in January "might not have been ideal," there's a good chance people would not have been onside with major restrictions to their lives before they could see proof of how serious the problem was. After all, Canada only reported its first case of COVID-19 in late January.

"There is evidence that if officials appear uncertain about things, people lose trust. They get angry. They don't follow guidance. So we put this demand on public health people to have answers when there are no answers. And that's just an impossible situation," she said.

Story:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-19-silent-spreaders-1.5520006

If it's true that we have a lot of "silent spreaders" I would say that it's actually a good thing in one sense, because that would indicate that more have gone through it already. What worry me a bit is the quality of tests, because I've heard that in some countries people who have tested positive and then been cured have tested positive again a few weeks later.

 

[Kin]

When it comes to the article's points about him giving money to businesses, those are also a drop in the bucket. But more importantly, giving to those businesses might be the most effective way to get aid to people in need.  For example, the article states that he gave $19 million donation to a Mastercard affiliate in 2014 to ?increase usage of digital financial products by poor adults? in Kenya.  The article makes no attempt to investigate whether that might be a good thing.  It's easy to imagine it is a good thing -- it gives access to cash to poor people to help develop their economy. 

I don't know about it giving access to cash to people but I think digital financial products right now are showing why they can be exceptionally important. Despite being under lockdown for almost a month right now I haven't once had to go out to my bank. Everything I've done, buying food for me and my family and paying all of my bills has been done digitally.

Likewise there's the reality of what physical money does to help spread a disease. If the virus can live on plastic for up to 3 days and a lot of physical money is made of plastic, you ideally want people touching money as little as possible, not passing it around from person to person as is likely in poorer countries.

The article is trying to slime him, for what reason, I have no idea (probably clickbait), but the notion that he's somehow trying to make money off by donating to a program that helps get financial products to Kenyans is beyond ludicrous.  If Bill Gates wanted to make money, there are plenty of vastly better ways he could do it than that.

I think the article makes some fair points about how we look at large-scale philanthropy and the way it's being used by some people to re-direct scrutiny away from just the extreme inequality our society is producing(which, as that viral Dutch guy in Davos made clear, is resolved through taxes and not charity)

But nobody should be surprised that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are capitalists who think capitalism can solve problems.

 

[Bender]

Coronavirus: How sick will you get?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-how-sick-will-you-get/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

 

[hockeyfan1]

Coronavirus: How sick will you get?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-how-sick-will-you-get/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Excellent article. 

There seems to be no way out with this COVID-19 virus.  It?s almost as if the virus likes to pick and choose who it will infect.
This stealth virus has all the makings of a cleverly mutated bio engineered product, despite science disputing this claim.  Then again, how can we be so certain of that as well?

I have an underlying autoimmune condition for which a I am currently not undertaking any immunosuppressive medications.  I still need to be careful though I?m more concerned for my mother who is a senior and what contracting this virus could do to her.

We all need to be on the lookout for our families and our own well being.

 

[bustaheims]

Coronavirus: How sick will you get?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-how-sick-will-you-get/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Excellent article. 

There seems to be no way out with this COVID-19 virus.  It?s almost as if the virus likes to pick and choose who it will infect.
This stealth virus has all the makings of a cleverly mutated bio engineered product, despite science disputing this claim.  Then again, how can we be so certain of that as well?

I have an underlying autoimmune condition for which a I am currently not undertaking any immunosuppressive medications.  I still need to be careful though I?m more concerned for my mother who is a senior and what contracting this virus could do to her.

We all need to be on the lookout for our families and our own well being.

Stop with the baseless conspiracy theories. They don't help anyone.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

 

[CarltonTheBear]

There seems to be no way out with this COVID-19 virus.  It?s almost as if the virus likes to pick and choose who it will infect.
This stealth virus has all the makings of a cleverly mutated bio engineered product, despite science disputing this claim.  Then again, how can we be so certain of that as well?

Stop with the baseless conspiracy theories. They don't help anyone.

My 2nd reminder: anti-vaccine and conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19 have no place here. I'll leave this post up to serve as an example.

These views are garbage even on the best of days but people are DYING here. I don't expect anyone else on these boards to have an issue following this simple directive but I just wanted to repeat it once again.

 

[Arn]

We?re pretty much 2 weeks into our lockdown in the U.K. so it?s expected that on another week or so cases of infection and deaths should hopefully start to plateau and level off. It will be interesting to see.

In Northern Ireland specifically so far we don?t seem to have been as badly affected with just 63 deaths and 1089 cases so far (country population is around 1.9m). I wonder if the fact we?re still a bit less densely populated with quite a lot of small rural villages has been part of the reason behind that l.

 

[Frank E]

I think some people's all-time favourite leafs lineups should be basis for a lengthy ban vaca. 

Also, people that like Brussels sprouts...gone...They're crazy. Those things are gross.

 

[Bates]

There seems to be no way out with this COVID-19 virus.  It?s almost as if the virus likes to pick and choose who it will infect.
This stealth virus has all the makings of a cleverly mutated bio engineered product, despite science disputing this claim.  Then again, how can we be so certain of that as well?

Stop with the baseless conspiracy theories. They don't help anyone.

My 2nd reminder: anti-vaccine and conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19 have no place here. I'll leave this post up to serve as an example.

These views are garbage even on the best of days but people are DYING here. I don't expect anyone else on these boards to have an issue following this simple directive but I just wanted to repeat it once again.

Why do you get to decide what others think or post? You probably not mind folks using Dr Tam's word yet She is still touting the absolute BS that masks don't work? Let the reader decide their own opinions. This whole pandemic is an example of opinions and facts changing.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Why do you get to decide what others think or post?

The fact that I'm a mod/admin on a private message board. Seriously it's flabbergasting that some people don't understand this.

You probably not mind folks using Dr Tam's word yet She is still touting the absolute BS that masks don't work? Let the reader decide their own opinions. This whole pandemic is an example of opinions and facts changing.

If you don't see the difference between the debate on masks which has very legitimate takes on both sides of the conversation and crap like "this is a biological weapon" then you're beyond speaking to on this.

 

[Bates]

Why do you get to decide what others think or post?

The fact that I'm a mod/admin on a private message board. Seriously it's flabbergasting that some people don't understand this.

You probably not mind folks using Dr Tam's word yet She is still touting the absolute BS that masks don't work? Let the reader decide their own opinions. This whole pandemic is an example of opinions and facts changing.

If you don't see the difference between the debate on masks which has very legitimate takes on both sides of the conversation and crap like "this is a biological weapon" then you're beyond speaking to on this.

So what? Its an open message board, let people speak and everyone can assign their own value to that speech. It's not the first thing you have tried to sanction. You also tried when folks wrote about alternative medicine.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

It's not the first thing you have tried to sanction. You also tried when folks wrote about alternative medicine.

And will continue to do so, thanks. If you have a problem with that feel free to find another Toronto Maple Leafs forum that allows that sort of discussion.

Until hydroxychloroquine is proven effective by something like the CDC, WHO, or PHAC it won't be discussed here. Someone has DIED because of misinformation regarding that specific treatment already. I'm sorry for missing the original post about it yesterday.

People, the team lets you discuss pretty much anything you want here regarding the Maple Leafs or hockey in general. I'm taking a hard stance here on COVID-19 and I won't apologize for it.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

so why don't we allow a thread called "whacky conspiracy theories" and if people want to read about such things they can. The base line is we probably will never know for absolute sure where this thing originated from.

No. Just follow simple rules.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

I'm taking a hard stance here on COVID-19 and I won't apologize for it.

And it's appreciated. There's really only two culprits, anyway.

 

[Bates]

It's not the first thing you have tried to sanction. You also tried when folks wrote about alternative medicine.

And will continue to do so, thanks. If you have a problem with that feel free to find another Toronto Maple Leafs forum that allows that sort of discussion.

Until hydroxychloroquine is proven effective by something like the CDC, WHO, or PHAC it won't be discussed here. Someone has DIED because of misinformation regarding that specific treatment already. I'm sorry for missing the original post about it yesterday.

People, the team lets you discuss pretty much anything you want here regarding the Maple Leafs or hockey in general. I'm taking a hard stance here on COVID-19 and I won't apologize for it.

Someone died by ingesting a fish tank chemical, I thought you wanted to be factual?

 

[Phileas Fogg]

I think this is good reading for those that think moderating the discussion is an overreaction. I don't think some of the posts have been made with necessarily bad intentions as opposed to general ignorance, but spreading misinformation is a bad idea at the best of times, to say nothing of the current situation where people are scared and looking for easy answers. There's no shortage of bad actors that are looking to exploit this situation, and it's important to prevent that foothold. So kudos to the mod team for taking it seriously.

https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-tackling-%E2%80%98infodemic%E2%80%99-misinformation-and-cybercrime-covid-19

"?We?re not just fighting an epidemic; we?re fighting an infodemic,? said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) at a gathering of foreign policy and security experts in Munich, Germany, in mid- February, referring to fake news that ?spreads faster and more easily than this virus.?

WHO explains that infodemics are an excessive amount of information about a problem, which makes it difficult to identify a solution. They can spread misinformation, disinformation and rumours during a health emergency. Infodemics can hamper an effective public health response and create confusion and distrust among people.

In response, a team of WHO ?mythbusters? are working with search and media companies like Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Tencent, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and others to counter the spread of rumours, which include misinformation like that the virus cannot survive in the hot weather, that taking a high dose of chloroquine medication can protect you, and that consuming large quantities of ginger and garlic can prevent the virus.

These companies, according to news reports, are aggressively filtering out unfounded medical advice, hoaxes and other false information that they say could risk public health. In a rare move, Facebook and Twitter have taken down a post from a head of State that falsely stated that a drug was working everywhere against the coronavirus."

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I'm taking a hard stance here on COVID-19 and I won't apologize for it.

And it's appreciated. There's really only two culprits, anyway.

Thank you. This is another retort to the idiotic "why do you get to decide what gets posted and not". Besides the obvious answer that I gave I think it's crystal clear that the vast majority of this community is behind me on this one. It's not like I'm banning people from criticizing Nylander here