Covid-19 discussion with infectious disease doctor

[DC23]

I was forwarded this email from an individual who serves on the board of a health care foundation in my community. I felt this was worthy of its own thread. Share with your loved ones. Stay safe and bewell.

At today’s meeting of the trustees of a health care foundation I am involved with, an infectious disease doctor came in for a 30 minute discussion of covid-19. I will do my best to include her comments as summarized in my notes and recollections. This information is not the official or unofficial position of any organization.

• The virus is not a “strong” virus in the sense that it can be killed by careful hand washing. 20 seconds minimum or we waste our time.
• The virus can likely survive about 2 hours on hard surfaces. The doctor thinks the 9 day stories out there are false news.
• The quarantine process is not containing the virus. It is spreading. So, we are out of the containment stage into the mitigation stage … meaning trying to minimize the damage to those infected.
• The quarantine process will continue with the goal of slowing the spread of the disease so it does not overwhelm the medical system.
• Hospitals connected to the foundation looked at all of its “surge” plans considering patient loads of 10%, 20% and 30% in excess of capacity and are preparing as best they can.
• The death rate is likely between 1% and 4% of those affected. That compares to .1% for the flu. So, it is 10 to 40 times as deadly.
• Children and younger adult generally do fine with the disease but unfortunately can become carriers.
• The doctor went on to say that for older persons, especially those over 80, this is a very nasty disease with what appears to be a greater than 10% death rate. Older people do not want to get it.
• Estimated numbers at present are as follows;
  
  • 40% of the US population could become infected (that is 132 million people).
  • Of those infected 50% will have no or mild symptoms.
  • 30% of those infected will be sick but will be able to cope with it at home.
  • 20% of those infected will likely require treatment in hospitals (that is 24.6 million people … 8% of the US population). As we discussed the numbers, several trustees were nodding agreement that this is what the numbers suggest.
  • 1%-4% of those infected will die (between 1,320,000 and 5,280,000).
  • NOTE – THESE NUMBERS SEEM IMPOSSIBLY HIGH BUT IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE INFECTION RATE. AT BEST THESE NUMBERS ARE CHILLING TO SAY THE LEAST.
  • NOTE – I HAVE ATTACHED A LINK TO AN ARTICLE WHICH RUNS THROUGH DIFFERENT MATH THAT EVALUATES THE CAPACITY OF THE US HEALTHCARE SYSTEM TO COPE WITH THE SURGE IN CRITICAL CASES. AS IT SEEMS GENERALLY CONSISTENT WITH THE NUMBERS ABOVE, I AM PASSING THIS INFORMATION ON BUT STILL WORRY THAT THE NUMBERS SEEM IMPOSSIBLY HIGH. https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/...wers-covid-19/.
  
  
• People who have the virus are infectious to others before they have symptoms and sometimes even after.
• There is no evidence that transmission of the Covid-19 will be slowed down by hot weather … only if it acts like the flu in that regard.
• The earliest date anyone (except politicians … my comment) suggests as possible for a vaccine is 6-9 months. One trustee noted that the common cold is a corona virus and no vaccine has ever been developed.
• Covid-19 is highly contagious as it is spread through the air in very small droplets. So, social distancing is very important. This is doubly and triply important for those over 65.
• There is an extreme shortage of test kits and the ability to evaluate them. There are only 450 test kits in AZ and each test takes 3 kits so only 150 people can be tested. People can only be tested with the approval of the State Health Department. The DNA analysis takes an hour so even if there are a lot of kits, there is not enough equipment to evaluate them in very large numbers.
• Incubation seems to be about 5 days with peak disease on days 8 or 9.
• There are 2 strains out there right now; Chinese and an Italian variant. The Italian variant spreads very quickly and seems to be more deadly.

Johns Hopkins has a website that is the best source known to the infectious disease doctor for information on Covid-19.

I am passing this along, not to alarm anyone but it is better to be prepared than not. If you have any information that might shed light on this information, please let me know.

[hater]

called it

except the death rates and death estimates do not account for hospitals breaking down

if hospitals completely collapse death rate will approach 10% and if we dont enforce quarantines, infection. can easily reach 80%

so worse case id say 20-25 million deaths

thats not even accounting for unrelated deaths due to hospitals closing down

[TheGreatYacht]

Can we just get over this ing hoax? I'm tired of seeing shortages of water and bread at the grocery. People are so ing gullible. Re s. SHEEP

[SnakeBoy]

called it

except the death rates and death estimates do not account for hospitals breaking down

if hospitals completely collapse death rate will approach 10% and if we dont enforce quarantines, infection. can easily reach 80%

so worse case id say 20-25 million deaths

thats not even accounting for unrelated deaths due to hospitals closing down

Hater called it

[hater]

called it

except the death rates and death estimates do not account for hospitals breaking down

if hospitals completely collapse death rate will approach 10% and if we dont enforce quarantines, infection. can easily reach 80%

so worse case id say 20-25 million deaths

thats not even accounting for unrelated deaths due to hospitals closing down

Called it

[hater]

Hater called it

Ma nig

[tholdren]

Called it

Lol hospitals would not collapse. Called it

[Ef-man]

Foldren folds as usual, hate to see it.

[ElNono]

Foldren folds as usual, hate to see it.

[tholdren]

called it

except the death rates and death estimates do not account for hospitals breaking down

if hospitals completely collapse death rate will approach 10% and if we dont enforce quarantines, infection. can easily reach 80%

so worse case id say 20-25 million deaths

thats not even accounting for unrelated deaths due to hospitals closing down

Lolololoopooopoo


This

[SnakeBoy]

The death rate is likely between 1% and 4% of those affected.

Imagine if the ifr really had been 1 - 4%. We got lucky this is a mild virus.

Only 279,000 deaths to go*

*best case scenario

[DMC]

Next comes the zombies

[tholdren]

Imagine if the ifr really had been 1 - 4%. We got lucky this is a mild virus.

Only 279,000 deaths to go*

*best case scenario

Its not.

[tholdren]

Its not.

Bump