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Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How.

NWRatCon

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I've been thinking about this a lot, as my head spins from the breathtaking changes occurring daily.
It turns out I'm not alone: Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How. (Politico). "A crisis on this scale can reorder society in dramatic ways, for better or worse. Here are 34 big thinkers’ predictions for what’s to come."

There are numerous stories that tell different aspects of this: US colleges scrambled to react to the coronavirus pandemic. Now their very existence is in jeopardy. (USA Today); Echoes of the Great Depression? U.S. economy could post biggest contraction ever (Market Watch); 3 GOP Senators In Self-Quarantine Will Be Unable To Vote On Coronavirus Relief (npr). Education, the Economy, Government. All will be radically changed.
 
We still don't know the overall mortality rate. We know how many people are dying, but we don't know how many are infected. It could be a year or more before we know.

If this turns out to be a giant dud, and the mortality rate turns out to be no higher than a particularly bad flu season, then the backlash against the draconian measures and economy-destroying closures could be earthshaking.
 

I strongly suspect there will be an upward revision in the number of deaths, right now we can't really test corpses due to a lack of capacity so statisticians will need to tackle that in the future.
 

This post won’t age well.

You’ll see by...the end of this week.
 
tacomancer said:
I strongly suspect there will be an upward revision in the number of deaths, right now we can't really test corpses due to a lack of capacity so statisticians will need to tackle that in the future.
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I highly doubt that. So far, it's just a few thousand people in a country of 330 million people. What's that, about 0.0001% My concern is whether we might overinflate the stats. Say someone with a heart condition or lung cancer dies from the Chinese Flu - is that a death from the disease or was the disease just the thing that pushed them over the edge? I don't know how the CDC counts such things, but there may be a powerful political push to try to inflate the numbers as much as possible to justify the draconian economy-wrecking policies in place now.

Whatever it is, at some point we're going to have to restart the US economy and live - or not - with the consequences.
 
Threegoofs said:
This post won’t age well.

You’ll see by...the end of this week.
Click to expand...

We will both see. If your prediction that I will "see" doesn't pan out by the "end of this week", then can we go back to work next week?
 

You do realize that if it is 22000 deaths, that woudl be in addition to the flu deaths, and that if it is that amount, it would be because of teh social distancing, rather that despite it? IT would reduce the numbers drastically.
 
RAMOSS said:
You do realize that if it is 22000 deaths, that woudl be in addition to the flu deaths, and that if it is that amount, it would be because of teh social distancing, rather that despite it? IT would reduce the numbers drastically.
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Social distancing is one thing. Shutting down large swaths of the entire economy is another.
 
Threegoofs said:
Sure. Go ahead.
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I can't. I can't reopen the restaurants and stores now.

I'm not sure you quite get the magnitude of what our pretty governor has done. He's shut down the entire state. How many people will lose their businesses or get evicted because they can't pay the rent? How many of them will die? It's impossible to say, but the longer this goes on, the higher it will be.
 
The Italians are not having just another in a series of ' bad flu seasons'.
 

Balance that by the number we CAN know, the death toll.

Short term economic pain is worth avoiding the massive deaths that would result from doing nothing.
 

There are already people looking at it and thinking we have been undercounting

Uncounted among coronavirus victims, deaths sweep through Italy's nursing homes - Reuters
 
btthegreat said:
The Italians are not having just another in a series of ' bad flu seasons'.
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But the Germans are. As are the Brits and most other countries. So is Italy an exception or a harbinger?

The US is not Italy.
 
Threegoofs said:
Balance that by the number we CAN know, the death toll.

Short term economic pain is worth avoiding the massive deaths that would result from doing nothing.
Click to expand...

Just because we can't know the number of deaths from economic devastation doesn't mean we can dismiss it out of hand.
 
What we really will need is a test that can tell you if you have been exposed and have antibodies to the virus.

That way, as this progresses thru the population, with most people getting it without symptoms, the immune individuals can go back to work.

These types of tests aren’t real complicated, but I’ve heard nothing about a plan to develop them and deploy them in the millions.

But I’m sure this crack coronavirus team we have in the WH has thought of that. [emoji849]
 
tacomancer said:
There are already people looking at it and thinking we have been undercounting

Uncounted among coronavirus victims, deaths sweep through Italy's nursing homes - Reuters
Click to expand...

The death rate in Italy is nor going to double or treble.

Italy is actually a good example of my earlier point. They count anyone who died with the virus as having died FROM the virus. Even if they have a host of other health problems. They are inflating the deaths from this.

And the US in not Italy.
 
Wow, that got out of hand really fast. Can we get back to the topic of THIS thread, and move that discussion to another, more appropriate, one?

Regardless of the details, the pandemic itself has changed our behavior and will have implications for our future. That's what this thread is about.
 

Which means you missed what the article was saying.


Lets say half of those are coronavirus after an autopsy, that still doubles the rate in this case.
 
Even if it's "no higher than the flu" it is more contagious and there's no immunity in the population. The flu is the 8th leading cause of death in the country. You can't simply double that in the span of weeks and expect the system to be able to handle it.
 

What you are saying is that if the draconian measure are successful in keeping the death toll down conservative narrative managers will paint this success as a failure.

Because not as many people died.

Evil, but clever.
 

And conversely, if the health professionals turn out to be right and the conservatives turn out to be wrong, hopefully the backlash against the conservatives will eliminate them from political power for a generation.
 
eman623 said:
I don't know how the CDC counts such things, but there may be a powerful political push to try to inflate the numbers as much as possible to justify the draconian economy-wrecking policies in place now.
Click to expand...

Trying to hedge your bet? I seriously doubt life-long medical professionals feel any "political push" to alter how they ascertain causes of death.

Do you know any professionals in any profession at all? Are the ones you do know as unprofessional as you seem to assume?
 
tacomancer said:
Which means you missed what the article was saying.

Lets say half of those are coronavirus after an autopsy, that still doubles the rate in this case.
Click to expand...

The death rate in Italy is not going to double. And it's still a fraction of that in other European countries
 
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