I predict that in 3-4 weeks time there will be significant discussion brought to light by academic epidemiologists on Twitter about COVID-19 as a possible extinction event. I could be wrong, but let's look at the numbers. We have a contagious disease that is as deadly as the 1918 pandemic with all of modern medicine being thrown at it. In 1918, the 5% of critically ill covid-19 cases would surely have died - excluding those rare minor miracles. A higher percentage of patients requiring admission, but not intubation, would also surely pass away.
Nobody is certain that we will be able to keep up a sophisticated level of care, and in that case you're looking at a significant jump in mortality rate as critically and moderately ill patients cannot be treated due to the overwhelming surge.
COVID-19 is not showing many signs of being susceptible to weather. Hot and humid locations across our own country are seeing their own exponential outbreaks. Any flattening of the curve will only last until social distancing measures are lifted. Nobody can be absolutely certain that active immunity (antibodies made after an infection) will last long enough to prevent yearly reinfection, and so there is the possibility that we'll see this return year after year.
Unless we develop a vaccine, we will have an endemic virus that infects 50-70% of our population and has a mortality rate that is 2-5x that of the spanish flu and will cripple a healthcare system that doesn't find a way to grow itself by 3-400% whilst protecting the workers.
The birth rate is only 1.8% folks. Essentially, we'll be spending 7% our of money and only getting 1.8% back in returns. The principle won't last forever and the human race will eventually go out of business.
It's ridiculous to assert that a virus that mainly kills old people, who are probably only alive because of modern medicine in the first place, will cause the human race to go extinct. Meanwhile, the vast majority of positive Covid19 sufferers do fine.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
2 hours ago, Emergent said:
It's ridiculous to assert that a virus that mainly kills old people, who are probably only alive because of modern medicine in the first place, will cause the human race to go extinct. Meanwhile, the vast majority of positive Covid19 sufferers do fine.
OK...you don't have to join in.
How would our lives be changed if this virus continues along as is for a few years, if no effective emerges in the next 12 months? Will more and more people work remotely? Will public transportation change?
How would our lives be changed if this virus continues along as is for a few years, if no effective emerges in the next 12 months? Will more and more people work remotely? Will public transportation change?
Your answer doesn't make sense. Human beings are not going to become extinct from covid-19.
Specializes in Currently wound care, passion in SCI..
DannyBoy,
Your post is extremely moribund and I am sorry you have such a terribly grave view of this issue. Your post is from the 30th so I trust you have noted the decline has already begun to take place. This virus will not be the end of us nor will a fast tracked, or any vaccine for that matter, will save us from the disaster of which you and others speak.
I have been hearing at my huge health care organization for the last three weeks that "this is going to be the week it hits." And yet "it" has not yet happened. I am by no means suggesting it will never hit, but how long do we wait unit it does before the businesses are once again permitted to open? How long can a people just sit around and do nothing, cooped up in houses? Until we are reduced as a nation, indeed an entire world, to grovelling at the feet of a government to feed us from its teat?
It almost feels as though we WANT such devastation to arrive. Furthermore, there is new instruction from Nt'l Vital Statistics as of 4.24 to begin using the new c-19 code for basically any death whether confirmed OR PRESUMED to be linked in any way no matter any underlying conditions or co-morbidities. This directive is questionable at best and sinister at worst.
It's ridiculous to assert that a virus that mainly kills old people, who are probably only alive because of modern medicine in the first place, will cause the human race to go extinct. Meanwhile, the vast majority of positive Covid19 sufferers do fine.
Nobody has asserted that. Please review the original post and reconsider your vocabulary.
There is still so little that is known about this virus. I have been listening to a podcast by a Dr. Chris Martensen, PhD where he goes over several up to date papers submitted from Chinese physicians and others. In one or more they talk about possible reinfection rates, and really there has not been enough time pass to say that survival of the acute phase means cure. Another study posits that the virus directly attacks the heart's ACE 2 receptors as well as the lungs, yet another that the virus enters a red blood cell, affecting the binding of the actual iron molecule and expelling Fe+2 and Fe+3 which is then a toxin that damages the organs. He even shows a tube of blood wherein the serum floats above the RBC with a greenish tinge, which he said US doctors are seeing and may corroborate the unbinding of ferritin. Perhaps this helps explain the worsening hypoxia in victims? In any case, he is interesting in how he breaks down the documents. You can listen to him on Youtube under Peak Prosperity if you want.
They also didn't have ventilators in 1333. If you count everyone who requires more than just 3 l/min nasal cannula thru those on ventilators as 'deaths' the R factor of COVID19 is MUCH higher. THAT is what the hullaballoo is about.
Your post is extremely moribund and I am sorry you have such a terribly grave view of this issue. Your post is from the 30th so I trust you have noted the decline has already begun to take place. This virus will not be the end of us nor will a fast tracked, or any vaccine for that matter, will save us from the disaster of which you and others speak.
I have been hearing at my huge health care organization for the last three weeks that "this is going to be the week it hits." And yet "it" has not yet happened. I am by no means suggesting it will never hit, but how long do we wait unit it does before the businesses are once again permitted to open? How long can a people just sit around and do nothing, cooped up in houses? Until we are reduced as a nation, indeed an entire world, to grovelling at the feet of a government to feed us from its teat?
It almost feels as though we WANT such devastation to arrive. Furthermore, there is new instruction from Nt'l Vital Statistics as of 4.24 to begin using the new c-19 code for basically any death whether confirmed OR PRESUMED to be linked in any way no matter any underlying conditions or co-morbidities. This directive is questionable at best and sinister at worst.
There is a directive in the document that states will have to review the covid-19 code in the future to separate those that were positive for the strain vs. other viruses. Also, even if a person had pre-existing conditions what level of proof would you accept to cofirm it was Covid? Would fever, typical CXR displaying Covid, CT scan? Are physicians allowed to use their own judgement. Withstanding the fact that the patient displayed typical signs and symptoms of Covid, would they still be alive if they never caught the virus? The code getting introduced now is IMHO, a necessary evil because we are in the running so late to containment. Codes are always being refined and changed to accomodate new data. Why get your panties in a knot over a particular ICD code when we have so many other more important things to do?
toomuchbaloney
16,086 Posts
Would it have to mutate that dramatically? What if it just mutates enough that we can't develop an effective vaccine or longterm immunity?