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It seems intuitively obvious that we're seeing exceptionally skewed data re: disproportionate impact of #covid19 on the elderly/ill with regard to both mortality and severity. I think this is likely where a lot of the ill-informed complacency is coming from. [short thread: 1/4]
Wouldn't the most compromised patients be first to die and first to require hospitalization (faster disease progression)? While younger and healthier folks will tough it out for much longer (either at home or in hospital) before progressing to more advanced stages of disease? 2/4
It seems far too premature to say that most young folks will fare fine when >97% of all US cases are still active (i.e. have not yet resolved as either deaths or recoveries). [See this site for active cases vs. deaths vs. recovered cases by country: covid2019app.live/home] 3/4
Am I missing something? Why are so many folks basing risk assessments on data that's 97% incomplete when there seems to be an obvious systematic bias that results from this early snapshot? The fastest-resolved 3% of cases are highly unlikely to mirror the subsequent 97%. 4/4
Addendum: Same bias seems applicable to China's data. Elderly/frail were 1st to require hospitalization; got in before lockdown & before facilities too full to accept new patients. Younger/healthier folks were forced to ride this out at home; weren't captured in official data.
A few sources supporting the claim that folks were turned away in China, for those asking. I've not seen evidence that covid19 testing was done anywhere other than inpatient at medical facilities, so not getting a bed is akin to not being tested and counted in official stats:
1) bbc.com/news/world-asi…
2) npr.org/sections/goats…
3) scmp.com/news/china/soc…
4) straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia…
5) wsj.com/articles/unite…
...among dozens more articles just like this. Yes, these are anecdotal, but that's all one can find when the official data fail to capture it.
Based on the US data just released today, it appears at least for hospitalizations, there are indeed quite a few young folks in these stats. nytimes.com/2020/03/18/hea…
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Liz Specht
@LizSpecht
#Covid19 is among the most serious challenges humanity has ever faced, and enormous work lies ahead of us to get this outbreak under control. But in parallel, we need to innovate ourselves out of the systems that create entirely foreseeable & unacceptable public health risks. 1/n
That’s what I’ve dedicated my career to at @goodfoodinst: supporting the development of #plantbased meat and #cultivatedmeat so that we can wean ourselves off of industrial animal agriculture and all of its attendant public health and environmental hazards. 2/n
Both farmed domestic animals and caged wild animals create the perfect breeding ground for zoonotic diseases, which leap from livestock or wildlife to humans that have close contact with live animals and their infected tissues and fluids – namely, hunters and slaughterers. 3/n
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Liz Specht
@LizSpecht
While #Covid19 is currently hitting urban areas hardest (arrived there first, hot spots for internat'l travel, dense populations, etc.), metropolitan hospitals are by far the best equipped to deal with this. Things will get strained very quickly in rural areas. A few stats... 1/n
There are about 100,000 ICU beds in the U.S., but these are far from evenly distributed geographically. Of about 6,000 total hospitals in the U.S., only about half have any ICU capabilities. Many counties have no ICU facilities, or even no hospitals. 2/n
khn.org/news/as-corona…
Of the 100,000 ICU beds in the U.S., 94% are in metropolitan hospitals servicing populations centers >50k people. 5% are in towns between 10k and 50k. *Only 1% of all ICU beds are in rural areas of <10k population.* 3/n
sccm.org/Blog/March-202…
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Liz Specht
@LizSpecht
Why the call to "just build more ventilators" is not as simple as it sounds, from the founder & CEO of a company that addresses hospital equipment and supply needs. They're actively working on sourcing, if you have connections to supply chain directors at hospitals. (1/2)
Also, please learn about these intricacies of hospital procurement systems if you're involved with a DIY equipment solution project, in order to have the best chance of it being adopted and implemented swiftly. There may be non-obvious logistical challenges downstream. (2/2)
Tagging #projectopenair here to please see this info 🙏
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