Life in late pre Covid days. A reminder of when life was normal

Deardorff38 said:
"not very fatal" ? Is that like 'a little bit pregnant'? today's totals in the USA 65,000 + deaths !
Click to expand...

The mortality rate seems to be low, relative to diseases like smallpox and ebola which have a high 90% death rate. COVID-19's mortality rate was originally about 15%, then 11, and now something like 2-4%. So up to four in a hundred (averaged across age and medical groups) will die from it, compared with 90+ dying from ebola.

And with that, another picture of time before lockdown:


GH4 - The Deafening Roar by Archiver, on Flickr
 
Archiver said:
Only a few months ago, Chinese New Year celebrations in Melbourne. Even then, the public turnout was lower than usual. No one was social distancing at that time as it was not mandated. By Easter, everything had been shut down, everywhere.



M9 - We Are Ready by Archiver, on Flickr


LX10 - The Little One by Archiver, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Lovely shots. BTW last time I was in Melbourne I made a photo in almost exactly the same spot in China Town. I was particularly "taken" by the name of the building - "Ancient Times House".

JwRs5Rl.jpg
 
Archiver said:
The mortality rate seems to be low, relative to diseases like smallpox and ebola which have a high 90% death rate. COVID-19's mortality rate was originally about 15%, then 11, and now something like 2-4%. So up to four in a hundred (averaged across age and medical groups) will die from it, compared with 90+ dying from ebola.
Click to expand...

Archiver, like you, I don't live in the USA, (and Australia's #s are very low), but in the USA the first death attributed to Covid19 was Feb 29. So in 2 months the USA has recorded 68,000 deaths.... more than the death toll for the 9 year Vietnam war, so I'm not inclined to write it off as relatively low.....
 
Deardorff38 said:
Archiver said:
The mortality rate seems to be low, relative to diseases like smallpox and ebola which have a high 90% death rate. COVID-19's mortality rate was originally about 15%, then 11, and now something like 2-4%. So up to four in a hundred (averaged across age and medical groups) will die from it, compared with 90+ dying from ebola.
Click to expand...

Archiver, like you, I don't live in the USA, (and Australia's #s are very low), but in the USA the first death attributed to Covid19 was Feb 29. So in 2 months the USA has recorded 68,000 deaths.... more than the death toll for the 9 year Vietnam war, so I'm not inclined to write it off as relatively low.....
Click to expand...
The death rate is low in the sense that authorities are now saying that the actual death rate expressed as a percent of people believed to have been infected is "only" about double the death rate of normal seasonal flu based on latest estimates. (Early fears were that it would be much, much higher - perhaps 10x or more than that of seasonal flu). While 68,000 deaths sounds catastrophic and in a personal sense is, I think its not really much different to the annual deaths from seasonal flu in the USA. (Though it is in addition to that number). We do not shut down society and the economy for seasonal flu. Which I think is what other posters are saying.

But I do concede that the death rate is potentially very high for the most vulnerable groups - depending also on how it is measured and the base used.
The following web page https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ lists just below the "Headline" rates at the top of the page, a record of the "Closed Cases".

Closed cases consist of people who have either recovered fully or who have died from COVID. The world wide figure for the death rate based on final outcomes (closed cases) is presently 17%. In other words 17% of diagnosed COVID cases have resulted in death as the "final outcome". I have been tracking this figure for several weeks and about a week or two back having peaked at 21% and stayed there for several weeks it finally begun to decline.

Admittedly the 17% death rate is in large measure because most of the early cases that came to the attention of authorities were serious ones. But many other people who had the disease never were diagnosed because they were asymptomatic and so never got into the above statistics. They are only now beginning to get into the statistics because widespread community testing is ramping up, thereby disclosing many cases that previously went completely unnoticed. I therefore expect the 17% figure to keep falling as more community testing is done and the true infection rate revealed (or alternatively, a large and reliable sample is tested allowing statistical methods to accurately predict the wider infection rate in the community). It is only then that we will know what the real death rate is. When most people have been tested, will it get down to the 0.1% -0.2% that is now being claimed as the more likely death rate?

We will have to wait and see I guess but the salient point remains.......COVID 19 is not for the general population the modern equivalent of the plague.
 
FWIW, in my part of the world the main road is very, very much quieter but in the lanes it seems busier. Usually I see a dozen or so riding past every day but have seen just two in the past 7 or 8 weeks. There are going to be a lot of fat horses by the time the lockdown is lifted. And there are a lot more people cycling. Also the path to, in and around the woods is worn bare in places and for years we have been convinced no one else walks there.

I looked up the price of a new bike and got a shock but that's nothing to do with the virus...


Regards, David
 
Serology

Serology

Serological studies are starting to be done which will give the true incidence of the virus in different populations. For example, the Bronx had a >20% rate of positive serologies So, only later will epidemiologists put serology data together with death data to figure out the true death rate.
 
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