[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Frankly IMO we have the best doctors, minds in medicine and health care in the world and I think you will see that in the long run. Even Anthony Stephen "Tony" Fauci said after its all over said and done we will probably have closer to a 1% case fatality rate. As for Europe and the rest of the world? Well, maybe you should stop worrying about our healthcare system and see if yours can come close to matching it. As far as criteria for the testing that idiot youtube alarmist drama queen was going on about. I whole heartily agree with the testimony given before congress today. CDC has 75,000 test kits available and there are 1 million kits available through commercial sources and growing. As far as criteria for getting tested, its an absolute necessity. Because you cant test every one of the 350 million tom dick and harry's in this country just because they want one and makes them feel good. It would cause an unimaginable backlog of bullcrap tests slowing down the entire process for those that really need it.

I disagree, your country is one of the latest testing starters of all, for the initial few test there were, were designed to do multiple tricks, and one of these tricks failed and made all the kit unusable. The capacity for lab analysis was terribly low and now needs to slowly get boosted up. Traveller posted that videoyesterday that clearly listed how terrirbly slow and ignorrant the start phase so far has been. The cDC errected artifical bureaucratic hurdles that seem to have been designed to make testing as difficult if not impossible as they could manage. By now, the virus has had wonderful conditions to spread, thanks to the failing ability n dwillingness of the CDC to tackle it early.

I leave out a discussion on health care costs for the most here, just leave it to that in the Us you pay roughly twice as much for general the same or slightly inferior total medical performance for the average Joe (who can afford it) compared to the - already expensive - German system, and as I pointed out earlier, Germany has almost three times as many beds in hospitals per 1000 people of population, than the US, the hospital density is much higher over here. The numbers and tables were given by me two days ago, look them up. The university quality may be higher in the US, it certainly is so, but for getting the treatment to the masses that now need it, your system has set up a very bad start, and this will cost your people dearly. Too many weeks were wasted - like in Iran's and Italy's case, the difference maybe is that the average age of the Us population is not as old and so the lethality of the virus does not score as successful as in these two coutnries. We will see.

My comments and criticsm were numbers- and fact oriented, and not meant to just attack you country. Your patriotism thus is a bit out of place. No attack was meant nor carried out. I just say that the US has had a very awful start at this, and that I was surprised that this is so. If you follow the videos posted by Traveller you know that I am by far not the first observing this. It has been noticed and commented on already by smarter and more competent minds than me.

Our system of government makes the States the front line of defense the federal government is a supporting role. This is why we hear governors declaring states of emergency. It activates the mechanism which allows the state and federal government to assist in a great many ways they normally don't. We dont live in a dictatorship or centralized government. It is what is and may seem slow going at first but like all the others times in our history once the ball gets rolling watch out.

Your system in this regard is like ours, Germany is of a federalist structure with 16 Bundesländer that compare to your 50 states, and in this the central national health ministry indeed has surprisingly little to command and the initiative and authority mostly lies with the individual Länder. Not different than what you say about the US.



Your late start however is up against an enemy much stronger than the Japanese power and industry in WWII - you are up against logarithmic progression, and you seem to completely underestimate that. This exponential growth of infections has run since days and weeks, unopposed for the most. And this fact will make itself felt, trust me. You cant imrpess mathematics with patriotism.

Exponential developments are hard to imagine for us humans, and students find it hard to mentally wrap their mind about what it is and how it is calculated. I find it hostile ground to calculate, too. Still, helpful is to visualise the effects. Today I red a nice new way of demonstrating it. The autor said there are two men doing 30 steps each of them. The first does 30 steps with linear length, always the same step length. The secod has his step length, due to miracle shoes, exponentially growing with every step, doubling the step length. After thirty steps, the first man got around 30 meters far. The second man has surrounded Earth one and a half times. And then there is the old classical story of the chessboard and the rice corn, which I found a nice video illustration for here:


Skip the German narration and jump to the illustration starting at 02:40.

That is the sort of power we are up against. Nurses will get ill and drop out of the workforce. So will doctors. This with limited bed capacities, exponentially growing patient numbers, increasing consummation of supplies with masks and protective clothing. Tnhats why it was so important to stretch the developemnt over time. The same number of people will ge till, but not all in the same short time intervall, but in a logner time interval, that gives relief to the system.

And this is just the first wave, guys. It will go until late summer, then there will be a drop, quarantines will be dropped, population still is far from having an immunization level to stop the virus, and so it will then start again. Maybe with a mutated format. Many seasonal flus are not just one season of the year, but come in waves of two, in late winter to early spring, and then again in late summer to early autumn - and the second often has twice as high amplitudes in case numbers. If it goes like this with Covid19, then the fun has not even started for us.

One of the videos by Traveller shows a calculation for the existing storages in masks and protective suits in the US at that time, a few days ago, it shows how fast these will be consummed up once the show is in full swing, and nurses and doctors dropping out of the duty scheme due to gettin ill, themselves. the suplies will last - for TWO DAYS. Key materials for filters come from - China.

Come to your senses, Rockstar. Your optimism has absolutely no justification currently. Not if there will not be a miracle.

The argument that government should have done this or done that before it got to this country is a useless one. It took China at least two months before they notified the rest of the world what they were up against and a month later we finally got the genome sequence. So this virus has been out there silently doing its thing quite possibly for the last six months and long before anyone else knew about it. My advice is quit going on like bunch of hens and buckle up everyone. There is nothing you can do about it other than prepare food, reduce social contact, eat right and get your rest.

Still your country wasted precious weeks with not being able to run tests because the few existing kits did not work. Give it up, Rockstar. And stop taking what I say personally or as an offense. Its no attack aimed at your country, I am pointing out the obvious, or better: I just repeat what criticla epxerts have pointed out long before me or Traveller.You should not defend how your leaders have performed so far (you have no reaosn to celebrate them for it), but you should fume in anger and let them know what mess they have created. Demonstrating in the streets currently cannot be recommended, however.


We are royally screwed. Our only luck currently is that this virus - is a relatively friendly one. Else we could be in a fight for the mere survival of our species and civilization now. And maybe this is the good thing about Covid-19. That it may kill scores and does huge economic damage, yes - but with all force sticks our noses into the giant holes in your pandemic emergency plans and bad preparation and underfunded reserve keepings, making us aware of how weak our defences are. Showing us that for the big bad bug coming we need to dramatically imrpove our preparation effort in advance. Need to get fire under politicians' rears, The number of virus pandemics coming from Asia has increased in past twenty years, their frequency speeds up, It will speed up further, and it is only a question of time until the real bad monster bug will be amongst it. If then we play the game like we play it this time, man is toast.



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I have informed my parents today that we will not personally meet any time soon again, I am too afraid that I infect them with a virus while not knowing that I already maybe carrying it. I would never forgiove myself that. I also told them that I will do their shoppings from immediately on, once a week, they send me a list, and I buy it and leave it on their doorstep, I will not enter the appartment. Google Duo via WLAN suddenly becomes a blessing. They should get out and do their walks, and biyccle tours - but not in town, but in free space and nature, and I do not want them to expose themsleves to the risk by entering shops and supermarkets. At their age, and with their health status, they have a risk of 20-30% that it ends deadly for them if they catch the infection. Already now, with still a few free beds in intense care.

In very short time, there will be no more free beds. Exponential growth you know.


Everybody should keep on mind: after you got infected, you turn infectous yourself after 12-18 hours, and form symptoms telling you are ill after 5 days. These are average values that often seem to get met. This means for 3.3 days you can walk around and infect other people, even those who are dear to you - and you do not even know you infect them, because you do not know that you are ill. ACT ACCORDINGLY!!!