Never has a virus been so oversold

[StitchInLime]

A friend just sent this article from The Spectator to our Whatssap group and I have to confess, I'm struggling to counter the statements made in it.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/never-has-a-virus-been-so-oversold

HAS this virus been oversold? Now we have a better understanding of it, is it time to relax a bit?

Or is this article wrong? And if so, how (no need to get into debate about the author and source, but I mean the quoted stats)? I feel I need to argue against it in the Whatssap group but am struggling with how.

But the country with the second highest death rate is Brazil and then there's Mexico and after that India. And the death rate in India isn't likely to be accurate, and there are countries in the Middle East or Central Asia. It will be about inequalities rather than obesity, like in the UK or the US.

Either way, we're in the midst of a pandemic and thousands are dying every day. So under playing it can't be right.

@Alabamawhirly1

The UK population is quite spectacularly unhealthy. It’s a reasonable comparison.

And I’m not sure the virus is checking who does and doesn’t have healthcare before it infects them. I’m not sure paying for healthcare is the limiting factor in the worst affected areas. It’s the fact that the hospitals are running out of ICU beds.

The UK population is unhealthy compared to most of Europe. But we are nothing compared to the US.

Not having access to healthcare means many US citizens already have completly untreated or badly manged illnesses. So they will be hit harder if they catch covid. It also means they are less likely or able to acsess medical help if they get ill with covid or will put off acsessing help until its too late.

This means that even if the spread is comparable to another country, people will be getting more sick. Which means more tests done, more hospital admission and more deaths.

If people get less sick from covid, they won't get tested, won't get hospital treatment and won't die. So the sats for the country can look like the infection is being managed better - when actually it's just that the population aren't getting as ill.

So comparing the US infection rate to the uk is pointless.

Nonsense! All COVID-19 tests (and treatment, if necessary) is covered by federal government for the insured under the CARES Act.

It’s not paid-for vs state-funded healthcare that makes the difference when it comes to this virus, it’s the fact that the US and the UK are completely different climates, landscapes, demographics, etc. The sun belt states in the south are particularly hard hit and that is believed to be due to the constant use of a/c units running day and night and the fact that they have a larger elderly/vulnerable population - people who move to those areas particularly for the warmer weather. It’s also true that people of BAME heritage are more likely to be affected and we have a larger proportion of black people here than the UK does. I live in a state with a more moderate climate (although still warmer than the UK) and our death rate per million is considerably lower than the UK. You can’t compare Florida or Arizona with Watford.

Don’t quite get why we’re comparing the US unfavourably with ourselves (or quibbling about the validity of the comparison) when we have more deaths per million than the US

Surely it’s just common sense that with a novel virus being impossible to know if there are any long term effects it isn’t a great idea to just let it spread uncontrolled throughout the population. If could trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome for example. Imagine if HIV was spread in the same way as Covid when it first made the jump to humans, I imagine there would have been many of the same articles stating it’s just the flu for a few days, let’s get on with it etc whilst it was actually causing progressive damage to the immune system. I don’t think Covid will cause anything like that of course but I’m just using it is as an example. It is clear that it isn’t just a respiratory illness so it was wise to try and stop the spread.

Nonsense! All COVID-19 tests (and treatment, if necessary) is covered by federal government for the insured under the CARES Act.

It’s not paid-for vs state-funded healthcare that makes the difference when it comes to this virus, it’s the fact that the US and the UK are completely different climates, landscapes, demographics, etc. The sun belt states in the south are particularly hard hit and that is believed to be due to the constant use of a/c units running day and night and the fact that they have a larger elderly/vulnerable population - people who move to those areas particularly for the warmer weather. It’s also true that people of BAME heritage are more likely to be affected and we have a larger proportion of black people here than the UK does. I live in a state with a more moderate climate (although still warmer than the UK) and our death rate per million is considerably lower than the UK. You can’t compare Florida or Arizona with Watford.

It was my understanding that at the start of the pandemic they said people would not be charged for health care for covid 19, however they then changed their tune and started charging. But even if they are not charging - you would still have to factor in that people have untreated existing conditions in the USA because healthcare is unaffordable for many.

I'm sure what you said in the second
paragraph is true, which further illustrates my point; that there is no point comparing countries because there are too many variables, and at this time we don't actually know what makes a discernable difference to spread and fatalities.

ItWasTheBestOfTimes I agree with your logic.

Precautionary principle should be followed. The initial inertia from our establishment was perhaps because they were following their world beating plan ..for influenza.

It's worth considering that the UK is the 32nd most densely populated country in the world. The US is 145th out of 194. Given our population density, it was always likely we would get hit pretty hard.

Sweden did not go into lockdown nor do they wear masks. Their infection rate is no worst than ours and their economy is intact.

The writer of the article is right.

England alone would be 16th most densely populated, Scotland would be 111th, which also explains a lot about the difference between the two places. It also shows why we should use success in schools returning in Scotland as a benchmark of them working in England.

Shouldn't, sorry.

Sweden is 159th out of 194 countries in terms of population density. Again, not a good comparison.

That's what led to the meme about he two key factors in how serious a national outbreak might be:

• the density of the population
• the density of the population

It's bad that I don't get why there are two reasons, isn't it?

Density has two meanings - thick, and number of population per area

Sweden's economy has been knocked similarly to neighbours who restricted more. I did read that Sweden only had schooling up to 16 and students were not attending universities as normal. Also larger gatherings stopped. So they did take some measures.

Do you know I haven’t seen many heartless threads, just common sense.

Really? Really

Sweden is 159th out of 194 countries in terms of population density. Again, not a good comparison.

Yes, that is a really bad comparison @Nellodee makes on population density as
87% of Swedes live in urban areas, which cover 1.5% of the entire land area.

Whereas in England, we divided the land up and each placed ourselves evenly spread out over the whole surface area.

Except that doesn't happen in ANY country, and population density is never evenly spread. It isn't evenly spread in Australia, where people live round the coast. It isn't evenly spread in Canada, where people live along the southern border.

And yet, it still affects how well a virus spreads from one place to another.

Imagine you have one country with big cities, connected every 1-2 miles by little villages, one practically sprawling into the other. Imagine you have another country with big cities separated by miles upon miles of forests.

Which one is going to spread a virus more easily?

Oh, and by the way, 82.62% of Norwegians live in urban areas too. As do 87.87% of Denmark and 85.45% of Finland.

@DasPepe

And when someone close has died - they've died alone

And bereaved and grieving relatives have to live with the fact that they were obliged to desert their distressed any dying relative

That they were not able to be there. To know that they did their best to ensure that their relative died knowing they were loved.

This is particularly true of those who have lost elderly relatives with dementia who were left utterly confused and devastated that what little comfort they got from visiting relatives stopped without them having any understanding why.

I agree there are some heartless people around - I disagree about who they are.