J.C.MacSwell

This is why sensible people always qualify any advice, if the feel they must give any, with "talk to your Doctor". You never know who in your audience may take it upon themselves to ingest lethal doses of fish tank cleaner.

+1 for this part. I hope we can all agree to hope that it, or something better, proves helpful. Even if Trump takes the credit. (he's been known to do that...for anyone who might not have noticed) +1 on that also. This is too good a thread to get OT.

Realistic assessment or not it's just a guess with a lack of evidence. Why build a case against Trump with a house of cards, when there's plenty of bricks and mortar around?

Over 90% of deaths (from what I've read) in the Spanish Flu were from bacterial pneumonia. Interesting link for Covid 19 though. A possible solution by filtering cytokines to reduce over-reaction.

No? Here is a quote from the article I googled. It doesn't contradict what you are saying except your conclusion. (if I'm interpreting it correctly, the "lead to death" is by pneumonia ) "Many of the people dying from Covid-19 are succumbing to a form of pneumonia, which takes hold as the immune system is weakened from fighting the virus. This is something that it shares with Spanish flu... Doctors have described the Spanish flu as the “greatest medical holocaust in history”. It was not just the fact it killed so many, it was that so many of its victims were young and healthy. Normally, a healthy immune system can deal reasonably well with flu, but this version struck so quickly that it overwhelmed the immune system, causing a massive over-reaction known as a cytokine storm, flooding the lungs with fluid which became the perfect reservoir for secondary infections." https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200302-coronavirus-what-can-we-learn-from-the-spanish-flu In any case, thank God the Covid 19 has not been as devastating to our young people...(now if we can only get the little bleeps to stay isolated!)

I would over-react to Covid 19? Still have ragweed/hay fever allergies myself, but significantly less in the last 10 years. I seem to now react to other things now though not extremely. I also have noticeable inflammation much of the time, but get significantly less colds and flu since that started, and shake them fairly quickly when I do (anecdotal and could be just coincidence, plus half those years I've had flu shots...) I googled that and Spanish Flu came up. I knew most died from bacterial pneumonia. That's likely why?

Seasonal allergies kicking in...is this a good thing if exposed to the virus with the immune system on hyperdrive...a bad thing with the immune system distracted with the extra load...or could go either way?

Without clicking, I'm going to assume that's enough, targeted, to contaminate all 7 billion of us...but not contaminate the entire Earth enough to infect everyone. + 1 though for the snapshot, and especially for calling it sensational.

You could be right. Too much spreadability could also be disadvantageous to the virus's long term "health", as it should lead more quickly to herd immunity (for whatever herd might host it)

That's a good argument. I'm just asking if it has been verified to any degree. When it only kills a small percentage of the hosts, and those killed off still last a substantial time the others would be contagious, I would not expect it to be a major driver...as in statistically difficult to correlate.

Is this then an example of a well known trend?

You do know it's past noon...

At least Captainzen understands the gravitational of the situation... ...and I'll see myself out...

What do you guys have? Perrier faucets? Regular treated water for households is nowhere near that cost.

If I can plug a thread I've opened up...availability of ventilators (or alternatives?), or lack there, of will have (already has had) a significant effect.

Maybe Trump's right...I just missed the news about car fatalities going up exponentially... ...but that's just me...when more and more buses start driving off cliffs I'll probably wonder why I'm the only passenger...and why my ticket was such a bargain.

But the James Bond movies would suffer...

Not sure what you are referring to by the bold... It seems most of the early cases were German skiers in Northern Italy, which would mean they would mostly be in a younger and fitter part of the population. https://www.forbes.com/sites/guymartin/2020/03/20/with-its-covid-19-caseload-spiking-to-14000-heres-why-germanys-mortality-rate-is-002-or-4000-times-lower-than-italys/#1346c5d977ad

Getting herd immunity by allowing the virus itself to run rampant seems like a Hell of a way to "get vaccinated" never mind risking increasing deaths and other bad outcomes for future health. I think with any future waves we'll benefit from any immunities that are acquired, but more so from the changes in the social norms the "herd" acquires. But it's pretty hard to predict the results we'll get at this point, no matter who might be doing the estimating.

I mostly agree and have said all along that it's incomplete. I wouldn't go as far as saying it is bad though. It just needs to be taken in the right context, to the degree that may be possible with current information. I thought Germany had done more testing than most. Do have information to the contrary? https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing-source-data Wouldn't that depend a lot on the availability of health care, especially ICUs, ventilators, treatments etc, so vary from place to place? Or is that the expected average for Britain?

My comment was based on the OP's criteria for success for which you will have a hard time finding better numbers. If the growth in cases continues logarithmically they could look even better in that regard depending on whether the death rate follows suit or not. I'm not sure why their current crude deaths/cases ratio is good. I don't believe they are happy based on that alone as they have just added curfews. One of the advantages of "flattening the curve" in our respective countries is the extra time to compare numbers in other countries and seeing if something can be added or subtracted to make improvements. Obviously using the current crude ratio alone can't be the only criterion for success. Some of the living cases won't recover, but the dead won't come back to life.

Given Italy's results I'm not sure there will be a choice but to isolate some areas (obviously not based on my example which was more about isolating population in East/West strips to give reasonable "Canada like facsimiles") at least enough to allow medical supplies to catch up and "flatten the curve" enough to give health services a fighting chance. That should reduce the case load and death rates as well.

Is there any test to tell if you've had it, if you've recovered?

This brings up a thought on when inadequate testing is done. If you are young and healthy and get mild to medium symptoms, and quarantine until recovered without testing, do you rejoin the workforce assuming you've had it, or rejoin (or not?) requiring maximal protection?

US in particular is gaining cases at an alarming rate. At the rate they are being counted (hopefully these are mostly ones discovered by increased testing rather than representing further spread) they will have the highest count of any country in less than a week, China included. By limiting border crossings Canada is relatively isolated in comparison to the US doing the same. The US would have to do the same by dividing themselves up into, say, 9 isolating regions all reaching from East to West, to get a similar effect from that alone.