Report as at March 17 of patients who died positive to COVID - 19
Guys, this is Puntroadend, we are all here because we don't follow the masses, we need to take some leadership on this matter. Remember the media wants to sell you your own anxieties, a couple of months ago it was the bushfires, before that it was climate disaster, before that it was Brexit, before that it refugees, each one of these disappears from the news as soon as they find a new anxiety to feed. Please try and source facts not tweets of reports of rumors. There is always going to be someone with a personal experience of great sufferering, we need to separate the genuine empathy for personal loss from the emperical evaluation of global risk. L2R2R you clearly know how to access data, collect it and interpret it. You can help a lot more.
From this Italian report as at 17 March.
Median age of death 82yo
Zero deaths under the age of 30
99.2% of deaths have at least one serious underlying pathology (heart disease, stroke, active cancer, chronic liver disease or renal failure.)
74% of deaths have at least two of these serious underlying pathologies,
49% of deaths have three of these serious pathologies.
All deaths under 40 (5 at the time of this report) had a serious underlying pathology.
The quicker we make people understand that the risk of death to healthy people under the age of 65 is far less than the flu, and to people under 30 its almost neglibilbe, the quicker that age demographic can get the confidence to protect and help the oldies who are at higher risk.
The french weekly epidemiology is very similar to the Italian epidemiology.
The Australian epidemiology is not relevant yet, becasue 65% of the cases were repatriations so the demographics will be distorted to show cases in demographics young and healthy enough to be holidaying or working overseas. We need to wait a week or two until local transmission dominates to see how well we are doing.
BIG TIP. Don't look a case percentages, they always have to add up to 100. For example if we are successful in keeping the infection rate low in our oldies, its is going to look like we have high infection rates in younger demographics. (It looks like that now due to the repatriation bias.) It is best to look at case rates, as number of infections per 100,000 in the population, and the number of infections per 100,000 in a particular age or gender demographic.
I am holding my position, this is very demonstrably not as bad as flu for healthy under 65yo but is worse than flu for the over 70's especially those with serious underlying conditions.
The quicker the community understands that distinction the quicker we lose our anxieties, become productive and target our measures to protect those at risk. Young people need to be assured that they are fine and given the responsibility of observing all the precautions for the sake of the grandparents.
Wash your hands
Cover your cough
Stay home if you are sick
Take care of your oldies.
If you have an elderly neighbor, offer to run their errands. You can leave it on their doorstep and talk to them from the garden path. Remind them to wash their hands after they unpack. Wear gloves so they don't become anxious. Start a street Whatsapp group to look out for one another. I'm sure there are plenty of other things you can all think of.
If you have young family under 30, assure them the risk to them personally is very low. Give them the responsibility of taking the precautions to look after the elderly. Young persons love being given responsibility. Think Tommy Hafey calling players on Thursday night telling them individually he needed them to do a big job for him on Saturday, years later they realised he was calling lots of them.
As a forum we need to lift. I've been here for almost 20 years , I know the tiger army deals with tough times better than most. Its ok to feel the pain, but lets act with our brain.
