Will this end up being the pandemic that cried wolf?

[kdonnel]

Much like predicting the weather, predicting the death rate for Covid-19 in the beginning was an inexact science. As more data has poured in the death rate has dropped from 10% to perhaps as low as .04%. Still deadly for sure, especially for those with specific contributing factors but significantly less deadly then first reported.

There is often a resistance to evacuate from hurricanes after multiple bad forecasts that had people evacuate for what turned out to be a minor event. This basically had the entire country in effect evacuate and for a much longer period of time then a hurricane.

Watching the people protest against social distancing in many states and seeing people flock to the Florida beaches has me wondering if the next time in the near future there is another potential pandemic will people comply and social distance?

 

[adkkev]

People always think “it‘s not going to happen to me” ... and so nothing will sink in until it personally affects them and/or their family.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Watching the people protest against social distancing in many states and seeing people flock to the Florida beaches has me wondering if the next time in the near future there is another potential pandemic will people comply and social distance?

Possibly not, especially if people are actually encouraged to do so.

 

[Christine]

This was always going to be the "downside" of mitigation. That we actually comply, it reduces deaths, and actually works. Then it seems like we overreacted and we see posts like this about overreaction and "crying wolf." I'm going to just say that it's a good thing. If it's perceived that we "cried wolf" then we were successful.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

I think the Covidiots protesting in Michigan won't comply. Those hitting the beach and failing to comply won't either. You can't fix stupid. In some of the videos from the beach I did see some people complying. But all too many were not. By the way, 40,000 dead in the U.S. alone would refute your characterization of "crying wolf. "

 

[Dan Murphy]

This was always going to be the "downside" of mitigation. That we actually comply, it reduces deaths, and actually works. Then it seems like we overreacted and we see posts like this about overreaction and "crying wolf." I'm going to just say that it's a good thing. If it's perceived that we "cried wolf" then we were successful.

I think it similar to Y2K. Years spent, billions (maybe trillions) spent, preparing for Y2K. Nothing of much consequence happened at midnight. The 'cry wolf' folks say, "wow, all that time and money spent and nothing happened, what a waste." I say, "will we ever know what would have happened if those years and money were not spent preparing?" The answer is, no.

 

[Kitty 34]

I think the Covidiots protesting in Michigan won't comply. Those hitting the beach and failing to comply won't either. You can't fix stupid. In some of the videos from the beach I did see some people complying. But all too many were not. By the way, 40,000 dead in the U.S. alone would refute your characterization of "crying wolf. "

I think that's going to be my new motto or mantra or whatever you call it.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I think that's going to be my new motto or mantra or whatever you call it.

My cousin has that saying on a large wooden sign in her kitchen.

 

[MarkLT1]

This was always going to be the "downside" of mitigation. That we actually comply, it reduces deaths, and actually works. Then it seems like we overreacted and we see posts like this about overreaction and "crying wolf." I'm going to just say that it's a good thing. If it's perceived that we "cried wolf" then we were successful.

That is exactly what the epidemiologist friend of mine was saying in a conversation a few weeks back. If governments don't act strongly enough, and things goes sideways, they are under fire for not being cautious enough. If they act perfectly, and keep numbers down, they are under fire for being "overly cautious." If they are actually overly cautious, and enforce too many rules, they are also under fire for being "overly cautious." He was lamenting that one of the most frustrating aspects of his job is that there is no visible "win-win" situation. No matter what a government chooses to do, they are going to be attacked for those decisions. And those attacks, almost inevitably, come back on the epidemiologists and experts who made the recommendations (even in cases where their recommendations were not taken).

 

[Jennasis]

The 37,000 deaths as of right now (only 3 months into the crisis) are real.

The steps we took suck for all of us, but they WORKED. We didn't cry wolf. We fought back with precautions and it worked.

 

[piccolopat]

I think it similar to Y2K. Years spent, billions (maybe trillions) spent, preparing for Y2K. Nothing of much consequence happened at midnight. The 'cry wolf' folks say, "wow, all that time and money spent and nothing happened, what a waste." I say, "will we ever know what would have happened if those years and money were not spent preparing?" The answer is, no.

Y2K mitigation prevented a lot of computer programs from shutting down entire systems. Some companies didn't address this and suddenly had to deal with things not working properly. I worked for a large commercial insurer at the time and was very involved in the mitigation. as well as extensive testing that I had to do on 1/1/2000. Computer programs that had a 2 digit year suddenly would be unable to recognize if it was 1900 or 2000. In many cases, programs were changed to recognize dates before a certain decade were recognized as belonging to the new century (for example, '51 would be recognized as 1951 but '49 would be seen as 2049). Not perfect but it bought time for systems that would likely be fully replaced before the next crisis and workarounds would be needed for the outliers. I do remember reading about one production line that completely stopped working because there was a similar date issue in its programming that no one remembered.

 

[MarkLT1]

The steps we took are taking suck for all of us, but they WORKED ARE WORKING. We didn't cry wolf. We fought are fighting back with precautions and it worked is working.

Fixed that for you

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

This was always going to be the "downside" of mitigation. That we actually comply, it reduces deaths, and actually works. Then it seems like we overreacted and we see posts like this about overreaction and "crying wolf." I'm going to just say that it's a good thing. If it's perceived that we "cried wolf" then we were successful.

If we were able to evacuate everyone from a hurricane zone and nobody died despite homes being wiped off the map, somebody would claim that because nobody died, we didn't need to evacuate in the first place. Insert Kitty's new motto here.

 

[toonaspie]

I do think there has been a lot of inaccurate reporting on data in regards to COVID19. You have China which has completely undercounted their infection rates and only releases numbers when they feel like it. Then you have European countries and US states that took wildly different approaches as to what is considered a COVID19 death from each other. The thing behind Italy was that a lot of those deaths were considered COVID19 deaths even if the cause of death was some unrelated complication.

This is ultimately the problem with leaving things up to the states as you're not gonna get accurate information as to what worked and what didn't. I have zero trust in the media's reporting/handling of these cases as well as they seem more interested in dramatizing the situation than giving us the right information.

 

[Jennasis]

Fixed that for you

I normally HATE when people pull that with someone's post...but in this case, I'll allow it.

 

[MarkLT1]

I normally HATE when people pull that with someone's post...but in this case, I'll allow it.

I do too.. hence why I very very rarely do so. And I figured it was your actual point anyway.

 

[maddiel]

I do think there has been a lot of inaccurate reporting on data in regards to COVID19. You have China which has completely undercounted their infection rates and only releases numbers when they feel like it. Then you have European countries and US states that took wildly different approaches as to what is considered a COVID19 death from each other. The thing behind Italy was that a lot of those deaths were considered COVID19 deaths even if the cause of death was some unrelated complication.

This is ultimately the problem with leaving things up to the states as you're not gonna get accurate information as to what worked and what didn't. I have zero trust in the media's reporting/handling of these cases as well as they seem more interested in dramatizing the situation than giving us the right information.

I agree with you that we are trying to compare apples and oranges when we compare different areas, but I think you have the situation in Italy backwards. My understanding is that Italy most likely dramatically undercounted by not including home and nursing home deaths as COVID19 deaths.

We need to be talking more about nursing homes and other institutional living settings as they seem to be the points of most vunerability.

M.

 

[RamblingMad]

This isn't over yet. I still expect a bad second wave.

 

[Minniesgal]

Much like predicting the weather, predicting the death rate for Covid-19 in the beginning was an inexact science. As more data has poured in the death rate has dropped from 10% to perhaps as low as .04%. Still deadly for sure, especially for those with specific contributing factors but significantly less deadly then first reported.

There is often a resistance to evacuate from hurricanes after multiple bad forecasts that had people evacuate for what turned out to be a minor event. This basically had the entire country in effect evacuate and for a much longer period of time then a hurricane.

Watching the people protest against social distancing in many states and seeing people flock to the Florida beaches has me wondering if the next time in the near future there is another potential pandemic will people comply and social distance?

What is the source of the 0.4% anything I am seeing globally is above 10%

 

[tvguy]

Who knows? I posted a thread weeks ago on the so called "Experts", and THEY don't know.
My analogy, the fire department responds to a building fire, they put the fire out first to limit damage and injuries, then they look for the cause. Yes, in hindsight, sometimes the fire department puts too much water on the fire, and yes sometimes that water causes unnecessary damage.
We need to "put out" the virus, limit damage and injuries, then look for the cause. And hope our actions don't cause unnecessary damage.
I am not an expert, but the thing I do find frightening with this coronavirus is the preliminary evidence that a whole lot of people who are carries are not getting sick, and may never get sick, but they are still spreading the virus to others who will get sick.
To OP's question. I have no answer today. We may not have a clear answer a year from now, and there is the possibility we may not have a solid answer in our lifetimes.
As evidence, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. Over 100 years later, we still really don't know much about what happened. This CDC document is a frightening look into that illness, which leads me to wonder if we ever will know all we want or need to know about coronavirus. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html