The simple fact is that the elderly, especially those in nursing homes, were pretty much left completely exposed in the early months. The emphasis was isolating them from their families, but the bigger risks from staff (not enough PPE, not trained and supervised in its appropriate use, inadequate testing of staff, staff floating between multiple institutions …) were just accepted as institutional realities oh well. THAT’S were the big death numbers were.
We still are not ideal at addressing those risks but the institutions are less horrific at them than they were. Fewer cases in nursing home, even only a few fewer, has an outsized impact on rates of severe illness and death.
That’s OK but I’m not sure why it was in response to my post, which has nothing to do with nursing homes or anyone in them. I know quite a lot of people who died of covid but none of them were in nursing homes.
(I also know people in or connected to the nursing home business, and have heard some horrific stories, but none of these victims were people I knew or was referencing in my prior post.)
You can see the trend here report from the U.S. state and public labs that report to the CDC.
Green is 65+. Bars show how many are being tested; line percent positivity. Slightly more being tested now than in earlier days but the percent positivity has plummeted, from over 25% at its peak to about 5% for the last 12 weeks, now a lower percent positive than other age groups. For over 3 months the biggest volume of tests has been in the 18 to 49 y.o. group which is higher percent positive than either group older than them.
Other than claiming that the numbers are faked in a very sophisticated manner, there’s not much disputing that cases numbers have increased dramatically in the relatively lower risk 18 to 49 without resulting in a huge increase in cases (and thereby hospitalizations and deaths) among those over 65, in particular those 65+ who are most vulnerable.
@Fotheringay-Phipps - it is in response to your post because it is an answer to why “the severity has also tended to be lower” this uptick: not so much that “the most vulnerable people are less likely to be alive altogether”, they have not been all killed off already, but that the most vulnerable are better protected from catching it now (maybe some actively taking better precautions, but for the very most vulnerable, those in nursing homes, who drove the severe case numbers before, better precautions taken for them, as they have no option of protecting themselves for themselves).
The answer to that is not just who you happen to know.
" @Fotheringay-Phipps - it is in response to your post because it is an answer to why “the severity has also tended to be lower” this uptick: not so much that “the most vulnerable people are less likely to be alive altogether”, they have not been all killed off already, but that the most vulnerable are better protected from catching it now (maybe some actively taking better precautions, but for the very most vulnerable, those in nursing homes, who drove the severe case numbers before, better precautions taken for them, as they have no option of protecting themselves for themselves).
The answer to that is not just who you happen to know."
Based on this, your post was a complete non-sequitur.
I said that in the community I’m referring to, the severity has also tended to be lower, with no reference to anyone in any nursing homes. Any explanation which purports to address this can’t be based on anything specific to nursing homes.
If you want to comment about nursing home deaths that also fine and quite possibly valid. But you can’t purport to explain a non-nursing home phenomenon by pointing to factors which are specific to nursing homes.
Those “local medical people” are commenting on the illness of non-nursing home individuals only, not overall admissions and illnesses? Okay. You are the one who talked to them.
The community I’m referring to doesn’t really have any nursing homes to speak of. People generally live with their children and/or have home aides, from what I see.
There’s one assisted living facility, but that’s about it. (FWIW, my impression is that that assisted living place was not hard hit, having taken severe precautions - e.g. barring all visitors - very early on.)
Here I am responding to myself, but I want to give a cite for my remarks. I’ve been watching this YouTube channel for a month or two, he’s a British doctor/educator who has been doing coronavirus updates since February.
In this video, he explains how wearing a mask will lessen the severity of the disease if one gets infected. He gives the bottom line in the first 90 seconds, then the rest of the video is explanation and evidence.
People are also smarter. Regular people and also medical professionals.
When my parents (mid-70s) got sick, my sis overnighted them pulse oximeters and told them that it was critical for them to constantly monitor their O2 levels. Surprisingly, they actually listened to her. When their O2 levels fell below 80%, they both went to the hospital, where they were admitted and treated for a little more than a week.
In March, people didn’t know nothing about no pulse oximeters. Low DO can creep on you without you feeling it, so by the time people realized they were in trouble, it was too late to help them.
I hope so. One thing that strikes me as a touch odd, though, is that we don’t seem to get a lot of news about what kinds of treatments people are (successfully) getting. We still see a fair amount of articles about the mysteries that remain, or about the debate over drugs that may or may not help (or harm). But apart from rolling people who can’t breathe onto their stomachs…I just haven’t run across a lot of detail about treatment methodologies. Anyone seen any good, comprehensive write-ups?
Right. I would put that under the “better treatment” category, as the sub class “better identification of the need for treatment”.
So we have three potential reasons why the death rate has declined: better treatment, cases skewing to younger demographics, and less severe cases due to mitigation efforts.
From the existing level of infection. The surge from where we are now will take us higher than before. On top of that schools will be re-opening and we’re already seeing a surge in cases from that.
Deaths per actual cases. I know we don’t know for sure actual cases, but daily confirmed cases doubled compared to the initial surge in March/April, while deaths halved compared to that same time period. Some of that is due to identifying more cases than we were before, but we certainly aren’t catching 4 times as many cases as before.
You really think that’s a certainty? How many times more do you think we are catching? How could we not be catching several times more, given all the focus on it?
Our at-the-moment stats are starting to line up closely with India’s. You think they are catching just as many of their true cases as we are?
I’d pin any surge this month on schools attempting to reopen with many trying for in person attendance. Also more people starting to stay indoors more as the weather cools.
I think the Labor Day Weekend will make it a double whammy. In good news, the west coast is getting hit with a deadly heatwave that may keep people at home over the weekend and slowing the spread of Covid. We also have to find out if Hurricane Laura was a good or bad natural disaster, slowing or speeding up the spread of Covid.
I read (in two different places) an article in the past couple days that made the point that Taiwan (or maybe it was Japan) has done something like one test for every 230-240 people, then some other countries in between, then the US with one test for every four. Not that they would necessarily have been tested when they were infected, but I wonder what percentage of Americans have now received a PCR test.
