
Why do Covid fatalities remain low when infection numbers are rising? - elorant
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/23/why-do-covid-fatalities-remain-low-when-infection-numbers-are-rising
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aljungberg
Haven't testing rates increased significantly? A natural outcome would be that
we see more mild cases which previously would have flown under the radar.

I don't buy the article's hypothesis of social distancing being a factor.
Social distancing has been ongoing for a long time, and if anything it's
happening less now as people fear the virus less with dropping fatalities. So
why would social distancing suddenly now begin to have a greater effect?

Mask usage could play a role. If you're infected while wearing a mask your
initial viral load is likely significantly reduced. And at least here in
England masks were not mandatory until recently.

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mjh2539
We've gotten better at treating it, and/or we're testing more people.

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scohesc
What a short article...

When they mention the large drop in ventilator usage - isn't that because
after a month or two, medical experts said it probably does nothing or even
could harm the patient if you put them on ventilators?

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cpascal
Could it be better treatment protocols?

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dopylitty
I don’t know if I’m missing something because I’m on mobile or have ads
blocked but this article seems devoid of content.

We keep going through this. COVID rates spike, people see death rates don’t
immediately spike and make all sorts of claims about policy (we should open
schools! In person dining!) then death rates do spike because they always lag
tests by a month for a variety of reasons. In the U.S. there’s also the impact
of the states (Texas, Florida, Georgia) that have chosen to stop reporting
accurate data at all. Out of sight out of mind.

And don’t forget many of the (even young) people who aren’t dying are going
through weeks or months of hell and may have debilitating symptoms for an
indeterminate length of time.

The only sane policy is to shut everything nonessential down until every case
can be thoroughly traced and testing capacity is such that anyone can get a
test at any time for any reason. If the U.S. had done that in March this would
be over already and going out in public wouldn’t be paying Russian roulette
with your future.

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Barrin92
> then death rates do spike because they always lag tests by a month

I don't think that is entirely accurate either. If you look at France for
example[1] rates have steadily been climbing for six weeks again and yet
there's not even a blip in deaths, and the corresponding rise in deaths in the
first wave also did not trail infections by much, same in Spain where there
doesn't even appear to be a lag[2]. Pretty much all countries I checked didn't
lag deaths much at all. It may very well also be the case that we missed a ton
of covid infections during the first wave.

[1][https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/fr](https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/fr)

[2][https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/es](https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/es)

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tonyedgecombe
Supply of tests was constrained at the start of the epidemic so you might be
reading too much into that.

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rurban
The elderly are better protected now. Only they need to be protected,
everybody under 50 has a higher risk to die from a car accident.

Belgium and Spain had the most prominent policy errors in their care homes,
which led to it's exorbitant high percentages. In Belgium they didn't have
enough N95 face masks, so caretakers started sharing them. In Spain it was a
similar care home fuckup (Fascist government cuts, they only kept the
hospitals in excellent shape). My guess is that the UK with its privatized
care homes had similar issues. No idea yet about the high rates in France.
They didn't had fascist government lately I thought (Forgot about Sarcozy
apparently). Italy had its high flu IFR's of over 1% for decades. (Privatized
homes plus high air pollution plus Berlusconi, leading to be the world flu
leader). The US has its sugar crisis and healthcare crisis known for decades,
besides it's political inefficiency.

Treatment protocol improvements are another theory, but as far as I see it
they still use oxygen ventilators, which is known to be of not much help. So
unlikely. They also refused to use known therapeutical prevention methods
which did work (politics were apparently more important than saving life's of
elders), instead promoted fringe methods like 5% face masks and school
closings.

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mjh2539
How is Spain fascist? Its legislature is headed by members of the socialist-
aligned PSOE in both the upper and the lower house. Very confused by these
comments.

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mamon
Fascist and Nazis were also socialists. Hitler's political party had
"Socialist" in it's name. It's funny that nowadays we call Nazis "far right"
where in fact they should be called "far left".

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sketchyj
Now do the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

