Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

This is dicey. I'm not even entirely sure that he still practices medicine since his online presence went nuts. He is a general hospitalist, though, so he sees a lot of stuff and knows about a lot of different things. If he is in the hospital he has likely seen a good deal of COVID patients. That said, other than reading and researching or even hearing second hand, no, he isn't an expert in those things. But like other physicians that have gotten famous for other things he has at times veered off the path of unbias stuff and has even pissed off many other physicians. I'd take it with a grain of salt as with any online personality. He wants to get views and likes and shares first and foremost.

 

There is no legitimate "other side" Take your contrarian opinions and shove them up your ass.

 

Sounds like Jeff Foxworthy's sthick: You might be a Karen if ...

 

If only the scientists thought more positively!

 

I think he can be taken more seriously than the two dingbats out of Bakersfield who spewed absolute garbage back in April, but I wouldn't put him on the level as Fauci or others. His credentials seem legit and maybe legit enough to make a comment on heard immunity. Like you, however, I wonder if he's been out of practice too long. I read he still heads up a clinic he founded, but is that the same as practicing? Is he still read up on everything? Unclear.

But two things that make this hard to believe:
1) This comes on the heals of the UK study that suggests antibodies against Covid-19 won't last beyond a few months. Given the current rate of infection, we will never reach heard immunity because people who previously had it will be at risk of catching it a second time. Thus the virus will not burn out.
2) The scale of numbers for heard immunity are staggering and will be beyond what we can handle. Originally doctors said 70 to 80 percent of the population would need to catch this to reach heard immunity. BTE claims it will be a third of that number. That still means we're looking at needing between 75 and 90 million people to catch this. So far, we've had less than 4 million catch this and hospitals in big states are getting overwhelmed. If we expect to increase infections 20 times what we have now, we can kiss our healthcare system good bye. And also, given the rate of infection, it's going to take us a while to get to 75 to 90 million (See point No. 1). And let's assume 1 percent mortality rate (the rate is higher than that right now, but I think numbers are skewed higher because of early lack of testing), 1 percent of 75 to 90 million people is still a shit ton of people. Basically taking our currant deaths and multiplying that by 7 to 10. Are we really willing to ask hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives because some among us are tired of having limited shopping options? Also, we're at 137,000 deaths when we've done our damnedest to not overwhelm hospitals. And even then, hospitals are getting overwhelmed. That means hospitals have to triage care and make choices about who receives it. Those who get passed up die. Those who get into a car accident and need care might not get it. You fall off a ladder and land on your head, you might not get the care you are expecting. Forget this heard immunity nonsense. It's not feasible.

 

I want to be optimistic about the dynamics of variability on these herd immunity models. But they remain maybes.

In the meantime, what we know works is isolation; masking; handwashing.

It's mid-fucking-July. The idea that Americans go on arguing about masks is heartbreaking.

 

Saint Dabo of the Upstate disagrees.

 

The four words he repeats most often in his video are, "If this is true . . . "
If only the experts on here were a little less certain in their positions.

I don't believe that for a minute. Today came a story about 22 jockeys/workers at a race track testing positive. All with no symptoms. That's 22 cases --- in one place --- that never would have been reported in April, when you couldn't get tested with no symptoms. You tell me 40 million Americans have had it, and I would not be shocked.

Perhaps "herd immunity" explains in part the good numbers in New York/Italy/Spain because SO MANY HAD IT WITHOUT IT EVER BEING REPORTED BECAUSE THEY WERE NEVER TESTED.

 

Yeah, no ... that's not remotely true. Serious work appearing recently in Cell and Nature is very suggestive of the herd immunity threshold being far, far lower than previously thought. But I'm sure our leading lights around here can point to how the growing focus on memory T-cells is misguided. "Because Dabo" is the answer I suppose ...

 

Or, or (and I'm just spitballing here), those places did things to limit the spread of cases and now fewer are getting it. Did we miscount? Yeah we miscounted. Did we miscount by 10s of millions of cases? Who the fuck knows. I doubt it given the steep increase in cases we're seeing. The point is regardless if we are "close" to heard immunity, we're in a shit ton of trouble now in Texas, Arizona and Florida and to a lesser extent California. Throwing everything open because you think we're closer to herd immunity is dangerously irresponsible. Tens of thousands will die to reach herd immunity when we can save those lives, limit the spread and bring the Rt down well below 1. That way, as we open the doors, we can extinguish new flare ups rather than igniting an inferno that takes us all out. Besides, what if the study in the UK is true? What if antibodies wear out? That precious herd immunity will go away.

 

New York's estimated Rt of 1.10 is currently higher than South Carolina's (1.09), Alabama's (1.07), Florida's (1.07), Georgia's (1.07), Texas' (1.06) ... and Arizona's (0.98).

 

I agree with that, and so does the doctor in the video. He says "herd immunity and personal responsibility."

But "personal responsibility" alone cannot stop something like this in its tracks. Peoples' behavior simply is not that consistent. There is no way this group of people in one place "did things" and nobody else in the country is doing them. What sets NY apart is . . . . tons of people were infected. THEN they showed some personal responsibility.

Despite his upbeat tone, the message I got from the video actually was a little sobering: Every place has to have its "New York" moment to achieve the end result.