Good point. From the CDC mortality numbers for 2018 it looks like "normal" deaths from all causes except murder are about 0.86% of the population. This includes suicide and accidents so the relevant percentage would be a little smaller. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
But I since realized the simple percentage of deaths per cases is almost certainly misleading since most of the the total cases are currently active and the percentage of those who will not recover is not yet known. As of today I see about 148000 active cases in the USA. Of those cases resolved to date, about 2,900 have died and 5,200 have recovered. THAT simple but huge ratio would be terrifying except that it doesn't take into consideration the length of time between testing positive and the resolution, and that might vary widely due to age, etc. I think to know the actual percentage of death/cases would require either waiting until this is all over or study the daily data and try to unfold the number of cases outside the resolution window, while considering the "normal" factors. Sounds complicated. I personally know nothing about this but I suspect an epidemiologist could model an ongoing epidemic.
JKJ
I guess I don't see much difference between using or not using gloves as related to spreading nasties while out and about and touching things.
I think carrying hand sanitizer and using it repeatedly either on the skin OR on the gloves during the grocery store circuit should help equally. Gloves may give a slight edge as they could keep the nasties from hiding under the fingernails. One thing I found when wearing gloves and a mask is both reminded me not to touch my face. I do like stripping the gloves off and discarding them inside-out after loading the groceries in the car.
I raided my shop plus farm stash when all this started and have about 500 disposable gloves on hand, plenty to share with family, friends, and neighbors. (We go through a lot of gloves working with animals!) I asked my Dr if he wanted some but he said they had plenty.
BTW, these are the bottles I buy in quantity for shop and now, hand sanitizer - 4 oz is a good size for pocket and vehicle. Before I started making hand sanitizer I'd pump commercial sanitizer into these from a large container.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074XM547S
(I like the kind with a "press disk" top better since the cap can't be lost, but I couldn't find any I liked in a 4 oz size.)
JKJ
I think the comparisons are bad because.... who cares? If X number of people die a year in car accidents and that number is way greater than those that die due to Covid 19... then so what?
You aren't removing car crashes and replacing them with a lower death rate, you're adding to them. People that were not going to die this year are going to die. There are going to be people that will not be resuscitated because the hospital is out of equipment. There will be triage.
It's an argument used to protect the economy. Protecting the economy is important and I'm glad I'm not in the captain's chair deciding how to deal with this. People die due to poor financial well being as well. The USA doesn't have a very good safety net for the poor. I don't know the answer, but what I do know is that it is a deflection to compare this virus to other 'things'.
Last edited by Steve Schlumpf; 04-01-2020 at 12:02 AM. Reason: Removed political comment
I can't parse this logic at all. Are you saying in order to be relevant, you would like to see removed from the total anyone who, if not for Coronavirus, would have died from something else on the same day or in the same week?
How could such a thing be known?
Just looking at the images coming out of Italy as a location that is a few weeks ahead of us, I can't imagine anyone making a case that a meaningful number of the thousands dying would be dying anyway but Coronavirus just beat the other cause to the punch.
Edwin
Therein lies the rub...literally. Too many folks wear the gloves and don't sanitize between uses or even locations they visit...
Sanitizer...here's the way to buy at this point...distillery produced. $6.99 for a bottle. The reason there are two in this photo taken by my good friend is that he, um...failed to listen to me about the size being offered....and when he ordered his food market order for curb-side pickup, he asked them to add two bottles of sanitizer, thinking they were the small Purell portable size. I think he's covered for this pandemic and the next at least. LOL
sanitizer.jpg
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Some are doing direct. Chef Robert Irvine apparently is an owner of a distillery in Montgomery County PA somewhere. They are producing it, but buyers have to bring their own containers for curbside pickup.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
I have started keeping track of figures on the Johns Hopkins University "Corona resource site Called the Corona Clock by many on line. Yes we passed 100,000 cases last friday and as of 5:30 today there were 159,184 cases and 2945 deaths for a 24 hour increase of 22,304 cases and 536 deaths. But instead of doubling and tripling as it had been doing, the numbers are still climbing but mo longer at an exponential rate. 22,304 in the past 24 hours is worse than the 18,000 saturday to Sunday and worse than the 17,000 friday to saturday. It does show a trend of slightly slowing the avalanche. Whether an anomaly or the start of a true leveling we won't know for a week. In the mean time deaths will climb at a terrible rate. From Saturday to Sunday there were 453 deaths. Sunday to Monday 536 deaths. At the current rate, by the end of the week we will be looking at approximately 8,000 dead.
I had to take my daughter to the doctor this morning. Traffic was still heavy despite the shut downs and stay at home advice. I passed small strip centers where all the businesses were closed but there were people out going everywhere else.
I understand that in Austria starting Wednesday, all customers in stores will be required to wear masks, so that those who have the disease without knowing will not be as likely to spread it.
I have not been to a store since last thursday, but I saw couples hauling 3 or 4 kids with them. Are they totally stupid. One parent should be shopping and the rest of the family should be home.
It could be estimated from the death rates of previous years.
To take an extreme hypothetical example, suppose you gave a group of elderly people red hats and found out that 1% of them died within a year. This wouldn't be evidence for the lethality of red hats unless similar groups of elderly people who didn't have red hats had a lower death rate than 1%.
The technical term for the additional deaths caused by a new disease or extraordinary event is "excess mortality".
Not really clear what your point is. That there might be a couple people in NY who would have died anyway? Old people are going to die soon so we shouldn’t care? We’re all going to die sooner or later so this Coronavirus is no big deal and we should just carry on as normal?
Gloves, like face masks, are only marginal as primary protection the way most people use them; they do, however, provide effective reminders not to touch your face, a very effective strategy.
One should simply assume that all surfaces are contaminated and act accordingly. I don't think there's any data that suggests that gloved hands are more or less likely to spread viruses than bare hands. I wore gloves for most of my career in the lab, but it was usually to protect the experiment from me.