Maddow Guest, New York Times science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. on 28 Feb 2020

[KewlKat]

I watched Rachel last night and I found what her guest, Donald McNeil had to say, quite disturbing. I've not seen any posts about it, so I thought I'd start a thread.

Here are some quotes from him last night -

“Unfortunately, eventually we’ll be where Iran was, there’ll be large numbers of unexplained cases,” McNeil won.

“We’ll have a lot of them and then one-third of Congress will get it probably,” he predicted.

“They’ll have to close down a lot of things, including our parliament — it’s a public meeting,” he explained.

He spoke in depth of the Spanish flu, the rate of that infection, deaths, etc and then compared it to COVID-19. He mentioned that it will wain as we hit summer but then this fall return with a vengance. That statically when compared to the Spanish flu, 1 billion world wide will have been infected and with only a 2% rate of mortality, MILLIONS will die.

When he mentioned that it will return stronger this fall, my thoughts jumped to our election. Do we really think that we'll have an election if his predictions come true?

Here is the video of part of his appearance. Hope the link works since they're doing some things on the DU website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=351&v=KJjtQ-JoEKg&feature=emb_logo

[BComplex]

1. I started a thread a minute ago about the exchange of cash in daily transactions.

Everyone handles money in some form, and buys groceries and stuff....lots of stuff. The act of handling cash, by you, or anyone (store clerk) who handles your credit card, has touched everyone else's germs on money. It's not a big mystery how all this is happening with no obvious trail of infection. It's the money.

[KewlKat]

2. That makes sense...we use our debit card, 99% of the time

so we're not receiving any dirty money. I stopped a number of years ago due to contaminated dollar bills with cocaine.

[BComplex]

3. But as someone on another thread pointed out, the pin pad on the debit card

machine has also been touched by a whole host of other people.

[KewlKat]

5. OY...time to use thin plastic gloves.

[Snarkoleptic]

4. No to be an alarmist, but connecting the (admittedly limited number of) dots...

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/482794-officials-say-the-cdc-is-preparing-for

Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told The Wall Street Journal that "it's likely we'll see a global pandemic" of coronavirus, with 40 to 70 percent of the world's population likely to be infected this year.

"What proportion of those will be symptomatic, I can't give a good number," added Lipsitch, who is the Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Two other experts have recently given similar estimates.

Ira Longini, a biostatistician and adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO), has predicted that two-thirds of the global population may eventually contract COVID-19.

We have 328MM people in the United States. If 40% of us are infected THIS YEAR. (see my emphasis added to the linked article)
40% of 328MM is 131,200,000.
If the mortality rate is just half of the 2% rate in the OP, that's 1.3million US deaths coming in the nest 10-months?!?!

[BComplex]

6. Yep. We're definitely in trouble.

I wish we had a real leader in charge.

[Snarkoleptic]

8. Agree!

Stump seems more concerned with the stock market and his installation to a 2nd term.

[KewlKat]

7. I don't think of it as alarmist, but informed

My husband has multiple health issues and I have a compromised immune system and he depends on me. My coworkers are tRumpers and think this is like the Y2 thing or something, nonsense. I'm just getting over something this past two weeks that really affected my breathing and if I get the COVID-19 I don't think I'll make it thru.

Also, all this talk of reinfections, like 14% in China I believe and now possibly pets are carrying this? I just fear if it does get much worse this fall, we won't have elections.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Please try to keep in mind that a lot of people who get the corona virus

have no or mild symptoms. The death rate is based on those sick enough to be hospitalized, not all those who get it.

And so far, those who are dying tend to have underlying health issues. That's important to keep in mind.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Interesting.

A number of questions come to mind.

McNeil talked about needing 750,000 ventilators for a worst-case scenario, and this country has about 75,000. Does any country stock ten times any piece of equipment or medication just for a worst-case scenario? Somehow I doubt it.

He mentioned the two "hospitals" that were quickly assembled in Wuhan. I'm under the impression those are essentially glorified large tents, and I wonder just how much genuine medical treatment occurred.

Also that 25,000 doctors and nurses marched to Wuhan "knowing they were risking their lives". I wonder how many of them went voluntarily. And I wonder if needed medical care in other parts of the country is simply not happening.

I wonder why he thinks a third of Congress will be infected? He he essentially saying a full one third of the entire country will be infected?

[IcyPeas]

10. reminder: Rachel is going to be on live tonight (saturday)

because of the s. carolina primary