Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

No idea how to reply to a specific comment but the US spends the most as a % of GDP per capita on healthcare yet has a lower life expectancy than quite a few other countries, including most of Europe and a few much poorer countries.

There are definitely other factors in play but I guess throwing money at the problem doesn't necessarily work.

This is a great tool to play with from the guy who wrote Factfulness

IME yes. Particularly lighting speed of diagnostics - which is hard to fathom when coming from the UK system.

No experience of ER vs A&E.

The JH study looks robust, but without a decent comparison for the UK it isn't that helpful. For eg this includes adverse drug reactions:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/200-million-medication-errors-occur-nhs-every-year-1.765781

http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Health-systems/patient-safety/data-and-statistics

t-v's point on beds is also important. Although figs seem hard to obtain it looks like it's about 6.6 vs 28 per 100K. Which is a lot. Like everything in the US there is of course huge regional variation.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8

My overall point was about not getting too smug about potential deaths in the US. Which I stand by.

What im finding obsurd is that Italy is keeping its cafes open...

WTF

Closing them earlier and apparently they're asking people to be further seperated while in the cafes...

WTAF

Like that is going to stop the virus spreading!??! They need to NOT be in a cafe in the first place!

Crikey, don't look at this thread for a week & it's almost doubled in posts. Things are moving fast!

It would be like enforcing the closure of, say, Greggs - utterly unacceptable and a suicide move from any government

However I think everyone will be WFH within 2 weeks

I might start wfh full time tbh. There's not enough people here to make it worth the effort coming in, and there's all the faff of distributed working whether you're here or not.

Problem is going to be space at home, my wife and I are going to both be at home - both programmers and only have one set of screens etc.

One week, two weeks doesn’t matter. It’s maintaining strict separation that counts. No one turning up for a meeting with the other team, or after work drinks. You’re all fucked.

They need to NOT be in a cafe in the first place!

Cafe goes under due to clients avoiding the place from fear of illness - cafe's problem.

Cafe goes under because the govt forced them to close - govt's problem.

My overall point was about not getting too smug about potential deaths in the US

Definitely wasn't getting smug about US deaths, I have family out there. I'm worried a lack of paid sick leave and health insurance will cause serious issues that go beyond the medical repercussions of a pandemic. People will be bankrupted or left with crippling medical bills.

Not sure how it's the root, but anyway...

Ultimately the US is one of the most responsive systems in the world. IMO that is a factor in this scenario, as are bed numbers.

Cost of delivery, suicide inducing bureaucracy, inequity of outcome are great for our collective schadenfreude but it doesn't mean that there aren't areas where the US is likely to be better placed that the UK. A much bigger advantage a national health service has over private is the ability to roll out an identical approach.

It was in response to Crispin_Glover's post I quoted.

Not much consolation, but you'd hope that they don't need to be hospitalised with the majority of the costs will be diagnostic - which can add up fast, but should be in the k's not tens of k's. Sick leave is obviously an issue as is a multiweek hospital stay.

No idea how to reply to a specific comment

Highlight any part of the comment that you want quoted (like ^ this) then press the little blue "Reply" hyperlink below and to the right of the comment.

And whilst its generally a problem with things like telecoms, where even though there is theoretical competition, you are likely to only be served by one provider so they have a de-facto monopoly, with healthcare you also have the issue that Hospitals have to have agreements with the insurers also so if your local doesn't deal with your insurers then you're SOL as far as I can tell

I've just returned from visiting family in Melbourne. My sister developed a dry cough a week before I arrived and took herself to the GP (rang before etc). Ended up getting tested, via nasal swab, and negative result was given 36hrs later. Said the worst part was actually being made to sit in the waiting room with an uncomfortable face mask on, both due it being a hot day and the concerned side eyes from fellow patients.

the rotating shifts was a second stage for our co. But, as things happened, the positive result at another of the building tenants meant we were ALL sent to WFH yesterday afternoon. No word about what happens now.

might start wfh full time tbh.

I feel like the whole wth is a pretty big privilege that a lots of people don’t have the luxury to.

It is, yes.

It is a luxury, yes. For me (programmer) it's relatively easy and doesn't make all that much difference to my day job. Didn't mean to boast about having it available if my post came accross like that.

The blind stupidity and inactivity of our governments has prevented the implementation of measures that could have made containment possible

What should we have done instead? Shutdown the entire country after the first case? Forcibly place the infected in solitary confinement?

Didn't mean to boast about having it available if my post came accross like that.

It’s not boasting but more that the realisation that it’s not always feasible for instance those who work in retail, zero hours, verbal contract. Etc.

seems so obvious now...

WFH availability also maybe correlates with those most likely to initially carry and spread the virus (ie. international travel for work, international meetings)
If the privileged people do it, it still reduces risk / slows exposure to all.

A wild contrarian_edscoble appears

Ofcourse it's a privilige. And it shows how much time is wasted sitting in an office + pointless meetings.

So is clean water.