DXBtoDOH

Herd immunity was always going to be the outcome. The shutdowns were just a few months of fantasy war gaming by the epidemiologists before giving in to what we always knew was going to be the real plan, aka Sweden's approach.

Long term death rate is more likely to be between .25% and .5% in the developed countries (less in the developing countries) once again heavily drawn from the same demographic of elderly frail pensioners.

scrubbedexpat141

Hindsight Ltd. is the easiest company to run eh.

csdf

I wonder if the country is geared up to handle 4x the usual number of deaths, spread over a few months rather than a whole year, and concentrated amongst expats whose bodies will require repatriation? I imagine 90% of deaths normally are amongst the locals, as expats generally leave before they get old or sick enough to kark it.

Millhouse

given the money that can be made in that business, they will be ready.

HiHo

I heard an interesting report from a Pakistani colleague, Three plain loads were repatriated form Jeddah to Pakistan and tested on arrival. The infection rate was 50% apparently but no serious cases. My colleague is of the impression that because hygiene is not so developed as it is in the west the populations immune system is more engaged. If true the junk food consumed at the side of a road on the way home from some party or other might yet prove to be a life saver.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that this is a medically proven fact, but it does sound like a theory worth disproving. I didn't like to point out that the sample in question was a labour force selected and medically screened for hard labour in the heat prior to importation and that this might have had some bearing on the result.

csdf

Have you excluded the possibility that they were simply younger than 45 and therefore unlikely to develop serious symptoms?

HiHo

No, the data was not made available although it would seem to be a reasonable assumption.

DXBtoDOH

The developing world is nowhere nearly as badly hit by COVID-19 (in a lethal sense) and it may very well be in part to a much younger average population compared to old countries like Italy and UK. And developed countries also have people living longer lives due to the marvels of modern science allowing elderly and frail pensioners to live longer. At this point the majority of deaths in developed countries are coming out of care homes, which speaks volumes. And it must also be acknowledged that developing countries don't panic or obsess over every old person's death and keep a death count clock on the nightly news.

Scamp may sneer at hindsight but the data was always there from the early days. It's an old person's killer. Or rather, old and unhealthy person killer. And for the first time in history, we're now treating the death of a 80 year old pensioner with comorbodities as a tragedy rather than fact of life.

Millhouse

Not forgetting that the developing world have also found the cure:
https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/m...issau-20200502

nonthaburi

That's not true. The majority of deaths are people dying in hospitals by a long way.

Maxima

Tests in NYC
In factories in South Dakota
In Kabul
In Tokyo

All were done in recent days, and show similar results of anything from 20% to 40% of the sample population having the virus....

Symptoms were present in a minority of cases.

scrubbedexpat141

I sneer at your unpleasant arrogance, but I'm sure I've told you that before.

HiHo

That appears pretty consistent with what people around me are saying. I think about 20% of my friends have had it and lets say another 20% to 30% without having shown any symptoms. I think I had it. Although there is no way to tell without testing, that was not available in the early days. So at the current rate we are probably a few weeks from herd immunity. Immunity among the health appears the only real protection the frail have until such time as a vaccine is developed and that might be a year or more away.
In the mean time the frail are consigned to their homes. My own parents are in their 60s and 70s and have not left the house for 2 Months they are consigned to being there until Shristmas at the least, although I hope for their sake and the sake of others like them we get to 70% soon.

csdf

ICUs are now full, apparently. And they're flying in extra staff from India, which is never a good sign.

scrubbedexpat141

I assume you mean here in the UAE?

There were 700+ new cases yesterday.