How to Respond to COVID-19

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19

by doppp • 6 years ago

147 107 6 years ago

JKCalhoun• 6 years ago

The data so far suggests that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1%; this rate would make it several times more severe than typical seasonal influenza and would put it somewhere between the 1957 influenza pandemic (0.6%) and the 1918 influenza pandemic (2%).

That was a little shocking to read. I had no idea the 1918 influenza pandemic was only 2%. I lost relatives to it, assumed it was a larger percentage than 2%.

kevinthew• 6 years ago

Yeah. The part that should freak people out is this looks multiples more infectious to boot.

javajosh2• 6 years ago

And I think its important to note that 2% is the mortality rate in a hospital where they have respirators, etc. The mortality rate outside of a hospital (e.g. in a quarantine wharehouse) is something like 20%. (I wish I could remember the source for this, will look and edit but it may have been The Atlantic).

It also seems like some survivors come out of this with pretty severe damage to their organs, especially lungs, because the persons immune system goes overboard and attacks healthy tissue. So, some fraction of people will live, but be disabled.

greatpatton• 6 years ago

A 20% death rate is highly unlikely.The Italian researchers who sequenced the Italian strain believe that the virus has been circulating widely in Italy since January, even before Italy banned direct air flight to China. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that almost all the new cases in Europe are originating from big Italian cities. If the death rate was 20% we should start to see a lot of death in Italy and it doesn't seem to be the case. Iran and Egypt also seems to be largely hit, as many tourist back from Egypt have been infected. Now getting the real death rate is going to be a very complicated game, especially if many infected patient remain without symptom. I tend to believe the virus is already highly circulating in a high number of place of the planet where the health system is bad, and lacking testing capabilities. We are even starting to see untraceable cases in the USA.

ekianjo3• 6 years ago

20 percent? Where? Most people are not even tested and in China where they have the largest hospital facilities for treating patients the number is far lower than 20 percents.

mytherin3• 6 years ago

The 2% mortality rate of the coronavirus is likely greatly overestimated [1]. Early mortality rates of diseases are generally estimated to be too high because only severe cases are tested. The exact same happened with H1N1 (Swine Flu): initial studies showed a 2-3% case fatality rate, but afterwards it was found to have an actual mortality rate of around 0.15% [2], close to that of the flu at 0.1%.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21134718/coronavirus-china-dea...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

mytailorisrich5• 6 years ago

It should also be noted that they did not have antibiotics back then. The Spanish flu today would have most likely a lower fatality rate than it had then.

Obviously those diseases are viral. But it seems that they can be helped by bacteria and certainly bacterial pneumonia is a common serious complication, and I believe that patients hospitalised for COVID-19 are given antibiotics for these reasons.

brianpan• 6 years ago

The death rate was "small" but the reach was large. 1/4 of the world's population got it so the total death toll was large.

NanoWar• 6 years ago

2% is very huge, it is every 50th person!

takeda• 6 years ago

2% would be over 6 million Americans. I don't understand why that percentage is often reported as insignificant.

tessierashpool4• 6 years ago

that's legit -- the percentage is not insignificant -- but it does look like you're calculating 2% of all Americans (approx 327M). the 2% number is _case_ fatality rate, i.e., how many cases are fatal. so to get from there to actual deaths, you have to apply it to _cases_. so you need to combine that with the attack rate, or attack ratio.

the only number I've heard for the attack rate is 30%, from the virologist Ian Mackay, who caveated it as a guess:

https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1233511899083530240

it could probably never be anything but a guess, until after the fact.

anyway, it would not be 2% of the US population. it would be 2% of 30% of the US population, which is approximately two million people. with the caveat that all of these numbers are early estimates based on limited data.

2M people is still a lot of deaths.

but it's not just how many people are killed. the rate of hospitalization is 15-25%. approx 10% of patients in Italy right now are in intensive care. the disease expresses as severe pneumonia, so severe that survivors have experienced _organ failure_. you could be hooked to a ventilator for a month.

in the United States, if you survive a medical problem that serious, it still ruins your life. probably this country will see not just a significant number of deaths, but also a spike in medical bankruptcies -- which are already a huge problem here.

mytailorisrich5• 6 years ago

Of course a small percentage of a huge number is a big number...

The point is to reassure people and to prevent panic. For the vast majority of cases this virus is not a big deal so people should be vigilant but not be overly scared for themselves.

askvictor• 6 years ago

On numbers from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22432358 (and those numbers are not necessarily accurate for lots of reasons) the death rate is below 0.4% for all age groups below 49. Then it increases exponentially. I'm curious what the comparative age breakdown of the 1918 flu was, particularly given that a lot of people would have been malnourished due to the war, and health care was not as advanced as now.

exdsq• 6 years ago

The Spanish influenza affected young adults more than the elderly/weak because it caused the immune system to attack the body. The stronger the immune system, the more damaging the individuals illness.

E14n• 6 years ago

There are some graphs broken down by age for the Spanish flu https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/

ekianjo3• 6 years ago

Context matters. We had almost no medicine back in 1918. That changes everything.

saberdancer3• 6 years ago

I am not getting it either.

"It infected 500 million people around the world,[2] or about 27% of the then world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion, including people on isolated Pacific islands and in the Arctic. The death toll is estimated to have been 40 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history"

500 million infected, 40-50 million deaths. Isn't that 10% death rate?

Perhaps it was 2% for people who were treated in hospitals.

tspiteri• 6 years ago

2% of 2 billion is 40 million. So perhaps it was 2% of the whole population.

phyzome• 6 years ago

2% means 1 in 50 people. How many people do you know? How about people who are a friend of a friend? What is that number divided by 50?

In all likelihood, within a year, several people you know will die of covid-19.

(Also note that the effects will be different around the world and in different social strata; in poorer areas, the death rate will be much higher, and in rich areas much lower.)

qznc• 6 years ago

Wikipedia is inconsistent for 1918 flu pandemic: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spanish_flu&oldid...

"The World Health Organization estimates that 2–3% of those who were infected died (case-fatality ratio).[51]"

"The unusually severe disease killed up to 20% of those infected, as opposed to the usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%.[2][54]"

javajosh2• 6 years ago

In a perfect world, Trump would appoint Gates to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Gates would accept, the Senate would quickly confirm, and Trump would actually listen and defer to him on this.

It's interesting that this is directed to policy makers and other leaders, rather than individuals on the ground - e.g. it's about resource allocation, not personal preperation. (It was amusing to see the large-scale analogue to hoarding referred to as "lists of supplies to be stockpiled or redirected in an emergency." This presumes, of course, that governments will act as a force of mediating reason on people's irrational impulses; and we all know that sometimes it's the opposite).

sky_rw• 6 years ago

Wait I thought Gates was in on this with the Chinese and released this as population control? Have I been getting my news from the wrong source?

animalnewbie2• 6 years ago

Senate would quickly confirm.

There is no such world.

Remember when trump closed China travel he was called an overreacting xenophobe

alien_• 6 years ago

It's easy to raise the billions required to fight this. It's peanuts for governments and even larger companies hoarding tens of billions that have a lot to lose because of such pandemics.

rm_-rf_slash2• 6 years ago

Raise the billions to do what though? Pay for pharmaceuticals that can’t reach sick people because there aren’t enough people to work the production lines, the docks, the ships, the trains, the trucks, and the hospitals?

mnm1• 6 years ago

How about investing in "low- and middle-income" Americans and providing them healthcare? In addition how about providing required paid sick leave that can be taken without fear of losing one's job? These are actual things we could do to help people respond and deal with COVID-19. Yes, working on vaccines is important but testing and avoiding spreading the virus as much as possible are even more important. Right now, we have no hope of doing either in an effective manner. People will go to work sick, including with COVID-19 because they have no choice, because our government has left them no choice. They won't be able to get tested because they have no choice due to not having health insurance--another choice removed by our ineffective policies. I don't see any coherent plan by the government at this moment to address any of these issues and given the current situation, I would not be surprised if we have one of the worst outcomes of any developed country, possibly including China. The only hope is that the virus mutates into something less contagious or harmful and that should not be something we rely on.

davidwihl• 6 years ago

Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard epidemiologist, estimates that 40-70% of the adult world-wide population will be infected. [0]

Assuming a conservative 1% mortality rate, that would mean 30-50M deaths, a tragically huge number.

[0] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/key-coronavir...

ekianjo3• 6 years ago

Most cases with mild symptoms are not even reported or noticed by those infected so the real number is lower than 1 percent in all likelihood.

fab1an• 6 years ago

This could swing both ways alas.

The optimistic case would be how swine flu played out, where initial estimates for fatality where in the percentage range but ended up in the per mille dimension.

However, for SARS 1.0, it was initially estimated to have a fatality of 2% - the final number was over 10%.

It's simply too early to tell.

Unfortunately, the latest WHO report suggest there isn't that big of an iceberg of undetected cases, which would sadly mean a higher CFR.

tristanj• 6 years ago

Most cases with mild symptoms are not even reported

This is outdated. Dr. Bruce Aylward said in a WHO conference this week that the Chinese tested 320,000 samples in Guangdong and they are not seeing huge transmission beyond cases found clinically. It's at 47 mins in this video: https://youtu.be/-o0q1XMRKYM?t=2810

so the real number is lower than 1 percent in all likelihood.

I disagree. When we calculate the SARS-CoV-2 CFR properly using

CFR = deaths / (deaths + recovered)

using the latest data we get

2,924 / (2,924 + 39,605) = 7% CFR

That's much more in line with the original SARS CFR of around 9%.

JohnStrangeII2• 6 years ago

The problem are the people themselves. I have yesterday tried to persuade a colleague to cancel / postpone a conference in Lisbon with participants from all over Europe, including Milan in Italy. He didn't even take me seriously and other colleagues from Spain were making jokes about how all of their relatives are currently ill or they have Italian friends for a visit. Besides, half of my colleagues are from Italy, one of them just told me relatives from Piemont are planning to visit her next week.

With that attitude it is impossible to contain the virus. For all I know, I might already have it. I'm at a loss of how to react to such people, who seem to be the majority in Portugal. Working result-oriented in Academia I could in theory isolate myself for three months, but in practice this would be professional suicide.

libertine2• 6 years ago

3 months and professional suicide is a bit dramatic.

nl• 6 years ago

Does anyone know where the 2% death rate for 1918 flu comes from? I've seen it quoted multiple times, but Wikipedia says:

It infected 500 million people around the world... The death toll is estimated to have been 40 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million

But later

The World Health Organization estimates that 2–3% of those who were infected died (case-fatality ratio). It is estimated that approximately 30 million were killed by the flu, or about 1.7% of the world population died. Other estimates range from 17 to 55 million fatalities[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

saberdancer3• 6 years ago

I'm really surprised by this as well. From what I can tell, the estimate that was named is "above 2.5%". This could be simply by calculating how many people died compared to total population in the world. If 2.5% of total world population died, assuming everyone was infected, it is at least 2.5% case fatality rate and depending on how many people were not infected case fatality rate will go down.

jtbayly• 6 years ago

Wouldn’t case fatality rate go up the more people were not infected?

simonh6• 6 years ago

Here in the UK we learned the hard way that health care is national defence. It’s a matter of vital national security. In WWI we were chronically short of healthy young recruits, far too many potential soldiers were too sickly or under nourished to serve. What goes for the military goes for industry too, what use is a sickly, unfit work force, especially in a crisis? This is why universal health care is not controversial in the UK. It’s why lifelong conservative voters like me support universal health care, we were faced with a clear existential threat generations ago. How could we expect the population to fight for a country that didn’t look after them in return? Loyalty has to go both ways. I accept we’re a different case from the US because we’re a much smaller country, the US can manage due to sheer numbers, but that’s a pretty poor excuse. Having a fit, healthy population matters.

Now we’re faced with Covid-19. This is a matter of national and international security and defence. Health care spending is national defence spending. It’s just a different type of defence against different types of threats, some mundane, some exceptional.

WalterBright• 6 years ago

How could we expect the population to fight for a country that didn’t look after them in return?

One of the benefits of serving in the US military was free medical care for the soldier and his family.

forkerenok• 6 years ago

I think the argument extends to potential need to draft general population in times of need. You want to draft healthy people.

jinushaun• 6 years ago

Pretty much my argument for universal healthcare.

People from both sides focus too much on emotional aspects of universal heathcare, but from a practical standpoint, the healthier your population, the longer they will be alive paying taxes. Obesity was a problem in the US only when too many people were too fat to join the military.

whatthesmack• 6 years ago

I don’t think skepticism of governments is an emotional response. It is practical and evidenced by history & folks’ experience with it.

Folks against one method of caring for the population (ie “universal healthcare”) are not necessarily against having healthcare for as many people as possible nor against helping others... they’ve just seen governments do things inefficiently and occasionally dangerously and thus have a reasonable level of skepticism for the “universal healthcare solution” to the problem.

For example, in the US, the VA has a horrible track record that immediately turns folks, like myself, off of the idea that the government should have any more control over our decisions than it already has.

In addition, the political party that is more likely to bring “universal healthcare” to fruition--the Democrat party--had trouble counting votes in Iowa recently. That level of competence does not currently lend itself to running an entire healthcare system where lives are at stake.

All that to say... it’s much more complex than “people are emotional because they resist my solution to the problem”.

makomk3• 6 years ago

It's less expensive than you'd think too. The key is that this only requires the vast majority of people to be able to work a large majority of the time. If it would cost more money to stop someone dying or going blind or suffering other major health problems than the typical worker is worth, the NHS just doesn't provide that treatment. There are plenty of other workers whose health care needs are much cheaper. Likewise, people wait months for the treatment of conditions that stop them going back to work, and that's fine - there are other workers. Highly-paid industries like IT which can't treat their employees like replacable cogs often offer private health insurance with lower waiting times as a perk that just happens to benefit them too.

This is across the board. On the one end of the spectrum, the NHS only rolled out flu vaccination for infants this flu season and vaccinates a lot less aggressively than the US in general - if you have to vaccinate a large number of people to prevent a few serious illnesses that doesn't work out cost-wise. On the other, a lot of the expensive cancer treatments, as well as cutting-edge treatmeents for chronic conditions like cystic fibrosis, aren't available either. (Though some utterly ineffective cancer treatments have been funded for political reasons.)

On the other hand, there was some bizarre business where the NHS decided not to offer a cost-effective cure for Hepatitis C to most people with it, even though it's a communicable disease with serious long-term health effects and curing them would probably save money in the long run, because the short-term cost was too high. I think they ended up making a deal with the drug companies very similar to the one a number of US states did, where they got reduced per-treatment costs as part of a program to aggressive find and treat everyone including homeless people and others who don't have access to healthcare. Sometimes the US and UK are less different than the press let on.

I'm not sure how well the NHS would cope with a coronavirus pandemic either. In a good year it barely has enough resources to handle the seasonal flu, and this has been the worst flu season for it in a long time.

simonh6• 6 years ago

All health care systems everywhere have to make decisions based on cost. Everywhere. It doesn't matter how they are funded or run, they all operate within the constraints of the resources they have available.

sgt1012• 6 years ago

There is a lot to disagree with in your post.

If it would cost more money to stop someone dying or going blind or suffering other major health problems than the typical worker is worth, the NHS just doesn't provide that treatment.

My brother had an extensive program of neurosurgery as an infant, I would be amazed if the dedicated care that he received stacked up to less than 40 man years of expert effort (nurses, GP's, surgeons, anesthetists, radiologists, pharmacologists - the list goes on). Vast money was also spent on the equipment required to provide the care, and the drugs. This was all provided by the NHS, and is provided routinely. So - your statement is flatly untrue.

On the other hand I have received very little treatment on the NHS; I have required medical interventions but only after I was rich enough to get insurance. This is the key to the economics. Some people require heroic intervention to survive, most people (until they are in their old age) require very little (especially if engaged in preventative health improvement) - this is what makes it sustainable, not parsimony with the treatment.

This is across the board. On the one end of the spectrum, the NHS only rolled out flu vaccination for infants this flu season and vaccinates a lot less aggressively than the US in general - if you have to vaccinate a large number of people to prevent a few serious illnesses that doesn't work out cost-wise.

The UK and NHS have strong policies and incentive structures to drive vaccination, precisely because without it a large number of people suffer illnesses that are very expensive. I don't know the numbers but I am pretty sure that 10k vaccinations are cheaper than 2 weeks in hospital for one child with measles. Your reasoning simply makes no economic sense; prevention is clearly better than cure, and cheaper.

some bizarre business where the NHS decided not to offer a cost-effective cure for Hepatitis C to most people with it, even though it's a communicable disease with serious long-term health effects and curing them would probably save money in the long run, because the short-term cost was too high.

Or you could say "the NHS used its purchasing power to drive a procurement deal which enabled it to launch a program to eliminate Hep-C by 2025, and had to fight in the courts to make it stick" which would be factual.

I'm not sure how well the NHS would cope with a coronavirus pandemic either. In a good year it barely has enough resources to handle the seasonal flu, and this has been the worst flu season for it in a long time.

Well - all health services will be stretched. We will see - when the numbers are available - which ones performed the best - for all citizens. I will hazard a guess that systems that routinely leave a large proportion of their population unprotected will expose that section of society to much greater mortality than those that are comprehensive public health providers. In terms of "barely has enough resources" isn't this the optimal? Isn't the point to have just enough laid on to deal? Rather than wasting the resources that could for example buy a proton beam system covering an epidemic that doesn't arrive?

bitlax• 6 years ago

Just because you don't want healthcare controlled by the federal government doesn't mean you're opposed to healthcare itself, and some of the countries with universal healthcare have some of the highest infection and death rates so I'm not sure how your solution relates to COVID-19.

makomk3• 6 years ago

Yeah. Italy has a universal healthcare system funded from taxes, and not only are they now a major cluster of coronavirus infection and spread, their healthcare system ended up helping to spread the virus. Supposedly their healthcare is some of the best in the world overall too.

rriepe• 6 years ago

What if the threat is the government? We're to give them all the guns and all the hospitals?

simonh6• 6 years ago

My post is a direct response to the Gates Notes article and his appeal for a concerted, coordinated response to this epidemic and possible future ones. I’m making a broader point along similar lines.

The spread of COVID-19 has barely started. Doctors and hospitals can’t physically go out into the population and stop people contracting the virus. Whether a traveller with the virus happens to have been to an area and had transmission contact with people has nothing to do with the quality of the local hospitals and health care workers. That’s just not their role, that primarily comes into play in dealing with the consequences.

namelosw2• 6 years ago

I totally agree with your point, but it is very hard for the US to implement healthcare like in Europe.

There are things like sugar tax in Europe, why? Because the governments spent so much money on health care. Corporations selling tasty but unhealthy food is profiting from part of the tax payer's money.

In Japan, the system works because people are generally healthier. In Europe, the system works because the governments are willing to pay the bill in the first place, then tax the unhealthy food industries to make the system more efficient towards systems like Japan.

In the US, it's pretty different because corporations have larger influences than in Europe.

Also, there are a lot of people who won't give up unhealthy foods -- It basically boils down to personal preferences to be healthy or not in the US, while In Europe it's a little bit obligated to be healthy because it's costing tax payer's money.

mytherin3• 6 years ago

While unhealthy individuals cost the health care system more early on in their life, healthy individuals tend to cost more in the long run because individuals live longer and thus require more treatment [1, 2].

In fact, one could argue unhealthy people are better for universal health care and universal retirement systems because they collect less retirement while still generally dying after age 65~70 (after having stopped working and having paid the maximum amount of money into these systems through taxes and retirement savings).

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/22/alcohol-...

[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

tomohawk2• 6 years ago

What works best in normal times rarely works best in extremis. And vice versa.

mynameishere• 6 years ago

That sickliness was mainly from malnutrition, not health care.

kenneth• 6 years ago

During WWi it was mostly due to the Spanish flu killing 5% of the world's population, way more than the war the itself

simonh6• 6 years ago

Malnutrition was a major factor yes, but not to an overwhelming degree. For example dental issues were also a major problem, and of course nutrition itself is a health issue in which a well functioning health care system plays an important role.

lordnacho2• 6 years ago

I wonder if there will be a more general cultural change. For instance, will it become commonplace to have disinfectant dispensers in public places, like you might have drinking fountains and public bathrooms? Will workplaces and stadiums install these? I can't judge the advice on this, but it seems to be that disinfectants work.

Also, will people be told to stay home when they're even slightly ill? Currently people know that sick people spread disease, but we leave it to their own judgement as to whether to show up. What about a law that says you can't be paid as a contractor if you show up and you're ill? Could/should that happen?

krisoft• 6 years ago

“ What about a law that says you can't be paid as a contractor if you show up and you're ill?”

To my european ears that’s a very strange thought.

This is what paid sick leave was invented for. If we do as you proposed that strongly incentivises people to judge themselves not sick. Obviously the most intense cases will be found out, and according to your law sent home without pay, but by then the damage is done.

lordnacho2• 6 years ago

I mean contractors though. A lot of people in finance get paid per day they show up. I even have friends who will go to work while terribly ill because they get paid £1000 for it.

Paid sick leave is fairly normal for people on standard employee contracts.

blub3• 6 years ago

I'd be very happy of seeing everyone wash their hands after using the bathroom and sneezing in their elbows. As it is, a disturbing number of people truly are either careless or clueless.

melonkidney2• 6 years ago

From a business perspective, be prepared for an extended period working from home, and be prepared for productivity to drop. Prioritize and set expectations accordingly.

I have colleagues in China who are facing down their fifth week working from home. At the beginning, they tried to maintain their normal (and excellent) level of output. But the stress of quarantine is starting to show.

Disruptions to normal routines, such as kids stuck at home and reduced/no access to childcare, are the non-newsworthy but most challenging issues for a large number of folks.

stareatgoats• 6 years ago

... until they realized that working from home and closeness to kids and family was really a wonderful thing?

melonkidney2• 6 years ago

Right, and I must admit that was my initial reaction. I honestly hope that one positive from all of this will be that working from home (and remote work generally) becomes more widely acceptable.

Unfortunately, in this instance, what I'm hearing from people on the ground is that the balance has swung a bit too far into "cabin fever" territory at this point.

logicchains• 6 years ago

Note that in China it's common for people with kids to live with their extended family/in-laws (who look after their kids while they're working). Like anywhere else in the world, for many people spending time with their in-laws is not a pleasant experience.

namelosw2• 6 years ago

Can confirm. I'm in Beijing and it's wonderful indeed, I'm not with my family though.

I already worked from home for a month as a developer, and we have confirmed we'll WFH for the next 2 weeks at least.

There's no sign of productivity dropping for now according to our regular analytics. We have similar velocity as in previous months, where the estimation was done before the Chinese new year (just to clarify).

gdubs3• 6 years ago

... and come to realize how undervalued the work of full-time stay-at-home parents is :)

odiroot• 6 years ago

From a business perspective, be prepared for an extended period working from home

That's wishful thinking. I can guarantee you many (if not most) managers are too paranoid to ever allow it.

DyslexicAtheist• 6 years ago

who is still excited about pair programming? I think this will come to an end very abruptly. keyboards are disgusting.

sixstringtheory• 6 years ago

Only when it's done over VC. I miss ScreenHero!

pvinis• 6 years ago

I mean, it's pretty easy to do pair programming with separate keyboards or even computers..

tomohawk2• 6 years ago

Are you legally prepared? Do you have a will, an advanced medical directive, and other important documents? If not, take this as a cue to get that done today. Pandemic or no pandemic, you should have these.

Without these documents, you may very likely not receive the medical treatment you would wish to have should you become incapacitated. Also, your worldly possessions will likely not be dealt with as you would wish, and you'll be leaving a mess behind for your loved ones.

So, get your affairs in order.

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

Some of that might work. If the pandemic is as harsh as some fear (anything like 1918) then the bodies pile up in the street. A will might not be important.

abjKT26nO8• 6 years ago

you'll be leaving a mess behind for your loved ones.

I don't have any loved ones.

advanced medical directive

My country doesn't honor those.

Yup, I'm about as prepared as I can be.

mhkool• 6 years ago

For those who are interested in how to improve your own immune system function I recommend to watch a couple of videos of Dr Bergman and Dr Axe

gdubs3• 6 years ago

“Global health experts have been saying for years that another pandemic rivalling the speed and severity of the 1918 influenza epidemic wasn’t a matter of if but when.“

Short-term-ism is the real epidemic in America. We seem paralyzed in taking preparedness steps in a host of issues that are a matter of “not if, but when.” From Climate Change, to infectious disease.

On individual level, we share some of the blame. I’ll admit that even in earthquake and fire prone California that prior to this current crisis, I’ve never kept more than a few days worth of food on hand. Even faced with a real risk, there’s inertia there — but ultimately realizing that being prepared as a household is the root of resilience for a neighborhood and community. It’s not a selfish act — it’s the responsible thing to do.

But at a leadership level, we seem to be waiting for some shoe to drop in this current situation rather than take proactive steps. We seem two steps behind this thing in the US.

How to Respond to COVID-19

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