What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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ajax18
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What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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A recent Gallup survey found that more than one-third of Americans believe that at least half of those infected with COVID-19 require hospitalization. How did we get here?

A recent survey found that more than one-third of Americans overestimate by as much as a factor of ten the probability a person with COVID-19 will require hospitalization.

Researchers involved in the Franklin Templeton/Gallup study asked Americans in December what “percentage of people who have been infected by the coronavirus needed to be hospitalized." The correct answer is not precisely known, the authors note, but the best available estimates place the figure between 1 and 5 percent.

Many people’s perceptions of the data, however, were completely off.

“Less than one in five U.S. adults (18%) give a correct answer of between 1 and 5%,” the study authors said. “Many adults (35%) say that at least half of infected people need hospitalization. If that were true, the millions of resulting patients would have overwhelmed hospitals throughout the pandemic.”

The authors of the study say the conclusion is clear.

“The U.S. public is also deeply misinformed about the severity of the virus for the average infected person,” the study’s authors stated.


~60% of Americans think the chances somebody with Covid must be hospitalized are ~10x higher than they actually are

Why Are Americans so Misinformed?

The obvious question is why Americans are so wildly misinformed about the true risks of COVID-19.

One possibility is that Americans are receiving information that is skewing their sense of reality, and research confirms this hypothesis.

Studies have shown that US media in particular created a climate of fear by publishing a deluge of negative news in 2020. One Ivy League-led study found that 91 percent of US stories in major media were negative in tone (compared to just 54 percent in non-US media)—even when the virus was in retreat and positive results were being achieved.

'Those who overestimate risks to young people or hold an exaggerated sense of risk upon infection are more likely to favor closing schools, restaurants, and other businesses,' the authors note.

“The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials,” researchers noted. “Stories of increasing COVID-19 cases outnumber stories of decreasing cases by a factor of 5.5 even during periods when new cases are declining.”

As I noted when the study was released, a global pandemic isn’t exactly a cheerful topic. Yet this fact alone doesn’t explain the discrepancy between US media coverage and non-US media. Nor does it explain why negative news trends continue even during positive developments—such as declines in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, as well as vaccine breakthroughs.

The steady drumbeat of negativity was described as “panic porn” by some media critics.

“Enough with the 'life will never be the same' headlines,” HBO pundit Bill Maher said back in April. “Everything looks scary when you magnify it a thousand times.… We need the news to calm down and treat us like adults.”

That didn’t happen, however. Months later, as the virus had receded and scientists concluded COVID was not as deadly as previously thought, the media were still engaging in panic porn, characterizing Florida’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic as a “death march.”

In his work Crisis and Leviathan, the economist Robert Higgs observed that crises have been utilized to mount the biggest government power grabs in modern history.

Why media and public officials engaged in panic porn for months is a discussion for another day. What’s apparent is that the phenomenon severely skewed Americans' sense of reality as it relates to the actual dangers of COVID-19, a virus that does not require hospitalization for up to 99 percent of those infected.

Unfortunately, authors of the Franklin Templeton/Gallup study say, the disconnect has real-world consequences.

“Those who overestimate risks to young people or hold an exaggerated sense of risk upon infection are more likely to favor closing schools, restaurants, and other businesses,” the authors note.

Lockdowns: A Policy of Panic

The harms of these lockdown policies are well-documented: severe mental health deterioration, mass social unrest, health procedures deferred or foregone, soaring global poverty, increased suicide, extreme loneliness, and many others.

FEE’s Brad Polumbo recently testified before the US Senate on some of these dangers, noting that doctors across the world warn lockdowns have resulted in an “international epidemic” of child suicide.

These were policies born of panic.

“When people feel fear, they’re much more willing to accept anything that makes the world seem a little safer,” Sean Malone noted early in the pandemic in an episode of Out of Frame.

For far too long Americans were told they must sacrifice liberty by embracing lockdowns or risk mass fatalities. This was always a false choice, and a dangerous one. The reality is, passing sweeping legislation during panics is a recipe for bad outcomes. But all too often, that is precisely what happens.

In his work Crisis and Leviathan, the economist Robert Higgs observed that crises have been utilized to mount the biggest government power grabs in modern history. During the Great Depression it was the New Deal. Following the 9-11 attacks it was the War on Terror and the Patriot Act (and everything that came with them). In 2020 it was the lockdowns.

Each of these historic encroachments was driven by mass panic. In each instance, only in hindsight did it become apparent that the greater danger we faced was fear itself.

This isn’t to say there are not real threats in the world. The pandemic, terrorism, and the Great Depression were all genuine threats.

It’s only to say we must reject panic in our decision making, and those who would have us abandon freedom for the false promise of safety.

https://fee.org/articles/americans-are- ... ere-s-why/
And when the Confederates saw Jackson standing fearless like a stonewall, the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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It’s an interesting survey, the purpose of which is to pool on issue that relate to reopening the economy. It show how politicization of what should be a straightforward public health issue has caused misperceptions on both sides of the political divide. https://www.brookings.edu/research/how- ... behaviors/

Of course, if Ajax had his way, we’d look like India or Brazil. But what’s misery and death for millions as along as he and his parents are ok?
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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It’s an interesting survey, the purpose of which is to pool on issue that relate to reopening the economy. It show how politicization of what should be a straightforward public health issue has caused misperceptions on both sides of the political divide. https://www.brookings.edu/research/how- ... -behaviors
Of course, if Ajax had his way, we’d look like India or Brazil.


I'm not the one turning the US into a third world country to secure indefinite political power.
But what’s misery and death for millions as along as he and his parents are ok?
Not just me and my parents. 99% of us according to the article won't even be hospitalized due to COVID. What percentage of us are going to be hurting when the dollar is worth less than 40 cents?
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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I'll let you know when the dollar is worth 40 cents.

And the figure is 1-5%. And it will keep doing so because the people who were so hot on doing nothing until we reached herd immunity are also unwilling to do the thing we need to get to herd immunity. Go figure.
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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ajax18 wrote:
Tue May 04, 2021 5:52 pm
I'm not the one turning the US into a third world country to secure indefinite political power.
Maybe not you, per se, but Trumpist, Republican conservatives are the only ones trying to do so. They are the ones who are trying their darnedest to suppress voting--especially by minorities, and they are the only ones insisting and doubling down on the big lie that the election was stolen, despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, and supporting the asinine Cyber Ninja recount of ballots in Arizona, despite numerous recounts by reputable, bipartisan well qualified election committees that have already proven many times over that the election was fair and accurate.

Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, the U.S. economy is rapidly recovering and showing one of the fastest growths ever, and recovering from the pandemic--especially in the blue state of California in which the number of daily new cases has fallen like a rock, to the point that we have the lowest number of daily cases per 100K and the lowest positivity rate of any state.
California has continued to do better than any other state, with the lowest per capita coronavirus case rate in the nation over the last week. Texas has double California’s rate; New York, quadruple; and Florida has nearly six times California’s case rate. Michigan still has the nation’s highest rate, 299 cases per 100,000 residents — 10 times California’s rate of 29 cases per 100,000 residents.

“In California, we’ve done much better,” UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said. “We’re truly No. 1 here again: So we have a 37% decline in cases overall, and a 5% decline in hospitalizations, and almost a 50% drop, over the last two weeks, in terms of mortality.”

The coronavirus positivity rate “has fallen like a rock,” he said last week, hovering around 1%.
Compare that with how your red state, West Virginia is doing.

States ranked by COVID-19 test positivity rates: May 4
West Virginia: 4

New daily cases: 289

Tests per 100,000: 493.2
So please don't give us any more nonsense about how red states are inherently better off than blue states.

ETA: Incidentally, there are both red and blue counties in California. The counties doing least well in pandemic recovery and which have the highest vaccine hesitancy (though still lower than the national average) tend to be the red counties.
Last edited by Gunnar on Tue May 04, 2021 8:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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So please don't give us any more nonsense about how red states are inherently better off than blue states.
If that were the case you wouldn't need federal bailout money from red states.
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue May 04, 2021 5:37 pm
[...] we’d look like India or Brazil [...]
I don’t know that many people will ever realize just how close we were to looking like India with this pandemic.

Speaking with previous hospital colleagues, and family/friends that currently work at hospitals -- while we were hitting the peak here -- was equal parts terrifying and sobering.

At one point, the hospital my BIL (who is a pede nurse) works at, had people in chairs lining the halls hooked up to IVs and monitors. They were so overrun for a few days that they were treating a lot of people inside the ER waiting room..

I will always remember the look on his face when I asked him if they had a dedicated COVID wing, or if they were just using the handful of negative pressure rooms. It was both a look of surprise at the question, and then a kind of reserved defeat. There were so many existing patients, and incoming volume, that it was impossible to separate patients with COVID in any meaningful way.

To exacerbate things, there was almost constantly doctors and nurses who were unable to work because of their own COVID infections (my BIL being one).
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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Doctor Steuss wrote:
Tue May 04, 2021 7:36 pm
Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue May 04, 2021 5:37 pm
[...] we’d look like India or Brazil [...]
I don’t know that many people will ever realize just how close we were to looking like India with this pandemic.

Speaking with previous hospital colleagues, and family/friends that currently work at hospitals -- while we were hitting the peak here -- was equal parts terrifying and sobering.

At one point, the hospital my BIL (who is a pede nurse) works at, had people in chairs lining the halls hooked up to IVs and monitors. They were so overrun for a few days that they were treating a lot of people inside the ER waiting room..

I will always remember the look on his face when I asked him if they had a dedicated COVID wing, or if they were just using the handful of negative pressure rooms. It was both a look of surprise at the question, and then a kind of reserved defeat. There were so many existing patients, and incoming volume, that it was impossible to separate patients with COVID in any meaningful way.

To exacerbate things, there was almost constantly doctors and nurses who were unable to work because of their own COVID infections (my BIL being one).
I followed some ER docs on Twitter. We were damn close in several states.
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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ajax18 wrote:
Tue May 04, 2021 7:31 pm
So please don't give us any more nonsense about how red states are inherently better off than blue states.
If that were the case you wouldn't need federal bailout money from red states.
And in reply you double down on the nonsense! Incredible! :roll:
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Re: What's your chance of hospitalization if infected with COVID?

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And in reply you double down on the nonsense! Incredible! :roll:
The only nonsense is that so many Democrats believe that you have a 50% chance of being hospitalized from COVID. That's not because of low IQ. It's because of the partisan slant and outright lies of the mainstream media they trust. You're not informed voters and your information is certainly not based on science.
And when the Confederates saw Jackson standing fearless like a stonewall, the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
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