Thursday, March 19, 2020

It Turns Out The Young May Be Almost As Susceptible To COVID-19 As Oldies- Who'da Thought?

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Part of the crowd of young idiots mobbed on a beach near Clearwater, FL.  Right - one of them spouts off how he "don't care 'bout no silly cor- oh- no virus"

Let's face it, Herr Dotard, like  a broken clock - does seem to be right about twice each day.  In this case, he described the battle against COVID-19 as a "war against an unseen enemy" - which it is.  He also blurted he's a "wartime president" - which is false because wartime presidents - like Harry S. Truman -act, they don't dither.  In the case of Trump while he did sign the Defense Production Act - which would enable U.S. industries to shift production to medically essential equipment - like ventilators - he isn't prepared to let the factories hum unless it's a "worst case scenario".  The idiot doesn't grasp we're already in that condition with doctors and nurses having to fabricate their own gear using materials from Home Depot, and feeling like they're going to war with only a BB gun.

But this is what we have with a halfwit leader like Dotard, akin to a unit commander who doesn't know which end is up. That means the rest of us are left to fight the enemy with "blunt force" tactics, i.e. sequestering, social distancing.  It isn't sexy or cool. In fact to a young Turk (or Turkess)  it's a buzz kill - but hey, it's the only thing left to prevent  our hospitals being totally overwhelmed given Trump doesn't have the balls or sense to act expeditiously.  I mean he has yet to give the order to actually start the production of the ventilators, masks, etc.    Worse, this deluded, narcissistic demagogue continues his tariffs on $5 b worth of medical  exports from China, including (WSJ today, "Trump's Tariffs Leave The U.S. Short On Medical Supplies', p. A19):  N95 masks, sterile gloves,  goggles, hospital gowns, surgical drapes, thermometers and breathing masks.

Pardon me, but this is utter, deranged madness. It would be analogous to a president - say Truman in WW II - undermining and kneecapping the troops risking their lives in Europe and the Pacific.  Next thing to a traitor, if not outright a traitor.

Indeed, as reported on CNN yesterday, medical personnel have been calling on Trump to get this equipment out for weeks. So any delay now adds to the misery and worse, risks much further spread because hospital staff aren't properly equipped when they deal with COVID-19 patients. I.e. they are using - and reusing- surgical masks instead of the N95s, and going without face shields.

Trump's  bumbling incompetence, twisting facts to suit ("I always knew it was a pandemic!") and failure to act expeditiously has made it incumbent on the rest of us - the actual ground troops-  to take up the main battle via the blunt force strategy of social lockdown. The problem is that while most of us are prepared to be good soldiers and do what's needed - locking ourselves down - the young (many of them) believe they have no skin in the game (or this war) or if they do, so what?  It ain't their war!

Nevertheless, there's a lot we now know about the stats related to Covid-19,  we didn't know earlier. Especially that the most recent C.D.C. data reveal that nearly 40 percent of patients  aged 20 to 54 are sick enough to be hospitalized.  And oh, btw, that often means with respirators or ventilators given the virus has turned one or both lungs to pulp.  The report, issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that — as in other countries — the oldest patients had the greatest likelihood of dying and of being hospitalized. But of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized, 38 percent were notably younger — between 20 and 54. And nearly half of the 121 patients who were admitted to intensive care units were adults under 65, the C.D.C. reported.


 Dr. Tara Narula on CBS this morning noted the R nought now appears to be 3.0 meaning each person can infect three others. This means all those numskulls having their beach bacchanals are actually putting the rest of us at risk. As opposed to being good soldiers for the good guys they are fifth columnists. Unknowing  (or uncaring) enemy agents.

 This is a fact the brash young spring breakers packing beaches in Texas and Florida ought to process before they spout such bollocks as referenced by Gayle King - to Tara Narula- on CBS:

"This kid said yesterday,  'It's my spring break and I'll do whatever I want!"

Causing Gayle to nearly lose it.  CBS co-host Tony Dokoupil quickly explained it couldn't be Millennials (his generation) but the Generation Z bunch now in their 20s and more likely to be spring breaking.

But whether Gen Z or other these young know-it-alls, famous for their "Ok, Boomer!" mockery and memes, would do well to pay attention to what the U.S.  top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said this week,

Even though when you look at the total numbers, it’s overwhelmingly weighted toward the elderly and those with underlying conditions, the virus isn’t a mathematical formula. There are going to be people who are young who are going to wind up getting seriously ill.

In the words of Stephen S. Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health:

I think everyone should be paying attention to this. It’s not just going to be the elderly. There will be people age 20 and up. They do have to be careful, even if they think that they’re young and healthy.”

Oh, and not just healthy but invincible relative to the COVID-19 circulating now in the U.S. and on an exponential increase.  In the current realm of social distancing - the only way we have now to slow this thing -  one would think these youngsters would get it. That is, that remaining sequestered is the optimal way to slow the spread as China and South Korea have shown. And yet we behold images of these youngsters frolicking en masse on the beaches!

Indeed, the NBC News spot last night informed us these were kids "on Spring break" which implies they arrived from assorted universities. But to hear and see some of the responses to Kerry Sanders (NBC reporter) one wondered if most even saw the inside of a high school, far less a college or university.  One kid, clearly half toked out on either MJ candies or opioids, burped out:

"If I get da corona I get da corona. I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying."

Out of the mouths of imps and idiots.  Another girl in the vicinity spouted:

"I'm worried for the older people but not for me."

But if she knew anything, she'd know that was an illogical, indeed nonsensical remark - given we know people (especially the young) can be asymptomatic and spread it to seniors.  Also, that her lot are not as invincible as they believe.

In the C.D.C. report, 20 percent of the hospitalized patients and 12 percent of the intensive care patients were between the ages of 20 and 44, basically spanning the millennial generation. The findings served to underscore an appeal issued Wednesday at a White House briefing by Dr. Deborah Birx, a physician and State Department official who is a leader of the administration’s coronavirus task force. Citing similar reports of young adults in Italy and in France being hospitalized and needing intensive care, Dr. Birx implored the millennial (and Z) generation to stop socializing in groups and to take care to protect themselves and others.  She said:





You have the potential then to spread it to someone who does have a condition that none of us knew about, and cause them to have a disastrous outcome,” 

According to Dr. Christopher Carlsten, head of respiratory medicine at the University of British Columbia:

"Younger people may feel more confident about their ability to withstand a virus like this, but if that many younger people are being hospitalized, that means that there are a lot of young people in the community that are walking around with the infection.”

More worrisome, experts said that even if younger people in the report were medical outliers, the fact that they were taking up hospital beds and space in intensive care units was significant.
And these more serious cases represent the leading edge of how the pandemic is rapidly unfolding in the United States, showing that adults of all ages are susceptible and should be concerned about protecting their own health, and not transmitting the virus to others.

The authors conclude, “these preliminary data also demonstrate that severe illness leading to hospitalization, including I.C.U. admission and death, can occur in adults of any age with Covid-19.

The $64 question now is: Can we count on the youthful generations to do their part in this ongoing battle? Or, will they become "conscientious objectors" - or worse, draft dodgers like Dotard?

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