Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson no longer in hospital

Submitted by JDeanAuthor on March 19th, 2020 at 5:40 PM

LINK

Keep in mind that Hanks is in his 60s and is a type 2 diabetic, conditions which work against him in this case.  And yet, he's doing much better.

Just a polite reminder that CO-VID19 is not an automatic death sentence.  I wish people would remember that.

Again: if you're going to be honest about the news on this, make sure you read ALL SIDES of it.

Teeba

March 19th, 2020 at 6:21 PM ^

I saw some data today where they plotted cases and deaths on log scale. The trend is a straight upward line over three decades. In other words, 1, 10, 100, 1000 deaths and the exponential model is still holding. At some point, the graph has to level off - there’s only so many people in the world - but to someone who deals with exponentials on a daily basis, the graphs were chilling. If anything, they were showing signs of accelerating. What’s worse than exponential growth? Hell if I know.

evenyoubrutus

March 19th, 2020 at 6:49 PM ^

What these graphs don't take into account are undocumented cases. They can guess, but scientific "guesses" have been wrong more often than not in the past. A huge number of infected people never go to the doctor or their doctor doesn't test for it because they go and, well, it presents clinically as a bad cold. Maybe they test for influenza (which comes back negative) or they simply send them home and tell them to call back if their fever doesn't resolve after 72 hours.

Omally

March 19th, 2020 at 10:46 PM ^

This literally happened with my new born.  I had a co-worker fly domestically and literally everyone started getting sick days after in my family and at work.  The baby started running a fever and they had us bring him in for influenza testing.  (Which he tested positive for Influenza A)  But at the time they told us to take him home and don't bring him in to a hospital unless his temp.  hits 104*.  Which is crazy to me.  I soon became sick the next day.  Lasted all of 24 hours.  But I never thought I would be happy to have the flu.  The crazy thing to me is my employer still wants me to come to work tomorrow.  Literally does not care.  Which I work with my boss' mom who has Leukemia.  I would honestly quit if it wasn't my best friend.

JFW

March 20th, 2020 at 2:03 PM ^

If you're negging an honest observation that legitimately can clarify the data you're being a schmuck. I'm not saying this isn't serious, doesn't exist, and we shouldn't be constantly updating our information. But bad data and bad interpretations make for bad policy, which makes things worse, not better. 

JFW

March 20th, 2020 at 12:13 PM ^

My sister's family just got off the unemployment train, after more than a year on it. She has a child at home who is healthy but has some mental special needs. 

Losing the job they just got could mean losing their home. Period. 

I'm exhausted by the fear mongering and the rapid dissemination of early results as solid fact. We have to deal with facts, and *proper interpretation of those facts*. And yes, we do have to factor in the economy in our plans; because massive recessions kill people too. 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/covid-19-what-a-mayo-clinic-expert-says-you-need-to-know-about-the-coronavirus/

Let's stop reading Slate and Fox for updates. 

Special Agent Utah

March 19th, 2020 at 5:56 PM ^

Look I understand your efforts to say it isn’t so bad, I really do. But let me ask you a question.

Do you really think the NBA, NHL, NCAA and MLB all just turned on the news, saw a few stories on CO-VID19, and said “Gosh, this looks kind of worrisome. We’d better suspend/cancel the season and lose hundreds of millions, if not billions, in revenue.”

We’re talking about leagues that have played, almost uninterrupted ,through wars, natural disasters, economic hardship, disease outbreaks, and anything else you can think of. 

There is zero chance that Adam Silver, Gary Bettman, Rob Manfred, and Mark Emmert didn’t consult with a boatload of the top medical professionals in the entire world for their expertise how bad this could get and advice on what action to take. 

If what those men heard was alarming enough for them to take the unheard of step to immediately suspend everything and either end the season, or put it in serious doubt, all while losing a huge amount of money. Then that’s good enough for me to believe this whole thing is going to be pretty damn bad. 

JDeanAuthor

March 19th, 2020 at 6:03 PM ^

Who said this was a harmless virus to everybody?  I certainly did not. 

In fact, I've said before that I know numerous people who WOULD be at a serious risk due to age and/or medical history.  And it's for their sakes more than mine that I take the necessary precautions.  

BUT... the truth remains that a vast majority of people who have caught this have recovered from it as well.  And the truth also remains that, for a vast majority of people, the symptoms are mild (94% of current cases).

It's one thing to exercise caution for the sake of the vulnerable; I have no issue with that. It's another thing (and a dishonest and unhelpful one) to scream that we're all gonna die like some people I've seen are doing.

Gameboy

March 19th, 2020 at 6:12 PM ^

Just do the math.

There are 327 million people in US.

About 60% of them are expected to get infected = 196 million

6% of the infected will be serious enough to require hospitalization = 12 million

Total number of hospital beds in US = 931 thousand

Even if the infection happens over three months, 3 out of 4 people who needs to be hospitalized will not be able to get the help they need (and that is just for COVID, not counting every other "normal" diseases like cancer) and the death rate will boost way above 1%. Everyone who is over 70 years old and need hospitalization for ANY REASON will be told to go home and wait to die.

Yes, it is mild for most of us. That still does not mean that it is not a disaster.

ijohnb

March 19th, 2020 at 6:55 PM ^

We are not a similar culture to China.  They don’t share the same freedoms Americans have for hundreds of years. We do have to make sacrifices, very significant ones, but the emotional beat down that people are experiencing right now is going to be too much the handle.  The changes have to be commiserate with the threat.  You cannot literally turnoff a culture like this.  There needs to be opportunities for civil gatherings.  Libraries need to function with limited hours and occupancy limits.  Places of worship need to be available.  Too much has been taken away too fast.  People are not going to accept having their entire lives essentially stripped of meaning because they could infect somebody else even if the virus is not a particular threat to them.  Neighbors are already behaving suspicious of each other.  People are going to start killing themselves man, and other people.  The virus is a threat.  What is transpiring in our culture right now will be even more fatal.

ScooterTooter

March 19th, 2020 at 11:35 PM ^

They were all interacting with one another for 11 days in a close environment and it reached 20%

We are saying 60 to 81% based on nothing in an environment nowhere close to that level of proximity with a younger demographic. When our worst pandemic reached 30%. When we have zero idea of what the actual CFR is.

But please, go on about how shutting down the world makes sense because of a model.

Special Agent Utah

March 19th, 2020 at 6:14 PM ^

Then why have these leagues, and countless other organizations, taken these extraordinary steps as opposed to past outbreaks?

Again do you really think they just gave into mass fear mongering and said “Let’s lose billions just to be on the safe side”?

Or do you think, with all their resources available to them, they got some pretty damn solid expert information that told them “Yep, this thing is bad and could be extremely terrible if appropriate actions aren’t taken immediately”?

These men did not get to the positions they have by being a bunch of panicky idiots who make rash decisions. 

ijohnb

March 19th, 2020 at 6:40 PM ^

The thing is, they were supposedly taking the steps to prevent it from being the worse case scenario, but from what I understand or from most of the information I am hearing, it’s going to be that anyway.  Are we just proceeding with the assumption that all of these measures are simply not going to work?

ScooterTooter

March 19th, 2020 at 9:33 PM ^

Because when panic and hysteria take hold you make rash decisions that don't necessarily make sense. 

For instance, according to the experts behind the paper everyone is losing their minds over, cancelling large gatherings would have little effect on slowing the spread of the virus. So if we're going to take their warnings seriously, why not follow all their advice? 

According to these guys, 2 million Americans will die in 6 months, 81% of the population will be infected and at the peak, 69000 people per day will be dying from the disease if we do nothing. But...

"Stopping mass gatherings is predicted to have relatively little impact (results not shown) because the contact-time at such events is relatively small compared to the time spent at home, in schools or workplaces and in other community locations such as bars and restaurants." p8 below. 

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

So we are in the middle of the super Spanish Flu, but actually mass gatherings are fine. 

heyyoujesson

March 20th, 2020 at 5:36 AM ^

The only one doing that is you and you're trolling on purpose at this point. Just two things said by you above "life is being stripped of all meaning" and "people are gonna start killing themselves" get an actual grip on yourself. Find an activity that doesn't consist of hysterical trolling and then claiming everyone else is out of control with panic. 

WindyCityBlue

March 19th, 2020 at 6:19 PM ^

It’s part liability and part PR why those leagues did it. 
 

The NBA was faced with a dilemma when a couple of their players tested positive.  With the info at the time, they wanted to avoid the liability (ie. getting sued, etc) or PR hit if there was even 1 death (or hospitalization) of a fan that may or may have not got infected at a game.  The other leagues had to follow suit. Imagine if say, the NCAA, decided to still have the tourney and someone dies/gets seriously sick from the coronavirus? Overall, it was probably a prudent financial decision for all leagues.