Coronavirus death rate falling in hospitals | Hacker News Reader

Coronavirus death rate falling in hospitals

bbc.com

18 pointsmrfusion12 comments

Might be worth adding 'in England' to the title, as BBC does a lot of world reporting and the headline might be mistaken for a general rather than a local trend.

Death rates are falling all over the globe. Italy and the United States have reported similar. Italian doctors claim the virus is weaker, Americans are claiming it is due to younger patients.

I imagine it's likely that the most vulnerable parts of the population that were easily accessible (easily accessible isn't even saying much, since let's face it - it seems not many countries have been able to prevent the virus from reaching nursing homes) by the virus have died.

That is a main reason in my mind. The virus burned through the easy to infect really quickly. There is also something to be said for the evolutionary benefits of being less deadly, as a virus.

I'm interested in the excess mortality that ends up accumulating at the end of the year, would be interesting to see if a large chunk of the pandemic ended up being like the reaper coming a few months early for the most elderly and vulnerable.

The article didn't raise the possibility of the virus attenuating (as Italian doctors suggest). Is there any evidence of this?

Here is a link from Reuters. It has been reported elsewhere, but Reuters seems to have less editorializing. A lot of the other sources continue to say "this is 100% correct" or "this is absolute poppycock and should be censored".. Such is the state of debate in our age.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-...

Sure, but this story was specifically about England.

Reading the posts from NYC doctors at the peak. I think automatic intubation based solely on pulse ox has stopped. They found patients indicating pulse ox in the 60’s who were not in distress. Where as before they would go straight to ventilator based on that reading.

Also the studies about Vitamin D. Doesn’t hurt to increase the intake, especially for those chronically low. Many of those folks are in high risk groups.

Less concern about surfaces and more focus on avoiding stale air.

So many learnings came from the field.

This is a good article in that it acknowledges the several possible causes of a lower daily death rate; patient demographics, standard of care, mutation of the virus to a more moderate form, or something else entirely.

At this point there’s a definite effect but the cause(s) are only speculative.

I'm sure policy changes are also helping, for example no longer forcing COVID-19 patients into nursing homes.

My guess is better management of cytokine explosion with steroids to prevent viral pneumonia.

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