WW3 Europe front. UPDATE page 532 -February 2024, the decisive month

DR what do you think?

When looking at the main Covid thread, and see how many people STILL focusing on the death rate of the virus, it only reinforces my prediction that this virus, with a tremendous help of human stupidity, is going to K.O. the society by the end of this year.


Politicians also have the same wrong approach, looking at the death rate of the virus itself, unable to project the impact of what the number of OVERALL deaths if the hospitals are full.



Long time ago, in the first weeks of this thread, I said multiple times that what we need the virus to mutate into a more deadly and less contagious strain, and the worst case scenario would be a less deadly but more contagious strain, if we want to avoid a nightmare.


The new strain is more contagious and less deadly, and I predicted that by the end of July-beginning of August, this new strain will be the dominant one.


This is the nightmare that we wanted to avoid, but apparently, someone or something thinks otherwise.



Many here on this thread understand perfectly what I mean when I say that the virus, if more contagious and less deadly, will actually cause up to 10 times more deaths then if the virus is more deadly, but less contagious.


For those who still don't understand, I will use my city as an example, because it is among the highest rated hospitals in Romania, with a bed capacity that is similar to Germany, which is the EU country with most hospital beds per 1,000 people.



My city hospital have a 1,300 bed capacity, and serves almost 160,000 people, which means it have a 8.2 beds per 1,000 people.


At any given time, the hospital is roughly 60-70% full, which means that around 800 beds are always occupied, with 500 beds unoccupied.


The Chinese virus strikes my city.


Let's see what will happen, using 2 scenarios : a highly contagious and less deadly vs a less contagious and more deadly virus.


I am going to assume that the hospital will not be moving patients to other hospitals, and all patients, covid or not, will be served by the hospital.


I will use a 2% death rate and a 10% hospitalization rate, which is what was in the first wave, a 2 week hospitalization period as a median value, like in the first wave, and a linear (to keep it simple) infection rate of 0.1% / day.


So, we got 160 cases / day, with 16 of them hospitalized, for 2 weeks.

The 500 extra beds can handle 35 patients / day, for 2 weeks.

After 14 days, 224 beds will be occupied by Covid patients.


Now, if he infection rate is linear, the hospital can easily deal with the input of patients. But the infection rate is not linear, and it was proven that if lock-downs are not implemented, it doubles every 5 days, or every 10 days, in the best case scenario.

In 10 days, the infection rate goes to 0.2%, which means 320 cases / day , with 32 being hospitalized.

Also, after the first 10 days, 160 Covid patients are already hospitalized, and in the next 4 days, 128 more patients will be hospitalized.


After 14 days, 288 beds will be occupied with Covid patients.

Of those 288 patients, 2% will die, which is 5-6 people.


What will happen in the next 2 weeks : in 10 days, 320 beds will be occupied by Covid patients, the infection rate doubles to 0.4% (640 new cases, with 64 hospitalized), and for the next 4 days, an additional 256 patients will need hospitalization.


Now we have a big problem : we have 500 beds and we need to hospitalize 585 patients.

Of those 500 hospitalized, 2% will die, which is 10 people...but how many of the 85 that need hospitalization, but can't have it, will die?

Whatever the answer, those will be extra deaths from the virus AND lack of healthcare, but for the sake of argument, 2% will die from the virus and 10% because they don't have access to medical care.

That would be another 10 people, for a total of 20 deaths.

And this is after A SINGLE MONTH, with an infection rate of 0.1% that doubles every 10 days, which is pretty much what happened AFTER 3 weeks of lock-downs.



The new strain is believed to be 3 to 6 times more contagious, and I was personally expecting the second wave to be 3 to 5 times bigger then the first.


In the case of my city, a second wave that reaches 0.3% infection rate after a couple weeks, so 480 cases / day, of which 48 need hospitalization, in 10 days we will ran out of hospital beds.


The death rate drops 3 times, from 2% to 0.6%.


In 1 month, we would face 14,400 cases, of which 1,440 need hospitalization, but only 1,000 will have access to healthcare.

0.6% of those 1,000 hospitalized will die directly from the virus, which is 6 people...but how many of the 440 that need hospitalization, but can't have it, will die?


Again, for the sake of argument, 0.6% of them will die from the virus and 10% because of lack of medical care.

And that is another 46 people, for a total of 52 dead.



As you can see, if the virus is 3 times more contagious and 3 times less deadly, with a constant hospitalization rate, in the first case (less contagious, more deadly) we will end up with 20 dead, and in the second case (more contagious, less deadly) we will end up with 52 dead.


We can play with the death rate all day long, the matter of the fact is that the death rate from the virus itself is IRRELEVANT for the big picture.



In the case of this virus, the Chinese virus, the MORE DEADLY the virus is, the LESS DEAD people we will have, and the MORE CONTAGIOUS the virus is, the MORE DEAD people we will have.



A second round of nation-wide lock-downs is unavoidable, and I see it in the U.S. no late then mid-August, and for Europe, no late then mid-September.


Even if the infection rate is like 1% (which is HUGE, but VERY POSSIBLE, if no lock-downs in this second wave), and the death rate from the virus to be ZERO (no one dies from the virus as long as it have access to medical care) it would take 160 DAYS for my city to be infected, but in those 160 days, the number of dead would be massive, well over 10,000 dead.


The writing on the wall is crystal-clear to me : the second round of nation-wide lock-downs is inevitable, and it will be before September in the U.S., and before October in Europe.

And even those dates are highly optimistic.


I think we can all agree what will this mean for the economy and the future of our civilization.


I am not arguing for or against lock-downs.


I am simply presenting a number-based, highly probable scenarios, where lock-downs prevent a massive amount of deaths, but destroy the economy, or where we have a massive amount of deaths, and the economy is still destroyed, albeit not as much.


The dreamers may think that localized lock-downs might be the middle path, saving lives and the economy, as much as possible...the problem is that the new strain is so highly contagious, while STILL presenting a 2 week+ incubation period, the localized lock-downs will come in TOO LATE, and we will virtually need to lock-down so many cities and areas, that we might actually end up WORSE then a nation-wide lock-down.

Thanks DR
I always read your reports and analysis like I used to do, in the early stages of the pandemic, with the articles of the so-called "experts" on mainstream media...

Well, I must say that you are way more accurate, clear and straightforward than any other than those "experts".

So, again, thanks!

Unfortunately I report bad news from Italy (that confirm your predictions/calculations).

We are now probably facing a 2nd phase/wave of the pandemic.

Lombardy is still an epicenter but more clusters [we call them "hotbeds" ("focolai" in italian)] are found everyday in different regions and cities of Italy (Mondragone - Campania region / Rome / Vicenza - Veneto region / etc). Cities that are very distant from each other.

New positive cases (nationally) tend to swing between +190 / +250 every single day.
The R0 index, too, raised again over 1 in the affected regions.


Mortality rate decreased and (as you told us) the virus became more contagious.
Multiple studies confirm that there are at least two different strains circulating in Italy: one is dominant and is more contagious.
(Another study also found that the virus was circulating in Lombardy already in the first two weeks of January).


As for the Government reaction, well... I don't expect any more lockdowns...
President of Campania region tried to lockdown a building in Mondragone city (new small epicenter), previously occupied by homeless people, illegal immigrants, and so on... And clashes with police forces occured...

I guess government will not be able to enforce more lockdowns if we will face a third wave...


However, DR, please continue to update us with your reports.
This thread is a light in the dark.
Although I think the situation is bad and can get worse, you give us the opportunity to be prepared.