Coronavirus

[Daniel in SD]

Unintended consequences are going to be our worst problem.

Let's say C19 costs everybody 1 day. That's 22 million years. Assuming you have 80 usable years, that 274,000 human lifetimes per day lost.

Some of these hot takes are mind blowing. I'm pretty sure letting it rip through the population would create a really bad year no matter what you do. Especially if you work in health care.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

It looks like today is the day. Worldometer is now posting 3400 US deaths. Thanks to all who put out their estimate. I think it is a good exercise to see how well aligned our perceptions are with the data.

I nearly bumped up my projection a couple of days ago. Fortunately the death count on Sunday was a bit low. But I was nearly persuaded it would be March 30 before that.

Now we have the question, When will the US hit 100 DPM, or 33,100 deaths?

My guess is April 14, but not high confidence, subjective error about +/- 4 days.

As formidable as your data analysis is, due to the many indeterminate variables, I'll throw my guess into the pot (Apr 26th) and hope for a elementary kids vs. stock pro's effect.



You can skip the below if you're not interested my thought process.

I started with the following data points (all taken from worldometers.info for US):
- number of deaths ending 3/28 GMT: 2220
- number of deaths ending 3/29 GMT: 2583
- number of deaths ending 3/30 GMT: 3141
- number of total cases ending 3/21 GMT - 9 days ago: 24,192
- number of total cases ending 3/22 GMT - 8 days ago: 33,592
- number of total cases ending 3/23 GMT - 7 days ago: 43,784
- number of total cases ending 3/24 GMT - 6 days ago: 54,856
- number of total cases ending 3/25 GMT - 5 days ago: 68,211

If you calculate the DR vs # infected from 5 days ago vs. 6 days ago vs 7 .... etc, you'll find death rates increasing, the further back you go. Which is expected. At this point death rates vary from 4.6-9.1%, but this detail isn't pertinent.

Also, the death rates for N days ago is decreasing with each passing day (most likely due to new cases growing faster than deaths). Also, kind of expected.

HOWEVER - and this is where the grade school logic comes in! Death totals are no longer exponentially growing, and this should be because the most populous states already having been shutdown for 2 weeks or more.

Also, I'm assuming that the outbreaks in the other states won't accelerate enough to overcome the data from NY, CA, and WA, which are increasing somewhat linearly now (~600+ per day combined). Applying a 5% cap to the death rate eliminates the viability of all the previous projections (because I'm an optimist). As long as the total infected cases "only" reach 718,000 cases by Apr 21st, then Apr 26th is my guess for when we'll exceed 33,100 deaths or 100 DPM.

Here's the table I produced to come to this conclusion:
TD = total deaths at that date
DR = death rate as calculated by # of deaths on that date / # of infected cases from N days ago.

 

[blckdmp]

Unintended consequences are going to be our worst problem.

Let's say C19 costs everybody 1 day. That's 22 million years. Assuming you have 80 usable years, that 274,000 human lifetimes per day lost.

or... 1 day per person.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Quarantining a few states or cities is waste of effort; the whole country need to be locked down.

Yes. Just dragging out the whole painful process. Unfortunately this part of the strategy has been clear since late February (with it being clear 6 weeks before, in mid-late January, that that the virus was circulating in the United States). But nothing was done. Oh well. We'll make that 6 trillion back in no time.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I've attached the csv file I used to create the graphs in Excel (with ".txt" appended to it for uploading).

Could you please say what your model predicts for GA so we can judge if you are credible in a couple weeks?

 

[Silicon Desert]

I'm wondering if we need a TeslaVirus thread? I'm infected with something that makes me want to constantly drive my car and pour money into it on useless glamourous accessories. Well maybe that is really an addiction of some sort

 

[MXLRplus]

Some of these hot takes are mind blowing. I'm pretty sure letting it rip through the population would create a really bad year no matter what you do. Especially if you work in health care.

I'm not saying to disband healthcare or to have a global Crisco party on the world's largest tarp.

I'm saying there should be balance in all things. Like the posts above, we might actually cripple the healthcare industry due to quarantine restrictions.

 

[Silicon Desert]

..... if a population goes 14 days without a new infection it's gone from that population....

Uh, no, don't think so. I'm not following that train of thought, but maybe I am just not understanding your comment

 

[SageBrush]

This article from March 3 confirms that:

Pentagon chief warned overseas commanders not to surprise White House on coronavirus measures: report

Defense Secretary Mark Esper asked overseas military commanders to not to make any coronavirus-related decisions that could surprise the White House or contradict President Trump’s statements on the illness, The New York Times reported.

Esper gave the directive last week during a video teleconference call with U.S. combatant commanders based overseas, telling the military leaders that they should check back with the Pentagon before making any moves to help shield U.S. forces from COVID-19, defense officials told The Times.

And then later in the month, after cases mushroomed and it became a sh**-show, there apparently was a shift (this is from the previously cited Navy Times piece):

Many of the concerns raised by service members seem to spring from the military’s delegation of authority to lower echelons to make decisions for their units, an order that comes directly from the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who told reporters on March 24 that commanders and senior enlisted would have say over what measures get put in place.

This series of decisions negatively impacts force readiness and endangers lives. But it's reasonable to assume no one will be held accountable. (I hope I'm wrong about that.)

This is the trump MO

1. Do NOT embarrass or contradict me
2. Take the Blame !

 

[SageBrush]

Uh, no, don't think so. I'm not following that train of thought, but maybe I am just not understanding your comment

Never say zero but @nwdiver is pretty much correct. The idea is the incubation time * 2

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I found this interesting...sometimes (10% of the time) the serial interval is *negative*. That is to say, the person who is infected by someone else shows symptoms before the person who infected them, about 10% of the time!

Source: this thread on how to avoid a second wave, presumably relevant to this discussion: Santa Fe Institute on Twitter

 

[Cosmacelf]

Yeah, it's bonkers. And yet some people still don't get the seriousness of things. When I told a client today that I would not travel to setup core routers for their new datacenter, they asked "what if we send a private plane?". Honestly, I did an eyebrow raise and a facepalm at the same time.

Can't you remotely direct someone (via facetime or whatever), and then once the hardware's in place, configure remotely? Or is that what you proposed?

 

[LN1_Casey]

I found the quote from the military in early March regarding the military risk. Who could have predicted this?

"Lots of immunizations." The "good immune system" theory of disease.

Exclusive: Captain of aircraft carrier with growing coronavirus outbreak pleads for help from Navy

And here's the text from the Captain of the Theodore Roosevelt, Brett Crozier, of Santa Rosa:

This captain seems to know what has to be done.

"Sailors do not need to die."

US Navy ships are very much plague vessels. We have underway what the sailors call "The Double Dragon" for, uh, reasons. It usually makes its way through the ship in certain departments (who are all berthed together, for the most part), at least once a deployment.

However, this being said, I think the USS Roosevelt will actually serve as a good base point for this virus. The vast, vast majority of service members aboard are between 18-30 age range. There is probably only handful over the age of 50. Further, Sailors are also screened for health prior to being assigned a ship, and are from a pool of generally healthy people to begin with, since people with severe preexisting conditions are not allowed to join up.

I understand the CO's concern. If everyone is kept aboard, everyone on the crew will get it. Out of 4k people, even with much lower age group and higher heath range, it's statistically possible to have someone with a severe reaction, and the ship is not equipped to handle cases that would need incubation for a prolonged period of time, if at all. I don't think Guam would have a lot of services, either, since the island is so small and it has it's own population to deal with. The CO knows he will be sacrificing his crew to 'meet the mission' if sent to deploy from the island. Underway operations means much harsher conditions to exist--less sleep, more stress, people everywhere--and thus more likelihood of people catching it, and having a weakened immune system for it.

Regardless, we can learn from this situation and see how the ship survives. They hit port 12 days prior to the first confirmed case (if they didn't get it from an underway replenishment, which is possible), so the virus had a few days to incubate and spread. I'm surprised only 3 sailors popped, actually. I'm curious if the ship even has the amount of tests required to check the entire crew, or if it ever will. That'd be the only way to isolate those who do and do not have it.

 

[wdolson]

apologies for crossposting (UV thread gotten a bit stale), anyone know about application of Pulsed UV Machines typically used to sanitize entire rooms to sterilize PPE? wavelength is similar (200-400nm) but need to understand duration not to deteriorate mask materials.

mods please move/delete as necessary.

The effectiveness of UV depends on a lot of factors. UV does kill a lot of pathogens, which is why it is used in some water purification plants and some other sterilization procedures. But the light can only kill what it can reach. Only pathogens on the surface of objects opaque to UV light and exposed to the light directly will be killed. A pathogen hiding deep in the material or hidden in a shadowed area will survive.

Different things become opaque or transparent to different wavelengths. Though UV is close enough to visible light that most things transparent to visible light are transparent to UV (and infrared), but treated glass in some cars for example is specifically treated to be transparent to visible light, but not to infrared and UV.

I don't know of any material specifically that is transparent in the UV spectrum but not visible, but there might be. In any case for something that was transparent in the UV, the pathogen couldn't hide as easily because the UV will penetrate into the material.

I found the quote from the military in early March regarding the military risk. Who could have predicted this?

"Lots of immunizations." The "good immune system" theory of disease.



Exclusive: Captain of aircraft carrier with growing coronavirus outbreak pleads for help from Navy

And here's the text from the Captain of the Theodore Roosevelt, Brett Crozier, of Santa Rosa:

This captain seems to know what has to be done.

"Sailors do not need to die."

My SO came across some articles last weekend that indicated at least some of the people who are having serious reactions to COVID-19 might be experiencing a cytokine storm
Cytokine release syndrome - Wikipedia

An article from the Lancet
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30628-0/fulltext

Basically the immune system goes bonkers trying to fight the virus and ends up attacking the body. We don't know how sick the sailors on the Roosevelt are. They might be mostly mild cases. But if some military people are having serious cases of COVID-19, it might be due to cytokine storms made worse by all the vaccines the person got in the military.

Not provable with what we know, but it might be what's going on.

 

[Cosmacelf]

It is interesting to see how certain hot spot areas are just overwhelming the hospital system while in other areas Covid is bankrupting them.

Reporting from Central FL.

Our organization is losing 2 million dollars/day due to much lower ED visits, primary care visits and low census. We lost 3 million dollars worth of cashflow per day. Attributing this to social distancing and local theme parks closed. We are having lower than expected Covid patients vs our projections. We are in talks of reducing staff hours from all over the hospital. Nurses are already flexed down.

Yes indeed. I will not be surprised one iota if at the end of the year, we end up with less deaths overall than a normal year due to the reduced economic activity. I will also not be surprised if the press never reports on things like your hospital having to lay off people since it doesn't fit the narrative.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I'm not saying to disband healthcare or to have a global Crisco party on the world's largest tarp.

I'm saying their should balance in all things. Like the posts above, we might actually cripple the healthcare industry due to quarantine restrictions.

I'm sorry but the takes keep getting hotter.
"What if the COVID-19 response reduces health care demand?" is a scorcher. Let's revisit the Florida hospital situation in a couple weeks.

 

[bkp_duke]

Can't you remotely direct someone (via facetime or whatever), and then once the hardware's in place, configure remotely? Or is that what you proposed?

I proposed that, lol. They don't want to go that route.

I would feel guilty about the carbon footprint, but I could social distance in a private jet. I've never been on one, but I hear you don't go through standard airport lines, etc.

 

[bkp_duke]

An article from the Lancet
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30628-0/fulltext

Basically the immune system goes bonkers trying to fight the virus and ends up attacking the body. We don't know how sick the sailors on the Roosevelt are. They might be mostly mild cases. But if some military people are having serious cases of COVID-19, it might be due to cytokine storms made worse by all the vaccines the person got in the military.

Not provable with what we know, but it might be what's going on.

Basically happens with any infection that causes ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome). It's not unique to COVID-19.

Attenuating the immune system is not for the faint of heart, it usually causes more problems than benefits.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I'm surprised only 3 sailors popped, actually. I'm curious if the ship even has the amount of tests required to check the entire crew, or if it ever will. That'd be the only way to isolate those who do and do not have it.

I assume that was a typo. 33 sailors.

I'd expect about 5-15 sailors to die if they let it rip through the ship.

 

[byeLT4]

My county has @95k people. Estimated off 2016/17 numbers of 92k. We have gone from:

Tuesday March 24th +3 new, 3 total
Friday +1, 4 total (didn't hear about this one until Monday morning)
Weekend (Monday morning) +2, 6 total
By Monday afternoon +3, 9 total
And today we picked up 7 more, they 'reclassified' one to a neighboring county so our official count is 15.

When the first three popped up it was everywhere. Talk at work (essential..), social media, etc. Heard a little about yesterdays due to one of the cases working with the school district. Today, not so much.