Coronavirus

[eevee-fan]

 

[JRP3]

It’s funny that the people protesting/rioting in the streets are the same hypocrites who were going on and on about social distancing and shitting all over Elon for wanting to reopen Fremont.

It's funny that you completely made that up and thought anyone would take it seriously.

 

[MC3OZ]

https://twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1268914752585191425

(3/4): It's actually very simple. Alameda is testing more. A *lot* more. Despite the misleading label, this isn't a graph of total tests ever run; it's averages across 7d of daily tests (http://acphd.org/media/579059/covid-update-week-of-may-18.pdf…), & has tested 10s of thousands w/5-6% positive rate)

I'm tracking daily new cases in Alameda, 4th of May to 6th of June.. the trend is that there is no clear trend..

If it is right that more testing is being done, we should see a downward trend in daily new cases at some stage...

Should a clear trend emerge, I post the numbers, I would define a clear trend as 2 weeks of numbers trending in the same direction.. with the same level of testing...

 

[Norbert]

You clearly didn't read this piece very closely. Sorry you didn't like it but he actually makes a very careful distinction between case fatality rate and IFR. And since he is a physician he's talking about the clinical presentation of illness which is distinct from influenza something you would not know because you're not a clinician. You do not see kidney failure, pathological clotting, strokes, and the like in influenza (regrettably he did not go into details on these clinical issues). Not sure what turned you off but I thought you jumped the gun on this one.

Regarding the second part of your response: The clinical issues (which as you say he didn't go into) are in fact just a very small part of the article. I always understood the phrase "it's just like a flu" as a quantitative argument, based on relatively low estimates of death numbers that are supposedly comparable to the flu, while usually distorting the argument by ignoring mitigation vs vaccine. Sure it originally had to do with the virus type, but that never seemed to be the core of the argument. Nevertheless, I think it may help to point out the clinical differences. If that's what you want to do, go ahead. However most of this article is an escape from the quantitative discussion, which is at the center of the "it's just a flu" meme. You can summarize that discussion as "deadly enough" only in hindsight of having gone through it to some extent. At least that's how I see it.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Speaking of "just a flu", I grabbed this NYC deaths from all causes graph off the CDC site:

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

It’s funny that the people protesting/rioting in the streets are the same hypocrites who were going on and on about social distancing and shitting all over Elon for wanting to reopen Fremont.

Priorities.

I hope you are more concerned about this: No masks, inside, dark, smoking, talking, etc. They're screened, but sometimes the temperature monitors read 95 degrees. (And apparently only something like 30% of people who are symptomatic with coronavirus have a fever...)

https://twitter.com/ArashMarkazi/status/1269169419998990336?s=20

I guess these people are doubling down on coronavirus! A truly Cosmopolitan COVID Convention.

To be clear, I think reopening Fremont was fine - with appropriate, rigorous precautions, previously discussed (which I'm not sure are actually being taken, but we'll all find out in the next couple weeks). But broadcasting his displeasure to the world by Elon I don't think was the right approach (however, can't argue with the results). It's important to get back to essential tasks, with appropriate procedures and safeguards in place to minimize the risk of an outbreak.

Anyway, if you want to read a little discussion thread about the possibilities associated with these protests, and why it might be ok (it's a tradeoff!!!):

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1269395225228664832?s=20

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

Suddenly, Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance

 

[dfwatt]

I'm surprised that your only explanation is that I didn't read it carefully enough.

In other words, it is an article about CFR values being "fuzzy" and inconclusive, while talking its way around the existence of serious IFR studies.

You must be reading a different article than the one that I'm reading. He's not talking about it being fuzzy and inconclusive he's talking about it being contextual. And I can easily put 10 variables on the table that modulate both case fatality rate and infection fatality rate. The degree and penetration of those variables into any demographic may be what determines mortality rate. And in that sense, as he says, it is not a fixed number that has to be discovered in terms of "one true value," it's a dependent and ultimately derivative statistic. If you're skeptical about there being at least 10 variables that modulate fatality rate, I'd be happy to enumerate as many as I can. It's a long list. And this is just even the ones that we know. Safe to assume there are polymorphisms and other variables that are completely unmapped.

 

[Sanny]

Suddenly, Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance

Cruel times for everyone, especially celebrities and politicians and social media staff, deciding which hot topic to support violently at the moment with their big hearts.
As a personal anecdote - during women's march a couple of years ago, we had one top tier celebrity in our entertainment location, she was having super good time and was discussing where they will go for dinner after. At the exact same time her Twitter was on fire with social justice tweets and support women tweets going non stop.

 

[Norbert]

You must be reading a different article than the one that I'm reading. He's not talking about it being fuzzy and inconclusive he's talking about it being contextual. And I can easily put 10 variables on the table that modulate both case fatality rate and infection fatality rate. The degree and penetration of those variables into any demographic may be what determines mortality rate. And in that sense, as he says, it is not a fixed number that has to be discovered in terms of "one true value," it's a dependent and ultimately derivative statistic. If you're skeptical about there being at least 10 variables that modulate fatality rate, I'd be happy to enumerate as many as I can. It's a long list. And this is just even the ones that we know. Safe to assume there are polymorphisms and other variables that are completely unmapped.

A different article? Maybe the other way around. Here he is talking about "fuzzy". It sounds like a summary statement to me:

Both the numerator and the denominator needed to calculate a mortality rate remain fuzzy.

With "inconclusive", I mean that studies didn't create certainty about a specific value, or as I might add, even a value range as a function of age and comorbidities. He did show that those numbers are not conclusive evidence of a single "fixed" number. However most of his number examples might be explained by differences in testing levels, and by who gets tested. They are not (conclusive) evidence of what you call modulating variables.

Of course we do know that not just the CFR, but also the IFR depends on age distribution and comorbidities. That is why I emphasize IFR calculations from large studies with information about the sampled population, specifically New York City and Spain. But since all his numbers are CFRs, not IFRs, they cannot show that conclusively in the first place. Differences in CFRs could be explained by differences in testing, and perhaps with the exception of Iceland, the differences in the numbers he quotes are probably mostly just that.

So his claim that there is no fixed number (for which only an IFR would be a candidate) happens to be correct, but not because of the arguments he is making. Statistically, these differences may be much larger in small sample sizes, and more even on larger scales. Between national levels (or New York City with 10 million population), the differences in age distribution and comorbidities will be much smaller than between 500 or 1000 sized samples of single small locations. Nevertheless they won't be zero, since there are also differences in the national averages.

Other than age, he only mentions two such factors (hypertension and diabetes), in a single sentence. I think you could write a much better post of what you want this article to be.

 

[Norbert]

Update for New York City: COVID-19: Data Summary - NYC Health

The mortality of course doesn't change very much anymore, but it is now above 0.26% (deaths per population, not CFR or IFR):

Confirmed deaths: 17,146
Probable deaths: 4,698
(17146 + 4698) / 8336817 = 0.26 %

If you add 5,293 excess deaths (as per previous ref):
(17146 + 4698 + 5293) / 8336817 = 0.33 %

(There are also articles that said about 400,000 residents left NYC in the outbreak, but I won't make that calculation.)

Note that this isn't a statistical estimate depending on testing or infection level, but actual deaths per total population. So it reflects how large the outbreak was, and the mitigation. Of course it also matters if you think these deaths numbers are over counted or under counted.

Extrapolating these numbers to the US national level, to see what would the numbers be if the outbreak in the whole of the US would have reached the same level as in New York City:

330,880,530 * (17146 + 4698) / 8336817 = 866,968 deaths
330,880,530 * (17146 + 4698+ 5293) / 8336817 = 1,077,042 deaths

Assuming that without mitigation, reaching herd immunity would have required at the very least double the infection level of NYC, that would be 1.7 million and 2.1 million.

(8,336,817 is from wikipedia, 330,880,530 from worldometers.)

 

[Daniel in SD]

Some good news, they tested 45 of of the 140 clients of two hairdressers who were working while having COVID-19 (and symptomatic!) and all of them were negative.
Many Clients Of Great Clips Stylists With COVID-19 Test Negative For The Illness
I guess masks work or some people aren't very infectuous.
Hopefully the 95 clients who chose not to be tested just isolated for two weeks and didn't go around infecting their friends, families and coworkers...

 

[SVMike]

Suddenly, Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance

If we see a surge up in cases in the weeks following the protests (especially in the cities with the biggest protests) then these "experts and health officials" will be wrong to say it was OK (on a scientific basis).
And if we do not see a surge then they were wrong before in restricting so many outdoor activities (playing tennis is a good example, but also sitting at the beach mostly distanced like most protesters are).

 

[Norbert]

Some good news, they tested 45 of of the 140 clients of two hairdressers who were working while having COVID-19 (and symptomatic!) and all of them were negative.
Many Clients Of Great Clips Stylists With COVID-19 Test Negative For The Illness
I guess masks work or some people aren't very infectuous.
Hopefully the 95 clients who chose not to be tested just isolated for two weeks and didn't go around infecting their friends, families and coworkers...

I solved that problem with a novel haircut using what was previously my beard trimmer. : )

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

If we see a surge up in cases in the weeks following the protests (especially in the cities with the biggest protests) then these "experts and health officials" will be wrong to say it was OK (on a scientific basis).
And if we do not see a surge then they were wrong before in restricting so many outdoor activities (playing tennis is a good example, but also sitting at the beach mostly distanced like most protesters are).

Agreed. Except for the part where you said protesters are mostly distanced. They really aren’t. Funny how it’s not politically correct to call these people “Covidiots” like they call any other people who gather in groups. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s hypocrisy.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s hypocrisy.

View attachment 549051

What I hate is piss poor public policy.

The only reason we are having to make a choice here is that we did not eliminate the virus prior to June. Why, I do not know - it was eminently possible. Model the correct behavior, educate the public, make good decisions, ensure adequate PPE for all, massive testing capacity, etc.

People who attend the protests should assume they are infected, and act accordingly. And in 5 days or so, get tested.

I think people should march and protest - but they should also be prepared to obey strict social distancing even from their family, and wear a mask and implement extreme sanitation procedures for the following two weeks - and get tested. The same thing any at-risk medical worker would do.

However, if we actually think this is going to be a big problem, we should really be looking forward to the results of “opening up” (which are already apparent). Going to be fun. A much larger scale problem.

We are going to look back and wish we had tried to effectively eliminate the virus and community transmission, I suspect. Would have been nice to have been able to have sporting events this year. (And likely that will be the least of our problems - but hopefully the painfully slow march of test capacity will eventually scale enough to squash the epidemic - every day our positivity rate goes down provides more hope.)

 

[AZRI11]

Next week in the USA we will have 1k less deaths than prior week. Then 1k less again week after.
It will settle at 1.5 - 2k per week until October. If no vaccine we should see a jump up to 5 - 7k per week by Thanksgiving. PPE will be in need again, still in need now.

 

[Norbert]

In New York State, the CFR for the deaths added in the last 1-2 weeks appears below 1%. That's a first I notice something like that there, perhaps NYS has succeeded in keeping the virus away from high risk groups.

New York Coronavirus: 398,828 Cases and 30,442 Deaths (COVID-19 ) - Worldometer

 

[dhanson865]

So we opened up for phase 2, we now have the highest single day total, beating the old record on Apr 8 (almost two months ago).
View attachment 547222

So I previously looked at the spike right around transition from phase 1 reopening to phase 2 reopening. The unanswered question at that time was what did testing look like during the same period? Well a week later and we have testing numbers to go with it.

The bottom table shows the delay for test results being 3.x days. The top table shows the week of testing prior to the spike in new cases was a reduced period of tests.

So if I put that together right the spike of cases on June 2nd came from testing done around May 29th. When testing was down about 17% from the prior week new cases spiked a near record high.

also a reminder of how the cases graphed in that period : Week 10 on my graph is May 24 - May 30 when comparing to the graphs above.

 

[dhanson865]

some possible color on reduced testing here?

Denied a covid test in Knoxville? : Knoxville

My girlfriend (Latina) and I are (reasonably) clean-cut professionals in our 30s. We went to one of the Knoxville AFC covid testing sites on Saturday because she had covid symptoms. When we got there, the intake nurses tried to dissuade her from taking the test by (1) questioning whether she really had symptoms, (2) telling her that the test wouldn't be covered by her insurance (not true), (3) initially refusing to take her identification (a valid U.S. passport), and (4) not following any of the procedures on the intake form.

She persisted in asking for the test and they finally took a nasal swab, assuring me that she was going to be tested for covid.

We waited in the car. A nurse came out to give us the results. She said nothing about covid, only telling us that my girlfriend had flu symptoms but tested negative for the flu. She never asked for a flu test.

It was bizarre. We would have written it off as a miscommunication except we were at a place solely designed for doing covid tests and clearly requested a covid test.