Coronavirus

[AlanSubie4Life]

He's probably right about inflection.

There's barely a ripple in the log-normal chart from 3/04-3/24:

I don't see an inflection here. But anyway, he was not including NY in his conclusion (and he might still be wrong even with that caveat).

Again, I feel like China really had no big problem either, if you don't include Hubei province.

But yeah, we're kinda hosed. I hope that testing continues to ramp up to keep getting carriers out of the population.

There's a decent chance we'll just be doing nationwide triage in the ICU at some point soon. Perhaps this was the master plan all along. Anyway, I want no part of that, so I really want California to quarantine people coming from other states ASAP.

 

[BerkshireEV]

I will admit to one thing...when I got stressed out about all of this both yesterday and today...I got in my new model 3 and just went for a drive. Meditative.....

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

At least someone is making money.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...-latest-news/#link-IBVCARLBKJB5NP4ZD3OO46CAOE

(7:06PM update)

I wonder whether he is right about equity markets being stabilized, though. Seems a bit premature to me. But maybe that sharp recovery that is predicted limits the depth of the dip?

 

[deonb]

What we for some reason refuse to acknowledge is the massive percentage of infections that are symptom free. There are not 9,170 total cumulative infections in South Korea, that's almost physically impossible with a virus that spreads like this one.

The only way for CFR and IFR to significantly diverge from each other is for there to be a lockdown. Which South Korea doesn't have.

 

[Doggydogworld]

EDIT: One thing that is interesting in the worldometer data is that Germany claims to only have 23 critical cases. I kind of don't believe that data,...

There are still 59 cases in critical condition. Even though they've only been adding ~75 cases per day for a while. So many of those 59 cases are long-term critical, since we know the conversion % to critical, and the approximate illness duration.

Germany 23 and Korea 59 are both stale numbers. Korea's hasn't changed for two weeks. Worldometers should eliminate that entire column.

Are you going to trust the German data then?

Sure, he'll trust their numbers. After he mangles them to produce his desired CFR. Just like South Korea.

 

[BerkshireEV]

The only way for CFR and IFR to significantly diverge from each other is for there to be a lockdown. Which South Korea doesn't have.

But South Korea aggressively tested early, quarantined positives and tracked exposures to the positives. There are sections of the USA where we could still do this but most major population centers have no choice but to lockdown, like Italy. And finally, Italy's numbers are starting to turn down a bit.

 

[EVNow]

Expanding lockdowns will help testing catch up even faster. If the "true" case count is 200k today, current lockdowns may keep new cases at 10k/day (two week doubling rate). We found ~11k yesterday and 11k today. I am not saying 11k is the peak, with ~130k undetected cases we can find more than 10k/day for weeks. But I do believe we're past the point where a 34% increase in testing will produce a 34% increase in cases.

Its 5 to 6 day doubling rate. But that applies only to local breakouts - not to a disjointed nation with different breakouts and starting points.

I think it is not even very useful to talk about peak at national level - but local peaks. Ofcourse, there may be multiple peaks locally if lockdowns and relaxations happen in cycles locally.

ps : Interestingly WA has 6 day doubling of fatalities, starting on 11th.

The COVID Tracking Project

 

[Daniel in SD]

At least someone is making money.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...-latest-news/#link-IBVCARLBKJB5NP4ZD3OO46CAOE

(7:06PM update)

I wonder whether he is right about equity markets being stabilized, though. Seems a bit premature to me. But maybe that sharp recovery that is predicted limits the depth of the dip?

$2.6 billion from $27 million??? Wow. Note that it only offset the losses (they're up 0.8% YTD).

On March 23rd, we completed the exit of our hedges generating proceeds of $2.6 billion for the Pershing Square funds ($2.1 billion for PSH), compared with premiums paid and commissions totaling $27 million, which offset the mark-to-market losses in our equity portfolio. Our hedges were in the form of purchases of credit protection on various global investment grade and high yield credit indices. Because we were able to purchase these instruments at near-all-time tight levels of credit spreads, the risk of loss from this investment was minimal at the time of purchase.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

It'll definitely be different in California and Washington. There's no reason to think we'll ever see that high a positive rate here. NY City is a giant sh**show since the virus was allowed to breed undetected (there were probably quite a few deaths that were due to COVID-19 that were not detected in the early going) for weeks, with multiple starts from international travelers. Haven't seen any phylogenetic analysis of the early cases there, but probably they were introduced prior to the travel ban, in January. With additional introductions from Europe later.

It also suffers from high density and public transport. There's just a lot of a very contagious virus wandering around.

It's going to be a disaster of epic proportions in NY. I hope I am wrong. I expect a minimum of 10k deaths in NY, and I would not be surprised at 20-30k.



Yup. A big part of that is due to increased testing. It's just showing cases we have had but didn't know we had. We're around 200k cases in the nation right now, most likely (a lot will never be identified of course - though they will spread to others).

Over 1000 deaths in the US now, as expected.

I still can't get over the fact that the New York Times was, less than 3 weeks ago, busy gloating with smug headlines about Seattle being the "Coronavirus Capital of America" (actual wording of the actual headline). As long as it was over on the West Coast, it was fine and the Great New York City could look down on them as they fought at the front lines of the epidemic just beginning to enter the US.

I've come to hate the New York Times over the years for various offenses, such as cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq and constantly trying to bury and destroy Bernie Sanders, but this was absolutely galling to me seeing the way they handled reporting of the early days of this crisis in the US. I have absolutely no respect for the New York Times, today or in the future. None of the other American media outlets such as the Washington Post were out there openly disparaging an entire other region of the country the way the New York Times did. This insult will be something the people of Seattle will remember for years to come.

 

[BerkshireEV]

Its 5 to 6 day doubling rate. But that applies only to local breakouts - not to a disjointed nation with different breakouts and starting points.

I think it is not even very useful to talk about peak at national level - but local peaks. Ofcourse, there may be multiple peaks locally if lockdowns and relaxations happen in cycles locally.

We are doubling faster than 5-6 right now////

 

[EVNow]

We are doubling faster than 5-6 right now////
View attachment 525819

Yes - that's what my post says - at country level in US, it doesn't mean much. Esp, when considering the testing bottleneck.

The estimate is that the # of infections double 5 to 6 days in an outbreak. Its a function of R0, incubation period etc.

Look at Trevor Bedford's tweets. I've linked them here too - you can search my posts.

ps : IDS is using 6.2 days.

https://institutefordiseasemodeling...ng and Snohomish counties through April 7.pdf

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Why America Is Uniquely Unsuited to Dealing With the Coronavirus

This is a pretty interesting read. Basically we were unready for this epidemic because of American Exceptionalism.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I don't see an inflection here. But anyway, he was not including NY in his conclusion (and he might still be wrong even with that caveat).

The chart I posted only went through yesterday. I was wrong about 20% today, though. They slipped in another 2k from NY at the last minute. It's not the official state number, but a county roll-up. I don't know if they do that every night or not.

Excluding NY actually hurts Elon's case.

Its 5 to 6 day doubling rate.

Not with lockdowns. At least we better hope not.

ps : Interestingly WA has 6 day doubling of fatalities, starting on 11th.
The COVID Tracking Project

It slowed a little today. Deaths in many states are doubling much faster. I think hospitals tend to miss COVID deaths until the local epidemic becomes obvious.

I agree a national peak is not as relevant as local peaks. Except for NY, though, the media will focus on national numbers.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I still can't get over the fact that the New York Times was, less than 3 weeks ago, busy gloating with smug headlines about Seattle being the "Coronavirus Capital of America" (actual wording of the actual headline). As long as it was over on the West Coast, it was fine and the Great New York City could look down on them as they fought at the front lines of the epidemic just beginning to enter the US.

I've come to hate the New York Times over the years for various offenses, such as cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq and constantly trying to bury and destroy Bernie Sanders, but this was absolutely galling to me seeing the way they handled reporting of the early days of this crisis in the US. I have absolutely no respect for the New York Times, today or in the future. None of the other American media outlets such as the Washington Post were out there openly disparaging an entire other region of the country the way the New York Times did. This insult will be something the people of Seattle will remember for years to come.

That's not the actual headline. Please post a link to the article you're referencing so we can judge for ourselves.

EDIT: Sorry I did a search for that in quotes and it didn't come up.

 

[wdolson]

Oops, thanks. I was rushing through and for some reason thought his "t" was the constant. Time standing still, ha.

The WA site hasn't updated yet, I think the 118 comes from adding the three biggest counties - King, Snohomish and Pierce. The others are only 20-25% of the total, and Snohomish showed a big drop in new cases (if I'm reading it right). King also went down some. The 118 will probably rise, but unless I'm missing something probably no higher than 150-170.

Here are the stats for Clark County (just across the state line from Portland, OR)
Novel coronavirus

These numbers are way lower than reality. An attorney from my SO's office is gravely ill with COVID-19. The idiot was running around for a couple of days after he became symptomatic. A couple of days ago he developed full blown pneumonia (cough went from dry to productive with lots of stuff coming up), he's coughing so hard he's throwing up a few times a day. He went to the hospital, they gave him an inhaler and sent him home. He wasn't sick enough to admit under the current conditions. Then he had an allergic reaction to the inhaler and all they told him to do was stop using it.

People are taking things seriously here. I had to do some shopping today and everyone was going along with the social distancing without complaints. I went to the market and Costco, in both places there was someone out front spraying down all carts with disinfectant and the only response was happiness it was being done.

 

[EVNow]

Not with lockdowns. At least we better hope not.

That's true. Infact good lock down would prevent doubling, as it brings down R0 below 1.

It slowed a little today. Deaths in many states are doubling much faster. I think hospitals tend to miss COVID deaths until the local epidemic becomes obvious.

I agree a national peak is not as relevant as local peaks. Except for NY, though, the media will focus on national numbers.

There is quite a bit of noise daily. We'll see if on 29th, the fatality number is ~ 200.

BTW, it really should slow down - not only because of lockdown - but also the unusual circumstance of the LifeCare center outbreak that resulted in large number of fatalities early on.

ps :

 

[Norbert]

Musk Donates 1,200 Ventilators, 50,000 Masks - Tesla Motors Club

In a tweet, Musk said he was able to tap into an oversupply of machines in China and have them flown to Los Angeles.

Yup, China had an oversupply, so we bought 1255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips & Medtronic ventilators on Friday night & airshipped them to LA. If you want a free ventilator installed, please let us know!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2020

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1242279396226011137?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

 

[Mad@gascar]

After tomorrow the US will have the most confirmed cases of Covid on the planet. I think the public perception in this country will start to shift to equal the severity of this outbreak and how much of an impact it will leave on our society.

We're already NUMBER ONE in active infections. Reclaiming our rightful leadership position in the world!

 

[UnknownSoldier]

That's not the actual headline. Please post a link to the article you're referencing so we can judge for ourselves.

Opinion | Life in Seattle, America’s Coronavirus Capital

Turns out it is the actual headline. Amazing. I can read things and remember what I read a few weeks later.

 

[deffu]

It's absolutely essential. Everyone should know their status. Also, the President said anyone who wants a test can get a test. I want a test. I'm not working until I get one and everyone in San Diego gets one.