Coronavirus

[jhm]

I'm not using NYC curve at all.

Just saying looking at today's confirmed cases and a low CFR of 2 (current NYC CFR is much higher),we could end up with 40k fatalities in a couple of weeks.

Ofcourse large uncertainties remain as current confirmed cases may not be similar demographically to older cases.

Yes, I follow your line of reasoning, and you are making conservative assumptions. There are different ways to get to similar results. This is a good thing because it suggest some degree of robustness against various assumptions. It is good to have this kind of confirmation.

 

[NikolaACDC]

My mother takes this drug for lupus. I'm currently taking quercetin.

Then better stock up. Might become the next toilet paper...
Vital drug for people with lupus running out after unproven Covid-19 link

"Vital drug for people with lupus running out after unproven Covid-19 link
Italy and France now prescribing hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus despite fact its effectiveness is unknown"

 

[MXLRplus]

I've noted that most of the people making the 100K-200K predictions have said "if we do everything right". We're not going to do everything right. Some places are and will, but many places won't. And the federal government response is just plain awful.

I live in the richest state of the union, and while our healthcare system is operational, we cannot stop the disease here. California is still sending out State workers with make-work job descriptions to check for tax compliance during the lockdown. Our Highway Patrol is on a feeding frenzy because with nobody on the freeways, they are driving 80 mph. There are very few accidents anymore. The freeways were engineered so that a 1970's car could safely go 70 mph on them, so 80 mph might waste fuel but it doesn't require a stunt driver like it did a month ago.

 

[Prunesquallor]

I find it helpful to follow NYS stats at covid19.healthdata.org for estimates of national impact simply because the state is much further along the infection timeline than everybody else so the uncertainty is less. I expect the southern states to be ~ 2x worse due to their risk factors, and some of the flyover states to be 0.5x as bad due to actions taken earlier in their respective curves.

The projection is 16k deaths by the end of this wave in July in a population of 20M, so about 1.3 per thousand.

Your predictions are far different than the website. As you say, 16,000 projected for NY, assume pop. 20M = 0.8 per thousand. For, say, Texas, 6500 projected, pop. 29M = 0.22 per thousand. Yes, TX is very early in the exponential and their model may not account for all factors, but I wouldn’t expect their model to be off by a factor of 7 (2x0.8/.22).

 

[jhm]

About that projection of when we could reach 30k fatalities in US.

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

Their projections say 32k by Apr 15th. BTW, they have changed their website a bit - check it out. 93k total fatalities assuming social distancing till end of May.

So we'll put them down for April 16 for when US crosses 100 DPM. That's a little more optimistic than most of us here. I'm still down for April 14.

 

[sparcs]

more spring breakers. This time going home to Texas:

Dozens of University of Texas spring breakers who defied officials' warnings test positive for coronavirus

A group of spring breakers who defied public officials' coronavirus warnings are now dealing with the consequences of not canceling non-essential travel and practicing social distancing. About 70 people in their 20s traveled in a large group from Austin, Texas, to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico in mid-March. On Tuesday, the Austin Public Health Department announced 28 of them have tested positive for COVID-19. By Wednesday night, the number infected had risen to 44.

The group flew to Mexico on a charter flight about a week and a half ago and some of the vacationers returned on separate commercial flights, the City of Austin said in a press release.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I've noted that most of the people making the 100K-200K predictions have said "if we do everything right". We're not going to do everything right. Some places are and will, but many places won't. And the federal government response is just plain awful.

Don't worry, this is actually a good sign. We're in a new phase where outcomes are much more clear and govt officials are now spouting off predictions they know won't happen so they look good when actual deaths come in lower.

This is the extent of our disaster mitigation in the US. Trillions of dollars in corporate bailouts and cover-your-ass marketing.

 

[jhm]

Dr. Zelenko in New York came right out and said that the HCQ AZ and zinc combo is for patients who have not yet entered the severe ARDS stage. Proving that the treatment is not effective once the virus has reached that severe stage doesn't help anyone because all parties agree the treatment should be done earlier, not later.

In other news, a study with a control group in China shows that HCQ by itself significantly improves the outcome of CV19 patients who have not reached the severe stage and significantly prevents the movement to severe (from New York Times).


Malaria Drug Helps Virus Patients Improve, in Small Study

Be very careful of biases in how small studies are received. There are substantial reporting biases that favor small studies with positive result. And this bias gets amplified by the news media. The public is very hungry for hope at this point, and most of it will prove to be false hope by the time larger well designed studies are done with it.

I really think it is best for the general public not to be looking into these small studies at all. Even people well trained in medical research can be duped into seeing what they want to see and discounting evidence to the contrary. The news media and general public are even worse at this. Dr Zelenko is way too personally invested in this to be trusted as an objective medical observer.

Let's please stop playing armchair medical researcher around here.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

BTW reading italian news papers the situation is currently not getting a lot worse there now.
Still a lot of ICU patients and deaths but new infections slowly stabilizing.

 

[bkp_duke]

I realize there's lots of skepticism out there about HCQ. On the other hand, both my brothers are physicians and they are intrigued by studies so far. Physicians are divided on this matter, which doesn't mean that it works or doesn't work, it means there's some skepticism out there. Nonetheless, every study I've seen so far, from the second French study, to Dr. Zelenko's brief summary of his experience, to the Chinese study of HCQ by itself (with a control group yet) suggests the benefits of HCQ, when given before the disease becomes severe, are substantial.

The Chinese have REFUSED to publish their data for others to review. They have published a SUMMARY of it, but they don't release the full data for others to review and recreate their work. That is HIGHLY suspect for poor quality data.

I'm an M.D., Ph.D. Literally your tax dollars were spent to train me for medical research just like this.

I would LOVE for HCQ to be a panacea here, but the data do not at this time support that conclusion, and our fearless leader made things worse by advocating for the drug on extremely poor studies. Go back through all 400 pages of this thread, you will see that I actually break down each and every study on HCQ in various posts here.

The substance at this time, does not match the hype.

 

[SageBrush]

World data of Test+ through Apr 1

Best Benders
Italy
Switzerland

Least Effective
US
UK
Turkey

 

[jhm]

So if I have this right the problem is X*Y=Z
we don't know X or Y and we are guessing at Z?

This is one reason why I don't get hung up on CFR or IFR. It's hard enough just to track all Covid19 fatalities, but at lease growth rates are based on plausibly consistent detection rates.

 

[HG Wells]

I know its not valid but.

Italy confirmed 110K dead 13K
So a fatality rate of a little less than 12 %

I know I know.
But it would make a nice scary head line.
Think of the clicks !

 

[jhm]

The last lockdown paces the nation. This is not the time for "feral" government.

Interesting thought. Could you elaborate? Thanks

 

[Cosmacelf]

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering why we didn’t have a strategic stockpile of masks, it was because it never got replenished after the 2009 H1N1 epidemic. We used 97% of the stockpile, and never replenished it. That was under the Obama administration for those that like to assign blame.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inve...e57316-60c9-11ea-8baf-519cedb6ccd9_story.html

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering why we didn’t have a strategic stockpile of masks, it was because it never got replenished after the 2009 H1N1 epidemic. We used 97% of the stockpile, and never replenished it. That was under the Obama administration for those that like to assign blame.

How many milliseconds til this is easily refuted. As if we had a stockpile sitting somewhere in 2008. Lol

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Our Highway Patrol is on a feeding frenzy because with nobody on the freeways, they are driving 80 mph.

Not following...not sure what you mean...I have never once been ticketed for driving 80mph. Took a 700-mile road trip last weekend (no bathrooms, no human contact), traveling 80mph on the freeways the whole time. Seemed fine. CHP was cool with that, as usual, as it is only 10-15mph over the limit and keeping up with the flow of traffic, for safety.

and govt officials are now spouting off predictions they know won't happen so they look good when actual deaths come in lower.

If only that were true. We’ll check back on this in a few weeks and we can compare notes.

Got those SARS numbers?

 

[SageBrush]

As you say, 16,000 projected for NY, assume pop. 20M = 0.8 per thousand.

Yes, 0.8 per thousand.
1.3/k was an arithmetic error

 

[deonb]

Ok

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering why we didn’t have a strategic stockpile of masks, it was because it never got replenished after the 2009 H1N1 epidemic. We used 97% of the stockpile, and never replenished it. That was under the Obama administration for those that like to assign blame.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inve...e57316-60c9-11ea-8baf-519cedb6ccd9_story.html

If they were replenished in 2009 they'd be way past their expiry date now (these masks expire after 3 to 5 years).

They way that a stockpile like that is supposed to be managed is you replenish e.g. a 1/3rd of them each year and take the oldest ones and make them available at a discount for same-year use by medical and construction, then donate the rest.

So even if no explicit action was taken after H1N1 the stockpile should have returned to normal levels in 3 years.

If that didn't happen this is a systemic problem with how the system was set up - not just a one event thing.

Yes I know an expired N95 in a pinch is better than nothing and better even than a surgical mask, but you don't set out from the get go to build a plan that depends on using expired equipment.

 

[JRP3]

That was under the Obama administration for those that like to assign blame.

This from the person who constantly complains about politicizing things