Coronavirus

[Daniel in SD]

That's not my theory. NYC's data shows that the majority (61%) of covid-19 deaths are African American+Hispanic. That's a glaring problem and only one of several good reasons to be skeptical that NYC is representative of the rest of the country. If you can't see why, then I can't help you.

In my experience, discussions with people who have already made up their mind is generally a waste of time and pretty boring. This is no different. Ciao.

I never said it wasn't a problem, that's why I brought it up! Obviously we have to correct for demographics.
I am curious what the other reasons are, other than demographics and population health. Those I have not thought of. You can help me by letting me know what they are.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

In my experience, discussions with people who have already made up their mind is generally a waste of time and pretty boring

In our defense, we've been mostly right so far! I have far from made up my mind about anything. Always very open minded. I would not be surprised if the results in other areas were somewhat different than New York City. But I don't think it'll be different enough to necessitate or allow a much different approach. Of course, every area will have to have a somewhat tailored approach to their epidemic, but I don't expect that they'll be that different in terms of what will be required to keep the results palatable.

 

[Papafox]

Because you LITERALLY have EXPERT like myself that eye-rolled when the first trials were out.

Let me be CRYSTAL CLEAR - if this were not a pandemic, no journal in the world would have published those studies. Literally, they were $hit. The Chinese study was so bad that they refused to publish their sample set (GIGANTIC red flag in the scientific world). The French study has been picked apart like no tomorrow.

While these follow-on studies are not perfect, mainly because a RCT is near impossible to do now that there is political pressure to administer this drug, these follow-on studies are MUCH better in terms of science and statistics than the original Chinese and French studies that the recommendations are based upon.

HCQ is not a treatment, at all, for COVID-19. Period.

@bkp_duke , no need to sugar-coat it, why don't you just come out and speak your mind?

In all seriousness, I'm waiting for the robust randomized studies to come out on HCQ. We should see something within the next 10 days. Rather than each of us pointing at the other guy's crappy study and saying "it's worse than the one that supports my position", I suggest we both hang loose and wait for scientifically-valid studies to be presented.

 

[wdolson]

I was thinking more about this and looking at the data.
Only 25% of cases are hospitalized in NYC.
It also looks like the whiter areas of NYC have a much lower percentage of tests coming back positive. I'm not sure how to square this with your theory that all demographics are getting infected at the similar rates. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-data-map-04212020-1.pdf
Obviously someone could do a much more rigorous analysis of your theory.

In urban areas the poor are more often people of color and the poor have more difficulty social distancing and staying healthy than wealthier people. Urban poor usually live in food desserts which both contribute to poor health as well as require them to go out to get food more often, thus exposing themselves more. The working poor can't quit their jobs and stay home or they starve.

Most middle class people have access to more food markets, they have storage in their houses so they can stock up for 1-2 weeks per shopping trip, and they either have a job where they can work at home, or they can survive missing a few paychecks. They also eat a healthier diet on average and have fewer risk factors than the poor (again on average).

There is a population of poor whites who face many of the same factors as the poor people of color. They tend to live outside of urban areas in lower density housing (like trailer parks) and so social distancing is easier for them. However many suffer from all the other factors that the urban poor have.

There was a chart generated by cell phone data on where in the country most of the population quit traveling more than 2 miles a day. In large parts of the South and Appalachia it hadn't happened yet and the article said it probably can't happen because much of that region has rural food desserts. Walmart came into those areas and ran the other markets out of business, so now the only place to buy food in the county is the one Walmart. That means everyone is crossing paths in the same market. Once the virus gets going, it's going to rip through the population of the county. The same risk factors are there as among the urban poor, so the death toll is likely going to be similar, if not worse because many of these people have poorer access to health care. The urban poor have excellent hospitals in their city, many rural counties don't have any hospital at all.

 

[Doggydogworld]

San Miguel county updated today. These appear to be ELISA antibody tests. I assume borderline results are essentially positive with low antibody generation at the time of test?

At first they called these negative, then changed to calling them borderline. I don't know if they're low antibody or a different antibody. UBI claims "virtually 100%" sensitivity and specificity, so why all the borderlines?

County COVID-19 Information | San Miguel County, CO - Official Website

So far, 2.1% positive. (98 out of 4757)

Technically 0.5% positive and 1.5% borderline. I do wish they'd release follow-up info on the borderlines.

I am assuming these 98 cases include the 17 cases found via symptom presentation & PCR at a hospital.

I didn't get that idea. The very first 600+ tests came back with zero positives and a few borderlines. If they were going to test PCR+ people you'd think they'd do that early as a sanity check.

The sampling method I am not familiar with, but at least they've hit 60% of the population.

The goal was to test all 8000 residents, but it was voluntary and they decided not to test kids under 8. Looks like they got ~5450 samples out of a presumed ~7500 over age 8, for 70%+ participation.

All time high today for deaths (if you exclude the days with one-time additions, and ignore any redistribution of those deaths across prior peaks of the curve which may have made them higher, particularly when NYC was at its peak), at 2674 from COVID Tracking.

I think we're still seeing one-time additions. Worldometers has NY at 764 today vs. the 481 Governor Cuomo announced. NJ deaths took a huge jump today. Other states may also be re-aligning with the new CDC guidelines.

 

[EVNow]

The historical death series has been backfilled to smooth out that big bump we had last week. So it turns out that today is a new peak day for deaths. The total now stands at 46,229, up 2715 from prior day. The projected ultimate for this first wave is now 65,251. We are about 70% there already. A new chart below will make this clearer.

I see no peaking at this time. We just have "wavy" data - mostly because of uneven reporting over the weekend. The daily cases aren't going down (and they are not going up because the tests have hit an upper limit), so why would fatalities ?

 

[traxila]

Why is it there's a tremendous amount of eye-rolling in this thread every time a study is released that shows HCQ might be effective for treating COVID-19 but when an equally-shaky study comes forward showing negative results, this forum accepts the study as additional proof that HCQ is not a good solution and nobody says "bad science"?

The study in question involved HCQ administered in a hospital setting, which suggests that HCQ and HCQ+AZ given to seriously ill patients may not have good outcomes. We already have a good idea that this is the wrong time in the disease progression to administer HCQ. The positive results of past small studies suggests that HCQ + AZ when given early in an outpatient setting, such as the results that Dr. Zelenko of New York has been claiming or given in the French studies by Dr. Raoult and others, can be quite positive. What this newest study did provide us with is an additional suggestion that HCQ is not the antiviral of choice for seriously-ill patients of COVID-19 in a hospital setting. Preliminary and leaked data regarding remdesivir suggests it is a much better antiviral for being administered in a hospital setting.

Bottom line: this short study which apparently did not involve random selection of patients is of questionable value due to its methodologies, but it does suggest that in a hospital setting with seriously ill COVID-19 patients HCQ is not the antiviral of choice. That doctors are giving this medication in that setting instead of remdesivir is depressing, given preliminary indications of both drugs. The study also highlights the need to differentiate when in the disease progression HCQ is given, if we wish to derive useful information from the study. Specifically, what are the results in a controlled study when HCQ+AZ are given on an outpatient basis early in the disease's progression?

Not an expert, but since 95 to 99.9 percent of those infected (depending on who you ask I guess. I don’t pretend to know the true IFR. Sure does suck in NYC though) recover with with no medicinal intervention at all, the controlled study to actually prove any sort of effectiveness of HCQ at an early stage of the disease would have to be very large, in the tens of thousands?, in order to be able to establish statistical significance.

Since we are in a hurry, studies involve more severe cases so that HCQ can quickly demonstrate that it has any effectiveness at all. But it is not showing up.

Also, many European countries have been aggressive recently with the off label HCQ at early diagnosis, including Italy and Belgium. Again, the observational results are just not there. Stories of severe side effects abound.

Speaking of Dr. Zelenko, I have not seen any follow up to his observations. Does he still state that zero percent of his treated patients ended up with severe disease? COVID is very prolonged and methodical in many symptomatic patients, so I wonder if what he observed still applies.

I had high hopes for HCQ to treat COVID when I first ran across it, but I am now of the opinion that it is not what I hoped it was.

 

[renim]

View attachment 534584

Not a particularly enlightening chart, problems with both axes.

X axis, should be bases upon a per capita adjusted ( ie days since 1per million capita diagnosed covid19)

Y axis,also based upon per capita basis.

Australia and New zealand are tracking really close to each other on a per capita basis, but obviously not on absolute basis.

 

[EVNow]

I'm not sure how to square this with your theory that all demographics are getting infected at the similar rates. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-data-map-04212020-1.pdf
Obviously someone could do a much more rigorous analysis of your theory.

It makes sense that working class are getting infected more now that others are just working from home. POC are predominantly working class - so they are getting infected a lot more.

 

[Daniel in SD]

It makes sense that working class are getting infected more now that others are just working from home. POC are predominantly working class - so they are getting infected a lot more.

Intuitively that makes sense to me too. I have been accused of being irredeemably biased so I was trying to take @EinSV's advice and find evidence to the contrary. If whiter zip codes in NYC were getting positive test results at the time same rate as minority zip codes I think that would indicate that the ratio of positives tests to infections would be be close to the same. That does not appear to be the case.

BTW I'm not saying the poorer health is not a factor in the high number of black and latino deaths in NYC. I just don't think it's as large a factor as a higher infection rate. Also, I think that the population of NYC as a whole is healthier than than the national average.

 

[MXLRplus]

Wow. Graph of airline traffic. They are parking US jets in the desert for storage. You are seeing $525 million dollars a day getting destroyed in the US alone.

 

[bkp_duke]

Wow. Graph of airline traffic. They are parking US jets in the desert for storage. You are seeing $525 million dollars a day getting destroyed in the US alone.


View attachment 534660

Between this, auto travel, and less manufacturing, I wonder where carbon emissions for the US and the world are tracking compared to past few years.

 

[MXLRplus]

Satellite imaging has shown huge reductions in NOx which is a pretty good barometer for combustion. I'll see if I can find the source.

 

[bkp_duke]

Best I could find was this:
Analysis: Coronavirus set to cause largest ever annual fall in CO2 emissions | Carbon Brief

 

[MXLRplus]

Before

After

 

[davepsilon]

Wow. Graph of airline traffic. They are parking US jets in the desert for storage. You are seeing $525 million dollars a day getting destroyed in the US alone.


View attachment 534660

Interesting to see the ramp down in flight traffic continue over time. Kind of like how our transmission rate has eased into a lower rate as opposed to a binary jump immediately to low transmission.

I wonder if there are any smart people making decent predictions about what level of air travel and other measurable like traffic we can tolerate and still have R low enough to avoid growing our cases.

 

[MXLRplus]

Best I could find was this:
Analysis: Coronavirus set to cause largest ever annual fall in CO2 emissions | Carbon Brief

Their claim is even with the massive drop in combustion products, it's not enough to stop combustion related climate change. Not sure I buy that.

 

[Norbert]

My model is aimed at tracking the data as it comes in, and specifically it does not factor in case history. The death rate is coming down, and the model picks up on that trend (the third chart). If this trend should slow or speed up, the fitted curve will adjust for this. So far the rate has been falling faster than expected, which is why I am showing how the projections change from day to day.

I do worry that much of the country will become more lax in social distancing, and we will see an acceleration of both cases and deaths. The pandemic does seem to be broadening its base. I'm thinking of this a coming second wave. We'll see how this plays out.

Italy, Spain and South Korea are further along in their curve. It would be interesting if you define a certain number per capita as the starting point, measure the number of days in the US since that starting point, and then take the data from each of those 3 countries for the same number of days, apply your curve fitting, and compare it to the additional data we have from these countries.

EDIT: Actually, Spain doesn't seem that far along. But Italy and especially South Korea.

 

[davepsilon]

China is back at work but weekend car traffic is still well off the baseline. New York is on mega lock down. Economic fallout is still in flux but it doesn’t look rosy to me in NYC

Data source Tom Tom see: https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/traffic-index/shanghai-traffic/

 

[eevee-fan]

Before

View attachment 534663

After

View attachment 534665

We are about to get visited by aliens who wonders what happened. Good thing we have a Space Force.