Coronavirus

[mars_or_bust]

This is very different because they have the luxury of testing everyone on the carrier. So there isn't really such a thing as an undiscovered case (to first order - there actually probably are due to false negatives).

Outside of these special cases, it's very likely true that there are 10x the cases in many more heavily hit areas than have been identified, simply due to undertesting.

It's true that the crazy talk about 50 - 100x more cases were always unbelievable, just based on other data from other countries and their outcomes. That sort of ratio never made sense, based on 1) the ability of South Korea to control the virus, and 2) their observed CFR. Those observations pointed to a ballpark IFR, which then could be used to estimate approximate case numbers. And they never looked like 50-100x. There are ways to calculate it from epidemiological projections and simulated outbreak sizes, too. Those also were not consistent with the 50-100x numbers. Lots of different ways to do it, all of them pointing to something more in the 10x-20x range at most.

I just learned from David Baltimore 5 minutes ago, when he mentioned that polio was quite similar in this respect - there were many children who were infected who were asymptomatic or mildly affected. It's apparently not that unusual for viruses.

OK, thanks for the info, clearer now.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

The case of Georgia is curious.

First Trump sends out tweets to his followers to liberate all the states. Republican governors promptly fall in line and announce relaxation of lockdown.

Today Trump in the press conference / rant denounces Georgia governor Kemp, no less than 5 times for relaxing the lockdown too soon.

Trump approved of Georgia's reopen plan before bashing it

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence repeatedly told Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that they approved of his aggressive plan to allow businesses to reopen - just a day before Trump pulled an about-face and publicly bashed the plan​

You know that Trump is doing it on purpose, right? It's been his MO since literally his entire business career. He plays people off against each other and then takes credit for successes and shifts blame for failures. Kemp should rename himself Chump, he fell for Trump's bait hook line and sinker.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Oh look, new data out of NY that is suggesting an overall fatality rate of around 0.5%

Please show your work, along with your confidence intervals. Wouldn't get too fired up with yourself just yet. I'm not aware of anyone who was suggesting IFRs higher than 2% were likely when applied to a typical US demographic!

"The current death count doesn’t include some people who may have died at home and weren’t diagnosed with Covid-19, and may also miss people who died earlier on in the outbreak before diagnostic testing became widespread."

I would add it also does not count the people who were infected and identified as a case two weeks ago, who have not yet died (which is a substantial number). The person I know of in New Jersey has been on a ventilator since April 7th, and she did not pass yesterday as expected, after her family visited and talked to her. They may do dialysis tomorrow and see if she pulls through. This is a fairly typical course.

There's something like several thousand people on ventilators in New York right now, many of whom have been on them for a while.

 

[JRP3]

First Trump sends out tweets to his followers to liberate all the states. Republican governors promptly fall in line and announce relaxation of lockdown.

Today Trump in the press conference / rant denounces Georgia governor Kemp, no less than 5 times for relaxing the lockdown too soon.

It's almost as if he has no idea what he's doing.

 

[MXLRplus]

UV! They mimic sunlight.
Just in case it wasn't obvious, I was joking. Opening any indoor public space right now is not a good idea.

We really need to study C19 cases of indoor marijuana farmers. Hopefully we don't get too stoned to remember the results.

 

[sparcs]

The case of Georgia is curious.

here is another one with completely opposite statements about testing from our federal government on the same day:

"We absolutely need to significantly ramp up, not only the number of tests but the capacity to actually perform them," Fauci said during a Time 100 Talks interview on Thursday.

That way, he continued, "you don't have a situation where you have a test, but it can't be done because there's not a swab, or not an extraction media or not the right vial -- all of those things got to be in place."

"I am not overly confident right now at all, that we have what it takes to do that," Fauci added.

During Thursday's coronavirus task force news briefing -- which Fauci was not at -- Trump addressed Fauci's remarks and said he thinks the country is doing "a great job."

"I don't agree with him on that, no, I think we're doing a great job on testing," Trump said.

 

[SageBrush]

Oh look, new data out of NY that is suggesting an overall fatality rate of around 0.5%,
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Read the article. They took deaths so far and divided by population.
Every armchair epidemio-arithmatician should realize that will lead to a severe under-estimate because median time till death from exposure exceeds median time to seroconversion from exposure by at least 10 days.

I also don't know if their deaths number includes deaths outside the hospital.

 

[jhm]

Few people know about my tech startup company, SolaBag. We work in the obscur intersection of photovoltaics and colon therapeutics. We think if we could secure a government grant, we could develop a really powerful sunlight enema. We're really close to a market ready breakthrough. Critics say solar power can't work where the sun don't shine, but we're ready to prove them wrong. So, Mr President Trump, we know you're working hard to open the economy, battling blockage and discomfort, democrats and the nasty press. At SolaBag, we're here to wash that all away with the power of UV light and help you get things moving in the USA again.

 

[defc0n]

Read the article. They took deaths so far and divided by population.
Every armchair epidemio-arithmatician should realize that will lead to a severe under-estimate because median time till death from exposure exceeds median time to seroconversion from exposure by at least 10 days.

I also don't know if their deaths number includes deaths outside the hospital.

did you just suggest that the article said they divided it by total population? And you say that I’m the one that needs to read the article again?

 

[SageBrush]

$1.5T is nothing to sneeze at in an economy of only $21.4T in 2019.

It is also only the bill for acute hospital care. The country wide, out of hospital costs would be far more.

 

[SageBrush]

And you say that I’m the one that needs to read the article again?

Yes

 

[defc0n]

Yes

example A of someone who thinks they are smarter than they really are

 

[SageBrush]

example A of someone who thinks they are smarter than they really are

Remember the story of the guy running (or in this case, walking) away from a bear ?

In any case, I'm just telling you that the NYTimes calc is an obvious under-estimate. Do you not get that ?

 

[Daniel in SD]

did you just suggest that the article said they divided it by total population? And you say that I’m the one that needs to read the article again?

Just to save people a click.

It also means that the fatality rate is likely lower than implied by merely examining confirmed cases and deaths. If 2.7 million people have been infected, that would put the fatality rate at about 0.5%, based on the death count of 15,500 the state used to make its calculation. Since then, the number of deaths in New York has risen to 15,740.

The current death count doesn’t include some people who may have died at home and weren’t diagnosed with Covid-19, and may also miss people who died earlier on in the outbreak before diagnostic testing became widespread.

2.7 million / 19.45 Million (population) = 13.9%
15,500 / 2.7 Million = 0.57%
So they used a slightly lower death count than the current death count.
I have no idea whether that make @defc0n right or @SageBrush right.
Personally I suspect the 13.9% may be a little high (sample bias), 15.5k is definitely low, and infection to death is about the same as infection to measurable IgG antibodies (which makes the math easy).

 

[renim]

I had not paid attention to Singapore & Japan, lately. They have had a second wave bounce.

Singapore, for eg., has an outbreak among migrant workers who live in small dormitories. I guess the virus will expose the soft underbelly of many countries.

Coronavirus: Learning How to Dance

View attachment 535056

FWIW
Australia is explicity not pursuing a hammer strategy, their PM was making that clear 2nd April.

Point is, suppression requires duration not shock. Shock (hammer) without duration is just delaying the 'big one' or to be more precise, the more intense the hammer, the less sustainable it is, therefore a gentler but more sustainable supression is more effective than a hammer strategy. Of course Reff needs to sustain below 1.

Note particularly well, the prime minister states (at that point in time late march/ early april) that he seems to be only leader saying this requires a sustainable action, not short term fix.

Also note now, how other countries are coming around to view it that way.

 

[shinytop]

Remember when Sarah Conners held that syringe against the neck of the psychiatrist? She wasn't going to hurt him, she was trying to kill the Covid-19.

 

[defc0n]

Just to save people a click.


2.7 million / 19.45 Million (population) = 13.9%
15,500 / 2.7 Million = 0.57%
So they used a slightly lower death count than the current death count.
I have no idea whether that make @defc0n right or @SageBrush right.
Personally I suspect the 13.9% may be a little high (sample bias), 15.5k is definitely low, and infection to death is about the same as infection to measurable IgG antibodies (which makes the math easy).

My pain point is people / professionals fear-mongering with 2-3% mortality rates or higher are idiots.

 

[SageBrush]

infection to death is about the same as infection to measurable IgG antibodies (which makes the math easy).

Is there a reason that you think IgM/igA is not (also) being tested for ?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

My pain point is people / professionals fear-mongering with 2-3% mortality rates or higher are idiots.

Can you point to someone reputable saying this? I'm not aware of anyone claiming that that was likely.

Numerator: Definitely a lot of people who are not counted in that 15500 number. Some uncounted, some of whom will die even though they were infected at a time where they would have shown up with antibodies in this survey.

So this 0.57% number is very optimistic, even assuming perfect test specificity. My guess is still 1%, "95 CI" is 0.7 to 1.3%. I'm starting to think I'm going to end up wrong, guessing too low, TBH. There is a LOT of excess death.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Is there a reason that you think IgM/igA is not (also) being tested for ?

They say it's an IgG test here:
https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/s...adsworth-centers-assay-for-sars-cov-2-igg.pdf