Coronavirus

[wdolson]

I came across this chart from @OpenTable, via @DrEricDing.

This chart shows that Restaurant reservations started about 2 week before states order restaurant closed. In some case, there may be a little anticipation of a closure, but most of the closure happed 4 or more days before. So I take this as evidence that even with state mandated closures, Covid19 was likely killing the restaurant business. Consumer choice may well lead ahead of policy.

The causality is important here because when states "reopen the economy," this does not mean that consumer will return immediately to pre-Covid BAU. Specifically, if it consumer choice leading to decline in patronage, then "reopening" will have minimal effect.

My family used to dine out 3 or 4 times per week. Gov Kent of GA is reopening the restaurants for us, but we are very unlikely to return to the restaurants anytime soon. It may take a month or more before we dine out again. I'm sure other Georgians feel differently about it, but my expectation is that it will be a slow ramp back up. Some more vulnerable residents may never return to former levels of patronage.

In my view, it is not "Stay-at-home" orders that are killing the economy. Rather it is new Covid-19 reality of collective and personal vulnerabilities that are radically changing economic behaviors. Reopening will be a slow process.

The states that open soon are going to find that their population who believe COVID-19 is a real threat will keep up precautions, but those who don't believe are the ones who will be going back to life as normal. The people who will get sick are those who have no choice but to go back to work and those who didn't believe they were at risk.

Here we are, May 1, 2020.

19,509,000 people have died so far this year.
234,000 from Covid-19.
19,275,000 from other causes.

We can go to Walmart and ride on the subway. But we cannot surf in the vast ocean or go to the state park to bird watch.

Unemployment is the highest in modern history and we are only getting started.

Stupidity reigns as never before.

A large percentage of the world population has been locked down for at least part of this year. That has slowed the spread of the virus and kept the official death toll down to 234,000. However as the expected death rate per country vs real death rate has been examined, the death rate in every country exceeds the COVID-19 official numbers. And there has been a decrease in accidental deaths because people are not being exposed to the dangers that kill them. For example the California Highway Patrol has reported car accident rates have fallen off a cliff this year.

If a significant number of people were not social distancing, a lot more people would get sick. About 20% of people who get COVID-19 end up requiring hospitalization. If the hospitals are maxxed out a lot more people are going to die because people who could be saved are not going to get the care they need.

This is a bit like Y2K. I'm in the IT world and it was a real threat, but people who could see it was a threat jumped on the problem and made sure it didn't become a disaster. Because it didn't become a disaster a lot of people today think it was over hyped. Maybe it was to the general public, but it was definitely something the IT world needed to pay attention to.

So far the COVID-19 pandemic has been bad in some areas, but it hasn't reached all corners of the world yet. About 80% of the world will cruise through this with only a mild case or an asymptomatic case. But 20% are at risk to die from this. Some part of that 20% will recover without hospitalization, but a fair portion need it to have a chance at survival and some will not make it no matter what we do. But letting everyone get it in a short period of time guarantees that hospitals will be overloaded and a higher percentage of those at risk will die. In an all at once scenario we could lose 2-5% of the population. Between the people who have critical and rare skills that will be lost setting back many projects and the massive psychological toll on the survivors, the scars would be with us the rest of this century.

The Black Death raged through Europe over 500 years ago, but even people who don't know much about history are aware of it. The scars are still visible centuries after it left living memory. Russia has always been a bit paranoid, the country has been overrun or nearly overrun several times. The most recent was WW II which killed millions of Russians and it still is reflected in Russian foreign policy today.

Losing a lot of people in a short time to one cause leaves psychological scars that last a long time. At least one ER doctor committed suicide over her experiences with COVID-19.

On another note I came across this data yesterday
COVID-19 – Global Health 50/50

What I found interesting was the percent cases by gender in each country. Many countries see more cases with men than women. The ratio is very skewed that was in India and Pakistan, but in much of Europe and Canada, it's the opposite way. More men appear to die than women in each country, but the ratio varies a lot country to country too. Many European countries are closer to a 50/50 parity than a lot of non-European countries.

Most of the countries with closer to parity have good health care systems and are fairly affluent which tends to lead to better diets and overall healthier lifestyles, so that may be the factor. The data for Japan is incomplete. They are among the longest life expectancy in the world due to good health care and affluence.

 

[Norbert]

Yeah sure, this doctor and educator must not have a good grasp of how to calculate death rates. Very complicated stuff; way over his pay grade.

That's the polite version. As far as I can tell from the article, it is plain nonsense.

 

[Norbert]

The states that open soon are going to find that their population who believe COVID-19 is a real threat will keep up precautions, but those who don't believe are the ones who will be going back to life as normal. The people who will get sick are those who have no choice but to go back to work and those who didn't believe they were at risk.

Yes, many will have no choice but to go into risk. This is not freedom.

And those who will get sick are also the innocent friends and family of those who suspend their understanding of cause and effect.

 

[dqd88]

That's the polite version. As far as I can tell from the article, it is plain nonsense.

Yeah total nonsense. People like him, and like Elon Musk, and like all those doctors and scientists from lowly Stanford... they are all dumb and you and stay-at-home Newsom know what's up.

 

[Norbert]

Yeah total nonsense. People like him, and like Elon Musk, and like all those doctors and scientists from lowly Stanford... they are all dumb and you and stay-at-home Newsom know what's up.

That's not what I am saying. They are victims of wishful thinking. Not the same thing.

 

[Norbert]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/01/fauci-open-states-coronavirus/

Fauci warns states rushing to reopen: ‘You’re making a really significant risk’

Fauci, who has repeatedly cautioned against prematurely easing restrictions, said he already noticed that some states and cities are not adhering to the steps laid out in the White House’s recently issued guidance on reopening — a plan that administration officials say will now replace the expired federal social distancing measures.

“If you follow the guidelines, there’s a continuity that’s safe, that’s prudent and that’s careful,” he said.

But if governors rush to reopen when they aren’t ready, Fauci cautioned that the move would likely only set back the progress their states have made.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that when you pull back mitigation, you’re going to start seeing cases crop up here and there,” he said. “If you’re not able to handle them, you’re going to see another peak, a spike, and then you almost have to turn the clock back to go back to mitigation.”

In my opinion, Fauci is still on the optimistic side, and "able to handle them" should mean: having a functioning test & trace that's already working.

 

[lascavarian]

CNN did a town hall with Bill Gates last evening. As much as I loath Gates, it was one of the best presentations I have seen. He has a rare depth of knowledge regarding the choices before us.

He laid out the necessary steps and requirements for testing and track & trace.

Testing requires lightning quick results. Any result longer than 24 hours is essentially worthless and might even be better thrown out. Without a system to deliver quick results the expense is wasted. It doesn’t matter how many tests are done if the results come out slowly. Money should flow based on speed of results.

You start looking at the track & trace time requirements and work backward to the testing results. If testing results come back slowly then track & trace can't work effectively and therefore money spent on testing is wasted.

Swab problem is clusterf$&*@. Most swabs are going to be approved no problems. Testing or self testing should work pretty well as long as results are quick. Millions need to be tested and it can be done. Accuracy of testing is critical of course.

Positive results require immediate contact tracing. No app necessary just a phone works well but apps are helpful memory reminders. NY & Washington states are farthest along toward a useful track and trace program.

ALL testing required to be done under a hierarchy of need. Ie contacts of known positives go to front of the line. Essential workers to the front etc. All testing by priority unlike today which seems to be by who you know.

He covered therapeutics in the pipeline as well as different vaccine approaches in depth. He has an impressive knowledge of the people and science doing the best work. Says CDC are best in the world. There are some hopeful things like the UK/Oxford? vaccine. There is a lot we will know much better in a month.

Vaccine deployment will be a global discussion as to priority depending largely on the strength of the vaccine dose required. If a small dose is sufficient then vaccine will be readily available in large numbers but could be large dose is required in which case supplies will become a question of who gets it first and who waits. The WHO plays a part in this. Sounds like a conflict in the making.

He laid out what this would have cost if done according to best/better practices vs the enormous cost we now face. A painful lesson learned.

My view is that he was saying that until testing is “solved” in the sense of reporting time and functional prioritization process that we are stuck with stay at home. Unfortunately the states are left to find this out themselves it seems.

I can see why what he is saying is painful for those in authority. It is mostly simple math and logical thinking that we face now. Wishful thinking not very helpful. Do the math, organize the resources, establish policy and turn the crank to go forward.

YMMV, so try to find this as a video and watch it.

 

[Norbert]

CNN did a town hall with Bill Gates last evening. As much as I loath Gates, it was one of the best presentations I have seen. He has a rare depth of knowledge regarding the choices before us.

He laid out the necessary steps and requirements for testing and track & trace.

Testing requires lightning quick results. Any result longer than 24 hours is essentially worthless and might even be better thrown out. Without a system to deliver quick results the expense is wasted. It doesn’t matter how many tests are done if the results come out slowly. Money should flow based on speed of results.

You start looking at the track & trace time requirements and work backward to the testing results. If testing results come back slowly then track & trace can't work effectively and therefore money spent on testing is wasted.

Swab problem is clusterf$&*@. Most swabs are going to be approved no problems. Testing or self testing should work pretty well as long as results are quick. Millions need to be tested and it can be done. Accuracy of testing is critical of course.

Positive results require immediate contact tracing. No app necessary just a phone works well but apps are helpful memory reminders. NY & Washington states are farthest along toward a useful track and trace program.

ALL testing required to be done under a hierarchy of need. Ie contacts of known positives go to front of the line. Essential workers to the front etc. All testing by priority unlike today which seems to be by who you know.

He covered therapeutics in the pipeline as well as different vaccine approaches in depth. He has an impressive knowledge of the people and science doing the best work. Says CDC are best in the world. There are some hopeful things like the UK/Oxford? vaccine. There is a lot we will know much better in a month.

Vaccine deployment will be a global discussion as to priority depending largely on the strength of the vaccine dose required. If a small dose is sufficient then vaccine will be readily available in large numbers but could be large dose is required in which case supplies will become a question of who gets it first and who waits. The WHO plays a part in this. Sounds like a conflict in the making.

He laid out what this would have cost if done according to best/better practices vs the enormous cost we now face. A painful lesson learned.

My view is that he was saying that until testing is “solved” in the sense of reporting time and functional prioritization process that we are stuck with stay at home. Unfortunately the states are left to find this out themselves it seems.

I can see why what he is saying is painful for those in authority. It is mostly simple math and logical thinking that we face now. Wishful thinking not very helpful. Do the math, organize the resources, establish policy and turn the crank to go forward.

YMMV, so try to find this as a video and watch it.

Great. I think this is the interview: (Two videos following each other.)
(Not a lot of CNN opinion, basically Bill Gates pure.)

 

[ZachF]

"A UPMC doctor on Thursday made a case the death rate for people infected with the new coronavirus may be as low as 0.25%"

“Many people just didn’t feel sick at all and recovered without difficulty.”

UPMC doctor argues COVID-19 not as deadly as feared, says its hospitals will shift back to normal

Fancy that. Something tells me CNN won't be pushing out the good news.

What say our esteemed genius, bkp "napoleon" duke?

The west coast and the east coast have different strains IIRC... It could be the case that the strain infecting Europe and the east coast USA is more deadly than the one infecting the west coast and the pacific rim.

 

[dqd88]

That's not what I am saying. They are victims of wishful thinking. Not the same thing.

Sure, Elon and all these doctors are all "victims of wishful thinking"... wow, can't make this stuff up. Beside myself. How do you come up with such insights Norbert?!! Amazing!

 

[Doggydogworld]

Can you point out the bad science, or can you only do an ad hominem?

Yealy went on to offer a hypothetical scenario of 3% of Allegheny County residents being exposed — a conservative number compared to the findings of the New York and California studies.
​

He made up a number. That's what you call good science?

That would mean about 36,000 people in Allegheny have been exposed to the coronavirus. With 94 COVID-19 deaths in the county as of Thursday, it would mean 0.25 percent of people exposed to the coronavirus had died, he said.​

He calculated 0.25% based on 1) his made up number of infected and 2) number of deaths to date. This assumes zero currently infected people will die. More "good science"?

“There is a big difference between 0.25% mortality and 7%,” Yealy said.​

Can't argue with that, but absolutely nobody claims 7% IFR so it's a strawman.

Yealy said about 1,300 people in Allegheny have tested positive for COVID-19.​

So he guesses Allegheny under-tested by 30x? NY's stressed system sent obviously infected people home to self-quarantine without testing, and still only under-tested by 10x. Even the rogue group from Stanford had to recant to a borderline defensible 15x. San Miguel county in CO found 2-4x. Is there a single bit of data to back up this "good science"?

As long as we're just guessing, I guess the good doctor mentioned a range of possible scenarios in a very long interview and the reporter/editor excerpted and distorted a few fragments to give the story "punch" and make it "newsworthy". A headline of "Doctor Says We Don't Really Know Yet" attracts few readers.

 

[dqd88]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/01/fauci-open-states-coronavirus/

Fauci warns states rushing to reopen: ‘You’re making a really significant risk’



In my opinion, Fauci is still on the optimistic side, and "able to handle them" should mean: having a functioning test & trace that's already working.

What is the risk of not opening up? Have you even attempted to consider that? And think of all the potential knock on effects. Please spend a few minutes doing so and let me know what you come up with.

 

[davepsilon]

The

"A UPMC doctor on Thursday made a case the death rate for people infected with the new coronavirus may be as low as 0.25%"

“Many people just didn’t feel sick at all and recovered without difficulty.”

UPMC doctor argues COVID-19 not as deadly as feared, says its hospitals will shift back to normal

Fancy that. Something tells me CNN won't be pushing out the good news.

What say our esteemed genius, bkp "napoleon" duke?

The 0.25% potential IFR in that article was just an example number thrown out to illustrate his point that IFR is lower than CFR. He has not done anything to study that. It’s a casual ‘may be as low as’ kind of guess. Not his best estimate. He doesn’t need to care about IFR because for reopening elective surgeries he cares about hospital load and he can measure that directly.

I really don’t get your point. We are in the midst of a major health emergency. We took drastic action and we saw a muted, but nonzero, impact. I would hope so since we’ve taken so many steps. Based on that muted impact you seem to be saying ‘see hospitals are fine, we didn’t need to do any of those steps’

I mean maybe a long time from now we’ll understand the effect of each action and be able to have a less costly intervention plan for another virus or second wave, but don’t use the results of ‘low’ deaths that happened with full non-essential shutdown to try to convince me we should immediately stop all our interventions.

 

[jerry33]

My family used to dine out 3 or 4 times per week. Gov Kent of GA is reopening the restaurants for us, but we are very unlikely to return to the restaurants anytime soon. It may take a month or more before we dine out again. I'm sure other Georgians feel differently about it, but my expectation is that it will be a slow ramp back up. Some more vulnerable residents may never return to former levels of patronage.

Our level of patronage was maybe six times a year. One restaurant meal (assumes real restaurant) buys about a week's groceries even at the Whole Paycheque Store (assuming you mostly prepare your own food from scratch).

 

[davepsilon]

Can't argue with that, but absolutely nobody claims 7% IFR so it's a strawman. ...As long as we're just guessing, I guess the good doctor mentioned a range of possible scenarios in a very long interview and the reporter/editor excerpted and distorted a few fragments to give the story "punch" and make it "newsworthy". A headline of "Doctor Says We Don't Really Know Yet" attracts few readers.

That’s a pretty good guess I think. The context of the interview seems to be about hospital capacity management & planning. So the reporter says a potential 0.25% is less than feared that doesn’t have to mean the doctor ever thought 7% or any similarly large number was likely. That 7% could have been their doomsday scenario for planning purposes.

Got to write it to get the clicks, not to convey pure truth.

 

[HG Wells]

In my area all tennis courts are locked.
Sheriff stopped gardeners at a neighbors housed and told them they were non-essential and to go home

Its riding in the truck with the extra day laborer you picked up outside home depot that is the danger.
If its a single or even related gardeners then its no problem.

 

[dqd88]

Yealy went on to offer a hypothetical scenario of 3% of Allegheny County residents being exposed — a conservative number compared to the findings of the New York and California studies.
​

He made up a number. That's what you call good science?

That would mean about 36,000 people in Allegheny have been exposed to the coronavirus. With 94 COVID-19 deaths in the county as of Thursday, it would mean 0.25 percent of people exposed to the coronavirus had died, he said.​

He calculated 0.25% based on 1) his made up number of infected and 2) number of deaths to date. This assumes zero currently infected people will die. More "good science"?

“There is a big difference between 0.25% mortality and 7%,” Yealy said.​

Can't argue with that, but absolutely nobody claims 7% IFR so it's a strawman.

Yealy said about 1,300 people in Allegheny have tested positive for COVID-19.​

So he guesses Allegheny under-tested by 30x? NY's stressed system sent obviously infected people home to self-quarantine without testing, and still only under-tested by 10x. Even the rogue group from Stanford had to recant to a borderline defensible 15x. San Miguel county in CO found 2-4x. Is there a single bit of data to back up this "good science"?

As long as we're just guessing, I guess the good doctor mentioned a range of possible scenarios in a very long interview and the reporter/editor excerpted and distorted a few fragments to give the story "punch" and make it "newsworthy". A headline of "Doctor Says We Don't Really Know Yet" attracts few readers.

First off, the doctor doesn't claim his statements as "science". He is making best guesses based on what he's seeing. He didn't write a paper to be peer reviewed. So you (and others) are the one making a straw man argument.

Let's parse the language a bit:

"A UPMC doctor on Thursday made a case the death rate for people infected with the new coronavirus may be as low as 0.25%"

"MADE A CASE" that it "MAY BE".

The article does not say "the doctor is claiming a scientific fact". So stop straw-maning ok? cool thx

He is surmising based on his personal experience in his community.
"Yealy said about 1,300 people in Allegheny have tested positive"
"Yealy said only 2% percent of the UPMC system’s 5,500 beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients and the number of new COVID-19 patients is declining."

He is not claiming any scientific fact and he gives very reasonable caveats as well if you read the whole article.

 

[davepsilon]

First off, the doctor doesn't claim his statements as "science". He is making best guesses based on what he's seeing. He didn't write a paper to be peer reviewed. So you (and others) are the one making a straw man argument.

Let's parse the language a bit:

"A UPMC doctor on Thursday made a case the death rate for people infected with the new coronavirus may be as low as 0.25%"

"MADE A CASE" that it "MAY BE".

The article does not say "the doctor is claiming a scientific fact". So stop straw-maning ok? cool thx

He is surmising based on his personal experience in his community.
"Yealy said about 1,300 people in Allegheny have tested positive"
"Yealy said only 2% percent of the UPMC system’s 5,500 beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients and the number of new COVID-19 patients is declining."

He is not claiming any scientific fact and he gives very reasonable caveats as well if you read the whole article.

Not going to engage in this discussion further. Don’t do it @Doggydogworld

It’s not good faith discussion to shift the sands so much on your own reference.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Sweden shows 501 deaths over the past 7 days, vs. 752 the prior 7 days. That's an impressive decline. I use 7 day windows for Sweden because their day-to-day numbers are so noisy. The excess death charts don't seem to show massive undercounting in Sweden, either. Their overall COVID death rate is still much higher than neighbors Finland and Norway, and much worse than Germany, but not as bad as Italy/Spain/Belgium.

I mostly ignore confirmed case count, but FWIW theirs was flattish around 4k/week throughout April. More support for the idea that their relaxed countermeasures were enough to push R down to ~1.0.

 

[jerry33]

This is a bit like Y2K. I'm in the IT world and it was a real threat, but people who could see it was a threat jumped on the problem and made sure it didn't become a disaster. Because it didn't become a disaster a lot of people today think it was over hyped. Maybe it was to the general public, but it was definitely something the IT world needed to pay attention to.

There certainly were many potential issues that could have been disastrous such as legacy Fortran, COBOL, and other code at financial institutions, but the vendors alerted folks years before and provided solutions, but a lot of it was over-hyped. Particularly the PC part involving spreadsheets.