Coronavirus

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

The bit that sticks in my throat the most is while he castigates Western democracies for their mostly quite moderate and temporary steps to protect the most vulnerable, he continues with the hero worship of the Chinese Communist Party. Who locked down the better part of a billion people at the barrel of a gun. Welded Wuhan residents into their apartment blocks. Sent armed police to head-bag and bundle elderly people into armoured vehicles because digital tracing showed they may have been exposed to the virus. Withholding key information from the world at a crucial time (e.g. that human-human transmission was occurring). Disappearing scientists (and perhaps worse) that tried to raise the early alarm that may have prevented the crisis entirely. Deleting all criticism of the government from the media. And by the way, detaining perhaps a million residents of Xinjiang in “re-education camps”, or to call them what they are, concentration camps, because of their political and religious views.

That’s without getting to unsubstantiated (but plausible) conspiracy theories that the virus escaped from a Wuhan lab, or that the CPC deliberately sat on what they knew to ensure the rest of the world caught the same economic flu that was at that point already inevitable in China.

It’s really hard to reconcile just how anti-science Musk has been through all this with his carefully curated public persona of being “Mr First Principles”, smartest guy in the room. His apparent naïveté in trusting the CPC because they threw him some cheap liquidity and drew a line through city red tape for him.

Which does rather cast doubt on the justification for that image in the first place. What else is he too pig headed to listen to advice over? Where else is he misplacing his trust?

As someone else said, TSLA suddenly looks a very brave place to park very big proportions of your wealth, even if it’s still worth having a nice chunk of it in case the company hits the jackpot in its various ventures.

Then you don't understand how Elon's first principles work. If you disagree with him, you have to be an expert in your field and can explain to him why he's wrong. Last I'm aware of, he doesn't have a virologist, nor an epidemiologist on staff, so no one has enough "expertise" to dissuade him.

 

[SageBrush]

Then you don't understand how Elon's first principles work. If you disagree with him, you have to be an expert in your field and can explain to him why he's wrong. Last I'm aware of, he doesn't have a virologist, nor an epidemiologist on staff, so no one has enough "expertise" to dissuade him.

Well, we could pitch in and get him internet access to easily available expertise.

 

[EVNow]

Then you don't understand how Elon's first principles work. If you disagree with him, you have to be an expert in your field and can explain to him why he's wrong. Last I'm aware of, he doesn't have a virologist, nor an epidemiologist on staff, so no one has enough "expertise" to dissuade him.

My company has been having company wide calls with epidemiologists to discuss Covid. Not sure why Musk can't do that.

BTW, well known epidemiologists have been making fun of Musk's tweets.

Carl T. Bergstrom on Twitter

 

[Singer3000]

Then you don't understand how Elon's first principles work. If you disagree with him, you have to be an expert in your field and can explain to him why he's wrong. Last I'm aware of, he doesn't have a virologist, nor an epidemiologist on staff, so no one has enough "expertise" to dissuade him.

You don’t have to be a virologist to tell him why he’s wrong when he says countries across the world are faking their overall death stats to make it look like there are higher society deaths than in reality. But many experts in their field have told him.

And he’d still prefer to listen to the crazies on Twitter with 50 followers. The man is unwell. There is no shame in that. The shame is on certain members of the compliant board for enabling his excesses.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Didn't a "top 5 epidemiologist" kick all this nonsense off with his 2.2M dead Americans nonsense? The entire world is a hot mess of emotional non-thinking right now, including doctors/epidemiologists.

 

[jhm]

Haha, it's happening!

More U.S. Carriers Mandate Passengers Wear Face Masks In The Cabin

Executives at American, Delta, and Frontier just blinked. They're sitting there thinking, "Those SOBs at JetBlue just enacted an everyone wears a mask in the cabin rule that we were afraid to enact, and now they're potentially going to be stealing our passengers while simultaneously making us look bad!" So, the result is that three more U.S. airlines just decided upon an everyone wears masks in the cabin policy. The thing is that such policies make flying safer and will lead to a quicker return of business. It just took one airline to get the ball rolling. Thank you JetBlue!

Edit: I see that United just joined the movement. That was inevitable, as inevitable of trying to retain a smoking section while everyone else goes smoke free.

I'm looking for a cabin with a UV light section. Would like to arrive bronze and germ free, living optional when you look this good.

 

[bkp_duke]

How are you feeling about this comment now?

My comment didn't include "CEO suicide". There are only so many human behaviors that one can account for. This one was not in my top 1000.

 

[Singer3000]

My comment didn't include "CEO suicide". There are only so many human behaviors that one can account for. This one was not in my top 1000.

Interested to know what those 1000 were. Because what’s happened was in my view totally predictable.

 

[Norbert]

Gates on the CNN interview last night mentioned that Bloomberg was working with NYS to standup tracing. He also mentioned Washington state is working in a similar fashion (sounded like Gates might be helping but he did not say it directly). These states will likely be the first to launch. PA was not mentioned.

There is clearly a sequence to this. There is little use in tracing if testing is so slow that the point of tracing is just to send condolence cards to those that have been exposed days before. Once testing is is able to report results in 24 hours then tracing begins to pay dividends.

Delivering test results within 24 hours opens up further benefits. Otherwise even testing is not worth much. YMMV.

He also said we should strive for as much testing as is practically possible. Of course 24 hours turnaround is really important, but for example testing those who are in contact with a lot of other people (like health care and first responders) is beneficial even if the turnaround is larger than 24 hours, and even if contact tracing is not working yet.

Also, this will still save lives even if the infection level is high. It will reduce Rt no matter where Rt is (above 1, at 1, or below 1). As long as it doesn't get in the way of anything more effective, which I don't think it would.

EDIT: The fact that Gates sees the need to point out the importance of 24 hour turn around is an indication that feds and states are still in the process of figuring out how to do things. They should have started with this long ago, instead of waiting for the time when it should work already. Or make Gates or one of his people part of the task force, or something like that.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Just trying to come up with a rational explanation for why he is derping so hard the last few weeks. He has just been so obviously wrong, over and over again.

I'm feeling good about all the disagrees I got on the post above (so many - really was quite surprised). I feel it has aged well, though I wasn't technically correct (I said it was poorly researched!). Elon clearly was trying to demonstrate today that he was not motivated by the option grant, so is trying to make sure it didn't get granted. I feel like we should have discussed this theory with a little bit more of an open mind, in retrospect. Presumably he's decided he's going to do everything he can to get the valuation below $100 billion now, to ensure he doesn't get his politically incorrect stock grant? I'm not saying this is his plan, but it seems like a good discussion to have to about his strategy here, assuming it's a rational one. Is this conceivable? That would mean he needs to get the price below about $540 dollars, is that correct?

If so, perhaps I should hold off on buying until about $500 or so.

Didn't a "top 5 epidemiologist" kick all this nonsense off with his 2.2M dead Americans nonsense?

Dude, how many times do you have to be wrong about this? You are one stubborn mule.

Hopefully we'll see a new case peak of over 35k new cases, along with a new testing peak of over 300k tests, sometime this week. That would be very promising. And then the following week maybe we'll get to 600k per day.

Looks like this pretty much happened today. We should not become demoralized by the very high 35k numbers - if we had had 300k tests per day a couple weeks ago, we would have likely seen 45k or more positives!

The positivity rate is down to about 11%, which is also a promising improvement (we have to get it MUCH lower).

Tests: 321k (all time high)
Positives: 35k (nearly an all-time high) Real new infections (???): Guess 150k. (Should translate to about 1000-1500 deaths per day in 2-3 weeks.)
Deaths: 1.8k
Positivity: 11% (was 14% a week ago)

Let's hope for at least 500k tests per day next week (end goal would be 1-2 million per day, aiming for below 5% positive)! As long as we're really isolating all these positive cases, we should hopefully see some accelerated decay of cases going forward.

 

[jhm]

My company has been having company wide calls with epidemiologists to discuss Covid. Not sure why Musk can't do that.

BTW, well known epidemiologists have been making fun of Musk's tweets.

Carl T. Bergstrom on Twitter

Speaking of which...Opinion | What the Proponents of ‘Natural’ Herd Immunity Don’t Say

Nice illustration of herd immunity overshoot. Herd immunity is reached only as infections peak. A whole lot more people get infected past that point.

 

[Norbert]

Tests: 321k (all time high)
Positives: 35k (nearly an all-time high) Real new infections (???): Guess 150k. (Should translate to about 1000-1500 deaths per day in 2-3 weeks.).

1,000-1,500 in 2-3 weeks would be a lot more than any model is predicting, I think.

Deaths: 1.8k

Worldometers has more than that yesterday as well as today, so a strange cut if it is.

 

[dmode]

I will admit. Given the current data, US is completely screwed. Here's an actual expert (heavily referenced by Nate Silver) that lays out the case. Trevor Bedford on Twitter

TL;DR: 1) US cases are not bending, but rather plateauing at ~300K infections per day 2) This is occurring even through we have peak lockdowns. We are now reopening, as states under pressure from Trump and likes of Elon 3) So there is no evidence of curve bending in the near future 4) This will result in 50M cumulative infections by Sept 1. With 0.5% fatality rate, this will translate to 250K deaths

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

1,000-1,500 in 2-3 weeks would be a lot more than any model is predicting, I think.

Agrees with this model! Go machine learning! It's almost as good as having a human brain (this sort of projection is also quite apparent, with a cursory look at the available data, and doing mental pattern extraction)!

COVID-19 Projections | United States

Worldometers has more than that yesterday as well as today, so a strange cut if it is.

Different accumulation intervals. Will likely mean a larger number from COVID Tracking tomorrow due to a "hot" afternoon (generally more deaths in the west). All depends on tomorrow morning!

 

[EVNow]

Gates on the CNN interview last night mentioned that Bloomberg was working with NYS to standup tracing. He also mentioned Washington state is working in a similar fashion (sounded like Gates might be helping but he did not say it directly). These states will likely be the first to launch. PA was not mentioned.

As expected WA has now extended stay at home to May 31st.

Inslee extends coronavirus stay-home order through May 31, outlines plan to reopen Washington in phases

Inslee was saying during the press conference that they want to get as aggressive with testing & tracing as Taiwan & Korea. Atleast he is making the right noises - we'll see how they actually do it.

What Inslee’s 4-phase plan to reopen Washington’s economy means for your life

 

[lascavarian]

NYS has ~ 1000 new Covid hospitalizations a day. That works out to ~ 200 deaths a day, and using a 1% IFR it implies ~ 20,000 new infections a day. If contract tracing leads to e.g. 50 contacts per infection then the plan is to apply 14 day quarantines on 1M people a day.
SAH has failed in NYS, and barring other successful measures this test,trace and quarantine strategy just amounts to another somewhat worse SAH outcome.

Ouch, yes that looks tough.

It is possible that the 14 days is modified/reduceable by the improved testing involving prioritization for those exposed. If contacts were priority retested at 5? days (if the science supports a particular day) then that be helpful. This presumes 24 hr test results, very accurate testing and a functional method of prioritizing testing (yes some heavy lifting).

Thanks for your comments.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Inslee was saying during the press conference that they want to get as aggressive with testing & tracing as Taiwan & Korea. Atleast he is making the right noises - we'll see how they actually do it.

I just hope that he and his team have been working on this for the last 4-5 weeks or so, but are only now bringing it to the forefront of public discourse. (As it's been pretty obvious since mid-March that's what would need to be done, I'm sure his team has been fully aware and prepping and establishing the groundwork for this framework. Hopefully all the hospital stuff hasn't been too overwhelming to defocus test & trace efforts over the last month.)

 

[EVNow]

Well, I plan to stay isolated as long a possible and hope that there will be a vaccine before I get exposed. That is a really rough thought if a vaccine won't show up until next year !
I can see how most people assume there is no way "shelter in place" could last that long.

Maybe there are some really isolated people, like hermits living in the wilderness, people sheltering on their yachts, etc, that could hold out a long time without being exposed...

Personally I find being in isolation easier as time goes by !

It is easier now to get things shipped home. I can easily get slots for grocery pickup/delivery now than in last 2 months. Masks are actually getting back in stock. Soon - one hopes - hand sanitizers.

The biggest question is school. If the schools reopen in September - it will get very difficult to stay isolated for us. Ofcourse, easier for at risk older people without small kids. Also, I guess easier for natural introverts

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I will admit. Given the current data, US is completely screwed. Here's an actual expert (heavily referenced by Nate Silver) that lays out the case. Trevor Bedford on Twitter

TL;DR: 1) US cases are not bending, but rather plateauing at ~300K infections per day 2) This is occurring even through we have peak lockdowns. We are now reopening, as states under pressure from Trump and likes of Elon 3) So there is no evidence of curve bending in the near future 4) This will result in 50M cumulative infections by Sept 1. With 0.5% fatality rate, this will translate to 250K deaths

Ah, don't be too negative - read to the end of his thread! He fully admits that it's quite possible that cases ARE reducing, but the decrease has been hidden by increasing testing. There's evidence of this! We had about 35k positives back on April 10th, with 160k tests. 36k positives on April 25th with 270k tests. And 35k positives today, with 320k tests!

This is good news. The fatality count will still be tragically high (I think it will definitely exceed 150k and may get to the 250k number eventually depending on how things go - but I also think IFR is closer to 1% than 0.5%).

But the trajectory of cases may well be on a downward trend.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

We all know Elon Musk is both brilliant and crazy. This guy head butted a car on the production line the last time he had a meltdown (2018). I'm not surprised that a month of isolation is bringing out the crazy.

Musk suggested that the California stay-home orders (which are similar to those in 42 states) are "fascism" and "house arrest", and that people are being arrested for leaving their homes. Obviously, all of us here in California who can look outside our windows know that's not true. (Does Elon's house not have windows?) There's lots of people walking around. Parks, trails, and beaches are mostly open. Restaurants are open for takeout. Many stores are open, though some only allow curbside pickup. Construction is running. About 70% of the economy is still running. Nobody is getting jailed for leaving their homes. It's far from normal, but Elon's description of a Wuhan-style lockdown is not at all the reality, as he should be able to see outside his own window!

So let's take this WAG (to which you later broke down as 30% critical, and 40% work from home. SageBrush added that he thought it was reasonable), draw some inferences.

- All the infection spread (or at least most) are from the 30% being critical businesses (hospitals, nursing homes, grocery stores, food delivery, construction, maintenance, government, etc), since you can't really catch/transmit anything from the act of working from home.
- People respecting the SAH order can still get infected from their family members who work in one of those critical businesses.
- CA is nowhere near the 25+% infected that NY is at, the exact amount isn't important, only that it's significantly less than 25%. But if a number has to be provided, extrapolating from the death count or 2.5% infected seems reasonable.
- schools, churches, dine-in restaurants, cruise ships, concerts, theatres, sporting events, gyms, and social gatherings are at high risk of infection spreading and are to remain closed for the point of this exercise. And we're only discussing CA here.
- So due to face mask use and social distancing measures, the critical businesses (some of which pose the highest risk for infection spread) have been able to keep the spread down.

Would opening factories and other similiar low-interaction businesses that can control the spacing between employees, really significantly add to the spread? There are a significant amount of ground between the current SAH order and re-opening the entire state for all businesses. Amending the order to allow businesses that can maintain social distancing and stricter hygiene and sanitation standards should have little impact to the spread.

This isn't about economics over lives. It's about the sensibility of keeping low-risk businesses closed, while permitting high-risk ones to remain open, because of the label "critical business". If you can control the transmission vectors, then you can prevent the spread and wouldn't be adding load to the hospitals (which are currently loaded by the businesses that are _required_ to be open)!