Coronavirus

[AlanSubie4Life]

I've posted it before but usually my posts are ignored with a "funny" or "disagree" rating, when I'm simply providing links and data:
Italy:
Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons) - ScienceDirect - With Euromomo data.
2016/2017: 0,4-0,7%
2014/2015: 0,3-0,6%

Ok.

In that link you provide, they say: 24981 deaths (using the Goldstein index) in 2016/2017. And they say there were 5.44 million ILI illnesses that year. Frankly it's hard to calculate a mortality number this way, as I am not sure about the quality of the data vs. what I've seen from CDC estimates. But anyway, doesn't matter. It was a bad year!

"We estimated influenza-associated mortality using two indicators of influenza activity. When using ILI as the IA, mortality may be overestimated. By using the Goldstein index as the IA, the dynamic of transmission is better represented and overestimation due to deaths by other pathogens is limited (Nielsen et al., 2018). Both indicators show a similar pattern, but the estimation of mortality associated with influenza based on the Goldstein index seems to be the most reliable. We considered ILI as IA indicator mainly for comparisons with previous studies adopting the same approach."


That is 0.45% (yes, that is high!). For an entire flu season. In an elderly population. Looks like Italy exceed that number of deaths in about 30 days here. Seems like a big difference! I would not be surprised, with Italy's demographics, if their IFR for SARS-CoV-2 exceeds 2%.

So that's very likely at least a factor of 4 worse. But that understates the degree of difference, I would guess, when you look more broadly at other countries.

I guess we'll see!

Here's what the CDC estimates for the US, seems like a quick and easy way to review, looks like it tops out at about 0.17%:

“Should” is the key word. And what will the most effective and accepted tracing program look like in the US? As cases rise with reopening, the few local efforts here and there using a manual, brute force method is going to be quickly overwhelmed and ineffective.

That is certainly a distinct possibility. I'm trying to be optimistic. And I'm seeing declines in cases nationwide, in spite of increased testing. That is very positive. I don't think anyone is going to really go back to work (without protection) for quite a while (if there's an outbreak, the few places who opened up without restrictions will quickly shut down again), so I think we have another month or so to get testing up to reasonable levels nationwide.

I'm hoping that the summer heat will be a greater reducer of Rt than expected, too. Even though there is not tons of evidence of that, it's hard to compare vs. other locations in the world.

 

[TEG]

Covid Report: Tiny Biotech Sorrento Claims It Has A Coronavirus Cure

Be 100% Skeptical of 100% Coronavirus Cure

 

[GFernandes]

Ok.

In that link you provide, they say: 24981 deaths (using the Goldstein index) in 2016/2017. And they say there were 5.44 million ILI illnesses that year. Frankly it's hard to calculate a mortality number this way, as I am not sure about the quality of the data vs. what I've seen from CDC estimates. But anyway, doesn't matter. It was a bad year!

"We estimated influenza-associated mortality using two indicators of influenza activity. When using ILI as the IA, mortality may be overestimated. By using the Goldstein index as the IA, the dynamic of transmission is better represented and overestimation due to deaths by other pathogens is limited (Nielsen et al., 2018). Both indicators show a similar pattern, but the estimation of mortality associated with influenza based on the Goldstein index seems to be the most reliable. We considered ILI as IA indicator mainly for comparisons with previous studies adopting the same approach."


That is 0.45% (yes, that is high!). For an entire flu season. In an elderly population. Looks like Italy exceed that number of deaths in about 30 days here. Seems like a big difference! I would not be surprised, with Italy's demographics, if their IFR for SARS-CoV-2 exceed 2%.

So that's very likely at least a factor of 4 worse. But that understates the degree of difference, I would guess, when you look more broadly at other countries.

I guess we'll see!



That is certainly a distinct possibility. I'm trying to be optimistic. And I'm seeing declines in cases nationwide, in spite of increased testing. That is very positive. I don't think anyone is going to really go back to work (without protection) for quite a while (if there's an outbreak, the few places who opened up without restrictions will quickly shut down again), so I think we have another month or so to get testing up to reasonable levels nationwide.

I'm hoping that the summer heat will be a greater reducer of Rt than expected, too. Even though there is not tons of evidence of that, it's hard to compare vs. other locations in the world.

Why should we use the Goldstein Index when counting deaths attributable to Influenza instead of ILI, and when we are talking about COVID, every positive case that dies is counted as death attributable to COVID? Is that a fair comparison? If you go with ILI deaths we are talking about 0,7%.

 

[dqd88]

Thinking high level, are you. Thinking high level would be the judgment of society. No society can call itself truly civilized unless it takes care of its most vulnerable members. And when I say vulnerable I am not only talking about the elderly, but also of the young, and the poor. We don't take care of them by opening up the economy too early. They are the ones who have no choice but to go back to work and risk their health and their lives so can get back to normal.

Thinking high level involves determining what sacrifices the least lives, not what will enrich those who who own the businesses. Thinking high level means figuring out how to get them fed while they shelter, how to build the societal base so that those worried about abuse are protected and know how to get help in these times.

Thinking high level is not about how to let the billionaires make more billions, it is about protecting the most lives and the welfare of the most people. That is high level thinking for a civilization worth preserving, not the moronic leadership of our current administration. The high level thinking needs more leadership that we have and more leadership than that demonstrated by one who is looking at a sensible solution rather than a solution that protects the most people.

You're so very wrong. What we are doing, at a high level, is TRYING to protect the vulnerable (we've done a poor job and could have done just as good a job without a sever shut down), while incurring an insanely high cost that will be passed to future generations. If you cared about kids and their future you wouldn't be so selfish as to place more problems on their shoulders while they'll have to deal with existential threats to humanity. That's just fact.

Elon has a proper view. He knows we have much bigger problems than a virus that kills 1%. We need to make sure 100% of humanity doesn't die off from existential threats. We need to move to sustainable energy and become multi-planetary. Sacrificing progress towards that to save grandma and grandpa is politically correct and "feel-good" in the moment, but it's stupid and selfish at a HIGH-LEVEL and in the long run.

Please consider all of society and future generations and the threats they'll face when forming your opions.

 

[Scooby24]

The virus takes serious whacks at you after you think you have mostly recovered. Happened to me through the entire month of April - it's a barrel of monkeys' worth of fun getting waterboarded by this virus, gasping for oxygen like a fish washed up on a beach.

You can't imagine?

The reason they had a breakout, despite allegedly taking it very seriously, is snowflakes like you. Asymptomatic visitors who want to bust the rules, or simply irresponsibly (there's a pandemic that kills old people and you can be asymptomatic and infect a vulnerable person) presented themselves in an "old folks' home" before a full lockdown.

And a 7-ish percent infection rate in a place like a nursing home is a damned good result (not odds), which is a pat on the back to what the staff and management are doing.

And what makes you so special that you get PPE, yet doctors or nurses have to wear the same mask all day, and wash them and reuse them? If you could get hoarded PPE, get it, cancel your visit, and donate it to a major hospital.

Lawsuit? You should be taking up a collection to mint gold medals for the nursing staff there.

Pretty entitled. Might want to work on that one a bit.

I don't know what you're on about, but your sarcasm meter is completely broken and you're making absolutely asinine assumptions.

I hadn't stepped foot in my Grandmother's nursing home before today. We've been talking on the phone since this all occurred.

I was sarcastically pointing out that the staff there didn't seem to be taking the measures seriously given the messaging her nurse provided suggesting these folks would have done better if they'd been allowed to leave the nursing home. She even went so far as to suggest I sneak her out on the false pretenses that I was taking her to a doctor's appointment.

I am in healthcare and know exactly what you're talking about with the PPE which is why I asked if they had any as a matter of exception for those who were wanting to spend final moments with their loved ones.

And it wasn't a 7% infection rate, it was a 7% DEATH rate. They've LOST 7, about to be 8. In the future I'd suggest giving folks the benefit of the doubt first, or at least double checking what you think you read.

Oh yes, and that gold mint nurse of hers hadn't been in to check on her for so long that she was laying in a depends saturated with urine that hadn't been checked in so long that it had soaked her mattress. We asked where the nurse was to get that addressed. She was out having a smoke break. The old discarded PPE was also overflowing the wastebasket OUTSIDE of her room. COVID infected disposable garments just sitting out overflowing a wastebasket. Not even contained in her room.

 

[shinytop]

I think you and I are using different definitions of high.

 

[dfwatt]

The virus takes serious whacks at you after you think you have mostly recovered. Happened to me through the entire month of April - it's a barrel of monkeys' worth of fun getting waterboarded by this virus, gasping for oxygen like a fish washed up on a beach.

You can't imagine?

The reason they had a breakout, despite allegedly taking it very seriously, is snowflakes like you. Asymptomatic visitors who want to bust the rules, or simply irresponsibly (there's a pandemic that kills old people and you can be asymptomatic and infect a vulnerable person) presented themselves in an "old folks' home" before a full lockdown.

And a 7-ish percent infection rate in a place like a nursing home is a damned good result (not odds), which is a pat on the back to what the staff and management are doing.

And what makes you so special that you get PPE, yet doctors or nurses have to wear the same mask all day, and wash them and reuse them? If you could get hoarded PPE, get it, cancel your visit, and donate it to a major hospital.

Lawsuit? You should be taking up a collection to mint gold medals for the nursing staff there.

Pretty entitled. Might want to work on that one a bit.

This seems like a pretty inappropriate and insensitive response to someone who's posting about a death in the family. It's outright hostile and I'm not sure you see how inappropriate that is. Whatever your other points might add up to.

 

[deonb]

We're likely far closer to 100M than 10M infections in the US, that's why I drew the parallel to Swine Flu. Everyone's doing the same faulty denominator math that was done back in 2009. If we know CV19 spreads more easily than Swine Flu(and it's novel!), why would we think the eventual case count would somehow be an order of magnitude lower?

If you're so sure about that, that implies this thing is going to be over in 7 to 10 days and you'll see infection count abruptly drop off a cliff. That in turn will cause the biggest stock market rally in history.

Why don't you sell all your assets, mortgage your house to the brim, and invest all your cash in short term call options. Especially airlines stocks right now seem like a bargain.

You can pick up something like UAL $65 May 15 Calls for 1c right now. If you are right, in 10 days UAL would recover and the call option will be worth about $30. 3000-to-1. You'll make a billion dollars for every $333k you put in there. Cool beans.

So stop arguing with a bunch of people you clearly think are reality-challenged idiots, and go work on putting your money where you mouth is. Then come back and rub it into our faces 2 weeks from now.

Just checkin in with @TheTalkingMule - so you said we were at 100M infections 10 days ago. What does your crystal ball say where we are today? 300M?

PS: How's your first billion coming along?

 

[Daniel in SD]

The only way to be thorough and create a plan with integrity is to assess the entirety of the consequences of a lockdown and you have not done that.

First I disagree with calling the situation in California a "lockdown".
I think that if the state government were to lift the so called "lockdown" it would not result in the Coronavirus party you envision. Most people are not avoiding dine-in restaurants just because the government has closed them. Hotels and airports are still open but people are choosing not to fly and stay in hotels. If we have an outbreak like Spain, Italy, or New York I believe that will further depress economic activity no matter what the government does.
I'm not discounting the consequences of the "lockdown", I just think the alternative would be even worse economically. It also think a lot more people would die and suffer lifelong complications (which aren't cheap!). Being 41 years old I've got about a 2% chance of requiring hospitalization (from the Spain data) which I assume means really bad pneumonia. I like my lungs the way they are. Will the government lifting the "lockdown" get me to go to a restaurant or take a flight when the pandemic is raging? What about my 75 year old parents?

 

[X Fan]

You're suggesting that somebody who thinks President Trump is a moron must be a left-winger? You got to be kidding! He is a moron! And that's not a political opinion it's just a fact independent of whether you like his policies and whether or not you believe that taking care of the rich people helps everybody or whether or not people of color should be excluded from the country. He believes that injecting bleach or disinfectants or maybe even UV lights into the body might be the way to "give it a cleaning" in covid-19. "Perhaps the science people should look into that!"

I believe that that bit of completely unhinged idiocy proves incontrovertibly - independent of whether or not you like his policies and whether you're left, right or Central - that President Trump is indeed a total moron!

So I guess the only people who believe that the Earth is flat are far right enough to be neutral?

I chuckle at your sophomoric name calling response. And so Very tribal.

if you enhance your reading comprehension you would see that I knocked BOTH parties for failing America.

Btw: your characterization of what Trump said is totally out of context; given your tribal nature I expect no less. Open your eyes, neither party has your best interest, and FWIW neither Trump nor Biden are worthy of being elected in 2020.

btw2: I agree with Elon that Government has crossed the line in managing this crisis. Barstool sports guy nailed it the other day!

 

[Daniel in SD]

while incurring an insanely high cost that will be passed to future generations.

I still want to know who future generations will owe this money to?
We should help future generations by suppressing the virus enough over the summer that schools can reopen in fall.

 

[dfwatt]

I chuckle at your sophomoric name calling response. And so Very tribal.

if you enhance your reading comprehension you would see that I knocked BOTH parties for failing America.

Btw: your characterization of what Trump said is totally out of context; given your tribal nature I expect no less. Open your eyes, neither party has your best interest, and FWIW neither Trump nor Biden are worthy of being elected in 2020.

btw2: I agree with Elon that Government has crossed the line in managing this crisis. Barstool sports guy nailed it the other day!

I just lack your deep sophistication and savoie faire. Being so sophmoric and all. I await further instructions Oh Great One.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

How do you explain that?

No idea on that. Would be better to see it on date of death rather than date of report probably, but tough with your source I guess.

Mostly this curve looks a bit better, though. Just looks to me like a less explosive exponential epidemic, followed by control measures.

 

[blckdmp]

I've posted it before but usually my posts are ignored with a "funny" or "disagree" rating, when I'm simply providing links and data:
Italy:
Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons) - ScienceDirect - With Euromomo data.
2016/2017: 0,4-0,7%
2014/2015: 0,3-0,6%

With the worst year (2016/17) influenza deaths in Italy estimated at 24981 as per your link. How do you figure the 31600+ deaths from Covid are no worse? You do know they locked Italy down pretty hard in the last while too, right?

 

[SageBrush]

you would see that I knocked BOTH parties for failing America

Comparing just about anyone else to a sociopathic moron who contemplates injecting bleach is .... let's just say a false equivalence.

 

[GFernandes]

With the worst year (2016/17) influenza deaths in Italy estimated at 24981 as per your link. How do you figure the 31600+ deaths from Covid are no worse? You do know they locked Italy down pretty hard in the last while too, right?

check the whole paper and my previous post explaining my point: you should use ILI deaths from that paper and not Goldstein index, since in covid you are considering most deaths with Covid as deaths from Covid. It’s the fair comparison. If you do use it you are talking about 0,7% IFR not 0,3% as you mention. Table 2 and Table 4 for more details.

 

[Norbert]

As a side note, COVID-19 is considered dangerous not only because of its IFR, but also because of how infectious it can be without mitigation, resulting in a potentially high mortality. The term mortality, AFAIK, is used for deaths/population, while IFR (infection fatality rate) is used for deaths/infected.

COVID-19's special "quality" doesn't come just from its general impact with various levels of mitigation, but because of how bad it can get. We don't know yet how bad it can get without mitigation.

You could use South Korea to prove it can be as harmless as 5/million mortality.
Or New York City to prove it can be as harmful as 2,400/million.

Alameda County in California, btw, is now at 49/million, so only 2% of NYC.

Whole countries, at this point in time, usually have some regions or counties with high mortality, but lower mortality elsewhere. Spain has 584/million, Italy 519/million. Sweden has 350/million, compared to the US with 263/million, 33% more, so I am glad the US is not Sweden.

So these countries, as a whole, all have less than a quarter the mortality of NYC. In all likelihood, NYC is roughly 1/3 of herd immunity, so it can get 3 times worse, or even more. So more than 10 times as bad as any of the named countries.

TL;DR: Unless you look at NYC, you don't know how bad COVID-19 is in reality, and even then, still not how dangerous it is (or can be).

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Drove across New Jersey on a leisurely jaunt to the beach today. You wouldn't think anything special was happening, other than the businesses mostly being closed. Reminded me of what holidays used to look like in the 80's when we actually shut down for things like the 4th of July.

I'd say about 10-20% of people we're masked while wandering around mingling with neighbors. Perhaps we're locking up nursing home well(finally!), but I saw no real mitigation anywhere in southern NJ. PA is far more "on alert", but still plenty of Trumpers out in BAU.

 

[linux-works]

this is the ID card (real one is wallet size and laminated) that the trumpers should all carry:

wonder if any would put their 'belief systems' in writing?

the 'party of responsibility' should actually take responsibility and save the healthcare system for those that want it to work and not collapse. if you go around and defy better judgement, and then get yourself infected, you should not be covered by any 'socialist' healthcare system in the US.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

check the whole paper and my previous post explaining my point: you should use ILI deaths from that paper and not Goldstein index, since in covid you are considering most deaths with Covid as deaths from Covid. It’s the fair comparison. If you do use it you are talking about 0,7% IFR not 0,3% as you mention. Table 2 and Table 4 for more details.

I'd say with all of these numbers you do have to be careful about the denominator. At least in the CDC numbers for influenza, it always talks about symptomatic cases. If we want to talk about "symptomatic" cases for COVID we should probably reduce the denominator a bit.

It's not like we do serological testing after every influenza season to firmly establish prevalence of antibodies. It's estimated! And the CDC treats the denominator as symptomatic cases only.

you should use ILI deaths from that paper and not Goldstein index, since in covid you are considering most deaths with Covid as deaths from Covid. It’s the fair comparison.

I'm not really sure this follows. There are reasons for them to prefer the Goldstein index - see above. I'm not convinced at all that the COVID deaths are overcounted - they are VERY likely undercounted, right now. Remember that influenza deaths are also inflated greatly after the fact (via ILI & Goldstein methods). By inflated, I do not mean to suggest that it is not real (it's a statistical estimate), but it's just something to keep in mind. All the numbers are a bit squishy at this point. The valid number to look at, if you want to compare to even the Goldstein index for flu, is not the current counted deaths for COVID, but the estimated COVID deaths based on an analysis after the epidemic is complete (which is much HIGHER than the current numbers).