Coronavirus II

[Tractor]

I just want to point out that this article is from May 28 and is in the liberal lefty mainstream rag "NPR." That is to say, we've known for a while now that the IFR is probably somewhere between .5% and 1% (NY released its preliminary studies in early May, which line up with this reporting from NPR). Unfortunately, with 330 million Americans and an assumed 60-70% required infection rate for "herd immunity," even that "good news" fatality rate will still mean between 1 million and 2.5 million dead Americans.

 

It may still come out that the IFR is even lower than .5%, which would be great news. But the antibody testing right now appears to suck ass.

 

The problem with your 1 - 2.5 million dead americans is that your not taking into account the age/risk factor/death curve which changes your estimate considerably.

 

Yes some totally healthy people get it and die, but thats an extreme in itself and how do we know they were healthy, just because their last medical exam 5-10 years ago didn't turn up risk factors and they were of a healthy weight? Its highly probable that those individuals had underlying undetected health conditions in most of the cases such as undiagnosed sleep apnea among tons of other things that you cant or don't bother to test on a corpse. I mean if I don't go get a regular check up then I don't have anything wrong on record.

 

I have a feeling some of the overblown estimates were due to cruise ship passengers getting it, tons of older people go on cruises especially in the winter and on a cruise ship with many people in very close proximity touching hand rails etc your gonna get near 100% infection and due to age a very high death or at least very serious condition stats.

 

So no one could figure actual numbers in a general population using those numbers.

 

The aircraft carrier was a very good indicator of how it would effect mostly young people with a few lifetime officers etc thrown in the mix and those numbers were very good, but again slightly off due to the much larger number of young healthy people.

[greg1647545532]

The problem with your 1 - 2.5 million dead americans is that your not taking into account the age/risk factor/death curve which changes your estimate considerably.

 

I'm not not taking it into account either -- even the elderly and others knocking on death's door require treatment.

 

If we've learned anything from this it should be that we're not prepared for a bad pandemic. We took drastic measures as a nation (well, as individual states and cities) and managed to limit the places where our health care system was nearly overrun to only a few regions.

 

Remember that the .5 - 1% IFR was WITH people getting treatment. If it were much worse than a lot more "healthy" people wouldn't have been able to get treatment and the IFR would (and still could) be higher.

 

A good question is, let's say 5 years from now a different strain of coronavirus attacks the globe with the exact same infection rate and fatality characteristics. Do we do nothing and just accept 1 to 2.5 million dead Americans? I would say doing so would cripple our health care industry and lead to massive economic hardship anyway. Now let's say by some fluke of life you're working in public health for the state and you see all of these reports of COVID-24 starting to cause issues in other countries. Maybe we don't shut down the economy, but we do cancel public events, limit mass gatherings, spend a relative shitload of money on advanced testing, contact tracing, and PPE procurement. Except nobody will listen to you because "COVID-19 ended up not being that bad, most of the people who died were old anyway." You're ignored. How do you think that turns out for us?

[spankis]

The problem with your 1 - 2.5 million dead americans is that your not taking into account the age/risk factor/death curve which changes your estimate considerably.

 

Yes some totally healthy people get it and die, but thats an extreme in itself and how do we know they were healthy, just because their last medical exam 5-10 years ago didn't turn up risk factors and they were of a healthy weight? Its highly probable that those individuals had underlying undetected health conditions in most of the cases such as undiagnosed sleep apnea among tons of other things that you cant or don't bother to test on a corpse. I mean if I don't go get a regular check up then I don't have anything wrong on record.

 

I have a feeling some of the overblown estimates were due to cruise ship passengers getting it, tons of older people go on cruises especially in the winter and on a cruise ship with many people in very close proximity touching hand rails etc your gonna get near 100% infection and due to age a very high death or at least very serious condition stats.

 

So no one could figure actual numbers in a general population using those numbers.

 

The aircraft carrier was a very good indicator of how it would effect mostly young people with a few lifetime officers etc thrown in the mix and those numbers were very good, but again slightly off due to the much larger number of young healthy people.

 

So, doubts then, you're saying you have some reasonable doubts about the data and numbers etc., and that's fine.

 

Thing is though, data is almost always imperfect and open to some interpretation. You have to take actions based on the data you've got, and that's pretty easy to justify. I don't think many people would find it reasonable to justify inaction based on "some doubts", but I continue to hear this complaint.

 

We don't have the complete data on "XYZ this or that". So what then, you do nothing until we have all the data? You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If there are uncertainties, you hedge your bets on the side of caution, not the opposite.

[greg1647545532]

Hydroxycholorquine struck another blow:

 

On June 15, 2020, based on FDA’s continued review of the scientific evidence available for hydroxychloroquine sulfate (HCQ) and chloroquine phosphate (CQ) to treat COVID-19, FDA has determined that the statutory criteria for EUA as outlined in Section 564©(2) of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act are no longer met. Specifically, FDA has determined that CQ and HCQ are unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA. Additionally, in light of ongoing serious cardiac adverse events and other serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of CQ and HCQ no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for the authorized use. This warrants revocation of the EUA for HCQ and CQ for the treatment of COVID-19.

[10phone2]

maybe we should put the sick in nursing homes

[greg1647545532]

If the nursing homes aren't big enough we can set up special camps for them. Of course we'll need a way to get them there, maybe by rail. And then we'll need a way to dispose of the corpses....

[10phone2]

lol

[Mace1647545504]

Neighbors behind me tested + for covid...the wife has been sick and getting worse for about a week was just taken to the hospital..her husband is doing fine and the really stupid part is they have a 13 year old son who has to wait for a doctors referral to get tested...wth

[greg1647545532]

Neighbors behind me tested + for covid...the wife has been sick and getting worse for about a week was just taken to the hospital..her husband is doing fine and the really stupid part is they have a 13 year old son who has to wait for a doctors referral to get tested...wth

 

That's awful. How old and any comorbidities?

[10phone2]

im really sorry to hear that

[Mace1647545504]

That's awful. How old and any comorbidities?

 

I really don't know...truly she was fine before and I don't think she has any underlining issues.

[Mace1647545504]

Well they gave her antiviral meds and antibodies plasma ..she's holding her own this evening

[greg1647545532]

ICU capacity to watch in Houston.

[Wease]

Cases seem to be rising, but wasn't that expected with things opening up? If we did what they said we were supposed to do, get the hospitals and PPE ready, then we should be prepared for this. That's how I view it anyway. We should be ready for this up tick, no reason to freak out. At least that's what I've seen some from media sources, the "freak out" part.

[Tractor]

I can tell you they are kinda freaking out in the news about my area, Myrtle Beach but I know that free testing started at the local sports stadium a couple weeks ago so more testing, more cases and not really a reason to get excited.

 

Things here are still pretty closed or at half capacity per new rules.

[greg1647545532]

Cases seem to be rising, but wasn't that expected with things opening up? If we did what they said we were supposed to do, get the hospitals and PPE ready, then we should be prepared for this.

 

Do you think we did what they said we were supposed to do? Last I heard Ohio's testing capacity was still not what they said it was going to be at this point, PPE supplies are still limited although not dire like April. It does seem like most places have made good progress in hospital and ICU surge capacity, and ventilator demand doesn't seem to be as high as we once feared. There are plans in place to handle local/regional hotspots. That's all good news. But....

 

The CDC guidelines for opening up had very specific requirements for doing so, e.g. a 14 day continuous drop in cases, and any deviation from those requirements called for locking back down. Texas, for example, never had a continuous 14 day drop in cases and just said "fuck it." Now their case rate is growing exponentially again, first time since early march. Same with Florida, Georgia, etc. It seems apparent to me, maybe you disagree, that a few major cities are going to start knowing what NYC and Detroit were going through 3 months ago. I guess we'll see. It does seem like treatments have gotten a lot better (no thanks to Hydroxychloroquine) so we may never get to an Italy or Spain scenario, but we're nowhere near out of the woods yet.

 

I think what we'll see is what happens to a local economy when people aren't leaving the house because of the virus and not because of lockdowns. This was one of DeWine's main points -- we can open up, but if people start getting sick again and we're all seeing hospitals at or above capacity, the economy is going to shit the bed regardless of any government orders.

[xlr8tn]

Yesterday at 36k was our 3rd highest cases per day. I don't see any reason it'll slow down between now and the fall which is when the true second wave should arrive. Death percentages should improve because the age ranges are dropping for the infected mostly due to who's moving around the most. Still going to be alot of people die between now and the end of the year. Hopefully treatments get even better over the next months and prevent some deaths.

[greg1647545532]

 

 

 

[10phone2]

any data that shows testing amount of people tested/state population in relation to positive cases?

[greg1647545532]

any data that shows testing amount of people tested/state population in relation to positive cases?

 

I'm not going to bother graphing this but here's daily test numbers (averaged over 7 for smoothing) for the last 30 days in Texas, from the Texas dept of state health services website:

 

27583

26152

28329

27374

27080

27573

26265

26734

26800

24862

27001

26422

25963

23452

26058

27495

26396

28289

27883

27883

31999

29707

30411

31484

30235

29542

31212

35311

35904

38384

 

There's a small increase in the last week or so but it certainly doesn't account for the exponential spike in cases. Keep in mind that testing is still limited, nobody is going around testing random people without symptoms -- tests are reserved for hospital workers, first responders, congregate living facilities and people presenting symptoms in hospitals. The increase in testing over the last week is probably caused by more people presenting with COVID symptoms are being exposed to other COVID positive people -- in other words, the increase in testing is caused by the spike in infections, not the other way around.

[Mallard]

any data that shows testing amount of people tested/state population in relation to positive cases?

Michigan publishes the #of tests they run, but I dont think thats going to ultimately give you what you're looking for.

 

To understand if the situation is actually improving or deteriorating you'd probably want to look at # of hospitalizations and the average age of active cases, with a very loose correlation to total # or positive tests.

 

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

[Furloaf]

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/overview

[10phone2]

thanks for the info gerg. There's alot of variables. Even with Texas the testing amounts increased 10k from start to current which is around a 40% increase from initial testing amounts. Also was the same test used across the time frame. theres alot of factors and impossible to be stasticallly valid.

 

Greg... what do you think Texas for example should do?

[greg1647545532]

Michigan publishes the #of tests they run, but I dont think thats going to ultimately give you what you're looking for.

 

I think more to the point... <climbs up on high horse>

 

People who study communicable diseases are experts in examining these sorts of numbers. They're looking at the numbers and saying, "Hey, there's a spike in cases, the disease is spreading again."

 

Now, there's a null hypothesis here -- maybe there aren't any more sick people than there were before, maybe we're just finding them because we're testing more! But this is such an *obvious* possibility that *of course* the experts who have looked at communicable diseases for years or decades have considered it. And if they're saying that's not the reason for the spike, to doubt them is to call them incompetent. This is the sort of head smacking moment I just don't understand.

 

It's like when I was a kid and I couldn't figure out auto racing -- "If some of the cars are going faster than others, then why don't the slower cars just push down the gas pedal more!?" I seriously thought that, because all I knew was that speed was tied directly to gas pedals. Why didn't these professional auto racers consider this bone-headedly simple solution to their problems!?

 

People (cough *Trump* cough) are so desperate to be *right*, though, that when presented with contrary data they MUST find an alternate explanation -- either the experts ARE incompetent, or worse, they're on the take! It's all a conspiracy!

 

Sometimes an expert opinion is just, you know, the correct answer. So it boggles my mind that so much hay is being made about "well it's just because we're testing more!" as if nobody has thought to check that.

 

<climbs down off high horse>

[greg1647545532]

thanks for the info gerg. There's alot of variables. Even with Texas the testing amounts increased 10k from start to current which is around a 40% increase from initial testing amounts. Also was the same test used across the time frame. theres alot of factors and impossible to be stasticallly valid.

 

10k at the start was when testing was extremely limited, I don't think you need to go back that far to get a good baseline. Cases were pretty steady at 20-25k tests per day, they've increased to *maybe* 30k tests per day and daily cases have more than doubled.

 

See my above post -- sure, maybe there are other factors, but what's more likely -- that the experts have neglected to take these things that you've said into account, or that they're right?

 

Greg... what do you think Texas for example should do?

 

I mean, Ohio seems to be doing much better, so I'd say if they stopped just being dumbasses they might be fine.