Coronavirus Thread

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

I wonder why:
https://krcgtv.com/news/coronavirus/experts-worry-cdc-is-sidelined-in-coronavirus-response

From the article:
"In late February, Dr. Nancy Messonnier — a well-respected CDC official who was leading the agency's coronavirus response — contradicted statements by other federal officials that the virus was contained. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen – and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” she said.

Stocks plunged. President Donald Trump was enraged.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force moved to center stage. Vice President Mike Pence took control of clearing CDC communications about the virus. CDC news conferences stopped completely after March 9. Messonnier exited the public stage."

The Administration blaming the CDC is like a crook blaming his right arm for committing a crime. The CDC is part of the Administration.

It wasn't just federal official who claimed the virus was contained, even Drs Fauci and Birx said pretty much the same, and yet they are on the panel of "experts" now calling many of the shots. Regardless of Messonnier, the CDC, FDA, and NIH bungled the whole thing from the start, having all continuously ignored Bush's recommendations 12 years ago.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

It wasn't just federal official who claimed the virus was contained, even Drs Fauci and Birx said pretty much the same, and yet they are on the panel of "experts" now calling many of the shots. Regardless of Messonnier, the CDC, FDA, and NIH bungled the whole thing from the start, having all continuously ignored Bush's recommendations 12 years ago.

We had less than 30 total cases nationwide going into March. Of course it was contained, as far as everybody knew. For every Dr. Fauci and every Dr. Birx, there are 1,000 pompous pointy headed government bureaucrats in the CDC below them who think they know better. When the committee up above disagrees with them, their entire world and reason for being is threatened.

 

[takethepoints]

IF there is such a thing as "herd immunity", and it seems that most so-called experts believe there is, then we will never attain herd immunity by isolating ourselves. Sweden will, I guess, indicate whether the herd immunity concept is valid or not.

In that case, the jury is in. See:

https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-coronavirus-deaths-children-lockdown-1502548

Then click through to the actual work. The upshot is that their death rates are up and their economy is in about as deep a trough as their neighbors.

Oh, and if the IFR is as high as it is in New York and 50% of the population is infected, then the total deaths are:

(330M * 50%) * .00898 = 1, 481, 700

I'm guessing that nobody here wants a toll that high, but I may be wrong.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

In that case, the jury is in. See:

https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-coronavirus-deaths-children-lockdown-1502548

Then click through to the actual work. The upshot is that their death rates are up and their economy is in about as deep a trough as their neighbors.

They really haven't done anything different. They are doing what everyone else has done, step by step...but just way slower and behind. They've closed a bunch of schools and so on and so forth...all the things that were originally being touted as being different.

 

[takethepoints]

They really haven't done anything different. They are doing what everyone else has done, step by step...but just way slower and behind. They've closed a bunch of schools and so on and so forth...all the things that were originally being touted as being different.

Yes. Like the WHO said recently, they been depending more on voluntary compliance then on shut down orders; their actual guidelines have been similar to their neighbors. It's like Miss Marple said, "Trusting people is dangerous. I haven't done so in years."

Me either.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

At the daily news conference, our state chief epidemiologist said she’s extremely confident With where our testing is in opening things back up. She said our volume of testing is appropriate based on the volume of cases we have, the amount of pre-screenings we’re doing (which is like a bunch of tests which aren’t counted), and the percentage of tests that are positive. She said we’ve been running less than 5% positive tests for quite awhile, not counting all the people ruled out during pre-screening, our daily cases remains manageable, and our hospital utilization remains very low.

Lots of examples from her about why one size doesn’t fit all from a federal guidelines perspective.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Your first statement is certainly not in the majority. Drs., politicians, and economists, would have bankrupted my business in short order. Would you trust yours to them?
Your second statement is exactly what I'm hoping for, as long as the team has a clear cut leader.
Your 3rd statement is absurd.

You and I must have completely different views of the world.

I certainly would have not trusted a doctor, politician or economist to devise a national strategy, certainly not the ones we have in government. I’d have reached out to someone like Peter Thiel, Bob Iger, etc. I’m probably overlooking a clear choice but I’d focus my search on a leader that has been immensely successful running complex organizations. I’d arm him/her with a stable of technical experts- predictive systems, media/PR, epidemiologists, virologists, economic & public policy, etc. I’d have bypassed the careerists that are in the political system like Fauci & Birx and reached down to where the expertise lies. It’s what you’d do if you were running your business & it was imperiled by an unexpected event. You wouldn't tolerate bureaucratic filtering/ pasteurizing of information or at least I’d hope you wouldn’t.

Lastly, if you don’t think these so-called experts are covering their butts and protecting their turf, my opinion obviously, but that’s naive. Fauci for example has history in the origins of this virus. He & his colleagues enabled the expansion of domestic & international research into these viruses & others without adequate controls in place. The real transmission path may never be disclosed to the public, but make no mistake in centers squarely in the borescope of these research labs. He’s very concerned about inquiries into the past as it’s impact on himself personally & what he was believing to be his legacy are now threatened on a scale he probably never conceived. He’s partially culpable for the havoc we’re experiencing now.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

Here's Paul Romer's take on this. As he points out, the main thing he brings to the table is a willingness to do the modeling. He's way good at that. See:

https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/paul-romers-coronavirus-testing-plan/

I'm not convinced yet; I want to see his paper on the idea. (And I probably won't have the maths to understand all of it.) Still, he's right. We have to get dead serious about this and proceed to pin the virus in or we'll be going around in circles with 1M dead. And, btw, his IFR is a low end estimate.

The odds of that happening are Zero. Now that the true death rate is starting to become clear, you would need two things to happen to hit that number.
1. 100% infection for the whole country. (Not going to happen)
2. You would need all the hospitals to continue to use the initial methods of treating the sick instead of the better protocols that are seeing reductions in the death rates and hospitalization time. (Not going to happen)


So when someone throws out scare numbers like that for something that could never happen due to basic fundamental math, they lose all credibility. My first reaction was that guy is an idiot and not worth reading.

I think the real world numbers would be 1o0K deaths in the perfect world to maybe 300K if we go nuts and have a massive second wave. I think we probably end up with around 125K to 175K dead by the time the vaccine starts coming out between November and January.

 

[takethepoints]

The odds of that happening are Zero. Now that the true death rate is starting to become clear, you would need two things to happen to hit that number.
1. 100% infection for the whole country. (Not going to happen)
2. You would need all the hospitals to continue to use the initial methods of treating the sick instead of the better protocols that are seeing reductions in the death rates and hospitalization time. (Not going to happen)


So when someone throws out scare numbers like that for something that could never happen due to basic fundamental math, they lose all credibility. My first reaction was that guy is an idiot and not worth reading.

I think the real world numbers would be 1o0K deaths in the perfect world to maybe 300K if we go nuts and have a massive second wave. I think we probably end up with around 125K to 175K dead by the time the vaccine starts coming out between November and January.

That's bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.

First, Romer postulates a 60% infection rate. Second, I' d be real, real careful in making aspirations about basic math when you are talking abut someone with Romer's academic record. I would feel very safe in betting that he is smarter and more skilled then everybody on this board, especially when it comes to modeling. (Shoot, I feel safe in betting that he is smarter then anybody in the whole country in these areas, for that matter.)

Finally, as for deaths, the simple epidemiological equation on this is:

(Total population available for infection * Proportion of the population infected) * Infection fatality rate = Deaths

Taking Romer's numbers, that's:

(330M * 60%) * .005 = 990,000 deaths.

If you use the NYC infection rate and IFR, you get:

(330M * ~25%) • .00878 = 724, 350 deaths.

Like Romer says, we need to quit sugar coating the basics here. If we can come up with a vaccine, then all will be well. If not, we need to track the virus down starting right now or we will never return to normal activity. I don't know if we need a program that is as comprehensive as he is proposing to do this. The effort would be substantial and there's more work to do to see if it would be cost-effective. I think something like it is necessary, however; it's probably a question of degree, not strategy.

Update: The line that starts the post is from the first version of True Grit. See:

 

[takethepoints]

Actually, it's in both versions. I posted the second by mistake.

 

[GoldZ]

points, the brd here has no bounds on trashing brilliant very accomplished people. These accomplished people are fallible and don't bat a 1000. This licenses people who can't hold a candle to them, to trash em because it makes them feel better, but in reality it makes them appear smallish.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

That's bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.

First, Romer postulates a 60% infection rate. Second, I' d be real, real careful in making aspirations about basic math when you are talking abut someone with Romer's academic record. I would feel very safe in betting that he is smarter and more skilled then everybody on this board, especially when it comes to modeling. (Shoot, I feel safe in betting that he is smarter then anybody in the whole country in these areas, for that matter.)

Finally, as for deaths, the simple epidemiological equation on this is:

(Total population available for infection * Proportion of the population infected) * Infection fatality rate = Deaths

Taking Romer's numbers, that's:

(330M * 60%) * .005 = 990,000 deaths.

If you use the NYC infection rate and IFR, you get:

(330M * ~25%) • .00878 = 724, 350 deaths.

Like Romer says, we need to quit sugar coating the basics here. If we can come up with a vaccine, then all will be well. If not, we need to track the virus down starting right now or we will never return to normal activity. I don't know if we need a program that is as comprehensive as he is proposing to do this. The effort would be substantial and there's more work to do to see if it would be cost-effective. I think something like it is necessary, however; it's probably a question of degree, not strategy.

Update: The line that starts the post is from the first version of True Grit. See:

Not going to argue with you. The true death rate was around 0.47% and is dropping due to better protocols. Again it is NEVER going to happen. Fantasy land numbers.

Now one thing I have noticed and maybe this is the norm is academics come up with a worse case scenario based on worse case numbers to come up with the upper bound that is probably many standard deviations from the norm. But then those numbers get touted as what is most likely going to happen by the masses. Maybe he even used a knob that the virus will mutate more and become more lethal in his worse case scenario.

When this is all said and done, you will see that my prediction will be correct.

 

[bobongo]

We have to open sometime. The question is, are we opening too soon?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/60-000-people-headed-georgia-143132026.html

"If you lift the restriction too soon, a second wave will come, and the damage will be substantial both medically and economically. We don't want to throw away the sacrifices we have made for weeks now," Turgay Ayer, a research director for healthcare analytics at Georgia Institute of Technology, told The Daily Beast.

 

[GoldZ]

The odds of that happening are Zero. Now that the true death rate is starting to become clear, you would need two things to happen to hit that number.
1. 100% infection for the whole country. (Not going to happen)
2. You would need all the hospitals to continue to use the initial methods of treating the sick instead of the better protocols that are seeing reductions in the death rates and hospitalization time. (Not going to happen)


So when someone throws out scare numbers like that for something that could never happen due to basic fundamental math, they lose all credibility. My first reaction was that guy is an idiot and not worth reading.

I think the real world numbers would be 1o0K deaths in the perfect world to maybe 300K if we go nuts and have a massive second wave. I think we probably end up with around 125K to 175K dead by the time the vaccine starts coming out between November and January.

I think you may be right, IF there is a vaccine out by November to January. Downer Debbie reminds us however, we have never developed a successful vaccine against the coronavirus family, and it's not as if we haven't seriously tried.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Here is something I find interesting and have posted on as it represents as close to ground truth as I can get. That is total number of deaths in a week this year from all causes versus the three previous years.

I have taken data one week (7 days) apart that the CDC posts https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Week-Ending-D/r8kw-7aab

Then I extrapolate the current week percentage of deaths to what the final will be IF the previous weekly increase trends continue. Equations for columns at top of columns. See footnotes for data that I copied below.

Looks like we are going to end up seeing a ~40% increase in total number of deaths in the US for week ending 4/11 and 4/18. The week ending 4/25 falls off a bit to 126% which is good. I'll post an update next week.

Footnotes:

• Number of deaths reported in this table are the total number of deaths received and coded as of the date of analysis, and do not represent all deaths that occurred in that period.
• Data during this period are incomplete because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS and processed for reporting purposes.
• This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more.
• Percent of expected deaths is the number of deaths for all causes for this week in 2020 compared to the average number across the same week in 2017–2019.
• Previous analyses of 2015–2016 provisional data completeness have found that completeness is lower in the first few weeks following the date of death (<25%), and then increases over time such that data are generally at least 75% complete within 8 weeks of when the death occurred.

 

[bobongo]

I think the real world numbers would be 1o0K deaths in the perfect world to maybe 300K if we go nuts and have a massive second wave. I think we probably end up with around 125K to 175K dead by the time the vaccine starts coming out between November and January.

If the current trend holds, we'll blow through 100,000 by Memorial Day. The only thing that can keep it under 300,000 is the unknown variable of warm weather (which is a definite and hopeful possibility). We're already near 80,000, and that's probably an undercount. With everything opening back up, the only thing that can keep the second wave from hitting in a few weeks is warm weather. But here's some bad news on that front:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=warm+...b9a414da28d55c6bfff02d38c&cc=US&setlang=en-US

From the article:
"The study, published Thursday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found almost no links to epidemic growth based on latitude and temperature, but documented a strong association with reduced spread of the virus and restrictions on mass gatherings, school closures and social distancing."

 

[takethepoints]

Not going to argue with you. The true death rate was around 0.47% and is dropping due to better protocols. Again it is NEVER going to happen. Fantasy land numbers.

Now one thing I have noticed and maybe this is the norm is academics come up with a worse case scenario based on worse case numbers to come up with the upper bound that is probably many standard deviations from the norm. But then those numbers get touted as what is most likely going to happen by the masses. Maybe he even used a knob that the virus will mutate more and become more lethal in his worse case scenario.

When this is all said and done, you will see that my prediction will be correct.

Well … journalists are responsible for most of that. (See: https://xkcd.com/882/.) Most of the public health officials and the professional epidemiologists give a range of estimates based on the models (most more sophisticated then the simple equation I gave) and the available data. Hence the wide range of predictions; it's a brand new disease. Right now, Birx and Fauci are predicting between 100K and 250K deaths, but that was predicated on keeping the brakes on until mid-June. They are actually using a low end prediction based on confirmed cases (and both of them kn0w that underestimates deaths) and one that assumes that we be able to get the virus under control with a vaccine. Romer doesn't think its wise to assume that and uses the base equation for a rough estimate of a pandemic that lasts at least 18 months and, perhaps, as long as 24.

What Romer is saying is roughly the same as what climate scientists have been saying for a long time: if we don't start doing something now to get control of the virus, our ability to effect its course may be minimal. And we'll pay the cost, both economically and in terms of lives. Personally, I don't expect us to take the action needed to control the virus and, barring a vaccine, I expect ~ 700K to 850K deaths by the time it s run its course. And that's an estimate based on a lower infection rate; Romer may be closer.

I'll save the post, however, and bring it up in a year so we can see who's right. I sincerely hope you are.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

We have to open sometime. The question is, are we opening too soon?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/60-000-people-headed-georgia-143132026.html

"If you lift the restriction too soon, a second wave will come, and the damage will be substantial both medically and economically. We don't want to throw away the sacrifices we have made for weeks now," Turgay Ayer, a research director for healthcare analytics at Georgia Institute of Technology, told The Daily Beast.

Except that is only conjecture. The fact is nobody knows what will or might happen. It's reasonable conjecture, but it's still conjecture.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Well … journalists are responsible for most of that. (See: https://xkcd.com/882/.) Most of the public health officials and the professional epidemiologists give a range of estimates based on the models (most more sophisticated then the simple equation I gave) and the available data. Hence the wide range of predictions; it's a brand new disease. Right now, Birx and Fauci are predicting between 100K and 250K deaths, but that was predicated on keeping the brakes on until mid-June. They are actually using a low end prediction based on confirmed cases (and both of them kn0w that underestimates deaths) and one that assumes that we be able to get the virus under control with a vaccine. Romer doesn't think its wise to assume that and uses the base equation for a rough estimate of a pandemic that lasts at least 18 months and, perhaps, as long as 24.

What Romer is saying is roughly the same as what climate scientists have been saying for a long time: if we don't start doing something now to get control of the virus, our ability to effect its course may be minimal. And we'll pay the cost, both economically and in terms of lives. Personally, I don't expect us to take the action needed to control the virus and, barring a vaccine, I expect ~ 700K to 850K deaths by the time it s run its course. And that's an estimate based on a lower infection rate; Romer may be closer.

I'll save the post, however, and bring it up in a year so we can see who's right. I sincerely hope you are.

That’s a good analogy. I hope people remember that the next time a big debate on climate heats up - science is not settled, models are all over the map, etc.

 

[takethepoints]

That’s a good analogy. I hope people remember that the next time a big debate on climate heats up - science is not settled, models are all over the map, etc.

You missed the point.

The basic epidemiology on a virus like SARS-Cov-2 is as well settled as the science of climate change. What is different about the virus is that we have less data available to analyze it. Hence, our predictions tend to be dicey. The risk is well established, however; the only questions are how great the infection rate will be and what the IFR is. While not as grave a threat as global warming, trying to "handle" the virus by adopting pleasing half-measures and hoping for the best (magical thinking, iow) may so greatly increase the difficulties we face as to make it impossible for human efforts to influence its toll among us. Sorta like just cruising along and not taking the necessary steps to limit global climate change.