The Next Pandemic: SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19

[Chef Jim]

11 minutes ago, RiotAct said:

holy crap, all the bars and restaurants in FL are closing?

 

 

Yeah I heard that too! Scary isn't it?  ?

[Magox]

In case you were wondering why positive tests going way up along with positive test rate while deaths and hospitalizations are flat to trending down in Florida.

 

 

[Chef Jim]

31 minutes ago, Magox said:

In case you were wondering why positive tests going way up along with positive test rate while deaths and hospitalizations are flat to trending down in Florida.

 

 

 

I wasn't wondering because I have a brain.  

 

@Buffalo_Gal  You're skeptical I have a brain? 

 

Ouch that hurt.   

Edited June 16, 2020 by Chef Jim

[Buffalo_Gal]

6 minutes ago, Chef Jim said:

 

 

@Buffalo_Gal  You're skeptical I have a brain? 

 

Ouch that hurt.   

 

[Chef Jim]

17 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

 

 

I didn't fry it all.  I still have few brain cells hangin' on.  

 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Chef Jim

[GG]

37 minutes ago, Magox said:

In case you were wondering why positive tests going way up along with positive test rate while deaths and hospitalizations are flat to trending down in Florida.

 

 

 

That would have been the most "logical" conclusion to the data trends.  Imagine what happens when a state isn't run by a bunch of incompetent pandering blood-on-their-hands morons.

[plenzmd1]

44 minutes ago, Magox said:

In case you were wondering why positive tests going way up along with positive test rate while deaths and hospitalizations are flat to trending down in Florida.

 

 

is there a place that lists Florida hospitalizations and deaths? Same for Arizona?

 

THX in advance

[spartacus]

6 minutes ago, GG said:

 

That would have been the most "logical" conclusion to the data trends.  Imagine what happens when a state isn't run by a bunch of incompetent pandering blood-on-their-hands morons.

what's a few hundred thousand dead old people when the plan is get rid of trump.

Bonus is that all of those dead people will be voting D

[Taro T]

41 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:

is there a place that lists Florida hospitalizations and deaths? Same for Arizona?

 

THX in advance

 

If you go to the CDC's Covid info page, there is a map of the US.  Clicking any state on the map will take you to that state's health department and almost all have the link to their COVID info pages on their own homepage.  

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

[spartacus]

16 minutes ago, Taro T said:

 

If you go to the CDC's Covid info page, there is a map of the US.  Clicking any state on the map will take you to that state's health department and almost all have the link to their COVID info pages on their own homepage.  

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

The major problem with the data is that each state collects its own and none of them are the same

the biggest missing pieces relate to hospital & ICU stays (# and length) and recoveries

how did the survivors do it- treatments, drugs, 

without this info, it is impossible to make decisions on future policy 

 

 

 

[Big Blitz]

Over half the new cases today are in 4 states.  

 

Deaths continue to show a virus not as lethal as it was 2 months ago.  

 

 

[fansince88]

21 hours ago, Tiberius said:

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

Joe gets up at 6:00 am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good, clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and efficacy. All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance. Now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. Joe takes his morning shower, reaching for his shampoo; his bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know the amount and identity of the substances he was putting on his body.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor to society. Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer upholds these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed hell get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some Liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work, and he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to his dad's; his car is among the safest in the world be cause some wacko liberal (Ralph Nader!) fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmer's Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show. The host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefi that Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees. "We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives", he says. "After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have".

 

Never heard of him.

21 hours ago, westside2 said:

Liberalism is a disease 

Dont say that! They will try to get disability for it next!

[fansince88]

@Tiberius, wait I found him.....what do they call it when you copy someones work word for word.....hmmmm. Hilary did it......hmmmmm. http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/joerepublican.htm

[shoshin]

13 hours ago, Magox said:

In case you were wondering why positive tests going way up along with positive test rate while deaths and hospitalizations are flat to trending down in Florida.

 

 

So percent positive is no longer a useful stat? Good to have you on board!

[Magox]

1 hour ago, shoshin said:

So percent positive is no longer a useful stat? Good to have you on board!

 

Are you purposely being obtuse or do you have the reading comprehension of a gerbil?

 

I said the best indicator that we have available for prevalency is percent positive.
 

That hasn’t changed.

 

Another swing and miss for Shoshin.

 

With that said, if contact tracing is indeed having a statistical impact then it would skew the percent positive rate higher.

 

Also, from everything that I am seeing It appears that a higher percentage of the virus contractions are for younger and healthier people.  If this is the case this would be a welcome development as I do believe the communities within communities and places that were most prone and at risk of the virus could be experiencing a herd sort of like immunity.  And that there is better testing and safeguards in place for these places than before.

 

 I was going to write about this but lost interest.   it was a notion that was thrown out there by Nate Silver, he didn’t really expand on it but it got me to thinking.  People tend to think of herd immunity in terms of countries, states and cities.   There is no reason why not to apply the same reasoning within communities or nursing homes etc.

 

I think the areas that had the worst cultural and worst safety practices would be areas that very possibly are experiencing herd like immunities.  Meaning that risk of high prevalency in those earlier particularly hard hit areas have dampened.   
 

I believe what we are seeing now is increased testing and I’m hopeful that the explanation of DeSantis is the case that the contact tracing is capturing more of the asymptomatic infections and that is skewing the percent positive rate higher.
 

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Magox

[Foxx]

so... on a scale of 1 to 1984... how free do you feel walking around a supermarket wearing a muzzle, following arrows on the floor?

[shoshin]

26 minutes ago, Magox said:

 

Are you purposely being obtuse or do you have the reading comprehension of a gerbil?

 

I said the best indicator that we have available for prevalency is percent positive.
 

That hasn’t changed.

 

Another swing and miss for Shoshin.

 

With that said, if contact tracing is indeed having a statistical impact then it would skew the percent positive rate higher.

 

Also, from everything that I am seeing It appears that a higher percentage of the virus contractions are for younger and healthier people.  If this is the case this would be a welcome development as I do believe the communities within communities and places that were most prone and at risk of the virus could be experiencing a herd sort of like immunity.  And that there is better testing and safeguards in place for these places than before.

 

 I was going to write about this but lost interest.   it was a notion that was thrown out there by Nate Silver, he didn’t really expand on it but it got me to thinking.  People tend to think of herd immunity in terms of countries, states and cities.   There is no reason why not to apply the same reasoning within communities or nursing homes etc.

 

I think the areas that had the worst cultural practices and best safety practices would be areas that very possibly are experiencing herd like immunities.  Meaning that risk of high prevalency in those earlier particularly hard hit areas have dampened.   
 

I believe what we are seeing now is increased testing and I’m hopeful that the explanation of DeSantis is the case that the contact tracing is capturing more of the asymptomatic infections and that is skewing the percent positive rate higher.
 

 

 

Lighten up Francis. I know the Internet move is to flex in an argument like I just insulted your mom and children but I didn't. I just poked fun at you. Have a beer or puff or whatever eases your mind. We could create a better environment here. I engage your arguments, and ignore many other posters because you actually try to bring reason to the table and don't just parrot inflammatory tweets (usually!). Reasonable people should be able to argue without being ****heads. 

 

The fact that you just dedicated 2 new arguments to explaining why % positive is not a good measure is a good evolution of your position. You're right that contract tracing and increased infections for young people may also be driving up % positive, making it even less useful than it was getting a month ago. It's something to track but increasingly tells less of a story about prevalence than actual cases, and tells even less of a story about our actual problems (or not) than hospitalization. Hospitalization usage remains the most important (and hardest data point to tease out annoyingly) data point if it rises too high. And at some point if we can get a good ratio of cases detected to hospitalization, we can really direct resources in a surgical way, i.e., we could see a spike up of cases in a geography and predict with some certainty how many hospitalizations we can expect in the next two weeks. We are nowhere near that level of accuracy yet but we may be there in just a couple months. 

 

We can obviously watch fatality rate too--that seems to be in decline, which is fantastic. But that's a trailing indicator. Speaking of which, the number of fatalities in the European countries is almost hard to believe these days. In the sub 50 deaths per day in Spain and Italy. Our trend line has been slower to decline than theirs (see the guy who faxed in the graph from the NYT yesterday) but it's still promising that those countries have yet to see rises in deaths on reopening.  

 

 

India though, ugh. The news on the ground there is beyond ugly. 2000 per day is way low. June is by far the scorching hottest month in Delhi (I have been in Delhi in June a few times and it.is.horrible), but many other factors weigh against that making any difference, not the least of which being: It's not possible to socially distance in India and 115 degree heat does not get people outside--but the opposite. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by shoshin

[GG]

13 minutes ago, shoshin said:

 

Lighten up Francis. I know the Internet move is to flex in an argument like I just insulted your mom and children but I didn't. I just poked fun at you. Have a beer or puff or whatever eases your mind. We could create a better environment here. I engage your arguments, and ignore many other posters because you actually try to bring reason to the table and don't just parrot inflammatory tweets (usually!). Reasonable people should be able to argue without being ****heads. 

 

The fact that you just dedicated 2 new arguments to explaining why % positive is not a good measure is a good evolution of your position. You're right that contract tracing and increased infections for young people may also be driving up % positive, making it even less useful than it was getting a month ago. It's something to track but increasingly tells less of a story about prevalence than actual cases, and tells even less of a story about our actual problems (or not) than hospitalization. Hospitalization usage remains the most important (and hardest data point to tease out annoyingly) data point if it rises too high. And at some point if we can get a good ratio of cases detected to hospitalization, we can really direct resources in a surgical way, i.e., we could see a spike up of cases in a geography and predict with some certainty how many hospitalizations we can expect in the next two weeks. We are nowhere near that level of accuracy yet but we may be there in just a couple months. 

 

We can obviously watch fatality rate too--that seems to be in decline, which is fantastic. But that's a trailing indicator. Speaking of which, the number of fatalities in the European countries is almost hard to believe these days. In the sub 50 deaths per day. Our trend line has been slower to decline than theirs (see the guy who faxed in the graph from the NYT yesterday) but it's still promising that those countries have yet to see rises in deaths on reopening.  

 

 

India though, ugh. The news on the ground there is beyond ugly. 2000 per day is way low. June is by far their scorching hottest month, but many other factors weigh against that making any difference. 

 

So now we're back to linear comparisons of countries with <40 mil populations to one with 330 million?

[SoCal Deek]

Yesterday, Tuesday, there were no states that reported triple digit deaths, and only four were even over fifty. Over 40 states reported either low single digits or zero. In California where, they’ve seen a recent spike, approximately 70% of the cases and deaths are confined to Los Angeles county. 

[Magox]

36 minutes ago, shoshin said:

 

. 

 

The fact that you just dedicated 2 new arguments to explaining why % positive is not a good measure is a good evolution of your position. You're right that contract tracing and increased infections for young people may also be driving up % positive, making it even less useful than it was getting a month ago. It's something to track but increasingly tells less of a story about prevalence than actual cases, and tells even less of a story about our actual problems (or not) than hospitalization. Hospitalization usage remains the most important (and hardest data point to tease out annoyingly) data point if it rises too high. And at some point if we can get a good ratio of cases detected to hospitalization, we can really direct resources in a surgical way, i.e., we could see a spike up of cases in a geography and predict with some certainty how many hospitalizations we can expect in the next two weeks. We are nowhere near that level of accuracy yet but we may be there in just a couple months. 

 

We can obviously watch fatality rate too--that seems to be in decline, which is fantastic. But that's a trailing indicator. Speaking of which, the number of fatalities in the European countries is almost hard to believe these days. In the sub 50 deaths per day in Spain and Italy. Our trend line has been slower to decline than theirs (see the guy who faxed in the graph from the NYT yesterday) but it's still promising that those countries have yet to see rises in deaths on reopening.  

 

 

 

 

One of the things that is important to continue dialogue with anyone is if they are able to comprehend what is being said.  If not, then interest in continuing to engage with that particular person lessens.  What's the point?  If words don't matter.  I didn't say or imply that it wasn't a good measure, I said it was the best measure we have to gauge prevalency and that if indeed what De Santis says (which seems to make sense) is the case where contact tracing is having a statistical impact, then it would water down the value of the percent positive gauge for prevalency.  The statement that I made some time ago, still stands, which is that it's the best metric to gauge prevalency.   

 

All the basic metrics, from total positive tests, percentage positive test rate, new hospital admissions, total hospitalizations to net new deaths would all have to be viewed to get a good reading of what is going on.   

 

And the reason why I have nowhere near as much the passion on this topic that I did before is because this is a largely settled matter in the minds of many.  We already know this virus is even safer than the flu for kids under 20.  That is on par with the flu for those that are between 20-60.  Slightly more dangerous than the flu for those 60-75 and more so for those over 75.   If you are healthy with one or no comorbidities then we know that you are at very little risk of the virus becoming lethal for you.

 

Knowing what we know today in regards to the risks and who is at risk, and knowing that people from almost all parts of the country were already fatigued with the stay-at-home orders and knowing that some of the politicians in power are essentially mini tyrants  and knowing that some in the medical community are hacks; there is no going back to what we saw before.  That is over.

 

Could there be some paternalistic officials that pause reopenings or delay them or in some cases go back to some stringent levels?  Yes, but it wouldn't be widespread and even then, the compliance in those areas would be terrible.  The jig is up,

 

The only way that I think I could be wrong was if somehow much of the country caught on fire with the virus and I don't see that happening.   I just don't see that scenario playing out.  

Edited June 17, 2020 by Magox