Coronavirus Numbers

[Epigonos]

Ok guy I’m going to present some “facts” and figures. In a way I’m going to sound a bit like Kesseler – I apologize for that aside Steven, it isn’t meant as a put-down. Each day the Wall Street Journal is printing an update on the number of World-wide Cases of the Coronavirus plus the number of World-wide deaths and the number of World-wide recoveries. For the United States only the number of U.S. cases and the number of U.S. deaths are presented. The Journal’s source for this information is the John Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering. One can certainly question the accuracy of this information but it appears to be one of the best sources available. According their count as of April1:

 

World-wide cases are 935,817

World-wide deaths are 47,208

World-wide recoveries are 193,700

 

U.S. cases are 215,417

U.S. deaths are 5,115

 

Although the death numbers appear horrific, and they certainly are, especially if one is a member of that group or has a family member or friend who is, when one compares the percentage ratio of deaths to cases the numbers are not all that great. On a World-wide basis if one divides the number of cases into the number of deaths the percentage of deaths is 5.04457%. In the U.S. if one divides the number of cases into the number of deaths the percentage of deaths is even lower, 2.37492%. Thus the percentage of those dying in relationship to those cases reported is quite small. However the main question remaining is just how accurate are these "reported" figures; frankly that anybody’s guess. Additionally I would like to know the date on which these number were first presented. With that date one could mathematically determine the number of new cases and deaths per day to April 1. One might then be able to project how the future might look.

 

Now guys do PLEASE remember that I was a public high school Spanish, Photography, and A.P. Art History teacher. Mathematics was NEVER my strong point so I’m just hopping I’ve done the math correctly.

[+ Axiom2001]

The numbers are heartwrenching and mighty disturbing in any case. I shudder when my eyes view the number of deaths worldwide which appear on my television screen of CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and other media systems. [Thanks for your post.]

[+ bigjoey]

The real mysteries are:

1-asymptotic people who are contagious but not tested and their number is unknown and only a guess

2-deaths that are attributed to other causes like flu or pneumonia

3-people tested with false negatives

[+ stevenkesslar]

Mathematics was NEVER my strong point so I’m just hopping I’ve done the math correctly.

 

Dr. Birx predicts up to 200,000 U.S. coronavirus deaths 'if we do things almost perfectly'

"I think everyone understands now that you can go from five to 50 to 500 to 5,000 cases very quickly," Birx said.

 

"I think in some of the metro areas we were late in getting people to follow the 15-day guidelines," she added.

 

My advice would be that we all let Dr. Birx do the math for us. She is absolutely right. As is Dr. Fauci.

 

This is a monumental horror story that is painful to watch play out. And part of what is so painful about it is that it is like talking to someone sitting in their car, saying it is completely safe to drive. After all, I am here in my car, which is parked in my driveway. It is completely safe. What could possibly go wrong?

 

What could go wrong is that in 15 minutes your car will slam head on into another, and you will be dead, along with the family of four in the other car. That is what could go wrong. In fact, that is what is going wrong all over America.

 

People understand car crashes, because most of us drive every day. We don't understand epidemics, because we only have them once a century or so - hopefully.

 

So for weeks I have read these articles saying things like, "Well, there are only a few dead people. The death rate is only ........... of everybody infected. Besides, only a few people have this disease. It is totally safe."

 

Dr. Birx is getting some crap for her idea of creating and enforcing county by county safety standards. It remains to be seen what exactly she means by that. But I think she is probably right - if the resources to aggressively test and trace are available and employed. That is the CDC standard. To quote Dr. Fauci: find the few people infected, trace their contacts, isolate them and test them and treat them as quickly as possible. Before they unknowingly infect others. That usually has worked: with SARS, MERS, Ebola.

 

The alternative should be incredibly clear now. Oh, hell, it's just 5 cases. Oh, wait. It's 50 cases. Hmmm. Wow. Now there are 500 cases. How did that happen. But, hell, 500 isn't very much, is it? Oh, wait, geez. 5000 cases. How in hell did that happen? But that will be the end of ................. oh, wait. 50,000 cases! WTF???? How the hell? But, hey, no big deal. It couldn't really get to 500,000 cases, could it?

 

Actually, yes. It could, and it will. New York is almost at 100,000 cases now. They'll top 500,000 before this horror story ends. And that's just Round One of the pandemic.

 

Countries like South Korea and Singapore and Taiwan and Hong Kong are showing it pretty much works. At least so far. The idea is that we don't want to wait for 5 cases to turn into 5,000 a month from now, or 500,000 a few months from now. Because then we are fucked. So tey've all been able to limit the number of new cases to about 100 a day. And these are countries the size of New York, or California, or Michigan. For the most part they are as dense, or more dense, than New York City or San Francisco, the two cities in the US with the highest population density.

 

Dr. Birx is right. She happens to be a Republican. But this has nothing to do with Republican math of Democratic math. It is just math, and science.

 

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/in-the-uk-50-potentially-have-already-had-the-virus-oxford-university-study-says-so-how-many-really-have-had-the-virus.156755/

 

I think that thread has a long and mostly very useful discussion of what we know and don't know about the numbers.

 

I think we know with 100 % certainty now that this notion that maybe 50 % of the UK or US was already silently infected and now has some form of herd immunity is both dead wrong, and dangerous. We don't have herd immunity. We are completely exposed. About 1/2 of 1 % of New York has been infected, and it has created a nightmare in hospitals. The death toll exceeds that of either 9/11 or Americans who died in Iraq. Very soon it will exceed both. That's based on LESS THAN 1 % of New York being infected.

 

It is very likely that somewhere between 20 % and 33 % of people infected with COVID-19 are asymptomatic through their illness. They almost certainly tend to be younger, and healthier. Even Olympic athletes in their 20's end up saying this hit them like a ton of bricks. 40 year olds who run marathons end up intubated for a week. So who and why some people experience this is the flu, or nothing, is unclear. But that group of asymptomatics is at most 1 in 3 people who get infected. It's probably closer to 1 in 5. When we get to more widespread testing, we'll get a clearer picture.

 

I tend to think The Lancet article that just came out is as close to being correct as we have right now. As an educated guess, based on a sampling of data from different countries, it sounds believable that 1.38 % of all confirmed cases die. And then, as an educated guess, it sounds believable that this means that 0.657 % of all infected individuals die - including all the ones who are never diagnosed. That means that about half the people in the US who get this either have mild to moderate cases - like a bad case of the flu - or they have no symptoms at all.

 

My educated guess is that this is 20/60/20. 20 % of people who get this don't even know they have a virus. They are almost certainly younger. Many may be children. Another 60 % know they have it, and may feel like shit for a few weeks. But they'll be fine. That is a massive workforce issue. If 60 % of the US population gets sick over the course of a few months, that is a much bigger problem than what we have today. Then another 20 % may need to be in a hospital bed. Or on a ventilator in an ICU. People who get this and survive can end up in an ICU for a week, or a hospital for a month.

 

This is just an utter nightmare. And I personally have never been a fan of horror movies.

 

I've never been great at math either. But I am good enough at math, and survival, to know that Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci are right.

 

It is absolutely heartbreaking to read these stories about places like South Dakota and West Virginia where there are only a relatively few cases, and people say, "Well, it's just not a problem here." The reality is that if they think that way, they are thinking just like New York did a month ago, and the US did a few months ago. We now know how the math on this works. We at least know well enough to say that if this virus gets out of control, it is going to be a human blood bath. By saying it is not a problem here, they are pretty much condemning themselves to having a big problem a month or two from now. It is extremely sad to watch.

 

Even if you take 0.66 % of the US population, that's over 2 million dead Americans. But Birx and Fauci are right. When hospitals don't have the capacity and people are left to die at home, it will actually be much, much worse.

 

NYC COVID-19 Death Summary April 2, 2020

 

Those are the best numbers to focus on right now. Hopefully it will scare the shit out of everybody. That is like 9/11 happening every three days in America. When it peaks, it will be like a 9/11 happening every day in America.

 

Note that 80 of the 1357 dead are aged 18-44. Note that 342 of the dead are aged 45-64.

 

You and I are very lucky to live in California. California has 253 infected people for every 1 million state residents. New York State has 4,749 infected for every 1 million. New York City has 48,462 cases out of a population of 8.6 million. So that's about 5,635 infected people per every 1 million city residents. Many of them are in overcrowded hospitals right now.

 

California has about 5 deaths so far for every 1 million state residents. New York State has 122 per 1 million residents. New York has 1,397 dead, which is 162 dead for every 1 million NYC residents. As Dr. Fauci keeps saying, the deaths lag. It takes up to a month in a hospital to die. Unless you are cut off a ventilator that is keeping you alive because someone else needs it. So the current death rate of about 3 % will go much higher in New York City. Some agonizing part of that is about the inability of really dedicated people in hospitals to keep so many critically ill people alive, given the lack of medical resources and personnel.

 

I'm just waiting for the idiots in Sacramento to close down all restaurants and airports. Nearly all of our state legislators are in a state of total irrational panic and are being led brilliantly by our dump shit governor.

 

I respectfully but emphatically disagree. What the "dumb shits" did is exactly why those numbers in California numbers are so much lower. It is not primarily about density. San Francisco is very dense. Singapore and Seoul and Hong Kong are all denser than New York City. This is about figuring out what we have to do to prevent massive numbers of sick and dead Americans. California is trying to figure that out. I'm grateful, actually. If the patterns from the 1918 epidemic hold, California will have a quicker and stronger recovery, because we limited the size of the hole we dug to remain safe.

 

I think the tragedy in New York City disproves the argument that riding out a pandemic as if nothing is wrong and nothing has to change is a really bad idea.

Edited April 2, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Guest]

I say 150,000 Covid-19 deaths by 1JULY2020

[+ sync]

The hammer dropped here in NYC when EMTs were directed to NOT transport any victims they cannot revive to hospitals; they are to pronounce them dead at the scene. I'm wondering if EMT training prepairs them for that.

[BSR]

The real mysteries are:

1-asymptotic people who are contagious but not tested and their number is unknown and only a guess

2-deaths that are attributed to other causes like flu or pneumonia

3-people tested with false negatives

 

I have to question the death counts. Apparently, in the US if someone with heart disease dies of heart disease but was also carrying Covid-19, then that death is counted as a coronavirus death even if the person was showing no symptoms. The opposite case is China, which in all likelihood is vastly under-reporting the true number of Covid-19 deaths.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I have to question the death counts. Apparently, in the US if someone with heart disease dies of heart disease but was also carrying Covid-19, then that death is counted as a coronavirus death even if the person was showing no symptoms. The opposite case is China, which in all likelihood is vastly under-reporting the true number of Covid-19 deaths.

 

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/in-the-uk-50-potentially-have-already-had-the-virus-oxford-university-study-says-so-how-many-really-have-had-the-virus.156755/page-2#post-1887613

 

Again, we've got two very similar discussions going on in two different threads. And both are almost impossible to talk about without butting up against politics; i.e. whether Chinese numbers can be trusted. That said, in this forum I'm trying to focus on the facts, the facts, and only the facts.

 

So that thread has some reporting, particularly from TIME, that substantiates your skepticism. Reading that TIME article about Wuhan sounded just like reading historical pieces about the 1918 pandemic, or watching

on the impact the pandemic had in Philadelphia. Which is to say, it killed 1 % of the population, and brought the entire economy and culture of Philadelphia to a crashing halt. So in Philadelphia, you had people dying in their homes, and their dead bodies were placed on sidewalks. If TIME's reporting is correct, something similar may have happened in Wuhan.

 

The other thing we know, for a fact, is that such an outcome is not inevitable. We know that in the US, the percentage of people infected was about 25 % in 1918. But we also know that outcome varied depending on preparation. So in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, over 1 % of the entire population died. In Los Angeles and Seattle, less than 0.5 % of the population died. Translate that to the entire US today, and that is the difference between 3.3 million deaths and 1.65 million deaths.

 

We also know that nothing in that range is inevitable. We know that because Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx are very smart people who know their shit. And that is what they are telling us. We also know it from direct observation from China. Apart from anyone's view of the politics of what they have done, the science and medicine of it are almost unbelievable. I say almost because the US and/or the world have done the same thing before - with Ebola, and SARS, and MERS. This virus is a much bigger challenge because it is more contagious and more elusive. But what happened in China certainly suggests that it is not inevitable that we - meaning the human race - inevitably have to simply sicken, suffer, and die in great numbers.

 

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

 

As horrible as what is happening in New York City right now is, "the numbers" of caseloads offer some reason for hope. April 1st is the first day since mid-March they had "only" 1000 new cases a day. A similar pattern is playing out in Italy right now. They peaked at 6500 new cases a day on March 21. Now they are at about 4000 - 4500 new cases a day.

 

As horrific as that is, the alternative of exponential growth is worse. Had New York City continued on the pattern it was on before lock down - doubling the number of cases every three days - there could have been as many as 30,000 new cases today, as opposed to 1,000. At some point the virus will of course wane, after there are no more live bodies to infect. In a city of 8 million, 30,000 would have been a drop in the bucket. If it were 1918, the number of infected in New York City alone could have easily grown to 2 million.

 

Anyone who thinks that would have been better for the economy than what New York actually did might want to rethink that a little bit.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Half of New Yorkers likely to get coronavirus, de Blasio says

03/25/2020

 

If half of the city does get infected, that would add up to 4.2 million people contracting the virus.

 

That could happen by September, when officials predict the outbreak will wind down. “It could also be much higher,” said city Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot.

 

I'm posting that as an example of an apolitical success story.

 

A theme I've heard in lots of interviews with public health officials going back over a month is this: they know they have been successful when people accuse them of being hysterical, or flat out wrong. They make these projections to scare the shit out of the public. And to force the public to take imminent threats seriously. If it works, the imminent threat never materializes. At least not in the way people most feared.

 

When I first read that story on the 25th, I assumed the intention of public health officials was to scare the living shit of out of New Yorkers.

 

If that was the intention, it worked. You can now go back and look at the daily timeline of new cases. The typical timeline from infection to onset of symptoms is 4 to 7 days. Especially in this environment, I assume people are not rushing to emergency rooms the minute they start to sniffle. So it is too early to draw any conclusions. But there probably is some relationship between onset of symptoms, and testing positive.

 

So on March 25th there were 3,705 new cases in New York City, which was the peak so far. Five days later there were 2,369 new cases. There was a bump up the next day. But a week later there are 1,047 new cases. It is too early to tell. But hopefully it means that New Yorkers heard the warning, and heeded it.

 

I was grateful to the New York/New Jersey region after 9/11. In a sense, they took the hit for America (as did The Pentagon). They also set the tone for the response. The amount of grit and determination and community spirit was amazing. From the standpoint of body count, this is already way worse than 9/11.

 

I think New Yorkers are going to do that for America again. There are going to be other hot spots. Hopefully, none will be quite as horrific as New York. And, like in 1918, partly that is because America learned from what happened where the pandemic first struck.

[+ nycman]

I'm wondering if EMT training prepairs them for that.

It does. The truth is, if they can‘t revive you at the scene, a trip in an ambulance to the hospital,

is a pointless exercise. They know that. It’s more about getting the dead body out of the house

and making the family feel like you did “everything you could.’’

 

It‘s pure theater.

 

Now that white lie is putting other people’s lives at risk, so it must stop.

Nothing like an unmitigated pandemic to unleash some epic truth telling.

[mike carey]

Thanks for this @Epigonos. For those interested, Bloomberg has pages, one with world-wide figures and another for the US. They are updated several times a day. I realise that the site is paywalled, but they have an introductory offer of I think, $3.99 per month if you wanted to check those pages for a while (I think they offer a limited number of free articles if you only want to look once).

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-coronavirus-cases-world-map/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=covid_tracker&utm_content=bofu&sref=ExvOhfnN

 

People understand car crashes, because most of us drive every day. We don't understand epidemics, because we only have them once a century or so - hopefully.

A car analogy occurred to me as I read this. We all know that drunk drivers kill people, but there was a time when we only knew about one of them if they had a crash or if they were pulled over for erratic driving. About 30 years ago, random breath tests were introduced here. Roadblocks were set up, people were pulled over at random just for a breath test (happened to me on a country road a couple of days ago), and anyone stopped for anything else was tested while they were there. The analogy, we increased testing and we had a far better understanding of how much drunk driving was going on, and as a result people stopped doing it. Well, not everyone, but most people did, and it became socially unacceptable. And fairly quickly the number of deaths on the road fell sharply. Not precise because drinking and driving is a conscious (well usually) choice, not an invisible pathogen.

[Epigonos]

I don't know if you want these numbers or not but I will post them for now.

 

April 2 at 11:02 p.m. EDT (John Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering)

 

U.S. Cases--245,213 U.S. Deaths--5,983 (2.44%)

 

World Wide Cases--1,015,709 World Wide Deaths--53,069 (5.22%)

 

There is still considerable discussion that the number of reported cases is way below the actual number of cases. If this is indeed the case then the percentage of deaths would be considerably less.

[+ José Soplanucas]

I don't know if you want these numbers or not but I will post them for now.

 

April 2 at 11:02 p.m. EDT (John Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering)

 

U.S. Cases--245,213 U.S. Deaths--5,983 (2.44%)

 

World Wide Cases--1,015,709 World Wide Deaths--53,069 (5.22%)

 

There is still considerable discussion that the number of reported cases is way below the actual number of cases. If this is indeed the case then the percentage of deaths would be considerably less.

 

Please, keep posting! The more information from reliable sources we have, the better.

[MikeBiDude]

Please, keep posting! The more information from reliable sources we have, the better.

The Johns Hopkins numbers are on the CNN screen virtually 24/7

[jjkrkwood]

The Johns Hopkins numbers are on the CNN screen virtually 24/7

 

 

And the reports on new NY deaths today was staggering, and exceeded all records..... This is becoming absolutely terrifying...

[+ tassojunior]

In predicting the estimate for DC today, it came out there are 2 main models for predicting cases, peak time, and deaths, the CHIME and the IMHE.

https://wtop.com/coronavirus/2020/04/coronavirus-update-dc-maryland-virginia-april-3/

[lonely_john]

And the reports on new NY deaths today was staggering, and exceeded all records..... This is becoming absolutely terrifying...

CNN: Coronavirus can spread from talking or even just breathing.

And by the way, we also have receptors in the membranes of our eyes, so go buy your protective eyeglasses as well.

Edited April 4, 2020 by lonely_john

[mike carey]

There is still considerable discussion that the number of reported cases is way below the actual number of cases. If this is indeed the case then the percentage of deaths would be considerably less.

There are two factors, one as you suggest is that the number of cases recorded probably understates the actual case load. But the second, that should not be ignored is that the case load is counted two to three weeks ahead of when the resultant number of deaths can be.

[+ stevenkesslar]

There is still considerable discussion that the number of reported cases is way below the actual number of cases. If this is indeed the case then the percentage of deaths would be considerably less.

 

The most optimistic estimate is the recent paper in The Lancet. It is basically just an educated guess. That estimate is that 0.66 % of people who are infected die. That's when you factor in that a lot of people who are infected are never diagnosed. Dr. Fauci is consistently saying 1 % of people infected eventually die. He's factoring in the same: asymptomatic infections that are never diagnosed, mild cases, etc.

 

So factor that in to New York state, which has about 20 million people. Even at 0.66 %, that's 132,000 dead New Yorkers if everybody gets infected. And ten times as many as that in hospital beds that basically don't exist. Then factor in ICU beds they don't have. And ventilators. And protective equipment they don't have. Then take the catastrophe playing out today, with over 3000 dead New Yorkers. Then multiply it 40 times over. That's like 9/11 x 40.

 

New York's coronavirus death toll surpasses that of 9/11

 

If anybody wants a sure fire recipe for a Great Depression, that's it. It doesn't really matter what percentage of something 3,000 or 30,000 dead New Yorkers are. What matters is the economy and culture of New York would be a shambles.

 

And that's potentially the same for cities and states all over America.

 

It made me want to cry several weeks ago when I read these articles about how the death toll in the US is "only" 10 people or only 100 people. I assumed that the people writing this stuff were not wishing death on the American people. I assumed that, like all of us, they are just ignorant about how viruses and pandemics work. Dr. Fauci keeps saying again and again and again that this is a long and slow illness. Very old and fragile people may die in a week or two after infection. But for many it takes over a month, or up to two months - the last weeks spent on a ventilator struggling to breathe.

 

So talking about the death rate today really deals with a much smaller group of people who got infected two or three or four weeks ago. As Fauci keeps saying, "death lags". To their great credit, what now seems clear to New Yorkers is that a huge spike in infections today means a huge spike in deaths two or three or four weeks from now. The death toll will keep mounting. But the number of new infections may be starting to plateau.

 

People would not say that because they wore a swimsuit in Florida in December when it was 80 degrees that it makes sense to go back to Chicago and wear a swimsuit in January when it is 10 below zero. And yet somehow there is this idea that it's just fine for Spring breakers to hang out in Florida in swimsuits and then go back home to places all over America, carrying a virus they don't even know they have. Those actions are going to result in lots of deaths one or two months after those sunny days on the beach, pretending that this was all okay.

 

Louisiana now has the second highest death rate in the US - higher than New Jersey. New York has 150 deaths per 1 million residents, Louisiana has 73 per 1 million, New Jersey has just under 50 per 1 million. There is no question that Louisiana is now going to go through some version of what New York did because people at Mardi Gras basically said, "What the fuck! Let's just party!"

 

This is like a wild fire. The truly sad thing is that so many places where it is NOT burning out of control yet seem to be saying, "We're not like New York. We don't have the same problem here." That is just a guaranteed recipe for death and disaster. Dr. Birx keeps saying, relentlessly and correctly, that any city or town in New York or Wyoming can go from 5 to 50 to 500 cases very quickly. Those are the numbers everybody needs to be focused on right now.

 

Cities like San Francisco have set a model for how to treat a deadly disease. The Bay Area counties were the first in the nation to lock things down. They'll likely also be in the best position to open back up sooner than other large employment centers. The result is that San Francisco, one-tenth the size of New York City, has just under 500 COVID-19 cases and 7 deaths.

 

Coronavirus: San Francisco reports 47 new cases of COVID-19, nears 500 total

It has taken more than a week for cases in San Francisco to double

 

The rate of new coronavirus cases has slowed somewhat this week in San Francisco, but still, by Friday it was inching toward 500 in the city.

 

Health officials reported 47 new positive tests Friday, bringing the countywide count to 497, doubling at a rate of over a week. The death toll remained at seven for a second consecutive day.

 

According to the state’s dashboard, there were 67 people hospitalized in the city and 30 in intensive care units who had been confirmed to have COVID-19. Another 74 were in hospital or ICU beds with suspected cases. Hospitals in San Francisco are still well short of hitting surge capacity, officials confirmed Friday.

 

That number, however, doesn’t represent the full spectrum of the virus’ spread in the region, health officials warn. While there have been 92,500 tests conducted in California, the state has received results from just over 32,000, leaving nearly 60,000 tests still pending.

 

Those numbers are all in the ballpark of what Americans should expect. Maybe up to 20 % of people who get sick will need to be hospitalized about a week after they start to develop symptoms. In the case of San Francisco it's closer to 10 %, although there is a one week lag or so between initial symptoms and hospitalization as pneumonia develops.

 

There's now been numerous studies that all suggest that about 5 % of everybody infected needs ICU care. Fortunately, San Francisco has the luxury of putting everyone who needs an ICU bed in one. New York City is running out of the ability to do that.

 

I posted a really interesting article from the Times about America's low-income workers in the politics section. Most of it was apolitical research about public health that I think can be posted here. While relatively well off people can stay at home, which often means working at home, many low-income people can't. They work in the grocery stores, the pharmacies, the pizza places that are delivering, or Walmart. They often have to commute to work using public transport. Pandemic or not, there is no way to avoid that. These are people who say, very understandably, that they are grateful to be able to work. But they also are afraid they will get sick. They are also people that can't really afford to get sick and end up in hospitals. The Times documented that while most relatively well off people have stopped moving around, as many as 50 % of low-income people are still moving around to go to work.

 

My point is that it is obviously safer to do work in a grocery store, or even just go to a grocery store, in a place like San Francisco than in a place like New York. A huge part of preparedness for a pandemic has to do with community preparedness. The longer it takes to get everybody on the same page that this is a very deadly disease that kills some of those people who are still going to work every day, the more at risk those people are going to be. In about half a dozen East Asian nations the size of large US states like California, people seem to feel comfortable going to work - because there are only about 100 new cases a day. If we want to reopen the US economy, the number of new cases needs to go down from 30,000 a day - not up.

 

The people who are actually two months ahead of the curve, like Bill Gates, are thinking about how we create an environment where maybe by June people can get on buses and in subways and go to grocery stores or pharmacies - either to work or to shop. Or get in their car and go to a factory, feeling like they are safe. The sooner we all get on one page and treat this like the life threatening disaster it is, the sooner we can get to that kind of environment. That should be the common goal. Whatever the death rate is today, it is way too fucking high. Period.

 

At the end of the day though, me being a whore, all this numbers crap is way above my pay grade.

 

So for me, I like it best when it's all explained simple. Kind of like whore talk, but with rhymes. Like whore poetry, I guess.

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[JulianLondon]

Numbers go up again once the deaths from care homes and retirement homes are counted. Inevitable and very sad.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52147861

 

https://www.france24.com/en/20200403-as-coronavirus-creeps-into-french-care-homes-a-tsunami-of-deaths-unnumbered

 

https://www.ft.com/content/58ece0fb-d297-495e-8889-da216410f2c3

[JulianLondon]

[MEDIA=twitter]1245769932203270144[/MEDIA]

 

Most reports are in French on this currently.

[BgMstr4u]

I'm checking in at RealClearPolitics (which lists its sources as: "WHO, CDC, ECDC, NHC, DXY, JHU, RCP | Population: World Bank, CIA, U.S. Census") several times a day. New York and New Jersey are consistently at the top of the chart for both deaths and for confirmed cases. Louisiana (Mardi Gras??) is right up there, as is California (biggest population), and Washington (first hit). There have been extensive discussions here about why this might be for New York and New Jersey, and the others are not difficult to figure out. But Michigan is consistently right in that mix too. Michigan?

 

Does anyone have a clue why Michigan and not, say, Ohio, Illinois or Texas? Was there some early exposure? Michigan really has only one large city, Detroit, and it has been emptying out for years.

[+ bigjoey]

I'm checking in at RealClearPolitics (which lists its sources as: "WHO, CDC, ECDC, NHC, DXY, JHU, RCP | Population: World Bank, CIA, U.S. Census") several times a day. New York and New Jersey are consistently at the top of the chart for both deaths and for confirmed cases. Louisiana (Mardi Gras??) is right up there, as is California (biggest population), and Washington (first hit). There have been extensive discussions here about why this might be for New York and New Jersey, and the others are not difficult to figure out. But Michigan is consistently right in that mix too. Michigan?

 

Does anyone have a clue why Michigan and not, say, Ohio, Illinois or Texas? Was there some early exposure? Michigan really has only one large city, Detroit, and it has been emptying out for years.

 

I did read another reason for Louisiana having so many deaths besides Mardi Gras. Almost 85-90% of the cases have a co-factor in addition to the virus.

 

Louisiana ranks #4 for obesity rate. With obesity comes high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. What I have read is that the presence of these co-factors plus the Mardi Gras crowds are the cause of the high Louisiana death rates.

[+ tassojunior]

The most optimistic estimate is the recent paper in The Lancet. It is basically just an educated guess. That estimate is that 0.66 % of people who are infected die. That's when you factor in that a lot of people who are infected are never diagnosed. Dr. Fauci is consistently saying 1 % of people infected eventually die. He's factoring in the same: asymptomatic infections that are never diagnosed, mild cases, etc.

 

So factor that in to New York state, which has about 20 million people. Even at 0.66 %, that's 132,000 dead New Yorkers if everybody gets infected. And ten times as many as that in hospital beds that basically don't exist. Then factor in ICU beds they don't have. And ventilators. And protective equipment they don't have. Then take the catastrophe playing out today, with over 3000 dead New Yorkers. Then multiply it 40 times over. That's like 9/11 x 40.

 

New York's coronavirus death toll surpasses that of 9/11

 

If anybody wants a sure fire recipe for a Great Depression, that's it. It doesn't really matter what percentage of something 3,000 or 30,000 dead New Yorkers are. What matters is the economy and culture of New York would be a shambles.

 

And that's potentially the same for cities and states all over America.

 

It made me want to cry several weeks ago when I read these articles about how the death toll in the US is "only" 10 people or only 100 people. I assumed that the people writing this stuff were not wishing death on the American people. I assumed that, like all of us, they are just ignorant about how viruses and pandemics work. Dr. Fauci keeps saying again and again and again that this is a long and slow illness. Very old and fragile people may die in a week or two after infection. But for many it takes over a month, or up to two months - the last weeks spent on a ventilator struggling to breathe.

 

So talking about the death rate today really deals with a much smaller group of people who got infected two or three or four weeks ago. As Fauci keeps saying, "death lags". To their great credit, what now seems clear to New Yorkers is that a huge spike in infections today means a huge spike in deaths two or three or four weeks from now. The death toll will keep mounting. But the number of new infections may be starting to plateau.

 

People would not say that because they wore a swimsuit in Florida in December when it was 80 degrees that it makes sense to go back to Chicago and wear a swimsuit in January when it is 10 below zero. And yet somehow there is this idea that it's just fine for Spring breakers to hang out in Florida in swimsuits and then go back home to places all over America, carrying a virus they don't even know they have. Those actions are going to result in lots of deaths one or two months after those sunny days on the beach, pretending that this was all okay.

 

Louisiana now has the second highest death rate in the US - higher than New Jersey. New York has 150 deaths per 1 million residents, Louisiana has 73 per 1 million, New Jersey has just under 50 per 1 million. There is no question that Louisiana is now going to go through some version of what New York did because people at Mardi Gras basically said, "What the fuck! Let's just party!"

 

This is like a wild fire. The truly sad thing is that so many places where it is NOT burning out of control yet seem to be saying, "We're not like New York. We don't have the same problem here." That is just a guaranteed recipe for death and disaster. Dr. Birx keeps saying, relentlessly and correctly, that any city or town in New York or Wyoming can go from 5 to 50 to 500 cases very quickly. Those are the numbers everybody needs to be focused on right now.

 

Cities like San Francisco have set a model for how to treat a deadly disease. The Bay Area counties were the first in the nation to lock things down. They'll likely also be in the best position to open back up sooner than other large employment centers. The result is that San Francisco, one-tenth the size of New York City, has just under 500 COVID-19 cases and 7 deaths.

 

Coronavirus: San Francisco reports 47 new cases of COVID-19, nears 500 total

It has taken more than a week for cases in San Francisco to double

 

 

 

 

 

Those numbers are all in the ballpark of what Americans should expect. Maybe up to 20 % of people who get sick will need to be hospitalized about a week after they start to develop symptoms. In the case of San Francisco it's closer to 10 %, although there is a one week lag or so between initial symptoms and hospitalization as pneumonia develops.

 

There's now been numerous studies that all suggest that about 5 % of everybody infected needs ICU care. Fortunately, San Francisco has the luxury of putting everyone who needs an ICU bed in one. New York City is running out of the ability to do that.

 

I posted a really interesting article from the Times about America's low-income workers in the politics section. Most of it was apolitical research about public health that I think can be posted here. While relatively well off people can stay at home, which often means working at home, many low-income people can't. They work in the grocery stores, the pharmacies, the pizza places that are delivering, or Walmart. They often have to commute to work using public transport. Pandemic or not, there is no way to avoid that. These are people who say, very understandably, that they are grateful to be able to work. But they also are afraid they will get sick. They are also people that can't really afford to get sick and end up in hospitals. The Times documented that while most relatively well off people have stopped moving around, as many as 50 % of low-income people are still moving around to go to work.

 

My point is that it is obviously safer to do work in a grocery store, or even just go to a grocery store, in a place like San Francisco than in a place like New York. A huge part of preparedness for a pandemic has to do with community preparedness. The longer it takes to get everybody on the same page that this is a very deadly disease that kills some of those people who are still going to work every day, the more at risk those people are going to be. In about half a dozen East Asian nations the size of large US states like California, people seem to feel comfortable going to work - because there are only about 100 new cases a day. If we want to reopen the US economy, the number of new cases needs to go down from 30,000 a day - not up.

 

The people who are actually two months ahead of the curve, like Bill Gates, are thinking about how we create an environment where maybe by June people can get on buses and in subways and go to grocery stores or pharmacies - either to work or to shop. Or get in their car and go to a factory, feeling like they are safe. The sooner we all get on one page and treat this like the life threatening disaster it is, the sooner we can get to that kind of environment. That should be the common goal. Whatever the death rate is today, it is way too fucking high. Period.

 

At the end of the day though, me being a whore, all this numbers crap is way above my pay grade.

 

So for me, I like it best when it's all explained simple. Kind of like whore talk, but with rhymes. Like whore poetry, I guess.

 

 

 

I find Germany amazing. With a huge number of cases it's staying well below 1% deaths while Italy, Spain, France, the UK, Netherlands, etc all stay around 10%. Granted, it's median age patient is younger but hats off to a great national healthcare system. California is also doing exceptionally well for almost 40 million people.

 

The economy is surprising. Even with the new 10 million unemployment claims in the past 2 weeks the official rate is still only 4.4%.https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf The new law pretty much reimburses employers for keeping workers on salary instead of firing them. And it also gives every unemployed person an additional $600/week on top of their unemployment check, which in DC is usually about 80% of your former take-home pay. So the official unemployed on benefits will be very fine.

 

Good estimate of true unemployment: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/upshot/coronavirus-jobless-rate-great-depression.html

Edited April 4, 2020 by tassojunior

[+ stevenkesslar]

Numbers go up again once the deaths from care homes and retirement homes are counted. Inevitable and very sad.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52147861

 

https://www.france24.com/en/20200403-as-coronavirus-creeps-into-french-care-homes-a-tsunami-of-deaths-unnumbered

 

https://www.ft.com/content/58ece0fb-d297-495e-8889-da216410f2c3

 

Thanks for posting those articles. They are very sad to read.

 

One of the underpinnings of this argument that we can somehow work our way through a pandemic (there are zero examples of how well that worked in 1918) is that we can somehow quickly and efficiently shelter maybe 10 % to 20 % of the most vulnerable population. That would include pretty much everybody in a nursing home. Plus lots of older or sicker people living at home. The idea is that somehow we could organize in-home care, or meals on wheels, or some such thing.

 

The people who write about this nonsense generally have no practical experience in how you actually make those things happen. What these stories suggest is that somehow bubble wrapping a big chunk of the population is just logistically impossible.

 

What these stories suggest is that we can't even prepare quickly enough in the places where we are organized - like nursing homes. In theory, they are set up to deal with situations like this. And the stories of the dedication of the staff, like the stories @purplekow is telling in another thread, are incredibly moving. But the nursing homes are still hit blind-sided, and under-resourced.

 

What's not really said in these articles, because nobody knows, is how the infections get into the nursing homes. That is one area where we can hopefully learn a lot by Fall 2020, when we should be expecting Round Two. (Assuming we get Round One under control.) My assumption is that if something like 1 in 3 people who get this virus are asymptomatic through the illness, or only have mild symptoms, and they are younger, that would be a path into a nursing home. The logical explanation is these are probably staff who work in homes and bring the virus in. How you deal with that will itself be a logistical nightmare.

 

From the second article you posted:

Gouabault has worked in an EHPAD long enough to remember the last time the public “woke up” to a tragedy unfolding at France’s nursing homes. During the sweltering summer of 2003, as French holidaymakers lounged on the beaches, a deadly heatwave quietly preyed on the elderly left behind. Officials spoke at first of dozens of casualties, then a few hundred. It would be months before a shocked nation discovered the staggering death toll of more than 15,000.

 

That's probably a relevant example for COVID-19. In 2003, nobody could just stop the hot weather, of course. If we just let COVID-19 rampage across the country, there's every reason to think the results will be far worse than they were in 2003. The difference is that in 2003 the younger staff who worked in those homes may have been stressed by the heat, but they were probably fine. Now they are the ones that are getting sick, too - sometimes severely ill.

 

The notion that we can just work our way through this just makes no sense. None whatsoever. This is a big part of the reason why. There is no way you can protect older and vulnerable people when a pandemic is running rampant.