Coronavirus Numbers

[+ stevenkesslar]

The bad is the lack of facts you cite and the frequent bitchiness. Also the near imposibility of subtlety or nuance.

 

Well, some of that is not so bad. As everyone here knows, I don't do subtlety and nuance.

The good is links to articles that I might not otherwise find, and some of the longer thoughtful threads some people post. The most recent account I follow is John Burn-Murdoch who does a lot of the statistical analysis and graphs for the FT, and tweets in detail most days.

 

Ha ha. Funny you mention him. He's one of the few Twitter accounts I look at, to see what interesting charts he has posted.

 

Speaking of numbers, and how you can present the same data to reveal trends in two very different ways, here's his latest:

 

The hopeful:

 

 

The horrific:

 

[MEDIA=twitter]1254461533880496128[/MEDIA]

[samhexum]

NYC coronavirus cases reach over 150,000 as state death toll nears 17,000

 

More than 400 Big Apple residents succumbed to confirmed or suspected cases of the coronavirus Saturday into Sunday, raising the combined death toll to nearly 17,000, City Hall statistics show.

 

A total of 16,673 New Yorkers have now been lost as of 2 p.m. Sunday, a jump of 403 from the last update at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

 

That unthinkable tally includes 11,460 confirmed coronavirus fatalities, and 5,213 “probable” cases in which the deceased exhibited telltale signs of the disease, but weren’t officially tested, according to the city Department of Health.

 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier Sunday announced a confirmed statewide death toll of 16,966.

 

Unlike the five boroughs, Albany does not yet include “probable” deaths in its public accounting.

 

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the city rose to 153,204 on Sunday — up 2,628 from Saturday.

MORE: Schumer: Bootleg coronavirus test kits pose 'disaster' for recovery efforts

[+ azdr0710]

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt - January 17, 2020.......watch the first four minutes

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by azdr0710

[samhexum]

NYC politicians haven’t begun to face facts about coronavirus fiscal crisis

By Nicole Gelinas

April 22, 2020

 

Neither Mayor Bill de Blasio nor the City Council understands the scope of the current fiscal crisis: a potential 25 percent loss in the city’s private-economy jobs base and an unknown contraction in Gotham’s tax base.

 

The mayor is closing swimming pools, and the council is planning drastic new restrictions on private-sector jobs.

 

Instead, they should concentrate on four steps to bring the economy — and people — back.

 

New York has seen sudden, massive crises before — twice already in the new century, on 9/11 and after the 2008 financial crisis. This isn’t like those. In modern history, New York has never lost more than 6 percent of its private-sector jobs.

 

This time, with major parts of the private economy, from restaurants to Broadway, shut down entirely, and layoffs trickling up to higher-income workers, the city could lose a million jobs, or one of every four.

 

Nor does New York benefit from long-term trends that once worked in its favor. After 9/11 and the financial crisis, young people and immigrants still flocked to city living. For the past three years, the city has been losing population.

 

New York benefited from relentless global tourism. But nobody knows when borders will reopen — or how consistently they’ll stay open.

 

Of a projected $66 billion in tax revenue for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1, the city, based on job and income losses, is likely to see a loss of more than $10 billion, twice as bad as after the financial crisis, even after accounting for inflation, and far more than any elected official is estimating. (The remainder of the city budget is funded by state and federal grants.)

 

The plummeting of sales, income and hotel taxes is self-explanatory. But the city’s traditionally stable $31 billion property-tax intake could shrink, as owners ask for reassessments in light of the cessation of substantial economic activity.

 

Raise taxes — as the city did after 9/11 and 2008? Sure, and give tens of thousands of people who have decamped an excuse not to come back.

 

So what should the city do? First, the City Council and the mayor should announce a holiday on sales taxes through the end of the 2020 calendar year; the state should follow.

 

In doing so, the city and state will forfeit revenue, yes. But they will also send a signal to businesses of all sizes: Once New York is open again, diners and shoppers will enjoy a nearly 9 percent discount on their purchases.

 

For now, the city and state would forfeit largely theoretical tax revenue. Longer term, the state’s congressional delegation should partner with hard-hit red states, including Louisiana and Florida, to ask the federal government to fund a sales-tax holiday, hopefully through next year.

 

Second, the city should eliminate its tax on commercial rent, too, and forfeit another theoretical $1 billion. The city’s retailers and restaurateurs can’t afford this burden.

 

How to pay? Third, lawmakers must strip down the city’s five-year, $79 billion capital budget. New York can’t move forward with its plan to build four new jails in four separate boroughs at a cost of nearly $9 billion, for example.

 

Rebuilding jails on Rikers would be cheaper and faster and also doable — and more humane for inmates.

 

Last, Gotham must freeze government wages. The wage bill, pre-COVID-19, was slated to rise from $30.1 billion for the current fiscal year to $32.3 billion by 2024. New York can no longer afford such increases.

 

Municipal workers can’t be spared the carnage the economy is suffering. The city has no choice but to lay off civilian workers who can’t work at home, such as hundreds of school nurses, and hire them back later. That’s what expanded federal unemployment insurance is for.

 

None of these actions will solve the problems New York faces. The city (and state) need billions, and potentially tens of billions, in federal aid. It’s either that, or risk defaulting on our municipal debt as we protect basic services such as policing and sanitation.

 

No elected official is showing he understands these realities. The mayor still hasn’t called for a wage freeze. The City Council is considering bills that harm small business, such as a bill requiring employers with more than 100 workers to pay their “essential employees” a huge hourly hazard-pay premium. Nice idea —but the stores will close.

 

The New York that reopens will be different than the New York that closed down — and the city must acknowledge these realities.

 

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor of City Journal

 

Why New York City needs a property-tax holiday

By Nicole Gelinas

April 26, 2020

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council support rent moratoriums for tenants impacted by COVID, and stores and restaurants with no income have already stopped paying rent. Yet the city is silent on a looming issue: Come July, does Gotham expect to collect taxes from landlords whose income is plummeting?

 

The city’s $93.5 billion budget is based on trickle-up economics. People make money and spend it on apartment rent, as well as at stores, restaurants, hair salons. Property owners benefit, as activity pushes up the value of their investments; in turn, they pay taxes.

 

Many owners won’t be able to meet the July 1 due date. Even if the city starts to open mid-May, retail and restaurant owners will face huge challenges: Will customers sit close to strangers? Will commuters be back to support retail?

 

When will borders open, bringing tourists?

 

Meanwhile, the city charges loan-shark interest to late payers: 7 to 18 percent, compounded daily.

 

Jan Lee, whose family has owned tenement property in Chinatown for generations, rents to rent-stabilized residential and market-rate commercial tenants. His 22 residential tenants paid the April rent, but “May is going to be a very tough month.”

 

And commercial tenants aren’t paying. Lee rents to two restaurants, including one world-famous Chinese restaurant, in operation for five decades. “April came,” Lee said. “He told me. ‘I am not able to pay.’  ”

 

Neither restaurant is paying. Attempts at delivery-only have failed, as workers have a hard time getting into Manhattan, and commercial food-supply chains are breaking down. “It doesn’t behoove me to chase a restaurant out,” Lee says. “No one is going to fill a 2,000-foot space.”

 

But small owners are expected to come up with cash, well over $50,000, even for modest properties. “Owners should not, when they roll up the gate, be met with bills,” says Lee. “The number one cost is going to be property taxes, 25 to 35 percent of gross rent roll,” says another owner, Joanna Wong.

 

If the city is draconian, smaller owners will bounce, as they did in the 1970s. Especially owners with modest, rent-stabilized portfolios, who need the commercial income to subsidize apartments.

 

City Hall should set up a deferral program for owners who demonstrate hardship, as downtown Councilwoman Margaret Chin suggested Friday. Tax payments would be delayed, not canceled, with owners resuming payments next year, in installments, with no interest. If things aren’t better next year, the city and owners will have to revisit the process, and property bills must start to come down, anyway, as the city revises values downward.

 

“The city doesn’t have any money,” one city official said of this idea last week. With state approval for this aid, though, the city could borrow against next year’s resumption of revenues, through a new Federal Reserve program.

 

Again, if next year isn’t better, everyone will have to deal — but it won’t help recovery to squeeze cash owners don’t have.

 

Officials should also stop implying that residents don’t have to pay rent. State Sens. Michael Gianaris and Julia Salazar are pushing such a movement. “I sympathize with our tenants,” says Joyce Holland, who manages small properties in Manhattan and Brooklyn. But “income … is needed to run the property.”

 

She’s willing to be flexible with one tenant who may need to break her lease and with those who have lost income. But the rhetoric doesn’t help. The point of Congress approving extraordinary unemployment benefits is so most people can pay most bills, avoiding broader economic collapse.

 

Longer-term, the city faces grave uncertainty: At $30.1 billion annually, the property tax is its biggest tax. A botched recovery will harm the value of that property, as would-be New Yorkers shun badly managed density.

 

Even after six weeks, the mayor still can’t figure out ways for New Yorkers to exercise on open streets, or how to help the homeless who have taken over subways — not good signs for future revenues.

 

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor of City Journal. Twitter: @NicoleGelinas

[Guest]

If anyone can explain how you run a workforce and an economy with coronavirus numbers like this, please explain.

 

Well, there is going to have to be some kind of gradual relaxing of the current restrictions at some point. The critical point is not to overwhelm the healthcare system. We can't just stay in this state until an effective vaccine becomes not only proven to be effective, but widely available as well. If the numbers continue to come down, things are going to have to start to loosen. The virus should be less deadly when it's hot, and that would be a time to loosen things up. Some places have kept things loose, such as Sweden and Georgia, and it will be interesting to see what happens there.

[samhexum]

Some places have kept things loose, such as Sweden and Georgia, and it will be interesting to see what happens there.

 

We've also seen that big cats and house cats can catch the virus. What about other animals? I'm hoping turtles can, too.

I have a particular one in Kentucky in mind.

[+ stevenkesslar]

NBC News with Lester Holt - January 17, 2020.......watch the first four minutes

 

 

Did you have a specific reaction to that video? Like where you saying the CDC was doing the right thing, or the wrong thing?

 

I think the video makes the case for two extreme positions: 1) It's useless to try to find a needle in a haystack; or 2) We have to find needles in haystacks to avoid mass death. Both positions are logical enough. And that video shows while finding a needle in a haystack is either futile, if you believe 1, or very difficult, of you believe 2.

 

What's obviously wrong with the approach in that video is that the CDC was looking for symptoms. That's not bad. But by February we knew that maybe 1 in 4 cases remain asymptomatic. Now it looks like it could be over half of cases - but we still don't know for sure. The CDC protocol was based on what worked for SARS and MERS. The assumption was that you'll know when you get sick, and you're mostly contagious during the period you know you're sick. It worked to keep diseases like SARS and MERS and Ebola for spreading in ths US.

 

Hindsight being 20/20, we now know that several things could have happened differently. The first thing is there could have been an immediate decision to get private drug companies to mass produce tests. The assumption could have been we need massive testing and contact tracing. That certainly fits better, now that we know there are many people who will never be symptomatic walking around, spreading the virus. The need for mass testing and contact tracing was South Korea's first very big and key assumption.

 

Three months later, we can look back and see how those assumptions played out. South Korea had 10 new cases yesterday. The US had 35,419 new cases yesterday. I'd say South Korea made the better call.

 

Other countries that have prioritized mass testing and contact tracing - Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Austria - among others, have had similarly successful results to South Korea. Where it has gone bad, like Singapore, which had 618 cases yesterday, it was because they missed cluster outbreaks, like among immigrant workers living in dorms. That is not unlike what happened in South Korea, when they missed 4000 cases that developed in a religious sect. South Korea did prove they could get that under control, and keep it under control. So far.

 

While Germany has had 6000 deaths, it stands out compared to other European nations. The German per capita death rate is 70 per million citizens. In France, it is five times higher: 350 dead per million citizens, or a total of about 23,000 French deaths. Some of that is that the average age of German cases is about a decade younger. So more people who get the disease survive. But Germany is also far more aggressive at testing. They've tested over 2 million people, whereas France is under 500,000. I think that has helped them to at least control the spread of the outbreak.

 

That should matter to the US. South Korea proved that even if one horse gets outs out of the barn, you can get it back in. In the US, all the horses got out of the barn. So, realistically, I think the best hope for the US is what Germany is doing. They went from a peak of about 7000 cases a day in late March to about 15000 a day today. So they would meet the US standard of 14 days of steady decline in cases. Meanwhile, the US does not meet the US standard. The US went from a peak of about 33,000 cases a day in late March to a new high of 38,958 cases two days ago. With this "reopening", without adequate testing or contact tracing in place in any US state, according to people like Dr. Fauci, the number of new cases is likely to increase, not decrease.

 

The US, even more than Sweden, is clearly going to be the poster child for implicitly saying, "Let's let this just run its course, and see what happens." That's not where a majority of the public is at, based on every poll. But majorities don't matter. All it takes is one person to spread the disease. The US has millions who appear to be willing to take whatever risk is involved in spreading it. So whether they are a majority or a minority, the virus could care less about democracy. The virus is mostly just interested in finding good lungs to feed on.

 

The sobering analysis is that this virus just can't be controlled. That's what Sweden's version of Dr. Fauci is basically saying. So if you buy that, here's a US epidemiologist that says we will have at least 800,000 deaths.

 

Infectious disease expert: We're only in the second inning of the pandemic

 

He's saying the virus will just keep coming, relentlessly, in wave after wave. And he assumes it will take 50 % of US citizens being infected, or 160 million people, to really slow the spread. He assumes a death rate of 0.5 % to 1 %. But his 800,000 dead Americans is based on the smaller number. I think we know in places like New York, where the virus has been allowed to spread the most, the real death rate is probably closer to 1 %. That's partly because when the hospital system is crushed, and thousands of sick people are dying at home, you do get a higher death rate. The unstated assumption, which some actually do state, is that it's really futile to try to find needles in haystacks, anyway. So let's just let some version of that play out all over America.

 

Nothing like this is happening in South Korea, or Australia, or Hong Kong, or even Germany, which has it pretty bad. They are making a very different set of assumptions. And they are massively building out testing and tracing based on the assumption that they can find enough needles in enough haystacks to keep this under control.

 

Back to that video, this gives reason for both hope and hopelessness:

 

Newly confirmed coronavirus deaths might not be nation’s first, California officials say

 

So what we now know is that a woman in California died of COVID-19 on Feb. 6, as compared to what we thought was the first death on Feb. 29 in Washington. She was one of at least a handful of Californians who died of COVID-19 in February. So there is a good chance that by the time that CDC airport screening was occurring on Jan. 17th, the virus was already inside the US, at least in California. Someone who died in early February was probably infected by the middle of January.

 

So pessimists could take this as a basis for saying there's just no point to this exercise. The CDC was screening at airports in January. And the virus got in, anyway. So why not just let the virus rip, and just see what happens? At best, we just have to try to keep hospital systems from being completely overwhelmed, like they were in NY and several countries in Europe.

 

The fact that we now know this was starting to spread in California in January also provides reason for optimism, though:

 

https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID-19PublicDashboard/Covid-19Public?:embed=y&:display_count=no&:showVizHome=no

 

That's a summary of caseloads, hospitalizations, and deaths in California. What is simply a fact is the the Bay Area is NOT an epicenter of this crisis. In fact, the Bay Area - if it were a state - would have one of the lowest infection and death rates in the US. Some part of this could just be luck. NYC kept getting boatloads of travel from both Europe and China. But some part of it also has to be that the Bay Area was the first part of the country to slam the breaks on hard.

 

So if you look at mid-March, when the Bay Area lock downs started, California was still at a a handful of deaths a day. That's probably two months AFTER the first infections in California came from China. I do think during this period the CDC was doing testing and contact tracing. But only of people who'd been to China, or had contact with people who were infected and came from China, I believe. That testing and tracing and isolation may have actually bought California some time.

 

I'm assuming the real death rate is between 0.5 % and 1 % of everyone actually infected. In other words, 5 times to 10 times more deadly than the flu. So that would mean that when California was having 3 or 4 or 13 or 24 deaths a day in late March, it probably meant there were hundreds of cases in the state. Those death rates are in the ballpark of what South Korea had. The worst day for them was 9 deaths in one day. So, at least so far, South Korea and other countries has shown you can control infections at that level, and still have people riding subways and going to work.

 

I do think this is either/or. And the minority in the US gets to choose in this case. It really doesn't matter what 90 % of America thinks. 10 % is more than adequate for the virus to spread. Dr. Fauci keeps saying we have to get the absolute numbers down. You can't have enough tests and tracing when you have 30,000 new cases a day.

 

As far as I can tell, we are implicitly choosing contagion, and mass death. And it isn't even so much a choice. Some of it is that, realistically, it may be too late. Too many horses are out of the barn. But the other part of it is that a minority is saying, "No. We don't agree to play by these rules." They are voluntarily giving their lungs to the virus, who will gladly take them.

[+ azdr0710]

Did you have a specific reaction to that video?

 

no, I only posted it for interesting history......a look at the very start of it.......an "if we'd know then what we know now"-sort of thing.......

[+ stevenkesslar]

If anyone can explain how you run a workforce and an economy with coronavirus numbers like this, please explain.

 

We can't just stay in this state until an effective vaccine becomes not only proven to be effective, but widely available as well.

 

Absolutely. There are basically two choices: 1) Reopen when an unprecedented testing, tracing, and treatment protocol is in place in each state, driven by the Feds. That is what Fauci and Birx and pretty much all the scientists are saying; or 2) Just reopen.

 

Georgia is clearly choosing number two.

If the numbers continue to come down, things are going to have to start to loosen. The virus should be less deadly when it's hot ...

 

There seems to be a lot of magical thinking in the US. Magical thinking doesn't usually work as a principle of science, though.

 

There's no evidence yet that the virus is seasonal. Brazil and Australia are both in the Southern hemisphere. Brazil has 10 times as many cases as Australia. And 50 times as many deaths: 4,286 in Brazil, and speeding up, versus 83 in Australia, and slowing down. The difference is likely what each country is doing to prevent disease, as opposed to the weather.

 

So you can say IF the number of cases go down, then ............... "x".

 

So IF the number of new cases in South Korea go down from a peak of 851 on March 3rd to 10 on April 25th, you could take "x" steps. In fact, South Korea never closed the economy down - like offices, and restaurants. They are one of the poster children for how you win the war by "test, treat, trace".

 

Another example: IF the number of new cases in Australia go down from a peak of 537 cases on March 22rd to 21 on April 26th, you could take "x" steps. In fact, the country is now starting to gradually reopen while keeping the virus in check.

 

Road to Recovery: Australia Eases Restrictions as Coronavirus Spread Slows

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Declaring Australia was on the road to recovery with new coronavirus infections almost stamped out, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday hospitals will resume many elective surgeries and schools will be re-opened for more children.

 

Some of this will be trial and error. So in one area beaches that were reopened were closed again two days later. Instead of just exercising, crowds were forming again. Arguably, having schools open and letting people work is more important than going to the beach. More on beaches later.

 

Now, another example: IF the number of cases in the US went down from 0 confirmed on March 3rd to 9,422 on March 22nd to 38,958 on April 24th, you could take "x" steps.

 

So you can see there is a big logical problem here. I used the dates cases peaked in South Korea, March 3rd, and Australia, March 22nd. So in those countries, cases did go down to a handful a day. In the US, they went up. Way up. The US is now the global outlier. We are watching tens of thousands of people get infected and thousands die every day. Our response is to talk about reopening.

 

Right now, in April 2020, any statement that starts with "If the numbers continue to come down" is just magical thinking. We hit a new HIGH of 38,958 new cases a few days ago.

 

At best, the number of cases are plateauing in the ballpark of 30,000 cases a day. I'm not an epidemiologist. But that makes testing and contacting tracing unworkable, if not impossible.

 

Florida’s No-Rules Vibe Gets a Coronavirus Reality Check

Florida’s governor is desperate to get the state back to work. But the tourism industry is moving much more cautiously.

 

I will be curious to see how things in Florida work. Florida has slightly more deaths per million than California. (50 versus 43). The number of deaths in both states is about one half to one third of the number who die of the flu every year. So that is not a horrible number. Meanwhile, in New York, the 22,275 who died are about 6.5 times the 3400 or so who die of the flu in NY every year.

 

No one knows why Florida is doing better than some expected. One theory is that Florida has a lot of seniors, and older people are wiser. Lock down or not, they have voluntarily complied because they don't want to die on a ventilator. That article above is more speculative than factual. But I do think it makes sense that Disney may not reopen until 2021. They don't want the distinction of being viewed as a death camp, as opposed to an amusement park. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that being in a small group on a beach in Florida is more lethal than being in a bar or gym in Manhattan. So I am ambivalent about Florida beaches. People need a way to get outside without ending up in hospitals. Being on a beach may be safer, and healthier.

 

The biggest problem the economy faces is death, and fear of death. Having thousands of deaths a day does not solve that problem. If reopening leads to more death and more fear, it makes the problem worse.

Some places have kept things loose, such as Sweden and Georgia, and it will be interesting to see what happens there.

 

Yes, it will be interesting. Sweden's rate of death per million is actually higher than the US's death rate: 217 per million in Sweden versus 167 per million in the US. So that extra 50 deaths per million would mean 16,500 more dead Americans. We'd be well over 70,000 dead, as opposed to just pushing over 50,000 dead Americans. I personally don't see Sweden as a reason to feel encouraged. I'd go with the South Korea or Australia model, myself. Why not have 100 to 1000 or so deaths, instead of 50,000, and have an economy that can still mostly function? If we can agree and make it work.

 

Georgia is # 16 on the list of deadliest states, if you count it by deaths per million. The number of deaths is probably the most real number. Even if we are massively under counting infections, it is somewhat harder to under count dead bodies. Georgia's death rate - 86.3 per million - is just about double California's death rate. It is about half the US average of 166 deaths per million. That's in part because the death rate in New York alone is 1,145 per million.

 

The real question we don't know is whether every state could get as bad as New York. I think the logical answer, coming from most scientists, is YES. And if New York is at 22,000+ dead and still only has 14 % of residents with antibodies (assuming that actually gives them immunity), they still need maybe 60,000 more deaths in New York alone, just to get the spread of the virus to slow. Nothing magical about that.

 

Again, my point is there just seems to be a whole lot of magical thinking in the US. If there are outbreaks in prisons in Ohio and meat packing plants in South Dakota, I just don't see why there won't be outbreaks in gyms in Georgia, and hair salons in Atlanta. The way China or South Korea and Australia deal with this is to at least try to keep the number of infections so low that it FEELS safe, and it IS actually very safe. It's like driving and flying, knowing that your odds of a car crash or plane crash are extremely low.

 

We're doing something very different in the US. My guess is that when the number of cases go up, and gyms or hair salons are closed because some outbreak will happen somewhere - especially without testing and contact tracing - it will just reinforce all the fear of death.

 

I'll be looking at Georgia as an example of how to do it wrong. Florida is I think a better example of how to at least try to open up using common sense. The main point I take away from that article is that a state that relies on tourism for its bread and butter knows that the worst thing you can do is get a reputation for inviting people to come to Florida to get sick, or die.

 

My best guess of where this goes is what that epidemiologist above said: "only" 800,000 dead Americans, if we are lucky. We won't do what other countries are doing to at least try to contain the virus. So the best hope is we get to 50 % of the population infected slowly, in a way that does not crush the medical system and kill lots of doctors and nurses who don't have adequate PPE.

 

There is nothing magical or miraculous about that. Again, if I am missing something, please tell me. If anyone can explain how you run a workforce and an economy with coronavirus numbers like this, please explain. Other than magical thinking. And ignoring the fact that the number of infections is NOT going down, and may actually be trending up still.

Edited April 27, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ sniper]

Steven what you are missing is that the US consists of multiple regions where different things are happening because they are at different points. Different parts of the country will be doing different things.

[+ tassojunior]

If obesity is a deadly factor with coronavirus half the DC police force is in trouble, much less all those state troopers down south.

[+ stevenkesslar]

no, I only posted it for interesting history......a look at the very start of it.......an "if we'd know then what we know now"-sort of thing.......

 

Thanks for posting that. And I agree. Hindsight is always 20/20. It is amazing that was just a little more than three months ago. We live in a different world.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Steven what you are missing is that the US consists of multiple regions where different things are happening because they are at different points. Different parts of the country will be doing different things.

 

Are you saying that in any state the death rate could not be 10 to 20 times worse than the flu? It is already over 5 times more deadly than the flu in both New York and New Jersey. It is about 3 times more deadly than the flu in Michigan and Massachusetts. And note that I am comparing less than two month's of COVID-19 deaths, AFTER an extraordinary lock down, to twelve months of flu deaths.

 

Are you saying the same thing will not happen in Wyoming, or California, or Texas, unless we take measures to prevent it? Because the scientists seem to be saying the virus does not discriminate between Americans, or recognize state or regional borders or variations.

 

To be clear, this forum is a place to talk about the science of it, not the politics of it. So I am just trying to focus on the science and the numbers. So the only point of view I will argue from is that of the virus. All the virus wants is lungs to feed on. That's all. So I'm just trying to think about what science tells us the virus needs. The virus could give a shit about politics or religion or even whether you like to cross dress. It's pretty much all about lungs. Period.

Absolutely. There are basically two choices: 1) Reopen when an unprecedented testing, tracing, and treatment protocol is in place in each state, driven by the Feds. That is what Fauci and Birx and pretty much all the scientists are saying; or 2) Just reopen.

 

That is what the scientists are saying. You can go down the list. Dr. Fauci. Dr. Redfield. Dr. Birx.

 

I love Dr. Birx's line. When asked why a state like Idaho should have to sacrifice because New York has about 300,000 cases, her response was simple: New York had 10 cases not that long ago. In fact, New York's first case was March 1. Not even two months ago. Meanwhile, Sun Valley, Idaho has had more confirmed cases than NYC, relative to population. Her point, of course, is that Idaho should not sacrifice to save lives in New York. Idaho should sacrifice to save lives, and the economy, in Idaho. People don't spend top dollar in Sun Valley to get sick and die.

 

I think what I said is that states need to develop testing, tracing, and treating programs that are driven by the Feds. That is pretty much what all the states are saying, as far as I can tell.

 

No one thinks that forcing states and cities and hospitals to outbid each other makes any sense at all. So that is one example where we need national leadership. Another one. If Las Vegas wants to use their casinos as a petri dish for the virus, what happens when those people drive back to California and spread the virus again? The virus is not going to notice that the lungs it is feeding on just crossed a state border, or got on a plane. It makes no sense to argue the virus will jump out of the car at the California border.

 

Meanwhile, almost all the existing public health testing and tracing know how is in state and county health departments. That needs to be expanded dramatically, unless we just want to let the virus go wherever it chooses to. And within individual states, as Idaho has proven, Blaine County can be every bit as toxic as New York City, while other counties have no infections at all. So those are examples of parts that are best left to states who are dealing the best they can with different local circumstances. That said, probably every county in America has a public health department. Which is why Dr. Birx is fundamentally right to promote a county by county infrastructure.

 

I go back to Sious Falls, South Dakota. If a meat packing plant with about 4000 employees can very quickly have about 25 % of their work force sick, some of whom are in hospitals, and several of whom died, that's not good work force development. You are going to have major meat suppliers forced to shut down. Do that enough times and you create food supply problems all over the nation. So these laws of science and the math of exponential infection growth work as well in South Dakota as they do in Manhattan.

 

At the 30,000 foot level, Australia has a roughly similar structure of levels of national and regional control. Even China, which is essentially a dictatorship, used very different methods in Hubei than it did in other provinces. Both countries are big countries with complex economies. Both countries figured it out. Pragmatism pretty much dictates that some things should be top down, and others bottom up, I think.

 

I'm not a scientist. But like most Americans, I think what Fauci and Birx are saying makes a hell of a lot of sense. Get the number of new infections down for at least a few weeks. And then be ready for very aggressive testing, tracing, and treatment (meaning usually isolation). Fauci keeps saying this is very difficult when you have as many as 30,000 cases, which is why the numbers need to come down. Everything they are saying is based on the best practices in a number of other countries.

 

What is magical thinking is to say that because some place has only 10 cases, it is not a problem,or it will stay that way.

 

So, for example, I can recall when Riverside County, CA, where I live, had only 10 cases. That was last month. Now it has about 3000 cases. It has 118 deaths. I'm assuming that Dr. Fauci is right, and that the real death right is about 1 %. That would suggest that those 118 deaths point to 11,800 cases. Meaning even now in Riverside County, 3 out of 4 cases are undiagnosed. The good news is they are undiagnosed because the infected people are not getting really sick. The bad news is they are infecting other people. Which is why the level of sickness, hospitalization, and death is still rising in California, despite the lock down. It will keep rising, until an aggressive "test, treat, trace" program is put into place.

 

Where I agree with you about different things happening in different places is that the best time to intervene in Riverside County would have been when we had only 10 confirmed cases. Even then, it could have meant we really had 100 infections or more, probably. But if we could have magically manufactured 300,000 robotic contact tracers and put them to work all over the US overnight, the Riverside County cases would NOT have grown from 10 to 3000. If we had kept it at 10 or 20 or 50, maybe we could be looking to gradually reopen now.

 

I'm not arguing for a one size fits all strategy. I think I made clear that states and counties need to respond to what is actually happening on the ground.

 

That said, the science of exponential growth does not change. And it is unforgiving. Newsom said several months ago that if we did nothing to prevent it, up to 20 million Americans could be infected by this Spring. We'll never know for sure if he was right. But I am glad that Californians proved that worst case scenario was not inevitable.

 

It is baked into the cake now that California and Florida are going to do things very differently. In a way, that's a good thing. As I said above, relative to population, both states have roughly the same number of deaths, which is way below the national average. It's also way below the number of flu deaths they have annually. Two months ago neither state even had a confirmed case of COVID-19. So I think we'll know better a few months from now what is working and not working among states in the US.

 

There is one other thing that is just science, and that is not a regional thing. My guess is 10 to 20 % of Americans simply are convinced that they want to push the limits of science regarding the rules of infection, death, and exponential growth. So this has nothing to do with politics, or sociology, or public opinion. This is just hard science and exponential math. If you take a virus that is this contagious and you offer it 30 million lungs or so, the virus is going to have a feeding frenzy. That's just science.

 

So science tell me the virus will have a very good run in every region of the US, given that 10 % or so of people are wanting to liberate the virus and feed it. The virus will make no distinctions about the race or region of who those lungs belong to. It will just be a race between a virus and an immune system. In most cases, the immune system will win with minimal or no damages. In other cases, the results to the human whose lungs are infected will be deadly. Again, that's just science in every region of the US.

 

I'm still missing how we make an economy and workforce function when you have maybe 10 % of workers with a viral infection. In theory, that means all 10 % of them are off work on sick pay. In reality, it means maybe 6 % are working thinking they are fine and spreading the disease, and 2 % are coughing and think they have the flu or allergies, and 1 % are home sick, and 1 % are in a hospital or seriously ill. That's really not a good work force strategy.

 

To use the Disneyland example, if this played out over a few months, like it played out in Ohio prisons, customers would not flock to Disneyland. They would not see Disneyland as a fun place to go. They would probably see Disneyland as worse than a prison. They would see it as a death camp. That is, as I said, why I think Disneyland will not reopen until they feel confident that people will not be afraid to shake Mickey Mouse's hand again.

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ sniper]

I'm saying some states are at different points on the timeline and we will not be having a uniform federal date where phases happen. The virus doesn't recognize borders, but interstate travel of virus carriers has been curtailed drastically. People in Wyoming live pretty damn far apart and tend to stay in Wyoming. NYC people live all on top of each other and mix around a lot more. They are not going to do things at the same pace.

[+ bigjoey]

Steven what you are missing is that the US consists of multiple regions where different things are happening because they are at different points. Different parts of the country will be doing different things.

 

You are correct. This morning NPR had a segment on how Seattle and New York differ so much in the severity of the pandemic. The writer of a story in New York Magazine attributes much of the difference to how the city government communicated to the population about the virus. Seattle got high marks for having scientists lead the way communications were handled. New York got low marks because it had the politicians leading the communication strategy. In NYC, you had the mayor and the governor fighting over who had the power to control what; you had Mayor DeBlasio telling people in February to go out to restaurants and celebrate Chinese New Year.

 

Until I heard the NPR piece, I had never thought of just the communication element having as big an effect as the writer claimed.

 

If someone here knows how to post an NPR story (or the New York story on which the broadcast was based) it would be enlightening in showing how the local response in just communications can make a big difference.

 

In addition, state responses can make a big difference. As we now know, Cuomo and his administration made a huge mistake in telling skilled nursing facilities that not only could they not turn away actual or suspected Covid-19 patients but they could not even test for the virus. This was like throwing matches into dry kindling and the result was a very large number of fatalities in skilled nursing facilities:

https://nypost.com/2020/04/25/new-york-lacked-common-sense-in-nursing-homes-coronavirus-approach/

 

 

Bottom line: there will be big differences among the states not only because of physical characteristics like density, cultural characteristics like obesity, behavioral characteristics like subway use but also governmental behaviors like communications and just stupidity like Cuomo’s skilled nursing facility directive.

 

Then layer onto all this the time factor of when the virus hits a state and creates hot spots. It will most likely be a few years from now when historians look back that an accurate description of our time could be written.

[+ WilliamM]

You are correct. This morning NPR had a segment on how Seattle and New York differ so much in the severity of the pandemic. The writer of a story in New York Magazine attributes much of the difference to how the city government communicated to the population about the virus. Seattle got high marks for having scientists lead the way communications were handled. New York got low marks because it had the politicians leading the communication strategy. In NYC, you had the mayor and the governor fighting over who had the power to control what; you had Mayor DeBlasio telling people in February to go out to restaurants and celebrate Chinese New Year.

 

Until I heard the NPR piece, I had never thought of just the communication element having as big an effect as the writer claimed.

 

If someone here knows how to post an NPR story (or the New York story on which the broadcast was based) it would be enlightening in showing how the local response in just communications can make a big difference.

 

In addition, state responses can make a big difference. As we now know, Cuomo and his administration made a huge mistake in telling skilled nursing facilities that not only could they not turn away actual or suspected Covid-19 patients but they could not even test for the virus. This was like throwing matches into dry kindling and the result was a very large number of fatalities in skilled nursing facilities:

https://nypost.com/2020/04/25/new-york-lacked-common-sense-in-nursing-homes-coronavirus-approach/

 

 

Bottom line: there will be big differences among the states not only because of physical characteristics like density, cultural characteristics like obesity, behavioral characteristics like subway use but also governmental behaviors like communications and just stupidity like Cuomo’s skilled nursing facility directive.

 

Then layer onto all this the time factor of when the virus hits a state and creates hot spots. It will most likely be a few years from now when historians look back that an accurate description of our time could be written.

 

Let's be fair to Governor Cuomo. Subways and buses in New York City are a distinct danger to riders and employees in the age of covid19.

[+ bigjoey]

Let's be fair to Governor Cuomo. Subways and buses in New York City are a distinct danger to riders and employees in the age of covid19.

 

Absolutely true. The NPR piece faulted him and DeBlasio for fighting and having a power struggle on who controls what (Seattle presented a united uniform communication’s message by contrast).

 

As for the directive that sent people with Covid-19 into skilled nursing facilities, that is separate from issues of crowded public transport and dense housing.

 

NPR had another piece today with the psychological problems the lock down has created for many young people. The gist was the psychological damage will last for a lifetime. If someone knows how to link to the report, that would be great.

[+ José Soplanucas]

Quite solid evidence of under reporting:

 

U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19

[BgMstr4u]

Let's be fair to Governor Cuomo. Subways and buses in New York City are a distinct danger to riders and employees in the age of covid19.

OK. Fair is fair. Cuomo has been governor since 2011. He has been a public official in the federal and New York State governments most of his adult life. He is as intelligent and instructed as he is ambitious. No excuses on grounds of inexperience or unawareness for not knowing the problems. So while people are throwing around “how could you not have known” accusations, perhaps a few should be thrown his way as well.

 

Subways and buses in New York City are a distinct danger. They are now more than ever, but they always have been, and Cuomo and his ilk have done precious little to improve them. As one who has lived in NYC (and loved it and loves it still) , I will tell you that they always have been a distinct danger. The subway is and always has been a filthy open sewer, virtually impossible to keep clean, not that very much is done to try, and little or nothing has ever been done to structurally improve them. The buses are not as dirty but they are desperately overcrowded much of the time, rarely run on time, and tend to arrive in clusters, making people on overlapping routes with 4 buses covering the same ground wait as long as if there was only 1. Exposing people to bad weather and sometimes to bad people. Bad for your health both ways. No way to run a transit system in the nation’s biggest city.

 

This has not noticeably improved in Cuomo’s long years of public office. How could he not understand the danger to health and safety the public constantly faces every day from this disgraceful transit system for which he is as governor ultimately responsible? Surely his negligence has contributed to the disaster his state’s greatest city now faces.

 

When things go wrong, the press works overtime to convince us that every public official, including the President, the Governor of every state, the mayor of every city (yes, also the demagogue DeBlasio) should have known on their very first day in office absolutely everything wrong about their areas of responsibility and have somehow magically fixed it all before anything bad could happen, no matter how many competing concerns they may face, some of them explicitly designed to stymie what good they are trying to do and destroy them politically. And while some do this better than others, none bats 1000. Nor can they. The question is how to achieve reasonable progress in areas of public need, which is an endlessly complex process often actively (and in my opinion, sometimes criminally) thwarted by self-serving political game playing.

 

Should we cut Cuomo some slack for being the public official responsible for presiding over New York's public transit death trap? Perhaps. But not because he is a Democrat with a possible long shot at the nomination, someone who seems to be liked at the moment, and especially not because he’s not the Monster Trump. There seems to be a double standard here, one for the politicians we like and another one for the ones we don’t. Be fair.

Edited April 28, 2020 by BgMstr4u

[+ WilliamM]

You write "they always have been."

[BgMstr4u]

You write "they always have been."

Which is no reason they should not be improved. Deficiencies of long standing should always be priorities for correction.

[+ tassojunior]

Newport Beach and Huntington Beach last weekend

https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/25/eager-early-risers-hit-the-beach-in-san-clemente-as-closure-lifts/

 

[+ tassojunior]

I actually think the numbers are getting clearer and clearer with these antibody tests.

 

If I had to guess, The Lancet studied that estimated a death rate of 0.66 % - if everybody in the whole world could be tested at once - is in the ballpark of correct. That said, if you include the CA and NY antibody studies, it could be anywhere from 0.2 % to 1 %. In other words, COVID-19 could be two to ten times more deadly than the flu.

 

I think we know for a fact that this is more deadly than the flu. The flu does not kill 22,000 New Yorkers in less than a few months. The flu does not lead to refrigerated trucks being turned into morgues. So the question now is: how much more deadly is it, and how do we protect the people it is deadly to?

 

I put this post in the politics section although 99 % of it is apolitical test data. All the data does hold together, and creates a relatively sensible hypothesis, at least, of what is going on.

 

So if you take the NY data, which is the most extensive, we know that 2 % of all NYC residents have confirmed cases. And the antibody tests suggests a 20 % infection rate. In NY state, we know that 1.44 % of state residents have confirmed cases (287,000 out of 19.5 million people). The antibody tests suggest a 14 % infection rate. So in both cases it works out to about a 10 to one ratio between confirmed cases and actual cases.

 

We've known all along that these high death rates - 7.56 % in New York right now - are so high because the people being tested are only the sickest subset of victims. So right on the face of it, you can divide 7.56 % by 10 and get a hypothetical 0.756 % death rate. That's in line with what The Lancet and Fauci have been saying all along.

 

You can get to similar results by taking these presumed infection rates, based on the antibody tests, and work back to a presumed death rate.

 

So in NYC there's a presumed infection rate of 21 %, which would be 1.76 million New York City residents out of 8.4 million. There are 16,388 reported deaths as of yesterday. That's a 0.93 % death rate.

 

In NY State there's a presumed infection rate of 14 %, which would be 2.73 million state residents out of 19.5 million. There are 20,861 deaths as of yesterday. That's a 0.76 % death rate.

 

The CA data from LA County and Santa Clara County suggest a somewhat more optimistic picture - perhaps a death rate as low as 0.2 %, and perhaps anywhere from 20 to 50 actual cases for every confirmed case.

 

LA's antibody tests suggested an actual infection rate of 4 % of the population. That would be 400,000 infected of a 10 million population. There are 797 deaths. That's a 0.2 % death rate. In their findings, Santa Clara County estimated a 0.2 % death rate.

 

There's three good reasons I can think of for why CA would suggest a 0.2 % death rate, and NYC would suggest anywhere from 0.6 % to up to 1 %.

 

First, testing errors. We really have no clue whether these tests measure anything valid. The more studies that come out, the more likely it is that they do paint a picture of a disease that does not kill MOST people, and that has many asymptomatic infections. We knew that already. But false positives can make a difference, especially when you are talking about tests that measure numbers like 4 %, rather than 50 %, testing positive for something.

 

Concepts like testing sensitivity and specificity are above my pay grade. But I tend to think NY would be the most accurate. We can compare a hypothesis based on antibody tests to actual cases and actual mass death. So if the question is: how will this likely play out in the entire US, or world, if let it, I think what happened in NY tells us what we could expect.

 

To simplify, I'd go with Dr. Fauci and a 1 % death rate. Anybody over 50 is potentially in trouble. Anybody over 65 is in big trouble. Anybody over 75 better have a will or trust written up. Meaning your chance of getting really sick, or being in a hospital, or dying is serious.

 

A second reason could be that NYC in particular did experience a relatively complete hospital meltdown. They think 5000 people died of COVID-19 at home, because they were very sick and the hospitals were full. So that right there could potentially double or triple the NY death rate. I think we know now from both 1918 and 2020 that quality of care is a big factor in whether people live or die. It is the whole concept behind "flatten the curve". So you could take NY and CA actual death rates as proof that "flatten the curve" saves many, many lives.

 

A third reason is that if only 4 % of your population is infected, it is probably easier to shelter the vulnerable people. Mainly, they can stay inside. Or you can keep people out of nursing homes. I did check, and the age distribution of cases in NY and CA is very similar. Roughly 1 in 4 cases in both states were seniors. So if that's true, that would not explain the difference between a 0.2 versus 1 % death rate.

 

The timing of cases could be a factor. The number of cases in LA is going way up, in part due to the added testing. Since death lags with COVID-19, the LA death rate may twice as high a month from now.

 

I think one huge problem with the "herd slaughter" concept is that no one who advocates it has come within a million miles of explaining how you bubble wrap 30 % of your population for a year or two. If the idea is that 70 % get infected, the first question is: which 70 %? Some of that 70 % is Black women with diabetes, or young men with heart or lung conditions. But even if you magically solve that problem, who actually works in nursing homes? Who goes into the homes of seniors to clean, or repair things? We can't even get testing and tracing ramped up to what we need to prevent people from getting infected. So now we are suddenly going to reorganize our entire society to protect the 30 % or so that is most vulnerable? Give me a fucking break.

 

One final piece of data. If you look at what is happening on Navy ships, it is very anecdotal. But I think the little we do know confirms the picture I painted above. On the Roosevelt there were about 800 cases. I think 7 ended up being in a hospital, or about 1 %. One sailor died, which would give you a death rate of about 0.1 %. There are two broad data sets that suggest that for adults under 50 or so, the hospitalization rate is 10 to 15 % of all cases. One is a CDC study of about 2500 US patients published in March, and the other is all the NYC data. So, again, it seems like in the real life experiment where we tested 100 % of a young population on a ship, you can divide by about 10. The 10 % hospitalization rate in the CDC study and in real life in NYC probably reflects a small segment of the sickest population of young adults. The 1 % hospitalization rate FOR YOUNG ADULTS is likely more accurate.

 

These numbers may sound low. But they are way higher than flu hospitalization and death rates for young adults. So even if they are that low, our economy is still fucked. We'd have mass death all over the US, like in NYC. And 1 % of all young adults in hospitals is a big number - millions of hospitalizations. And by the way, how do you like the idea of 20 % or 50 % of your workforce out of work sick? In NYC, at one point 20 % of the NYPD was out sick. And a bunch of cops died. So the economic problem is not just all the fear caused, that keeps a huge chunk of people from wanting to go shop or eat in a restaurant. The other huge problem is if we just let this rip through our economy unchecked, you would have 20 % of the workforce sick, all at once. How does an employer manage that?

 

Anybody who is still advocating herd slaughter hasn't thought it through. You can't have 20 % of a workforce that is sick, and another 30 % of vulnerable adults that is bubble wrapped for a year or more. I think pretty much the whole world is moving in the direction of test, trace, treat.

 

Here's the number of actual deaths in a bunch of countries that seem to have gotten a handle on test, trace, treat:

 

Australia - 80 deaths

Austria - 536 deaths

Hong Kong - 4 deaths

New Zealand - 18 deaths

South Korea - 240 deaths

Taiwan - 6 deaths

Thailand - 51 deaths

 

Combined, those nations have over half the population of the US. They all used some variation of a prompt lock down to flatten the number of cases, and then a move to test, trace, and treat to keep it low. It is early days in terms of whether they can sustain this. But it is working so far. It does create an environment where people can shop and eat and work, albeit with a new and enforced set of restrictions to keep the number of new cases a day in the single or double digits. Meanwhile, the US has had 30,000 new cases a day for three weeks running.

 

Sorry, but this is not politics. This is tragedy. Anybody who is a patriot should be deeply embarrassed by the mass death and the mass stupidity.

 

California herd immunity:https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-gov-newsom-says-things-will-be-normal-when-we-have-herd-immunity-heres-why-thats-scary/

 

‘Herd immunity’ without a vaccine could mean 840,000 coronavirus deaths in California

Gov. Newsom says things will be normal when we have “herd immunity.” Here’s why that could be scary.

[+ honcho]

California herd immunity:https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-gov-newsom-says-things-will-be-normal-when-we-have-herd-immunity-heres-why-thats-scary/

 

‘Herd immunity’ without a vaccine could mean 840,000 coronavirus deaths in California

Gov. Newsom says things will be normal when we have “herd immunity.” Here’s why that could be scary.

 

I think the writer is taking Newsom out of context. I have listened to at least half of his news briefings, and I the only times I've heard him utter the phrase "herd immunity" is AFTER looking forward to "development of an effective and available vaccine".

[Guest]

...

 

 

Yes, it will be interesting. Sweden's rate of death per million is actually higher than the US's death rate: 217 per million in Sweden versus 167 per million in the US. So that extra 50 deaths per million would mean 16,500 more dead Americans...

 

It's higher for now, but they are keeping the elderly isolated while letting the younger population get exposed. The purpose of the "social distancing" is to prevent overwhelming the the healthcare system. While the thought of an effective vaccine is a nice dream, the reality is that (1) there's never been an effective vaccine created against a coronavirus, and (2) even if we're able to develop a safe and effective vaccine, it won't be ready by the northern Hemisphere's Fall/Winter. We cannot simply stay holed up for an entire year. I suspect that in the long run, Sweden will fare better. Of course, there's no way to know something like that with any certainty. I have a feeling that most people are going to get exposed before there's a vaccine. It's probably better for this to happen when it's warm out and the virus less virulent. Well, a year from now, we'll be able to look back and find out who had the right idea.