More interesting data regarding Covid

[+ keroscenefire]

Well, I also heard on the NBC Evening News tonight that some states had "spikes" in Covid-19 cases, although he quickly added "Although that may just be because they're testing more." First of all, what's important, especially when testing becomes many times more available, are not the diagnosed "cases," but rather hospitalizations and, even more importantly, of course, deaths. Please look at the hard data, even those just for "cases":

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html

This is what a "spike" means:

We have 50 states to look at. In which state is there a spike? Not one. Right. Some have a bit of an increase in diagnoses, some a decrease. I heard there was rally with 50,000 walking shoulder to shoulder in LA, one of the relatively harder-hit areas. We'll soon find out if that will be a disaster, and if so, how bad. Every time I hear a reporter state that there's a "spike" of cases in a state, I feel like punching him in the face 50 times (not that I would ever entertain doing such a thing, of course). Meanwhile, tens of millions are losing jobs, housing, health insurance, etc., because some officials are not looking at data and basing their decisions on facts rather than disproven suppositions.

Did you even look at the link of my article. It specifically says that in 14 states (and Puerto Rico) they are having the most COVID-cases then they have ever had. Some states are having more than 1,000 cases a day for the last week including Florida and California. Arizona is running out of hospital beds and ventilators and has declared an emergency for its hospital system. North Carolina has reached a record for the number of COVID hospitalizations, so has Texas. It's definitely true that in many parts of the country, things are getting better and it may be appropriate to loosen some of the social distancing rules in certain areas. But if you are truly following the data, then you it strongly suggests many areas should not be opening up (and for what it's worth I 100% support things like increased unemployment benefits, so people don't lose their housing/health insurance, etc.)

[Guest]

Did you even look at the link of my article. It specifically says that in 14 states (and Puerto Rico) they are having the most COVID-cases then they have ever had. Some states are having more than 1,000 cases a day for the last week including Florida and California. Arizona is running out of hospital beds and ventilators and has declared an emergency for its hospital system. North Carolina has reached a record for the number of COVID hospitalizations, so has Texas. It's definitely true that in many parts of the country, things are getting better and it may be appropriate to loosen some of the social distancing rules in certain areas. But if you are truly following the data, then you it strongly suggests many areas should not be opening up (and for what it's worth I 100% support things like increased unemployment benefits, so people don't lose their housing/health insurance, etc.)

Well, let's do the math. If 14 states are having more Covid-19 cases than they've ever had, that means, that, well, what's 50 minus 14? Oh, yeah, 36 are having the same or fewer. Look at the graphs. NONE of the states are spiking, although Arizona's numbers are not comforting. In case you weren't aware, hospitals rarely have a lot of unoccupied ICU beds and available ventilators, going years back. Long before the pandemic, it's not uncommon for hospitals to have to divert ambulances to other hospitals because of full ICU's/ventilators. One can always cherry-pick one's data.

Incidentally, California's data are among the worst, and they've kept things the most locked up. It will be interesting to see what happens in the aftermath of all of these mass demonstrations. So far, my take on the data doesn't seem to support the idea that harsh lock-downs are that effective. An article can say anything it wants. The press certainly seems to have a certain agenda. Look at the hard facts and come to your own conclusions.

[Guest]

Did you even look at the link of my article. It specifically says that in 14 states (and Puerto Rico) they are having the most COVID-cases then they have ever had. Some states are having more than 1,000 cases a day for the last week including Florida and California. Arizona is running out of hospital beds and ventilators and has declared an emergency for its hospital system. North Carolina has reached a record for the number of COVID hospitalizations, so has Texas. It's definitely true that in many parts of the country, things are getting better and it may be appropriate to loosen some of the social distancing rules in certain areas. But if you are truly following the data, then you it strongly suggests many areas should not be opening up (and for what it's worth I 100% support things like increased unemployment benefits, so people don't lose their housing/health insurance, etc.)

Well, let's do the math. If 14 states are having more Covid-19 cases than they've ever had, that means, that, well, what's 50 minus 14? Oh, yeah, 36 are having the same or fewer. Look at the graphs. NONE of the states are spiking, although Arizona's numbers are not comforting. In case you weren't aware, hospitals rarely have a lot of unoccupied ICU beds and available ventilators, going years back. Long before the pandemic, it's not uncommon for hospitals to have to divert ambulances to other hospitals because of full ICU's/ventilators. One can always cherry-pick one's data.

Incidentally, California's data are among the worst, and they've kept things the most locked up. It will be interesting to see what happens in the aftermath of all of these mass demonstrations. So far, my take on the data doesn't seem to support the idea that harsh lock-downs are that effective. An article can say anything it wants. The press certainly seems to have a certain agenda. Look at the hard facts and come to your own conclusions.

[xyz48B]

And then add to it which source you look at for your data. CNN has been reporting John Hopkins data, particularly some sort of map that they have been producing showing that Massachusetts has a 50%+ increase in cases in the last seven days. If you go to mass.gov you in fact find out that that is not the case according to the way that Massachusetts is reporting the data. At this point the positive caseload is only one data point among many that’s important. What’s also important is hospitalization rates and if surge capacity is being used or not. But of course that’s not nearly as sensational as “increased cases.” No shit there’s going to be more cases. There will be more cases until the things, gone.

[mike carey]

You looked, didn't you?

Actually no, I knew roughly what both were, but I hadn't joined those dots.

[+ stevenkesslar]

And then add to it which source you look at for your data. CNN has been reporting John Hopkins data, particularly some sort of map that they have been producing showing that Massachusetts has a 50%+ increase in cases in the last seven days. If you go to mass.gov you in fact find out that that is not the case according to the way that Massachusetts is reporting the data. At this point the positive caseload is only one data point among many that’s important. What’s also important is hospitalization rates and if surge capacity is being used or not. But of course that’s not nearly as sensational as “increased cases.” No shit there’s going to be more cases. There will be more cases until the things, gone.

 

https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/

 

https://covidactnow.org/

 

I've posted those two websites a lot. I don't think there's anything wrong with CNN or the Times. But those two do the best job of giving a snapshot of all the variables you mention. The bad news is that there's not a lot of states that we can say are anywhere near licking this thing. At best you can say we're keeping it under control - sort of, maybe.

 

What's sad to me is that pretty much every country in the continent of Europe except Sweden would probably meet the CDC's standards for reopening. The most important being a consistent 14 day downward trajectory. Even the UK, which has been the recent laggard - if they are even still "Europe" - is now on a clear downward trajectory. The US has been plateaued at 20,000 cases a day for like a month. So it could go either way. And if you leave the states that were hit hardest out, the number of cases is mostly trending up. That's mostly because in the most populous states outside New England - California, Texas, Florida - the trend is up.

 

We are were we are. We are reopen, whether we should be or not. And we have a massive lock down on consumer demand that is driving a recession, and will keep us in recession, whether anyone wants to recognize that or not. Whether the goal is to stop the virus from killing people or to stop the virus from killing businesses and the US economy (I would argue there is almost no difference between the goals as long as the US is a consumer-driven capitalist economy), the goal should be killing the virus.

 

I think that boils down to three words: test, trace, treat. And I think there's two main institutional forces to do it: Governors, and businesses. Probably large corporations are more important, at least in terms of setting the tone and showing what works. But what seems clear now, precisely because we are NOT seeing massive uncontrollable spikes - at least yet - is that the public education part of this has worked well.

 

In February and early March, the virus had free reign over an ignorant public. And we know that took the death toll in New York City from 0 to 20,000 in no time. That is not happening now. So I think the main explanatory factor has to be an informed public. For the same reason, I would not discount the collective efforts of small businesses. They may be lacking in resources, but they have an even better reason to read the memo and comply with it - survival.

 

I'm going to keep arguing that the downside of an informed public, if you happen to believe that the only thing that matters in an economy is buy, buy, buy and shop, shop, shop, is that an informed public simply won't do that until the virus goes away or is virtually eliminated, like in Europe or South Korea or Australia. Certainly the majority of consumers won't consume like they did in 2019. That is, no doubt, one of the reasons the virus is not spiking out of control.

 

We Need to Reopen Schools—but How?

While more than 20 European countries have reopened schools, America seems unable even to approach the problem rationally.

 

Last Wednesday, Anthony S. Fauci said on CNN that some schools may have “no problem” reopening in the fall but added that he hesitated “to make any broad statements about whether it is or is not quote ‘safe’ for kids to come back to school” since it would depend on the viral activity in an area.

 

Meanwhile, the reopening of schools in Europe and elsewhere should raise confidence that there is a practical path forward here in this country too, especially for younger children. Denmark has had schools open since April 15, Norway since April 20, and 20 other European countries since at least mid-May. The Wall Street Journal reports: Researchers and European authorities said the absence of any notable clusters of infection in reopened elementary schools so far suggested that children aren’t significant spreaders of the new coronavirus in society.

 

That articles reinforces what I said about Denmark, and expands on it.

 

I strongly agree with the author that being able to reopen schools this Fall would be a huge victory. If we can't figure it out, shame on us.

 

And while there may be elements of this debate that are political, the core of it is what Fauci and others talk about: data. And the biggest data is what revolves around test, trace, treat. As the article states, all of these seeming successes are happening in the context of countries that are committed to tracking down the virus and killing it through testing and contact tracing.

 

Recall that Merkel, who is one of the global stars (at least to me), opened discussion in her country by stating 70 % of Germans may get this. We now know better than we did then what a disaster that would have been - for the German people, and for the German economy. I think the news is mostly better than expected. Merkel is as straight a shooter as there is in politics. She thinks and talks like a scientist, at least on this issue. I doubt she thought three months ago that Germany, and Europe, could be talking about effectively eliminating the virus, without a vaccine, by this point.

 

The other thing about children and schools is it is logical to think that they are going to be disproportionately asymptomatic rather than symptomatic, if infected. That's good news/bad news. It's good news for the kids, and the parents worried about them. It's bad news for somebody who could die if kids brought it home. There is no medical evidence I've read that children can not spread the disease. As that article states, there is plenty of evidence that they have viral loads comparable to adults. I'm not a scientist. But I would have to guess that in a completely uncontrolled environment, lots of infected children would be disease spreaders.

 

My point is that all roads lead to Rome. We have to get a handle on asymptomatic spread. And the best way to do that is effective contact tracing.

 

I suspect one reason why the US is doing a particularly poor job of getting the number of cases down is that we don't have a handle on asymptomatic spread. Even the math makes sense. If 1 in 3 infected people are asymptomatic, and they each infect 2 other people, that's a recipe for maintaining a steady level of new cases. In reality some asymptomatics are likely being caught through testing before they infect others. And some people with symptoms are infecting others. But almost every story I read about every nation that has virtually crushed COVID-19 talks about testing and contact tracing and tracking the virus down and killing it.

 

That is a completely apolitical concept. I like the Texas word for it: "viral SWAT teams". It makes it sound like a macho guy action movie, where we are the good guys and we are going to beat this little fucker. That should be an idea everybody can get behind.

Edited June 10, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ stevenkesslar]

Incidentally, California's data are among the worst, and they've kept things the most locked up. It will be interesting to see what happens in the aftermath of all of these mass demonstrations. So far, my take on the data doesn't seem to support the idea that harsh lock-downs are that effective. An article can say anything it wants. The press certainly seems to have a certain agenda. Look at the hard facts and come to your own conclusions.

 

This notion that lock downs were not effective should be banished. Sorry, but its just sounds ridiculous.

 

Before lock down, the number of new cases in New York grew from 100 to 10,000 in a matter of weeks. We now know that this process of uncontrolled exponential viral growth killed over 20,000 New York City residents. Had there been no lock downs, do we think the virus would have stopped? Or might 20,000 and then 30,000 New York City residents a day have become infected before long as the exponential growth continued?

 

I posted a recent story that estimated 60 million infections in the US were prevented. Those are of course the kinds of studies that invite ridicule. But the idea that no lock down would have meant less death in New York, or anywhere, is just not rational.

 

I'll keep pointing to South Dakota and North Dakota. They had multiple communities that went from "that's a New York problem" to "this is a big fucking problem here" in a matter of weeks. Talk to the meat packing companies in those states about how well it worked not to be prepared, and how their penalty was having to shut down for a while.

 

I think there were two big victories from the lock downs.

 

The intended purpose was to crush the exponential and out of control growth of the virus. We did that. I think the other victory is that the lock downs were a sort of viral "time out". We behaved badly, so we had to go into a corner and learn our lesson.

 

I think "time out" is actually a good way to think about it. I don't mean we are children, or stupid. I mean that we behaved in a way that did not include awareness of the virus. Now we have gone through a massive behavioral and societal change. Nobody wants to go back into time out. So I think "time out" served its purpose of changing behaviors that were, in this case, harmful to human life. Just ask the 20,000 dead in New York City how harmful being ignorant of the virus was, rest their souls.

 

I'm going to post two clusters of states and their viral infection rates. It's a mystery to me.

 

California

 

Oregon

 

Montana

 

Those three states have solid plans for testing and contact tracing. As an aspiration, at least, contact tracing should be able to virtually eliminate the virus. Something like that has happened in Iceland and New Zealand. While "real" countries, like Germany or South Korea or France, have not done that, they appear to be well on the way. California is smaller than Germany, and Montana is smaller than New Zealand. So the specific thing that is puzzling to me is why none of these states can get the infection rate to stay below 1. The good news is they are keeping it under control. The bad news is they are only keeping it under control.

 

Now let me add some caveats. In Montana the number of cases jumped in the last two weeks, from 0 to 4. In Oregon it also jumped, from 34 to 93. So those are small numbers of cases. The numbers could have jumped precisely because contact tracers are finding infected people through testing and isolating them. I've looked for articles on testing and tracing in both states, without success. This is the kind of boring stuff the media just doesn't cover very well.

 

That number on contact tracing in California went from 10 % of all cases just a few weeks ago to 35 % now. I think the state is getting up to speed, but not there yet - as that 35 % clearly says. Part of the goal of lock downs, at least in California, was to get this testing and tracing infrastructure in place. My guess, which is based on total ignorance, is that state leaders hoped we would be further along by now. The fact that we didn't have the same level of national unity as many other countries may have had something to do with it. Regardless, we are where we are.

 

California has had 4,772 COVID-19 deaths compared to an annual average of 4,701 flu deaths. By comparison, New Jersey has 944 flu deaths in an average year. They had 12,369 COVID-19 deaths in the last three months. So while California's data are "among the worst" in terms of growth, as you say, back in March there was talk about over half the state being infected, And hundreds of thousands dying. That didn't happen.

 

So I agree with your assessment. Things could go either way in California. But from the perspective of the worst case scenario, or of what actually happened in New Jersey, California dodged the bullet.

 

Again, I would argue its ludicrous to say the lock downs didn't work. California could have been just as bad as New Jersey. A similar death rate -12 times our annual flu deaths like what happened in New Jersey, would have meant 50,000 dead in California. Had New Jersey not locked down when it did, there could have easily been 50,000 dead there, too.

 

To that point:

 

New York

 

New Jersey

 

Massachusetts

 

Those are the three hardest hit states. They account for almost half the national death toll. In all three states, the infection rate is well under 1. In all three states, caseloads are down in the ballpark of 90 % from their peak. They are very similar to Germany and Italy and France in terms of the trend. The virus has not been eliminated. But it has seemingly been crushed for now.

 

All three states have contact tracing rates of like 30 % or so tops. In New York it's 11 %. I look at this site more than any other one. In New York the contact tracing was close to 0 % a few weeks ago. So they are also in early days and getting up to speed on tracing.

 

I'm not sure any valid conclusions can be reached from this. It certainly seems like the lock downs drove the infection rates down in all six states. The hardest hit states in New England drove the infection rates down the most - like 0.77 in both New York and New Jersey. In California in particular, as you stated, the overall trend line has been a gradual increase.

 

This is partly why I think the "time out for bad behavior" concept is not a bad theory. To put it in even harsher terms, being in the middle of a morgue where 20,000 people were in the process of getting sick, being hospitalized, being on vents, and dying must have scared the living shit out of almost everyone. The people I know from New York confirm this. @purplekow's posts are moving, and also like from a horror movie. They are painful to read. I'm very glad he is posting them, because they expose us to the reality of what it is actually like to be kind of living a horror movie. That reality may have driven compliance and behavioral changes in a way that just didn't happen in Florida or Texas or California. Even though my sense is that people - especially seniors - in those states made rapid behavior changes as well. We actually know that for a fact from GPS/cell phone data in places like Florida. And looking backward, contact tracing had little to do with any of this, since that is still getting up to speed.

 

If I had to write an essay to get into college and try to make a rational argument based on this data, I think the argument I'd make is the single most important factor was changes in human behavior because people got the living shit scared out of them. And in the places where bodies were piling up in temporary morgues, people were even more scared and compliant. That's what the data says to me.

 

Again, I think the elephant in the room is that we are going to be in recession and be fucked as long as this situation continues. It is good news that when stores reopened people were needed to work in them. I'm personally happy several million people are back to work. That was inevitable when businesses started to open again.

 

But it's way too early to say that we are now well on our way to a V-shaped recovery. The news from the "front line" countries like Germany is mixed. Demand is not just springing right back to normal. Although I am quite sure the goals of those governments with testing and contact tracing and public education is to create an environment that leads consumers to think it is safe to come out and consume again, in stages.

 

In California, we could have 50 % fewer cases by September as these other tools like more testing and contact tracing and aggressive efforts by corporations to create safe work spaces kick in incrementally. Or we could have 100 % or - worst case - 1000 % more cases. If anything like the latter happens, forget your V-shaped recovery.

 

The best news, to me, is that the trend is so clear now all over the world that a certain set of behavior changes and containment steps work, wherever they are tried, that we seem to be on a global road to success. Maybe this virus has some surprise new feature to spring on us this Fall. But everybody is baking that possibility into the cake with testing and surveillance. So we ought to be able to incrementally reduce the number of cases before Fall even hits.

 

If schools are open in California in the Fall and kids can go to Disneyland, albeit cautiously, those will be very good measures of success for me.

Edited June 10, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ purplekow]

Just to briefly note. Just accepted for publication an article from my hospital. They tested all hospital personnel that worked in the ICU Covid units in the hospital. Of 130 people tested, 2 tested positive for antibodies. That means roughly 99% of the people working frontline with ventilators and dozens and dozens of Covid patients many of whom died after prolonged hospital time, 99% did not develop antibodies. Personal protective equipment and hand washing and care in how you are exposed to these patients kept the vast majority of people working closest with sick patients free from contact severe enough to get the virus. These are not people who got mild disease. These are people that did not get sick at all. One could make the argument that this proves how tough it is to catch CoVid, but since 12000 people died in NJ and there were a huge number of cases our conclusions in the article are otherwise. What we suggests, is that careful interaction, proper handwashing technique and social isolation can limit contagion, even in an ICU with numerous Covid patients and very close contact.

Stay safe out there. Be smart about your life. I would also add, do not put a price on the life of others by saying we need a healthy economy more than we need a healthy populace. We can have both, but as both were sick, we have to wait for both to recover.

[+ purplekow]

Just to briefly note. Just accepted for publication an article from my hospital. They tested all hospital personnel that worked in the ICU Covid units in the hospital. Of 130 people tested, 2 tested positive for antibodies. That means roughly 99% of the people working frontline with ventilators and dozens and dozens of Covid patients many of whom died after prolonged hospital time, 99% did not develop antibodies. Personal protective equipment and hand washing and care in how you are exposed to these patients kept the vast majority of people working closest with sick patients free from contact severe enough to get the virus. These are not people who got mild disease. These are people that did not get sick at all. One could make the argument that this proves how tough it is to catch CoVid, but since 12000 people died in NJ and there were a huge number of cases our conclusions in the article are otherwise. What we suggests, is that careful interaction, proper handwashing technique and social isolation can limit contagion, even in an ICU with numerous Covid patients and very close contact.

Stay safe out there. Be smart about your life. I would also add, do not put a price on the life of others by saying we need a healthy economy more than we need a healthy populace. We can have both, but as both were sick, we have to wait for both to recover.

[MikeBiDude]

Just to briefly note. Just accepted for publication an article from my hospital. They tested all hospital personnel that worked in the ICU Covid units in the hospital. Of 130 people tested, 2 tested positive for antibodies. That means roughly 99% of the people working frontline with ventilators and dozens and dozens of Covid patients many of whom died after prolonged hospital time, 99% did not develop antibodies. Personal protective equipment and hand washing and care in how you are exposed to these patients kept the vast majority of people working closest with sick patients free from contact severe enough to get the virus. These are not people who got mild disease. These are people that did not get sick at all. One could make the argument that this proves how tough it is to catch CoVid, but since 12000 people died in NJ and there were a huge number of cases our conclusions in the article are otherwise. What we suggests, is that careful interaction, proper handwashing technique and social isolation can limit contagion, even in an ICU with numerous Covid patients and very close contact.

Stay safe out there. Be smart about your life. I would also add, do not put a price on the life of others by saying we need a healthy economy more than we need a healthy populace. We can have both, but as both were sick, we have to wait for both to recover.

Interesting! Thanks for keeping us up to date with info. ??

[MikeBiDude]

Just to briefly note. Just accepted for publication an article from my hospital. They tested all hospital personnel that worked in the ICU Covid units in the hospital. Of 130 people tested, 2 tested positive for antibodies. That means roughly 99% of the people working frontline with ventilators and dozens and dozens of Covid patients many of whom died after prolonged hospital time, 99% did not develop antibodies. Personal protective equipment and hand washing and care in how you are exposed to these patients kept the vast majority of people working closest with sick patients free from contact severe enough to get the virus. These are not people who got mild disease. These are people that did not get sick at all. One could make the argument that this proves how tough it is to catch CoVid, but since 12000 people died in NJ and there were a huge number of cases our conclusions in the article are otherwise. What we suggests, is that careful interaction, proper handwashing technique and social isolation can limit contagion, even in an ICU with numerous Covid patients and very close contact.

Stay safe out there. Be smart about your life. I would also add, do not put a price on the life of others by saying we need a healthy economy more than we need a healthy populace. We can have both, but as both were sick, we have to wait for both to recover.

Interesting! Thanks for keeping us up to date with info. ??

[RealAvalon]

Just to briefly note. Just accepted for publication an article from my hospital. They tested all hospital personnel that worked in the ICU Covid units in the hospital. Of 130 people tested, 2 tested positive for antibodies. That means roughly 99% of the people working frontline with ventilators and dozens and dozens of Covid patients many of whom died after prolonged hospital time, 99% did not develop antibodies. Personal protective equipment and hand washing and care in how you are exposed to these patients kept the vast majority of people working closest with sick patients free from contact severe enough to get the virus. These are not people who got mild disease. These are people that did not get sick at all. One could make the argument that this proves how tough it is to catch CoVid, but since 12000 people died in NJ and there were a huge number of cases our conclusions in the article are otherwise. What we suggests, is that careful interaction, proper handwashing technique and social isolation can limit contagion, even in an ICU with numerous Covid patients and very close contact.

Stay safe out there. Be smart about your life. I would also add, do not put a price on the life of others by saying we need a healthy economy more than we need a healthy populace. We can have both, but as both were sick, we have to wait for both to recover.

Are you one of the authors? Congratulations if you are.

[RealAvalon]

Just to briefly note. Just accepted for publication an article from my hospital. They tested all hospital personnel that worked in the ICU Covid units in the hospital. Of 130 people tested, 2 tested positive for antibodies. That means roughly 99% of the people working frontline with ventilators and dozens and dozens of Covid patients many of whom died after prolonged hospital time, 99% did not develop antibodies. Personal protective equipment and hand washing and care in how you are exposed to these patients kept the vast majority of people working closest with sick patients free from contact severe enough to get the virus. These are not people who got mild disease. These are people that did not get sick at all. One could make the argument that this proves how tough it is to catch CoVid, but since 12000 people died in NJ and there were a huge number of cases our conclusions in the article are otherwise. What we suggests, is that careful interaction, proper handwashing technique and social isolation can limit contagion, even in an ICU with numerous Covid patients and very close contact.

Stay safe out there. Be smart about your life. I would also add, do not put a price on the life of others by saying we need a healthy economy more than we need a healthy populace. We can have both, but as both were sick, we have to wait for both to recover.

Are you one of the authors? Congratulations if you are.

[RealAvalon]

So far, my take on the data doesn't seem to support the idea that harsh lock-downs are that effective.

It's worked very well in British Columbia. Same population as Alabama, and we've had zero deaths in four days. Only 16 people in the hospital. (Fingers crossed they're out soon.)

But as our Provincial Medical Health Officer keeps saying, everyone/everywhere is having their own pandemic. There's no one single way to manage it.

We just don't know enough about it yet.

Edited June 11, 2020 by RealAvalon

[RealAvalon]

So far, my take on the data doesn't seem to support the idea that harsh lock-downs are that effective.

It's worked very well in British Columbia. Same population as Alabama, and we've had zero deaths in four days. Only 16 people in the hospital. (Fingers crossed they're out soon.)

But as our Provincial Medical Health Officer keeps saying, everyone/everywhere is having their own pandemic. There's no one single way to manage it.

We just don't know enough about it yet.

Edited June 11, 2020 by RealAvalon

[xyz48B]

@RealAvalon – “We just don't know enough about it.”

 

The only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing for certain.

Edited June 11, 2020 by xyz48B

[xyz48B]

@RealAvalon – “We just don't know enough about it.”

 

The only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing for certain.

Edited June 11, 2020 by xyz48B

[Guest]

This notion that lock downs were not effective should be banished. Sorry, but its just sounds ridiculous.

 

Before lock down, the number of new cases in New York grew from 100 to 10,000 in a matter of weeks. We now know that this process of uncontrolled exponential viral growth killed over 20,000 New York City residents. Had there been no lock downs, do we think the virus would have stopped? Or might 20,000 and then 30,000 New York City residents a day have become infected before long as the exponential growth continued?

...

Because Y happened after X, that proves Y happened because of X? Only scientific studies can prove causation. The closest thing we have is to examine all 50 states in their totality, not cherry-pick ones that fit one's belief system. Just because something makes sense to you doesn't mean it's so. Don't be so sure about what you "know".

[Guest]

This notion that lock downs were not effective should be banished. Sorry, but its just sounds ridiculous.

 

Before lock down, the number of new cases in New York grew from 100 to 10,000 in a matter of weeks. We now know that this process of uncontrolled exponential viral growth killed over 20,000 New York City residents. Had there been no lock downs, do we think the virus would have stopped? Or might 20,000 and then 30,000 New York City residents a day have become infected before long as the exponential growth continued?

...

Because Y happened after X, that proves Y happened because of X? Only scientific studies can prove causation. The closest thing we have is to examine all 50 states in their totality, not cherry-pick ones that fit one's belief system. Just because something makes sense to you doesn't mean it's so. Don't be so sure about what you "know".

[xyz48B]

@Unicorn – Again…The only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing for certain.

 

The interesting thing is the certitude that so many have based off data that “suggests” something. And as far as the cherry-picking, that’s been going on a lot more since things have calmed down. I’m going to be very fascinated what positive caseloads look like in in two weeks in places that had large protests – particularly DC and Philadelphia and Minneapolis. If there isn’t a huge spike – not an uptick, not just an increas, but a spike – then we can assume that the crowds didn’t severely impact the spread. We already have data that *suggests* that the Wisconsin primary didn’t produce drastically increased numbers of cases when folks were convinced they would. All this is to say, we have a hypothesis about how something might play out and then we watch to see if it does. The problem with the lockdowns approach is we don’t have data to compare it to that shows us what would’ve happened if we didn’t lockdown. The data changes daily about the virus – how it behaves etc. All that went into creating models and projections. Those projections from March were based off data that has changed umpteen times since then (cf. virus is transmissible on surfaces and not airborne, for example).

 

 

The only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing for certain....

Edited June 11, 2020 by xyz48B

[xyz48B]

@Unicorn – Again…The only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing for certain.

 

The interesting thing is the certitude that so many have based off data that “suggests” something. And as far as the cherry-picking, that’s been going on a lot more since things have calmed down. I’m going to be very fascinated what positive caseloads look like in in two weeks in places that had large protests – particularly DC and Philadelphia and Minneapolis. If there isn’t a huge spike – not an uptick, not just an increas, but a spike – then we can assume that the crowds didn’t severely impact the spread. We already have data that *suggests* that the Wisconsin primary didn’t produce drastically increased numbers of cases when folks were convinced they would. All this is to say, we have a hypothesis about how something might play out and then we watch to see if it does. The problem with the lockdowns approach is we don’t have data to compare it to that shows us what would’ve happened if we didn’t lockdown. The data changes daily about the virus – how it behaves etc. All that went into creating models and projections. Those projections from March were based off data that has changed umpteen times since then (cf. virus is transmissible on surfaces and not airborne, for example).

 

 

The only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing for certain....

Edited June 11, 2020 by xyz48B

[RealAvalon]

The problem with the lockdowns approach is we don’t have data to compare it to that shows us what would’ve happened if we didn’t lockdown.

There are a number of studies coming out, about the impact that social distancing has on the COVID virus spread:

 

This one from the USA's CDC.

https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2020-06-04-study-estimates-impact-various-social-distancing-scenarios

 

This one published in Nature, emergency measures saved 500 million infections:

https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2020-06-04-study-estimates-impact-various-social-distancing-scenarios

[RealAvalon]

The problem with the lockdowns approach is we don’t have data to compare it to that shows us what would’ve happened if we didn’t lockdown.

There are a number of studies coming out, about the impact that social distancing has on the COVID virus spread:

 

This one from the USA's CDC.

https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2020-06-04-study-estimates-impact-various-social-distancing-scenarios

 

This one published in Nature, emergency measures saved 500 million infections:

https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2020-06-04-study-estimates-impact-various-social-distancing-scenarios

[+ stevenkesslar]

I'm going to post two clusters of states and their viral infection rates. It's a mystery to me.

 

Don't be so sure about what you "know".

 

 

Okay. Good advice.

 

I also won't be so sure about what is still a mystery to me.

 

I will reinforce one thing that I said, based on thinking about that last post after I posted it.

 

I think the harsher the lock down was, the better. I don't think that's a theory. I think that's a fact, based on what just happened globally.

 

By implication, that also usually meant the shorter the lock down the better, as well.

 

At some point, there will be very well researched quantitative analyses of what many countries did in what order and what outcomes resulted.

 

I feel pretty confident saying that countries in Europe that had harsher lock downs than us, and I think generally shorter lock downs than us, had more effective outcomes. These were Western (European) nations that used fines and policing and collective public pressure to enforce compliance. I know there were also protests in reaction to this, like in Germany. But the whole point from the standpoint of science was to 1) stop the exponential growth and 2) crush the chains of transmission. Harsher lock downs seemed to accomplish those goals the best. The harshest, and also most effective, in the world was China, of course. What Europe proved is that capitalist democratic nations could achieve similar goals. But I think what also worked was the idea that this has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And by doing it this way we will all be better off at the end.

 

Moving forward, I think we mostly agree. I posted that data because it's mostly a jumble to me. It's not clear yet exactly what is working and not working in the US. Except for what I said. The thing that seems to have worked particularly well in places like New York and New Jersey is that people just got the living shit scared out of them. That did what needed to be done in terms of changed behaviors.

 

That is not a treatment I would wish on anyone. Which is why I hope we can figure out what the best alternatives are.

[xyz48B]

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand these scientific studies. There are some things that I’d like explained but no matter. It gets old.

 

Noting that sustaining social distancing interventions over several months might not be feasible economically and socially, the authors said their models suggest that “a combination of social distancing interventions, testing, isolation, and contact tracing of new cases is needed to suppress transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”

That’s the rub, though, isn’t it? How much and how invasive do those social distancing measures need to be while doing testing, isolation, and contact tracing? There will be some who simply are unwilling to accept this virus will kill some – despite the fact we do accept that other viruses kill people all the time.

 

When did the goal of flattening the curve become suppressing the virus?