Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[lomiller]

What is it about that particular scenario that is considered so unlikely?

How long strong mitigation remains in place seems to be the major one.

 

[marting]

Then why is everyone here saying there is no way we can prevent 100k+ deaths by end of May?

I'm certainly not. I think the problem is that people are looking at the high rates of daily increases in deaths and not considering the impact that the moderately strong social distancing that's been imposed takes about 3 weeks to show up in death rates.

Another problem is testing lags so much that positive test counts are close to useless for predicting how the epidemic will proceed. We don't even know whether we have achieved an R below 1 and if we haven't there will be hell to pay. My guess is that it's somewhere between .4 and .7 which would also approximate the 50k/137k range of the model.

Italy, for instance, is seeing evidence that R has dropped below 1 and, since that happened 3 weeks ago, one can pretty much predict much lower death rates there in the coming weeks. I'd be surprised if their daily death rate isn't less than 20% what it is now by the end of April. In another week we should have better estimates of how far below 1 Italy had dropped.

 

[marting]

How long strong mitigation remains in place seems to be the major one.

It won't be. It will be widely relaxed and only locally strongly re-imposed. With better testing detecting local outbreaks should let us modulate mitigation to the minimum necessary in both time and location.

 

[pipelineaudio]

The projections just moved our peak in Hawaii up from may 3 when I posted that picture earlier in the thread to April 12. That sounds extremely drastic and the projections are even more optimistic. Any ideas why?

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

 

[lomiller]

Then why is everyone here saying there is no way we can prevent 100k+ deaths by end of May?

The curve for deaths in the US is only just starting to flatten but it may be to little to late. With the lag time involved from infection to death it's entirely possible that > 100K by late April is already locked in. I don't think it's quite locked in at this point, but the increase in deaths doesn't seem to be slowing enough so far.

 

[lomiller]

I'm certainly not. I think the problem is that people are looking at the high rates of daily increases in deaths and not considering the impact that the moderately strong social distancing that's been imposed takes about 3 weeks to show up in death rates.

Italy seems to be getting on track but is the US? It looks like there may be some effect, but was it to little to late to stay below 100K deaths?

 

[marting]

The projections just moved our peak in Hawaii up from may 3 when I posted that picture earlier in the thread to April 12. That sounds extremely drastic and the projections are even more optimistic. Any ideas why?

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Consider that the model for HI has very little accumulated data. It's pretty typical for the state models to move a lot. As more deaths accrue, the models get better. CA and NY will be much more stable than others with lower deaths and more relative statistical noise. Heck, even the whole USA has quite an uncertainty range.

 

[marting]

The curve for deaths in the US is only just starting to flatten but it may be to little to late. With the lag time involved from infection to death it's entirely possible that > 100K by late April is already locked in. I don't think it's quite locked in at this point, but the increase in deaths doesn't seem to be slowing enough so far.

Look at the second derivative, the rate of change of the daily death count. That is correlated to the R value 3 weeks earlier. If negative, R is < 1, if positive R > 1. For instance if R=1 then the daily death rate is roughly constant, whether 10/day or 10,000/day.

 

[steenkh]

There may have been a time in December when the Chinese could have driven SARS-COV-2 to extinction.

Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

With any disease, there will be bungling in how to react. You will never get the perfect reaction. This also excuses the initial reactions of the West, and even Trump's, but the more experienced we are with what we are dealing with, the less can be excused.

The West had plenty of time to prepare, but only did something when the virus was all over the place.

 

[rjh01]

Italy seems to be getting on track but is the US? It looks like there may be some effect, but was it to little to late to stay below 100K deaths?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=82&pictureid=12425

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=82&pictureid=12426

I will predict over 100k deaths in the US before the end of the month. Would predict more but there are indications the rate of death is slowing.

Edit. Tomorrow you will get over 10,000 deaths.

 

[Planigale]

I was wondering about this, actually. It's my understanding that there's never been a successful vaccine for a coronavirus. Nor for certain other viruses that would be highly desirable to have a vaccine for, like HIV. Yet I've been hearing people speak of a vaccine for this virus as though it's a near certainty (not saying you are). Is there a reason I haven't heard of to believe it's especially likely in this case?

Imagine if we'd been told in the early 1980s that we just needed to wait for an HIV vaccine to deal with the AIDS problem. 40 years later...here we are, still no vaccine.

Several commercial vaccines against corona virus infections have been developed, so they can probably be developed for SARS-CoV-2. HIV as a retrovirus has particular issues with developing a vaccine that doesn't apply to coronaviruses.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378113516307349

 

[The Atheist]

The projections just moved our peak in Hawaii up from may 3 when I posted that picture earlier in the thread to April 12. That sounds extremely drastic and the projections are even more optimistic. Any ideas why?

You know what I think. As we've both mentioned several times, your state has just about the worst population on paper for Covid-19 - high obesity, loads of diabetes, but it's not happening.

Which is good!

I see there are a few other states showing remarkably low infection & mortality rates, but it might just be part of spreading in from the coasts.

California isn't exactly in NYC's position and you think LA & NY would be pretty similar impact.

LA sunnier than NY in February/March?

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed reference to post sent to C&CT forum

 

[The Atheist]

Looks like Japan has gone all-in on Avigan, ordering 2 million doses, despite trials still in progress.

Nice for Fujifilm holders.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...boosting-fujifilm-to-record?srnd=premium-asia

 

[Roboramma]

I'll do the avatar bet if it's for one year, not one month. Or money, if you don't want to do a year.

Let's do one year, no problem.

 

[Belz...]

I'm reasonably condfident that Bill Gates' efforts are not foolish, because he's not a fool. And that he will rely upon actual experts. And that he's not doing it for profit, because I believe his efforts with BMGF are sincere.

Yes. He's no fool, and he'll rely on experts. But just like a journalist can speak to experts and report to us, I prefer hearing from the experts themselves so as to avoid the filter of someone who might not fully understand what they've been told repeating it to me. That was my point.

The whole issue of Gates personal expertise is a person composed of nothing but horse bedding.

I never said that The Atheist claimed Gates had expertise. The issue of expertise is something _I_ brought up to point out that we should be careful about who we listen to. It's not a strawman. It's my OWN ARGUMENT!

It answered the question you asked.

Are you going to play that game again? Your answer had no relationship to the question, period. Having billions of dollars doesn't make your opinion valuable.

 

[angrysoba]

Yes. He's no fool, and he'll rely on experts. But just like a journalist can speak to experts and report to us, I prefer hearing from the experts themselves so as to avoid the filter of someone who might not fully understand what they've been told repeating it to me. That was my point.



I never said that The Atheist claimed Gates had expertise. The issue of expertise is something _I_ brought up to point out that we should be careful about who we listen to. It's not a strawman. It's my OWN ARGUMENT!



Are you going to play that game again? Your answer had no relationship to the question, period. Having billions of dollars doesn't make your opinion valuable.

I would think that Gates really does know what he’s talking about. You might want to talk directly to the experts but that doesn’t mean the experts are going to be experts at explaining things to you.

Unless somebody with serious credentials can explain why Bill Gates is full of **** then I will take Bill Gates seriously on this topic.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

Look at the second derivative, the rate of change of the daily death count. That is correlated to the R value 3 weeks earlier. If negative, R is < 1, if positive R > 1. For instance if R=1 then the daily death rate is roughly constant, whether 10/day or 10,000/day.

I think it's about New York beginning to flatten. They have the most cases, so the effect on the curve is noticable. The question is what happens when the other states become the biggest contributors.

 

[Darat]

All causes 2.8M deaths per year, last couple years. 2020, I say 2.9M. Most victims ov covid would not have made it through the year any how. Almost no deaths in the "healthy enough to punch a time clock " now.

NOW can I go to Home Depot ?

I'd rather have the 6 extra months with my mother as I am sure most people would have the extra time with their loved ones. Sorry if that gets in the way of your hobbies.

 

[Darat]

Yes. He's no fool, and he'll rely on experts. But just like a journalist can speak to experts and report to us, I prefer hearing from the experts themselves so as to avoid the filter of someone who might not fully understand what they've been told repeating it to me. That was my point.



I never said that The Atheist claimed Gates had expertise. The issue of expertise is something _I_ brought up to point out that we should be careful about who we listen to. It's not a strawman. It's my OWN ARGUMENT!



Are you going to play that game again? Your answer had no relationship to the question, period. Having billions of dollars doesn't make your opinion valuable.

How many production lines are you building to produce possible vaccines?

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

With any disease, there will be bungling in how to react. You will never get the perfect reaction. This also excuses the initial reactions of the West, and even Trump's, but the more experienced we are with what we are dealing with, the less can be excused.

The West had plenty of time to prepare, but only did something when the virus was all over the place.

I think that it's been pretty well established that the local officials in Wuhan intentionally hid the outbreak from the national government (and likely have continued to understate the magnitude - according to the leaked CIA report, the CIA believes that more than twice as many people died in Wuhan as have been reported).

I don't see how my post implied that I was excusing the many other governments that bungled their response to the crisis.