We Need Better Data Before Trusting Most Things Anyone Says About Wuhan Virus

[Orangesapples 1,954]

1 minute ago, Dashinka said:

So the US hotspot is NY,  why is that state not shut down and isolated from the rest of the US following the Chinese South Korea models.

Why hasn't the commander's in chief stopped travel between states? Probably because he doesn't want to. 

 

New York is more aggressive with testing. If/when other states start testing more, it's not going to be pretty. The virus has already spread everywhere, it's too late to only focus on one region. 

[OriZ 3,157]

11 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

A large portion of covid-19 patients will not require medical treatment, I believe the data is showing.  A small portion will never even know they have it.  

 

There are idiots out there who will take chemicals not designed for humans (but that is nothing new, been happening since the dawn of mankind), idiots who will expose themselves unnecessarily (recent spring-breakers come to mind), and idiots who proclaim it's the worst thing to ever happen to us.  All three are only making things worse for everyone.

 

3,700 people die daily in auto accidents the world over.  That's roughly 1.3 million per year, and we don't have car bans, nor have we shut down businesses, beaches, nor any other aspect of life because of it.  

 

To put that into perspective, more people will die in auto crashes between now and Friday than have died from CV-19 since November.  Yes, there is most definitely a "chicken little" aspect to this, and it's pretty clear why it is happening.

I also read somewhere that many move lives has been saved by the decrease in pollution than have died from the virus. it's almost like nature is telling us "nice try, but you've gone too far"

[Lemonslice 5,004]

9 minutes ago, OriZ said:

I also read somewhere that many move lives has been saved by the decrease in pollution than have died from the virus. it's almost like nature is telling us "nice try, but you've gone too far"

That is awesome, wishing for slower times to last after the pandemic then. 

[OriZ 3,157]

11 hours ago, Steeleballz said:

 

     That's nice if you are one of them. No way to tell for sure in advance really. A lot of younger people in ICU. Actually a disproportionate amount relative to what the statistics would say there should be. Perhaps it's because they are the ones going out and feeling invincible, getting exposed, while older people are staying home. IDK really, but I saw a lot of positives back this weekend, and I was surprised at the age demographics.

 

   I don't know how many times it needs to be repeated. Roughly 20% of people will need hospital care. Those people in ICU right now have a good chance of surviving with the right treatment. More than three quarters of them will recover. When hospital beds fill up and they cant get that treatment, they will die. It won't just be older people either. This is America. History says we won't prioritize health care by outcome when we can give it to someone who can pay.  

ACtually, it's down to around 5% now. If we look at the data - as tests ramped up, that percentage started coming down, literally on a daily basis, because we are detecting more of the mild cases now.  That is why I tried to add some clarity with my analysis above, because I think there is so much bad and incomplete data out there, it's hard to come to proper conclusions.

 

My guess is as I have expressed in the previous page is that there are many many more who will never be detected. So it's not as bad as the partial data makes it seem.

 

2 hours ago, Dashinka said:

South Korea has tested approximately 350k people so far, the US is quickly catching up.  Should it have been done sooner.  Sure, should NY be locked down like Wuhan/Hubei, maybe, but I don’t think we are anywhere near Italy’s or the EU’s response.

To toot my own horn again, I think the best way is as % of population, not absolute numbers. Also, it varies greatly in each state. I gave a breakdown above...while some states, like NY are testing alot of people, others, like NJ or MI or CA aren't hardly testing anybody. The other thing we need to consider is this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. More tests are great, I definitely believe that, but I am also noticing that oftentimes, the reason for less tests is there's genuinely just less sick people. I can see that by looking at countries that are considered to have good control over this, that are considered to manage things like this much better than the US, and even they have certain criteria for testing(not just "hey lets just test everybody"). Yet, some of them aren't necessarily testing a large amount of people and don't have high number of cases. So, is that because they don't test enough? or do they not test alot because most people aren't sick or have no symptoms at all?

 

52 minutes ago, Orangesapples said:

Everything was bad in the US, and it still is. So many states are not even on lockdown. This is going to get extremely bad. 

It's even easier if you, well, produce tests and have an actual strategy for dealing with epidemics, not fire the pandemic experts. 

Lockdowns can definitely help, I agree. However, they're not the only way to contain this. Just look at Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. They managed to handle this without going totally crazy

[Steeleballz 7,550]

Just now, OriZ said:

ACtually, it's down to around 5% now. If we look at the data - as tests ramped up, that percentage started coming down, literally on a daily basis, because we are detecting more of the mild cases now.  That is why I tried to add some clarity with my analysis above, because I think there is so much bad and incomplete data out there, it's hard to come to proper conclusions.

 

My guess is as I have expressed in the previous page is that there are many many more who will never be detected. So it's not as bad as the partial data makes it seem.

 

 

   I agree. The 80:20 is going off of symptomatic cases. I think I said when you posted your original model, that the number of asymptomatic and unknown carriers makes a huge difference in both the rates and where we are at on the timeline. It would be great if the number of asymptomatic carriers changed things by a factor of 10, because that would mean ~2% of people get hospitalized but it would also that we are probably much nearer to hitting the peak and seeing transmission rates start to drop. 

 

  Many hospitals are at or are close to capacity right now though, so we are preparing for the worst. If we had the ability to test more people and know for sure, it probably would help prepare better, both medically and economically. I still look at SK as probably being the most accurate statistically, at the same time, I don't think Italy is a worst case scenario either. For some countries, the worst is yet to come and many countries do not have the resources that we do. 

 

   

[OriZ 3,157]

17 minutes ago, Lemonslice said:

That is awesome, wishing for slower times to last after the pandemic then. 

Honestly, I see many advantages to the virus. hopefully the slower pace, and figuring out it's possible to work from home, can stay with some people/companies, and it will end up being part of our personal and industrial/technological evolution. Another advantage as mentioned above, simply giving the earth a breather. Another advantage which has to do with my first point here is less chronic stress(only as long as people don't sit at home and panic about the virus or finances instead, though).

 

My PCP also brought a point up, which is pretty heartless, but true. She said despite the burden on the system now in the long run this is a way to free up more resources for the system. Hey, we all have parents and grandparents, but from a heartless data oriented perspective, it makes sense. We always do everything we can to keep people alive and healthy for as long as possible, so now nature is reminding us who is in charge.

 

Of course, there's plenty of bad with this virus too. if you're one of those who stand to lose a loved one, it doesn't matter how many people didn't die from pollution or how much more resources the system has now it has this many less old or sick people to treat. It also doesn't matter if you're sitting at home without a paycheck or have a business you need to close.

 

Nevertheless, it's a glass, and not a completely empty one.

Edited March 24, 2020 by OriZ

[90DayFinancier 910]

49 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

So the US hotspot is NY,  why is that state not shut down and isolated from the rest of the US following the Chinese South Korea models.

The real question is why won't the president act on the dpa.

 

 

[OriZ 3,157]

38 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

   I agree. The 80:20 is going off of symptomatic cases. I think I said when you posted your original model, that the number of asymptomatic and unknown carriers makes a huge difference in both the rates and where we are at on the timeline. It would be great if the number of asymptomatic carriers changed things by a factor of 10, because that would mean ~2% of people get hospitalized but it would also that we are probably much nearer to hitting the peak and seeing transmission rates start to drop. 

 

  Many hospitals are at or are close to capacity right now though, so we are preparing for the worst. If we had the ability to test more people and know for sure, it probably would help prepare better, both medically and economically. I still look at SK as probably being the most accurate statistically, at the same time, I don't think Italy is a worst case scenario either. For some countries, the worst is yet to come and many countries do not have the resources that we do. 

 

   

I think for the US, mainly, the worst is yet to come. It also depends on how you define the worst - is it number of cases? number of active cases? rate of change? For the group of countries I posted in the previous page, that have seen their rate of change drop for some time now, I think the worst in many ways is behind them. Sure, numbers will still be going up for a while, but they'll be out of this in 30-45 days. 

 

As far as testing goes, I think the fact that half of the US population lives in warmer areas might skew the numbers a bit. Lets look at California for example...relatively speaking, they don't have all that many cases. They also aren't testing alot - having tested less than 0.05% of the population so far. Compare that to NY which has tested almost one half of one percent. Does that mean CA is missing alot of sick people, or maybe the warmer temps just mean they have less people who are infected overall? well, NY, despite having tested many more people, has a ratio of 26.6% confirmed cases to tests. That's one of the highest figures I've seen, anywhere. On the other hand, in California that ratio is only 12%. So, can we guess who is missing more people? nope, no way to know. Maybe in California it's just spreading much slower so less testing is needed..We also know California is taking this very seriously having locked down 40 million people, so why would they not take testing seriously?

 

There is so much about this we still don't know.

Edited March 24, 2020 by OriZ

[Dashinka 24,980]

29 minutes ago, 90DayFinancier said:

The real question is why won't the president act on the dpa.

 

 

I can guess why, but I suppose three plus years of constant attack will make someone a little gun shy.  It is just disgraceful to see those activist reporters at the daily press conferences ready with all their “gotcha” questions.  Whatever, if Trump had shut down EU travel two weeks earlier we would have seen the same caterwauling from the usual suspects that we heard when China travel was restricted.  It is a damned if you do damned if you don’t with this media and those afflicted with TDS.  Heck, while this whole thing was evolving what was the congress doing?  
 

One positive on this whole thing is we don’t hear anything from Bernie or Biden.  If Cuomo is right about his months long issue' maybe the election in November should be postponed.

[90DayFinancier 910]

13 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

I can guess why, but I suppose three plus years of constant attack will make someone a little gun shy.  It is just disgraceful to see those activist reporters at the daily press conferences ready with all their “gotcha” questions.  Whatever, if Trump had shut down EU travel two weeks earlier we would have seen the same caterwauling from the usual suspects that we heard when China travel was restricted.  It is a damned if you do damned if you don’t with this media and those afflicted with TDS.  Heck, while this whole thing was evolving what was the congress doing?  
 

One positive on this whole thing is we don’t hear anything from Bernie or Biden.  If Cuomo is right about his months long issue' maybe the election in November should be postponed.

Gun shy?  We cannot afford a President in these times who is struggling with personal insecurities. Time to step up 

[Steeleballz 7,550]

23 minutes ago, OriZ said:

I think for the US, mainly, the worst is yet to come. It also depends on how you define the worst - is it number of cases? number of active cases? rate of change? For the group of countries I posted in the previous page, that have seen their rate of change drop for some time now, I think the worst in many ways is behind them. Sure, numbers will still be going up for a while, but they'll be out of this in 30-45 days. 

 

As far as testing goes, I think the fact that half of the US population lives in warmer areas might skew the numbers a bit. Lets look at California for example...relatively speaking, they don't have all that many cases. They also aren't testing alot - having tested less than 0.05% of the population so far. Compare that to NY which has tested almost one half of one percent. Does that mean CA is missing alot of sick people, or maybe the warmer temps just mean they have less people who are infected overall? well, NY, despite having tested many more people, has a ratio of 26.6% confirmed cases to tests. That's one of the highest figures I've seen, anywhere. On the other hand, in California that ratio is only 12%. So, can we guess who is missing more people? nope, no way to know. Maybe in California it's just spreading much slower so less testing is needed..We also know California is taking this very seriously having locked down 40 million people, so why would they not take testing seriously?

 

There is so much about this we still don't know.

 

   I do think as more countries peak and flat line, and then numbers drop, we will know more, especially about which interventions may be most effective. It may be that it runs the same course regardless, but risking more severe and critical outcomes if too many people get infected early. We may be at the tail end of it by then anyway though.

 

  We are testing a lot ATM, but mostly symptomatic cases. We probably missed the boat on widespread testing, because the testing facilities cant keep up. They have enough kits now, but they can only do so many tests in a day and they are focused on testing people who's clinical situation depends on getting the result back quickly. We test some people with mild symptoms but they go to a different testing lab and results take about a week, so it might add to the data, but it doesn't affect the outcome. They are just waiting to see if they have to stay at home or not. 

 

  Ultimately we will probably never know how many people were asymptomatic unless they do a serological study for antibodies. Somebody will probably get bored and do that at some point,  but we'll probably have a better idea empirically before they ever get around to that. 

 

[Steeleballz 7,550]

3 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

Herein lies the key.  I believe I read a long while back that when MERS hit Korea, they were essentially unprepared, and they decided afterwards to change the way their version of the CDC responded to situations like that.  As such, they had better protocols in place and were able to ramp up a response to covid-19 faster than most everyone else.  As I am sure will happen after covid-19 is handled here in the US - the CDC will change the way we prepare for unknown diseases like this.  Essentially, we became lazy because we haven't been as affected as other nations in the past decade.   Korea learned a hard lesson, and improved upon that learning.  Hopefully we do the same.

 

  That, or we will collectively forget about it. Hopefully we will have learned some things coming out of this. 

 

  I also think a big chunk of clinical research (and probably funding) was being devoted to avian influenza, since that has been the buzz in recent years. Some of the research on SARS also helped, but much of it was discontinued after that virus faded away.  

Edited March 24, 2020 by Steeleballz

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

6 hours ago, Orangesapples said:

 

It's even easier if you, well, produce tests and have an actual strategy for dealing with epidemics, not fire the pandemic experts. 

No one fired any "pandemic experts".  Stop listening to the media.  The head of the team left, and the positions were re-designated.

 

If YOU were in charge of the CDC, how many tests would YOU have sought in 2018? October of 2019?  How long do you think it takes to develop an accurate test, verify it, then ramp up production and get the tests distributed?  It is VERY easy to armchair quarterback any game.  Totally different animal when you are on the field.  

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

4 hours ago, 90DayFinancier said:

Gun shy?  We cannot afford a President in these times who is struggling with personal insecurities. Time to step up 

                        

 

You are one funny dude.  Can't make up your mind which way to lean, can you?

[Orangesapples 1,954]

33 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

No one fired any "pandemic experts".  Stop listening to the media.  The head of the team left, and the positions were re-designated.

 

If YOU were in charge of the CDC, how many tests would YOU have sought in 2018? October of 2019?  How long do you think it takes to develop an accurate test, verify it, then ramp up production and get the tests distributed?  It is VERY easy to armchair quarterback any game.  Totally different animal when you are on the field.  

I'm not an expert and it's not my job to do that. How come South Korea could do it and the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world couldn't? There are no excuses.