Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Poopymonster]

This, and unemployment, and the economic insecurity of worrying about being homeless in October or November, whenever your savings finally run out completely, and the insanity of our political environment. Not to mention the disconnect between the S&P and Nasdaq hitting brand new highs when our GDP is -33% or whatever the number is and the feeling that this will never end, and there is a lot to despair.

So right now we have to survive. Later we can try to thrive.

With people called back to work in retail while having minimal if any covid precautions enforced, you have some scared people out there who feel trapped between unsafe job, or losing everything.

[Nellise]

The whole motorcycle Fuck Covid party in South Dakota is pretty close to people intentionally catching and spreading the virus.

Except, at least so far, there are significantly fewer cases from that rally than if they were just a collection of random people in the US given that many people and that duration. Most of the large groupings of people there are outdoors since they're on their bikes and from the protests it's pretty clear that transmission outdoors is pretty negligible. To even reach the average in the US there would need to be close to 500 reported cases from the rally, and right now, there are about 30. That number will surely go up, but it seems it wasn't the disaster people almost want it to have been.

An example of a place that really had an outbreak is Notre Dame University: they had 336 cases in August before classes even started and that's with 12,000 students or so. The Sturgis rally had 460,000 people attend.

[Granyala]

And it will get worse. Much much worse. The virus has not even started.

This. 215K is just drop in the bucket.
Assuming a generous 1% mortality rate, only 21M people have been infected. You have ~300M people to go.
Or in other words: 93% of your population has not been hit yet.

[Omega10]

Except, at least so far, there are significantly fewer cases from that rally than if they were just a collection of random people in the US given that many people and that duration. Most of the large groupings of people there are outdoors since they're on their bikes and from the protests it's pretty clear that transmission outdoors is pretty negligible. To even reach the average in the US there would need to be close to 500 reported cases from the rally, and right now, there are about 30. That number will surely go up, but it seems it wasn't the disaster people almost want it to have been.

An example of a place that really had an outbreak is Notre Dame University: they had 336 cases in August before classes even started and that's with 12,000 students or so. The Sturgis rally had 460,000 people attend.

For the most part, we'll never know how many cases and deaths were caused by the Sturgis event. Our testing and tracking are no where near good enough to determine this. On the other hand, how few deaths would have to occur for you to say "SEE GOTCHA - IT WAS OK!"? The odds of the number of deaths caused by the Sturgis event being exactly zero seem very very small. It wasn't that long ago that if an event caused people to die then that would be considered a bad thing.

On a practical note, this is not the only case of people testing the boundaries of what can be safely done. Besides the rally, we have schools opening with crowded hallways and classrooms, college students partying across the country, college football stadiums with 20k people starting in a month, and people across the country entering business buildings without a mask.

To a certain extent you are correct in that people almost want Sturgis to be a disaster. The theme of the rally was FUCK THE VIRUS. NO MASKS, NO SOCIAL DISTANCING. The more that Americans agree with that theme, the more that people will behave with those principles, and the more that people will die. And the worse the economy will be.

Right now, Americans are acting like the virus is over. There is less testing, and a fanatical devotion to people not wearing masks and not social distancing. The Sturgis event definitely contributed to these behavior patterns. The US will likely pay a large price for this.

[Cynep]

Womp womp.

So you're quoting yourself saying 2.6% decrease "is not statistically demonstrative". Excellent. People who were asking when I'll do a followup post, stay tuned.

[Forogil]

This. 215K is just drop in the bucket.
Assuming a generous 1% mortality rate, only 21M people have been infected. You have ~300M people to go.
Or in other words: 93% of your population has not been hit yet.

Well, as previously indicated the mortality is likely close to 260k at the moment in the US - and there are indications that the mortality rate is lower than 1% (if we include all the asymptotic cases and the health-care system doesn't collapse). WHO's latest brief gives a range 0.5-1% https://www.who.int/news-room/commen...-from-covid-19 CDC thinks it is 0.5-0.8% with a 0.65% as most likely https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...scenarios.html

With 260k deaths and 0.5% mortality rate the number of infected would be about 50M - and based on herd immunity it would perhaps only be about 150M to go. Still a long way to go, but the US would at least be at the end of the beginning.

[PhaelixWW]

So you're quoting yourself saying 2.6% decrease "is not statistically demonstrative". Excellent. People who were asking when I'll do a followup post, stay tuned.

I'm sorry, did you just conveniently ignore the rest of the quotes?

I mean, I literally just said:

I never said it wasn't a decrease, only that that level of decrease didn't constitute demonstrative evidence of a peak.

...and the original quote in question is:

On a timeline measuring over a half of a year, a 2.3% drop over 8 days is not statistically demonstrative... yet.

So suuuuure, just ignore that I specifically stated that it's not statistically demonstrative of a peak.

I honestly don't know how you can stomach doing the mental gymnastics required to read things this wrong so consistently.

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Well, as previously indicated the mortality is likely close to 260k at the moment in the US

Your math is off, here. CDC estimates are roughly through 8/1, though it includes the incomplete week ending 8/8. 215k excess deaths compared to the 158k (8/1 lower bound) - 165k (8/8 upper bound) confirmed deaths is a percent increase of 30-36%. The same 30-36% increase applied to the current 180k is 235-245k.

and there are indications that the mortality rate is lower than 1% (if we include all the asymptotic cases and the health-care system doesn't collapse). WHO's latest brief gives a range 0.5-1% https://www.who.int/news-room/commen...-from-covid-19 CDC thinks it is 0.5-0.8% with a 0.65% as most likely https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...scenarios.html

With 260k deaths and 0.5% mortality rate the number of infected would be about 50M - and based on herd immunity it would perhaps only be about 150M to go. Still a long way to go, but the US would at least be at the end of the beginning.

Allowing for the current death toll from 235-245k, an IFR from 0.5-0.8%, and a HIT from 60-80%, we see ranges of 49m/198m infected (25% towards HIT) to 29m/264m (11% towards HIT).

Regardless, after more than half a year, I think we can all agree that even potentially being as much as 25% towards HIT means that we're still just extremely eager for a vaccine, rather than going through another up to 1.5 years or more of this pandemic.

[Nellise]

For the most part, we'll never know how many cases and deaths were caused by the Sturgis event. Our testing and tracking are no where near good enough to determine this. On the other hand, how few deaths would have to occur for you to say "SEE GOTCHA - IT WAS OK!"? The odds of the number of deaths caused by the Sturgis event being exactly zero seem very very small. It wasn't that long ago that if an event caused people to die then that would be considered a bad thing.

One of the things I found about the rally this year, which oddly hasn't been mentioned in the covid articles, is that there were deaths, 5 of them. But they were from motorcycle crashes so I guess that doesn't get reported.

I'm not looking for a gotcha about this event. What I'd like is better reporting on what is really causing so many cases in the US. There's too much focus on these one-off events that aren't responsible for the majority of cases so people think if they're not doing those things they're okay, which obviously isn't true.

[unfilteredJW]

So you're quoting yourself saying 2.6% decrease "is not statistically demonstrative". Excellent. People who were asking when I'll do a followup post, stay tuned.

Just waiting on the next punchline considering someone is already handling the light work.

[Omega10]

One of the things I found about the rally this year, which oddly hasn't been mentioned in the covid articles, is that there were deaths, 5 of them. But they were from motorcycle crashes so I guess that doesn't get reported.

I'm not looking for a gotcha about this event. What I'd like is better reporting on what is really causing so many cases in the US. There's too much focus on these one-off events that aren't responsible for the majority of cases so people think if they're not doing those things they're okay, which obviously isn't true.

If the country were serious about combating the virus, we would have both more testing and more contact tracing. This is what seemed to work in other countries. On the one hand, I feel like I said just about the most obvious thing in the world. On the other hand, we are not doing what seems to be the most obvious thing in the world.

As I plan what I'll be doing for the next half a year or so, I am expecting that the virus will be dangerous throughout the rest of this year and at least half of next year. I have to at least TRY to distance myself emotionally from what this means because it's quite depressing. It is what it is.

[Rasulis]

The Las Vegas Strip is now a "hotspot" in more ways than one. Where before it was considered a top tourist destination, Las Vegas is gaining a new reputation as ground zero for COVID superspreader events.

According to the Harvard Global Health COVID-19 tracker, Nevada currently has the third-highest concentration of coronavirus cases in the nation. The vast majority of those cases are in Clark County, which houses Las Vegas—meaning the bulk of the state's 65,150 cases and 1,197 deaths have taken place within city limits.

A new study published by the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica looked at anonymized cell phone records of 26,000 individuals in Las Vegas and found that within four days' time, at least 8,000 of those cell phones had dispersed to all but one state in the continental U.S. Though the study didn't specifically track whether those travelers were infected with coronavirus, it stands to reason that the city's major outbreak combined with excessive travel could spell disaster for the rest of the nation.

In a recent interview with NPR hosts Ari Shapiro and Will Stone, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak maintained that the reopening of the Las Vegas Strip was rolled out safely. Yet NPR analysts concluded that the city might face a hospital shortage if it continues on its current path. "With testing still turning up lots of infections, Las Vegas is on shaky footing. Nevada's rate of new cases relative to its population rivals hard-hit Southern states," said Stone.

Joe Corcoran, MD, chief medical officer for hospitals in southern Nevada, who was also included in the interview, shared that the county is currently treating twice as many COVID cases as in the spring. "Coronavirus is not really showing any signs of sustained abatement," he said. "There's so many components of this city where you're congregating together. But my gut tells me that there's parts of Las Vegas that are just going to make it harder for us to get to a true low level of concern about it."

So, if you were considering a trip to The Strip, don't assume that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Case counts are high in this hotspot, and no one wants COVID as a souvenir. And for more on Nevada, find out why it topped our recent list of States That Could Soon See a COVID Surge.

[Forogil]

I'm sorry, did you just conveniently ignore the rest of the quotes?

So suuuuure, just ignore that I specifically stated that it's not statistically demonstrative of a peak.

If we just have 260k independent cases then a statistically significant change is normally 1.96/sqrt(260k)=0.4%.

Your math is off, here. CDC estimates are roughly through 8/1, though it includes the incomplete week ending 8/8. 215k excess deaths compared to the 158k (8/1 lower bound) - 165k (8/8 upper bound) confirmed deaths is a percent increase of 30-36%. The same 30-36% increase applied to the current 180k is 235-245k.

Oh, thanks for correction that misread number - but since I rounded to basically one digit after that it doesn't make much difference.
I only gave the highest number which was 50M - and you got the range to 29M-49M.

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If the country were serious about combating the virus, we would have both more testing and more contact tracing. This is what seemed to work in other countries. On the one hand, I feel like I said just about the most obvious thing in the world. On the other hand, we are not doing what seems to be the most obvious thing in the world.

Yes, it should especially be possible now. Early on there might have been global shortages causing problems for testing - but that should be under control.

Additionally many countries allow people to be home with pay when they feel ill (working to varying degrees); whereas there are indications a significant percentage of symptomatic possible cases have felt that they had to work in the US.

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I'm not looking for a gotcha about this event. What I'd like is better reporting on what is really causing so many cases in the US. There's too much focus on these one-off events that aren't responsible for the majority of cases so people think if they're not doing those things they're okay, which obviously isn't true.

It could be bias from news-media, but the worst case would be that no-one knows what is causing the other cases, and no-one is bothering to find out. Since the US has "community transmission" it's clear that the cause of some cases is unknown, but ideally that percentage should be smaller.

And you are right to be concerned as such biases have previously caused problem in the pandemic - like believing that it was only spread in certain countries, and thus ignoring people returning from other countries.

[PhaelixWW]

If we just have 260k independent cases then a statistically significant change is normally 1.96/sqrt(260k)=0.4%.

Whiiiiiich is why, quite a long time ago, I clarified that I was talking about significantly demonstrative of the presence of a peak. A drop of 3% is statistically significant in the abstract, but it's not significant (let alone conclusive) evidence of the presence of a peak.

Oh, thanks for correction that misread number - but since I rounded to basically one digit after that it doesn't make much difference.
I only gave the highest number which was 50M - and you got the range to 29M-49M.

Sure, your rounding of 52m down to 50m ended up being closer to the actual 49m anyway. But I wanted to clarify the upper/lower bounds, too.

My personal guess is that we're at about 240k deaths and we started at about a 0.85% IFR, but with better knowledge we've dropped it to about 0.65% by now. I'd say the average over the course of the US outbreak has been around 0.75%, which would put us almost exactly 10% of the US population. I'd also guess at the HIT being around 80%, which would mean that the US is currently only about 1/8 of the way toward the HIT.

[sabe]

Thanks to Chinese goverment for hiding the virus and doing its best to spread it all around the world.

Title must be changed to "China Wuhan Virus".

[Forogil]

Whiiiiiich is why, quite a long time ago, I clarified that I was talking about significantly demonstrative of the presence of a peak. A drop of 3% is statistically significant in the abstract, but it's not significant (let alone conclusive) evidence of the presence of a peak.

If you want to use your own definitions "statistically demonstrative" or "significantly demonstrative", fine, as long as you actually define them.
Notice that a 3% change for that number is significant even at 5 and 6 sigma level.

The reported case number is anyway not meaningful as so many cases are not tested for various reasons, and thus to varying degree it indicates changes in testing - not changes in actual cases.

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Thanks to Chinese goverment for hiding the virus and doing its best to spread it all around the world.

Most governments have failed to various extent in controlling the spread of this virus.

And we are not sure if the virus really originated in Wuhan in Hubei-province in China, or was just detected there first and had started in nearby provinces like Yunnan or Guangdong, or even jumped to humans in nearby countries - and then later evolved to be better adapted.

[Katie N]

Thanks to Chinese goverment for hiding the virus and doing its best to spread it all around the world.

Title must be changed to "China Wuhan Virus".

Conspiracy theory much? xD

[sabe]

If you want to use your own definitions "statistically demonstrative" or "significantly demonstrative", fine, as long as you actually define them.
Notice that a 3% change for that number is significant even at 5 and 6 sigma level.

The reported case number is anyway not meaningful as so many cases are not tested for various reasons, and thus to varying degree it indicates changes in testing - not changes in actual cases.

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Most governments have failed to various extent in controlling the spread of this virus.

And we are not sure if the virus really originated in Wuhan in Hubei-province in China, or was just detected there first and had started in nearby provinces like Yunnan or Guangdong, or even jumped to humans in nearby countries - and then later evolved to be better adapted.

How much CCP do pay you?
Everyone knows China tried to hide the virus.
They destroyed all the evidence by cleaning the animal market before any research could be made.
They arrested the doctors who tried to warn the world about the virus.
They gave fake information to the world that the virus is not transacted between humans.

https://mobile.twitter.com/who/statu...43229427761152

Move along, we dont eat what you sell. This is Chinese wuhan virus which chinese created.

Ofc you are not sure cos china destroyed all the evidence. Where is patient zero? China did it, china hid it.
[Infraction]

[Specialka]

Cases are going up in France with 4500 new cases diagnosed this week-end.

And we have 3 millions cases diagnosed in India (which are, imo, totally under evaluated and the true number is far far higher).

[Forogil]

How much CCP do pay you?
Everyone knows China tried to hide the virus.

I don't understand why CCP would pay me to state the facts, and clearly China failed early on - but most other countries have also failed at various levels, and cannot blame China for that.

They destroyed all the evidence by cleaning the animal market before any research could be made.

And if they hadn't cleaned it people would have complained that they didn't clean it to stop the spread.

https://mobile.twitter.com/who/statu...43229427761152

A tweet saying that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human spread on January 14th.

When did WHO change that based on new info: April, March? February?

The right answer is January.

Thus that message doesn't explain why Europe, America, Africa, and other parts of Asia - like India have failed to control the virus in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, ...

[Felya]

Move along, we dont eat what you sell. This is Chinese wuhan virus which chinese created.

Ofc you are not sure cos china destroyed all the evidence. Where is patient zero? China did it, china hid it.

I’m sorry, were they hiding shit, when WHO, CDC and democrats were demanding action on the virus, while Trump claimed it was a hoax? What the fuck did China have to do with that? It seems like the issue was handled far better in countries, where leadership does not own a shit ton of hospitality business all over the world and has millions riding on ignoring the virus.

FYI... China didn’t force RNC to have this as the solution to Covid:
https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/medi...860.1598267286

Is it China’s fault that even now, the GOP and Trump are trying to ignore the impact of the virus, to bitch about social media?

Edit: Claiming something is a hoax, while also claiming it was unknown, is called a contradiction. If China was hiding it, Trump wouldn’t have to put his support behind China, to attack democrats over what he called a democrat hoax to make him look bad, because Trump listened to China:

Look at this Time line:
15 times Trump praised China as coronavirus was spreading across the globe
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...navirus-188736

Feb. 27, Coronavirus Task Force press conference:

“I spoke with President Xi. We had a great talk. He’s working very hard, I have to say. He’s working very, very hard. And if you can count on the reports coming out of China, that spread has gone down quite a bit. The infection seems to have gone down over the last two days. As opposed to getting larger, it’s actually gotten smaller.”

Feb. 28
Trump claims corona is used as a hoax to make Trump look bad...

Feb. 29, Coronavirus Task Force press conference:

“China seems to be making tremendous progress. Their numbers are way down. … I think our relationship with China is very good. We just did a big trade deal. We’re starting on another trade deal with China — a very big one. And we’ve been working very closely. They’ve been talking to our people, we’ve been talking to their people, having to do with the virus.”

Sounds like Trump used China to downplay the virus... it looks like there were plenty of people warning Trump, but being the idiot that he is, instead of listening and watching his presidential numbers go up... he ignored it and sided with China instead. Now that it’s a cluster fuck, he blames China for Trump using China to ignore warnings?