***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Yeah, "well just get the R0 down below 1" seems like quite the throwaway given that we manage to pull that off...well, never. Especially not with something that seems fairly transmittable on its own.

Getting it to 2 seems reasonable, or even a tick below that. I just cannot imagine they're hand-waiving something as rare as driving a disease out of existence through naturally mitigation. Especially not over a timeline that isn't substantially longer than any potential vaccine would take.

That being the underlying premise just doesn't pass the sniff test to me.

If the virus peaks and then declines, the R-effective is less than 1.

From 538:

Moreover, interventions such as social distancing are being undertaken to bring down R, although actions can vary from location to location. The goal, though, is to get R below 1, which means that a disease begins to die out in a population. (It will die out gradually if R is close to 1 and quickly if it’s close to zero, say, 0.2.

[Tnerped]

Originally Posted by stumppy

Or, you may have some heart problems.

Possibly hypertension, but I've never had any problems... ever. I get checked yearly. I'm 35, never even had the flu, rarely get colds, etc.. it would just seem odd to suddenly have heart issues.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

If the virus peaks and then declines, the R-effective is less than 1.

It can 'decline' at anywhere between 1 and 2 as the eligible carrier population reduces.

Without a massive reduction in eligible carriers, the odds of it getting anywhere near 1 are effectively zero. And if you just continue to try to stamp it out, you'll never reduce that eligible carrier pool by an amount significant enough to make a dent.

And again, it can't even just be here - that would essentially have to be worldwide unless you're going to lock the borders down, which we couldn't do even if we actively tried to (and for a myriad of reasons, we'll never actually attempt it).

What works in theory won't work in practice here. Not over any reasonable timeline. And frankly, with a disease that can spread through fairly innocuous means, it's unlikely to happen at all. Especially not if this thing ever shows an ability to mutate even slightly.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by Tnerped

Possibly hypertension, but I've never had any problems... ever. I get checked yearly. I'm 35, never even had the flu, rarely get colds, etc.. it would just seem odd to suddenly have heart issues.

PLEASE go get checked. There are new articles coming out talking about COVID-19 causing cardiovascular damage in some people.

https://khn.org/news/mysterious-hear...d-19-patients/

Hopefully you have a good doctor who will listen and address your concerns. Even if it's not COVID-19, it will still pay to get checked.

[DJ's left nut]

Tell me more about the IMHE models, fellas...

https://twitter.com/justin_hart/stat...02742977695744

Remember - these assumed social distancing was in place. These weren't the 'do nothing, worst case scenario' projections. And they only missed the mark in Alabama by a factor of 13.

Great models we're working from here.

NY -- from 75K to 25K (still way off)
Cal -- from 10K to 5K
Alabama -- from 26K to less than 2.
Colorado -- from 8300 peak to less than 500
Lousiana peak from 7400 to less than 1,000

State over state over state. They weren't missing by 25% or even 100% in most cases. They're missing in many cases by 5-6 orders of magnitude. I mean it's beyond any reason at all. Throw numbers in a ****ing hopper and pull them out and you wouldn't have been worse off.

Just remarkably awful and THIS is what we were basing decisions off of.

[TLO]

Numbers in Missouri yesterday

Cases in Missouri: 2,367

Total Deaths: 34

Patients tested in Missouri (by all labs): approximately 29,480

Numbers in Missouri today

Cases in Missouri: 2,722

Total Deaths: 39

Patients tested in Missouri (by all labs): approximately 29,480 (not yet updated for 4/6/20)

[O.city]

I can’t seem to figure out what parameters they had set that caused the model to be off by THAT much. It makes no sense

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Tell me more about the IMHE models, fellas...

https://twitter.com/justin_hart/stat...02742977695744

Remember - these assumed social distancing was in place. These weren't the 'do nothing, worst case scenario' projections. And they only missed the mark in Alabama by a factor of 13.

Great models we're working from here.

NY -- from 75K to 25K (still way off)
Cal -- from 10K to 5K
Alabama -- from 26K to less than 2.
Colorado -- from 8300 peak to less than 500
Lousiana peak from 7400 to less than 1,000

State over state over state. They weren't missing by 25% or even 100% in most cases. They're missing in many cases by 5-6 orders of magnitude. I mean it's beyond any reason at all. Throw numbers in a ****ing hopper and pull them out and you wouldn't have been worse off.

Just remarkably awful and THIS is what we were basing decisions off of.

I am glad they are showing way less. It has to be almost impossible to do a virus model because it is not like you can see this thing moving around and who has it or doesn't.


It is like the HINI numbers, they said 60 million Americans had it but they are guessing on that number. There is no way it was that high.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

I can’t seem to figure out what parameters they had set that caused the model to be off by THAT much. It makes no sense

I mentioned it early on, but the best guess I have is that they assumed erratic behavior patterns rather than the fact that people have routines.

To use that domino thing they liked to do they kept assuming that any time a domino was removed in a chain via social distancing, it stayed removed. But anytime a domino was removed due to illness or isolation, another domino just popped into its place. It presumed behavior patterns that would yield identical likelihoods of bumping into a completely novel party when in fact, nearly all of us see the same handful of people every day. Pop a few of them out and we don't just go find someone else to bump into - the chain simply breaks.

Once a little more information emerged on the Imperial College trash, it suddenly made sense. They depended on an exponential growth model that required erratic human behavior. Humans don't behave erratically.

Just another example of math saying one thing when human behavior says another. Theory over practice. Again and again and again that's where we're screwing up here.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by O.city

I can’t seem to figure out what parameters they had set that caused the model to be off by THAT much. It makes no sense

It really kind of boggles my mind.

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by O.city

I can’t seem to figure out what parameters they had set that caused the model to be off by THAT much. It makes no sense

The imperial study was way worse. Everybody was using China numbers.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Tell me more about the IMHE models, fellas...

https://twitter.com/justin_hart/stat...02742977695744

Remember - these assumed social distancing was in place. These weren't the 'do nothing, worst case scenario' projections. And they only missed the mark in Alabama by a factor of 13.

Great models we're working from here.

NY -- from 75K to 25K (still way off)
Cal -- from 10K to 5K
Alabama -- from 26K to less than 2.
Colorado -- from 8300 peak to less than 500
Lousiana peak from 7400 to less than 1,000

State over state over state. They weren't missing by 25% or even 100% in most cases. They're missing in many cases by 5-6 orders of magnitude. I mean it's beyond any reason at all. Throw numbers in a ****ing hopper and pull them out and you wouldn't have been worse off.

Just remarkably awful and THIS is what we were basing decisions off of.

It's tough because it easily could have gone the other directly as well. It's not unlike making a weather forecast where they say we're gonna get 12" of snow and the system shifts unexpectedly and we get 1" instead. You have to prepare for the worst-case because it'd be catastrauphic otherwise.

But, yeah, it's not a good look if we go crazy with all of these lockdowns and then find that it's nowhere near as bad as expected.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by DaFace

It's tough because it easily could have gone the other directly as well. It's not unlike making a weather forecast where they say we're gonna get 12" of snow and the system shifts unexpectedly and we get 1" instead. You have to prepare for the worst-case because it'd be catastrauphic otherwise.

But, yeah, it's not a good look if we go crazy with all of these lockdowns and then find that it's nowhere near as bad as expected.

The problem wasn't the initial effort. The problem was they were so clearly wrong so quickly and yet we didn't behave any differently.

We continued to act like the results of being wrong were just stats instead of people and kept ignoring those outcomes. Because "well this COULD still happen...all evidence to the contrary..."

You cannot work that way in the real world.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I mentioned it early on, but the best guess I have is that they assumed erratic behavior patterns rather than the fact that people have routines.

To use that domino thing they liked to do they kept assuming that any time a domino was removed in a chain via social distancing, it stayed removed. But anytime a domino was removed due to illness or isolation, another domino just popped into its place. It presumed behavior patterns that would yield identical likelihoods of bumping into a completely novel party when in fact, nearly all of us see the same handful of people every day. Pop a few of them out and we don't just go find someone else to bump into - the chain simply breaks.

Once a little more information emerged on the Imperial College trash, it suddenly made sense. They depended on an exponential growth model that required erratic human behavior. Humans don't behave erratically.

Just another example of math saying one thing when human behavior says another. Theory over practice. Again and again and again that's where we're screwing up here.

This exact thing was pointed out weeks ago which is why the growth curve isn't exponential regardless of what steps you take.

[dirk digler]

Boris Johnson moved to ICU as his conditions worsen.