OT: Corona virus

[Canoerebel]

It seems that the lag between new cases and mortality is closer to seven days than two weeks, from most of the graphs and charts I've seen.

[durnedwolf]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A better example. Double a penny every day and in 20 days you have a few dollars. In 30 days you have something like 11 million dollars.

I understand exponents.

I do not understand the correlation between the numbers being reported and 100k or 200k in the USA.

How do we get from Governor Cuomo's peak "the second week of April" to a six month cataclysm? I know he's talking about New York, but still. Cities in California and Washington have dealt with it longer and didn't explode.

And with all the increases coming in hospital beds and ventilators, ideas for treatments and skill at treating, we're not gonna get on top of this?

I don't see it.

Hi Dan,

So these are numbers I have floating around on my scratchpad. You can play with them in many different scenarios; this is just what I'm looking at and thinking...

[font="Courier New"] US Population roughly 329.34 million

Total Cases = 142,178
Total Deaths = 2,484 <-- these are part of the 142k above

Say there are 20 cases that go unreported for every case (A total WAG):

142,178 x 20 = 2,843,560

Let's say only 1/2 of the population gets the virus (Just a WAG) - that's about 165 million people.

Let's round up 2,843,560 to 3 million (this is 20x the total cases plus the original 142,178 cases detected. )

165 / 3 = 55

So three million goes into 1/2 of our 329.34 population roughly 55 times

So let's multiply the current deaths by 55

2,484 x 55 = 136,620 deaths if the virus goes through 1/2 of the US population… [/font]

[alanschu]

Today, 264 deaths in the USA. Yesterday it was 501. We are most certainly not in the declining state. We are in the increasing stage. But mortality numbers are not going through the roof. Active cases are, but that appears to be more as a result of big increases in testing. The outbreak is mature enough in the US that we should be seeing huge numbers of death and massive increases each day.

How do we get from 264 or 500 to 200k when even the pessimistic folks are predicting a peak "in the second week of April"?

What's going on? What am I missing?

A silver lining for today is that it's the first day since March 16th that the daily death total went down. Although I wouldn't be surprised to see a big spike tomorrow because virus aren't overly concerned about time tables.

The exponential nature of it all is that it gets there *very* fast. Two weeks is roughly 15 days, and if the US keeps its current speed of doubling every 3 days, that is 5 more doublings. It's at 2484 now, but * 2^5 and suddenly we're at 79,488. And if the death numbers plateau similar to how China and Italy's seem to be, it could be about 10 days or so of that deaths per day.

The math works out to an expontential function of about 1.26^15, and for easy math I just took that daily change and assumed it was a uniform distribution.

If this does go 15 more days, the plateau would be at around a value of 16,418 new deaths per day. Assuming that lasts 10 days, we're adding 164,000 to to 80,000 which is above 200k.



Hopefully we peak earlier and start flattening sooner. Here's how that can make a huge difference if we assume a 10 day plateau.

Code: Select all

 Time(d) - Daily Peak - Total
 --------------------------------
 14d     -     13030  - 193444 
 13d     -     10341  - 153527
 12d     -      8207  - 121847
 11d     -      6514  -  96704
 10d     -      5170  -  76749
  9d     -      4103  -  60912
  8d     -      3256  -  48343
  7d     -      2584  -  38367

This doesn't factor in the tail, though China did see a very quick drop to eventually a flattening (assuming we trust their numbers).


EDIT: This of course makes a lot of assumptions about the rate of change remaining static and there's a LOT of variables at play there and it's probably (hopefully) not going to be)

I can tweak the duration of the plateau pretty easily. At 15 days, a plateau of only 7 days is still just a shade under 200k.

[Canoerebel]

[In reply to DurnedWolf, a few posts above]


That's using way too many highly unknown variables, so that the calculation becomes tortured.

If half the US population becomes infected (say 170,000,000), and if the death rate that "everybody that's anybody" acknowledges is 1%, that means 1.7 million deaths in the good ol' USA.

Of course, nobody's talking like that any more.

Everybody's playing with numbers and the numbers do not make sense. The key, as everybody once acknowledged, is critical care beds (and attendant ventilators). This was being discussed three weeks ago; a lot has been done since then and a lot more will be done (how much you want to bet that the US ends up exporting tons of ventilators to impacted countries?).

[alanschu]

Everybody's playing with numbers and the numbers do not make sense. The key, as everybody once acknowledged, is critical care beds (and attendant ventilators). This was being discussed three weeks ago; a lot has been done since then and a lot more will be done (how much you want to bet that the US ends up exporting tons of ventilators to impacted countries?).

I'm just looking at the numbers and current trends, which I assume are not a result of a lack of critical care beds or anything (I don't see how the numbers do not make sense).

There's assumptions with the model (it's easier to work with straight lines than curves and I don't feel like doing any calculus) for sure, and I *do* think it's the worst case, but with a pessimistic forecast of peaking in 2 weeks we'd still break 200k.

Not to is going to need to be a slower decay.

I have a spreadsheet made up now so if you have any numbers you'd like me to plug in to see how they go, feel free to share and I can input them.

Current variables are just these two:
Rate of growth (my numbers were doubling every 3 days, which is 1.26)
Days of plateau (I went with 10, but that's super easy to change)

Let me know a rate you think doubling will occur and how long you'd expect the plateau to be and I can find out.

I might plug around with values to put a range of estimates. Though we can already see with the numbers I shared if the US daily deaths peaks within a week, the end of month numbers are quite low.

[Canoerebel]

P.S. We've all acknowledged this before but it bears repeating. Even while we engage in vigorous debate, picking apart numbers and trends to try to get at truth, the numbers represent real lives. I (we) know that this is a real disaster in Italy and NYC and other places; there it would be difficult or impossible to remain objective; there it must seem like the apocalypse has arrived.

So, as I sign off and head to bed, best wishes to all folks dealing with this. My guess is that if people as polite and bright as this forum are dealing with this, we're gonna beat it. And there's a good chance the people dealing with it are even brighter, 'cause they don't have Chickenboy to throw off the curve.

[:'(]

[durnedwolf]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

[In reply to DurnedWolf, a few posts above]


That's using way too many highly unknown variables, so that the calculation becomes tortured.

If half the US population becomes infected (say 170,000,000), and if the death rate that "everybody that's anybody" acknowledges is 1%, that means 1.7 million deaths in the good ol' USA.

Of course, nobody's talking like that any more.

Everybody's playing with numbers and the numbers do not make sense. The key, as everybody once acknowledged, is critical care beds (and attendant ventilators). This was being discussed three weeks ago; a lot has been done since then and a lot more will be done (how much you want to bet that the US ends up exporting tons of ventilators to impacted countries?).

Right, but you noted the 100 to 200k number in the US and that you don't see where they are getting those numbers...

I'm just saying that I think this is how they are making their prediction. I think they are spit-balling it and adding in some kind of a fudge factor (what I call WAGs)...

I'm not saying you are wrong - I was just looking at how they might-coulda got to that 100-200k range.

I personally think that this COVID-19 might-could act like tossing a stone in the pond and we will probably get "ripples" of viral cases within our population... They are still seeing additional cases in China and S. Korea...

[Canoerebel]

Thanks, durnedwolf, I understand better what you're saying.

[Canoerebel]

Looking at this again, the irrationality of the numbers we're getting from the media and the experts seems apparent.

Most of them are estimating infection rates of 50% to 70% in the US. That means about 170,000,000 to 238,000,000 should be infected. Using the "standard" (nearly universally accepted) mortality rate of 1% yields and expected death toll of 1,750,000 to 2,380,000.

Since those totals are 10x or more what the experts are now floating, there's something wrong. Either the 50% to 70% is way off or the mortality rate is way off. If it's the latter, and if Dr. Fauci is right at 100k to 200k mortality, that means the mortality rate is something like 0.1% or less, which is the same or less than seasonal flu.

So if it isn't the mortality rate that's off, its the infection rate. Instead of 50% or 70% of the nation being infected it would be more like 5%! (5% of 340,000,000 x 1% yields 170k, a figure within Dr. Fauci's range).

Or it could be that both numbers are off considerably.

Not matter what, the numbers don't add up. They never add up. The media and the experts are so focused on working with numbers that they torture them and don't realize the outcomes contradict each other. Either we're going to have a lot less infected than they're predicting or the mortality rate is going to be much less than 1%....or both. My bet is the latter.

[Sardaukar]

Nobody knows real infection numbers, since there are no way to test all. It's neither practical nor we have enough test kits and labs in this world.

In Finland, there are 1218 confirmed infections. We test only those in higher risk and health professionals etc. 11 have died by Sunday.+55 confirmed infections a day.

Health professionals here say real number of infections is probably 20-30x what has been confirmed.

[Canoerebel]

Then Finland should have roughly 30k cases (1218 confirmed x 25). Mortality lags behind onset by a week or two, but given 30k cases, the expected mortality (in a week or two) will be 300. Right now, Finland has had 11. (Those are comparatively small numbers, so probably far more prone to wild fluctuations than bigger, more mature outbreaks.)

[Canoerebel]

Last year, I re-read Stephen King's The Stand. It's a terrific novel about a bio-weapon escape that kills most of humanity. The few survivors begin having dreams.

Last week, there were reports in the news of people having dreams! Zoiks, thinks I!

Anyhow, The Stand is a great read but might be too rattling right now.

THere was also a miniseries starring Molly Ringwald and Gary Sinese. I don't know if it is any good, as I've never seen it. But it's apparently available on YouTube, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e64sPHWnsY

I might watch it, but I definitely won't encourage my wife to.

[Encircled]

ORIGINAL: durnedwolf

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A better example. Double a penny every day and in 20 days you have a few dollars. In 30 days you have something like 11 million dollars.

I understand exponents.

I do not understand the correlation between the numbers being reported and 100k or 200k in the USA.

How do we get from Governor Cuomo's peak "the second week of April" to a six month cataclysm? I know he's talking about New York, but still. Cities in California and Washington have dealt with it longer and didn't explode.

And with all the increases coming in hospital beds and ventilators, ideas for treatments and skill at treating, we're not gonna get on top of this?

I don't see it.

Hi Dan,

So these are numbers I have floating around on my scratchpad. You can play with them in many different scenarios; this is just what I'm looking at and thinking...

[font="Courier New"] US Population roughly 329.34 million

Total Cases = 142,178
Total Deaths = 2,484 <-- these are part of the 142k above

Say there are 20 cases that go unreported for every case (A total WAG):

142,178 x 20 = 2,843,560

Let's say only 1/2 of the population gets the virus (Just a WAG) - that's about 165 million people.

Let's round up 2,843,560 to 3 million (this is 20x the total cases plus the original 142,178 cases detected. )

165 / 3 = 55

So three million goes into 1/2 of our 329.34 population roughly 55 times

So let's multiply the current deaths by 55

2,484 x 55 = 136,620 deaths if the virus goes through 1/2 of the US population… [/font]

This is a good website for tracking this

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Ian R]

Anybody else getting this message:

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
As far as the illegal workers go, maybe they will have to start being legal. Maybe going through a temporary agency to get a record of the earnings. Of course, the criminal element will still be criminal. I read about that community north of Naples where the African immigrants are.

Premise: I'm against illegal work, and all my employees are registered. Having say that, the problem, in Italy, is more complex than a "get legal" answer.

First and foremost, those offering illegal work often offer only illegal work. If you disagree they will not employ you again - and good luck in finding a new job in Italy ("former") current market. Also, employers who follow this practice are more competitive - until the "Guardia di Finanza", the Financial Crimes Unit) - sniffs something funny and discovers what you are doing. This, however, doesn't happen often enough.

Second, with illegal work you renounce long term benefices for a bigger income up stat. I'll give you an example I saw with my eyes. John Doe is a guy who runs a XY service in my zone. He offers both legal and illegal work - your choice. With legal work you get 6 Euro/hour, pension, UHC and other benefits. With illegal work you get 12 Euro/hour and good luck to you (you don't pay taxes, but you can access services ranging from UHS to unemployment checks). Most people choose illegal work. This is sadly true for the rest of Italy, but in the South the problem is more marked.

Now, to return in topic, while I fully agree that the practice of illegal work must be fought, the stark reality of the current situation is that a lot of people are jobless and with nothing in their pockets. This breeds desperation. Remember: we are not talking about small numbers: a whole strata of the Italian population is in this situation right now.

I can only look from the window. Back when this emergency started, a guy in our government (I don't even remember his party) said that "We should help not only legal workers but illegal ones too" He was, of course, crucified. I didn't really pay attention back then, but now I wonder if he had a point: accept (during the viral emergency) the lesser evil to avoid the bigger one (revolts for food and droves of people looking at criminal organizations for help).

[Cap Mandrake]

I think it is quite likely that Germany's lower mortality numbers are due to more efficient and comprehensive testing. This tends to discover the "less sick" individuals. Also, their population skews younger than some other European countries and I suspect there are fewer smokers. In other words, Germany's numbers probably represent the true mortality in a technologically advanced country not at over-capacity.

The only way to discover the true prevalence at this time would be a careful randomized screening of the population in one area taking all ages with or without symptoms. This study is not practical due to logistical difficulties and even risk.

As for US numbers, the virus is clearly not equally present (yet). Some areas are just ramping up...NY, NJ are right in heat of it.

It is also interesting to see what FEMA is doing in areas not yet completely saturated. The come in to a hospital with space capacity and build out a negative pressure, 20 bed, Covid dedicated ICU by installing a big air-lock with plastic doors and powerful HEPA filters and pumps. I suspect they bring vents with them as well.

[Uncivil Engineer]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Looking at this again, the irrationality of the numbers we're getting from the media and the experts seems apparent.

Most of them are estimating infection rates of 50% to 70% in the US.
The Diamond Princess petri dish would indicate an infection rate of 17-20%, way, way lower than 50-70% - where did those numbers come from?
That means about 170,000,000 to 238,000,000 should be infected. Using the "standard" (nearly universally accepted) mortality rate of 1% yields and expected death toll of 1,750,000 to 2,380,000.

Since those totals are 10x or more what the experts are now floating, there's something wrong. Either the 50% to 70% is way off or the mortality rate is way off. If it's the latter, and if Dr. Fauci is right at 100k to 200k mortality, that means the mortality rate is something like 0.1% or less, which is the same or less than seasonal flu.

So if it isn't the mortality rate that's off, its the infection rate. Instead of 50% or 70% of the nation being infected it would be more like 5%! (5% of 340,000,000 x 1% yields 170k, a figure within Dr. Fauci's range).

Or it could be that both numbers are off considerably.

Not matter what, the numbers don't add up. They never add up. The media and the experts are so focused on working with numbers that they torture them and don't realize the outcomes contradict each other. Either we're going to have a lot less infected than they're predicting or the mortality rate is going to be much less than 1%....or both. My bet is the latter.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

It's doubtful that I'll have time tomorrow during work hours (and after that I'm going outside), but if we can agree on a source to use (Johns Hopkins?), I can put these into Excel for daily visualization.

This source, as well as these below, have been my daily stalwarts:

covidtracking.com/data/ (which has the state by state data in 'data as a spreadsheet') and

worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries (for the global picture)

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last year, I re-read Stephen King's The Stand. It's a terrific novel about a bio-weapon escape that kills most of humanity. The few survivors begin having dreams.

Last week, there were reports in the news of people having dreams!

I did a double take when reading this. For the last two nights-I'm not making this up-I've had exceptionally vivid, graphic and disturbing dreams. I've had them from episodically over the years and wholly ascribe them to 'stress', just like anybody else who might be undergoing a stressful period. I'm sure that my dreams are no worse than combat survivors with PTSD or some other traumatic experience. And I'm certain that they're not some sort of 'sign' or call to action like they are in The Stand. But still...

How's everybody sleeping? I'm particularly interested in how the 'essential worker' cohort on this forum has been getting on (Cap?).

[Canoerebel]

Chickenboy, have your dreams involved unclad Ingrid Bergman, Shelly Winters, or Buddy Hackett?