OT: Coronavirus 2, the No Politics Version

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The report you linked to (by Channel 11 news) is incorrect or incomplete and therefore misleading.

The increase in positive test results (new cases) has been modest and seems to be tied to an increase in testing rather than widespread outbreaks. The number of hospitalizations (serious cases) and deaths continue to decline. As for the 78 deaths referred to in the linked story, that doesn't match the state department of health statistics, which currently shows 11 on the day in question, May 22 (and a high of 55 on April 16).

Here's a CNN report yesterday that gives a pretty good overview of the situation here, which continues to be encouraging: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/us/georg ... index.html

I think this is an example of what was being discussed previously about the dangers of getting too caught up in the daily numbers.

The 78 deaths figure is not a 'wild' number that has been picked out of nowhere - it is the figure that you get for that day on Google's dashboard. Google say that they are taking their figures from Wikipedia, who in turn are showing 78 and saying they have taken that figure from the Georgia Department of Public Health.

As Canoerebel says if you then go to the GDPH website you get a different figure for that day.

How can that work? If you look at the GDPH graphs they give themselves a 14 day 'reporting window' in which the numbers are 'preliminary'. It appears that as deaths are being recorded they are being assigned to the day on which they actually occurred. I think if you follow their figures day to day you will see not only the most recent data point be entered but also the c.13 data points prior to it increase also.

The 78 'new deaths' reported by Google/Wikipedia for the 21/05 is the basic increase in overall death toll reported by the GDPH on that day and will include deaths that occurred during the previous c.14 days. By the same measure the 12 deaths that are currently recorded by GDPH for that day will continue to rise over the next week or so by which point you should have an accurate figure for the actual day.

I think the above is why Worldometers have daily case/death graphs for some states and not others.

The way Georgia is reporting gives a more accurate picture over the long run because the cases/deaths are being assigned to the actual date. But in the short-term it can be a bit misleading - the current graph for deaths in particular suggests a precipitous decrease in deaths over the last week or so when I think the reality is that these deaths simply haven't been recorded yet.

If you look at the GDPH graphs and look at the trend up to and around the beginning of the 'reporting window' there does seem to have been a significant uptick in cases from around the 12/05. Canoerebel will be better placed to advise whether this is more likely to be to do with increased testing than a higher infection rate in the population.

This is the kind of reading of the data that is required to be able to quote the models and statistics. +1

[mind_messing]

Helps to go right to the source, but this just serves to reinforce Alfred's point earlier in the thread.

https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report

As a side note I do approve of the equalities information they've provided on that website.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

There is some margin for people to interpret data differently but probably not as much as feared. If an instruction were handed down by a governor or the head of a state health department to "cook the books" to paint a rosier picture, or a bleaker picture, there would be leaks, the press would get ahold of the story, and the instigator would be hounded or demolished. It's far more likely that variations in reporting/tabulating are good faith differences in how jurisdictions or entities or individuals do things. As we've noted before, there is merit in the statistics, especially as long as a given jurisdiction is consistent in reporting. Thus, if Belgium reports 200 deaths on April 15 and 25 today, it means something, even if Belgium counts differently than Denmark.

I'm not suggesting that anyone is purposely cooking books or anything like that. I'm just saying this is a group that loves numbers, and just cautioning you that the basis for the numbers being released is NOT consistent and this is known. If you understand that statement, then you understand why I am urging caution.

The data is being released because of the need to provide something to the public that they can understand. It isn't being done to intentionally mislead, its just that at this point even the Wharton graduates need another couple of months to get all the data onto a consistent basis, and then it will take another month to get the required 3-4 peer comparables to confirm. My guess on this is Aug, but it might slip another month or two.

Until then, we use other, more consistent data to infer what we need to know. You can't explain this to the masses, it isn't that it's rocket science, it actually is considerably more advanced mathematics than that. [;)]

Yeah, maybe stuff like this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/us/p ... e=Homepage

As it tracks the coronavirus’s spread, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is combining tests that detect active infection with those that detect recovery from Covid-19 — a system that muddies the picture of the pandemic but raises the percentage of Americans tested as President Trump boasts about testing.

Now that serology tests, which look for antibodies in the blood of people who have recovered, are more widespread, C.D.C. officials said Friday they would work to separate them from the results of diagnostic tests, which detect active infection. One of the agency’s data tracker websites has been lumping them together.

Stunned epidemiologists say data from antibody tests and active virus tests should never be mixed because diagnostic testing seeks to quantify the amount of active disease in the population. Serological testing can also be unreliable. And patients who have had both diagnostic and serology tests would be counted twice in the totals.

Epidemiologists, state health officials and a spokeswoman for the C.D.C. said there was no ill intent; they attributed the flawed reporting system to confusion and fatigue in overworked state and local health departments that typically track infections — not tests — during outbreaks. The C.D.C. relies on states to report their data.

obvert: all accurate to my best knowledge except one minor point:

"The C.D.C. relies on states to report their data."
At this time, and in this pandemic, yes. Looking forward, the data will be re-worked (US first and then international) to provide the CDC with accurate historical data to then work with to create more accurate infection/death/contagion models.

Yes, the mixing of the test types is rampant. At all levels of reporting at this time. Again, the good news is that this can/will be corrected. But, it will be a slow process. Its gonna take a few months.

Alfred's opinion is that this will never be straightened out. I'm not quite so pessimistic. There are a large number of graduate statistics candidates every year, and this type of data analysis will no doubt be the foundation of quite a few theses.

[Lokasenna]

I'm going to quote #1 from this link in its entirety. Good info here.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05 ... unity.html

Emphasis mine.

1) The coronavirus may not be able to get by without large public gatherings.

The novel coronavirus has been nearly as confounding to human reason as it’s been to the human immune system. Our species likes to fit threats into clear, cause-and-effect narratives in which human agency plays a decisive role. And we’ve managed to construct several credible morality tales about the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., an ounce of preemptive lockdown is worth a pound of cure).

But the pandemic has routinely complicated these stories by casting chaos as a protagonist: Although decisions about when and how to implement lockdowns contributed to disparate outcomes between jurisdictions, a good amount of divergence has been ostensibly random. For example, despite resisting widespread closures of nonessential businesses for months after its first confirmed case of COVID-19, Japan has enjoyed one of the lowest per-capita coronavirus death rates of any affected country (which is especially remarkable given that Japan has the second-oldest population in the world). Meanwhile, policy alone can’t seem to explain why some of the world’s large, dense cities have seen mild outbreaks, even as others have been devastated. Which raises the question: Is there no guidance when random rules?

Happily, new research has yielded a theory that helps explain the pandemic’s most puzzling aspects — and just might allow us to curb the virus’s spread through means less onerous than total lockdowns.

All viruses thrive on large public events and individual “super-spreaders.” But the novel coronavirus appears to be unusually dependent on both. The media conversation about SARS-CoV-2 has popularized one key epidemiological variable — R, the average number of people an afflicted individual infects. Before social-distancing measures were enacted, the coronavirus had an R of about three. And yet, this average obscures the profound variation between individuals. Estimates vary, but multiple research teams believe that the typical COVID-19 patient does not infect a single other person, a reality that is concealed by the prolific transmission rates of so-called super-spreaders. In fact, according to a new study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), about 10 percent of coronavirus patients are responsible for 80 percent of all new infections. This means that the coronavirus’s high R is potentially mitigated by its low k — a variable that describes how reliant a disease is on clusters of infection in order to spread. Viruses with a high k, such as the 1918 influenza, can spread diffusely through a large number of individuals. Those with a low k — such as the novel coronavirus’s close relatives SARS and MERS — cannot sustain themselves without super-spreaders. This was one reason why both of those coronaviruses burned out quickly and never recurred. Research from the University of Bern suggests that the coronavirus has a slightly higher k than SARS or MERS but one that is much lower than that of the Spanish flu.

This finding makes some of the random disparities in outcomes easier to understand. A virus with a low k value needs a bit of luck to get off the ground. If such a bug gets itself into the right human — say, one who’s too committed to choir practice to let a cold keep them home — it can gain a foothold in a community. If it infects a bunch of lonely homebodies, meanwhile, it will die out before making its presence felt (as the novel coronavirus ostensibly did in France last December). If SARS-CoV-2 has a k as low as the LSHTM study claims, then it would need to be introduced to a new country four separate times before securing a 50/50 chance of infecting enough people to sustain a prolonged outbreak.

Of course, the virus’s odds of landing on a super-spreader aren’t determined by luck alone. The fewer mass (indoor) gatherings a society holds, the fewer opportunities SARS-CoV-2 will have to hit pay dirt. This could explain while (sic - why?) partial reopenings haven’t produced giant surges in cases as of yet; Georgians still aren’t generally attending large concerts, conferences, or sporting events. It’s possible, then, that a combination of banning large gatherings — including those convened on a daily basis at open-plan offices and meatpacking plants — and encouraging ubiquitous mask-wearing will prove sufficient to contain COVID-19. Which is to say: We may be able to enjoy many forms of “nonessential” commerce without sparking a surge caseloads (though we may need to eat a bit less meat).

[Lokasenna]

Sewage Sludge Can Be an Early Warning of Coronavirus

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/ ... ronavirus/



Fascinating. Makes sense when you think about it for a few seconds. People poop out viral RNA.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Helps to go right to the source, but this just serves to reinforce Alfred's point earlier in the thread.

https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report

As a side note I do approve of the equalities information they've provided on that website.

Just looking at that site - what has happened in Albany? The per capita death rate there is equivalent to New York [:(].

[Canoerebel]

Albany, Georgia, was discussed multiple times at length in the preceding thread. In short, early on there were two well-attended funerals in the Albany area with visitors flying in from all over. I think these were in late February. The spread was quick and potent, affecting the mostly-rural counties in and around Albany.

[Canoerebel]

Here's the link to an April 7 story that summarizes what happened: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronav ... ita-2020-4

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Albany, Georgia, was discussed multiple times at length in the preceding thread. In short, early on there were two well-attended funerals in the Albany area with visitors flying in from all over. I think these were in late February. The spread was quick and potent, affecting the mostly-rural counties in and around Albany.

I was looking at Dougherty county which as far as I can tell is the city itself and has a population of c. 90k. If a couple of funerals are able to 'seed' those kinds of death rates in a city nearing 100k inhabitants then we really are in this for the long run.

[PaxMondo]

We are ….

[Canoerebel]

Those kind of explosive events happened a lot, early on. There was a church choir practice in Cartersville, GA, that led to scores of cases and several dozen deaths. Ditto a choir practice in the Seattle area. And, of course, there are the meatpacking examples.

And, yet, those ignition points didn't seem to replicate endlessly throughout regions and states and countries. Spread was contained, mortality limited, and here we are, two months later. Countermeasures, probably.

[PaxMondo]

stay at home was very effective …. the rates are increasing now, hopefully will not overwhelm the ICU's …. That is why the stay at home was issued. If the ICU beds are overwhelmed, then healthcare professionals have to make those really tough decisions that no one wants them to make: who goes into the ICU and who stays in the hallway. Outcomes in the hallway will be very bad.

[Canoerebel]

Yeah, that's why "flatten the curve" was the original objective. Most statistics from most states are promising. That includes Georgia, which ended stay-at-home nearly a month ago. The underlying numbers are encouraging enough that even the most hard-hit states are easing countermeasures now. There are issues here and there but, to my knowledge, no widespread eruptions anywhere. If flattening the curve was indeed a key, then most jurisdictions seem to be well within medical capacity. This is the time to try easing, and so far it's working pretty well. What other choices do we have?

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Those kind of explosive events happened a lot, early on. There was a church choir practice in Cartersville, GA, that led to scores of cases and several dozen deaths. Ditto a choir practice in the Seattle area. And, of course, there are the meatpacking examples.

And, yet, those ignition points didn't seem to replicate endlessly throughout regions and states and countries. Spread was contained, mortality limited, and here we are, two months later. Countermeasures, probably.

Yeah - everywhere locked down! But I think everyone is in agreement that that is not a sustainable policy.

For me it is going to be a real tightrope for governments (at whatever level you choose and in Europe as well as the US) to walk. On the one hand they need to be encouraging people to move back towards 'normality' both for economic reasons and more esoteric 'social well-being' and public health reasons. But at the same time they need to stop the public from becoming complacent, and keep public opinion onside for significant future lock-downs at a local level.

Anecdotally, in London the public mood feels amongst many like it has already swung back to 'the virus has been beaten and we can go back to normal'. I wouldn't go as far as to say that we will see a second wave but I would not be surprised to see the UK take a significant step backwards in terms of our control of the outbreak in a month or so.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Yeah, that's why "flatten the curve" was the original objective. Most statistics from most states are promising. That includes Georgia, which ended stay-at-home nearly a month ago. The underlying numbers are encouraging enough that even the most hard-hit states are easing countermeasures now. There are issues here and there but, to my knowledge, no widespread eruptions anywhere. If flattening the curve was indeed a key, then most jurisdictions seem to be well within medical capacity. This is the time to try easing, and so far it's working pretty well. What other choices do we have?

I don't think anyone is against easing out of restrictions per se - it's the lack of guidance and oversight by authorities that makes it scary. The Lake of the Ozarks last weekend was not something the Governor wanted to see happen, but he took no real measures to prevent it. In about another week we will know if the giant pool party there will trigger another outbreak.
The key to confidence in reopening is to watch/test carefully and keep outbreaks small.
It seems clear this thing is going to be with us through the summer rather than shrinking away in the heat. Greater interpersonal contact is offsetting whatever effect heat might be having.

[Canoerebel]

It would be helpful if people acted responsibly. Since some haven't, at least there'll be the benefit of getting a measure of the risks of massed outdoor activity. With many jurisdictions sending signals that professional and other sporting events may be able to resume soon, that could be vital part of our understanding of things.

From what I've seen, outdoor transmission doesn't seem to be a major threat. It's indoor gatherings (funerals, choir practices, meatpacking, assisted living) that are the real issues. Purely a guess on my part, but Lake of the Ozarks and beaches here and there, and Central Parks, probably won't be a major issue - as long as we don't have elderly or infirm people wandering through in close proximity.

It's interesting to get viewpoints from you all. The feeling where I live and work is much different than expressed here. But, then, I don't work in NYC or ride a subway or reside in an assisted living facility. In this area, people maintain the most important countermeasures (nursing homes, etc.) but seem pretty confident and at ease. Life is gradually returning to normal. Five weeks post easing, things continue to improve. There's no sense of doom or forboding about the future. There are uncertainties going forward, but the steps taken were really the only available option, under all the circumstances.

[CaptBeefheart]

I think someone posted this before in the other thread, which states:

But while the study “does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus,” it notes that “among our 7,324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred.”

It's from April, so it would be interesting if anyone has seen anything more recent on outdoor transmission: Outdoor Transmission of COVID

I don't think the great outdoors are a big danger as long as people don't get too close to each other. I've seen plenty of people hanging out at riverside parks in Seoul on weekends for the last two months. I'd say there's no reason to panic over people hanging out at beaches or lakes during Memorial Day weekend.

EDIT: Changed the quote to something more relevant and less confusing.

Cheers,
CB

[sPzAbt653]

The report you linked to (by Channel 11 news) is incorrect or incomplete and therefore misleading.

It is crazy, isn't it? They actually go out of their way to say twice in that report that they are reporting straight up with no undue influences. It's very frustrating. I heard something similar reported on News Radio. So I went to the INet to find a report to reference so that I could post the question. Thanks for de-confirming it!

[sPzAbt653]

It's interesting to get viewpoints from you all.

I think it's great and I appreciate all of you taking the time to post links, relevant comments and opinions. I'm not into the stats at all but understand that they are a part of the narrative. I do look at one, and that one is Deaths as I think that is an indication of something. Here in Maryland we consistently have 30-70 deaths every day attributed to COVID-19. To me that indicates an issue that we need to pay attention to. Based on past pandemics and the interesting post in #124 above, I think it is important to learn everything we can from the past couple months and be as ready as we can this coming September-October, and I mean personally. Our governments have done some stuff that makes sense, but other stuff seems ridiculous or stupid. I seem to have a stable job and have always had several weeks food and water on hand, but I could use a bit more paper products, and I'd like to figure out how to assist the elderly a bit more.

[sPzAbt653]

super-spreaders

I love this term that is new to me. We may 'reopen' and the 'numbers' may look 'good', however, the current combination of warmer weather and less super-spreaders may be the reason. Also, the mutation of the virus could go either way. The next Flu Season could have warmer than typical weather or less super-spreaders or less populated outdoor events or a less nasty strain or a more deadly strain or any combination, therefore no one can predict and models, while necessary, aren't particularly helpful to individuals.