OT: Corona virus

[Cap Mandrake]

Number of ICU admits at my wife's hospital still rising but very slowly. Still only 2 COVID deaths.

Speaking of rural/urban divide, the same is true in Calif.The Governor is still playing it close to the vest regarding relaxation.

[obvert]

In looking at John Ioannidis and the claims against him I ran into this guy, Carl Bergstrom. Has a new book coming out called Bullshit. I like him already.

This is a good long article on some of the problems science, modelling and reporting are coming up against in this pandemic.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... d-bullshit

What’s happened with this pandemic that we’re not accustomed to in the epidemiology community is that it’s been really heavily politicized. Even when scientists are very well-intentioned and not trying to support any side of the narrative, when they do work and release a paper it gets picked up by actors with political agendas.

Whether it’s talking about seroprevalence or estimating the chance that this is even going to come to the United States at all each study gets picked up and placed into this little political box and sort of used as a cudgel to beat the other side with.

So even when the material isn’t being produced as bullshit, it’s being picked up and used in the service of that by overstating its claims, by cherry-picking the information that’s out there and so on. And I think that’s kind of the biggest problem that we’re facing.

One example [of intentional bullshit] might be this insistence for a while on graphing the number of cases on a per-capita basis, so that people could say the US response is so much better than the rest of the world because we have a slower rate of growth per capita. That was basically graphical malfeasance or bullshit. When a wildfire starts spreading, you’re interested in how it’s spreading now, not whether it’s spreading in a 100-acre wood or millions of square miles of national forest.

The first Imperial College model in March was predicting 1.1 million to 2.2 million American deaths if the pandemic were not controlled. That’s a really scary, dramatic story, and I still think that it’s not unrealistic. That got promoted by one side of the partisan divide.

Then Imperial came back and modeled a completely different scenario, where the disease was actually brought under control and suppressed in the US, and they released a subsequent model that said, ‘If we do this, something like 50,000 deaths will occur.’ That was picked up by the other side and used to try to discredit the Imperial College team entirely by saying, ‘A couple of weeks ago they said a million now they’re saying 50,000; they can’t get anything right.’ And the answer , of course, is that they were modeling two different scenarios.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: obvert

In looking at John Ioannidis and the claims against him I ran into this guy, Carl Bergstrom. Has a new book coming out called Bullshit. I like him already.

This is a good long article on some of the problems science, modelling and reporting are coming up against in this pandemic.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... d-bullshit

What’s happened with this pandemic that we’re not accustomed to in the epidemiology community is that it’s been really heavily politicized. Even when scientists are very well-intentioned and not trying to support any side of the narrative, when they do work and release a paper it gets picked up by actors with political agendas.

Whether it’s talking about seroprevalence or estimating the chance that this is even going to come to the United States at all each study gets picked up and placed into this little political box and sort of used as a cudgel to beat the other side with.

So even when the material isn’t being produced as bullshit, it’s being picked up and used in the service of that by overstating its claims, by cherry-picking the information that’s out there and so on. And I think that’s kind of the biggest problem that we’re facing.

One example [of intentional bullshit] might be this insistence for a while on graphing the number of cases on a per-capita basis, so that people could say the US response is so much better than the rest of the world because we have a slower rate of growth per capita. That was basically graphical malfeasance or bullshit. When a wildfire starts spreading, you’re interested in how it’s spreading now, not whether it’s spreading in a 100-acre wood or millions of square miles of national forest.

The first Imperial College model in March was predicting 1.1 million to 2.2 million American deaths if the pandemic were not controlled. That’s a really scary, dramatic story, and I still think that it’s not unrealistic. That got promoted by one side of the partisan divide.

Then Imperial came back and modeled a completely different scenario, where the disease was actually brought under control and suppressed in the US, and they released a subsequent model that said, ‘If we do this, something like 50,000 deaths will occur.’ That was picked up by the other side and used to try to discredit the Imperial College team entirely by saying, ‘A couple of weeks ago they said a million now they’re saying 50,000; they can’t get anything right.’ And the answer , of course, is that they were modeling two different scenarios.

I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in there, much of which I'm sympathetic to.

I don't agree with the bit in bold though. If you want a rough measure of comparing how countries of vastly differing populations (often with very different ways of measuring cases) are doing I can't think of a better measure than deaths/M. If he is suggesting that the measure is being used to make the US look good then I'm not on board with that as a statement without a lot of further explanation that he does not give.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

I guess that the closest you could get to what he is saying is that if you look at Europe (excluding Russia and Turkey as being very large countries on the margins of 'traditional' Europe) as being somewhat similar to the USA in terms of population (c520M excluding Russia and Turkey) then by my calculation you have a deaths/M of 240. By that measure the difference appears much less stark than comparing the US with Italy or Spain.

I still don't think there is anything underhand going on in the numbers not being presented in that way though. Neither Europeans nor Americans see 'Europe' in that fashion politically or socially.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: obvert

In looking at John Ioannidis and the claims against him I ran into this guy, Carl Bergstrom. Has a new book coming out called Bullshit. I like him already.

This is a good long article on some of the problems science, modelling and reporting are coming up against in this pandemic.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... d-bullshit

What’s happened with this pandemic that we’re not accustomed to in the epidemiology community is that it’s been really heavily politicized. Even when scientists are very well-intentioned and not trying to support any side of the narrative, when they do work and release a paper it gets picked up by actors with political agendas.

Whether it’s talking about seroprevalence or estimating the chance that this is even going to come to the United States at all each study gets picked up and placed into this little political box and sort of used as a cudgel to beat the other side with.

So even when the material isn’t being produced as bullshit, it’s being picked up and used in the service of that by overstating its claims, by cherry-picking the information that’s out there and so on. And I think that’s kind of the biggest problem that we’re facing.

One example [of intentional bullshit] might be this insistence for a while on graphing the number of cases on a per-capita basis, so that people could say the US response is so much better than the rest of the world because we have a slower rate of growth per capita. That was basically graphical malfeasance or bullshit. When a wildfire starts spreading, you’re interested in how it’s spreading now, not whether it’s spreading in a 100-acre wood or millions of square miles of national forest.

The first Imperial College model in March was predicting 1.1 million to 2.2 million American deaths if the pandemic were not controlled. That’s a really scary, dramatic story, and I still think that it’s not unrealistic. That got promoted by one side of the partisan divide.

Then Imperial came back and modeled a completely different scenario, where the disease was actually brought under control and suppressed in the US, and they released a subsequent model that said, ‘If we do this, something like 50,000 deaths will occur.’ That was picked up by the other side and used to try to discredit the Imperial College team entirely by saying, ‘A couple of weeks ago they said a million now they’re saying 50,000; they can’t get anything right.’ And the answer , of course, is that they were modeling two different scenarios.

Here is another article with Bergstrom in it, but the focus is on the model itself:

https://qz.com/1840186/what-the-ihme-co ... ll-the-us/

The IHME model was built to do one job. It’s hard to repurpose it for another

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Here is another article with Bergstrom in it, but the focus is on the model itself:

https://qz.com/1840186/what-the-ihme-co ... ll-the-us/

The IHME model was built to do one job. It’s hard to repurpose it for another

From the point of view of view of somebody who is limited by being both a layman and also outside of the US that article pretty much sums the way I see things. This part in particular

The limitations of the Gaussian error function are especially clear in the IHME’s model of country-wide deaths in the US. The final model aggregates each state’s data. But some states, particularly New York, California, and Washington, had outbreaks earlier than other states. As a result, the cumulative total for US deaths disproportionately reflects these early states—especially New York, which is the epicenter of the country’s outbreak. Looking at the deaths per day curve for the entire US gives the impression that deaths in the country peaked on April 15.

Vos says that this aggregation function means that the US peak appears to be more stretched out—like a table top, rather than a mountain top. When asked about whether the US had truly hit a peak last week, Vos said he didn’t believe it had just yet, despite the fact that as of today (April 21), the US is supposed to be six days past its peak daily deaths. He agreed that New York and Washington may have peaked.

[Chickenboy]

PSA for Cap Mandrake

https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/chapel ... /19074499/

[Cap Mandrake]

Quite interesting. The "quants" got it wrong. Even so, a model is only that. It's there to offer guidance for planning.

We may have to live with a "tabletop curve" for some time given the geographic immensity of the US.

LA had about 1600 new cases yesterday. Let's say you plan to do contact tracing as you begin to open up the economy. Suppose 20 contacts for EACH new case. That's calling in and testing 32,000 new contacts EVERY (a few less if there are overlaps). I have ZERO confidence LA County Public Health can pull that off. There are probably 4 million illegal aliens in LA County. They aren't going to come in for a test even if they have a cell phone. They are afraid they will be sent to quarantine or "La Migra". Contact tracing is impossible in a city like LA without a literal army of investigators (and dudes with guns)

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

PSA for Cap Mandrake

https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/chapel ... /19074499/

His face is too short. The virus invades 2 cm and it's already in his trachea[:D] Poor thing never had a chance.

[Cap Mandrake]

Dog fetus: "I wonder if I am a Golden Retriever or a Labrador? God, please let me not be a Pug! I can't feel my face! It's too damned crowded in here!"

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Quite interesting. The "quants" got it wrong. Even so, a model is only that. It's there to offer guidance for planning.

We may have to live with a "tabletop curve" for some time given the geographic immensity of the US.

LA had about 1600 new cases yesterday. Let's say you plan to do contact tracing as you begin to open up the economy. Suppose 20 contacts for EACH new case. That's calling in and testing 32,000 new contacts EVERY (a few less if there are overlaps). I have ZERO confidence LA County Public Health can pull that off. There are probably 4 million illegal aliens in LA County. They aren't going to come in for a test even if they have a cell phone. They are afraid they will be sent to quarantine or "La Migra". Contact tracing is impossible in a city like LA without a literal army of investigators (and dudes with guns)

The direction of travel in the UK seems to be more towards my understanding of the South Korean way forward (i.e. using mobile phone apps to identify likely contacts of a single positive test and tell those people to isolate without necessarily testing them) than my understanding of the German approach which was to do it all manually by tracing and testing contacts as well as 'source' individuals. Obviously that approach rests on the assumptions that a) a large enough proportion of the population has a phone capable of participating b) that people will download the app and c) that the contacts will comply when they are advised to isolate. In the UK at least all of those assumptions seem very optimistic. If they were met though do you think it could be effective?

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Just by way of illustration of that 'tabletop' idea.

Worldmeters has the US as reporting 2429 deaths today (Tuesday). The days worse than that have been
14/04 2566 (Tuesday)
15/04 2631 (Wednesday)
17/04 2543 (Friday)
21/04 2683 (Tuesday)

Going on a couple days from the 21st you have
22/04 2358 (Wednesday)
23/04 2340 (Thursday)
24/04 1957 (Friday)

[Sammy5IsAlive]

On a more positive note from a US perspective - if you apply the current case/fatality rate (roughly 5%) to today's number of new cases (c.25k) you would get an estimate of 1250 deaths in seven days time - pretty much half of today's number.

[Mikawa]

Of all the different pharma companies researching a vaccine, who has the best chance of finding an effective one? There are several trying now

Can it be done by early next year?

[fcooke]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Dog fetus: "I wonder if I am a Golden Retriever or a Labrador? God, please let me not be a Pug! I can't feel my face! It's too damned crowded in here!"

That hurts - my first 4 were Pugs.....

[CaptBeefheart]

Obvert: Thanks for that. This article tells me the virus can still last four hours on copper (versus 72 hours for plastic): Does copper kill germs? Yes, it's effective against COVID-19 within 4 hours

I suppose those Cu ion-covered plastic sheets are better than nothing, and whoever makes or sells them in Korea is making bank.

Cheers,
CB

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Dog fetus: "I wonder if I am a Golden Retriever or a Labrador? God, please let me not be a Pug! I can't feel my face! It's too damned crowded in here!"

That hurts - my first 4 were Pugs.....

[;)] I am pretty sure dogs don't care what they look like. The question is...did YOU love them?[:)]

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Mikawa

Of all the different pharma companies researching a vaccine, who has the best chance of finding an effective one? There are several trying now

Can it be done by early next year?

A new question has arisen along these lines. Generally, you first do relatively large scale safety trials. Then you do a placebo controlled efficacy study which would take many, many months.

Some are now advocating a COVID CHALLENGE test of a vaccine. You sign up a couple of hundred volunteers and then you give them the vaccine..wait two weeks or so and then you DELIBERATELY expose them to the virus in a method highly likely to effect transmission under normal circumstances (for example, intranasal instillation of the the virus). Given that 95% of those who become ill after exposure to a sick person become ill by 11.5 days, you could have meaningful results in 3 weeks. Now, this is obviously ethically fraught because of the severe risk but 7,000 of your fellow human have SIGNED UP to do exactly that if needed.

[Cap Mandrake]

Medical ethics have "evolved". Here is a study of the tansmission of Hepatitis A and B where they DELIBERATELY fed milkshakes (chocolate presumably) deliberately infected with the feces of acute hepatitis patients to institutionalized "retarded" patients (who could not consent of course).[X(]



https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/210666

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Medical ethics have "evolved". Here is a study of the tansmission of Hepatitis A and B where they DELIBERATELY fed milkshakes (chocolate presumably) deliberately infected with the feces of acute hepatitis patients to institutionalized "retarded" patients (who could not consent of course).[X(]



https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/210666

Hmm, unless I misread it, that study was published in 1978. Ethic committees in the West have come a long way since then in terms of what they will approve. Of course can't say the same thing for Chinese testing. Think of the Chinese researcher who last year (IIRC) deliberately altered the DNA of twins to "cure" them of an inherited condition. So unethical that even the Chinese authorities disapproved and shortly afterwards the individual disappeared from public view.

Alfred