Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[HotRocks34]

What seems to be happening now, with expanding testing, is that:

1) you're picking up more overall positives (not surprising since antibody testing appears to show the virus is much more widespread than is seen in actual positive tests returned), even if the percentage positive in the testing could be going down

2) you're picking up more asymptomatic positives (like some inmate populations, apparently).


This is why I now track "new hospitalizations" rather than "new positive cases." The new positives matter, of course, because they can spread the disease. But more new positive cases does not necessarily mean more people who need to go to the hospital (people who get really sick from the virus and may end up dying from it).

When the testing was less widespread, they seemed to be primarily testing sick people (sick from the virus or something else) in hospitals (that was the testing priority). Now, as many states appear to be seeing less people in hospitals from the virus while testing capacity also seems to be increasing, you're probably going to find a bunch of people who have the virus but who are not very sick from it.

[nikster]

The comparison between the US and Sweden is super interesting.

They have been on the same trajectory as both slowly added restrictions, however, about a week ago the US lockdown has started to impact the deaths per day and it's dropping. Meanwhile, Sweden never introduced a total lockdown on business, they have asked people to work at home if possible and to practice social distancing as much as possible.

We will get a sense of the difference that has been made from the lockdown vs the non-lockdown.

I think this will be a compelling graph to follow as people discuss the economical effects vs health benefits of the lockdown.

One additional factor is the density. All other things being equal i would expect higher spread and cases in the US due to the population density, especially in the most dense US states (which is where we are currently seeing the most deaths)

[Zenzibar]

I thought this was too cool. Good for the kids.

Thinking caps on: Chinese school kids return to classroom with the help of ‘social distancing hats’

Elementary schoolers in the Chinese megacity of Hangzhou have returned to school, sporting an unusual addition to their regular uniform: a winged cardboard hat reminding them to maintain distance from each other.
The longest ever winter vacation for Hangzhou’s elementary students ended this week, as first to third grades returned to the classroom. One school in the city, Yangzheng Primary School, gave its students an early assignment: fashion their own homemade “one-meter hats,” to remind the youngsters to stay a meter apart at all times.


Thinking caps on: Chinese school kids return to classroom with the help of ‘social distancing hats’





Schoolchildren in Hangzhou wearing 'one meter hats' in the classroom © Weibo
According to local media, students may only remove the hats during mealtimes. When leaving the classroom, the youngsters have to ‘crab walk’ through the door to avoid clipping their wings.

In addition, students are given face masks every day, and have their temperatures taken upon arrival. (Good luck here)

Winged hats have been mandatory in Hangzhou before, albeit not for a thousand years. When the city – then called Lin’an – was ruled by the Song Dynasty in the 10th century, emperors mandated that officials wear black hats with stiff flaps, to prevent them whispering to one another.

[NBAFan93]

There are pockets of places that are on fire with respect to the virus spreading:

Read on Twitter

I believe they’ve been doing a lot of testing in prisons lately. I read one article that I believe said that a big portion of the prison positives are no or low symptoms too. It would make sense that the virus would spread easily in prisons where the prisoners eat together, etc. and aren’t in their cells the majority of the day.

If you could provide a link or source when you can that would be great. The number of confirmed cases in prisons as of April 22 is almost triple that of the US population so the concern is two-fold - higher spread through closer contact and its consequences. It's not just about higher testing producing higher results, it's what has been and will be done with that info. It doesn't help that some states are not forthright with the info, and some either lack resources or don't prioritize prisons with them. The issue is another hotbed and its effects within and outside of it. From the article:

While most prison systems are releasing information about the number of positive tests and prisoner deaths in their facilities, far less is known about how many people are being tested. Sixteen prison systems are not releasing information about how many prisoners they are testing, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which has seen several major outbreaks of coronavirus in its institutions. Of the rest, only eight systems had tested more than 400 of the people in their custody by this week.

While we know considerably more about how many prisoners are getting sick, another group of people is at risk in these facilities: correctional officers and other workers. We know even less about how the virus is affecting them, though they have the potential to carry the virus both into facilities and back into their communities. It’s difficult to assess how prison workers are being affected because many aren’t being systematically tested.

This is the one I saw... Looks similar to the one hotrocks posted above.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/four-u-state-prisons-nearly-180100661.html

[LKN]

As I've long suspected - deaths are being heavily undercounted:

Read on Twitter

?s=20

[lakerz12]

As I've long suspected - deaths are being heavily undercounted:

Read on Twitter

?s=20

You sure about that?

Watch on YouTube

And how many deaths do you feel were undercounted exactly? And what was listed as the cause of death?

[Xpressure]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/27/coronavirus-found-air-pollution-particles-preliminary-study-finds/3033646001/

Coronavirus Detected on Air Pollution Particles

Summary:

- The virus could be carried over longer distances, increasing the number of people infected.

- Previous studies have shown that air pollution particles do harbor microbes.

- The study has not undergone the scientific peer-review process so the findings must be taken with caution.

[nikster]

As I've long suspected - deaths are being heavily undercounted:

Read on Twitter

?s=20

You sure about that?

Watch on YouTube

And how many deaths do you feel were undercounted exactly? And what was listed as the cause of death?

I dont think you understand how these excess mortality figures are calculated

[lakerz12]

As I've long suspected - deaths are being heavily undercounted:

Read on Twitter

?s=20

You sure about that?

Watch on YouTube

And how many deaths do you feel were undercounted exactly? And what was listed as the cause of death?

I dont think you understand how these excess mortality figures are calculated

I don't think you understand how good communication and debate works if you just make statements like that with no explanation.

I asked two questions. You answered neither. If you have the answers or more details please share them.

[HotRocks34]

As I've long suspected - deaths are being heavily undercounted:

Read on Twitter

?s=20

This has already begun to be adjusted for. That adjustment started for a number of states beginning around April 14, I think. That's why the death toll numbers have apparently seemed higher of late, in some states, because states are backdating probable deaths now, and some of them are being added into daily death counts (backdated deaths + new deaths)

That graph goes to early April. So the process wasn't in place then (I think the CDC changed their reporting guidelines around that date). Here's a report about NYC changing how it records deaths on April 14:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-updates-us-navy-battles-growing-outbreak-hospital/story?id=70134122

5:05 p.m.: NYC death count revised higher by nearly 4,000

New York City's Health Department is now attributing 3,778 more deaths to the coronavirus, officially citing them as "probable" cases.

...

While these deaths have not been included in publicly announced counts until now, city health officials have been cataloging these additional people and examining their symptoms and medical histories.

"We are focused on ensuring that every New Yorker who died because of COVID-19 gets counted," New York Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in a statement.

While the state is attributing 7,905 deaths in New York City to coronavirus, this tally of 3,778 more "probable" deaths pushes New York City's death toll over 10,000 and puts the statewide toll at about 15,000.

Having the excess mortality information should definitely help get an accurate count. It's probably the most important tool that exists for this kind of thing, in my understanding.

Here's the NYC page for Covid. As of right now, the confirmed death toll is 11,708 and the probable death toll is an additional 5,228. As more data on excess mortality comes in, more precise counts can be made:

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

Since a large bulk of the damage done in the USA took place (and is taking place) in the NYC Metro area, this "probable" death toll (excess mortality) will probably most affect the fatality numbers in that region (if the numbers swell, many of them likely will come from NYC metro).

I also think that this "probable" death counting is why you see such varied rates on trackers. I've seen gaps of like 6200 deaths between trackers, and it's likely because some trackers are using the probable numbers and some are not.

Here's another example, from Colorado. The state death total shot up 122 on Saturday. It went up 44 the day before, and 22 two days previous. But it apparently went up because they were adding in these "probable" deaths.

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/25/coronavirus-covid-colorado-new-cases-deaths-april-15/

On Friday, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported a statewide total of 674 deaths as it tallied older cases that had not yet been added to the state database.

...

The state health department announced Thursday that COVID-19 fatalities would be higher as officials tally previously unreported deaths. Deaths related to the new coronavirus were expected to jump by 130 this past week as officials review death certificate data for unreported cases, health officials said, noting that these deaths did not all occur this past week, but were only just now entered into the state’s database.

As various states start to record and add these "probable" deaths, we should start getting closer to the real number of Covid fatalities. Sadly, it will end up being more than has presently been recorded.

The current death toll projection on the IHME model site is about 68,000. My guess is that it will end up more in the 75,000 to 95,000 zone. It could go even higher, when all probable deaths are added.


EDIT:

Yes, CDC death counting guidelines changed on April 14:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

"As of April 14, 2020, CDC case counts and death counts include both confirmed and probable cases and deaths"

[bidde]

You sure about that?

Watch on YouTube

And how many deaths do you feel were undercounted exactly? And what was listed as the cause of death?

I dont think you understand how these excess mortality figures are calculated

I don't think you understand how good communication and debate works if you just make statements like that with no explanation.

I asked two questions. You answered neither. If you have the answers or more details please share them.

The Washington Post article points out that from March until April 4 there were 15,400 more deaths in the US than should be expected, based on historic data. In that same time frame there were 8,128 reported covid-19 deaths. So if you were looking for an exact number of deaths that could be undercounted, you would look at that difference of 7,272. Of course the 15,400 is just a point estimate and there is uncertainty that comes with calculating that baseline. The article qualifies this uncertainty:

Based only on the deaths reported so far, there is a 90 percent chance that the actual number of excess deaths is greater than 12,000, and a 70 percent chance that it is greater than 14,000.(There is a 2.5 percent chance that the actual number of excess deaths is lower than 10,000, and an equal chance that it is higher than 20,000.)

As for your second question: Since this estimation is derived from looking at nationwide aggregates, the best we could do is look at causes of death on an aggregated level. The CDC site suggests that a majority of possible misclassifications might be Pneumonia and Influenza.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

[nikster]

You sure about that?

Watch on YouTube

And how many deaths do you feel were undercounted exactly? And what was listed as the cause of death?

I dont think you understand how these excess mortality figures are calculated

I don't think you understand how good communication and debate works if you just make statements like that with no explanation.

I asked two questions. You answered neither. If you have the answers or more details please share them.

Fair, I didnt assume your were discussing in good faith since your questions and video having nothing to do with the graph posted.

Excess Mortality is calculated looking at all reported deaths and compare it to a same period in previous years. Cause of death or the way COVID deaths are documented would have no impact on these calculations. Basically this graph is saying 1000s more americans are dying this year compared to the same period in previous years. The officially reported COVID deaths can only account for about half of this difference. The idea then is that since so many other causes of mortality are down due to isolation (accidents, crime, etc...) the best explanation for the gap is COVID deaths that were not captured by official data.

[HotRocks34]

What we don't know today (not sure anyone has tallied this) is how many of those previously-unreported, "probable" deaths have been counted in each state already. And what the total adds up to for the nation. And how those figures stack up with this excess mortality data.

NYC keeps track of this probable death info. I'm sure the various state Departments Of Health keep track of it, as well. But I don't know if the numbers exist in the general public outside of the NYC data.

That is, today, I'm not sure anyone knows how many of the previously-uncounted deaths (looking backwards) have been tallied. If we knew that, and knew the excess mortality rates for the nation (I'm sure that info will come fairly soon based upon that tweet with the Washington Post information), then we could probably have a good idea of where we'll end up since the US appears to be on the downside of the fatality curve now (new, current deaths per day).

Not having this information makes projection models nearly impossible to construct or take seriously, IMO. They may be able to give you an idea of how many people are passing away from the virus in state hospitals day to day, perhaps, but they don't necessarily account for these backdated deaths that radically alter the total state/national fatality number in the end.

[HotRocks34]

One last thing on "probable" deaths and the final death toll. There is no exact figure that will ever exist for this kind of thing, as can be seen when looking at stuff like flu deaths in a season or deaths from Swine Flu. You instead get a range and an estimated "total death toll" count.


1. Flu deaths for 2018-19 in the USA
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Range: 26,339 to 52,664
Guess: 34,157


2. Swine Flu deaths for USA
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html

Range: 8,868 to 18,306
Guess: 12,469

[HotRocks34]

Latest on Texas reopening.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/27/texas-reopening-coronavirus-greg-abbott/

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday said he will let the state’s stay-at-home order expire at the end of the month, and allow businesses to begin opening in phases in May.

First to open on Friday: Retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls. But they will only be allowed to operate at 25% capacity. Museums and libraries will also be allowed to open at 25% capacity, but hands-on exhibits must remain closed.

...

At the same time, Abbott said he is holding off on reopening certain businesses for the time being, including barbershops, hair salons, bars and gyms. He said he hopes those businesses can open "on or no later than mid-May."

[lakerz12]

I dont think you understand how these excess mortality figures are calculated

I don't think you understand how good communication and debate works if you just make statements like that with no explanation.

I asked two questions. You answered neither. If you have the answers or more details please share them.

Fair, I didnt assume your were discussing in good faith since your questions and video having nothing to do with the graph posted.

Excess Mortality is calculated looking at all reported deaths and compare it to a same period in previous years. Cause of death or the way COVID deaths are documented would have no impact on these calculations. Basically this graph is saying 1000s more americans are dying this year compared to the same period in previous years. The officially reported COVID deaths can only account for about half of this difference. The idea then is that since so many other causes of mortality are down due to isolation (accidents, crime, etc...) the best explanation for the gap is COVID deaths that were not captured by official data.

Thank you. I admit my first post was not very thoughtful or complete. But my point was, if we are going to talk about incorrect death totals, the knife cuts both ways.

If what Department of Public Health Dr. Ezike is saying in the video is true, then there are in fact some deaths being attributed to COVID-19 that could be questioned. She says that even if there's a clear alternate cause of death, if the person has COVID, it's being listed as a COVID death. I would need to do more digging to verify this or in how many cases this is being done.

Thank you for explaining the theory that suggests the death count is too low. However, even if we add 7,272 deaths to the COVID total (number used by bidde above), that doesn't drastically change how we already view Coronavirus.

I wanted to clarify this because when someone just says "See, like I thought, the numbers are being drastically under-counted", then it leaves too many open questions. Are we talking about 100,000+ undercounted? 50,000 undercounted? Or a few thousand? Big difference obviously.

[Je K]

I don't think you understand how good communication and debate works if you just make statements like that with no explanation.

I asked two questions. You answered neither. If you have the answers or more details please share them.

Fair, I didnt assume your were discussing in good faith since your questions and video having nothing to do with the graph posted.

Excess Mortality is calculated looking at all reported deaths and compare it to a same period in previous years. Cause of death or the way COVID deaths are documented would have no impact on these calculations. Basically this graph is saying 1000s more americans are dying this year compared to the same period in previous years. The officially reported COVID deaths can only account for about half of this difference. The idea then is that since so many other causes of mortality are down due to isolation (accidents, crime, etc...) the best explanation for the gap is COVID deaths that were not captured by official data.

Thank you. I admit my first post was not very thoughtful or complete. But my point was, if we are going to talk about incorrect death totals, the knife cuts both ways.

If what Department of Public Health Dr. Ezike is saying in the video is true, then there are in fact some deaths being attributed to COVID-19 that could be questioned. She says that even if there's a clear alternate cause of death, if the person has COVID, it's being listed as a COVID death. I would need to do more digging to verify this or in how many cases this is being done.

Thank you for explaining the theory that suggests the death count is too low. However, even if we add 7,272 deaths to the COVID total (number used by bidde above), that doesn't drastically change how we already view Coronavirus.

I wanted to clarify this because when someone just says "See, like I thought, the numbers are being drastically under-counted", then it leaves too many open questions. Are we talking about 100,000+ undercounted? 50,000 undercounted? Or a few thousand? Big difference obviously.

That estimated 7,272 number from the data was from April 4th though, at a time when there were less than 10,000 deaths in the US, so I would say that is a pretty significant number. Now, some of those have been backlogged into decrease the gap, but I'm curious to see the data from the 4th to now as well. It's important to try to get as accurate a number as possible as that information informs our decisions.

[zimpy27]

One last thing on "probable" deaths and the final death toll. There is no exact figure that will ever exist for this kind of thing, as can be seen when looking at stuff like flu deaths in a season or deaths from Swine Flu. You instead get a range and an estimated "total death toll" count.


1. Flu deaths for 2018-19 in the USA
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Range: 26,339 to 52,664
Guess: 34,157


2. Swine Flu deaths for USA
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html

Range: 8,868 to 18,306
Guess: 12,469

The simplest guess of total impact will be comparing year-end total deaths to the usual yearly average.

[Liminy]

I couldn’t access it in Australia as I said. I actually have a medical degree and have been very interested in all of this, have read everything I could find on the internet for a couple of months, and have been aware of the claims and counterclaims over the origins of the virus since early March.

I am not a virologist or trained epidemiologist and even those trained in those fields are mainly working in the dark with this virus, but I have been trained to have, and hopefully still possess, a capacity to examine scientific/medical studies and data critically and am rather convinced by numerous publications in the scientific literature which have dismissed the virus being a manufactured virus; I believe even FOX have stepped away from that claim. As I said a laboratory origin is not impossible, but detailed in a long post earlier in this thread that I find the evidence for the virus escaping from a lab conducting experiments on bats or bat viruses circumstantial at best, with the evidence for an American lab origin not all that much less credible than the evidence for a Chinese lab origin. As I said in the previous post it is a matter of known fact that bats carry viruses that can transfer and have transferred to humans and cause serious illnesses, SARS, MERS, Hendra virus and rabies among them, naturally without any laboratory accidents. I don’t consider farming wildlife such as bats alongside domestic animals or selling wildlife in wet markets all that natural btw, and if this is the cause the Chinese need to address that obviously as they should have done after SARS which was fairly definitely of wet market origin from bats through civet cats as an intermediate host.

I read something from a Chinese virologist involved with the Wuhan lab who absolutely rejected any error at the the Wuhan lab concerning which she was convincing to me at least; perhaps she would say that but she attributed the outbreak to Chinese farming practices of which she disapproved and which would hardly endear her to the Chinese government either.

Why exactly was she convincing to you? Are you aware of the research she is well known for and the papers she published? Do you also believe the narrative that China has basically contained the virus and their are very few, mostly imported cases there, as reported by China and corroborated by most of the mainstream press? The Epoch Times has reported that the virus was never really contained in China and there are continued outbreaks throughout the country. It will be interesting to see who eventually ends up being correct about that. Given the fact that China's leadership tried to open the economy and send everyone back to work after a few weeks, I find it very hard to believe that the virus has been controlled their and most of the cases are imported.

She is a scientist of international repute who had worked co-operatively with international scientists and what she said made sense to me basically. One thing I do agree with you about is that it would be nice to be confident about what has really happened in Wuhan and whether it is safe including for tourists 3 months later. I am not inclined to make the assumption that because there is a virology lab in Wuhan that a viral outbreak there must be due to that lab, and almost wonder whether the American origin counter theory, which is basically virology lab shutdown for safety reasons in the USA, subsequent Wuhan military games attended by American soldiers, therefore it is an American virus, was with some ironic attempt to counterpoint that the evidence for the Wuhan laboratory accident origin is also circumstantial. However I am also not the only person in the world who believes the Chinese numbers for Wuhan. I guess if Wuhan is fully re-opened including for tourism it will be hard to hide a significant death rate and it should be obvious at least for tourists whether the disease can still be contracted there.

You are a doctor so you have your expertise. I've been a human rights advocate on issues related to China for 2 decades so I have my expertise about the way the Chinese government lies. I'm not saying that the virus came from the lab in Wuhan, but I am saying that it is by far the most likely explanation and I, of course, would not believe anything that the Chinese propaganda press is propagating. I could also show you pretty convincing evidence that the Chinese numbers are false by several magnitudes and that there are current outbreaks in several places in China, especially in Harbin but perhaps you are not interested in looking at that.

I'm sure she's a fantastic scientist but she is also part of the Chinese regime and she would not necessarily be allowed to say the truth even if she wanted to.

This is what the Chinese scientist said, as quoted:

Shi was subjected to savage attacks on social media as the 'mother of the devil' and responded with a furious denial on her WeChat social media account, saying the new virus was 'nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilised living habits'.

'I swear with my life – [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab,' she declared, telling those spreading false rumours to 'shut their stinking mouths.'

[michaelm]

One last thing on "probable" deaths and the final death toll. There is no exact figure that will ever exist for this kind of thing, as can be seen when looking at stuff like flu deaths in a season or deaths from Swine Flu. You instead get a range and an estimated "total death toll" count.


1. Flu deaths for 2018-19 in the USA
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Range: 26,339 to 52,664
Guess: 34,157


2. Swine Flu deaths for USA
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html

Range: 8,868 to 18,306
Guess: 12,469

The simplest guess of total impact will be comparing year-end total deaths to the usual yearly average.

You would know better than me, but it is complicated because there seem to be less deaths from some of the usual causes, with I gather a lower overall death rate in the USA very early on before Coronavirus deaths started to catch up with Coronavirus cases; you would think deaths from car accidents and complications of elective surgery would be down for a start.