And here I thought nobody was going to go out ever again.
Global Pandemic Part III: A typical Spring, Just Ask China
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LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
I’m not knocking you for being cautious and I don’t think that’s the wrong thing to do. Avoiding anything that other people interact with is probably a good precautionary measure. I also never said you “needed to be told” anything. You said a doctor was on cnn calling sofa fountains “rona dispensers.” I feel an obligation to voice disagreement because fake news is fake news and it doesn’t matter who says it.
We know the vice president’s game. He walked into a hospital without a mask. It was stupid and disgraceful. He got appropriately criticized. So now he plays a similar card and people jump on it. And now he has fuel to disregard criticism as “the left just criticizing everything I do.” Classical Trump play. When the opposition is making the same sound over different things, it is fodder for their fire.
If you’re not condemning misinformation and disproportionate criticism from the left, you’re justifying or allowing the misinformation from the right. And all crimes become equal. And when all crimes are equal, and one crime is illegitimate, they’re all illegitimate.
I did think it would be a little less than i saw last night haha.
If infections do rise again to point of closing doors i have no idea what that’ll do to people’s mindset.
I went in for take out and felt really uncomfortable seeing so many people. It was like nothing had changed. Only difference was those of us popping in with face masks to grab our food
https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1264257708271656960?s=21
This seems bad....
We halted travel from China and Europe. Why not Brazil + South America ??
This seems bad....
We halted travel from China and Europe. Why not Brazil + South America ??
I don't understand why it has to be an all-or-nothing proposition?
You open 100% as before and let people ram in shoulder-to-shoulder in sweaty bars and in a few weeks you'll have an epicentre like NYC at which point EVERYTHING will be shut down for months and revenues will be exactly zero. We have seen this happen - look at South Korea, which has been maybe the most exemplary nation in combating this. They opened up night clubs, almost immediately had super spreaders and shut everything down again.
These bars and restaurants can open in a reasonable manner - certainly less than 100% capacity, but enough to give people some options to go out and give their employees at least some hours back. Operating at 50-70% capacity continuously is a hell of a lot better than operating at 0% capacity for 4 months and then reopening to maybe 50% at best.
iron yuppie
ONE love, blood, life
Bars should be the last thing to re-open IMO. Even the well-intentioned will stop being careful once they've had a few drinks.
A few bars in Pacific Beach opened and they crammed them all in. They are shut down later in the day.
Some business will follow the rules and others will risk it to try and make more $$.
Other countries have been able to open up at limiting capacity, so it SHOULD work here.
But Americans and freedom and all
Some business will follow the rules and others will risk it to try and make more $$.
Other countries have been able to open up at limiting capacity, so it SHOULD work here.
But Americans and freedom and all
Oh I'm not arguing against safeguards. I just thought people were going to be too frightened to ever touch anything again and work from home for all eternity.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
Just a fraction of the names could fit
That Mexican drug money isn't gonna launder itself people
dazzledbylight
Blue Crack Supplier
Wow! (not the info which I know
) - but showing the way the NYT is presenting it.
Since my immediate neighborhood doesn't carry it - I might not have seen it.
Thank you.
A number of US states are now heading in the wrong direction, and some of them aggressively so.
Primarily: Minnesota, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, California, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Colorado & Ohio ticking back up, Maryland. A lot of these never even started to improve, they reopened and are going down the tubes.
Primarily: Minnesota, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, California, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Colorado & Ohio ticking back up, Maryland. A lot of these never even started to improve, they reopened and are going down the tubes.
But it’s just the flu! Masks are mind control!!
We won’t actually see a second wave because we never get out of the first one.
California numbers have increased too. And after this holiday weekend i expect in 10 Days we may have some issues. Bars and restaurants opened and people are back to their “normal” ways.
I’ll say that it makes me feel a little down and i guess envious. Am i being an alarmist by staying in 90% of the time? That 10% being grocery store runs or walks on the beaches ?
The mindset that this isn’t a big deal boggles
We won’t actually see a second wave because we never get out of the first one.
California numbers have increased too. And after this holiday weekend i expect in 10 Days we may have some issues. Bars and restaurants opened and people are back to their “normal” ways.
I’ll say that it makes me feel a little down and i guess envious. Am i being an alarmist by staying in 90% of the time? That 10% being grocery store runs or walks on the beaches ?
The mindset that this isn’t a big deal boggles
It makes me feel like we're idiots while they're out there enjoying life.
But I have young kids and don't like the sound of the Kawasaki thing at all. Plus my daughter was a preemie and while she doesn't have lingering issues at 2 years old, I am always cognizant that her immune system is not totally on par. I actually really want her to get the antibody testing because she came down with pneumonia in late February, after 6 days of fever/cough and at the time the only question we had been asked is whether she'd been to China recently.
I also have elderly parents and in-laws and don't want to spread it to them.
And then there is the nightmare scenario of getting it and becoming seriously ill. If my husband or I end up in the hospital, or God forbid both of us, who will take care of our young kids? Especially if they themselves are ill? And what happens if it takes weeks for us to recover or have lingering respiratory effects? We are self-sufficient now and I don't want to be anyone's burden.
Jerry Dunk
Refugee
I'm sorry, if you think in-person ballots are any safer, you're kidding yourself. The GOP has already flipped a presidential election on in-person ballots, just 20 years ago! Let's not get into a "we need to risk the spread of a pandemic because the GOP is five chess moves ahead of us once again" situation here.
Jerry Dunk
Refugee
My state (Pennsylvania) is moving to start to open things back up in two weeks, and it feels very early to me. We've actually been pretty responsible to this point (aside from our horrific handling of nursing homes, which was a direct result of following the path of Andrew Cuomo and New York state), which makes this particularly disappointing. The Philadelphia area is simply not in a safe place yet; the five counties of the city are the five highest per capita in the state, and need to slow our roll. The announcement that we were preparing to move to "yellow" phase from "red" directly resulted in more people walking around downtown without masks. All skepticism factored in, people are still listening to orders. And this was a clear indication that we are supposed to think we're moving in the right direction. Which could not be further from the truth. We kind of flattened the curve, that's all.
iron yuppie
ONE love, blood, life
I wish this hadn't been so politicized as to be an all or nothing thing. I personally don't think anyone should be going to a beach or bar with a bunch of randos right now. But hanging out with a few family or friends who you know to be generally healthy and responsible is probably fine.
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
California is not ticking back up. We had a 10% drop in new cases the week before last and the r0 dropped below 1 in LA for the first time this week. Our hospitalizations also are at their lowest since March.
There might have been a small superficial increase in positives this week because we're churning out 50k tests a day instead of 30k, but our percent of positive tests today was barely 3%.
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OP
OP
Hewson
Blue Crack Supplier
California is not ticking back up. We had a 10% drop in new cases the week before last and the r0 dropped below 1 in LA for the first time this week. Our hospitalizations also are at their lowest since March.
There might have been a small superficial increase in positives this week because we're churning out 50k tests a day instead of 30k, but our percent of positive tests today was barely 3%.
So much of this is in how people report and interpret numbers.
Positive cases will jump when test amounts jump, but some outlets (CNN chief among them) will only report the number of cases and portray it as purely negative.
We have to look at the entire picture as you say to really know how things are going in a state.
California is not ticking back up. We had a 10% drop in new cases the week before last and the r0 dropped below 1 in LA for the first time this week. Our hospitalizations also are at their lowest since March.
There might have been a small superficial increase in positives this week because we're churning out 50k tests a day instead of 30k, but our percent of positive tests today was barely 3%.
I didn’t say they were ticking up - in their case it means they are not improving. Week over week tests are up from 40K (not 30) to 50K which correlated with the increase in total numbers. I would put very little if any stock in the Ro numbers because these are based entirely about assumptions and not a real measure of anything at this point.
You literally said the states were ticking up.
No. I choose my words carefully - I said heading in the wrong direction and then specified which ones were ticking up. To me the wrong direction is California and if you want a Canadian example, Ontario - basically after some positive trends started opening up, went back to treading water without a real and clear plan on what to do next.
I absolutely concede poor comma usage - but I meant those two states ticking up.
To go back to the Ro for a second, because I think that this is a very poorly understood concept that is thrown out there constantly. We all know bits and pieces about things and I actually do know a lot about this because I was on the path of getting a PhD in Immunology - after undergrad, did 3 years of research in a university immunology lab before going to law school. Ro is a very useful concept for well-understood infectious diseases because it's a good marker of epidemiological spread. It tells us a lot about a number of different factors of a virus BUT you have to have a lot of time and know basically everything about how the virus spreads.
We are nowhere near knowing what we need to know about this novel coronavirus to have an accurate Ro. Furthermore, the Ro is not one number in California, another in Illinois, a third in China and a fourth in Italy. That's not how it works - at all.
Down the road, probably years from now, when we have reliable data about spread - which is why it's important that we test as much as possible and also not blatantly continue to lie (hi China), we will know more about who is infectious and for how long - are asymptomatic people who have recovered infectious? We do NOT know that at this point in addition to a number of other things (for example, what is the true transfer and spread rate from a person to an inanimate object to a second person).
We are nowhere near knowing what we need to know about this novel coronavirus to have an accurate Ro. Furthermore, the Ro is not one number in California, another in Illinois, a third in China and a fourth in Italy. That's not how it works - at all.
Down the road, probably years from now, when we have reliable data about spread - which is why it's important that we test as much as possible and also not blatantly continue to lie (hi China), we will know more about who is infectious and for how long - are asymptomatic people who have recovered infectious? We do NOT know that at this point in addition to a number of other things (for example, what is the true transfer and spread rate from a person to an inanimate object to a second person).
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
Let's be precise: for the first 15 days of May, we averaged 33,900 tests a day. Over the last 9, we have averaged 49,800. That's a 46% increase, meaning if the level of infections were to be consistent, or even rising, we would expect at least a 46% increase in positive tests, no?
Compared to the week of May 4-10, this past week only saw an 8.9% increase in new cases despite a huge jump in testing. This is why I would not say things are worsening here in general, or even staying the same. This is crude math, but without knowing population density and demographics for the areas being tested during each timespan, it's the best estimate we have.
Then again, it's difficult to generalize about California. One very complicated part of our situation is the number of American citizens living in Mexico coming to California for medical assistance. The pandemic is hitting Mexico hard and those small border hospitals are experiencing surges. This doesn't impact Los Angeles County and northward so much, but Imperial and San Bernardino County are having a rough go of it.
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I'll get to the rest later, but I really wanted to say that I appreciate your knowledge, understanding and tone in discussing this. In a really short time you've basically self-taught what a lot of grad students have been studying for years and that's honestly some dedication, particularly in a sort of dry, stats-based field.
Definitely no.
When testing numbers are low, you can be pretty certain that you are catching a high % of positives because only symptomatic people + few asymptomatics are testing. As you increase testing capacity, you are by definition going to be catching a LOT of negative individuals. If you saw a 46% increase in testing + a 46% increase in positive cases you'd be in a shitload of trouble.
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
Right, OK, that's very true. I should have considered that with infrequent testing, you're essentially picking off the top and are likely to be selecting from a population that is in greater need of medical intervention. With widespread or compulsory testing (here in Los Angeles, testing is free, with or without symptoms), the demographics are broadened such that testing is almost a matter of curiosity rather than desperation; unless the spread has become so severe that almost everyone has viral RNA crawling around their nasal passages, negatives will pile up fast.
Sadly, the troublesome scenario you laid out is exactly what Brazil is experiencing even as they expand testing. Because they started so late, it will take a long time for them to reach the point where percentage of positive testing begins to flatten. For us, such trends only began to reveal themselves about a month ago.
And thank you for the kind words. I started researching epidemiology in order to exert a small bit of control over a bleak situation and have learned a great deal from you and many extremely well-read and intelligent people working to make sense of the pandemic. Those providing a sense of logic and understanding to frightening numbers may not be first responders, but they do their part to help everyone locked up at home.
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Yes - Brazil is the best case example of that issue.
Another really problematic thing in respect of the Ro is that China is actually at this point probably the only country which can calculate it with near certainty. The reason is that they are STILL hauling off all suspected cases into government-run quarantine facilities and keeping them there for 2-3 weeks, forcibly. This means that they definitely know what the rate of spread is from person to person. However, they will not share that number because they are electing to continue to lie to this day about how many people are testing positive. Just another shitty thing that their government is responsible for. I don't mean to absolve our governments of their responsibilities, but really China caused a big issue at the outset and instead of getting onboard with the entire rest of the world, they continue to lie and obfuscate.
iron yuppie
ONE love, blood, life
Maybe someone can answer this for me: why are the estimates on asymptomatic cases so wildly disparate? This seems like a really important stat to know in terms of infection risk. Shouldn't a randomized sample be able to give a decently clear sense of that?
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