COVID-19 Data Model Updated Daily

[Subber]

Yup, it is interesting that we've not heard of any homeless dying from Corona Virus in Santa Cruz.

I am/was thinking they get lots of sun = lots of Vitamin D.

Also, in that LIGHT, this just in:

"Preliminary results from government lab experiments show that the coronavirus does not survive long in high temperatures and high humidity, and is QUICKLY DESTROYED BY SUNLIGHT, providing evidence fromcontrolled tests of what scientists believed — but had not yet proved — to be true."

[Area 10]

The US death rate from CV19 (number of deaths per million population) is perhaps only about half of what it is in the UK at this point, and as far as the data allows us to know. So the US doesn’t seem to be doing so badly so far?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

The US was at 10 deaths per million at the beginning of the month and is at 101 today.  New York is at over 770 deaths per million.  That is almost 4 times the deaths per million of the UK.  We have a lot of regions that are just now starting to see big losses.

Yeah but the vast majority of UK deaths have been in London. If you compared New York with London the contrast wouldn’t be anything like as big. Densely populated areas are going to get hit the hardest and earliest, for obvious reasons. You can’t compare data from New York with the data from all regions of the U.K. combined - you have to compare regions of similar density. Plus, the UK data on mortality rates is fatally flawed - it only includes deaths in hospitals. Yet around 50% of deaths will likely be occurring outside hospitals. So the actual number of people dying in the UK  is probably double what those statistics suggest.

[SUP Leave]

This disease appears to attack areas where people are predominantly inside. Nursing homes being the hardest hit due to the shared air and comorbidities.

Closing parks and beaches is going to turn out to be an unhealthy decision. Dumb opinion - The stay home order should be the stay outside order. More like the stay healthy order.

[Beasho]

This disease appears to attack areas where people are predominantly inside. Nursing homes being the hardest hit due to the shared air and comorbidities.

Closing parks and beaches is going to turn out to be an unhealthy decision. Dumb opinion - The stay home order should be the stay outside order. More like the stay healthy order.

This is consistent with another observation from SARS outbreak (or related) years ago.  From memory I had heard that the infection rates in 3rd world hospitals was terrible.  Bad unhealthy conditions.  2nd World hospitals (work with me) that had better hygienic practices and open air facitlities e.g. literally open windows for ventilation had better recovery and lower infection rates at care facilities.  The 1st world with modern internally circulated ventilation suffered from worse cross infection rates.  Not as bad as first world but something about the closed modern recirculated system was harmful. 

[PonoBill]

An interesting article on why all COVID models regarding the USA infection rate continue to be flawed, with some useful data that could be applied to get more realistic numbers: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-outbreak-out-control-test-positivity-rate/610132/

If the likely infected rate was reverse-engineered from the test positivity rate (the percentage of test results that are positive) the numbers could be better than just a pure guess. The positivity rates of countries where testing is done more broadly are about a factor of ten lower than the US rate. The positivity rate in the US is a little higher than 20 percent. New York has a positivity rate of 41 percent. South Korea, Australia, New Zealand--2 percent, Canada, Germany, Denmark 6 to 8 percent. Italy 15 percent. The UK is 30 percent. It might be possible to relate the positivity rate to the hospitalizations and death rate in each country and get a closer idea of what the true infection level is.

We could just guess that the infection rate is ten times the number of positives, but that's probably an underestimate. With 700,000 positives that sets the infection level at 7 million people and the fatality rate at .5 percent.

[Tom]

Here's preliminary analysis of a recent Standford study.
 

 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01095-0

An analysis of the blood of some 3,300 people living in Santa Clara county in early April found that one in every 66 people had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. On the basis of that finding, the researchers estimate that between 48,000 and 82,000 of the county’s roughly 2 million inhabitants were infected with the virus at that time — numbers that contrast sharply with the official case count of some 1,000 people reported in early April, according to the analysis posted today on medRxiv. The work has not yet been peer reviewed.

[PonoBill]

Wow, that's 2.4 to 4%. If that applied to the entire country it would be 8 million to 13 million infections and a death rate of .26 to .4 percent. I doubt it applies to the entire country though, and the numbers are odd. One in 66 is 1.5 percent. Using that number it's about 5,000,000 infected people and the death rate is .6 percent. My extended numbers are bullshit, of course, you'd need some statistical analysis to extend the sample into something representative of the population. It does, however, give a pretty clear picture that we need a lot more testing to understand what is going on and where.

[SUP Leave]

Cliff Mass is a weather expert also working for the University of WA where the IMHE models are made. He put together a nice blog with pictures and examples regarding being indoors as the exact wrong way to deal with the virus.

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-outside-air-is-safe-and-park.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&m=1

MIT did a study as well showing that length of subway rides had a big impact on infection rates.

[ninja tuna]

An article on Sweden, 

https://reason.com/2020/04/17/in-sweden-will-voluntary-self-isolation-work-better-than-state-enforced-lockdowns-in-the-long-run/

[OkiWild]

And then there's this study suggesting the number of people who've had it in Santa Clara County is 50-85 times higher than the PCR testing number, bringing the death rate down to 0.12% to 0.2% from over 4%.

Two larger studies are kicking off in the article, and I know the Japanese are firing up the same thing. We've long suspected that it's already taken a run at us, or that it's been here since late December.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/antibody-study-suggests-coronavirus-is-far-more-widespread-than-previously-thought

[PonoBill]

People believe what they want to believe. The death rate in areas where the curve is flatter--whether naturally or because of restrictions--is much lower than the hot spots, because the hospitals are less stressed. I don't think anyone ever assumed the disease was going to be stopped by social distancing restrictions, just slowed so the healthcare facilities could keep up. And anyone who is reasonably numerate understood from day one that the actual infection rate was at least ten times higher than testing showed--because they only tested seriously ill people. I assumed it was at least a hundred times greater.

It's inevitable that people who have been protected by restrictions they dislike will ignore that effect when they look around and see no bodies in the streets.

Restraining an airborne infection to 3% of the population is not a natural effect. Take the same infection rate as seasonal flu and a .2% fatality rate and you have 4.6 million people dead. Stress the hospitals with that level of ICU care and the death rate goes well above 1%, which is north of 20 million people.

Yes, the fucked up testing skews the math, but you can take the same studies and the same european experience and project it to America and get your own numbers. Let me know if it comes out that a lot of people you know and care about won't be dead if we don't manage this response well.

[deepmud]

Bill - you point about hospitals being available and deaths vs not - I think this is what I don't see people I know who, saying things like "Fuck it, I'm going under, just let us work" are missing? To restate it - it's the sudden exposure, and the load on our system, that makes this a big deal.
Am I missing it? Am I not explaining well? I'm trying to be a voice of reason to scared people I know (online and local) who are really desperate, and saying things like "Just let me risk it - I'm going under anyway". I'm trying to find a way to say this isn't just YOU playing Russian Roulette, you are advocating making everyone close to you play it WITH you.

I think it goes back to what I was reading in The Undoing Project - we just cannot grasp risk and big numbers. We have "numbers" but as you imply - we are guesstimating with 10 to 100 times SWAG ("scientific" wild ass guess). But  - how to explain that? I'm not getting anywhere against "I don't trust anything the media or government says". Like arguing with the wind.

[Tom]

There will not be a vaccine available to the general population for at lease a year, probably a year and a half. Today, the doctors can only treat the symptoms until your natural system fights the disease, you may get better or you may die. But the good news is that there will probably be a cure for those that get it and it will available rather soon. This will happen one of two ways. First, they will find an available drug that is effective in fighting Covid19. The medical trials only have to prove that it is effective, which won't take too long. The second method is to develop a drug that is designed specifically for Covid19. They have had the dna mapped since February, so its not too hard to do. Here the trials will have to prove that it's effective, like the first solution, but also must prove that its side effects aren't too dangerous. This will take longer, but will be a better product. If you can hold of getting it by the end of summer, you'll be in good shape. If not, its a crap shoot how badly it will affect you. Remember, some healthy younger people are getting very very sick and no one yet knows why.

 

[Beasho]

OK, you guys are way over my head, but you may find this data model interesting from the CDC, take a look.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm?fbclid=IwAR065pbyShNfBLvyH0bjzdCjQtmmbXwjuCBCE0VPdOaf1FX3Hg4TwzPJGVY

Please check my numbers. . . .

I have checked my own numbers and have softened the perspective.  The United States is Currently Running Net Negative Deaths but this will get updated and stress the Net Negative Death theory in the coming weeks.

20,000 Fewer People have died in the United States through April 11, 2020 than Expected.

Said again “The United States through April 11th is living longer than Expected.”

The CDC released its Expected Deaths in the US ~ 57,100 per week. Death totals are updated daily. Weekly expectations were matched against the Covid-19 deaths as reported by WorldData in Red. These are running totals and will get updated 2 to 3 weeks later so the Blue bars will grow. I have truncated the last 2 weeks and NOT attempted to forecast the near-term outcome.

Data sources confirm that 90% to 99% of Deaths have been related to Comorbidities. Obesity and old age likely contribute to the remaining 99.9% of cases. Net Negative Deaths may not continue in the near term but over time will reflect the total impact of Covid-19 and Shelter in Place on the US Population.

Full Model here:
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNzExYmM2ZWQtZWVmMS00OTI1LWE1NzYtMTU2OTk3ZGE4ZjMyIiwidCI6IjQzODE2ODE2LTY0OTYtNDU4My1iMmVmLWU5Y2U3MTg1NjI4MCIsImMiOjF9&fbclid=IwAR2YPo6H0qPl4UoyYSHd_adTFzCBt7JKMzwVzMzh6p8631fqOlL_fRmLwDA

[PonoBill]

spooky article about the virus mechanisms. Dis ain't da flu: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes

Don't read it if you're feeling down, DO read it if you're still convinced this is no worse than a cold that "goes down to your chest" as one dickhead on Facebook claimed.