Cal88 said:
Big C said:
Two weeks ago, they started saying cases were going up again, but when I looked at the graphs, it didn't jump out at me. This week, however, yikes...
Number of new cases in the Northeast, clearly going down. (Remember, they were hit HARD in April.) Number of new cases in the Southeast, South, Southwest and West (including CA): Noticeably going up. It's like the virus has shifted its focus.
Two possibly mitigating factors:
1. Increased testing means increased discovery of cases. Even Trump knows that apparently.
2. Some people say the deadliness of the virus is diminishing. Well, we'll know more on that in a couple of weeks.
Yes, and yes.
Ignore the new case curve, focus on the new deaths curve, it is based on a far less volatile measurement with a lot less systematic error.
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Oaktown wrote:
Check out the curve for the US vs. The European Union.
Here is the comparative new deaths curves for the US, the EU and Europe, what you can see is that the curves and patterns are remarkably similar:
The US new deaths curve is basically the Europe curve with a time lag! That's basically been the main premise of my covid posting here.
People thought I was nuts to maintain back in February that it was going to get here in March and completely disrupt our lives, just like it had done in Europe. Now they think I'm an idiot for claiming that it is already on the wane in the US and will fade in July, just like it is now fading in Europe!
The new US deaths are going to dwindle to a trickle by mid/late July, the same way they are now in Italy, France or Spain, bank on it.
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CJay wrote:
^^^ middle america's long held core belief in American Exceptionalism
pushes the country towards magical thinking and denial imo.
The magical thinking here is to believe that the virus is going to behave completely differently in the US vs Europe. In reality, with a few exceptions like Germany, European leadership is just as bad as it is in the US.
There are some differences between the US and Europe that might have affected the spread, for example by and large the red states have a less favorable terrain for the spread of the virus, with a suburban layout and much higher automobile use vs public transit. As well the US is further south geographically, and got hit later in Spring, so warmer and sunnier conditions overall. Stockholm for instance is further north than Juneau. On the other hand the US has much higher obesity rates and poorer diets, then again the US has lower smoker rates. But by and large, at a continental scale, the differences wash out, and we should expect a similar pattern on both sides of the Atlantic, and the actual curves above reflect this, strikingly so.
The main policy differentiators will turn out to be nursing home management, testing/tracing and treatment policy.
1. Stop with the following:
Quote:
People thought I was nuts to maintain back in February that it was going to get here in March and completely disrupt our lives, just like it had done in Europe. Now they think I'm an idiot for claiming that it is already on the wane in the US and will fade in July, just like it is now fading in Europe!
You were massively wrong about a ton of stuff in February and your extremely alarmist jumping the gun based on a way too early reading of the data was a lot of the reason it was hard for those who were trying to get people to take the issue seriously, were not able to. You did the equivalent of yelling that an asteroid was going to hit the earth causing mass extinction, and then when a meteor hit damaging a small town you are calling "I told you so". May I remind you that you extrapolated from the Spanish Flu that the world could be seeing 100 million deaths. I argued that the Spanish Flu was not analogous, so who was right on that one? Some of us were trying to sound the alarm that people were coming up with reasons why China wouldn't happen here, and then Italy, and then Spain, and they needed to take this very seriously. Meanwhile we had a small faction leading with 100 million deaths, each of us were going to know X people who die, stock up on N-95 masks that the government was begging us to leave for health care workers, stock up on your bomb shelter supplies, including guns, etc. There was a lot of unhelpful bullshyte in there, some that you contributed to. Further, you in the same posted praised the great job Sweden was doing and slammed France when it was already clear that Sweden was going to surpass France in deaths per capita and then since then you keep showing old data to praise Sweden who has in fact gone way beyond France.
The fact is you drastically overestimated the health impacts of the disease based on too little information. Yeah, that lead you to see societal impacts more than people who drastically underestimated it, but there were plenty of people in the middle that were a lot closer to reality
All of us have been wrong and right as we deal with new data constantly coming. I value your opinion like anyone else who looks at the issue seriously. Let's have a reasonable conversation based on respect rather than trying to claim some expertise. None of us are experts.
I don't think you are nuts for thinking this is likely to fade in July. I do think being so sure of your conclusion is not founded. That said, I too, think by the end of summer we are likely to have seen the end of the first wave. Whether we see a second wave is anybody's guess at this point. Whether we see local flare ups that should be managed is another.
Regarding the article I posted, which I posted for information sake, I agree with you that deaths is the best measure (though not perfect). I've been saying this throughout. For the most part I ignore case data for most purposes. To me the case data is an early warning indicator that may or may not come to fruition. If everyone had the patience to wait and see, the public could ignore the case data. But everyone wants to make predictions.
I am almost as optimistic as you are, but I think there are more reasons to watch. I think there is no question that our numbers are increasing in part because our testing is increasing. I think it is good news that a higher percentage of positives are younger people. That said, I don't think the case curve can be entirely thrown out yet. First of all, the US isn't testing at a particularly high rate per capita. It is about in the middle. Second of all, our positive rate per test is high and maintaining. Third of all, our transmission rate is holding at greater than 1.0 in many places. There are some things that COULD explain the differential, like who we are testing vs. other countries, but that is speculative at this point. Fourth of all, there are places where the hospitalization rate is climbing and that is the second most accurate data point and precursor to the death numbers. I don't think you can just count on the death curve to stay on the same trajectory. It may, but it may not.
I agree with you that the curve has been pretty consistent where the disease has hit. But as I've said from the beginning, the disease doesn't hit based on political borders. Looking at numbers for China is pretty misleading when it was basically Wuhan and everywhere else. The initial numbers for the US might as well have just been the New York Tri-state area. What concerns me about the EU vs. US case numbers, is that both are large scale areas with populations in the ballpark of each other and with areas that have been hit hard and areas that have been virtually unscathed. One POSSIBLE factor could be that for some reason the EU has prevented new outbreaks in new places better than we have. (I could think of different reasons that might be the case). You can't just look at the US and say we are going to follow the same curve, because our curve is made up of many smaller curves. We don't know whether Arizona has more cases because of testing (though it isn't all that because their hospitalizations are going up) a small, temporary blip due to reopening, or whether they are at the beginning of a curve that hit NY in March and they are going to see a significant increase and go through the whole curve peak from here. The data doesn't give us a good picture on that. If I had to guess, I'd say they are going to see an increase and not inconsequential number of deaths, but nothing like NY. But we can't know that from the data. Across the country, Arizona, Los Angeles, Texas, Florida, the curve LOCALLY has not followed the curve we have seen in other places where the disease has had a significant impact. Now it is going up in those places. We don't know if those places have flattened the curve, dented it, delayed it or squashed it. If we have merely delayed it, we are going to see a lot of cases and a lot of deaths. I'm optimistic, but while I like your graph, and I would follow that until further notice, the WaPo graph bears watching as well because worst case it could in part be showing the BEGINNING of new outbreaks.
Regarding whether people should be allowed in the stadium at football games, I think that is a matter of personal freedom vs. public safety. First of all, we don't know how risky things will be in September. You are speculating right now. You may be right. I think schools need to make the determination closer to the time. Second of all, yeah, as an individual, I get to make my risk choices. However, I don't get to engage in behavior that significantly impacts the risk to the community. If everyone who went to a football game was going to quarantine for 14 days, it is none of my business what they do. If they are going to increase the spread significantly so that I now have a higher rate of getting the disease, it is my business. It is a balancing test. We can't know the result until we have better understanding of the risk AT THE TIME. Lastly, though, if there is a material presence of the virus at the time, I think you are underrating the risk. Outside is great. Close up crowd screaming and cheering is very, very bad. Indoor sports with close up crowd screaming and cheering is a cluster-eff waiting to happen.
Tangent I have advocated that college sports be allowed to play. I have also advocated that universities should be issuing dorms in a business as usual fashion. Not because I don't think kids will get Covid. Because I think they will get it and all data indicates that for them it is basically the flu. I think not opening up the dorms is a mistake. It pushes that age group either into the surrounding college community where they are more likely to act as spreaders to people who are more at risk or it pushes them to their parents' communities. I also think letting young people get exposed and push through the illness in a semi-controlled environment ultimately makes it harder for the virus to spread as quickly through the community when the young people are more integrated. It also makes little sense to send K-12 back to school, which will spread the disease faster than most things, and then not let college kids go back to school when they are much more separated from the "adult" community than K-12. Any spread from college kids going to school is going to be a fraction of K-12.
