Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[alfred russel]

There will be no service economy until the outbreak stops. If you stopped the lockdowns tomorrow people wouldn't go back to restaurants or start traveling again.

You should know that isn't true. It would be diminished and some people would stay home, but if you really thought that was true there is no point to ordering the service economy closed or to stop traveling.

I wonder if you have noticed how no one else here agrees with you. Your company in the public at large are backwater Trumpist governors and MAGA internet warriors. Just because you're willing to endanger public health does not mean 90% of the remainder of the public will go along with you.

On the point to which you responded, I think that most people here agree with me, and probably you understand I am right as well. Which is why you didn't address the point.

Nevertheless, look at the deaths by state.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/country/united-states/

An absolute majority of them are in New York and New Jersey. Europe is getting creamed compared to the US. It seems dense urban populations reliant on public transportation are the vulnerable populations (completely the opposite of the crap being peddled about vulnerable rural populations).

This is in spite of the Trumpist governors staying open for spring break or allowing people to go camping. We are doing dramatically better than Europe despite being led by the Orange One.

A one size fits all solution of "lock everything down" does not seem to be indicated. Those bird watchers walking alone in the lake district really aren't contributing to the disease spread.

[Sheilbh]

This is from the FT's tracker (and doesn't include today's numbers) - plus it's a weekend. But in terms of deaths the UK and US still seem to be heading up, hopefully we might be curving now - but this is only one day:


In terms of cumulative numbers, we've mainly been tracking Italy and recently had more deaths than Italy at the same stage - again it's only one day but hopefully we're curving (also the US looks worrying):


Locally - and part of the reason I hope we could be peaking in London - is we are on a similar curve to Madrid, Catalonia and Paris. I think the only difference with London is we had more time to prepare from this really arriving in Europe, so I think the NHS was able to create enough surge capacity that that's never been breached, which I think did happen elsewhere especially when the virus arrived either very quickly or sort of suddenly like in NY:


While it's one day and it's a weekend so it's way to early to say anything and it's still the worst day yet - kind of have to hope that we'll begin plateauing/peaking soon.

Edit: Fuck - today also had the youngest death in England so far - 5 year old child

[celedhring]

I find all those comparisons with China truly endearing.

[Fate]

There will be no service economy until the outbreak stops. If you stopped the lockdowns tomorrow people wouldn't go back to restaurants or start traveling again.

You should know that isn't true. It would be diminished and some people would stay home, but if you really thought that was true there is no point to ordering the service economy closed or to stop traveling.

I wonder if you have noticed how no one else here agrees with you. Your company in the public at large are backwater Trumpist governors and MAGA internet warriors. Just because you're willing to endanger public health does not mean 90% of the remainder of the public will go along with you.

On the point to which you responded, I think that most people here agree with me, and probably you understand I am right as well. Which is why you didn't address the point.

Nevertheless, look at the deaths by state.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/country/united-states/

An absolute majority of them are in New York and New Jersey. Europe is getting creamed compared to the US. It seems dense urban populations reliant on public transportation are the vulnerable populations (completely the opposite of the crap being peddled about vulnerable rural populations).

This is in spite of the Trumpist governors staying open for spring break or allowing people to go camping. We are doing dramatically better than Europe despite being led by the Orange One.

A one size fits all solution of "lock everything down" does not seem to be indicated. Those bird watchers walking alone in the lake district really aren't contributing to the disease spread.

How can you still be so stubbornly myopic? 4 weeks ago we had ~200 cases. Currently we have 279,000. Every city is going to get hit. NY and NJ won't be half the deaths by mid May. You're saying we're doing better than Europe today (we aren't) but places like Italy and Spain are further in their curve than places like Florida or Mississippi. It's a facile comparison.

A state like Alabama is going to have ~20-25% more deaths per capita than New York by the time we're done with this outbreak. Up to half of the state has either diabetes, morbid obesity, COPD, or is above age 60. They're not alone in having such a high per capita rate of vulnerable citizens.

If you are strict now in these places with few deaths you save more lives than if you're strict once it because apparent to the stubborn AR's of the world that we should have done something 4 weeks ago.

[Sheilbh]

I find all those comparisons with China truly endearing.

Yeah. I suppose you can't exclude them because they were the first epicentre. But I do feel like there needs to be a MASSIVE asterisk next to China.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm willing to accept China's numbers until I see evidence to the contrary.  We trust numbers from Korea, HK, Singapore, etc., and they've all had much better curves than Europe and NA.  China's containment was ruthless.

[celedhring]

I'm willing to accept China's numbers until I see evidence to the contrary.  We trust numbers from Korea, HK, Singapore, etc., and they've all had much better curves than Europe and NA.  China's containment was ruthless.

They did nothing for two months in an area with a population larger than Italy or Spain, and we see what that fucker does when let run rampant. Nah, these numbers don't hold up at all when you factor what's happening in other countries.

[alfred russel]

He got a 5% boost due to rally around the flag sentiment. Let's see how that number is in a month when unemployment is 20% and the death toll is pushing a 100k (minimum)

You wouldn't make the bet with me earlier in the thread to stand by your statements. Lets make a bet on this one - are you willing to stand by anything you say?

On May 4, at 12 PM noon, if realclearpolitics tracking indicates that there have been more than 100k or more US deaths, I will add the following to my sig:

"Tim is a smart guy that I should listen to regarding Coronavirus. I am a moron. You should discount everything I say regarding Coronavirus because I am stupid."

If the deaths are less than 100k, you will add to your sig:

"Alfred Russel is a smart guy that I should listen to regarding Coronavirus. I am a moron. You should discount everything I say regarding Coronavirus because I am an alarmist."

The sig statements will stay for the remainder of 2020.

This offer is open for 24 hours.

[Fate]

I'm willing to accept China's numbers until I see evidence to the contrary.  We trust numbers from Korea, HK, Singapore, etc., and they've all had much better curves than Europe and NA.  China's containment was ruthless.

China has said that they do not include positive COVID-19 tests in people who had no symptoms. At the very least the number is twice what they report based on the observed rate of asymptomatics in population based studies from crusie ships and Iceland.

Otherwise I don't have any good evidence that they're pulling a Donald on their numbers.

[11B4V]

I'm willing to accept China's numbers until I see evidence to the contrary.  We trust numbers from Korea, HK, Singapore, etc., and they've all had much better curves than Europe and NA.  China's containment was ruthless.

They did nothing for two months in an area with a population larger than Italy or Spain, and we see what that fucker does when let run rampant. Nah, these numbers don't hold up at all when you factor what's happening in other countries.

Agreed, they're full of shit.

[Sheilbh]

An absolute majority of them are in New York and New Jersey. Europe is getting creamed compared to the US. It seems dense urban populations reliant on public transportation are the vulnerable populations (completely the opposite of the crap being peddled about vulnerable rural populations).

This is in spite of the Trumpist governors staying open for spring break or allowing people to go camping. We are doing dramatically better than Europe despite being led by the Orange One.

A one size fits all solution of "lock everything down" does not seem to be indicated. Those bird watchers walking alone in the lake district really aren't contributing to the disease spread.

Is this true though or is it just that Europe got it earlier (and did far worse than East Asia)? I've not seen anything that makes me think the US is handling it better than Europe, it's just a little behind us on the same sort of track - similarly I think New York is probably a little bit ahead of other states (as you'd expect), but again I've not seen anything that makes me think they'll do any better. And the bigger risk in the US seems to be that you have several outbreaks/hotspots so may get waves of peaks from these and as they spread.

I'm willing to accept China's numbers until I see evidence to the contrary.  We trust numbers from Korea, HK, Singapore, etc., and they've all had much better curves than Europe and NA.  China's containment was ruthless.

Okay. So since containment in all of China, Hong Kong (>1% of the population) is responsible for about a quarter of all new cases. Similarly all new cases in China have been traced to foreigners with zero examples of community infection. It strikes me as implausible just because of size and scale of initial outbreak that China's got the same number of deaths coming through as South Korea.

Also Singapore, HK and South Korea have all started to show second waves and had adaptive suppression. China's having the adaptive suppression, but we're not seeing the increase in numbers that is prompting it which is odd.

[Fate]

He got a 5% boost due to rally around the flag sentiment. Let's see how that number is in a month when unemployment is 20% and the death toll is pushing a 100k (minimum)

You wouldn't make the bet with me earlier in the thread to stand by your statements. Lets make a bet on this one - are you willing to stand by anything you say?

On May 4, at 12 PM noon, if realclearpolitics tracking indicates that there have been more than 100k or more US deaths, I will add the following to my sig:

"Tim is a smart guy that I should listen to regarding Coronavirus. I am a moron. You should discount everything I say regarding Coronavirus because I am stupid."

If the deaths are less than 100k, you will add to your sig:

"Alfred Russel is a smart guy that I should listen to regarding Coronavirus. I am a moron. You should discount everything I say regarding Coronavirus because I am an alarmist."

The sig statements will stay for the remainder of 2020.

This offer is open for 24 hours.

We're not going to know May 4th deaths on May 4th. Excess mortality data in the US isn't published in real time nationally. Based on our experience in Italy, Spain, and France many people die at home or in nursing homes who never got a test or who were positive but weren't counted because they didn't die in hospital.

[Oexmelin]

Are you offering a wager on people's death?

[Josquius]

Interesting studies in italy

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

Italy: the real number of COVID-19 cases in the country could be 5,000,0000 (compared to the 119,827 confirmed ones) according to a study which polled people with symptoms who have not been tested, and up to 10,000,000 or even 20,0000,000 after taking into account asymptomatic cases, according to Carlo La Vecchia, a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the Statale di Milano University.

This number would still be insufficient to reach herd immunity, which would require 2/3 of the population (about 40,000,000 people in Italy) having contracted the virus [source].

The number of deaths could also be underestimated by 3/4 (in Italy as well as in other countries) [source], meaning that the real number of deaths in Italy could be around 60,000.

If these estimates were true, the mortality rate from COVID-19  would be much lower (around 25 times less) than the case fatality rate based solely on laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths, since it would be underestimating cases (the denominator) by a factor of about 1/100 and deaths by a factor of 1/4.

[alfred russel]

How can you still be so stubbornly myopic? 4 weeks ago we had ~200 cases. Currently we have 279,000. Every city is going to get hit. NY and NJ won't be half the deaths by mid May. You're saying we're doing better than Europe today ( we aren't) but places like Italy and Spain are more further in their curve than places like Florida or Mississippi. It's a facile comparison.

I don't understand how you can say we aren't doing better than Europe. The best data we have is deaths, which you were earlier posting some persuasive evidence is understated in Italy because they have been overwhelmed.

Deaths:
US: 7,491
Spain: 11,744 (probably 1/8th of the US population)
Italy: 14,681 (probably 1/5th of the US population)
France: 6,507 (probably 1/5th of the US population)
UK: 4,313 (probably 1/5th of the US population)
Germany: 1,299 (probably 1/4th of the US population)

I think I hit the major population centers of europe--i didn't look up population details so those may be off. Only Germany is doing better on a per capita basis, and you can see quite obviously every other country is doing far worse---many quite dramatically).

How can you still be so stubbornly myopic? 4 weeks ago we had ~200 cases. Currently we have 279,000.

And here is the crux of the issue. So today we have 279,000 cases. We probably have a multiple of that, but lets be optimistic and say we really have 279,000. We lock down for 3 months, and miraculously go back to a minimal number of cases that we had a few weeks ago. We reopen the restaurants, etc. What keeps us from being right back here in a few weeks? What is the end game other than locking down until there is a vaccine in 12-18 months, that we will miraculously be able to provide to everyone in the country/world?