Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[alfred russel]

In April I highlighted a group of states working to open up early as evidence people were fed up with the situation: South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Malthus suggested a group of Trumpist governors doesn't prove anything.

My proposal: by the end of the year, the per capita death rate in those states will be below the national per capita death rate. The calculation will be total deaths in all those states divided by the population in all those states.

How much money are you willing to bet, and at what odds?

Straight up, line in signature acknowledging the winner's superior knowledge of coronavirus and the loser's inferiority and general stupidity.

[DGuller]

In April I highlighted a group of states working to open up early as evidence people were fed up with the situation: South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Malthus suggested a group of Trumpist governors doesn't prove anything.

My proposal: by the end of the year, the per capita death rate in those states will be below the national per capita death rate. The calculation will be total deaths in all those states divided by the population in all those states.

How much money are you willing to bet, and at what odds?

Straight up, line in signature acknowledging the winner's superior knowledge of coronavirus and the loser's inferiority and general stupidity.

I'll run some numbers and get back to you.  I may take you up on your bet depending on what I see, so we'll get to see which one of us is the lucky charlatan.

[alfred russel]

First it is not cherry picking to look at the numbers from last week and compare it the same period when we last had the same discussion.  If you want to use 10 days, 2 weeks, 3 weeks or the full month, fine.  Whatever time period you pick it's going to look similar.

The cherrypicking is in what statistics you choose to use, and how you frame it.  You frame it as a three-fold increase in deaths.  AR could frame it as "so, you were saying that these dumbfucks would be dying by the droves, and what you meant by that is that they would be dying at 20% of the rate New Yorkers were dying at?"

He can't frame it that way, because I never made that statement.  AR chose the standard - deaths as opposed to cases.  He's not disputing the numbers, he is saying that some other poster (Fate) got it wrong.  I'm not Fate.

t forces you to put something up, because you're setting up a quantifiable evaluation metric of your ability to analyze things objectively.  For example, you'll have to balance the need to be right in your prediction when AR will come back to quote it in two months, against the need to make a sufficiently dire prediction to prove the point that Floridians are dumbfucks.  If you're going to predict that 200 deaths per day is as bad as it'll get, then you'll already concede the point.  That's why I suspect that you and everyone up against AR will not actually go through with putting up something measurable.

The way to be objective is too stick to facts rather than speculation. I have been putting up something measurable - but all that is measurable now is what has happened - not what might happen in the future.

I'm not trying to prove a point that "Floridians are dumbfucks".  My assumption is that Floridians have the same intelligence on average as people from every other state. I'm not rooting for more Floridians to die, that would be grotesque.

If you insisted I speculate about the future, my speculation would be that Floridians will respond to higher infection and death rates by changing behavior incrementally and in fact it looks like this has already been happening.  So I wouldn't predict hockey stick growth going forward.  But that guess is irrelevant to the characterization that I was addressing - that Florida was doing "well" in the present (i.e. June 23 to present).  That is not true.

You can rely on data precisely in order to gain some insight into what is likely to happen in the future.  I hear some people actually make a living out of it.

Yes and 90% of the output is crap.  The pitfalls of accurate forecasting are pretty well known, there is even a recent bestselling book about it.

I have not used, and will not use, current death per day rates to evaluate a state's or country's response to date. Cumulative deaths need to be used.



I don't think what is going on is so simple, but look at the stereotypical curves above: If a state successfully implemented the blue line, and another state ended up as the red line, once the lines intersect blue line state will have higher deaths / day. In fact, for most of time it would have higher deaths / day. That isn't a sign of policy failure: in this context it would actually be a result of relative policy success.

However, the red state would always have higher cumulative deaths.

[The Minsky Moment]

I have not used, and will not use, current death per day rates to evaluate a state's or country's response to date. Cumulative deaths need to be used.

And that's where we disagree.  Death rates in March and April are irrelevant to the effectiveness of state measures and response in effect in July.

[DGuller]

Cumulative death rates do matter.  At the end of the day, that's the toll of the virus, and that's how we judge the toll of what we're fighting against.  And while all deaths are tragic, the pragmatic reality is that differences in death rate do matter.  There is a point where the death rate is not high enough to warrant drastic measures, because drastic measures have their own toll attached to them.

The reason why I get extremely annoyed with the short-circuiting of the honest debate about "measures and response" is that I don't think we actually understand the tradeoff between effectiveness and cost, or for that matter even what the effectiveness is.  I don't have strong opinions about this, but I do have my suspicions.  I suspect that the anti-mask movement truly is the dumbfuckistan area, and I suspect that weak enforcement of mask laws that do exist is criminal negligence, but I'm not at all convinced that business shutdowns and social distancing are worth the cost. 

If we start off knowing what is a smart response and what isn't, we rob ourselves of the ability to be surprised by the data and learn something meaningful from it.  There are no straightforward facts in statistics, unfortunately, which gives a lot of room for everyone to find what they want to see.

[merithyn]

Florida (and Georgia) are reaching ICU bed capacity. Don't worry. Those death numbers will start going up.

I understand. Disaster for the irresponsible states is always just a little further off.

Would either of you be brave enough to put numbers on this?  What number of deaths will signify death numbers going up, which won't ever happen if you're an optimist or which will happen if you're an optimist?

It's a "disaster" to me when the hospitals can no longer care for patients. The numbers, therefore, will vary by community/city.

[mongers]

Florida (and Georgia) are reaching ICU bed capacity. Don't worry. Those death numbers will start going up.

I understand. Disaster for the irresponsible states is always just a little further off.

Would either of you be brave enough to put numbers on this?  What number of deaths will signify death numbers going up, which won't ever happen if you're an optimist or which will happen if you're an optimist?

It's a "disaster" to me when the hospitals can no longer care for patients. The numbers, therefore, will vary by community/city.

Exactly and the hospital/s in that situation will declare a disaster , an emergency or whatever terminology they use to describe such a critical situation.

Doesn't really matter what us armchair 'virologists' say about the figures being bad or still being better than Italy/Brazil/Canada etc.

[Eddie Teach]

 

Social distancing is free.

[Admiral Yi]

Social distancing is free.

Social distancing creates unused capacity in restaurants and the like.  It kills bar business.  Movie theaters, etc.

[Eddie Teach]

Ok. Still worth it.

[The Minsky Moment]

The reason why I get extremely annoyed with the short-circuiting of the honest debate about "measures and response" is that I don't think we actually understand the tradeoff between effectiveness and cost, or for that matter even what the effectiveness is.  I don't have strong opinions about this, but I do have my suspicions.  I suspect that the anti-mask movement truly is the dumbfuckistan area, and I suspect that weak enforcement of mask laws that do exist is criminal negligence, but I'm not at all convinced that business shutdowns and social distancing are worth the cost. 

If we start off knowing what is a smart response and what isn't, we rob ourselves of the ability to be surprised by the data and learn something meaningful from it.  There are no straightforward facts in statistics, unfortunately, which gives a lot of room for everyone to find what they want to see.

That all seems unobjectionable, I would add however that ping-ponging back and forth from a full open, no holds barred approach to sharp restrictions is suboptimal. 

I would also add that economic restrictions do not have to be 0% to 100%: there is a continuum of response including regulation of physical distances, indoor/outdoor etc. as well as different rules depending on the riskiness of the activity.

And I would also add that state action is not the only piece, and not necessarily the most important one.  You could remove state restrictions on movie theaters for example, and many people won't go.  I can take a commuter bus to the city now but I don't do it.

[Sheilbh]

Social distancing is free.

Social distancing creates unused capacity in restaurants and the like.  It kills bar business.  Movie theaters, etc.

Yes. But the biggest decline in restaurant bookings and footfall in most countries occurred before social distancing was imposed by governments. People are not going to go to restaurants etc if they think it's unsafe, so they stopped going then social distancing was imposed and now social distancing is part of how we can re-open in a semi-safe way.

It's why I really don't like the social distancing v the economy argument because, you know, I'm not going to crowd into a restaurant in a shipping container now whether there's social distancing or not. I'm not, personally comfortable, sitting in any bar or cafe - if I can't sit outside I won't go. That's not government guidance or legal requirements, it's that I have changed my behaviour to take decisions that I'm comfortable with and I think everyone is the same. The social distancing v economy thing is just wrong, this isn't like a tap that you can turn on and off. As long as people don't feel safe/comfortable they're going to adjust their behaviour independent of government rules or guidance.

The reason why I get extremely annoyed with the short-circuiting of the honest debate about "measures and response" is that I don't think we actually understand the tradeoff between effectiveness and cost, or for that matter even what the effectiveness is.  I don't have strong opinions about this, but I do have my suspicions.  I suspect that the anti-mask movement truly is the dumbfuckistan area, and I suspect that weak enforcement of mask laws that do exist is criminal negligence, but I'm not at all convinced that business shutdowns and social distancing are worth the cost. 

Of course we don't, we are closer to knowing now than we were in January but this is a novel virus. So the scientists and the policy people are improvising, though probably less so now. And lockdown is an incredibly blunt tool, but as I say I think that reflects a policy failure. It has been imposed because situations were spinning out of control - the public health authorities couldn't track or monitor outbreaks as they were happening and needed to get back to day 1. I keep on saying it but lockdowns aren't policies to address the pandemic, they're policies to buy time and space to implement policies that will keep the pandemic under control. I think in the US especially it's been framed as if the policy options are lockdowns or masks v no lockdowns/masks which I just think is wrong. Ultimately you'll be locked in that cycle unless you have the infrastructure to identify outbreaks and stop community transmission.

As I say my view is that a lot of American states have lifted the restrictions in a slightly crazy way that doesn't seem linked to the science (prolonged exposure in enclosed spaces drives infections - it's super-spreader locations that matter most) and that many states lifted them too early. But I also think some states probably imposed lockdown too early. If they were capable of tracking outbreaks as they happened and closing them down then there's no need to lockdown and it now makes it more difficult to impose them when they're probably more useful.

[alfred russel]

I have not used, and will not use, current death per day rates to evaluate a state's or country's response to date. Cumulative deaths need to be used.

And that's where we disagree.  Death rates in March and April are irrelevant to the effectiveness of state measures and response in effect in July.

I just don't understand this line of thought. The past certainly plays into the present -- among the many reasons the graph I posted above.

[Tonitrus]

Ok. Still worth it.

For many businesses, I think the level of permanent closures show that it certainly is not. 

(speaking from a purely economic view...not as it relates to infection risk)

[Threviel]

What would the number of dead be in Georgia and Florida if the virus still was as lethal as it was in the New York outbreak? Improved health care makes it quite useless to compare death rates, the relevant rate to compare would be the infection rate.

Isn't this a case of no-one here foreseeing the fall in lethality? If the virus was still as deadly as it was in April I imagine that both Georgia and Florida would be quite overwhelmed right now.