COVID-2019 in America, effect on politics and economy

[tbm3fan]

Coronavirus hitting police departments. One fifth of Detroit's officers are now in quarantine including the Chief of Police. Two officers have died. How will police handle that and how will they handle laws and enforcement is becoming a question.

https://apnews.com/069d01bafbb1f15b1f6c4a4479ab1456

[tbm3fan]

Gray market and profiteering in medical supplies like the N95 mask. 3M claims they have not raised their price but they cannot control what their distributors charge. Ah, yes you can as it is a simple phone call from one CEO to another saying no more masks for you. Luckily I had plenty of 91% alcohol in the office as it is difficult to find now. Also had a supply of Cavicide as well as gloves but no masks as not typically needed. Can't get an N95 now if my life depended on it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...top-profiteers

[DOR]

So which of the countries and which sets of their numbers is workable ? Key question

If i go with affected. Your answer does not address it. Because you are using a political framework to decide whether to even look at the numbers.

Is Wuhan's case load credible. I don't see why not given numbers of other countries. Or even Hubei. What needs more examination is the change in methodology they adopted after mid Feb. Because as you know from unemployment figures this sort of tweaking of the counting method ain't uncommon. The new methods somehow always shows less bad news. Oh see how the case load dropped. Just compare our performance today with two or three weeks ago. We're doing good. If China does it so can any other country. In fact even more likely as other govts have to go to polls to remain in office.

Deaths we can leave out as they won't be up to date. Whether fatality is 1 or 5% isn't important. Whether cases are spiking, flat lining or dropping matters. And what causes that. We're flying blind otherwise. We already are to a certain extent.

There is a more fundamental issue with testing. The Czechs found out 80% of their testing kits from China aren't reliable. Spain rejected 10k Chinese testing kits gifted to them. I hear NY doctors also saying the test kits they use cannot be relied on. and when it does work it still does not tell you enough. This is mostly to do with the kind of test being done. The RNA kind. The ones that look for antibodies are more meaningful. That would mean numbers from most countries are iffy too as most of this data comes from RNA tests while slowly transitioning to antigen tests.

This has a huge bearing on policy. How do you tell if measures taken or practices in other countries work or not. Who's winning, who's losing this fight.

All the while taking a massive hit to the economy the longer business remains closed.

Double Edge,
I used a political perspective to address the issue of truth and falsehood, not to assess the data. I’m not qualified to analyze which figures are right, and which are not. But, and this is why I wrote what I did, I am qualified to assess which government spokes folks are likely to be telling the truth, and which simply don’t know how to.

[Double Edge]

To put this in perspective. Influenza and COVID-19 uses identical infection methodologies. Infected human droplet transmission.

2019 influenza cases - minimum 38 million Americans infected (at which point, the vacine is useless). Minimum 18 million Americans tested. Minimum 400,000 hospitlalized. 24,000 to 62,000 deaths. The total world wide current COVID-19 numbers don't even make a statistical dent against these numbers.

And the ONLY difference between the two is that we don't have anti-viral medications for COVID-19 but to preach that COVID-19 is is going to wreck mankind on any continent is statistically untrue.

Getting this funny feeling i'm going to be re-quoting the above in the weeks to come. You're ahead of us man, we will catch up eventually.

Risk assessment and how we feel about uncertainty. You're fine with line infantry. Others don't mind getting close to dormant volcanoes. The hedge funds betting many billions here and there.

I discovered Gerd Gigerenzer during my internet travels. The man's forte is how to think about risk. Saying the same thing as you : )

Why What Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Panic | Project Syndicate | Mar 12 2020

The psychological principle that makes us fear swine flu, avian flu, or COVID-19, but not the common flu is called fear of dread risks.

It is easy to elicit fear of episodes in which many people die within a short interval, such as plane crashes or epidemics. But when just as many or more people die over a longer period – as with car accidents or the seasonal flu – it is difficult to scare the public into wearing seatbelts or getting vaccinated.

He does not give me many answers here. So digging up what he has to say i found this

Risk has three parts:

- The odds you will get hit,

- the average consequences of getting hit, and

- the tail-end consequences of getting hit.

How people respond to risk is heavily influenced by the tail-end consequences of getting hit, even if it’s the least probable outcome.

Fine, every one thinks about that last one. Can't help it but we do.

People aren’t stupid. The problem is that our educational system has an amazing blind spot concerning risk literacy.

We teach our children the mathematics of certainty—geometry and trigonometry—but not the mathematics of uncertainty, statistical thinking.

And we teach our children biology but not the psychology that shapes their fears and desires. Even experts, shockingly, are not trained how to communicate risks to the public in an understandable way.

No wonder there is confusion

This is a multi-disciplinary problem. It’s part biology, part statistics, part politics, part sociology, part psychology, etc. No single person has all the answers.

Some people here dabble in a bit of all of the above so maybe we make sense of it sooner than later.

[Double Edge]

We're flying blind

A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data | Stat | Mar 17 2020

How can policymakers tell if they are doing more good than harm?

The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable.

Given the limited testing to date, some deaths and probably the vast majority of infections due to SARS-CoV-2 are being missed. We don’t know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300.

Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population.

The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%.

But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%).

It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases — a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population.

Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.

That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done. A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational.

It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.

The death toll would be very little out of the ordinary. It would not even be a bump in the statistical deaths.

Hell, the more I think about this, the more I will assert that most of Africa would not even notice this virus.

We in the West are panicing because we don't have enough ventilators for the old. African old people are more stoic. They don't have ventilators and it doesn't matter if you test them or not. It's their time.

Not just Africa, what if the US also notices nothing come years end : )

Some worry that the 68 deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S. as of March 16 will increase exponentially to 680, 6,800, 68,000, 680,000 … along with similar catastrophic patterns around the globe. Is that a realistic scenario, or bad science fiction? How can we tell at what point such a curve might stop?

The most valuable piece of information for answering those questions would be to know the current prevalence of the infection in a random sample of a population and to repeat this exercise at regular time intervals to estimate the incidence of new infections. Sadly, that’s information we don’t have.

If we don't have that information then statements made either way are up for debate. There is nothing to decide a clincher

Pari. NOW would be a good time to say something : D

[Double Edge]

It obviously failed.

Since the virus left Wuhan, containment has failed. Containment already failed in Wuhan. The numbers alone told me that leakage was going rampant with new cases appearing. The virus burned itself out. Not that quarrantine worked.

What then about the lock downs in various parts of the world ?

Are we trying to prove we can succeed where the CCP failed.

What is this belief based upon.

Fear ? lock down seems like a sensible thing to do

China flat lining as a result of it ? based on data we do not know can be relied on.

Well, you can't help stupid but I refuse to listen to stupid and stupid is telling me to lock myself in my home when I need social contact for my own mental health.

This sentiment will only grow if the period of lock down is extended.

Lock downs are unsustainable. The whole purpose of lock down is defeated if there are leaks.

Despite all the tech and prowess an invisible BUG has us running scared into huddling in our homes : (

We need a plan B. Any idea what it will be ?

[Ironduke]

To put this in perspective. Influenza and COVID-19 uses identical infection methodologies. Infected human droplet transmission.

2019 influenza cases - minimum 38 million Americans infected (at which point, the vacine is useless). Minimum 18 million Americans tested. Minimum 400,000 hospitlalized. 24,000 to 62,000 deaths. The total world wide current COVID-19 numbers don't even make a statistical dent against these numbers.

And the ONLY difference between the two is that we don't have anti-viral medications for COVID-19 but to preach that COVID-19 is is going to wreck mankind on any continent is statistically untrue.

Last flu season, the CDC estimated there were approx 35.5 million cases of the flu in the US, and about 34,000 deaths. That's a death rate of a bit less than 1 in 1000. The hospitalization rate was about 1.3%.

Italy, where the outbreak is more mature, so far has 10,000 dead from COVID-19. For there to be "no difference", 10 million Italians would have to have been infected so far, which I seriously doubt. COVID-19 has inflicted far more deaths with far fewer cases.

In Italy we've seen death tolls reach 1000 per day from COVID-19. The daily death toll in the US from the seasonal flu with 35.5 million cases was a fraction of that.

No, it's not going to wipe out mankind, but COVID-19 is far deadlier, inflicts permanent cardiac damage and lung scarring among a large number of cases, requires a much higher hospitalization rate, and requires far lengthier hospital stays and ventilator use for those hospitalized.

[Officer of Engineers]

Italy, where the outbreak is more mature, so far has 10,000 dead from COVID-19. For there to be "no difference", 10 million Italians would have to have been infected so far, which I seriously doubt. COVID-19 has inflicted far more deaths with far fewer cases.

How about using the Chinese stats since they are even more mature? Or let's use real stats that we can sink out teeth into. The H1N1 pandemic in the US in 2009. 12,000 dead. American apples to American apples comparison.

No, it's not going to wipe out mankind, but COVID-19 is far deadlier, inflicts permanent cardiac damage and lung scarring among a large number of cases, requires a much higher hospitalization rate, and requires far lengthier hospital stays and ventilator use for those hospitalized.

No, it doesn't. 80% of COVID-19 infected recover with no damage using nothing more than over the counter medications ... or chicken soup. Again, the difference between influenza and COVID-19 is the presence of anti-viral medication. Once anti-viral medication fails, then the treatment and damage between the two are identicle. Anti-biotics and ventilators to help the body fight off the 2ndary infection. The treatment are identicle post anti-viral medication failure.

For most of the poor world, the treatment for both influenza and COVID-19 would be identicle. Bedrest. The young and strong will live. The old and weak will die. And no one will record what kills wom.

[Ironduke]

Once anti-viral medication fails, then the treatment and damage between the two are identicle.

Sources, please.

The H1N1 pandemic in the US in 2009. 12,000 dead. American apples to American apples comparison.

735 dead in the US today alone, with 6 hours yet to go. We haven't had a day in any flu season then or since with a daily death toll of 1000. Yet we will today.

[InExile]

Italy, where the outbreak is more mature, so far has 10,000 dead from COVID-19. For there to be "no difference", 10 million Italians would have to have been infected so far, which I seriously doubt. COVID-19 has inflicted far more deaths with far fewer cases.

It wouldn't be surprising if more than a million Italians were infected though, given that it is suspected that the illness was spreading in the country for weeks before the first cases were detected. This would mean the death rate would be closer to 1% which is closer to the numbers in South Korea and Germany.

Yes, Covid is deadlier than the seasonal flu but perhaps not as deadly as the initial numbers say; it might end up being similar to the Asian or Hong Kong flu epidemics in the 1950s and 1960s.

[Officer of Engineers]

Sources, please.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...y-kill-people/

735 dead in the US today alone, with 6 hours yet to go. We haven't had a day in any flu season then or since with a daily death toll of 1000. Yet we will today.

You're joking! 1918-1920 Spanish Flu, aka H1N1, 675,000 US dead.

[Ironduke]

Source for what? How ventilators and anti-biotics work?

You've been saying that COVID-19 is no different, symptomatically, in terms of death rates, etc. than a typical flu season. What data are you basing that on?

The H1N1 pandemic in the US in 2009. 12,000 dead. American apples to American apples comparison.

735 dead in the US today alone, with 6 hours yet to go. We haven't had a day in any flu season then or since with a daily death toll of 1000. Yet we will today.

You're joking! 1918-1920 Spanish Flu, aka H1N1, 675,000 US dead.

Sorry?

[Officer of Engineers]

Yes, Covid is deadlier than the seasonal flu but perhaps not as deadly as the initial numbers say; it might end up being similar to the Asian or Hong Kong flu epidemics in the 1950s and 1960s.

COVID-19 only deadlier because we have vacines and anti-virals for the seasonal flu.

[Officer of Engineers]

You've been saying that COVID-19 is no different, symptomatically, in terms of death rates, etc. than a typical flu season. What data are you basing that on?

How about Scientific America

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...y-kill-people/

Sorry?

You still got to be joking. 60 million Americans were infected with H1N1 in 2009. Less than 200,000 have been identified with COVID-19. H1N1 deaths targets young and healthy. COVID-19 targets the compromised, ie the weak and the old. In short, burn out with COVID-19 will ocurr a lot faster than H1N1.

[Officer of Engineers]

Matt, where did you get your numbers of 751?

According to this

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

553 died in the US yesterday based on GMT+0 time