Do we Cancel Everything? You still Travelling??

[birdguy 3,943]

I'll take four Mark.  I need a couple for my wife too.  Tinfoil hats are more comfortable to wear than masks.

Noel

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by birdguy

[Luis Hernandez 570]

5 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Meanwhile: Not a surprise. https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-cases-covid-19-increasing-thousands-reopening/story?id=70720497

My parents won´t like that: they have been stuck there for almost 2 months (since the original trip return date, now reprogrammed for July... unless a repatriation flight is available).

[Luke 782]

1 hour ago, HighBypass said:

If I desire to live in your country then I have to live by your rules and customs, assuming I get accepted as a resident or citizen of your country.

I would suggest that once you are a citizen (and one can argue as a permanent resident) it is your country too.

As an example, my parents have lived in their country for 53 years, and their "other" country for 37 before that. My sister has lived in her country for 53 years as well, but her birth country for only 3 years before that. I've lived in America for 22 years, so almost half my life.

There are a lot of older assumptions about people looking and sounding a particular way, and of living in a single country for a long period of time. I don't think that reflects the 21st century reality. Everywhere I've lived has been filled with people "not from there" - it's why people are attracted to such places.

Cheers!

[MartinRex007 390]

12 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Meanwhile: Not a surprise

I suspect we will see in the next 6 to 8 weeks in the US more states reporting an increase in new cases, however the important metric to look for is the average positivity rate, because with more testing you will see more cases, so the percentage of those tests that were positive gives a better indication of what is going on in the local communities. Texas reported on April 13th their positivity rate was around 13%, now they are reporting a positivity rate of 5%, this indicates (assuming a random sample) that Texas has sufficient testing capabilities for the size of their outbreak and is testing enough of its population to make informed decisions. A high positivity rate may indicate that a given state is only testing the sickest patients seeking medical attention, and not testing enough of the population to determine how much the virus is spreading within its communities. Going from a 13% to 5% positivity rate is actually a good sign.

Martin 

[HighBypass 2,339]

13 minutes ago, Luke said:

I would suggest that once you are a citizen (and one can argue as a permanent resident) it is your country too.

A very good point, well made! 😎 However, in order to gain that citizenship a person may well have to make adjustments beforehand. 

[n4gix 4,947]

Well, drive-through testing has finally come to NW Indiana. I'm planning to get tested tomorrow morning since I'm over 65, obese, and am diabetic...

[dave2013 1,130]

The CDC recently released new estimates for the fatality ratio of Covid-19: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

The current best estimate is .0005 for ages 0-49, .002 ages 50-64, and .013 ages 65+.  Stated in percentage terms:

0-49: 0.05%, or 1 out of 2000

50-64: 0.2%, or 1 out of 500

65+: 1.3%, or 1 out of 77

These numbers are for symptomatic cases only, which makes sense as I'm guessing that if you don't have symptoms then you probably won't die from it.

The best estimate is that 35% of Covid-19 cases are *asymptomatic*.

That means that you can multiply those above-cited figures by two-thirds to get the rates for the entire population.

This is very good news.

Dave

[MartinRex007 390]

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

This is very good news.

The  report shown above is five "COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios that are designed to help inform decisions by modelers and public health officials who utilize mathematical modeling. The five planning scenarios are being used by mathematical modelers throughout the Federal government.  Models developed using the data provided in the planning scenarios can help evaluate the potential effects of different community mitigation strategies (e.g., social distancing)."

"The scenarios are intended to advance public health preparedness and planning.  They are not predictions or estimates of the expected impact of COVID-19." 

Really only useful for modeling and planning, I wouldn't read to much into them?

Martin

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by MartinRex007

[dave2013 1,130]

2 hours ago, MartinRex007 said:

The  report shown above is five "COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios that are designed to help inform decisions by modelers and public health officials who utilize mathematical modeling. The five planning scenarios are being used by mathematical modelers throughout the Federal government.  Models developed using the data provided in the planning scenarios can help evaluate the potential effects of different community mitigation strategies (e.g., social distancing)."

"The scenarios are intended to advance public health preparedness and planning.  They are not predictions or estimates of the expected impact of COVID-19." 

Really only useful for modeling and planning, I wouldn't read to much into them?

Martin

 

OK, yes, this is data used to develop the models.  The report is not a prediction or estimate of the expected impact of Covid-19.  Got it.

But wasn't the guidance from all the public health agencies based on ***models***?  Wasn't the planning, preparation, and the estimated number of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, based on ***models***? 

Why, yes, all those things were in large part based on models.  Dr Fauci and Birx said as much over and over again on television almost every day. 

So now that newer data has come in and the CDC has revised its figures based on that new data so that the models can be more accurate, all you can say is "really only useful for modeling and planning, I wouldn't read to much into them"?

Uh, OK.

Anyway, the report is there for all to read.  Covid-19 is not nearly as deadly as we were all led to believe by the media and others.

Dave

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by dave2013

[MartinRex007 390]

18 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Covid-19 is not nearly as deadly as we were all led to believe by the media and others.

From the CDC report "New data on COVID-19 is available daily; information about its biological and epidemiological characteristics remain limited, and uncertainty remains around nearly all parameter values.". I'll say it again, don't read to much into it!

It's a lot more deadly, concludes a new study by the University of Washington published May 7 in the journal Health Affairs. The study's results also project a grim future if the U.S. doesn't put up a strong fight against the spread of the virus.

The national rate of death among people infected with the novel coronavirus -- SARS-CoV-2 -- that causes COVID-19 and who show symptoms is 1.3%, the study found. The comparable rate of death for the seasonal flu is 0.1%.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200518144915.htm

Martin

Edited May 28, 2020 by MartinRex007

[scotchegg 4,186]

14 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Covid-19 is not nearly as deadly as we were all led to believe by the media and others

That's a pretty myopic thing to say just after the death toll in your country hit 100,000, even with wide scale lockdowns.

[Bob Scott 7,720]

6 hours ago, n4gix said:

Well, drive-through testing has finally come to NW Indiana. I'm planning to get tested tomorrow morning since I'm over 65, obese, and am diabetic...

Are they doing drive-thru antibody testing for history of previous infection, or rt-PCR testing for an active infection?

[Alan_A 1,650]

4 hours ago, dave2013 said:

These numbers are for symptomatic cases only, which makes sense as I'm guessing that if you don't have symptoms then you probably won't die from it.

The asymptomatic stage is an early stage of infection, when the virus is in the upper respiratory system and has not yet begun to produce symptoms.  People with asymptomatic infection often proceed to develop symptoms, and some of them die.  While asymptomatic, they are highly contagious.

"Asymptomatic" does not equal "mild" or "not serious" or "not ultimately fatal."

Edited May 28, 2020 by Alan_A

[Alan_A 1,650]

A new publication in Science,  the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/27/science.abc6197

Short version: wear a mask.

[Bob Scott 7,720]

27 minutes ago, Alan_A said:

The asymptomatic stage is an early stage of infection, when the virus is in the upper respiratory system and has not yet begun to produce symptoms.  People with asymptomatic infection often proceed to develop symptoms, and some of them die.  While asymptomatic, they are highly contagious.

"Asymptomatic" does not equal "mild" or "not serious" or "not ultimately fatal."

I think it's important to distinguish between use of the term as a current state, versus as a classification of disease severity.  Both are used.  As a state, you can have the disease but not show any symptoms, but if symptoms do later develop that state is retroactively reclassified as "presymptomatic" rather than "asymptomatic".  If, however, you run the complete course of the disease without detecting symptoms, that case is classified, as a measure of severity, as an "asymptomatic case", meaning that the person was infected and resolved the infection naturally without any symptoms ever being detected. 

I read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine today that more clearly makes that distinction:  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2009758

The stats Dave referenced w/r/t asymptomatic cases are almost certainly the latter, e.g. people who run the entire course of the disease without ever becoming aware they had it.