My apologies, Noel. You mentioned getting out of the Marines in '56 so I incorrectly assumed that was when you finished serving. 

AYL's Yep. 

Sorry, we digress...

 

My Marine Corps service was just act 1.  I had two more acts to go.

Noel

5 hours ago, SteveFx said:

 

So next week it will be tele-dentistry?

 

I'm working up to it... 😱

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

Alan, I go to the beauty college for my haircuts.  I get a haircut and a pedicure for less than 20 bucks (not counting the 5 dollar tip to AYL doing the job)...

Can't compete with that - either on price or features!

5 hours ago, SteveFx said:

But there are some outliers

Belgium started at 6.8 and with full lockdown are above 1 still.  

Greece started at 1.8 and almost got it down to just above 1 without a lockdown and now seem to be at 0.3 with a lockdown.

Why do Greeks pass the virus between themselves at such an astonishingly low rate?  and why is Belgium so different?

Those are really odd numbers.  The first thing I'd wonder about are artifacts.  I was just looking at the daily confirmed cases numbers over at Our World in Data, and one of the first things that jumps out when you plug both countries into the chart is that Belgium has a massive spike on April 16 - it records five times the number of cases as the day before, and about double that of any day that follows.  That immediately makes me think there was a change in the way cases were recorded.  I'd want to know if there are other factors like that that are producing the differences.  Beyond that, I guess I'd want to think about population density, the amount of travel (e.g. lots of coming and going in Brussels).  But first things first.  When I have a little more time, later on, I'll try to dig a little deeper and see what turns up.

Is anyone else looking at all of this and just going.........

19 hours ago, SteveFx said:

Back to the coronavirus...

Here is paper from the Tony Blair institute considering exit options

https://institute.global/sites/default/files/inline-files/A Sustainable Exit Strategy%2C Managing Uncertainty Minimising Harm.pdf

The graph of Rt by country by intervention is interesting - it overuses blue but the blue points that are low down are actually Greece.

Looking at that and cross referencing with the Imperial data  it seemed that most European countries started with Rt of around 3.8-4.5  experimented with lots of things which got it down to around 2.5- 3.0 and then went for full lockdown which got it  down below 1- typically around 0.7.

But there are some outliers

Belgium started at 6.8 and with full lockdown are above 1 still.  

Greece started at 1.8 and almost got it down to just above 1 without a lockdown and now seem to be at 0.3 with a lockdown.

Why do Greeks pass the virus between themselves at such an astonishingly low rate?  and why is Belgium so different?

 

 

I'm sure there are many factors affecting the R value, but I'm betting that they don't know the true value yet due to lack of accurate data.  It's still early and a lot more testing remains to be done.

I read another article yesterday about a study done in Los Angeles involving antibody testing.  It turns out that 40 times more people were infected with Covid-19 than previously thought, meaning that the death rate is much lower.

There is another report of mass testing done in an Ohio state prison.  It turns out that 73% of the inmates tested positive for Covid-19, and most were asymptomatic, and there have been no deaths.

These are just a couple of several reports indicating that Covid-19 is far less deadly than previously assumed, with the exception of the very old and those with underlying health problems.

Dave

 

50 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

I read another article yesterday about a study done in Los Angeles involving antibody testing.  It turns out that 40 times more people were infected with Covid-19 than previously thought, meaning that the death rate is much lower.

There are big problems with that Stanford study, though - consensus seems to be that the recruiting method, the study sample, the way the population was grouped by age, and the overall data analysis all create big biases  Lots of commentary about it - here's an academic run-through: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-flaws-in-stanford-study-of-coronavirus-prevalence/

EDIT: And here's another take: https://abetterscientist.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/why-i-dont-believe-that-2-5-4-of-people-in-santa-clara-county-have-had-covid19/

EDIT 2: I haven't looked at the Ohio prison study - will try to track it down.  But this caution (from the first link above about the Stanford study) might apply:

Quote

2. They adjusted for test inaccuracy. This is a well-known probability problem—with a rare disease and an imperfect test, you can easily end up with most of your positive test results being false positives. The error rates of the test is the key input to this calculation.

I do agree that overall, a lot of inconsistent data is being collected and reported, and that makes it really hard to understand what's going on.

Edited April 21, 20206 yr by Alan_A

The curious part of me doesn't wish to fully accept what mainstream media is putting out, most of it can be good and useful, but some of it may be down to the media bosses pulling the strings... yes?

A while ago I expressed the desire that the world needs to make sure that this virus has been properly isolated in order to fully combat it.

This Dr. Kaufman poses some interesting theories in that regard. I'm not a virologist by any means, but his explanations seemed to make sense.

 

Ya know, I hear you guys bantering back and forth about this study and that study and we should do this and we should do that I have to ask the question are you guys experts in the field?  Or do you select the study that sounds best and go with it?

In the United States this thing has become so politicized I don't know what or who to believe.  Politicians?   The Media?  You guys on the forum?

I was supposed to have an appointment with my cardiologist tomorrow but I was notified he would call me on the phone instead.  He a heart doctor for Crisake!  How can he listen to my heart over the phone?  Not that there's anything wrong with it, but what's the point?  "Hello Noel, this is Doctor Adahar.  How does your heart feel"  "OK I guess.  I haven't had a heart attack."  "Any problems like a heart murmur or anything like that?"  "How the blazes would I know?"  "Well, hang in there Noel.  I'll call again next month."

And just this morning I heard dentists are only talking in emergency surgeries.  So, as someone asked a few posts ago, are dentists going to make phone calls?  "Hello Mrs Smith.  This is your dentist.  How's that molar in your lower right jaw?"  "It still aches doctor."  "Well, go the pharmacy and get a bottle of clove oil.  Apply it with a Q-Tip.  I'll call again next month.  Bye."

I've been letting my wife do all the shopping up to now. It's a hobby with her.  I haven't been out of the house in over a week so if I catch the dreaded COVID-19 it will be from kissing her goodnight.

I'm about to throw caution to the wind and resume my normal life and roll the dice.

Noel

15 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

The curious part of me doesn't wish to fully accept what mainstream media is putting out, most of it can be good and useful, but some of it may be down to the media bosses pulling the strings... yes?

"NBC" News = Nothing But Corona. 

I cannot even stand to watch it anymore....so totally over-dramatized.  

8 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Well, hang in there Noel.  I'll call again next month

Understood.  We have our niece living here, awaiting to start grad school in SoCal (hoepfully) in Sept.  But she also works in healthcare, and ALL of their appointments are now 'virtual'.   And yea, I need to see the dentist.  So, we'd better get used to this 'new norm' at least for now.  

stay safe & sane, 

JB

That will likely only serve to prolong the length of the shutdowns and drive the stock market lower as people like you ignore the restrictions and go out to catch the disease for yourself and spread it to others, keeping the disease stats up.

5 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Ya know, I hear you guys bantering back and forth about this study and that study and we should do this and we should do that I have to ask the question are you guys experts in the field?  Or do you select the study that sounds best and go with it?

Good question - always worth asking.  In my case - masters degree in health policy with training in statistics; 40-plus years as a writer, with 30 of them spent in corporate communications, working with technical material including journal articles and translating them for the media and other general audiences, and designing and reporting on surveys; a decade of that time working with hospitals and pharamecutical/biotech companies, mostly on HIV/AIDS programs.  I've since worked with other industries including tech and professional services, but I still keep a hand in - did some recent work with a LASIK trade association (again working with peer-review studies) and, as you've seen, with consulting firms that want to comment on healthcare issues including covid.

I'm not an academic - I've been trained to be an informed consumer of statistics.  Others here are more qualified - I defer to @MartinRex007, who's a retired research epidemiologist, which means he designed and fielded his own research.

But when somebody cites a study, I'm able to read the original, read the commentary from other researchers, and come to an informed conclusion.

I'd love it if the Stanford study was accurate, because it'd mean that covid was much less threatening than we'd thought and we could start pulling off restrictions.  But there's so much blowback from authoritative people, and the objections are so well reasoned, that unfortunately it really doesn't look like it tests out.

36 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

The curious part of me doesn't wish to fully accept what mainstream media is putting out, most of it can be good and useful, but some of it may be down to the media bosses pulling the strings... yes?

A while ago I expressed the desire that the world needs to make sure that this virus has been properly isolated in order to fully combat it.

This Dr. Kaufman poses some interesting theories in that regard. I'm not a virologist by any means, but his explanations seemed to make sense.

Andrew Kaufman is not a virologist - he's a psychiatrist.  He's also a conspiracy theory wingnut.  Please read this critique from Jonathan Jarry at the McGill Office of Science and Society.  And please don't link to Kaufman or help him find a bigger audience for this idiocy.

I remember vividly a conversation I had decades ago with Dr. Marcus Conant, who at the time (early 1990s) ran the biggest HIV practice in the country, in San Francisco, with 3000 active patients at any one time.  He was talking about the very intelligent, self-informed patients who'd come to him wanting to try this or that treatment that they'd heard about.  "And what I tell them is - that's fine.  Bring me the peer-reviewed studies about it, and then we'll think about it.  Because that's how we do science." Kaufman doesn't pass that test.

About media - agreed that their reporting on science can be inaccurate or sensationalized.  It's always a good idea to look at the original study being reported (they're generally available online and the summary/abstract is usually pretty readable even if the paper isn't).  You might find that the headline "New Study Reports Compound X Might Cure Disease Y" covers a study where the researchers said "Compound X found these results involving a protein that's active in Disease Y in an animal model; the results are suggestive and further study is warranted."  Not really the same thing.  Media want to get to a big conclusion and researchers mostly don't, so there's a natural tension.

On the other hand - there are many, many very responsible science and medicine reporters out there, who have good training and take their jobs seriously.  Several times in the past couple of years, I've been able to work with them to get stories changes, or even killed, by presenting my client's studies and demonstrating what's wrong in somebody else's.

And on the third hand - there are also researchers who have biases, or who want to rush to conclusions and therefore do sloppy work.  The Stanford study seems to be an instance of at least one of these.

The important thing is not to be categorical - e.g. media is bad, researchers are good - but to read the commentary and know your sources.

Shorter version of the above - read/listen to Laurie Garrett every chance you get and listen to what she says.  Best science/medicine writer out there.  Back in my HIV days, I supervised staff who had to call her on the phone and try to persuade her to cover this or that thing that a company wanted attention for.  And they were uniformly terrified, with cause.  It wasn't that she was a mean person - it's just that she knew her stuff and demanded that you know yours, and absolutely would not tolerate any BS. 

Good training for what we're in.

She's active on Twitter and cable/broadcast TV.  Track her down.

Allan, I've been skipping these reports here because they are all Greek to me.  Like this SteveFX thing:

The graph of Rt by country by intervention is interesting - it overuses blue but the blue points that are low down are actually Greece.

Looking at that and cross referencing with the Imperial data  it seemed that most European countries started with Rt of around 3.8-4.5  experimented with lots of things which got it down to around 2.5- 3.0 and then went for full lockdown which got it  down below 1- typically around 0.7.

But there are some outliers

Belgium started at 6.8 and with full lockdown are above 1 still.  

Greece started at 1.8 and almost got it down to just above 1 without a lockdown and now seem to be at 0.3 with a lockdown.

As a layman I have no idea what that means.  Kinda like me talking about the weather here and saying, "The Jetmax coming down the trough over Colprado on the 500 millibar chart indicates it will dig deeper and miss Denver and drive the storm to Albuquerque," instead of saying, "It will clear and cold in Denver tomorrow and the snow storm will hit the Albuquerque area."

Of course I may be all wet here and I'm the only one that doesn't know what all that means.  But I remain terribly confused.

And Kevin AU in a county that spreads over 6,000 square miles with a population of 61,000 and 21 cases how man people am I going to contaminate?  And how likely is it I will catch the virus?  Now if 2 or 3% instead of 0.03% of the people in my area had it I would be concerned.  But until that happens I will ignore the Chicken Littles.

Noel