7 minutes ago, Nedo68 said:

I think low population numbers gives you a litte bit more time, but at some point that time runs out and we still have no vaccine,

To be clear, I don't live in Saskatchewan. Just posted as a reference for regions re-opening and their plans to do so.

re UK and Sweden:

is it not true that the UK was slow to implement a lockdown ?

and we have no idea how many Swedes self quarantine -- especially after seeing many of their country-folk die.

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by sightseer

4 minutes ago, goates said:

To be clear, I don't live in Saskatchewan. Just posted as a reference for regions re-opening and their plans to do so.

goates same here 😉 i live in germany an they allready started re-opening and we are at R 0.7 

yes i have fear it will grow up over 1 again, our economy would not be able to cope so well with a second slump.

 

Allan, here is a list of the worst states for flue morbidity for 2017

Another way of looking at which states are worst is to consider deaths due to flu or pneumonia, which the CDC lumps together. Here is the list from the CDC for the calendar year 2017—the most recent available—revealing the worst states (based on deaths per 100,000 people):

• Hawaii (29.6)

• Mississippi (23.0)

• Tennessee (21.3)

• Alabama (20.2)

• Arkansas (19.8)

• Nevada (19.6)

• South Dakota (19.0)

• West Virginia (18.2)

• Kentucky (18.1)

• New York (17.7)

Nevada seems to be an outlier here.  But ther est are higher humiity states.

It would seem to me that exhaling a germ or virus that needs moisture to survive would dry out faster in low humidity than high humidity. 

Noel

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by birdguy

11 minutes ago, sightseer said:

re UK and Sweden:

is it not true that the UK was slow to implement a lockdown ?

and we have no idea how many Swedes self quarantine -- especially after seeing many of their country-folk die.

When I look at the chart of Sweden versus the UK, I don't see it saying that Sweden did all that well, I see it saying that the UK did very poorly.

20 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Yes, I've also read reports that many deaths are being attributed to Covid-19 when they were actually caused by something else.  If this graph is accurate, then clearly the number of non-Covid-19 deaths would not miraculously be cut by 60% for the same time period year over year.

I'm still having trouble tracking down the source for that New York graph.  It seems to be a compilation that somebody did based on CDC data and New York Times coverage, but it's hard to know what the inputs were.  I'm still digging.  It doesn't make sense to me that you'd get that huge a reduction in deaths from other causes.  I'd like to figure out how the classification is working here.

The New York Times article itself reports on a reclassification - that was the day the state started counting covid deaths based on clinical signs even in the absence of a test.  The reason was to address the shortfall in testing at that time and also capture the large number of people dying at home without a diagnosis - which had led to undercounts when only test-confirmed cases were being recognized.

The "deaths attributed to covid when they were actually caused by something else" has its adherents, but it's something I disagree with for reasons I described in this post.

There's so much inconsistency in reporting that I'm trying to be cautious about drawing conclusions.

@Alan_A -  what about the data from the hospital ship?  didnt they start taking all non covid19 cases?  is that included in what you have found?

P.S.: I know nothing about this stuff.  Im glad you and others are here to help straighten things out.  I only know Im EXTREMELY susceptible to respiratory illnesses and not in the mood to die this year. 🙂 

9 minutes ago, birdguy said:

a germ or virus that needs moisture to survive would dry out faster in low humidity than high humidity

Different kind of moisture, though, and a different set of factors.  The virus does best in tissue - mucus membranes, deep in lungs, that kind of thing.  It's a lot more fragile in air, no matter how humid - that's not the kind of humidity it's looking for.  The issue with dry air is simply that it keeps the particles flying around longer, whereas high humidity washes them out.  It's the same as pollen - a dry windy day is a bad allergy day, a rainy day is much better because the pollen settles out.

The challenge with the flu figures is that it's hard to isolate a single factor - temperature and humidity factor in along with demographics, behavior, travel patterns, etc.  A lot of those states have an older population, so that might be the dominant factor.  Or more likely it's an interplay.  Epidemiology - actually all of medicine - is really messy, with lots of causes blurring into each other. Physicists and mathematicians hate it.  That's why.

Just now, sightseer said:

what about the data from the hospital ship?

There were so few cases on the hospital ship - and just a couple of them were covid - that I don't think it made a difference.  Initially they were using it for non-covid cases, to relieve pressure on the hospitals, so it didn't really get any traction.

The main thing was adding the cases with probably covid but no lab test.  It makes the reporting more accurate in the long run but it creates weird day-to-day spikes.  Something similar happened in Wuhan, and there was a one-day spike in Belgium that I was looking at the other day.  It's almost always an artifact like that.

There was an interesting population study done early on with the people who were quarantined on the Diamond Princess.  In that one they were trying to figure out the case infection rate.  But I don't think that one had much of an impact on the overall counts - or if it did, it doesn't anymore because those numbers get lost in the overall count.

With you on not wanting to die just yet - I'd hate to miss out on MSFS.  Which is why I spent an hour disinfecting groceries today... 😎

 

1 minute ago, Alan_A said:

With you on not wanting to die just yet - I'd hate to miss out on MSFS.  Which is why I spent an hour disinfecting groceries today...

Hope you got your masks!

3 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Hope you got your masks!

They were delivered but I have to go back downstairs to recover them.  They hadn't yet gotten here when I picked up the grocery order, and I won't go back downstairs 'til after midnight - my way of avoiding my neighbors.  The guy on the night lobby shift thinks I'm a little strange - but he's getting used to me...

10 minutes ago, Alan_A said:

With you on not wanting to die just yet - I'd hate to miss out on MSFS.  Which is why I spent an hour disinfecting groceries today... 😎

 

Asobo can you give him my MSFS account, it would be ok for me! All his scientific information he serve us for free on a plate its worth it!

34 minutes ago, Alan_A said:

I'm still having trouble tracking down the source for that New York graph.  It seems to be a compilation that somebody did based on CDC data and New York Times coverage, but it's hard to know what the inputs were.  I'm still digging.  It doesn't make sense to me that you'd get that huge a reduction in deaths from other causes.  I'd like to figure out how the classification is working here.

Sure it does. You get a whole lot less accidents, homicides and etc. when everybody is supposed to be sitting on a couch at home.

20 minutes ago, Nedo68 said:

Asobo can you give him my MSFS account, it would be ok for me! All his scientific information he serve us for free on a plate its worth it!

Thanks!  But I'm actually already in the alpha.  Which is as much as I can say about that except... I really want to see the release!

12 minutes ago, KevinAu said:

Sure it does. You get a whole lot less accidents, homicides and etc. when everybody is supposed to be sitting on a couch at home.

Excellent point.  Street crime is down, highway traffic is down.

It's such an interesting finding that I hope somebody went to the trouble of doing that breakdown and it's out there somewhere.