Do we Cancel Everything? You still Travelling??

[sightseer 895]

@dave2013  What is overly harsh or restrictive about Alabama's approach to this epidemic?  I just don't see it.  You yourself said you favored a slower reopening as opposed to "full on open everything up now" approach and thats exactly what I see happening.  You cant have it both ways.

[dave2013 1,131]

24 minutes ago, sightseer said:

@dave2013  What is overly harsh or restrictive about Alabama's approach to this epidemic?  I just don't see it.  You yourself said you favored a slower reopening as opposed to "full on open everything up now" approach and thats exactly what I see happening.  You cant have it both ways.

The govt. forcing businesses to close for months, restricting the free movement of people, and cancelling many medical procedures in hospitals to make room for Covid-19 patients, are indeed harsh and restrictive, albeit necessary in some circumstances.

The questions I have are:

1. Just how deadly is Covid-19 for the vast majority of the population?  This is the big one because it would determine what the correct response to it should be.

2. Was the response correct, i.e. were the shut downs and restrictions on movement, which have seriously damaged the economy, really necessary for the majority of areas in the country?  I concede that in NYC and other high population density areas, typically large cities, they were likely necessary to prevent overwhelming the hospitals.

3. If indeed Covid-19 is deadly enough to warrant the current response, the how long should the shutdowns and lockdowns be maintained? 

4. What economic price should we pay to save, for example, 100,000 people, 200,000, 500,000?  A difficult one to answer, but answer it we must.

Only time will tell, but based on a number of reports, studies, and opinions I personally believe that the Covid-19 threat has been exaggerated, mainly by the media, but others as well who have an agenda that I can't discuss here.

Dave

Edited May 3, 2020 by dave2013

[sightseer 895]

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

2. Was the response correct, i.e. were the shut downs and restrictions on movement, which have seriously damaged the economy, really necessary for the majority of areas in the country?  I concede that in NYC and other high population density areas, typically large cities, they were likely necessary to prevent overwhelming the hospitals.

 

You dont think the virus played any role in shutting things down?  You think that but for the shutdowns (for safety reasons) everything would be fine?

 

Let me add to this an analogy --  A hurricane forms in the gulf.  its headed right straight for Pensacola.  The govt tell everybody to get out for their own safety.  People flee to safer locations.  The hurricane comes ashore and does massive damage to businesses.  You claim that economic losses were the governments fault for telling people to leave?

We can see hurricanes coming and we're familiar with what they do.  This virus is still an enigma and we erred on the side of caution and rightfully so imo.

also:  the DOW hit its high on Feb 19 2020(actually Feb 12 29,551) and fell from there.  Alabamas stay at home order didnt occur until April 3 2020.  I dont know what other locations have done but safety measures in this country did not start an economic turndown.

Edited May 3, 2020 by sightseer

[MartinRex007 390]

For those of you who like numbers the Coronavirus Resource Center at John Hopkins just release a US map by county. Click on any county and a pop-up screen comes up with a lot of additional information. 

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

Martin

 

[Alan_A 1,650]

And now, today's edition of "numbers that make the conversation more complicated than we thought it was or that we'd like it to be."

In an article that appeared a couple of days ago in Scientific American, Dr. Jeremy Faust of Brigham and Women's hospital argues that comparisons of flu deaths to covid deaths don't work because the numbers aren't comparable - they're apples and oranges. 

The problem is that the CDC's flu mortality figures are adjusted sharply upwards to account for cases that went undiagnosed or untested.  Covid mortality figures, whether from the CDC or other source like Johns Hopkins, are based on actual confirmed cases.

Faust argues that it's reasonable of the CDC to adjust the flu mortality figures to capture cases where there was no test.  But he notes that the adjustment they're making results in a figure of estimated deaths that's on average six times greater than the figure for confirmed flu deaths.  He suggests the CDC's methodology might need a second look - for example, it includes pneumonia deaths in the flu mortality figure.

The bigger point is that flu deaths are adjusted whereas covid deaths aren't.  To compare apples to apples, you'd either have to eliminate the flu estimates and just count confirmed cases - which would result in a sharply lower flu-death figure - or add unconfirmed cases to the count of covid deaths (perhaps by factoring in excess deaths, as two research teams are currently doing), resulting in a sharply higher covid-death figure.

Faust is an extremely interesting thinker.  He's the person who, in early March, did a population study of infections and deaths on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, arguing that it was as close as you could get to a closed population, and reported a sharply lower case-fatality rate than was estimated at the time.  You can find that article at this link - but do make sure to look at the note at the top of the page adjusting recommendations about precautions to account for more recent findings.

An article in yesterday's Washington Post expands on Faust's report about flu vs. covid mortality statistics. It includes some helpful comparison graphs and some illustrations of how the math works (e.g. the CDC's methodology turns a 2018-2019 total of 7,152 confirmed flu deaths into an estimated range of 26,330 - 52,664 flu deaths during that period). And...

 

Quote

 

Using an apples-to-apples comparison, we can say that the coronavirus and the disease it causes, covid-19, have already killed eight times as many people as the flu. By the time we get data for the entire season, the difference appears likely to be at least tenfold, or a full order of magnitude.

The coronavirus, Faust writes, “is not anything like the flu: It is much, much worse.”

 

The article also includes this passage, which is relevant to our conversation about how to read and interpret conflicting statistics:

 

Quote

 

People encountering that uncertainty for the first time, as many of us are during this pandemic, are likely to react in one of two ways. Some cherry-pick a single number that comports with their biases, creating an artificial certainty to score political points or avoid upsetting their preconceptions. That’s what the politicians and talking heads using faulty flu data to downplay the outbreak are doing. Others throw their hands up and declare the truth to be unknowable, indulging in the cynicism that believes you can “make statistics say whatever you want.”

But rather than try to make sense of this uncertainty ourselves, there’s a third option: turning to the experts who’ve devoted their entire careers to these questions. We can listen to the epidemiologists and physicians, people like Faust and his colleagues, who are trained to draw the best possible conclusions out of uncertain data, understanding that those conclusions may have to be updated as new information comes in.

And while the experts might not all agree on some points, something like a critical consensus emerges if we listen to enough of them. Then, that consensus can be used to inform policy that helps save lives and protect the economy.

 

As always, hope this is helpful.

[SteveFx 258]

1 hour ago, Alan_A said:

He's the person who, in early March, did a population study of infections and deaths on the Diamond Princess cruise ship,

Have you noticed that deaths on the Diamond Princess are still going up - its  up to 14 now 

[Alan_A 1,650]

22 minutes ago, SteveFx said:

Have you noticed that deaths on the Diamond Princess are still going up - its  up to 14 now 

Right - all the more reason to be cautious about those findings.  But I don't think he ever meant them to be definitive.  At the time (early March), there wasn't much data, and case fatality estimates were ranging everywhere from 0.1 (the seasonal flu level) to 5 or more, and there were differences among populations.  He used the ship's complement to model a closed population - but it was really back-of-the-envelope stuff.  Even then, he got a figure of 0.8, or eight times seasonal flu.  Of course that'd have to shift upward now.

His critique of the flu-vs.-covid death figures seems pretty solid and well-reasoned. 

[W2DR 1,860]

Thank you Alan...............

[dave2013 1,131]

5 hours ago, sightseer said:

You dont think the virus played any role in shutting things down?  You think that but for the shutdowns (for safety reasons) everything would be fine?

 

Let me add to this an analogy --  A hurricane forms in the gulf.  its headed right straight for Pensacola.  The govt tell everybody to get out for their own safety.  People flee to safer locations.  The hurricane comes ashore and does massive damage to businesses.  You claim that economic losses were the governments fault for telling people to leave?

We can see hurricanes coming and we're familiar with what they do.  This virus is still an enigma and we erred on the side of caution and rightfully so imo.

also:  the DOW hit its high on Feb 19 2020(actually Feb 12 29,551) and fell from there.  Alabamas stay at home order didnt occur until April 3 2020.  I dont know what other locations have done but safety measures in this country did not start an economic turndown.

When I speak of the shutdowns and lockdowns, I'm also including those that voluntarily stay home and choose not to engage in economic activity except for necessities.  Of course, govt. ordered shutdowns make the situation even worse.

When people believe that their lives are in danger their natural inclination is to hunker down, stock up on necessities, and conserve their resources, which includes their money.  This behavior, coupled with govt. imposed restrictions, damages the economy.  The longer this behavior continues, the worse the damage becomes and the longer it will take to recover.

If the media started reporting that the U.S. has been invaded by a powerful nation, or even that we have just declared war on that nation without an invasion, for example, a similar thing would happen.

I believe that the severity and danger of Covid-19 has been overblown, resulting in fear and overreaction.  The media is primarily responsible for this, as well as others who, again, I cannot mention here due to the rules.  They breathlessly report the growing number of cases and deaths daily, and show infection maps with big red dots like many have seen in movies about contagions and outbreaks, and this only serves to scare people.  They also fail to report that the vast majority of people that die from Covid-19 are over 65 years of age and/or have other underlying health problems.  There is also no accompanying comparison to other diseases which thousands of people in this country contract and die from every single year.  Here are some examples for the U.S.:

**Deaths in 2017, data from CDC**

Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,000

Septicemia: 41,000

HIV: 5,700

Viral Hepatitis: 5,600

Enterocolitis caused by bacteria: 5,600

Accidents: 170,000

I only include deaths from diseases caused by viruses and bacteria.  I include accidents because they can be caused by other people and risky behavior, like driving a car, so if you don't want to be one of those 170,000 then you should stay home to greatly reduce the chance of that happening.

I also didn't include things like Lyme Disease, which can and does cause serious neurological damage.  There are 30,000 reported cases in the U.S. each year, but the CDC estimates that there are about 300,000 actual cases.

This is my opinion right now.  As we learn more, my opinion could certainly change.

Dave

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by dave2013

[MartinRex007 390]

2 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I also didn't include things like Lyme Disease, which can and does cause serious neurological damage.

Only if it's not treated, most cases of Lyme disease can be treated successfully with a few weeks of antibiotics and usually there is no sequela. If only COVID-19 was that easy to treat, we wouldn't all be here. 

To your original point, yes the media does sensationalize their stories, but for the most part they are just reporting what is happening in the field. Remember, the world has not seen a pandemic like this since 1918, and currently the world has lost almost 250,000 and that is with the world working collectively to mitigate this outbreak, and I suspect before this is over that number will be in the millions.

Natural immunity is not something you can count on, first the verdict is still out regarding how well the average person developes immunity to this virus, and you would need upwards of 90% of the population to be immune. Also you have 83 million people joining the world population every year, and they would also need to become infected in order to maintain a 90% herd immunity. So right now our hope is with a vaccine or some kind of therapeutic, but in the mean time with smart phasing in of the world economy and maintaining social distances and wearing masks, might just buy science enough time to make a vaccine happen.

But a word of caution, there is no guarantee that a vaccine will be developed, some viruses because of their ability to mutate it becomes almost impossible to have an effective vaccine. One only has to look at the HIV virus, after 40 years there is no vaccine because this virus can mutate so rapidly. The SARS-CoV-2 virus seems to be more stable so I'm hopeful a vaccine will be available within a few years if not sooner.   

Martin

Edited May 4, 2020 by MartinRex007

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

They also fail to report that the vast majority of people that die from Covid-19 are over 65 years of age and/or have other underlying health problems. 

 

How exactly does that statistic (which is actually well reported, how else would we all know about it)  change the discussion?

Full disclosure: I am 74.

[dave2013 1,131]

19 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

How exactly does that statistic (which is actually well reported, how else would we all know about it)  change the discussion?

Full disclosure: I am 74.

Because 1)only 16% of the population is over 65, and 2)the elderly are already more susceptible to many ailments and diseases simply by virtue of their age, so if an 80 year old dies from Covid-19 it is not as shocking or worrisome as a 40 year old dying from the same thing.

These facts are in no way meant to diminish the value of the lives of the elderly.

My mother is your age and I have pleaded with her to be careful and take all necessary precautions.

Dave

Edited May 4, 2020 by dave2013

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

8 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Because 1)only 16% of the population is over 65, and 2)the elderly are already more susceptible to many ailments and diseases simply by virtue of their age, so if an 80 year old dies from Covid-19 it is not as shocking or worrisome as a 40 year old dying from the same thing.

These facts are in no way meant to diminish the value of the lives of the elderly.

My mother is your age and I have pleaded with her to be careful and take all necessary precautions.

Dave

I assure you that to the "16%" which includes your mother, these statistics are actually more worrisome, not less.  Maybe time to change the subject..

[Alan_A 1,650]

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

There is also no accompanying comparison to other diseases which thousands of people in this country contract and die from every single year.  Here are some examples for the U.S.:

**Deaths in 2017, data from CDC**

Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,000

I do recommend you have a look back at my previous post, about the reasons the flu and covid death figures aren't comparable.

[Alan_A 1,650]

On the risks to the elderly, and the notion (whether implied or stated, that they have lots of health problems and/or have one foot out the door under any circumstances...
 

Quote

...most old people are not dying. Not only are the “old” getting older, but the risk of death in the next year for a 70-year-old man is just 2 percent, and an 80-year-old woman has only a 4 percent likelihood of dying in the coming year, according to the Stanford economist John Shoven. Comments such as “They’re on their way out anyway” are therefore more than colossally insensitive; they’re also colossally inaccurate.

That's from a letter to the New York Times that's worth a look.

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Alan_A