COVID19 predictions

[charby]

Not without random-sample antibody testing, no.  Which we are not yet doing in significant enough numbers.  They typically retrospectively estimate it after the fact, but not in the moment.
No, it is is not.

So you're modeling without antibody tests?

They are not testing a random sample of people.  If they were that would be different.  They are testing people with sufficiently serious symptoms to warrant it, and people with exposure to people with serious symptoms.  Even then those tests are being rationed.

They are in Iowa at the packing plants, they are testing everyone in the plant, symptoms or not.

[cordex]

So you're modeling without antibody tests?

Sorry, which of my models are you referring to?

I've seen some results of early antibody testing.  Sweden is doing quite a few and I think we had results from an early test in New York posted here.  Those (severely underpowered as of now) tests implied a massively higher infection rate than other tests show.  According to those antibody tests I think Stockholm was nearing 30% historical infection last week and they were thinking that they'd have herd immunity for that city relatively soon.  Still, I think it is too early to use such early results for anything important.

They are in Iowa at the packing plants, they are testing everyone in the plant, symptoms or not.

Cool.  So what are the results of that random sample testing compared to the death rates within that cohort?

[bedlamite]

According to these links, 29% of us believe "they" are withholding a cure for Covid-19, and the same percentage believe in Bigfoot. Wonder if it's the same people?

So you're saying Bigfoot has the cure. Interesting.

[charby]

Sorry, which of my models are you referring to?

I've seen some results of early antibody testing.  Sweden is doing quite a few and I think we had results from an early test in New York posted here.  Those (severely underpowered as of now) tests implied a massively higher infection rate than other tests show.  According to those antibody tests I think Stockholm was nearing 30% historical infection last week and they were thinking that they'd have herd immunity for that city relatively soon.  Still, I think it is too early to use such early results for anything important.

I was making a joke that you were modeling.

Cool.  So what are the results of that random sample testing compared to the death rates within that cohort?

First round of wide scale testing started on April 20 IIRC correctly, 250 National Guard Solders were sent to packing plants in Iowa that had at least a 10% absentee of employees from illness. Most of these plants were shut down and now are opening back up with limited production.

Numbers were released recently (yesterday) from the testing results. News has said that all employees in these plants have been tested. Iowa hasn't peaked yet either. Iowa isn't releasing death numbers from these plants but they will for the counties the plants are located in with some age/sex demographics.

Perry, IA pork kill 58% of employees tested were positive (730 workers positive)
Waterloo, IA pork kill 17% of employees tested (444 workers positive)
Columbus Junction, IA pork kill 26% of employees tested (221 workers positive)
Tama, IA Beef kill 39% of employees tested (258 workers positive)

Perry isn't far from Des Moines, so those workers are probably shopping in Iowa's largest metro area.
Waterloo, IA is in a group of towns of a couple hundred thousand people.

Other two towns are somewhat rural, but people still travel to bigger cities for wal-mart and such.

Also a wind blade turbine plant in Newton, IA is our latest outbreak in Iowa, those job pay a lot more than packing plants. 17% of employees tested (131 workers positive)

Road construction and roofing jobs will be starting up soon, so some of the workers at the packing plants will be going to those jobs, spreading disease to other groups of people.

[makattak]

Road construction and roofing jobs will be starting up soon, so some of the workers at the packing plants will be going to those jobs, spreading disease to other groups of people.

Good. Let's get some healthy, strong people working outdoors in the sun to be exposed to this virus. Seems a very low cost (in terms of lives lost) way to move towards herd immunity.

[Ron]

Road construction never stopped around here.

My buddy is on a high-rise construction project in downtown Chicago. He is working more hours as the project is getting done faster.

[Ron]

I was making a joke that you were modeling.

First round of wide scale testing started on April 20 IIRC correctly, 250 National Guard Solders were sent to packing plants in Iowa that had at least a 10% absentee of employees from illness. Most of these plants were shut down and now are opening back up with limited production.

Numbers were released recently (yesterday) from the testing results. News has said that all employees in these plants have been tested. Iowa hasn't peaked yet either. Iowa isn't releasing death numbers from these plants but they will for the counties the plants are located in with some age/sex demographics.

Perry, IA pork kill 58% of employees tested were positive (730 workers positive)
Waterloo, IA pork kill 17% of employees tested (444 workers positive)
Columbus Junction, IA pork kill 26% of employees tested (221 workers positive)
Tama, IA Beef kill 39% of employees tested (258 workers positive)

Perry isn't far from Des Moines, so those workers are probably shopping in Iowa's largest metro area.
Waterloo, IA is in a group of towns of a couple hundred thousand people.

Other two towns are somewhat rural, but people still travel to bigger cities for wal-mart and such.

Also a wind blade turbine plant in Newton, IA is our latest outbreak in Iowa, those job pay a lot more than packing plants. 17% of employees tested (131 workers positive)

Road construction and roofing jobs will be starting up soon, so some of the workers at the packing plants will be going to those jobs, spreading disease to other groups of people.

It would be interesting to see the demographics of those infected.

Sorry if I missed it, any fatalities unofficially reported? Once again demographics as well as comorbitities are as important as reported numbers to get an accurate view.

 

[charby]

Good. Let's get some healthy, strong people working outdoors in the sun to be exposed to this virus. Seems a very low cost (in terms of lives lost) way to move towards herd immunity.

More like spread the infection to other communities and pick up the infection from other communities, they got to eat and sleep somewhere. Not like every town has a asphalt paving crew that services a small area. Sun doesn't shine inside your body or the portable toilets.

[makattak]

Incidentally, THIS is what we should have done:

From the quote, he said they were willing to take a risk and NOT shut down the entire economy.

That's a far cry from, "Let's kill off Grandma!" It's a measured risk that can be rationally disagreed about. Those elderly can much more easily, with much smaller disruptions, self-quarantine. Few of them have jobs and have to go out.

If they're really concerned, the state/city/county/neighbors/etc... can provide delivery services to the at risk population and allow them to self-quarantine more easily.

Back then we were expecting a two week shutdown, so shutting everything down seemed acceptable. Hard, but acceptable.

We're coming up on TWO MONTHS now. The vulnerable should have locked themselves away (with support from neighbors/friends/family/government to provide food/rent/etc... at a MUCH lower cost than our current spending) and most people should have gone to work as normal with extra care about not touching faces and possibly wearing masks. (Which, at that time we were told "WON'T WORK ANYWAY!")

Hindsight is 20/20, but no one is apparently even applying it to today. They are all acting like we have no idea what this virus will do when it is daily proving that it is not the plague that it was predicted to be.

[charby]

It would be interesting to see the demographics of those infected.

Sorry if I missed it, any fatalities unofficially reported? Once again demographics as well as comorbitities are as important as reported numbers to get an accurate view.

 

Iowa does have a running Covid-19 death count that is updated every morning, so it is at least 24 hours old and it is only what is reported by health care workers to public health, could have a lot of deaths that were Covid, but unknown because they didn't test the person, like pneumonia caused by Covid-19, etc. Just like people don't die from AIDS/HIV is something else they die from because their immune system was compromised by HIV/AIDS, hence death from complications due to HIV/AIDS. They don't break it down to exact age or preexisting conditions, just age ranges, sex and county of death. When this is all over with, you know there is going to be a gazillion medical journal articles on this, this pandemic is only a couple months old.

[RoadKingLarry]

I thought we were all supposed to be dead by now...

[charby]

I thought we were all supposed to be dead by now...

No just 2-3% of those who got infected.

[cordex]

Numbers were released recently (yesterday) from the testing results. News has said that all employees in these plants have been tested. Iowa hasn't peaked yet either. Iowa isn't releasing death numbers from these plants but they will for the counties the plants are located in with some age/sex demographics.

So for this group we've got infection numbers but not death numbers.  We know the denominator but not the numerator.  No better.

The point stands.  At the moment (and hopefully this will change) the death rates aren't based on good info.

[Perd Hapley]

As long as the subject of Covid hoaxers was raised, what does that even mean that people think it's a hoax? Unless people are actually suggesting the disease not exist, and the victims are all crisis actors, the "hoax" talk is just smearing people for being "deniers." Which there's been way too much of the past decade, thank you very much.

[makattak]

No just 2-3% of those who got infected.

What? Unless you believe the number of cases we have confirmed represents half of the actual cases (when we have strong evidence that a LOT of asymptomatic people have or have had the virus), there's no way you can think the death rate is 2-3%

That's worse than the Spanish Flu.

[charby]

What? Unless you believe the number of cases we have confirmed represents half of the actual cases (when we have strong evidence that a LOT of asymptomatic people have or have had the virus), there's no way you can think the death rate is 2-3%

That's worse than the Spanish Flu.

I repeated what was said when this pandemic first started.

[cordex]

It would be interesting to see the demographics of those infected.

Some states are releasing demo makeups.  I found a few here:
California: https://update.covid19.ca.gov/#top
Washington: https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/NovelCoronavirusOutbreak2020COVID19/DataDashboard
New Jersey: https://covid19.nj.gov/#live-updates
Massachusetts: https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-dashboard-may-5-2020/download
Illinois: https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19/covid19-statistics
Indiana: https://www.coronavirus.in.gov/2393.htm
Ohio: https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards

[charby]

So for this group we've got infection numbers but not death numbers.  We know the denominator but not the numerator.  No better.

The point stands.  At the moment (and hopefully this will change) the death rates aren't based on good info.

The death numbers will come out, it's only been a couple weeks since the packing plant outbreaks, not like people are dying a few days or week after becoming infected.

[charby]

What? Unless you believe the number of cases we have confirmed represents half of the actual cases (when we have strong evidence that a LOT of asymptomatic people have or have had the virus), there's no way you can think the death rate is 2-3%

That's worse than the Spanish Flu.

Estimated that 500 million people were infected with Spanish Flu, estimated that 50 million people dies from it, that is 10% of the infected that died.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html

[makattak]

Estimated that 500 million people were infected with Spanish Flu, estimated that 50 million people dies from it, that is 10% of the infected that died.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html

I had read that it was 2.5%. Looking for the numbers, it seems there is a wide range from 2% to 20% estimated.

Good to know we've got no idea about the flu's death rate, either.

[charby]

I had read that it was 2.5%. Looking for the numbers, it seems there is a wide range from 2% to 20% estimated.

Good to know we've got no idea about the flu's death rate, either.

Didn't have Facebook epidemiologists/lawyers/doctors/coaches/historians back in 1918 either. 

[DittoHead]

Good to know we've got no idea about the flu's death rate, either.

That's not just the numbers from long ago either. The deaths for recent years, that are so commonly used as comparison for Covid19, are "fake statistics" too.

The 25,000 to 69,000 numbers that Trump cited do not represent counted flu deaths per year; they are estimates that the CDC produces by multiplying the number of flu death counts reported by various coefficients produced through complicated algorithms. These coefficients are based on assumptions of how many cases, hospitalizations, and deaths they believe went unreported. In the last six flu seasons, the CDC’s reported number of actual confirmed flu deaths—that is, counting flu deaths the way we are currently counting deaths from the coronavirus—has ranged from 3,448 to 15,620, which far lower than the numbers commonly repeated by public officials and even public health experts.

[cordex]

The death numbers will come out, it's only been a couple weeks since the packing plant outbreaks, not like people are dying a few days or week after becoming infected.

Yes, I agree that at some point in the future we will have numbers that will be useful.

[charby]

A read if anyone cares too

https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/01/three-potential-futures-for-covid-19/

Also another link for Ron to yell Bullshit! at too.

[Ron]

A read if anyone cares too

https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/01/three-potential-futures-for-covid-19/

Also another link for Ron to yell Bullshit! at too.

The article is far less dogmatic than you or the fearmongers.

They actually give three divergent scenerios admitting they don't know.