COVID-19

[Zed Head]

Just saw Governor Cooper of North Carolina talking.  He has a good three word motto, don't know if it's his but it sums things up.  Testing, tracing and trends.

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Zed Head

[Zed Head]

I found a new site with cases and deaths plotted by state.  Motorman's world, maybe he can opine.  @motorman7 Worth following if they keep it updated.  It should show the effects of "re-opening' pretty clearly.

https://covid-19.mdmetrix.com/grid.html?list=death_curve

https://covid-19.mdmetrix.com/grid.html?list=new_case_curve

https://www.mdmetrix.com/covid-19-projections

[240260280]

My Grade 7 history teacher Bob Bhayat RIP.  A great man.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hussain-bhayat-1.5535190

[Pilgrim]

2 hours ago, 240260280 said:

My Grade 7 history teacher Bob Bhayat RIP.  A great man.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hussain-bhayat-1.5535190

Sorry to hear it. Teachers are special people. Sounds like a man who was greatly appreciated in his community.

[Pilgrim]

I like that chart from Roy Cooper. It makes sense and is a nice, easy to read piece.

An article in the NY Times today is anecdotal, but directs attention to obesity as an increasingly suspect factor in severe effects of CO-19:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/health/coronavirus-obesity-higher-risk.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_NN_p_20200417&instance_id=17720&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=98007743&section=topNews&segment_id=25374&te=1&user_id=24a82f8909cbcf7c9e1ba3e99a598f8d

[240260280]

The disease seems to cause clotting in the lungs.  The clotting also makes it hard for the heart to pump to the lungs as the "pipe is blocked" causing it to fail.

Doctors are now experimenting with anti-clotting drugs.

 

Stats also show that if you have underlying medical conditions like heart disease, diabetes, etc then the chance of survival diminishes.  If we assume an obese person has heart disease and/or hypertension, and/or diabetes then these compound and  contribute to lower survival rates.

 

 

 

[motorman7]

15 hours ago, Zed Head said:

Age is irrelevant when you consider asymptomatic spreading.  That's why the "re-opening" will be slow.  People will not be getting immediately sick to where they can be hauled away and separated from the herd. You could argue that the younger healthier people should be held back longest because they will be the most active asymptomatic spreaders.  They're the ones that will ignore the symptoms the longest and be most likely to forego the face coverings.  Most likely to stay out late, party, drink, forget that there's a pandemic going on, or just atop caring.

Yes, I guess that is another way of approaching it.  There are a lot of options here and a lot of factors that come into play.

My thought with 'releasing' the younger people out first was that as a city, local group, or state we could develop a herd immunity starting with the young people who are less susceptible to the virus.  Then, slowly introduce us older folks.  The asymptomatic part does not bother me, in fact I think it is great (other than the fact that you could carelessly spread it to those with compromised immunity).  If we could all be exposed to the virus and have no symptoms, that would be an incredible thing.  It is immunity essentially.  However, such is not the case, and the whole issue is far more complex than that.  Off hand, I think I would still feel comfortable releasing the under 40 crowd first.  The over 40 crowd is much more challenging.  Also, 40 is not necessarily my line in the sand for cut-off.  I would need a lot more data to determine what would be the ideal age as a cut-off.  I am just throwing that out as a reference.  From a data standpoint, I would pick the age where the 'death by age group' starts to accelerate or increase in slope.

 

13 hours ago, Zed Head said:

I found a new site with cases and deaths plotted by state.  Motorman's world, maybe he can opine.  @motorman7 Worth following if they keep it updated.  It should show the effects of "re-opening' pretty clearly.

https://covid-19.mdmetrix.com/grid.html?list=death_curve

https://covid-19.mdmetrix.com/grid.html?list=new_case_curve

https://www.mdmetrix.com/covid-19-projections

Nice charts and great for a quick read.  Also, good explanation as to how to read them.  As they have noted, we want the data points to be to the right of the red curve and ideally to the right of the lower dotted blue line.

 

[Zed Head]

Total death projection is down to 60,000 again.  April 17 update.  That's a good sign.  It had gone up to 68,000.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

[motorman7]

11 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

Total death projection is down to 60,000 again.  April 17 update.  That's a good sign.  It had gone up to 68,000.

Yes, good to see that taper off.  

Here is the latest Daily US Covid deaths chart.  I added a 'polynomial' averaging indicator to show the trajectory.  As time progresses, this should look more like a bell.

I noticed New York re-adjusted their numbers again, more in line with the original earlier numbers.  That 'smooths' the curve a little bit.  As we head into the weekend, I am wondering if we will see the Sunday dip in the numbers again.

[Zed Head]

This is just crazy.  Never mind,  just too much.  Time will tell.

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Zed Head

[Namerow]

Seeing the curve starting to flatten is all very nice, but it really only addresses the issue of exceeding the healthcare system being overwhelmed.  When we start to go  down the backside of the curve, what then?  Here in Canada, the number of reported cases stands at roughly 80 per 100,000.  That's less than 1/10th of one percent.  Even if that number is low by a factor of 10 (and it may very well be), it means that 99% of the population has not yet been infected and therefore lacks immunity.  I see no reason to believe that American figures will prove much different.  If we/you decide to just, 'Let 'er rip' (see Donald Trump playbook), that curve is going to un-flatten in a hurry. 

No easy answers here.

[Zed Head]

I hope that Dr. Birx is watching Governor Cuomo's briefing.  Because he knows much more about the heart of the testing problem.