COVID-19 Map worldwide, with statistics

[INTJ]

The NPI maybe flattened the curve, but will not have any effect of the total number of cases. This virus has to burn out either with or without a vaccine. Killing the economy was stupid and we will reap the whirlwind for some time because of it.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/04/the-failed-experiment-of-social-distancing/

 

[Leo Smith]

Here is a video worth watching.. I didn't realize a Covid-19 body was worth so much.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usne...re-inflating-covid-19-death-numbers-for-money

 

[SGK]

NPI are only about slowing the rate of infection until a vaccine has been widely administered, to provide time for a permanent solution to be developed and to reduce the burden on healthcare infrastructure.

It is an error to believe that social distancing rules and regulations imposed by governing bodies were the sole reason the economy was impacted. A lot of the impact was going to happen anyway as people avoiding certain behaviors and expenditures. For example, people naturally want to work from home if they can and will naturally avoid going to places like restaurants, bars, movie theaters and gyms. It's natural for workers in places like abattoirs to demand greater protection which impairs output productivity. And when people get sick they don't work and don't spend much. A healthcare crisis causes both a demand and a supply shock. That's why they hurt so much. The good news is that, unlike in a credit crisis (albeit there very much was over leverage in the corporate sector going into this) things can recover comparatively faster once the virus is tackled. The problem is that the intervening period until a vaccine has been widely administered is a very difficult one. We've taken the time to build healthcare infrastructure (or at least some have). Now there's more capacity to save the otherwise healthy. The old and unhealthy (the obese, hypertensive etc) will quite probably remain casualties in relatively large numbers without significant protective measures until they're vaccinated. The young and healthy are beginning to care less about the vulnerable which is probably not unexpected either.

 

[Brians356]

A highly respected, peer reviewed, multi center prospective study. Great! I'll put in my order for v D3 now!

Sheesh.....straight from "The world's most widely viewed site on global warming and climate change". It must be irrefutable fact coming from such a source.

I'm guessing you never actually read the article before condemning it. That's an admirable approach. Since you'll only condescend to read "peer-reviewed" studies on Covid-19 prophylaxis and mitigation, perhaps you'll inform us when some start emerging six or nine months hence.
-

 

[Brians356]

I see the COVID forecasting model used by the US government now projects a 95% confidence interval range of between 95,092 and 242,890 deaths by August 4

Ah, the excellent IHME model! Its predictions have bounced up and down weekly, even while it assumed "strict social distancing". I'm a computer scientist and a mathematician by training. Believe this: "All models are wrong but some are useful." Also believe this: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said of the IHME model “It’s not a model that most of us in the infectious disease epidemiology field think is well suited”.

Ruth Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who has served on a search committee for IHME, said “That the IHME model keeps changing is evidence of its lack of reliability as a predictive tool. That it is being used for policy decisions and its results interpreted wrongly is a travesty unfolding before our eyes.”

But, I suppose there are even worse models than IHME out there. I just haven't stumbled on one yet. And there may not be any useful ones - yet.
-

 

[Texas10]

I am reminded of Typhoid Mary https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=typhoid+mary+wikipedia&fr=yfp-t-s&fp=1&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8 who was the first known asymptomatic carrier of the disease and became infamous for spreading death to unsuspecting diners.

Today we have millions of Typhoid Mary's, the walking wounded I call them, who are infectious but asymptomatic or presymptomatic and spreading this disease unknowingly. They are the ones who refuse to wear a mask in public because they simply don't have even the most basic respect for their fellow Americans. I don't get that attitude.

We're going to be stuck with this disease for years, and probably some more virulent forms as it mutates often. The Spanish flu of 1918 was still infecting people in 1957, but as bad as it was, the coronavirus is no flu. It's much more deadly, much more infectious, and unfortunately we may not be able to produce a vaccine to protect against it. We can look forward to it's eventual demise, but only after the vast majority of the world's population has been infected or maybe, hopefully, vaccinated. That's how pandemics work.

There's currently no way to know if you or I are unknowingly infected and contagious, but asymptomatic. Only by wearing some kind of mask will we each know for certain, and demonstrate to others around us that we are doing our part as much as possible to limit the spread of this disease.

Just asking for some basic human decency. Is that really too much?

Flame suit on!

 

[Highpower-FClass]

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/04/the-failed-experiment-of-social-distancing/

At least the author has impeccable scientific credentials...

(from the site above, about the author of the article, Julie Kelly)

"She graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 1990 with a degree in communications and minor degrees in political science and journalism. Julie lives in suburban Chicago with her husband, two daughters, and (unfortunately) three dogs."

"After college graduation, she served as a policy and communications consultant for several Republican candidates and elected officials in suburban Chicago. She also volunteered for her local GOP organization. After staying home for more than 10 years to raise her two daughters, Julie began teaching cooking classes out of her home. She then started writing about food policy, agriculture, and biotechnology, as well as climate change and other scientific issues."

If my options are to get correct information on social distancing from the CDC or Julie Kelly, I'll go with CDC seven days a week and twice on Sunday.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html

 

[INTJ]

At least the author has impeccable scientific credentials...

(from the site above, about the author of the article, Julie Kelly)

"She graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 1990 with a degree in communications and minor degrees in political science and journalism. Julie lives in suburban Chicago with her husband, two daughters, and (unfortunately) three dogs."

"After college graduation, she served as a policy and communications consultant for several Republican candidates and elected officials in suburban Chicago. She also volunteered for her local GOP organization. After staying home for more than 10 years to raise her two daughters, Julie began teaching cooking classes out of her home. She then started writing about food policy, agriculture, and biotechnology, as well as climate change and other scientific issues."

If my options are to get correct information on social distancing from the CDC or Julie Kelly, I'll go with CDC seven days a week and twice on Sunday.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html

Argument from authority is invalid, and we have especially seen that in this COVID-19 crisis. The points in the article and logical and logic always beats incorrect experts......

Further, there is no peer reviewed evidence that social distancing has reduced the spread. It probably has flattened the peak, but the virus is going to spread until we have herd immunity.

Keeping the economy shut down once we saw that has been the policy failure of the century.

 

[Brians356]

Argument from authority is invalid

Ah! Argumentum ab auctoritate fallacy rears its ugly head.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says "science teaches such and such", he is using the word incorrectly. Richard Feynman
-

 

[rardoin]

I'm guessing you never actually read the article before condemning it. That's an admirable approach. Since you'll only condescend to read "peer-reviewed" studies on Covid-19 prophylaxis and mitigation, perhaps you'll inform us when some start emerging six or nine months hence.
-

Yes, I did,,,and understand the extreme limitations of its value. And yes, I do have credentials for critically evaluating medical/scientific literature.

 

[Brians356]

Yes, I did,,,and understand the extreme limitations of its value. And yes, I do have credentials for critically evaluating medical/scientific literature.

Fair enough. Just curious, and I'm not being argumentative here: Do you get a complete physical exam every year or two, with a comprehensive blood panel? If you do, does it not include a test for Vitamin D? If it doesn't, you might ask your doctor about it. My doctor considers it just as important as lipids, and it seems pretty mainstream to monitor "serum 25(OH)D" nowadays.

FWIW (probably nothing) since I started taking D3 five years ago, I've not suffered a single cold (used to catch one or two a year) and I've stopped suffering intermittent depression of a mostly seasonal nature.
-

 

[INTJ]

NPI are only about slowing the rate of infection until a vaccine has been widely administered, to provide time for a permanent solution to be developed and to reduce the burden on healthcare infrastructure.

It is an error to believe that social distancing rules and regulations imposed by governing bodies were the sole reason the economy was impacted. A lot of the impact was going to happen anyway as people avoiding certain behaviors and expenditures. For example, people naturally want to work from home if they can and will naturally avoid going to places like restaurants, bars, movie theaters and gyms. It's natural for workers in places like abattoirs to demand greater protection which impairs output productivity. And when people get sick they don't work and don't spend much. A healthcare crisis causes both a demand and a supply shock. That's why they hurt so much. The good news is that, unlike in a credit crisis (albeit there very much was over leverage in the corporate sector going into this) things can recover comparatively faster once the virus is tackled. The problem is that the intervening period until a vaccine has been widely administered is a very difficult one. We've taken the time to build healthcare infrastructure (or at least some have). Now there's more capacity to save the otherwise healthy. The old and unhealthy (the obese, hypertensive etc) will quite probably remain casualties in relatively large numbers without significant protective measures until they're vaccinated. The young and healthy are beginning to care less about the vulnerable which is probably not unexpected either.

That is the party line and I didn't have a problem with it initially when we did not know what to do. China lied, the WHO covered for China, and the models though well intentioned were wildly wrong.

What I take issue with is that that we now know most people have mild to zero symptoms and we who needs to be protected. There is no need to deepen the economic impact by doubling down on the shutdown or taking a painfully slow path to reopening.

What has become very evident is many of the progressive governors have fallen into the trap of liking their expanded powers. THAT must stop......

 

[Laurie]

NPI are only about slowing the rate of infection until a vaccine has been widely administered, to provide time for a permanent solution to be developed and to reduce the burden on healthcare infrastructure.

As old Bill Shakespeare put it so eloquently in Hamlet, "Aye, there's the rub".

The entire strategy depends on an efficient vaccine and/or effective antiviral drugs being available within a reasonable timescale. Given the known difficulties in achieving either with corona viruses, I wonder if we'll be any better off in this respect in spring 2022. What happens to human society in the meantime if it takes years (if ever at all) to get these? Endless winter disease waves and repeated partial lockdowns?

On a different note about the difficulties of maintaining social distancing / lockdowns, Professor Neil Ferguson the man behind the UK's modelling work on Covid-19 transmission and effects has resigned from his role as a key government adviser and member of the SAGE expert committee advising HMG as a result of being caught out breaking social distancing rules to meet a woman.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ent-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/

He had been nicknamed 'Professor Lockdown' such was his influence in getting HMG to impose our social distancing measures on the country. Hubris and nemesis, but you have to feel sorry for this weakness bringing him down.

On perhaps lighter note, I suffered a lockdown issue that I suspect will affect a lot of people worldwide - car wouldn't start thanks to flat battery with it sitting static most of the time only used for short infrequent food shopping trips and a weekly 10 mile circular run in the country to keep it in use. ('Illicit' use too under our rules as all non-essential journeys and car use are banned.) Thank goodness for Amazon UK and Amazon Prime - a fairly sophisticated battery charge and conditioner arrived this morning. And yes, I know I should have got one weeks ago when all this started.

 

[INTJ]

https://pjmedia.com/columns/dennis-...ay-be-the-greatest-mistake-in-history-n388182

I keep finding these authors who have reached the same conclusion as I.

 

[INTJ]

https://spectator.us/lockdown-over-someone-tell-government/

I think many of our politicians have forgotten that in America, the leaders govern at the consent of the governed......

 

[sdean]

https://spectator.us/lockdown-over-someone-tell-government/

I think many of our politicians have forgotten that in America, the leaders govern at the consent of the governed......

They were all elected. We will see if anything changes. As usual the next election is the most important.

 

[SGK]

the models though well intentioned were wildly wrong.

Which ones were?

Ah, the excellent IHME model! Its predictions have bounced up and down weekly, even while it assumed "strict social distancing". I'm a computer scientist and a mathematician by training. Believe this: "All models are wrong but some are useful." Also believe this: "Predictions are hard, especially about the future."

-

Of course any model needs to be dynamic and updated for new information. ANY and ALL forms of planning are based on assumptions and expectations which ought to be updated alongside experience. That's just plain obvious. Even the most basic household budget is such. But to not plan is to fail. That's why planning remains useful. You of all people with your training ought to understand that.

 

[Brians356]

Which ones were?




Of course any model needs to be dynamic and updated for new information. ANY and ALL forms of planning are based on assumptions and expectations which ought to be updated alongside experience. That's just plain obvious. Even the most basic household budget is such. But to not plan is to fail. That's why planning remains useful. You of all people with your training ought to understand that.

Planning based on incomplete or, worse, faulty data is an exercise in futility. "But, we gotta do something!" If that amounts to flipping a coin and then barging ahead, it's as likely to do harm as to do good.
-

 

[ronsatspokane]

Which ones were?




Of course any model needs to be dynamic and updated for new information. ANY and ALL forms of planning are based on assumptions and expectations which ought to be updated alongside experience. That's just plain obvious. Even the most basic household budget is such. But to not plan is to fail. That's why planning remains useful. You of all people with your training ought to understand that.

Having been involved in developing models, I can see exactly how the models are so far off. Selection of the algorithm(s) based on what you want to look at is only the starting point. The model then needs to be trained. That is usually accomplished via training datasets that contain the attributes you are trying to train the model to recognize or predict. Then the algorithms are tweaked and trained again and again until the output of the model accurately reflects the real world. What training datasets do you think they used in training the models for this specific virus? It should be obvious that the data in the training datasets was bad. The models will likely be accurate for this particular virus a couple of years from now when real data is separated from the fud and reliable training datasets can be built. That would include data elements like the total population that was infected (looks much wider than originally thought), when the infections began (looks like much earlier than originally thought), number of people who passed from covid and covid alone versus the number pushed over the edge by covid. By the time reliable training datasets are available, we will be on to the next pandemic and it may or may not behave the way this one did. And so it goes. Garbage in, garbage out.

 

[Brians356]

Update On Heat vs Coronavirus (from ConsumerLab):

Heat is very effective at sanitizing and disinfecting objects from coronavirus. If anyone tells you that coronavirus is resistant to heat, they're wrong. In fact, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 may be even more sensitive to heat than the earlier SARS-CoV virus. Experiments done in China in 2002 with SARS-CoV in culture medium (Duan, Biomed Env Sci 2003) showed that coronavirus became undetectable after 30 minutes when heated to a temperature of 167°F, but recent tests with SARS-CoV-2 in Hong Kong showed that it became undetectable after just five minutes at only 158°F (70°C). The time required to kill SARS-CoV-2 increased as the temperature was reduced, such that the time by which it was undetectable increased to 30 minutes at 132°F (56°C), two days at 98.6°F (37°C), and two weeks at 71.6°F (22°C). At 39°F (4°C) the virus remained detectable at two weeks when the experiment ended (Chin, Lancet 2020).

Theoretically, heating a face mask this way may also disinfect it. Moist heat may be better than dry heat, so, if done in an oven, placing a pan of water in the oven may be best. A study by researchers at Stanford University found that heating N95 masks (known as respirators) at 167°F (75°C) for 30 minutes (at 85% relative humidity) did not compromise the masks, even after 20 cycles — although these researchers have subsequently cautioned that contaminated masks should not be brought into homes.

A U.S. government laboratory heated SARS-CoV-2-contaminated N95 mask material in a dry oven at 158°F (70°C) and found that virus was undetectable at 50 minutes, but they also found two cycles of this dry heating caused the material to lose some integrity (possibly suggesting that some humidity during heating may be beneficial) (Fischer, medRxiv, 2020 — preprint).
-