As States Move to Reopen, 2 Projections Show Deaths Rising (nytimes.com) 445
A University of Washington forecast frequently cited by the White House projected a death toll of more than double what it was predicting last month, citing the "easing of social distancing measures" in many states. From a report: As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths over the next several weeks. The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double the current number of about 1,750. The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases a day currently. The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, significant risks remain. And reopening the economy will make matters worse. "There remains a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned.
As the administration privately predicted a sharp increase in deaths, a public model that has been frequently cited by the White House revised its own estimates and projected a death toll of more than double what it was predicting last month. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington is now estimating that there will be nearly 135,000 deaths in the U.S. through the beginning of August -- more than double what it forecast on April 17, when it estimated 60,308 deaths by Aug. 4. (There have already been more than 68,000 deaths in the U.S.) The institute wrote that the revisions "reflect rising mobility in most U.S. states as well as the easing of social distancing measures expected in 31 states by May 11, indicating that growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the coronavirus."
As the administration privately predicted a sharp increase in deaths, a public model that has been frequently cited by the White House revised its own estimates and projected a death toll of more than double what it was predicting last month. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington is now estimating that there will be nearly 135,000 deaths in the U.S. through the beginning of August -- more than double what it forecast on April 17, when it estimated 60,308 deaths by Aug. 4. (There have already been more than 68,000 deaths in the U.S.) The institute wrote that the revisions "reflect rising mobility in most U.S. states as well as the easing of social distancing measures expected in 31 states by May 11, indicating that growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the coronavirus."
Model predictions have been vastly wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
so here's some NY Times hype about model predictions. When these are also wrong they'll have new, more dramatic ones next week.
Re:Model predictions have been vastly wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, model predictions have been wrong because most developed countries have put pretty radical physical distancing measures in place. Reducing the attack surface for the virus means the model those measures were based on wrong. But that demonstrates the success of the model; in that it informed various governments as to the best way to avoid the projections the model made.
This is like some flood planner developing a model that a river, if left to its own devices, will flood a town, and local government building a big dam or dike to prevent the flood waters from reaching the town, and then facing down some asshole on the Internet who says "You see, the town didn't get flooded, so you're just an alarmist!"
The one thing I would expect on /. would be people who at least have some passing familiarity with how mathematical models are formulated, but perhaps the biggest casualty of COVID-19 has been peoples' wits.
Re:Model predictions have been vastly wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Well said.
Even a more relevant example (for /. audience), is Y2K: the prediction of doom and gloom did not materialize precisely because the risk was mitigated by lots of time, effort and money poured into fixing the problem before the hard date.
Despite that, you still see some drooling idiots who spout things like: "Oh, it was overhyped, nothing happened".
Just a week ago, I had a discussion with such an idiot right here on /., and he was saying things like : "don't change the rules mid game". No! You do change the rules because all governments are adapting to whatever the situation on the ground happens to be, based on what the new data says, not something from month ago.
An example here in Ontario (and Quebec): the feared scenario of clogged intensive care units and ventilator shortages did not materialize. And that is good because society was on lock down. However, outbreaks spread through retirement and long care homes like wildfire. Do we still buy ventilators because that was the rule of the game, or instead we mobilize resources for where they are needed (e.g. protective equipment and army mobilized to care homes)?
And 3 months from now, it will be different, and later this year it will still be more different ... and so on. That is just good crisis management, not changing the goalposts of the game ... Only a rigid (the inflexible conservative?) mind would complain about that ...
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Do you accept thermodynamics? Do you accept that carbon dioxide molecules have specific energy absorption and re-emission rates?
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Re:Model predictions have been vastly wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight, the model used in the US assumed state- and country wide distancing, which was tried for the first time in 2020, and underestimated how effective social distancing would be, so now you want to cut back on social distancing, "not trust that it'll be accurate as we remove the concept of social distancing" and go back to what is very well known, how rapidly and widely a communicable disease will spread without social distancing.
That's some mad geniusing right there.
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It was known that there was a problem. We didn't know how bad or what it would take to solve it until we dove in.
Similarly with COVID so far, we knew there was a problem. It's easy to look back and say it wasn't that big of a deal now that the lockdowns and social distancing have had a strong effect.
Re:Model predictions have been vastly wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Model predictions have been vastly wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that the model does not model the response to the model, it cannot be accurate when looked at in hindsight. It is always predicting a future that will never happen.
Every release is predicting what will happen if nothing changes in the plans to get this under control or in people's habits vs. the point in time at which it is released. But changes are made.
We look at the model's prediction, see that we don't like it, do more, successfully change our outcome, and make the model wrong. That is exactly the goal of releasing the model!!!!
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This is proof that rsilvergun is from the future.
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Pick your poison, America (Score:3, Insightful)
0. Yes, the pandemic is a Real Thing, it's not a hoax, it's not Amateur Night-level shit, it's not 'the flu', or any nonsense like that. Disclaimer over.
1. Pick your poison, America: We can keep everything shut down for the next year or two, and for all we know there might be no more deaths from the virus, or they'll be kept to a minimum -- but there wouldn't be a United States left, because the entire country would have collapsed economically to the point that the Great Depression would look like a minor blip comparatively speaking.
2. Assuming the worst-case scenario from the above: there might actually end up being more deaths anyway, because with a completely collapsed economy hospitals and doctors would run out of supplies and medicine, making treatment almost impossible. Might not even have electricity for that matter. Basically, the United States becomes a third-world country.
3. There has to be a middle ground. Therefore things must start back up again -- in a slow, careful, measured way. 4. You can't fix stupid. Even with all the current restrictions, some people are still managing to be phenomenally stupid. Call it 'evolution in action', I guess. So when things start opening back up, is there going to be some increase in infections and/or deaths? Yes. Considering all I've said above, can we really avoid this? No, I don't think so. Again, 'call it evolution in action', I guess.
5. So, America, and Slashdotters: Hold on to your hats, take your Xanax, and Don't Be Stupid or be around Stupid People, because the United States is coming out of Standby whether you personally agree with that or not.
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> Some things I'd like to point out, some (or all) of which may not be popular (and will likely draw lots of fire):
> 0. Yes, the pandemic is a Real Thing, it's not a hoax, it's not Amateur Night-level shit, it's not 'the ***', or any nonsense like that. Disclaimer over.
Can you qualify that for (a) 60 years of age?
For anyone 60 years of age and in good health, this doesn't appear to be any less dangerous than a typical "virus" whose name I can't say least ye be triggered.
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I'm not running for office, but I approve of this comment. People exercising normal freedoms will lead to a higher death rate anyway, e.g. more driving, etc. It's the age old question of at what point is a life so well protected that it is no longer worth living.
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And the middle ground is what a month or two of social distancing is trying to accomplish. Control the infection rate so it remains manageable, then start reopening businesses, but maintaining social distancing measures. The trick is to find the balance point where you get the economy going again, while trying to stave off a second wave. For a lack of a better word, health officials hope to "train" people to continue the social distancing while businesses are reopened, because the next ugly period is this f
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Re:Pick your poison, America (Score:4, Informative)
You're missing several choices that have just been ignored.
Contact tracing of cases if very important, and if that is in place, then a lot of restrictions can be lifted. But it requires a lot of "feet on the ground". Nobody in the US seems to be implementing it, though there are some recent stories that indicate that New York (I'm not sure whether the city or the state) is beginning to staff up for it.
Accurate tests for both active cases and antibodies are extremely important. The current tests are mainly useful for getting population statistics, because they have both too many false positive and false negatives. And a lot of the ones used in the US don't even have validated figures for how many false positives/negatives they get, so they aren't even useful for population statistics. Without the accurate tests a lot of the active cases of COVID will be missed, so distancing becomes more important.
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Germany is going back to square one with contact tracing, starting from scratch. They are going to trace everyone from the very beginning. Seems like the opportunity is not still there if you are willing to put in the effort.
Contact tracing is the only way we can get the economy moving again while we wait for a vaccine.
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Here's a picture of what's possible. Australia has just 95 covid-19 deaths. That is not a typo. As far as we know, no deaths are being swept under the carpet (ie, attributed to other causes) because we have one of the highest rates of testing in the world [abc.net.au].
We have almost entirely eradicated the virus [worldometers.info] through aggressive testing and contact tracing.
All of this will cost us AUD$192bn (about USD$123) through all of the government stimulus payments. To raise that money, the government is issuing bonds at 0.4 [rba.gov.au]
It's a tradeoff (Score:2)
What we need is A) a reliable test that gives results in, I dunno, 4-5 days works for me.
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The data coming back from the early days of the pandemic, at least in Europe and North America, suggests people were already dying from complications of COVID-19 even before we had a firm handle on how contagious the virus was. Extrapolating from that is tricky, but it does suggest that the virus arrived earlier (hence, even the most vigorous border-closers had already closed the barn door after the cows had come home), and that it is more widespread now. We do know from the rates of reported infections in
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Such a study has been done [reuters.com], in the closed, contained environment of prisons.
In one test, 2300 were tested, 87% were infected, and 95% of those infected were asymptomatic.
In another test, nearly 4700 were tested, 70% were infected, and 96% of those who tested positive were asymptomatic.
NONE of the models or statistics assumed that 95%+ would be asymptomatic. Perhaps we should have followed the Swedish model (which did not lock down, but said "just be careful" [nypost.com]) and not destroyed our economy and spent
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Two points:
1) Asymptomatic at that time. Many asymptomatic cases go on to become more serious cases.
2) Do you really trust a prison doctor who says that someone is asymptomatic? Those folks have occasionally said that dying people were healthy.
Jiminy Crickets Batman! (Score:2)
There will be no increase in total deaths (Score:3, Insightful)
The death rate (deaths per day) will increase if you open early. But if you do it right there will be no difference in total deaths by the time this is all over with.
As you flatten the curve, the area under the curve remains the same. That is, flattening the curve lowers its height (number of people infected at any given time), but extends it in time (the virus outbreak lasts longer). The area under the curve (total number of people who catch the virus) remains the same.
So if you compare the death projection through August 4 if we don't reopoen, to August 4 if we do reopen, of course the latter will have more accumulated deaths by August 4. But if you compare the projected deaths up until when the virus drops off the radar, then the cumulative number of deaths for both scenarios will be the same. As long as you don't let the peak rise high enough to overwhelm your hospital capacity, the number of deaths by the time this is all over will not change. That's the only part you need to get right when flattening the curve - don't let your hospitals get overwhelmed.
It's like opening a squeaky window. If you open it too quickly, it'll hurt your ears (hospitals will get overwhelmed). If you open it really slowly, the squeaking at any given moment is less, but it'll take a lot longer to open the window so the total amount of squeaking is the same as if you open it at moderate speed. So it's better to open it at a moderate speed - as quickly as you can without hurting your ears. That'll let you minimize the time you have to deal with opening the window (minimize the economic damage). Ideally we'd develop a vaccine (oil the window), but the experts pretty much say it'll be a miracle if one is developed and distributed within 12-18 months, and 4 years is more likely if we're even able to develop a vaccine. I don't think our economy can survive being shut down like this for 12+ months.
Re:There will be no increase in total deaths (Score:4, Informative)
the cumulative number of deaths for both scenarios will be the same
No, because an overloaded health system without sufficient supplies or equipment will cause more deaths which would be preventable if the consumption can be spread out over a longer time.
If your local hospital has 20 respirators and they have 40 people who need them at one time then half your critical patients are going to die. If those 40 people get spread out over a longer time then as people are released respirators can be devoted to new patients. I really don't understand why this concept is so frelling hard for conservatives to grasp. Oh, that's right, Barbie says, "Math is hard!"
Re:There will be no increase in total deaths (Score:4, Insightful)
The death rate (deaths per day) will increase if you open early. But if you do it right there will be no difference in total deaths by the time this is all over with.
As you flatten the curve, the area under the curve remains the same. That is, flattening the curve lowers its height (number of people infected at any given time), but extends it in time (the virus outbreak lasts longer). The area under the curve (total number of people who catch the virus) remains the same.
So if you compare the death projection through August 4 if we don't reopoen, to August 4 if we do reopen, of course the latter will have more accumulated deaths by August 4. But if you compare the projected deaths up until when the virus drops off the radar, then the cumulative number of deaths for both scenarios will be the same. As long as you don't let the peak rise high enough to overwhelm your hospital capacity, the number of deaths by the time this is all over will not change. That's the only part you need to get right when flattening the curve - don't let your hospitals get overwhelmed.
This ignores the possibility of a treatment that significantly reduces the mortality rate. If it's discovered that some previously untested drug *cough* nicotine *cough* keeps most people alive, it's best if we've kept the curve flat until that discovery. A vaccine isn't the only possible medical solution to this pandemic.
Wake me when projections show deaths DECREASING! (Score:2)
> As States Move to Reopen, 2 Projections Show Deaths Rising
Wake me when projections show cumulative deaths DECREASING!
'Cause then we got Zombies!
Very premature. (Score:2)
Compounding the lack of testing, there's also a total dearth of understanding on the actual mortality rate - do a little research into 'excess death' stats. Many areas have a HUGE (order of magnitude) of deaths recorded, but aren't confirmed COVID-19.
If a city normally has 100 deaths in a week during this week of the year, but instead are recording 1,000 (but not attributing to COVID-19) - what you you think is actually happening?
Until we understand this (and a number of other details), it's extremely prema
You don't have to go outside (Score:3, Insightful)
America can be opened and you don't have to participate (unless your still employed, then you have the option to quit).
Fact #1: There is NO good way as of today to stop COVID 19, that means you mean and at least ~60% of America will get this disease at some point in time, because as of today a vaccine is 18 months away (unless something crazy happens).
Fact #2: Staying at home will most likely only delay getting COVID because at some point, you will have to get on with life, you will have to face the risks. Flattening the curve doesn't mean you don't get sick, it means you don't get sick at the same time as everyone else.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you control the infection rate, and can keep a lid on it until a vaccine is developed (presuming one can be), then, in fact, you will reduce the number of future deaths.
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Re:Irrelevent (Score:5, Interesting)
Since no one is advocating keeping everybody locked up for the next year, you're grossly misrepresenting things. Just about every jurisdiction in the world where they are showing a lowered infection rate is either already taking steps to getting people back to work, or will be very soon. My jurisdiction (British Columbia) is going to announce first steps which will likely start a little later this month. Yes, you probably won't be able to get a hair cut in Vancouver for a bit longer, but other businesses will be ramping up.
So I think you're problem is that you're hysterical.
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Hairdressers, nail salons, and tattoo parlors are specifically mentioned as being **allowed** to reopen in several states, even before retail stores. Several more specifically mention fitness centers and bars.
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Here in BC, it looks like any hair stylists wanting to go back to work are going to have to take some sort of course on how to do so safely, so reopening salons may take longer. Frankly I think anyone wanting a tattoo right now is out of their fucking minds, but that's just my personal feeling.
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Here in BC, the hairdressers and barbers are lobbying not to open right away and not until there is PPE available for them.
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And this just seems to strange to me. Start with essential businesses, then work your way down the usefulness ladder, taking into account what sorts of businesses drive or assist in broader economic activity. As such, tattoo parlors would seem to be rated low and not high, with the only advantage is that there's only one customer in the chair at a time, and the drawback that it's close contact between two people. Same with haircuts, but I can see that being higher on the ladder merely because of everyone
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Hairdressers, nail salons, and tattoo parlors are specifically mentioned as being **allowed** to reopen in several states, even before retail stores.
That's because your government is run by mental retards. Those are specifically the places remaining closed in most countries while retail has remained open.
Hell they are about the only places here that actually closed: Any product or service provider which required people to sit and stay is what they closed. Hence you can still go cloth shopping but you can sit and spread corona virus to your hairdresser, you can go pickup a burger, but you can't sit in the restaurant filling the place up with germs.
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This has nothing to do with Trump. Governments the world over, representing every variety of culture, are admitting to themselves that keeping their economies closed will kill more people than the virus.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I understand it, it's not an either or situation. If we allow the virus the spread uncontrolled, i.e. a sufficient number of people going back to work that would constitutes enough economic activity to try to mitigate the recession, then a large number of workers will die or end up permanently injured from COVID-19. Those workers will no longer contribute to the economy & the cost of replacing them will be high. We'll feel that effect for a lot longer than a recession. Just think of how much it costs to bring up a kid, send them to school, train them up for a job, give them healthcare, police them, etc., only to throw their lives away for the sake of a few months trading.
A recession we can get over. It just means that some very rich 1%-ers will lose some large investments. They're so rich that their lives won't even change much as a result - They might have to downsize & live more modestly & spend less on space rockets & lobbying to make labour laws worse for the rest of us.
I don't think we're talking about rational decision-making when politicians are trying to break with shelter in place measures. They're feeling the pressure from their donors who more than likely don't understand & don't care about COVID-19. This is where we need leadership to save us from them & same them from themselves. That means leaders putting in place smart policies & conditions for how & when to relax shelter in place measures that are scientifically informed, e.g. sufficient testing & contact tracing, & sufficient provision for PPE & healthcare capacity.
Don't forget that even after this first COVID-19 wave is over, there'll likely be a second when people start getting out & about. If our healthcare workers are already exhausted & their provisions are low, how well do you think they'll cope with a second, possibly bigger wave? That's what happened in a lot of places after the Spanish Flu pandemic - it just wore people & our public systems out.
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I"m so sorry to hear of your loss.
I've always grown up in families where our dogs WERE part of the family, and their passing was pretty much the same as any other family members' passing.
It's not easy...they give unconditional love and ask for so little in return.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:4, Insightful)
Two Million Dead.
- "Projections"
Re:Irrelevent (Score:4)
It disturbs me that you're writing about a utopia brought about by the death of millions of people, and still I can't tell if you're for or against the idea.
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Lowering the bar by raising the deaths (Score:2, Interesting)
In a rush to capture FP, were we? Really hard to see the point of that comment. Can't even guess what the original Subject: was supposed to be about.
However, I'm speculating how high Trump can go to lower the bar. I just checked the record. Only 620,000 deaths in the Civil War. Quite seasonal, since Trump just gave Lincoln such a heavy spin. Yeah, I know the nation was much smaller then, but it would still be quite an accomplishment if the GOT [sic] can pass the Civil War death total before the election. Th
Re:Lowering the bar by raising the deaths (Score:4, Insightful)
Panic, sadly, is very much part of pandemics as well. People look for someone to blame. Perhaps blaming China as heavily as the US Administration has isn't the worst kind of fear mongering one could do, since China isn't like the Jewish merchant who might have got blamed for poisoning the village's well as might have happened earlier in Western history when the bubonic plague made the rounds. Still, at least in my part of the world, there have been higher instances of attacks on people of East Asian descent, meaning blaming the Chinese in China translates into morons thinking some third-generation Chinese chap being blamed for poisoning the well.
Evading responsibility by pointing elsewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a different problem. I certainly don't think Xi is running a transparent government, but I don't think that's the main problem involving China. Mostly they didn't know what was going on at first--no one did--and they didn't know how dangerous SARS-CoV-2 was--though the Chinese were aware of the threat as proven by their extreme and highly effective response. But the Chinese were making mistakes, too. Xi was also trying to avoid embarrassment, political and otherwise, but mostly I think he wanted to avoid panic, especially within China. However, if you want to look for panicky morons, I think we shouldn't be looking in the direction of China so much.
More importantly, it was pretty clear early on just how seriously the Chinese were responding. No matter what they were saying about the dangers of the disease, everyone know that Xi had effectively arrested MILLIONS of his own citizens. No one thought it was some kind of joke. I haven't yet heard any politician claiming his government should have responded even more strongly than the Chinese government actually did respond. Even worse in terms of embarrassing everyone else, the Chinese extreme response seems to be the only one that has really worked well. Extreme testing is a kind of distant second.
So right now the rest of the world wants to punish China for succeeding? Seems like a really stupid idea, if you ask me. But stupid is as Trump does and even stupider are the people who know better but who continue to support Trump anyway, usually out of various forms of cowardice or greed or both.
Re: Evading responsibility by pointing elsewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing anything to China is simply not valid. Their public data is shit. Compare to almost any other country you like but not China.
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So right now the rest of the world wants to punish China for succeeding? Seems like a really stupid idea, if you ask me. But stupid is as Trump does and even stupider are the people who know better but who continue to support Trump anyway, usually out of various forms of cowardice or greed or both.
If you look at how Australia handled (is handling?) the pandemic, we've all but eradicated the virus. Similar outcome to China (I guess you could call that succeeding). Similar lockdowns to China, but done in a much more open and transparent way. So it's certainly possible to get the same outcome as China, but with none of the Nazi, police-state comparisons. Australia locked up exactly 0 journalists or doctors.
So, yes, the rest of the world wants to question China about their handling of the pandemic -
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Well, with 210 dead per million we're also on our way to number one per capita deaths. Discounting places with negligible populations like Andorra and Isle of Man we're at number 9 now. We were number 12 last week. We have a ways to go to catch up with Spain with 544/million, but if we try hard we'll make it! Several of the reopening statements from the various states specifically mention barbers, hair salons, nail salons, fitness centers and bars as being permitted to reopen early, often before retail
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> you will reduce the number of future deaths.
You could also drain the blood of teenagers with their fresh red blood cells, hormone levels etc and pump that it into anyone 90+ years old.
The teens will need to enter a (1) month coma to regenerate, but it will extend the life of one elderly person by (3) months. Why aren't we doing more to extend the lives elderly people. It's literal elder-abuse!
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Perhaps. But the purpose of "flattening the curve" was to keep the medical system from being overloaded and collapsing. Areas with weaker medical systems need to flatten the curve more...and keep it flat.
FWIW, I expect that there will be some decent treatment long before a vaccine becomes available. And that would allow a degree of opening while keeping the curve flat. So would a good system of tracing contacts. (Those phone based systems look to me like gimmicks that wouldn't do the job, though they co
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> And that would allow a degree of opening while keeping the curve flat.
When ventilators go unused, make shift hospitals are empty and medical staff are sent home... is that a flat curve?
Re:Irrelevent (Score:5, Insightful)
These very same models also show that a treatment and vaccine are far enough out that further flattening the curve is pointless
This is completely wrong. These models don't predict at all when research is going to be successful. That's not the sort of thing you can model at all.
the same number of people will die by the end regardless of what we do, and that we will reach herd immunity before it's likely we'll have either a treatment or a vaccine.
Let's be clear: By opening up this way, one isn't doing anything remotely resembling a classical plan for herd immunity. The idea behind such plans is to achieve herd immunity among the non-vulnerable populations, so that vulnerable people will be at less risk. But that's not what this sort of reopening does. Instead, you just throw everyone back into the mixes.
So it's time to accept that there will be losses no matter what we do, and take the course of action that causes the least harm, and REOPEN AMERICA. It's the rational, logical thing to do. Yes, people will die. People were going to die anyway. The very least we can do is not destroy the lives of those who survive.
People in many areas stopped going outside in crowded areas well before there were official rules against doing so. Meanwhile, in areas which have tried to open back up, people have often simply not shown up due to their general fears. https://www.ajc.com/news/local/lenox-phipps-among-metro-atlanta-malls-set-reopen-today/l25yH36nL59xhJJl5mMwLJ/ [ajc.com] Malls and restaurants in Georgia are not getting many people showing up. You can't simply declare that people should be willing to risk their lives and expect them to do so.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, testing isn't the only thing that works. Japan, for example, famously under-tests - but it's been very effective because of good adherence to non-lockdown social distancing and mask usage. Testing and tracing is simply one factor - a very good one, mind you - which helps you reduce Rt.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Irrelevent (Score:4, Insightful)
Please explain how you would do contact tracing for the 1.15 million United States residents who officially have or have had the disease, and then do contact tracing for the 30 million that the 1.15 million contacted, and then...
Then explain how you'll do contact tracing for those who had the disease but never got sick enough to notice.
The disease has spread far past the point where contact tracing has any utility.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't focus on doing perfect contact tracing for everyone and you don't classify everyone by exactly what category they are in. It isn't necessary. When someone is infected, you contact trace to the people around them, and for each of those people unless someone is a confirmed prior case, they quarantine for 15 days, and test them. Then repeat. That's essentially what countries have been doing. They haven't been keeping careful track of who might have gotten the disease weeks or months ago and not realized it, because it isn't relevant. You do it as cases show up, and focus on the new cases, not the old cases.
It is appalling to note that people have jumped from arguing that COVID-19 wasn't a big deal to deciding it is now too late. One is reminded to a depressing extent of how some people went smoothly from declaring that climate change wasn't likely to be a real issue to deciding that it must be too late to do anything about it. The amount of motivated reasoning behind any course of action which requires minimal effort is painful.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:4, Informative)
It is appalling to note that people have jumped from arguing that COVID-19 wasn't a big deal to deciding it is now too late.
Once the # of cases rises high enough, new cases pop out of the woodwork faster than you could find them by contact tracing. Making it kind of pointless in that situation.
But what people may not realize, is that this is not a one-way street. It's not a station that you pass, and once passed you can't return to it. The utility of contact tracing simply depends on the numbers. Get the # of cases low enough (either right at the start, or by means of a lockdown), and you can resume contact tracing as soon as personnel resources allow.
Compare the pandemic with a wildfire: a lockdown serves to isolate areas that are burning, to remove fuel & slow down the wind that's fanning the flames. Once you get the fires in a slow-burning state, you use contact tracing to find & put out the remaining flames, and kill the last bits smouldering underground. Same way you would put out a small fire before it gets out of control. Note that a perfectly maintained lockdown (as in: nobody leaves home, at all, for any reason, for say 4 to 5 weeks) would have the same effect. But of course there's practical reasons a lockdown like that doesn't work in the real world.
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That strategy is pretty common in general. I remember trying to use it to avoid making my bed as a child.
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The disease has spread far past the point where contact tracing has any utility.
This is simply not accurate. I don't know what medical experts you are listening to, but listen to different ones.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:5, Insightful)
(*) "they" is the leftists. "they" snitch. "they" are the ones nutting themselves right now at all the unconstitutional stuff happening right now. "they" love every fucking bit of the totalitarianism.
It is extremely rare for your political opponents to be actively evil. There aren't herds of leftists cackling to themselves at violating the Constitution with glee. If you think that your political opponents are that evil, you need to seriously worry that you've become overly immersed in tribalism. And if you are at the point where you are declaring that something is being advocated by your political opponents so they can enjoy crapping on the Constitution , when that same thing is advocated by the actual epidemiologists and health experts, you need to seriously sit down and think if you've become overly immersed in tribalism. The virus does not care about your anyone else's politics or feelings.
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I agree, there's no real need to bring politics into this, and nothing so cartoonishly partisan. This is a health care issue, it should not be a political issue. Liberal are not out to destroy American, no matter how many email newsletters one gets claiming otherwise. Conservatives are not the only defenders of freedoms. Red and Blue states alike had lockdown orders to some degree, only a few states were holdouts. People on both the left and the right are grumbling, and people on both the left and the
Re: Irrelevent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Irrelevent (Score:3, Informative)
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Implosion as a cause of extra deaths (Score:2)
Mostly you're feeding or being baited by a troll. Turned out to be AC, too. But two comments on your reply.
One is that there are various paths to herd immunity. If you do it carefully, then the medical system doesn't collapse, which means you can save many lives that would be lost in a chaotic rush to herd immunity. Once you're forced to full triage, things are bad. Even if you never make a mistake about picking the losers who are going to die, then you're still going to lose more people among the edge case
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Mostly you're feeding or being baited by a troll.
Certainly possible. But since their comment is at I'm writting this currently at +3, it seems like a response isn't a bad thing. I agree with most of the rest of yur analsysis. Regarding your last paragraph, lack of rent is much more of an issue in the US than anywhere else. For mortgages at least, delaying their payments has been proposed, and a few states have actually implimented it to a limited extent. See for example Connecticut https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2020/03-2 [ct.gov]
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And even a mandatory app on all smartphones wouldn't trigger any issues; there's no Constitutional right to a smartphone.
That's not an accurate representation of the caselaw.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:5, Informative)
Err, South Korea has the most invasive contact tracing of any capitalist nation on planet [theconversation.com]. The passed laws requiring all mobile phone companies, banks and ATM's, and video surveillance footage to be handed over to the state. And then in a little under 60 days, they built a platform to integrate all that tracing information [koreaherald.com]. The reduced the time need to trace someone from days to 10 minutes [theguardian.com].
They didn't need any app. Google / Apple / bank's and whatever already have all the information required - all you need do is invade everyone's privacy by collecting it all in one place. The app is just a way of doing that while preserving privacy, proposed because the political systems of most countries could not decide it was suddenly OK to invade everybodies privacy to that extent. But South Korea had already contemplated their response to a biological attach from the North, and had already decided what steps they were prepared to take to thwart it. No drawn out process of politicians posturing in parliament over their "privact concerns" was necessary - that had all been done.
Just for the record, not only did South Korea not have a domestic lock down, they didn't lock down their border either. It was all due to tracing. It amazing me how people can get this completely arse about.
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Google already has most of the information. They admitted it when they published stats on stay at home order compliance in various places.
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The longer you drag it out, the less people will get infected, and thus die, until a vaccine is available.
But it costs a lot.
It is a trade off. One that is legitimate, but should be discussed openly.
Herd immunity is not necessarily reachable, since immunity seems to expire, maybe after one year.
In countries that took strong measures, the amount of cases is low enough, that moderate restrictions are enough to wait for the vaccine.
If you have many cases, you'll have to have stronger measures for a while until
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To be fair, we don't know whether immunity will expire, or if it even exists. We know the antibodies exist, but that's not proof of a relationship. COVID-19 reproduces on the exterior surface of the lungs and in the intestines (among other places) where the antibodies can't reach.
Re:Irrelevent (Score:4, Informative)
I think it's unfortunate your post was rated as Insightful when it's nothing of the kind. The human body specifically produces a type of antibody called Immunoglobulin A for mucosal areas like the gut and lungs.
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None of your comments accurately depict the situation or why the estimates are going up. The old estimates had already factored in things like flattening the curve and the inevitable need to reopen society. The models were simply based on following the advice of medical experts and economists. The estimates are going up based on the reality that we are not universally following the advice of medical experts and economists. So estimates of both deaths and potentially economic damage are likely to rise.
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We are grateful for your sacrifice.
Yours,
One of those who'll stay the fuck inside.
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I honestly can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not, given you're so tremendously far off from the facts and your writing style is so hyperbolic.
I really hope it is sarcasm.
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Actually, lowering the infection rate using social distancing or whatever lowers the number of people infected, period. It doesn't just slow it down.
How many people the virus infects depends on R[effective], with the starting rate usually called R0. That starting rate, R0 is always the high point because initially everyone is susceptible so finding a new person to infect is relative easy. As new people get infected they are removed from potential candidates of new people to infect making finding someone
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The concept behind flattening the curve is to reduce the rate at which cases increase to the point where we can handle it. Which we've done.
Funny, I thought it was to reduce the rate at which overworked hospital billing clerks had to fill out the paperwork required to ensure the hospital got paid at the full 250% they deserved.
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Well, there's a decent response to one of the questions:
"Why does working full time pay less than lockdown" and "Why could I get free treatment for COVID but not for Cancer?".
Because when you have COVID you are a danger to others if to go out in public, but cancer is only dangerous to you.
Mind you, I do think basic medical services should be freely accessible to everyone. But the question does have a reasonable answer.
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He's talking about people, not corporations. Corporations will suck as much money as possible out of the economy at the slightest opportunity, there are frelling international hotel chains taking money out of what was supposed to be set aside for small businesses.
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Australia has implemented a very generous job keeping program [business.gov.au], as well as beefed up unemployment benefits, and so would be considered at the forefront of "money spent to make sure we all come out of this ok".
Our total spend is around AUD $4bn per week [abc.net.au]. So very roughly AUD $16bn per month. This is just over USD $10bn per month.
Australia's population and economy is about 1/10th the US. So equivalent of Australia's spend would be around USD $100bn per month. How the hell would the US be spending $3T per mo
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Do you accept Thermodynamics? Do you accept the germ theory of disease?
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If you agree, then what are you complaining about?
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I think you invented a lot of your numbers. If not, I'ld like links so that I could assess their reliability.
What does 0.03% come from?
What does 0.000003% come from?
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If we go with raw numbers, absolutely. But if we go with the population percentage or the economic cost, how does it compare? Serious question, I'm not sure where to get the numbers required to calculate this.
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Only if you don't think Vietnamese are actually "people", around two million civilians died during that slaughter, not counting people in adjoining countries.
Re:The lockdown is causing deaths too. (Score:5, Insightful)
[citation needed]
Re:The lockdown is preventing deaths (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't matter though because COVID left unchecked will kill many more [cloudfront.net].
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That's a choice you make. It's not inevitable.
For example if you don't have universal healthcare then people will die because they lose their cover when they are unemployed. That's a policy decision, other countries do it differently.
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> Just stay on lockdown for the rest of the year?
A year, pfffttt, go home or go hard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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If the 'death rate' which is an almost completely meaningless statistic is going to shootup up the second you reopen and make the lockdown completely pointless and this is unacceptable what else are we supposed to do? Just stay on lockdown for the rest of the year?
Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Re:Estimating with half-assed models is easy AND f (Score:5, Interesting)
An odd link to provide for support, as it does not get into the numbers that actually die from unemployment. The researcher studies mental health problems, and the page does mention that much of the effect is from loss of status as a contributing member of society.
But if unemployment is not stigmatized because many are, and it's VERY clear you aren't unemployed because of personal failures, is it just as hard on mental health?
And what is the effect of just not having money? Poverty causes suicide and early death from stress, so that's probably part of it. What if the poverty is relieved by the social safety net?
Which brings us to my little blog post the other day:
http://brander.ca/c19#traffic [brander.ca] ...you have to subtract the lives saved by lockdown. NO, no, not the covid-19 deaths prevented; the lives saved by not driving cars, going on vacation, going to work and having a workplace accident. So far, it looks to be around 30,000 lives per year saved (pro-rate by length of lockdown, obviously not a whole year), mainly because traffic deaths are down 40%.
Just living life is a risk, and lockdown cuts many of them DOWN. You'd have to see a huge spike in suicide rates just to compensate for THAT, much less hundreds of thousands of covid casualties.
Re:"Privately projecting" (Score:5, Informative)
I said from the beginning that between 60,000 and 180,000 people are going to die.
Actually, you said that COVID would be over by April 1st. Your predictions are worth shit.
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
3+ months? Things will be back to normal on April 1st. China and SK already have a declining number of cases. Sorry kids, your dreams of Fallout won't happen. Back to ordinary life.
110010001000
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Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth at once. Listen at different times and you hear different messages...often on the same day.
Musk is concerned about his business profitability. Yes. And he is more concerned about that than about the welfare of his workers. I don't know of anyone who looks to him for moral guidance, even while many, including myself, admire his technical achievements and goals.
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