OT: covid19 discussion in Satellite

My apologies.

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Covid-19 is on the rise nationally. Thankfully, Texas and especially Harris County are not currently leading the charge this wave. I hope we can discuss it civilly and without politics. I further hope a vaccine is soon available.

I post to share an observation I’ve made from the statistics. Lots of people discount new positive test results, and instead focus on deaths and hospitalizations. Clearly deaths and hospitalizations are key to measuring the severity of an outbreak.

But deaths and hospitalizations lag cases. In my view, rising new cases is predictive of rising new deaths and hospitalizations. I just don’t know how predictive. Further, I think new cases are fair barometer of new infections (about 4-8x as many infections as cases because so many are asymptomatic).

I have plotted how national new cases increased off the bottom in September to now. I have also begun to plot how national new deaths increased off the bottom in October.

First, I would say that the 5-day moving average of new cases exceeds the 10-day moving average, and thus new cases (and likely new infections) are still accelerating nationally (rising at a rising rate). In my view, the end of this wave won’t be in sight until the 5-day average drops below the 10-day (i.e. cases are increasing, but at a decreasing rate).

Second, deaths seem to be following the pattern cases established off the bottom. It has been 13 days since deaths bottomed. Deaths are up 19%. When cases had risen 13 days off the bottom in September, cases were up 17%.

Currently, cases are up 127% off the bottom.

If new deaths follow the same curve of increase as new cases:

  1. Deaths will noticably begin to increase starting on or about November 11.
  2. We will surpass the summer wave peak in national average new deaths (1,171) before Thanksgiving.
  3. An average of 1,600 Americans per day will perish from Covid by early December.

This assumes no material change to the ~2% death rate per positive test I have observed since the bottom (35,500 new cases at the case bottom, 705 new deaths at the death bottom). This assumption depends on hospitals not being overrun (which could increase the death rate) and that the age distribution of the positive tests remains roughly the same. If younger people and those without underlying conditions start predominating the positive test results, the death rate could come down and vice versa.

Time will tell if new deaths increase in a similar fashion to how new cases inceased.

PS National holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years offer the potential for superspreading events. Please take care. :heart_decoration:

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How did this thread get revived?? Probably locked soon. Just a heads up if you don’t know about it, check out the state’s website below. Great at tracking cases, positivity rate, hospitalizations, and deaths. One warning the deaths chart has deaths listed by the actual date of death, not when reported so you wont see current trends (some have taken 2+ months to be added). Texas is going back up in deaths, hospitalizations have been up for over a month. I know up here in Tarrant county we are having a pretty bad spike. Too many people here don’t think the virus is “real”. I don’t think it is going to be a good winter.

101k new cases today
Americans are all, meh.

How many new cases in Europe?
This is not a USA number issue as you want to make it out.
Do not agree?
Some European countries are now on lockdown again. You were the ones telling us how Europe was doing so well. What happened? They are now doing bad?
The fact is that everybody is going to get this virus. This is what viruses do. We have to keep protecting our elderly and the most vulnerable. Vaccines are on the way and new COVID-19 treatments are lessening the death rate. We never thought that this was going to be possible so quickly. We are getting there.

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You are inferring a lot from my post. But continue with “what about
”.

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J V I never wrote “what about” Europe is on lockdown again for one reason. This is from the washington post of all publications.

You told us for more than nine months that Europe was so much than us.
What happened J V?

Listen, this is not about you or me being correct. This is about a virus that is impossible to stop. We can’t stop viruses. You know it and we all know it. The best that we can do is to have a treatment for it that is effective. We are almost there. The vaccine in itself is solely there to protect the population that is vulnerable to the virus. In addition to an effective treatment this virus will become less and less deadly. We never achieved such a remarkable virus/treatment in such a short period of time.

Uh ok
I have not said that at all, let alone for 9 months
I have been deeply skeptical of Sweden and vocal the US does not have a plan.

I hope I am wrong, but based on the numbers which are bad for Europe and now bad for the US. I think we are at the start of a bad run up in the US and it will get worse, it is now burning through rural america.

I simply posted we went over 100k. Other countries are now taking precautions but here
we are, meh
it is like we just want to ignore what we have learned and now its
but what about the therapeutics
we are no where close to a vaccine solving this.

Other countries taking precautions and at what cost? Lockdowns are not sustainable. That is a fact that I hope we can agree on. The human cost of suicides, depression, future impact on young, middle aged children is immeasurable add rape and spousal abuse.
You know that the only way to beat this virus like the others is to have an effective therapy. A vaccine or vaccines is(are) only part of the answer. Protecting the ones that are vulnerable is essential. That I hope we can agree on.

Europe was expecting the second wave and ready to make moves to prevent deaths. We are hoping it just goes away. 3rd worst country in the developed world in deaths per capita. Much worse than Europe as a whole. Our economy still sucks too

Pointless discussion. When someone on another site heard that Lawrence would miss Clemson’s game with Covid, he was beside himself, saying it’s just a cold as the numbers are expectedly beginning to spike and the death toll pushes toward a quarter-million Americans. Those of us who realize the severity and cost of this pandemic follow the news and know what is happening. Others listen to dubious sources and outright propaganda. What’s so unfortunate is that this never should have become political, but it has, and I’m afraid that never the twain AKA “sides” shall meet. And the thread will just get locked again. I’d recommend legitimate news sources including The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/ as well as Twitter, which obviously has some crackpots but also some excellent sources of information.

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Lose some weight take your vitamin D. Lockdowns OBVIOUSLY don’t work.

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Lol, who let this sneak back in?

That is what I am wondering
lol

I have my coogfans covid bingo card ready.

Vitamin D
Lockdowns

Marked off my board.

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The spike in new COVID cases comes from Apple releasing their new iPhone 12 with 5G enabled. Everyone knows that.

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John Hopkins, Great site
good information.

I agree, it should never have been politicized but we found a way

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You are right with this. The economy in the third quarter grew by 33.2%. This is unprecedented. We can not lock down the economy again when you have an economical momentum. This momentum is also due to the fact (unbiased gvt numbers) that our economy prior to COVID-19 was performing at the highest level or unseen levels for at least 50+ years. We learned in the past nine months that we have to protect specific demographics. That is being done. Vaccines are coming along with therapeutics drugs. We did not have any of it until just a few months ago. We have to live our lives and not live in fear.

Use the Belgium model, total lockdown and then
oh wait.

We don’t have any of them now either.

Nice cherry picking of economic data
let them die to save the economy.

It is comical that the only people arguing about lockdowns are the anti lockdown folks.

Has anyone here suggested a lockdown?

As a nation we can do just about every precovid activity we wanted
but people are not stupid and choose not to because they don’t feel its safe.

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LOL So the lockdown in April and May was just because
yeah we are all Sweden now.

Hey Europe I know it didn’t work the first time, but this time, oh yeah this time it will work. Oh my.