Corona Virus

[rhd]

i don't subscribe to conspiracy theory stuff. i'll watch the video, but if i have to choose between a unintentional mistake vs intentional, i will always choose a series of mistakes masquerading as a master plan.

Neither video says that the release was intentional. But the Philipp video cites other evidence to suggest that China is working on biological weapons and the implication is that the CV-19 virus may be part of these efforts.

[nullnor]

Neither video says that the release was intentional. But the Philipp video cites other evidence to suggest that China is working on biological weapons and the implication is that the CV-19 virus may be part of these efforts.

i knew that, i knew you knew that. i just wanted to point it out first before watching. i trust your judgement. i was just backing you up before looking at the evidence. even though i hope it's not true.

nature can do amazing things on her own. or this is a situation to be aware of in the future. i haven't watched the video. i am just trying to prepare myself before i do.

[chancellor]

Philipp's video says that China is intentionally developing biological weapons for potential use against the US. The shorter video is non-committal about this. Up until now, I've thought that China's war against us is primarily economic, political and informational in nature. If China really is doing this, is the US doing the same thing?

Based on best known available data, the US has not developed biological grade material in quantities for weaponry in over 30 years. The official US view for over 30 years has been biological weapons are weapons of mass destruction; if used on the US, we reserve the right to answer with weapons of mass destruction, which, in our case, is strictly nuclear.

[Sour Masher]

Do you realize that we will be at 100K deaths by April 14? And at 200K deaths 3 days after that? That's based on the deaths doubling every 3 days which is actually somewhat conservative since it more than doubled in just the past 2 1/3 days. Whatever the real # of infections is, the rate is not slowing down in the US. What's more, the rate in Italy, which had maybe a 2-week head start on us, isn't slowing down either. So we have no reason to expect a slowing of the increase from what's happening in Italy. It's not slowing down in any western democracy that I know of. The more I observe things, the more this seems like the 1918 pandemic all over again, only worse because the world has more people, more mobility, less trust in governments and authorities and the disease is harder to detect and thus harder to keep from spreading. It's estimated that 28% of the US population was infected in the 1918 pandemic, so even using a relatively conservative mortality rate of 1%, that would be about 926,000 deaths. The estimated US deaths from the 1918 flu was "only" 500-675,000 but if this flu is as deadly, and I think it is at least as deadly, since the US has 3.2 x the population now as in 1918, this would mean 3.2 x the # of deaths, or 1.6-2.16 mil deaths. If the rates continue to double throughout April, at the end of the month we will have 4 million deaths in the US!!! Hopefully by then the curve will become less steep, but I see nothing that indicates to me that rates of increase will slow down before then.

Thankfully, it looks like the infection/fatality rate has slowed from the numbers you feared based on early doubling rates. The thing about comparing this to the 1918 pandemic is that back then they did little to nothing to stop the spread. The "rode it out" as the president likes to say, and seems to have wanted to do early. The measures we are taking seem to be working. We won't get to 100k deaths by April 14, 200k by April 17. I had fears that enough of us would flaunt these measures, because "freedom" that the numbers would be worse than they look like now, but I'm happy I was wrong about that. We still have to worry about the inevitable second wave when we lift restrictions, but I'm starting to feel good about the idea that we are doing enough to have mitigated this more than I hoped possible early on.

[rhd]

Thankfully, it looks like the infection/fatality rate has slowed from the numbers you feared based on early doubling rates. The thing about comparing this to the 1918 pandemic is that back then they did little to nothing to stop the spread. The "rode it out" as the president likes to say, and seems to have wanted to do early. The measures we are taking seem to be working. We won't get to 100k deaths by April 14, 200k by April 17. I had fears that enough of us would flaunt these measures, because "freedom" that the numbers would be worse than they look like now, but I'm happy I was wrong about that. We still have to worry about the inevitable second wave when we lift restrictions, but I'm starting to feel good about the idea that we are doing enough to have mitigated this more than I hoped possible early on.

Yes, thankfully the rate may be slowing some, altho it's still uncertain. But based on the last few days the deaths still seem to be doubling at a rate of about every 4-5 days. My post was in response to a post saying that Dr. Fauci thought that the total US deaths might be only 100-200,000. Even doubling every 5 days, we would reach 100,000 deaths by around April 22 and 200,000 by April 27. And the pandemic wont be over until a long time after that. People still aren't understanding exponential growth. I think a much more realistic estimate is 500,000-1,000,000 US deaths. Hopefully, the rate will slow down even much more.

[Sour Masher]

Yes, thankfully the rate may be slowing some, altho it's still uncertain. But based on the last few days the deaths still seem to be doubling at a rate of about every 4-5 days. My post was in response to a post saying that Dr. Fauci thought that the total US deaths might be only 100-200,000. Even doubling every 5 days, we would reach 100,000 deaths by around April 22 and 200,000 by April 27. And the pandemic wont be over until a long time after that. People still aren't understanding exponential growth. I think a much more realistic estimate is 500,000-1,000,000 US deaths. Hopefully, the rate will slow down even much more.

A latest model now projects the death total, at least for this initial wave, at 60k, which wouldn't be much worse than a bad flu season (of course, this is stacking on top of what is already a bad flu season). I think there are deaths that won't be reported or accounted for with this, but that still exceeds my expectations. It is still early and this thing could spike if we let up, but it is looking much better than I feared (mostly, because I though far more people would get infected): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us...ve/ar-BB12ktBL

[The Feral Slasher]

A latest model now projects the death total, at least for this initial wave, at 60k, which wouldn't be much worse than a bad flu season (of course, this is stacking on top of what is already a bad flu season). I think there are deaths that won't be reported or accounted for with this, but that still exceeds my expectations. It is still early and this thing could spike if we let up, but it is looking much better than I feared (mostly, because I though far more people would get infected): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us...ve/ar-BB12ktBL

The 60k number probably assumes complete lock down indefinetly ? I don't see how it could be otherwise. I worry that people will get overconfident or impatient at some point. Hopefully our governments do a good job moving forward

[Kevin Seitzer]

The 60k number probably assumes complete lock down indefinetly ? I don't see how it could be otherwise. I worry that people will get overconfident or impatient at some point. Hopefully our governments do a good job moving forward

I agree both that the 60k number must assume indefinite lockdown and that people are going to get impatient with that.

But I also wonder, even if some official, whether it's Trump or a state governor, removes the shutdown orders, will everyone just go back to normal? I know I won't send my children back to school in the current conditions, I won't get on an airplane, I won't go to church, I won't go sit in a restaurant with a bunch of other people--I'm going to continue to lock down, and I can't imagine the whole US is just going to go back to business as usual and a flourishing economy just because some official says it should.

[Gregg]

I agree both that the 60k number must assume indefinite lockdown and that people are going to get impatient with that.

But I also wonder, even if some official, whether it's Trump or a state governor, removes the shutdown orders, will everyone just go back to normal? I know I won't send my children back to school in the current conditions, I won't get on an airplane, I won't go to church, I won't go sit in a restaurant with a bunch of other people--I'm going to continue to lock down, and I can't imagine the whole US is just going to go back to business as usual and a flourishing economy just because some official says it should.

The first ones back will be those out of money needing to go back to work. That will be the first compromise.

[Kevin Seitzer]

The first ones back will be those out of money needing to go back to work. That will be the first compromise.

I don't doubt a lot of people will go back, and many of those out of necessity, who would choose otherwise if they could. I just don't think nearly all will go back or that our economy will look anything remotely like "normal".

[Kevin Seitzer]

We have what I would consider the first really good news in this whole thing, a huge drop in new cases out of New York yesterday (reported today).

New cases per day in New York over the last 14 days:
6103
6983
7396
5934
7933
8664
7995
8697
10415
11016
8986
8670
8556
3548

[Kevin Seitzer]

Man, I hope that's the case. I'm very skeptical. You could see a couple weeks ago that Washington's rate of increase was slowing, but Washington hasn't reached its peak yet. New York is just beginning to show signs of its rate of increase slowing. I haven't seen any signs of slowing of the growth in Detroit or New Orleans yet. And on top of that, other areas like Chicago, Indianopolis, DC, Georgia, Florida, etc., keep growing unabated. Oklahoma is a mess. I think some other states that were slow to shut down are going to take off in the next couple weeks. It would be a great mercy if things slowed in New York. But I don't believe we're a week away from the peak in many, if any, areas of the country outside of Washington, not by any means.

I'm guessing the peak is more like four weeks away. But I'm not an expert epidemiological modeler, so I could be wrong. I'd feel a lot better if I heard it coming from Fauci instead of Birx. Birx displays some tendencies to want to say what will make Trump feel good at the expense of telling the truth. I hope that's not what she's doing here.

This from four days ago. Looks like I was wrong about NY and Dr. Birx was right.

[The Feral Slasher]

The first ones back will be those out of money needing to go back to work. That will be the first compromise.

Yeah, that is why it is critical that our government does a better job of providing for the many people who will need help. But I agree, as people become more desperate and we seem to get better then there will be some pressure to "get back to work". It is why it is critical that we have effective government.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Today's report of new cases: 1467

So...? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe it's flattening? The average of 1637 new cases in the first two days this week is flat with the average of 1692 new cases per day the last five days of last week. It's definitely encouraging compared to the growth we saw (i.e., new cases quadrupled) from the week before that.

Big drop in new cases in the Louisiana report as well, to 746.

[Sour Masher]

I agree both that the 60k number must assume indefinite lockdown and that people are going to get impatient with that.

I assume it means for just the first wave of things. How many we have after that depends on how we act once people go back to work. If everyone continues to do what you plan to do, we will be in good shape. If not, we will see another spike at some point. Either way, this first wave looks like it will be mitigated to a greater extent than I thought it would based on how some people were acting. I guess the bad actors just got more press and the vast majority of people have taken this seriously. Good on us.