patrick.net

goofus says

It's wild to politicize the response, when the whole architecture of WHO, CDC, US media, and politicians (barring a few, like Trump) actively downplayed the dangers of COVID. This lasted all January and most of Feb. "Don't panic the plebs" was the order of the day -- by both parties. Trump, to his credit, shut down flights from China to widespread "xenophobic!" wails.

This X1000.

Are our Trump hating Democrat friends really this clueless about what all of the Democrats, National Media and international health agencies were saying about the virus just a few weeks ago?

Or are they just dishonest hacks?

socal2 says

goofus says

It's wild to politicize the response, when the whole architecture of WHO, CDC, US media, and politicians (barring a few, like Trump) actively downplayed the dangers of COVID. This lasted all January and most of Feb. "Don't panic the plebs" was the order of the day -- by both parties. Trump, to his credit, shut down flights from China to widespread "xenophobic!" wails.

This X1000.

Are our Trump hating Democrat friends really this clueless about what all of the Democrats, National Media and international health agencies were saying about the virus just a few weeks ago?

Or are they just dishonest hacks?

Most aren’t. Hopefully this gets them to realize that CNN and MSNBC are strictly propaganda and not actual news and that the msms has its own left biased agenda. My biggest hope out of this(besides a quick and relatively innocuous recovery) is that people stop believing the lying deceitful msm.

Reality says

When pandemics are declared, all hospitals and medical institutions treating more than 10 patients in a 24hr period should be shut down or at least stop taking new patients.

It makes zero sense to flatten the curve in order to fit more people into hospital capacities, when the hospitals are killing people!

That's right, when people need intubation and oxygen because COVID destroys their lung capacity, close the hospitals! There's a rallying cry.

ThreeBays says

You're mixing assumptions. The US models project 0.9% fatality, and you're using 0.1%. You've got to be consistent.

Who cares about the modeling? We've been keeping dead people alive too long because of big pharma and we're all now going to freak out over it? The same people here that have bitched about big pharma are now crying crocodile tears over them losing money? That's what this is. The sooner these people die, the quicker the numbers drop. Math isn't complicated.

CV-19 is killing people that 100 years ago would be lucky to be alive today. Most of their existence is miserable and self caused, but nah, morality is more important. These events are going to be more common as we keep dead people alive longer. Get over it.

I give this "self quarantine" BS another 2 weeks tops before we break out or riot. This isn't sustainable.

ThreeBays says

If we pass 10K deaths then your 0.1% assumption is too low.

What?

10K deaths would be a wonderfully mild flu season.

50K flu deaths is normal every year, 80K in a hard year.

goofus says

Reality says

When pandemics are declared, all hospitals and medical institutions treating more than 10 patients in a 24hr period should be shut down or at least stop taking new patients.

It makes zero sense to flatten the curve in order to fit more people into hospital capacities, when the hospitals are killing people!

That's right, when people need intubation and oxygen because COVID destroys their lung capacity, close the hospitals! There's a rallying cry.

Hospitals as they are today are not set up to handle massively contagious diseases. They are literally killing people: according to CDC, 100,000 people die in the US from contagious disease that they pick up from hospitals every year in normal years (before this latest allegedly massively contagious and deadly disease). Hospitals are good at treating physical injuries and surgery, when there are not a lot of contagious disease patients hanging around to contaminate injury/surgery patients.

Your blind faith in hospitals today is about as silly as the doctors had in Asprin a century ago during the 1918-1919 Asprin-Flu: those who received Asprin were dying at 30x the rate of those who received traditional hydrotherapy, yet they kept handing out Asprin like (poisoned) candies . . . and about as silly as the doctors had in Blood-letting Therapy two centuries ago (Mozart, Washington, etc. all died from that) . . . and about as silly as the Iranian Mullahs had a few weeks ago in the faith that kissing the holy rock / temple in Qum would heal them from the viral disease.

Incidentally, also about as silly as in believing that bad economy would bring down a sitting president no matter what . . . not realizing that a national crisis would actually galvanize support for a sitting president: that's how FDR got his 3rd term even as the economy was turning down again: WWII (and French collapse under Nazi blitzkrieg in 1940 to be specific) elected FDR to the 3rd term (and a 4th term later during the war).

Reality says

as silly as in believing that bad economy would bring down a sitting president no matter what . . . not realizing that a national crisis would actually galvanize support for a sitting president

Well Bush Sr, once the 1st Iraqi war was over, did cave to a recession.

The difference here is that Trump is entering election season as a war president and IMHO, his almost instinctive recommendation of hydroxycloroquine, has green lighted all the politically hamstrung physicians, who under their medical mafia guilds (NIH, FDA, etc), were too afraid of trying something experimental in nature.

If this stops ppl from getting on respirators, then Trump will be the FDR/Lincoln of the new century.

Well said, Rin. If Bush Sr had launched Desert Storm in 1992 instead of early 1991, he would have been re-elected in 1992. Let's also not forget the Ross Perot factor: if not for Ross Perot, Bush Sr would have beaten Clinton (Bill). Trump has the overwhelming majority of Ross Perot votes, only more photogenic and has a better VP candidate, and now also having 4yrs of incumbent advantage . . . before the latest smart and heroic performance restraining the worst excesses of the bureaucracy. The left's linear thinking is destroying themselves.

Reality says

The left's linear thinking is destroying themselves.

I'm not sure if the 'left' has any thinking at all.

In trading, we all understand the expression ... "priced into the market". That was the pivotal year of 2017, where for the most part, the left and its media wonks, slammed Trump of being a perma-trash talking douchebag.

So by mid-2018, much of society got used to the idea that yeah ... the commander in chief talks trash (think Imus but for politics, not sports) and at the same time, minimizes foreign wars, advocates border security, and tries to limit the phenomena of offshoring which has plagued the nation since the 1990s/2000s.

So in reality, the public has realized that this person is a sort of a political moderate, who despite having a loudmouth, isn't as bad as the left likes to portray him. This is the issue because by 2019, it's become somewhat clear that Trump's the classic anti-hero, who despite having a highly flawed personality, does the right thing, more often than not. This is akin to Kurt Russell in 'Escape from NY/LA', Vin Diesel in 'Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick', Jason Statham in 'Death Race', along with a slew of other "bad boy" movie anti-heroes whom everyone roots for.

ThreeBays says

We don't usually lock most people at home for 2 months in flu seasons.

We don't usually test everyone with flu like symptoms either. So their death is much more likely to be attributed to an existing condition instead of the flu, or CV-19 in this case.

As more people are tested the death rate will drop. Especially as fatalities rise, killing off the weak and easy pickings. I wouldn't be surprised to find out this is substantially less deadly than the flu long term. It's just a new bug that those with weak immune systems can't handle. Not sure the reaction fits the probable outcome. The old and weak will continue to die from this for a while.

Rin says

Reality says

The left's linear thinking is destroying themselves.

I'm not sure if the 'left' has any thinking at all.

In trading, we all understand the expression ... "priced into the market". That was the pivotal year of 2017, where for the most part, the left and its media wonks, slammed Trump of being a perma-trash talking douchebag.

So by mid-2018, much of society got used to the idea that yeah ... the commander in chief talks trash (think Imus but for politics, not sports) and at the same time, minimizes foreign wars, advocates border security, and tries to limit the phenomena of offshoring which has plagued the nation since the 1990s/2000s.

So in reality, the public has realized that this person is a sort of a political moderate, who despite having a loudmouth, isn't as bad as the left likes to portray him. This is the issue because by 2019, it's become somewhat clea...

Take me now Rin!

Now about those flu deaths...
The challenge of tracking deaths is not unique to COVID-19. Many of the world’s fatal illnesses are not counted individually. For example, U.S. influenza death tallies are drawn from mathematical models that rely on data taken at a network of hospitals.

Housing in the borough of Unknown should skyrocket...better buy in early!

ThreeBays says

Covid-19 seems to kill more in the old, and in men than women. Not great for Republicans.

CovfefeButDeadly says

Take me now Rin!

How big are your man boobs?

We should treat corona like global warming. Do nothing and let future generations figure out how to create a magic fix for it.

annoyed1 says

We should treat corona like global warming. Do nothing and let future generations figure out how to create a magic fix for it.

We should fix China Virus like Global Warming - insist on a China Virus offset market and levy huge taxes on medical equipment and quinine drugs.

NoCoupForYou says

We should fix China Virus like Global Warming - insist on a China Virus offset market and levy huge taxes on medical equipment and quinine drugs.

Your analogy would work if medical equipment and quine drugs caused covid infection instead of fighting it.

Tim Aurora says

Patrick says

Also, where did you come up with "less than half of 2018 flu"?

It is one of your earlier posts which said something like this " I bet the number of deaths would be less than the 2017 or 2018 flu deaths"

Right, betting it will be under the 2018 flu deaths. Didn't mention 2017.

Where did you get "half"?

Please explain.

For some perspective, there are about 330,149,796 people in the US.

0.0086 die each year.

That's 330,149,796 x 0.0086 = 2,839,288 deaths per year in the US.

Divide by 365 and you get a normal daily death rate in the US of 7,779 people,

More than 1,000 died of Wuhan virus on Wednesday. So that is pretty significant.

But will it hit the total death toll from the mostly-ignored flu season of 2018? Still doesn't look like it, if the US curve follows that of other countries.

What's funny is that Berensen doesn't like Trump, but he's too much of a sane, skeptical type and is disgusted by the Resisthype around the disease.

NoCoupForYou says

What's

Obviously, covid-19 isn't caused by capitalism, but capitalism ain't looking that good in the wake of covid. The profiteering off of respirators and toilet paper doesn't exactly make that economic system look good -- and yes, communism is worse, but whataboutism isn't a defense. The federal government should have enacted emergency powers to get respirators produced and distributed to where they are needed most -- as opposed to whoever could pay the most -- as soon as this crisis started. Rationing tp like things were rationed in WWII would have prevented the run on it and people spreading the infection as they stood in line for stores to open to rush to get tp. Tourist attractions should have been closed immediately instead of keeping them open for profit like the mayor in Jaws.

Also, the Trump administration should not have closed the White House pandemic office. That was just plain stupid. How much does that office really cost? It's a pittance compared to maintaining a single air craftcarrier. The federal government's response to this pandemic has been extremely incompetent.

One can only hope that America will pull its head out of its ass, learn from this pandemic, and prepare for the next one -- and there will be a next one, and it will be much worse. We've known for decades that eventually a major plague would hit the world. Yet, we ignored this threat. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll learn form this. Americans have short memories, and humans suck at dealing with threats whose impacts that aren't immediate including pandemics, uncontrolled climate change, drug-resistant microbes, asteroid impacts, and the threat of nuclear war. These existential should be taken seriously before one of them becomes too late. We're a single-planet species, and that makes us vulnerable.

Patrick says

PANIC!

Wait, 3 percent of 1 percent?

The covid death toll has been very small so far, but viruses expand exponentially. Humans are very bad at understanding exponential growth. We don't know how far we're along the growth curve we are. The death toll could easily rise to over a million, or it could stop in the tens of thousands. We don't know, and the only tool we have to fight it right now is social distancing.

Yes, the economy would be better off if the virus were to run its course quickly, but that comes at the cost of many more lives lost.

annoyed1 says

The covid death toll has been very small so far, but viruses expand exponentially. Humans are very bad at understanding exponential growth.

Speak of yourself. It's actually not an exponential curve but the left side of a Gaussian curve, due to two exponential curves racing (subtracting) each other: the exposed-and-recovered-therefore-immune vs. the virus. The more you suppressed the exposed-and-recovered-therefore-immune, the longer it will take the Gaussian curve to flatten and then decline on the right side of the curve.

We don't know how far we're along the growth curve we are. The death toll could easily rise to over a million, or it could stop in the tens of thousands. We don't know, and the only tool we have to fight it right now is social distancing.

We got a clue from the Diamond Princess: if nobody had immunity, 100% of the people onboard should have been tested positive after mingling on the ship festively for weeks. Instead, only 20-30% were tested positive. That meant a large cross-section of the population had already been exposed to the disease in the previous months, and were immune.

What's really bad about fighting it with the lock-down is that the hospitals are not locked down! In effect the locking down of the rest of the society while not locking down the hospitals is artificially selecting the most deadly strains of the virus and giving them an advantage to spread more freely over more benign strains of the virus. The effect of that was actually shown in the original chart comparing Philadelphia vs. St. Louis during 1918-1919 Asprin-Flu (that was cited by the "public-heath/slaughter" government officials to justify lock-down): while more people dying in Philadelphia per head-count was likely due to higher population density and more pharmacies handing out Asprin (which killed patients at 30 times higher rate than patients who did not get Asprin), Philadelphia didn't have a second hump whereas St. Louis did get a second hump that killed more people than the first hump due to the lock-down policy.

The lock-down policy is designed to kill more people!

Yes, the economy would be better off if the virus were to run its course quickly, but that comes at the cost of many more lives lost.

The second part of the sentence is simply wrong. More lives are lost as a result of a lock-down policy. The hospitals as they are set up are simply not designed to deal with large numbers of contagious disease patients. High death count in any locality is correlated to people flocking to hospitals! That happened in Wuhan (death per million was likely hundreds times that of the rest of that country and the rest of the world so far, because people packed the hospitals in the first 3 days, before emptying out; whereas most of the rest of China and most of the rest of the world learned that lesson), and in Bergamo. I had been wondering why Bergamo; now we know from the CBS footage. The small towns people apparently didn't see the stupidity of people in Wuhan in those 3 days in January packing hospitals.

Today's normal metro hospitals for treating masses of contagious disease patients is about at the same level as Asprin for treating severe flu/cold 100 years ago (during the 1918-1919 Asprin-Flu) and blood-letting therapy 200 years ago (that killed Mozard, George Washington, etc.). The medical establishment is looking at a possible fat tail event, and mistakenly think they can solve the problem by linearly projecting their usual practices that had been proven effective against smaller problems the other 99% of the time. It's the same reason why "experts" like those Nobel-Prize winning economists and quants guys blew up LTCM.

thomasdong1776 says

irrelevant. One person received more votes than the other. How those votes were distributed across the states means nothing if you're claiming "the people" rejected the one who received the most votes.

Irrelevant. Trump won a state by state popular vote. That there was an excess of Californians voting for Hillary isn't important.

ThreeBays says

There's a pretty good chance that the severity of Covid-19 & dying is related to viral load and how you get the virus. If you get it in aerosol form at a church or choir it can go directly deep in your lungs. If you get it via touching your mouth or nose, it's a much longer process to invade the lungs.

Are the hospitals magically exempt from the same laws of physics and math? Why are the hospitals not locked down? In fact, hospital air would have even higher viral load than at a church: due to the concentration of people who are sick!

Why aren't nursing homes and assisted living and senior communities under quarantine with a cop outside the doors/gates?

And only pharma, grocery deliveries, and/or cafeteria supply deliveries allowed?

annoyed1 says

The covid death toll has been very small so far, but viruses expand exponentially.

And non-genetically diverse viruses newly introduced into the human population burn out quickly, especially if allowed to infect healthy people more than capable of eliminating them. Then there is huge resistance in future outbreaks, which slows the sspread and weakens the virulence.

The graphs for Italy are no longer exponential at all.

ThreeBays says

Patrick says

The graphs for Italy are no longer exponential at all.

Yep, suppression orders have flattened the growth. It's not clear if it's hit an apex or not yet though.

Where did you learn your math? An exponential curve with a lower exponent would still be an exponential curve!

What causes the left side of the Gaussian curve to flatten is the gradual exhaustion of not-yet-exposed population! At the beginning almost the entire population are virgins and susceptible to being infected; as more and more people have been exposed and have fought it off therefore becoming immune, the virus is hitting been-there-and-done-that crowd and therefore getting stopped. The more you lock-down, the longer it takes to reach that stage.

Hausmeister T says

Patrick says

The graphs for Italy are no longer exponential at all.

Right, suddenly a sharp drop down

LOL! Another shill! Do you not realize you are plotting "total death count" not "Daily Death Count"?

Reality says

Speak of yourself. It's actually not an exponential curve but the left side of a Gaussian curve,

If you want to get technical, it's a sigma curve of which the left side is exponential. A Gaussian curve is a normal distribution curve, which is not an exponential curve on the left side.

The second part of the sentence is simply wrong. More lives are lost as a result of a lock-down policy.

That is completely wrong. All mathematical models, all simulations, and all expert analysis agree that the least in-person social interaction there is, the more the infection curve will flatten and the fewer people will die as the health care system will not have to perform as much triage.

ThreeBays says

think that models that actually use epidemiological insights like the one from Neil Ferguson, Imperial College are better.

Guessing at the deathrate and everything else in the model should never be considered insight.

The stanford professor who called out this model says the flu modeling uses random testing within a population to find % with antibodies. These models also assume 80 people have the flu currently for everyone tested at the hospital. Therefore, the correct method of determining deathrate is to take total deaths, and divide by a combination of empirically determined % of population w antibodies plus (80 times all known survivors of flu in the hospital).

Ferguson would absolutely know this. BUT he and the WHO decided to use total number of deatys divides by total tested at the hospital.

The Stanford professor points out that no scientist feels that number could be accurate YET many within the science community feel a large headline number better communicates the gravity of our situation therefore dont think it's appropriate to put caveats all over those obviously flawed headline numbers.

If you care about facts, I'd ignore ferguson completely.

NoCoupForYou says

And non-genetically diverse viruses newly introduced into the human population burn out quickly, especially if allowed to infect healthy people more than capable of eliminating them.

Virus that cause epidemics "burn out" by infecting and killing most of a population before they can continue to spread. Before modern traveling that meant just a village. Today it means the world. Your solution sucks. Let's try a solution that involves a few million fewer dead Americans.

annoyed1 says

That is completely wrong.

You are ignoring lowered standards of living which have proven to shorten lives and even kill people, especially the poor, not to mention suicides.

Put some statisticians on calculating years of life lost via worldwide economic shutdown. I can guarantee you it is more than corona virus years saved via lockdown.

I heard a stat from the ferguson team today that 80% of the corona virus deaths in Italy were people who would have died within 3 months anyways.

NoCoupForYou says

Irrelevant. Trump won a state by state popular vote.

I haven't been on this site long, but I get the distinct impression that if the democrats were in power, the people here would be calling the pandemic the worst thing in all of history.

Politics should not even enter your mind when thinking about covid. The virus doesn't give a shit about politics or who is president, and it will infect those on the left and the right without prejudice.

annoyed1 says

Reality says

Speak of yourself. It's actually not an exponential curve but the left side of a Gaussian curve,

If you want to get technical, it's a sigma curve of which the left side is exponential. A Gaussian curve is a normal distribution curve, which is not an exponential curve on the left side.

LOL! "Sigma Distribution Curve" is the Gaussian Curve. It is indeed not an exponential curve on the left side, but the start of it (the left tail) approximates exponential. That's why the mathematically inept mistake it for the exponential curve.

The second part of the sentence is simply wrong. More lives are lost as a result of a lock-down policy.

That is completely wrong. All mathematical models, all simulations, and all expert analysis agree that the least in-person social interaction there is, the more the infection curve will flatten and the fewer people will die as the health care system will not have to perform as much triage.

The so-called talking-heads "experts" are making a mistake similar to what the "experts" 100 years ago did with their Asprin prescriptions (which killed the majority of the 50 million people died in the 1918-1919 Asprin-Flu), and "experts" 200 years ago did with their blood-letting therapy.

Scientific facts are based on math and physics (Chemistry and Biology are fundamentally physics too at the lower implementation level), not based on the opinions of talking heads, who are obviously too inept to make big money in practicing the real craft but having to resort to becoming propagandists. Even the Imperial College model revised from 2.2 million to less than 200k, after 2days of semi-lockdown; it's obviously a hack piece with no scientific rigor or merit. The hospital can only save 10% or so of people who are put on the ventilator/intubation, which are the only tools that they have that are uniquely available at hospitals (pills and oxygen can be delivered at home); so in order to save 2 million by fitting "flattening the curve" and fitting patients under hospital capacity, the would have to be 20 million deaths at the same time! The entire theory of lock-down to "flatten the curve" makes zero sense when one realizes only a tiny percentage ICU patients suffering from the contagious disease survive . . . yet at the same time a trip to the hospital carry high risk of getting the disease and high risk for medical personnel to bring the disease to their families! The most deadly strains of the virus at the hospitals! Years from now, the 2020 disease will be known as the "2020 Lying Bureaucrats and Hospital Flu"

thomasdong1776 says

irrelevant.

Yes, but I am replying anyway. If we did not have an electoral college we would not have a constitutional republic. And God help us if we lived in a democracy. Can you imagine what the "Democratic Peoples Republic of America" would be like? The "people" would loot the treasury through the ballot box, dispossess the productive, and Venezuela would start to look like a place to go on vacation again.

CBOEtrader says

You are ignoring lowered standards of living which have proven to shorten lives and even kill people, especially the poor, not to mention suicides.

Killing millions of Americans to prevent anticipated "lowered standards of livings leading to shorter lives and suicides" is just plain stupid. Anti-poverty programs could prevent such poverty. Nationalizing health insurance could also prevent shorter lives, as could taxing soda. You have a really bad solution for a problem that you are merely assuming will get worse if we don't let multitudes die. Bad solution.