Forecasting for COVID-19 has failed

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Greg Bockelman said:
I would rather take my chances with the M&Ms than to live my life in fear of them.

I am reasonably sure that Covid isn’t going to kill me if I catch it.
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So you buy into the fallacy that it’s one way or the other. That it’s either a myth or something people fear like it’s the end of the world.
 
Unfortunately, there are in fact a lot of people that act like M&Ms are the end of the world.
 
Fearless Tower said:
So you buy into the fallacy that it’s one way or the other. That it’s either a myth or something people fear like it’s the end of the world.
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I don’t really know how to respond to that.

It’s not a myth and more than a few people DO fear it like it is the end of the world. I am not one of them.
 
The county I live in has a population of 60,000 and not one fatality due to Corona virus. That stat tends to make folks very comfortable not taking precautions. People are ready to accept getting the virus and getting back to normal life.
Hard to believe that NY has lost so many by comparison. It’s almost as if NY was targeted or highly susceptible in some way. Must be their public transportation system that puts them so close.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I don’t really know how to respond to that.

It’s not a myth and more than a few people DO fear it like it is the end of the world. I am not one of them.
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I think yours is a reasonable response. Some of your comments earlier sounded a bit more like you were of the myth persuasion.

Hopefully, you realize the mask isn’t to protect you, but rather reduce the chance of people who might be asymptomatic and spreading it without knowing. So while it may be easy to say ‘I’ll take my chances’, when people refuse to wear a mask, it’s not really their chances they are taking.

I personally hate the mask. I was deemed an ‘essential employee’ from the beginning. I’ve been wearing a mask for 7 hours a day 5 days a week since the Navy mandated it in early April. Trying to instruct in a simulator while wearing a mask is a royal pain and losing the mask is the biggest thing I’m looking forward to when it’s all over.

While the CDC and WHO, Republicans and Democrats can debate early data all day long, here is what I’ve noticed; most states that have been more aggressive with mask policies/requirements are not seeing the increases in COVID cases after reopening as states that have been more lax/approached masks as recommendation rather than requirement.

Also, from the unique perspective of the Navy, we have seen a few big outbreaks (TR and KIDD) early on before masks were being encouraged or required. Since the Navy implemented mask requirements, we have had ships experience isolated positive cases that never spread. If you have ever seen how sickness spreads throughout a ship, that lack of spread with mask use is significant.

So, while certainly not enough data to meet a peer reviewed scientific study, it’s enough non-media provided data to make me believe that masks provide benefit while allowing the economy to reopen.
 
Stan Cooper said:
Most of the evidence of miscounts is anecdotal.
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Not exactly. I saw with my own eyes an official at the podium explain that the Covid-19 death tally included all people who died with Covid, not necessarily those whose cause of death was Covid. That's fine, as long as we all know what that statistic means and doesn't mean.
 
Stan Cooper said:
Most of the evidence of miscounts is anecdotal.
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Not sure you can dismiss it as anecdotal. We know the data is not equal because not everyone is reporting the same data or in the same way.

For example, we know that some states have been over-reporting positives. Virginia, for example, was open about the fact that for a period, they were reporting positive tests not positive cases. Because of the wide variance in symptoms, if you tested positive, you were going to be tested two to three times to confirm diagnosis. So each positive case got reported as 2 to 3 positive tests.

Now you throw that data into the national level with other states only reporting positive cases and it makes Virginia look like it has a bigger problem than it actually does.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Not sure you can dismiss it as anecdotal. We know the data is not equal because not everyone is reporting the same data or in the same way.

For example, we know that some states have been over-reporting positives. Virginia, for example, was open about the fact that for a period, they were reporting positive tests not positive cases. Because of the wide variance in symptoms, if you tested positive, you were going to be tested two to three times to confirm diagnosis. So each positive case got reported as 2 to 3 positive tests.

Now you throw that data into the national level with other states only reporting positive cases and it makes Virginia look like it has a bigger problem than it actually does.
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Related is whether or people get tested multiple times (and show negative) over the course of months. For example, do healthcare workers get tested more than once (especially now that some States have sufficient testing capacity)?
 
Greg Bockelman said:
It would be a whole lot more palatable to me to wear a mask if I knew there was an end game to this. As it is, apparently this is a forever deal. THAT I do not accept.

As for me,I would rather catch the thing and get it over with and be done with it.
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Feel free to attend the Tulsa rally. You'll have a good chance.
 
Oh I don’t know. I haven’t heard of massive positive cases as a result of that pool party in the Ozarks a few weeks ago.
 
Brad Smith said:
Must be their public transportation system that puts them so close.
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That was likely one factor. Cutting back the number of train cars early in the pandemic (increasing crowding) was a mistake, but the high population density throughout the city poses a challenge. The other huge blunder NY made was the executive order putting Covid patients INTO nursing homes. That was reversed after two months, but the damage had been done--there were a lot of fatalities among that most at-risk population.
 
Fearless Tower said:
No, because no one knew anything was wrong until symptoms showed up.

And that’s the problem with this 2 week isolation idea. If a family of 4 or 5 gets unknowingly exposed and then goes into quarantine, due to the possibility of asymptomatic cases and the timeline from exposure to positive case, you would have people emerging from isolation two weeks later thinking everything is fine and back to normal and resume the spread.
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I have family who live in Dallas in a household with 3 positives. Initially one person in the household tested positive. Then the next person turned symptomatic, then tested positive, then the next person symptomatic, then tested positive.

You'd think once the first test came back positive, the rest of them would self-isolate as a result right? Nope, everybody kept going about their daily business, going to stores, coffee shops and friends. They work from home, so has nothing to do with livelihood. According to them: "Texas law doesn't require people in a household to isolate if they're positive", so they didn't.

Even after the second & third person became symptomatic, even AFTER they took the tests (but before the results came back), they kept going out and interacting with people. Once the test came back positive, they finally stopped going out, but then went back-and-forth with that doctor for days to figure out which is the exact hour they can resume normal activities - 14 days after symptoms started, 14 days after the test, 14 days after the actual positive result or 14 days after the FIRST carrier turned positive?

One of them actually had heart surgery recently, so is at high risk. But nope, all of them insisted on just following the very technical bare minimum as allowed by law, and they're all surprised that they all got infected as a result. Frustrating.
 
GaryM said:
That was likely one factor. Cutting back the number of train cars early in the pandemic (increasing crowding) was a mistake, but the high population density throughout the city poses a challenge. The other huge blunder NY made was the executive order putting Covid patients INTO nursing homes. That was reversed after two months, but the damage had been done--there were a lot of fatalities among that most at-risk population.
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https://www.propublica.org/article/...-to-nursing-homes-then-he-risked-adding-to-it
 
Huge summer bloom is in progress.....(West of the Mississippi River), sigh.
 
We’ll see how far this goes. At least in AZ, the rate of growth of new cases actually trending down since about Memorial Day, which seemed to cause a huge burst.
 
PPC1052 said:
Not exactly. I saw with my own eyes an official at the podium explain that the Covid-19 death tally included all people who died with Covid, not necessarily those whose cause of death was Covid. That's fine, as long as we all know what that statistic means and doesn't mean.
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There is always some arbitrariness in assigning the cause of death, especially in the case of deaths which have multiple health issues. Agreed it would be nice if there was a a standard on this.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
We’ll see how far this goes. At least in AZ, the rate of growth of new cases actually trending down since about Memorial Day, which seemed to cause a huge burst.
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Yes, the rate of growth has slowed. Now the number of new cases is staying around 8 times what it was a month ago. Can Arizona's healthcare system handle that many cases? So far the death rate has not followed case growth, let's hope it doesn't. Here in Georgia our seven day average number of cases is back near its peak which was in April, but the death rate has not followed.

PeterNSteinmetz said:
There is always some arbitrariness in assigning the cause of death, especially in the case of deaths which have multiple health issues. Agreed it would be nice if there was a a standard on this.
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All the analyses of excess mortality that I have seen indicate that the number of coronavirus deaths has been understated, with the exception of a few Nordic countries. These are preliminary numbers, and are likely to increase as all the death certificates continue to be counted.
 
FormerHangie said:
All the analyses of excess mortality that I have seen indicate that the number of coronavirus deaths has been understated, with the exception of a few Nordic countries. These are preliminary numbers, and are likely to increase as all the death certificates continue to be counted.
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Have you looked at the CDC excess death page(s)?
 
Day #1 of "Forecasting and Data Analytics" class:
"If there is one thing you must take away from this class it is this - 'The forecast is ALWAYS wrong. The only thing that is ALWAYS true about a forecast is that it is ALWAYS wrong.'"
 
The so called lockdowns did nothing but prolong this mess. Remember the experts told us that we needed 2 weeks to “flatten the curve”. That was 12 weeks ago.

But let’s keep listening to the politicians cloaked as experts. o_O
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
There is always some arbitrariness in assigning the cause of death, especially in the case of deaths which have multiple health issues. Agreed it would be nice if there was a a standard on this.
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Perhaps, but my point is that they were not trying to assign a cause of death AT ALL. She was very clear that the data reported those who had died with Covid, not those who died from Covid. It was the opposite of arbitrary. Again, that's fine as long as the data is not misused.

Here is a link to my state's health department dash board. https://www.coronavirus.in.gov/ It's pretty good if you spend a little bit of time looking at the notes explaining each statistic. What's interesting is when you look at the new cases and new deaths, they will show graphically how long ago those deaths occurred. They specifically state that they show the date when tests were administrated WHEN THEY HAVE THAT INFORMATION. If they don't have the date of the test, they show the new number on the date they got the report. As a result, you will often see the most recent data point on the graph is a spike, but over time as they get the correct data, it gets moved from that date to some date in the past. The other thing that's interesting is that there is a nice 7 day cycle that you can see on the graph for the number of tests given. This is all fine, but it is certainly easy to misinterpret the data if you are not careful and look closely at what they are actually saying.

Also, what's interesting is toggling between the graphic depicting the total number of cases by county versus the per capita cases by county. The hot spots in the state look dramatically different.
 
Doc Holliday said:
The so called lockdowns did nothing but prolong this mess. Remember the experts told us that we needed 2 weeks to “flatten the curve”. That was 12 weeks ago.

But let’s keep listening to the politicians cloaked as experts. o_O
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@Doc H The purpose of the lockdowns was to throttle back the flow of patients to the ICUs.
That worked well here in NYC.

-Skip
 
Greg Bockelman said:
What is your point, Michael? Are you one of those that wants us locked down forever?
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My point is once again simple. Just because there hasn't been an incidence in one locality doesn't mean there won't be. Give it time. And yes absolutely, we're going to have to continue virus ablation procedures until either there's a widely available vaccine or we can count on some degree of herd immunity. Look, the virus isn't conservative or liberal. It doesn't at all care about the economy or what you do. If it can it will infect you, and we can expect the strains to get better at it as they get more widely circulated among human populations. Moreover, we are its ecosystem and it will evolve, it has already.

There has never been a virus like this, that in a matter of months has grown from an isolated set of cases to a worldwide pandemic. Spanish flu comes close, and it killed more people than WWI. We ignore it at our peril, unless we really don't care about the more sensitive members of our society or a percentage of everyone else.
 
Bob Noel said:
Have you looked at the CDC excess death page(s)?
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The point is that the actual number is even higher than what the testing has picked up. Not so much now where testing of inpatients is not a bottle-neck, but earlier in the epidemic when we were blind to the full extent of the event.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
What is your point, Michael? Are you one of those that wants us locked down forever?
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It's water under the bridge now, but if we had done things properly back in February and March, the lock down would have been shorter, and the number of cases and deaths lower. Now, we are dragging this out far longer than needed to be.
 
Some parts of the first amendment are more important than others....apparently.
 
Doc Holliday said:
The so called lockdowns did nothing but prolong this mess. Remember the experts told us that we needed 2 weeks to “flatten the curve”. That was 12 weeks ago.

But let’s keep listening to the politicians cloaked as experts. o_O
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Lockdown = 40%+ of the population still going to work practically business as usual. Those 40% are exposing the majority of the population who are staying home (spouces/children etc)

"lockdown" is right
 
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Hospitals and lawyers will be making windfall profits in coming years as assets are transferred from estates.
 
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