Over/Under Covid 19 deaths in US

Over/Under Covid 19 deaths 2020

  • More than 25K

    Votes: 65 72.2%

  • Less than 25K

    Votes: 25 27.8%
  • Total voters
    90
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lowtimer

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Lowtimer
What do you think, will Covid 19 kill more or less than 25K people in the US in 2020.
 
If you think the over under number is way off what number do you think the "bookies" would handicap this at?
 
lowtimer said:
If you think the over under number is way off what number do you think the "bookies" would handicap this at?
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Do the bookies give you a discount on the vig if you are diagnosed with it?
 
We are still just at the start of this with thousands of new cases each day.. even if we don't fully trust China's figures we do know that they had some very strict lockdown measures in place. We don't have anything like that here in the US. This will continue to spread until there's some form of herd immunity or a vaccine
 
asicer said:
Do the bookies give you a discount on the vig if you are diagnosed with it?
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I was thinking more like Las Vegas sports book bookies, but I guess with the casinos shut down they gotta make a living. I don't know about discounts on the vig, but miss a payment and Guido comes by and infects your Grandma.
 
Hard to say, I'm guessing less than 25K deaths, but it's probably because we aren't seeing the impact as much here locally (one of the benefits of being in a flyover state).
 
Whatever the bookie number is, I'd like some sort of "score" which multiplies the body count by their average presumptive years of life remaining.
 
FormerHangie said:
It's just a matter of time.
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True, but given a long enough span of time, the impact to health care is greatly reduced. I just think we’ll hit the peak of the rate increases within a week and hopefully see the curve flatten after that. I may be too optimistic, but even the experts don’t have much of a crystal ball on this one.
 
The debate is wether it’s worse than the flu. So shouldn’t the number be 57,000?
 
100k to 200k is my guess, if I'm allowed a range.

For sure I think it will exceed 37k. Here's why.

Italy is a couple of weeks ahead of the US. Italy has 7500 deaths, which is increasing 10% each day. Italy also has 1/5 the population of the US. Multiply 7500 * 5 = 37k. I think it's unlikely we control the spread so much better than Italy that our death rate diminishes to 0% at that point, versus their 10%.
 
TCABM said:
So, less than medical errors annually.
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Maybe so.

But on the other hand, it could be anywhere up to 2.2 million. That's the scenario if we're ineffective in stopping the spread: 66% of the population infected (which Angela Merkel mentioned as the unsuccessful-scenario for Germany). Assuming the 1% death rate that scientists are now estimating, multiplying 66% * 329 million * 1% = 2.2 million.

For comparison, that worst-case scenario death toll is about 3.5X greater than the deaths due to cancer annually.
 
I don't mean to be callous but when dealing with things on a nationwide or worldwide scale you kind of have to take the humanity out of it to really put anything into a meaningful perspective.

On a national scale, 25,000 deaths isn't that much. A quick google search tells me 647,000 people die from heart disease in the US every year.
 
NoHeat said:
100k to 200k is my guess, if I'm allowed a range.

For sure I think it will exceed 37k. Here's why.

Italy is a couple of weeks ahead of the US. Italy has 7500 deaths, which is increasing 10% each day. Italy also has 1/5 the population of the US. Multiply 7500 * 5 = 37k. I think it's unlikely we control the spread so much better than Italy that our death rate diminishes to 0% at that point, versus their 10%.
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Italy is also more congested on the whole than the US and has a higher elderly population.

But, I would agree with @cowman that 25k deaths is really not much in the grand scheme of things - 37k is how many die in car crashes every year on US roads roughly.
 
Nasty bug, our bungled response along with our broken system will ensure deaths in the 6 figure range, possibly 7. I would ask all the naysayers to picture your parents, grandparents, or yourself with a tube sticking out of their throat having bloody pus and plegm pumped out, and the only thing keeping them alive being a ventilator. I saw a COVID-19 patient today being loaded on to one of our airplanes and that was his reality. It could be yours too.
 
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An estimated ~7500 people die on average every day in the USA from all causes.

If fatalities from Covid-19 are limited to 25,000 it will mean:
a) the social distancing, hand washing and economic MOABing were truly effective; or
b) #19 isn't nearly as broadly virulent across the whole population as we imagined.

We will find out in due course.
 
NoHeat said:
Maybe so.

But on the other hand, it could be anywhere up to 2.2 million. That's the scenario if we're ineffective in stopping the spread: 66% of the population infected (which Angela Merkel mentioned as the unsuccessful-scenario for Germany). Assuming the 1% death rate that scientists are now estimating, multiplying 66% * 329 million * 1% = 2.2 million.

For comparison, that worst-case scenario death toll is about 3.5X greater than the deaths due to cancer annually.
Click to expand...

The Diamond Princess cruise ship was almost the perfect lab experiment. With zero social distancing they had:
- 3700 total people
- 3081 not infected (84%)
- 619 infected (16%)
- 6 deaths (just under 1%)

If we are going to cause another great depression that will last 10 years and cost $100 trillion dollars in lost GDP we might want to look at multiple datapoints.

We probably should also discount public officials who said 2 weeks ago their state CURRENTLY had 100,000 cases of covid-19
https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...mates-100000-people-in-state-have-coronavirus

when 2 weeks LATER the actual number is...704
 
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GRG55 said:
An estimated ~7500 people die on average every day in the USA from all causes.

If fatalities from Covid-19 are limited to 25,000 it will mean:
a) the social distancing, hand washing and economic MOABing were truly effective; or
b) #19 isn't nearly as broadly virulent across the whole population as we imagined.

We will find out in due course.
Click to expand...

*OR*, we had huge natural immunity in the population (84% on Diamond Princess cruise ship).

Interestingly, we might see a lower number of flu deaths and other diseases this year due to the social distancing, a nice bonus.
 
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Datadriver said:
*OR*, we had huge natural immunity in the population (84% on Diamond Princess cruise ship).

Interestingly, we might see a lower number of flu deaths and other diseases this year due to the social distancing, a nice bonus.
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84% natural immunity? That’s good news. Source?
 
lowtimer said:
What do you think, will Covid 19 kill more or less than 25K people in the US in 2020.
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247 deaths since yesterday, if that grows at 30% each day we hit 25000 in 20 days. Hope it slows.
 
Datadriver said:
247 deaths since yesterday, if that grows at 30% each day we hit 25000 in 20 days. Hope it slows.
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It will get much worse once the major metropolitan areas hospitals are overwhelmed.

edit: that is where Italy saw their fatality rate start to skyrocket.
 
I am reminded of an old riddle I really like.

"In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half the lake?"
 
NoHeat said:
100k to 200k is my guess, if I'm allowed a range.

For sure I think it will exceed 37k. Here's why.

Italy is a couple of weeks ahead of the US. Italy has 7500 deaths, which is increasing 10% each day. Italy also has 1/5 the population of the US. Multiply 7500 * 5 = 37k. I think it's unlikely we control the spread so much better than Italy that our death rate diminishes to 0% at that point, versus their 10%.
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Yeah but culturally Italy and China have smaller personal spaces. Americans were already practicing social distancing to some degree. Early on in one of the treads I predicted less than 20K. If I turn out to be right in that prediction, I will be sure to dig up the thread and gloat :)
 
NoHeat said:
Maybe so.

But on the other hand, it could be anywhere up to 2.2 million. That's the scenario if we're ineffective in stopping the spread: 66% of the population infected (which Angela Merkel mentioned as the unsuccessful-scenario for Germany). Assuming the 1% death rate that scientists are now estimating, multiplying 66% * 329 million * 1% = 2.2 million.

For comparison, that worst-case scenario death toll is about 3.5X greater than the deaths due to cancer annually.
Click to expand...

I’m well aware of the estimates. The thing about models is that while the math is easy, the assumptions behind the models are limited by the knowledge available to make those assumptions.

While we’re learning more about this bug each and every day, we still know very little about it. And no one is willing to discuss the assumptions behind the models and whether those assumptions are being updated based on new knowledge gained or the impact of innovation gaps that get closed.
 
DavidWhite said:
I am reminded of an old riddle I really like.

"In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half the lake?"
Click to expand...
The answer, of course, is 47 days.
 
The one big unknown in all of these estimates is how many people are infected without knowing it, without developing anything more serious than cold symptoms at worst.

Brian quoted an article from Financial Times on his board that argues that the fraction of total infected people is so high that we we may already have substantial herd immunity in the population. The article was based on an epidemiological study done in the UK and hasn't been replicated elsewhere to my knowledge. It's paywalled, but I will try to find the link for those that can read it.

All this with the disclaimer that this is highly speculative, and could be entirely wrong.
 
Groundpounder said:
More people are going to be affected in a negative manner due to the financial panic than the actual virus itself.
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Of course. But recovery can be made in a different way than Congress has outlined. But it won't be; they don't trust We, the People.
If, however, you are saying that it would have been better to just let this thing run wild, I beg to differ.
 
Datadriver said:
The Diamond Princess cruise ship was almost the perfect lab experiment. With zero social distancing they had:
- 3700 total people
- 3081 not infected (84%)
- 619 infected (16%)
- 6 deaths (just under 1%)
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say they had "zero social distancing". One infected person boarded the ship on Jan 20 and disembarked on Jan 25. I don't the original itinerary or whether they rotated passengers after that, but a week later 10 people were diagnosed and the ship immediately went into quarantine. Therefore, I don't think you can attribute the 84% to immunity as it's more likely due to the quarantine. It's also my understanding that their lockdown was even more restrictive than what we're seeing in the CONUS today. If anything your data would seem to support more restrictions, not less since you would have to match the conditions on the ship to achieve the same numerical outcome.

But then again, I'm not an epidemiologist and it sounds like you aren't either. I'll defer to the experts and advise that you do so as well. I'm sure they'd probably look at this discussion the same way a pilot would watch a really bad movie about airplanes.
 
Datadriver said:
The Diamond Princess cruise ship was almost the perfect lab experiment. With zero social distancing they had:
- 3700 total people
- 3081 not infected (84%)
- 619 infected (16%)
- 6 deaths (just under 1%)
Click to expand...
Zero social distancing? Didn't they restrict everyone to their cabins as soon as they started seeing confirmed cases?
 
Datadriver said:
The Diamond Princess cruise ship was almost the perfect lab experiment. With zero social distancing they had:
- 3700 total people
- 3081 not infected (84%)
- 619 infected (16%)
- 6 deaths (just under 1%)

If we are going to cause another great depression that will last 10 years and cost $100 trillion dollars in lost GDP we might want to look at multiple datapoints.

We probably should also discount public officials who said 2 weeks ago their state CURRENTLY had 100,000 cases of covid-19
https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...mates-100000-people-in-state-have-coronavirus

when 2 weeks LATER the actual number is...704
Click to expand...

No, 2 weeks later the confirmed positive is 704. There is absolutely no way to know the total number of cases anywhere at this point. So I take it you're in favor of opening everything up today then?
 
More math:
- 330 million in US
- assume 84% immune
- assume 100% of the 16% not immune get infected
- assume 1% fatal rate

We would top out at 528,000 fatals.
KSCessnaDriver said:
No, 2 weeks later the confirmed positive is 704. There is absolutely no way to know the total number of cases anywhere at this point. So I take it you're in favor of opening everything up today then?
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Don't try and fit me into a "denier" vs an "alarmist" category. *ALL* I am saying is that the alarmists are cherry picking the worst possible models upon which to base their ENTIRE approach.
 
Groundpounder said:
More people are going to be affected in a negative manner due to the financial panic than the actual virus itself.
Click to expand...

We should be asking the younger healthy people to socialize, if they infect each other, they will have immunity and will reduce the spread of the virus. Technical term is “herd immunity”.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
We should be asking the younger healthy people to socialize, if they infect each other, they will have immunity and will reduce the spread of the virus. Technical term is “herd immunity”.
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I don’t think it works like that. Being immune doesn’t mean you can’t transmit. You’re less likely to from coughing because you are not coughing as much because you didn’t get sick. But if you touch something with the virus your ‘immunity’ does not stop the virus from sticking to your hand and getting transferred to the next thing you touch.
 
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