COVID-19 Thread

[stoutdude04]

Like it or not, the virus is going to become more and more political the closer we get to election day.

 

It is going to be used and abused at every turn. Both sides will spin it to what they consider their advantage.

Just one more thing for the media to use to divide the country, and for what?

 

It's disgusting really.

 

Money and power.

[homer]

 

We recently got referred to a real estate agent who opened up our meeting by bashing the governor and the state's COVID response...what a stupid thing to do. Maybe the echo chamber of the 15-20% that disagree with the rules is so strong that they don't even realize everyone else thinks they are nuts? All the family I've talked to in Wisconsin, who are all over the political spectrum, are following the advice of experts and continuing to take precautions. That seems like a huge victory and yet nobody is talking about that.

 

That seems like an incredibly dumb strategy in any sales field unless you are absolutely sure your prospective client is on the same political wavelength.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

 

We recently got referred to a real estate agent who opened up our meeting by bashing the governor and the state's COVID response...what a stupid thing to do. Maybe the echo chamber of the 15-20% that disagree with the rules is so strong that they don't even realize everyone else thinks they are nuts? All the family I've talked to in Wisconsin, who are all over the political spectrum, are following the advice of experts and continuing to take precautions. That seems like a huge victory and yet nobody is talking about that.

 

That seems like an incredibly dumb strategy in any sales field unless you are absolutely sure your prospective client is on the same political wavelength.

 

You'd be surprised how many RE agents posts political memes on their personal pages

[owbc]

 

We recently got referred to a real estate agent who opened up our meeting by bashing the governor and the state's COVID response...what a stupid thing to do. Maybe the echo chamber of the 15-20% that disagree with the rules is so strong that they don't even realize everyone else thinks they are nuts? All the family I've talked to in Wisconsin, who are all over the political spectrum, are following the advice of experts and continuing to take precautions. That seems like a huge victory and yet nobody is talking about that.

 

That seems like an incredibly dumb strategy in any sales field unless you are absolutely sure your prospective client is on the same political wavelength.

 

You'd be surprised how many RE agents posts political memes on their personal pages

 

It's stupid for a number of reasons, but mainly because there currently a big shift in RE going on as people who can't afford homes in cities are looking to buy homes in the hinterlands given their new freedom to work remotely. So if you are an RE agent in one of those areas you could make some serious cash if you can cater to the interests of people from cities, who are almost unanimous in taking COVID precautions seriously.

[reillymcshane]

I saw that the state conducted 9,400 tests on Wednesday. That's great news. I know my wife's organization has dramatically increased testing. A few weeks ago, they could only do one or two hundred - now they're talking 1,000 or something like that. This is because they are now able to get the supplies needed to conduct the tests.

 

That means they're starting to conduct more and more procedures. In fact, I'm scheduled for a procedure in a couple of weeks. Getting tested the day before, plus another type of test right before the procedure. Such fun.

 

At the same time, the wife said her organization is experiencing a jump in COVID cases. Why? Well, it's not because the stay-at-home order has been lifted. It's too soon to see the ramifications of that. They simply believe that it's just taking time to spread to more rural areas. They do think they'll have a spike in the next month - but who knows how big of one. Still a lot of unknowns.

 

Tons of people coming up north. It's going to give the virus a chance to spread into some areas it has been relatively benign. But let's hope the availability of testing, the summer weather, and people just being smart about things, will keep things to a minimum.

 

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/21/coronavirus-wisconsin-state-reports-single-day-record-testing/5236627002/

[HiAndTight]

 

I was very glad to see that they gave me that mouth swab test instead of the nasal test. I don't think I could do that one!

 

Actually, the nasal one wasn't bad at all. No pain, just tickled. Seriously, it tickled.

 

 

You got lucky. It felt like they were "tickling" the top of my skull.

[homer]

Kind of amazing how much better WI has gotten through this thing so far relative to other midwestern states. The case rate and death rate are much lower than Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana and obviously Illinois.

[igor67]

I didn't watch the other states as closely, but WI and MN started almost numerically equal and for awhile WI trended modestly worse. Its an interesting illustration of how chance can play an amplified effect with potential exponential growth.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I didn't watch the other states as closely, but WI and MN started almost numerically equal and for awhile WI trended modestly worse. Its an interesting illustration of how chance can play an amplified effect with potential exponential growth.

 

Roughly 45 percent of wi covid deaths stem from nursing homes, while 82 percent of mn deaths are from there. Otherwise mn would be performing equally or better than wi in terms of general population case results. Probably not so much chance as it is understanding the differences in how nursing homes are managed and any specific differences in how nursing home admissions from hospitals or medical staff testing are being handled.

 

Looking across the country, stay at home order differences between states across the general population don't appear to have any significant impact to hospitalization or death trends. Hospitals arent over capacity - medical workers are undoubtedly strained and stressed, but there are just as many nurses being laid off as there are treating covid patients, likely more. CDC has IFR down to 0.4%, with it trending closer to 0.2% after factoring in 35 percent asymptomatic cases never detected. The other aspect is understanding what percentage of "covid deaths" are tied not only to comorbidities, but to end of life situations that would have resulted in death within months had covid never existed. After reviewing some publicly available coroner reports (cook county,il in particular), I'm guessing at least 50% of covid deaths are people who had less than a year to live under the most optimistic scenarios due to their terminal maladies or extremely advanced age. The average covid death age staying several years above the country's average life expectancy reinforces that. The fact covid is a novel virus with no vaccine and its infectiousness make it worse than the seasonal flu (mainly because the flu does have various vaccines), but not by much compared to early IFR predictions that led to the lockdowns.

 

Lockdowns have proven to be little more beneficial than a fart in the wind compared to practicing social distancing measures in a mostly open society outside of nursing homes, and never would have happened nationwide had the true risk of the virus been better understood in march. That's not even factoring in the longterm economic and social devastation the last 3 months have created to the generations of people who will be around 10, 20, 30, 40, 50+ years from now. We are now seeing a spike in deaths related to anything other than covid. This "cure" has been much, much worse than the disease.

[PeaveyFury]

there are just as many nurses being laid off as there are treating covid patients

 

Source?

 

This "cure" has been much, much worse than the disease.

 

This is opinion rather than fact, though, right? You're posing a lot of data with nothing to back it up, and I'm sure the board would like to review the source material to determine for ourselves.

[igor67]

The pattern of spread in covid heavily favors superspreader type events. That has emerged as reasonably consistent everywhere. So it is absolutely trying to over fit the data to attribute a few hundred deaths difference between the two states to how nursing homes are managed. A couple of events can chew up that difference very quickly.

You typed IFR when the CDC released CFR guidance. Here is some significant questioning of how those numbers got reported.

Normally I would not cite twitter, but Bergstrom is well respected. Importantly one only has to look at the existing raw numbers of 1.6 million cases reported to 96,000 deaths (both rounded in favor of a lower estimate) and you get 6.4% currently. You can also currently work backwards from the number of deaths at 96,000 and divide by 0.004 and discover that would require 24 million Americans to have had Covid already compared to 1.6 reported. Your lower number would put that very close to 50 million Americans. The only place I have seen some kind of testing indicate that prevalence was antibodies in New York.

It's been clear for 2 months you've been determined to undersell the significance of the deaths for some reason. As with most things the estimates will change and adjust but your shorthand estimate to get to they were all going to die soon anyway is way at odds with a more thorough analysis here.

https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75

Which puts the total over 10 years. The early economic data on early to reopen states hasn't been terribly exciting either. This may also change or perhaps consistent with the somewhat most comparable event the 1918 epidemic people are going to continue to be very cautious and reserved until it is gone. Sweden's grand experiment in promoting herd immunity afterall seems to have hit a big snag with barely 7% showing up in antibody testing https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-had-covid-19-antibodies-by-end-of-april-study-sweden-coronavirus

[Machu Peach]

If anyone is interested COVID and transmission here is, in my opinion, a very nice study in Lancet Infectious Diseases. It has it's drawbacks but is quite a bit more thorough and well done than anything else I can find.

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(20)30287-5.pdf

[superfly]

there are just as many nurses being laid off as there are treating covid patients

 

Source?

 

This "cure" has been much, much worse than the disease.

 

This is opinion rather than fact, though, right? You're posing a lot of data with nothing to back it up, and I'm sure the board would like to review the source material to determine for ourselves.

 

14 people on the reservation near me have committed suicide in the past 9 days, there is skyrocketing OD, domestic/child abuse, alcohol poisoning per capita are through the roof. Low income people have been decimated. And no I don’t have a “source”...it is via a local firefighter/emt I am friends with.

[PeaveyFury]

there are just as many nurses being laid off as there are treating covid patients

 

Source?

 

This "cure" has been much, much worse than the disease.

 

This is opinion rather than fact, though, right? You're posing a lot of data with nothing to back it up, and I'm sure the board would like to review the source material to determine for ourselves.

 

14 people on the reservation near me have committed suicide in the past 9 days, there is skyrocketing OD, domestic/child abuse, alcohol poisoning per capita are through the roof. Low income people have been decimated. And no I don’t have a “source”...it is via a local firefighter/emt I am friends with.

 

And an ER nurse I’m friends with couldn’t be more thankful for the stay at home order, considering his role as a COVID screener. Anecdotal is anecdotal. Not fact.

 

It’s extraordinary sad any time someone decides to take their own life, but how could your friend possibly know that any of those 14 suicides were directly related to COVID? It’s impossible to know for sure, just like it’s impossible to know how many actual deaths were prevented by the quarantine. We’ll never really know what the true positive/negative was.

[hawing]

Kind of amazing how much better WI has gotten through this thing so far relative to other midwestern states. The case rate and death rate are much lower than Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana and obviously Illinois.

** knocking on wood **

 

(Or if you're kalle, touching iron)

[igor67]

Reliably demonstrating individual events to lockdown or general covid fear/anxiety is going to be difficult at best, but I do imagine if we care to know that at the end it will be possible to get reasonable estimates of the impact statistically. Ultimate economic comparisons will likely be trickier, but globalization at a minimum meant everyone else's suffering was going to impact us as well. At a minimum you would still have to add the impact from cancelling all large public events, and account for people's natural reluctance to go to places like restaurants. For some comparison on how Sweden is not being spared the economic drain:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronavirus-lockdown-its-economy-is-hurting-anyway-11588870062

https://www.ft.com/content/93105160-dcb4-4721-9e58-a7b262cd4b6e

[jerichoholicninja]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52758024

 

Thought this was interesting. A statisticians look at COVID. In the UK at least, if you're under 60 you're more likely to die of anything else than you are of getting and dying from COVID. That's for the entire population which would include those with compromised immune systems and others more susceptible to illness. So the risk for a healthy individual is going to be even lower.

[Samurai Bucky]

The population in Florence County where our cabin is located is smaller than than have contracted Covid-19 in Milwaukee. Crazy...

[adambr2]

One thing I'm curious to know is what the overall 2020 deaths are relative to expected overall deaths (compared to 2018, 19, etc). Does anyone have the statistics on these? I think this can help put things in perspective of how much if at all that the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to deaths in society. We know many people died with COVID-19, but how many died with it and how many died BECAUSE of it, if that makes sense.

[wntrtxn21]

One thing I'm curious to know is what the overall 2020 deaths are relative to expected overall deaths (compared to 2018, 19, etc). Does anyone have the statistics on these? I think this can help put things in perspective of how much if at all that the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to deaths in society. We know many people died with COVID-19, but how many died with it and how many died BECAUSE of it, if that makes sense.

 

Gun related deaths in the USA last year were 15,300 - 38,800 deaths related to auto accidents - about 34,000 died of the flu in 2019. It's estimated about 2.6 million people die each year from all causes. Roughly 215,00 per month. A large portion is age related.

[homer]

One thing I'm curious to know is what the overall 2020 deaths are relative to expected overall deaths (compared to 2018, 19, etc). Does anyone have the statistics on these? I think this can help put things in perspective of how much if at all that the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to deaths in society. We know many people died with COVID-19, but how many died with it and how many died BECAUSE of it, if that makes sense.

 

It's an interesting question but any data you find will be piecemeal or anecdotal at this point. It's gonna take a while for that to be reported as some places just don't do it on a monthly basis. (by way of example, Michigan just released its traffic fatality report for 2019 two days ago, and CDC is only through Q3 of 2019 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm). You can look around and find some data but unless you get the whole picture it's not that meaningful - WI had 146 traffic fatalities through May 17 this year. Last year it was 166, year before was 177....that's been trending down for a while so not sure if it is due to quarantine. I guess you'd have to see what the rate in decline was for the last 10 - 20 years to see if that's a really big drop or not.

 

In Arizona, they have a ton of "other" deaths relative to years past. Specifically those are deaths classified as "Symptoms, signs, and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified.” So far, through May 3, there’s been 1,141 deaths classified in the category. The previous average for an entire year: 1,307.

 

The guess is that most of those are Covid but obviously not 100%.

https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/data-expert-says-arizonas-death-rate-from-covid-19-may-be-much-higher-than-reported

 

Sorry, this might be better suited for the off topic thread.

[adambr2]

One thing I'm curious to know is what the overall 2020 deaths are relative to expected overall deaths (compared to 2018, 19, etc). Does anyone have the statistics on these? I think this can help put things in perspective of how much if at all that the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to deaths in society. We know many people died with COVID-19, but how many died with it and how many died BECAUSE of it, if that makes sense.

 

It's an interesting question but any data you find will be piecemeal or anecdotal at this point. It's gonna take a while for that to be reported as some places just don't do it on a monthly basis. (by way of example, Michigan just released its traffic fatality report for 2019 two days ago, and CDC is only through Q3 of 2019 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm). You can look around and find some data but unless you get the whole picture it's not that meaningful - WI had 146 traffic fatalities through May 17 this year. Last year it was 166, year before was 177....that's been trending down for a while so not sure if it is due to quarantine. I guess you'd have to see what the rate in decline was for the last 10 - 20 years to see if that's a really big drop or not.

 

In Arizona, they have a ton of "other" deaths relative to years past. Specifically those are deaths classified as "Symptoms, signs, and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified.” So far, through May 3, there’s been 1,141 deaths classified in the category. The previous average for an entire year: 1,307.

 

The guess is that most of those are Covid but obviously not 100%.

https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/data-expert-says-arizonas-death-rate-from-covid-19-may-be-much-higher-than-reported

 

Sorry, this might be better suited for the off topic thread.

 

Yeah that's my bad. For some reason I thought I did post the inquiry there and went back and realized I put it in the MLB thread. Thanks for the info.

[igor67]

Here is also some related data. New York Times and Washington Post also have articles of their own, but are pay

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.02.20051532v3.full.pdf+html

I would certainly agree that any current analysis would be subject to revision as the data quality improves. If your only interested in a rough idea that is probably doable.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Specific to MN, their policy of discharging recovering (not recovered) Covid-19 patients to nursing home facilities not capable of isolating them is a travesty - compared to the rest of the country, their results to date are horrific:

 

https://twitter.com/Avik/status/1265244659439329281/photo/1

 

Across most of the country, the death rate at nursing home facilities is in the 40-55% range, which is probably to be expected given the fact almost all fatal Covid-related victims are in the age group and/or comorbidity group that these type of facilities are intended to serve. If my current home state of MN had a fatality percentage similar to my homeland (WI) in nursing homes, there would only be 310-325 total deaths in MN related to Covid-19 instead of the nearly 900 as of yesterday.

 

MN has developed a terrible reputation regarding quality of nursing home care in recent years for those who don't have significant financial resources (see the prior admin's scandal related to elderly abuse that led to it state health commissioner resigning in late 2017) - their biggest problem related to Covid has to do with their old facilities that still are cramming multiple residents in the same bedrooms, many also having bathroom facilities similar to those of 1970's college dormitories. These nursing home facilities that are seeing Covid-19 spread like wildfire in MN aren't the places charging $10-20K/month that have sprawling wings and individual bathrooms/living spaces for residents that may actually be able to isolate infected people. The back and forth I've had with other posters about repurposing currently empty hotels or other buildings to temporarily house recovering Covid patients is specific to preventing them from being sent to the type of nursing home buildings detailed in the article below while they are still contagious. It may sound ridiculous to some who haven't seen these type of facilities, but a random La Quinta floor haphazardly refurbished to serve as a makeshift living space for recovering Covid patients who need round the clock care would be a significant upgrade compared to the conditions some of these facilities have.

 

https://www.startribune.com/despite-deadly-toll-minnesota-nursing-home-residents-with-covid-19-still-sharing-rooms/570738212/

 

This policy isn't just causing MN's death toll among the most vulnerable populations to climb, it's leading to a persistant risk of infection that is resulting in a steady increase in ICU and hospital beds used by patients from these type of dilapidated nursing homes. The state has roughly 2,500 confirmed Covid-19 cases from residents at nursing home care facilities out of nearly 23,000 total confirmed cases. It's difficult to find data that provides what percentage of MN's hospitalizations and ICU bed use are from nursing home patients, but my friends and family working in the local health and assisted living care industry indicate it's a vast majority that is similar or even larger than the state's 81% Covid fatality rate. If that's the case, then just ~10% of the confirmed Covid-19 cases are responsible for 80% of its deaths and 80% of the hospital health care demand in the state. Other states have done a much, much better job at protecting the elderly in these community living spaces, and in doing so they are in a much better place to deal with localized increases in community Covid cases requiring hospitalizations than a state whose foundation is built on healthcare...it's just sad.

[PeaveyFury]

there are just as many nurses being laid off as there are treating covid patients

 

Source?

 

Just curious if you intend to respond to any of these follow-up points/questions/requests for links or data?