Coronavirus/Covid-19 Post for 3/27/2020
Hope everyone is staying in and staying safe.
Latest news at time of posting:
- USA now has more total cases than any other country.
- USA #6 in total deaths.
- UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tested positive for cornavirus after displaying minor symptoms.
- The US House is expected to vote on stimulus bill this morning. The president has said previously that he will sign the bill when it gets to him.
Wash your hands, stay at home, and GO BLUE!
Testing, though considerably more abundant than a couple of weeks ago, has largely been limited to in-hospital, now, to protect health care workers. Every story I read about doctors and hospitals says that same thing.
There's a drive through testing center in the target parking lot of my pretty small college town. I don't think it's unique.
There's one down the street from me too at Beaumont. Good luck getting a test though. You need a doctor's order, and unless you're old and/or high risk, regardless of symptoms, you're not getting one.
The doctor's order might be hard to get. Though, I can't imagine that's the case for me locally, since the testing center is busy and the town is totally dead with the college kids gone.
US testing continues a massive ramp-up. We’re testing more than anywhere else now.
But it’s also a big country, and there are a lot of hotspots now. And I’ve heard there are other bottlenecks, like PPE for people doing tests (I read somewhere that some places require fresh PPE for each test, or at least used to). “Light” and asymptomatic cases will generally not be detected.
in cases per million population and deaths per million population the U.S. behind dozens of countries in Europe/Asia etc.
March 27th, 2020 at 10:27 AM ^
Not sure what you mean by "behind" (good or bad).
But here is a recent article the has the cases per capita. We are one of the best in that regard.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-cases-per-capita-chart-countries-2020-3
Also, I can never find someone who consistently calculates the deaths per capita, which is why I do the calculation myself every now and again, but I'm sure we are equally as good (if not better).
March 27th, 2020 at 10:59 AM ^
The link you provided has a story with a graph that shows 69K for US cases but the story says 83K for US cases.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:10 AM ^
The graph says its as of yesterday morning and the source is Johns Hopkins. So pretty reputable.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:29 AM ^
Fair enough. So it jumped from 69K to 83K in 24 hours.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:01 AM ^
Deaths per capita, and other stats, are reported here. Not sure how solid this data is, but seems to lines up with the Johns Hopkins data on other stats.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:16 AM ^
Thanks! I think they added those 2 columns for per capita recently. And it shows we are doing quite well in that regard.
We're earlier on our curve than most European countries. Whether we do well or not remains to be seen.
usa has about the same population as germany, uk, france, spain and italy combined.
NYT has a great, easy to read graph:
Simply put, after a very slow start, our total number of tests now exceeds Italy and S Korea, the number per capita is still WAY lower.
By state, NY is doing the best job. California lags, but is finally starting to catch up.
We're currently performing about 65k tests per day in US.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:25 AM ^
Between being very wrong and very premature you have several major issues covered pretty well. And that people are giving you a thumbs up here-yikes.
From a medical side: 1. Testing is woefully behind and the results even more so uninformative in defining the larger picture. The majority of the current testing is simply being used as an acute diagnostic tool. 2. In a national perspective we are very much in the beginning phase of this pandemic. Here is where better testing earlier would be helpful in defining what we should expect. As things stand everything remains up in the air-sorry for the (inappropriate?) pun.
Hearing that the UK has made huge adjustments to previous predictions for the death toll, as is Sweden. We're talking an order of magnitude lower than originally predicted. Will be interesting to see the numbers in the coming weeks.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:04 AM ^
That's correct....Neil Ferguson who originally predicted 500,000 deaths testified to the UK parliamentary select committee that he now believes it will be more like 20,000 deaths and that the UK hospital system will not be overrun:
He also believes that half of those who are dying from this would have died anyway (this year) from something else because they are elderly and infirm.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:26 AM ^
That doesn't change what I wrote....he's now saying he believes the mortality of this will end up being 20,000 and not the 500,000 he originally posited. His original timelines, even accounting for the most aggressive worldwide shut down, had this peaking in July and now he's saying 2-3 weeks for the peak to pass.
That's a HUGE revision ... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-fatality-rate-white-house.html
I'm calling that good news. Could use some.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:36 AM ^
He also just re-iterated that the original 500k was not incorrect, but the new modeling assumes that then new "strict" policies remain in place and are followed. If not, the 500K is accurate. So really, it depends how closely the citizens follow the guidelines. It doesn't give me much hope for here, as most people seem to be ignoring precautions.
March 27th, 2020 at 12:08 PM ^
Yep. There was a church in Detroit with 700 people at mass last Sunday.
Doctors confirmed my mother likely had coronavirus about 2 months ago, which is scary considering what we know now about it. She was violently sick, bed ridden, but didn't go to the doctor because she figured it was just a severe flu. She complained that it was a different symptom every day, and was ultimately out of commission for about 2 weeks. She was already taking hydroxychloroquine for her arthritis, which is one of the medicines that people have been theorizing may help with coronavirus, so that may have helped her.
Even scarier is that my 76 year old father was exposed to it, but luckily didn't get sick.
How did they confirm it? Or was it just a guess?
I also believe this thing has been circulating in MI for at least a month or two.
They confirmed that she "likely" had it, which, yeah, is fairly anecdotal. But many of the doctors and researchers who are studying the virus are trying to trace how far back this outbreak goes, so her doctor reached out to her. She ended up doing a virtual visit with them this week, and went over her original symptoms, and it was completely in line with what they are currently seeing, and also matched a cluster of confirmed coronavirus cases that exploded in the neighboring town a week after. She's in Westchester NY, which is where the first batch of cases in US appeared.
March 27th, 2020 at 10:01 AM ^
I have a friend who's around 65 and she thinks she may have had it in January. She was sick for three weeks and she said it was like nothing she's had before, and the symptoms were COVID. Her daughter lives in Seattle and she saw her over Christmas. But again, she's speculating. It would make sense, though, given the Seattle connection.
I concur, in the past month or so we have lost guys at work for an extended period of time describing their illness as horrible and they were bed-ridden. I believe (Hope) it may have already run It’s course through my household with no major issues/outcomes. If it hasn’t, I’m terrified of getting it after what we’ve already gone through.
I work with offices in Seattle and Europe, and nearly every office I spoke with had "something" going around the weeks before we knew what the virus was.
It definitely seems like it was making the rounds before they officially diagnosed it in the US.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:11 AM ^
I believe your right. I came down with all the symptoms back in January after a two week trip to Philly out of DTW. Even back then there were many international travelers at McNamara wearing masks. I thought nothing of it of course.
I would really love to talk to an MGoEpidemiologist and ask them some questions because this is the stuff I don’t totally understand about this thing. If it’s crazy contagious and able to circulate undetected through asymptomatic carriers, and lots of places are only just or still haven’t enacted social distancing measures, why is it only now in nearly April that this thing is rearing it’s head with so many severe cases in certain hotspots? And why are so many places still not seeing severe cases or only seeing a few? I’m sure there’s models out there that can explain it and it’s probably something to do with critical mass exposure reaching the vulnerable on sufficient quantities but I’m not smart enough to grasp it without a fifth grade explanation
March 27th, 2020 at 10:39 AM ^
Not an epidemiologist just a curious mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=8KSQRdROrwc&feature=em…
I think this video does a reasonably good job of explaining virus transmission. There are many other videos available if you like this one.
TLDW
The virus was likely circulating in a couple of places like NYC earlier than other parts of the country due to travel and population density. There were more opportunities for the virus to transmit between people and thus a higher R0. NYC has a steeper curve than other parts of the country and as a result and will peak higher in the short term.
https://www.popsci.com/story/health/how-diseases-spread/
article provides a basic explanation of r0 for different viruses
March 27th, 2020 at 11:00 AM ^
NYC also mismanaged their response, probably worse than anywhere. Upstate schools were closed long before NYC closed their’s, despite having orders of magnitude more cases. NYC had sick teachers in the classroom and didn’t do anything about it.
We don’t know exactly how contagious it is because we don’t know how widespread infections really are.
But: the infections being reported now are, generally, infections that were caught roughly two weeks ago. 5 days or so incubation followed by symptoms that are notable but not bad enough to require a trip to the hospital. It’s the more significant cases that are getting tested.
Remember two weekends ago when things were starting to shut down and there were pics of people packing restaurants in NYC? Those cases are just starting to get bad enough to report. I’m wondering if Michigan’s outbreak isn’t partially a consequence of the primary election, all the people waiting in line and using the same polling booths.
But an epidemiologist could say better than me.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:02 AM ^
2 months ago? Then no. I'm guessing she hadn't recently been to China.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:08 AM ^
It's possible China came to her?
USA now has more total cases than any other country.
With an asterisk for fake Chinese numbers.
What do we attribute this to? Did 15 million people die in China?
I'm not trying to spread fear, just looking for an answer
Fucking China man they crushed it.
It originates in Wuhan so they get totally surprised by this thing with zero time to prepare. They have 25% of the world’s population. And they have not had a single death or new case in like two weeks.
How do they do it!! Maybe if we ask politely they will share that with us.
And they have not had a single death or new case in like two weeks.
So they claim.
March 27th, 2020 at 10:05 AM ^
Right? Just wait til it really hits Russia hard I can’t think of a more vulnerable population where the Government won’t admit to anything being wrong
March 27th, 2020 at 10:40 AM ^
I mean you're right on Russia but if the criteria is vulnerable population and government propaganda North Korea still takes the cake.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:49 AM ^
So what are you going to do about it?
Approach it the same way North Korea approaches corona. Shoot the infected. That's definitely one way to keep your infected count down.
March 27th, 2020 at 10:07 AM ^
Exactly. Not exactly a very reliable source of information.
This is just about as believable as Kim Jong getting 8 hole in one's the first time he went golfing.
https://www.golf.com/golf-plus/behind-kim-jong-ils-famous-round-golf
March 27th, 2020 at 10:02 AM ^
Three things seem to be working:
- All personal rights are revocable.
- Mess with the government in the tiniest way, get sent to a horrifying work camp for years or decades
- Absence of free media or other independent mechanisms to validate government claims. Also no media skeptical of government claims advancing counternarratives about this virus.
I don't think these are techniques that can be implemented here, but if we have to I suggest we start with Florida.
March 27th, 2020 at 10:32 AM ^
"And they have not had a single death or new case in like two weeks."
I'll tell you right now that is an absolute load of crap. China has no free press. Their press answers to the government. The Chinese press reports whatever the Chinese government tells them to report. So if 10,000 people actually died in Wuhan last night but the government told the press to report instead that there were no new deaths, then that is what will get reported.
I've said this in other threads as well, but the Chinese government has a vested interest in making the rest of the world believe that its on top of its shit and that they are the ones that have COVID-19 under control. Granted, so does the US government, but the difference is that the US has a free and independent press. Our reporters have far less of an obligation to take what our government says at its word. They can take what Trump says, wipe their ass with it, do their own independent research, report that instead, and essentially tell the powers-that-be to fuck off. In China, that buys you a one-way pass to a labor camp in the Gobi Desert for 10 years of hard labor. Or it buys a bullet in your head.
I could be wrong, but I'd tell you that people in China are still getting infected and dying from COVID-19. The Chinese government just doesn't want the outside world to know about it. A great line from the Chernobyl miniseries is relevant here: "Our power comes from the perception of our power."
March 27th, 2020 at 11:12 AM ^
Double-D - is this sarcasm? The Chinese are most certainly lying about their numbers and if you look at WorldOMeter stats they are reporting new cases and deaths everyday:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/
Also....if you want to know how they did it just google it and take a look at how the welded people into their apartments so they couldn't leave Wuhan. Horrifying videos posted everywhere on twitter.
March 27th, 2020 at 12:23 PM ^
China actually is reporting 55 new cases and 5 new deaths today.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
(EDIT: missed the post above.)