Is Data Proving Covid19 Concerns To Be Overblown
With all the high level scientists and health professionals in this MGOBLOG community, I'm curious to hear you opinions on what these two doctors' data shows. It's a press briefing from two doctors in California that breaks down the data they have accumulated locally, and then also on a national and global scale. If you have time to listen, I recommend it. Interested to hear all of your thoughts.
Sweet Fancy Moses OP. You provide a link to a 52 minute video with no attempt at summarizing important bits or doing anything other than just adding a cumulative Covid-19 post that could have been in any other Covid-19 thread.
Listen man. I'm trying to be a candle in the darkness. I've been hammering through a basic science post that I'm about ready to put up, probably in series, starting tonight. Keep an eye out and let's discuss after.
Meantime, one chart to consider.
Fauci, is that you?
Does your science post get into exponential growth at all? I feel like lots of people just don’t get that. I’ve been working on a post on that but I suspect you would tackle it much better.
I'm not planning to hit the epidemiology, just the basics of how antibodies and testing work (and what they actually tell you) since I've found those subjects to be covered poorly in the reporting.
Looking forward to reading it.
Question (it may be a dumb one and you may cover it in your post tonight but): can people who have developed covid antibodies still carry and spread the disease? For example, let's say I had a mild case about 4 weeks ago and my quarantine period is over. I then go out to the store and touch a shopping cart or a door handle that has recently been infected by someone with an active, contagious case. I then go home and touch the exterior doors of my apartment before getting home to wash my hands. Would someone else then be at risk of getting infected? Do the antibodies have any effect on reducing the ability to spread it? (I of course understand that people with the antibodies won't get sick)
I of course understand that people with the antibodies won't get sick
Unfortunately, that's not necessarily true. I hope that's true.
can people who have developed covid antibodies still carry and spread the disease?
I'm pretty sure the answer is an extremely qualified yes. The antibodies will not have any effect on the transfer that you described -- if you had the virus on your hands, and touched another object, it could be contaminated. It's just that the probabilities are pretty low, and they drop with each intermediate thing you touch.
However, if the antibodies confer immunity, then a reinfection is unlikely to progress to the point where your body is allowing the virus to replicate. That's how most infections occur -- the host organism generates millions of copies of the virus, some of which infect the next target. IMO, the risk posed by an immunized person is insignificant enough to be ignored. I mean, you're looking at maybe spreading 5-10 copies of the virus, vs. 5-10 million. Big difference.
Obviously we need to start transmitting this from person to person by cutting asymptomatic people and rubbing their freshly bleedling wounds onto others’ open wounds to not only transfer the virus but the antibodies as well.
Recovered patients are being asked to donate their plasma for basically this purpose, minus the squick factor. You can't just inject antibodies into a healthy patient and expect the body to continue to produce them, though. At least, nobody's ever found a way to do that.
My plan goes one step further and infects those who are not yet infected though. Clearly it’s superior
Thanks. I find your posts very useful.
I like science and all, but I wish they would have used a thicker font, with only 8pt font I'm not seeing any problem.
looking forward to your diary
THIS, and Dairy Queen's comment above. The data on this is a total mess because of the inconsistency in the testing in most countries (particularly in America).
What can we trust? That people are freaking dying. A lot of people and very quickly. The death figures are likely understated for a variety of reasons, but even if we take them as they are, what other evidence do you need?
What the hell is wrong with people? Why are there so many goddamn idiots in this country? Seriously.
You're only telling half the story. I maintain that this was absolutely inevitable once the virus crossed into the human population. Yes, the red line looks scary (nice selection of color -- someone's got some marketing chops). But it doesn't tell the whole story.
At the risk of repeating myself, and getting downvoted yet again by people who don't like this message, even the people calling for "social distancing" maintained that their goal was never to limit the number of infections. All they were trying to do was to slow them down so that the hospitals didn't get overwhelmed. If the hospitals were not going to be overwhelmed -- which is my position for the majority of the country -- then no additional lives were saved by all of the damage that we've done.
Put another way, knowing what we know today, I think shutting NYC and Detroit down for a couple of weeks (not months) may have made sense. There are a few other large cities where I can understand erring on the side of caution, especially if they make big use of mass transit (Chicago, Seattle, Boston, DC). Most of the rest of the country has prepped for an infection caseload that they're never going to see at any one time, and it's not wrong to ask if it was worth it.
You're not getting a downvote from me. I thought you stated it very reasonably.
That said, you are saving lives by curve-flattening because overwhelmed hospitals can't possibly provide the same level of care for patients, and mortality rises. Predicting which hospitals would be overwhelmed absent social distancing was/is extremely tricky, for rural areas in particular because hospitals are so increasingly hard to find. The problem is that once it's clear they're going to get overwhelmed, it's too late.
I don't think it's wrong to point out how many lives are lost as the result of impoverishment. It can't/shouldn't be ignored. Just an exceptionally difficult balance of harms at this point.
Like I’ve said to a lot of family and friends: our leaders have said “slow the spread”, not “stop the spread”. Also, the length of the line in that flattened curve is still the sum of all people, so people are going to continue to get it until there’s a vaccine. I think it’s also important to point out that contracting this virus is not a death sentence.
O.k., J... It is true that one goal of flattening the curve was/is to prevent overwhelming the health care system with too many COVID-19 patients in a short time span. "Flatten the curve" expands that time frame over which infections occur.
But...there actually is a second goal to the stay at home/no public gathering/work at home/close the schools and non-essential businesses. The second goal is to get down the other side of the curve--to get to a low enough infection rate that community spread very low. Once the second goal is achieved, we can go back to close to normal life with test/trace/quarantine measures of the smaller number of infection that pop up.
There are many places (most places maybe) in the U.S. that could achieve this second goal if they remain closed for a few more weeks.
All jobs are essential if they happen to be yours.
I see no reason to believe that the number of new infections will drop to the level where test / trace / quarantine were possible, even if it didn't raise a whole set of other legality / privacy concerns.
The virus has a contagion period of about two weeks. We've been under virtual house arrest for five weeks. There should be very few new infections already. There's no reason to think that "a few more weeks" will make a difference.
Actually, there are many places in the US that could get to very low infection rates. NYC would take a long time. But Denver, Des Moines, Bakersfield, many others??? 8-10 weeks more of serious lock down could get them there.
Takes time. A lot longer than the 2 week infection period. Longer than the 5-6 weeks we have been shut.
Not clear if people will be willing to wait long enough to make it happen. If not, we will be in cycles of opening then shutting with a LOT of death for probably 18+ more months. Economic devastation would be far worse on this path...
As for lost income of the unemployed and shut businesses, this is NOT the hard part. The solution is easy: Fed creates money. Fed buys U.S. government bonds from the Treasury (a LOT of bonds). U.S. Treasury now has the cash to send out weekly checks to the unemployed. Fed creation of money will not generate inflation as we are currently entering a steep deflationary spiral. Inflation is impossible with the sort of demand drop we are now experiencing.
If we keep the current rules in place for 8-10 weeks, I'm not sure there will be an economy to restart. However, I will grant you this: if society survives, that might actually lead to fewer deaths. It will only do that if you can eradicate the virus, which really doesn't seem likely without a vaccine, but I will grant that it's not impossible. You're just taking a pretty big risk, IMO.
And, endlessly printing money eventually has a cost. If nothing else, the debt that's being created will eventually lead to a reckoning, and it won't be pretty.
Keeping workers and business with enough cash scrape through for three or four months is the easy part.
Money creation will have a much, much smaller negative consequence than the economic wreckage that would come from opening back up.
The economic devastation from 'open it now' would be unbelievably bad. 1-2 million dying over 18-24 months (those who know have said that a vaccine sooner is not likely), plus 20-30 areas as bad as NYC is right now....would generate economic devastation beyond anything we have ever known.
Better to bite the bullet or 3-4 more months and get the virus down to a point where we can control it enough with test/trace/quarantine to have a 'mostly normal' economy in most of the nation as soon as possible.
The capacity of the federal government to print money and finance 3-4 months of economic shut down is far greater than most imagine. Better to pay the price for 3-4 months, and get the economy close to normal thereafter than take the 18-25 month 1-2 million dead route.
It is simple really: The faster we can get to close to a normal economy, the less the long run total economic damage. And yes, the federal government can finance what would be needed to get us through a 3-4 month shut down with out much problem.
April 24th, 2020 at 11:57 PM ^
3 million Americans die each year. Even if I accept your 1-2 million death estimate, over 2 years, knowing that many of those people may have died during that time period anyway, I don't think this is economic devastation beyond anything we've ever known. Although, I suppose, if we have to put up with media coverage of this for 24 months, maybe you're right...
I just can't buy into your test/trace/quarantine suggestion, though. South Korea is absolutely not a viable model for the United States, for a variety of reasons:
- As a country, they are culturally distinct from the US. Korean culture is much less 'rugged individualist' than US culture is.
- They have 25% more population than California, jammed into an area one-fourth the size. 92% of the population is urban, and urban areas make up 16% of the country. (By comparison, California ia 5% urban area).
- They are widely regarded to have some of the best technological infrastructure in the world.
- By most estimates (I found conflicting data), smartphone penetration is considerably higher in South Korea than in the US (90-95% vs. 70-75%, but, again, I found some studies that differed).
- They have been living in a state of war, with an existential threat poised about 30 miles from Seoul, for the last 70 years.
South Koreans are more used to giving up their individual liberty for the good of society, and it's a smaller burden because people are in a smaller area. The higher density means more contacts than Americans, which is bad, but they're easier to find, which is good. Tracing is likely to require a mobile app, which means a smartphone, so, again, easier in South Korea. And, because they're used to being at war, they're not as likely to revolt as Americans would be.
If I were to contract COVID-19, I would comply with a voluntary trace request. But I have no plans to allow the government to install spyware on my phone in order to trace me.
That's actually my honest desire: give us the best information available at the time, make recommendations but not threats, and trust people to make decisions, even when you know that not everybody will make the "best" decision.
April 25th, 2020 at 12:38 AM ^
There are many arguments in your post on why we can't do what S. Korea has done. I guess I do not have time to address each of them one-by-one.
But...I think that most of them are unconvincing. The vast majority of Americans would accept test/trace/quarantine phone app privacy intrusion if it meant that most of us could be living and working that way they are now in S. Korea.
We are currently giving up a lot of individual liberty with stay at home, lost jobs, etc. Test/trace/quarantine/phone app seems like less of a forfeit of individual liberties. Besides, we already give many private companies our data, allow them to trace our locations, etc. for...basically nothing in return.
The app used in S. Korea stores all personal info on the users' individual phones anyway, not a government database. And if the app is not voluntary, neither is 'stay at home' or lose your paycheck voluntary. Neither is a military draft voluntary. This is the biggest national challenge since WWII. We had a draft then. We had rationing. An app seems to ask far less of people than a draft and less that stay at home/no paycheck...
And yes this is economic devastation beyond anything we have know. Very few on this board were alive during the Depression. And if we stop and start the economy for 18+ more months it could get as bad as or worse than the 30s.
This is simple. It is unlikely that a vaccine will arrive sooner than 18 months. Possible. But unlikely. And...any way you slice it, if we open up now we will return to exponential growth, but worse--in 60 days it will be 20-30 metro areas in severe crisis, not four or five. And the economy will be even worse in the long run.
We have a choice. Do this thing the one way that works, or find reasons why as Americans we just are not able to do it the one right way that works.
You want proof of the right way right here in the USA? New Rochelle. They had a bad local outbreak. They did tracing and beat back the local outbreak quickly. All test and trace is local. Just have to multiply the local trace teams all over the nation to snuf out brush fires that pop up. In the areas that are already burning out of control, we have to beat back the fire until they are small enough for test/trace.
The vast majority of Americans would accept test/trace/quarantine phone app privacy intrusion if it meant that most of us could be living and working that way they are now in S. Korea.
Sadly, I worry that this is correct. But that gets into ideology, and it's not really fair to your argument. I'll just say, I suspect that there would be a great deal more nonconformance in the US than there would in South Korea.
We are currently giving up a lot of individual liberty with stay at home, lost jobs, etc. Test/trace/quarantine/phone app seems like less of a forfeit of individual liberties. Besides, we already give many private companies our data, allow them to trace our locations, etc. for...basically nothing in return.
The sacrificed liberties are a big part of the impetus I have to remove these restrictions. Everyone's trigger is different. Mine was the mandatory mask rule here in Austin. I have never worn a mask in my life, and I don't want to start now. Others will have different breaking points, but most people have one somewhere. And you're right about many people giving private companies our data. I try not to do that as much as some do, but you're still right. The difference is, I know their motivations. I don't trust Google, but I trust the federal government less. Google just wants to monetize me. I use few Google products as a result. I don't really care to avail of an option to change federal government providers. :)
The app used in S. Korea stores all personal info on the users' individual phones anyway, not a government database. And if the app is not voluntary, neither is 'stay at home' or lose your paycheck voluntary. Neither is a military draft voluntary. This is the biggest national challenge since WWII. We had a draft then. We had rationing. An app seems to ask far less of people than a draft and less that stay at home/no paycheck..
I agree. This is a time-honored strategy. It's the exact same way that we ended up with people paying for TSA PreCheck. The exact same experience that we got for free pre-9/11 -- which I considered a fourth amendment violation even then -- I'm now supposed to pay for, because the alternative is worse. "We've taken 5 of your rights. Be grateful if we give back 3." Keep in mind the old saw -- nothing last longer in Washington than a temporary program. Tax withholding was a temporary WWII program. (Yes, really). Whatever rights we forfeit to the government now will be gone forever.
And yes this is economic devastation beyond anything we have know. Very few on this board were alive during the Depression. And if we stop and start the economy for 18+ more months it could get as bad as or worse than the 30s.
Agreed. I just think the economy is more resilient than that. Or, at least, it could be, if people weren't afraid. Unfortunately, I don't have a magic bullet to fight fear. Maybe track/trace/quarantine is that bullet. But, by God, I'm worried about the long-term consequences.
And...any way you slice it, if we open up now we will return to exponential growth, but worse--in 60 days it will be 20-30 metro areas in severe crisis, not four or five. And the economy will be even worse in the long run.
I mean, I just don't buy that. It looks like the virus was in general community spread across both California and New York by early February, which likely means that it was in community spread across the whole US by mid-March, before the lockdown orders. But we still have only had a few hot spots. Based on the flatten-the-curve folks, I was expecting widespread issues that simply never happened. And now I'm not sure that they will, as long as people are terrified to approach one another. (Of course: this also means that the economy won't really restart easily, for that same reason).
We have a choice. Do this thing the one way that works, or find reasons why as Americans we just are not able to do it the one right way that works.
Give me assurances that the program will not last beyond Dec. 31, that you will not test anyone without a reason (symptoms or contact with a confirmed positive person), that you will not require masks or magical six-foot exclusion zones, and that you will not quarantine anyone for more than 24 hours on the basis of presumptive exposure (two independent positive tests to quarantine), and I might be able to buy into the plan. I'll hold my hose, but I'll vote for it. Otherwise, I'll stick with Patrick Henry.
All test and trace is local. Just have to multiply the local trace teams all over the nation to snuf out brush fires that pop up. In the areas that are already burning out of control, we have to beat back the fire until they are small enough for test/trace.
But it's not, though. New Rochelle only worked because there was a lockdown going on. Under normal times, the US is one of the most mobile societies in the world. We fly places. A lot. If the economy returns anywhere close to its normal level, the average person's contacts are quite possibly going to include one or more people who have traveled out of state during the danger period.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that this is all part of a plot by one party or the other to seize control of Americans' lives. I believe that most politicians are trying to "do something," and they're doing the best that they can to identify the right thing to do. But I still feel that we need to protect our individual liberties, because we will lose them if we don't -- not to nefarious, mustache-twisting villains, but to ordinary politicians who just want to help.
Also, we can use this time to ramp up testing capabilities and conduct drug trials. (The trials haven't been too successful, but at least we know.) It's all about slowing down the virus's spread while we scramble to get an effective societal response ready.
“Most of the rest of the country has prepped for an infection caseload that they're never going to see at any one time, and it's not wrong to ask if it was worth it.“. What makes you so confident of this?
I mean, the infection statistics keep going up and up and up, and the hospitals are half-empty (and laying off staff due to a lack of elective procedures). I understand the concept of exponential growth, but I also understand that the exponent used depends to a great deal on population density, because that has a huge effect on how many people the average person contacts during a given time period.
Models based upon the population density in China, or the population of the elderly in Italy, don't necessarily apply in Des Moines, Iowa.
Besides which, people are now so terrified that even if things are opened back up, many will likely still stay home. You'll get a lower rate of transmission just by default.
I'm really not looking forward to getting evil glares for refusing to wear a mask, but what can you do?
Yes and when you open things up, people will have more contacts. While less population density means a slower rate of growth, it also likely means significantly less resources to deal with the problem. Therefore you need less growth to become inundated. I would absolutely agree that with some form of adequate test and contact trace system in place, most low density areas would not get hit hard. We don’t have that. I guess you could bank on the growth being slow enough that you’d put measures in place once a local hospital started getting multiple cases?
Oh, quit bringing statistics into this.
It’s a friggin luxury to be able to both-sides this problem. If you had lost a relative, you would not find it so. So you must be a lucky guy to be so cavalier.
i lost my nephew, a Kroger worker in Northville, age 46 with two young daughters. So this virus will never be overblown to me. I am willing to stay put in the house for a loooong long time if it means no one loses another nephew.
It is interesting how people value or devalue death. If 20,000 New Yorkers died in a terrorist attack and the gov wanted us to stay home until they knew all threats were minimalized, most people would probably have no objections. If a 70 year old war veteran dies from suicide, we should have done more to help him. If a 70 year old vet dies from COVID-19, well he was old and had pre-existing conditions -- so he was going to die anyway. If COVID-19 had a race, religious belief, geographical borders and/or a flag and killed 50,000 Americans, I bet many of the same people who dismiss the seriousness of the virus would be ready to go to war with said country/group. People are just wired so much differently from person to person.
This is an interesting post. It suggests there is nuance to be had, which is counter social media. I know two things for sure which are on either side: 1- there is no possible way that we can shut down the economy longer than another month or so without a lasting economic catastrophe that will be borne entirely and permanently by the working class--no matter what the death toll is. And 2- Imo another 50k deaths are intolerable to the majority of society. These two things are contradictory.
I'm not sure why people think that our economy is in risk of permanent damage because of a few months. We went though WWI and the Spanish Flu during the same time period, we made it back from the Great Depression, World War II, the simultaneous gas crisis, credit crunch, housing bubble, and economy collapse in 2008, etc etc etc
This is also affecting the whole world, so it isn't like we're weakening while others strengthen.
we made it back from the Great Depression,
Yes. By initiating a world war. After ten years. And the scars were permanent.
A second Great Depression is worth attempting to prevent, particularly if the COVID deaths are inevitable. If staying inside kept everyone safe, infections would have dropped to zero and deaths would be in rapid decline. We've been stuck inside for 5 weeks. At some point, we need to try something different.
By initiating a world war.
uh, yeah, who the FUCK initiated WWII there skippy?
The Great Depression affected the entire world. "We" = "humanity."
If you would prefer "we needed WWII to get out of it," that's fine too. The point stands -- saying that economic devastation is no big deal because we survived the Great Depression is nonsense.
April 25th, 2020 at 12:35 AM ^
What? You don’t remember when the United States invaded Poland and attacked the Japanese Fleet in Tokyo Bay on December 7th?
The flip side of this is the idea that the economy will come roaring back to where it was in February as soon as we reopen. It will not. A lot of people aren't ready to go out and spend like they were.
true, we are also collectively wired differently based upon the threat... harder to be concerned about something you can't see. I bet the front line healthcare folks are concerned.
April 25th, 2020 at 12:34 AM ^
Look at Rudy Giuliani.
On 9/11 he says the losses were more than we could bear.
A pandemic that has taken roughly 20 times that amount, so far, and he’s like “Meh, they were old anyway.”
April 25th, 2020 at 12:32 AM ^
I’m sorry to hear that. I used to shop at that Kroger all the time.
Fuck no it’s not. We’re taking precautions so that it doesn’t become bad. If we didnt this would be so much worse
i listened to the first 10 min and stopped. when dudes try to extrapolate over the entire population based on the tests done, they are using false logic. nearly all the tests done have been done on those showing symptoms. so of course they are going to have a larger hit rate.
we have to wait until those serology tests get going on a mass scale, randomly; not just those with symptoms. only then can we extrapolate over the entire population.
that said, i guarantee there have been a lot more people that have had covid19 than being reported.
You picked up on the same thing I did. It was mind boggling that a doctor would get the logic so incredibly wrong. I seriously question his competency as a physician.
Dr. Erickson has at least one fan:
"Covid19 being logically reviewed by two ER doctors with huge (emphasis added) experience in immunology and micro-biolgoy, in California but based on nationwide statistics."
Well, as ER docs they probably had at least one class that combined the two. Experts? Hmm.
Local dissent:
https://www.kget.com/health/coronavirus/local-physicians-reject-doctors-call-to-re-open-society/
I will say this: I've heard -- and seen, on MGoBlog -- way worse. At least those guys have some authority to stand on.
WuFlu arrived in the U.S. last year from both PRC and Europe. Somewhat different flavors of coronavirus that have continued to evolve. Covid 19 is a real disease, I contracted a bad case of it, and by February we should have closed air travel and immigration from affected countries. We also ought to have sheltered our most vulnerable demographics as determined from then-available data (age and medical comorbidities) and given these folks assistance from government, private industry and charity.
However we had no business shutting down our economy and imprisoning healthy people – these aspects derive from sheer paranoia – and the fact governments are extending unconstitutional stay-at-home executive orders under guise of “flattening the curve” (which will balloon almost immediately once the orders are lifted and interstate commerce resumes at scale) demonstrates the concerns today are overblown.
It’s time to get back to work, the infrastructure has had enough time to adapt, the supply chain which we all depend upon is breaking down. It's helpful to consider the overall U.S. death numbers from all causalities isn't going to be significantly higher in 2020 than if the WuFlu and related events never occurred. See you out and about.
Hey, Esterhaus! Did you shoot your way to snacks at Treasure Island / Whole Foods / Trader Joe's this morning with your Glock?
Reference, in case anyone is confused as hell by this comment: https://mgoblog.com/comment/243796323
Sorry to burst your bubble, but ending the shutdowns is not going to magically end all of the supply chain problems and solve the economic issues. All of the meatpacking plants shutting down aren’t doing so because of stay at home orders, they are shut down because too many people at the plants got sick. Auto plants shut down in both states with and without stay at home orders. When you bring lots of people together in close quartered working environments, it is inevitable a bunch of people will get sick.
When you bring lots of people together in close quartered working environments, it is inevitable a bunch of people will get sick.
No, it isn’t inevitable. The various cruise ship data show fewer than 20% pax and crew were exposed to coronavirus. Of those with detected antibodies, very few people got sick. Of those who did fall ill, only a small percent died. Cruise liners are petri dishes compared to most work environments.
The meat plant employees are majority immigrants who are often living at home under crowded conditions. They brought the virus from their homes and contaminated the locker rooms where they don their booties, smocks, gloves and other kit. The environment in the operational areas of the meat plants are not conducive to communicating disease.
A few things...
1. You right that even on the cruise ship most passengers did not in fact fall ill from COVID-19. But you are ignoring the fact that on most of those very ships they took drastic actions to reduce the spread once illnesses appeared. Passengers were not permitted to leave their cabins.
2. Also, you are ignoring the time horizon. A cruise is several days to maybe two weeks (a few are longer). We would not go back to work, fly, go to concerts and baseball games, for just 10 days to two weeks. If we opened up fully for two weeks, like the cruise ships, most would not get COVID-19 during that period. But if we open up over a longer time horizon, exponential infection growth rates will return, and the steep part of the curve would probably start at week 3 or week 4. From there on out, we would be on a path towards 20-30 metro areas as bad as NYC is right now.
3. Even if perhaps 20% on a given cruise fell ill, more on that ship became asymptomatic spreaders once on land. You are not accounting for that additional spread.
4. Look, stay in place, 90% reduction in flights, closure of schools, cancellation of pro sports, etc. HAVE FINALLY BROKEN THE BACK ON EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF INFECTION RATES in the United States. We are now (probably) on the flat plateau part of infection rate curve. We got there by shutting down. Yet, just about the very moment that we have stopped exponential growth and gotten to the flat part of the curve (still not on the downhill slope folks!), here come the folks who want to 'open it up' and get us right back to exponential growth of infection rates.