Hat tip to the Huskies: Washington did better than U Mich
NO POLITICS and STAY HOME AND STAY SAFE until further notice:
With our upcoming home and home series, I thought it would be good to tip the hat to the researchers at Washington. They seemed to have done a better job than our own U of M team looking at things in our home state.
Two weeks ago, the federal government, relying on a U Wash model, predicted a peak for COVID cases in Michigan in early April. The state government, relying on the University of Michigan, predicted a peak in late April or early May.
Both models assumed social distancing would be in place over the last couple weeks. Nothing changed.
While something crazy might happen, it appears the Washington modelers were MUCH MUCH more accurate.
https://infogram.com/michigan-covid-19-data-dashboard-1hdw2jr0gpyd6l0
Cases in Michigan have been on the decline since early April. Good job on the modeling, Huskies.
We should be happy the more severe predictions from UM didn't hold up. That would have been worse for all of us. Let's hope many of the other more dire predictions don't hold up as well.
Let's try to remember this virus is brand new and we are learning more everyday. For example, there have been numerous tests uncovering important data about the virus on an almost daily basis.
From the above, we can tell that even the experts are working to figure this out and many will get it wrong despite their best efforts. Let's ALL be open to the new data we are learning and not dig in our heels to our original view of things based on politics or rigidity. Let the evolving science dictate, not feeling.
Once again, NO POLITICS and STAY HOME AND STAY SAFE until further notice.
Good on them.
We'll do better on the football field in 2021.
I see what you did there
April 20th, 2020 at 11:25 PM ^
We're not playing them in 2021 unless it's the Rose Bowl or CFB Playoff.
If we lose (and in don't play) this year, it's done. They're not pushing everything back a year.
That's all sports. Even championships in the B1G in smaller sports. If you were supposed to host something this spring, you just lost your spot. Maybe you get the next open year.
If you played away at the top team in the league last year and you had them home this year and you missed it (say Maryland WLAX), you're on the road again next year as planned.
In FB it would be mean MSU and OSU would be back in Ann Arbor in 2021 even if we don't play 2020.
Very confused. We play Washington in 2020 and 2021 regular seasons...
Isn't the IHME a global consortium? I thought they were expected to be the experts at this type of thing.
I thought sure this was going to be comparing number of three star recruits.
They did get Sean Parker.
There are a lot of promising signs, but there is one caveat: we're not testing as much per capita as a lot of other states. That needs to change.
We test every sick person who might need the hospital.
Are you saying that testing more mild or no symptom cases would affect the decrease in hospitalizations and deaths that were not supposed to come for weeks?
We test every sick person whoight need the hospital.
Not exactly. We test a self-selected group that comes in and has a prescription. That is being reactive, not proactive.
We need more testing, period, whether it's people with mild symptoms or just random samples. Nearly 30% of COVID tests in this state have been positive, which is one of the highest rates in the country. I think the proportion of positive tests is trending downward in recent days, especially in Metro Detroit, but I don't know if that's the case everywhere - Genesee County is seeing a lot of recent growth and some rural counties are as well.
Realistically, we shouldn't talk about reopening the economy until the positive rate is really low, under 5%. (Ideally, it should be under 1% but I don't know if we have the patience for that.)
Today, Detroit's mayor said that they will open up testing to city staff and other "essential" employees without a prescription. They'll test up to 500 of those people daily at the old State Fairgrounds.
That's good. We need a lot of test centers like that.
Social distancing is the big safeguard right now. If we start removing it, the new safeguard needs to be aggressive testing to nip new outbreaks in the bud.
This is helpful, and I appreciate the informed view.
I have not seen this question addressed anywhere amidst the political nonsense, but here goes: does lack of testing really hurt the population significantly when a national quarantine has been enacted? It can be debated whether the quarantine should have been instituted earlier, I understand. But since the quarantine has been in place since mid March, how has the populace been significantly harmed through lack of widespread testing? As I understand it, at least in the US, for the most part the quarantine has worked. Meaning the hospitals have not been ooverwhelmed, i.e. everyone who's needed a bed/respirator has had one.
IOW, I agree completely with your statement: massive widespread testing is needed now, as we move out of a national quarantine, so that we know where infections are and we can ensure the curve doesn't steepen again in any one area. But was widespread testing really needed once the quarantine was implemented, because by definition the curve was flattening everywhere, and no new measures had to be taken because the most drastic/effective action - quarantine - had already been taken.
It's an interesting question. I guess you could say that as long as we are quarantined, the lack of testing doesn't necessarily cause us harm. The main problem is that it makes it hard to know exactly when to end the quarantine, as we're not really sure how much of the population has the virus.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:43 PM ^
So I'd again agree with your point that testing at scale is critical now that we're contemplating coming out of quarantine.
Then the question for me becomes how frequent can the testing be - is it possible to have enough widespread testing to eliminate flares? And what's the goal of continued quarantine actions, is it to keep the hospital system from being overwhelmed? Or is it to stamp out the virus to every extent we can? If the answer to the testing is yes, and the goal is to keep the curve flat enough to prevent overwhelming then sysytem, then I can see a return to some semblance of normalcy relatively soon (months). If the answer is no, testing can give us some clues but can't be a decisive tool in identifying and stopping flare ups, and the goal is stamping out the virus completely, then yes I see a much longer timeline.
If there had been better testing to begin with, we might have avoided the steps that have been taken.
April 21st, 2020 at 12:06 AM ^
Right, but this would be an argument for whether the quarantine was too harsh. There's much to debate there, but I see most of it as 20/20 hindsight. The medical experts recommended shutdown according to Fauci, got it, and the governors/states followed. It looks like it's worked out well. Yes I know many have died and we mourn for them, but if they did so when being provided medical care, then there's nothing the government at any level could have done. You have to find patient zero and understand if there's blame to be passed or if this is just an uncontrollable tragedy. Again, unless the goal is not flattening the curve as we've been told, but reducing it to zero. That doesn't seem feasible.
I'm terms of testing and quarantine, if they'd waited another two weeks, the hospital system would have surely been overrun. But it appears that didn't happen in the US. If you walk between the political nonsense it seems.like the government - Democratic governors, Republican whatevers - did a fairly decent job. Mistakes were made no question. But I don't expect perfect solutions or execution when being faced with a 100 year problem.
My thing with lack of testing has been did it lead to a delay in the quarantine recommendation. Maybe it was later than it should have been. But it wasn't so late that people couldn't get hospital care or respirators.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:02 PM ^
Just my amateur take, but while testing certainly becomes more important to work our way out of shelter-at-home, I think it would have provided immense value during this phase as well.
Think of how different your behavior during the last month would have been if you knew you were positive and contagious for a couple weeks of that. I certainly wouldn't have gone to the grocery store, and even the minimal contacts I've had would have been avoided (like that one stupid restaurant that needed a signature for delivery). And then think about essential workers: grocery store employees, hospital employees, etc, who could have been actually quarantined. Based on the number of newly diagnosed cases, there was certainly plenty of spread 2-3 weeks ago still.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:47 PM ^
How feasible is it that tens of millions of tests would be available for people without symptoms? I just don't know how you go from nothing in January to having that scale of testing available 6 weeks later. That doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation. But I'm no expert in these things.
Are we ever proactive with testing for disease or do we just test those who seek testing.
You can get tested by a doctor if you have symptoms. My doctor just told me he opened it up to anyone, even without symptoms.
Testing is fine, but it isn't going to change that much when it comes to finding the severe cases.
It is fine to ask folks not to politicize this. Yet you clearly believe that ignorance is a virtue. You have nothing of value to offer to this discussion. If you do not understand the importance of testing then go sit in a corner and listen until you understand-or not.
Testing is good. I just said it's not AS important as some people think. It won't change that much without strong tracing, which we won't do for a disease like this.
Is it ignorant to disagree on the degree of importance?
April 20th, 2020 at 10:27 PM ^
I mean even if it's not as important as tracing, if we're not doing tracing, then testing is most important, no?
So... here's the problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity . You'll likely never be able to get a test result under 1%, patience or otherwise.
Nobody really knows how accurate the COVID-19 tests are, especially given that there are so many different manufacturers. (The serology tests are basically a Wild West at this point). Here are two examples that should, hopefully, make an important point:
So... if the true rate of infection is 1% in an area, and you have a test with a 5% false positive rate and a 5% false negative rate -- these are good rates, mind you -- and you test 10,000 people:
9900 negative, 100 positive people in the sample
Of the 9900 negative people, 5% will test positive and 95% will test negative: 495 positive tests, 9,405 negative tests
Of the 100 positive people, 5% will test negative and 95% will test positive: 95 positive tests and 5 negative tests
Therefore, your test will report a 5.9% infection rate (590 total positive tests).
People who test positive will have a 16% chance of actually being infected. Yes, really -- 84% of the people who got a positive test result would not have the disease under these testing conditions.
People who test negative will have a 0.05% chance of actually being infected.
On the other hand, if the true rate of infection is 10%, and you run the same test:
9000 negative, 1000 positive in the sample
Of the 9000 negative, 5% will test positive: 450 positive tests, 8,550 negative tests
Of the 1000 positive, 95% will test positive: 950 positive tests, 50 negative tests
Test report: 14% infection rate; people who test positive are 68% likely to have the disease, and people who test negative are 0.6% likely to have the disease.
Long story short: if you are looking to show that you've eliminated a disease, you need an extremely specific test -- likely much more specific than any that currently exist. If they can clean up the serology tests to get their accuracy where it needs to be, then maybe widespread antibody test could show herd immunity. As you can see, the tests are much more useful when you're looking for a common event than they are when you're looking for a rare event.
Testing is not just for identifying who should be in a hospital, it is for tracking the virus’ spread and—AND—count those future antibody holders who will be able to 1) work outside the home and 2) provide plasma. Why is more knowledge dangerous to some? Who really doesn’t want us to know everyone who has had the virus? Sure, I’m assuming a lot from your doubt, but you were assuming a lot more in your post—and you seemed to simplify why people are tested. Down the line, even those confirmed non-hospitalizations may have respiratory and/or heart issues.
This is a virus that may leave a lot of slow internal rot in even those not feeling as much now.
I am all for testing any and everyone. I just dont think it has anything to do with whether our outbreak peaked in early April or in a few weeks.
The actual coronavirus tests have flaws. The antibody tests have flaws. The tracking is going to be voluntary (you are not going to get mandatory tracking for a virus that might be .3% lethal). They will help, but they will not be a big game changer in preventing outbreaks.
Oh dear lord. Your ignorance is unmitigated.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:56 PM ^
Please explain. It sounds like you just want to think testing will solve everything. It won't. It will help, but since there are so many carriers who don't know, it's not likely to keep outbreaks from happening.
Yes. Of course it would. You could get those people to quarantine instead of spreading the disease by going out in public.
But you are not going to test people all the time. There are many asymptomatic carriers. So how do you test to make a HUGE difference? It will mostly help with symptomatic people. Similar to now.
April 21st, 2020 at 12:28 PM ^
They test people who are around Trump every day. Why not everyone?
Also, moving the goalposts impresses nobody. Just take the L, dude.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
"We test every sick person who might need the hospital."
Even a cursory review of events over the past month would show this is 100% horseshit. It was horseshit at the beginning of March, it was horseshit in the middle of March, it was horseshit at the beginning of April, it's horseshit today, and it will be horseshit two weeks from now.
"Just over 4 million tests have been completed so far, for a population of roughly 330 million Americans, amid widespread reports of sick Americans being unable to get tested quickly — increasing the odds of spreading the virus."
One thing I know for sure, the use of the word "exponential" has increased exponentially these last few weeks.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:04 PM ^
Which is ironic, considering that growth in cases in the U.S. has been pretty linear for a couple of weeks already.
The slope, though... yikes.
In an interesting stat I heard is that total deaths of all causes is actually falling in America.
Because most states have some sort of a shelter in place policy that means less drunk drivers, less car accidents on the way home from work, less shootings, less people out and about being stupid, etc...
The shelter in place policies don't just save us from Covid-19, it saves us from other causes of death as total weekly deaths in the US have fallen by about 20% from their average since the shelter in place orders to effect.
I am glad we have a shelter in place policy; I don't want to be teaching right now with kids coughing and sneezing on me - but I find it fascinating that the weekly death rate of all causes is actually falling quite a bit in the US during a deadly pandemic.
Fewer
So, does that mean that we should have these shelter-in-place laws forever? They're saving lives, after all.
The problem is, there's more to life than not dying. If you believe that the government's number one goal should be to limit the death rate, then increasingly invasive laws are justified to accomplish that goal -- and they'll work! You can likely make Americans much healthier by banning alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and corn syrup (high fructose or otherwise). Ban automobiles -- no more traffic accidents. I could go on.
Government actions need to consider the cost as well as the benefit. Currently, we are only considering the benefit.
Does that mean we should have these shelter in place laws forever? No. But I don't mind having them while most experts think it is best.
There are other hidden costs as well. Sexual abuse rates have gone up. I only know this sad reality anecdotally (no published stats), because my wife volunteers for a group that is making masks here in NC. Several abuse shelters locally have had to ask for an unexpectedly large number of masks to keep up with the inflow of folks that they're seeing. Very sad.
Not sure what other parts of societal brokenness that may extend to, but of that basis alone there are significant hidden costs to keeping people at home all the time.
A 20% decrease in deaths seems pretty high. Do you have a source?
Maybe it just hasn’t happened yet? Trends can be going down a little bit day today day and still be going up in general. Never know until after the fact.
Yes, but after about two weeks in the decline that would be the crazy scenario mentioned.
This is extremely unlikely.
The entire state went into shelter-in-place at the same time in March. You would have seen the peak roughly 10-17 days later.
Jesus, we got people bashing Michigan on here, not even for sports anymore.
Get off our Blog!
M Go Blue!
We are the BEST at EVERYTHING.
If you ain't with me, you're against me.
"NO POLITICS"
OP, that's priceless. You've posted in COVID-19 threads probably hundreds of times with your political position barely veiled.
"OPEN HER UP!"
Wrong. Never said that.
Also, I am slightly more Democrat than Republican in my voting.
EDIT: Is it because I have said it looks more and more like the disease is not as lethal or harmful to the general population as previously thought? Because I told you that your fear is not reasonable based on the evolving science?
I am not asking to open things up right now. Just don't ignore the new data. Focus on science and not fear.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:30 PM ^
Dude, 40,000 are dead in the last 6 weeks, that's a little under 7,000 a week, 1,000 a day.
If it's not as bad as we thought it might be (which I'm not convinced it isn't) it's because of social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:34 PM ^
Dude. That isn't science. That's death toll headlines.
April 20th, 2020 at 10:43 PM ^
Right, the death rate after it's all said and done will be around 1% in all likelihood - but deaths overall have significantly increased vs last year, in part due to COVID-19, and in part due to people dying of other illnesses who either did not seek treatment or were denied treatment due to hospitals in many areas being overcapacity.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/coronavirus-is-only-part-of-the-excess-fatality-mystery.html
It would be nice if any details on these prediction models were given, aside from "UW was right, UM wrong". Were they both trying to predict active cases? New cases? Total cases? Daily deaths? What magnitudes did they predict? Details matter. We were given none.