Coronavirus

[Guest cherzeca]

"There is most likely not one major factor. Rather a variety of factors (travel, density, masks, quarantine/social distancing, viral evolution, weather, demographics, etc.) that formed in deadly combinations in some areas rather than others. Knowing this is probably impossible."

 

being poor is a good explanatory factor.  having to take subway, live in crowded apartment. not having gone to primary care doctor for god knows how long.  eating happy meals for dinner.  this is life in bronx Brooklyn and queens.  the most interesting datum that we will never have is the socio-economic spectrum of covid fatalities.  you may have heard that covid doesnt discriminate among class, but the harshest effect of covid likely does.

 

[LC]

the strongest link between poverty and known factors of respiratory disease transmission is population density. and critics of that link will point to Taiwan which has one of the highest population densities in the world but a very low infection rate. how would you resolve this?

 

perhaps you can argue there is a link between poverty and ability to get tested/go to a doctor if you present severe symptoms. however again critics would argue this has a low impact overall as (1) most cases are not severe and would not require a hospital visit; and (2) of these severe cases which would require a doctor, age is a much, much better predictor of outcome.

[Investor20]

the strongest link between poverty and known factors of respiratory disease transmission is population density. and critics of that link will point to Taiwan which has one of the highest population densities in the world but a very low infection rate. how would you resolve this?

 

perhaps you can argue there is a link between poverty and ability to get tested/go to a doctor if you present severe symptoms. however again critics would argue this has a low impact overall as (1) most cases are not severe and would not require a hospital visit; and (2) of these severe cases which would require a doctor, age is a much, much better predictor of outcome.

 

Taiwan was from January onwards recommending masks, washing/sanitizing hands and social distancing.

 

NY, started in March for social distancing. Masks from two weeks back.

[LC]

the strongest link between poverty and known factors of respiratory disease transmission is population density. and critics of that link will point to Taiwan which has one of the highest population densities in the world but a very low infection rate. how would you resolve this?

 

perhaps you can argue there is a link between poverty and ability to get tested/go to a doctor if you present severe symptoms. however again critics would argue this has a low impact overall as (1) most cases are not severe and would not require a hospital visit; and (2) of these severe cases which would require a doctor, age is a much, much better predictor of outcome.

 

Taiwan was from January onwards recommending masks, washing/sanitizing hands and social distancing.

 

NY, started in March for social distancing. Masks from two weeks back.

Right - So we can conclude that population density (or its weak proxy: poverty) is not a great predictor

 

Next, in terms of social policy response: Are you aware of other refuting cases, i.e where we have two areas with similar policy suggestions and timeframes, but very different viral infection patterns? Or does every city with a similar density to NYC, and similar March timeframe for masks/distancing, show the same viral pattern? I don't know the specifics for each city globally, but this is the analysis needed to show a causal relationship.

 

The point I am driving at is that contagious respiratory illness is difficult to manage and there is a danger of setting unrealistic expectations by attributing viral spread solely to the factors which we are able to easily measure, while ignoring other factors mainly because they are too difficult to measure.

[Liberty]

Ha!

 

normies: this virus is SO WEIRD

virologists: yes, it is weird, just like every virus

 

viruses are weird

 

HIV: insane asymptomatic period, insane lethality

polio: p normal gut virus+BRAINS for absolutely no good reason

flu: has CHROMOSOMES?? effectively

yellow fever, every other arbovirus: wtf is wrong with you guys stick to one host

 

rhinovirus: eighty five billion strains because fuck you thats why

smallpox: environmentally stable enveloped virus what the hell; also how on earth are you so lethal *and* transmissible holy cripes and why is your genome so stupid large

 

oronaviruses: proofreading RNA??? absolutely haram

herpesviruses: also absurdly large genomes stop it you're a virus plus your egress strategy is stupid and i hate it and latency is weird

noroviruses: indestructable wtf

rabies: host range lol whats that i just infect everything

 

papillomaviruses: what if?? i caused cancer? for no good reason?? like seriously it doesn't help me at all? morons

baculoviruses: CRYSTALLINE ENTITY

adenoviruses: actually adenoviruses are p normal i guess

hepatitis B: lol what isn't weird about hepatitis B

 

adenoviruses are weird because they are normal which is weird, for a virus

 

Also, “Here's the transcript of the president's response when he was asked if he's spoken with the families of anyone who has died in the pandemic other than the family of his friend:”

 

 

No need for commentary. If you just read it, you'll see.

[Liberty]

Mafia tactics:

[Guest cherzeca]

the strongest link between poverty and known factors of respiratory disease transmission is population density. and critics of that link will point to Taiwan which has one of the highest population densities in the world but a very low infection rate. how would you resolve this?

 

perhaps you can argue there is a link between poverty and ability to get tested/go to a doctor if you present severe symptoms. however again critics would argue this has a low impact overall as (1) most cases are not severe and would not require a hospital visit; and (2) of these severe cases which would require a doctor, age is a much, much better predictor of outcome.

 

no.  covid is particularly dangerous in a population where many people have underlying conditions (obesity being an important one, leading to hypertension and heart disease, that I dare say Taiwan does not have as much of).  the poor in US and in the outer boroughs of NYC are particularly at risk because of this, their lack of good nutrition generally, and failure to see a primary care physician on a regular basis.  density causes transmission, but underlying conditions (the most prevalent one being poor) causes enhanced risk.

[Liberty]

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/29/gottlieb-slavitt-coronavirus-plan-white-house/

 

The White House should back a $46.5 billion effort to hire an army of 180,000 contact-tracers, book blocks of vacant hotel rooms so Americans sick with Covid-19 can self-isolate, and pay sick individuals to stay away from work until they recover.

 

The plan, outlined Monday in a letter to Congress first reported by NPR, is among the most aggressive visions for a national program to conduct testing and contact tracing so that the U.S. can reopen its economy even as the coronavirus continues to spread. And given its backing from high-ranking health officials spanning the last three presidencies, it could also prove to be the most viable. Beyond Gottlieb, the coalition includes Mark McClellan, the former FDA chief; Andy Slavitt, the Obama administration’s acting Medicare and Medicaid director; Leana Wen, the former Planned Parenthood president and Baltimore health commissioner; and Bill Frist, a physician and former GOP lawmaker who served as Senate majority leader from 2003 to 2007.

[Jurgis]

Ha!

 

normies: this virus is SO WEIRD

virologists: yes, it is weird, just like every virus

 

viruses are weird

 

HIV: insane asymptomatic period, insane lethality

polio: p normal gut virus+BRAINS for absolutely no good reason

flu: has CHROMOSOMES?? effectively

yellow fever, every other arbovirus: wtf is wrong with you guys stick to one host

 

rhinovirus: eighty five billion strains because fuck you thats why

smallpox: environmentally stable enveloped virus what the hell; also how on earth are you so lethal *and* transmissible holy cripes and why is your genome so stupid large

 

oronaviruses: proofreading RNA??? absolutely haram

herpesviruses: also absurdly large genomes stop it you're a virus plus your egress strategy is stupid and i hate it and latency is weird

noroviruses: indestructable wtf

rabies: host range lol whats that i just infect everything

 

papillomaviruses: what if?? i caused cancer? for no good reason?? like seriously it doesn't help me at all? morons

baculoviruses: CRYSTALLINE ENTITY

adenoviruses: actually adenoviruses are p normal i guess

hepatitis B: lol what isn't weird about hepatitis B

 

adenoviruses are weird because they are normal which is weird, for a virus

 

OK, so we are living in computer simulation. And whoever runs the simulation is having fun dickering with the viruses. Maybe the whole point of simulation is dickering with viruses and humans are just test subjects or sideshow.

[LC]

the strongest link between poverty and known factors of respiratory disease transmission is population density. and critics of that link will point to Taiwan which has one of the highest population densities in the world but a very low infection rate. how would you resolve this?

 

perhaps you can argue there is a link between poverty and ability to get tested/go to a doctor if you present severe symptoms. however again critics would argue this has a low impact overall as (1) most cases are not severe and would not require a hospital visit; and (2) of these severe cases which would require a doctor, age is a much, much better predictor of outcome.

 

no.  covid is particularly dangerous in a population where many people have underlying conditions (obesity being an important one, leading to hypertension and heart disease, that I dare say Taiwan does not have as much of).  the poor in US and in the outer boroughs of NYC are particularly at risk because of this, their lack of good nutrition generally, and failure to see a primary care physician on a regular basis.  density causes transmission, but underlying conditions (the most prevalent one being poor) causes enhanced risk.

 

Hospitalization i.e. symptom severity is most certainly best explained by age, not underlying conditions:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6915e3.htm

 

Among 1,482 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, 74.5% were aged ≥50 years, and 54.4% were male. The hospitalization rate among patients identified through COVID-NET during this 4-week period was 4.6 per 100,000 population. Rates were highest (13.8 ) among adults aged ≥65 years. Among 178 (12%) adult patients with data on underlying conditions as of March 30, 2020, 89.3% had one or more underlying conditions; the most common were hypertension (49.7%), obesity (48.3%), chronic lung disease (34.6%), diabetes mellitus (28.3%), and cardiovascular disease (27.8%). These findings suggest that older adults have elevated rates of COVID-19–associated hospitalization and the majority of persons hospitalized with COVID-19 have underlying medical conditions.

 

Underlying health conditions is not a better predictor. Only 12% of observed patients had data showing an underlying condition. But let's play devil's advocate. Let's take obesity. Per CDC analysis, 5.75% of COVID hospitalizations exhibited obesity (12%*.483)

 

Also per CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html) in 2017-18:

 

The prevalence of obesity was 40.0% among young adults aged 20 to 39 years, 44.8% among middle-aged adults aged 40 to 59 years, and 42.8% among older adults aged 60 and older

 

If obesity were a good predictor of COVID hospitalizations, we would see (1) a much higher rate of COVID patients exhibiting obesity, and (2) more COVID patients in the 40-59 age group vs. other age groups. Yet there is zero evidence of either.

[KCLarkin]

OK...you can go by a briefing where WHO said there is a possibility of asymptomatic transmission and ignore their published guidelines on April 2nd.

 

I'm not ignoring the WHO "guidelines" (spoiler: not guidelines) from April 2nd. I am saying you have either not read it or don't understand it. They do not say what you claim they say.

 

It is very easy to take a few words out of context to give them a different meaning:

 

WHO said there is a possibility of asymptomatic transmission

 

See how easy this is? You are either easily fooled or you are trying to fool us. Either way, you don't have any credibility on this subject so I will ignore any future replies.

[Guest cherzeca]

"If obesity were a good predictor of COVID hospitalizations..."

 

I am focused on covid mortality.  very high concentration of covid mortality in outer boroughs of NYC.  density would be a better indicator for transmission--->hospitalization. 

[Guest cherzeca]

link to this, please:  "Only 12% of observed patients had data showing an underlying condition. But let's play devil's advocate. Let's take obesity. Per CDC analysis, 5.75% of COVID hospitalizations exhibited obesity (12%*.483)"

 

just musing, data showing an underlying condition may mean notations on a medical record...which most poor patients wouldn't have.  as for obesity, I simply find it hard to believe that a US population that is >40% obese yielded covid hospitalizations of 6% obesity. 

[LC]

You're going in circles. Density alone is not a strong predictor as Taiwan has shown.

 

I provided both sources in my previous post.

 

Data collection is surely a problem. Here, I'll make the opposing argument on your behalf:

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/more-than-70-of-americans-hospitalised-with-covid-19-had-at-least-1-underlying-health-condition-the-cdc-says

 

For the 7,162 cases in which patients' underlying health data were available, the CDC said 71 percent of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and 78 percent of those admitted to intensive care units had preexisting conditions or risk factors.

 

The agency also cautioned that its findings are still preliminary and that the analysis was constrained by factors like missing health data for nearly 95 percent of patients, as well as the limited availability of coronavirus testing, and a lack of information about longer-term outcomes of the disease.

 

I have no problem acknowledging this because as the (2) point in my earlier post alludes, pre-existing conditions will not model well vs. observed sample of hospitalized cases.

[Liberty]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/dr-anthony-fauci-says-data-from-remdesivir-coronavirus-drug-trial-shows-quite-good-news.html

 

 

[Liberty]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus-death-toll-total.html

 

the coronavirus is ... probably killing more people than the reported statistics capture. [...] the virus has brought a pattern of deaths unlike anything seen in recent years.

 

Total deaths in seven states that have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic are nearly 50 percent higher than normal for the five weeks from March 8 through April 11, according to new death statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is 9,000 more deaths than were reported as of April 11 in official counts of deaths from the coronavirus.

 

The new data is partial and most likely undercounts the recent death toll significantly. But it still illustrates how the coronavirus is causing a surge in deaths in the places it has struck, probably killing more people than the reported statistics capture. These increases belie arguments that the virus is only killing people who would have died anyway from other causes. Instead, the virus has brought a pattern of deaths unlike anything seen in recent years.

 

In New Jersey, deaths have been 172 percent of the normal number so far — more than 5,000 additional deaths, compared with an average count from the past five years. In Michigan, the partial death count is 121 percent of the count in a normal year, the equivalent of nearly 2,000 more deaths.

 

These numbers are preliminary because death certificates take time to be processed and collected, and complete death tallies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can take up to eight weeks to become final. The speed of that data reporting varies considerably by state.

 

 

[UK]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/swedish-city-lund-dump-tonne-chicken-manure-park-deter-visitors-coronavirus-lockdown

[LC]

Thanks Liberty. The NYT article linked CDC all cause mortality data by week per state  which I wasn't previously able to find.

 

Undercounting COVID is not a problem I am concerned with. We can infer COVID deaths incrementally looking back. Here is all-cause deaths in NYC:

 

Week 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 1 1,062 1,170 1,351 1,190 1,149 1,279 610 2 1,108 1,106 1,331 1,192 1,126 1,180 1,165 3 1,129 1,158 1,171 1,142 1,113 1,254 1,065 4 1,180 1,157 1,277 1,207 1,110 1,207 1,025 5 1,169 1,116 1,171 1,143 1,077 1,226 1,127 6 1,170 1,225 1,218 1,159 1,148 1,195 1,088 7 1,122 1,104 1,197 1,115 1,064 1,218 1,058 8 1,081 1,073 1,084 1,064 1,152 1,191 1,008 9 1,101 1,087 1,122 1,056 1,173 1,158 979 10 1,111 1,102 1,139 1,066 1,151 1,052 1,027 11 1,116 1,091 1,070 1,109 1,118 1,099 1,031 12 1,383 1,036 1,033 1,071 1,086 1,053 1,082 13 2,675 1,097 1,008 986 1,042 1,071 1,070 14 5,570 1,038 1,065 990 1,030 1,104 1,110 15 6,506 1,054 1,093 1,053 1,100 1,024 1,142 16 4,085 955 1,058 1,038 1,060 994 1,077

 

I truncated weeks 17,18 as those numbers are still most likely being revised. The real question is whether week 16 is up-for-revision. Hopefully it is not, and we are truly seeing deaths starting to sharply decline.

 

 

Week 15 in NYC sees 80-120 influenza, pneumonia, lower respiratory, and other respiratory deaths (combined).

 

At the peak we are seeing 5,500 incremental weekly deaths for week 15 - indicating that at its peak, COVID is 55x deadlier than the flu.

 

 

[Jurgis]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/swedish-city-lund-dump-tonne-chicken-manure-park-deter-visitors-coronavirus-lockdown

 

Perhaps they should borrow some Canadian geese that do this to most parks for free.

 

But go Lund!

[Jurgis]

Week 15 in NYC sees 80-120 influenza, pneumonia, lower respiratory, and other respiratory deaths (combined).

 

At the peak we are seeing 5,500 incremental weekly deaths for week 15 - indicating that at its peak, COVID is 55x deadlier than the flu.

 

I think that's wrong conclusion to draw. Flu infections don't hit all at the same time as covid infections kinda did.

[LC]

Week 15 in NYC sees 80-120 influenza, pneumonia, lower respiratory, and other respiratory deaths (combined).

 

At the peak we are seeing 5,500 incremental weekly deaths for week 15 - indicating that at its peak, COVID is 55x deadlier than the flu.

 

I think that's wrong conclusion to draw. Flu infections don't hit all at the same time as covid infections kinda did.

 

Well, I was comparing the COVID timeframe, which is why I prefaced with "at its peak".

 

Annually you can probably reduce that by a factor of 5-10. In NYC, weeks 12-15 COVID contributed aprox. 12,100 incremental deaths; compared to about 3,300 combined annual deaths from flu,pneumonia,chronic lower resp. diseases, and other respiratory diseases.

[Liberty]

Week 15 in NYC sees 80-120 influenza, pneumonia, lower respiratory, and other respiratory deaths (combined).

 

At the peak we are seeing 5,500 incremental weekly deaths for week 15 - indicating that at its peak, COVID is 55x deadlier than the flu.

 

I think that's wrong conclusion to draw. Flu infections don't hit all at the same time as covid infections kinda did.

 

But that's with a shutdown. Imagine what it'd be with business as usual. And it's not like they'd "all be at the same time", it'd go on for many more months at higher levels.

[Jurgis]

Week 15 in NYC sees 80-120 influenza, pneumonia, lower respiratory, and other respiratory deaths (combined).

 

At the peak we are seeing 5,500 incremental weekly deaths for week 15 - indicating that at its peak, COVID is 55x deadlier than the flu.

 

I think that's wrong conclusion to draw. Flu infections don't hit all at the same time as covid infections kinda did.

 

Well, I was comparing the COVID timeframe, which is why I prefaced with "at its peak".

 

Annually you can probably reduce that by a factor of 5-10. In NYC, weeks 12-15 COVID contributed aprox. 12,100 incremental deaths; compared to about 3,300 combined annual deaths from flu,pneumonia,chronic lower resp. diseases, and other respiratory diseases.

 

Fair enough.

[Liberty]

 

Sweden

[minten]

 

Sweden

 

It seems a bit harsh to constantly review Sweden on the number of deaths compared to their neighbours as their policy was never aimed at less corona death in the first place and they were upfront about this. If someone wants to compare, you have to look at the broader picture (economic growth, quality of life), which you cannot do until much later. Despite what many predicted, their IC capacity seems to be holding.