As things stretch out….
And social distancing and doctors and hospitals finding ways to deal with viruses affects on patients?
The ICU and hospital stays have dropped substantially …
Predictions of hundreds of thousand of death are no longer the case….
In the end?
The coronavirus numbers may nearly match the flu numbers as some had predicted early on…(Even those numbers are much too high)
Several weeks ago Nate Silver and other people began to question numbers being thrown around by the Trump people and the media…
It appears they where right…
The first guesses weren’t educated at all…
They discounted social distancing which seems to have starved the spread of the virus down…
Then some common sense…
I mentioned here that a LOT of people think they HAD the virus in the early winter…
Turns out that scientists have come to confirm that for New York?
The virus came mostly from Europe…NOT china and was here in the early winter…
Dr Fauci has come to admit that a LOT of people probably HAD the virus and never reported what they thought might have been the flue or a cold to anybody…
Hmmm?
Donald Trump does NOT want more testing…
THAT IS Stupid…
There is a 5 mon results test out there but no one has heard much about it…
The test needs to mass distributed to states so that a gradual relaxing of v virus restrictions can be done by Governor’s NOT Trump & Co.
The more actual facts known about the virus?
The better…
What is going on? Perhaps social distancing has worked better than was imagined. But still, there is a puzzle about the numbers. Predictions for hospitalization rates have also proved to be substantial overestimations. On March 30, University of Washington researchers projected that California would need 4,800 beds on April 3. In fact, the state needed 2,200. The same model projected that Louisiana would need 6,400; in fact, it used only 1,700. Even New York, the most stressed system in the country, used only 15,000 beds against a projection of 58,000. It’s best to plan for the worst, but this has meant that patients with other pressing illnesses might have been denied care — or not sought care — for no good reason.
Why is this happening? The modelers are doing their best with what data they can get, much of which initially came from China and Italy.
A group of Stanford University scholars believe that the basic reason that estimates of deaths have had to be revised downward is because without widespread testing from the start, we didn’t realize how many mild or asymptomatic cases there would be. That means the denominator — those who have been infected — is larger than initial estimates and the fatality rate for covid-19 is lower. (If two out of 100 people with the virus die, the fatality rate is 2 percent; if two out of 1,000 die, it is 0.2 percent.) In March, the World Health Organization announced that 3.4 percent of people with the virus had died from it. That would be an astonishingly high fatality rate. Fauci suggested a week later that the actual rate was probably 1 percent, which would still be 10 times as high as the flu. Since then, we have learned that many people, perhaps as many as half, don’t have any symptoms. Some studies find that 75 to 80 percent of people infected could be asymptomatic. That means most people infected with the virus never get to a clinic and never get counted.
…
In all these places, the numbers of infections (many with no symptoms) — when adjusted for the U.S. population as a whole — suggest a fatality rate that is actually similar to that of the seasonal flu. Data from Iceland and Denmark, which have done the best random sampling, also point in the same direction, Ioannidis said. “If I were to make an informed estimate based on the limited testing data we have, I would say that covid-19 will result in fewer than 40,000 deaths this season in the USA,” he told me.
…
Surely the most urgent task for the federal government is to get widespread, randomized testing in place, gather the best data in the world and make policy based on that. Otherwise, we will continue to fly blind through this crisis, a crisis that might last longer than it needs to….
More from
I find it remarkable that there is so much criticism of the “models” over the mortality rate
That’s like criticizing the political polls.
By their own admission, the models reflect a snapshot in time just like political polls.As new data comes in,they change.Thats surprising ?
I don’t think so.
Also given what is happening in places like Hong Kong and Singapore I really don’t see how any “model” should be taken as gospel at the moment.
I do know that California’s quick action is saving lives here.
The model’s WHERE what Trump & Co. peddled at first …which the MEDIA ran around with their hair on fire…
This whole thing has been a cluster fuck on just about ALL levels…
I’m glad that people like Silver and others began to ask questions about the educated guesses….
I’m also glad that that wild guesses seem to be VERY wrong and the aftermath will be bad but NOT as bad as we where led to believe…
You still don’t understand what “modeling” is.
Once again, unsurprising.
Statistical projections based on the facts inserted ….
Fancy guess…
Most of the model’s have several outcomes as the ‘fact’s’ are adjusted….
The media tends to report the worst case scenario’s…
As did the WH did initially…
They have ALSO dropped their numbers due to the social distancing efforts that the crazy assed guesses used from China and Italy…
We NOW have more crazy assed model’s coming out that project all sorts of things if people actually TRY to get normal….
Best projection?
People STAY in their homes for another 18 months till there is a vaccine and there is NO economy?😳
Which model is that I haven’t seen it?
Yes those people who designed those models weren’t near as smart as you…
You…who totally supported Trumps idea of reopening everything on Easter ( and in typical Trumpian fashion act as if you never did).
You…who predicted civil disorders if stay at home orders were issued because “people gotta eat.”
No ,you don’t understand that models require and expect constant adjustment based on new data.
I find the models interesting ,just like I find political polls interesting (however I don’t breathlessly report the ones I like as you often do as if they have any real meaning .)
I understand that they , like these models,are snapshots in time .,nothing more,nothing less.
The FACT IS Jack?
The WH and MOST where VASTLY WRONG..,
We need MORE testing sooner to get a REAL idea WTF is going on…
Governors need to hold the line and press trump to get the 5 min tests out to the states not just him…
Then we ALL can try to get back to some sort of normality
it IS unrealistic to think people are gonna continue restricted at this pace for year or 18 months…
Once again, which models predicted that?
I’m not talking about what by various people, have said,which models ?
That’s what you said and I want to check them out.
The initial model the WH used was based on China with NO social distancing….
It had 100 to 120 Million deaths…
There was a Wash State Univ one that said 36,000 to 76,000 i believe…
That one DID include the soc dist…
We HAVE done the soc dist so we are now MUCH LOWER….about 18k now ….
BTW?
Flu is 35-50k a year ….
Most models now say considerably less than 100k….
We are also into another loop
Some are now going nuts about opening things up….
There IS. going to be bump up when things move back …
No doubt …
But again?
Some models want to reach for that 100-120k target…
I believe there are several modeling places
check my posts ….
There is no “model” that claimed that people had to “stay in their homes ” for 18 months.
I’ve seen the U of Washington model.It shows peak deaths in a few days with 61000 deaths by Aug4.
I have never seen or heard of a WHO model so if you have one please provide a link to such.
You sound just like Trump,making things up as you go along, comparing this to the flu.
Bottom line?..As usual ,you try to make the facts got your “opinions.”
And when they don’t?Just make something up!
Jack…..
U can keep at me…
But I’ve posted stuff almost every day …
We all have to ride thru it and suffer the mistakes the experts make…
The 18 months was sarcasm
No it wasn’t.
It was you lashing out and still making it up as you go along.
Now,since you make yourself more ridiculous with every post,
Tell us how the experts have made you “suffer?”
Another dumbass Trumpian comment!
Get it out at me Jack….
I understand…
I can’t hug my grandkids…
I want to
The sooner the better…
You “understand “ what?
I’m responding to your patently ridiculous and untrue remarks.
I’m not getting anything “out.”
How stupid!
As for how the models work?
Yesterday the U of Washington model predicted that there would be 1983 deaths in the US .the actual reported number was 2056.The model was off by 73.(the model actually underestimated the number while the criticism here is that it was inflating the numbers)
Are the models perfect?No.Models never are.Are they useful in giving some yardstick as to how things are moving?Yes.
Wash Univ had the first over the top numbers…
They where way wrong ….
They have brought them down…
I’ve tried to explain the way models work.
DSD tried to explain by use of a comparison .
You refuse to understand because you simply lack the ability to understand.
I explained also Jack….
But u ARE running this in a hole….
Nate Silver
There’s a difference between what the models said and “what the models said” as interpreted by the media, which often emphasized worst-case scenarios rather than the broader range of possibilities they articulated, some of which were conditional on there being no distancing, etc.
More on how arbitrary some of the data is going into model’s…
In Alabama, officials have ruled that one of every 10 people who died with covid-19 did not die of covid-19. Among those excluded from the numbers reported to the federal government were a bedbound patient with aspiration pneumonia in one lung and a person with a buildup of fluid and partial collapse of one lung.
Colorado, by contrast, has included some deaths where the disease caused by the novel coronavirus was deemed probable — based on symptoms and possible exposure — but not confirmed through a test.
Health officials in both states say their approach is more accurate. Their divergent methods reflect a national debate over how to count the dead.
The U.S. government’s covid-19 death toll is widely believed to be an undercount because, at a time when access to testing has been severely limited, federal officials described their count as including only people who tested positive for the virus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its website this week to explicitly say that cases where the infection was not confirmed by a test may now be counted. But attributing a death to the virus can be a judgment call, experts say, and potentially a vexing one as indications emerge that the disease damages not just the lungs but also the heart, kidneys and other organs.
As a result, the overall tally — a benchmark broadcast constantly on cable news and elsewhere — is a less concrete figure than it appears. The inconsistent counting methods also raise questions about the ability to draw comparisons from state to state, and they play into a political debate about the reliability of the numbers…
More…
At one point, he knew about Russian modeling.
Ha, ha , ha ….
Yup!
How Coco Austin?
Since James has a fondness for military matters, perhaps let me explain in those terms.
Every military command and GHQ has a daily appreciation of the state of forces not only of its own side, but also of the Enemy’s.
While you can control your own forces, and to some degree those of your allies and co-belligerents, you can only estimate, more or less accurately, the behavior of Enemy or neutral forces.
But you can’t predict either what will happen in combat (or the preparation for combat) — nor how fast and how well that any side will manage, deploy, deplete, replenish and increase troops, ammunition, supplies, rations, communications, medical care or other necessities of war.
It’s utterly predictable that not all of these imponderables will turn out the way you predicted. And the Enemy (assisted by intelligence and deception) is certainly not going to help you..
So each side’s Order of Battle changes every day, and sometimes more often than that, as conditions change or seem to change.
And if that’s true in the field, it should consequently be as true as or truer for the Strategic and Tactical Plans that rely on those battlefield and intelligence appreciations.
With the fog of war and the chances of battle, it’s 100% certain that any one day’s appreciation will not be 100% accurate.
(The same, by the way, is true of business plans, even in the absence of competition.)
Novel Coronavirus is not a conscious enemy capable of making decisions, but any model of its spread — aided, retarded, accelerated, slowed, diverted or modified by conscious human decisions — will change almost every day depending on the results of all those variables.
Any useful model has to be dynamic. So last week’s model might have predicted more infections and casualties than our current model, but the current model could, almost as easily, fall short of next week’s model in predicting the virus’s timing, speed and/or severity – and of the effects of any countermeasures.
Very good comparison DSD ,however I wouldn’t count on this having any effect on James.
He doesn’t understand these type things,nor does he want to.
Proper DSD….
Univ of Washington
World Heath Org