100,000 may be on the high side, but unfortunately more realistic than 60,000. Main cause of the overage is the numbers for NY, NJ and Mi.
IHME predictions for totals in mid summer from early April, were that NY would be 16,090, NJ would be 2,129 and Michigan 3,235 which all have been exceeded at this time. Predictions for mid summer for other states were: Texas 6,128 (648 now), California 5,161 (1,703 now), Utah 586 (41 now), Montana 270 (14 now) and Wyoming 142 (7 now). What struck me was seeing that Texas was predicted to have a higher fatality number than California, presumably to the bias for tighter social restrictions in Calif. Later versions of the predictions were showing a much higher fatality number for Wyoming than Montana despite the 2X pop of MT over WY. The biggest cluster of cases for ID, MT and WY are associated with ski areas.
Well I'm pretty sure the USA will blow thru that 60,000 fatalities number, you're at 55,000 now. The 100,000 number seems more realistic for a total.
2,500 deaths in Canada now . Still climbing.
Erik_MagThe problem is that the models used to "predict" the effects of varying means of reducing the infect rate are more of a curve fitting exercise as opposed to a detailed model of the physical process of transmitting the disease.
It's probably worse than that. The presentation I was given last week involved calculating the 'curves' with three (nominally) coupled differential equations. Nowhere was there a discussion of exactly how the coefficients in these were chosen... or what they represented. Assuredly however they were incapable of representing complex factors that might change as the situation evolves away from initial conditions ... let alone whether precise equations for any given part of outbreak propagation propensity would be governed as an 'average' is.
I think it is easily possible to work up a mathematical model that would 'better' show how the risk to prospective ARDS patients changes with increasing percentage of 'recovery to effective viral nontransmission' in the overall (presumably interacting) public. If it turns out that tens or hundreds of millions have silently gotten to that point in recovery -- gee, that's nice, but it doesn't predict all that much that propagation in what's left of the susceptible population will be proportional, or less dramatic, or less lethal. It's certainly not robust enough without proof to base fair policy on.
Now I confess I'm waiting to see the idea of intentionally spreading some weakened virus to large numbers of people who prove somehow to be at low risk of ARDS, precisely to get the numbers down. Original 'variolation' would have done something like this -- and nontransmissibly too; some of those savage anti-Gates detractors are accusing him of doing this with the Indian girls wholesale. Can it be long before we're exhorted to get sick to save the economy...?
Flintlock76In that vein, hey, enjoy your cigars! But have you seen what the good ones cost now? Remember when a "dollar cigar" was something special? Man, are those days gone!
While I was living in Los Angeles I had several co-workers who were immigrants. They frequently would go back down to Mexico just to visit family, and such.
Even in the 1990s it's incredible how much more cheaply they could buy cigars for me down there, than I could get them for up here.
And, Mexico had no embargo with Cuba
Convicted One I believe we all have a certain susceptibility to small sample size too. Not that I'm saying this is bad. But it happens quite frequently, a baseball player opens the season with two torrid weeks, and everyone is comparing him to Ted Williams, and such. Hey, I'm going to enjoy a daily cigar regardless. But if I can find consolation in your stated "finding", then so much the better.
I believe we all have a certain susceptibility to small sample size too. Not that I'm saying this is bad.
But it happens quite frequently, a baseball player opens the season with two torrid weeks, and everyone is comparing him to Ted Williams, and such.
Hey, I'm going to enjoy a daily cigar regardless. But if I can find consolation in your stated "finding", then so much the better.
C-O, we were talking about the price of model kits on another thread and commiserated about the heart-stopping prices compared to when we were kids.
In that vein, hey, enjoy your cigars! But have you seen what the good ones cost now? Remember when a "dollar cigar" was something special? Man, are those days gone!
I don't consider the New York Times to be "the last word" on medical news. As for studies, most are going to be proved either wrong or useless, as there is still a heck of a lot to be learned about the virus.
Sunlight and disinfectants when properly used will go a long way of reducing transmission of the virus. In the absence of a proven cure, reducing infection rates is the best we can do. The problem is that the models used to "predict" the effects of varying means of reducing the infect rate are more of a curve fitting exercise as opposed to a detailed model of the physical process of transmitting the disease. An example is the original IHME that was a reasonable guess for NY, way underestimated NJ and way overestimated WY. Taking a couple of minutes to compare a typical travel to work routine for a NYC resident and a Wyoming resident would show that a "stay at home" order would have a drastically greater effect in NYC than in Wyoming. Note that Wyoming has few social distancing rules in place and has 1% of the per capita fatality rate of NY state.
Or maybe, possibly, and I'm starting to think certainly, no-one really knows just how the hell to deal with this "bug," other than the tried-and-true way of dealing with a virus, i.e. relieve the symptoms the best you can and as agressively as you can, cross your fingers, and let the disease run its course.
It seems like every passing day there's a new theory, a new opinion, a new whatever, and no-one wants to say those three little words everyone understands:
"I don't know."
Well, I try to be understanding, they're doing their best, everyone is. That's all we can ask. There's no "magic bullet" here or "instant gratification" application, frustrating to most in this "instant gratification" age we live in.
Remember the "study" that was recently cited here purporting to show that au contrarie to intuitive thinking, it was non-smokers who were at higher risk for contracting the COVID-19 virus? Well, have you seen this "study" reported anywhere else? Has the New York Times had a single article to substantiate that claim? I haven't seen anything of the sort.
Perhaps this "news" or conclusion was produced by the same thoughtful "scientists" who were putting forth the idea that sunlight or disinfectant injections will cure things. Or maybe by people into Magical Thinking or contibutions from the tobacco industry.
Twaddle.
RE: Comparing Covid-19 deaths to the seasonal flu
COVID-19 killed more Americans in a single 30-day period from March 20 to April 20 (42,000) than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's estimate of “flu only” deaths for the entire 2018-19 season (34,200).
Noteworthy is that the Covid-19 death count has been restrained by the stay-at-home policies without which it could be significantly higher.
Source link
Just recapping some other statistics. According to the Indiana Dept of Health, a total of 902 Hoosiers died from flu related illness duing the entire time span 2009-2018.
Total for Covid-19 related deaths in Indiana just over the past two months is 813
Israel's Health Ministry reports that 200 people have died, and 15,398 have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 - an increase of only 100 people between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Currently, there are 132 people in serious condition, among them 100 who are intubated. Some 6,602 have recovered
Restrictions are being moderately loosened, a good fraction is going back to work. Mask-wearing is compulsary in all public places; temperture-taking, and social distancing are mandetory in many cases. Distilled from www..post.com
charlie hebdo Trump is incapable of doing an even adequate job. It's simply not in his personality or cognitive realm
I happen to agree with you, and that's before I acknowledge your specific distinctive competence to assess those sort of things.
The point I would make is that Trump is far from the only one to blame here, and a wide range of interests have manipulated the situation for their perceived benefit, including managing the feat of blasting Biden's prospective candidacy and Trump at the same time while apparently thinking we wouldn't notice ... I won't go into the subsequent politics except to note there are at least equal-grade lulus both in figures like DiBlasio and Newsom and that moron in New Orleans on the one hand, and the emergent-political-administrator folks who seem to have risen to prominence in 'gevernnent' science and health 'advisory' positions (where pseudo leaders like Trump will mistake their position for a credential of competence in something other than expedient career advancement, and as corporate management-without-a-clue so often does run a version of corporate reorganization with a 'magic bullet' solution du semaine ... added to in this case by Trump's penchant for taking credit for the idea just a bit too soon) on the other.
(And no, I'm not saying some variant of 'throw all those bums out and listen to ME because I have all the Super-Genius answers, either. I have to do Dunning-Kruger review every day on what I think I know, and be prepared to change when I am, as happens so often, wrong. But that's why it's good to point to why something might work, rather than just why I believe it, and get consensus on what to do subsequent to that with 'consent of the affected' and not just because it's expedient.)
OM: Reading through your last word salad, it's hard to know what you actually think. Trump is incapable of doing an even adequate job. It's simply not in his personality or cognitive realm.
[quote user="Overmod"]I think a large part of the ongoing efforts to belittle Trump's 'scientific' or 'medical' knowledge are still related to election-related matters, and it remains to be seen if the 'rally-round-the-President-as-he-works-through-this' approach is stronger than the sort of 'Cheeto-Hazelwood's-at-the-wheel' defectively-coordinated efforts that get shoveled out ... some objectively justified, some less so.[/quote]
ongoing efforts to belittle Trump's 'scientific' or 'medical' knowledge
Donald Trump LIES. Plain and simple, he LIES. He is a snake oil salesman who lies to pitch what he wants. The "ongoing efforts to belittle his knowledge is just the amazement that many have as to the gulibility of his backers to accept what he is pitching. That what he does is "Perfect" and "TREMENDUS" and many other of the repetiticious phrases he spouts. There have been more than 33,000 deaths in the USA so far and he poo-pood the virus issue as it festered, blamed it all on China, the WHO, and anyone he could but when asked about responsibility, he refused to accept any, while having disbanded the pandemic staff the government. And Stating many times in February and March that this would all be over quickly. Meanwhile the virus multiplied. Now he wants to reopen the country and his "base" wants to ignore the SIP rules. So now he encurages them. Gives encuragement to the Gov of Georgia and then when the Gov. of Georgia opens his state, Trump thinks that is not so good. He wants to be able to claim victory while the fire is still expanding. Impatient little boy.
I no longer think particularly hard about the 'conspiracy' aspect that solutions to the various virus problems are being artificially suppressed until 'after the election'. When the official vaccine rollout was extended past 2 years, the most significant circumstantial 'driver' for such a belief ceased to have much value.
I think a large part of the ongoing efforts to belittle Trump's 'scientific' or 'medical' knowledge are still related to election-related matters, and it remains to be seen if the 'rally-round-the-President-as-he-works-through-this' approach is stronger than the sort of 'Cheeto-Hazelwood's-at-the-wheel' defectively-coordinated efforts that get shoveled out ... some objectively justified, some less so.
It would, as before, be delightful if Trump's style included less of the crazy-like-a-fox intentional-misdirection and tweeting-himself-in-the-foot stuff. It would be delightful if he put together a correct expert advisory board -- which could inherently compensate for the Dunning-Kruger-in-specialists effects that have so often and so dramatically screwed up practical response to the COVID-19 crisis in so many senses. As I suspect little of that is likely to 'resolve itself' in ways that actually facilitate either response to the medical concerns or a prompt and effective economic recovery ... we either have to concentrate on what actually works, or on figuring out how to assess where the best (ideally Pareto-optimal) tradeoffs or compromises are going to be made. (And then figure out, which is much harder, how to get them implemented, perhaps using techniques from 'child psychology'...)
(I might add that, in my opinion, if the economy is not either substantially 'on predictable road to recovery' or clearly established to be 'resolvable' long before the election ... perhaps long before the organized campaign action and debates and negative spin ads ramp up ... I think it will be unrecoverable 'as it was', and possibly only recoverable through a singularity. I fear that won't be good with any putative executive leadership up to that point.)
Well of course we know that the response to this virus is more than just fighting it. It also includes hope that the economy will be in dire condition at the time of the election. This is based on the widely recognized premise that presidents sink or swim on the condition of the economy. Obviously, this ulterior motive is distorting all the safety advice and procedures that are being thrust upon us.
But I would not count on an executive sinking in this case because the economy is not merely headed for trouble due to economic decisions and policies. Instead, this is a national emergency with the bad economy just being part of the damage. In times like these, people tend to rally around their president for leadership. They are very likely to view the president as the one guy that can fix the problem economy rather than the guy who caused the problem.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/most-important-number-trumps-re-election-chances/609376/
From the link:
“Another complicating factor: What the country faces is not just a recession, but a natural disaster and a public-health cataclysm and a government-mobilizing battle, together in extremis. Voters tend to punish presidents for recessions. But they tend to reward them for their leadership during wars and other dangerous calamities: Horrors such as Pearl Harbor and 9/11 caused spikes in presidents’ approval ratings, and in some cases smoothed their way to electoral victory. This is known as the “rally ’round the flag” effect, and Trump seems to be benefiting from it: His approval rating has tracked up to 49 percent, the highest of his presidency.”
Erik_MagAs opposed to adding a half cup of chlorine bleach to bathwater?
It does have to be said that using bleach in the bathwater has some sanitizing value. Of course it displays much the same knowledge of chemistry as that Romany girl who whitened her teeth with Clorox because 'it's bleach' and 3%H2O2 was not. I continue to see relatively witless advice even from 'experts' who have not made the very fundamental distinction between 'disinfecting' something via antibiotics and 'sanitizing' (or other appropriate term of art) against viruses. (This turns up wholesale with the mask issue as well, when you look for instance at effective filtration required for viral particles or droplets containing them.)
I'm not sure how much of the actual chlorine-dioxide "bleach" scam is actually Trump believing that the stuff can be topically employed somehow, or how much he trusted that guy Grenon in the Guardian story as an 'expert' more reliable than the wibbly collection of experts he seems to have employed so far. This would be an opportunity to do some actual investigative journalism, but that's more work than it appears the newsworkers involved care to do during lockdown.
OvermodTrust the Guardian to miss the real story while trying to make Trump look stupider.
That is not possible.
charlie hebdo I'm waiting for Trump to start pitching actual snake oil.
I'm waiting for Trump to start pitching actual snake oil.
As opposed to adding a half cup of chlorine bleach to bathwater?
While he does have a well deserved reputation for engaging mouth before getting brain in gear, he does have a fair grasp on logistics.
"Does a tremendous number on the lungs." Doesn't he mean a bigly number? With excellent brains like his you would think he would use proper Trumpanese.
I'm waiting for Trump to start pitching actual snake oil. Just a penny ante huckster.
charlie hebdoAs to injecting bleach, Trump got the idea from a "pal" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR2j4RJtAbTUddA1XB4uhWG3AcUoDJikE5lYbloiwLKvIPQJDNRdV_ValXc
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR2j4RJtAbTUddA1XB4uhWG3AcUoDJikE5lYbloiwLKvIPQJDNRdV_ValXc
Trust the Guardian to miss the real story while trying to make Trump look stupider.
Remember that in the previous link Trump left the 'disinfectant' carefully unspecified? Well, it seems the material ... carefully characterized as 'industrial bleach' by the Brits ... is our old friend from the anthrax-letter days.
Chlorine bleach, the 'household' stuff, is some form of hypochlorite.
The 'disinfectant' in question turns out to be chlorine dioxide.
You guessed right, kid; let's see what happens when we fool a halogen into thinking it's valence 4+ electropositive and ... unleash it where did you say? Sorry, when I stop screaming I might hear you better.
As John Clark put it about a somewhat less electropositive chlorine compound: "For situations of this kind, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes".
Or, if you have spores of something resistant to most known disinfecting agents, and you can't immerse the thing you need cleaned in, oh, say, basic piranha, ClO2 will git 'r dun nicely.
Admittedly, it's not quite in Florox country. But you could see it from there...
At least Trump was probably right in thinking it would introduce a certain amount of 'light' into 'the inside of the patient (although perhaps for not very long and not at disinfectant UV wavelength)
charlie hebdoMethamphetamine was once the medicine of choice in the University of Utah studies of treatment of adult ADD. I recall hearing its proponent speak at Harvard in the late 90s. As to injecting bleach, Trump got the idea from a "pal" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR2j4RJtAbTUddA1XB4uhWG3AcUoDJikE5lYbloiwLKvIPQJDNRdV_ValXc
As to injecting bleach, Trump got the idea from a "pal"
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Methamphetamine was once the medicine of choice in the University of Utah studies of treatment of adult ADD. I recall hearing its proponent (Paul Wender?) speak at Harvard in the late 90s.
Mind you, I wasn't talking about the amphetamines in saying 'heroic'. I consider reasonable doses of l-amphetamine to be wonder drugs.
On the other hand, large bolus doses of meth are something of a waste. Probably better metabolic 'excitation' for flu recovery would be relatively low-level but sustained release for the course of 4-5 days -- of course you'd need a Russian sleep-inducer plate or the equivalent to keep them from too much 'being wired' ...
At least some of the cardiac stuff depends on the chemistry you pick... and, again, not overdoing the dose at any point. Could be a useful application for the time-release that put Adderall back in patent protection with XR...
OvermodA problem with lots of 'heroic' or special treatment is that the effects of the cure can be worse than the disease
True......but if they are going to die anyway, they might as well go with a smile on their face.
The biggest hurdle I would anticipate would be those at biggest risk from the virus (therefore an "extreme" cure might be indicated) are those over 60 yrs of age. I doubt their hearts could handle the ride.
Euclid charlie hebdo Here's another utterly idiotic idea. Stupid is as stupid does How do you know it is idiotic? What he actually said is being intentionally distorted by NBC. Big surprise. What was the reaction we were suppose to see in Dr. Birx? There are probably 100,000 experts right now looking at all ideas about going directly into the lungs and killing the virus with either chemicals or U.V. light.
charlie hebdo Here's another utterly idiotic idea. Stupid is as stupid does
Here's another utterly idiotic idea.
Stupid is as stupid does
How do you know it is idiotic? What he actually said is being intentionally distorted by NBC. Big surprise. What was the reaction we were suppose to see in Dr. Birx? There are probably 100,000 experts right now looking at all ideas about going directly into the lungs and killing the virus with either chemicals or U.V. light.
What he actually said below. If you don't think this is idiotic and irresponsible as POTUS, then I encourage you to try it at home on yourself.
Donald Trump, Coronavirus Press Conference, 4/23/2020 at 29:46 minutes: "A question that probably some of you are thinking of [he was looking far to his right, at Dr. Birx or other professionals] if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting, right? And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful. Steve, please."
Convicted OnePersonally, I think this avenue holds great promise. Not self administered doses of household cleaners, but rather something administered in a controlled, supervised environment to make the host's body inhospitable to the proliferation of the virus.
Not self administered doses of household cleaners, but rather something administered in a controlled, supervised environment to make the host's body inhospitable to the proliferation of the virus.
The first is that agents administered in the actual bronchial tract are 'historically' things to affect tissues there (as in bronchodilators or other asthma meds) or preferentially get into circulation through gas exchange in the alveolae (as nicotine is in smoking). I suspect if you snaked a UV source down there to zap the virus particles that were in process of confirming to ACE2, you'd cause all sorts of other damage to tissues, stimulation of nerve endings, etc. for the 'value received' of viral inactivation ... then have to do it all over again at intervals to clean out subsequent contamination.
Likewise, chemicals that can actually penetrate the envelope and capsid to denature the viral genome directly are likely to be harsh on the tissues in the respiratory tract, or toxic to cellular activity, or both. Many's the attractive parasite treatment that founders on this problem...
Note that a great many of the 'inhibitors' with promise act specifically on what the viral genome dies after infection -- GS441524 or T-705 for example impede specific RNA polymerase and 3CLpro inhibitors preventcleaving of the synthesized RNA into active units. Of course if part of "COVID-19" involves damage via the ACE2 site, either by binding irreversibly to it or triggering something by doing so, you either need to administer something that preferentially binds to the site 'first' (which can screw up part of the RAAS system that the ACE2 is part of) or that selectively degrades the viral attachment (which is what the hydroxychloroquine was supposed to be helping to do) but this is not stuff you want to mess around with as an exogenous treatment. There was some thinking that artificially augmenting expression of ACE2 on elks was a Good Thing for people with conditions like congestive heart failure... we should probably be grateful THAT didn't get through clinical trials and done to sufferers,as they would be at leveraged risk both for infection and developing any complications tied to ACE2...
Oddly enough I am aware of a considerable body of anecdotal evidence suggesting that massive IV doses of methamphetamine over a couple days rids the body of even the nastiest flu.
You won't see that research, of course, because amphetamines are officially demonized now and, as with Neurosine, can't have any legitimate medical effects...
A problem with lots of 'heroic' or special treatment is that the effects of the cure can be worse than the disease. Many chemotherapeutic cocktails weren't worth the suffering they put patients through for the little effect in vivo they turned out to have. IMHO ventilating patients with ARDS is in this category for over 4 if every 5 patients.
Euclid There are probably 100,000 experts right now looking at all ideas about going directly into the lungs and killing the virus with either chemicals or U.V. light.
Personally, I think this avenue holds great promise.
Whether the authorities would be willing to "turn on" broad swaths of the population for the sake of a cure remains doubtful. But absent any more promising opportunities I'd hope they might at least give it consideration.
What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, etc.
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