PlagueWatch 2020-23 - Coronavirus

[PackMan97]

He caveated it in a ninja-edit after I posted. Sorry for not anticipating that he would edit the post. Hospital usage is not the only objective measure we have. Not by a long shot.

I accept your apology

What i'm trying to say right now is that our current case numbers are total and complete nonsense. In almost every single state we are test constrained. As we increase our testing capacity, we increase our case count. If we could test more, we'd have even more cases. Looking at case growth is only an indication of our testing capacity.

Hospital usage is basically looking back in time 3-4 weeks to see how many cases we had then and try and extrapolate that to where we might be now.

[PackMan97]

Yeah it's interesting. Another interesting thing to look at is the first cruise ship. 80+% of people on that ship never got the disease. That is not what you would expect if it just spreads like crazy exponentially. Perhaps some people have natural immunity or there is a reason some people are susceptible and others aren't. Also, of course, the social distancing stuff has an effect. In any case, there is no example of any population in the world where COVID-19 has maintained an exponential growth rate so far.

Mainly because there is no example of a population in the world that didn't put in some measure of social distancing.

[budwom]

Mainly because there is no example of a population in the world that didn't put in some measure of social distancing.

any data on Florida beaches? Appalling...

[CDu]

Yeah it's interesting. Another interesting thing to look at is the first cruise ship. 80+% of people on that ship never got the disease. That is not what you would expect if it just spreads like crazy exponentially. Perhaps some people have natural immunity or there is a reason some people are susceptible and others aren't. Also, of course, the social distancing stuff has an effect. In any case, there is no example of any population in the world where COVID-19 has maintained an exponential growth rate so far.

Yeah, the next test cases are Germany (so far it LOOKS exponential, but they are still really early in the progression), Spain (their's looks linear so far, but again too early to say for sure), and France (ditto).

With the US, it's just so hard to take any of the data seriously as we know that all of the data points are woefully underestimated across the board.

But yes, social distancing in some capacity will undoubtedly help. I guess the question is the extremity of the social distancing needed.

Also, this is for a country that had adequate testing and therefore containment so that, for the most part, their health systems were not taxed beyond capacity. I'm guessing Italy's numbers will look very different.

Yeah, Italy has two things working against it: the late realization as well as having a much older population in general. So their death rates are going to look worse than most.

[cato]

Bringing up the old joke:

Q: What do budlite and paddling in a canoe (not the original question but trying to keep this PG-13) have in common?

A: They're both very close to water.

Love it. Also, taking a stab at the original question, that sounds awfully likely to get wet.

[budwom]

Our future Is our young people!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...g-break-party/

Brady Sluder with the early lead in the blithering idiot race, though he has some stiff competition.

[OldPhiKap]

Our future Is our young people!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...g-break-party/

DaughterPK has her college spring break this week, and was supposed to fly to Ft. Lauderdale with a bunch of friends. DaughterPK takes after her mom -- she's smart -- and ditched it. Many of the rest went. And, when they got there, the beaches were partially closed; the bars and restaurants were closing or at reduced seating; and it was wildly crowded although started thinning out.

One friend flew back early and wanted to grab lunch with DaughterPK. DPK politely put it off . . . .

[devildeac]

Love it. Also, taking a stab at the original question, that sounds awfully likely to get wet.

That would be, ahem, easily reproducible...

[DukieInKansas]

then something interesting happened:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...wpisrc=nl_most

CDC finding that 38% of people requiring hospitalization in the U.S. are younger than 55...i wonder if that will deplete the Florida beaches any. Probably not..

Since it seems people with lung issues have more severe symptoms (i.e. - smokers, high pollution areas), I've been wondering if vaping would make someone more likely to have a more severe case. Could this play a role in the younger ages requiring hospitalization?

[MChambers]

Our future Is our young people!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...g-break-party/

Brady Sluder with the early lead in the blithering idiot race, though he has some stiff competition.

Kid's got a future in politics, I fear.

[Wander]

any data on Florida beaches? Appalling...

Maybe! Check out this article about "smart thermometers". Basically, when someone takes their temperature, it gets logged in some database with a location tag, so you end up with a map of where people are running fevers. If you subtract out the "expected" number of fevers from the flu, anything that is leftover MIGHT be due to coronavirus. It is not useful for individual testing, but statistically can be meaningful.

And the current data is, in fact, consistent with Florida being the largest unrecognized hotspot of coronavirus. It could have other explanations too, but note that the map does correctly predict Washington and New York as hotspots (and it does not simply predict every major city).

[budwom]

my thoughts turn to wondering...if these kids are on college break, what are their colleges teaching them these days? Was this not a topic of serious discussion on campuses? Apparently not...

[camion]

Maybe! Check out this article about "smart thermometers". Basically, when someone takes their temperature, it gets logged in some database with a location tag, so you end up with a map of where people are running fevers. If you subtract out the "expected" number of fevers from the flu, anything that is leftover MIGHT be due to coronavirus. It is not useful for individual testing, but statistically can be meaningful.

And the current data is, in fact, consistent with Florida being the largest unrecognized hotspot of coronavirus. It could have other explanations too, but note that the map does correctly predict Washington and New York as hotspots (and it does not simply predict every major city).

The main things I like about this is that it's real time data and that there are already more than a million of these smart thermometers out there.

I would think that it may become more useful as the situation becomes worse. Right now the actual vs expected numbers are still very close.

link to the map

When you toggle the map to "atypical" Florida does stand out.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

my thoughts turn to wondering...if these kids are on college break, what are their colleges teaching them these days? Was this not a topic of serious discussion on campuses? Apparently not...

I would like to know what colleges these kids go to so that I can make sure that my kids don't apply to those schools.

[Stray Gator]

any data on Florida beaches? Appalling...

According to reports on local news stations here in Orlando this morning, the beaches around Tampa have already closed, and Clearwater Beach, which is the locale of those spring break videos that were receiving wide play earlier in the week, will be closing Monday. We also understand that Miami-Dade County has voted to close its beaches, and we've heard (but not confirmed) that Fort Lauderdale in Broward County will be closed. Unfortunately, Daytona Beach -- traditionally one of the principal spring break destinations -- remains open, even though the city has apparently closed its two public pools and cancelled most public gatherings. No doubt, many young people will proceed with their plans to gather for spring break parties, heedless of the most recent reports that 38-50% of all the hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are patients under the age of 55.

[AustinDevil]

Yeah it's interesting. Another interesting thing to look at is the first cruise ship. 80+% of people on that ship never got the disease. That is not what you would expect if it just spreads like crazy exponentially. Perhaps some people have natural immunity or there is a reason some people are susceptible and others aren't. Also, of course, the social distancing stuff has an effect. In any case, there is no example of any population in the world where COVID-19 has maintained an exponential growth rate so far.

There is insufficient evidence to conclude that "80+% of people on that ship never got the disease." But aside from natural immunity, another optimistic read is that a large number of people were asymptomatic or so lightly symptomatic as to not be noticed/tested.

[WakeDevil]

The congregation will be fine.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavir...fy-state-order

Spell said his church, which normally has more than 1,000 attendees on Sunday across five locations, will be distributing “anointed handkerchiefs” to provide members with “healing virtues.”

[ChemGod]

He caveated it in a ninja-edit after I posted. Sorry for not anticipating that he would edit the post. Hospital usage is not the only objective measure we have. Not by a long shot.

I notice you did not mention any, however. Don’t apologize, as I did not anticipate you would respond with ninja edit accusation either.

[freshmanjs]

There is insufficient evidence to conclude that "80+% of people on that ship never got the disease." But aside from natural immunity, another optimistic read is that a large number of people were asymptomatic or so lightly symptomatic as to not be noticed/tested.

They tested 3,063 out of 3,711 people. So, even if you assume that 100% of non-tested people had it (very unlikely), you still have 70% or so of total that didn't get it (or I suppose one could argue that some got it after the testing was complete and none of them ever reported back as ill -- also unlikely).

[rsvman]

The latest little clinical tidbit, taken from a study done in Wuhan that has not yet been peer-reviewed:

The study compared rates of blood types A, B, and O in the general population in Wuhan and then compared that with the blood types of the people with a known diagnosis of COVID-19. What they found was that blood type A was over-represented, and that blood types B and O were slightly underrepresented in the patient population.

What this suggests is that blood group antigens may have some protective role for people with type B or type O blood (no information about people with AB). It looks like perhaps anti-blood group A antibody may play a slight protective role. To my review of the data, it looks like people with blood type B are in the most luck; they have only anti-A antibody circulating. People with type A have only anti-type B circulating; these people appear to be at slightly higher risk. People with blood type O have both anti-A and anti-B antibody circulating; anti-A seems helpful. It is unclear whether anti-B might be slightly unhelpful, but blood group O patients were still underrepresented in the patient population.

As mentioned, this has not been peer-reviewed and there has been no confirmation of this from other areas of the world yet. Also, the amount of "over-representation" and "under-representation" was not huge, and people of all blood types remain at risk for disease.


If this turns out to be true, there is precedent for this phenomenon, too, most notably with susceptibility to norovirus infection, in which blood group antigen plays a much larger role in susceptibility.