COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...

[RU848789]

Let me see if I have this riight. Folks have been saying 4% for about 3 weeks.
Folks have been calling for extreme increases in clalamity for about 3 weeks.
The rate has kept declining because as many have said test rates would increase. Now we're holding out math that its no longer the virus killing folks but our inability to muster medical reasources to deal. So now we can't blame the virus but now can blame ourselves. OK. (yeah I get it..Overrun the hospitals).

Seriously. Let me know the facts on the Fed holding back the supplies. Your numbers and sources. That's a heck of a claim. I know you're smart. But that's a comment I need to see validated sir.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I've been spot on with every prediction so far, including predicting, 8 days in advance, when we'd hit 5000 cases and getting that exactly right. I predicted on Saturday that we'd probably hit 80,000 cases by tomorrow and we'll be very close to that and said we'd likely have far more cases in another 2 weeks from that date and that we'd start to see potential major impacts to the health care system in densely populated areas, like NYC by then (and maybe even within a week), if we didn't get more supplies.

I never said anything about 4% mortality rates and just above and for awhile, I said our death rate will climb a bit (to maybe 1.7%) based on deaths being delayed and could climb higher if the system is overwhelmed. Italy's death rate was 5% for awhile and climbed to 10% because many people didn't get the care they needed, so it is possible for our death rate in NYC, for example, to jump up to a 4-5% level. And my source on supplies is Governor Cuomo - do you actually think he's lying about not having enough of everything, especially ventilators? It's known the Feds have 20,000 ventilators and NY needs about 25,000 more (and the Feds finally promised 4000 of them today, which is a start, but not enough).

 

[LETSGORU91]

So tell me what's positive about what's going on with this outbreak in the US. I'm all ears.

The Spring Breakers have been kicked off the beaches in Florida.

 

[bac2therac]

and that is why she is allowed at the daily trump campaign rally

Or maybe she knows her stuff

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

We are probably not hitting 80k by tomorrow. I am sure your predictions were very reasonable. The fact we are under (for now) your estimated path is a small positive. Obviously we can get future data points that show the previous 2 or 3 were flawed or things indeed are spiraling more out of control then we can imagine

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Or maybe she knows her stuff

I’ll stop here.
We want Cliff! We want Cliff!

 

[RU848789]

Its irrelevant because if anything counters Numbers worst case narratives it needs to be corrected and dismissed. He even is turning on Birx

Ya know some of us can have hope and positivity its not against the law

Now you're being a petulant idiot. I've been nowhere near touting the worst case, ever. In fact I've been saying we're likely never going to see 70% of the population being infected based on the Wuhan and Diamond Princess data (3% infections in Wuhan and 17% on DP, where transmission rates would be expected to be worse than almost anywhere else).

I'm just worried about the credible case of maybe 5-10% of people in the US being infected with a mortality rate of 0.5-1% (what I think the "true" mortality rate will be once we have full testing/data) if we don't take aggressive approaches to testing, quarantining/tracking, and social distancing. That would result in eventually having 16-32MM infections at 0.5-1% mortality, which would be 80K-320K deaths vs. 35K for a typical flu season and it would also result in 5-10X more serious hospitalizations than the flu, both of which would be very bad to horrible.

I don't think we can replicate SK's success now (too late), but I think by being aggressive we could keep infections down to 1%, which would result in ~30K deaths, like a flu season and if we can do that, then we should be able to start opening up the economy at some point (4-6 weeks?), especially if we can also get antibody testing on-line in the next few weeks, as that could be used first on health care workers and essential workers to perhaps show if they have antibodies, which would mean they shouldn't be able to get the virus and/or infect others, which would be huge - we might be able to test hundreds of thousands to a million or more in the next month.

I don't really think that sounds like the worst case, but we're heading for at least a bad case with the major peak of cases coming that could overwhelm our health care systems over the next 2-4 weeks, especially if we don't further tighten up on testing/social distancing and don't ensure we have the needed supplies/people/beds in our hard hit areas. That part is indisputable.

I've also posted info from folks who think the infection rates (at least via the virus test via RNA-PCR) may not exceed 1%, as seen everywhere but Wuhan (3%, where there was very little control for weeks) - even Italy, the worst case now, is only at 0.1% of the total population being infected given 69K cases in about 60MM people. At a 1% infection rate and a 1% mortality rate, we'd only be talking 32K deaths in the US, which is comparable to the flu.

The problem is we don't know if these very low estimates are correct (most experts think not), just like we don't know if the estimates of 2-3MM people dying in the US (the high end estimates by respected scientists) and even if the low end numbers are correct, if most of that occurs in a 4-week period, rather than a 4-month period, that will still overwhelm many health care systems. And it's possible they're correct for the 20% of Americans living in fairly low density areas, but not for 9MM New Yorkers living at 26,000 people per square mile and the 80% of Americans who live in urban locations.

Please don't fixate on the numbers/calcs - they're just illustrative of the ranges. Talk about very difficult public health and policy decisions in the face of huge uncertainty. It's like being given a snow forecast of 1-100" with ~10" being the most likely outcome - what do you plan for?

 

[RU848789]

We are probably not hitting 80k by tomorrow. I am sure your predictions were very reasonable. The fact we are under (for now) your estimated path is a small positive. Obviously we can get future data points that show the previous 2 or 3 were flawed or things indeed are spiraling more out of control then we can imagine

Probably 70K tomorrow and 80+K by Thursday, but that's quibbling, especially given the error bars around actual infections and testing levels as a percentage of those. The biggest question right now is whether those 9 states with 1000+ infections in the graph I posted earlier are going to follow NY's trajectory or not. 8 days ago NY had 1300 cases and now has 25,000.

They're all accelerating, with an increase in new cases every day, but most aren't yet at NY's rate, but nobody is testing at NY's rate (other than WA and they're not at NY's new case rate); NJ's rise is slower (about half as fast) than NY's as of right now, but let's see if that changes with increased testing over the next few days.

 

[RU848789]

You have been awesome with your intuitive responses and relaying information to the Rutgers faithful here. Thank you. In response to the highlighted above, it's amazing to think what simple precautions taken could have helped prevent the onslaught that is about to hit us very soon. You know...an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure..the entire nation from citizens to healthcare facilities to local/state/federal governments are unfortunately going see the poop hit the fan very soon I am afraid...

Thanks, much appreciated. Seeing what's been coming for weeks and not being able to convince people it's coming has been incredibly frustrating, especially from a human perspective, as I'm afraid way too many people have been ignoring the advice of the public health experts (and mine here) and are more likely to get sick and have bad outcomes.

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

The carnage in our area has begun

I don't even want to know how bad it will get in the next two months

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

The carnage in our area has begun

I don't even want to know how bad it will get in the next two months

Theoretically if we all practice social distancing it shouldn’t be bad in a month

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

is It possible amount of daily testing rate of change wasn’t increasing before but now it is and will positively correlate that in future positive cases?

 

[RU848789]

Theoretically if we all practice social distancing it shouldn’t be bad in a month

In theory, with perfect quarantining, we'd stamp out 99.99% in 14 days, which is what I wish we were doing right now, everywhere in the country, but I know it's not realistic, watching idiots licking poles and having Corona Parties.

 

[RU848789]

is It possible amount of daily testing rate of change wasn’t increasing before but now it is and will positively correlate that in future positive cases?

Absolutely - testing rate of change is driving positive case rate of change, since the rule of thumb in uncontrolled outbreaks with incomplete testing is that for every confirmed case there are likely 5-10 people with undetected infections in the community, which is the 5-10X I've been talking about.

The article below also talks about testing in Iceland, which is off the charts at 1% of the 343K population (with about 6% of those tested being positive and they only have 2 deaths in 618 cases now or about 0.3%). They also had a study done by a private company testing thousands of asymptomatic people, somewhat at random and only see 1% infection rate, although they only have a density of 9 people per square mile vs. 26,000 in NYC and as I've been saying for awhile, population density is a critical factor in determining transmission rates and percentages of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonar...nvBLmw51FEQJJFc4SGb36zWEtaj0UiJGO6gJIiPVJ8cN0

 

[RU Cheese]

Now you're being a petulant idiot. I've been nowhere near touting the worst case, ever. In fact I've been saying we're likely never going to see 70% of the population being infected based on the Wuhan and Diamond Princess data (3% infections in Wuhan and 17% on DP, where transmission rates would be expected to be worse than almost anywhere else).

I'm just worried about the credible case of maybe 5-10% of people in the US being infected with a mortality rate of 0.5-1% (what I think the "true" mortality rate will be once we have full testing/data) if we don't take aggressive approaches to testing, quarantining/tracking, and social distancing. That would result in eventually having 16-32MM infections at 0.5-1% mortality, which would be 80K-320K deaths vs. 35K for a typical flu season and it would also result in 5-10X more serious hospitalizations than the flu, both of which would be very bad to horrible.

I don't think we can replicate SK's success now (too late), but I think by being aggressive we could keep infections down to 1%, which would result in ~30K deaths, like a flu season and if we can do that, then we should be able to start opening up the economy at some point (4-6 weeks?), especially if we can also get antibody testing on-line in the next few weeks, as that could be used first on health care workers and essential workers to perhaps show if they have antibodies, which would mean they shouldn't be able to get the virus and/or infect others, which would be huge - we might be able to test hundreds of thousands to a million or more in the next month.

I don't really think that sounds like the worst case, but we're heading for at least a bad case with the major peak of cases coming that could overwhelm our health care systems over the next 2-4 weeks, especially if we don't further tighten up on testing/social distancing and don't ensure we have the needed supplies/people/beds in our hard hit areas. That part is indisputable.

I've also posted info from folks who think the infection rates (at least via the virus test via RNA-PCR) may not exceed 1%, as seen everywhere but Wuhan (3%, where there was very little control for weeks) - even Italy, the worst case now, is only at 0.1% of the total population being infected given 69K cases in about 60MM people. At a 1% infection rate and a 1% mortality rate, we'd only be talking 32K deaths in the US, which is comparable to the flu.

The problem is we don't know if these very low estimates are correct (most experts think not), just like we don't know if the estimates of 2-3MM people dying in the US (the high end estimates by respected scientists) and even if the low end numbers are correct, if most of that occurs in a 4-week period, rather than a 4-month period, that will still overwhelm many health care systems. And it's possible they're correct for the 20% of Americans living in fairly low density areas, but not for 9MM New Yorkers living at 26,000 people per square mile and the 80% of Americans who live in urban locations.

Please don't fixate on the numbers/calcs - they're just illustrative of the ranges. Talk about very difficult public health and policy decisions in the face of huge uncertainty. It's like being given a snow forecast of 1-100" with ~10" being the most likely outcome - what do you plan for?

#s, just keep doing what you're doing. Your posts are great, informative and logic/data driven. One of my first reads of the day now.

Just ignore Bac. I respect how he fights / battles for his arguments on the political spectrum (I do). But this is a different beast and he's blindly taking a political angle here instead of a logical / mathematical / epi perspective.

 

[RU-05]

I'm just worried about the credible case of maybe 5-10% of people in the US being infected with a mortality rate of 0.5-1% (what I think the "true" mortality rate will be once we have full testing/data) if we don't take aggressive approaches to testing, quarantining/tracking, and social distancing. That would result in eventually having 16-32MM infections at 0.5-1% mortality, which would be 80K-320K deaths vs. 35K for a typical flu season and it would also result in 5-10X more serious hospitalizations than the flu, both of which would be very bad to horrible.

I don't think we can replicate SK's success now (too late), but I think by being aggressive we could keep infections down to 1%, which would result in ~30K deaths, like a flu season and if we can do that, then we should be able to start opening up the economy at some point (4-6 weeks?), especially if we can also get antibody testing on-line in the next few weeks, as that could be used first on health care workers and essential workers to perhaps show if they have antibodies, which would mean they shouldn't be able to get the virus and/or infect others, which would be huge - we might be able to test hundreds of thousands to a million or more in the next month.

I don't really think that sounds like the worst case, but we're heading for at least a bad case with the major peak of cases coming that could overwhelm our health care systems over the next 2-4 weeks, especially if we don't further tighten up on testing/social distancing and don't ensure we have the needed supplies/people/beds in our hard hit areas. That part is indisputable.

I've also posted info from folks who think the infection rates (at least via the virus test via RNA-PCR) may not exceed 1%, as seen everywhere but Wuhan (3%, where there was very little control for weeks) - even Italy, the worst case now, is only at 0.1% of the total population being infected given 69K cases in about 60MM people. At a 1% infection rate and a 1% mortality rate, we'd only be talking 32K deaths in the US, which is comparable to the flu.

The problem is we don't know if these very low estimates are correct (most experts think not), just like we don't know if the estimates of 2-3MM people dying in the US (the high end estimates by respected scientists) and even if the low end numbers are correct, if most of that occurs in a 4-week period, rather than a 4-month period, that will still overwhelm many health care systems. And it's possible they're correct for the 20% of Americans living in fairly low density areas, but not for 9MM New Yorkers living at 26,000 people per square mile and the 80% of Americans who live in urban locations.

Please don't fixate on the numbers/calcs - they're just illustrative of the ranges. Talk about very difficult public health and policy decisions in the face of huge uncertainty. It's like being given a snow forecast of 1-100" with ~10" being the most likely outcome - what do you plan for?

Moreso then the total # of cases, and even the deaths, I think the real concern is and always has been the serious hospitalizations.

 

[RU-05]

In theory, with perfect quarantining, we'd stamp out 99.99% in 14 days, which is what I wish we were doing right now, everywhere in the country, but I know it's not realistic, watching idiots licking poles and having Corona Parties.

But perfect quarantining is not only unrealistic, it's impossible.

The 14 day stamp out should not, and has not been the objective.

 

[brookdale-soda]

Moreso then the total # of cases, and even the deaths, I think the real concern is and always has been the serious hospitalizations.

This is my concern too. i heard last week that once you are admitted into the ICU, you have a 50% chance of living. not sure if thats the latest data. but assuming it is, look at the death rate and death rate forecast and multiply it by 2. ICU's are normally pretty full in many hospitals. I wonder what the ICU capacity is and when this is surpassed. Do we have 1,000 extra beds in ICU's across the state along with the equipment needed to monitor? well need them soon.

 

[RU#1fan]

#s, just keep doing what you're doing. Your posts are great, informative and logic/data driven. One of my first reads of the day now.

Just ignore Bac. I respect how he fights / battles for his arguments on the political spectrum (I do). But this is a different beast and he's blindly taking a political angle here instead of a logical / mathematical / epi perspective.

This.
#’s Postings are my first read of the morning. Very informative and educational.
Clowns like BAC have gone to my Ignorant list.

 

[fluoxetine]

This.
#’s Postings are my first read of the morning. Very informative and educational.
Clowns like BAC have gone to my Ignorant list.

Ignoring bac would be a shame. I'm not a fan of his political posts but his basketball posts are top notch.

 

[RUhasarrived]

Now Jackson Browne has tested positive.Pray that he won't be Running On Empty.

As for myself,last week a PA told me that I must have allergies.We'll see about that in a week.

 

[Myrtleknight]

#’s has established board credibility but he is too caught up in this. He needs to take a 24 hour break and turn off the computers and news.

 

[DennisHajekRC84]

I never said anything about 4% mortality rates

I said "Folks" not you specifically.
Yesterday was a beautiful day and we had a huge sigh of releif in the markets and the government finally getting their act going....

It was just a nice day for awhile.......stay well.

 

[Ronnie_B]

Question - I understand the State Parks are still open, but are we allowed to travel to them?

 

[DJ Spanky]

As for myself,last week a PA told me that I must have allergies.We'll see about that in a week.

I've been getting hammered by allergies for the past 2 weeks. The mild winter has allowed this to happen much earlier than normal.

 

[fluoxetine]

Question - I understand the State Parks are still open, but are we allowed to travel to them?

It's completely unclear from the order, but I feel the fact that they remain open implies the answer is "yes".

Even if it's not technically allowed, the chances of anything happening to you for doing it are ~0; any enforcement is going to be targeted at people hosting parties and stuff, not people driving to parks.

 

[RU2055]

Some info on folks that I know - hitting close to home now:

Family in Elizabeth who self quarantined, husband/wife and three kids. Son had high fevers for 9 days, no other symptom, tested positive. Husband low grade fever and slight coughing, did not bother to get tested, lasted 11 days but eventually got better. Wife slight chest congestion with no fever. Two other kids no symptom.

Asthmatic aunt in Union tested positive the other day and was admitted in Overlook. Dry cough and high fevers - 103. Her condition got worse and uncle brought her to Overlook. She improved with prednisone, albuterol and APAP, so she was discharged yesterday. Uncle tested negative and no symptom.

Also, spoke to four separate folks from Rutherford, Teaneck, Ridgewood and Bayonne. All had family members who experienced fevers, varying degrees but no coughing. Did not bother going for testing or treatment. Self quarantined and self medication using ibuprofen and/or APAP.

Very small data set, but I believe most of us are going to hear of similar things happening to someone we know, sooner or later.

 

[DJ Spanky]

So we had a helicopter buzzing around our area 6-7 this morning, Tyler actually went out to look at it, said it was a News 12 chopper. Figured out why it was there: they're opening up William Paterson as a testing center this morning:

Passaic County Coronavirus Testing Site to Open Wednesday

 

[mdMoose]

There may be some good news afoot.

It looks like the rate of increase in new cases is decelerating. So while the gross number of infected is going up, the rate of spread is slowing down. The number of new cases in the US has increased by 8.5% over the period 3/22-3/24 while it was close to 30% for the period 3/20-3/22 and 70% for the period 3/16-3/18. These are day-over-day percentage increases over the two day periods based on the data from the Worldometer site.

The data isn't absolute and may not be 100% accurate, but it's a good sign in my opinion, especially since one may have assumed that the rate of spread would be increasing as we test more and more people and capture more positives.

This may indicate that we have reached our first inflection point, (i.e., the steep incline to our curve is leveling off a bit). I would need to see a couple of more to get a sense that we are truly leveling off and may be approaching the peak and eventually getting to towards the downward side of the hump.

The faster we level off, the flatter the curve will be. Hopefully this trend will continue in the coming days and weeks.

Does anyone know where one can find the daily stats for New York?

 

[RU-05]

There may be some good news afoot.

It looks like the rate of increase in new cases is decelerating. So while the gross number of infected is going up, the rate of spread is slowing down. The number of new cases in the US has increased by 8.5% over the period 3/22-3/24 while it was close to 30% for the period 3/20-3/22 and 70% for the period 3/16-3/18. These are day-over-day percentage increases over the two day periods based on the data from the Worldometer site.

The data isn't absolute and may not be 100% accurate, but it's a good sign in my opinion, especially since one may have assumed that the rate of spread would be increasing as we test more and more people.

This may indicate that we have reached our first inflection point, (i.e., the steep incline to our curve is leveling off a bit). I would need to see a couple of more to get a sense that we are truly leveling off and may be getting to the peak and eventually getting to the downward side of the hump.

Does anyone know where one can find the daily stats for New York?

I think the fact that the obvious people, in NYC anyways, were getting tested and coming up positive during that 3/16-3/18 period skews the #'s.

Also heard a theory that medical pro's in Italy and Spain are so busy dealing with the sick that they are not testing as many people as they would otherwise.

In general I don't think the day to day total cases #'s can be trusted all that much.

 

[RU-05]

Some info on folks that I know - hitting close to home now:

Family in Elizabeth who self quarantined, husband/wife and three kids. Son had high fevers for 9 days, no other symptom, tested positive. Husband low grade fever and slight coughing, did not bother to get tested, lasted 11 days but eventually got better. Wife slight chest congestion with no fever. Two other kids no symptom.

Asthmatic aunt in Union tested positive the other day and was admitted in Overlook. Dry cough and high fevers - 103. Her condition got worse and uncle brought her to Overlook. She improved with prednisone, albuterol and APAP, so she was discharged yesterday. Uncle tested negative and no symptom.

Also, spoke to four separate folks from Rutherford, Teaneck, Ridgewood and Bayonne. All had family members who experienced fevers, varying degrees but no coughing. Did not bother going for testing or treatment. Self quarantined and self medication using ibuprofen and/or APAP.

Very small data set, but I believe most of us are going to hear of similar things happening to someone we know, sooner or later.

Some concerns in using Ibuprofen for Covid.

Fauci wouldn't say not to use it, but did say that he always uses Tylenol.

 

[mdMoose]

I think the fact that the obvious people, in NYC anyways, were getting tested and coming up positive during that 3/16-3/18 period skews the #'s.

Also heard a theory that medical pro's in Italy and Spain are so busy dealing with the sick that they are not testing as many people as they would otherwise.

In general I don't think the day to day total cases #'s can be trusted all that much.

I'm not sure, it's all too early to tell. I think this may also speak to the fact that other parts of the country are heeding suggestions to isolate themselves a bit more, so there aren't too many new hot-spots sprouting up all over the country (other than LA). Of course this could just be a temporary blip and and the number of new case start accelerating again. I'm hoping for the opposite.

At some point the rate of increase will slow. It's impossible for it not too if people are for the most part staying home. Hopefully it has already started to slow.

 

[RU-05]

I'm not sure, it's all too early to tell. I think this may also speak to the fact that other parts of the country are heeding suggestions to isolate themselves a bit more, so there aren't too many hot-spots sprouting up all over the country (other than LA). Of course this could just be a temporary blip and and the number of new case start accelerating again. I'm hoping for the opposite.

Ya, good point, the lock downs, one would hope and think, are playing a role there as well.

Still, imo, too many other possible factors to draw too much from it.

 

[rutgersguy1]

There may be some good news afoot.

It looks like the rate of increase in new cases is decelerating. So while the gross number of infected is going up, the rate of spread is slowing down. The number of new cases in the US has increased by 8.5% over the period 3/22-3/24 while it was close to 30% for the period 3/20-3/22 and 70% for the period 3/16-3/18. These are day-over-day percentage increases over the two day periods based on the data from the Worldometer site.

The data isn't absolute and may not be 100% accurate, but it's a good sign in my opinion, especially since one may have assumed that the rate of spread would be increasing as we test more and more people and capture more positives.

This may indicate that we have reached our first inflection point, (i.e., the steep incline to our curve is leveling off a bit). I would need to see a couple of more to get a sense that we are truly leveling off and may be approaching the peak and eventually getting to towards the downward side of the hump.

The faster we level off, the flatter the curve will be. Hopefully this trend will continue in the coming days and weeks.

Does anyone know where one can find the daily stats for New York?

From CNN:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference that “evidence suggest density control measures may be working” during the coronavirus outbreak.

He cited the number of hospitalizations in the state due to the virus:

• Sunday — hospitalizations would double every 2 days
• Monday — hospitalizations would double every 3.4 days
• Tuesday — hospitalizations would double every 4.7 days

 

[RU-05]

From CNN:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference that “evidence suggest density control measures may be working” during the coronavirus outbreak.

He cited the number of hospitalizations in the state due to the virus:

• Sunday — hospitalizations would double every 2 days
• Monday — hospitalizations would double every 3.4 days
• Tuesday — hospitalizations would double every 4.7 days

I feel this is a better indicator as there is less testing issues, # of tests, testing the right people etc, to consider. If you are sick and need to go to the hospital then you go.

 

[mdMoose]

I am looking for the New York numbers so I can isolate them. Their numbers are so large they would skew the data one way or another. If we see that the rate of increase is slowing for the US as a whole (while excluding New York), than I think that would be another positive indicator since the rest of the US (excluding Washington) is behind where they are at this time.

 

[LETSGORU91]

I am looking for the New York numbers so I can isolate them. Their numbers are so large they would skew the data one way or another. If we see that the rate of increase is slowing for the US as a whole (while excluding New York), than I think that would be another positive indicator since the rest of the US (excluding Washington) is behind where they are at this time.

Keep an eye on Florida (they were up 70% positive cases since Sunday). Panicking snow birds fleeing back there from the tri-state area, slow to respond by shutting things down and older population is a recipe for disaster.

 

[mdMoose]

From CNN:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference that “evidence suggest density control measures may be working” during the coronavirus outbreak.

He cited the number of hospitalizations in the state due to the virus:

• Sunday — hospitalizations would double every 2 days
• Monday — hospitalizations would double every 3.4 days
• Tuesday — hospitalizations would double every 4.7 days

I was doing a bit of my own analysis of the numbers this morning and missed his press conference. It’s nice to see they concur there is evidence the rates seem to be slowing.

 

[Wolv RU]

I have no idea what you're talking about. I've been spot on with every prediction so far, including predicting, 8 days in advance, when we'd hit 5000 cases and getting that exactly right. I predicted on Saturday that we'd probably hit 80,000 cases by tomorrow and we'll be very close to that and said we'd likely have far more cases in another 2 weeks from that date and that we'd start to see potential major impacts to the health care system in densely populated areas, like NYC by then (and maybe even within a week), if we didn't get more supplies.

I never said anything about 4% mortality rates and just above and for awhile, I said our death rate will climb a bit (to maybe 1.7%) based on deaths being delayed and could climb higher if the system is overwhelmed. Italy's death rate was 5% for awhile and climbed to 10% because many people didn't get the care they needed, so it is possible for our death rate in NYC, for example, to jump up to a 4-5% level. And my source on supplies is Governor Cuomo - do you actually think he's lying about not having enough of everything, especially ventilators? It's known the Feds have 20,000 ventilators and NY needs about 25,000 more (and the Feds finally promised 4000 of them today, which is a start, but not enough).

To be fair, you have been highly critical of the U.S. response and have stated repeatedly that the U.S. is unprepared and heading towards Italy. The facts do not back that up. The death curve (the only realistic comparison since testing varies so much) has never been Italy's. It also is better than Germany, France, Spain, China, the UK, etc. If we looked at per capita data it wouldn't even be in the same ballpark. Moreover, the number of ICU beds per capita is more than 3x Italy (and better than the others, too); the population is not nearly as old.

All of this information is and has been readily available for a long time. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/coronavirus-deaths-by-country

No, we are not South Korea or Singapore. In my view, that was never going to happen in the U.S.

I'm not trying to be overly critical. You have stated that you are actually yourself practicing what should be and should have been done from the start -- higher risk individuals should limit contact as much as possible.

 

[mdMoose]

The NYC regional area may get close to Italy, but as a whole, I do not believe the US will be anything like Italy.

I am not speaking for RU#'s but I will come to his defense. There is nothing wrong with being critical of the response, and I believe we as citizens have a responsibility to be critical and demand that they be doing more.

Those in power should always hear and feel the criticism. I don't want my leaders (regardless of party) feeling comfortable or like they are doing a good enough job. And this is the way it has always been. Democrats have always criticized republican presidents and republicans have always criticized democratic presidents. Good! Keep them on their toes.

RU#'s has been sounding the alarm bells for months. If a random dude (who to my knowledge has never shown himself to be a kooky conspiracy theory nut) knew we were heading for problems, why didn't the federal government know and react sooner. It's their job to know and prepare.

Other than closing down flights from China (which was a great call), what else were we doing while we watched China building 13 hospitals in a matter of weeks?

They should be taken to task and we should all be critical so we are prepared for the next virus.

They work for us. Never forget that.

 

[RU2055]

I've been getting hammered by allergies for the past 2 weeks. The mild winter has allowed this to happen much earlier than normal.

Allergies no doubt will signal tons of false positives among the masses. That's why it is important to get a pulse with the symptoms. So far what we've heard is that covid-19 symptoms that are most prevalent are dry (emphasize DRY) cough and fevers. That's different from sneezing, water eyes and runny nose associated with pollen allergies. Of course some folks will exhibit different symptoms but general ball park of what to look for and knowing the difference.