I'm skeptical of this given that we saw this monster spike in deaths in April. If this thing was here in November we would have seen at least one nursing home wiped out by it along the way.
COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...
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At this point, with so many having been infected in this area, it would be nearly impossible to say whether someone was infected in Nov or recently, especially from an antibody test, which only says that you had the virus at some point. We'd need viral samples from the time of the infection to be sure. That's why that U of W study was so important back in January, as there were frozen flu samples retained and several were eventually found to be coronavirus positive (a month later when Dr. Chu finally ran the test without CDC approval after being told not to, which was pretty stupid - we could've known about community spread 3+ weeks before we saw it later in Feb). I would imagine there are other frozen flu samples elsewhere from Dec-Jan that might tell us more (or maybe autopsy samples from unusual flu-like deaths).
+1
Most of the negative "studies" that I have seen were improperly using the drug. The FDA label clearly shows the risks and AEs a doc needs to keep in mind.
Agreed. Plus only very recently has someone begun and PEP/early treatment clinical trial. Dr Boulware is running one of them. So all these claims of no evidence it works are silly as we have not done much at all to date. Way more support for Remdesivir and from I what I have seen it is not particularly warranted. It seems nobody wants a 10 cent cure.
Dr Boulware has enrolled 1200 patients and they have already passed their third safety check with no issues. NONE, ZIP, NADA...all that phony BS from the media based on a Brazilian Study that was overdosing and a VA retrospective that gave the drug to guys who had one foot in the grave. Not an accident. Welcome to the snake pit.
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Stay at home order in NJ for over a month and we are still seeing 3-4k new cases every day??
How is this happening?
Is CV being spread in ways we haven't figured out yet?
How is this happening?
Is CV being spread in ways we haven't figured out yet?
This is the problem. People are morons. I can’t tell you how many people I have seen, in public, no masks, touching their faces and who all think it is a big joke or that they are invincible.
My neighbor is constantly going out, no mask, no gloves and says “ oh I think it’s all overblown, if I get it, I get it.”
It is this mentality that is going to drag this out.
The states that are reopening are doomed. Have you seen videos of the protests in California on the beaches? Ignorance is going to get the best of us.
Truth. My son had to do a software installation at a bank today and the bank rep had his gloves and mask and was sanitizing everything everything repeatedly. He was so concerned and nervous because my son was there inside. As my son was leaving he put down his sanitizer with the same gloves he had on all day and ate his lunch, a sandwich. My son called to tell me just to give me a good laugh. People are stupid.
https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie...6b-11ea-94d3-9879860c12b6.shtml?refresh_ce-cp
Google translate is rough but between 58 and 61% of first 1500 tested for antibodies were positive.
The Lombardy Region continues to impose utmost silence on the ATS on the results of the serological tests, on the one hand because the final result will not be indifferent and will understand how many Bergamoers actually contracted Covid-19, then developing antibodies, starting from citizens for which there had been no official diagnosis using the swab; on the other hand, however, because the initial numbers could impress: the tests started with Alzano and Nembro, the countries most affected in the phase of absolute emergency, calling moreover to make the withdrawal the citizens who had been placed in quarantine for contacts with the infected, or remained at home sick due to suspicious symptoms. And so it is, the high percentages long awaited by Palazzo Lombardia, are there and filter anyway: out of 750 blood samples taken to citizens of Nembro and Alzano between Thursday and Tuesday (there were 1,500 in all but about half were sent to Seriate) and analyzed at the Papa Giovanni hospital, in 61% of cases the serological test gave "positive" results, which means feedback on the development of neutralizing antibodies and therefore on having already encountered the disease. A slightly lower percentage, between 58 and 59%, would emerge from the analysis at Bolognini di Seriate.
Google translate is rough but between 58 and 61% of first 1500 tested for antibodies were positive.
The Lombardy Region continues to impose utmost silence on the ATS on the results of the serological tests, on the one hand because the final result will not be indifferent and will understand how many Bergamoers actually contracted Covid-19, then developing antibodies, starting from citizens for which there had been no official diagnosis using the swab; on the other hand, however, because the initial numbers could impress: the tests started with Alzano and Nembro, the countries most affected in the phase of absolute emergency, calling moreover to make the withdrawal the citizens who had been placed in quarantine for contacts with the infected, or remained at home sick due to suspicious symptoms. And so it is, the high percentages long awaited by Palazzo Lombardia, are there and filter anyway: out of 750 blood samples taken to citizens of Nembro and Alzano between Thursday and Tuesday (there were 1,500 in all but about half were sent to Seriate) and analyzed at the Papa Giovanni hospital, in 61% of cases the serological test gave "positive" results, which means feedback on the development of neutralizing antibodies and therefore on having already encountered the disease. A slightly lower percentage, between 58 and 59%, would emerge from the analysis at Bolognini di Seriate.
I don't know if you are trolling and making crap up. Or if you really just don't understand and are scared. Based on your long-term history as a troll, I'm guessing it is the first. But I will provide a serious answer, just in case it is the second.
Over the past 5 days, NJ has reported about 2100 to 2800 new cases per day. Even with social distancing, you will still have virus spread. Some of it will be institutional (like at long-term care facilities) and some will be because even with a stay-at-home order you still have a lot of essential workers as well as people leaving home for essential services, who are at risk. And of course, you have people who don't follow the stay-at-home order.
It is really hard to track the number of new cases in NJ, because NJ has not performed nearly enough tests to track if infections are increasing or decreasing. Through April 24, the number of positive results was very tightly correlated with the number of tests performed. If more tests were performed, you got proportionally more positive results, Consistently the positive results hovered in the range of 55-60% through April 18, dropping to 45-55% between April 19 and April 24. It is only in the past week that the percent positive has really declined, down to about 30% today.
But the percent positive really needs to get below 10% in order to truly track new cases, which means NJ still needs to conduct about 3 times as many tests -- up to approximately 20,000 to 25,000 per day.
There are a couple of reasons that have been provided as to why there have not been enough testing done. There have been a lack of availability of tests, reagents, testing equipment (such as swabs), PPE, and laboratory capacity to process the tests.
The other big barrier is that CDC testing criteria initially limited tests to those with severe symptoms or known contact with Covid patients (along with healthcare workers, first responders, etc.) While private labs were not compelled to follow CDC requirements, most followed those requirement anyway. It was only on April 27 that the CDC loosened the testing criteria to include others, including those without symptoms, at the discretion of health departments or clinicians.
So without having sufficient testing to determine case growth or decline, you really have to look at other lagging indicators. Hospitalizations is the the indicator that seems to make the most sense, since it easy to count, and doesn't lag as much as ventilator use or death. NJ is not unique in needing to look at hospitalizations to track virus spread, versus looking at new cases reported from test results, which is why federal re-opening guidelines talk about declines in hospitalizations, not declines in new reported cases.
Statewide Hospitalizations in NJ have declined steadily since April 14. In the Northern counties in the state, the decline has been from a high of 5320 on April 14, to a low of 3280 yesterday. In the Central counties (Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex, Mercer, Monmouth, Ocean), the decline has been from a high of 2256 on April 13 to a low of 1783 yesterday. The Southern counties have not seen a decline in hospitalizations yet, but growth has potentially flattened, hovering between 899 and 917 over the past 4 days.
I wouldn't argue with careless too. Most people do not understand how any of this works. To think gloves are protecting you while you touch your face and eat from your hands is plain dumb. I think many people would be better off without gloves and just frequently sanitizing, especially before touching your face, eating, etc.
So the governors of those states are just unaware that they are now "doomed"? How could they not know this but you do?
Agree on careless/ignorant and on gloves - contaminated gloves are identical to contaminated hands. One small advantage of gloves is if they're being used for a short time, one can take them off after an exposure, like shopping, so the hands are clean, although I'd still be a little nervous and would sanitize anyway, so don't see the advantage. The other thing some have said is that gloves are a visual reminder to not touch one's face, which may be true. I don't ever wear them...
Numbers love what you are sharing. Way beyond my paygrade. You and others in this thread are my go to source for info. I say this sincerely, and I don't think it's malicious, but as hard as you seem to try your politics do seep through. I don't like trump or Biden for that matter but imo you are doing a helluva job and bringing politics into this, although you don't see it, puts a damper on the info you present.
They're either idiots or misinformed. Relaxing social distancing while still having an active outbreak will accelerate the outbreak, causing more cases/deaths per unit time than one would have with SD (and testing/tracing). In much less densely populated areas, it'll simply just take longer to reach herd immunity (60-70%?) and the final death toll.
The whole logic of testing/tracing/isolating is to control flare-ups, which will happen, since there's a 1-2 week delay before a flare-up is noticed and the whole point of SD is to prevent or at least minimize flare-ups, preventing them from becoming major outbreaks. I
Let's do a simple "what if" exercise. If we stop SD/interventions and ultimately, everywhere in the US, within 12 months reaches about 0.2% fatalities (NY is already at 0.8% infection fatality rate at 24K deaths/3.0MM w/antibodies, so 0.2% is quite conservative - it should come down) for 60% of the population, that's 400K total US deaths (vs. 35K in an average flu season).
However, interventions/SD can probably reduce the death rate by at least half, so it might take 24 months to reach those 400K deaths (the end number doesn't change as it's only based on the infection fatality rate and herd immunity number we reach, which should be constants).
But if there's a vaccine in 12 months that's close to 100% effective and we're still doing interventions/social distancing (not full stay at home, like now, but something more akin to what South Korea is doing), we could save half of those 400K lives or 200K - isn't that worth the effort?
And on top of that, if there's a treatment/cure in 6 months (e.g., antibodies) that prevents most deaths from that point on, that could save another half of the those 200K deaths or 100K deaths, so that we only have 100k total deaths vs. 400K total deaths in 12 months with no interventions/SD. Isn't that even more worth it?
Interventions and SD are not just about flattening the curve - they're about slowing the transmission and death rates, buying time for treatments/cures/vaccines to potentially save hundreds of thousands of Americans vs. doing nothing. Isn't that worth it?
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Yes it is worth it... But what happens in the case that we just simply don't come up with a vaccine or it takes years to do it? The economy is already being destroyed.
Thanks, appreciate it. I would argue vehemently that I'm not bringing politics into the HCQ question. My only "political" comments there are that the POTUS shouldn't be hawking unproven medications - you'll never convince me that's "political." To me that's basic medical common sense.
With regard to some other topics, like testing and reopening too soon, it's impossible for me to talk about them without injecting some politics, because the political decisions to not support the country with enough testing and to allow states to reopen too soon are the wrong decisions scientifically, too, IMO and I will argue to the death to save tens to hundreds of thousands of lives. I try to not be strident about it, though (I am moreso on the CE board), since the mods want this to be a largely apolitical thread (and I agree), although I'm sure I miss the mark at times (this is a pretty important situation, so hard to not get a little fired up).
I've said a few times here that I don't like gloves because they are germ accumulators. Don't wear them much at all, and the rare times I do you know what I do as soon as I take them off....wash my hands anyway lol.
People don't change them often enough because they don't think to or don't have enough and won't likely wash them or sanitize them they way the would their hands. You're more likely to be careful about what and how much you touch with your bare hands and will likely wash/sanitize them more frequently than you will gloves. Those germ accumulating gloves will likely be more contaminating to any object you touch than your hands would ever be because of that.
It's part of why I've wiped down items from deliveries from the grocery now when a couple months ago I didn't shopping for myself. I know all workers are wearing gloves so things they touch sort of become de facto high touch surfaces by way of the gloves never being changed or washed during the whole day.
At one time I could sort of see the benefit of wearing gloves in preventing touching your face but now I'm not so sure for some people. The more you wear them the more you get used to them the more you act like you would with your bare hands but without the washing which is the worst scenario lol.
But do you not think we're capable of doing what South Korea, Taiwan and others are successfully doing? They're not at 100% reopened and probably won't be until we have a vaccine, but they're mostly back to work and life. The fact that we're not even considering their approaches to massive testing/tracing/isolating as the core to prevent flare-ups is sad to me. This article discusses the more detailed paper just published by the CDC on a very specific example of what SK did when an office building in Seoul became host to some infected workers - the CDC knows what we need to do, but we're not doing it. Second link is a fairly comprehensive discussion of the various responses in many countries.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/opin...-korea-study-on-covid-19-sepkowitz/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...learned-fighting-covid-19-coronavirus-society
It is more than sad, it's criminal really. South Korea (and Taiwan) is the model - they've proven that it is possible to control the virus and keep the infection rate and death totals down. Can they keep that up long term, who knows. But they've bought themselves valuable time to determine what treatments might work, and saved many lives while we wait and hope for a safe vaccine.
In this country I fear that we're going to have to go through a second wave that will be worse than the first before people really "get it." The NYC area may have already gone through the worst of it, though with only 20-25% infected there are still lots of bodies for the virus to infect. Other areas where infection rates are much lower will probably see a rapid rise in cases once restrictions are lifted. Talking about you, Georgia! Among others.
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They are playing the game. Trying to appease political friends and wealthy donors who are business owners who keep them in office.
On a lighter, stranger note, I bring you "funeral strippers."
https://nypost.com/2018/02/21/china...medium=site buttons&utm_campaign=site buttons
https://nypost.com/2018/02/21/china...medium=site buttons&utm_campaign=site buttons
Saw that report too and either it's wrong/bad translation or NY's data are wrong. There's no way I can imagine both being right - It would be unbelievably fantastic if the Italy number were correct, though as 60% is near herd immunity, but my guess is the NY number is correct, as that's been vetted much more carefully as far as I've seen.
- NY has 16K cases/1MM (1.6%) and 1227 deaths/1MM (and 47K tests/1MM), as well as approximately 15% of NYers have tested positive for antbodies, which is roughly 10X as many as have tested positive via the viral test.
- Lombardy has 7.1K cases/1MM (0.7%) and 1303 deaths/1MM (and 19K tests/1MM), as well as approximately 60% of them who have tested positive for antbodies, which is roughly 85X as many as have tested positive via the viral test.
Unfortunately, we've seen antibody testing results that are all over the map, so it's hard to say what's right. Santa Clara and LA counties have 2-4% with antibodies (about 1/6-1/10th of NYC's 24%) whereas their death rates are 10-15X lower. And Chelsea (Boston) supposedly had 30% antibodies from a blood bank analysis, which seems high, while Stockholm's is supposedly 11%, which compares ok with NYC's 24%.
Unfortunately sampling for these tests has been done very differently in each case (not very representative) and the tests are about +/- 50% on accuracy when below 10% of the population, due to false positives (which are bad, telling people they have antibodies when they don't - which is why these are limited to population assessments and not individual decisions on risk, yet) and false negatives, as these tests just aren't that accurate yet.
The first link below has a simulator for estimating actual percent testing positive and negative given input sensitivity and specificity and the population with the condition (e.g., what % of total population has antibodies, in truth). The graphic below is if the test is 99% sensitive and 99% specific and the reality is these tests are more like 90-95% sensitive and 95% specific, so the errors would be even larger.
https://qz.com/1848674/how-to-interpret-the-specificity-sensitivity-of-antibody-tests/
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/1/21240123/coronavirus-quest-diagnostics-antibody-test-covid
I'll give them credit for an original, rather than counterfeit, idea. Keep up the good work #'s.
This.
The amount of ignorance in this Country is mind boggling. These fools will spread the virus and effect millions. Unf’nnn real.
Brilliant.
And we just rush the infections and death rates to catastrophic levels in this country.... millions
What? I was agreeing that waiting it out longer to save hundreds of thousands lives would be worth it...
You and the rest of the corona bros need to relax.
Yes. The whole gloves thing has always been a pet peeve of mine as per how food prep/handlers "use" them. Poor training. I get the feeling they don't understand those gloves are to protect us from the food handlers i.e. eliminating direct contact from hand to pre-cooked food, raw veggies, etc. All too often I see handlers touching all sorts of unsanitized items then touching food items. I have walked away from more than a few counters upon witnessing that. And that's also why I am very hesitant to order takeout during the lockdown. Hell, so many food handlers do it poorly during non-lockdown times, I have to think their training, care, supervision etc is problematic during the times of COVID-19. Having been a bartender during grad school and working in high-end restaurants, I know what goes on behind those kitchen doors. Yikes!
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I worked in kitchens in HS (high end and not so high end) and sanitation was not a strong suit, lol. Being a bit paranoid (and with immunocompromised family members) we simply assume that any package delivery, mail, curbside and takeout may have been touched last by someone infected/careless and have virus particles on it. So we decon (or wait 3 days - if not in a rush and not perishable, we just let it sit in the garage for the longest known period of virus viability, i.e., 72 hours) and for takeout we only order hot food and plate it on clean plates immediately after getting home. It adds an hour or two of extra labor per week, but time we have. Been in lockdown since 3/3 and haven't ventured into a store or been within 10 feet of another human (other than the 3 in the house) since about March 20th or so.
is it true that in Orange County, CA with a population of 3.2 million, there are only 50 deaths
Sweden is doing a great job as well. Sounds like they are approaching herd immunity and will be done worrying about corona soon.
So were their hospitals just more prepared to cope with this then ours or Italy's?
Summary/commentary for some key World/US data through 4/26:
Some comments on NY/NJ/US and from Cuomo’s 4/27 presser
- The most important number in comparing outbreak severity, IMO, is deaths per 1MM people. Italy and Spain are the highest in the world of the major countries (>40MM) in the neighborhood of 450-500 deaths/1MM, The US is in the middle of the pack with ~168 deaths/1MM, although the US is earlier in its outbreak and will likely catch up somewhat.
- While the US, overall, looks better by comparison, if NY were a country it would have the worst outbreak in the world at 1085 deaths/1MM, while NJ is a little worse than the worst European countries at 632 deaths/1MM.
- Excluding NY/NJ, the rest of the US is “only” at 84 deaths per 1MM, which is similar to Germany, the “best” of the populous European countries with 71 deaths/1MM. But that needs to be put in context of what is considered “good” control of the epidemic: South Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and more all have <10 deaths/1MM and were all hit with their first waves before the US and Europe. Most believe the differences are primarily due to early/aggressive testing, aggressive contact tracing and quarantining, moderate to aggressive social distancing, and establishing a mask culture.
- US deaths plateaued in the 1500-2500/day range from about 4/7 to 4/25 (with some fluctuations), but it’s possible we’re finally seeing a decrease as deaths dropped below 1500 the last two days. NY deaths per day continue to fall and are now down from a plateau of 700-800/day to 300-400/day (including nursing homes). NJ deaths have fluctuated a lot, but the moving average shows we’re in a plateau and hopefully starting to drop.
- 56.7K, 22.6K and 6.0K total deaths, respectively, through 4/27 in the US, NY, and NJ. The latest U of Washington projection of 67K US deaths will very likely be low at this rate. Worldometer and Cuomo still have a ~5K difference in NY deaths, as NY is still not including the “presumed COVID” (i.e., not tested) deaths.
- The Earth hit 2.99MM positive cases on 4/27 with 987K cases in the US, 298K in NY and 111K in NJ.
- Both NY and NJ have reached the “peak plateau” in new cases, with a decline in cases definitely occurring in NY and a decline likely starting in NJ, although harder to say with fluctuations – the better indicator for NJ is likely hospitalization rates which are down from 8200 to 6400, statewide over the last 2 weeks. The big question for NY and eventually NJ is how quickly does the new case rate decline and to what level? Not known now. The US new case rate has been at a plateau for awhile, but may be starting to decline..
- NY now has done about 42K tests per 1MM in population, which is more than almost any other country; NJ is at 25K tests per 1MM and the US is at 17K tests per 1MM, both of which are middle-of-the-pack (vs. countries with major outbreaks). As discussed elsewhere, though, it’s not total tests that is critical – it’s testing very aggressively early in an outbreak so that it can be controlled – when that is done, the ratio of positives to tests is low (<10%) and that never happened in the US or Europe as we feel way behind the oubreak. Fortunately, NY/NYC positives are now down around 20% of total tests from a long plateau in the 40-50% range. NJ positive tests have finally dropped below 40% from a long time at near 50% positive.
- Total number of hospitalized in NY continues to decline steadily.
- Currently, this is the first day I’ve seen where new cases didn’t jump more than 10% anywhere in the US which is great.
- Cuomo talked at length on the regional path back to the “new normal,” hopefully unpausing on 5/15, if they meet the CDC guidance for reopening: a 14-day decline in cases with testing/tracing/isolation: “Test – Trace – Isolate” is the slogan. he major focus on the need for fast, massive testing for the virus, to know who is sick or getting sick, so they can be quarantined and their contacts traced, as well as massive antibody testing to know who already has had the virus and now likely has immunity, at least for months to maybe years.
- Cuomo shared updated results from their testing of thousands of people from a random, somewhat representative sample (people who were out and about in stores, so it may be an overestimate) of the population (7500 so far), to estimate the percentage of people in NY who have had the virus: 1.5% of NY has tested positive by the virus test and preliminary antibody tests show that 14.9% of NYers (13.9% 5 days ago) have antibodies, while 24.1% of NYC residents have antibodies (21% 5 days ago). He also said antibody testing of police, firefighters and health care workers is also being done this week. Note that the WHO guidance didn’t say no antibodies = no immunity – it said we just can’t be sure, yet about extent and length of immunity until more research is done.
- The antibody results also might mean the R0 is very high (5.7 as recently postulated) and that up to 80% of the US/world could become infected if we do nothing, killing hundreds of thousands in the US alone, even if this means the current 7.5% case fatality rate in NY (22.6K deaths/298K positives) can now finally be translated to an infection fatality rate of 0.7% (22.6K/2.98MM w/antibodies) – and even if nobody else died in NY and 80% were infected, that would still be an IFR of 0.14% (22.6K deaths/16MM). If that IFR holds for the rest of the US (no reason to think a viral IFR would be very different across states, unlike the CFR which is very dependent on testing) and 80% of the US became infected if we did nothing (as we’ve seen in the Ohio prison), that would translate to 330MM x 0.8 x 0.007 = 1.8MM deaths. That’s why we need testing/tracing/isolating and social distancing until we have a proven treatment or vaccine to prevent a calamity. It’s likely the IFR will continue to decline and the infected % won’t really reach 80%, but even with an IFR of 0.1-0.2%; flu is ~0.1%) and 60% infected, that’s still 200-400K dead if we do nothing – these were essentially the original arguments for interventions before the outbreak, which way too many downplayed.
- Cuomo rightly continued to slam Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s repugnant statements about not funding states hardest hit by this virus, including funds for health care workers, fire, police, schools, etc., because they’re “blue states.” He also showed how NY/NJ have always given far more to the Federal budget than we get back: NY and NJ provide $29BB and $18BB more to the Federal Government per year than we get back (#1 and #2), while KY gets $37BB more back from the Feds than they give (#3). Not quite fair for Mitch to be holding blue states hostage.
Summary/commentary for some key World/US data through 5/1.
- The most important number in comparing outbreak severity, IMO, is deaths per 1MM people. Italy and Spain are the highest in the world of the major countries (>40MM) in the neighborhood of ~500 deaths/1MM, although the UK and France are not far behind (with near 400 deaths/1MM), The US is in the middle of the pack with ~200 deaths/1MM, although the US is earlier in its outbreak and will likely catch up somewhat.
- While the US, overall, looks better by comparison, if NY were a country it would have the worst outbreak in the world at 1227 deaths/1MM, while NJ is also worse than the worst European countries at 839 deaths/1MM, and MA, MI, CT, and LA are all roughly in the 400-600 deaths/1MM range.
- Excluding NY/NJ, the rest of the US is “only” at 113 deaths per 1MM, but that rate is accelerating; about 2 weeks ago th rest of the US and Gernany were around 65 deaths/1MM, but Germany has only increased to 80 since then, as Germany is the “best” of the populous European countries, by far. But that needs to be put in context of what is considered “good” control of the epidemic: South Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and more all have <10 deaths/1MM and were all hit with their first waves before the US and Europe. Most believe the differences are primarily due to early/aggressive testing, aggressive contact tracing and quarantining, moderate to aggressive social distancing, and establishing a mask culture.
- Singapore has been hit with an outbreak they’re struggling to control (centered in migrant dorms), although they’re also still at well less than 10 deaths per 1MM.
- And South Korea, has had <10 new cases per day for over a week and has largely reopened most of their society (and were never really in any full lockdown). Massive testing/tracing/isolating efforts work.
- US deaths remain plateaued in the 1500-2500/day range: was there from about 4/7 to 4/25 and the decrease last weekend below 1500/day may have just been a weekend effect in reporting, which has been seen elsewhere, since the death rate the last 4 days is back to near 2000/day. It’s also likely that death rates in other states are creeping up, since NY deaths per day continue to fall and are now down from a plateau of 700-800/day to <300/day (including nursing homes). NJ deaths have fluctuated a lot, but the moving average shows we’re still in a plateau and not yet dropping, but it really should drop soon given steadily decreasing hospitalization rates (better predictor than new cases, which fluctuates vs. testing).
- 56.7K, 22.6K and 6.0K total deaths, respectively, through 4/27 in the US, NY, and NJ. The latest U of Washington projection of 67K US deaths will very likely be low at this rate. Worldometer and Cuomo still have a ~5K difference in NY deaths, as NY is still not including the “presumed COVID” (i.e., not tested) deaths.
- The Earth hit 3.4MM cases/239K deaths on 5/1 with 1.13MM cases/65.7K deaths in the US, 315K/24.0K deaths in NY and 121K cases/7.5K deaths in NJ.
- Both NY and NJ have reached the “peak plateau” in new cases, with a decline in cases definitely occurring in NY and a decline finally looking to be underway in NJ, with the last 4 days around 2500 new cases vs. 3500-4500 before that – the better indicator for NJ is likely hospitalization rates which are down from 8200 to under 6000, statewide. The big question for NY and eventually NJ is how quickly does the new case rate decline and to what level? Not known now. The US new case rate has been at a plateau for awhile and may not decline with so many states opening back up before achieving the government-recommended declines in cases for the previous 14 days.
- NY now has done about 47K tests per 1MM in population, which is more than almost any other country; NJ is at 28K tests per 1MM and the US is at 20K tests per 1MM, both of which are middle-of-the-pack (vs. countries with major outbreaks). It’s really important, though to get the ratio of positives to tests to <10% to know the outbreak is under control and most of the US is not testing at anywhere near a level high enough to ascertain that, except maybe NY, where positives are now down around 15% of total tests; NJ positive tests have finally dropped below 40% from a long time at near 50% positive.
- As most know, schools/colleges in NY (and NJ soon) will be closed through the rest of this school year and decisions will be made on summer school around the end of May. Parks and golf courses have reopened – let’s see how people behave…
- Cases have gone up some in TX, GA, TN, NE, and IA, possibly related to recent loosening of restrictions.
- Cuomo talked at length on the regional path back to the “new normal,” hopefully unpausing on 5/15, if they meet the CDC guidance for reopening: a 14-day decline in cases with testing/tracing/isolation: “Test – Trace – Isolate” is the slogan. he major focus on the need for fast, massive testing for the virus, to know who is sick or getting sick, so they can be quarantined and their contacts traced, as well as massive antibody testing to know who already has had the virus and now likely has immunity, at least for months to maybe years.
- Cuomo shared updated results from their testing of thousands of people from a random, somewhat representative sample (people who were out and about in stores, so it may be an overestimate) of the population (15,000 so far), to estimate the percentage of people in NY who have had the virus: 1.6% of NY has tested positive by the virus test and antibody tests show that 12.3% of NYers (14.9% 5 days ago) have antibodies – this “drop” is very likely not a real drop and is just due to the error bars on the antibody test, which are fairly large, as discussed elsewhere. And ~20% of NYC residents have antibodies (24% 5 days ago); again likely not a “real” drop. He also said antibody testing of police, firefighters and health care workers is also being done (no data yet).
- Cuomo said that all trains/subways/stations are being disinfected every 24 hours (after 1 am). While that’s good, I think the effort is somewhat misplaced, as the risks are far, far greater from other humans in crowded locations – would prefer seeing everyone using mass transit, in particular, wearing masks instead. I also wish we had enough N95 respirators for commuters as they do a much better job of protecting people vs. surgical/cloth masks, which are minimally effective at protecting people, but fairly effective at keeping one’s germs in.
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020...e-310-new-deaths-2651-new-positive-tests.html
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Completely wrong - read my post on that or do a little research...
The death rate reduction was essentially the same as the reduction of hospitalization time, so don’t really understand what they are getting at.
Not sure but probably. They didn't close society, but rather worked to protect the elderly. They took a much different different approach than other nations and it looks like it is paying off.
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