Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)

[brianscharp]

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... n-only-one
New Zealand's coronavirus lockdown has resulted in only one death

Some American experts are calling on President Trump to follow in Ardern’s footsteps and implement an elimination-focused plan to reduce the number of cases in the U.S., which has recorded the most of any country.

https://abc3340.com/news/coronavirus/al ... -19-deaths
COVID-19 killing more African Americans in Alabama, data shows

“We have a particularly difficult problem of an exacerbation of a health disparity,” infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said during the briefing.

“We’ve known, literally forever, that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity and asthma are disproportionately affecting the minority populations, particularly the African Americans.”

Fauci said it is those same conditions that increase risk for a “bad outcome with coronavirus.”

https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20 ... ic-groups/
Black, Hispanic and Asian voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic

Since 2010, white voters have been more likely to align with the GOP than with the Democrats. However, the share of whites identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic has edged upward (43% now, up from no more than 40% from 2009 to 2016). This growth is attributable to a slight increase in Democratic-leaning independents, rather than a rise in Democratic affiliation.

By contrast, African American voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic: 84% identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. Just 8% of black voters identify in some way with the Republican Party.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04 ... sting.html
Trump Administration Still Isn’t Prioritizing Coronavirus Testing

If the Trump administration’s goal is to bring the economy to something resembling its normal state as quickly as possible, expanded coronavirus testing should be a priority, as it will help determine just how high mortality and hospitalization rates really are — two variables that, because they remain in the dark, have required countries to implement all-systems shutdowns.

Instead of pursuing such a plan that is in line with its political goals, the White House will end federal support for coronavirus-testing sites on Friday, days before the crisis is expected to peak in the middle of next week. While the program providing resources was intended to serve as a stopgap measure, states have relied on it to help prop up their own testing efforts in the absence of a national coordinated testing strategy.

[brianscharp]

[Bill Cummings]

For comparison sake Siri says that the world deaths during 2019
for tuberculosis was 1.5 million.

[Bob Kuczewski]

For comparison sake Siri says that the world deaths during 2019
for tuberculosis was 1.5 million.

Good perspective Bill. I wonder what she'd say about cancer, heart disease, and traffic accidents?


Brian, your latest graphic again shows totals not normalized by population.

Here are the current world COVID-19 data sorted by deaths per million:

20200409_2209.png (130.45 KiB) Viewed 3216 times

        Data from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

The curve for Italy is looking very good:

Italy_20200409_2247.png (33.78 KiB) Viewed 3215 times

By the way, Brian, you might be glad to hear that I disapprove of President Trump's involvement in all these stimulus giveaways. Our culture seems to have forgotten the original story of the three little pigs. In the new version all little pigs are encouraged to build their homes of straw and twigs. If the the big bad wolf comes along, they'll all get bailouts to build new brick homes without having to do any work or save up for a rainy day.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Toward the end of March I began working on my own pandemic simulation. Any simulation is based on a whole bunch of assumptions, and this one is no different. Even though this simulation was certainly motivated by the current COVID-19 pandemic, it does not make any attempt to accurately reflect any parameters of the COVID-19 outbreak:

• It doesn't represent any real population
• It doesn't include any actual infection rates
• It doesn't include any actual death rates
• It doesn't include any actual recovery rates
• It assumes all survivors have 100% immunity
• It does not model realistic population density
• It does not model more things than I know to list

So what does it do?

It starts with an uninfected population. It introduces 4 infected individuals (2 in Los Angeles and 2 in New York). Then it follows a simple series of rules:

1. An infected person can becomes a contagious person
2. A contagious person can infect an uninfected person
3. A contagious person can become a sick person
4. A sick person can also infect an uninfected person
5. A sick person will either recover or die
6. A recovered person can not be infected again
7. Uninfected, infected, and contagious people travel randomly
8. Sick people also travel randomly but at a reduced rate
9. Some people occasionally make trips of large distances

So that's what it does. That's probably a reasonable model, but the rates I used in all of those rules were complete guesses. I don't know the actual values, and I don't think anyone really knows them for sure. But my guesses were complete guesses and they have no scientific merit other than to demonstrate 1 possible scenario out of a vast universe of possibilities.

Having said all of that, the simulation does produce the kinds of curves that would be expected from a more realistic simulation. It starts off with a population of healthy people (blue in this simulation). After a short time, the 4 infected individuals (dark yellow in this simulation) are introduced to New York and Los Angeles (2 each). As they become contagious, they become bright pink and begin to infect uninfected people. When anyone infected or contagious travels, they are shown briefly as a larger and brighter spot (the flashes that you sometimes see). When infected or contagious people get sick, they are represented by a red spot that moves more slowly. Sick individuals may either recover (green) or die (black).

This first animation shows all of the people in the simulation:

all_480.gif (3.46 MiB) Viewed 3213 times

Because there are so many uninfected and recovered people (blue and green), it can be difficult to see the smaller populations of infected, contagious, sick, and deceased people. So I've included another animation that doesn't show the uninfected or recovered individuals here:

sick_480.gif (968.94 KiB) Viewed 3213 times

That second animation shows the rapid spread of the infection, and the phases of "infected" (dark yellow), "contagious" (pink), "sick" (red), and "death" (black)

The animations are instructive to watch, but the results of the simulation can also be understood by viewing the population histories of the various groups. This plot shows the counts of all groups (uninfected, infected, contagious, sick, recovered, and dead).

pandemic_016_plot_full.png (30.96 KiB) Viewed 3213 times

As you can see from the graph, the number of uninfected people started (on the top left) as 100% of the population. Over time (middle area of the graph), many went through the stages of infected, contagious, and sick (three colored curves near the middle bottom). Eventually, everyone who was infected either recovered (green) or died (black). In this simulation, there's a sizable number who remained uninfected. I believe this phenomenon is called "herd immunity". It happens because there sometimes becomes enough immune people in the population that the infection can no longer "get around" in the herd. That depends on a number of factors such as the various rates discussed earlier. These contribute to the "flattening of the curve" that we've heard so much about recently.

Finally, let me again stress that this was just my own simulation that I created based on my own interest in current events. It is not scientific, and it does not represent any actual data.

Be safe out there!!

[Bob Kuczewski]

Here's a nice side effect of the pandemic ... a poem from Tarzana Joe:

Stay At Home, Dad

In the corner of my garden
There’s a plant that’s oh, so green
It seems amazing to me all these years
That I have never seen
 
There’s a nest I should have noticed
But I guess I never did
With a piece of birthday wrapping
From when Joey was a kid
 
There’s a small stone in the pavement
Where it’s barely peeking through
That’s as shiny like a diamond
But a crazy shade of blue
 
There’s a spot up in the attic
It’s so quiet that it speaks
Where I saw an ancient bucket
Someone used to catch the leaks
 
And a trove of old cassettes I found
I made back in the day
When I watched the Yanks on PIX
And called the play by play
 
There’s a shirt I wore in college
That I thought that I had tossed
And a pen that someone gave me
That I thought that I had lost
 
And a notebook filled with quips I wrote
But sadly, never said
And a book I put aside to read
But, frankly, never read
 
A script I thought would make me
But, alas, that ship has sailed
And a letter full of passion
That I’m glad I never mailed
 
In a box, a mix of pictures
Far more Polaroid than art
But the people in them look at me 
And fibrillate my heart

It’s a thrill to meet The David
Or to see Bernini’s dome
But there also are great wonders
That you find when you’re at home

By tarzanajoepoetry | April 9th, 2020
http://www.tarzanajoe.com/stay-at-home-dad/

[Bill Cummings]

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2020 ... +Button%5D

[brianscharp]

https://www.statista.com/chart/21108/co ... opulation/
COVID-19: Has The U.S. Closed The Testing Gap?

The United States has been heavily criticized for its slow response to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the CDC's fumbled development of testing kits. That delay meant that the U.S. had conducted just 125 tests per million of its inhabitants by mid-March compared to 5,567 tests per million people in South Korea and 2,514 per million in Italy.

The U.S. has now finally ratcheted up testing and the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 stood at 337,646 as of April 06, 2020 at 3am EST according to the Johns Hopkins University. Despite the improvement, the U.S. still lags behind other countries in testing and according to the latest data published by Worldometers, it had conducted 5,355 tests per million inhabitants by April 06.

That is still behind a long list of countries including Canada with 8,767 tests per million of the population and Germany with 10,962 tests per million inhabitants.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Trump Derangement Syndrome:

Trump_Trump_Trump.png (170 KiB) Viewed 3178 times

Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump

From Brian's Fake News Video:

"We have the highest rate of new corona cases on the planet expressly because we aren't testing enough."

Highest "rate"? Highest "RATE"? Here are Wiktionary's first 3 definitions of "rate":

1. (obsolete) The worth of something; value.

2. The proportional relationship between one amount, value etc. and another.

3. Speed.

The first is obsolete. The second and third both carry the notion of proportion. The second states it explicitly (proportional relationship between one amount, value etc. and another). The third (speed) is exactly distance in proportion to time.

You cannot legitimately use the word "rate" regarding comparisons in a pandemic without accounting for population differences. To do so is comparing apples to watermelons. If you draw the right sized circle around Europe you'll get the same population as the United States. Why isn't that comparison made? Answer: because it doesn't serve the anti-Trump rhetoric of the left.

The "testing testing testing" mantra ("We have the highest rate of new corona cases on the planet expressly because we aren't testing enough.") of the left is more fake news. Any scientist, pollster, or 1st year statistics student will tell you that a statistically significant sample is far less than 100% of the population.

Furthermore, what are you going to tell people who've tested positive to do that they aren't already doing? Are you going to round them up and put them in a detention camp? No. You're going to tell them to go home and stay away from other people. That's what everyone's been told to do already without testing. Testing of asymptomatic people is an academic exercise if it doesn't change the course of their treatment or their behavior.

Also, are you going to test everyone in the workforce every day? With a fast-spreading virus like this, someone could test negative today and positive tomorrow. And again, what are you going to tell them to do if they're asymptomatic positive - "take two aspirin and call me in the morning"?

That video tests positive for Trump Derangement Syndrome.

[brianscharp]

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/10/21216876/ ... ng-economy
Trump is woefully confused about why more coronavirus testing is vital

Public health experts understand this. As my colleague German Lopez detailed, new plans about what comes after the current period of stringent social distancing put together by the left-leaning Center for American Progress and right-leaning American Enterprise Institute both emphasize that “widespread testing will let public health officials detect and subsequently contain any future outbreaks before everything has to be locked down.” But the US is currently only completing about 130,000 tests per day on average — a far cry from the 500,000 or so experts agree will be necessary to contain the coronavirus until a vaccine is available.