Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

My guess is weekend deaths that weren't reported until support staff fully returned yesterday. Purely speculative, but religious hospitals probably went very short staffed in administrative staff for Easter.

 

I’m concerned that this virus is going to be at least a year long struggle for us.

 

I hope not. But it will be a while before a "new normal" is established.

 

well that is not a very good way to get a true picture of new cases and deaths on a daily basis, either do it every day, or do not cry when figures jump from rolling over data to another day.

 

Daily reporting from literally thousands of locations (hospitals, county health facilities, etc.) is always going to be imperfect. I mean, in terms of new cases, this is nothing compared to the issues that a lack of testing are causing and have caused. The daily randomness is not really the biggest concern.

 

Exclusive: Emails reveal breakdowns in U.S. drive-through virus testing

 

The presser thread got accidentally nuked. I copied this here from another thread.


GatorGuyDallas said: ↑
Two and a half hours yesterday and we didn’t hear any of these things that are critical to opening back up. If that is such a huge priority, why are these critical questions not being addressed.

1) Who is determining how many tests we will need to test people with symptoms and then test the contacts of anyone that turns up positive?

2) When will we have that range of needed tests determined?


3) Assuming it is in the 500,000 test a day or a million tests a week, how far away are we from being able to test that number?

4) Who will do the interviews of positive cases to identify contacts?

5) Who is going to coordinate rapid testing of those contacts?

6) What is the state of the supply chain needed to accommodate that level of testing given there are reports of shortages with the world all chasing the same supplies?

7) What is the plan for rectifying the supply chain issues that are limiting the expansion of testing.

And on and on.

Instead we got a propaganda video.

Instead when asked what the administration did in February - a valid question given supply chain problems impacting testing, treatment and PPE - he attacked the reporter.

Set aside your whining and complaining about how you are being treated and get to work on things that matter.

All you have to do is look at how much time he spends talking about himself to see where his priorities are each day.

 

So this hurricane is heading to Alabama?

 

daily randomness is not a concern? how are you going to know if we are " flattening the curve "if random numbers are posted each day? these numbers are a day behind, they should be able to get a correct count each day, i assume each state gets a daily report from each county at a certain time to tally them, just saying todays deaths look really bad because yesterday they were not counted.

 

deaths today, at 1630, are 2147, highest daily total. people see that and freak out, not knowing that many of those were from previous days and not reported,hard to feel good if you see high deaths totals, but the good news is that there are only right now 22398 new cases so far today,that is good.

 

Weekly numbers are likely better at figuring that out from a strategic level. However, even that has weaknesses because of the lack of random testing. Frankly, the testing issues have had decision makers flying at least partially blind on this from the beginning. That was the big screw up.

 

The deaths today are skyrocketing. Under-reported from another day or not -- that's still high. The day isn't close to over either. Someone mentioned earlier about the Spanish Flu being more deadly on its second outbreak. Lets hope this isn't similar in that regard. To be honest, I think I'm taking the year off from festivals, concerts and large gatherings. It's not worth the risk.

 

This is why statisticians tend to look at graphs with moving averages. A moving average smooths out the reporting hiccups or "noise" in the data and allows you to see the real trends. If you watch any of the Cuomo briefings, he shares charts for hospitalizations, intubations, and deaths with moving average lines overlaying the raw data.

 

3 million tests done in a country of 330 million in the past 6-8 weeks. Don't hold your breath

 

The daily death total is a lagging indicator to new infections. It is likely to peak 1-2 weeks after the new cases number peaks and starts to go down. Now, hospitalizations and deaths will tend to follow the actual number of new infections, not just the ones we have confirmed. As far as confirmed cases, the highest were April 4, a little over 34k, and we've had 3 days since then with more than 33k new cases. In the last 3 days, there new cases seem to be falling. If that trend continues, deaths should start to decrease in 1-2 weeks.

 

It’s the only path back to normalcy. Someone has to be working on it. I just don’t understand why we don’t hear any details. It’s what would get folks on board with a timeline b

 

Biolidics announces plans to launch its COVID-19 rapid test kits in the US

 

The podcast Throughline from NPR had an episode about the 1918 flu. I learned quite a bit. If I remember correctly, the H1N1 flu reduced the life expectancy of the nation by 0.1, which was a pretty big deal. The 1918 flu reduced the national life expectancy BY TWELVE YEARS. This was a combination of the sheer number of people infected and the fact that, for some unknown reason, people in their 20’s were most at risk of death.

It was really horrible.

 

Are these numbers correct? If so... WOW. Right after people saying it's getting better.

5:30 pm EST