Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

You're right. We should have shut the country down when we had 10 cases. That's what everybody else did. Trump, once again, with the head up his rear.

 

Your example reminds me of my favorite xkcd cartoon.

 

Many epidemiologists, scientists and doctors have been saying this for weeks and months. Their theory has been met with criticism, dismissiveness and even out right disdain.

Getting the FACTS is how you make good decisions, its good to see that there are places actually doing the work to help get those facts.

 

You have a broken toe, I want to cut your leg off, OR 2 STAT!

 

Yup.... funny thing I see in the criticisms of the studies the "false Positive" issue, I haven't seen anyone discuss "false negative" test results……

That's a bit concerning.

 

The issue with that though is that a false negative rate is going to have much less of an effect on the overall numbers unless it is far more likely to happen in an event that is reasonably rare, such as coronavirus infection. So, for example, let's say we have a true infection rate of 1%. Let's also say that we have a false positive and false negative rate of 1% (i.e., 1% of your positive readings are false and 1% of your negative readings are false). We then test 10,000 random people, meaning we expect to test 100 positive and 9,900 negative people. If our test has a false positive and a false negative rating of 1% and our sample is exactly what we predict, we would have 1 false negative and 99 false positives. So we would expect to find 198 positives in this group that, in reality, only had 100 positives.

Base rate fallacy - Wikipedia

 

If the false positive rate and false negative rate are the same they cancel each other out.

I read your example 4 times and couldn't make sense of your numbers.

If a test has a 4% false positive rate it means 4/100 who do not have the disease will test positive.
If it has a 4% false negative rate it means 4/100 who HAVE the disease will test negative.

So in your example just as many who tested positive (falsely) a similar number of subject tested negative(also incorrectly).

The likely hood of false negative has zero to do with the likely hood of finding the illness. It's all about the accuracy of the test... Part of the reason he US didn't want the WHO tests they were only about 50% accurate.

 

The issue with this, and I added a link after you quoted, is called the Base Rate Fallacy or more specifically the False Positive Paradox. Failure rates for tests are described out of the population that receives a specific answer (in statistical terms, we are discussing conditional probabilities the probability of an answer that is incorrect conditional on a true state). So the base rate has a major effect on the numbers. The false positive rate are taken from the population of true negatives. The false negative rate are taken from the population of true positives. If the base rate of infection is relatively high, let's say near 50%, this doesnt matter. If, instead it is around 1% it does mathematically.

False positive rate - Wikipedia

 

Another denier, one who literally called this all a political ploy and asked to be proven wrong, became the only person in his county so far to die from Covid.

Ohio man, 60, who blasted COVID-19 lockdown as 'political ploy' dies after contracting coronavirus | Daily Mail Online

 

Let me take this sentence by sentence: 1) "You're right" --- words my wife has never said to me. 2) "shut down when we had ten cases" ... much better outcome than believing 15 cases will be zero. 3) "That's what everyone else did" .... not aware which places closed that rapidly but my feeling is that we grant power and authority to the Federal government to protect our health and welfare and they failed to do so. 4) "Trump, with head up his rear" ... well that seems to be a popular place for Republicans these days.

 

Ty I did get an A in college Stats but it was 25+ years ago.

 

most don't publish until fully vetted as the most responsible approach.

 

Not that he needs help....
2)---- Lots of smart people disagree with you sentiment, if we shut the entire country down in late Mid/January a few things would have happened... Trump would have been shredded with good reason, it would have completely destroyed the ENTIRE US economy.
3)---- very few places locked down quickly(he was being sarcastic).
4) Very broad brush you paint with, smoking tobacco, pot and alcohol are bad and cause more deaths EVERY YEAR than this Pandemic will, should the GOV save us by outlawing those things for our health and welfare?

 

I think the reverse argument is more apropos here. Almost no one dies from polio, so maybe we should stop vaccines?
Not referring to this post specifically, but the continued argument against shelter in place and touting the death numbers that are only low because of it as the justification will never ever make sense to me.

 

So as some governors are charging into reopening without adhering to the Phased Approach just rolled out by the administration - let's take a look at Sweden again.

Sweden's population is 10.2 million. On either side of Sweden we have 5.2 million in Norway and 5.5 million in Finland.

Sweden lost 185 citizens today as their death rate continues to climb. That is 11% of their total death rate yesterday bringing the new total to 1,765.

Norway lost 182 all year through today.
Finland lost 141 citizens all year through today.

Sweden has the same total population as Finland and Norway combined and has lost 1,765 citizens to their 323 citizens.

There are certainly more factors in play than just Sweden's decision to only minimally social distance. This stuff is too new and complicated not make definitive statements, but it sure looks to be heading in the wrong direction for the Swedes.

Stay safe Georgians.

 

Be well.

 

Not following about the polio example.

I think a targeted stay at home order would have been more effective. We know who is at greatest risk for high morbidity and mortality, those are the ones who need to stay home. Yes a few(very rare) get very sick and don't have nay of the risk factors. But that happens with numerous respiratory pathogens. The H1N1 pandemic in 2009-2010 killed higher rates of young than old we didn't close the world down.
I liken the response to cutting off the leg to "save" the broken toe. I do think the schools shut down was wise.

My local paper detailed the 10 COVID deaths in our county. Every single one was 70 or older they all had multiple risk factors. 3/10 were on hospice for Cancer, 4/10 had recent travel or contact with COVID people who travelled.

Yes it's a small sample size but it mirrors much of the larger data.

More and more studies are showing large numbers of exposed population with now symptoms this is good we want lower morbidity and mortality. The more of the general population that has had it will decrease spread down the road.

 

I wish you were my stats professor in college. I might not have flunked the damn course