Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Two Coasts. One Virus. How New York Suffered Nearly 10 Times the Number of Deaths as California. — ProPublica

 

The Ollie Ollie Oxen Will Never Be Free: Learning to Live with COVID-19

 

And there’s this.

 

Most pandemics have a final death count that is estimated after the end of the disease with a margin of error as it is a statistical estimate rather than a direct count. We are trying to directly count this given the fact that we have shut down, something not done since Spanish Flu in 1918. I am sure that they will use their normal techniques when this is over as well for academic and comparative purposes.

 

A four-year-old in Belgium might hold the key to solving Covid-19.

The answer to coronavirus might come from the most unlikely of places: llamas. Apparently, llamas are doing research on how small antibodies can attack the virus a lot better than large antibodies. They have been declared "real unicorns".

'Llamas are the real unicorns': why they could be our secret weapon against coronavirus

I bet they're delicious.

 

Other pandemics are finished, and have been studied in depth. None of those numbers are precise either, no pandemic in the history of the world has a precise death count using official govt figures. If there were, would you trust them? Even a well intentioned govt could never count every individual with 100% certainty and accuracy. Instead, the numbers were based on academic peer reviewed studies which result in “best estimates” as far as # infections and mortality rates. They don’t pretend those are exact figures, they give confidence intervals based on data (I.e 98% confident it was in a range between a and b). That is how those things will always be expressed by science, because it’s the only way such studies CAN be expressed. In degrees of confidence. Better data can lead to higher degrees of confidence (99% vs 95%), but it would never be 100% precision.

We are in the midst of this one, it’s real time. You can’t tell the final score of a football game in the 1st quarter, so why would you expect anyone to call a pandemic that is still evolving? A full study is not yet possible, though with “excess deaths” you’d think they’d have a good idea for mortality rates at least.

 

Meanwhile, the former CDC Director says that it is premature to look at current growth rates in reopened areas and assume that we will not see exponential growth.
Former CDC head: 'I don't think you can be too alarmist about what this virus can do'

 

The simple answer is that we just don't have enough data. I wouldn't blame it on a lack of testing either, it's just a very new disease.

 

Masks work in lowering Covid-19 transmission rates: Hong Kong researchers

An animal study on the effectiveness of surgical masks. According to this study surgical masks can reduce risk of transmission when used on either the infected or the exposed, but more effective when used by the infected. This is pretty much in line with what I and many others have been saying.

 

Thank you for the answer.

 

I don't know about past pandemics, but if they counted covid deaths the same way they count yearly flu deaths, the number of covid deaths would be higher. And if they counted yearly flu deaths the same way they count covid deaths, the number of yearly flu deaths would be well lower.

 

and test every person that dies. so many deaths at home going unreported as they were never tested

 

But is it enough to balance the increased deaths due to CO2 poisoning?

 

Thanks for posting that. Here is another interesting study, from the social science/econ folks on the effects of social distancing on disease spread. This has been peer reviewed.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/f...ontent=courtemanche&utm_source=mediaadvisory&

 

Those are some super intelligent llamas.

 

That study illustrates the problem with looking at social distancing and then asserting that the earlier predictions were off base based on the results. Assuming ten times the spread, what would be the death rate now?

 

My favorite is Dolly Llama!

 

Cranny Crowe in WV today.

 

and so many deaths being recorded as the chinese virus

 

Is that one of the check boxes for the medical professionals who conduct tests and determine results?