Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

You aren't hiding numbers, you are presenting deceptive numbers. At least acknowledge that your 2018 numbers are for flu and pneumonia both. Could you just do that much for us? It would help with your credibility deficit around here.

 

Total numbers of positive tests are going up due to testing being more widely available. More positive tests are not an indicator that the virus is spreading more rapidly.

There is clearly a segment on the right that is refusing to ware masks for some cultural reason. I don't get it but it is definitely there.

And what is the problem with that? One of the best things I've learned in leading Marines is that you need to trust the Marine on the ground about what is going on. If a town in the panhandle of Florida is not seeing a high infection rate and their hospitals are not seeing an influx of COVID-19 patients, why should they not have the option to take certain precautions but not go into a full on shut down?

 

So you chose not to answer those criticisms with any substantive response. Sucks that your argument didn't hold water, huh? Perhaps, and I know this is a crazy notion, Clay Travis isn't really where you should be getting information on a pandemic given his complete lack of background in public health or biostatistics or research methods or basically any useful background in trying to actually analyze the problem. Instead, he was just an amateur that told you what you wanted to hear.

 

Because I didn't? I gave you two examples: New York City and the entire state of Colorado.

That was your original statement to which I quoted where you stated:

The numbers in NYC demonstrate that about 25% of those "confirmed" cases were equally an educated guess.

Maybe you'd like another example? Who am I not to oblige:

https://www.delcotimes.com/news/cor...cle_163da96c-8598-11ea-a448-df69014605d9.html

Here, have another!

The Pa. coronavirus death toll … dropped? Here’s why, and what it means in the Lehigh Valley

After all, I am nothing if not accommodating!

You are right to say that virus-related deaths are estimated initially. We then revise those numbers later. This is standard practice. So, as you can see for yourself, about 25% of cases in both NYC and the entire state of Colorado were not confirmed cases at all. You can expect to see this trend to continue across the country where the numbers are revised down.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...024fe6-9149-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html

 

BTW - Have we hit a new THFSG record for 595 pages on a thread?

 

My apologies, but are you using a group of maybe 30 people to make a cases for MILLIONS who want to return to work? Really?

And no, I will concede that I have no idea why these people are carrying guns to this protest. So long as they own them legally, and nobody was hurt, my concern about is also minimal. Do I think it's a bit odd? Sure. Maybe one them would oblige in explaining their reasoning.

 

Some of it, sure. But not all of it. Testing has been widely available for a while now. Bama's numbers have risen recently. Is it a trend? Can't be sure until we get more data.

Agreed.

The conservative I was responding to was complaining that Alachua County was overruling the governor. Given your example of letting a town in the panhandle do the same, you should be fine with that.

 

The provisional cases are not calculated in the same manner as the estimated flu deaths. I don't like the word guess, because it isn't actually a guess in either case, but they are absolutely different methods still. The flu deaths are estimated from the overall data and are not at an individual level. So we can't give you 61K names that died of the flu. On the other hand, even the provisional cases were decided as Covid or not Covid on an individual level. That method, especially when combined with a lack of testing through the peak of the disease, is likely to underestimate the total number of deaths. But you can't compare a number that is likely systematically biased downward with a number that might not be fully accurate, as it is an estimate, but which has symmetric distribution of potential real outcomes based on the estimated outcome.

 

Yet, you have failed to dispute any of the sources that I cited. Meanwhile, many states have begun re-evaluating deaths due to COVID as opposed to deaths with COVID.

Nobody can determine the "winner" of this argument (if you wish to call it that) for some time. For the time being, the numbers are being revised downward. This is something I expect to see continue.

 

Your links aren't saying what you say they are. Your Colorado example only proves my point. They were including deaths of people who had covid-19 but clearly died of something else. Now they aren't and that is reflected in the official numbers according to your link. How does this help your point? The 2018 flu deaths presented by Gator95 also included pneumonia deaths. Many pneumonia deaths aren't caused by the flu. Do you have anything to say about that?

 

There are more important statistics than numbers of infected.

I'm fine with that. Those county officials are going to be held accountable during the next election.

 

That is in fact not what I was speaking to at all, and I think you know that very well. I made it quite clear that this is what I responded to specifically:

Particularly:

That the COVID numbers are being revised downward tells us that CDC has been tracking COVID in much the same way it tracks every and any outbreak. That's why we go back and revise the numbers. That is precisely why the flu numbers are always revised. That Dr. Birx told you herself that these numbers are likely inflated by as much as 25% tells you exactly what I am telling you now. Admittedly, I am not suggesting that CDC is some motive in conducting its count this way. We have always done our counts this way. To be sure, it is a conservative approach. Let us err on the side of being too grim as opposed to overly optimistic. In any case, your argument that the COVID numbers are fact and not subject to revision, or in your words, are not estimates, is demonstrably an inaccurate statement. The city of New York, the state of Colorado, the state of Pennsylvania and Dr. Birx have proven your statement as incorrect unequivocally.

 

I am pointing out that you are conflating estimated death totals from an excess death analysis with the provisional cases, which are not evaluated on an excess death basis but rather on an individual estimate of likelihood of having Covid. Both are "estimates" in the broadest sense of the word, but they are completely different forms of "estimate." In fact, the first few attempt to analyze excess deaths that I have seen, such as in Michigan, suggests much higher death totals than in the official numbers.

 

Fuzzy math? I did click thru the numbers of the 100k that have died, and the total I gave you was EXACTLY the number of 0-24 year olds who have died to date of covid19. It's 88, or at least it was when I counted them the other day. It's probably gone up if the data has been updated.

I don't do "fuzzy math", and frankly I take that as an insult. And I'll respond as such. I have an engineering degree from UF and also studied math and statistics while I was there. I am willing to show my work for your review. I'll even type slowly so you have a chance to understand it fully...

88 / ( (.33 * 328,000,000) ) = .81 e -7

.81 e -7 * 1,000,000 = .8 in a million deaths

Hey that's your "1 in a million" soundbyte. Well, the only way you get there is by comparing deaths against the TOTAL POPULATION in that age group. Which, as I said, is disingenous at best. If you take those 88 deaths out of the ~600k confirmed cases in that age group (I'm being generous, assuming the infected pool mirrors the overall US population), the math is more like this.

88 / 600,000 = 1.46 e -4

1.46 e -4 * 1,000,000 = 147 deaths in a million.

Frankly, that's more than TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE greater than your dismissive "one in a million". During a period where we implemented crazy, unprecedented lockdowns and forced social distancing. But hey, it's less dangerous than the flu, so go ahead and be as cavalier as you want to be. It's not likely your kid will die. But the odds are a hell of a lot higher than you're willing to admit...

However, from your dismissal of the numbers I shared, I expect you are not interested in having an adult conversation about this. My "fuzzy math" doesn't fit the narrative you've indoctrinated yourself with.

 

lets face facts, the Alachua county commission has gone against everything the gov. has put into place, from forced masks, less store occupancy, wanting less occupancy in restaraunts, now saying no to summer outdoor activity for children.

 

No, the covid-19 numbers are being compiled from specific cases. The flu estimates are a combination of specific cases and general estimates. The way the numbers are being compiled is very different. Plus, back to the original point, the flu numbers presented included unrelated pneumonia deaths too.

If you are truly interested in how the CDC compiles its flu numbers, here's the link for you. This is NOT how covid-19 numbers are being compiled.

"CDC uses a mathematical model to estimate the numbers of influenza illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States, (1-4) as well as, the impact of influenza vaccination on these numbers."
How CDC Estimates the Burden of Seasonal Influenza in the U.S. | CDC

 

Then you must explain why the numbers are being revised downward.

 

I am pointing out that neither of your points matter. Literally at all. Regardless of methodology, we still end up with an inaccurate number that we must then later revise. That is why you are seeing the revisions.

Arguing this is like a chemist swearing that hydronium (H3O+) exists, while a structural biologist points out that it has been observed only once in a crystal structure, all the while we have seen a proton coordinated by four water molecules. While I side with the structural biologist on this one, an excess of protons in solution lead to an acidic pH, regardless of the precise structure in solution.

Stop trying to delineate a fine point that isn't there. Methodology notwithstanding, we were counting deaths of people with COVID as COVID-caused deaths. This was no secret. The CDC itself recommended doing so.

Now, some on the more, let's say pessimistic bent, would point out that the hospitals were receiving a premium to record deaths as COVID. In doing so, they had an incentive to record deaths this way. Notice, I have not argued that point. While I would acquiesce that I think that has happened, nevertheless, I am not ready to claim it was a primary driving force within the hospitals (to be clear, I am not trying to be ready to make that claim either, depends on the direction in which the data point).

Still, we are now making a demarcation between dying with and dying because COVID. Moreover, the NYC data demonstrate that 25% of their COVID-deaths were in fact guesses. How do we know? Because they tell us so!



Probable deaths: Cause of death reported as "COVID-19" or equivalent, but not positive laboratory test.

So, please just stop.

 

Because in some of those specific cases they've decided that covid-19 wasn't a contributing cause of death. For example, your case where the guy drank himself to death while he happened to have covid-19. That was still a specific case. But it is now not being included in the total for Colorado. They are literally counting them case by case and your own link proves it. That said, there are plenty of cases where people have died from covid-19 and haven't counted towards the total, especially early on, when testing wasn't as available.

That is not at all how flu deaths are arrived at. They use a model to estimate it. Totally different.