And the US has passed 500 deaths... probably hit 50,000 in a little less than a month from now.

Took a whooping 12 days from the infamous prop bet to reach 500+. I just hope we can find a way to flatten the graph out sooner rather than later.

Mike said he would come back in 3 to 4 weeks after his last post.

I think we have to be careful right now assuming anything about death rates.

I think that the Spain and Italy %'s posted above indicate more a lack of testing than a known death rate. And the other factor that will affect death rates is the availability of ventilators and respirators. And of course hospital beds. Similarly for medical workers protective gear will determine how many people treating patients will themselves be subject to catching the disease.

I heard yesterday that they were suspending testing in NY except for elderly people who were going to be hospitalized and for those in the health care industry (and hopefully their families).

The reason is that it no longer matters. They can't contain the virus anymore. They are asking everyone who has flu like symptoms to act as if they had the coronavirus. And everyone else should be going out only as necessity dictates.

Governor Cuomo just indicated that he thought the NY curve wouldn't flatten for at least another 14 to 21 days. I think that is a result of a lack of testing when it could have been effective in using social distancing and self isolation to help contain it. Maybe by the end of April we will see some signs of hope.

edit: I have also heard in the last day that there are signs that the death rate in the US may be lower as a result of the coronavirus mutating. I hope that is true. It is common for Flus to mutate and it might make sense that those with the deadliest mutations might be less likely to transmit it because the people around them will be more careful and because they will have spent less time outside as a result of the illness.

I'm interested in estimates as to when poker rooms will begin to reopen. I am not optimistic and think the earliest feasible date is May 1st; anything earlier is a small miracle. Furthermore which poker rooms are in the best position to push for an early open? Do private card rooms in cities such as Portland or Austin and casinos on sovereign land have more leverage? How about card rooms in states with few cases of the virus such as South Dakota?

The May 1st date you mentioned was my rough estimate....1-2 weeks ago. Of course this is just my guess, but with every couple days that go by I keep pushing my guess of a re-opening date back further and further. I now think June 1st is a more realistic time frame, and it's possible that by next week July 1st will seem the most realistic to me.

As for what/where reopens the earliest, I think you'll be correct in assuming the areas with the lowest amount of cases are likely to reopen before the "hot spots" do. Most of the constraints that have been put in place have been at the state level, so I expect that to remain the same when we attempt to return to some type of normalcy. I'm on Ohio, and our governor was one of the first to take action, and to do so in an aggressive manner. Looking at this purely from the standpoint of Poker availability then, I expect the reopening of casinos in my state to happen at a slower pace than what will happen in a lot of other states. However it plays out, I expect it to be on a state by state basis as opposed to a sweeping declaration at the national level.

Some in government did take swift action: At least 5 Republican senators sold all of their stock portfolios after their private covid19 update held the first week of January. Yes, early January and we still don't have access to testing.

From what I've seen, the number of new cases in the US is still accelerating (over 15.5k so far today).

I don't see any casinos reopening until we are seeing a serious reduction in the number of new cases every day over a significant time period.

May 1st looks overly optimistic to me.


--klez

Is it accelerating? It looks like the daily new cases are increasing but at a slower rate of increase, which (fingers crossed) would indicate that it’s approaching the peak of the hump if the trend continues.

If you know the answer to this there are a crapload of people with PhDs trying to come up with reliable models who want to speak to you.

If any of those people thought we'd hit the inflection point I'd assume it'd be big news. All the people with the above MDs/PhDs and models I've seen are using lots of words to say some form of "Everything is guessing atm., but hopefully two months"

Yes, I know the answer to whether a few data points are increasing at an accelerating rate. You are wrong that a crapload of PhDs are that interested in someone who can make that simple observation.

I was only saying that the US new cases curve appears to be flattening based on the recent data points because that’s what the observation was based on that I was replying to. I’m not saying that I know what’s going to happen in the coming days. Know the difference, smart guy.

It looks like it's still accelerating in the US; would love to be wrong, though.

I've been following it here: Worldometer

If you have links to other sites, please post them.


--klez

With the two week Federal extension today, May 1st is the earliest for sure. But I really doubt it's feasibility without a tremendous breakthrough AND stockpile of treatment and/or vaccine options.

We can say this everyday, but the next two weeks will be interesting as states have only been tightening up their restrictions, not even considering reversing course as of yet.

Gathering places, such as schools, churches, movie theaters and casinos will probably be grouped into one category. How the schools are handled will be interesting. States that are on limited restrictions have already canceled school for the year and yet others are still holding out for hope. IMO why make a decision until a turn for the better is actually 'documented'. But it's the main question at most 'town hall' meetings ... GL

As in most of my posts, I don't get too caught up in 'rates' without knowing other common data points. If actual tests are 'accelerating' at a greater pace than the new cases, then we may have something.

Day 1 ... test 100 'sick' people ... 28 new cases
Day 7 ... test 10,000 'sick' people ... 1400 new cases

That looks bad, while in theory the positive 'rate' went down significantly.

But with the '5 minute' test now approved, we may be testing health officials daily before they clock in ... which would flood the negatives with repetitive data.

I think the days we are looking for are when we are testing less people per day 'because we don't have to' ... While there may still be new cases, there are less people showing up that are symptomatic that feel they need to be tested. GL

That's the same site that I have been using as reference. Perhaps the issue is the definition of "accelerating." When comparing the last few data points, the growth rate of new cases is decreasing as shown in the chart below. The increase in new cases has become smaller, from 3869 to 1467 to 761. That means it's decelerating over that span (or negative acceleration as they say in physics). That's not projecting to say it will necessarily continue like we hope it will -- it's just observing those data points.



I was only looking at it from a positive/hopeful perspective. I'm not saying this indicates the slowing growth rate will definitely continue. It could get much worse as new population centers start growing in number of cases. Let's hope not.

You should all regularly read the thread in OOT, it's been very informative.

It seems likely that many casinos will be closed until some point in 2021.

The new daily cases is itself a rate. That graph shows that the total number of cases is accelerating.

I was specifically replying to the comment that “the number of new cases in the US is still accelerating,” not total number of cases:

You mean because this virus crisis won't be over?
Or for some other, unrelated reasons?

Pandemic

In NY State it looks like new cases are not accelerating. Maybe 3 or 4 days ago the rate of new cases was doubling every 2 days or so. Now it is doubling every 6 days. This according to our governor who has been bluntly honest IMO.

And in NY State they are testing like 10,000 a day. Maybe more now.

However, they are still not testing everyone with symptoms. Only those who are at risk (older and/or with respiratory complications) and health care workers. Hopefully that will change if the curve is broken.

The problem is that NY is probably way ahead of the rest of the country in terms of testing and also in terms of shutting down non essential businesses. Governor Cuomo has called us the canary in the coal mine.

Florida apparently just shut down the southern part of the state. And some beaches are still open. And ironically they are asking people coming into the state from NY, NJ, CT, etc. to self quarantine for 14 days. This after letting people party on the beaches for spring break and then disperse across the country.

I would keep in mind that when "total cases" for the US is posted (or for any country really other than South Korea) we have to take it with a grain of salt. Testing is not yet extensive enough that we can tell reliably whether or not the numbers are meaningful.

When Dr. Fauci says we can expect between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths in the US, I am fairly certain that the actual number of coronavirus cases is currently way more than 200,000.

And I also think that there are many people who may have already had it and are fully recovered right now that we don't know about. My 92 year old mother, living in NYC, had pneumonia in February but was not hospitalized. She recovered with antibiotic treatment and is now self isolating in her apartment. It is entirely possible that she had the coronavirus.

In any event, I think the likelihood that casinos re-open soon is slim. I can't imagine Nevada casinos opening in time for the WSOP. It would be catastrophic in terms of spreading the coronavirus throughout the US. I mean people would have to go to Nevada, quarantine themselves for 14 days. Then play in tournaments. Then either quarantine themselves again for 14 days (if they have families) or go home and quarantine for 14 days. And we are talking about a population, some non-zero percentage of whom don't wash their hands when leaving the bathroom.

Needless to say I am hoping to go to Las Vegas for the WSOP. Like most older degenerates who like to gamble, I see getting and dying from the coronavirus as a long shot anyway (a one outer so to speak).

FWIW I know of some casinos in the southwest telling their employees they are closed for sure until May (obv could be longer).

Infection data is rather useless when it's part of official CDC policy that if you have symptoms, just self-isolate at home. Don't even bother getting tested.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/quaran...ry?id=69299482

The extension of the social distancing order at the federal level has closed even a remote possibility of anything opening in April (didn't think that was going to happen anyways) . If the virus progresses the way it's being projected now, I think we will start seeing businesses reopening and social restrictions being eased in May. Casinos will probably be somewhat lumped in with other mass gathering businesses/events though, so I doubt we'll see them as a part of the first group of non essential business that reopen. I'm "hoping" for early June, but who knows.

Based on which factor? Using your source and looking number of cases and number of daily new cases both are beginning to indicate the rates are slowing not accelerating. I suspect you actually meant increasing. They are still increasing but maybe based on limited recent data the rate of increase is slowing. But this eyeball analysis doesn’t account for testing rates which would impact true analysis.


Now if you are looking at mortalities those are still accelerating but those are also a lagging metric.

Btw when looking at the charts it is easier to use log charts not the linear ones.