Also for Florida:

Good report. All good points.

Logically though, without a vaccine or even good theraputics, COVID will still be lingering around even when NY, NJ, PA reopen. So those who are going to get it will still be getting it, just later. The big thing with the lock downs was to not over run the healthcare system, because if that were to happen people wouldn't be able to get treated and that would lead to more deaths and more severe illnesses. Those that could have been treated and survived, wouldn't have had that opportunity.

I'd say that since mid May at the lastest in when we all realized it wasn't as bad advertised and the hospitals were fine, all the supplies were now there. No PPP issues, most of the ventilators weren't needed. Thats when the first group of states decided to open up. Yet we still have states that aren't open, who front liner aren't even using the masks or social distancing anymore. Whose governors think it's safe enough for 1000's of protesters to be jammed together everyday. But others still aren't allowed to open there businesses. Seniors can't have a graduation at the football fields, etc. It's insanity.

I'd fully expect the states that totally reopen to have increases in cases, just like I fully expect NY, NJ, PA and others to have increased cases even if they waited until December to reopen. They are just causing tons of harm to their states and their citizens economically.

If those governors really believed the dangers of Covid then it's pretty much as ironic as it can get that they are allowing these protests to take place in their states and cities. It's exactly what they said would spread the virus and cause huge spikes in deaths, large gatherings with no social distancing. The cause ..Black Lives Matter! Yet they are allowing to do exactly what they have been saying for months will kill everyone! So do the Black Lives Matter or not? If they did and the Covid danger was real they wouldn't allow the protests for their own safety, no?

I don't see that the number of "positivity" matters so much as the raw number of new cases. Yes, perhaps more healthy people are getting tested now at a rate that is higher than before ?

But see, report from Thursday:

Florida's reopening met with record daily coronavirus cases

TALLAHASSEE — Florida has reported a three-day run of increased coronavirus cases as it reopens its economy and jockeys to host the Republican National Convention.

On Thursday, the Florida Department of Health reported 1,419 new coronavirus cases, the biggest single-day increase in cases since the state began reporting daily figures in March and a 2 percent increase in total cases, bringing the state's total to 60,183.
...

On Wednesday, the department reported 1,317 additional cases, which had been the biggest one-day increase since the April 17 previous high.

https://www.politico.com/states/flor...-cases-1291041

We will see, the ultimate number of dead Americans won't depend upon their particular political affiliation.

Seems like it was just as advertised. R0 is 2-3, higher than the Spanish flu. IFR 5-20 times higher than seasonal flu--better number TBD after the fact. Flattening the curve will help in just about every aspect. You were expecting something different?

Now, we could have responded much better (see New Zealand, for instance) and treated this as an optimization problem. But, it looks just like the predictions I was reading about from the infectious disease experts.

Yes, these thinly veiled political posts are not allowed in this thread or anywhere in NVG.

If you feel the need to post such stuff, please find another place. Any more posts along those lines will be deleted and the poster will be given a lengthy temp-ban.

There are really three reasons to lockdown and mitigate:
1) delay long enough for a vaccine
2) keep hospitals viable
3) delay long enough for testing to ramp up so that contact tracing can be implemented

If contact tracing can be employed effectively then most of those who were going to get it would not in fact get it.

Contact tracing reduces the rate of infection (R0). For examples look at South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and Germany.

It should be noted that NY is not in a position to do contact tracing effectively yet.
The governors don't think that. When right wing protests were happening the governors feared it would exacerbate the spread of Covid and the governors also know that the Black Lives Matter protests will exacerbate the spread. The governors are powerless to stop people from protesting.

It is up to people to decide whether or not they want to risk their lives and how important the protests are.

There have been some protests where there has been social distancing and mask wearing. My wife and daughter attended one of those. Yes the same wife who didn't want me to play poker in mid march.
Not sure what the governors could do to stop it short of declaring a curfew at all hours of the day. Which would shut down the economies anyway.

Protesting is a first amendment right. And the protesters are first and foremost endangering themselves willfully. But at least the left wing protesters are wearing masks for the most part.

There are other variables that are at play here as well. The Covid cases in California are at an all time high and yet the death rate is not climbing. I can think of a few possible reasons for that:
- The weather is somehow inhibiting it
- Outdoor activities may reduce the spread
- It is mostly young people who are re-engaging and so while the cases pile up, the death rate will be very low
- California is lying about the deaths

So maybe the same thing will be at play with regards to the protests. Hopefully its mostly younger people putting themselves at risk. And maybe there won't be a catastrophic increases in deaths and hospitalizations.

Your wife seems to have a good perspective ....

You are missing the most obvious likely factor, which is that treatment has gotten better.

Ifr for h1n1 .2%
Ifr for corona <.3%

According to new cdc estimates. Open her up.

What is the treatment?

If the IFR is so similar why are the total deaths and the rate that they've occurred so different?

There are lot of ways in which treatment has gotten better. One is just the public recognizing the syptoms of the virus and seeking relevant medical attention more quickly. Medical professionals also have a lot more experience with handling the virus and knowing when it is appropriate to make a particular intervention. And we are also at a stage now where medical resources are rarely in shortage, though outside of NYC this was never as much of a problem in the US as in several other countries.

And of course, there are specific treatments that have proven at least somewhat effective in a lot of patients, especially plasma and remdesivir. I have a good friend whose father was in the hospital with covid for several weeks last month in critical condition. He received both plasma and remdesivir treatments and was released last week; my friend is sure he would have died without them.

If you're talking about the reasons case numbers are at an all-time high, something that "reduces the spread" doesn't make a lot of sense.

Maybe replace that with increased testing.

Bonus $ for COVID “deaths”

Everything’s being tagged as COVID-19 deaths. It’s a joke.

I do not see these values on the CDC website. They are using R0=2 for simulation.

The lowest range of IFR I see in the medical journals is 0.5-0.8; 0.68. So many times higher than seasonal flu.

[A systematic review and meta-analysis of published research data on COVID-19 infection-fatality rates
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Lea Merone MEDRXIV]


A June 6th article in the Journal of Preventive Medicine indicates R0 of 1.9 to 6.5 with a ‘mean’ of 3.4. And, a 95% confidence interval in the range 2.81 to 3.82.

[Estimate of the Basic Reproduction Number for COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Alimohamadi et al.]

These are not set in stone and the values will become firmer with time. You can find sources for low numbers close to seasonal flu, they aren’t believable. You say it is like H1N1—how can this be correct? If it were, there would not be >110k deaths in the US in 4 months.

Now, how to optimize. First we have to decide on what we are trying to optimize, then use the (imperfect) data to create an actionable plan that gets you there. It might not be possible.

Open her up, ok, with effective protocols, knowing the risk.

Good point. I think I mis-spoke...

Its not that the increase in outdoor activities would reduce the spread that's important here but that it might reduce the extent of the exposure.

My understanding is that the severity of Covid can be related to the extent of exposure. Getting Covid from outdoor activities could be very different than contracting it indoors, especially if people are condensed into small spaces like at say nursing homes, meat packing plants, office buildings, restaurants, churches, theaters, etc.

Indoors the exposure may be much more concentrated. Outdoors it might be less intense. It could have to do with how air is circulated indoors too.

Maybe when you are outdoors, Kevin Copeland can better blow the wind of god to destroy Covid 19. FOREVER

https://www.centraltrack.com/fort-wo...d-on-covid-19/

It's underreported, and not by a small amount.

There are 40 million Americans who live below the poverty line. As a group they are far less likely to have health insurance, far less likely to ever be tested, more likely to become infected, and more likely to die after becoming infected. But having never been tested, the uninsured are also undercounted.

That deaths are underreported is substantiated by the large gap between the numbers for all-cause mortality in April and May in the US compared with their historical norms. Whereas all-cause mortality did not significantly differ this year in January or February, in April and May there are tens of thousands of deaths in country above their norms, collectively greater in number than the official death count from COVID-19 over those months.

No tagging necessary.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN23F0B5

New Zealand had 75 days of total shutdown and now everything is back to normal. Good friend of mine took the family for a Hobbinton tour over the weekend. She's among a pretty big group of researchers from Europe and the US at the University of Auckland. Apparently the majority of her US colleagues who are supposed to return home at the end of July are trying to find a way to stay there instead.

2020 WSOP Online Bracelet Schedule
Starts July 1st

https://www.wsop.com/promotions/onli...elets-2020/nv/

One of my friends sent me a video showing the activity in a casino, and this was exactly my thought.

This made me laugh hard.

And to Nick I hope you are right that treatments have gotten better and are contributing significantly to lower death rates.

Read that Michigan has set the guidelines for casinos reopening but they still don't have a date yet they will be allowed to open back up. But sadly poker rooms will have to remain close for the forseeable future throughout Michigan.

Ohio too. What a bunch of bullsh*t