COVID Cases Should Be Coming To An End

[Juvenal]

There is a plethora of models now on this, Mike. I do not know what the ferguson model is, but there are many studies which are not behind the paywall of a journal, many of them are working papers, posting the results as they come in, which is the ultimate in transparency.

Ferguson means Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College-London Covid-19 Response Team. As to the rest of the mw stuff, well ... here's a link to those "private" calculations. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-globa...ysis/covid-19/

Or you can check out my analysis thread for Report 9: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...eport-March-16

[mikewhitney]

There is a plethora of models now on this, Mike. I do not know what the ferguson model is, but there are many studies which are not behind the paywall of a journal, many of them are working papers, posting the results as they come in, which is the ultimate in transparency.

The Ferguson model is what came from London College. Our political decisions were justified by the London College model. Their model provides the numbers we typically hear reported by politicians and the news.

[shunyadragon]

I predicted before the peak in April to early May. This a normal natural course of the virus. Italy and Spain had earlier onsets of corona virus and earlier high death rates. The USA and the United Kingdom had later onsets of the coronavirus. Italy and Spain are now beginning to peak, and the USA and the United Kingdom will follow in the natural course of the virus in the population. The coronavirus will naturally tapper off in May and June.

See here for the latest information and excellent graphs: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

[simplicio]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...administration

[QuantaFille]

I personally know a couple here in my city who aren't taking it seriously at all and are not staying home. They are both at high risk of contracting it, and at high risk of complications. Our city has had a stay at home order for over a week now and I'm watching the number of new cases rise every day. If these friends of mine continue their social habits as they are, they will contract it and have a high chance of dying from it, and an even higher chance of spreading it around a lot.

It only takes one person who has it to go to the grocery store and pass it on to employees, who pass it on to other customers. No lockdown is truly complete, even the most strict lockdowns still allow people to go get groceries. I still see people not observing proper distancing, not washing their hands, etc. My husband is still having to go to work, and saw a coworker not wash his hands after using the toilet.

The stay home orders and lockdowns and such are slowing the spread, but nothing can completely stop it.

[mikewhitney]

I personally know a couple here in my city who aren't taking it seriously at all and are not staying home. They are both at high risk of contracting it, and at high risk of complications. Our city has had a stay at home order for over a week now and I'm watching the number of new cases rise every day. If these friends of mine continue their social habits as they are, they will contract it and have a high chance of dying from it, and an even higher chance of spreading it around a lot.

It only takes one person who has it to go to the grocery store and pass it on to employees, who pass it on to other customers. No lockdown is truly complete, even the most strict lockdowns still allow people to go get groceries. I still see people not observing proper distancing, not washing their hands, etc. My husband is still having to go to work, and saw a coworker not wash his hands after using the toilet.

The stay home orders and lockdowns and such are slowing the spread, but nothing can completely stop it.

If your friends are younger than 60, they would not likely have significant effects of the virus -- unless you know your friends have other medical conditions. The social distancing of all other people would keep the spread down anyhow.

Even the stores seem to practice social distancing. There are only minimal ways of transmission there. Not everything that is touched is going to be contaminated with this virus.

[demi-conservative]

Are people like you getting cabin fever after two weeks and going to break quarantine?

All the wishful thinking means yes.

[shunyadragon]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...administration

It's worth citing part of this article:

[Mountain Man]

It's worth citing part of this article:

I'll just stop right there. This opening paragraph is hilarious. First, saying that "we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself" is common sense and does not indicate that someone is downplaying the seriousness of a problem, only that we should have a measured response. You don't cut off your foot to remedy an ingrown toenail.

Secondly, yes, Trump wanted us to return to business as usual by Easter, but instead he extended the soft lock-down for another four-weeks, suggesting that he's not only taking the situation seriously, but he is actually listening to the experts everybody keeps saying he should be listening to.

I didn't bother to read the rest of the editorial, because with an opening paragraph as bad as that, I don't have much confidence in the text that follows.

[shunyadragon]

I'll just stop right there. This opening paragraph is hilarious. First, saying that "we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself" is common sense and does not indicate that someone is downplaying the seriousness of a problem, only that we should have a measured response. You don't cut off your foot to remedy an ingrown toenail.

Secondly, yes, Trump wanted us to return to business as usual by Easter, but instead he extended the soft lock-down for another four-weeks, suggesting that he's not only taking the situation seriously, but he is actually listening to the experts everybody keeps saying he should be listening to.

I didn't bother to read the rest of the editorial, because with an opening paragraph as bad as that, I don't have much confidence in the text that follows.

The article quoted Trump specifically.

[mikewhitney]

If I read the excerpt correctly, we have another voice of reason with Epstein. We have to have a balanced view rather than simple animalistic panic. The media has been pure hype. They should be adding balance instead.

We were told this is to balance the load to hospitals. The curve is too flat. hospitals, after several weeks, are not generally heavy burdened (but of course there are some really busy hospitals). More people should be going out to normal life. It is not good to have a government calling such a big emergency based on excessively high numbers. The virus is not going to hurt us as much as the solution to save us.

It is important to consider that all sorts of industry is continuing. But some important products may become scarce because governors have shutdown non-essential work. There will be some supplies that were in ample supply before the shutdowns but would not be re-established during shutdowns. Job losses and unemployment are by the bloody hands of the governors. There also will be small employers whose lives will be devasted ... and these won't be able to get unemployment pay and often won't have money to rebuild.

[lilpixieofterror]

COVID cases should be coming to an end.

This is my thought ...

People have mostly been in quarantine for two weeks. No new people should be catching COVID because of this quarantine. The people that already been exposed and are susceptible to it should already be in the hospitals and facing death. There is no reason that people would now suddenly become ill to it in their own houses. Any increase in numbers should only happen where a variety of people are meeting in close proximity in recent weeks. Is this what the projected hospitalizations are anticipating? Or how is this increase of hospitalizations supposed to happen?

[mikewhitney]

We may not even see this coronavirus come the fall. We are acting like this quarantine will solve everything. It is likely to pass away or be dormant for 10 years (a hypothetical number). If it has not tamed down, it would have to be considered a normal threat of living. But this just assumes that this virus will go viral on us again.

We should start reactivating the economy with a caution that some protections may be needed again. California deaths have been well below flu-season deaths when California should have great exposure because of the international mix of people we have here. Any existing cases should have gotten bad enough during the quarantine that these cases would already be in the hospitals and more people dead. The numbers are not at critical societal concerns here -- again, when we will always have sick seasons where the infirm are suspectible to a common death rate.

People in many counties of California naturally have normal separation. There is no need to have the govenor make a law prohibiting them from working.

[rogue06]

We may not even see this coronavirus come the fall. We are acting like this quarantine will solve everything. It is likely to pass away or be dormant for 10 years (a hypothetical number). If it has not tamed down, it would have to be considered a normal threat of living. But this just assumes that this virus will go viral on us again.

We should start reactivating the economy with a caution that some protections may be needed again. California deaths have been well below flu-season deaths when California should have great exposure because of the international mix of people we have here. Any existing cases should have gotten bad enough during the quarantine that these cases would already be in the hospitals and more people dead. The numbers are not at critical societal concerns here -- again, when we will always have sick seasons where the infirm are suspectible to a common death rate.

People in many counties of California naturally have normal separation. There is no need to have the govenor make a law prohibiting them from working.

All quarantine will do is hopefully flatten the curve so that it is spread out rather than happening all at once. Hopefully that'll mean that doctors and medical equipment aren't overwhelmed beyond hope and give us some time to make more of the latter. On the negative side it will also stretch out the economic consequences making it worse -- which will have its own dire consequences.

[mikewhitney]

All quarantine will do is hopefully flatten the curve so that it is spread out rather than happening all at once. Hopefully that'll mean that doctors and medical equipment aren't overwhelmed beyond hope and give us some time to make more of the latter. On the negative side it will also stretch out the economic consequences making it worse -- which will have its own dire consequences.

That is largely what I was talking about. Many areas seem to have hospitals with lower activity. Often the selective surgeries have been delayed. We should be maximizing hospital activity with the COVID-19 or serious patients so that we optimize hospital loading now so that the we can get more social and industrial activity started quicker. This means that we should be doing a bigger portion of normal activity now -- ramp up some. Go to people self-quarantines as needed. I think we have stifled too much activity and in areas totally unnecessary.

Some groups make their medical models. But there are also economic issues that the medical people take no responsibility for.

The broad quarantine is an experiment. If it was unnecessary (which often seems the case) or it does not work at all, then we have killed the economies with no health gain.