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COVID Cases Should Be Coming To An End

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  • #16
    Originally posted by simplicio View Post
    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

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by simplicio View Post
      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.

      Comment


      • #18
        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
        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

        go with the flow the river knows . . .

        Frank

        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

        Comment


        • #19
          https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...administration

          Comment


          • #20
            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.
            Curiosity never hurt anyone. It was stupidity that killed the cat.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by QuantaFille View Post
              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.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by demi-conservative View Post
                Are people like you getting cabin fever after two weeks and going to break quarantine?
                All the wishful thinking means yes.
                Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

                Comment


                • #23
                  It's worth citing part of this article:

                  Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-coronavirus-theory-that-informed-the-trump-administration



                  President Trump, who at one point called the coronavirus pandemic an “invisible enemy” and said it made him a “wartime President,” has in recent days questioned its seriousness, tweeting, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” Trump said repeatedly that he wanted the country to reopen by Easter, April 12th, contradicting the advice of most health officials. (On Sunday, he backed down and extended federal social-distancing guidelines for at least another month.) According to the Washington Post, “Conservatives close to Trump and numerous administration officials have been circulating an article by Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution, titled ‘Coronavirus Perspective,’ which plays down the extent of the spread and the threat.”

                  Epstein, a professor at New York University School of Law, published the article on the Web site of the Hoover Institution, on March 16th. In it, he questioned the World Health Organization’s decision to declare the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, said that “public officials have gone overboard,” and suggested that about five hundred people would die from covid-19 in the U.S. Epstein later updated his estimate to five thousand, saying that the previous number had been an error. So far, there have been more than two thousand coronavirus-related fatalities in America; epidemiologists’ projections of the total deaths range widely, depending on the success of social distancing and the availability of medical resources, but they tend to be much higher than Epstein’s. (On Sunday, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, estimated that there could be between a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand deaths in the U.S.) In a follow-up article, published on March 23rd and titled “Coronavirus Overreaction,” Epstein wrote, “Progressives think they can run everyone’s lives through central planning, but the state of the economy suggests otherwise. Looking at the costs, the public commands have led to a crash in the stock market, and may only save a small fraction of the lives that are at risk.”

                  Epstein has long been one of the most cited legal scholars in the country, and is known for his libertarian-minded reading of the Constitution, which envisions a restrained federal government that respects private property. He has also been known to engage with controversial subjects; last fall, he published an article on the Hoover Institution Web site that argued, “The professional skeptics are right: there is today no compelling evidence of an impending climate emergency.” Last Wednesday, I spoke by phone with Epstein about his views of the coronavirus pandemic. He was initially wary of talking, and asked to record his own version of the call, which I agreed to. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, Epstein made a number of comments about viruses that have been strongly disputed by medical professionals. We have included factual corrections alongside those statements.

                  What did you want to achieve with your pieces?

                  What did I want to achieve with my pieces? First of all, I am not a politician. What I did is that I looked at the standard model that was put out in the New York Times [in an Op-Ed by Nicholas Kristof and Stuart A. Thompson, published on March 13th], which was backed up by other models in other places, and it occurred to me that I just did not think that the underlying assumptions there were sound. The single most important thing to me was not to get my own estimate of what the number is. The most important thing was to look at that curve, which seemed to suggest that there would be ten million cases a day during a ten-day or so band in the middle of July, and to explain why, in relationship to all other things I know about evolutionary theory, that this just has to be wrong. The better way to have phrased the paper would have been to say that the traditional models, which were used for the last flu season, for the 2009 H1N1 situation, are much better approximations of what is likely to happen than these rather scary kinds of projections.

                  You wrote last week, “In the United States, if the total death toll increases at about the same rate, the current 67 deaths should translate into about 500 deaths at the end.” We are currently at eight hundred deaths—over eight hundred deaths. [This was true when we spoke; the number is now over two thousand.]

                  First of all, let me just say I wrote an amendment to that, the thing I regret most in that whole paper. But I was not so much interested in explaining why my number was right. I was interested in explaining why the other projections were wrong.

                  O.K., but your number was surpassed in about a week, and now we’re already—

                  The New Yorker’s coronavirus news coverage and analysis are free for all readers.
                  I understand that, but the point about that is that, first of all, there was a simple stupid error, which is you would never want to put it in a model that total deaths in the United States relative to the world would be one per cent. So if you just inflated it to five per cent or ten per cent, then all of a sudden you’ve got a number which is either five or ten times as high.

                  Secondly, suppose I should have been wiser in this and said, as I referred to the flu vaccine and later on to the H1N1 situation, if those are your benchmarks, then the number goes up to, say, between fifteen thousand and forty thousand deaths, as opposed to the one million-plus that are projected. [The Times model projected, without interventions by governments or citizens, a million deaths in the U.S.; with such interventions, the model showed that number dramatically decreasing.] And, remember, the one million-plus is on a model which is universal and worldwide, and you should expect to see something like that somewhere else. And there’s no evidence whatsoever that any of the situations, even in Italy, is going to approach the kinds of numbers that you had there. And so I am truly sorry about that [five hundred] number. I regard it as the single worst public-relations gaffe I’ve made in my entire life. But the question to ask, Isaac, is not whether I chose the right number but whether I had the right model.

                  Something else you wrote, in an earlier piece, was, “Why has there been such a dramatic mismatch in the responses to ordinary flu and the coronavirus?” Is that a question you’re still unsure about?

                  Look, the basic problem is, I think, in effect, that the tendency on the part of many people to treat this particular thing as unique is a mistake. There’s an underlying, standard model that you want to use, and the question is how you stuff it full of parameters. That is, numbers you add into it to make what’s going on. And, so, the situation that you get is you cannot use any exponential system because essentially then everybody is going to be dead, because things just keep doubling, doubling, and doubling.

                  © Copyright Original Source

                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                    It's worth citing part of this article:

                    Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-coronavirus-theory-that-informed-the-trump-administration



                    President Trump, who at one point called the coronavirus pandemic an “invisible enemy” and said it made him a “wartime President,” has in recent days questioned its seriousness, tweeting, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” Trump said repeatedly that he wanted the country to reopen by Easter, April 12th, contradicting the advice of most health officials. (On Sunday, he backed down and extended federal social-distancing guidelines for at least another month.) According to the Washington Post, “Conservatives close to Trump and numerous administration officials have been circulating an article by Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution, titled ‘Coronavirus Perspective,’ which plays down the extent of the spread and the threat.”

                    © Copyright Original Source

                    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.
                    Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                    But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                    Than a fool in the eyes of God


                    From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                      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.
                      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                      go with the flow the river knows . . .

                      Frank

                      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-coronavirus-theory-that-informed-the-trump-administration



                        President Trump, who at one point called the coronavirus pandemic an “invisible enemy” and said it made him a “wartime President,” has in recent days questioned its seriousness, tweeting, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” Trump said repeatedly that he wanted the country to reopen by Easter, April 12th, contradicting the advice of most health officials. (On Sunday, he backed down and extended federal social-distancing guidelines for at least another month.) According to the Washington Post, “Conservatives close to Trump and numerous administration officials have been circulating an article by Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution, titled ‘Coronavirus Perspective,’ which plays down the extent of the spread and the threat.”

                        Epstein, a professor at New York University School of Law, published the article on the Web site of the Hoover Institution, on March 16th. In it, he questioned the World Health Organization’s decision to declare the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, said that “public officials have gone overboard,” and suggested that about five hundred people would die from covid-19 in the U.S. Epstein later updated his estimate to five thousand, saying that the previous number had been an error. So far, there have been more than two thousand coronavirus-related fatalities in America; epidemiologists’ projections of the total deaths range widely, depending on the success of social distancing and the availability of medical resources, but they tend to be much higher than Epstein’s. (On Sunday, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, estimated that there could be between a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand deaths in the U.S.) In a follow-up article, published on March 23rd and titled “Coronavirus Overreaction,” Epstein wrote, “Progressives think they can run everyone’s lives through central planning, but the state of the economy suggests otherwise. Looking at the costs, the public commands have led to a crash in the stock market, and may only save a small fraction of the lives that are at risk.”

                        © Copyright Original Source

                        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.
                        Last edited by mikewhitney; 04-04-2020, 12:30 PM.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
                          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?
                          If this follows past cases, we’ll likely see a drop as we enter the summer and a rise as we enter fall.
                          "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                          GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                            If this follows past cases, we’ll likely see a drop as we enter the summer and a rise as we enter fall.
                            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.
                            Last edited by mikewhitney; 04-04-2020, 12:45 PM.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
                              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.

                              I'm always still in trouble again

                              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                                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.
                                Last edited by mikewhitney; 04-04-2020, 01:24 PM.

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