Covid-19

[retired jerry]

yeah, good calculation

another calculation would be that half the population might be infected - 150 million in the U.S.

1% death rate would be 1.5 million deaths

except when the hospitals are overwhelmed and there aren't ventilators available, the death rate might go up to 5%, so 7.5 million dead

but using the stock market analogy, you can't just extrapolate. When things get bad enough, like they're becoming now, we and our politicians will be forced to act and follow enough social distancing to stop the epidemic.

In Oregon and Washington there is some indication we're doing enough to stop the virus, but new infections continue, it wold be better to increase social distancing a bit, at least don't slack off

In New York, new infections per day keeps increasing although at a slower rate, social distancing is helping but not enough

Everywhere in the country and the globe need to do aggressive social distancing

[Water]

removed

[Webfoot]

So regardless of your math, imo it's kind of an inflammatory number to arrive at/speculate on.

I get the impression you disapprove of something I wrote. I did not mean to be misleading. I only wanted to make the point that the observed growth rate (from infections formed roughly 20 days ago) is still really bad, contrary to the thought I might be "declaring victory prematurely." Can you suggest a better way I could have put that?

[drm]

It's worth considering worst case scenarios as long as they are clearly identified as such. It's also important to remember that even if the country doesn't get what we would consider a worst case experience, some individual regions might. I just saw an article that highlighted the southeast:

• low population density means peak will be later

• low population density means it isn't seeing bad number now

• the SE has relatively poor health care infrastructure

• The population in the SE has the highest prevalence of complicating factors like diabetes and hypertension

• The SE was among the last of states to declare restrictions to limit the spread (some still haven't)

• the SE has higher numbers of people lacking insurance due to not expanding medicaid coverage

• by the time the above factors hit, the rest of the country will be in early recovery and probably not easily able to help

As a large country, we are accustomed to disasters being localized in one city or state or a small region. We have no experience with a disaster that rolls across the entire country, leaving almost no region unaffected and ready to help.

[StellarTomorrow]

That is a great site. Very interesting projections. It shows (at least for Oregon) that this will be "done" by early July. I hope that projects turns out to be true. I'm sure it will rear its head again in the fall, just like the normal flu, though.

It's worth noting the assumptions the model makes, particularly those listed at http://www.healthdata.org/covid/faqs#so ... distancing:
1. "... assumes continued social distancing through the end of the modeled period (August 4, 2020)"
2. "We also assume that implementation and adherence to these measures is complete."

Things might be better by summer, but I don't think that a return to anything resembling normal by summer is very likely.

[retired jerry]

If we can knock down the virus we can ease up

That probably means nationally because there's a lot of people flow around the country

Then, if we do lots of testing we can quickly tighten back up, and more local response

But nobody knows, it depends on how well people social distance and the virus

[RobFromRedland]

Things might be better by summer, but I don't think that a return to anything resembling normal by summer is very likely.

Even in a best case scenario, "normal" is going to be very different from what it was 6 months ago I think.

It is interesting to see all the projections, but at the end of the day, no one knows how this whole thing will unfold and what will happen. I'm trying to take it a day at a time. At this point, there isn't much light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm hopeful that will change soon.

[retired jerry]

light at end of tunnel

Since oregon implemented stay at home new cases seem to be dropping:

Same with Washington:

New York needs more aggressive social distancing, new cases keeps increasing although not as bad as initially:

Plotted together with the same scale:

Kudos to Inslee for implementing stay at home before things got so far out of control

Same for Brown - we are largely avoiding this

Sympathy to New York, I can't imagine it and things are going to get worse. They need to do more social distancing

Rest of the country - do what Oregon and Washington did

I'm going to jinx things, it could easily blow up in Oregon and Washington, we have to not ease up

[RobFromRedland]

Thanks Jerry - that is a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel - but I know things can change - we do need to keep up the social distancing. If we do, I think the projections may be relatively accurate. We do seem to be in much better shape than New York.

[retired jerry]

yeah, if anything we should be better and get this over as soon as possible, there are still new cases happening

maybe this shows that it works