All of that sounds fine as long as the parks aren't TOO crowded and people are wearing masks when getting close to others.

Maybe this pandemic will finally be the end of the US's ridiculous open container laws (I say this as someone who doesn't drink).

Definitely no masks and not much social distancing. Hackney is basically Euro-Williamsburg and everyone is like 28. Really no concerns about the virus.

I am and you bet it will. I used to get 2 or 3 bad colds a winter in SF, riding Muni. Since I've been going to Tucson and not taking Muni, I can't recall having a cold. SFMuni is a breeding ground for germs.

I really have no idea and niether does anyone else. To know, you'd have to do antibody testing on a scientific sample of the population you are interested in--with enough people in the sample to be statistically significant.

You may already be familiar with this:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....14.20062463v2

But this was done in early April. Certainly it's more now.

In San Francisco, tests are now available to pretty much anybody who wants one though it seems likely that people would self-select for suspicion they are infected (symptoms, exposure to an infected person or something). The rate of positivity seems to have stabilized around 3% but that is for current infection using the PCR test and would miss people who were infected many weeks ago and recovered.

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...670308/enhance
https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/d96w-cdge

They updated their initial numbers (after fucking up the binomial statistics), but their weighting is still very model dependent. It's probably best to just take the raw seroprevalence numbers to first order (an independent analysis gets somewhat close, see https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.e...-clara-county/ ). Their adjusted numbers are incompatible with excess mortality and seroprevalance data from other places (Spain, Italy, NYC).

I suspect the best estimator (will get you within a factor of 2 or so, due to various age distributions and levels of comorbidies) for a population will be to take the number of people who have died and multiply by ~100. So probably around 8 million people in the US (2.5% of the population) have probably been infected, with big error bars.

Welcome to the dark side.... that is, compared to the people who say someone is a murderer for sitting down in the local park.

thats what cuomo has been asserting. thats why he wants to open nys a little, wait two weeks, see what happened, if there were uptics or anything, then open a little more. the handful of different sectors of the state could move along a little faster or slower. seems reasonable. also its good practice for controlling it if it comes roaring back in the fall.

Except all it takes is one person flying home from x-city to bring it all back, and then the time, money, and livelihoods ruined by the continued lockdown was all for nothing. The delay in symptoms makes contact tracing minimally useful, and basically impossible in a city like New York. How do you trace the hundreds or thousands of people you came into contact with on the subway? Especially when a significant number of the infected will never become symptomatic to even know they should be contact traced?

The more we learn the more evident our options are: herd immunity or vaccination. Eradication and contact tracing is not a realistic solution, and any actions in pursuit of that solution (like a continued lockdown) is folly, to say the least.

Found this interesting...


https://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj-wpe...c-56-15May.jpg
Credit: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/his...ics-deadliest/

Are there any estimates for the total death count in the US by the end of 2020? 200,000, 300,000?

Even though the health system didn't collapse anywhere, daily numbers are insistently above 1,500 and as contention measures are incresingly unpopular, the virus will keep spreading there.

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Anyway, down here attacks on quarentine by the president is much stronger than in the US. The 2nd Ministry of Health resigned during the pandemic.

In a more personal note, after working from home, three weeks of vacations, i finally came back to the office since Monday. The city is half-empty, but every single person uses masks.

There are several but not necessarily for 12/31/20.

CDC projects "likely to exceed 100,000 by June 1st."

The UW's IHME projects 147,040 by August 4th.

It gets fuzzy very quickly. What sort of stay-at-home or social distancing will be in place? What level of compliance? Will we find better treatments? Will other strains arise? How many people already have it, or are carriers? And so on.

Yes, all of the models are assuming the same level of social distancing as far as I know.

The earlier models assumed countries and people would act intelligently.

Then they started to react to the reality of the US' limited/disjointed response, and the public's lack of understanding/compliance. This has moved the projections up substantially.

Rather than topping out in (wild guess) the mid five figures, I'll make a guess of 150,000 to 200,000 by the end of the year assuming no big leap in treatment. We'll hit 100,000 next weekend, extrapolating from the 90,000 currently on WorldO.

This is a good shot to represent that pandemic in NYC.

Very suiting.

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos...28?s=2048x2048
Credit: Getty Images

They need to adjust the models. Folks never act intelligently. That's a massive error in the model that needs to be corrected ASAP. The parameter of folks acting intelligently. Especially in America, the coefficient is a lot higher in America. Might even be a parameter that "exponentially" increases any model figure of deaths or cases.

F(x) = T(o)F^3 where T(o) is the time of quarantine measured in weeks and F = Freedom cubed. More freedom an individual possesses, and the greater the ego is of freedom, the more likely we are to see cases in folks that don't wear masks or don't follow rules.

Rebels and folks that have AR-15's on their backs have a high freedom index.

Where are the models calculating the lives lost as a result of the global lockdown?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...s-15275408.php

D*mned overpaid techies!

So far, total deaths appear to be higher than the Covid increase alone. But the general thinking appears to be that it's mostly underreporting Covid deaths and people not getting medical care for other things.

Define "intelligently". Usually it turns out to mean "doing what I'd do". Frankly, in this situation the "experts" have turned out wrong more often than right and I admit to behaving contrary to their recommendations. For example, I purchased a small supply of N95 respirator masks in January when they were all telling us that "intelligent" behavior did NOT include wearing masks.

Frankly, I don't think this one is too hard. There's this "thing" in the air emanating as much as 12 ft or more from other people (you can't tell which ones) indoors in still air, and on surfaces in public places and you don't want to breathe the air (unfiltered) or touch the surfaces. Generally certain masks clean the air (but it can still get into your eyes so you might want to protect them too) and certain liquids get rid of the "thing" on surfaces.

If you aren't very stupid, you should be able to figure out ways to avoid the "thing".

It can be put very simply: "Intelligent" would involve following the basic advice of your state.

Since many people don't, tens of thousands more have died in the US than would have.

They're figuring out the nuances of the rules as more information comes in, as more supplies are available, and so on. That doesn't change the point.

Another issue is that the models predict ranges (presumably derived from variations of model parameters, or, for more sophisticated models, perhaps quantiles of different monte carlo realizations),, but if the distribution of deaths is fat-tailed, that can be a severe underestimate with non-negligible probability. Taleb loves to toot his own horn, so of course he put out a preprint on this topic that is worth reading (if you can stand his writing style). I found it remarkably readable even with very little prior knowledge of extreme-value theory: https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.08658

Since we're on track for 100K before June 1, I'd expect 3x - 4x that number by end of the year with no scientific intervention. It took less than a month to double from 45K to 90K, so we could easily see 200K deaths in July.

As I see it, the variables are 1) whether more awareness of the virus helps to slow the spread absent the strict government mandates, and 2) whether warmer weather will naturally slow the spread. I think we've seen enough evidence that warmer weather doesn't really slow the spread. The jury is still out on whether education alone will dampen the infection rate, but it seems extremely unlikely.

Nonsense.

^ Yep

Actually, I have yet to see a shred of evidence anywhere that across the board Stay at home orders have reduced deaths.

I am not saying that they don’t work. I just wonder what the evidence is. More likely stay at home orders come from a “let’s play it as safely as possible mentality”

You are claiming the virus spreading rates weren't reduced while people were distancing themselves?

The US has 3-5 million cases for 100k-120k deaths (guessing the undercounting). You would rather have 50 million and 1 million deaths instead? Considering the number of deaths would be much higher as many people who might survived would die as hospitals wouldn't be treated them.

I don't understand where all this anger and anti-social feeling come from. Whatever happen to the US civic sense, patriotism and self-abnegation? If one can't have small adjustments to deal with a pandemic, God forbids what would result if the US faced a doomsday scenario. Governments would collapse instantly and people would kill each other to extinction.

On the other hand we have societies that went through a strict lockdown like Norway, pretty much stopped deaths and are already planning to open cinemas. Little or no harm on the economy. The US, on the other hand, will have to deal with this for the rest of the year while unemployment skyrocketed. Needless to mention the political unrest that makes the country even weaker.

I pretty much stopped reading your rant of a post after this sentence.

Go back and reread my post. I said absolutely none of what you claimed.

No, that isn't the issue. The issue is causation, not correlation.

There's presently no evidence that the enforced lockdowns have decreased deaths. It's just wild guesses, and the safe default for politicians.

lol wow, the delusion has reached a new high in crawfordland.

Which of course means you're ready to post the peer-reviewed studies that suggest a causal link between enforced shutdowns and Covid-19 transmission, correct? :uhh:

I reread your post and to me enforced or self-imposed quarentine are the same for the purposes they are happening. I don't care about those delusions of "freedom", "tyranny", etc.


:haha:

Ok then. Everything should work as usual, restaurants, nightclubs, sports events, why to bother? Let's have 100 million Americans (or more) simultaneously getting infected. Assuming 5% of cases require hospitalization, what might go wrong?

Not my fault if you refuse to read. Nothing you're writing is in response to my posts.

At no point did I ever imply that we should do absolutely nothing.

Again, to me it's a mere technicality between enforced or advisable lockdowns. The purpose is set people apart to break the virus transmission chain. It's only political extremists and conspirationists making a big deal out of it.

P.S. On my country there's only advisable lockdown and anti-governors/mayors hysteria are probably even bigger than in the US. Clearly enforced lockdown is not the issue.

This is why science depends on modeling. Or see the famous paper, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

Social distancing has been around for hundreds of years. There is a ton of academic research on the subject. Also, the absence of academic research (obviously a function of timing) does not mean that there isn't strong evidence that stay-at-home orders have reduced the rate of transmission. I think it's pretty obvious that the orders have done just that.

Says the person who has precisely zero knowledge.

I bet you're a climate-change denier, a smoking-causes-cancer denier, and a flat-earther too. Cause the people who know stuff are all wrong!

Then you're not paying attention.

Death and new-infection rates have PLUNGED in all of the big former hotspots that cracked down...Italy, Spain, New York, Seattle.

The modelling you are obsessed with is forecasting one particular cause of death - COVID-19. There is no consideration given to what other causes of death may be impacted by changing the variables used in the model.

For example, I can create a model for eradicating my house of termites. The model would certainly agree that a fast solution to this problem would be to burn the house down. Per your logic then this is a valid solution and anyone questioning it is just ignoring the models/"science".

There is far more nuance in the world than any single model can account for. I don't reject the COVID-19 modelling, but it's just one of the many pieces of data that we should use to determine what the proper course of action is.

Compared to what? What’s the control?

That's the problem. It's easy to site an awful lot of examples of highly unintelligent advice from various states and the federal governments and that's why "intelligent" people are increasingly skeptical and unwilling to follow government advice uncritically.

Examples:

- Masks don't do anything and shouldn't be worn

- Let's send people leaving the hospital but still infectious back to the nursing homes whence they came

- It's risky to enjoy, and therefore you will be banned from all manner of solo outdoor activities or activities involving just you and the people with whom you live (like sitting in the middle of a lake fishing in your family boat)

- Group activities involving 10 or fewer strangers are fine and permitted.

- If the feds don't hand us 30,000 respirators people are gonna DIE (actually, it turns out, avoiding putting people on invasive ventillation may be the better way to manage them).

And they are NOT changing these policies inspite of more information. In too many cases they are stubbornly sticking to the ridiculous orders they've promulgated.

No, he's just a business as usual, don't mess with my income and the ways I enjoy spending it self-centered plutocrat.

Death and new-infection rates simulatenously plunged in the non-hotspots, too. Even those that didn't have strict lockdowns.

There's zero academic literature; politicians are just choosing the safest political option. To be fair, it would be impossible to have scholarship at this point, but it's disingenuous to claim that the lockdowns have had a measurable positive effect absent evidence.

Yes, economic modeling would be good too. I don't dispute that. But economic modeling is even more difficult because it basically is completely dependent on policy decisions, which are in principle completely controllable (whereas we don't really get to change the properties of a disease), but also very political. Economic policy in the US has led to a lot of unemployment. In other countries (e.g. Germany), not so much. Would that indicate that a lockdown may be the correct course of action in Germany but not the US?

What places were hotspots, with infection rates >10% (like NYC or Lombardy), but didn't institute any restrictions? Possibly Stockholm?

I'm very curious to see what happens in Belarus, although I don't know that we can trust data coming out of there.

I don't think you understand the concept of a control group. What you're asking for would literally require an alternate reality...science fiction.

But we can certainly track infection rates based on what we know...hence the rules and advice coming from the CDC and others.

The evidence is there. You just aren't paying enough attention.

Take a look at the UK, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, and come of the low-compliance US states.

I realize you'll never change your view...Crawford latches onto an idea and never gives up.

They've gotten some things wrong, and learned as they've gone. But the need for social distancing and staying at home etc., have been right all along.

If some places let you meet in groups of 10, that's MUCH safer than groups of 50. Contact danger is exponential, and the models show this clearly. The debate is more about the nuances.

No, I’m none of those things.

What evidence? How is that even possible, to create peer-reviewed studies in a matter of weeks?

Again, if there's any evidence, let's see it. Show us the academic literature suggesting that relative lives saved are postively correlated with relative stringency of lockdown.

People think lockdowns work because logically they think they should work. But there’s obviously no way to assess the counterfactuals. We don’t know how much hygiene or masks or reduced physical contact plays a role. We don’t know how much self-isolation of people who know they are vulnerable matters, or how little it matters what anyone else does.

And we can never really lock everyone down anyway. You have millions of “essential” workers out and about, people still shop, people still get deliveries carried by drivers who are potential carriers. People are not going to stop meeting friends in “small groups” (which tomorrow will be different groups of 3-4 people, until the number of contacts grows exponentially anyway).

So all any of this is doing is slowing the rate at which the virus spreads. Which is good, and important to the extent that, we we were all told, there was a risk that the health system would be overwhelmed and lots of people would die who could otherwise be saved. But as long as it stays below that crisis level, it doesn’t actually benefit us to slow the spread further. That just prolongs the other damage caused by this whole situation.

This thing is going to kill a lot of people, it was always going to kill a lot of people. There is a cost/benefit analysis to be done and you can’t spend unlimited amounts of money and impose serious damage to everyone’s career, happiness, etc in a futile attempt to save every life.

Crawford, this peer review thing is your latest "latch onto" idea, I get it. For one, CDC's recommendations come from the sum total of available information and analysis...including a massive amount of peer review. Two, much of this stuff CAN'T be peer reviewed, unless we have access to parallel universes, since there are too many other variables...even if you're willing to sacrifice a city or two.

But let's hear your plan anyway. What cities should have served as controls, not shutting down, with the known extreme likelihood that this would kill probably more than 1% of their populations? Who do you want to sacrifice?

10023, you're right that it's about slowing. But it's also about greatly reducing the number of infections period. The US' reported infections are about 0.5% of the population, and we can guess (with sampling) about the real rate, which is likely north of 1%. We don't need to hit 70%...why not keep it to a small fraction of that?

Smarter people than you or me are on this.