COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[Dr. Arch]

So is today a legit decline or the Sunday-Monday slump?

I'll have today's final numbers in about three hours, but it looks like a good decline relative to the last Monday.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

So is today a legit decline or the Sunday-Monday slump?

For fatalities it's probably both. If you look at last week, you had one high-fatality day when the rest of the week dragged the average down to the roughly the week before. A rolling average suggests that fatalities is very slowly declining. But we have three or four weeks at this point with a S/M slump and there's no mechanistic reason to think that would be changing so numbers today are likely underreporting the same way there were two weeks ago.

It's harder to tell with cases. There's some evidence of proportion of positive tests decreasing with more testing but we had several days last week with >30K positive tests. It strains credulity to think that we're really seeing fewer than 20K cases.

There's also the fact that NY appears to be past-peak but other states with large metros (PA, IL especially) are facing increases, but are increasing to lower peaks than NYC, meaning the overall average is declining. The last couple of weeks NYS was ~40% of daily fatalities but today and yesterday it's down to below 30%.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don’t really see how this can be interpreted as evidence the lockdowns are working.  It’s seems just as likely to me that this is an inevitable consequence of approaching herd immunity, with about 25% of NYC’s population already infected.

If lockdowns worked, this decline would have happened much earlier.

Pandemics die down. People build up immunity, the seasons change, and things change.

Do you literally not understand, or simply refuse to, that the whole point of the lockdown isn't to magically eliminate the virus but to keep the numbers steady so the healthcare system isn't overwhemed?

The goal of the lockdown was to reduce total infections.  That’s what all the models told us would happen. But the models were wrong in many ways.  The models way underestimated the contagion of the virus and overestimated its lethality.  The lockdowns have almost completely failed to turn the spread negative, and by bluntly forcing a one-size-fits-all approach, they have increased the deaths that will result from the virus by failing to better protect the most vulnerable.

That is the exact OPPOSITE of what the models ever told anyone. The models are a function of number of cases over time. The whole point of flattening the curve is to have the same number of cases over a longer time span so that the system is not overwhelmed (see below).



The number of cases under the peak is the same over a longer period of time. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematical functions can understand this. Your understanding of the models is flawed, and so is your argument by derivation.

You can't misinterpret information, assign it a different end game, and then call it a failure because it doesn't fit that interpretation. Please read up more on this information.

Finally, we don't have lockdowns. We have stay at home orders, which are far less restrictive, and a good number of people aren't even following them; there are some of those people even within our own forum community.

You can just glance at this model and see how wrong it was.  The model shows a symmetrical increase and decrease in cases.  That’s not what’s happening in the US, and it is not what’s happening anywhere that’s had a major outbreak.

And if you do believe this model, I guess that means that you accept that at least 70% of the population will end up being uninfected even with restrictions in place indefinitely.  So if it can be shown that the health care system will not be overwhelmed if restrictions are removed, you would be perfectly happy to do this, regardless of how much it would increase infections?

Someone should do a national poll asking the question: Would you support the current restrictions if you knew they would lead to a 70% chance of you and your family being infected?

[Dr. Arch]

I don’t really see how this can be interpreted as evidence the lockdowns are working.  It’s seems just as likely to me that this is an inevitable consequence of approaching herd immunity, with about 25% of NYC’s population already infected.

If lockdowns worked, this decline would have happened much earlier.

Pandemics die down. People build up immunity, the seasons change, and things change.

Do you literally not understand, or simply refuse to, that the whole point of the lockdown isn't to magically eliminate the virus but to keep the numbers steady so the healthcare system isn't overwhemed?

The goal of the lockdown was to reduce total infections.  That’s what all the models told us would happen. But the models were wrong in many ways.  The models way underestimated the contagion of the virus and overestimated its lethality.  The lockdowns have almost completely failed to turn the spread negative, and by bluntly forcing a one-size-fits-all approach, they have increased the deaths that will result from the virus by failing to better protect the most vulnerable.

That is the exact OPPOSITE of what the models ever told anyone. The models are a function of number of cases over time. The whole point of flattening the curve is to have the same number of cases over a longer time span so that the system is not overwhelmed (see below).



The number of cases under the peak is the same over a longer period of time. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematical functions can understand this. Your understanding of the models is flawed, and so is your argument by derivation.

You can't misinterpret information, assign it a different end game, and then call it a failure because it doesn't fit that interpretation. Please read up more on this information.

Finally, we don't have lockdowns. We have stay at home orders, which are far less restrictive, and a good number of people aren't even following them; there are some of those people even within our own forum community.

You can just glance at this model and see how wrong it was.  The model shows a symmetrical increase and decrease in cases.  That’s not what’s happening in the US, and it is not what’s happening anywhere that’s had a major outbreak.

And if you do believe this model, I guess that means that you accept that at least 70% of the population will end up being uninfected even with restrictions in place indefinitely.  So if it can be shown that the health care system will not be overwhelmed if restrictions are removed, you would be perfectly happy to do this, regardless of how much it would increase infections?

Someone should do a national poll asking the question: Would you support the current restrictions if you they would lead to a 70% chance of you and your family being infected?

"You can just glance at this model and see how wrong it was.  The model shows a symmetrical increase and decrease in cases.  That’s not what’s happening in the US, and it is not what’s happening anywhere that’s had a major outbreak."

Indeed. The model is... a model... not a calculation of what's actually going to happen or is currently happening. It is a model... of a goal that we need to approximate as much as possible.

"And if you do believe this model, I guess that means that you accept that at least 70% of the population will end up being uninfected even with restrictions in place indefinitely."

Yes, the model does say that.

"So if it can be shown that the health care system will not be overwhelmed if restrictions are removed, you would be perfectly happy to do this, regardless of how much it would increase infections?"

Correct. That's the point that health experts and health economists would say: 'okay, we did what we needed to do, and we're good to go.'

"Someone should do a national poll asking the question: Would you support the current restrictions if you they would lead to a 70% chance of you and your family being infected?"

That's not the point of it at all. First of all, the model predicts that about 70% of the population will end up with COVID-19 at some point, but it does not mean that every individual has a 70% chance of being within that 70%. That's a clear misunderstanding of the data.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1254877836852289540

“What I need to know is how many people have passed away in New York, and what I need to know is: Who has the bodies?” Diamond asked. “I need for somebody that does investigative work to call the morgues. To call the funeral homes. We need to know, because I don't trust anything else that comes out of his mouth now... Something's not right here. Something is off here.”

She added: “Is this being deliberately spread? Look, I’m not being a conspiracy theorist, this is real, but I’m asking my own questions. What the hell is going on?"

Silk, meanwhile, baselessly asserted that the disease was “man-made” and “engineered,” wondering aloud if there was a “little deep-state action going on behind the scenes.” She also questioned whether the World Health Organization had a “switch” to “turn this virus on and off?”

It's good to see that Fox will draw the line somewhere.

[It’s so Joever]

Colorado is now under a stay-at-home advisory/safer-at-home advisory.
Basically, the government is encouraging you to not kill grandma, but isn’t going to make you.
Apparently Polis has decided to join the West-Coast pact, whether that will change anything really remains to be seen.
Today, 26 people have died, which is a slight spike. This could be just backlog considering this appears to be more of an outlier right now. Meanwhile over 13k are officially infected.
On the bright side, Colorado is finally ramping up testing for real. Hopefully that trend continues.

[Del Tachi]

It's also become clear that ventilators aren't an effective treatment. I'm not sure how much that has affected the numbers, but it does change the limiting factor on ability to treat.

I've thought about the elevated mortality numbers for intubated patients, and I think what we're seeing is largely that in resource-strained environments (like New York) doctors are waiting longer to intubate patients so then the patients who are intubabted ending up being sicker and having worse outcomes than we would otherwise expect.  It's a bridge too far to say that our most aggressive treatments aren't working.

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1254905213804257280

[wbrocks67]

The WaPo scoop is damning. Trump decided to ignore the warning signs - we know have concrete proof of this - and in that, is now responsible for more lives lost.

[Horus]

The WaPo scoop is damning. Trump decided to ignore the warning signs - we know have concrete proof of this - and in that, is now responsible for more lives lost.

Unless one of the lives lost is Tara Reade the press will have forgotten this by tomorrow.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1254877836852289540

“What I need to know is how many people have passed away in New York, and what I need to know is: Who has the bodies?” Diamond asked. “I need for somebody that does investigative work to call the morgues. To call the funeral homes. We need to know, because I don't trust anything else that comes out of his mouth now... Something's not right here. Something is off here.”

She added: “Is this being deliberately spread? Look, I’m not being a conspiracy theorist, this is real, but I’m asking my own questions. What the hell is going on?"

Silk, meanwhile, baselessly asserted that the disease was “man-made” and “engineered,” wondering aloud if there was a “little deep-state action going on behind the scenes.” She also questioned whether the World Health Organization had a “switch” to “turn this virus on and off?”

It's good to see that Fox will draw the line somewhere.

Looks like blacks for Trump is now black for Trump.

[Badger]

It's funny how there is a lot of hate for DeSantis and lots of love for Whitmer, although Florida has less cases and deaths than Michigan even though it has more than double the population of the Wolverine State.

Death counts matter, but they still don't account for the fact that DeSantis is an idiot and Whitmer is not.

Correlation equals causation. Democratic governors cause death.

If we divide the 50 states and DC into tertiles based on deaths per million:

Top 3rd D: (12) NY, NJ, NJ, CT, LA, MI, DC, RI, IL, PA, CO, DE, WA
Top 3rd R: (5) MA, IN, GA, MS, MD

Mid 3rd D: (9) NV, VA, KY, WI, NM, MN, CA, KS, ME
Mid 3rd R: ( VT, OH, OK, FL, MO, NH, AL, AZ

Bottom 3rd D: (4) NC, OR, MT, HI
Bottom 3rd R: (13) IA, SC, ID, NE, TN, TX, ND, WV, AR, UT, AK, WY, SD

Interesting that you didn't even attempt to reply to the responses to your prior post, which of course took your convoluted logic and completely blew it out of the water.

Self quoting: The last resort of scoundrels.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1254900026314293250
If he's telling the truth, he's stupid; if a lie, he's dishonest.  Take your pick.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1254900026314293250
If he's telling the truth, he's stupid; if a lie, he's dishonest.  Take your pick.

So it wasn't just the media that misinterpreted his "jokes" then, eh?

[Calthrina950]

Colorado is now under a stay-at-home advisory/safer-at-home advisory.
Basically, the government is encouraging you to not kill grandma, but isn’t going to make you.
Apparently Polis has decided to join the West-Coast pact, whether that will change anything really remains to be seen.
Today, 26 people have died, which is a slight spike. This could be just backlog considering this appears to be more of an outlier right now. Meanwhile over 13k are officially infected.
On the bright side, Colorado is finally ramping up testing for real. Hopefully that trend continues.

I got back from work today, and it was very busy, even with the capacity restrictions in place. I had an endless flow of customers for the better part of an hour at one point. When walking to and from home, I saw plenty of people about as well. Car traffic was also noticeably heavy, at roughly the volume one would expect in normal times. It seems like large numbers of people decided to come out of the house with the stay-at-home order lifted. One good thing about it is that the majority of people-around 70%, like before-were wearing masks or face coverings, but the substantial minority of non-mask wearers was larger in absolute numbers because of the increase in the numbers of people overall. And there seemed to be slightly more of them than over the weekend.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

My job will reopen when the stay at home order here expires, but we are laying off 25% of our work force as they were hired to do in person tech support and the rest of us will be working from home at least until August

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1254900026314293250
If he's telling the truth, he's stupid; if a lie, he's dishonest.  Take your pick.

How about both?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don’t really see how this can be interpreted as evidence the lockdowns are working.  It’s seems just as likely to me that this is an inevitable consequence of approaching herd immunity, with about 25% of NYC’s population already infected.

If lockdowns worked, this decline would have happened much earlier.

Pandemics die down. People build up immunity, the seasons change, and things change.

Do you literally not understand, or simply refuse to, that the whole point of the lockdown isn't to magically eliminate the virus but to keep the numbers steady so the healthcare system isn't overwhemed?

The goal of the lockdown was to reduce total infections.  That’s what all the models told us would happen. But the models were wrong in many ways.  The models way underestimated the contagion of the virus and overestimated its lethality.  The lockdowns have almost completely failed to turn the spread negative, and by bluntly forcing a one-size-fits-all approach, they have increased the deaths that will result from the virus by failing to better protect the most vulnerable.

That is the exact OPPOSITE of what the models ever told anyone. The models are a function of number of cases over time. The whole point of flattening the curve is to have the same number of cases over a longer time span so that the system is not overwhelmed (see below).



The number of cases under the peak is the same over a longer period of time. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematical functions can understand this. Your understanding of the models is flawed, and so is your argument by derivation.

You can't misinterpret information, assign it a different end game, and then call it a failure because it doesn't fit that interpretation. Please read up more on this information.

Finally, we don't have lockdowns. We have stay at home orders, which are far less restrictive, and a good number of people aren't even following them; there are some of those people even within our own forum community.

You can just glance at this model and see how wrong it was.  The model shows a symmetrical increase and decrease in cases.  That’s not what’s happening in the US, and it is not what’s happening anywhere that’s had a major outbreak.

And if you do believe this model, I guess that means that you accept that at least 70% of the population will end up being uninfected even with restrictions in place indefinitely.  So if it can be shown that the health care system will not be overwhelmed if restrictions are removed, you would be perfectly happy to do this, regardless of how much it would increase infections?

Someone should do a national poll asking the question: Would you support the current restrictions if you they would lead to a 70% chance of you and your family being infected?

"You can just glance at this model and see how wrong it was.  The model shows a symmetrical increase and decrease in cases.  That’s not what’s happening in the US, and it is not what’s happening anywhere that’s had a major outbreak."

Indeed. The model is... a model... not a calculation of what's actually going to happen or is currently happening. It is a model... of a goal that we need to approximate as much as possible.

"And if you do believe this model, I guess that means that you accept that at least 70% of the population will end up being uninfected even with restrictions in place indefinitely."

Yes, the model does say that.

"So if it can be shown that the health care system will not be overwhelmed if restrictions are removed, you would be perfectly happy to do this, regardless of how much it would increase infections?"

Correct. That's the point that health experts and health economists would say: 'okay, we did what we needed to do, and we're good to go.'

"Someone should do a national poll asking the question: Would you support the current restrictions if you they would lead to a 70% chance of you and your family being infected?"

That's not the point of it at all. First of all, the model predicts that about 70% of the population will end up with COVID-19 at some point, but it does not mean that every individual has a 70% chance of being within that 70%. That's a clear misunderstanding of the data.

So the IMHE model predicted that if we implemented restrictions, there would be basically zero deaths after June 1.  How does this square with a very long "flatten the curve" model?  How does this square with 70% of the population getting infected?  Under this scenario and a 0.6% IFR, aren't about a million people going to die regardless?

Maybe we should rephrase the polling question to "Would you support the restrictions if you knew they would not reduce the total number of people infected?"

I really think people believe that the restrictions are eventually going to eradicate the virus and prevent them personally from getting infected.  If they knew the result was that they would still very likely get the virus slightly later, I don't think people's view of them would be the same.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Can we please consider naming the next thread

COVID-19 Megathread 5 : My Body, My Choice

?

Does she think pregnancy is contagious?

Pregnancy usually involves ignoring the guidelines on social distancing and avoiding skin-to-skin contact. 

[Dr. Arch]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 4/27 per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'm keeping track of these updates daily and updating at the end of the day, whenever all states finish reporting for that day.

Δ Change: Day-by-day Growth or Decline or COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.

• IE: Are we flattening the curve enough?

Σ Increase: A day's contribution to overall percentage growth of COVID-19 cases/deaths.

• IE: What's the overall change in the total?

<Last Numbers for 3/26-3/28 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 3/29-4/4 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 4/5-4/11 in this Post>

4/12: <Sunday>

• Cases: 560,323 (+27,444 | Δ Change: ↓10.20% | Σ Increase: ↑5.15%)
• Deaths: 22,108 (+1,531 | Δ Change: ↓17.33% | Σ Increase: ↑7.44%)

4/13:

• Cases: 586,941 (+26,618 | Δ Change: ↓3.01% | Σ Increase: ↑4.75%)
• Deaths: 23,640 (+1,532 | Δ Change: ↑0.07% | Σ Increase: ↑6.93%)

4/14:

• Cases: 613,886 (+26,945 | Δ Change: ↑1.23% | Σ Increase: ↑4.59%)
• Deaths: 26,047 (+2,407 | Δ Change: ↑57.11% | Σ Increase: ↑10.18%)

4/15:

• Cases: 644,089 (+30,203 | Δ Change: ↑12.09% | Σ Increase: ↑4.92%)
• Deaths: 28,529 (+2,482 | Δ Change: ↑3.12% | Σ Increase: ↑9.53%)

4/16: <Missing Older Cases & Deaths Added / Δ Change Calculations Misleading>

• Cases: 677,570 (+33,481 | Σ Increase: ↑5.20%)
• Deaths: 34,617 (+6,088 | Σ Increase: ↑21.34%)

4/17: <Δ Change Calculations Based on 4/15>

• Cases: 709,735 (+32,165 | Δ Change: ↑6.50% | Σ Increase: ↑4.09%)
• Deaths: 37,154 (+2,537 | Δ Change: ↑2.22% | Σ Increase: ↑7.33%)

4/18:

• Cases: 738,830 (+29,095 | Δ Change: ↓9.54% | Σ Increase: ↑4.75%)
• Deaths: 39,014 (+1,860 | Δ Change: ↓26.69% | Σ Increase: ↑5.01%)

4/19: <Sunday>

• Cases: 764,303 (+25,473 | Δ Change: ↓12.45% | Σ Increase: ↑3.45%)
• Deaths: 40,548 (+1,534 | Δ Change: ↓17.53% | Σ Increase: ↑3.93%)

4/20:

• Cases: 792,759 (+28,456 | Δ Change: ↑11.71% | Σ Increase: ↑3.28%)
• Deaths: 42,514 (+1,966 | Δ Change: ↑28.16% | Σ Increase: ↑4.85%)

4/21:

• Cases: 818,744 (+25,985 | Δ Change: ↓8.68% | Σ Increase: ↑3.72%)
• Deaths: 45,318 (+2,804 | Δ Change: ↑42.62% | Σ Increase: ↑6.60%)

4/22:

• Cases: 848,555 (+29,811 | Δ Change: ↑14.72% | Σ Increase: ↑3.64%)
• Deaths: 47,654 (+2,336 | Δ Change: ↓16.69% | Σ Increase: ↑5.15%)

4/23:

• Cases: 880,204 (+31,649 | Δ Change: ↑6.17% | Σ Increase: ↑3.73%)
• Deaths: 49,845 (+2,191 | Δ Change: ↓6.21% | Σ Increase: ↑4.60%)

4/24:

• Cases: 925,038 (+44,834 | Δ Change: ↑41.70% | Σ Increase: ↑5.09%)
• Deaths: 52,185 (+2,340 | Δ Change: ↑6.80% | Σ Increase: ↑4.69%)

4/25:

• Cases: 960,651 (+35,613 | Δ Change: ↓20.57% | Σ Increase: ↑3.85%)
• Deaths: 54,256 (+2,071 | Δ Change: ↓11.50% | Σ Increase: ↑3.97%)

4/26 (Yesterday): <Sunday>

• Cases: 987,160 (+26,509 | Δ Change: ↓25.56% | Σ Increase: ↑2.76%)
• Deaths: 55,413 (+1,157 | Δ Change: ↓44.13% | Σ Increase: ↑2.13%)

4/27 (Today):

• Cases: 1,010,299 (+23,139 | Δ Change: ↓12.71% | Σ Increase: ↑2.34%)
• Deaths: 56,797 (+1,384 | Δ Change: ↑19.62% | Σ Increase: ↑2.50%)

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Cumulative European case and death graphs (5-day weighted averages).  I will caution that Mondays are consistently the day when these averages appear the lowest.

[Calthrina950]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 4/27 per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'm keeping track of these updates daily and updating at the end of the day, whenever all states finish reporting for that day.

Δ Change: Day-by-day Growth or Decline or COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.

• IE: Are we flattening the curve enough?

Σ Increase: A day's contribution to overall percentage growth of COVID-19 cases/deaths.

• IE: What's the overall change in the total?

<Last Numbers for 3/26-3/28 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 3/29-4/4 in this Post>
<Last Numbers for 4/5-4/11 in this Post>

4/12: <Sunday>

• Cases: 560,323 (+27,444 | Δ Change: ↓10.20% | Σ Increase: ↑5.15%)
• Deaths: 22,108 (+1,531 | Δ Change: ↓17.33% | Σ Increase: ↑7.44%)

4/13:

• Cases: 586,941 (+26,618 | Δ Change: ↓3.01% | Σ Increase: ↑4.75%)
• Deaths: 23,640 (+1,532 | Δ Change: ↑0.07% | Σ Increase: ↑6.93%)

4/14:

• Cases: 613,886 (+26,945 | Δ Change: ↑1.23% | Σ Increase: ↑4.59%)
• Deaths: 26,047 (+2,407 | Δ Change: ↑57.11% | Σ Increase: ↑10.18%)

4/15:

• Cases: 644,089 (+30,203 | Δ Change: ↑12.09% | Σ Increase: ↑4.92%)
• Deaths: 28,529 (+2,482 | Δ Change: ↑3.12% | Σ Increase: ↑9.53%)

4/16: <Missing Older Cases & Deaths Added / Δ Change Calculations Misleading>

• Cases: 677,570 (+33,481 | Σ Increase: ↑5.20%)
• Deaths: 34,617 (+6,088 | Σ Increase: ↑21.34%)

4/17: <Δ Change Calculations Based on 4/15>

• Cases: 709,735 (+32,165 | Δ Change: ↑6.50% | Σ Increase: ↑4.09%)
• Deaths: 37,154 (+2,537 | Δ Change: ↑2.22% | Σ Increase: ↑7.33%)

4/18:

• Cases: 738,830 (+29,095 | Δ Change: ↓9.54% | Σ Increase: ↑4.75%)
• Deaths: 39,014 (+1,860 | Δ Change: ↓26.69% | Σ Increase: ↑5.01%)

4/19: <Sunday>

• Cases: 764,303 (+25,473 | Δ Change: ↓12.45% | Σ Increase: ↑3.45%)
• Deaths: 40,548 (+1,534 | Δ Change: ↓17.53% | Σ Increase: ↑3.93%)

4/20:

• Cases: 792,759 (+28,456 | Δ Change: ↑11.71% | Σ Increase: ↑3.28%)
• Deaths: 42,514 (+1,966 | Δ Change: ↑28.16% | Σ Increase: ↑4.85%)

4/21:

• Cases: 818,744 (+25,985 | Δ Change: ↓8.68% | Σ Increase: ↑3.72%)
• Deaths: 45,318 (+2,804 | Δ Change: ↑42.62% | Σ Increase: ↑6.60%)

4/22:

• Cases: 848,555 (+29,811 | Δ Change: ↑14.72% | Σ Increase: ↑3.64%)
• Deaths: 47,654 (+2,336 | Δ Change: ↓16.69% | Σ Increase: ↑5.15%)

4/23:

• Cases: 880,204 (+31,649 | Δ Change: ↑6.17% | Σ Increase: ↑3.73%)
• Deaths: 49,845 (+2,191 | Δ Change: ↓6.21% | Σ Increase: ↑4.60%)

4/24:

• Cases: 925,038 (+44,834 | Δ Change: ↑41.70% | Σ Increase: ↑5.09%)
• Deaths: 52,185 (+2,340 | Δ Change: ↑6.80% | Σ Increase: ↑4.69%)

4/25:

• Cases: 960,651 (+35,613 | Δ Change: ↓20.57% | Σ Increase: ↑3.85%)
• Deaths: 54,256 (+2,071 | Δ Change: ↓11.50% | Σ Increase: ↑3.97%)

4/26 (Yesterday): <Sunday>

• Cases: 987,160 (+26,509 | Δ Change: ↓25.56% | Σ Increase: ↑2.76%)
• Deaths: 55,413 (+1,157 | Δ Change: ↓44.13% | Σ Increase: ↑2.13%)

4/27 (Today):

• Cases: 1,010,299 (+23,139 | Δ Change: ↓12.71% | Σ Increase: ↑2.34%)
• Deaths: 56,797 (+1,384 | Δ Change: ↑19.62% | Σ Increase: ↑2.50%)

We've now officially crossed the 1 million case mark, but it does seem like the increase in the number of deaths has declined somewhat over the past weeks.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

There's the Sunday-Monday slump

[Tintrlvr]

I don’t really see how this can be interpreted as evidence the lockdowns are working.  It’s seems just as likely to me that this is an inevitable consequence of approaching herd immunity, with about 25% of NYC’s population already infected.

If lockdowns worked, this decline would have happened much earlier.

Pandemics die down. People build up immunity, the seasons change, and things change.

Do you literally not understand, or simply refuse to, that the whole point of the lockdown isn't to magically eliminate the virus but to keep the numbers steady so the healthcare system isn't overwhemed?

The goal of the lockdown was to reduce total infections.  That’s what all the models told us would happen. But the models were wrong in many ways.  The models way underestimated the contagion of the virus and overestimated its lethality.  The lockdowns have almost completely failed to turn the spread negative, and by bluntly forcing a one-size-fits-all approach, they have increased the deaths that will result from the virus by failing to better protect the most vulnerable.

That is the exact OPPOSITE of what the models ever told anyone. The models are a function of number of cases over time. The whole point of flattening the curve is to have the same number of cases over a longer time span so that the system is not overwhelmed (see below).



The number of cases under the peak is the same over a longer period of time. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematical functions can understand this. Your understanding of the models is flawed, and so is your argument by derivation.

You can't misinterpret information, assign it a different end game, and then call it a failure because it doesn't fit that interpretation. Please read up more on this information.

Finally, we don't have lockdowns. We have stay at home orders, which are far less restrictive, and a good number of people aren't even following them; there are some of those people even within our own forum community.

You can just glance at this model and see how wrong it was.  The model shows a symmetrical increase and decrease in cases.  That’s not what’s happening in the US, and it is not what’s happening anywhere that’s had a major outbreak.

And if you do believe this model, I guess that means that you accept that at least 70% of the population will end up being uninfected even with restrictions in place indefinitely.  So if it can be shown that the health care system will not be overwhelmed if restrictions are removed, you would be perfectly happy to do this, regardless of how much it would increase infections?

Someone should do a national poll asking the question: Would you support the current restrictions if you they would lead to a 70% chance of you and your family being infected?

"You can just glance at this model and see how wrong it was.  The model shows a symmetrical increase and decrease in cases.  That’s not what’s happening in the US, and it is not what’s happening anywhere that’s had a major outbreak."

Indeed. The model is... a model... not a calculation of what's actually going to happen or is currently happening. It is a model... of a goal that we need to approximate as much as possible.

"And if you do believe this model, I guess that means that you accept that at least 70% of the population will end up being uninfected even with restrictions in place indefinitely."

Yes, the model does say that.

"So if it can be shown that the health care system will not be overwhelmed if restrictions are removed, you would be perfectly happy to do this, regardless of how much it would increase infections?"

Correct. That's the point that health experts and health economists would say: 'okay, we did what we needed to do, and we're good to go.'

"Someone should do a national poll asking the question: Would you support the current restrictions if you they would lead to a 70% chance of you and your family being infected?"

That's not the point of it at all. First of all, the model predicts that about 70% of the population will end up with COVID-19 at some point, but it does not mean that every individual has a 70% chance of being within that 70%. That's a clear misunderstanding of the data.

So the IMHE model predicted that if we implemented restrictions, there would be basically zero deaths after June 1.  How does this square with a very long "flatten the curve" model?  How does this square with 70% of the population getting infected?  Under this scenario and a 0.6% IFR, aren't about a million people going to die regardless?

Maybe we should rephrase the polling question to "Would you support the restrictions if you knew they would not reduce the total number of people infected?"

I really think people believe that the restrictions are eventually going to eradicate the virus and prevent them personally from getting infected.  If they knew the result was that they would still very likely get the virus slightly later, I don't think people's view of them would be the same.

Absolutely true. And then there are people who openly talk, both here and elsewhere, about lockdowns persisting until there is a vaccine, or until there is a clearly established medical regimen and death rates drop, or until other such benchmarks. That's not flattening the curve.

There's no doubt that the original point was to "flatten the curve": not reduce the overall number of cases, just spread them out over time. There's equally no doubt that the ongoing decision to persist in the current policy is not driven by flattening the curve (or at least, by what was originally meant by flattening the curve) but rather by a public belief that the virus will be eliminated. "Defeat the virus" is the current slogan. It's true that the lockdowns proved "too" effective for flattening the curve; they aren't just flattening the curve, they're driving the curve downward. But the belief seems to be that the lockdowns can defeat the virus. The experts don't seem to think so, and so the lockdowns are just prolonging the inevitable with extra pain (and making it take longer, for no medical benefit, as compared to more measured approaches that would actually flatten, instead of temporarily invert, the curve).

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It's eerie how this map of coordinated state efforts could just as easily be a map of alliances during the breakup of the United States:

Simultaneously, we have this:
https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1254925775553171456