COVID-19 Megathread 4: Grandma Got Run Over by the Dow Jones

[Tintrlvr]

Turning central park into a graveyard seems like something out of a SciFi movie.  Surely they can find something to do with the bodies that's less damaging to morale?

Well they could use private facilities, but that would either require paying massive rent to the landlords or possessing the space without paying an insane amount. The former would be unwise during a recession while the latter would be decried as socialism and thus rejected by the handlers of NYC, NY State, the US, and beyond. They’re really stuck in a jar of cowardice.

They'd probably use Hart Island (which is already where unclaimed corpses are buried in NYC) if it came to it. "Burying bodies in parks" is a stupid way to describe that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island_(Bronx)

[Tintrlvr]

Turning central park into a graveyard seems like something out of a SciFi movie.  Surely they can find something to do with the bodies that's less damaging to morale?

Well they could use private facilities, but that would either require paying massive rent to the landlords or possessing the space without paying an insane amount. The former would be unwise during a recession while the latter would be decried as socialism and thus rejected by the handlers of NYC, NY State, the US, and beyond. They’re really stuck in a jar of cowardice.

They'd probably use Hart Island (which is already where unclaimed corpses are buried in NYC) if it came to it. "Burying bodies in parks" is a stupid way to describe that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island_(Bronx)

They probably will in the end, but they’ll be stuck in the same conundrum once the bodies overflow there. I wonder if we could see large cremation operations going underway, with and without consent.

There are literally over a million bodies buried on Hart Island, with room for hundreds of thousands if not millions more. There is no possible way they would run out of space there.

[Tintrlvr]

NYC vs. the rest of the country (including SF which also has high public transit commuting, dense housing, and a large homeless population and is rather amazingly doing fine) makes me wonder if closing schools might be the single most important intervention?  Japan closed schools very early and while they are having some issues now (2nd wave?), they seem to be doing very well vs. the free world average.  

One relevant point to consider when talking about density is that the highest concentrations in the NY area are not in NYC on a per capita basis, but rather in Westchester and Rockland Counties north of the city, followed by Nassau County, and only then by the Bronx and Queens. Even within the city, the per capita rate doesn't follow density; Manhattan is by far the densest borough but has the lowest per capita rate of the five boroughs and is lower than multiple suburban counties (those mentioned above and also Orange and Suffolk Counties and Bergen County, NJ, which all also have higher per capita rates than Brooklyn).

This all suggests that NYC's severe outbreak relative to other cities is mostly down to bad luck (perhaps some early super-spreader cases) rather than density.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1247598876472872960

WTF? That's a very high number.

It could be even worse, or somewhat better.  There's a wide confidence interval (95% CI 3.8–8.9) in their calculations.

Still, an R0 of 5+ would mean almost instantaneous spread to everyone. Either the vast majority of cases are very mild or asymptomatic and just haven't been detected (and the curve is flattening not because of lockdowns but because the virus is reaching saturation) or that figure is way, way off. You wouldn't be able to control a disease like that with soft lockdowns where people were still going to the grocery store.

[Tintrlvr]

NYC vs. the rest of the country (including SF which also has high public transit commuting, dense housing, and a large homeless population and is rather amazingly doing fine) makes me wonder if closing schools might be the single most important intervention?  Japan closed schools very early and while they are having some issues now (2nd wave?), they seem to be doing very well vs. the free world average.  

One relevant point to consider when talking about density is that the highest concentrations in the NY area are not in NYC on a per capita basis, but rather in Westchester and Rockland Counties north of the city, followed by Nassau County, and only then by the Bronx and Queens. Even within the city, the per capita rate doesn't follow density; Manhattan is by far the densest borough but has the lowest per capita rate of the five boroughs and is lower than multiple suburban counties (those mentioned above and also Orange and Suffolk Counties and Bergen County, NJ, which all also have higher per capita rates than Brooklyn).

This all suggests that NYC's severe outbreak relative to other cities is mostly down to bad luck (perhaps some early super-spreader cases) rather than density.

Just to restate this point: a map, cases per capita in the NYC area by county. (I believe the figures are cases per 10,000.) This is as of Sunday.

It's a suburban virus more than anything.

[Tintrlvr]

Paging #TSA -- I've officially lost my sense of smell. 

Surprisingly late - most people who reported a loss of smell seemed to report it as the first symptom, or around the time of developing a cough or mild fever at the beginning. I even know a few friends in NYC (not tested positive obviously) who have not shown any symptoms except a total loss of smell and taste, which is so rare a symptom otherwise that it just has to be coronavirus.

[Tintrlvr]

Paging #TSA -- I've officially lost my sense of smell. 

Surprisingly late - most people who reported a loss of smell seemed to report it as the first symptom, or around the time of developing a cough or mild fever at the beginning. I even know a few friends in NYC (not tested positive obviously) who have not shown any symptoms except a total loss of smell and taste, which is so rare a symptom otherwise that it just has to be coronavirus.

I get the sense that my case has been somewhat atypical.  But whatever the order of the symptoms, I can't wait to be healthy again. 

I hope you've been feeling better in other ways recently!

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/shadihamid/status/1248664536078483462

It’s bit disingenuous not to be comparing their death rates to Italy, Spain, France, UK, etc. The reason they aren’t is because it would ruin the narrative...

[Tintrlvr]

It’s pretty shocking how high Italy’s death/cases rate remains considering they have now tested a greater proportion of their population than any other large country.  

I though the reason people cited for Germany’s low death rate was that they were testing more and thus uncovering more asymptomatic cases.  But Italy has slightly more per capita test, about 60% more per capita positive cases, and an almost 10x per capita death rate.  

Italy *still* has a positive test rate of around 25%. That means that there are a ton of positive cases not being tested in Italy. Italy's actual total infections are at least as high as the reported cases in the U.S.,* i.e., approaching 600,000, but possibly as high as 1 million+.

*U.S. reported cases are of course also an underestimate of total U.S. cases, which are at least 1 million but possibly closer to 2 million.

[Tintrlvr]

Italy *still* has a positive test rate of around 25%. That means that there are a ton of positive cases not being tested in Italy. Italy's actual total infections are at least as high as the reported cases in the U.S.,* i.e., approaching 600,000, but possibly as high as 1 million+.

Also if i'm agree there are tons of positives not tested, your positive test rate for Italy is wrong
positive test rate
14th April tests 26,779, positives 2,972, rate 11%
13th April tests 36,717, positives 3,153, rate 9%
12th April tests 46,720, positives 4,092, rate 9%
11th April tests 56,609, positives 4,694, rate 8%
10th April tests 53,495, positives 3,951, rate 7%
9th  April tests 46,244, positives 4,204 , rate 9%
8th April  tests 51,670, positives 3,836, rate 7%

Maybe I saw something outdated - apologies.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/status/1250395628305362944

Absolutely incredible how frequently people in this administration are able to use blatant untruths to rally people around their flag without being laughed out of public life.

I know this is a trope at this point but nobody in the Obama administration (and nobody in a hypothetical Biden administration) would ever say something this idiotic.

Yes, she’s factually inaccurate, but overall correct. There have been many other Covid viruses, so one could firmly deduce that we could learn from the other Covid diseases. The left playing “gotcha” games is just stupid.

Hmmmm... Let’s try replacing ”World Health Organization” with “Trump administration” in her statement. The WHO didn’t defund its pandemic response unit two years ago, after all.

[Tintrlvr]

The US had 5k deaths yesterday alone ?

That are Italy-, or Spain- or UK levels ...

~3,700 were the "suspected COVID" deaths NYC noted a few days ago. The daily deaths from cases that tested positive were in line with previous days.

[Tintrlvr]

NY had the lowest number of new cases today since March 25. A little bit of weekend effect maybe but of course much lower than previous Sundays, too.

[Tintrlvr]

And especially given that antibodies aren't actually providing any immunity.

Some people have been passing this around, and in reality it's just alarmist propaganda. In SK, 2% of COVID cases reactivated after people tested negative, but there's no evidence that you can actually re-contract the virus.

And those could have just been false negative tests to begin with. The false negative rate is pretty high, so even with a second confirmatory test, 2% false negative is not unsurprising.

[Tintrlvr]

NY had the lowest number of new cases today since March 25. A little bit of weekend effect maybe but of course much lower than previous Sundays, too.

Comparing to the same day in the previous week helps to remove day-of-week reporting irregularities, so this is encouraging.  If the same trend holds up for a few days (i.e. tomorrow is less than last Monday, etc.) it will be a strong sign that NY has indeed passed the peak.

Agreed. NY also reported only 507 deaths today, which is the lowest number of daily deaths since April 2 (again, significantly down from the past two Sundays).