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

[Tintrlvr]

Not directly related to US, but a huge deal if true: Now there are reports the first Covid19 case in France could be dating back to November 2019. For reference, the PRC informed WHO on December 31. Haven't seen US media picking this up yet, but if confirmed, we may be talking about a much earlier spread in the US and elsewhere.

I've been saying this for a while, I don't know if it was like this where you guys live but here, EVERYONE was sick like constantly between November and mid-late January. Like, it seemed like everyone I knew (including my wife and myself) got sick with weird respiratory sh**t back during the winter, and everyone I know who went to the doctor for it said they tested for the flu but it wasn't the flu, just "unknown upper respiratory infection" was the diagnosis.

I really think this has been going around longer than people realize, and everyone was fine.

Maybe....or it could have been one of thousands of viruses which cause upper respiratory infections.
Considering the sudden spikes in mortality in known Covid hotspots, I don’t think this is as likely as people say. There certainly may have been some transmission earlier than we thought, but I doubt most Americans have had Covid.
Of course, as usual I hope you are right.

Yeah, I've heard that there may have been cases in Italy in like October 2019, but I don't believe it. Otherwise the pandemic would have escalated a lot earlier. Sometimes the simple and boring theory-that the pandemic did actually start in late December 2019 in China-is accurate.

We do have confirmation I think on the early December case in France. Assuming that's right, it did arrive in Europe very early on, which doesn't rule out it originating in Wuhan in November, of course. A confirmed October case in Europe obviously would change the story of the epidemic considerably.

[Tintrlvr]

The new positives rate (as a percentage of tests performed) in New York dropped below 10% for the first time since March 8 (when there were only 307 tests and 22 positives) today. Progress continues to be made here.

It dropped again today (tests went up, positive results went down). Given the trajectory, we may be looking at a positives rate as low as 5% in New York by next weekend.

[Tintrlvr]

New York had an excellent reporting day today. At 1,660 new cases, it's the first day below 2,000 new cases since March 19, and a new low since March in the positives rate as well at 7.7% (down from 7.8% yesterday). And the number of deaths fell to 162, the first day below 200 deaths since March 27.

[Tintrlvr]

Haven't really researched it tbh, but is there any actual proof that the virus is significantly reduced in warm weather? I mean, the thing is spreading just fine in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru for instance.

Yes, just look at South Africa and Australia, and to an extent India. Also, look at how well several southern states are doing (Florida, Texas, Georgia, Alabama) compared to their governor's loose strategies.

Does anyone have "US minus New York" numbers? It seems like New York being through the worst of it is accounting for most or all of the decline in new cases.

It’s not just New York, things in NJ, LA, and MI are looking positive. That being said, smaller states are seeing substantial case growth and need to be monitored.
(This is why we should have had an actual quarantine of the NYC metro)

Testing is surging, cases p/d are probably going to continue to increase while the testing surges, the actual amount of cases p/d is declining almost everywhere. The only acceptable metric is percent of positives, which is declining everywhere.

Is India really a success story?  It seems like infections there are just starting to explode, despite the country implementing a pretty strict lockdown relatively early.

And Singapore, another tropical country, after early success containing the virus, now has one of the highest infection rates per capita globally despite pretty strict controls, although it has a thankfully low death rate so far. The evidence is really not there that warm, moist weather provides much benefit.

[Tintrlvr]

Today is a really bad day for testing

Day isn't even over yet.

Ok and? Every state is significantly down

New York is way up on testing compared to yesterday (but the positive rate is down). Of course, New York has had a cyclical pattern since mid-April of having anomalously few tests reported on Mondays and Tuesdays compared to every other day of the week, but today is still in line with other non-Monday/Tuesday days in terms of number of tests.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/i/events/1219057585707315201

I guess no more international travel, forever.

🙄

There will eventually be a vaccine or new anti-virals that will help with this.

The WHO has a clear agenda of decreasing morale, it’s just apparent at this point.

Nah, they are just acting like tone-deaf scientists. They warn it may never go away because there will almost certainly be some lingering outbreaks in less developed regions/among anti-vaxxer nuts kinda like somewhere in between Measles and Polio. The problem is, the WHO is completely tone-deaf and doesn’t understand saying things like these scares people who take the words out of context.

I know it sounds tone deaf. But trust me, as someone who’s spent the last two years being taught by microbiologists and virologists, it’s our duty to warn about all the likely outcomes, especially the bleaker ones. Even when talking about their own research area, it’s always couched in hypotheticals and somber warnings.

It’s one of the things they bake into you as a student: be aware of all the worst case scenarios that could arise from your research, and include them in your write up.

Most of these guys aren’t scaremongering, they see it as their ethical responsibility to present and discuss the worst case scenario.  

Yeah, this is totally wrong. Yes, it's certainly the media's fault for reporting these sorts of "may" statements of a 1% or 5% probability result as if they are guaranteed facts, but it's not as if the scientists aren't aware that they are making statements that will be picked up by the media--at this point, they are often statements made directly to the media! It's those scientists' duty to couch their words in precise ways that actually express what they mean. "May have X result" is not saying what they mean in a precise and easily understandable manner for non-scientists. They need to say things like "There is a small chance that...", "We believe there is approximately 5% chance of..." or similar types of phrasing. Anything else is irresponsibly overstating the negative downside scenarios and results in apocalyptic thinking and reporting.

[Tintrlvr]

The new positives rate (as a percentage of tests performed) in New York dropped below 10% for the first time since March 8 (when there were only 307 tests and 22 positives) today. Progress continues to be made here.

It dropped again today (tests went up, positive results went down). Given the trajectory, we may be looking at a positives rate as low as 5% in New York by next weekend.

Just to follow up on this, the positive rate in NY dropped to 6.0% (actually 5.99%) today, so we may actually see the 5% positive rate I forecast as possible (but maybe optimistic) by this weekend within the next few days.

Incidentally, this means NY's positive rate is now significantly lower than the nation today (it was in line with the nation yesterday).

[Tintrlvr]

France has "neutralized" the virus? They're still reporting a few hundred new cases a day (with a terrible and very limited testing regime so they are inevitably missing more cases than most countries) and an average of close to a hundred deaths a day. That's not neutralized.

[Tintrlvr]

France has "neutralized" the virus? They're still reporting a few hundred new cases a day (with a terrible and very limited testing regime so they are inevitably missing more cases than most countries) and an average of close to a hundred deaths a day. That's not neutralized.

It's bottomed out and it hasn't gone back up, I would say that's neutralized.

Then why isn't Italy or Spain labeled as "neutralized"? In any event, surely countries like Australia, China and South Korea where the virus is nearly eradicated are in a different category from countries like France where it is still spreading, albeit at a much lower rate than in the past.

[Tintrlvr]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/14/trump-pence-coronavirus-258299

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany revealed Thursday there is no procedure in place to facilitate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ascension to the presidency should President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence become incapacitated by the coronavirus.

After one of Trump's personal valets, Pence's press secretary and Stephen Miller's wife all tested positive last week...we probably should be think about a President Pelosi, a President Grassley, or more realistically (as both Pelosi and Grassley are both 80+) a President Pompeo (he's 56, and relatively healthy).

Shouldn't our President be trying to keep possible successors (Biden doesn't count, as he might lose in November) aware of what is going on so that if something happens effective continuity of government is maintained?

Besides being morbid, this is exceptionally silly.  Even among those age 80+, the IFR of the virus is only around 10%.  

Right. Assume for everyone involved there’s a 20% chance of getting sick and then a 10% chance of dying if they get sick. That’s a 2% chance of President Pence, an 0.04% chance of President Pelosi and a 0.0008% chance of President Grassley right now. Not even worth getting into Pompeo.

[Tintrlvr]

Unfortunately, the positives rate went up slightly in NY today, though it is still, at 7.0%, in line with the nation and well below 10%. The positives rate is also below 10% in every downstate county except the Bronx, which saw a bit of a spike today but has been below 10% on other days in the recent past.

The number of deaths dropped to a new low of 134 since March 27 (which also had 134 deaths). Testing is also basically the same as yesterday, which makes today and yesterday the second- and third-highest testing days so far (there was a huge dump of test results on April 24 for some reason, possibly a backlogged lab).

[Tintrlvr]

Ugh, New York is reporting 190 deaths today compared to just 41 last Sunday.  California reporting 53 today compared to 26 last Sunday.  We are already nearing the nationwide death totals from last Sunday, and Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan all have yet to report anything.  Perhaps any optimism about a longer term decline was premature.

Not sure where you are getting the NY numbers. NY reported 141 deaths today (second-lowest since March, after this past Friday at 134) against 207 last Sunday.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/i/events/1219057585707315201

I guess no more international travel, forever.

🙄

There will eventually be a vaccine or new anti-virals that will help with this.

The WHO has a clear agenda of decreasing morale, it’s just apparent at this point.

Nah, they are just acting like tone-deaf scientists. They warn it may never go away because there will almost certainly be some lingering outbreaks in less developed regions/among anti-vaxxer nuts kinda like somewhere in between Measles and Polio. The problem is, the WHO is completely tone-deaf and doesn’t understand saying things like these scares people who take the words out of context.

I know it sounds tone deaf. But trust me, as someone who’s spent the last two years being taught by microbiologists and virologists, it’s our duty to warn about all the likely outcomes, especially the bleaker ones. Even when talking about their own research area, it’s always couched in hypotheticals and somber warnings.

It’s one of the things they bake into you as a student: be aware of all the worst case scenarios that could arise from your research, and include them in your write up.

Most of these guys aren’t scaremongering, they see it as their ethical responsibility to present and discuss the worst case scenario.  

Yeah, this is totally wrong. Yes, it's certainly the media's fault for reporting these sorts of "may" statements of a 1% or 5% probability result as if they are guaranteed facts, but it's not as if the scientists aren't aware that they are making statements that will be picked up by the media--at this point, they are often statements made directly to the media! It's those scientists' duty to couch their words in precise ways that actually express what they mean. "May have X result" is not saying what they mean in a precise and easily understandable manner for non-scientists. They need to say things like "There is a small chance that...", "We believe there is approximately 5% chance of..." or similar types of phrasing. Anything else is irresponsibly overstating the negative downside scenarios and results in apocalyptic thinking and reporting.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there.
Scientists are already working to pare down complex concepts and findings for the public's benefit. It's not their fault if the public can't be bothered to read past a sensationalist headline.

The real enemy here isn't researchers in the life sciences (who are, by all accounts, worked off their feet right now), it's widespread scientific illiteracy and bravado, that leads members of the public to assert that they understand this crisis better than experts like Dr Fauci.

Hey, the media is much more terrible. But scientists have to be ready to be misinterpreted by the media and adjust accordingly. In particular, they should actually be more precise: "May" is a particularly perniciously vague word that should be excised from their vocabulary when speaking to the public because clearly scientists and the public have a very different conception of what it means. (Scientists: "may" means any odds over 0.1%; The Public: "may" means maybe a 25%-50% chance of happening.)

[Tintrlvr]

Ugh, New York is reporting 190 deaths today compared to just 41 last Sunday.  California reporting 53 today compared to 26 last Sunday.  We are already nearing the nationwide death totals from last Sunday, and Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan all have yet to report anything.  Perhaps any optimism about a longer term decline was premature.

Not sure where you are getting the NY numbers. NY reported 141 deaths today (second-lowest since March, after this past Friday at 134) against 207 last Sunday.

It shows up on the Worldometers site:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Close to 91,000 deaths as of today, and it looks probable that we will reach 100,000 by Memorial Day. 

Worldometers isn't as good as reporting this stuff as the states themselves. Don't rely on them for state-by-state data.

[Tintrlvr]

Today, New York hit a new low in new reported cases (1,250) since March 18, a new low in new deaths (110) since March 16, and a new low in the positives rate (4.8%) since, as far as I can tell, March 2 (the last day no new positive cases were reported in NY at all). Overall an excellent result and a sign of continued progress here.

Also, while New York has continued to show a weekly cycle in reported tests (consistently lower on Mondays and Tuesdays than other days of the week), the number of tests reported today was by far the highest number of tests reported on a Monday, comparable to the non-Monday/Tuesday daily testing at the end of April, and the dropping and record low positives rate gives further confidence that that the new low in cases is meaningful and not a result of a drop in tests.

[Tintrlvr]

414k tests today, 21,600 new cases today - 5.2% positive rate

New York's positive rate today was just 4.0%, for what it's worth.

[Tintrlvr]

414k tests today, 21,600 new cases today - 5.2% positive rate

New York's positive rate today was just 4.0%, for what it's worth.

I wonder if the herd immunity threshold is a lot lower than we thought. Michigan was another early hot spot, and now its positive rate is really low too. Same for some other early hot spots. I think Rhode Island is another.

Rhode Island never actually was a hotspot of cases, they just had way, way more testing than any other state (almost by an order of magnitude) so caught a larger percentage of their cases.

It does seem a bit surprising, given predictions, how quickly things have fallen off in New York. But the hints about exposure to other coronaviruses maybe causing immunity might explain things a bit if a large portion of the population was actually immune to begin with because they had a coronavirus-induced cold within the last couple of years.

[Tintrlvr]

New York had a new record of number of tests today (49,219), surpassing the previous high on April 24 when the state dumped the result of many backlogged tests. This resulted in a slight increase in the number of positive results (to 2,088) compared to recent days, but the positive rate (4.2%) remains at a near record low (higher only than yesterday's 4.0% since the beginning of the outbreak). Deaths fell to a new record low since March (107).

New York City is pushing to be conducting 60,000 tests a day by the beginning of June, and that doesn't even include tests elsewhere in New York state, and today's high test number is indicative of that push.

[Tintrlvr]

What to make of this? To stem the worsening pandemic, the California Department of Public Health has temporarily banned singing and chanting in places of worship: https://krdo.com/news/national-world/2020/07/03/with-a-worsening-pandemic-california-bans-singing-in-places-of-worship/. Is this an overreach of government? Or is this an appropriate public health measure? What are we to say about it?

Ridiculous, as these same officials have no problems with "chanting" that happens at BLM protests

It's indoor vs. outdoor. You could have your church choir outdoors, and you can't protest indoors.