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

[emailking]

Working at Target I can tell you that we have strict limits on essential items now, panic buying has pretty much been banned. I can tell you this cause I’ve been verbally harassed and berated over the past few weeks upholding them. But guess what? Those customers can get f**ked. Done being polite.

Besides toilet paper and cleaning supplies, what are people trying to hoard?

Why is the Supreme Court cancelling oral arguments?  There is absolutely no legal or practical impediment to holding these remotely. 

We shouldn’t be using the virus as a an excuse to suspend the regular and essential functions of our government, especially those functions that uphold the basis rights of citizens.

The oral arguments are mostly just jockeying between the justices anyway. They've already read the briefs and spend most of the time asking questions. Their minds are usually made up already. Plus, they're looking at options for holding arguments for some of the cases.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/dataeditor/status/1246583417266987009

[emailking]

Yet another day in a row where the percentage increase in new cases was less than the day before (and testing is up again).  It wouldn't surprise me we're approaching the peak of new cases in the next couple days (the peak of active cases and deaths would follow a couple weeks behind), and we can start on the downward part of this curve by next week.

Bottom line is that I am confident that most business will reopen on May 1st.

The more cases that have piled up, the harder it is to get a percentage increase. Yeah I guess this is better than daily percentage increases. But the number of cases is still accelerating. We're not peaking.

[emailking]

Its the same at the Wal-Mart I work at. Strict limits on most everything, and now with the restrictions on foot traffic to maintain social distancing, I think panic buying is dead.

How are the limits enforced with self checkout?

[emailking]

Also, people are eating more because they're home all the time. What goes in must come out.

[emailking]

does blaming the coronavirus or the flu (or anything else) for the death of someone who would have died in a few days from a severe underlying illness make sense? 

Yes.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1246909791680770050

Flattened? It's gotten steeper. Yes it's not accelerating as much, that's not flattening. I hope he just had a brain fart here.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1246909791680770050

Flattened? It's gotten steeper. Yes it's not accelerating as much, that's not flattening. I hope he just had a brain fart here.

"Not accelerating as much" is flattening.  You'll never see decreasing numbers of total cases/deaths, only flattening.

I hope you just had a brain fart here.

Flattening would be fewer cases per day. That wasn't happening in recent days. Cases/day had an increasing slope.

[emailking]

Sure it might be flattened on the chart of infections/day but it's not something we can know.

[emailking]

So the rate of new diagnoses has slowed everyday since 03/27 despite the steady improvements in testing availability?

If by that you mean the 3rd derivative of cases vs. days has been negative, yes.

[emailking]

You could have a constant number of new cases each day, and that percentage increase would be going down.

Due to consistent sub-exponential growth, we have an increase in case numbers whilst having a drop in case % growth.

Case % growth is therefore not a useful indicator under these circumstances.

What would be the preferred metric?

I like seeing your metrics actually. I think some people are reading in to them more than they should, but the numbers are what they are.

[emailking]

Anthropomorphizing the virus bothers me. (Trump is doing it too, although maybe he actually believes it.) The virus doesn't know it exists. It's not evil, or an enemy, and it doesn't learn anything. Its mutation is random chance. We don't talk this way about opioids, for example. They're doing a lot of harm too.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/AndyShain/status/1247258999239708676

There are now 7 states left, I think?

The Governors dragging their feet on this is the reason that the lockdowns are gonna end up lasting way longer than they had to.

Thankfully our government acted swiftly when there were still a handful of cases and now we are doing pretty good. There is even word that by June we may see a considerable relaxation of the lockdown.

In America there's a 99% chance the lockdown is going to flat out end before June. How bad is it there!?

I think it will mostly end by then but I don't know about 99% chance.

[emailking]

I think it is now reasonable to conclude that the -exponential- growth period of the virus, or at least the first wave of it, is now over.  It may still be growing, but it definitely seems like the rate of that growth, at least expressed as a percentage, is slowing.

USA as a whole has been sub exponential for like a week. We'll see in the coming days if it's actually flattening or not.

[emailking]

U.S Deaths today are at 1,821

Holy crap...

http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

This is within the range predicted. It's expected to be pretty bad for the next 21 days. How bad depends on what we do personally with our interactions, how hospitals can treat the infected, and what kind of peak or plateau we have.

The peak or plateau depends on the deaths, not vice versa.

[emailking]

U.S Deaths today are at 1,821

Holy crap...

http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

This is within the range predicted. It's expected to be pretty bad for the next 21 days. How bad depends on what we do personally with our interactions, how hospitals can treat the infected, and what kind of peak or plateau we have.

The peak or plateau depends on the deaths, not vice versa.

We're talking about deaths, so what's you point?

Interactions and hospitals are causes of the deaths. Peak & plateau are descriptions of the deaths, not causes.

[emailking]

Sorry.

[emailking]

Data as of Apr. 8 at 4:03 a.m


https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/


Cases:

Worldometers says over 33,000 cases yesterday. What explains the discrepancy?

[emailking]

4/8 (Today):

• Cases: 434,698 (+34,761 | Δ Change: ↑2.77% | Σ Increase: ↑8.69%)
• Deaths: 14,787 (+1,974 | Δ Change: ↑1.02% | Σ Increase: ↑15.41%)

Looks like new records today for both cases and deaths.

[emailking]

4/8 (Today):

• Cases: 434,698 (+34,761 | Δ Change: ↑2.77% | Σ Increase: ↑8.69%)
• Deaths: 14,787 (+1,974 | Δ Change: ↑1.02% | Σ Increase: ↑15.41%)

Looks like new records today for both cases and deaths.

At the risk of being semantic, isn't that a given for every new day?

In the last week there's been more jumping around.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/jacobbogage/status/1248323451196248071

What percentage of Americans go to games anyway?  Plus, people are viewing it from the prism of today, not the prism of the coronavirus landscape when these events happen.

But, regardless, I'm in the minority of people who will have no hesitation about doing anything I normally would.  I'm not scared of this virus.

Nor remotely "scared" about potentially infecting countless other people with your recklessness.

As best I can tell your motivation is something about owning the libs. Truly awe-inspiring.

Please don't assume my motivations for anything.  A German study based on antibodies just concluded that this has a 0.37% fatality rate.  That's slightly worse than the flu, but not bad enough to justify keeping society shut down.  If people think that they are uniquely predisposed, they should be able to make personal decisions to self-quarantine past when it's no longer mandatory.  But all I said is that I'm going to go on living my life the day the government says I can and won't continue to isolate myself.  I'm not sure how that's controversial.

This has nothing to do with "owning the libs" (I've actually been following this since January and was told by friends that it was no big deal six weeks before everything shut down).  I can recognize that this is an extremely contagious virus but also that it's not a particularly deadly one.

It's not just about the death rate though. This overwhlemed the hospitals in Lombardy. It overhwlemed the hospitals in NYC. I said this before and you didn't say anything.

[emailking]

So cold weather makes for more infectious people for the flu.

But the main reason is that most viruses don't like humid air. If you were made of a thin lipid casing, you probably would not like hot humid conditions either.

That is why we have a flu season. In cold weather, the lipid coating of the flu remains intact more.

How does it remain intact in the 100 deg body? That's what I don't get about these temperature arguments. The UV index explanation makes more sense.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/kellyswails/status/1248606674195230720

It's like the people who complained when nothing happened on Y2K.

[emailking]

I guess because it's not fair to other stores that sell those products but have to shut down because they don't sell the products that allow Home Depot to remain open.

[emailking]

I guess because it's not fair to other stores that sell those products but have to shut down because they don't sell the products that allow Home Depot to remain open.

That seems like tortured logic for what's on its face a pretty silly policy.

That the other stores have to close or that HD can't sell its full inventory?