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

[emailking]

Let's assume that this trend continues for another day. There will be 9 tests with 5000% positivity the next day.

Are you familiar with the expression GIGO? Garbage In, Garbage Out.

That's your model you're throwing garbage into. There's no reason to think the trend will continue or that it would continue at a linear rate of increase.

There is no trend.

So then no reason to assume the trend will continue.

[Person Man]

BBC: New swine flu strain with pandemic potential found in China.

I really hate this year.

How often do they find these things? Maybe the fact they know its already here means nothing will come of it?

[Brittain33]

BBC: New swine flu strain with pandemic potential found in China.

I really hate this year.

Hopefully all the lockdowns and travel shutdowns we have in place for COVID will also keep this flu controlled.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Fox & Friends tells Trump to start wearing a f***ing mask:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/30/fox-news-host-trump-mask-345275

[YE]

https://twitter.com/nygovcuomo/status/1277987460929159169?s=21

Hopefully other blue states that are able to reopen do the same.

[Calthrina950]

Fox & Friends tells Trump to start wearing a f***ing mask:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/30/fox-news-host-trump-mask-345275

A few days ago, Lamar Alexander, the retiring Republican Senator from Tennessee, urged Trump to wear a mask, saying that it would set an example for those who "admire him"-i.e. his supporters. And reading this Politico article, it looks like even Sean Hannity, another staunch Trump ally, is on board with masks. It remains to be seen whether or not Trump actually takes their advice. He is very stubborn and vain, and believes that the mask makes him look foolish. Of course, he's a fool for not wearing it, and he has gotten many people (especially where I live) to follow his example by not donning them.

[RINO Tom]

Covid survivors should be given free healthcare, because it is our fault as a country that they got sick in the first place. Maybe that will incentivize the conservatives to wear some damn masks.

Ignoring for a second that free healthcare isn't free, it is not "our fault" that every single one got this brand new, highly infectious disease that has likely been in the US since before Christmas.  So, how are you going to separate out this new expense by case to make it slightly more affordable?

[RINO Tom]

https://twitter.com/nygovcuomo/status/1277987460929159169?s=21

Hopefully other blue states that are able to reopen do the same.

Not sure why Iowa is on there, honestly.  They are pretty far down the map in cases per capita, and they have not spiked up anywhere near as badly as other states, all the while reopening.  Their ICU bed capacity (not that New York should care) is also in good shape, and their death rate (again, not relevant to New York) is extremely low.

Also, I don't know of a single person in this country that has "wanted to go to New York" recently.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1278002884920184834

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1278002884920184834

Trump must be itching to fire him.

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/safrazie/status/1277758694487232513

[GP270watch]

https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1278002884920184834

Trump must be itching to fire him.

If you read the rightosphere Dr. Fauci has already been cast as a Clinton deep-state agent who is somehow a part of the plot to sink Trump. All it's gonna take is Trump to come across the wrong tweet or Fox/OAN new segment and he's probably gone.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1278002884920184834

President Trump: "Ban all the testing: cases reach 0, problem solved."

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

But the upshot is that the lagged effect of cases on deaths is pretty clear: 1-2 weeks (specifically the average of cases from 7-13 days earlier).

...

The graph below shows the predicted deaths generated from the model against actual deaths (starting from April 1). I think it fits pretty well.  The exception is that because I am constraining a constant effect onto each weekday, the weekday effects are too small when deaths are exceptionally high and a bit too large when deaths are much lower.  

https://i.imgur.com/LPUY62j.png

Nice to see some effort put into some statistical analysis - well done!

There are, however, some important omitted variables. That would certainly include some that you yourself have emphasized in earlier posts - 1) improvements in medical care that lower the fatality rate and 2) increased testing detecting more cases and 3) reduced median age of the newer cases as opposed to the ones from March/April. All of these would tend to lower the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases in more recent observations as compared to earlier observations.

Because all 3 of those omitted variables would lower the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases in more recent time periods, that would seem to imply that if those were taken into account, the guesstimated lag time you would find would be longer than the one you came up with from this regression that omitted them. So that would mean that your results don't really suggest that the true lag period is 1-2 weeks, they suggest that the lag period is longer than 1-2 weeks by some unknown amount.

It would be hard/impossible to get reliable data to quantify how much the "true" fatality rate has declined as a result of better treatment. It would also probably be hard (though theoretically doable if you had median age data for each day and could make some assumptions about the age distribution of cases) to take into account the impact of the median age on fatality rate. However, you could fairly easily include the positivity rate as a variable indicating how much testing has improved.

So if you feel like adding it in, I wonder, what happens to the regression if you include the positivity rate? I haven't thought about it carefully, but it also seems at first glance like that would actually be linear in its effects on the lag (alternatively to the positivity rate, you could include tests as a variable, which seems like it ought to have the same effect as including the positivity rate, due to the formula for positivity rate being calculated from tests and cases - and if you were to include both, you should get multicollinearity).

So does including the positivity rate (or alternatively tests) as a variable raise or lower the lag that you would estimate (I would expect it would raise the lag time)?

If you had data to take into account changes in median age and changes in quality of care/availability of new treatments, those should have effects in the same direction.

The linear time term (the “days” variable) is likely very crudely picking up effects of all of these omitted variables right now.  Including the positivity rate is a good idea, and I will need to think about how to incorporate it; it would probably needed to be interacted with cases (and lagged cases) in order to be useful.   I’m not sure how I would disentangle the treatment/patient age effects since I don’t know that there is daily national data on that available.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

UGH

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1278014171590909959?s=19

[It’s so Joever]

Covid survivors should be given free healthcare, because it is our fault as a country that they got sick in the first place. Maybe that will incentivize the conservatives to wear some damn masks.

Ignoring for a second that free healthcare isn't free, it is not "our fault" that every single one got this brand new, highly infectious disease that has likely been in the US since before Christmas.  So, how are you going to separate out this new expense by case to make it slightly more affordable?

You are going into semantics when you say healthcare isn’t free. You know damn well what “free healthcare” means so stop making this bad faith argument meant to divert people from the real topic.
As for how, we can use antibody tests for those who are not confirmed cases but believe they were infected (this can be done over a few years)
We will pay for it by making Americans pay more in taxes. They were too damn selfish to stay inside or wear masks, so we should pay for it as a country, it’s the least we can do.
And yes, the first 100,000 cases or so we’re not our fault, but the remaining millions are and were preventable. It’s not just Trump’s fault. (Although he shares much fo the blame) the fault is on the American people for failing to act like reasonable human beings as a whole.

[GP270watch]

 The US private healthcare system is being exposed as inadequate. The massive unemployment is also leaving many on the brink of being uninsured if they're not already.

 Time for some changes.

[Del Tachi]

The US private healthcare system is being exposed as inadequate. The massive unemployment is also leaving many on the brink of being uninsured if they're not already.

 Time for some changes.

The U.S. has tested and treated more COVID patients than any other nation on earth, produced and deployed the most promising disease therapies, and is leading global development of a vaccine.

What planet are you living on?

[GP270watch]

The US private healthcare system is being exposed as inadequate. The massive unemployment is also leaving many on the brink of being uninsured if they're not already.

 Time for some changes.

The U.S. has tested and treated more COVID patients than any other nation on earth, produced and deployed the most promising disease therapies, and is leading global development of a vaccine.

What planet are you living on?

    The one with facts. China has tested 3x the number of people for Covid, so you're wrong about that. If you look at it per capita, The United States has been surpassed by numerous countries so you're wrong about that too. Your other statement is also not true as of yet and ignores real progress made by other nations. Please speak to me with facts and not Trump cabinet talking points.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

 But that has nothing to do with my initial point anyways which is about the failings of our employer based private health system.


 

[Devout Centrist]

The US private healthcare system is being exposed as inadequate. The massive unemployment is also leaving many on the brink of being uninsured if they're not already.

 Time for some changes.

The U.S. has tested and treated more COVID patients than any other nation on earth,

That's not quite the high praise you think it is...

[afleitch]

The US private healthcare system is being exposed as inadequate. The massive unemployment is also leaving many on the brink of being uninsured if they're not already.

 Time for some changes.

The U.S. has tested and treated more COVID patients than any other nation on earth, produced and deployed the most promising disease therapies, and is leading global development of a vaccine.

What planet are you living on?

Is taking thirty minutes to put out thirty fires a better performance than taking thirty minutes to put out one? It is if you don't have a problem with thirty fires.

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/RishiDesaiMD/status/1277834877216231424

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

For those counting cases, it looks like there are some optimistic signs today that the surge in cases over the last several days in the south may have peaked, especially considering that Tuesday is usually the heaviest day.  All of these states are reporting casee numbers today below yesterday’s 7-day average:

Florida: 6093 cases today vs. 6589 average over last 7 days
Arizona: 2228 today vs. 3200 over last 7 days
Georgia: 1874 today vs. 1927 over last 7 days
North Carolina: 1229 today vs. 1428 over last 7 days
Alabama: 870 today vs. 961 over last 7 days

All of these states are also reporting a drop in week-over-week deaths.

The only state I can see at first glance with a new record is South Carolina, which reported 1755 cases versus a 7-day average around 1300. (I didn’t try to look up really small states though)

It’s too soon to know about Texas and California today.

[Del Tachi]

China has tested 3x the number of people for Covid, so you're wrong about that.

The US has tested over 31M people, while China has done roughly 90M tests (with more than one-third of the total in Beijing and Wuhan).  The U.S. also reports more than 1.4 million recovered COVID patients, the highest in the world.

If you look at it per capita, The United States has been surpassed by numerous countries so you're wrong about that too.

If you look at it per capita, many countries (mostly with *perfect single-payer socialized systems like Italy, Spain and France) have 15-115% higher Deaths/1M population than the USA.  These countries are so amazing they're even doing less testing that us! 

So which is it?  Does population adjustment make countries with socialized systems look better or worse?  Thee same countries you bring up as doing *better than the U.S. still have worse mortality statistics.

Your other statement is also not true as of yet and ignores real progress made by other nations. Please speak to me with facts and not Trump cabinet talking points.

NIH alone has pledged over $1B in funding for a COVID-19 vaccine, and that pales in comparison to private research being done by American firms like Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer.  The U.S. leads the world with 39 active vaccine projects.

But that has nothing to do with my initial point anyways which is about the failings of our employer based private health system.

The point is that the U.S.' private system is powering research and treatment for COVID-19 that is paying dividends on a global scale, while most of the "socialized" world free-rides off our investments.  This has literally always been the case, even prior to the pandemic. 

[GP270watch]

 Completely nonsense narrative. The United States taxpayer funds a lot of this research. We get the double whammy of getting taxed for drug research and then also paying the most for drug therapies with no government price controls. That's not the rest of the world taking advantage of us, that's our own government screwing us. This has been studied but again you can be an informed person or go with lazy Republican talking points.