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

[jimrtex]

The Republican party is a death cult.

https://twitter.com/stltoday/status/1285199041417158663

How is this not genocide?!
I am so damn tired of people such as Del Tachi and the other GOPers implying my health and life are expendable as a high school student.

Dane County, Wisconsin reports a 2% hospitalization rate for those 20-29. It is even lower for teenagers.

[jimrtex]

Del Tachi your statistics don't take into account that most people under 35 in Colorado haven't had the virus yet, and the deaths per million for people under 35 (which is what you're using to estimate a given individual's chances) will be a lot higher if everyone gets the virus.

That would only be the case if you expect the population distribution of new cases/deaths to wildly change the more infections there are.  What evidence do you have that younger people haven't been getting the virus until now?

Honestly, I hope your entire family is forced into going into a poorly ventilated and crowded building of 3.7k people. Especially if they have preexisting conditions. Maybe then you will understand why I am so concerned.

Schools should be open for in-person instruction.  There's multiple potential ways to do this while being mindful of the potential threats of the virus.  Staggered schedules, outdoor instruction, improved ventilation, etc.

Requiring 100% at-home, online schooling is simply not a solution for American children or their families.

Well first of all, you are putting words in my mouth. I never said full 100% online learning, but let me explain what my district is doing.
They have two options, either go back to the full capacity, reopened school (which is poorly ventilated, has 3.7k students, and was designed for less than 2k people, or to be forced to switch to an online program which offers about 30% of classes that regular schools do, and means you lose all your former school resources, your counselors, and possibly teacher recommendations.
Now do you see why I am upset as someone with a preexisting condition?
Literally ZERO of my classes are offered at this program, and unlike other districts in our area which  are webcasting/recording lessons, my school district refuses to do any of that and is willfully limiting options.
Finally, all parents had to make a decision by July 14th and it is binding for the entire year.
Maybe I sound entitled, but damn it, I shouldn’t be forced to choose between my life and my education. And if I am, that tells me a lot about this country.
This is reality for thousands of students nationwide, either you are unaware, or willfully ignorant of what schools are doing in many parts of the country.

You go to Cherry Creek schools?

[Del Tachi]

That would only be the case if you expect the population distribution of new cases/deaths to wildly change the more infections there are.

The way you calculated it, it absolutely would. You took deaths/(total number of people) not deaths/(total number of cases). If there are more infections, there will obviously be more deaths, so the numerator increases and the denominator doesn't.

What evidence do you have that younger people haven't been getting the virus until now?

They have been getting the virus.

There's no reason to think that the age-distribution of all cases (i.e., not just those that are test-confirmed, and including asymptomatic ones) is any different now then it was 1 month, 3 months or even 5 months ago.

Calculating mortality as a function of test-confirmed cases ignores the deterministic effects of testing.  In reality, deaths and hospitalizations are not a function of testing so reporting them per total population is the appropriate statistical measure.  That's why every naysayer's favorite website (Worldometer) reports them this way too. 

All the people who liked your post don't understand statistics.

[emailking]

There's no reason to think that the age-distribution of all cases (i.e., not just those that are test-confirmed, and including asymptomatic ones) is any different now then it was 1 month, 3 months or even 5 months ago.

That's irrelevant.

Calculating mortality as a function of positive cases ignores the deterministic effects of testing.  Deaths and hospitalizations are not a function of testing, so reporting them per total population is the appropriate statistical measure.

You equated his chances of dying from the virus to be the number of under 35's who have died divided by the total number of under 35's. This is a very low number. But if all the under 35's get back out there, without a worry in the world, which is what you obviously want based on all your posts, then many (most?) of them will catch the virus. And then the number of under 35's who have died divided by the total number of under 35's will be a much larger number. You're equating that number with the chances of under 35's dying from the virus. I don't think that's a good way to express that, but it's your construction.

On the other hand, a very large fraction of under 35's already travel in cars on a regular basis so there is no such issue there.

All the people who liked your post don't understand statistics.

I don't care who likes my posts, but I have no idea how you could know whether or not they understand statistics.

[Del Tachi]

Serious question: do you have a soul?

1.  This is a lame comeback

No it's not when you keep talking about people like they are numbers on a board and not living, breathing, human beings.

"Treating people like numbers" means accurately understanding the threat poised by the virus; we can't build a national policy response around exceptional cases and outliers.  You apparently don't understand this, yet I'm the one who's "anti-science"?

You are pro-science the same way Republicans are pro-life.

Oh man, how will I ever recover from this one?

Do you actually have a coherent argument to make?  Do you have the faculties to actually engage and respond to my argument?  Or is your whole existence purposed only on laying-up feckless, hackish one-liners?

Either way, you've earned yourself the ignore button for a little while.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

According to worldometers, it looks like today was the first day since June 9 (six weeks ago) where the US saw a week-over-week drop in daily cases.

[Del Tachi]

There's no reason to think that the age-distribution of all cases (i.e., not just those that are test-confirmed, and including asymptomatic ones) is any different now then it was 1 month, 3 months or even 5 months ago.

That's irrelevant.

Calculating mortality as a function of positive cases ignores the deterministic effects of testing.  Deaths and hospitalizations are not a function of testing, so reporting them per total population is the appropriate statistical measure.

You equated his chances of dying from the virus to be the number of under 35's who have died divided by the total number of under 35's. This is a very low number. But if all the under 35's get back out there, without a worry in the world, which is what you obviously want based on all your posts, then many (most?) of them will catch the virus. And then the number of under 35's who have died divided by the total number of under 35's will be a much larger number. You're equating that number with the chances of under 35's dying from the virus. I don't think that's a good way to express that, but it's your construction.

On the other hand, a very large fraction of under 35's already travel in cars on a regular basis so there is no such issue there.

All the people who liked your post don't understand statistics.

I don't care who likes my posts, but I have no idea how you could know whether or not they understand statistics.

Inherent in your post is the idea that COVID somehow gets deadlier the more people it infects.  There's no reason to think that the proportion of young people who die from COVID-19 will be greater, assuming the age-distribution of all cases (i.e., including non-tested, asymptomatic and sub-clinical) remains the same.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

According to worldometers, it looks like today was the first day since June 9 (six weeks ago) where the US saw a week-over-week drop in daily cases.

Encouraging, but we really need to see an actual sustained decline, not the plateau that we had after the first peak. For the sake of the country let's hope that happens.

[emailking]

Inherent in your post is the idea that COVID somehow gets deadlier the more people it infects.  There's no reason to think that the proportion of young people who die from COVID-19 will be greater, assuming the age-distribution of all cases (i.e., including non-tested, asymptomatic and sub-clinical) remains the same.

I don't think it gets deadlier. It doesn't. I'm saying the people who have not been infected, at all, do not factor into a calculation as to how deadly it is. But that's exactly what you did!

[Del Tachi]

Inherent in your post is the idea that COVID somehow gets deadlier the more people it infects.  There's no reason to think that the proportion of young people who die from COVID-19 will be greater, assuming the age-distribution of all cases (i.e., including non-tested, asymptomatic and sub-clinical) remains the same.

I don't think it gets deadlier. It doesn't. I'm saying the people who have not been infected, at all, do not factor into a calculation as to how deadly it is. But that's exactly what you did!

We don’t need to account for the uninfected in order to have an assessment of how deadly the virus is (it should be pretty obvious that the uninfected categorically can’t die of the virus, lol).  The fatality rate in a population shouldn’t change whether 1,000 or 100,000 are (truly) infected.  Adjusting mortality based on testing actually obscures this, but mortality per population does not.

EDIT:  Your issue with Deaths/Population (that population is fixed, so that an increase in infections necessarily increases measure) is only a problem for things like cross-country comparisons between nations in different stages of the pandemic.  I'm using the measure as away to understand the relative risk of mortality in different age groups, which is not going to change if more people become infected (unless the true age distribution of infections also changes, which we both agree it won't).  The same measure can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on what kinds of inferences we are attempting to make.

[It’s so Joever]

Again, I don’t want us to be fully online, but there should be an equitable online option for kids with preexisting conditions.
Plus we need to do it in a phased approach, with younger kids starting first.

[Dr. Arch]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 7/20 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.

New - Substituting the Δ Change metric as of 7/13 on dates starting from 7/5:
ΔW Change: Comparisons of Weekly Day-to-day Growth or Decline of COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.

• IE: Comparing the numbers to the same day of last week, 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?

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7/5: <Sunday>

• Cases: 2,982,928 (+47,158 | ΔW Change: ↑16.32% | Σ Increase: ↑1.61%)
• Deaths: 132,569 (+251 | ΔW Change: ↓11.93% | Σ Increase: ↑0.19%)

7/6: <M>

• Cases: 3,040,833 (+57,905 | ΔW Change: ↑29.47% | Σ Increase: ↑1.94%)
• Deaths: 132,979 (+410 | ΔW Change: ↑19.88% | Σ Increase: ↑0.31%)

7/7: <T>

• Cases: 3,097,084 (+56,251 | ΔW Change: ↑22.15% | Σ Increase: ↑1.85%)
• Deaths: 133,972 (+993 | ΔW Change: ↓26.06% | Σ Increase: ↑0.75%)

7/8: <W>

• Cases: 3,158,734 (+61,650 | ΔW Change: ↑18.33% | Σ Increase: ↑1.99%)
• Deaths: 134,854 (+882 | ΔW Change: ↑30.47% | Σ Increase: ↑0.66%)

7/9: <Þ>

• Cases: 3,219,999 (+61,265 | ΔW Change: ↑7.04% | Σ Increase: ↑1.94%)
• Deaths: 135,822 (+968 | ΔW Change: ↑40.90% | Σ Increase: ↑0.72%)

7/10: <F>

• Cases: 3,291,786 (+71,787 | ΔW Change: ↑34.44% | Σ Increase: ↑2.23%)
• Deaths: 136,671 (+849 | ΔW Change: ↑37.82% | Σ Increase: ↑0.63%)

7/11: <S>

• Cases: 3,355,646 (+63,860 | ΔW Change: ↑41.34% | Σ Increase: ↑1.94%)
• Deaths: 137,403 (+732 | ΔW Change: ↑245.28% | Σ Increase: ↑0.54%)

7/12: <Sunday>

• Cases: 3,413,995 (+58,349 | ΔW Change: ↑23.73% | Σ Increase: ↑1.74%)
• Deaths: 137,782 (+379 | ΔW Change: ↑51.00% | Σ Increase: ↑0.28%)

7/13: <M>

• Cases: 3,479,483 (+65,488 | ΔW Change: ↑13.10% | Σ Increase: ↑1.74%)
• Deaths: 138,247 (+465 | ΔW Change: ↑13.41% | Σ Increase: ↑0.28%)

7/14: <T>

• Cases: 3,545,077 (+65,594 | ΔW Change: ↑16.61% | Σ Increase: ↑1.89%)
• Deaths: 139,143 (+896 | ΔW Change: ↓9.77% | Σ Increase: ↑0.65%)

7/15: <W>

• Cases: 3,616,747 (+71,670 | ΔW Change: ↑13.61% | Σ Increase: ↑2.02%)
• Deaths: 140,140 (+997 | ΔW Change: ↑16.25% | Σ Increase: ↑0.72%)

7/16: <Þ>

• Cases: 3,695,025 (+78,278 | ΔW Change: ↑27.77% | Σ Increase: ↑2.16%)
• Deaths: 141,118 (+978 | ΔW Change: ↑1.03% | Σ Increase: ↑0.70%)

7/17: <F>

• Cases: 3,770,012 (+74,987 | ΔW Change: ↑4.46% | Σ Increase: ↑2.03%)
• Deaths: 142,064 (+946 | ΔW Change: ↑11.43% | Σ Increase: ↑0.67%)

7/18: <S>

• Cases: 3,833,271 (+63,259 | ΔW Change: ↓0.94% | Σ Increase: ↑1.68%)
• Deaths: 142,877 (+813 | ΔW Change: ↑11.07% | Σ Increase: ↑0.57%)

7/19 (Yesterday): <Sunday>

• Cases: 3,896,855 (+63,584 | ΔW Change: ↑8.97% | Σ Increase: ↑1.66%)
• Deaths: 143,269 (+392 | ΔW Change: ↑3.43% | Σ Increase: ↑0.27%)

7/20 (Today): <M>

• Cases: 3,961,429 (+64,574 | ΔW Change: ↓1.40% | Σ Increase: ↑1.66%)
• Deaths: 143,834 (+565 | ΔW Change: ↑21.51% | Σ Increase: ↑0.39%)

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

We didn't flatten the curve, we turned it into a half pipe.

[Koharu]

Kids spread COVID just as well as anyone, even if they tend to be asymptomatic. But sure, let's force teachers to work in close proximity with ~30 kids so that their lives are endangered, as well as the 30 families associated with those kids, plus the paraprofessionals and office staff. Don't forget lunch time, when usually 1/2 or 1/3 a school's population is in close proximity while eating.

Yeah, expecting school to go anywhere near back to normal is expecting way too much. Super small class sizes, isolated classrooms in various building, alternating schedules, etc, are my suggestions, but the most safe options require more people or personnel than exist.

[emailking]

We don’t need to account for the uninfected in order to have an assessment of how deadly the virus is (it should be pretty obvious that the uninfected categorically can’t die of the virus, lol).  The fatality rate in a population shouldn’t change whether 1,000 or 100,000 are (truly) infected.  Adjusting mortality based on testing actually obscures this, but mortality per population does not.

Fine. What I'm trying to say is that mortality per population is not your chance of dying from covid. You said:

If you're in high school, you're much much likelier to die of the flu or a car accident than COVID-19.  Colorado has less than 1 death per million people under age 35,

So you're saying mortality from covid per population is your chance of dying from covid. Most of the population has been taking drastic steps to avoid covid (and you want them to stop that). Most of the population does not take drastic steps to avoid cars.

[Del Tachi]

We don’t need to account for the uninfected in order to have an assessment of how deadly the virus is (it should be pretty obvious that the uninfected categorically can’t die of the virus, lol).  The fatality rate in a population shouldn’t change whether 1,000 or 100,000 are (truly) infected.  Adjusting mortality based on testing actually obscures this, but mortality per population does not.

Fine. What I'm trying to say is that mortality per population is not your chance of dying from covid. You said:

If you're in high school, you're much much likelier to die of the flu or a car accident than COVID-19.  Colorado has less than 1 death per million people under age 35,

So you're saying mortality from covid per population is your chance of dying from covid. Most of the population has been taking drastic steps to avoid covid (and you want them to stop that). Most of the population does not take drastic steps to avoid cars.

Approximating a true CFR is difficult due to issues surrounding testing/asymptomatic cases.  Comparing death rates is the best way we have for understanding the relative risk of mortality between cohorts, which is the overwhelmingly relevant aspect of deciding how/if schools should reopen.  You conveniently omitted the part of my post which compared the stated mortality to that of older cohorts.

[emailking]

No it's not because it's strongly watered down by a large population. Consider after the very first death from covid-19, your estimate would predict the chance of drying from it is 1 out of 8 billion. There's been what like 10,000 or so under 35 cases in Colorado? Out of millions. Taking the number of deaths from that 10,000 and dividing by a million and calling that the chance of dying is ridiculous.

What it is is the chance that if you randomly select an under 35 who was alive at the start of the year, that s/he has now expired from covid. But it's nothing more than that.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Oh man, how will I ever recover from this one?

You will recover, unlike many of the people who get COVID.

[Del Tachi]

No it's not because it's strongly watered down by a large population. Consider after the very first death from covid-19, your estimate would predict the chance of drying from it is 1 out of 8 billion. There's been what like 10,000 or so under 35 cases in Colorado? Out of millions. Taking the number of deaths from that 10,000 and dividing by a million and calling that the chance of dying is ridiculous.

What it is is the chance that if you randomly select an under 35 who was alive at the start of the year, that s/he has now expired from covid. But it's nothing more than that.

You don't understand what I'm using the statistic to suggest because you're once again, ignoring the ability of comparative death statistics to indicate the relative mortality risk between cohorts.  Reporting mortality as Deaths/Population makes death rates between age cohorts comparable, without allowing for biased influence from testing/population distribution       

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Daily Florida numbers just dropped:

9,440 new cases today's report. 9,345 residents and 95 non-residents. 19.8% positive from 47,644 tests. 134 resident death and 2 non-resident death. 517 Hospitalizations (new record). 1.41% Infection Fatality Rate. 38,204 Tested Negative. Tested positive Median age 41.

[emailking]

You don't understand what I'm using the statistic to suggest

Ok, what are you using the statistic to suggest?

[Del Tachi]

You don't understand what I'm using the statistic to suggest

Ok, what are you using the statistic to suggest?

The relative mortality risk between different age cohorts.

[emailking]

Yeah I'm not talking about your comparison between under 35 and >75. I'm talking about the comparison of death from covid vs. death from cars.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Trump's press briefing seemed to give the impression that he almost completely flip-flopped on COVID. The pandemic is now serious, but up until that Chris Wallace interview it totally wasn't. Question is how long he'll be able to keep this up until he reverts back to his usual self... a week maybe? He was rather restrained today, but in the long run he was never able to control his impulses sufficiently.

[woodley park]

Trump's press briefing seemed to give the impression that he almost completely flip-flopped on COVID. The pandemic is now serious, but up until that Chris Wallace interview it totally wasn't. Question is how long he'll be able to keep this up until he reverts back to his usual self... a week maybe? He was rather restrained today, but in the long run he was never able to control his impulses sufficiently.

I’m not very optimistic. This reeks of something his advisors forced him to do, and he is terrible at sticking to things he was forced to do.

I’m sure though that Van Jones will be hyping his “new tone” and how he “became president” today.