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

[Meclazine for Israel]

anyone else wanting to go out and join one of these protests against the quarantine? heard there was one in Nashville today, should have gone but I was tied up in Knox :<

obvious troll is trolling. reported.

Yup, you've let the team down brah! Reported for not attending! Bad Goose!

[Meclazine for Israel]

anyone else wanting to go out and join one of these protests against the quarantine? heard there was one in Nashville today, should have gone but I was tied up in Knox :<

obvious troll is trolling. reported.

He isn’t a troll, he just is greatly uninformed as to the severity of the crisis.

I mean, I'm greatly informed as to the severity that this crises poses to young people who are just starting out their careers. My wife and I are lucky that we are "essential employees" but I worry about all the other people our age just starting out and what this hysteria has done to the economy.

I'm honestly not worried about the elderly and immunocompromised. They can quarantine of their own accord, if they wish, but at least where I live, it seems like the older people are the least likely to do so, so I mean that's on them.

Like I said, if I die I die lol it's fine not like I care.

I'm not immunocompromised, just have high blood pressure. I'm doing everything I can to stay home, but I still have to go buy groceries. I could die from this even though I'm only 33. Since you're not willing to be cautious, you'll likely pick it up, and your indiscretion makes it more likely that I'll get it when I'm out getting groceries. My husband is also not immunocompromised, but he has asthma. He would be more at risk from dying from this, too. He's 35.

Thanks for making it even more dangerous for us to get groceries and for me to have to gamble with our lives when my library job reopens because we'll be able to do curbside pickup. But because of people like you, I can't trust that I can't be safe even in a mostly closed library and will have to decide between a paycheck and my life.

Bad Goose!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0u_4rA8_9A

Virginia, another one of your 60 day bans please.

[Meclazine for Israel]

He probably means Japan and Singapore.

Although technically. they are not having a second wave, nor did Singapore relax restrictions. The forced return of overseas migrant workers is causing issues in Singapore due to overcrowding in their accommodation.

They are now enduring exponential growth after 2 months of very flat growth.

[Meclazine for Israel]

First up, thoughts and prayers to Texasgurl for her loss affected by the Corona-virus. That puts in perspective what we are dealing with here.

Latest numbers from Europe and USA.

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

UK



UK 20 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 81,163 – April 19
Recoveries added to curve – 27,000

I would be calling the peak of the UK Corona-virus pandemic April 19 2020.


France



France 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 11
Recoveries added to curve – 55,200

France moves down the graph.


Germany



Germany 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 13,400


Spain



Spain 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 78,610 – April 9
Recoveries added to curve – 43,900

Spain shares many similarities with Germany, except greater cases. As a result, it will be interesting to see if both countries shared the onset date and the peak date whether they will recede at the same rate and end up getting to 10% of peak active cases on the same date.


Italy



Italy 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 88,000

Just waiting for Italy to update it's recoveries.


USA



USA 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 490,117 – April 19
Recoveries added to curve – 192,000

USA according to this data has peaked in Active Cases two days ago at 490,000 Active Cases. We should start to see a big decrease from now on.


Growth Curve

When all the growth curves in Active Cases are plotted together, we get:



Growth curves have been smoothed with 3 point averaging.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Of all past epidemics/pandemics in world history, which do you all think comes as the closest analogy to what we are going through now?  

This has the best explanation through time:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/

[Meclazine for Israel]

Interesting case study of paramedics in New York treating sick patients.

Warning *** Graphic footage within story ***

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-21/coronavirus-paramedics-doctor-on-the-frontline-new-york-covid-19/12139676

The sheer scale of the work undertaken by paramedics is to be admired.

[Meclazine for Israel]

We need to start accepting the possibility that a vaccine won't be here until 2022.

According to Professor Ian Frazer, there is distinct possibility of never having a vaccine at all:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-17/coronavirus-vaccine-ian-frazer/12146616

[Meclazine for Israel]

Corona Virus Songs

Bobi Wine (Uganda)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUHrck2g7Ic

Has a strange relaxed feeling for a country that is entering the curve that is almost opposite to the CNN alarmism.

Tops the Vietnamese one.

Not sure whether children should do the acting in these videos.

Masaka Kids

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAy2KpNCApE

[Meclazine for Israel]

Does anyone else think this will cause a food shortage in the US?

No, but it has in Thailand with protesters upset about the restrictions impact on their food supply.

Thailand Lockdown Protests

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnoRPYhp4R4

[Meclazine for Israel]

So US deaths have passed 45k while still averaging roughly 2k a day. Is the Trump administration still claiming that the eventual death toll will be 60k? They'll likely cross that before the month is over.

trump put himself in a terrible position on this

He spent months Attacking Obama and Biden over the 12,000 deaths that the swine flu had caused

Now by the time this is all over the death toll will be much bigger than it ever was with swine flu and it was also but a lot bigger than trumps own optimistic  60k projection.

good luck explaining that away to the voters in November

Not really. You're in the midst of an anti-Trump fantasy. He simply turns to Dr Birx and asks for guidance.

She said 60-65k a couple of days ago. That may change.

The USA is in the grips of a national emergency, and you are drooling over these deaths hoping for more to prove a point with a pre-pubescent forum post.

You have the wrong perspective on this pandemic.

[Meclazine for Israel]

So US deaths have passed 45k while still averaging roughly 2k a day. Is the Trump administration still claiming that the eventual death toll will be 60k? They'll likely cross that before the month is over.

trump put himself in a terrible position on this

He spent months Attacking Obama and Biden over the 12,000 deaths that the swine flu had caused

Now by the time this is all over the death toll will be much bigger than it ever was with swine flu and it was also but a lot bigger than trumps own optimistic  60k projection.

good luck explaining that away to the voters in November

Not really. You're in the midst of an anti-Trump fantasy. He simply turns to Dr Birx and asks for guidance.

She said 60-65k a couple of days ago. That may change.

The USA is in the grips of a national emergency, and you are drooling over these deaths hoping for more to prove a point with a pre-pubescent forum post.

You have the wrong perspective on this pandemic.

I don’t think anyone wants more deaths and it’s awful you’d suggest that.

I am fervently anti-Trump, and while I recognize he’s done a terrible job, I still hope he’ll do well. The fact is, Republicans have never taken this crisis as seriously as it very clearly is. That’s why you have a few reopening way too early and others who took way too long to shut down. And with Trump giving conflicting advice and openly encouraging dissent among the populations of Democratic states. He is sowing mistrust and creating even more panic, all for political purposes.

I don't often get considered intelligent replies about Trump, but that qualifies your thoughts well.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Good news for the Europe and USA. All appear to be on the downward slope now to recovery. The interesting thing about this pandemic is the limited time period displayed in all countries including South Korea and China. 1 month up and 1-2 months down the curve in most instances with a slight variation in the length in some countries.

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

UK



UK 22 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 81,163 – April 19
Recoveries added to curve – 37,000


France



France 22 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 11
Recoveries added to curve – 61,400


Germany



Germany 22 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 16,200


Spain



Spain 22 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 78,610 – April 9
Recoveries added to curve – 52,100

Spain shares many similarities with Germany, except greater cases.


Italy



Italy 22 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 90,000

Italy starting to become very predictable now following the downward curve.


USA



USA 22 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 490,117 – April 19
Recoveries added to curve – 252,000

USA on it's way down the slope should start to decelerate rapidly in Active Case numbers over the next week.


Growth Curve

When all the growth curves in Active Cases are plotted together, we get:



Growth curves have been smoothed with 3 point averaging.

[Meclazine for Israel]

I have to disagree with you here. U.S cases are NOT going down, we added more cases today than yesterday and we added 30k+ new cases today....

Here is a new graph for tomorrow so you can see how the data is calculated. Let us say tomorrow, we get 23,000 'New Cases' in the USA.

The plots I am presenting are 'Active Cases', not New Cases. To calculate this figure, one needs an estimate of Recoveries which is consistent. But most countries have failed, for differing reasons, to report recoveries. The UK, not at all.

It's like a chemical reaction. One side of the equation must match the other side. Those coming into the diagnosis routine must either recover or succumb to the virus.

So that 'Recovered' figure is around 380,000 assuming that all of the cases on April 8 have either recovered or died. 2 weeks after a diagnosis after 5-14 days of early infection is long enough to expect an outcome. And it averages out anyway if you think your way through the logic.

But the USA has only reported 85,000 recoveries. So we need to add 295,000 to the calculation to arrive at 'Active Cases'. So the 'Active Cases' total comes down.

The best part of this type of analysis is that it can be used as a predictive guide into the future.



USA 23 April - Active Cases (Prediction)
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 482,646 – April 20
Recoveries added to curve – 295,000

This provides a much smoother curve suitable for interpretation.

[Meclazine for Israel]

He hires the best people.

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1253075681908531200

Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job

This is an unnecessary smear against the high standing US Labradoodle Breeding community, viewed around the global as the premier source of Labradoodles.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/special-report-former-labradoodle-breeder-tapped-to-lead-u.s.-pandemic-task-force-2020-04

"Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.

The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. He sold it in April 2018, his financial disclosure form said. HHS emailed Reuters that the sales price was $225,000."

What? No Aussie Labradoodles in my neighbourhood.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Scientists investigate possible positive effects of nicotine. It is being assumed that nicotine somehow (clinging onto the receptors the virus needs) has a positive shielding effect against the virus.  

https://m.oe24.at/coronavirus/Coronavirus-Wissenschafter-vermuten-positive-Wirkung-von-Nikotin/427320386

Obviously testing will be done with patches, not cigarettes.

The reason for the theory is that so far smokers have 80% lower infection rates than the General population.

Smokers were told at the start of the pandemic to give up because it was a respiratory virus.

Keep in mind also that some of the COVID-19 hotspots are very polluted cities. Wuhan, Milan, London and New York have significant air pollution which may have contributed to poor lung health for it's citizens.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Someone texted me and asked me what the graphs look like if I don't add recoveries. These are here:

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

They are simply not being added. In fact, one day, Worldometers will just add 250,000, and the graph will suddenly plummet.

But when the predicted recoveries for today are added with a smoothed distribution back through time, we get:



Active Cases in USA - 23rd April 2020
Predicted Peak of 456,646 Active cases on April 20 2020.
310,000 Recoveries added.

Dr Birx said today that hospitalisation rates in New York, Detroit and other areas was starting to decrease which would match this data. Active cases would correlate roughly with hospital bed usage. She also said that New York counts for 45% of cases in the USA, so the fact is that if New York is falling, it is unlikely that you will see a peak larger than this one anytime soon.

As another example, we have Australia. On Worldometers, we get:



Because of the poor addition of recoveries to the database, the graph has major issues. Firstly, the left side is flat in growth. This should be steeper than the right side as in normal pandemic graphs. Secondly, this is really of no benefit if the data is not presented correctly for curve matching and predictive analysis.

If you redistribute the recoveries as was done for the USA using the difference between Active Cases today vs Active cases 2 weeks ago, you get this:



Active Cases in Australia - 23rd April 2020
Predicted Peak of 3,491 Active cases on April 3 2020.
470 Recoveries added.

So that graph is actually useful for interpretation and is more reflective of what actually happened in Australia regardless of the poor reporting or cases and recoveries.

Turning back to the USA, the downslope will most likely be less steep than the growth phase in Active Cases. So around mid-June, we should see Active Cases at around 10% of their peak.

My predicted decay in Active cases by 90% by May 31 for the USA are very optimistic and do not factor in any further outbreaks.

[Meclazine for Israel]

The analysis in the Berkeley Italian death records paper suggests that the IFR of the virus roughly increases tenfold with every 20 years of age.

So a 90-year old has about a 10% chance of dying; a 70-year has a 1% chance; a 50-year old has a 0.1% chance; and a 30-year old has a 0.01% chance of dying if infected.  (Obviously this is not exact.)

These are called age-mortality curves.

When you go to an Oncologist, they may show you age-mortality curves based on research for the cancer you have been diagnosed with.

Based on your age, and you chances of survival, the amount and type of treatment (chemotherapy) is presented before you begin based on your age.

From my research on mortality curves from Lung Cancer, my only take was 'dont smoke after 60 years of age'.

This is a very common style of data presentation based on statistical analysis.

[Meclazine for Israel]

This is such an embarrassment. What the hell is this crap?

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1253455713034211328

For anyone who still supports this guy, this is your wake-up call. Look at this. We deserve better than this.

Donald Trump actually predicted that the left-wing media will report him as misconstruing his enthusiasm for the results about UV sunlight and alcohols' effect on the Corona-virus.

It was not that bad if anyone watched the briefing. Donald was asking Dr Birx great questions about how best to use these new results.

The media was very excited about the results and asked a great question about sunlight.

"If sunlight is so great, then should we ask people to go outside more to avoid infection?"

We are not getting any interesting scientific discussion of these new results here. We are getting the "Tweet - I Hate Trump" brigade hijacking the thread daily with their political bent and missing some of the really interesting outcomes that were discussed today.

The effect of summer heat and humidity is worth discussing.

[Meclazine for Israel]

For Arch, I get it, but the President knows he is not a doctor. The actual context was not as bad live when he said it. He was just being excited about the results, and they are exciting developments.

As for TSA's commentary, even through Dr Birx and Dr Fauci sometimes cringe about Donald, over the last week, I have noticed a level of disdain from all 5 or 6 doctors against the media.

There has definitely been a shift in the Doctors attitude to the level of misinformation that the media is responsible for. Dr Fauci and the Surgeon General have both got up and expressed concern for being reported correctly.

The doctors need to be quoted correctly, and they are struggling to get good air time.

Unfortunately, in this instance, Trump said something (as was correctly quoted by Arch) completely stupid, and none of the reporting of the actual real scientific results are being discussed.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

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

UK



UK 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 84,996 – April 23
Recoveries added to curve – 40,000

UK has blown out with an increase in new cases causing the peak to move to the right.


France



France 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 11
Recoveries added to curve – 59,500

France on the way down now.


Germany



Germany 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 14,400

Since April 19, the number of recoveries added has steadily decreased reflecting an increase in reporting this data-set by the Germans.


Spain



Spain 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 78,610 – April 9
Recoveries added to curve – 58,000

Spain has had a small increase in the last two days.


Italy



Italy 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 90,000

Italy following the curve downward.


USA



USA 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 458,503 – April 21
Recoveries added to curve – 325,000

USA on it's way down although the latest numbers in the last two days have lessened the downward slope considerably. It will now take longer for the number of Active Cases to reach 10% of the maximum. June 10-15 would be the predicted date now.


Growth Curve

When all the growth curves in Active Cases are plotted together, we get:



All growth curves have been smoothed with 3 point averaging.

For Australia, our current mortality rate is 1.18% of those who tested positive. So if 75% of people exposed are asymptomatic or simply non-symptomatic and were not tested, then our real mortality rate would be 0.3%. Australia only tested people with lung symptoms.

Clearly in colder climates were people are more condensed in their living arrangements, this number would be higher. New York, Milan, Wuhan etc.

Just looking through two months of scientific research and a couple of things are clear:

• We still don't know the exposure levels - that will hopefully come from serological testing which is underway in the USA with Dr Birx focusing on elderly care homes.
• We still don't know the risk of death once someone contracts the disease. The variability in patient response to the virus make this very difficult.

Although some patients (elderly, sick) are at a greater risk, there is currently no way to predict whether a patient will have a severe immunological response or otherwise to the virus.

So that means we have the following possibilities from infection into a person:

(a) People with no symptoms;
(b) People dying from viral pneumonia;
(c) People suffering severe immune response shock and dying;
(d) People recovering fully;

But there is simply no way to predict which category you will go into once you become infected. Most interestingly and worrying for medical professionals is that we have people walking around with no symptoms having no idea that they are infecting people with the virus.

So there is a lot we still do not know about the actual virus itself, and for that, we need to gather more data. Without the data which governs the risk of death, we simply cannot measure the risk against lives against the cost of closing the economies of the world.

For example, 150 million people in East Africa are under threat of starvation. If Governments close the economies of the world, that number could increase to 350 million people if food relief is not made available by the Western World. That is, one of the effects of closing the worlds' economies could be introducing a further 200 Million people in Africa to a life without food stability.

[Meclazine for Israel]

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2020/04/24/miami-dade-covid-19-screening-program-infection-rate/

The early findings of SPARK-C, the Surveillance Program Assessing Risk and Knowledge of Coronavirus, a public-private partnership designed to determine the actual rate of COVID-19 exposure in the community found 6% of participants tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, which equates to 165,000 Miami-Dade County residents.

This figure directly contrasts with testing site data.

As of Friday afternoon, there are 10,700 positive cases, according to the Florida Department of Health, suggesting that the actual number of infections is potentially 16.5 times the number of those captured through testing sites and local hospitals alone.

Researchers say they are “95% certain that the true amount of infection lies between 4.4% and 7.9% of the population, or between 123,000 and 221,000 residents. These results are similar but not identical to other recent, non-randomized testing programs that have been conducted throughout the United States.”

I think at a certain point even the most skeptical people need to acknowledge that a critical mass of serology studies have been done, and that they all point to the same fundamental conclusion: we are severely undercounting covid cases by somewhere around a factor of 10.

It’s true that none of these studies is perfect.  But they are diverse in their sampling pool and methodologies, and their flaws are pretty idiosyncratic.  There might be reason not to trust any single one in isolation.  But taken together, they paint a very convincing picture.

Some pretty good points in there. Keep in mind we simply don't know yet. But the actual "exposure" is one of the most critical numbers we need to get to evaluate the population spread and therefore, the actual mortality rate from which risks of re-opening can be established.

If you did an effective serological test in Italy, USA, South Korea and Australia, you would get 4 different results.

Although, I tend to feel more comfortable based on what I am looking at with your overall comment of underestimation. Your '10' figure is higher than the figure from the first German research of '4' but lower than what people are thinking in Sweden. Sweden are now talking about the initial stages of 'herd immunity' if you listen to their chief epidemiologist. I don't know what number he is basing that on.

Keep in mind that there is much more that is not known than known at this early stage.

Dealing with the unknown changes the type of statements one can make about the virus.

[Meclazine for Israel]

At this rate, we'll hit 1,000,000 cases by Monday.

There are already over a million cases of coronavirus in the United States, and probably several million at this point, as the serology studies have indicated. However, why was there such a significant increase in the number of cases today? Coronavirus is on the verge of overtaking the Vietnam War in terms of the number of officially recorded casualties, and I don't think the White House's estimate of 60,000 is going to hold up.

Mike Pence today said that the USA is about to see increased numbers due to increased testing:

"As testing increases dramatically across the country, cases will accelerate as well."

[Meclazine for Israel]

A couple of people have texted me asking about testing.

After Mike Pence's presentation, some people have suggested the following scenario occurs with increased testing:



Daily New Cases USA - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

As a scientist, I do like seeing people thinking outside the box.

Are those "New Case" numbers:

• the addition of New York superimposed on other outbreaks in Boston, New Jersey, Louisiana and Detroit etc?
• reflecting under-reporting caused by testing levels not achieving scale?

Keep in mind that the green line is not the actual testing total number, but the diagnosed positive cases which may be stagnant due to an upper limit caused by the testing regime.

If the latter, will we see a sudden increase in New Cases as the US testing capability is being ramped up to an unprecedented level of 4.8 Million tests per month.

Food for thought as the numbers come out this weekend. Keep in mind that Friday has the highest numbers reported of any week day.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Numbers for USA updated:



USA 25 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 496,087 – April 24
Recoveries added to curve – 295,000

The USA dataset on Worldometers has changed by including the recoveries into the previous Active Case data.

That is, someone has back-dated recoveries into the old numbers, so all of the numbers on their website over the last 50-60 days have changed slightly. The US only report one number for recoveries. Nothing daily. And the UK reports nothing at all.

This is exactly how the above graphs are generated, so it's not a problem. I just had to remove 30,000 recoveries from the calc.

When plotted with these new data, then we get the above graph which shows a new peak to the right of April 24 at just under 500,000 Active Cases.

For Australia we have:



Australia 25 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 5,068 – April 5
Recoveries added to curve – 330

Australia has equivalent lockdowns to the USA. We actually have stricter lockdowns in Western Australia again. Here are the latest tested positives from yesterday:



We have had a very hot autumn, strict social lockdowns and travel restirctions. This has really helped with low community transmission.

It foreshadows a dramatic improvement in the USA case numbers when you guys head into June.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Somebody had to carefully explain to him that the more he gets in front of the camera and opens his mouth, the more his approval ratings and his polling numbers vs. Biden continue to dive.

What do they say?

"Better to let people think you are an idiot than open your mouth and prove it."

I think you are on the money. The President needs to tone it down as his area of expertise is clearly not medical science.