Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by James Brown

No I'm not crazy.  I tried to say that we have reason to believe, because of strong social distancing measures, closures etc., that the rates of infection will increase and subside along the lines of the S. Korea bell curve - sorry if I misled you.  Our curve will always be broader and higher than S. Korea.  We are a bigger country.  We are not at the peak yet.  the 3/22 number will show an increase of about 8000 new cases, 80% of them being in NYC.  

For two weeks I have been posting that I believe the actual but unknown infection rate to be much much higher than the reported infection rate.  Actual infection is of course the denominator in the lethality ratio.  So, it is likely that we will see that lots more people have been infected and a much lower proportion have died when the testing kits are more widely distributed.

Jim
 

The numbers from New York are skyrocketing today.  I have watched the new case numbers go from 2000 this morning to 8000 five minutes ago to 12,000+ now.  

Apparently they have some test kits in the city coming on line.  I'll see if I can find an article explaining where these numbers are coming from.  Obviously it is critical to know how much of the data is the numbers in the city actually skyrocketing, or the number of tests skyrocketing, or both.

Jim

Originally Posted by James Brown

By the way, the numbers from New York are skyrocketing today.  I have watched the new case numbers go from 2000 this morning to 8000 five minutes ago to 12,000+ now.  

Apparently they have some test kits in the city coming on line.  I'll see if I can find an article explaining where these numbers are coming from.  Obviously it is critical to know how much of the data is the numbers in the city actually skyrocketing, or the number of tests skyrocketing, or both.

Jim

Both - lots of test kits in the city.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-news.html#link-178fa276


Rand Paul tested positive today, no symptoms at all, so far.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

You came on here on March 12 and stated this:

Russ Carroll March 12, 2020


The number of cases has been doubling every two days in the US for a few weeks. If that continues, we will go from 1500 cases today, to 1,000,000 by or just after the end of this month! It is simple math. We need to arrest the progression of the illness and realize it is not an over-reaction. Frankly, your response surprises me given the simple math of the problem.

1000,2000,4000,8000, 16000, 32000...every 2 days! Exponential growth is a bitch.


At that time the US had 50 deaths.  

The simple math 2 to the 5th power is 32  

So we should have 32 X 50 (simple math)  The number is 1650.

To date we have 300.
 
You are off by a factor of 5.5X in the OVERESTIMATION column.  

In 10 days we should have 2 to the 10th power.

That would be 56,200 dead in this country, according to you on April 2.    

I will note this day in my memory banks.  

Do you want to bet any money?  I could use a few extra dollars.  

Rich - I think you need to factor in some time from infection to death - about two weeks.  56,200 dead by Mid-April is likely, and I hate to say it but that is an acceptable number.  That number would indicate that all of the efforts we have taken to flatten the curve worked.

Jim

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

A lot of people find it perplexing that our actors, sports figures, and politicians are being tested, most without symptoms, while the rest aren't until they have symptoms or have come into contact with someone who does...

Yes, I get that, but it is the world we live in.   I'm not personally too upset about that.  The test kits are beginning to show up (see NYT article) and in a couple of weeks we ought to have plenty.

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

It is closer to doubling every 3 days, but it is very hard to tell as testing starts to improve. Do the math and that isn't very comforting.

The difference between 100k dead and 10M dead is lethality and the ability of the system to cope with critical cases.  In China, where new cases are not being reported, only 3200 are reported dead.  If the actual number is 20X that, say - 64,000 dead, I would find that comforting.  We are not China of course and disease is going to spread more in a free country but the Asian numbers are comforting to me at least.

Jim

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

CA is sending a good number of people into work every day and into stores without knowing at all if they have the disease. Same with shoppers. A LOT are going to have it and be working/shopping and, without knowing it, not only become ill, but pass it on at these places of work, which will be brought back to their households.

I'm not saying this to be a pessimist. I'm saying it because it needs to get fixed ASAP.

Russ:

Yes, some infections are going to occur in stores and through shoppers.  But would you close the grocery stores and let people starve or riot in the streets?  

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

No. I'm saying we keep talking about being "S Korea", but I don't think most people know what that means. We have fritzed it up by not responding aggressively in December/Jan when we had time to try and prepare for testing on a large-scale. Now that we can't effectively separate the contagious from the non-contagious on any significant scale (like the S Koreans did), i don't think we have much choice but to take more draconian measures that look more like what China did - non-voluntary sequester of anybody that can be sequestered. Again, we are not doing either so why would we expect a better result?

We are taking significant measures, and this certainly will have positive effect. Dealing with something that fundamentally can grow exponentially demands more that "some effect". The federal government needs (and needed) to take a much heavier intervention medically, not just economically. The panic and the economic damage that is happening right now is long-lasting, and the quicker we get that under control the better.  Just one example that would probably help is to use the national guard and military to get this stupid hoarding under control, but that takes federal intervention to make it work. Restrictions on shopping enforced by guardsman and military personal. The hoarding would be forced to stop, and probably order and calm restored. As long as empty shelves greet shoppers, panic will continue.

Well, I keep talking about S. Korea, but I am a well known Pollyanna.  Also, I was very pleased and relieved to be listed by Rich as one of "irrational" folks in his recent categorization.  Not sure if you, James, Rod, David or others agree, but I am pleased to be included in that cohort!

Some closing thoughts.  Then I am going out for some fresh air.  The nearest human being to me, other than my wife, is at least 3000 feet away, so I ought to be OK.  I think we agree that the US and Canada are presently on the left hand side of the bell curve.  We don't know if the bell curve will look more like S. Korea's curve, or Italy's or something even worse.  

* I am more optimistic than you, see but that is baked in, as you would say.

* We also agree that the data is unknowable because of the failure to get the tests out quickly.  We probably disagree of the ultimate cause of the testing snafu.  I think it is much more complicated than simply "Trump's leadership sucks."

* Italy hopes, as of today, to be past the peak of it's own bell curve.  We'll know in a few weeks if that is the case.

* If Worldometer is correct, 12k new cases in NY today is a big deal.  I am surprised that this is not already making headlines.  This must coincide with a huge testing bump, but I am not able to find a link to data other than Worldometer's state by state graphic.   Maybe it is an error.  We'll know tomorrow.

Take care, Jim  

Originally Posted by James Brown

* If Worldometer is correct, 12k new cases in NY today is a big deal.  I am surprised that this is not already making headlines.  This must coincide with a huge testing bump, but I am not able to find a link to data other than Worldometer's state by state graphic.   Maybe it is an error.  We'll know tomorrow.

Take care, Jim  

We'll know sooner than that.  Worldometer is now showing 5429 new cases in New York, which is a lot and double what the rest of the country is reporting, but not 12k.  Disappointing that they had it wrong for a few hours.

Hopefully we'll know in two-three weeks whether the social distancing and closures are having a positive affect or not.  We know that we will always underestimate the number of cases by a lot as we count positive test results, since we only test the very sick, the rich, and the famous.  And have not done a decent job of testing the very sick so far.  2.  We and other free countries should be able to reliably report the number of deaths.  So, the death graphs are going to be very informative about the effects of social distancing etc, but lagging by at least several weeks.

Jim

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

I’ll be happy if you or Richard are right, I’m not hoping for a bad outcome and will be grateful If I deserve to apologize for being as concerned as I am

Of course, we'll all be thrilled!  Frankly, I think my current outlook is much more like yours than it is like Richard's outlook though.  Unless you are pulling your punches.  This thread started with a "we need to do more to avoid 10M deaths" article, and it looks to me like most everyone on my patch of the nation is doing what the author suggested.  

By the way, it will be people like you who took this seriously early on who are responsible for a good outcome, if we have a good outcome.  So any apology would be really stupid.

Jim 

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Gee just as I predicted you and the rest would say either "Yes we were right and 100K people died" so you were wrong, OR you would say "Of course the numbers aren't as bad because WE took the initiative and stopped the spread by our amazing insight", but the right was wrong.

How convenient for you. 

You say you had it all correct either way.

But then I predicted a week or so ago that this was what the left would say. 

Shocker!  LOL  

The only thing that is certain is that you will misinterpret what me and anyone else has posted over the last few weeks.  

Jim