Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Grim projections have not yet materialized...

On Sunday, Sammy51 asked a series of questions predicated on his belief or assumption that NYC-type outbreaks would spread to other major cities in the US.

I replied mostly using the data from the Univ. of Washington projections indicating no other major outbreaks. Here's an Associated Press story this morning that delves into that: https://apnews.com/f68fa688b76c2853d22a3c765042f066

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ORIGINAL: pbiggar

How under reported are death rates for COVID-19?
From the Economist.

Posting short article below without nifty graphs as the link is probably behind a paywall.

Gist of article is deaths by Cardiac Arrest in NYC has gone from 30 a day to over 200 a day. Calls to 911 for cardiac arrests have gone from around 80 per day to 315 perday.
It would be interesting to know if other cities also experience changes like this. We will have to wait until this is done to get a proper accounting of the deaths.


NO CITY IN America has been hit by covid-19 as hard as New York. By April 12th, according to official statistics, more than 6,000 people had died. This is over a quarter of all deaths in the whole country. There is some cause for hope: new reported covid-19 cases and deaths in the city both appear to be falling. Modelling by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research group at the University of Washington, suggests that New York state’s covid-19 epidemic may have passed its peak.

But when the final death toll is reported, it may be bigger than current data would suggest. A recent report from WNYC and The Gothamist, two New York media outlets, notes that the city’s official covid-19 fatality statistics have until recently excluded those who died in their homes, and therefore were never diagnosed with the virus. Exactly how many people are missing from the tally is unclear. One clue comes from the number of people calling 911 about cardiac arrests, a known consequence of covid-19.

According to data from the city’s fire department, New Yorkers are making four times as many emergency calls about cardiac arrests as they did last year. The most recent figures show that about 200 of these heart-attack victims are being pronounced dead at the scene each day, up from around 30 this time last year (see chart). It is plausible that some of these people were not victims of covid-19. Had hospitals not been so overwhelmed, they might otherwise have sought care early enough in person at emergency rooms, when they had their first symptoms, before things got bad enough to call an ambulance. Even so, the figures suggest that New York City (and possibly other places) may be drastically underestimating the number of people killed by the novel coronavirus.

The city has since announced that it will revise its covid-19 death count to include people who are likely to have died from the disease but who were never formally tested. Mortality statistics from governments tend to be reported with a significant time-lag. Officials might not know the full public-health impact of covid-19 until months after it has faded.

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

For Canoerebel, in relation to points raised previously on input control and accurate reporting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52275823

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Encircled, I don't follow. The only way to measure country to country is by deaths/M. That measure puts things into perspective.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The virus arrived at many US cities at the same time or earlier than it arrived in NY. Those other cities didn't experience massive outbreaks, either due to luck or some combination of other factors. Given your concerns, other cities already should have had raging outbreaks.

And Michigan isn't close to NYC. From NYC to Detroit is 614 miles - about the same as from London to Berlin.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Encircled



Of course some of the criticism is political, but a hell of a lot of it appears to be justified.

UK/US did something different, and the result is, well, out there for all to see.

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Green, labour, Tory, Lib Dem (thats me!), SNP whatever, you want to make sure the lessons from this are learnt.

To do that, you have to acknowledge mistakes.

Now if anyone thinks both the UK and the US are doing that (certainly at government level) then I'm yet to see it.

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ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The virus arrived at many US cities at the same time or earlier than it arrived in NY. Those other cities didn't experience massive outbreaks, either due to luck or some combination of other factors. Given your concerns, other cities already should have had raging outbreaks.

And Michigan isn't close to NYC. From NYC to Detroit is 614 miles - about the same as from London to Berlin.

I think that if you look right to the beginning the picture might be a little misleading. Remember that the virus started in China and so initially would have been coming into the US from the West Coast. I'd suggest that is why you have early start dates for places like Washington State and California. Your president took a lot of criticism for shutting down the flights in from China but it seems to me that from that perspective at least he was ahead of the curve and gave you another month or so before it started breaking out again in earnest on the East Coast fueled by infections coming from Europe (at what point were flights stopped from Italy and Spain?).

In terms of deaths/million - New York is worse than any of the European countries on 513. You then have Spain Italy and Belgium on c.350, New Jersey/France on c.250, and then Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan and the UK on c.160-180. Massachusetts is on c120. For me that (Louisiana aside) gives support to my suggestion that the US might actually be dealing with its second outbreak.

I'm finishing my lunch break now and will have to come back to any responses this evening.

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ORIGINAL: Encircled

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Encircled, I don't follow. The only way to measure country to country is by deaths/M. That measure puts things into perspective.

And we are still going to be well below Germany.

Hans Bolter leapt off the deep end and implied it was anti-american to question what both our countries have done. (edit, its obviously not anti-american to question UK stuff!)

I don't think that helps when we both clearly have questions to answer.

(I leave it here btw as I don't want to get into a row over this now we've both made our points)

quote:

ORIGINAL: btd64

Good news, I tested negative after a tough night of shortness of breath and severe cough. It was my cpap that almost did me in....GP

Mike

"Good times will set you free" - Jimmy Buffett

"They need more rum punch" - Me


Artwork by The Amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Encircled, I don't follow. The only way to measure country to country is by deaths/M. That measure puts things into perspective.

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ORIGINAL: USSAmerica

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ORIGINAL: btd64

Good news, I tested negative after a tough night of shortness of breath and severe cough. It was my cpap that almost did me in....GP

Very glad to hear this, GP!

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Encircled, I don't follow. The only way to measure country to country is by deaths/M. That measure puts things into perspective.

I disagree with the country to country comparison as the best standard - the US and Canada have huge territorial dispersion of the population that is not the norm for the world. We will be judged on whether we could have done better by recognizing the danger sooner, acting sooner and coordinating effectively both within our country and in cooperation with the rest of the world.

We share knowledge with other countries, I don't understand why we cannot coordinate/cooperate at the policy and equipment levels, and maybe staffing levels to some extent too. We share forest fire/wildfire equipment and personnel with countries as far away as Australia, why not work to suppress this beast worldwide?

Yeah, I understand that politics drives a lot of the local decisions, often for the worse because politicians want to assure people that the problem can be handled locally and they (the politicians) are the ones who can fix it for them. But I think it will not go away long-term until it is handled worldwide. With all the communication tools we have these days it should be easy to coordinate a response if there was a will to do so.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Too expensive. Also dangerous, if not snipped.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Those are good points, BBfanboy, \

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Too expensive. Also dangerous, if not snipped.

I am snipped and able to afford luxuries, but you are right about the too dangerous part!

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Too expensive. Also dangerous, if not snipped.

I am snipped and able to afford luxuries, but you are right about the too dangerous part!

One of my two-divorce mates has been prolific in his recommendations of his urologist.

Your posting has added to the impetus to get it done.