OT - NO POLITICS Local COVID-19 Discussion III

[SackTastic]

Hospitalizations are easy to add to. If you come in for any surgery and you test positive for Covid, you're now a "Covid hospitalization".

Holy hell.

This is no different than "we would have less cases if we tested less".

 

[Husko]

Why in your view is the Reason article dumb?

First and foremost because it pushes this false narrative that churches have been unduly target and overly restricted in reopening. If anything churches have been privileged and given more leeway in reopening across the country. For example my wedding ceremony, at a church, has been good to go for weeks and has no impediments. My wedding reception at s venue has major restrictions and details are still being worked out. The article is just pushing this false narrative that a lot of conservative Christians push that somehow Christians are being targeted in this country, when really they’re the most privileged group (I say as a Christian).

Second, the entire premise of the article is attacking a NYTimes are that is looking at a small number of cases they found as if they are the only cases in the entire country. I ha haven’t taken formal logic since undergrad, but I’m sure there’s a name for a logical fallacy for this.

The entire article is just nonsensical, unintelligent babbling. The Times politics constantly aggravate me (because it’s just right of center corporate shilling pretending to be fair and balanced liberalism), but this attempt at a hit piece is just as I said: dumb.

 

[brian_griffin]

In NYC, the death rates per 1000 as of yesterday :

45-64 : 2.02
65-74 : 6.6
75+ : 16.6

New York: COVID-19 death rate by age group | Statista

A friend of mine in NYC was 44, ultra-marathon runner, great heath. He died in 10 days after symptoms started.

Stop. Saying. This. Is. An. Annoying. Flu.

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

Not trolling you, the remainder of the post is directed to all, but I'll use the term "you" referring to the data / post above.

That same site you cite (pun intended) has the age-binned mortality rates for the 2017-18 flu season, but for the total US, not just NYC. Influenza mortality rate by age group U.S. 2017-2018 | Statista
Death rate per 100,000 from the site:
0-4yo 0.6
5-17yo 1
18-49 2
50-64 10.6
65+ 100.1
From other data on that site, the 2018 US death rate from influenza and pneumonia is given as 14.9 per 100,000.

Also, the age-binned influenza data has this asterisk/caveat:
Supplementary notes
* The CDC use a mathematical model to estimate the numbers of influenza illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations and deaths to inform policy and communications related to influenza prevention and control. Current preliminary estimates for 2017-2018 are based on data from 2010 to 2017.

Taking the above as static, since the data - whether measured or modeled - is in the past, we then look to the present.

Reproducing your COVID-19 data, from that site, per 100,000 in NYC:
0-17 0.75
18-44 21.4
45-64 202.28
65-74 662.12
75+ 1662.78
NYC citywide total 221.68

The total population death rate for the NYS (not NYC) is 166 per 100,000. That value is from a separate table, showing death rate for the entire USA, DC, and Puerto Rico, by state per 100,000. At the state level, NYS at 166 trails only New Jersey at 172 per 100k. The vast remainder of the country is lower by significant factors.

From that same site, the USA is listed as 133,972 COVID-19 deaths to date, approximately 25% of the reported world total. Using an estimated USA population of 330 million, that's a mortality rate of 0.04% (0.0004), or a an average USA rate of ~40 per 100,000.

Even if there is a bias (high) in assignment of death to COVID-19 for the 2020 data set as being causal rather than contributory (as has been oft-reported, whether motivated by political or monetary reimbursement reasons, etc., in particular in certain states), we need to also remember the COVID-19 data is dynamic, and will rise. However, we should also grant that an already low mortality rate in many states has a nearly impossible likelihood of ballooning to the mortality rates of NY and NJ, given what is known now re: protective and treatment measures, and geographic differences in population density.

And we also have:

According to the CDC's best estimates now for Infection Fatality Rate your chance of dying from this if you are not in a nursing home is .1, or 1 in 1000. That is flu-like mortality for most. The excess mortality numbers from Europe indicate that Covid 19 is about 20% higher than the severe flu season of 2017-2018.

Given all the above, both points are valid, and supported by the data:
1. If you're elderly (especially in a nursing home), and a late adopter (the NYC cases) and/or refuser of safe practices, and live in a high-density area (the NYC-NJ and surrounding states data), your mortality risk is a multiple of the general population risk and/or typical flu season risk.
2. If you're not elderly, your mortality risk is likely not dramatically different from a bad flu season, in particular with safe practices and living in a low-density area (my addition / emphasis).

IMO, These two scenarios are like the opposite poles of the same bar magnet. Too many individuals and/or biased media sources only see the world as having one polarity - their view - which can't connect to the other end of the magnet, and must always be repelled.

 

[Bagel]

Age groups are effected differently. For the age group we recruit from, COVID-19 is basically a non issue. We combine that age group in large groups on a base which has the largest military retiree community in the Army. The issue isn't the mortality rates or anecdotes instances of someone healthy dying from COVID-19. The issue is keeping the population not at risk (younger) separate from the populations at risk (older, immune compromised). And unfortunately, the group not at risk is the least disciplined.

For new recruits, is the military still rejecting recruits who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 if they were hospitalized at some point? If so, is that because we don't know the long term respiratory effects of COVID-19 yet?

 

[brian_griffin]

Im flabbergasted youre so easily able to neglect what is going on in Fl, Az, Cali, Texas. The deaths are just beginning to surge. Positive % is still at an insanely high rate for many of these states. ICUs are pushing capacity. Things are only going to get worse. There's a very real possibility these states issue another stay at home order in the coming weeks.

Of course, you were mad they shutdown bars saying people like me 'won'. I cant imagine where they would be had they followed your advice.

From the site I cited in my prior post, the death rate per 100,000 in Arizona is 26, Florida 18; California 17, Texas 10. Given what is now known re: COVID-19 and protective / preventive measures & treatments, I find it difficult to believe any of those states are so lax and/or ineffectual to anywhere near approach the NY / NJ state numbers of ~170, especially if the NYC mortality rate is 222 per 100k. Will people die? Yes. Might those spiking states double? Sure. But they won't see either the numbers nor the rate of NYS/NYC, especially since NYS & NJ are now "green" on the national map, having had proven beneficial impact.

I agree with that. The vast majority of our retirees are not in any care facility. We just keep their activities separate from the activities of those under 44.

So far, the deaths per day continue to go down in SC, and the ICU occupancy rate is still around 70%.

Those who are at risk really should not be out and about. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but it's one that the Army has taken with pretty good success. We make our vulnerable population telework, or limit their exposure. Eg: our facilities (grocery store, our version of walmart) have retiree times every day, then close for a period of time for cleaning, and then open back up for general population. We found it far easier to limit the activities of those vulnerable than to limit the activities of those not vulnerable.

Similar approach where I live with several of our preferred stores. "Senior day" already is a custom at several stores. They now expand to blocks of hours daily or several days a week. Early AM hours, as most seniors are accustomed to that discipline as well.

Holy hell.

This is no different than "we would have less cases if we tested less".

No, it is distinctly different. If you came in for surgery and tested positive, BUT WERE ASYMPTOMATIC OR REQUIRED NO HOSPITALIZATION, you would still have been categorized as a COVID-19 hospitalization, when it was abundantly clear the symptoms / presence of virus didn't warrant hospitalization. I will grant those instances likely don't impact the viral spread statistics greatly, since it's effectively a random sample of the population. It likely doesn't impact the hospitalization statistics significantly. But it's not the same as the "head in the sand" "if we don't test, we don't have a problem" analogy.

 

[SackTastic]

I don't take anything you said personally. All good.

I do take issue here though :

From that same site, the USA is listed as 133,972 COVID-19 deaths to date, approximately 25% of the reported world total. Using an estimated USA population of 330 million, that's a mortality rate of 0.04% (0.0004), or a an average USA rate of ~40 per 100,000.

That's an inaccurate assessment, because it assumes 330M have contracted the virus. We know the infection rate is higher than reported, but it is not the entire population.

None of this matters though really. Even if you assume influenza comparable mortality percentages, COVID-19 is more contagious than influenza. Therefore more people WILL become infected, and there will be NET more deaths than influenza in every age bracket when this is over.

Let's work with today's numbers.

3,081,383 confirmed cases

The cited influenza fatality rate of 14.9/100000 applied to that number of confirmed cases would be 459. The observed COVID-19 fatalities are currently 132,723, so obviously things don't jive there.

We can all agree there are more actual cases than confirmed. So how many total cases (confirmed + unconfirmed) would there need to be for the currently observed fatality total to line up with a fatality rate of 14.9/100000?

890,758,389

( 890,758,389 / 100,000 = 8907.58389 , * 14.9 = 132,723 )

That's clearly absurd! Close to 3 times the total population of the United States! Obviously cannot be right!

There have been many claims that the observed death rate is overcounted; morbid accusations that "people were on the way out anyways." Let's entertain that for a moment, and assume HALF of that value are people who passed away from something else , and just happened to also have COVID.

445,379,194.6

( 445,379,194.6 / 100,000 = 4453.791946, * 14.9 = 66,362 )

It STILL would require more total infections ( confirmed + unconfirmed ) than the entire population of the US!

The math doesn't lie.

 

[SackTastic]

No, it is distinctly different. If you came in for surgery and tested positive, BUT WERE ASYMPTOMATIC OR REQUIRED NO HOSPITALIZATION, you would still have been categorized as a COVID-19 hospitalization, when it was abundantly clear the symptoms / presence of virus didn't warrant hospitalization. I will grant those instances likely don't impact the viral spread statistics greatly, since it's effectively a random sample of the population. It likely doesn't impact the hospitalization statistics significantly. But it's not the same as the "head in the sand" "if we don't test, we don't have a problem" analogy.

You are correct mathematically. I was ranting. But it's the same to me ethically, and that's the point I failed to get across.

I am fed up and frustrated with all the attempts to twist the numbers to try and make it seem like this entire pandemic is a non event. It's honestly disgusts me. Not you personally, but the many that are.

 

[brian_griffin]

Embedded bold reply in [brackets].

First and foremost because it pushes this false narrative that churches have been unduly target and overly restricted in reopening. If anything churches have been privileged and given more leeway in reopening across the country. For example my wedding ceremony, at a church, has been good to go for weeks and has no impediments. My wedding reception at s venue has major restrictions and details are still being worked out. [Congratulations and best wishes, I hope it goes off without a hitch - no pun intended.] The article is just pushing this false narrative that a lot of conservative Christians push that somehow Christians are being targeted in this country, when really they’re the most privileged group (I say as a Christian). [I read it as questioning the duplicity / leniency for businesses or certain businesses vs. churches, so perhaps didn't read it as strongly as you. Moreover, I personally feel the article's Christian slant is driven by the data - numerically Christians/churches dominate in number vs. Muslims/mosques and Jews/synagogues. I've heard/read similar anecdotes re: non-compliance with COVID restrictions / guidelines from all three of those faiths. I know the synagogue example of the author & wife was cited, but that was meant as a personal example, not to draw generality / conclusion.]

Second, the entire premise of the article is attacking a NYTimes are that is looking at a small number of cases they found as if they are the only cases in the entire country. I ha haven’t taken formal logic since undergrad, but I’m sure there’s a name for a logical fallacy for this. [To be fair though, the NYT article itself cited specific instances & anecdotes in justifying generalities. (I think that's the logical fallacy you're recalling.)]

The entire article is just nonsensical, unintelligent babbling. [I think the article rightly called out the apparent or actual duplicity by government authorities and/or media in assuming "essential businesses" can implicitly or more easily conduct safe / safer physical commerce, than churches which have a inherently riskier or intractable problem to conduct spiritual / sacramental commerce. To be fair, both NYT and Reason clearly emphasized the folly and consequence of not adhering to safe practices and guidelines.

The Times politics constantly aggravate me (because it’s just right of center corporate shilling pretending to be fair and balanced liberalism), but this attempt at a hit piece is just as I said: dumb. [I likely find NYT "lefter" than you do. Now, if you had argued it was "dumb" for Reason, by their single article, to try to change 30+ years of biased journalism / editorial, regardless of where we view the NYT position, I'd wholeheartedly agree. ]

FWIW, my local parish church re-opened 4 weeks ago with VERY limited attendance, pre-registering (I assume to not only limit attendance but assist with contact tracing should it be necessary), strict procedures, mandatory masks, no singing, etc., It's likely the "safest" public forum I could encounter. There's a lot of elderly members there (compared to other local churches of the same denomination), so the majority are likely biased to a lowest-practical-risk position.

Let us know how the wedding / reception turns out.

 

[Dubi Doo]

From the site I cited in my prior post, the death rate per 100,000 in Arizona is 26, Florida 18; California 17, Texas 10. Given what is now known re: COVID-19 and protective / preventive measures & treatments, I find it difficult to believe any of those states are so lax and/or ineffectual to anywhere near approach the NY / NJ state numbers of ~170, especially if the NYC mortality rate is 222 per 100k. Will people die? Yes. Might those spiking states double? Sure. But they won't see either the numbers nor the rate of NYS/NYC, especially since NYS & NJ are now "green" on the national map, having had proven beneficial impact.

Similar approach where I live with several of our preferred stores. "Senior day" already is a custom at several stores. They now expand to blocks of hours daily or several days a week. Early AM hours, as most seniors are accustomed to that discipline as well.

No, it is distinctly different. If you came in for surgery and tested positive, BUT WERE ASYMPTOMATIC OR REQUIRED NO HOSPITALIZATION, you would still have been categorized as a COVID-19 hospitalization, when it was abundantly clear the symptoms / presence of virus didn't warrant hospitalization. I will grant those instances likely don't impact the viral spread statistics greatly, since it's effectively a random sample of the population. It likely doesn't impact the hospitalization statistics significantly. But it's not the same as the "head in the sand" "if we don't test, we don't have a problem" analogy.

Again, it's not only about deaths. As of right now- we haven't found any treatment that stops this virus from sending people to ICUs, and when people get sent to ICUs due to a virus attacking their respiratory system they are leaving with long term health issues.

Do you think Fl, Az, CA, TX, etc...arent protecting the most vulnerable in nursing homes? I havent heard of any crazy breakouts. Still, we're seeing surges in ICU population and the spread is still at an incredibly high rate.

So the narrative about elderly care patients just need to be protected and everything will be fine needs to be dropped. Because it's clear as day that this virus causes severe complications to way more of the population than TalkingProuder wants to admit.

Also, those states aren't spiking; theyre officially surging. A spike would be a quick rise with a quick drop. We're long past that. It's going to be a very slow decline from the peak. Whenever that is.

Finally, what do you mean by beneficial impact? Herd immunity? Because there was hardly any heard immunity Upstate. We're benefiting from opening up wisely, masking up, and possibly people being outside more compared to Az, Tx, etc...where many people stay in AC fillied rooms during the heat waves.

 

[TalkingProuder]

Again, it's not only about deaths. As of right now- we haven't found any treatment that stops this virus from sending people to ICUs, and when people get sent to ICUs due to a virus attacking their respiratory system they are leaving with long term health issues.

Do you think Fl, Az, CA, TX, etc...arent protecting the most vulnerable in nursing homes? I havent heard of any crazy breakouts. Still, we're seeing surges in ICU population and the spread is still at an incredibly high rate.

So the narrative about elderly care patients just need to be protected and everything will be fine needs to be dropped. Because it's clear as day that this virus causes severe complications to way more of the population than TalkingProuder wants to admit.

Also, those states aren't spiking; theyre officially surging. A spike would be a quick rise with a quick drop. We're long past that. It's going to be a very slow decline from the peak. Whenever that is.

Finally, what do you mean by beneficial impact? Herd immunity? Because there was hardly any heard immunity Upstate. We're benefiting from opening up wisely, masking up, and possibly people being outside more compared to Az, Tx, etc...where many people stay in AC fillied rooms during the heat waves.

We've been hearing, "Wait two more weeks," for months now."

Atlas commented on the issue of hospitalizations, saying the hospitalization data does not distinguish between patients who are hospitalized for reasons unrelated to the virus who test positive, and patients who are hospitalized specifically for COVID-19 complications.
“When I looked at every single hospital area in Texas today, 15 to 20 percent of people in the hospital as inpatients are [COVID-19] positive patients. That means 80 to 85 percent have nothing to do with COVID-19. And the same thing goes with some of the other states. There are people hospitalized, a large number, because they are tested as [COVID-19] positive, somehow they’re categorized as [COVID-19] hospitalizations, that’s a problem,” he said.
Stanford expert says 80-85 percent of Texas hospital patients 'have nothing to do with COVID-19'

 

[Gras]

Many hospitals in these hots spots are slowing down on elective surgeries; some have even stopped them all together. Regardless, we're seeing a dramatic increase in ICU population, which cannot solely be due to elective surgeries. That wouldn't cause Arizona's ICU % to go from 75% on June 1st to 92% yesterday with over half the ICU population being COVID patients, or cause Florida ICUs to reach full capacity in the hardest hit counties.

There's no denying the fact anymore. We saw what happened in NYC and Lombardy and NJ. I saw what happened on my units here in Rochester. Once the spread starts, within a month it's surging, then hospitalizations start to increase, followed by ICUs getting filled up, and finally...the death surge starts about 3 weeks after the spread begins to surge. This virus has a blueprint. It hasn't changed it game plan yet.

Arizona's deaths are beginning to surge now, too. f***ing Christ.

On June 1st 22.6% (380/1678) of ICU beds available were Covid Patients, as of yesterday currently 51.3% (861/1678) of Beds are Covid. Of total beds in use June 1st 30.3% (380/1253) were Covid 57.5% (861/1497) are for Covid. Hospitals were allowed to start having elective procedures done on May 1st.
The current peak day for positives tests is June 29th with the 4-7 day lag in case reporting numbers July 1st would be the most recent day that should have had all its tests accounted for and confirmed cases is half of what the total was on the 29th.
18% of out total cases are for someone with a chronic medical condition.
26% of total cases are those considered to be high risk, over 65 and 1 or more chronic medical condition.
More than half of our confirmed cases are for people 44 and under.
Women lead the charge at 52% of cases.
73.6% of Covid deaths are 65 or older.
13.6% are 55-64
6.7% are 45-54
5.4% are 20-44
0.039% are under 20
They don't list the data about how many deaths had preexisting medical conditions.

 

[Dubi Doo]

We've been hearing, "Wait two more weeks," for months now."

We dont have to say that anymore because it's happening in the hot spots.

 

[brian_griffin]

I don't take anything you said personally. All good.

I do take issue here though :

That's an inaccurate assessment, because it assumes 330M have contracted the virus. We know the infection rate is higher than reported, but it is not the entire population.

None of this matters though really. Even if you assume influenza comparable mortality percentages, COVID-19 is more contagious than influenza. Therefore more people WILL become infected, and there will be NET more deaths than influenza in every age bracket when this is over.

Let's work with today's numbers.

3,081,383 confirmed cases

The cited influenza fatality rate of 14.9/100000 applied to that number of confirmed cases would be 459. The observed COVID-19 fatalities are currently 132,723, so obviously things don't jive there.

We can all agree there are more actual cases than confirmed. So how many total cases (confirmed + unconfirmed) would there need to be for the currently observed fatality total to line up with a fatality rate of 14.9/100000?

890,758,389

( 890,758,389 / 100,000 = 8907.58389 , * 14.9 = 132,723 )

That's clearly absurd! Close to 3 times the total population of the United States! Obviously cannot be right!

There have been many claims that the observed death rate is overcounted; morbid accusations that "people were on the way out anyways." Let's entertain that for a moment, and assume HALF of that value are people who passed away from something else , and just happened to also have COVID.

445,379,194.6

( 445,379,194.6 / 100,000 = 4453.791946, * 14.9 = 66,362 )

It STILL would require more total infections ( confirmed + unconfirmed ) than the entire population of the US!

The math doesn't lie.

Yes, the COVID numbers will remain dynamic. I agree the death rate for the entire population can only go up, unless there's an honest effort to reduce / eliminate the over-reporting bias from contributory vs. causal COVID-19 deaths.

Thanks for the math. But, regarding the trail you went down with the calcs above, I'm pretty sure the COVID mortality rates in all the statista.com site data is normalized per 100,000 population, not normalized to per 100,000 infected. For example, I get 165 deaths per 100k population using the NYS deaths to date and a denominator of 19.4 million people, that's spot-on with the 166 deaths per 100k population in the graphs.

As a "bonus" that data also remains agnostic as to the number of infections, since we agree that can't be known due to testing differences, asymptomatic rate, hospitalization rates, and health care access by geographic density.

It's been a great rainy day here to not get dick done for work. I've enjoyed the diversions.

 

[Gras]

We can go further the case mortality rate for 20-44 is 0.19% with the current numbers 111/56309 20-44 demo has also accounted for 41.5% of total tests taken.

 

[Gras]

If we look at the % of positive test (PCR) on the rolling weekly numbers they provide it has stayed relatively flat over the past 3 weeks 23%, 22%, 21% working backwards respectively, prior to that it was 18%, 14%, 12% going back to 6 weeks. We've been regularly doing 20k or more tests a day since June 22nd.

Statistics are a wonderful thing though, numbers can be pulled to show the sky is falling and numbers can be pulled to show things aren't really that bad.

 

[vcv]

What's annoying as hell is there simply isn't a good central data source for COVID19. The best you can get is number of cases, tests and deaths by state, in terms of completeness. Beyond that, the data quality and completeness is extremely inconsistent. There should have been a national effort to standardize data collection.

Even the localities that provide decent open source data still don't do a great job.

For example, NYC Health Dept. has their data sets on github, but instead of providing day by day numbers, they keep overwriting numbers on the same csv files. For example, they have by-age.csv or something, and it has 6 rows for each age group they are tracking, which columns being cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. This file gets updated each day with the cumulative totals. So it's hard to look at the history and trends.

As a Data Engineering Architect, this is driving me a little nuts. You can't just provide data. You need to provide metadata and data lineage information and so many other things.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Texas is stopping elective cases in 100 counties. We can all get hyper focused on the data, but when you see hospitals stop conducting procedures that are their bread and butter for revenue streams, then it tells you all you need to know about how bad things are getting down there.

Edit: Especially considering who their governor is.

 

[TheMistyStranger]

Still super weird to me that there is a narrative that exists that only focuses on a body count. This virus targets head to toe. If you get it and are asymptomatic, congrats. If you get it and are not, your “recovered” self has a pretty damn good chance of not being the same. As far as I know, I didn’t have any long-term effects from having pneumonia as a kid, or getting the flu. This is different, and needs to be treated as such.

 

[Der Jaeger]

Still super weird to me that there is a narrative that exists that only focuses on a body count. This virus targets head to toe. If you get it and are asymptomatic, congrats. If you get it and are not, your “recovered” self has a pretty damn good chance of not being the same. As far as I know, I didn’t have any long-term effects from having pneumonia as a kid, or getting the flu. This is different, and needs to be treated as such.

Bolded is conjecture. The medical community has no solid data to say that a percentage of the positive, symptomatic population has side effects or physiological changes once recovered.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Still super weird to me that there is a narrative that exists that only focuses on a body count. This virus targets head to toe. If you get it and are asymptomatic, congrats. If you get it and are not, your “recovered” self has a pretty damn good chance of not being the same. As far as I know, I didn’t have any long-term effects from having pneumonia as a kid, or getting the flu. This is different, and needs to be treated as such.

It's the unknown that's a cause for concern. People do have long term issues from pneumonia and even the flu, but we really dont know how common it is to have long lasting side effects with COVID.

 

[Gras]

It's the unknown that's a cause for concern. People do have long term issues from pneumonia and even the flu, but we really dont know how common it is to have long lasting side effects with COVID.

Hell they say if you have bronchitis once you're more prone to having it again.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Texas is stopping elective cases in 100 counties. We can all get hyper focused on the data, but when you see hospitals stop conducting procedures that are their bread and butter for revenue streams, then it tells you all you need to know about how bad things are getting down there.

Edit: Especially considering who their governor is.

Just to touch back on this- stopping elective surgeries isnt just stopping minor touch ups like a bum foot. When we stopped elective surgeries in my hospital our cardiac ICU population dwindled down quite a bit. This is going to have a ripple effect on many others who have seperate health issues.

 

[brian_griffin]

Again, it's not only about deaths. As of right now- we haven't found any treatment that stops this virus from sending people to ICUs, and when people get sent to ICUs due to a virus attacking their respiratory system they are leaving with long term health issues.

Do you think Fl, Az, CA, TX, etc...arent protecting the most vulnerable in nursing homes? I havent heard of any crazy breakouts. Still, we're seeing surges in ICU population and the spread is still at an incredibly high rate.

So the narrative about elderly care patients just need to be protected and everything will be fine needs to be dropped. Because it's clear as day that this virus causes severe complications to way more of the population than TalkingProuder wants to admit.

Also, those states aren't spiking; theyre officially surging. A spike would be a quick rise with a quick drop. We're long past that. It's going to be a very slow decline from the peak. Whenever that is.

Finally, what do you mean by beneficial impact? Herd immunity? Because there was hardly any heard immunity Upstate. We're benefiting from opening up wisely, masking up, and possibly people being outside more compared to Az, Tx, etc...where many people stay in AC fillied rooms during the heat waves.

Responses by you sequential paragraphs:
1., 2., 3. In prior posts / links, death rates were discussed as dramatically worse for COVID than "a bad flu". This is true predominantly for the elderly, but only marginally different for the middle aged and negligibly different or the same for younger segments of the population. Never dodged the ICU concept. The national dashboards for reopening track ICU capacity and hospitalization rate by state, among other things. I'm sure we've seen the same color-coded data and the drill-down details. As to future health impacts, I objectively (but not coldly) assert it will be impossible to set reopening policy based on future probabilistic outcomes for which there are no current means to project. Our nation's medical and political leaders have enough challenges agreeing how to form policy on objective measures for which there is actual current data (however flawed it may be).

4. I agree with the appropriate connotation of surge over spike.

5. Agree. The downstate actions were beneficial in arresting spread, and in particular not overwhelming both the in-situ and ad-hoc ICU capacity. (Nothing to do with herd immunity.)

Here's a thought experiment. I'll flip it the other way.
Q1. Is it reasonable re-opening policies / events would have caused no surge? A. No, surge is expected, by default. We should only debate what rate is tolerable. And that varies by population density / bed capacity.
Q2. Do we know how to respond to surge both successfully, and unsuccessfully? A. Yes, to date. (And I should note you've been personally part of that success.)
Q3. If there was a national or regional re-opening and there was no surge, only continued decline, would there be public outcry the re-opening should have started sooner? A. Almost assuredly, if only from the selfish view of the non-afflicted.

There's also the "hot stove & child" effect to consider. Some heed the advice, others need to prove it to themselves and suffer the consequences to truly learn it.

The challenge of all leaders - in any endeavor and any events, not just this pandemic - is not to make easy decisions from perfect data. It is to make difficult decisions from imperfect data.

 

[Jake Bielecki]

I find it odd that the title says no politics, when it's painfully clear that politics has played such an integral role, both positive and negative (mostly), on how we're doing as a nation with the pandemic.

If only this was all about science, we would have been in great shape today and moving forward.

Instead, it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion moving forward.

Similar to how I feel about this team at times.

 

[brian_griffin]

It's the unknown that's a cause for concern. People do have long term issues from pneumonia and even the flu, but we really don't** know how common it is to have long lasting side effects with COVID.

**and can't and won't in a practical amount of time to inform current policy and action.

Hell they say if you have bronchitis once you're more prone to having it again.

I was an 8-wk early pre-me allegedly with lungs not fully developed. Had bronchitis about 10-12 times until I went to college, and once again when away at school. Both parents smoking didn't help.

My uncle had pneumonia at ~45yo, always looked young for his age until then. It aged him visually 10 years or so as a result. His smoking didn't help either.