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IdleRich

IdleRich
I wouldn't be at all surprised if US goes above 270k deaths total. They have no idea what they're doing, just floundering around trying one thing half-arsedly and then something else that contradicts it, with nothing like a coherent strategy. Fauci said they might hit 100k new cases a day at this rate and I don't see any particular reason to argue.
 

mixed_biscuits

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They don't need to 'do' anything in particular: people should wash their hands and socially distance for the main benefits and hope that treatment is getting better for the small proportion that need it . The death rate will increase in whichever states haven't been hit yet but will continue to decline overall. The cases numbers are less important as a) people are being double, triple etc-counted b) if it's being caught by healthy people, the vast majority of outcomes are ok. Start worrying if there is a significant uptick in the overall death rate.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The majority of the publicised excess death figures are from simplistic calculations done in the service of prolonging the fear-mongering (sorry, flogging 'papers). For instance, in the UK, Oxford estimate the excess deaths to be less than half of the FT's estimate (as the former take account of population increases, seasonality and other factors not considered by the latter).
I haven't been reading papers. I've been looking at data published weekly by the ONS. The figure of 63,000 excess deaths is accurate. It's also not an estimate, since you don't really need to estimate how dead someone is.

(Unless, of course, the civil service is in on this dastardly deception, just like the quislings who cooked up that false economic study saying Brexit was going to be a total shitshow...)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
They don't need to 'do' anything in particular: people should wash their hands and socially distance for the main benefits
But they need to make that clear. The mixed messages with states opening and closing, saying it's "only the embers" of the disease left and so on are confusing people and the upshot is you have a population who think that believing in the disease is a political stance, and, as a result, lots more people than need to are getting infected.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The death rate will increase in whichever states haven't been hit yet but will continue to decline overall. The cases numbers are less important as a) people are being double, triple etc-counted b) if it's being caught by healthy people, the vast majority of outcomes are ok. Start worrying if there is a significant uptick in the overall death rate.
The death rate as in the percentage of people who catch it who go on to die right?
In which case the number of deaths is the death rate x the number of infected so I'd say the number of cases is pretty fucking important to be honest as it's directly related to the number of people who die. Or is that not important either?
 

mixed_biscuits

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By the death rate I mean the deaths per day.

I see what you mean re. the cases, but an increase is not necessarily a harbinger of doom if it's just because more people are being tested (as in Sweden) or if multiple tests on the same people are being racked up.
 

mixed_biscuits

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If the virus weakened to something completely harmless but also completely transmittable, then the cases would be *everyone available* and the deaths would be *everyone who would otherwise die anyway* - the stats would look horrendous (with the exception of excess deaths, one would hope) but the virus would have had no deleterious effect whatsoever.
 

luka

Well-known member
Mixed Biscuits
@assortedbiscuits

America is tired of the nonsense. We are tired of having to wear a mask to attempt to suppress some mythical magical wondervirus and we are tired of having lost our streets and governments to provocateurs and violent nihilists. This is not about a movement. It’s a war for sanity.
11:48 AM · Jun 29, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
By the death rate I mean the deaths per day.
I see what you mean re. the cases, but an increase is not necessarily a harbinger of doom if it's just because more people are being tested (as in Sweden) or if multiple tests on the same people are being racked up.
Ah ok. I think that daily deaths will also be a function of the number of people who get infected though. Well obviously it will be. I get that there are two things going on... how many people catch the thing and what happens to them when they do. Your contention is that the latter is changing as the disease becomes less serious - and that may not be wrong. But my point is that, the government can't really influence that - it could have been better prepared and it may develop a vaccine or a cure, but right now this moment it can't change the seriousness of the disease that much. However it can change the former by mandating what people can do, where they can go, what can open, if you need to wear a mask and so on. And it's clear that there has been an enormous lack of a joined up strategy on that bit.
The US government is failing to do the only things it can do, that's my criticism.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
If the virus weakened to something completely harmless but also completely transmittable, then the cases would be *everyone available* and the deaths would be *everyone who would otherwise die anyway* - the stats would look horrendous (with the exception of excess deaths, one would hope) but the virus would have had no deleterious effect whatsoever.
Yeah but until that extreme case happens - if it ever does - then the government can really only reduce deaths by reducing transmission. They're fucking that up pretty badly.
 

droid

Well-known member
Theres a lot of talk and conflicting reports, but everything Ive seen, antibody tests, studies etc... points to fairly consistent relationship between infection rates and deaths. It comes in at between 0.7 - 1.2 with some variations dependent on local factors, so if you have an accurate antibody survey you can make a reasonable estimate of deaths, and if you have an accurate death count you can make a reasonable estimate of the infection rate.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
But my point is that, the government can't really influence that - it could have been better prepared and it may develop a vaccine or a cure, but right now this moment it can't change the seriousness of the disease that much.
That said, they are trying to remove health insurance by challenging ACA in the supreme court which I suppose will have the effect of meaning more sick people die.
 

mixed_biscuits

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Yeah but until that extreme case happens - if it ever does - then the government can really only reduce deaths by reducing transmission. They're fucking that up pretty badly.

Don't think I was clear enough there: that was a musing on the effects of the data gathering and presentation...that if the virus were to be completely harmless but 100% transmittable, then everyone would have it and every death would involve it, but no death would be due to it...focusing on just part of the picture presents a horrific aspect that is flipped on its head once more of the picture is considered.

This hypothetical is not too far removed from the virus and the young: many could have it and many could die with it (ie. of something else with the virus coming for the ride) but very few die of it.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah I got that. My point is just that the disease clearly appears to still be killing some people and badly affecting others. For that reason it seems like a good idea to try and reduce the number of people who catch it.
 

chava

Well-known member
Still pre-print, so take it with a grain of salt:


The jury's still out re: Sweden
 

mixed_biscuits

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Yeah, but 100% of current Swedish cases are mild and the deaths have almost petered out entirely and as they have already made clear, the increase in cases is because they're testing more people.

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

And Sweden is now in a great planning position as the picture hasn't been muddied by lockdown...It's quite incredible that we're not out of lockdown in the UK yet and already planning to get back into it, cos we have no definitive idea of how many more deaths we're 'due' (and also not much clue as to what sort of effect lockdown has, other than completely screwing the country in most other ways)

btw. Sweden's excess deaths are fewer than their COVID deaths.
 
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