Covid Discussion

[JPtheBeasta]

It stands to reason that if the goal truly is herd immunity then people actually need to, well... you know... be around each other and get the virus.

[kitzbuel]

It stands to reason that if the goal truly is herd immunity then people actually need to, well... you know... be around each other and get the virus.

Or hopefully get vaccinated.

[JPtheBeasta]

Or hopefully get vaccinated.

The original claim is that we won’t have a vaccine by then. It doesn’t make sense to bemoan the lack of herd immunity while simultaneously warning that cases are still increasing. I shouldn’t have even said anything, then or now.... but we do have the opinion by LTown lingering above that shouldn’t be there, either.

[LTownZag]

The original claim is that we won’t have a vaccine by then. It doesn’t make sense to bemoan the lack of herd immunity while simultaneously warning that cases are still increasing. I shouldn’t have even said anything, then or now.... but we do have the opinion by LTown lingering above that shouldn’t be there, either.

JPtheBeasta, Your inbox is full.

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Hi JPtheBeasta,

My post has been posted for too many days for me to be able to delete or edit it at this point. Can you let me know (via private message) what part of the post you feel is an opinion which ought to be deleted? I would have been happy to do so to preserve the discussion.

Thanks

[JPtheBeasta]

JPtheBeasta, Your inbox is full.

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Hi JPtheBeasta,

My post has been posted for too many days for me to be able to delete or edit it at this point. Can you let me know (via private message) what part of the post you feel is an opinion which ought to be deleted? I would have been happy to do so to preserve the discussion.

Thanks

Since I made my issue public I will just tell you here and hopefully that is ok, because any feedback would be beneficial to me. In my opinion, the stuff after “Things to consider:” is of the variety that has been getting posts shut down lately and doesn’t directly. I don’t want to be a hypocrite because I have also been vocal about my opinion here and have had lengthy discussions about Covid-19 of my own. I admit that I have a problem of my own to deal with because I have a hard time not responding, which exacerbates the issue. If you and others feel that it is something I am off base on I will work on solving this issue on my end.

That said, I will clean out my inbox...

[LTownZag]

If you let me know which specific opinion/prediction you disagree with, and why, in private or in the “foo” forum, I’d love to respectfully discuss.

In the meantime, I’m not sure why COVID related discussion is considered off topic for basketball and moderated as such. It’s obviously incredibly related to the immediate future of GU and the sport.

[sylean]

in NYC they went back last week and reclassified deaths as covid deaths, even without testing.....to the tune of 3700 people...

[ZagaZags]

in NYC they went back last week and reclassified deaths as covid deaths, even without testing.....to the tune of 3700 people...

Maybe they get more money that way. Who knows..... I will be glad when we get to watch sports again.

Quick question. Do you guys think if we don’t have NCAA Football this year, will we have NCAA Basketball?

[scrooner]

in NYC they went back last week and reclassified deaths as covid deaths, even without testing.....to the tune of 3700 people...

This will probably be called shouting, but have you seen the charts showing the difference in deaths this year vs average, and how it exceeds the number of covid deaths reported?

"More than 27,000 New Yorkers have died since March 11 — 20,900 more than would be expected over this period and thousands more than have been captured by official coronavirus death statistics. As of Sunday, the city had attributed 16,673 deaths to coronavirus, either because people had tested positive for the virus, or because the circumstances of their death meant that city health officials believed the virus to be the most likely cause of death. But there remains a large gap between the 16,673 figure and the total deaths above typical levels in the last six and a half weeks: more than 4,200 people whose deaths are not captured by the official coronavirus toll."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...york-city.html

[LTownZag]

This will probably be called shouting, but have you seen the charts showing the difference in deaths this year vs average, and how it exceeds the number of covid deaths reported?

"More than 27,000 New Yorkers have died since March 11 — 20,900 more than would be expected over this period and thousands more than have been captured by official coronavirus death statistics. As of Sunday, the city had attributed 16,673 deaths to coronavirus, either because people had tested positive for the virus, or because the circumstances of their death meant that city health officials believed the virus to be the most likely cause of death. But there remains a large gap between the 16,673 figure and the total deaths above typical levels in the last six and a half weeks: more than 4,200 people whose deaths are not captured by the official coronavirus toll."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...york-city.html

This (some say inflated) method of calculating COVID deaths is similar to how the CDC has counted seasonal Flu deaths for years. Here's more.

If you use official annual CDC flu deaths stats to make a comparison with COVID-19, it's logically inconsistent to use numbers for one virus calculated in this way, but oppose similar calculations for the other.

[JPtheBeasta]

I think that our Covid-19 data, despite the flaws, is better than the influenza estimates. When the claims started that Covid-19 was just like a bad flu season, one of the first things I did was see what we know about the flu. It left me with the impression that we need to do better with the data. The CDC web page is an eye opener in this regard. States are not required to report influenza deaths in anyone over 18. I saw an article that talked about 80,000 flu deaths in one year and the CDC page ultimately revised that number to 60,000. There's a large degree of uncertainty there.

Do you potentially make the Covid-19 data just as bad by throwing in models and estimates? Do you revise the numbers in one year from now when all of the data shakes out? Do you suck it up and say that we just have a certain degree of uncertainty about the influenza and Covid-19 data and call it a day?

I'd prefer leaving well enough alone with the understanding that we can't fix the influenza numbers now and that if we adjust the Covid-19 numbers to make it more like the influenza numbers we risk making our understanding worse, not better.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm

[Markburn1]

Sometimes we want hard data to base our actions on. Sometimes we want models that have guesswork involved. Sometimes we want to create numbers that match an agenda. A lot of times there are some people that use all of the above to affirm preconceived endgames. Go figure. Everyone seems to be.

[LTownZag]

"New cases dropping fast" is an interesting interpretation of this data:

[LTownZag]

One key ban this fool. Wrong data d he blows up every conversation. An editable fool who know jack cht. Every time we begin a thoughtful thing redaction bee appears and Nunez the conversation. A fake person with fake data unconfirmed . This is his 7th time. Somebody throw this fool out!

MDABE80,

I posted graphs from Time Magazine and Our World in Data. The data for the TIME graph comes from Johns Hopkins, which you have repeatedly suggested people use, and said you use.

You are making an empirical claim, not a subjective one, about changes in new case numbers. You give no evidence, then you insult me personally and describe my 2 charts as being the "fake data" when evidence to the contrary is presented. I'd love to see evidence of a fast drop in new cases.



WillandI,

Thanks for posting those links! I hope Basketball and Baseball can restart soon! I'm hoping those sports, plus fall sports, help ready the public and iron out the bumps on the road to a college Bball season.

[MDABE80]

https://www.evaluate.com/covid-19-daily-update

Too bad Ltown. you've been BS from the start. Read the text and begone. And stay gone till you decide to stop blowing up threads.. This is not a public health board,..it's a Gonzaga basketball and sports board. You have continued to doom threads by inserting garbage.. You have interrupted multiple threads . As you can see ( if you might understand) death rate is dropping as are new cases. There will be blips but the trend is downward. Just compare to two weeks ago and then one week ago......you might get the picture.
" You are making an empirical claim, not a subjective one, about changes in new case numbers"....sorry these facts are not "empirical"..go look up the word. Time magazine is always political and is to be disregarded. You might know that. While I've tried to lay low on insults.....you deserve many. I've tried to minimize. When someone is a pretender but has false fakes.....it's time to step up. I did.

All this said, will you kindly stop interrupting threads? Every one has to be stopped because your incessant crazy comments that have only tangential meaing to the topic at hand. I suppose I could swallow some of the BS if it was correct. but BS it is. And yes, TIME magazine is simply NOT a source to be believed.

You night go to Kitzbuel's short explanation on modeling which completely debunked yours from a few days ago. And yet you've continued and I hope you'll end.

'

[LTownZag]

https://www.evaluate.com/covid-19-daily-update

Too bad Ltown. you've been BS from the start. Read the text and begone. And stay gone till you decide to stop blowing up threads.. This is not a public health board,..it's a Gonzaga basketball and sports board. You have continued to doom threads by inserting garbage.. You have interrupted multiple threads . As you can see ( if you might understand) death rate is dropping as are new cases. There will be blips but the trend is downward. Just compare to two weeks ago and then one week ago......you might get the picture.
" You are making an empirical claim, not a subjective one, about changes in new case numbers"....sorry these facts are not "empirical"..go look up the word. Time magazine is always political and is to be disregarded. You might know that. While I've tried to lay low on insults.....you deserve many. I've tried to minimize. When someone is a pretender but has false fakes.....it's time to step up. I did.

All this said, will you kindly stop interrupting threads? Every one has to be stopped because your incessant crazy comments that have only tangential meaing to the topic at hand. I suppose I could swallow some of the BS if it was correct. but BS it is. And yes, TIME magazine is simply NOT a source to be believed.

'

Thanks for the link, MDABE80. I appreciate it!

Here's the chart of daily new cases in north america from your source. It looks like the charts I posted above, which used data from Johns Hopkins, a source you call the gold standard. Your source didn't have an option to separate the USA from the rest of north america. I'm not going to offer any spin on this trend line or say "new cases dropping fast" - I'll simply paste the chart from your linked source. If one interprets "dropping fast" that's up to them.

[MDABE80]

The national percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at public health, clinical and commercial laboratories decreased from week 17 to week 18. Percentages by type of laboratory:
•Public health laboratories – decreased from 17.7% during week 17 to 13.2% during week 18;
•Clinical laboratories – decreased from 10.3% during week 17 to 9.0% during week 18;
•Commercial laboratories – decreased from 15.9% during week 17 to 13.2% during week 18

MOST RECENT CDC DATA ( Data from this past week)...you want more LTown??

It's a basketball Board.not an infectious disease board....too many threads nuked because you didn't seem to get that. Please stop.

[JPtheBeasta]

Covid Deaths By Age Group:

Data from the CDC website, accessed 5/17/2020 [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/c...kly/index.htm]

Age Group	Covid Deaths	Population	Percent of All Covid Deaths	Percent of Age Group	Deaths Per 100K Persons
<1	4	3,848,208	0.01%	0.00%	0.10
1-4	2	15,962,067	0.00%	0.00%	0.01
5-14	6	41,075,169	0.01%	0.00%	0.01
15-24	59	42,970,800	0.11%	0.00%	0.14
25-34	388	45,697,774	0.71%	0.00%	0.85
35-44	973	41,277,888	1.77%	0.00%	2.36
45-54	2,772	41,631,699	5.05%	0.01	6.658
55-64	6,725	42,272,636	12.26%	0.02%	15.91
65-74	11,524	30,492,316	21.01%	0.04%	37.79
75-84	14,930	15,394,374	27.21%	0.10%	96.98
85<	17478	6,544,503	31.86%	0.27%	267.06
All	54861	327,167,434	100%	0.02%	16.77

Commentary:
It is safe to assume that athletes are in the low risk category unless a) they have other things wrong with them (sickle cell trait is one that isn't on the list but I would love to see data on, given the weird vascular stuff going on with this disease) or b) they play for BYU, in which case there may be a chance they are 35 or older (zing!). I agree with a comment above that this is more about protecting coaches, ancillary staff, and fans than the players (potentially really nasty illness that you get over, notwithstanding). The table and other data (above and below) is helpful in determining one's risk of death/serious illness, based on age and current health condition.

Other useful things to consider:

• "[F]or 7% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.5 additional conditions or causes per death." [Same reference as above]

• An oft-cited number is that about 80% of all Covid-19 cases are mild

• 89.3% of all persons who are hospitalized have at least one other underlying condition. That number jumps up to 94.4% for persons over 65.[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...patients.html] If you are a healthy person over 65, despite the data above, your risk seems to still be low.

• In a study of a large NY hospital, 88% of the patients that were admitted (ie seriously ill) had 2 or more comorbidities [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...ticle/2765184]

• 43,932 deaths (80%) are persons over the age of 65. If you look at ages 55 and up, that percentage goes to 92%

[MDABE80]

OLDER GUYS! Drat!...…..let's plan on a season of good competition. Data is mixed but it does look like the number of new cases has been cut in half compared to Early March. There still will be blips though. Big problem is the mixed diagnoses. I have a crew that does janitorial. The owner is Ukrainian and his father passed at age 72 last week. His dad had congestive heart failure and some component of kidney failure. His death certificate read COVID. No blood test to confirm. Lots of this has gone on. Not sure what to make of it. It is now and it'll be difficult to know exactly what disease/diseases are responsible for mortality. My Friends at NIH are thinking 25-50% were coded wrongly or scik elderly had that as a final straw that pushed them over the edge. Troublesome when the data isn't clear. IMHO.

[scrooner]

Data is mixed but it does look like the number of new cases has been cut in half compared to Early March.

Can you clarify this statement? Where is this reduction in new cases taking place? In "early March" in the US, we were seeing less than 1K new cases per day in the US. We are now seeing between 18K and 25K new cases per day.

[kitzbuel]

Can you clarify this statement? Where is this reduction in new cases taking place? In "early March" in the US, we were seeing less than 1K new cases per day in the US. We are now seeing between 18K and 25K new cases per day.

It really depends on where you are. My county in Northern Virginia, Fairfax County, has been really climbing, averaging over a thousand new cases a week for the last month. The DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area is really hot right now as evidenced by the White House staffers coming down with Covid-19. Right now the Federal Govt here isn't planning on loosening its telework and distancing orders until July.

[Markburn1]

Can you clarify this statement? Where is this reduction in new cases taking place? In "early March" in the US, we were seeing less than 1K new cases per day in the US. We are now seeing between 18K and 25K new cases per day.

Perhaps Abe should have said late March or early April. There is a definite trend downward from that point.

Everyone uses numbers to validate their particular view of things. Problem is making the numbers work. For instance, using the spike in your chart around mid April and the end point, and excluding everything before that would result in a chart that says cases are halved since mid April. Add another qualifier like an huge volume of tests compared to earlier and percentages of cases based on that would indicate a rapid decline in percentages of positive tests.

In an earlier post about Georgia I specifically asked if people here believed the numbers. Because who knows who to believe with all the manipulations going on.

[LTownZag]

The idea that everyone and every side has data so don’t believe data leads to unsupported nihilism and is really the road to willful innumeracy.

The most solid data we have now is from antibody tests and from deaths.

The official Cases data relies on: an increasing quantity of available tests, and a self-selecting group that chooses to get tested. It’s not dishonest or biased, and you’ll see the same numbers on Johns Hopkins, CDC, OurWorldInData, etc. But the official case count in our country so far is largely a function of test kits on hand and convenience or willingness or money to get tested.

Looking at daily deaths and the counting back 25 days (average 3.5 weeks from infection to death) is a more accurate way to track trends in numbers of newly infected on a given date.

Mark, as I wrote, I believe the official Georgia data is being honestly collected and reported. I haven’t seen or heard it doubted by anyone, have you?

You write “who knows what to believe with all the manipulations going on”. Which are some of the manipulations going on?

There has been incredibly consistency among the various reporting and data visitation and comparison sites.

[JPtheBeasta]

Can you clarify this statement? Where is this reduction in new cases taking place? In "early March" in the US, we were seeing less than 1K new cases per day in the US. We are now seeing between 18K and 25K new cases per day.

If you made a best fit line to that data, it appears that after March 30 the slope is negative. It would match the other graphs I have seen for states not named Illinois and (I actually forget the other one). It seems that we have flattened the curve in most places.

[JPtheBeasta]

I don’t have the link at hand, but if you look at the hospitalization data (DOH Covid-19!Dashboard) in Washington State it is pretty interesting. Seattle area was hit hard but the rest of the stage did ok. Three of the four counties touching Spokane County have zero deaths.

I like that Washington is being opened up by county, but it could be going faster in my opinion. You guys flattened the curve a while ago. The peak of cases was March 23rd.

714 of the 1001 deaths have occurred in the Seattle metro area. If you include Yakima County, that number goes up to 789. It seems that the remaining counties could be open.