Regarding group 2 your wall of text suggests to me that you disagree with my 60% of those infected? Where would you estimate the figure? Or do you think it can't be estimated for the reasons you give? — Punshhh

Yes, I realized I didn't directly answer your question after posting, but have already fixed that:

The basic pattern is Covid doubles your risk of death this year. Most people who have a risk of death "within 10 years" don't have 30% risk of death this year and therefore 60% risk of death with Covid this year (which is still not 60% chance of death from Covid). If a person of high risk of death with in 10 years has 5% risk of death this year, then their risk of death of Covid seems to be also 5% (therefore 10% within the year). — boethius

(The wall of text has all the critical elements to understand the statistical situation. Statistical reasoning is hard precisely because there are usually no short answers for any real world situation.)

such a contrary contention would require a substantial amount medical evidence demonstrating its veracity and the mechanism by which it acts. — Isaac

I should also add to this that I'm speaking hypothetically. This work has already been done and disputes the claim.

Independent predictors of mortality were diabetes mellitus, a history of renal dysfunction (or higher creatinine), New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class III or IV, lower weight or body mass index, lower blood pressure, ankle oedema, and higher scores on a disease specific quality of life questionnaire...A prognostic model produced on the basis of easily obtainable information from medical history and physical examination can adequately stratify heart failure patients according to their short term risk of death. (my bolding) — From the BMJ

It is not a mystery what factors are linked to mortality in people with serious conditions, there are entire libraries filled with papers about prognosis of mortality from various conditions.

@Punshhh - should have tagged you in to the post above

Looking at a demographics chart can be really useful to get a sense of what's going on:



Yes, 80-90 year old's have a higher likelihood of dying of Covid (if they get Covid), but they are a small group. They are also not only a small group, but most not "going to die within 1 year" (an even smaller group within the +80 group). They mostly have 10-20% chance of death this year.

Further ordering by risk -- you can visualize as taking very sick people out of younger cohorts and placing them with people in the +80 cohort -- doesn't significantly alter the picture, no where close enough people would be moving around cohorts to turn this sort by age into sort by risk, to arrive at "people who would die of Covid" and "people who would die in 2020" overlapping significantly (more than a numerically small amount), unless Covid was a disease of the terminally ill (which we would know by now; such diseases simply cannot bring medical systems to their knees, they can clear out hospitals of critical patients, which is unfortunate, but the outbreak then ends).

I agree with your assessment here (not including the disagreement with boethius, because I am still trying to work that out), but as it is not my area to get into statistics, I will leave that there for now. But I will respond to your comments on politics and the media later as that is more of interest for me.

I will give your thoughts more thought as I only see large numbers of vague(in the sense of being unknown this early in the pandemic) and wide ranging thoughts across all the factors involved in this crisis. I don't think I am in a position to reinterpret it in my language. Also I am inclined to return to the political and socio economic developments of the crisis, which is more my area.

I will give your thoughts more thought as I only see large numbers of vague(in the sense of being unknown this early in the pandemic) and wide ranging thoughts across all the factors involved in this crisis. — Punshhh

The numbers unknown in the sense we don't know exactly what they are, but they aren't unknown or vague from the point of view of my argument.

1. We know there's some new phenomenon that's killing people, clearly above the level of noise in the medical system.

2. The phenomenon has been reproduced all over the world with the same effects of lock-downs once a certain point is reached.

3. We know doctors have not found a good predictor of outcome (and we know they are highly motivated to do so, and such good predictors, if based on health history, become obvious with enough data; if not based on health history, but for instance random otherwise benign genetic variation, then it's not "unhealthiness" that is that good predictor).

4. We know actuary tables of risk-of-death groups are well motivated (actuary and medical science conclude based on statistics and an understanding of "how life works" there is not hidden groups that are not known to be very likely to die within a year, but will actually die within a year due to causes that existed at the start of the year).

You can conclude there is not going be a large amount of overlap with "people who would otherwise die this year" and people who die of the phenomenon, based on these pieces of knowledge; you do not even need to postulate Covid is causing these deaths.

The statistical situation can be the same as a war; sure, "unhealthy soldiers" and "unhealthy civilians" are a bit more likely to die than the faster and stronger ones, but no war has been close to balanced out with an overlap of "those people who otherwise die anyways within one year". No general says "this battle will be deadly, but we need to consider the idea all the dead would have died within one year and therefore we will not need to recruit more to replenish these fallen". It's so incredibly unlikely as not worth consideration. In the case of a disease, it's of course potentially true it only kills the terminally ill, but we know that is not true in the current pandemic.

I'm not sure if this helps, but these are the key concepts.

I would also like to note, that in applied mathematics (where I work) the main job of the applied mathematics person is to carry out these sorts of reasoning to avoid doing long and difficult calculations in the first place. If everything needs to be justified by exhaustive research and nuanced model building using the largest computers available, nothing would ever get done.

We simply don't need a model to tell us Covid deaths are not displacing near-future deaths. We do need a model to inform us what sorts of damage we're talking about in unmitigated spread as well as what policy actions to avoid unmitigated spread are likely to work (and how well). It's these latter question Prof Ferguson built a model to try to answer, not the overlap question (paper available here: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand).

Also I am inclined to return to the political and socio economic developments of the crisis, which is more my area. — Punshhh

Yes, I am too interested in these questions.

Joke; staff start infecting you when you go out of designated lanes.

also depends on viral load — Evil

I thought of that too: variations in transmission. We need the antibody test. It would be cool if 30% of those who contact this virus are spontaneously vaccinated by it.

What's happening to the oil price in the US?

Negative. Unfucking believable.

Well, it's a bit difficult just to let a full oil tanker to stay full. Yet Brent crude is still 25$, so it's not anytime soon that that the gas station clerk will give you money when you fill up your old car. (25$ Brent is unbelievable too). But a great time to speculate on oil. Just how is a good question if you aren't customed to options & futures.

Take it as a clear sign that the engine of the economy has halted. Did this pandemic trigger a bad economic depression or what?

130 USD subscription from Tesla for energy during the day, inflation + Tesla Bonds + fixed price, and you get something unbelievable. BTW, Tesla bonds are at almost 6% per year, is this really happening???

LEVERAGE THIS SHIT WITH A CREDIT CARD, HOI POLLOI!

Chemical engineering man, I feel bad for those smart alek's.

Interesting article, I thought it might be relevant here:

Reports suggest many have had coronavirus with no symptoms

A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared.

https://apnews.com/d20f283318c86bec3cc2d3d7936a9612

I actually think I may have had it in the first week of March but I have no way to be sure

Same, I had mild symptoms (including total loss of smell) about two and a half weeks ago, was quarantined from work for two weeks, and just finished my first 3 day half-week back at work.

Now we are seeing the brainwashed people coming out to protest in the US. Trump seems to be thrashing around in different directions and is becoming more and more unhinged. Like a death cult his followers will follow wherever he leads and the signal cutting through is that they need to keep working and going out as normal rather than stay at home, to make America great again, rather than stall the economy and sink back into depression.

Trump is trying to present himself as a stable genius who has got a handle on this virus and is taking all the right actions and responses. But it has unravelled because the only message cutting through is that the messages coming out from the rest of the world about social distancing and fighting the virus through stopping its spread in public spaces, are a con, a conspiracy to make The West shut down its economies. Trump seems to be turning on the governors and confusing the message again.

I agree with your thoughts on the media, it seems to have come to a head in the countries which have embraced the populism sweeping the world. Here in the UK we have a curious juxtaposition between the populism and a sense of civil obedience and cooperation. The populist media has been in the ascendancy during the Brexit debacle, resulting in a rightwing populist government getting into office. But as soon as their populist message became superseded by a global pandemic the populism has become curiously silent and the population has fallen into line behind the instructions of the medical experts. The populists in government have become impotent in their agendas, and have found themselves having to manage a war like response to a health emergency. The opposite of what they fought to deliver when they sought office. Also partly due to the reverence for the BBC the population is obediently following a media message orchestrated by a well ordered and responsible media.

Trump took credit in his news conference the other day for the streets of New York being completely clear due to the lockdown, said it was a great thing. In the same news conference, he supported people coming out on the streets to liberate themselves from these crazy lockdowns. Said that's a great thing.

Sadly, that probably won't cost him one vote.

Sadly, that probably won't cost him one vote. — Baden

:rofl:
I could add on so much, but :cheer:

Current, better contenders than chloroquine, to help treat covid-19 according to Dutch data are remdesivir, ruconest and the BCG-vaccin.

Anybody else know of other drugs being seriously researched?

A broader view: Covid-19 decision making

Now we are seeing the brainwashed people coming out to protest in the US. — Punshhh

I'm always wary of assigning positions to 'brainwashing'. Not because it's not appropriate, but because I don't think it's helpful. The mechanisms behind brainwashing are present in literally every thought you, I, or anyone else has. It's not a binomial state, it's about degree. The "we must all stay indoors to help fight this global crisis" is no less a narrative than the "it's all a global conspiracy" (for what, we don't yet know!). Just because the former is more true, doesn't make it less of a narrative. That's important in a situation where the state of scientific knowledge is changing rapidly. People will update their narratives much more slowly, and no less so if they were right in the first instance.

You're right about the signal that's driving this, but with 7 million premature deaths linked to air pollution, the same could be said of anyone driving their car into the town centre. With 1.9 million deaths from diarrhoeal diseases directly related to poverty, the same could be said of anyone not paying a fair price for agricultural products from developing countries. It comes down to beliefs about the weight of responsibility vs autonomy. We're more forgiving of slight variations in that balance when we have more data (it's easier for us to see complexity in larger datasets). So here, battle lines are more stark because the dataset is small.

Trump is trying to present himself as a stable genius who has got a handle on this virus and is taking all the right actions and responses. — Punshhh

Yes, it's laughable isn't it. Of all the characters he could have potentially got away with presenting, stable genius was not a good choice. Mad-max-like anti-hero might have worked, stable genius is a reach even for such a consummate liar as he is.

Here in the UK we have a curious juxtaposition between the populism and a sense of civil obedience and cooperation. — Punshhh

Is it such a juxtaposition though? I see what you mean, but the responsible media (and even scientists) are not made up of people magically immune from influence by their social groups. We shouldn't mistake the clear boundaries to reasonable belief created by science for a guide to 'right' belief. It's not the same thing at all.

One thing that's interesting for me with this crisis (this thread being a good example) is the narrowness of ideological branding. I'm not getting into the conspiracy bullshit, I'm meaning within the parameters of what is scientifically valid opinion, certain positions are being allocated to political ideologies to which I don't think they belong. I don't believe there's such a thing as a non-political view. All views come from underlying ideologies which have political ramifications. With Coronavirus there's variables - the extent to which it's a crisis, the proportion who will be affected, the effectiveness of certain strategies, the cost/benefit of certain strategies. In less critical times, there might be a range of each of these variables associated with the range of political ideologies (whatever your favourite two-axis compass). Here I feel there's a basic association of all valences with either right or left. Back to the impoverished understanding we had of political spectra before Eysenck even. Can you distinguish a left-libertarian version of this from a left-authoritarian version? Or the libertarian capitalist from the state capitalist response? It seems much more right-wing/left-wing and no second (or third) axis.

as their populist message became superseded by a global pandemic the populism has become curiously silent and the population has fallen into line behind the instructions of the medical experts. — Punshhh

Yes, this is an interesting phenomena. I had a colleague at work who would divide the religious into those who believed in God and those who BELIVED in God. The latter group, he said, were identifiable becasue they acted as if the Devil were literally behind them with the red hot poker ready to insert. The former group would change Gods if it offered them a better deal at the supermarket. The point is that I think feeling one's life (or those of ones close social group) is at risk really undercuts beliefs which were held only for convenience, but it does not dent those which were held fundamentally. I guess America has more fundamentalists.

If a vaccine eliminated the coranavirus tomorrow, shouldn't we keep the economy closed down indefinitely, considering we'll see a predictable spike in death from car accidents and other communicable diseases if we don't, or is our objective only to eliminate coronavirus deaths specifically? I wasn't sure how we are to compute the importance of human life versus making money. Maybe it's just we hate the coronavirus so much we want to kill it regardless of the cost.

I wasn't sure how we are to compute the importance of human life versus making money. Maybe it's just we hate the coronavirus so much we want to kill it regardless of the cost. — Hanover

There are several issues.

The first is that Covonavirus, although doesn't kill enough people to be an existential threat, does kill enough people to overwhelm medical systems. Wealthy countries simply can't function without a medical system; and, keep in mind, medical systems and global medical supplies are stretching resources to limits even in this situation of massive lock-downs all over the world. Without the lock-downs it would rapidly progress to total medical system collapse. The vast majority of people do not view that as acceptable, to just not have a medical system; the people protesting rely on baseless ideas that the disease is made-up, "not so bad" or simply don't understand that "freedom" from the lock-downs would mean rapidly medical system collapse. In medical system collapse, deaths from Coronavirus would be much higher as treatment quality plummets, and deaths would be much higher from people needing any other medical care, as treatment quality plummets.

There's not really any controversy that this unmitigated scenario is somehow acceptable in any analysis.

Second issue is, assuming the virus is brought under control and the medical system can deal acceptably with not only coronavirus cases but other medical issues in society, then is "easing the lockdowns" reasonable. There's not much controversy on this topic either. The central issue is "is it true coronavirus is under control?" and "what easing measures would keep it under control?".

For instance, Sweden considers they have things "under control" and pursued an "eased social distancing" policy from the beginning. Mostly the issue is whether this will work or not. There's little debate about whether it's reasonable assuming it will work.

However, there's is some room to debate. Although few, maybe no one, criticizing Sweden's approach is advocating society be shut down indefinitely to avoid most deaths (even assuming that wasn't counter-productive, which it obviously is), the assumptions that lead to a different conclusion are the possibility a cure is found relatively soon, so in that case people were maybe dead that could have been cured (there's some merit to this argument, but depends heavily on "likelihood of a super cure" soon, which I would bet against, but could easily be proven wrong -- the mobilization of resources to find a cure is pretty high, so difficult to dismiss).

The third issue is more specific the US. Countries like Sweden have few car accident deaths, and people have the choice to not drive and use public transportation that has even lower death rates.

Whereas, in the US there are lot's of policies that increase deaths so that some corporations can make more money (such as having no effective public transportation, no cautionary principle to chemicals, anti union laws, few worker protections etc.), so coronavirus is revealing the hypocrisy of politicians and institutions that normally don't care about people's lives, but are forced to in this situation due to the first point above. Countries that don't have such a hypocritical political and bureaucratic class don't encounter these analytical problems: they've already done a lot of work reducing car accident deaths (I believe Sweden achieved their goal of 0 child car deaths a year recently) and no one's really forced to drive anyways: in other words, these countries don't already have plenty of "money in exchange for some lives" policies so coronavirus does not reveal a inconsistent governing ideology of the ruling class, where "suddenly they care about poor people".

Trump seems to be thrashing around in different directions and is becoming more and more unhinged. — Punshhh

I think Trump is between a rock and a hard place with this virus. He derives a significant portion of his support from conspiracy theories, and the people who believe in them. Now he has on the one side, the idea that coronavirus is not a serious threat, it's all a conspiracy, and on the other side his own fear and realization that it is a serious threat. So he proposes the opposing conspiracy theory, that the virus is a serious threat, which was created by Chinese scientists, and intentionally turned loose into society. The two conspiracy theories are fundamentally opposed, and now that portion of Trump's supporters, likely enough to tip the election, are also divided. He must now try to appease both, so we'll see if he has any internal diplomatic skills at all.

Whereas, in the US there are lot's of policies that increase deaths so that some corporations can make more money (such as having no effective public transportation, no cautionary principle to chemicals, anti union laws, few worker protections etc.), so coronavirus is revealing the hypocrisy of politicians and institutions that normally don't care about people's lives, but are forced to in this situation due to the first point above. — boethius

I was following you up to this point. Europe has public transportation because it had to because it had major population centers prior to the popularity of cars. In Atlanta, where I live, our population was fairly small through the 60s and 70s and it's been growing steadily sense. We do have a subway, but it's limited because it's pretty hard to retrofit a subway onto a pre-existing city, and heavy car ownership led to sprawl, which makes laying subway tracks after the fact all the more difficult. The trade off to sprawl is larger and more affordable homes, things you would never see in Europe or older cities in the US, like New York. Expansion of public transportation is not blocked by corporations, but it's blocked by suburbanites voting in referendums to keep the city folks out of their neighborhoods. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it has nothing to do with capitalism or corporatism, but more so with democratic will.

With regard to federal regulations over dangerous chemicals and worker safety requirements, the FDA and OSHA are fairly tight regulators, and, I don't know if you've been in the US, but we are an incredibly safe society due to the threat of litigation being around every corner. There is nothing more harrowing for an American than to drive on European roads. They are narrow, have few guardrails, they twist and turn, and don't give you that comforting 5 foot + shoulder for a little error.

Countries that don't have such a hypocritical political and bureaucratic class don't encounter these analytical problems: they've already done a lot of work reducing car accident deaths (I believe Sweden achieved their goal of 0 child car deaths a year recently) and no one's really forced to drive anyways: in other words, these countries don't already have plenty of "money in exchange for some lives" policies so coronavirus does not reveal a inconsistent governing ideology of the ruling class, where "suddenly they care about poor people". — boethius

My occupation makes me very aware of highway safety figures and death rates. Automobile deaths have been falling steadily every year fairly dramatically. Volvos (if still Swedish?) have been a leader in vehicle safety, and most manufacturers have caught up with them. At any rate, there can be an inverse relationship between road safety and vehicle related death because as road safety increases, so does one's comfort level at increasing their speed, and that then leads to a higher death rate. If you're in a third world country, for example, with one lane roads that scale the sides of cliffs, you're unlikely to die because you'll drive very safely and slowly. US highways were built to be driven safely at 80 miles per hour, and they feel much safer than the autobahn, for example.

Anyway, this whole "the right doesn't care about life" is just a failure to appreciate (or just a fun way to misstate) the right's belief in what the proper role of government is. That I don't believe I have a right to mandate what my neighbor ought to do doesn't mean I don't care about my neighbor.

If a vaccine eliminated the coranavirus tomorrow, shouldn't we keep the economy closed down indefinitely, considering we'll see a predictable spike in death from car accidents and other communicable diseases if we don't, or is our objective only to eliminate coronavirus deaths specifically? I wasn't sure how we are to compute the importance of human life versus making money. Maybe it's just we hate the coronavirus so much we want to kill it regardless of the cost. — Hanover

Tomorrow might be soon enough for some people as well as businesses but for us? It's a crap shoot. Of our 15 businesses, 1 surgeon and one retail store have closed their doors forever. Two of the remaining 13 have applied for the SBA loan/grant but have not received a WORD about where they are in the 'que', if they need to reapply for this second attempt to backstop their business.
Yes, we at the ranch are considered "essential" for business since NicK does companies internet ability and has converted the majority of our clients onto a telecommute platform where needed.
Here is the problem we are necessary for companies to keep their networks protected, which they know they have to keep up in order to return when AZ opens but, BUT we cannot make offer a reduction in fees because we utilize a platform that we pay for. So the sun rises, so the sun sets. I get it.
My beef: we responsibly shut down our economy based on the science and now the science says we will be ready to open May 1st BUT our Mayor disagrees with the same science and said there are other things to consider. What other things?
I despise people who move the goal posts in life and she is no different. Our Governor has given the green light on May 1.
I know what I want to have happen, as I am sure any other self employed, no such thing as unemployment checks Phonecians want to do but the social blowback is a risk worthy of consideration. If we open back up in phases starting May 1st, Phoenicians will be returning to our states off season and that means any service job won't be back until October. 90 days unemployment for my friend who works at the 4seasons ain't going to cut it.
Here is another kicker: one of our best friends is an RN and has been put on another month of furlough. Our hospitals are empty and not going to survive without a bailout.
We cannot treat a nation of states with a blanket advisement, we are too large and too diversified in our work. The one common thread is Americans feel pride in our work and contribution to a common good but at what cost is a question worth considering.

— Hanover

With regard to federal regulations over dangerous chemicals and worker safety requirements, the FDA and OSHA are fairly tight regulators, and, I don't know if you've been in the US, but we are an incredibly safe society due to the threat of litigation being around every corner.

I suggest you take a look at DuPont and their antics with Ammonium perfluorooctanoate (C8) and other chemicals for example.

Here is another kicker: one of our best friends is an RN and has been put on another month of furlough. Our hospitals are empty — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Same here. They're trying to limit personnel coming in to people they really need.

The one common thread is Americans feel pride in our work and contribution to a common good but at what cost is a question worth considering. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

The northeast definitely needed lockdown. The rest of us? It's hard to say what would have happened with a more limited approach.

Do you think Trump lost ground due to this?