California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#391

Post by throwaway237683 » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #348

throwawaysea wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 2% is the case fatality rate. The true overall mortality is far lower. Germany did a randomized test recently of a town and calculated that 2% of the population is actively infected, 14% possess antibodies indicative of a current/prior infection, and overall 15% have been infected at some point. Once this broader testing was completed, the overal mortality was found to only be 0.37%. For comparison, a typical flu…

For comparison, a typical flu season is 0.1%. That is incorrect. The worst flu wave to hit Germany in the last 20 years, 2017/2018, killed appoximately 25000 people (excess mortality). That's 0.03%, and it's not typical. Often, the number is much lower. Note also that the results from the Gangelt study you're referring to are preliminary; there's a press release but no paper yet, not even in preprint. https://edoc.rk…

> That's 0.03%, and it's not typical. Often, the number is much lower.

0.03% or 0.1% or 0.66%, the number is low enough to be perceived as not too dangerous by general populace. Contrast that with 13% mortality rate for Italy that was widely spun a month ago. Now _that_ was scary!

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#392

Post by rhizome » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

mayneack wrote: post #242

rhizome wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tests are still scarce.

Are they scarce everywhere? I was under the impression that LA county, at least, could test everyone that was symptomatic.

That's great for LA county but there are 320 million of us who don't live there. That is: should they be scarce anywhere?

Remember, this is the USA.

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#393

Post by rhizome » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #349

tanilama wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe or may not be true. I just got an email from local urgent care that they have the fast test equipment that can offer a result within 15 minutes if you are negative. The situation is changing quickly

Assuming that's the Abbott 15 minute test, there's only going to be 50,000 of those a day for the near future (and it seems less than that in the immediate future). That's a big chunk on top of current testing, but probably not enough to make it easy to move forward with a testing based strategy.

And the stories I've read say their accuracy is questionable.

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#394

Post by throwaway237683 » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 10:45 PM UTC

Jommi wrote: post #388

throwaway237683 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In mid-March we were told that we are "10 days behind Italy" and shelter-in-place is not to stop the spread (already too late for that), but to give hospitals a bit of a breather before the surge of critical cases and the Death Wave that follows. That was the justification for such extraordinary measures as a state-wide lockdown. It's mid-April now. Where is the Death Wave? Either this virus is much less infectuous t…

Sweden didnt lock down and as a result has around TEN TIMES more deaths than its neighbours, and the death toll is raising by hundreds per day, when its hovering around 10 with Finland and Norway. I don't think you want to give Sweden as a good example.

Wikipedia says 1,200 deaths so far in Sweden. Sure that might be ten times more than in Finland and Norway but given the dire predictions of two months ago, and even more dire predictions of a month ago, you'd expect this number to be ten times higher than it is now, or a hundred times. What about exponential growth and stuff? In a country with no lockdowns this disease should go rampant, right?

1,200 people dead of 10.3 mln is 0.012% of the populace. Not good but not scary either, for the Worst Pandemic Of Our Lifetime.

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#395

Post by throwaway237683 » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #287

JamisonM wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a noble lie to tell people it won't be ok if it really won't be ok. Really, if every jurisdiction in the world overwhelms their hospital capacity it won't be ok.

Agreed, it'd be wrong to tell people it's okay. It's not okay, a lot of people are going to die, and even more people would have died if we didn't take costly measures to stop it. This has been and will be the worst experience of a lot of people's lives, and it'd just be a lie in another direction to pretend that's not so. What seems to be a noble lie is the apocalyptic mindset, where the coronavirus is literally the…

> even more people would have died if we didn't take costly measures to stop it.

The example of Sweden seems to disagree with this assumption. They never locked down, and the current mortality is (1,203 / 10,330,000) * 100 = 0.0116%

First case on Jan 31st, no lockdowns, death rate has already flattened. Where is that crazy scary exponential growth?

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#396

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

mikekij wrote: post #260

joe_the_user wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares what the best fit is. There is simply not enough data. You're talking twelves data points with considerable variation. Using statistic doesn't turn muddy and ambiguous data into a clear signal magically.

My point is that there is no extrapolation of the data we’ve seen to date that yields the blue line on their graph.

Sure, but I think they are tracing the worst case scenario based on the underlying assumption that the virus increases exponentially.

What going to happen is indeed inherently uncertain so we pretty much have to prepare for the worst plausible series of events. Once it becomes clear that a better outcome is fairly likely, then the plans can shift.

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#397

Post by arcticbull » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #266

arcticbull wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Gangelt showed 15% had antibodies (subject to, potentially fair criticisms re: methodology) so I think it's fair to say it varies by locale. While I understand that many folks from Wuhan travel all over the United States, the non-stop options from Wuhan to NYC and, if I recall correctly, SFO and LAX meant that more opportunities existed for early spread than the middle of Colorado. In fact, I can't actually pin…

The strain that is widespread in New York is the European strain: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavi...

Very cool! I wonder if that's true in the Bay Area too.

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#398

Post by redis_mlc » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:07 AM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #345

apatters wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like both the perception of and response to this pandemic are not reflective of reality. What am I getting wrong here? - Around 200 million Americans will eventually get it, barring extraordinary events (like a vaccine arriving in 6 months). We cannot change this. - Around 0.5% will die, overwhelmingly those who had a low remaining life expectancy to begin with. This is a much larger body count than most peo…

> Around 200 million Americans will eventually get it, barring extraordinary events (like a vaccine arriving in 6 months). We cannot change this. This doesn't seem right to me. With social distancing now, and testing and tracing once we have enough tests available, it seems to me that we should be able to keep the total number of infected people well below 200M, even if a vaccine takes the expected 18-24 months. If t…

1) SARS-2 is highly contagious.

2) Testing and tracing is working fairly well in S. Korea because they're treating it like a war, and they've been orgainzed since fairly early on. The US is not organized.

What most people, including HN, miss is that passing a test today means nothing about tomorrow.

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#399

Post by JamisonM » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:51 AM UTC

throwaway237683 wrote: post #395

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it'd be wrong to tell people it's okay. It's not okay, a lot of people are going to die, and even more people would have died if we didn't take costly measures to stop it. This has been and will be the worst experience of a lot of people's lives, and it'd just be a lie in another direction to pretend that's not so. What seems to be a noble lie is the apocalyptic mindset, where the coronavirus is literally the…

> even more people would have died if we didn't take costly measures to stop it. The example of Sweden seems to disagree with this assumption. They never locked down, and the current mortality is (1,203 / 10,330,000) * 100 = 0.0116% First case on Jan 31st, no lockdowns, death rate has already flattened. Where is that crazy scary exponential growth?

Sweden as the great success story when it is suffering the same economic devastation as its neighbors but a higher death rate is an interesting argument.

The thing about the lockdowns is that evidence so far indicates that stopping 80% of non-essential economic activities voluntarily is about as bad for the economy as stopping 90+% on a mandatory basis, but it seems that the health outcomes are much better in the latter situation.

Re: California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order [pdf]

#400

Post by prawn » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

tomerico wrote: post #340

prawn wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"some of them have been highly successful in containing the disease without any lock down (Korea, Taiwan, and Australia) come to mind." How are you defining lock down here? I live in Australia and most people I know have been working from home for weeks and have had kids out of school during that time. All restaurants have been closed for a while now. There are stops/checks at border entry points between states, even…

I wish this was the situation here. The limitations in most of Europe and united states are much much harsher, including no schools and mandatory closure of all non-essential business.

Schools have closed in one Australian state at least. More than half of children are at home in my home state, from what I can tell, where schools are not closed. They've polled for the coming term and suggest that two-thirds will be at home.

One serious loss in productivity comes in overseeing homeschooling while trying to work from home. Can't imagine many non-essential businesses are running anywhere near 100%.