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Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted May 5, 2020
Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted May 5, 2020

Well, we know a few things about the testing.  It is possible (even certain) that there are people infected that haven’t been tested.  But even the governor says “we’ve tested the only the very sickest”.  So, a couple of things.   First, there is a good error rate on the positive tests, and the ‘rapid’ tests are notoriously unreliable (see below).  But, we’ll set that aside for now. Ohio has tested over 55,000 people, all of whom got a doctor’s order because they thought they had Covid-19.   Only 9% of them are testing positive – consistently, in every update.   Sure, in a state of 11 million people that’s a small sample, but many the balance don’t show meaningful symptoms so it really doesn’t matter.  And we’ve been locked down for over 2 weeks, so it will be very hard for lots of new cases to crop up (at least in significant numbers), so it seems clear to me we will soon know the true number of those that will get meaningfully ill.  And that’s what we peaked New Cases days ago.  Some will continue to trickle in, particularly from the prisons, but the general spread has been stopped. Next, those that get it and recover are actually good for society.  The virus is only a problem if folks are getting seriously ill.  If we test the other 10 million and find out we’ve all already gotten over it, then it is just like the flu (in it’s mortality rate) and is no biggie, and we don’t worry so much about a vaccine.  If we find they didn’t have it, we still win – it’s not as contagious as they said, and we know (through PPE and distancing) how to avoid transmitting it. My point is, I don’t know why people get wrapped around the axle about how critical testing is.  I don’t have an issue with testing, but it’s really only important in guide treatment of the seriously ill (we know what’s wrong with them) or triage when the system is overwhelmed (prioritization).  A vaccine is still a LONG way off, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to believe we’re going to shutdown the economy and distance to the current degree for a year.  If we don’t, it’s a pretty good bet we’re all going to get infected.  So, we (as everyone here admitted up front) just need to keep the hospitals from getting overwhelmed.  Today Ohio has over 14,000 empty hospital beds. https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1246500712630104066?s=20 So, what do we care about?  Our current distancing is keeping the seriously ill well below the manageable level for the health care system to treat everybody who needs treatment.  Full stop.  And we’re doing that with lots of “essential” business now, so we can just extend that model so we don’t make a health crisis a total economic collapse or depression.   PCR – https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/how-does-one-test-for-coronavirus-anyway/ “one problem is that PCR is so sensitive that it can also amplify small errors—primers sticking to a distantly related sequence, a distantly related coronavirus in the sample, or even contamination from the previous sample.” Rapid tests – https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/01/20/different-kinds-of-coronavirus-test-kits-used-in-the-philippines “The FDA also said that the rapid test kits cannot be used for mass testing and will need confirmatory PCR testing. “

Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted May 5, 2020
Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted April 13, 2020
Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted April 9, 2020

I really nice sounding article that, I think, still misses the point.  The fatality rate isn’t actually important.  We won’t realistically have a vaccine in less than a year, and not everyone will take it when we have it.  And Americans, and the economy, are not going to cower in place for a year. So what’s really important is not overwhelming the health care system so those that might die can get the best care we can offer them – the so-called “curve flattening”.  In Ohio we have been running essential businesses and carry-outs and grocery stores for nearly 3 weeks, and we’re over the peak and trending down on new cases – which have been steady between 350 and 425 for 8 days and trending lower.  We have over 12k hospital beds and 1/2 our ICU capacity is empty, so those that need supportive care can easily get it.  The state hasn’t ‘officially’ admitted it yet, but even they had to adjust them “social distancing” model down by 500% yesterday. This ‘story’ you tell belies the idea that we can’t have an economy and care for the ill.  We’ve shown we can.  This virus may or may not be more deadly than the flu, but like the flu we have shown we can work and care for people.  People who want to hide at home, or take the eventual vaccine, fine, but let’s get the economy moving because we can totally do it.  Folks who claim otherwise are either ignoring the data or have another agenda. Ohio’s modeling good or bad?

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Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted May 5, 2020
Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted May 5, 2020

Well, we know a few things about the testing.  It is possible (even certain) that there are people infected that haven’t been tested.  But even the governor says “we’ve tested the only the very sickest”.  So, a couple of things.   First, there is a good error rate on the positive tests, and the ‘rapid’ tests are notoriously unreliable (see below).  But, we’ll set that aside for now. Ohio has tested over 55,000 people, all of whom got a doctor’s order because they thought they had Covid-19.   Only 9% of them are testing positive – consistently, in every update.   Sure, in a state of 11 million people that’s a small sample, but many the balance don’t show meaningful symptoms so it really doesn’t matter.  And we’ve been locked down for over 2 weeks, so it will be very hard for lots of new cases to crop up (at least in significant numbers), so it seems clear to me we will soon know the true number of those that will get meaningfully ill.  And that’s what we peaked New Cases days ago.  Some will continue to trickle in, particularly from the prisons, but the general spread has been stopped. Next, those that get it and recover are actually good for society.  The virus is only a problem if folks are getting seriously ill.  If we test the other 10 million and find out we’ve all already gotten over it, then it is just like the flu (in it’s mortality rate) and is no biggie, and we don’t worry so much about a vaccine.  If we find they didn’t have it, we still win – it’s not as contagious as they said, and we know (through PPE and distancing) how to avoid transmitting it. My point is, I don’t know why people get wrapped around the axle about how critical testing is.  I don’t have an issue with testing, but it’s really only important in guide treatment of the seriously ill (we know what’s wrong with them) or triage when the system is overwhelmed (prioritization).  A vaccine is still a LONG way off, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to believe we’re going to shutdown the economy and distance to the current degree for a year.  If we don’t, it’s a pretty good bet we’re all going to get infected.  So, we (as everyone here admitted up front) just need to keep the hospitals from getting overwhelmed.  Today Ohio has over 14,000 empty hospital beds. https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1246500712630104066?s=20 So, what do we care about?  Our current distancing is keeping the seriously ill well below the manageable level for the health care system to treat everybody who needs treatment.  Full stop.  And we’re doing that with lots of “essential” business now, so we can just extend that model so we don’t make a health crisis a total economic collapse or depression.   PCR – https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/how-does-one-test-for-coronavirus-anyway/ “one problem is that PCR is so sensitive that it can also amplify small errors—primers sticking to a distantly related sequence, a distantly related coronavirus in the sample, or even contamination from the previous sample.” Rapid tests – https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/01/20/different-kinds-of-coronavirus-test-kits-used-in-the-philippines “The FDA also said that the rapid test kits cannot be used for mass testing and will need confirmatory PCR testing. “

Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted May 5, 2020
Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted April 13, 2020
Reply to: Think it’s time to sacrifice lives to reopen the economy? You’re wrong about COVID-19’s fatality rate Posted April 9, 2020

I really nice sounding article that, I think, still misses the point.  The fatality rate isn’t actually important.  We won’t realistically have a vaccine in less than a year, and not everyone will take it when we have it.  And Americans, and the economy, are not going to cower in place for a year. So what’s really important is not overwhelming the health care system so those that might die can get the best care we can offer them – the so-called “curve flattening”.  In Ohio we have been running essential businesses and carry-outs and grocery stores for nearly 3 weeks, and we’re over the peak and trending down on new cases – which have been steady between 350 and 425 for 8 days and trending lower.  We have over 12k hospital beds and 1/2 our ICU capacity is empty, so those that need supportive care can easily get it.  The state hasn’t ‘officially’ admitted it yet, but even they had to adjust them “social distancing” model down by 500% yesterday. This ‘story’ you tell belies the idea that we can’t have an economy and care for the ill.  We’ve shown we can.  This virus may or may not be more deadly than the flu, but like the flu we have shown we can work and care for people.  People who want to hide at home, or take the eventual vaccine, fine, but let’s get the economy moving because we can totally do it.  Folks who claim otherwise are either ignoring the data or have another agenda. Ohio’s modeling good or bad?