heywood on 1/9/2020 at 21:01
I recall seeing that number, and I think it was early on when they weren't counting recoveries yet, so it might have been just deaths/total cases. But I think he's right that we can't really know.
S. Korea one of the first to roll out a large scale testing program, but they have since fallen way behind on testing. According to the data aggregated by worldmeter, S. Korea is currently #112 in tests/1M population, with a death rate of 2% among closed cases. Among countries with major outbreaks who are tracking cases to closure, the death rates vary from <1% all the way up to 15%, and they don't seem to be correlated with testing rates.
I've been paying more attention to US data recently, especially states that had an early wave followed by a later one. In every case, it looks like fewer people are dying in the second wave, which is a good thing no matter what the root cause.
howeird on 3/9/2020 at 03:21
They should call the new corona anti-virus vaccine "Linux". Advertise it as: 'Also works as a anti-virus for Cortana ! Choice of flavors ! Chinese, Russian, or the new Warp Speed variety ! TicToc variety no longer available :o
bob_doe_nz on 6/9/2020 at 08:44
Well, Kiwi land has more or less managed to contain this second outbreak. We are still not sure 100% how it got into the country though the leading theory is it managed to stick around in chilled freight. Got another death related to it and the covidiots are out in force doing demonstrations.
Starker on 9/9/2020 at 06:07
Meanwhile, in the US, one single mass gathering is estimated to be responsible for over 250 000 cases:
Quote:
(
https://drewmcnichols.github.io/Contagion_Externality_Sturgis_Motorcycle_Rally_9-5-20_Dave_et_al.pdf)
In this paper we document the spread of infectious disease due to a mass gathering conducted during a pandemic against the guidance of CDC. The spread of the virus due to the event was large: we document large increases in cumulative cases relative to the synthetic counterfactual in the county of the event, and the cluster of CBGs in the county and adjoining the county over the entire post-event time period, with larger increases detected towards the end of the time period. Similarly, we find large increases statewide - with increases in the South Dakota cumulative COVID-19 caseload relative to the synthetic counterfactual that were between 3.6 and 3.9 cases per 1,000 population.
We are further able to document national spread due to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, although that spread also appears to have been successfully mitigated by states with strict infection mitigation policies. In counties with the largest relative inflow to the event, the per 1,000 case rate increased by 10.7 percent after 24 days following the onset of Sturgis Pre-Rally Events. Multiplying the percent case increases for the high, moderate-high and moderate inflow counties by each county's respective pre-rally cumulative COVID-19 cases and aggregating, yields a total of 263,708 additional cases in these locations due to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Adding the number of new cases due to the Rally in South Dakota estimated by synthetic control (3.6 per 1,000 population, scaled by the South Dakota population of approximately 858,000) brings the total number of cases to 266,796 or 19 percent of 1.4 million new cases of COVID-19 in the United States between August 2nd 2020 and September 2nd 2020.
If we conservatively assume that all of these cases were non-fatal, then these cases represent a cost of over $12.2 billion, based on the statistical cost of a COVID-19 case of $46,000 estimated by Kniesner and Sullivan (2020). This is enough to have paid each of the estimated 462,182 rally attendees $26,553.64 not to attend. This is by no means an accurate accounting of the true externality cost of the event, as it counts those who attended and were infected as part of the externality when their costs are likely internalized. However, this calculation is nonetheless useful as it provides a ballpark estimate as to how large of an externality a single superspreading event can impose, and a sense of how valuable restrictions on mass gatherings can be in this context. Even if half of the new cases were attendees, the implied externality is still quite large. Finally, our descriptive evidence suggests that stricter mitigation policies in other locations may contribute to limiting externality exposure due to the behavior of non-compliant events and those who travel to them.
heywood on 9/9/2020 at 12:04
Of course Sturgis was a speading event, but this study's numbers are not believable.
The authors are stupid to start their count from Aug 2. Nobody who was exposed to the virus on day 1 of the event got tested and results back on day 1 of the event. They didn't account for the incubation period and test turnaround time that was averaging around 4-6 days at the time of the event. It makes a lot more sense to start from the end of the event, because the known, traceable cases that have been reported in the media were detected and reported after people returned from the event.
According to the current worldometer tally, the US has accumulated 948273 cases since the day Sturgis ended. 266796 would be 28% of the US total. Given that just 0.1% of the US population attended Sturgis, that seems implausible. I think a single spreading event of that magnitude would show up in the daily case numbers, but the trend there has been flat for the last few weeks. Similarly, the number of current active cases has been leveling off, following a smooth trend with no sign of a surge. Further, the bulk of new cases we've been seeing over the last few weeks have been coming from the same places they were coming from before Sturgis: California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Missouri, etc. - and generally from the same metro areas as before. Outside of South Dakota, I can't find any change in trend that you could tie to the timing of this event.
As most people expected, there was a surge in new cases following the event in South Dakota where it was held. But according to worldometer, South Dakota has 5129 new cases since the end of Sturgis. Even if you attribute all of those to Sturgis, it's only 1.9% of their estimate. I find it hard to believe that the host state that provided hospitality for all those attendees would have <2% of the resulting cases.
Many states have been tracing cases from Sturgis, but so far the numbers are in the hundreds, not hundreds of thousands:
(
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/02/908874086/states-report-coronavirus-cases-linked-to-sturgis-s-d-motorcycle-rally) https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/02/908874086/states-report-coronavirus-cases-linked-to-sturgis-s-d-motorcycle-rally
Starker on 9/9/2020 at 14:45
Do you really find it that hard to believe that an event -- held in a small town in a state that has some of the lowest population density out of all US and where most (over 90%) of the attendees are from out of state -- would have less effects on the state than the big densely packed cities where a lot of the carefree visitors returned to?
But yes, it's more than likely that those estimated 250 000+ cases they linked to the event are not all due to the event -- especially with all the school reopenings and whatnot there have been plenty of other opportunities for the virus to spread. Of course, this is just one paper and I expect there will be other studies to refute or confirm its findings.
Btw, from what I understand, those hundreds of cases being linked to Sturgis in the NPR article are in large part due to the people themselves reporting to their state health department of their being in Sturgis, so I don't think it's a very reliable indicator. Furthermore, states differ quite a lot in their approach to contact tracing and the attendees don't really seem to be people very willing to divulge information. Not to mention there can be quite a lag in reporting data, so the picture is likely still in the process of being filled in.
Nicker on 9/9/2020 at 21:39
Trump knew the dangers of COVID in January.
[video=youtube;YWeRz9pM0M0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWeRz9pM0M0&t=2s[/video]
Tony_Tarantula on 10/9/2020 at 17:27
Quote Posted by Nicker
Trump knew the dangers of COVID in January.
(
https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1303846799434592257?s=20)
Alyssa Milano said it best.
Quote:
@Alyssa_Milano
The entire @GOP should be tried for treason.
#TrumpKnewVoteBlue
8:04 PM · Sep 9, 2020
She should run for office already.
heywood on 11/9/2020 at 21:33
Quote Posted by Starker
Do you really find it that hard to believe that an event -- held in a small town in a state that has some of the lowest population density out of all US and where most (over 90%) of the attendees are from out of state -- would have less effects on the state than the big densely packed cities where a lot of the carefree visitors returned to?
I don't. The people who were hosting all those attendees were at higher risk than the attendees themselves because they interacted with a larger number of people. Especially wait staff and bartenders, who were serving people who were not wearing masks, mostly indoors. And all the vendors handing goods and cash back and forth with hundreds of attendees a day.
Quote:
But yes, it's more than likely that those estimated 250 000+ cases they linked to the event are not all due to the event -- especially with all the school reopenings and whatnot there have been plenty of other opportunities for the virus to spread. Of course, this is just one paper and I expect there will be other studies to refute or confirm its findings.
Btw, from what I understand, those hundreds of cases being linked to Sturgis in the NPR article are in large part due to the people themselves reporting to their state health department of their being in Sturgis, so I don't think it's a very reliable indicator. Furthermore, states differ quite a lot in their approach to contact tracing and the attendees don't really seem to be people very willing to divulge information. Not to mention there can be quite a lag in reporting data, so the picture is likely still in the process of being filled in.
I'm sure the real number is higher than the hundreds that have actually been traced. But the number estimated by that paper is simply impossible given any reasonable starting assumptions i.e. positivity rate among attendees when they arrived at the rally, percentage of positive individuals who were super-spreaders, number of people who each super-spreader would be able to infect, and number of "generations" of spread that could have potentially occurred in their communities after returning from the rally. And like I said, a single event that triggered that many cases in such a short amount of time would have shown up in the trends of counties & states that had the most rally attendees.
Here is further argument:
(
https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/sturgis-rally-covid19-explosion-paper.html) https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/sturgis-rally-covid19-explosion-paper.html