It's about degree, DT. I am sure that special measures of self distancing for ourselves and others will become the new normal. And I suspect that folks like myself identified as needing to shield and practise rigorous self isolation will be advised to continue that for a very long time.
The issue is whether these benchmarks can be safely combined with greater economic activity and greater social freedoms than at present. It's not a binary topic. Some hard work is required to find the narrow, tiptoeing way forward. I hope our government is up to it.
Saskatchewan, Canada may be the first location of shipmates to have a flattened curve. 330 total cases in 1.1 million population. Only 57 active cases. Diagnosing each day 0-5 cases. Lockdown gets reduced 04 May. But not over. With greatly expanded testing and contact tracing. With also not allowing out of province people to come in. Not sure how that's going to be handled.
It's about degree, DT. I am sure that special measures of self distancing for ourselves and others will become the new normal. And I suspect that folks like myself identified as needing to shield and practise rigorous self isolation will be advised to continue that for a very long time.
The issue is whether these benchmarks can be safely combined with greater economic activity and greater social freedoms than at present. It's not a binary topic. Some hard work is required to find the narrow, tiptoeing way forward. I hope our government is up to it.
Yes, it's going to be tricky. I guess we will eventually produce a balance of freedom and restriction, that is, until a vaccine is found, or if. Humans tend to be very ingenious with these things, as with AIDS, but that took a long time.
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries eighteen of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
Romania has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
There is imminent danger to ourselves and others, but the enemy is invisible and insidious. It takes imagination and trust to see that - until you or someone you love becomes a victim.
That's the problem. The parts of the brain that process visual input (like explosions or enemy soldiers) evolved at least 400 million years ago. The prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that processes things like CDC analyses or exponential growth projections, is at most 2.5 million years old. We are, evolutionarily speaking, more predisposed to believe things we see than things we have to figure out.
I'm not sure that the principle of "this part of the brain is older than that, therefore it takes precedence in decision-making" has any scientific evidence for it.
"Speak the truth. Speak it clearly. Speak it with compassion. Speak it with empathy for what folks are going through.”
Obama, speaking to a group of Mayors.
Obama also pushed the mayors to bring in as many smart advisers and experts as possible.
"The more smart people you have around you, and the less embarrassed you are to ask questions, the better your response is going to be," Obama said.
It looks like Fox news and right wing republicans are turning the pandemic response into another American culture war, like abortion and gun rights.
And it looks like tRump is listening to them.
Two quotes separated by a few days.
It's well known that a primary intent of the Trump administration is to reverse everything associated with Obama. That extends to everything. Obama said "Speak the truth", so Trump lies. Obama said "Speak it clearly", so Trump obscures. Obama says "Speak with compassion and empathy", Trump has no compassion or empathy at all. Obama says "Surround yourself with smart people and experts, listen to them", so Trump surrounds himself with Fox News pundits and gun rights advocates and listens to them.
Yes, the lockdown is working, because it's reducing the R0 to below 1. But without accurate statistics, by date and by cause of death, then any decision made on when to relax or end the restrictions will inevitably be made on false assumptions.
If the FT is right, and we've had over 41,000 deaths, then the numbers might be falling, but from an unacceptably high level that precludes any loosening of the ties.
The lockdown is working because fewer people are getting infected, but that does not change the R₀.
The R₀ is how infectious a disease potentially is, not how many people are actually getting infected at a given time.
You just copied and pasted that from wikipedia without ever understanding it. Well done.
R0 has two modes, basic and effective. The effective R0 is literally what every layperson is talking about when they talk about R0 - the actual rate of transmission.
Effective R₀ from healthknowledge.org.uk
Effective reproductive number (R)
A population will rarely be totally susceptible to an infection in the real world. Some contacts will be immune, for example due to prior infection which has conferred life-long immunity, or as a result of previous immunisation. Therefore, not all contacts will become infected and the average number of secondary cases per infectious case will be lower than the basic reproduction number. The effective reproductive number (R) is the average number of secondary cases per infectious case in a population made up of both susceptible and non-susceptible hosts. If R>1, the number of cases will increase, such as at the start of an epidemic. Where R=1, the disease is endemic, and where R<1 there will be a decline in the number of cases.
The effective reproduction number can be estimated by the product of the basic reproductive number and the fraction of the host population that is susceptible (x). So:
R = R0x
For example, if R0 for influenza is 12 in a population where half of the population is immune, the effective reproductive number for influenza is 12 x 0.5 = 6. Under these circumstances, a single case of influenza would produce an average of 6 new secondary cases.1
To successfully eliminate a disease from a population, R needs to be less than 1.\
Stil not a measure of daily infection rate. And definitely not a measure of the efficacy of a lockdown.
It's not a direct measure of daily infection rate, but it is correlated.
As to why you think it's doesn't measure the efficacy of a lockdown, I've no idea. Why do you think we're having lockdowns, if not to reduce the opportunity of an infected person to infect other people?
Lockdowns only become part of the equation if they become typical behaviour. We are having lockdowns to spread the infection numbers out (aka flatten the curve) and reduce deaths, not change how infectious the virus is.
We are having lockdowns to change how effectively infectious the virus is. Basic infectiousness is such a theoretical concept that it only reflects reality if you just stand there doing nothing besides breathing and seeing how many droplets successfully take hold.
I mean, measles has an incredibly high basic reproduction number. The whole point of a measles vaccine is reduce how many people actually get infected by starving the disease of potential hosts within reach. Social distancing is no different in principle, it's just a different method of starving the virus of potential hosts.
And yes, of course you have to keep doing something. Stop vaccinating against measles, and... well in fact we've seen what happens, because some people decided to stop vaccinating.
Polarising is a deliberate Trump way of life. As is use of distraction of the news cycle. There was more nonsense about sunlight and disinfectant in the daily briefing.
Meanwhile back with the facts. The USA death toll topped 50,000 yesterday and on current trends will top the forecast 60,000 in about 5 or 6 days. The incidence of new cases has been about 30,000 per day so far this week. The new cases volume will defeat any current tracing strategy or resources. Selective action by States will be partial, fragmentary, and certainly in the case of Georgia very misguided as even Trump has acknowledged. Meanwhile Mike Pence sees the dawn.
Yes, he wants to reverse everything associated with Obama. But ISTM the things you listed aren't about that--they're simply part of the massively dysfunctional way T is, which is different from Obama.
Yes, he wants to reverse everything associated with Obama. But ISTM the things you listed aren't about that--they're simply part of the massively dysfunctional way T is, which is different from Obama.
Does that make sense?
Aye, sorry covid-crazy manifesting in facetious posting.
I'm worried people are going to start drinking bleach now. There were already scam artists selling it under a sciency name before this and claiming it cures autism, among other things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement
Just a snake peddling snake-oil. Nothing new in that. He's not up to the job and this crisis demonstrates that. But he is good at fooling a lot of people and this crisis demonstrates that too.
The right wing push for lifting the lockdown is increasing. It's interesting that their economic arguments are often buttressed by shaky statistics, and frequent references to Sweden. Presumably, this drift is found in the cabinet.
That'd be the Sweden with 40% of our population and over 20 times as many deaths, I assume.
EDIT: And with a radically different culture to the US which was a crucial factor in the Swedish government thinking their approach might work in the first place.
It must be especially hard for young families to stay cooped up inside - especially if they have no garden, or nearby park - on a hot sunny day like this.
The forecast is for more seasonal (i.e. unsettled!) weather next week...
Saskatchewan, Canada may be the first location of shipmates to have a flattened curve.
Definitely not the first. Illinois has had a flattened curve for weeks. Doesn't mean we don't have more cases--a lot more--since we have a lot more people and much higher population density. Also more communication with places that protesting like idiots instead of social distancing, but that's life.
Is there a listing of the dates of lockdown compared with first reported infection dates? I'm understanding that those of us who live in places with later first infection dates and earlier lockdowns are the lucky ones.
Some of this is pure luck of geography, total population number, and population density I think. There are no regular international flights to and from my province, only holiday charters which basically stopped in February,. The minimum driving time to the closest city of more than 100,000 people out of province where there are international flights is some 5 hours and we have few major highways which are patrolled and people driving in given cautions or quarantine orders.
I think the one of the eventual questions will be whether some jurisdictions made the wrong decisions and thus delayed restricting people's movements such that infection was passed around communities.
It is a different set of risks, with a different set of privations - but I think the idea that is impossible to maintain special measures until we have a mass produced vaccine is not true.
I would agree -- it seems to be an assumption about other people's (and it is usually other people) behaviour - which I think isn't bourne out by the support that these policies have in many countries.
I think America is a special case, primarily because the American state is experiencing internecine warfare.
We've been encouraged to believe whatever blatant lies we want, particularly those that appeal to our own self-interest. And some of us aren't very bright.
Yet stay at home orders enjoy wide support across the board in the US, and most people are following them (source).
Right now, it looks like people are primarily responding to new information. Significant populations began to restrict movement and economic engagement well before the first wave of closure orders. At the local level, people seem to be responding to the number of cases, the number of deaths and the incidence of first reported deaths. The stay at home orders had little observed effect on people reducing travel. The trends seem to be constant.
Restaurant reservations crashed in most places before any stay-at-home orders were issued. No one has issued any restrictions on air travel, and yet most of the domestic passenger fleet is grounded because no one wants to buy those tickets. It's this sort of thing which makes the whole "open the economy" thing so shady.
It is a different set of risks, with a different set of privations - but I think the idea that is impossible to maintain special measures until we have a mass produced vaccine is not true.
I would agree -- it seems to be an assumption about other people's (and it is usually other people) behaviour - which I think isn't bourne out by the support that these policies have in many countries.
I think America is a special case, primarily because the American state is experiencing internecine warfare.
We've been encouraged to believe whatever blatant lies we want, particularly those that appeal to our own self-interest. And some of us aren't very bright.
Yet stay at home orders enjoy wide support across the board in the US, and most people are following them (source).
Therefore the word "some." Most of us can tell a hawk from a handsaw, when the wind is southerly.
Article suggesting that Cummings and a Data Scientist employed by him (and working as a political advisor) were participating in the scientific advisory group in a role other than merely observer (the norm for political advisors).
Yesterday, Governor Little of the Great state of Idaho came out with his timetable for opening up his state. It will be in two-week increments Timetable here. This means, if all goes will he will open the whole state up by June 26, I think. Which is well and good for me, personally speaking, since I do need to get to Southern Idaho to take care of family business. My youngest brother died of cancer and we have yet to have a memorial.
Normally, Idaho is very libertarian when it comes to government involvement, but this seems to be very reasonable--assuming there is no uptick in cases. He was very clear if there was an uptick, he is not above shutting the whole thing down again.
Most of us can tell a hawk from a handsaw, when the wind is southerly.
Indeed! And we've all had three years to practice ignoring things like, "I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or, almost, a cleaning?”
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries eighteen of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
NZ has a 4 step model. We have been in lock down for 4 and a bit weeks. On Monday at 11.59 pm we go to level 3 which has more people returning to work in construction, forestry, and retail that can be offered in a 'click and collect' format. People like me who live by themselves can add another person to their bubble who is similarly situated. Children may return to school, but only if there is not a caregiver at home to look after them. Surfing, and water sports that don't involve motorised boats are allowed as hunting on private land (with the owner's permission), but otherwise the message is still about staying at home and distancing yourself from other people. This will be reviewed on May 11 and if the numbers are trending downward then we will move to level 2.
Our borders are still closed at level 3 (apart from Kiwis coming home and tourists returning to their countries) and domestic travel is very limited.
There has been some mention of travel between NZ and Australia being allowed, but I don't know when that would be.
The leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges, criticised the severity of the level 3 conditions and the backlash against him within his own party has led to rumours of the possibility of him being ousted, but with the election on September 19 it is more likely that he will remain in his job for now, but be replaced if his party don't win.
Most of us can tell a hawk from a handsaw, when the wind is southerly.
Indeed! And we've all had three years to practice ignoring things like, "I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or, almost, a cleaning?”
I ignored a deluded narcissist for twelve months. It was a mistake. I should have left. I fought and got her removed, at huge cost to me.
tRump will become (even) more bizarre over time to deflect attention from the fact that he’s falling apart.
The 'extra' deaths may well amount to another 2000, or even more.
Without wishing in any way to denigrate the often heroic, largely unsung, and unsupported by 'government', efforts of those working in care homes, this is surely a national scandal. The term 'care home' may well come to be seen - quite unfairly - as an oxymoron.
Never mind - the Demonics (Raab and Cummings) are in control...
This, I presume, does not include yet more deaths at home, or in care homes etc.
Christe eleison.
Because those who die at home, or in a care setting, don't count as 'people'.
The FT estimated, using actual statistics, the death toll to be 41,000, some time last week. When this first wave is over, we'll be lucky to get in under 100k.
Comments
The issue is whether these benchmarks can be safely combined with greater economic activity and greater social freedoms than at present. It's not a binary topic. Some hard work is required to find the narrow, tiptoeing way forward. I hope our government is up to it.
Yes, it's going to be tricky. I guess we will eventually produce a balance of freedom and restriction, that is, until a vaccine is found, or if. Humans tend to be very ingenious with these things, as with AIDS, but that took a long time.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries eighteen of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
Romania has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
I'm not sure that the principle of "this part of the brain is older than that, therefore it takes precedence in decision-making" has any scientific evidence for it.
And it looks like tRump is listening to them.
It's well known that a primary intent of the Trump administration is to reverse everything associated with Obama. That extends to everything. Obama said "Speak the truth", so Trump lies. Obama said "Speak it clearly", so Trump obscures. Obama says "Speak with compassion and empathy", Trump has no compassion or empathy at all. Obama says "Surround yourself with smart people and experts, listen to them", so Trump surrounds himself with Fox News pundits and gun rights advocates and listens to them.
We are having lockdowns to change how effectively infectious the virus is. Basic infectiousness is such a theoretical concept that it only reflects reality if you just stand there doing nothing besides breathing and seeing how many droplets successfully take hold.
I mean, measles has an incredibly high basic reproduction number. The whole point of a measles vaccine is reduce how many people actually get infected by starving the disease of potential hosts within reach. Social distancing is no different in principle, it's just a different method of starving the virus of potential hosts.
And yes, of course you have to keep doing something. Stop vaccinating against measles, and... well in fact we've seen what happens, because some people decided to stop vaccinating.
Meanwhile back with the facts. The USA death toll topped 50,000 yesterday and on current trends will top the forecast 60,000 in about 5 or 6 days. The incidence of new cases has been about 30,000 per day so far this week. The new cases volume will defeat any current tracing strategy or resources. Selective action by States will be partial, fragmentary, and certainly in the case of Georgia very misguided as even Trump has acknowledged. Meanwhile Mike Pence sees the dawn.
Yes, he wants to reverse everything associated with Obama. But ISTM the things you listed aren't about that--they're simply part of the massively dysfunctional way T is, which is different from Obama.
Does that make sense?
🙄
EDIT: And with a radically different culture to the US which was a crucial factor in the Swedish government thinking their approach might work in the first place.
The forecast is for more seasonal (i.e. unsettled!) weather next week...
Some of this is pure luck of geography, total population number, and population density I think. There are no regular international flights to and from my province, only holiday charters which basically stopped in February,. The minimum driving time to the closest city of more than 100,000 people out of province where there are international flights is some 5 hours and we have few major highways which are patrolled and people driving in given cautions or quarantine orders.
I think the one of the eventual questions will be whether some jurisdictions made the wrong decisions and thus delayed restricting people's movements such that infection was passed around communities.
Yet stay at home orders enjoy wide support across the board in the US, and most people are following them (source).
Americans are following information, not policy, as blogger David Anderson notes:
Restaurant reservations crashed in most places before any stay-at-home orders were issued. No one has issued any restrictions on air travel, and yet most of the domestic passenger fleet is grounded because no one wants to buy those tickets. It's this sort of thing which makes the whole "open the economy" thing so shady.
We need not just a plateau but a decline down the other side of the bell.
Therefore the word "some." Most of us can tell a hawk from a handsaw, when the wind is southerly.
Normally, Idaho is very libertarian when it comes to government involvement, but this seems to be very reasonable--assuming there is no uptick in cases. He was very clear if there was an uptick, he is not above shutting the whole thing down again.
Indeed! And we've all had three years to practice ignoring things like, "I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or, almost, a cleaning?”
Though both have sharp, pointy bits, so you've still got to be careful.
LC--Good phrase!
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries eighteen of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
"Doctors' hilarious replies Trump's suggestion that bleach might cure coronavirus..." (Cosmo via Yahoo).
Some are quite blunt.
Our borders are still closed at level 3 (apart from Kiwis coming home and tourists returning to their countries) and domestic travel is very limited.
There has been some mention of travel between NZ and Australia being allowed, but I don't know when that would be.
The leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges, criticised the severity of the level 3 conditions and the backlash against him within his own party has led to rumours of the possibility of him being ousted, but with the election on September 19 it is more likely that he will remain in his job for now, but be replaced if his party don't win.
I ignored a deluded narcissist for twelve months. It was a mistake. I should have left. I fought and got her removed, at huge cost to me.
tRump will become (even) more bizarre over time to deflect attention from the fact that he’s falling apart.
https://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52424413
This, I presume, does not include yet more deaths at home, or in care homes etc.
Christe eleison.
Without wishing in any way to denigrate the often heroic, largely unsung, and unsupported by 'government', efforts of those working in care homes, this is surely a national scandal. The term 'care home' may well come to be seen - quite unfairly - as an oxymoron.
Never mind - the Demonics (Raab and Cummings) are in control...
Because those who die at home, or in a care setting, don't count as 'people'.
The FT estimated, using actual statistics, the death toll to be 41,000, some time last week. When this first wave is over, we'll be lucky to get in under 100k.
As I said - Christe eleison, especially on those poor souls counted as 'non people'.
There's a Middle English word describing people thus regarded, but I can't think what it is...
I'm sure the Tories will manage to blame someone else for that.
Percentage of official COVID-19 deaths, by country.
United States 27%
Italy 13%
Spain 11%
France 11%
United Kingdom 10%
Everywhere Else 28%
https://twitter.com/laudan_um/status/1254066481186451457?s=20