The " Book It " thread! | Page 37 | Barking Hard

The " Book It " thread!

There has been a significant downturn in the number of new infections in the United States since about July 25. Based on a 7 day running average, the number of new infections per day has dropped from 69,159 on July 25, to 55,490 on August 7. To confirm this for yourself, you can select the following link and scroll down to the graph for "Daily New Cases in the United States" and check the 7 day moving average checkbox:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

This represents a drop of 13,669 for new infections per day in 13 days--or an average daily decrease of 1051 cases per day in the United States. To get an idea of how significant this is, if this trend were to continue for the next 54 days, the number of new cases would reach zero. It is not anticipated that the coronavirus will disappear in the United States, but it certainly appears that if this trend continues, the numbers of reported infections will be significantly diminished in the coming days.

Southern and western states recently in the news for surges are leading the way.

Arizona has had a 27 day reduction of new infections from 3626 new infections per day on July 11 to 1578 new infections on August 7. This represents an average daily drop of 76 new infections for the 27 day period. And while one would not expect the virus to disappear in Arizona, if this rate of decrease continued for the next 21 days, the number of new infections in Arizona would reach zero.

California has had a 13 day reduction from 10,261 new infections per day on July 25 to 6750 new infections per day on August 7 representing a daily drop of 270 infections per day. At the present rate of decrease, California would reach zero new infections in 25 days.

Florida has a 20 day reduction of new infections from 11866 on July 18 to 5054 on August 7, and at the current rate would reach zero infections in 27 days.

Note: Texas also has had a recent reduction in new infections, but at a lower rate of decrease than the other three states. The reason for this is not understood since although Texas has a lower case to population ratio than Arizona and Florida, its case to population ratio is similar to that of California and California seems to be responding similarly to Arizona and Florida.

Regardless, it appears to me that each of these states are likely to see significant reduction of cases and deaths in the near future based on recent trends in the reductions in their infection rates. Assuming this to be true, the question is: how and why did these reductions occur?

The politicians (and scientists too) will say that it was the mitigation efforts that they recommended and enforced that made the difference. I believe that it is actually due to the phenomenon called herd immunity. Today, there was an opinion piece published by Real Clear Politics that I think makes some valid points:

The Myth That Lockdowns Stop Pandemics
By Stacey Rudin
August 07, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...yth_that_lockdowns_stop_pandemics_143899.html

"Herd immunity" in this context is not absolute since it is probably impossible for a disease to be successful enough to actually eliminate itself. But it is certainly possible for a virus such as the coronavirus to be successful enough that it will find it increasingly difficult to find people that it can infect.

For this to occur, the overall percentage of the population need not be particularly high. All that is necessary is for a significant portion of the population that are most likely to be infected to have had a prior infection and thus become immune. Obviously, the people most likely to be infected would be the more socially active and mobile portions of the population.

However, even people who tend not by behavior or situation to have a predilection for acquiring the coronavirus will randomly come in contact with people more socially active and mobile and thus may acquire the disease also. So even after the surge of infection is over, and a significantly portion of the population most inclined toward infection are immune from the disease, a number of new infections will continue.

I think that is what happened in states like New York and New Jersey and countries like Sweden, Spain and Italy (although Spain is currently having a resurgence)--and I think it is what will happen shortly in Arizona and Florida, and probably California and Texas.

I am of the opinion that complete immunity can occur only with a vaccine that can have more universal coverage. But as a higher and higher percentage of people are infected and thus become immune to the disease, the disease will find it increasingly difficult to find people to infect. Thus the rate of infection must drop.

In regard to this, I note that the University of Washington modelers are now projecting 11 new states as being potential hotspots. These states include Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia.

I have reviewed the infection rate graphs for each of those states and have found that each of these states have had a surge similar to the surges in the southern and western states most recently in the news, and all eleven of the states named appear to be in a downward trend for new cases. While additional surges are possible in any state due to local flareups, it appears to me that a general downward trend in new cases is likely throughout the nation.

I think that as a general proposition, despite our best efforts to contain the virus, we failed and having failed, we have allowed the virus itself to contain itself.
 
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Sick

Over the next 11 months we will see up's and downs. by July we should have enough vaccines to get this under control. I've pointed to this 18 month cycle just from history, for some time now. but see below WTF

That 1957 Asian flu nearly took me out as a child. the Doctor came out to the house seeing me with a high fever(105?) if I recall. told my parents it was in Gods hands now. 3 times in the 1960s I got flu's that totally sucked. growing up was not easy..lol
never been that sick since. in the 1998 99 winter something came on that everyone close to me got about 50 or so people. it was the normal 5-7 day deal with heavy congestion. what made it strange was after the 5-7 days the congestion stayed for another 3 weeks, along with feeling sickly/germy for about a hour each day. it would come and go fast. there was no rhyme or reason with it. that next fall I got my first flu shot. got one ever since. knock on wood never got real sick since.

Then there's this
A 50% effective vaccine would be roughly on par with those for influenza, but below the effectiveness of one dose of a measles vaccination, which is about 93% effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/cor...f-it-being-highly-effective-is-not-great.html

How in hell is a 50% effective vaccine really a vaccine at all ?
 
madmadworld said:
Then there's this
A 50% effective vaccine would be roughly on par with those for influenza, but below the effectiveness of one dose of a measles vaccination, which is about 93% effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/coro...not-great.html

How in hell is a 50% effective vaccine really a vaccine at all ?
Click to expand...

Like you, I get a flu vaccine every year and as a senior citizen, I get the high dose vaccine. I assume it has worked for me because I haven't gotten the flu that I can remember.

As for the effectiveness of a coronavirus vaccine, I understand that they are hoping for a vaccine that is 75% effective, but they would consider it to be acceptable if it is only 50% effective. On average, a vaccine that is 50% effective reduces a person’s risk of infection by 50% either because the symptoms are reduced or the incident of infection is reduced. In a controlled trial, both can be measured and both are desired. The FDA says it will not accept less than 50%, but my guess is that if a vaccine candidate comes in at 48.75% improvement over the control group in the trial, they would have a hard time turning it down.

I would certainly be happy to take it.

The objective is herd immunity. And remember that by the time we have a vaccine, we will have a head start in arriving at said herd immunity. If we look only at the number of reported cases, we might get the idea that this represents a relatively small percentage of the people. However, according to Dr. Robert Redfield, director of CDC, antibody testing has indicated that for every case that has been reported, there were actually 10 other infections that had not been reported.

As of yesterday, there have been 5,149,723 reported cases of the virus in the United States, and if it is true that there have been 10 unreported cases for every one reported, that means that as many as 15% of the people in the United States already have protection based on prior infection.

Models that assume homogeneous distribution of immunity generally put the herd immunity level for the coronavirus at around 60%. Homogeneous distribution of immunity is an appropriate assumption in regard to vaccines since vaccines tend to be distributed evenly and spread the immunity evenly throughout society. But the percentage can be lower in a heterogeneous model since certain members of a population will be more likely to get the virus whether due to circumstance or behavior.

While people who work at home are as likely to be vaccinated as people who travel to work via a subway system, this is not true for infection due to virus spread. For example, people who travel to work via a subway system are much more likely to be infected than people working from home or traveling by private car.

In short, the threshold for herd immunity is lower because behavior affects how the disease may spread in the population. Some modelers have used 43% in heterogeneous model. And Gabriela Gomes of University of Strathclyde and his group have used 20% as the threshold for herd immunity.

https://thehill.com/changing-americ...-herd-immunity-happens-and-will-it-protect-us

So what is the point?

The point is that if Dr. Gomes and his group were realistic in choosing 20% as the threshold for herd immunity in a heterogeneous model, a vaccine injected into two thirds of the population even if it is only 50% effective would be additive and might be an effective equalizer in the fight against the virus.

I mean, after all, if Dr. Redfield is to be believed, at 15%, we are not that far off from herd immunity even without the vaccine.
 
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Dr. Robert Redfield, director of CDC

I recall the first time he was Quoted that 10x line. there has been no Proof of that I've seen. tapping my foot waiting. that's just a very wild guess imo.
All these Models do not look like a Playboy centerfold. they've been wrong so much I will question them till death.

Has there been a larger study than the MLB one ?
https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2020/05/10/the-results-of-the-mlb-coronavirus-antibody-study-are-in/
May 10, 2020
Last month, it was announced that 10,000 employees employed by 26 of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams would be taking part in a coronavirus (COVID-19) study.
The results are back, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. 5,754 tests were returned, including 5,603 with completed surveys. 0.7 of the MLB employee population tested positive for COVID antibodies, lower than the results from similar studies. 70 percent of those who tested positive for the antibodies were asymptomatic.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at the University of Stanford which ran the study, said, “I was expecting a large number. It shows the value of doing the science as opposed to guessing.”

That was low imo.. I will guess it's 4-5x but no higher.
Our friends daughter just came down with it, giving it to her father only a matter of time till Mom gets it too. the girl got tested but my guess her parents won't, unless they get it bad/hospital.

Back to the real world. how does a 50% vaccine work ?
I understand the guess work on the yearly flu shot, that's why I guess it's 40-60% effective. they picked the wrong strain(s). but This is a Spot on virus no fucking guess work.

Don't get me wrong I want a vaccine, but with this being the most Rushed to market vaccine in history I will not be first in line. would wait say 60 days minimum. by then we might have 3 or 4 vaccines out or about to be. so one would take vaccine A, then wait 2 weeks or whatever they say and then need a anti-body test to see if it worked. say the test comes up empty. how long would you have to wait before trying B,C or D vaccine ?
 
madmadworld said:
Has there been a larger study than the MLB one ?
https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2020/05/10...-study-are-in/
May 10, 2020
Last month, it was announced that 10,000 employees employed by 26 of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams would be taking part in a coronavirus (COVID-19) study.
The results are back, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. 5,754 tests were returned, including 5,603 with completed surveys. 0.7 of the MLB employee population tested positive for COVID antibodies, lower than the results from similar studies. 70 percent of those who tested positive for the antibodies were asymptomatic.
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To answer directly: yes.

First, it should be noted that Dr. Redfield's original remarks on June 25 were based on a relatively small study of which I have since lost the link if I ever had it. However, a much larger study involving 16,025 residual clinical specimens was subsequently published on July 21 which tends to confirm the earlier small scale study. Here is a link to the larger study:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2768834

The key points of the study were as follows:

Question What proportion of persons in 10 US sites had detectable antibodies to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) from March 23 to May 12, 2020?

Findings In this cross-sectional study of 16 025 residual clinical specimens, estimates of the proportion of persons with detectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies ranged from 1.0% in the San Francisco Bay area (collected April 23-27) to 6.9% of persons in New York City (collected March 23-April 1). Six to 24 times more infections were estimated per site with seroprevalence than with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case report data.

Meaning For most sites, it is likely that greater than 10 times more SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred than the number of reported COVID-19 cases; most persons in each site, however, likely had no detectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
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It is granted that the samples were collected at different times and locations in March, April and May, and it is possible that with increased testing we are now collecting a larger proportion of the actual cases. However, there is at least in this study an effort to find a correlation between the number of reported cases and the actual number of cases in each of the 10 sites in which samples were collected which indicates that the overall ratio between actual and reported cases is likely greater than 10.

Your NBC article is based on an ESPN article which contains very little information. And by the way, I am still puzzled by what "0.7 of the MLB employee population tested positive" means although I understand it to be a percentage of something. At first I assumed it was the percentage of the total that tested positive, but 60 / 5754 = .0104 or about 1.04%. So that can't be it.

The bottom line is that the only real information I was able to glean from the article was that 60 of the 5,754 people in a study tested positive for coronavirus antibodies. So if I am understanding this correctly, ESPN is reporting on a study of 60 people that they found who tested positive for antibodies. The article implies that it was expected to be higher--but based on what?

The article did mention that due to stay-at-home orders and other logistical complications, 5,754 of 5,603 participants who returned tests (of the apparently 10,000 tests sent out) used a pin prick to draw blood. So it might seem likely that most of these participants who returned the tests were people in a stay at home situation--hardly representative of the number of normal people likely to be infected with the disease. These are people who can afford to stay out of harms way during the off season.

Even for the small sample of 60 positive tests, the ESPN article gives no indication of how many of the 60 persons who tested positive for antibody testing had been included in earlier reports of the disease.
 
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The United States is in a downward trend in reported new cases, reported deaths and reported hospitalizations.

Based on a 7 day running average, the US peaked at 69,059 reported new cases on July 22 and has been trending downward since. Currently, the 7 day running average for reported new cases is 54,597.

Based on a 7 day running average, the US peaked at 1,133 reported deaths on August 4 and had been trending downward since. Currently, the 7 day running average for reported deaths is 1,035. (Note: reported deaths tend to lag reported new cases about two weeks.)

Reported hospitalization in the US peaked at 59,885 on July 23 and has trended downward since. Currently, the number of reported hospitalizations is 49,039.
 
Nursing homes August 10, 2020

In New Hampshire, for instance, where nursing homes accounted for 57% of deaths back in late May, they now account for 82% of total deaths. Similarly in Kentucky, where nursing home fatalities accounted for 56% of deaths in late May, they now make up 63% of those who succumbed to the disease. In Indiana and Ohio, where the percentage neared 50% back in May, the numbers have crept up to 54% of total deaths in August.

Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all continue to show significant death tolls in nursing homes, even as the overall number of fatalities has declined -- with the facilities accounting for more than 60% of each state's total number of deadly cases.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavir...ral-deaths-persist-americas/story?id=72271389


This whole deal just pisses me off. if there was ever a plan this should have been figured out years ago. I could work out a better plan in a week or less. maybe a couple of hours. think Fire Station .... National Guard
 
madmadworld said:
I rebooted my PC forgot a post I was working on...dang it

Basically saying all these studies tend to find all kinds of different results, all using Federal $$ my guess.
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I am sure you are right about that. And in general, the attitude seems to be the more sensational the better. And creating a disaster narrative seems to be the best way to gain additional funding.

But, seriously, Mad, I think one can read a study and to some degree get a sense of how reliable the information may be. And I tend to believe the "Seroprevalence of Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in 10 Sites in the United States, March 23-May 12, 2020" study for a number of reasons. I have confidence that they are not lying about the data and the collection of the data appears to have been at random without bias. Perhaps it is possible to question the interpretation of the data, but it looks pretty good to me. As one might expect, some sites yielded much higher percentages than others but when all the data from all the sites is combined and evaluated, a general trend is observed and reported.

Also, maybe I am biased against the Baseball study because I don't trust ESPN and if I had direct access to that study, I would have a better appreciation for it. You might be right that the ratio of actual to reported incidence of the infection rate is less than the Seroprevalence of Antibodies study would indicate, but, as of right now, I don't think the Baseball study disproves it.

Currently, the data on infection rates, deaths and hospitalizations are in a significantly downward trend nationally. I think that supports the conjecture. Certainly a recent emphasis on mitigation steps such as social distancing and wearing masks have been helpful in reducing infection rates, but I don't think that those efforts can account for a 20% reduction in the infection rate nationally in only about 3 weeks. We will see what happens over the next couple of week or so, but I expect the trend we are observing to continue.
 
madmadworld said:
In New Hampshire, for instance, where nursing homes accounted for 57% of deaths back in late May, they now account for 82% of total deaths. Similarly in Kentucky, where nursing home fatalities accounted for 56% of deaths in late May, they now make up 63% of those who succumbed to the disease. In Indiana and Ohio, where the percentage neared 50% back in May, the numbers have crept up to 54% of total deaths in August.

Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all continue to show significant death tolls in nursing homes, even as the overall number of fatalities has declined -- with the facilities accounting for more than 60% of each state's total number of deadly cases.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavir...ral-deaths-persist-americas/story?id=72271389


This whole deal just pisses me off. if there was ever a plan this should have been figured out years ago. I could work out a better plan in a week or less. maybe a couple of hours. think Fire Station .... National Guard
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report that in 2014, the most recent year for which data are available:

• 7.8% of nursing home residents were 95 years of age or older.
• 33.8% were 85 to 94 years old.
• 26.4% were 75 to 84 years old.
• 16.5% were 65 to 74 years old.

https://health.usnews.com/health-news/best-nursing-homes/articles/nursing-home-facts-and-statistics

Sometimes I wonder how many of these deaths are "related" to Covid-19 and how many are actually "caused" by Covid-19. I suspect that a fair percentage of these aged residents who have died so far this year may have died regardless of exposure to the disease.

I would like to see some actual statistics on the total number of deaths by nursing home residents from all causes in the years 2017, 2018, 2019 and so far this year for comparison.

Not saying I disbelieve what they are saying about Covid-19 causing all these deaths, but I would be interested to see how total deaths this year compare to previous years. It seems to me that that data ought to be available, but I can't seem to find it. I have found lots of articles with anecdotal information but relatively little actual data useful in gaining a comparison.

I am often surprised by what you are able to find after I have failed and wonder if you might know where such data might be found.
 
Data

Brownsfan said:
I am often surprised by what you are able to find after I have failed and wonder if you might know where such data might be found.
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Thanks Thanks alot
My Wife & friends use me for this too.
Your question does spark my interest. I'll try in the next few days ....I hope/maybe.

The deal is I go down a what the kids call a "rabbit hole" and waste hours of my life at times. refusing to give up. now 20 years of internet behind me helps at times also.

on a side note. early on in forums like this long gone. there were some really sharp people who taught me to doubt Data. they could go thru these long pdf's(or the like) and point out how it was manipulated. I just don't have those skills. all I have is a bit of a sniff test. mainly it goes back to the old Accountant saying "Give me the numbers, tell me what you want them to say".

Back to the MLB Study the same Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, was in on this one. part of my lost post.

A seroprevalence study led by Stanford researchers estimates that the number of COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County was 50 to 85 times higher than the number of confirmed cases by early April — meaning that the true case numbers could range from 48,000 to 81,000 people infected. The county has reported 1,870 confirmed cases as of Friday.
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/...es-higher-than-reported-stanford-study-finds/
So he's been in on a low % and a high % studies.

The MLB PDF is a hard find. maybe they kept it for themselves ?
 
Funny, but seriously, Mad, I wasn't fishing for you to do the looking for me. What I had in mind was that if you had an idea for me to try, I would appreciate it. Don't go to any trouble for me if you don't already have an idea. Obviously, it would have been nice if you had a link at hand with the data for successive years in neat rows, but I didn't really expect that and I certainly didn't intend to leave the impression that I wanted you to go down a rabbit hole for me. Sorry if I left that impression.

I think you and I have a different concept of data. When I speak of data, I mean hard numbers. I am not talking about interpretation of the numbers. Interpretation by an expert is fine, but I also want the hard data to back up the interpretation of what it means.

madmadworld said:
A seroprevalence study led by Stanford researchers estimates that the number of COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County was 50 to 85 times higher than the number of confirmed cases by early April — meaning that the true case numbers could range from 48,000 to 81,000 people infected. The county has reported 1,870 confirmed cases as of Friday.
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/0...d-study-finds/
So he's been in on a low % and a high % studies.
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I would find this hard to believe on a county wide general population basis. If you told me that there were certain groups within a community that had this high a ratio, I might believe that. For example, if you are talking about highly mobile and socially active and healthy young adults who often appear to be largely asymptomatic, I might believe that a high proportion of those infections might go unreported. But among people who tend to be more vulnerable to the disease, I would seriously doubt if the ratio would be that high.

By the way, this is probably the study from California that the ESPN article referenced. According to this Stanford study (linked in the article you linked) the participants were recruited using Facebook ads. According to the authors, the ads: "targeting a sample of individuals living within the county by demographic and geographic characteristics. We estimate weights to adjust our sample to match the zip code, sex, and race/ethnicity."

Not sure if recruiting using Facebook ads would provide as random a sample as I would like for a study of this kind. It seems that the participants would likely be tilted toward the more adventuresome and socially active (and healthy). Perhaps their adjustments accounted for this, but that adds a variable and anyway I would question their ability to accurately adjust the results to account. I would prefer a more random sample to start with for the study.
 
Computer age

Brownsfan said:
I think you and I have a different concept of data. When I speak of data, I mean hard numbers. I am not talking about interpretation of the numbers. Interpretation by an expert is fine, but I also want the hard data to back up the interpretation of what it means.
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Trouble is you are thinking with a old 20th century honest mind. where then there were hard numbers released. these fucks are more advanced the past 25 years. instead of tossing the whole study away when they didn't get the results they wanted, they omit or just change them. Welcome to the Computer age.

Not saying they ALL work this way but


Look at yourself in the latter part of your post you used your sniffer..lol good Man
 
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Flu in the Southern Hemisphere has 'practically disappeared

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/07/24/coronavirus-restrictions


Similarly, Australia counted 85 confirmed influenza cases in the last two weeks of June, compared to 22,047 in the same two weeks last year. Australia found its confirmed influenza cases fell to 20,739 from January through June, when last year the country had 132,424 cases.
https://thehill.com/policy/internat...o-lower-influenza-numbers-across-the-southern

Deaths from seasonal flu drop to just 36 compared to 430
The latest national statistics revealed deaths from the flu from January to June 2020 have dropped to just 36.

Over the same period in 2019, 430 people died from the flu.

He said all the restrictions and rules enforced to curb the spread of coronavirus has helped keep infections low even though it is flu season in Australia.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...mpared-430-year-thanks-social-distancing.html

coronavirus Deaths 332 total. Hmm
 
One thing I love is how some people can DEMAND that schools remain closed until the government makes schools safe as if they had a magic wand or something.

Over time, more and more people will acquire the infection and develop at least partial immunity. This will give partial protection for people otherwise without immunity. A vaccine will help keep it down, but this virus is not going to go away and we had best learn to live with it. Life is full of chances; we take them every day. This is just one more to endure.
 
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