Coronavirus COVID-19

[kalm]

I gave him a pass on that because new cases is meant to be a term for a category. "New Cases"

I'm not sure I agree. Early on in this, people were saying COVID-19 isn't a big deal b/c the death rate was so low. The death rate can only be so low b/c it's measured against the infection rate. If one metric matters would it not make sense that the data that goes into that metric matters? So to now say that the infection rate doesn't matter but the death rate does, to me, highlights a disconnect in logic. I think new cases (or New Cases) do matter. Death is not the only outcome of infection, there are other chronic issues that remain for those whom survive.

If new cases mean nothing then anything that follows a new cases is equally meaningless.

Well said. “New cases don’t matter” is the evolution of “Its just the flu” for those still trapped in the anger or denial stages.

[CAA Flagship]

I'm not sure I agree. Early on in this, people were saying COVID-19 isn't a big deal b/c the death rate was so low. The death rate can only be so low b/c it's measured against the infection rate. If one metric matters would it not make sense that the data that goes into that metric matters? So to now say that the infection rate doesn't matter but the death rate does, to me, highlights a disconnect in logic. I think new cases (or New Cases) do matter. Death is not the only outcome of infection, there are other chronic issues that remain for those whom survive.

If new cases mean nothing then anything that follows a new cases is equally meaningless.

Well said. “New cases don’t matter” is the evolution of “Its just the flu” for those still trapped in the anger or denial stages.

[CID1990]

Obviously this theory has been out there for a while, but this article fleshes out a little better in layman’s terms why the novel coronavirus may be so virulent


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel ... 9c2d90121d

Not just the US and China, but many countries experiment with viruses in this way - by modifying them to study transmissibility. We may never know the real origin of this particular virus because China has pretty much shut down the information flow. But given what we know about the types of viral research done with these kinds of pathogens, and taken in the context of previous State Dept reporting on safety standards of the Wuhan labs, this definitely warrants further investigation


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting. And there’s new evidence that they knew about much earlier in the fall...


“ABC News Corona Virus Health and Science

Satellite data suggests coronavirus may have hit China earlier...

Researchers say surge in cars at hospitals may indicate outbreak in fall.”

https://abcnews.go.com/International/sa ... d=71123270

China: “Nice satellites you got there... be a shame if anything happened to em”

[Ibanez]

I'm not sure I agree. Early on in this, people were saying COVID-19 isn't a big deal b/c the death rate was so low. The death rate can only be so low b/c it's measured against the infection rate. If one metric matters would it not make sense that the data that goes into that metric matters? So to now say that the infection rate doesn't matter but the death rate does, to me, highlights a disconnect in logic. I think new cases (or New Cases) do matter. Death is not the only outcome of infection, there are other chronic issues that remain for those whom survive.

If new cases mean nothing then anything that follows a new cases is equally meaningless.

Surely, you didn't mean that response to be directed at my comment.

No, towards Pwns. Sorry.

[Ibanez]

I'm not sure I agree. Early on in this, people were saying COVID-19 isn't a big deal b/c the death rate was so low. The death rate can only be so low b/c it's measured against the infection rate. If one metric matters would it not make sense that the data that goes into that metric matters? So to now say that the infection rate doesn't matter but the death rate does, to me, highlights a disconnect in logic. I think new cases (or New Cases) do matter. Death is not the only outcome of infection, there are other chronic issues that remain for those whom survive.

If new cases mean nothing then anything that follows a new cases is equally meaningless.

Well said. “New cases don’t matter” is the evolution of “Its just the flu” for those still trapped in the anger or denial stages.

I'm willing to listen to anyone's opinion. But I just don't understand the logic behind caring about the death rate and dismissing the infection rate when the two are linked.

[kalm]

Well said. “New cases don’t matter” is the evolution of “Its just the flu” for those still trapped in the anger or denial stages.

It ain’t just a river in South Jersey, Flaggy.

[AZGrizFan]

"flatten the curve"....

[CAA Flagship]

Well said. “New cases don’t matter” is the evolution of “Its just the flu” for those still trapped in the anger or denial stages.

I'm willing to listen to anyone's opinion. But I just don't understand the logic behind caring about the death rate and dismissing the infection rate when the two are linked.

Let's say you are in charge of monitoring the parking use/capacity at the beach. You have good data on the capacity. You are getting updates on the number of cars in the lots from your underlings.
You are on the side of the highway leading into the beach area and spend an hour counting cars. But each day, you increase your counting by 10 minutes.

What is the REAL value, towards the ultimate task, of your work counting cars on the side of the highway?

[Ibanez]

I'm willing to listen to anyone's opinion. But I just don't understand the logic behind caring about the death rate and dismissing the infection rate when the two are linked.

Let's say you are in charge of monitoring the parking use/capacity at the beach. You have good data on the capacity. You are getting updates on the number of cars in the lots from your underlings.
You are on the side of the highway leading into the beach area and spend an hour counting cars. But each day, you increase your counting by 10 minutes.

What is the REAL value, towards the ultimate task, of your work counting cars on the side of the highway?

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

[GannonFan]

Let's say you are in charge of monitoring the parking use/capacity at the beach. You have good data on the capacity. You are getting updates on the number of cars in the lots from your underlings.
You are on the side of the highway leading into the beach area and spend an hour counting cars. But each day, you increase your counting by 10 minutes.

What is the REAL value, towards the ultimate task, of your work counting cars on the side of the highway?

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

The issue with focusing on new cases, as appears to be the current trend, and using it as a harbinger of things to come is that it assumes a constant mortality rate. We don't have a good handle on the mortality rate, and it follows that as we increase testing significantly that the mortality rate will change and will, and has, gone lower than previous calculations. 10 people dying today from 100 cases of COVID-19, and we only tested those 100 people, isn't the same if we then test 1000 people and still just 10 people died from the 100 plus whatever the new number of positive cases from the 1000 people. The mortality rate from the group of 100 is going to be higher than the added 1000 people.

The issue has been and will continue to be hospitalizations and whether we can keep up without getting to a point where doctors need to write off a patient to die simply because we don't have the time or resources to treat that patient and another and the doctors have to pick who to save. We never got to that point, even in NYC, and we need to make sure we never do get there. That's what flatten the curve was mostly about. A plus side of that was buying time to figure out how to treat COVID and we've made progress there (i.e. not as dependent on ventilators now as we were initially).

Furthermore, as we better protect populations who are more exposed to extreme outcomes from having COVID (i.e. death) then hopefully the new cases of COVID will be in the population sets that either don't exhibit symptoms or just have mild bouts with the virus. We may have more cases, but now it will be in populations that can and do fight off the virus in far better rates than the elderly populations that were hit extremely hard in the first wave, especially in the northeast.

[SDHornet]

Let's say you are in charge of monitoring the parking use/capacity at the beach. You have good data on the capacity. You are getting updates on the number of cars in the lots from your underlings.
You are on the side of the highway leading into the beach area and spend an hour counting cars. But each day, you increase your counting by 10 minutes.

What is the REAL value, towards the ultimate task, of your work counting cars on the side of the highway?

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

He's saying that the baseline of counting (or in this case, testing) has changed and thus the delta is not apples to apples.

The problem with the "new cases" is that not all of them are severe or needing ICU resources. So someone with a mild case can test positive, but isn't using resources. That's why I take the stance that "new cases" don't matter because they aren't all hitting the health care system. Hence why I say death counts (and ICU capacities, whose data is harder to find in a centralized location) are all that matters.

Then of course there is the whole idea that you had it but got tested too late and it no longer shows up on the data. So maybe if we were only tracking antibody tests then sure, maybe new cases would matter.

Bottom line is we have the data to show that only old people and those with underlying health conditions are at a higher risk of dying from the Chinese Flu than everyone else.

[SDHornet]

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

The issue with focusing on new cases, as appears to be the current trend, and using it as a harbinger of things to come is that it assumes a constant mortality rate. We don't have a good handle on the mortality rate, and it follows that as we increase testing significantly that the mortality rate will change and will, and has, gone lower than previous calculations. 10 people dying today from 100 cases of COVID-19, and we only tested those 100 people, isn't the same if we then test 1000 people and still just 10 people died from the 100 plus whatever the new number of positive cases from the 1000 people. The mortality rate from the group of 100 is going to be higher than the added 1000 people.

The issue has been and will continue to be hospitalizations and whether we can keep up without getting to a point where doctors need to write off a patient to die simply because we don't have the time or resources to treat that patient and another and the doctors have to pick who to save. We never got to that point, even in NYC, and we need to make sure we never do get there. That's what flatten the curve was mostly about. A plus side of that was buying time to figure out how to treat COVID and we've made progress there (i.e. not as dependent on ventilators now as we were initially).

Furthermore, as we better protect populations who are more exposed to extreme outcomes from having COVID (i.e. death) then hopefully the new cases of COVID will be in the population sets that either don't exhibit symptoms or just have mild bouts with the virus. We may have more cases, but now it will be in populations that can and do fight off the virus in far better rates than the elderly populations that were hit extremely hard in the first wave, especially in the northeast.

Spot on.

Open everything back up.

[CAA Flagship]

Let's say you are in charge of monitoring the parking use/capacity at the beach. You have good data on the capacity. You are getting updates on the number of cars in the lots from your underlings.
You are on the side of the highway leading into the beach area and spend an hour counting cars. But each day, you increase your counting by 10 minutes.

What is the REAL value, towards the ultimate task, of your work counting cars on the side of the highway?

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

I'm saying that the daily count of new cases is not a set of numbers that you can do much with.

The new case count is similar to the counting of cars on the highway. The more time you spend counting (more testing), the more cars you will count (more new cases). But how many cars are you missing because you weren't there to count them (not tested)?

The problem with a daily number of new cases is that, without the number of tests, it's not telling you much relative to the previous daily counts. Let's say you triple the tests from one day to the next, and the number of cases double. All it tells you is that you have an increase in the number of "confirmed" cases. It doesn't mean you have an huge increase in the number of real infections.

While it would be nice to test every person on the same day, and then go forward from there, it will never happen. But there is a level of testing that will get you closer to the real infection numbers, but we are not close to that number yet, and may never be there.

[Ibanez]

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

He's saying that the baseline of counting (or in this case, testing) has changed and thus the delta is not apples to apples.

The problem with the "new cases" is that not all of them are severe or needing ICU resources. So someone with a mild case can test positive, but isn't using resources. That's why I take the stance that "new cases" don't matter because they aren't all hitting the health care system. Hence why I say death counts (and ICU capacities, whose data is harder to find in a centralized location) are all that matters.

Then of course there is the whole idea that you had it but got tested too late and it no longer shows up on the data. So maybe if we were only tracking antibody tests then sure, maybe new cases would matter.

Bottom line is we have the data to show that only old people and those with underlying health conditions are at a higher risk of dying from the Chinese Flu than everyone else.

I don't doubt the delta but we shouldn't overlook the infection rate and focus on the OUTPUT from that rate. Let's keep it all w/in context. Let's say that while the cases are doubling in some places, the death rate isn't increasing exponentially suggesting..blah blah blah.

That's my problem with saying new cases are meaningless. They aren't. They just aren't telling you the whole story.

[Ibanez]

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

I'm saying that the daily count of new cases is not a set of numbers that you can do much with.

The new case count is similar to the counting of cars on the highway. The more time you spend counting (more testing), the more cars you will count (more new cases). But how many cars are you missing because you weren't there to count them (not tested)?

The problem with a daily number of new cases is that, without the number of tests, it's not telling you much relative to the previous daily counts. Let's say you triple the tests from one day to the next, and the number of cases double. All it tells you is that you have an increase in the number of "confirmed" cases. It doesn't mean you have an huge increase in the number of real infections.

While it would be nice to test every person on the same day, and then go forward from there, it will never happen. But there is a level of testing that will get you closer to the real infection numbers, but we are not close to that number yet, and may never be there.

I get what you're saying, but what i'm saying is that those numbers all mean nothing separately.
Alone the new cases number doesn't really say anything more than more people are getting sick.
Alone, the death count says nothing more than X number of people died.

Alone, those numbers tell you nothing. They are without context.

Together, they give you a better story of the lethality (?) (or not) of the virus. What line makes more sense - " 8 people died of COVID-19 today." or " 8 deaths out 150,000 new cases were recorded today."

[SDHornet]

He's saying that the baseline of counting (or in this case, testing) has changed and thus the delta is not apples to apples.

The problem with the "new cases" is that not all of them are severe or needing ICU resources. So someone with a mild case can test positive, but isn't using resources. That's why I take the stance that "new cases" don't matter because they aren't all hitting the health care system. Hence why I say death counts (and ICU capacities, whose data is harder to find in a centralized location) are all that matters.

Then of course there is the whole idea that you had it but got tested too late and it no longer shows up on the data. So maybe if we were only tracking antibody tests then sure, maybe new cases would matter.

Bottom line is we have the data to show that only old people and those with underlying health conditions are at a higher risk of dying from the Chinese Flu than everyone else.

I don't doubt the delta but we shouldn't overlook the infection rate and focus on the OUTPUT from that rate. Let's keep it all w/in context. Let's say that while the cases are doubling in some places, the death rate isn't increasing exponentially suggesting..blah blah blah.

That's my problem with saying new cases are meaningless. They aren't. They just aren't telling you the whole story.

Meh. They are meaningless. Testing tells us its still spreading (duh) and that we need to be aware of it and those in the high risk category need to take precautions (duh). Testing changes nothing to the current situation, and wont change anything about the future situation. It's a "nice to know" kind of thing.

[Ibanez]

WTF? I've read this 5 times and still have no clue what you're asking. There is a correlation between more sick people and deaths. If you say the number of deaths matter, then you should also be saying the number of people infected matter. You can't look at the Death Rate alone.

For example - 10 people die today of COVID-19. That means nothing. 10 out of ? 10 out of 10M? 10 out of 20? 10 out 10? The infection rate, new cases does matter. You're ignoring part of the statistic that is relevant to understanding the complete picture.

The issue with focusing on new cases, as appears to be the current trend, and using it as a harbinger of things to come is that it assumes a constant mortality rate. We don't have a good handle on the mortality rate, and it follows that as we increase testing significantly that the mortality rate will change and will, and has, gone lower than previous calculations. 10 people dying today from 100 cases of COVID-19, and we only tested those 100 people, isn't the same if we then test 1000 people and still just 10 people died from the 100 plus whatever the new number of positive cases from the 1000 people. The mortality rate from the group of 100 is going to be higher than the added 1000 people.

The issue has been and will continue to be hospitalizations and whether we can keep up without getting to a point where doctors need to write off a patient to die simply because we don't have the time or resources to treat that patient and another and the doctors have to pick who to save. We never got to that point, even in NYC, and we need to make sure we never do get there. That's what flatten the curve was mostly about. A plus side of that was buying time to figure out how to treat COVID and we've made progress there (i.e. not as dependent on ventilators now as we were initially).

Furthermore, as we better protect populations who are more exposed to extreme outcomes from having COVID (i.e. death) then hopefully the new cases of COVID will be in the population sets that either don't exhibit symptoms or just have mild bouts with the virus. We may have more cases, but now it will be in populations that can and do fight off the virus in far better rates than the elderly populations that were hit extremely hard in the first wave, especially in the northeast.

I don't have any problem with your last two paragraphs.

I'm not sure looking at new cases assumes that the mortality rate with stay constant. At least, i'm not making that assumption. I would assume that an increase in infection would equal an increase in deaths. If we're seeing an INCREASE in infection but a static or decrease in deaths then that's something to really look at.

But to ignore one part of the equation doesn't seem like it makes sense. If you want to talk about death rates w/ respect to confirmed cases, a certain age, etc.. .then do so. But context is extremely important.

[Ibanez]

I don't doubt the delta but we shouldn't overlook the infection rate and focus on the OUTPUT from that rate. Let's keep it all w/in context. Let's say that while the cases are doubling in some places, the death rate isn't increasing exponentially suggesting..blah blah blah.

That's my problem with saying new cases are meaningless. They aren't. They just aren't telling you the whole story.

Meh. They are meaningless. Testing tells us its still spreading (duh) and that we need to be aware of it and those in the high risk category need to take precautions (duh). Testing changes nothing to the current situation, and wont change anything about the future situation. It's a "nice to know" kind of thing.

So the death count is equally meaningless if we're not talking about it within the context of who was infected, where they were infected, when they got infected, is this a repeat infection, the demographics, etc...

I agree that the you can't do much of anything with 500 new cases today. But you also can't do anything or glean anything just by saying there are 10 new deaths. So what?

[SDHornet]

Meh. They are meaningless. Testing tells us its still spreading (duh) and that we need to be aware of it and those in the high risk category need to take precautions (duh). Testing changes nothing to the current situation, and wont change anything about the future situation. It's a "nice to know" kind of thing.

So the death count is equally meaningless if we're not talking about it within the context of who was infected, where they were infected, when they got infected, is this a repeat infection, the demographics, etc...

I agree that the you can't do much of anything with 500 new cases today. But you also can't do anything or glean anything just by saying there are 10 new deaths. So what?

Death count tells us how deadly the Chinese Flu is, duh. You can die from it without getting tested (well hopefully not at this stage of the pandemic).

[Ibanez]

So the death count is equally meaningless if we're not talking about it within the context of who was infected, where they were infected, when they got infected, is this a repeat infection, the demographics, etc...

I agree that the you can't do much of anything with 500 new cases today. But you also can't do anything or glean anything just by saying there are 10 new deaths. So what?

Death count tells us how deadly the Chinese Flu is, duh. You can die from it without getting tested (well hopefully not at this stage of the pandemic).

No it does. Death count tells you 10 people died. That means nothing if you don't know that it's 10 out of 10,000,000,00 or 10 out 100.

You really want to know the mortality rate. Death count means nothing.

[CAA Flagship]

I'm saying that the daily count of new cases is not a set of numbers that you can do much with.

The new case count is similar to the counting of cars on the highway. The more time you spend counting (more testing), the more cars you will count (more new cases). But how many cars are you missing because you weren't there to count them (not tested)?

The problem with a daily number of new cases is that, without the number of tests, it's not telling you much relative to the previous daily counts. Let's say you triple the tests from one day to the next, and the number of cases double. All it tells you is that you have an increase in the number of "confirmed" cases. It doesn't mean you have an huge increase in the number of real infections.

While it would be nice to test every person on the same day, and then go forward from there, it will never happen. But there is a level of testing that will get you closer to the real infection numbers, but we are not close to that number yet, and may never be there.

I get what you're saying, but what i'm saying is that those numbers all mean nothing separately.
Alone the new cases number doesn't really say anything more than more people are getting sick.
Alone, the death count says nothing more than X number of people died.

Alone, those numbers tell you nothing. They are without context.

Together, they give you a better story of the lethality (?) (or not) of the virus. What line makes more sense - " 8 people died of COVID-19 today." or " 8 deaths out 150,000 new cases were recorded today."

Forget about lethality. We are way past that. That number has always been a wild ass guess because we have never known a reasonable number to use for the number of infections. And now, patients are surviving from several drugs (Remdesivir that was approved and the ones that are showing success in the trials that have yet been completed).

[kalm]

Meh. They are meaningless. Testing tells us its still spreading (duh) and that we need to be aware of it and those in the high risk category need to take precautions (duh). Testing changes nothing to the current situation, and wont change anything about the future situation. It's a "nice to know" kind of thing.

So the death count is equally meaningless if we're not talking about it within the context of who was infected, where they were infected, when they got infected, is this a repeat infection, the demographics, etc...

I agree that the you can't do much of anything with 500 new cases today. But you also can't do anything or glean anything just by saying there are 10 new deaths. So what?

Exactly. And I agree with most Ganny’s post as well.

Like I said...”meaningless” is as dumb as saying it’s the flu.

[Ibanez]

I get what you're saying, but what i'm saying is that those numbers all mean nothing separately.
Alone the new cases number doesn't really say anything more than more people are getting sick.
Alone, the death count says nothing more than X number of people died.

Alone, those numbers tell you nothing. They are without context.

Together, they give you a better story of the lethality (?) (or not) of the virus. What line makes more sense - " 8 people died of COVID-19 today." or " 8 deaths out 150,000 new cases were recorded today."

Forget about lethality. We are way past that. That number has always been a wild ass guess because we have never known a reasonable number to use for the number of infections. And now, patients are surviving from several drugs (Remdesivir that was approved and the ones that are showing success in the trials that have yet been completed).

The numbers either matter or they don't. They can't exist in a vacuum. If that's the case, then what the hell are we talking about here?!

[Pwns]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asympto ... ter%7Cmain

(SIAP)

[CAA Flagship]

Forget about lethality. We are way past that. That number has always been a wild ass guess because we have never known a reasonable number to use for the number of infections. And now, patients are surviving from several drugs (Remdesivir that was approved and the ones that are showing success in the trials that have yet been completed).

The numbers either matter or they don't. They can't exist in a vacuum. If that's the case, then what the hell are we talking about here?!

Well, OK. Show me how they matter. Take a real number from the "new cases" data and show me how it matters to anything else.