Compressed summer tour DCI announcement

[Bob P.]

9 hours ago, DAvery said:

And I would be very worried if I was in Spain or Germany right now. While behind in the number of days since the first 100 cases have been reported, the trajectory of the cases per capita in Germany (5 days behind Italy) and Spain (10 days behind Italy) is eerily similar. 

Well I am in Spain now and presently trying to get back to Canada, not because I fear contracting the Covid-19 virus, but because I will be more comfortable at home during a lock-down than here presently under lock-down.  My Spanish isn't quite as good as my English or French. 🤒 

 

 

[dbc03]

2 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

Good luck with that.

Quoting from the article in question:

 

I asked Collins whether that means we seem to be tracking with what happened in Italy.

“Right,” Collins told me. “If you look at the curve of new cases being diagnosed over the course of the last month, just look at the curve of what happened in Italy, and then look at our curve in the U.S., and you say if you go back eight days from today, they had about the same number of cases that we have today—that is, slightly over 2,000. And then if we follow that same track, then eight days from now [March 22], we would be having the same kind of incredible crisis that they are facing.” (The New York Times described the catastrophe befalling Italy: “The coronavirus epidemic raging through Italy has already left streets empty and shops shuttered as 60 million Italians are essentially under house arrest. There are the exhausted doctors and nurses toiling day and night to keep people alive. There are children hanging drawings of rainbows from their windows and families singing from their balconies. But the ultimate metric of pandemics and plagues is the bodies they leave behind. In Italy, with the oldest population in Europe, the toll has been heavy, with more than 2,100 deaths, the most outside of China. On Monday alone, more than 300 people died.”)

 

Oh, look - it has been eight days.  If we were tracking Italy as Collins and this article imply, we would have more than 2100 deaths right now.  If they are THAT FAR OFF in just eight days, how credible is that 1.5 million number?

You should probably read the rest of the article.

Collins was not offering a prediction, but a realistic worst-case scenario of what awaits America in the next eight weeks or so unless, in his words, we embrace “the more extreme version” of social distancing.

...

Collins added this important qualifier: “Now we have a chance to change that, by applying now the most draconian measures on social distancing to try to limit the spread of coronavirus from person to person. But we will not succeed at changing the course from that exponential curve unless there is full national engagement in those commitments to try to reduce spread. I think we’re getting there; certainly in the last few days there seems to be a lot of waking up to just how serious the threat is, but that’s obviously not universal across this large and complicated country.”

An expert saying "here's the worst case" is not the same as an expert saying "here is what is going to happen." Some pretty extreme measures have been put into place in the past 8 days, and they are hopefully having an effect.

[cixelsyd]

39 minutes ago, dbc03 said:

You should probably read the rest of the article.

Collins was not offering a prediction, but a realistic worst-case scenario of what awaits America in the next eight weeks or so unless, in his words, we embrace “the more extreme version” of social distancing.

...

That just makes it even more indefensible.  1.5 million Americans dead in eight weeks?

Quote

Collins added this important qualifier: “Now we have a chance to change that, by applying now the most draconian measures on social distancing to try to limit the spread of coronavirus from person to person. But we will not succeed at changing the course from that exponential curve unless there is full national engagement in those commitments to try to reduce spread. I think we’re getting there; certainly in the last few days there seems to be a lot of waking up to just how serious the threat is, but that’s obviously not universal across this large and complicated country.”

An expert saying "here's the worst case" is not the same as an expert saying "here is what is going to happen." Some pretty extreme measures have been put into place in the past 8 days, and they are hopefully having an effect.

Some pretty extreme measures were ALREADY in place by the time that interview occurred.

[dbc03]

56 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

That just makes it even more indefensible.  1.5 million Americans dead in eight weeks?

Do you understand how exponential increases work? It is entirely reasonable to think that that many Americans can die in 8 weeks in the worst case scenario.

8 days ago there were 2943 cases in the US, that number has been doubling every ~2 days. If it continues to spread at that rate then in about 5 weeks everyone in the country would have it. It would only take a 0.4% death rate to get up to 1.5 million Americans dead in that scenario. It seems very unlikely that it would spread completely out of control like that, but the death rate also seems to be higher than that based on the data we have so far.

If the death rate is actually 2% you've only got to get up to 75 million infections (~23% of the population) to hit 1.5 million deaths. The Diamond Princess was an interesting accidental experiment, with poor quarantine procedures about 20% of the passengers got infected in about a month, applied to the population at large that would put us in the ballpark of the 1.5 million.

I see nothing in the math for the worst case that rules out 1.5 million Americans dead in eight weeks. It thankfully is very unlikely to be that high, but that's why it is called a worst case.

56 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

Some pretty extreme measures were ALREADY in place by the time that interview occurred.

Not really. New York, by far the worst hit in the US so far, was just starting to shut down gatherings of >500 people 8 days ago. California was still only recommending social distancing.

Edited March 23, 2020 by dbc03

[DAvery]

2 hours ago, dbc03 said:

Do you understand how exponential increases work? It is entirely reasonable to think that that many Americans can die in 8 weeks in the worst case scenario.

8 days ago there were 2943 cases in the US, that number has been doubling every ~2 days. If it continues to spread at that rate then in about 5 weeks everyone in the country would have it. It would only take a 0.4% death rate to get up to 1.5 million Americans dead in that scenario. It seems very unlikely that it would spread completely out of control like that, but the death rate also seems to be higher than that based on the data we have so far.

If the death rate is actually 2% you've only got to get up to 75 million infections (~23% of the population) to hit 1.5 million deaths. The Diamond Princess was an interesting accidental experiment, with poor quarantine procedures about 20% of the passengers got infected in about a month, applied to the population at large that would put us in the ballpark of the 1.5 million.

I see nothing in the math for the worst case that rules out 1.5 million Americans dead in eight weeks. It thankfully is very unlikely to be that high, but that's why it is called a worst case.

Not really. New York, by far the worst hit in the US so far, was just starting to shut down gatherings of >500 people 8 days ago. California was still only recommending social distancing.

Using the term "exponential" when speaking of pure numbers makes since, as numbers are infinite. While the spread of the cases appear to be exponential, they not really for the simple fact that potential cases are limited by the number of people, so the number of cases is finite. 

[cixelsyd]

10 hours ago, dbc03 said:

Do you understand how exponential increases work?

Do you?  Apparently not (more to follow).

Quote

It is entirely reasonable to think that that many Americans can die in 8 weeks in the worst case scenario.

8 days ago there were 2943 cases in the US,

You mean reported cases?  Because nobody knows how many asymptomatic cases there are right now.

Quote

that number has been doubling every ~2 days.

That is not correct.  Did we have 47,088 cases yesterday when you posted this?  No.

Quote

If it continues to spread at that rate then in about 5 weeks everyone in the country would have it. It would only take a 0.4% death rate to get up to 1.5 million Americans dead in that scenario. It seems very unlikely that it would spread completely out of control like that, but the death rate also seems to be higher than that based on the data we have so far.

If it "continues to spread at that rate", then in a month, over a BILLION AMERICANS WILL HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!

"Exponential spread" is an oversimplification.  It assumes an uninfected population with no immunity.  At the start, that is true.  But over time, infection of the population and herd immunity tamp that exponent down.  Spread does not just stay exponential forever.

This situation is serious.  Risking panic with ridiculous numbers does not help.

[JimF-LowBari]

Rate also going up because more testing available. IOW we’re getting a better idea how many cases are actually out there

[DAvery]

1 hour ago, JimF-LowBari said:

Rate also going up because more testing available. IOW we’re getting a better idea how many cases are actually out there

Last week the chief medical officer in Ohio estimated there were at that time 100,000 cases in Ohio alone. 

[dbc03]

12 hours ago, DAvery said:

Using the term "exponential" when speaking of pure numbers makes since, as numbers are infinite. While the spread of the cases appear to be exponential, they not really for the simple fact that potential cases are limited by the number of people, so the number of cases is finite. 

Which is why I stopped once I ran out of people.

3 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

Do you?  Apparently not (more to follow).

You mean reported cases?  Because nobody knows how many asymptomatic cases there are right now.

Again, we are talking about a worst case scenario. Not the most likely scenario.

3 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

That is not correct.  Did we have 47,088 cases yesterday when you posted this?  No.

~2 means approximately 2 days. Sometimes in the last 8 days it has taken closer to 3 days to double, some days it has doubled faster than 2 days. It's a Fermi approximation, it gets us to the order of magnitude, it isn't intended to be a high fidelity calculation. We still run out of people to be infected before the end of 8 weeks even if you use 3 days instead. 

Realistically we have no idea how many cases we had yesterday because we don't have enough tests being run to get an accurate count. From what I can find the lower bound is 33,546 but the actual number is almost certainly higher.

3 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

If it "continues to spread at that rate", then in a month, over a BILLION AMERICANS WILL HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!

You are trying really hard to "own" me but just showing your lack of reading comprehension. 

3 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

"Exponential spread" is an oversimplification.  It assumes an uninfected population with no immunity.  At the start, that is true.  But over time, infection of the population and herd immunity tamp that exponent down.  Spread does not just stay exponential forever.

It is an oversimplification, which I point out in the second half of my post and looked at the more realistic 20% number instead. My point is not to prove that the experts are right with their calculations, it is to show that even with my limited understanding of how viruses spread the numbers seem pretty reasonable as a worst case scenario. The experts have taken way more things into consideration than I have and know way more about this than any of us here, so I'm gonna take them more seriously than the guy on drum corps planet calling them morons

[year1buick]

4 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

Do you?  Apparently not (more to follow).

You mean reported cases?  Because nobody knows how many asymptomatic cases there are right now.

That is not correct.  Did we have 47,088 cases yesterday when you posted this?  No.

If it "continues to spread at that rate", then in a month, over a BILLION AMERICANS WILL HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!

"Exponential spread" is an oversimplification.  It assumes an uninfected population with no immunity.  At the start, that is true.  But over time, infection of the population and herd immunity tamp that exponent down.  Spread does not just stay exponential forever.

This situation is serious.  Risking panic with ridiculous numbers does not help.

Herd immunity is not the way you want this thing to play out initially. That would be disaster, as it only occurs after a significant portion of the population has been infected or vaccinated— and since the latter is still a ways off (Fall by the most optimistic projections) that only leaves infection. Obviously  we’re trying to slow that right now. This why maintaining a flat curve is going to be important for a while. Herd immunity comes much later.