COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (4 Viewers)

[DaveXA]

That too. Are they single use cards and chips?

Well, the chips could be easily remedied with virtual chips. And they could go with some sort of virtual cards as well. Maybe use computer screens and the dealer would facilitate game play.

 

[SaintRob]

Well, the chips could be easily remedied with virtual chips. And they could go with some sort of virtual cards as well. Maybe use computer screens and the dealer would facilitate game play.

And what if they made it work somehow over the internet and we could do it at home?

 

[superchuck500]

So US test capacity has ramped up significantly and we we can now start drawing broader reference from the data.

This chart (on the STAT tracker) shows how positive results have remained fairly steady, while negative results have gone way up. In other words, as testing as increased, rate of positive has decreased. That’s good - it means the outbreak isn’t expanding very much right now.

But it also shows that the virus isn’t that widespread - there aren’t millions of asymptomatic positives walking around. There’s a vast majority of the population that doesn’t have it (yet) - and the genome studies suggest that they haven’t had it (yet).

And that means that if the only thing that has kept the positive rate fairly steady has been mitigation, pulling those measures down simply exposes that population to getting infected - and if the contagiousness remains very high (R-5.7 is the current best estimate based on multiple analyses), there’s a lot of fuel being added to the fire. Case counts should start to move up.

Perhaps there will be a meaningful seasonality to it that will blunt the R0 rate. We’ll see.

 

[Taurus]

Wait, we're only testing about 400k per day? Ye gods, it's worse than I thought.

We should be at 2 million and climbing.

 

[DaveXA]

And what if they made it work somehow over the internet and we could do it at home?

It didn't work out so well for Full Tilt Poker site, eh?

I actually used to play on that site. I liked the interface and software a lot better than the other sites out there. I haven't played since they got wrecked though.

 

[DaveXA]

Wait, we're only testing about 400k per day? Ye gods, it's worse than I thought.

We should be at 2 million and climbing.

Yeah, if we did a million per day, it would take a year for everyone to get tested. That's a lifetime for this type of pandemic. Hopefully it gets ramped up more.

I am still concerned about the accuracy of the testing. Seen some disturbing evidence that the number of false negatives are quite high.

 

[travelingsaintsfan]

Are they testing everyone or just the one's that are sick?

 

[Loose Cannon]

I'm not going to get into the stats that much. I'm not going to try to pull off a multivariant analysis. That would be crazy time consuming and I agree, I don't think that I'd be able to control for all of the variables. I think that the smarter route is to look at the policies, their goal outcome measures, how they are measuring up to those goals, and whether what the state is doing is reasonable based on their stats, outcome measures, and goals. Then I'd assume that the stats were associated with the opposite state, and determine if their decisions would or SHOULD be different based on their outcome measures and goals for reopening. It's going to be an observational study...but honestly, I think that it may be more valuable than anything the internet currently has.

Makes sense - but I think you ought to still start with the two most similar states (with different re-opening policies) possible.

Wish I wasn't swamped with work - this is what I do for a living. I'd love to mess around with it, but I'm absolutely buried right now.

 

[superchuck500]

Are they testing everyone or just the one's that are sick?

Neither (more than 'just the ones that are sick' but not everyone).

Test capability varies by locality but generally speaking, at this point, they are testing:
- People who show up with symptoms;
- People through contact tracing associated with positive cases;
- People in sensitive positions like health-care workers and government leaders;
- People who get a doctor's referral for whatever reason;
- People who show up at test sites (drive-through) and wait in line to get tested.

The scope of testing has expanded substantially in the last two weeks, and will continue to expand. In many locations, if you want a test, you can get it.

 

[gboudx]

View: https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1261251883206873088?s=20

Research hospital UT Southwestern in Dallas county, reported their modeling shows that by early July, Dallas county could start having near 800 daily new cases based on current activity trends, and increased openings in the near future. Currently Dallas county hospital beds are increased to 68% capacity which is highest since this all started. Must be the new 5G towers. Nothing else can explain it.

 

[sammymvpknight]

Makes sense - but I think you ought to still start with the two most similar states (with different re-opening policies) possible.

Wish I wasn't swamped with work - this is what I do for a living. I'd love to mess around with it, but I'm absolutely buried right now.

While controlling for variables by taking two similar states would make the stats easier to interpret...it also would in many ways defeat the purpose of the study in the first place. I'm not interested in just running stats for the fun of it...I would like to be able to draw interesting conclusions that myself and others care about. I feel like I have to analyze either NY or California, because they are on one extreme. The other group ideally would have similarities to either NY or California, but unfortunately, there is no good control group for the extreme left (a similar state politically with similar COVID incidence, but with different benchmarks for return). The only way I can draw interesting conclusions is by doing an observational analysis using the benchmarks as the control for the opposing state.

 

[Sun Wukong]

View: https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1261251883206873088?s=20

 

[Saint_Ward]

Oh, it's the Preamble to the Constitution. Just never heard it called "first principles" before.

Here it is:

"WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. "

I mean sure, it basically established that the Constitution is a Social Contract like was discussed by John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau. (Hobbes too, but for a bit different reasons.) It's why it starts with "We the people." It shows that the people have joined together to enter this contract.

Anyway social contract theory (mostly Locke) is the basis for the Constitution. We give up the right to do whatever we want, license, in exchange for safety and protection. I think that encompasses laws for the public good, especially during a pandemic. It's why the Constitution gives the power that the government has. Because all other powers reside with the individuals (or states). In fact, many founders didn't want the Bill of Rights because they felt it was redundant and it was clear we had all those rights since there were not restricted in the Constitution itself. Luckily those who wanted the Bill of Rights won because I doubt we would still have most of them if they were not spelled out.

Some insight. We've been through this before, and more recently these questions have been asked.

Constitutional powers and issues during a quarantine situation | Constitution Center

The growing concerns about the coronavirus in the United States could lead to government officials considering isolation and quarantine as possible measures to contain the virus. So what does that mean in constitutional terms?

constitutioncenter.org

Constitution when there were concerns about the Ebola virus. In general, the Research Service said the power to take quarantine measures is reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment. In 1824, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden drew a clear line between the federal government and the state governments when it came to regulating activities within and between states.

Marshall’s reasoning set the precedent that police powers are reserved to states for activities within their borders (with some exceptions). Those police powers include the ability to impose isolation and quarantine conditions. Marshall wrote that quarantine laws “form a portion of that immense mass of legislation which embraces everything within the territory of a State not surrendered to the General Government.”

The Research Service also noted that one trend in common today among the states is the “antiquity” of their quarantine laws, with many statutes between 40 and 100 years old.

To be sure, the federal government has important quarantine powers. Under section 361 of the Public Health Service Act, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has the power to take measures to contain communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and between states. The CDC acts on behalf of the Secretary in these matters.

Federal public health and welfare statutes also give the federal government authority to isolate and quarantine persons with certain diseases, based on an executive order issued by President George W. Bush in 2003. The federal government also has a seldom-used power to impose large-scale quarantines. For example, the federal government issued isolation and quarantine orders during the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1918 and 1919.

But under the Constitution, individuals have rights in quarantine and isolation conditions. Under the 5th and 14th Amendment’s rights of Due Process and Equal Protection, public health regulations used to impose such conditions can’t be “arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable.”

There are precedents where courts have ruled that states or local governments didn’t meet a burden of proof to justify a quarantine. For example, in 1900 courts ruled against the city of San Francisco when it tried to inoculate and then quarantine Chinese residents against the bubonic plague when the courts had doubts that plague conditions existed.

 

[St. Widge]

Research hospital UT Southwestern in Dallas county, reported their modeling shows that by early July, Dallas county could start having near 800 daily new cases based on current activity trends, and increased openings in the near future. Currently Dallas county hospital beds are increased to 68% capacity which is highest since this all started. Must be the new 5G towers. Nothing else can explain it.

I have a feeling the Chinese are about to start building new 5G towers in New Orleans starting tomorrow. Started in Metairie today.

 

[Saint_Ward]

Florida's new cases have gone from going down to being pretty steady. Better than going up, but it looks like Palm Beach, Dade, and Pinellas are getting worse. Dade might be a blip.





Good job Broward!



The only good news is that so far ER visits are down, but that data is 6 days behind, so I wouldn't hold my breath....

If cases go up, but hospital usage remains low, that's good.