The World-O-Meter Thread

[Derec]

From the travel stats (e.g. thksgvg air travel down only 10% from 2019) it would be astonishing if that were not the case.

Where are you getting this from?
According to TSA, it's less than half so far.

I agree traveling for Thanksgiving is needlessly risky, but I doubt it will lead to a surge since there has been similarly risky behavior happening for months. Is Thanksgiving with 12-20 family members really more risky than dining in a restaurant with 30 diners plus the staff? Or drinking in a bar or night club?

Where will the hospitalizations and deaths top out? 3k/day dead? 5k?

We are at just above 1.5k/d (7 day avg.) right now. You really think we will double or triple that? Seriously?
I don't think we will likely pass 2k honestly. Note that the previous peak, in April during 1a, was about 2.2k/d.

Looks like the democrats' hoax is about to get serious.

Of course I do not believe it's a hoax, but things are not nearly as dire as you portray. Cases are likely to peak within days. Deaths will peak probably 2-3 after that. The antibody treatment from Regenron has just been approved by the FDA which should help more people survive.

 

[Derec]

WI and IL may be peaking but they are not the nation.

Those were just two examples, and they are two of the states that had especially bad outbreaks recently. So them peaking is significant.

Many other states are not peaking.

Well of course. But I think they are close looking at the smoothed (7 day average) curves.

I understand about SIR but there are way too many factors to it for you to make the precise predictions you are, or are you using an actual model?

I am mostly looking the nationwide and statewide curves and comparing them to what was happening during wavelets 1a (Spring) and 1b (Summer).

It is possible that the current rise was fueled by election activity and so may decline now, but my amateur hunch is that there are still too many susceptible and the virus will act like other respiratory viruses in the winter and spread easier, especially when lots of people will be travelling to other people's houses and gather inside for hours and days.

The cases of in-home transmission to family members are newsworthy. Like this case in Texas. And it is of course bad when many family members get sick at the same time, and it is tragic if two or more family members die from this disease. But I am not convinced that Thanksgiving transmission will be significantly worse than what's been going on with people going to restaurants, bars, nightclubs etc.
Despite crowded nightclubs, no mask citations issued over Labor Day weekend

Atlanta city officials pleaded with residents to wear masks and practice social distancing ahead of Labor Day weekend, but not everyone got the memo.
Cellphone video posted online appeared to show throngs of mask-less people huddled together inside some of Atlanta’s most popular bars and strip clubs over the long weekend. Some were dancing, others were drinking. But very few appeared to be keeping their distance, despite local and state guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.
[...]
[City Council President Felicia] Moore said Wednesday. “In the nightclubs, they were packed in like sardines.”

Superspreading has been occurring for months, but it is not as noteworthy if it affects random people and not 15 members of the same family.

And by the way, I am being careful about interactions. I have not been to a strip club since February.

The CDC ensemble shows a rise still for the next few weeks.

There is a wide range between different models. That means that there is a great deal of uncertainty.
I guess we will see who turns out to be right.

 

[Derec]

Most of the county will be at 30-50% of people having been infected - most of them asymptomatic and untested - by year's end. That will greatly affect the ability of the virus to spread effectively.

We will be nowhere near that.

Are you sure about that?

I am not talking about confirmed cases but total cases - which is by necessity an estimate. But many parts of the country are already >30%. Urban (NYC) and rural (North Dakota) alike. Many parts of NYC were >30% already this summer, some of them (like the ironically fittingly named neighborhood of Corona in Queens) close to 50%. And many other areas are close. For example Los Angeles and Atlanta metro areas are above 20% for sure by now. Which means of course that some neighborhoods are >30% now.

And there are still 5 weeks until the end of the year.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Where are you getting this from?
According to TSA, it's less than half so far.

I agree traveling for Thanksgiving is needlessly risky, but I doubt it will lead to a surge since there has been similarly risky behavior happening for months. Is Thanksgiving with 12-20 family members really more risky than dining in a restaurant with 30 diners plus the staff? Or drinking in a bar or night club?

People let their guard down more with those they perceive as safer.

We are at just above 1.5k/d (7 day avg.) right now. You really think we will double or triple that? Seriously?
I don't think we will likely pass 2k honestly. Note that the previous peak, in April during 1a, was about 2.2k/d.

It wouldn't be at all hard to double or triple it.

Looks like the democrats' hoax is about to get serious.

Of course I do not believe it's a hoax, but things are not nearly as dire as you portray. Cases are likely to peak within days. Deaths will peak probably 2-3 after that. The antibody treatment from Regenron has just been approved by the FDA which should help more people survive.

Regeneron is pretty much useless. This is more GOP manipulation.

 

[blastula]

Regeneron is pretty much useless. This is more GOP manipulation.

According to?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Regeneron is pretty much useless. This is more GOP manipulation.

According to?

I've heard otherwise from my medical source, a doctor that is pretty much a know-it-all.

 

[blastula]

I've only seen good things myself. Ben Carson and Chris Christie got the Trump-henchman special hookup to the monoclonal elixir. Trump and them are lucky it became available right before they caught it, and which was probably due to their own recklessness. karma is a lie.

The treatment is indicated for patients early in the disease, not for hospitalized patients. There are only thousands of doses available now, so it will be made available to high risk patients. It cuts symptom duration in half.

I caught covid last month and wish I could have gotten some, instead of stupid vitamin d.

 

[Elixir]

Where are you getting this from?
According to TSA, it's less than half so far.

Can't find the source - I may have misread it. Half seems to be what airlines are saying now.
I still think that the holidays are going to prolong whatever peak we are nearing (or at) now. It also appears that any herd immunity effect is a long way off. If it was a significant factor, I wouldn't expect the State that had the greatest early saturation of cases to look like this:


But all that is a mere quibbling - what are a few tens of thousands of total deaths plus or minus, while we're still racking up more than a thousand a day, despite greater understanding and improved treatments of the disease?
It is doubtful that the best efforts of the incoming administration will have a big effect on public behavior before February, so the outlook is rather dire until mid-late March IMHO. Maybe it will be "gone by Easter" after all... or at least by Labor Day.

 

[Derec]

Can't find the source - I may have misread it. Half seems to be what airlines are saying now.

Which is still way too many, of course, but it's much better than 90%.

I still think that the holidays are going to prolong whatever peak we are nearing (or at) now.

Yeah, it will probably lead to a plateau.

It also appears that any herd immunity effect is a long way off. If it was a significant factor, I wouldn't expect the State that had the greatest early saturation of cases to look like this:

I wish you'd stop posting World-O-Meter graphs without the 7 day average curve.

I think you are misinterpreting the data. For one, NY was hard hit early on, but not all areas of the state (or the city for that matter) were equally hit. Here is the result of the antibody survey back in August and it shows a wide discrepancy between different zip codes within the city. That said, NYC is doing much better than many other major cities. Take Chicago. According to this, NYC averaged 22 daily cases per 100,000 over the last week, while Cook County, where Chicago is, averaged 75. LA County averaged 45. That's because partial herd immunity, as uneven as it is, is slowing down transmissions.

But all that is a mere quibbling - what are a few tens of thousands of total deaths plus or minus, while we're still racking up more than a thousand a day, despite greater understanding and improved treatments of the disease?

I agree that cases and deaths are higher than they could have been, but you are the one who was talking about having 3k or 5k deaths per day in the near future.

It is doubtful that the best efforts of the incoming administration will have a big effect on public behavior before February, so the outlook is rather dire until mid-late March IMHO. Maybe it will be "gone by Easter" after all... or at least by Labor Day.

The first doses of the vaccine will be available this year. By March, I expect that tens of millions will be vaccinated. Add that to the natural downslope of the 1c peak, and while it may not be over-over by April 4th, the pandemic will be a mere shadow of its current self by then.

 

[Elixir]

The first doses of the vaccine will be available this year.

Yes, available to frontline HC workers, not the general public. That will help mitigate the staffing problems that currently plague the overwhelmed hospitals but will do little to reduce the overall caseload.

By March, I expect that tens of millions will be vaccinated

"BY" March? That would be great. I think maybe by the end of March (by April) that will be the case, assuming Trump doesn't succeed in totally fucking up distribution plans. Hopefully he doesn't have any, and the new administration can develop and implement one that works.

Add that to the natural downslope of the 1c peak, and while it may not be over-over by April 4th, the pandemic will be a mere shadow of its current self by then.

I think you are moving from the realm of Happy Talk toward the realm of semi-reasonable-but-still-extreme optimism.
I wish I could believe that outlook. It's looking to me like next fall before we can really relax. That said, the economy is so vastly damaged that for many people there will be no recovery. Poverty numbers will continue to skyrocket and a huge segment of the population will be beset by hunger and unemployment for at least the next year, and maybe longer.
But the stock markets will generallly be in good shape, especially if the Republicans hold on to the Senate (~80% probable).

Per your request, deaths and new cases w/7-day moving averages:



Highest 7-day average since May 12, and no sign of leveling off



Highest numbers ever, 2½ times any previous "peak". Some signs of starting to level off... at least for now. It will probably show another rapid increase post-holidays.

 

[lpetrich]

North Korea's Kim Jong Un vents anger as pressure mounts over coronavirus, South says - The Washington Post

Under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic and an ailing economy, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is responding with fury, allowing at least two executions in the past three months, South Korea's intelligence agency told a parliamentary briefing on Friday.

“Kim Jong Un is taking irrational actions,” opposition lawmaker Ha Tae-keung told reporters after being briefed by Seoul’s National Intelligence Service. “He is venting his anger excessively and rolling out measures that lack common sense.”

Irrational responses to the COVID-19 virus -- does that seem familiar?

But experts say that Kim is likely to be feeling pressure after closing the Chinese border at the start of the year as the coronavirus spread around the world. Trade with China is usually seen as North Korea’s economic lifeline, but that lifeline has effectively been cut.

Trade with China has dropped 73% relative to last year.

Fearing the virus, North Korea created buffer zones along the border with China and warned that citizens entering without permission would be shot on sight, a measure condemned as a “serious violation of international human rights law” by Human Rights Watch.

...
Ha said examples of North Korea’s “paranoia” about the risks of coronavirus included its refusal to accept 110,000 tons of rice aid offered by China and a decision to ban fishing and salt production in North Korean waters because of concerns that seawater could be contaminated with the virus.

Eek.

 

[Derec]

Yes, available to frontline HC workers, not the general public. That will help mitigate the staffing problems that currently plague the overwhelmed hospitals but will do little to reduce the overall caseload.

It will do some of that. A physician or nurse infected by COVID can spread it to their coworkers, other patients and members of their households. Or a large number of hot bikini-clad babes if you happen to be a "hot doc" with your own YouTube channel ...
And because healthcare workers are much more likely to get exposed to coronavirus, vaccinating them first will do more to reduce the caseload than vaccinating the same number of random people.

"BY" March? That would be great. I think maybe by the end of March (by April) that will be the case, assuming Trump doesn't succeed in totally fucking up distribution plans. Hopefully he doesn't have any, and the new administration can develop and implement one that works.

I do not see why we should not have 10s of millions in January and February. But we will see.

I think you are moving from the realm of Happy Talk toward the realm of semi-reasonable-but-still-extreme optimism.

I have always been reasonably optimistic I think.
Anyway, I will offer a prediction that you will no doubt find crazy. By Easter, i.e. April 4th, the new daily cases (7 day average as always) will be as follows:

Worst case scenario: 15-30k/d
Most likely scenario: 5-15k/d
Best case scenario: <5k/d

I would be willing to put money on that. The reason I think they will be that low is a combination of immunizations and natural immunity from cumulative infections slowing the spread significantly. Assuming no mutation that would make both vaccines and naturally acquired immunity useless of course ...

I wish I could believe that outlook. It's looking to me like next fall before we can really relax.

Depends on what you mean by "really relax". I would find the numbers, even my worst case scenario, much more relaxing than what we currently have.
But I probably will not be able to really relax until I have had the shot. So it largely depends on when everybody who wants the vaccine will be able to get one, which should be by early Summer or perhaps late Spring even.

That said, the economy is so vastly damaged that for many people there will be no recovery.

Hmm, it depends on how the Biden administration plays it. I think Biden needs to tell Marky AOC and her Socialist Bunch to step off.

Poverty numbers will continue to skyrocket and a huge segment of the population will be beset by hunger and unemployment for at least the next year, and maybe longer.

We still have programs like the food stamps, don't we not. There is no significant real hunger in the US.

But the stock markets will generallly be in good shape, especially if the Republicans hold on to the Senate (~80% probable).

I still don't understand why the state and national Democratic parties decided to push a fucking Baptist pastor as the preferred candidate in the jungle primary. *Sigh*

Highest numbers ever, 2½ times any previous "peak". Some signs of starting to level off... at least for now. It will probably show another rapid increase post-holidays.

I don't think so. Where will that "rapid increase" come from? Pretty much all the areas in the US have suffered outbreaks in one or more of the wavelets already. I think it's only Vermont and Maine where you have wide swaths that have not been much affected by the virus already. But you don't have many people there, so even if they explode like NYC or more recently Wisconsin have, it will not move the needle nationally.

One caveat about Thanksgiving weekend to be crazy as many states have not posted any numbers for Thanksgiving and other states may have incomplete reporting from the counties. But we should have a better picture as the next week starts.

 

[Elixir]

Anyway, I will offer a prediction that you will no doubt find crazy. By Easter, i.e. April 4th, the new daily cases (7 day average as always) will be as follows:

Worst case scenario: 15-30k/d
Most likely scenario: 5-15k/d
Best case scenario: <5k/d

I would be willing to put money on that.

On what? Your "most likely" scenario? I'll take some of that!
On one hand, yeah, I might have a more dire view than reality will support in the end.
On the other, I refer you to your mid-July thesis that we were approaching "the peak" after which we would see a steady decline. You said there was no evidence for the subsequent peak that I predicted.

I do not see why we should not have 10s of millions in January and February. But we will see.

The main reason is that the distribution and administration is a difficult task that Donald Trump is doing everything he can to sabotage so he can say he invented the vaccine and Biden fucked it up. Yeah, we will "have" that many doses - somewhere. But we will not "have administered" that many doses, let alone the 2 doses per person some versions require.

Where will that "rapid increase" come from?

Millions of people traveling, eating and otherwise gathering indoors and in close proximity to each other.
Again, maybe I have a distorted view. Around here we have a lot of Republican conservotards who are actively flaunting their disbelief that there is even a pandemic going on, thanks to Donald and his media enablers.

we should have a better picture as the next week starts.

The end of week stats should be more reliably indicative. This coming week's early data might still be inflated by the 20 states that didn't report on Thanksgiving. If there is going to be another steep rise, it won't start until the following week at earliest.

There's still a shortage of testing capability, and as hospitalizations are at record highs, if there is a huge spike testing will be prioritized toward people showing symptoms. So the ratio of actual vs reported new cases could go up dramatically (now estimated by CDC as "possibly as high as" 8:1).

 

[Elixir]

We still have programs like the food stamps, don't we not. There is no significant real hunger in the US.

I saw the mayor of Houston TX on TV yesterday holding back tears. They were handing out food, including turkeys. But they couldn't give away all the turkeys because people either didn't have kitchens, or didn't have the gas or electricity to cook them.


The rise in Americans' food insecurity


"There have been thousands of other food distributions all across the country, like a massive one in Dallas/Fort Worth just this past week. What all these lines have in common is that many of the people have never asked for food before."

The amazing thing (to me) is that they all have cars. Maybe edible cars are the solution?

 

[bilby]

We still have programs like the food stamps, don't we not. There is no significant real hunger in the US.

I saw the mayor of Houston TX on TV yesterday holding back tears. They were handing out food, including turkeys. But they couldn't give away all the turkeys because people either didn't have kitchens, or didn't have the gas or electricity to cook them.


The rise in Americans' food insecurity


"There have been thousands of other food distributions all across the country, like a massive one in Dallas/Fort Worth just this past week. What all these lines have in common is that many of the people have never asked for food before."

The amazing thing (to me) is that they all have cars. Maybe edible cars are the solution?

For many people, a car is a prerequisite for employment. If you sold your car to buy food, a month later you would not only be back to having no food, but would now be in a situation where your options to earn any more food money were sharply curtailed.

I don't find it amazing or even worthy of mention that they all have cars. It would be amazing if they had all gone out and bought cars after falling on hard times, but presumably that's not the typical case here.

I expect most of them have smartphones, for much the same reason.

 

[Elixir]

Maybe edible cars are the solution?

For many people, a car is a prerequisite for employment. If you sold your car to buy food, a month later you would not only be back to having no food, but would now be in a situation where your options to earn any more food money were sharply curtailed.

Hey if they eat 3000 lbs of food that fast, maybe it's time for a diet!

Seriously - it is incredibly shocking to see this perverted re-run of 1929, when people were dying in soup lines, frozen and on foot while stock brokers were jumping out of windows.
Instead, they're in cars, dying of COVID while stock brokers (now it's "fund managers") are flying off in their private jets to eat lunch in Bora Bora.

 

[ZiprHead]

Maybe edible cars are the solution?

For many people, a car is a prerequisite for employment. If you sold your car to buy food, a month later you would not only be back to having no food, but would now be in a situation where your options to earn any more food money were sharply curtailed.

Hey if they eat 3000 lbs of food that fast, maybe it's time for a diet!

Seriously - it is incredibly shocking to see this perverted re-run of 1929, when people were dying in soup lines, frozen and on foot while stock brokers were jumping out of windows.
Instead, they're in cars, dying of COVID while stock brokers (now it's "fund managers") are flying off in their private jets to eat lunch in Bora Bora.

The investors jumping out of windows thing in 1929 is a myth.

Contrary to popular lore, there was no epidemic of suicides—let alone window-jumpings—in the wake of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. “In the United States the suicide wave that followed the stock market crash is also part of the legend of 1929. In fact, there was none,” wrote economist John Kenneth Galbraith in his book The Great Crash 1929.

https://www.history.com/news/stock-market-crash-suicides-wall-street-1929-great-depression#:~:text=On%20what%20became%20known%20as,as%20the%20stock%20market%20itself.&text=Front%20pages%20of%20American%20newspapers,Wall%20Street%20in%20October%201929.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The investors jumping out of windows thing in 1929 is a myth.

Speaking of myths and pandemics--I ran into an interesting one recently. The black death wasn't spread by rats. Rather, the culprit was lice--living on people, not on rats.

 

[Politesse]

We know very little for certain about the "Black Death" - which was likely many different antique diseases borrowing the same reputation - or its transmission.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The investors jumping out of windows thing in 1929 is a myth.

Speaking of myths and pandemics--I ran into an interesting one recently. The black death wasn't spread by rats. Rather, the culprit was lice--living on people, not on rats.

Wasn't it fleas?