Conoravirus ...

[Ajax]

I bought stuff to make pizza. I'm Italian, I should be able to handle it.

[Slick470]

Latest on the Abbott Labs test that we were discussing earlier in this thread... not encouraging.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/false-negatives-in-quick-covid-19-test-near-15-percent-study-67451

[SemiSalt]

There are some frustrating issues with the statistics. The "new cases" data is really the "positive test result" count and depends on what's going on with test availability and the guidelines for who gets tested. If I was in charge, I'd look at new hospitalizations because that should be a relatively solid count. Maybe a doc would prefer new ICU admissions.

The usual reports just give totals but I'm more interested in trends, so I've started collecting data day by day. Here in Stamford, we are hard hit due to proximity to NYC, but the numbers published by the city government are so erratic they are hard to deal with. New cases run at 50 a day, but once a week it's 200. The numbers for Fairfield County published by the state are smoother. The total number of people hospitalized in the county has been falling by about 50 a day out of 750 or so. That is the strongest sign I've seen that the wave has peaked here.

[SemiSalt]

I bought stuff to make pizza. I'm Italian, I should be able to handle it.

Hot Cross buns here today.

[Ajax]

Thanks for that explanation, Semi.

[kdh]

There are some frustrating issues with the statistics. The "new cases" data is really the "positive test result" count and depends on what's going on with test availability and the guidelines for who gets tested. If I was in charge, I'd look at new hospitalizations because that should be a relatively solid count. Maybe a doc would prefer new ICU admissions.

The usual reports just give totals but I'm more interested in trends, so I've started collecting data day by day. Here in Stamford, we are hard hit due to proximity to NYC, but the numbers published by the city government are so erratic they are hard to deal with. New cases run at 50 a day, but once a week it's 200. The numbers for Fairfield County published by the state are smoother. The total number of people hospitalized in the county has been falling by about 50 a day out of 750 or so. That is the strongest sign I've seen that the wave has peaked here.

Positive test result data are still indicative. We know that testing has generally increased so if we see new positives flatten out even in the context of increased testing which would make them increase that's still good news.

And again, although data for your county might be more relevant it's going to be way noisier than state or federal data.

If we were to ignore data because they had some sort of flaw we'd never use data.

[LarryHoward]

There are some frustrating issues with the statistics. The "new cases" data is really the "positive test result" count and depends on what's going on with test availability and the guidelines for who gets tested. If I was in charge, I'd look at new hospitalizations because that should be a relatively solid count. Maybe a doc would prefer new ICU admissions.

The usual reports just give totals but I'm more interested in trends, so I've started collecting data day by day. Here in Stamford, we are hard hit due to proximity to NYC, but the numbers published by the city government are so erratic they are hard to deal with. New cases run at 50 a day, but once a week it's 200. The numbers for Fairfield County published by the state are smoother. The total number of people hospitalized in the county has been falling by about 50 a day out of 750 or so. That is the strongest sign I've seen that the wave has peaked here.

Positive test result data are still indicative. We know that testing has generally increased so if we see new positives flatten out even in the context of increased testing which would make them increase that's still good news.

And again, although data for your county might be more relevant it's going to be way noisier than state or federal data.

If we were to ignore data because they had some sort of flaw we'd never use data.

There is that. Locally, I look at the raw numbers each day but it takes a while for it to roll up to the state data on a linked site. I was a fan of the UW site but it seems they are trying to be all things to all people worldwide and there data now gets updated every 3-4 days so its started to jump around quire a bit again when the new data is run. In addition, they have added a "shift to containment" timeline which in a deeper look equals 1 active case per 1M residents "adjusted for local funding" for testing, contact tracing, etc. for MD, that's 6 cases.

[BeauV]

As far as take out food goes my guess is that the safest is food that has the least human interaction with it once it is cooked, and something that you can nuke in the microwave when you get it home. Something like pizza.

I have a number of friends who put all take-out food into their oven at home at 190° F for about 15 minutes. My understanding is that this will kill the virus.

B

[Tigger]

There are a couple of places here selling, in addition to the usual take out/delivery, all the ingredients to make your own fancier meal. Here is CinCin's take on it. Thankfully the government had the good sense to relax liquor regs to allow restaurants to deliver booze.

https://toptable.ca/Toptable2U_Menu_Apr21st.pdf

[Olaf Hart]

There are some frustrating issues with the statistics. The "new cases" data is really the "positive test result" count and depends on what's going on with test availability and the guidelines for who gets tested. If I was in charge, I'd look at new hospitalizations because that should be a relatively solid count. Maybe a doc would prefer new ICU admissions.

The usual reports just give totals but I'm more interested in trends, so I've started collecting data day by day. Here in Stamford, we are hard hit due to proximity to NYC, but the numbers published by the city government are so erratic they are hard to deal with. New cases run at 50 a day, but once a week it's 200. The numbers for Fairfield County published by the state are smoother. The total number of people hospitalized in the county has been falling by about 50 a day out of 750 or so. That is the strongest sign I've seen that the wave has peaked here.

We are never going to know the real numbers until broad community based serology testing in a few months tells us about the numbers who were exposed and mounted an immune response.

Many of them will have been asymptomatic, but presumably still spreaders.

The Santa Clara autopsy results from early February give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem, there were spreaders in the US in mid January.

[BeauV]

There are some frustrating issues with the statistics. The "new cases" data is really the "positive test result" count and depends on what's going on with test availability and the guidelines for who gets tested. If I was in charge, I'd look at new hospitalizations because that should be a relatively solid count. Maybe a doc would prefer new ICU admissions.

The usual reports just give totals but I'm more interested in trends, so I've started collecting data day by day. Here in Stamford, we are hard hit due to proximity to NYC, but the numbers published by the city government are so erratic they are hard to deal with. New cases run at 50 a day, but once a week it's 200. The numbers for Fairfield County published by the state are smoother. The total number of people hospitalized in the county has been falling by about 50 a day out of 750 or so. That is the strongest sign I've seen that the wave has peaked here.

We are never going to know the real numbers until broad community based serology testing in a few months tells us about the numbers who were exposed and mounted an immune response.

Many of them will have been asymptomatic, but presumably still spreaders.

The Santa Clara autopsy results from early February give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem, there were spreaders in the US in mid January.

Well, we don't actually have evidence that there were spreaders in January. All we really know is that there was ONE person in the first week of February who died of it. We really have to be VERY careful about projecting conclusions about the entire country or even a state from ONE person. That way lies madness and bad science.

I have been talking to UCSC folks about serology testing. The big problem is that we still have about 20-25% false positives and false negatives on the current tests. Date of that info was two weeks ago. With that error rate, any projections on the percentage of a population which does or doesn't have antibodies could have an error rate of over 30%++. hardly something we can count on as accurate. The same guys say that serology will get a LOT better in the next month or two.

[kimbottles]

Bainbridge Island: 11 infections.

That number has been holding steady now for weeks!

[H B]

As far as take out food goes my guess is that the safest is food that has the least human interaction with it once it is cooked, and something that you can nuke in the microwave when you get it home. Something like pizza.

I have a number of friends who put all take-out food into their oven at home at 190° F for about 15 minutes. My understanding is that this will kill the virus.

B

Ajax saw my FB post where we got local uncooked crab cakes..those suckers were broiled at 450°F! - however, the workers in the restaurant were not wearing masks. I don't know if that qualifies as a mask zone. We'd love to support local businesses where we can, but I am not risking my life for it either...except Roy Rogers..they must stay in business for me to eat their Roast Beef sammiches and Bacon Cheeseburgers and breakfast potatoes and breakfast platters, and chicken tenders!!

I've been reminding my wife about coming home and not touching the door handle to the house (she went to work and the grocery yesterday) without using a damn sanitizing wipe. I am not quite in the "sanitize it at the front door' Ajax mode yet, but she is being a bit lax for me, especially since I haven't been anywhere except the petri dish liquor store and the local trash transfer station for two weeks. I carry a fresh alcohol loaded wipe with me in the liquor store, and I stopped wearing gloves after thinking about the transfer (vector?) chances it creates. Clean hands on the way in...grab a wipe from the trunk...use it on everything I touch, and wash my hands when I get in the door..not that hard.

[Tim Ford]

The Politics of SARS-CoV-2 for DUMMIES:

- Mr. Donald J. Trump: we got this, things are going to be fine, oh and there are unicorns in the rose garden
- V.P. M. Pence: I may be a right wing ideologue from a Right to Work state , but I actually gave props to organized labor today - 'splain that!
- Public Health folks from NIH, CDC, Surgeon Generals office etc: fuck politics let's deal with the actual data
- CNN: Hillary would have been the completely amazing in dealing with this and God we hate Trump despite some of the effective measures/hires which we would never acknowledge. Ever.
- The Atlantic: Trump has caused this pandemic and is single-handedly dismantling the Constitution and all things wonderful about liberal democracies
- The NYT: we detest Trump so much we can't even see straight. We wouldn't know a fact if it drove our limo to the ER. What, exactly, is a fact?
- Open Up Now Protestors: some obvious Trumpers and lefty agents provocateur but, for the most part, desperate folks who are on their last legs financially
- Big Church Personalities: see above about desperate folks on their last legs financially
- The opinion of most well-meaning folks who don't have an agenda: please STFU with all the politics and deal with this as adults

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

[Panope]

Bainbridge Island: 11 infections.

That number has been holding steady now for weeks!

It's a similar story here in Jefferson County: 28 infections, steady for a about a week. I did notice that the rate of testing in my county has slowed somewhat this past week.

I added up 6 westernmost counties and counted a population of 280,000 with 93 official cases and Zero Deaths.

The rate of death for the USA is 1 dead per 18 cases.
The rate of death for Washington State is the same at 1 dead per 18 cases.
The rate of death for New York State is 1 dead per 13 cases.

Why does my group of westernmost counties have ZERO deaths (with 93 cases)?

[H B]

Steve, y'all up there must be in better general health than the folks living in that filth hole they call NYC. Maybe.

I will just say this...for the unemployed..there are jobs, even companies paying TV time to advertise. If I was unemployed and needed to pay rent, hell yes, I'd go put on a full respirator and stock shelves somewhere if that is what it took to feed my family and pay the rent. I think most folks are lazy, and it is easier to collect unemployment and go protest.
I will also say thank you to whatever power it is that helped put me and my wife in a position to be fully employed and working from home (her 95%) and getting paid during this crisis, and the only real effect is that I have to occasionally share the home office space with my spouse.

[Chris Chesley]

Steve, how many nursing homes / retirement homes have had a cluster in your homes 6 counties?
How many subway riders in your 6 counties?
How many hospitalized in your 6 counties?

Fecal spread is a ‘thing’. Nursing homes, hospitals, 3rd worlders with poor hygiene matter....

[Olaf Hart]

There are some frustrating issues with the statistics. The "new cases" data is really the "positive test result" count and depends on what's going on with test availability and the guidelines for who gets tested. If I was in charge, I'd look at new hospitalizations because that should be a relatively solid count. Maybe a doc would prefer new ICU admissions.

The usual reports just give totals but I'm more interested in trends, so I've started collecting data day by day. Here in Stamford, we are hard hit due to proximity to NYC, but the numbers published by the city government are so erratic they are hard to deal with. New cases run at 50 a day, but once a week it's 200. The numbers for Fairfield County published by the state are smoother. The total number of people hospitalized in the county has been falling by about 50 a day out of 750 or so. That is the strongest sign I've seen that the wave has peaked here.

We are never going to know the real numbers until broad community based serology testing in a few months tells us about the numbers who were exposed and mounted an immune response.

Many of them will have been asymptomatic, but presumably still spreaders.

The Santa Clara autopsy results from early February give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem, there were spreaders in the US in mid January.

Well, we don't actually have evidence that there were spreaders in January. All we really know is that there was ONE person in the first week of February who died of it. We really have to be VERY careful about projecting conclusions about the entire country or even a state from ONE person. That way lies madness and bad science.

I have been talking to UCSC folks about serology testing. The big problem is that we still have about 20-25% false positives and false negatives on the current tests. Date of that info was two weeks ago. With that error rate, any projections on the percentage of a population which does or doesn't have antibodies could have an error rate of over 30%++. hardly something we can count on as accurate. The same guys say that serology will get a LOT better in the next month or two.

Neither of the first two cases had any contact with China, so they had to catch the virus from someone in their local area.

It would be around two weeks from infection to death, so that pushes the timeline to mid January.

[JoeP]

Bainbridge Island: 11 infections.

That number has been holding steady now for weeks!

It's a similar story here in Jefferson County: 28 infections, steady for a about a week. I did notice that the rate of testing in my county has slowed somewhat this past week.

I added up 6 westernmost counties and counted a population of 280,000 with 93 official cases and Zero Deaths.

The rate of death for the USA is 1 dead per 18 cases.
The rate of death for Washington State is the same at 1 dead per 18 cases.
The rate of death for New York State is 1 dead per 13 cases.

Why does my group of westernmost counties have ZERO deaths (with 93 cases)?

Steve, I think those 6 counties don't really have the facilities to handle care for those infected so they probably got moved out of their counties for treatment. The fatality data may not have been attributed to their home counties yet. I have seen corrections regularly posted in my local newspaper for out of county Covid 19 patients. Just my guess.

[Olaf Hart]

Grandsons and lockdown..

4ADC6346-2D1C-4133-B6BD-B5711EB2ECEA.jpeg

[Panope]

Steve, how many nursing homes / retirement homes have had a cluster in your homes 6 counties?
How many subway riders in your 6 counties?
How many hospitalized in your 6 counties?

Fecal spread is a ‘thing’. Nursing homes, hospitals, 3rd worlders with poor hygiene matter....

Chris, we've got little or none of those things here I reckon.

Other facts:

-This is a very "white" area.
-Income for these 6 counties varies from high (San Juan) to low (Grays harbor).
-Up wind of I-5 corridor (no smog).

I can well understand our low "case count" (due to the rural nature of the place). It's the (lack of) deaths per case that is intriguing to me.

If the lack of deaths is caused by our patients receiving lower "doses" of the virus, why are there not multitudes more more "light dose" patients in the cities driving their "death per case" numbers down?

[Panope]

Steve, I think those 6 counties don't really have the facilities to handle care for those infected so they probably got moved out of their counties for treatment. The fatality data may not have been attributed to their home counties yet. I have seen corrections regularly posted in my local newspaper for out of county Covid 19 patients. Just my guess.

I could see how that be a factor, Joe.

However for my county, I believe we have had only 1 critical patient (out of 28 cases) and he did not die (he was sent to Virgina Mason Hospital in Seattle).

I have no idea about the other 5 counties.

[BeauV]

There are some frustrating issues with the statistics. The "new cases" data is really the "positive test result" count and depends on what's going on with test availability and the guidelines for who gets tested. If I was in charge, I'd look at new hospitalizations because that should be a relatively solid count. Maybe a doc would prefer new ICU admissions.

The usual reports just give totals but I'm more interested in trends, so I've started collecting data day by day. Here in Stamford, we are hard hit due to proximity to NYC, but the numbers published by the city government are so erratic they are hard to deal with. New cases run at 50 a day, but once a week it's 200. The numbers for Fairfield County published by the state are smoother. The total number of people hospitalized in the county has been falling by about 50 a day out of 750 or so. That is the strongest sign I've seen that the wave has peaked here.

We are never going to know the real numbers until broad community based serology testing in a few months tells us about the numbers who were exposed and mounted an immune response.

Many of them will have been asymptomatic, but presumably still spreaders.

The Santa Clara autopsy results from early February give us an idea of the magnitude of the problem, there were spreaders in the US in mid January.

Well, we don't actually have evidence that there were spreaders in January. All we really know is that there was ONE person in the first week of February who died of it. We really have to be VERY careful about projecting conclusions about the entire country or even a state from ONE person. That way lies madness and bad science.

I have been talking to UCSC folks about serology testing. The big problem is that we still have about 20-25% false positives and false negatives on the current tests. Date of that info was two weeks ago. With that error rate, any projections on the percentage of a population which does or doesn't have antibodies could have an error rate of over 30%++. hardly something we can count on as accurate. The same guys say that serology will get a LOT better in the next month or two.

Neither of the first two cases had any contact with China, so they had to catch the virus from someone in their local area.

It would be around two weeks from infection to death, so that pushes the timeline to mid January.

I agree. This means that there were either a lot of spreaders, a few spreaders, or there was one person in mid-January. We have zero evidence of any of these cases. We're guessing. The fact that there are only two examples also means, we didn't find hundreds or we found them all. Again, we have a sample of two. Are there more, there certainly could be. Do we have evidence? Nope, not until we run some tests. Again we're guessing.

I'm as willing to guess as the next person, but I want to know when I'm actually guessing. A lot of folks aren't just jumping to conclusions they appear to fling themselves off buildings for them.

[BeauV]

Grandsons and lockdown..

4ADC6346-2D1C-4133-B6BD-B5711EB2ECEA.jpeg

How old is that little monkey? It reminds me of my son. Cute little guy.

[BeauV]

Steve, I think those 6 counties don't really have the facilities to handle care for those infected so they probably got moved out of their counties for treatment. The fatality data may not have been attributed to their home counties yet. I have seen corrections regularly posted in my local newspaper for out of county Covid 19 patients. Just my guess.

I could see how that be a factor, Joe.

However for my county, I believe we have had only 1 critical patient (out of 28 cases) and he did not die (he was sent to Virgina Mason Hospital in Seattle).

I have no idea about the other 5 counties.

Steve, the severity of the disease does seem to correlate with bad air pollution (EG: N. Italy, NYC, LA) and with smoking (N. Italy, France). But so does heart disease, and heart disease is well-known comorbidity. I've been reading about some pretty extreme problems with internal bleeding etc... and so far no one has published any potential explanation. The virus attacks a lot more than the lungs in the late stages, it appears.

It also appears that highly popular and effective mass transit systems spread this virus pretty quickly. EG: NYC and Wash DC Subways. The fact that N. CA is pretty much wedded to 1 person per car probably helped hold back the growth of the problem. The Counties which are the hardest hit are along the heavily used commuter train systems in our area. Places like Santa Cruz and Monterey, which a bare minimum bus system, are much more lightly hit and fewer deaths per case.

There are so many factors, it's really hard to pick on one.

[Ajax]

I've been trying to assess my risk level should I become infected.

Apparently ACE inhibitors and blood pressure meds may accelerate the virus.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/blood-pressu ... 53059.html

(The article is from Reuters, not Yahoo.)

I have pre-ventricular contractions, so I take a tiny amount of an ACE inhibitor whenever I feel the need, which isn't often lately.
My last several blood pressure checks have been 120/72, which is right on the border of "elevated" under the new, more stringent guidelines.

The PVC's are supposedly harmless. I take the ACE to smooth out the ripples because I find them to be irritating when they flare up. I can live without the medication, so I think I'll stop until more information comes out on this. The cardiologist told me that there is no harm in stopping the medication.

[kdh]

I have been talking to UCSC folks about serology testing. The big problem is that we still have about 20-25% false positives and false negatives on the current tests. Date of that info was two weeks ago. With that error rate, any projections on the percentage of a population which does or doesn't have antibodies could have an error rate of over 30%++. hardly something we can count on as accurate. The same guys say that serology will get a LOT better in the next month or two.

Importantly however, if the distribution of the testing error is known, even if biased, we can correct for it. And crucially, the error at the conclusion level having aggregated over a population will be small law-of-large-numbers style.

Let's not wait for perfect data. We won't get it and THAT would be bad science.

[kdh]

Here's a small sample for you. I don't care about my county but in my house as far as I know there are ZERO infections, which has held steady for months.

[SemiSalt]

My daughter works for the DC Metro. She reports the subways are operating at about 5% of the usual ridership, and they have closed some stations. The closures are because they don't have enough staff to disinfect the whole system as frequently as necessary.

Their biggest fear is a cluster of virus among the fairly small group of people who staff the control room and who know how to operate the system. If I recall what she said correctly, those folk are divided into to 2 groups who are to never mix or be in the same place. One half uses the regular control room and the other uses a backup site.

Bus drivers are most at risk. They are supposed to limit the number of riders on a bus so that social distance guidelines can be followed.

[Jamie]

If these data errors are consistent, then the trends can still have meaning.

Interesting to look at the active case numbers for Germany, Austria and Switzerland vs France, Spain and the US. The former have a sharp peak and decline, the latter have a slow rounding.