Help the Fight Against COVID-19

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According to the John Hopkins site Kentucky only has 10 cases. I think we're being lied to and the number of cases is orders of magnitude higher than what's being reported.

We're absolutely being lied to but I wonder where the line is with political speech about this topic on this forum. I think these are special circumstances and the "both sides" doctrine just doesn't apply here.
 
According to the John Hopkins site Kentucky only has 10 cases. I think we're being lied to and the number of cases is orders of magnitude higher than what's being reported.
That's possible, but have you considered the alternative? (Or, something that might be happening in combination with lowballing the numbers?)

Test rationing produces undercounting.

To find all cases of Wuhan Flu, technically everyone ought to be getting tested the moment they have a sniffle. (Then, getting the results back would take the usual day or two, but shortage of staff, and that many tests piling up first-come, first-serve would produce a test-processing backlog. It could take four days, or five....)

The reality is that probably only one in a hundred testable cases actually get tested, because "the rules" are that you don't get tested unless...
(a.) you show up at the ER;
(b.) your condition seems potentially life-threatening when you show up; and,
(c.) they deem that a positive result is likely enough to warrant testing you,
...because of course they're trying to not overload the test-processing capacity of the system.

So, take my family for example. Since late February we've been fighting or passing around what is either one virus or two. Whatever we've had looks and acts just like COVID-19 (but, also, just like a cold followed by a flu). We've isolated ourselves except for grocery-store runs. Fortunately I can work from home.

Was it a cold? Could be, but we never get fevers with colds, and this cold oddly transitioned to a fever and a cough after it had been going on for two weeks. Was it a cold, followed by a flu, thus producing a combination of symptoms? Could be, but where'd we get the flu part? We were already isolating ourselves from others!

So, was it COVID-19? Could be. But we didn't know anyone who'd been to China or Italy, and this started in late February. That was days before the earliest confirmed cases of community transmission in our part of the country.

Did we go get it tested? No, because they'd have turned us away: None of us ever had trouble breathing, and we had no known vector for having gotten it. We each went through the 101-degree-fever-and-a-dry-cough phase in about 3 days; then the fever left but the cough lingered, and now the cough is dwindling to nothing. We're still isolating ourselves so that just in case the virus was Wuhan Flu, we don't pass it to anyone.

So we played it exactly the way you're supposed to play it, and the result is: IF it was Wuhan Flu, THEN there's no way the system could be counting it as such.

Multiply that by 50 states, and I think that even if my family's virus wasn't COVID-19, a lot of the other untested examples out there are. They just never turned bad enough to warrant testing.

Consequently, you get an underestimation of spread by a factor of...what? Ten? A hundred? Who knows?

In conclusion, I think that yes, it's possible we're being lied to. (It's even possible that, under the circumstances, that would be the exact correct thing to do; or else, a much more morally-defensible error than under normal circumstances.)

BUT, the old adage is, "When dealing with humans, it's usually an error to attribute to malice and cunning that which can be adequately accounted for by confusion and bumbling." GIVEN that testing is rationed, even our best health-care administrators are flying blind. And of course they report their "best guesses" up the chain to the CDC and the hospital admins, who report it to the governors and HHS, who report it to the VP and the president.

A communication-chain like that probably takes 2 days to get the latest information. Add a couple of days for test-processing. My guess is that anything you hear on the national news, even if it's perfectly honest, is four days out of date by the time you hear it, AND is underestimating actual infections by an order-of-magnitude merely because we test such a tiny slice of people who might have it.

And that's assuming no tired epidemiologist makes a math error which goes uncaught. Would you bet that hasn't happened yet? I wouldn't.

Whatever you hear on the television today is -- again, presuming honesty -- just their best guess of what was happening last week.
 
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Lying to the public is what governments do best, in times like this a lie is crucial to keep order, at least thats what i would do if i was in that position.

My concerns is by what number should i multiply the cases in order to get a rough estimate of the truth.
 
I haven't dug in to see how work units correlate to credit and rank, but it's been fun to see people climb the hill. I didn't @spagthorpe's position was assailable, but @yeky83 must be running something on all the work computers because he's catching up! :D I like to think @bradlake tells his PC stories from his storied past and they work harder because they want to hear another tale.

View attachment 64991
Ahah i'm last and will remain, i had to uninstall as it crashed during a project compilation and nearly wrecked my project, so my job goes first....
 
Lying to the public is what governments do best, in times like this a lie is crucial to keep order, at least thats what i would do if i was in that position.

My concerns is by what number should i multiply the cases in order to get a rough estimate of the truth.
Borrowing my firm's Manufacturing Information-Access Software System (MIASS) to do some quick figuring, I estimate that you should multiply the known cases by about 50, to get a realistic estimate of actual cases that have gone untested.

That means that IF you contract it, THEN the lethality of it for persons of your age and health is really only 1/50th of the mortality rates you see from places like Italy. (Good news! :)) BUT, it also means that IF you go into public and walk within ten feet of more than 10 people, THEN you've probably been exposed. (Bad news. :confused:)

So: The number you're looking for is: 50.

But just remember: That number is worth exactly the $0.00 that you paid for it, because I just pulled it out of MIASS. ;)

Reference: https://answers.sap.com/questions/4156444/manufacturing-information-access-software-system-j.html
 
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Borrowing my firm's Manufacturing Information-Access Software System (MIASS) to do some quick figuring, I estimate that you should multiply the known cases by about 50, to get a realistic estimate of actual cases that have gone untested.

That means that IF you contract it, THEN the lethality of it for persons of your age and health is really only 1/50th of the mortality rates you see from places like Italy. (Good news! :)) BUT, it also means that IF you go into public and walk within ten feet of more than 10 people, THEN you've probably been exposed. (Bad news. :confused:)

So: The number you're looking for is: 50.

But just remember: That number is worth exactly the $0.00 that you paid for it, because I just pulled it out of MIASS. ;)

Reference: https://answers.sap.com/questions/4156444/manufacturing-information-access-software-system-j.html

Thanks.
 
Some epidemiologists calculate the infected # by the # of deaths. If there's one death, and assumed death rate is 1%, it means there was 100 infected 20 days ago. Apply exponential growth to get today's infected #.

But who knows if the deaths so far are being accurately reported or even counted.
 
Nice that they are staying in the public eye.
He deservedly has tons of fans so they must feel re-assured that the sky is not actually falling. At least yet.

"Hello folks. Rita Wilson and I want to thank everyone here Down Under who are taking such good care of us. We have Covid-19 and are in isolation so we do not spread it to anyone else," he said.
"There are those for whom it could lead to a very serious illness. We are taking it one-day-at-a-time. There are things we can all do to get through this by following the advice of experts and taking care of ourselves and each other, no?"

yMOnGXa.png
 
I haven't dug in to see how work units correlate to credit and rank, but it's been fun to see people climb the hill. I didn't @spagthorpe's position was assailable, but @yeky83 must be running something on all the work computers because he's catching up! :D I like to think @bradlake tells his PC stories from his storied past and they work harder because they want to hear another tale.

View attachment 64991
My numbers have all been generated on a single IMac Pro running 24/7 with full resources devoted to the folding...
I had just replaced it with a shiny new cheese grater Mac Pro, so it was longing for a workout. ..but seems fairly indifferent to my ramblings. ....You wanna hear about the night I got James Doohan loaded on Johnny walker black on the final night of the Star Trek Cruise I cruise directed during the Trek cast Talent show? (He had no kind words for Shatner, who did not attend the cruise or Nichelle Nichols (uhura) , who did attend, and stunk up the joint with her faux-diva warbling. ...or did I already tell you. ..
 
At least 10 times that number will die from this. Probably 100 times.

Perhaps... perhaps not...there simply isn't enough factual data in play currently. Those providing information are learning about this in real time and correcting in real time. From everything I've seen/read, most experts are extrapolating along an exponential theoretical curve. My industry is VERY data driven and predictions are made based on real data (and no, I'm not a financial analyst working investments either), If we do any extrapolation along either an exponential, Berg's method, or polynomial curve, the predicted confidence bound around the mean grows accordingly with respect to time, therefore making only short-term predictions relatively meaningful. I was able to predict electrical grid reliability (or unreliability depending on how you look at it) accurately to within ±2% using ARIMA methods. The rub was the prediction was only for the next 9 months - any longer and the errors about the predicted mean get swamped with uncertainty.

Why was the accuracy so important? Because if the reliability was overestimated, the company got penalized for being too optimistic and not being proactive with respect to replacing aging infrastructure. If the reliability was underestimated, the company got penalized for not providing due diligence on the analytical side - hence gun decking.

The way I see it, the earth is a living ecosystem, mankind, as a whole, failed to keep their population numbers in check, and if this is a natural occurring virus (not man made), then I suspect it's the earth's way of maintaining balance. Life in itself is all about balance. Am I being too cavalier and dark? Maybe according to some, but it is what it is. The best thing any of us can do is is follow common sense hygienic rules to ensure minimal risk.

Control is an illusion, people think they are in control until some event proves otherwise.
 
You wanna hear about the night I got James Doohan loaded on Johnny walker black on the final night of the Star Trek Cruise I cruise directed during the Trek cast Talent show? (He had no kind words for Shatner, who did not attend the cruise or Nichelle Nichols (uhura) , who did attend, and stunk up the joint with her faux-diva warbling. ...or did I already tell you. ..
Uh. Hell, yea! I want to hear that story! :D

(And no one can shit talk Shatner. Dude is unassailable in my eyes! DENNY CRANE!)
 
One thing is blatantly obvious, the places that took immediate action (quarantines, large scale testing, sanitizing everything in sight, etc) have far better looking infection and fatality rates than places that are slow to respond. I would assert that the United States has not responded effectively at all yet.

I’m not talking about stocking supplies and canceling events.

I mean quarantines, testing, sanitizing, etc. So far, one town on Long Island has a quarantine, testing is non-existent, I haven’t heard of any large scale sanitizing efforts or any other kind of action at all. Here I n the state capital of North Carolina, you can’t get tested even if you’re showing all the symptoms and just returned from South Korea.
 
I find it interesting that YOU, of all people here, (who has tried to downplay the conspiracies, rumor mill, and in general withhold information that your customers and potential customers have sought after the delays and headphone jack "issue" on the FM3) are feeding into the partisan conspiracies and general hysterics during a national crisis. Point is- it's a bit, well, I'll just say interesting. I really mean it will all due respect too, because I can't be the only one who has noticed this behavior. I enjoy your products and will defend your right to express your opinions all things capitalism or about life in general. ;)
The only conspiracy theorist here are those not believing that this is a real threat.

Look again at this graph I posted

Covid-19 vs seasonal flu in Italy
View attachment 64976

The horizontal axis is weeks (end of 2019, beginning of 2020).
Cyan lines are number of flu cases needing ICU (weekly peak: 93)
Blue lines are deaths caused by flu (weekly peak: 29)
Yellow lines are Covid-19 cases needing ICU
Red lines are deaths caused by Covid-19

The peaks shown for Covid-19 are updated to last week and those are already higher than those of the flu.
Deaths today are 1016 in total, that means almost 800 in 3-4 days.
And this happened with only 15113 infected people which correspond to ~0.025% of the population.

Yeah, it's like a flu.. sure..

Even if the real number of infected people is 50 times higher as someone else said (I doubt it) it would still be the 1.25% of the population here in Italy and it already made more victims than the seasonal flu (with 6-7 millions estimated infections, 10-12% of the population).

Cliff's prediction seems pretty accurate to me, even stretching the data to the most optimistic scenario the fatality rate is at least 10 times higher than the flu.
 
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