roomthreeseventeen
Inaugural Dopey Challenge finisher
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2009
Florida accounted for over 25% of new cases in the United States on July 4.
I believe that when the UK went into lockdown, those being 'shielded' were told that if they had a doctor's note that they had six months left to live or less, they could be excused from the extra limits on those being 'shielded'. (As someone who would fall in to that category I really really cannot stand that term. I know that it indicates the rest of the public protecting people, but it irritates me to no end to read it)I think about seniors in nursing homes/assisted living. And this is how they’ve spent their last 4 months. And if they die tomorrow? Not seeing their family. Or being outside. I don’t know. Breaks my heart.
I'm reposting this here because like Karin, I notice that many of you focus on 'positivity' rate, which is a factor of testing. It's like how in Germany there was a spike in R0, but anyone can be tested, and Bavaria is trying to test as many as possible even with no symptoms. So when they find a cluster like when they tested everyone at a food production facility, the R0 goes up. But that is a factor of low cases and high testing.You cannot compare infection rates, as not all countries perform the same % of testing.
The thing is, you don't necessarily have to purposefully spin numbers to be misleading (though, of course, that does happen). Sometimes, people misinterpret numbers with the best of intentions:
I'm sure that there are others, but those are off the top of my head. Personally, in my work (I'm looking at disruption of essential services), we are focussing on excess deaths (while, of course, also looking at things like the number of cases, number of deaths, CFR, type of transmission, etc - really on a single number is not a good idea).
- Using national/regional values that hide important sub-national/sub-regional differences (it is important to note that health care in Canada is a provincial matter - there is no such thing as the "Canadian health care system");
- Confusing mortality rate (deaths per 100.000 population) with the case-fatality rate (deaths per 100 diagnosed cases) with the infected-fatality rate (deaths per 100 actual infected people);
- Recently, on another thread, two people arguing that they had the correct values for the percentage of people with COVID-19 who required hospitalization. However, one of them was actually using the number of COVID related hospitalizations per 100,000 population (which, of course, is much lower);
- Comparing mortality rates (or CFR or IFR) without doing age standardization ;
- Comparting mortality rates (or CFR or IFR) without considering where countries are in terms of the progression of the disease;
- Comparting mortality rates (or CFR or IFR) without considering testing rates or how deaths are coded. An interesting point here is that I was doing some analysis and Belgium showed a CFR of something like 17%. When I spoke with people there about it, they pointed out that many countries are only counting deaths that occur in hospitals since many deaths in longterm care homes (where we know a lot of deaths are occurring) cannot be confirmed as being due to COVID (lack of testing); while, in Belgium, they are including deaths in LTC that are suspected of being due to COVID.
Yes, some European countries have a higher percent positive.Which makes percent positive a good number to go by.
Which makes percent positive a good number to go by. Unless that number is high then you move to next number that looks good. That's how it works right.
At this point seems can only watch the situation play out... if hospitalizations and deaths get really bad, then people will self isolate without being ordered to do so. If they don't, then people will abandon all precautions and what will be, will be.
But think all this proves, that if a really deadly virus ever occurs we are doomed.
Here in Ohio people are running about taking no precautions. You will see a small percentage wearing masks. I knew cases would increase because they opened things up to early and people just don’t care. Now a lot of people are saying this virus thing is just a hoax.
Things are bad NOW but there were still HUGE crowds in the tourist spots around my area this weekend. Those that care are taking precautions those that don't aren't.At this point seems can only watch the situation play out... if hospitalizations and deaths get really bad, then people will self isolate without being ordered to do so.
I really don’t understand how there are still people who think this whole thing is a hoax or just a flu. Do they really think the entire world is just playing a joke on them on “fake” news? People are going to the hospital because theme parks are closed and there are those dying for giggles?
Why? I do know of almost no comparative analysis that is going by percent positive. Within a country/region, it can be used to track the expansion of testing or as a possible explanation for increasing daily cases. The exact "not all countries perform the same % of testing" problem that you are quoting is a problem for use of percent positives as a comparison.
As I said in a post that Bavaria quoted, I tend to see excess deaths used most often (and, for reference, I'm an epidemiologist and part of my current work revolves around COVID). In high-income/OECD countries, almost all deaths are captured and recorded, making this metric about as imperviable to bias as possible. Now, not all excess deaths are directly due to COVID and, of course, it is an estimate, but, as I said, the least problematic in that way that we have.
One thing I don't hear many talking about is that all this social distancing and lockdown activity was meant to flatten the curve, not stop the virus. Without a vaccine, we will almost all get it at some point, and as long as our healthcare system can handle the load of hospitalizations from the most severe cases (admittedly some places can't) then it seems we are at an acceptable level of infection rates. I'm not trying to be incensing or insensitive, I just always understood this to be the case. Your thoughts?
One thing I don't hear many talking about is that all this social distancing and lockdown activity was meant to flatten the curve, not stop the virus.
The plan was supposed to continue with social distancing with slowly opening businesses. It was never the plan to just throw open the doors wide open once the curve was flattened. Wasn't the original plan was to have 2 weeks of declining numbers for each phase. Apparently many states didn't get the memoOne thing I don't hear many talking about is that all this social distancing and lockdown activity was meant to flatten the curve, not stop the virus. Without a vaccine, we will almost all get it at some point, and as long as our healthcare system can handle the load of hospitalizations from the most severe cases (admittedly some places can't) then it seems we are at an acceptable level of infection rates. I'm not trying to be incensing or insensitive, I just always understood this to be the case. Your thoughts?
Without a vaccine, we will almost all get it at some point, and as long as our healthcare system can handle the load of hospitalizations from the most severe cases (admittedly some places can't) then it seems we are at an acceptable level of infection rates. I'm not trying to be incensing or insensitive, I just always understood this to be the case. Your thoughts?