FWIW, here’s the plot of Florida versus the US. I don’t see anything that support’s casdave’s assertions of obvious fraud. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t any fraud. Just that it is not obvious from looking at the plot.
Yes, we all understand the reporting cycle. It doesn’t change what I said.
You gave a chart of deaths over a 1 1/2 week range with numbers all over the place along with a complaint of lack of daily consistency. I gave a possible explanation. You seem to want to dig for a conspiracy.
It was in response to a claim of fraud in reporting. There is no clear direction to their numbers which is what I was trying to show.
Vaunted? I’ve posted basic numbers. there’s nothing boisterous about it. If you’ve got something to contribute then by all means, research it and present your opinion with the results of your research.
To me this chart looks quite encouraging. And perhaps more than a little telling.
“What we’re really concerned about are schools opening, Labor Day weekend and pandemic fatigue,”
If history is a guide, that’s exactly what will happen. Another spike where the new case count will peak around the end of October. Probably a smaller one than the first one and the Memorial Day/re-opening one, because masking is more prevalent now.
I am still extremely sceptical about the US death rate figures, if you examine the US daily infection rates and then compare side by side with death rates, the curves do follow similar shape, however you’ll notice that the death rate itself over the last twop months has a remarkably much lower mortality than in the first couple of months.
Now I would expect the death rates per million infections would be lower by now due to improvements in treatment and earlier diagnosis, but to have half the daily death rate whilst simultaneously having more than double the daily infection rate and to achieve such an advance in less than 5 months does not seem real.
By sheer coincidene the second wave arrived just around the time when Trump relieved the CDC from reporting Coronavirus figures, July 15th
Now look at Brazil - I know their medical system has issues, and I know there is much greater proverty, but their population is far younger and you would expect this to reduce the death rate somewhat.
Instead what you have is an initial surge followed by a long plateau, and this would also include improvements in treatment and diagnosis.
Folks, if you are in the US and you see the daily figures, you are being sold a pup.
You don’t think the increase in testing capacity over the course of the last several months is a factor?
Except that the test positivity rate climbed along with the case numbers. In mid-June, test+ dropped to about 4.5% then rose to 9% in mid-July, and is hovering around 6% right now. At the first peak of cases in early April, the positivity rate was around 20%.
Now I’m trying to wrap my head around exactly how the test positivity rate corresponds to the actual number of cases, but you would think that a higher rate would mean more undiagnosed cases, while a lower rate means more people without symptoms are being tested, thus more cases are being discovered.
I have heard a theory why the death rate per case may be dropping and I might post about it later on.
To me, even including positivity rate in the analysis still leaves case counts a dreadfully incomplete measure of what’s really going on. You could look at those two curves and conclude that the disease has gotten far less deadly, or you could guess that the case counts early on weren’t catching near as many of the true infections as they were later. One of those scenarios seems far, far more plausible than the other.
But how about comparing when cases where at their lowest in June to the high point of cases in late July. The test positivity rate rose from 4.5% to 9%. Do you still think they were catching more true infections in July than they were in June, even with the higher positivity rate?
I don’t know about July versus June. I’m thinking more about the early stages versus recent times. My guess is that the number of infections in the early stages is very dramatically undercounted, so much so that the differences in positivity rate you mention don’t really play much of a role in this analysis.
Now, I do think there could be a number of good reasons why less people would die as the epidemic proceeds, but I don’t chalk those up to the disease itself being inherently less lethal as it spreads. (Though I know that’s a possibility too.)
It has been known since early on that death rates among the aged were much higher than those under say 40. The later infections are relatively much more prevalent among the younger age group, thus a lower death per infection rate should be expected.
I don’t know that there is a compelling reason to believe that. (In terms of ‘true’ infections, at any rate.)
That article says this:
Where in April, May and even June most of the positive cases came from those in their 70s, the ones getting it right now are in their 20s.
Now, I have no doubt that the confirmed cases reflect that. I have every doubt that the actual infections do.
Have a look at the chart of current cases in New Zealand, which you can find here:
You won’t find much at all in the 70s there. And lots in the youngest age brackets. (Much more than one might have guessed, perhaps.)
And if you want to see a chart of their cases in total since the beginning:
You can find that here:
Now, I see no reason at all to believe that everywhere else the virus would have somehow magically held off, for the most part, on infecting those aged less than 70 in the early going.
I’ve previously posted in this thread about my community. We were very hard hit in mid-March through early April, and then virtually nothing, despite shedding almost all forms of social distancing (other than old/sick people) by late May.
This lasted for about 3-4 months. We have had a very clear uptick beginning in the last couple of weeks. Nothing remotely like the first wave (yet) but there’s no doubt that things have taken a turn for the worse, after 4 months of apparent impunity.
Local medical people say that (again, so far) in addition to the numbers being a lot lower than the first wave, the severity has also tended to be lower. So it’s possible that what’s happening is that this is a different strain which is more contagious but less lethal. But it’s also possible that - as compared to the first wave - the most vulnerable people are less likely to be alive altogether, and if alive, more likely to be taking precautions.
One of the theories that I have heard for the lower death rate is a lower viral load in infected people. The severity of the disease is related to the initial dose which causes infection. A lower dose means a less severe reaction to the disease. Mitigation efforts such as hand washing, better ventilation, social distancing, and especially mask wearing have resulted in people getting infected with lower doses of the virus. Thus the course of the disease is less severe and there are fewer hospitalizations and deaths.