Not on this board, maybe, but as recently as yesterday there are at least some people downplaying the need for testing and containment measures and claiming we aren’t looking at deaths in favor of case counts.
That’s probably getting close to the line for politics, but still, if public officials are talking about using deaths as a preferred metric over positive test results, it’s still quite relevant for the public health situation.
I mostly agree with what you’ve said. I do think that there’s growing evidence that death rates have been falling and that treatments are gradually improving. However, it may turn out that this made us more complacent and that people in certain regions of the country become victims of our early successes. It’s somewhat similar to what has happened in the past with HIV and other STDs. As treatments improve, some people throw caution to the wind believing that they can’t die anymore, which is totally (and fatally) incorrect.
Why wouldn’t we want to think of the US as a single entity?
Because it is vast with a number of different population centres and regional connections. It would be difficult for a disease to swing through America the same way it swung through Spain.
So let’s just focus on Florida, Texas, and Arizona, then?
Concerning the number if ICU patients: Not every ICU patient was there for COVID. Because most hospitals were restricted to COVID cases, many people stayed home and didn’t seek treatment for other illnesses and conditions, making the conditions worse and needing more intensive treatment when they did get to the hospital.
No one’s stopping you. Focus away. They look like the top 3 in per capita new cases.
Not just them, no. But there’s a lot to be said for the idea that tracking national stats is about as useful as national average daily temperature. Sure, it’s a number, but it doesn’t really give you much useful information, and could be dangerously misleading.
Sorry, I’m missing something. AFAIK, that the average age of those testing positive for SARS-COV-2 is dropping and that the disease has a much lower fatality rate for younger folks are both just facts. Maybe there is some unstated conclusion that you are saying is the naive part? Could you elaborate?
Maybe I missed someone else pointing it out, but it looks like deaths are starting to creep up a bit. On the 7th they hit 993, the highest since 10 June.
I think what you’re missing is that these cases won’t be confined to the younger population. These people aren’t just patients, they’re vectors. Two weeks after they get infected we’ll see an increase in cases among people they exposed, their parents, grandparents, and others in more vulnerable cohorts.
Also, small % can still be large absolute numbers.
Do_Not_Taunt The three posts following yours explain most of it, however there is more, it is not wise to assume that young people will be more immune and thus translate this message into a less serious pandemic.
This disease is very infectious and young people in particular have demonstrated that a significant number are not very responsible - reinforcing the message that they personally are safe and diluting the message of how serious the infection rate is dangerous because it may translate into behaviors.
Its worth noting that when US was recording well over 1000 deaths a day, the majority of those infected were also young - even if the deaths were spread more widely across age groups.
Imagine the death rate for over 45’s is upwards of 5% - there are currently at 1.5 million ongoing cases with just 1 million resolved by death or recovery, likely very much more - I would expect that over 750k are over 45. Based only upon these speculations that are not too far beyond what is known and can be cited - that’s 37500 more deaths - and that is based on current numbers of infected, lots more will become infected in the months ahead - that number will rise.
People are simply not understanding the scale of the numbers here, making assumptions about one part of a population and then taking the optimistic view is not sensible when other sections of the community are so much more vulnerable.
The other reason is this, the virus keep on hitting us with new aspects, we now strongly suspect it attacks fine blood vessels, so for anyone with poor circulation or very overweight this is not good news and is especially bad for diabetics of any age.
The assumption that the younger part of the age range is somehow much risk reduced may also disguise the possibility of longer term damage - that information is not yet in, it would be madness to assume anything about the long terms effects except that to ensure any danger that might be presented is minimised amongst the entire population.
We also do not know how this might mutate, it may become less life threatening but more damaging to long term health.
So, these are all reasons not to make even the slightest noise that some folk can drop their guard, if you drop your guard for yourself you are in fact doing the same for every person with whom you will interact
91-divoc has the option of looking at the graphs of US excluding NY/NJ/CT. Weekly average of daily deaths still dropping as of today: 1.5/million over the past 7 days. Was 1.7 a week ago.
Also by region most are flat so far (with MidWest dropping).
Of course the dramatic difference in mortality rate by age will mean that fewer high risk people getting infected may result in fewer deaths even as many more low risk individuals get infected … until the numbers of lower risk individuals becomes quite large and/or there is spill-over to more higher risk people as secondary cases. That said my WAG is that the number of infected lower risk individuals is becoming quite large in some states, that a significant number of higher risk, perhaps albeit not highest risk, people are NOT protecting themselves and will get infected by these lower risk people, and that the death rates will begin to rise some over the next week and weeks. The South as a region is really less than two weeks out from the beginning of their rise in confirmed cases … give it another week.
As a weekly average, that probably makes sense.
What I’ve seen are increases over the last 3 days (probably 4 if we include today), with a 7 day averager, whether or not you exclude NY/NJ/CT. That wouldn’t be seen as an increase in a weekly average just yet. Those are similar, but different measures.
I would be shocked if the weekly average, including or excluding NY/NJ/CT, for next week does not show this increase.
That’s always the tricky bit about statistics. They say exactly what they say, but not always what you think they do.
And looking through the numbers more closely, that’s seems to be bearing out. Yes, the national numbers from exactly a week ago (7 days ago) are higher than today. But the numbers from 3 days ago are lower. I would be surprised if the same statistic 7 days hence is lower than today.
And that’s kind of the point being made - yes, deaths per capita have been dropping overall in the US but now there’s a marked uptick in several states starting anywhere from over a month ago (Arizona) to the last 3-4 days (Texas among others). And even the national statistics appear to be influenced here by the numbers from within the last week. Lies, damned lies, and statistics and all that.
Problem looking at noisy day to day variation and calling it a trend is that statistical noise and reporting quirks can easily be mistaken for signal. Often are. Trends take more than three days to establish.
Again, I highly suspect that the South as a region will see a major uptick in death rates over the next week and weeks. I will be shocked if it does not. It is just premature to claim that the numbers yet show it. And wouldn’t even be expected to … yet.
No one knows what the long term effects of this will be either. Almost everyone who gets chicken pox gets over it, but around a third of them will develop shingles if not vaccinated. There’s also a post polio syndrome which affects polio survivors. Both chicken pox and polio are viral diseases, although neither are in the corona virus family, but it shows the potential at least for viral infections to lie dormant for decades and then reoccur in a more harmful form.
Deaths reach record highs in Texas, Florida, and California: California, Florida and Texas see record new virus deaths - YouTube
Arizona isn’t statistical noise. Deaths there have been rising for over a month. Likewise Florida, where it’s been going up for at least 3 weeks.
And it’s not exactly a day to day “variation”. In Texas, as of yesterday, with a 7-day moving averager, deaths showed 5 days of positive growth (now 6 days as of today). In Mississippi, it’s the last 3-4 days. In Arkansas, 5-6 days. In California, it’s 5-6 days. Tenneesee and Mississippi for a couple weeks ago. In isolation, some of those may be ‘noise’ but collectively, it almost certainly can’t be. And that’s not playing out over a matter of the next few weeks. It’s already playing out in some of those states and we’re seeing it play out live now in several of the others over a few days.
I’m not sure why you think it wouldn’t be expected to yet. Several of these states pushed to re-open around Memorial Day and many didn’t strictly enforce the restrictions they already had in any event. It’s been at least the 3-5 weeks since then that we’d expect not only infections to rise but deaths to start ticking up. It’s not pre-mature at all - it’s almost eerily on schedule based on past experience.