h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sorry, but what? "... they did not test anyone who was known to have the virus ..."

How can they know they have the virus if they haven't tested?

Also the WHO states that having had the virus proves nothing at this point. Scientifically speaking. We don't know yet if people who have had this virus once can't have it again

My projection is focused on actual death since the prevalence of cases is largely unknowable without more testing which is not currently possible.

The projection I mentioned was the White House projection of 60,000 deaths by August.

Reported deaths will hit 40,000 today (April 18th)...total deaths are still growing by about 30% every three days according to my spreadsheet and daily deaths continue to increase every day except Easter Sunday when some sort of miracle occurred.

My understanding is that 40,000 does not count deaths at home or in nursing homes or for dead people who were not tested...if we don't hit 80,000 by April 30th, mitigation may be working...

"How can they know they have the virus if they haven't tested?" [Pierce]

They find out *after* they have tested. That's what the testing is for, to find out if they have (or have had) the virus.

How accurate were the tests that were used?
The UK had to bin 3.5M tests they bought because they were not good enough.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52335210

I'm reading that many death certificates are using descriptions in the cause of death like "presumed COVID-19"...a pneumonia cause of death could also be presumed COVID-19...

I read somewhere that NYC added about 4,000 such deaths a day or so back...I know the daily total took a big sudden spike...about a 50% addition to NYC cumulative totals I think I read...

So the 40,000 total body count today are tested COVID deaths only with a few thousand added that the authorities are pretty sure about...Perhaps the physician signing the "presumed" has seen a CT scan of the deceased person's lungs or other strong circumstantial evidence?

Counting deaths is not perfect but it's easier to count bodies than it is to accurately count other COVID-19 metrics...

Observation in passing, on a shopping drive through the downtown area in Indio, CA, significantly fewer homeless people about than usual. Those I saw were wearing masks.

The only way of really seeing the effect of the virus is in looking at total deaths against the historic average for that week.
The UK ones are dramatic the death rate stays reasonably close to previous years in the early weeks until it shoots up.

http://twitter.com/delaporte85/status/1249983016065290242

The CDC death count is virtually useless because it runs off Death Certificateshat takes 1 to 8 weeks to process...CDC has a 13,000+ count as of yesterday...compared to about 37,000+ from more nimble statisticians...

The CDC provisional count will be finalized in December 2021...

CDC Count:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/

I agree, Bad Bloke...that's a good way to make an estimate...

The UK ONS figures those graphs are based on generally run 11 - 14 days behind the more current figures but tend to be more stable as almost all deaths will have been registered in that timeframe.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
Next update will be next Tuesday which may tart to indicate if the numbers peaked around the 8th April as predicted.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latest

The spike for the 3 days ended 4/18/2020 is due to NYC adding 3,000-4,000 deaths that they identified as COVID-19 but were not confirmed by tests...USA totals to date...


Date Actual Actual Death Days to
Deaths Growth Increase Double
03/13/20
03/16/20 110 -
03/19/20 213 94% 103 3 days
03/22/20 420 97% 207 3 days
03/25/20 943 125% 523 2 days
03/28/20 2,010 113% 1,067 3 days
03/31/20 4,070 102% 2,060 3 days
04/03/20 7,100 74% 3,030 4 days
04/06/20 10,971 55% 3,871 5 days
04/09/20 16,691 52% 5,720 5 days
04/12/20 22,105 32% 5,414 7 days
04/15/20 28,529 29% 6,424 8 days
04/18/20 39,014 37% 10,485 6 days

>>The president can't control a lot of health initiatives anyway, because health officials and policemen are mostly on the local level. Governors are the ones doing the heavy lifting here. At best, they are working cooperatively with city and town workers.<<


Things like stay-at-home orders and closing businesses are controlled locally, of course, but when Trump declared a national emergency, that entails some things as specified in the statute regarding national emergencies. The main thing is to coordinate the response on a national level regarding supplies and personnel using the military as necessary. One of, if not the greatest, fiascoes in the US response is having States, cities, counties and individual health entities bidding against each other AND against the Federal government (FEMA) for PPE, testing supplies and ventilators. And if that wasn't bad enough, after securing orders for the aforementioned, quite often these supplies are literally hijacked en route by FEMA and then resold apparently giving political preference.

When President Big Brain was elected, one of Steve Bannon's stated goals was the "deconstruction of the administrative state". They succeeded and were living in the results of this.

" It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes"...Douglas Adams...

Not just potatoes. But when cut and deep fried, they can do a lot of good, according to my kids.

The heat wave in 2018 caused around 250 deaths more than what was expected in Denmark for that period.

By contrast, the pandemic that created such bleak forecasts for the health care system that the government chose to shut down large sections of society has not erupted in the statistics.

Covid-19 has not led to excess mortality in Denmark - not even among citizens over 65, who are the group most at risk of getting seriously ill from the virus.

It appears to be very clear however that Denmark's national health system would have been under a lot of stress and might even have collapsed had we not locked down. Then even people with other diseases might have suffered an untimely death due to lack of personnel, medicine and care.

Pierce, I hope you're right, the UK numbers are now showing a rapid increase in excess deaths as I posted earlier.

Yes, well, there are significant differences between how DK and UK meet this challenge - and when they started. I hear Boris did not attend five of the first meetings about the situation ...

Breaking: New strategy in Denmark: From now on, everybody with symptoms of corona virus will be tested. Because we now have the capacity to do so everywhere.

DK will now also test (better) to see if people have already had the infection. A new test has proven to be more sophisticated.

We still don't know if having had the virus makes you immune at all, how immune that may be and how long it will last.

Tests show more women than men have been infected. But that's no surprise as so far only a number of "civilians" and health care personnel have been tested. And guess how many women work in health care compared to men.

Significantly more men than women die of COVID-19, but that is no surprise either. The male body is not well suited against infections. I repeat: Man flu kills ...

https://www.euromomo.eu/
I was just wondering where I can find a comparison and sure enough there is one.