wilmwolf80 said:

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I saw it said somewhere that deaths in general over the last three months were down 4% from the same period last year, but I didn't follow through to see if that was actually accurate or not.

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I would be VERY careful with those numbers. I have a feeling that the sources being cited there to put that together are missing a lot of lagging data.

North Carolina is one of the worst for reporting deaths to the CDC for counts like these. So it could be possible that a number of states don't have their death tolls up to date and it make things look better than they are.

You will notice that in the linked charts NC has 0 COVID deaths. That shows you how far behind they are in their reports.

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

Although, it would be interesting to see if we had a particularly weak flu year, if that didn't contribute to the later increased COVID death toll since a larger amount of the susceptible population wasn't killed by flu. At any rate, I guess we will know next year.

Wayland said:

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packgrad said:

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Candace Owens on Twitter said, " According to the CDC, an estimated 24,000 Americans have died from the flu this seasondown from 80,000 flu deaths in 2018."

Wow.

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2017-2018 was one of the more severe recent flu seasons, but yes, most people aren't aware than in any given flu season between 30-60k people die. It is hard for people to rationalize death numbers when they are bombarded by media induced fear.

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Agreed. Heck, I think the statistic was brought up very early in this thread and I forgot about it.

The media induced fear is an excellent point though. When I say time will tell if the quarantine was justified or not, I don't mean that towards the individuals making the decisions. I understand they made the best decision they could make in the environment we were in. I might have disagreed with the decisions, but given the circumstances, I understand. Those circumstances were very much driven by media induced fear. Heck, tossing from the hip so apologies if I'm way off, but didn't Italy have a similar outbreak a couple of years ago that killed nearly the same amount of people? I'm guessing that wasn't covered from the same angle that it was this time. Once we're long past this and smart people have run all the numbers it will be interesting to measure the response. My guess is it will be viewed unfavorably.

Here is something along those lines for UK. While things are slowing and death rates are still slowly increasing, it looks like this will be in line with some of the worse seasons over the last 25 years.

http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/

Note: I have not verified this data in anyways and this site is certainly not without an agenda.

Wayland said:

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wilmwolf80 said:

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I saw it said somewhere that deaths in general over the last three months were down 4% from the same period last year, but I didn't follow through to see if that was actually accurate or not.

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I would be VERY careful with those numbers. I have a feeling that the sources being cited there to put that together are missing a lot of lagging data.

North Carolina is one of the worst for reporting deaths to the CDC for counts like these. So it could be possible that a number of states don't have their death tolls up to date and it make things look better than they are.

You will notice that in the linked charts NC has 0 COVID deaths. That shows you how far behind they are in their reports.

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

Although, it would be interesting to see if we had a particularly weak flu year, if that didn't contribute to the later increased COVID death toll since a larger amount of the susceptible population wasn't killed by flu. At any rate, I guess we will know next year.

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I've not done a deep dive into the data behind this article, but they took total deaths in each country for March and April 2020 and compared it to death rates for previous years. They then looked at how many more overall deaths there were this year compared to years past.
New York, for example, saw 200% more deaths over the time period in question compared to the average in past years. It saw one of the biggest spikes.
Now there is a lot of noise here as there could be other reasons that death is higher this year, but it does lend evidence that Covid-19 is increasing mortality, at least in hot spots.

https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c

Cooper just basically said Coca-Cola 600 is on, NASCAR submitted plans, State tentatively approved, for Memorial Day weekend. Unless something crazy goes on.

Nothing else of interest in the presser. No real discussion of congregate facilities.

Wayland said:

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Cooper just basically said Coca-Cola 600 is on, NASCAR submitted plans, State tentatively approved, for Memorial Day weekend. Unless something crazy goes on.

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That's exciting to hear but 100k people together seems a little scary. Good thing is that it's mostly outdoors, but there will be zero social distancing or other mitigation steps being taken. No one is wearing masks while they're shotgunning a beer

statefan91 said:

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Wayland said:

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Cooper just basically said Coca-Cola 600 is on, NASCAR submitted plans, State tentatively approved, for Memorial Day weekend. Unless something crazy goes on.

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That's exciting to hear but 100k people together seems a little scary. Good thing is that it's mostly outdoors, but there will be zero social distancing or other mitigation steps being taken. No one is wearing masks while they're shotgunning a beer

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Umm. I am guessing it is just the cars, crews, and TV cameras. :P But appreciate the sarcasm, can't imagine how many people will truly panic over it.

Yeah, my guess is it would be without fans. Always thought they, along with golf, were crazy for not playing during this time and gaining market share.

Wayland said:

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Cooper just basically said Coca-Cola 600 is on, NASCAR submitted plans, State tentatively approved, for Memorial Day weekend. Unless something crazy goes on.

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Great news! I still think fans in attendance shouldn't be out of the question, but I'll be glad just to get sports back

King Leary said:

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Wayland said:

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Cooper just basically said Coca-Cola 600 is on, NASCAR submitted plans, State tentatively approved, for Memorial Day weekend. Unless something crazy goes on.

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Great news! I still think fans in attendance shouldn't be out of the question, but I'll be glad just to get sports back

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Son sent me something that the current plan is:
Sunday 5/17 - Darlington 1 (400 miles)
Wednesday 5/20 - Darlington 2 (310 miles)
Sunday 5/24 -- Coke 600
Wednesday 5/27 - Charlotte 2 (400 miles)
May 31 - Martinsville
June 3 -- Bristol
June 7 - Atlanta
June 14 - Homestead.

Weeknight races, no qualifying, no practices except for the 600. I assume theory is limit time teams have to be together to reduce risk of infections??

But given the NFL Draft (which is a borefest unless your team is picking) had huge ratings this year, way above last year....I'd expect NASCAR to have huge ratings too, since it will still be the only thing going....

Though golf may be starting about that same time on the weekends.

Hope you're wrong. We're 120 some days from kickoff. A lot has changed in regards to information about the virus. I hope/expect a lot more regularity in daily life by then.

That is comical. Like most of NC, Orange, Durham, and Wake counties deaths are heavily influenced by outbreaks in congregate settings. I know at least 7 of Wake's 15 deaths are due to congregate settings.

WRAL is a joke for retweeting that.

I wish I wouldn't have clicked that link. I fell for the clickbait title.

Wayland said:

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That is comical. Like most of NC, Orange, Durham, and Wake counties deaths are heavily influenced by outbreaks in congregate settings. I know at least 7 of Wake's 15 deaths are due to congregate settings.

WRAL is a joke for retweeting that.

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Hopefully the folks in charge agree with you...

King Leary said:

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I wish I wouldn't have clicked that link. I fell for the clickbait title.

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Sorry! Just shows what we are up against in trying to reopen when the local news media would put that out there...

Not completely sure how they will get Martinsville I'm just yet as the forward thinking Governor up there really went for the outlockdown triple lindy and announced one through June awhile back...but hopefully facts will win out.

There was even discussions about running the races without the pit crews to limit the amount of people. Not sure where they landed on that just yet.

redsteel33 said:

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King Leary said:

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I wish I wouldn't have clicked that link. I fell for the clickbait title.

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Sorry! Just shows what we are up against in trying to reopen when the local news media would put that out there...

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No apology necessary, I'm actually glad you linked it because it's good to see the articles that are being put out there by national and local media

Lots to digest here...

Calling the Triangle a 'potential' hotspot is BS. Based on yesterdays report here is the the total deaths and congregate deaths

Number of Deaths Congregate as of 4.27.20

Wake 7 of 15 Deaths
Durham 11 of 16 Deaths
Orange 13 of 14 Deaths

redsteel33 said:

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Lots to digest here...

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A vaccine is no guarantee.

I enjoy his "guided by public health and science" take. California is going to riot if they drag it out.

packgrad said:

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I enjoy his "guided by public health and science" take. California is going to riot if they drag it out.

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I feel like a lot of the rhetoric coming out of public officials is already outdated, but they continue to try and use the same buzzlines from mid-March.

I have watched press briefings from about a half dozen governors this week and they are all calling plays from the same March playbook. It is almost May and the data should have shifted the perspective here. They are not being forward and forthright, but holding on to misconceptions.

I am sorry Governor Cuomo, you didn't beat the projections because you 'flattened the curve', you beat the projections because they were WAY off. The curve hit its natural peak and started to subside and any intervention on your part was maybe minimal, but in no way prevented 100,000s of hospitalizations. Why try to sell that?

Instead take ownership that you did everything you could to expand your hospital capacity and it wasn't exceeded. That is a win. Take the win. You were too late in your shutdown (as were UK, Italy, Spain, France, etc) and your population got hit hard. Selling the fact that you 'flattened the curve' isn't becoming.

It is as if none of these governors can actually see the data.

Good discussion... Not trying to get in a pissing match but since we are number folks I went to DHHS
https://info.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/acls/faclistings.html

The following are lists of the facilities that the Adult Care Licensure Section licenses or register
591 Adult Care Homes
594 Family Care Homes
71 Multi Unit Assisted Housing with Services

Not inclusive of prisons...

Davie is right. The treatment of prisoners has been abysmal.

burnbarn said:

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Good discussion... Not trying to get in a pissing match but since we are number folks I went to DHHS
https://info.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/acls/faclistings.html

The following are lists of the facilities that the Adult Care Licensure Section licenses or register
591 Adult Care Homes
594 Family Care Homes
71 Multi Unit Assisted Housing with Services

Not inclusive of prisons...

Davie is right. The treatment of prisoners has been abysmal.

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Not at all. Thanks for chasing it down and adding the context. More information is good information.

It looks like the other facilities have done a much better job than nursing homes. I wonder if that has to do with the overall health/age of their residents.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-herd-immunity.html?referringSource=articleShare

This will be an interesting study over time. I suspect that we will see that there were cultural, demographic, density, etc. factors that helped them have lower numbers without the drastic shutdown measures. I think that is more than likely the determining factor everywhere, and not whether or not the barber shops and restaurants were closed.

I know it's been stated in several different ways on this thread, but the most astonishing thing to me about all this is how seemingly every state has based their policy decisions on data models with really sketchy variables built into them (e.g. social distancing "metrics" that are pulled out of thin air) or important variables missing (notably population density) without including additional rules/guidance aimed at KNOWN at risk populations.

We are leaving already vulnerable people more vulnerable, and they are dying. Simultaneously, we're leaving millions of small business owners and mostly low-wage or service industry workers out in the cold when the fatality rate amongst non-at risk individuals is flu-like. And I say this as somebody working from the comfort of my home for a massive company, whose job has frankly been made easier by all this. I can't imagine how worked up I'd be if I was out of work or had a loved one pass away due to pathetic leadership.

If you're going to use modeling to make impactful policy decisions, maybe try and understand the data itself. If you're going to take away individual rights and freedoms, at least do it in a way that make sense given the circumstances.

/\ /\ /\ /\

I wonder if I can think of anyone who freaked out at this group's earlier models as obvious crap.

Wayland said:

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/\ /\ /\ /\

I wonder if I can think of anyone who freaked out at this group's earlier models as obvious crap.

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2.2 million Americans are gonna die!!!!!!!!!

metcalfmafia said:

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We'd need to build a much bigger wall. Not sure we could afford it.

Wayland said:

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packgrad said:

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I enjoy his "guided by public health and science" take. California is going to riot if they drag it out.

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I feel like a lot of the rhetoric coming out of public officials is already outdated, but they continue to try and use the same buzzlines from mid-March.

I have watched press briefings from about a half dozen governors this week and they are all calling plays from the same March playbook. It is almost May and the data should have shifted the perspective here. They are not being forward and forthright, but holding on to misconceptions.

I am sorry Governor Cuomo, you didn't beat the projections because you 'flattened the curve', you beat the projections because they were WAY off. The curve hit its natural peak and started to subside and any intervention on your part was maybe minimal, but in no way prevented 100,000s of hospitalizations. Why try to sell that?

Instead take ownership that you did everything you could to expand your hospital capacity and it wasn't exceeded. That is a win. Take the win. You were too late in your shutdown (as were UK, Italy, Spain, France, etc) and your population got hit hard. Selling the fact that you 'flattened the curve' isn't becoming.

It is as if none of these governors can actually see the data.

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I agree on our "leaders". Most of them have no courage or guts. They are just pumping the same lines they were 1 1/2 months ago. I love when they say "trust the science", but the decisions made now have very little science based logic to them. "Trust the science" meant trust the prediction models which were way off and being modified all the time. These governors can't read a graph as well as I can or most people on this board. We have a lot of data now from certain areas of this country plus data from Europe. Why are we ignoring actual data if we are all supposed to be "trusting the science"? Seems to me they only "trust the science" when it fits their agenda.