Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average is 2.2 % lower than the 7-day rolling average one week ago. U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 10.3 % lower than the rolling average one week ago. At the end of this post is a set of interactive graphs and tables for the world and individual States – as well as today’s headlines which include;
- The Corruption of Science During the Pandemic
- A Look At This Week’s Data
- Rigid safe distancing rules are an oversimplification based on outdated science and experiences of past viruses
- Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted – It’s Why You Feel Awful
- COVID-19 cases will surge in the fall, peak after Election Day
- Mexico says 122,765 extra people died during pandemic in ‘excess deaths’ study
- As hope builds over possible frequent at-home testing, experts call the idea a long shot.
- Wineries and farms decimated by coronavirus are turning their land into campsites with Hipcamp
- COVID-19: India Records Highest Single-day Spike of Over 90,000 Cases, Overtakes Brazil to Become Second Worst-hit Nation
My continuing advice is to continue to wash your hands, wear masks, and maintain social distancing. No handwashing, mask, or social distancing will guarantee you do not get infected – but it sure as hell lowers the risk in all situations. In addition, certain activities are believed to carry higher risk – like being inside in air conditioning and removing your mask (such as restaurants, around your children/grandchildren, bars, and gyms). It is all about viral load – and outdoor activities are generally very safe.
The daily number of new cases in the U.S. is remaining stubbornly and embarrassedly high.
The following graphs show the 7-day rolling average for new coronavirus cases and deaths have been updated through 06 September 2020:
z coronavirus.png
Coronavirus Statistics For 06 September 2020 |
| U.S. Only | Global | U.S Percentage of Total | ||||
| Today*** | Cumulative | Today*** | Cumulative | Today | Cumulative | |
| New Confirmed Cases | 40,612 | 6,250,000 | 270,035 | 26,920,000 | 15.0% | 23.2% |
| Deaths** | 773 | 188,538 | 6,864 | 881,831 | 11.3% | 21.4% |
| Mortality Rate | 1.9% | 3.0% | 2.5% | 3.3% | ||
total COVID-19 Tests per 1,000 people | 1.58* | 253.47* | ||||
* as of 28 Aug 2020
** evidently several States included “probable” deaths today in the number
*** red color indicates record number
Follow the Science – Or Lack Thereof …
The “experts” lost me at the beginning of the pandemic when they decided wearing masks was not necessary to stop COVID-19.
Having lived in Asia over a decade where mask use is prevalent – I knew masks worked and significantly reduced the transmission of viruses.
I heard “experts” explain that a mask could NOT stop COVID because the virus was so small – and compared it to using chicken wire to stop mosquitos.
From my working days which normally involved cutting-edge projects – I know you cannot turn over decision making to “experts” as there are significant factors that are not in the “experts” wheelhouse. You become an “expert” by specializing in a very narrow area. Experts are consultants whose advice should be considered. However, the “experts” need to be challenged to think through options necessary to optimize the entire process.
There are many knock-on effects of coronavirus. The lower-income segment of the population becoming poorer [while the rich became richer]. People fear going to doctors causing worsening health conditions and deaths from non-COVID illnesses. People are going nuts. People are losing their life’s work/savings from the closing of businesses. People losing their homes due to unemployment. The list is long – and all these factors also need to be considered. What are the optimized solutions? – There is no expert among the “experts” who has the experience/knowledge to optimize.
The Corruption of the Science
The following video illustrates the corruption in the COVID-19 “science”.
The Great Lockdown
The “experts” wanted to shut down the entire economy [to the maximum extent possible] and lock you in your house to stop the spread. This was partially based on China using this method successfully to contain the virus. There are two issues:
- Did the Chinese have greater immunity to coronaviruses [from prior outbreaks] which naturally suppressed its spread? If this is true. their lockdown was significantly aided by this immunity;
- The Chinese faced a different variant of the coronavirus which was less infectious.
Lockdowns have been historically used against pandemics. But that does not necessarily make it the best tool – but is the go-to tool for pandemics. If a hammer is the only tool a mechanic has – it will be used to repair things in all instances. This is the 21st century, and there are potentially many tools available. Selecting the correct one is the objective. Lockdowns are a “Hail Mary” play when you run out of viable options.
The failure of containment of the pandemic can be partially blamed on not trying different approaches to mitigate the spread.
I am a firm believer that when faced with a unique situation – you try many different approaches that could be effective and compare the results. Only a fool thinks they are so smart that their recommendations are perfect and optimized – and not realizing something is different from the last time their approach was used. The U.S. is the perfect laboratory for experimentation as there is a division of responsibility under its federalized system – the federal government, state government, and local government. Successful approaches could then be emulated. This approach would appear initially as chaotic, but in time would migrate response to the pandemic to the most successful solutions. A “one-size-fits-all” solution does not reflect the realities of a multi-cultural and geographically diverse country.
Data Gathering
I have rectified errors in data gathering my entire career. The biggest mistakes made are using the wrong point to collect the data and not collecting the right data. When faced with this unique situation, your data inputs requires a lot of information about the people infected so that trends, treatments, and causes can be tracked. From my research, the data gathering seems shallow on treatments used – so the data cannot be used to quickly identify what treatments work better than others. Currently, the “experts” are relying on studies and anecdotal information rather than real-time data.
Looking at the data being collected in this pandemic, it was designed to monitor the current gross numbers in the pandemic – and forecast what tomorrow will look like. This too is important information but it lacks data to understand what treatments are being used and how well the treatments work.
Testing
The current best estimate from the CDC is that 40% of infections are asymptomatic. The more testing you do, the more you uncover asymptomatic cases that would not have been uncovered had testing not occurred. I advocate testing even above the current levels in the U.S. – the more you are able to accurately define the spread. On the other hand, comparing the statistics of high testing country to a lower testing one creates comparison inaccuracies.
The U.S. has done more testing than most other countries.
Compound this asymptomatic testing issue with the sensitivity of the tests the U.S. is using. From the New York Times:
The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus.
Most of these people are not likely to be contagious and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time.
…Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left.
… Up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus.
I am not saying the U.S. has done a great job in slowing the pandemic – but it has done a better job than what the total coronavirus cases would imply.
The U.S. Has Politicized the Science
Wrapping up this diatribe, my biggest complaint is the politicization of the pandemic response. Simply, this pandemic illustrates the usual problem in the management process – making necessary decisions without having enough information. Being political is not “science”. “Experts” are making recommendations that should be properly labeled educated guesses.
This is not a political situation. It is a very difficult situation where far too little is known about the virus for decisions to be anywhere near 100% successful. But this is an election year, and each political party wants to tar the other.
Politicians are doing a significant disservice to the U.S. with the opinions they spout – and they are certainly not “experts”.
The poor results from the pandemic in the U.S. can be laid directly at the feet of politicians over the last 50 years. The U.S. was NOT prepared.
lacked critical manufacturing and stockpiles
defunded critical research
had no war scenarios on the shelf to draw upon.
If any group ignores science – it is politicians who have agendas based on opinions and not proven facts. This includes everyone in Washington. The U.S. must work to find optimized solutions even if violates some political platform or unproven political belief. Yah, good luck with that.
A Look At This Week’s Data
New Coronavirus cases this week modestly improved in the U.S. but grew to record levels globally.
Coronavirus deaths this week declined in the U.S. but grew globally.
The coronavirus infection fatality rate was little changed globally and in the U.S.
Econintersect also published two summary posts of coronavirus today which are worth a read:
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
Physical distancing is an important part of measures to control covid-19, but exactly how far away and for how long contact is safe in different contexts is unclear. Rules that stipulate a single specific physical distance (1 or 2 metres) between individuals to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing covid-19, are based on an outdated, dichotomous notion of respiratory droplet size. This overlooks the physics of respiratory emissions, where droplets of all sizes are trapped and moved by the exhaled moist and hot turbulent gas cloud that keeps them concentrated as it carries them over metres in a few seconds. After the cloud slows sufficiently, ventilation, specific patterns of airflow, and type of activity become important. Viral load of the emitter, duration of exposure, and susceptibility of an individual to infection are also important.
… Physical distancing rules would be most effective if they reflected graded levels of risk. Figure 3 presents a guide to how transmission risk may vary with setting, occupancy level, contact time, and whether face coverings are worn. These estimates apply when everyone is asymptomatic.
Fig 3
Risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from asymptomatic people in different settings and for different occupation times, venting, and crowding levels (ignoring variation in susceptibility and viral shedding rates). Face covering refers to those for the general population and not high grade respirators. The grades are indicative of qualitative relative risk and do not represent a quantitative measure. Other factors not presented in these tables may also need to be taken into account when considering transmission risk, including viral load of an infected person and people’s susceptibility to infection. Coughing or sneezing, even if these are due to irritation or allergies while asymptomatic, would exacerbate risk of exposure across an indoor space, regardless of ventilation
.. Physical distancing should be seen as only one part of a wider public health approach to containing the covid-19 pandemic. It needs to be implemented alongside combined strategies of people-air-surface-space management, including hand hygiene, cleaning, occupancy and indoor space and air managements, and appropriate protective equipment, such as masks, for the setting.
[editor’s note: an interesting post which deserves a full read]
Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful – elemental
In those early months, I, along with most of the rest of the country, was using “surge capacity” to operate, as Ann Masten, PhD, a psychologist and professor of child development at the University of Minnesota, calls it. Surge capacity is a collection of adaptive systems — mental and physical — that humans draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, such as natural disasters. But natural disasters occur over a short period, even if recovery is long. Pandemics are different — the disaster itself stretches out indefinitely.
“The pandemic has demonstrated both what we can do with surge capacity and the limits of surge capacity,” says Masten. When it’s depleted, it has to be renewed. But what happens when you struggle to renew it because the emergency phase has now become chronic?
[editor’s note: a good think piece for the Labor Day weekend worth a read]
COVID-19 cases will surge in the fall, peak after Election Day: experts – The Hill
Experts say a second wave of COVID-19 cases will surge this fall, with the peak of the pandemic slated to hit after the Nov. 3 Election Day.
Doctors at Johns Hopkins University are looking into what they call “Surge 2.0,” where they envision a second major outbreak of the virus could potentially overwhelm medical facilities with COVID-19 patients, The Washington Post reported.
Lisa Lockerd Maragakis, an associate professor of medicine and infectious diseases, said despite the nearly 190,000 U.S. fatalities caused by the virus so far, more lives could be at risk in the event of another significant nationwide spike.
“Even though we have had so many cases and we have had so many tragic deaths, we have the vast majority of people who are not immune to this virus,” Maragakis said. “Without a therapeutic or a vaccine, we are still in a position where the transmission of the virus depends heavily on our behaviors every day.”
Other experts from Hopkins predict the change in seasons from fall to winter will bring on the second wave, causing rising infections and clusters to cultivate and spread more quickly.
Mexico says 122,765 extra people died during pandemic in ‘excess deaths’ study
Mexico has recorded 122,765 deaths more than would be expected during the pandemic up to August, the health ministry said on Saturday in a report on excess mortality rates, suggesting Mexico’s true coronavirus toll could be much higher.
As hope builds over possible frequent at-home testing, experts call the idea a long shot. – New York Times
Over the past few weeks, a Harvard scientist has made headlines for a bold idea to curb the spread of the coronavirus: rolling out antigen tests, a decades-old underdog in testing technology, to tens of millions of Americans for near-daily, at-home use.
These tests are not very good at picking up low-level infections. But they are cheap and convenient, and return results in minutes. Real-time information, argued Dr. Michael Mina, the Harvard scientist, would be far better than the long delays clogging the testing pipeline.
The fast-and-frequent approach to testing has captured the attention of scientists and journalists around the world, and that of top officials at the Department of Health and Human Services.
But more than a dozen experts said that near-ubiquitous antigen testing, while intriguing in theory, might not be effective in practice. In addition to posing huge logistical hurdles, they said, the plan hinges on broad buy-in and compliance from people who have grown increasingly disillusioned with coronavirus testing. The aim also assumes that rapid tests can achieve their intended purpose.
Wineries and farms decimated by coronavirus are turning their land into campsites with Hipcamp – CNBC
- Hipcamp, often described as the Airbnb for camping, is sending triple the amount of money to property owners as it was a year ago.
- With wineries unable to host visitors and farms hurt by the closure of restaurants, their income from Hipcamp has become critical.
- Benchmark’s Sarah Tavel, who led a financing in the company in 2018, said that a lot of people “want experiences, not stuff.”
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
New Zealand says coronavirus ‘eliminated’ and life can resume without restrictions
‘One vaccine isn’t enough’: Mexico aims for its own coronavirus fix
Australia to receive first batch of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in January 2021 – PM to say
Costa Rica researchers to trial coronavirus treatment from horse antibodies
South Korea’s new coronavirus cases sink to three-week low amid tight restrictions
Canada to extend rent-relief program for small businesses: Globe and Mail
90% of China’s Sinovac employees, families took coronavirus vaccine, says CEO
Hong Kong’s police thwart a protest over postponed elections.
Putin’s vaccine meets opposition from frontline workers in Russia
The following are additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Mnuchin: ‘The president and I believe we should do more stimulus’
Without public transit, there will be no economic recovery
U.S.-Canada towns marooned by border closure brace for winter trapped in isolation
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
Economic Forecast: Understanding The Slowdown Of Productivity Growth
Mortgage And Student Loan Forbearance During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 06September 2020
Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 06September 2020
How Worried Should We Be About The Coronavirus Resurgence In Europe? Three Experts Weigh In
Home Builder Confidence Highest Since 1998
Coronavirus: What Will Happen If We Can’t Produce A Vaccine?
Coronavirus INTERACTIVE Charts
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Analyst Opinion of Coronavirus Data
There are several takeaways that need to be understood when viewing coronavirus statistical data:
- The global counts are suspect for a variety of reasons including political. Even the U.S. count has issues as it is possible that as much as half the population has had coronavirus and was asymptomatic. It would be a far better metric using a random sampling of the population weekly. In short, we do not understand the size of the error in the tracking numbers.
- Just because some of the methodology used in aggregating the data in the U.S. is flawed – as long as the flaw is uniformly applied – you establish a baseline. This is why it is dangerous to compare two countries as they likely use different methodologies to determine who has (and who died) from coronavirus.
- COVID-19 and the flu are different but can have similar symptoms. For sure, COVID-19 so far is much more deadly than the flu. [click here to compare symptoms]
- From an industrial engineering point of view, one can argue that it is best to flatten the curve only to the point that the health care system is barely able to cope. This solution only works if-and-only-if one can catch this coronavirus once and develops immunity. In the case of COVID-19, herd immunity may need to be in the 80% to 85% range. WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to COVID-19. At this point, herd immunity does not look like an option although there is now a discussion of whether T-Cells play a part in immunity [which means one might have immunity without antibodies]
- Older population countries will have a higher death rate.
- There are at least 8 strains of the coronavirus. New York may have a deadlier strain imported from Europe, compared to less deadly viruses elsewhere in the United States.
- Each publication uses different cutoff times for its coronavirus statistics. Our data uses 11:00 am London time. Also, there is an unexplained variation in the total numbers both globally and in the U.S.
- The real question remains if the U.S. is over-reacting to this virus. The following graphic from the CDC puts the annual flu burden in perspective [click on image to enlarge]. Note that using this data is dangerous as the actual flu cases are estimated and not counted – nobody knows how accurate these guesses are.
What we do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal, from studies with limited subjects, or from studies without peer review.
- How many people have been infected as many do not show symptoms?
- Masks do work.
- Do we develop lasting immunity to the coronavirus? Another coronavirus – the simple cold – does not develop long term immunity.
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission?
- The US has scaled up coronavirus testing – and the accuracy of the tests has been improving. However, if one loses immunity – the coronavirus testing value is reduced.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus? [current thinking is that they are becoming a major source of the pandemic spread]
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- What effect will the weather have? At this point, it does not seem hot weather slows this coronavirus down – and it seems air conditioning contributes to its spread.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
- Can the world really push out an effective vaccine in 12 to 18 months?
- Will other medical treatments for Covid-19 ease symptoms and reduce deaths? So far only one drug (remdesivir) is approved for treatment.
- A current scientific understanding of the way the coronavirus works can be found [here].
Heavy breakouts of coronavirus have hit farm workers. Farmworkers are essential to the food supply. They cannot shelter at home. Consider:
- they have high rates of the respiratory disease [occupational hazard]
- they travel on crowded buses chartered by their employers
- few have health insurance
- they cannot social distance and live two to four to a room – and they eat together
- some reports say half are undocumented
- they are low paid and cannot afford not to work – so they will go to work sick
- they do not have access to sanitation when working
- a coronavirus outbreak among farmworkers can potentially shutter entire farm
The bottom line is that COVID-19 so far has been shown to be much more deadly than the data on the flu. Using CDC data, the flu has a mortality rate between 0.06 % and 0.11 % Vs. the coronavirus which to date has a mortality rate of 4 % [the 4% is the average of overall statistics – however in the last few months it has been hovering around 1.0%] – which makes it between 10 and 80 times more deadly. The reason for ranges:
Because influenza surveillance does not capture all cases of flu that occur in the U.S., CDC provides these estimated ranges to better reflect the larger burden of influenza.
There will be a commission set up after this pandemic ends to find fault [it is easy to find fault when a once-in-a-lifetime event occurs] and to produce recommendations for the next time a pandemic happens. Those that hate President Trump will conclude the virus is his fault.
Resources:
- Get the latest public health information from CDC: https://www.coronavirus.gov .
- Get the latest research from NIH: https://www.nih.gov/coronavirus.
- Find NCBI SARS-CoV-2 literature, sequence, and clinical content: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sars-cov-2/.
- List of studies: https://icite.od.nih.gov/covid19/search/#search:searchId=5ee124ed70bb967c49672dad
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