Taking it to the Streets - Covid-19 #12

[DMC]

37 minutes ago, Ran said:

I've found some additional info on the model that was withdrawn, namely a copy of the paper itself. It's in Swedish but you can probably translate bits and pieces to understand the methodology and some of the inputs (like the effective reproduction rate used in the various scenarios).

Spent a few minutes trying to translate the model specification into english.  The tonnage of assumptions made in this link render it decidedly pointless, as long as google is (mostly) right on the translation.  I understand everybody is trying to produce useful information ASAP, but it seems pretty silly and even dangerous to derive conclusions from an admittedly uncertain model and subsequent dataset that only entails 707 subjects.  Like Mudguard said, it'd be more responsible not to release any models until you have more reliable data.

[Fragile Bird]

Mt. Sinai hospital in Toronto asked the U of T to figure out a way to monior patients remotely. The Engineering department used Raspberry Pi to do it.

Quote

"The solution is quite simple," said Professor Willy Wong, who led the project. "When we heard about this opportunity, we were very happy to jump into this."

Jump in they did: working with three PhD candidates, it took Wong just a few days to develop a concept.

They attached a standard fingertip probe, already in use in hospitals to monitor vital signs, to a "very, very small computer about the size of a credit card," explained Wong.

That simple computer, called a Raspberry Pi, can then connect to the internet — allowing health-care workers to check on patients from any nursing station computer, or on their smartphone. 

"It's about taking these off-the-shelf components that are already designed by others and being able to put this together very, very quickly," Wong said. 

The device has two benefits, he says: it gives doctors the ability to monitor their patients constantly, and allows health-care workers to conserve personal protective equipment because they can avoid going into hospital rooms and getting close to patients. 

So far, several prototypes are being used in a trial at Mount Sinai.

 

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/u-of-t-covid-19-monitoring-system-1.5540089

 

[Fragile Bird]

This interview with the mayor of Las Vegas has to be seen to be believed.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/las-vegas-mayor-carolyn-goodman-embarrasses-herself-during-batshit-coronavirus-interview-with-anderson-cooper

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

It's why I'm skeptical every time I hear people citing models.  Still way too much uncertainty around the numbers.

Heh. Tegnell and FHM have been roundly criticized  by those interested in criticizing them for not doing enough mathematical modelling by critics in Sweden, who say that Tegnell and FHM distrust a lot of the models and newer statistical techniques. They shared this mathematical model in large part to continue trying to be transparent regarding data they have, of which models are a part.

I  think it should be fair to point out that the PCR study was just one point of data. More significantly, they're using the body of diagnosed cases over time as the primary certain data they have (whose uncertainities lie almost entirely in the question of what percentage of infected people get diagnosed because of the severity of illness, and which there's studies for from China, Iceland, South Korea, etc. that provide some possible  answers).

Obviously, you can fit one piece of data to other pieces of data in all sorts of ways. But epidemiologists need to work with the data they have available to them.

 

 

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

This interview with the mayor of Las Vegas has to be seen to be believed.

"That's up to them to figure out."  The buck stops...somewhere over there..ya know what, fuck the damn buck!

[The Anti-Targ]

12 hours ago, Jeor said:

I don't think Australia or NZ are going to fully eradicate the virus so I doubt it would be one person who started it all over again...if that's any comfort!

I'd be interested if Australia and New Zealand let each other inside to form a two-country bubble. We already have reciprocity for all sorts of things (residency etc) and no need for visas, so if the virus is similarly low in both of our countries that might be one way to let airlines operate again and help both countries and their tourist industries.

EDIT: Obviously not right now, but maybe later in the year, especially if both countries close their borders to everything else.

We have basically eradicated the virus in our region with no active cases for at least a week, and yesterday another low population regions went to zero. 

I think we can functionally eradicate the virus, ie. have an ongoing situation of zero cases from circulation within New Zealand and the only cases that crop up from time to time are people coming in from overseas (highest risk group being airline cabin crew) and their immediate contacts. From a country freedom perspective that still amounts to eradication. Aussie should be able to get to that state as well. A couple of epidemiologists here think it is doable as long as we don't lose our heads and start hanging out in groups next week when we drop to level 3 alert. We will need to have zero active cases and no new cases (aside from overseas arrivals that are in effective quarantine) for at least 30 days to claim eradication, so it will be a few months yet before we can really claim that status even if we keep tracking the way we are. Typically for animal diseases a country is only recognized as free under OIE Code recommendations if the country has had no cases for at least 30 days, but for some diseases it's 60 or even 90 days. I think with Covid-19 30 days free should be OK, but there could be justification for 60 days. I read in the news just now that we are down to 2 cases of community spread, so the first step to eradication will be to get that number to zero.

Back to cats, I subscribe to email alerts from the USDA for work and just go this notification:

Quote

Confirmation of COVID-19 in Two Pet Cats in New York

Washington, D.C. April 22, 2020 – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) today announced the first confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) infection in two pet cats. These are the first pets in the United States to test positive for SARS-CoV-2.

The cats live in two separate areas of New York state. Both had mild respiratory illness and are expected to make a full recovery. SARS-CoV-2 infections have been reported in very few animals worldwide, mostly in those that had close contact with a person with COVID-19.

At this time, routine testing of animals is not recommended. Should other animals be confirmed positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the United States, USDA will post the findings at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/SA_One_Health/sars-cov-2-animals-us. State animal health and public health officials will take the lead in making determinations about whether animals should be tested for SARS-CoV-2.

In the New York cases announced today, a veterinarian tested the first cat after it showed mild respiratory signs. No individuals in the household were confirmed to be ill with COVID-19. The virus may have been transmitted to this cat by mildly ill or asymptomatic household members or through contact with an infected person outside its home.

Samples from the second cat were taken after it showed signs of respiratory illness. The owner of the cat tested positive for COVID-19 prior to the cat showing signs. Another cat in the household has shown no signs of illness.

The particularly interesting bit is the cat that got the disease with apparently no one in the household having it. If it turns out cats can pass it back to people (still not tested or proven, though this household will provide some anecdata one way or the other) then that's going to be another element of control people will need to consider.

I don't think people should get too excited about Stockholm being at 1/3 infection by 1 May. That's still only half way to the minimum number to achieve herd immunity, and that's only if post infection immunity lasts for a year at least. If the vast majority of deaths for Sweden are in Stockholm then even at 1/3 infected (but still no where near recovered) by 1 May the death rate is probably still going to be 0.5%. The R0 ever since some measure of control has been implemented in Sweden is in the 1 +/- 0.1/0.2 range. Sweden's rate of increase in confirmed cases has been linear for weeks, there is no way the R0 is exponential while the confirmed rate is linear even with Sweden doing a relatively low level of testing. So I am pretty skeptical that it will be close to 1/3 by the beginning of May. It had the makings of an exponential curve for about 2 weeks up to the end of March and then growth went linear. If instead of 600-ish new cases per day (pretty much the average number of daily cases since 1 April) the actual number of new cases per day was 6,000 that's still only 180,000 new cases up to 1 May. On the basis that about 12% of infections get serious enough to meet Sweden's testing criteria (global data suggests that's the number of people who get serious enough to need medical attention) and assuming Sweden will catch the vast majority of cases that meet the case definition for testing, then with 600 cases per day we are looking at about 5000 new cases per day through the whole of March. So we might as well call it 6000 because even with excellent systems in place they won't be testing 100% of the people who meet the case definition. So, 180K new cases in April + maybe 20,000 cases before April, so I'd go with 200,000 by 1 May. That is for the whole of Sweden, not just Stockholm. Sure, the vast majority of cases are in Stockholm, for now, but it is still present and spreading in other parts of the country.

I would also note that despite the fact that the vast number of deaths in Sweden are in the over 70s, the under 70's still account for 13% of fatalities. Among confirmed cases in the under 70s (~10,000) that's a fatality rate of nearly 2.5%. On its way to herd immunity with 600,000 confirmed cases out of the 6,000,000 needed to get there Sweden should be contemplating the deaths of 15,000 people who were unlikely to "die within the year anyway".

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, DMC said:

"That's up to them to figure out."  The buck stops...somewhere over there..ya know what, fuck the damn buck!

The buck stops with Pod. 

[DMC]

37 minutes ago, Ran said:

Obviously, you can fit one piece of data to other pieces of data in all sorts of ways. But epidemiologists need to work with the data they have available to them.

They do, of course.  And I hope they are.  But here's the translated finding from your citation:

Quote

The Public Health Authority has conducted a study involving 707 participants from one web panel of randomly recruited people in Stockholm County conducted self-sampling for covid-19 between March 27 and April 3. We use results from this study to calibrate our model and get an estimate of the size of the darkness.

In total, 18 of the 707 people tested were positive in the study. Weighted share positives were 2.5% (95% CI 1.4% - 4.2%). If we assume that 2.5% of The Stockholmers were covid-19 positive between these dates, which means a total of 60 455 (95% KI 33 244, 99 731) people in Stockholm County were positive during this period. We calibrate parameters ppoo and qqoo (the proportion of infected who are unconfirmed cases and the factor that describes how many unconfirmed cases are infected relative to reported cases) in such a way that we get an estimated mean prevalence about 2.5% during March 27 and April 3.

They are basing their calculation on 18 people infected.  18.  I'm not even a "real" scientist, but when it comes to life and death, the scrutiny should be much much higher than whether I get published and continue to be able to be lazy or not - which even then I wouldn't be able to achieve with this type of dataset and findings.

Also, I'm curious why google translate keeps coming up with "darkness" for some Swedish word.  It has me worried about google translate's mental health.

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The buck stops with Pod. 

Well that's concerning for Brienne's future.

ETA:  The system wouldn't let me post it with the ppoo and qqoo parameters as copy and pasted.  I agree with the computer, fuck the greek.

[Ran]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

Also, I'm curious why google translate keeps coming up with "darkness" for some Swedish word.  It has me worried about google translate's mental health.

That's "mörkertal", the "dark figure", the uncertain number of cases beyond those you know for sure exist,, which seems to be used in Swedish statistics generally but according to Wikipedia seems to have its origins in criminal statistics.

We do like our crime genre in Sweden, I suppose.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

That's "mörkertal", the "dark figure", the uncertain number of cases beyond those you know for sure exist,, which seems to be used in Swedish statistics generally but according to Wikipedia seems to have its origins in criminal statistics.

We do like our crime genre in Sweden, I suppose.

That is pretty interesting.  Almost seems like Mordor or Sauron etc. is a commonly used term.  You live in the coolest place ever.

[Zorral]

About time he does frackin' sumpin:

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/amid-ongoing-covid-19-pandemic-governor-cuomo-and-mayor-mike-bloomberg-launch-nation-leading

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/we-must-do-the-impossible-cuomo-says-michael-bloomberg-will-fund-10m-coronavirus-tracking-program/ar-BB1336Xl

https://abc7ny.com/health/mike-bloomberg-to-help-develop-testing-tracing-program/6122098/

[Kalbear]

it is unclear whether they are more concerned than the Swedish government, but they are absolutely more publicly responsible than the state of Georgia and the city of Las Vegas:

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Was in the process of responding, but it's better here.
 

22 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Ironic. I got furloughed today at the end of my shift, but I have to finish out the week. Which is fine because I am not doing jack shit, and my boss is pretty cool with it. Just have to tie up a few loose ends. Curious to see if you really do get half plus $600 to stay at home. And I guess I get some back pay too from the prior furlough (two weeks at half pay plus hourly pay for work, which I didn't get any of). 

I've only Clawed a few times, bruh, but the first, I was at some fancy resort and I met up with a cuz and his friend at their communal hot tub (I think there were twelve rooms per pool area and there were like a dozen of these setups laid out around a golf course, some tennis courts, a giant pool set up, three restaurants, some shopping stuff and a bunch of other random shit. But they didn't have croquet. Fuckers!). They're each a few decades older than me. Popped into his rooms and changed, popped back to the tub, and he gives me one of those damn things. They just opened a 12 pack sampler.  Not bad, man. I like the lime ones, but I hear there are new flavors too. I want to say, maybe about an hour later, between swimming with the kids, returning, Clawing, swimming, repeat, the three of us were again in the hot tub, with twelve Claws floating around. Some weed may have also been smoked. 

The funny part is, while in the tub, you legit felt it. Colder pool though, you were back to sober.
 

 

15 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I can already sense the change in you....you didn't end the post with "You damned dirty ape!"  And then I was not aware of "Clawed" as an adverb.  Amazing.

Super-sorry to hear about furlough though, bruh.  Like, legit.  Financial contagion is coming for us all.  

I hear people play with various forms all the time to signal they've had some White Claws. If someone handed me one, well, in normal times, I'd drink it, but it's only something I'd buy if I was asked to or if it was on sale. The last time I picked up some was right before shit got real, and despite having multiple roommates, it lasted for at least a week (six pack).

I volunteered for it. I've been telling leadership for a month that they need to send everyone home and run the office on a skeleton crew. Well fuck if they didn't use that exact language. Per usual. 

I do not want to alarm anyone, but there are several hospital networks that are effectively going broke. Or at least they are projecting they will be without more heavy subsidization. I am sure this is true all over the world. Governments are going to have to spend unheard of sums of money to contain this while trying to stabilize their economies, and that's just for this wave, however it looks. And there will more likely than not be more, in the plural sense, without us knowing exactly what they'll look like right now.

 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

I do not want to alarm anyone, but there are several hospital networks that are effectively going broke. Or at least they are projecting they will be without more heavy subsidization. I am sure this is true all over the world. Governments are going to have to spend unheard of sums of money to contain this while trying to stabilize their economies, and that's just for this wave, however it looks. And there will more likely than not be more, in the plural sense, without us knowing exactly what they'll look like right now.
 

Actually, this is almost certainly an issue mostly in the US. While I'm sure other health areas are hard-hit, the US is by far the biggest country that has the most privately run hospitals and for-profit hospitals that largely rely on elective surgery to keep the lights on. Most other places (gasp) are publicly funded, and have been so for a while. 

Similarly, other country's unemployment is around 6-10% for the crisis; the US is probably around 30%. Again, because of how public benefits work in other countries.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

it is unclear whether they are more concerned than the Swedish government, but they are absolutely more publicly responsible than the state of Georgia and the city of Las Vegas:

 

 

Funny that there are politicians less responsible than these clowns:
 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Actually, this is almost certainly an issue mostly in the US. While I'm sure other health areas are hard-hit, the US is by far the biggest country that has the most privately run hospitals and for-profit hospitals that largely rely on elective surgery to keep the lights on. Most other places (gasp) are publicly funded, and have been so for a while. 

Similarly, other country's unemployment is around 6-10% for the crisis; the US is probably around 30%. Again, because of how public benefits work in other countries.

I work for a public non-profit, and even they are greedy as shit. 

But no, things are bad. 

[Isabel]

Huh, why do people think its that  bad in the netherlands?  We have it pretty much under control and or ic's can handle it.

The reason that the outbreak was so high in the beginning is that the government and health organisation made big mistakes.

A lot of dutch people went skiing in Austria and Italy. The european countries should have worked together and stopped that from happening from the beginning or half februari.

In the south of the netherlands they also celebrated carnaval (guess some kind of mardi grass) , so that spread it a lot.

Plus not enough testing of people. For example not testing people who were in the hospital with respiatory complains, but not testing them because they didnt go to italy or china.

And no quarantaine from people who traveled to italy or austria or even other hotspots.

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Someone I know with COPD who tested positive for Covid-19 has recovered from it. Intubation was not necessary in his case. 

His lung capacity decreased though and is now down to 60% and that is most likely permanent according to his doc.

[JoannaL]

12 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

We will know one day but not today. There are few weird things I've been observing.

- Spain and Italy are not yet really over the curve as the number of active cases is still increasing (albeit at a lower rate), despite the heavy handed lockdown that they imposed more than a month ago. Their curves seem to extend forever.

- Germany and Austria are recovering at full steam despite comparatively relaxed quarantine rules.

- Chile in S. America is implementing localized and dynamic lockdowns plus a series or complementary measures. The curve is mostly flat with up and down depending on the day of the week

What is going on?

I don't know if this is a scientific factor but I thought the Spain and Italy approach to lock up everyone in its home without the possiblity to go outside quite insane because:

1.) you definitly do not get infected if you are going  for a walk  all alone in a forest/field or such, even a city park is safe if you respect social distancing

2.) our only weapon in the fight against the virus is our own immune system (until the development of a cure or a vaccine)

3.) what can you do to boost your immune system: fresh air, sun, exercising

4.) what can you do to ruin your immune system: stay inside for a long time, no sun, no fresh air, no sports

 

[rotting sea cow]

54 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

I don't know if this is a scientific factor but I thought the Spain and Italy approach to lock up everyone in its home without the possiblity to go outside quite insane because:

1.) you definitly do not get infected if you are going  for a walk  all alone in a forest/field or such, even a city park is safe if you respect social distancing

2.) our only weapon in the fight against the virus is our own immune system (until the development of a cure or a vaccine)

3.) what can you do to boost your immune system: fresh air, sun, exercising

4.) what can you do to ruin your immune system: stay inside for a long time, no sun, no fresh air, no sports

 

Fully agree. Let's not discount stress, depression and anxiety. 

Furthermore. There's a complete lack of information what one can do to help to get better outcomes in case one gets infected. Probably because nobody really knows.