US Covid death rate back on track to hit 2.2 million

[cmarshall]

I never lowered my expectation of the eventual death count in the US from the initial worst-case estimate of 2.2 million which came initially from the Imperial College study and others.  Now the New York Times reports that the US has just had its second highest number new cases in a day of 36,126.  The rate of infection had been declining until Trump and the right-wing governors decided to ignore the pandemic altogether.  So, now we are back in April.  And the pandemic will not end in the US until the national government puts in a program of widespread testing, isolating of infected persons, and contact tracing, none of which the government is currently doing.  On the contrary, Trump is now cutting funding for testing sites including in current hot spots like Texas.  It will get worse and then it will get worse again, unless and until there is a new, Democratic administration in January.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/world/coronavirus-updates.html 

 

Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and South Carolina reported their highest single-day totals, with Florida reporting more than 5,500 cases as the country’s total reached 36,126. More than 35,000 new coronavirus cases had been identified the day before. The country’s largest daily total has been 36,739 cases, which were reported on April 24.

[J Town]

Current administration is ending funding for Covid-19 testing at 13 sites, mostly in Texas. Didn't I just hear that Texas is spiking to historical levels?

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/coronavirus-federal-government-to-end-funding-some-covid-19-test-sites.html

[LomSak27]

17 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

I never lowered my expectation of the eventual death count in the US from the initial worst-case estimate of 2.2 million which came initially from the Imperial College study and others.  Now the New York Times reports that the US has just had its second highest number new cases in a day of 36,126.  The rate of infection had been declining until Trump and the right-wing governors decided to ignore the pandemic altogether.  So, now we are back in April

An absolute excrement show.

 

Just now, J Town said:

Didn't I just hear that Texas is spiking to historical levels?

Yes you did hear that.

 

If these know nothings want to live like this, who am I to tell them to stop. I just wish someone would teach them how to wipe the excrement from their keister though (or hose it). It's a health hazard for others.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by LomSak27

[otherstuff1957]

A US death rate of 2,200,000 is highly unlikely.  There are a bit over 124,000 dead so far. The current death rate is about 800 per day.  If it goes back up to 1,000 per day, or 365,000 year, it will still take almost 6 years to reach 2,075,000 more deaths.

 

However, let's take a look at the worst day for deaths on record.  On April 16, 2,209 people died of Covid19 in the US.  If we go back to that death rate, it will still take almost 2 years and 7 months to reach 2.2 million deaths. 

 

Historically, very few plagues have lasted more than 3 years.  In fact, in the 20th century, most epidemics have been ended within a year.  This epidemic is unique because there is no treatment or vaccine currently available, but, looking at past epidemics we see declining numbers of cases over time until it goes away or becomes endemic.

[cmarshall]

Yersinia Pestis did return intermittently for four hundred years and then 180 years after that.  So, not every plague dies out quickly.

 

The Imperial College study predicted a death count of 2.2 million for the US only in the case that the US did nothing to contain or mitigate the virus.  As the Johns Hopkins new case count graph for the US below shows, the US has effectively done nothing with the result that the current daily new case count is back to where it was in April.  So, the lockdowns and social distancing that has been imposed in the US has had no cumulative effect, except possibly to slow down the rate of growth briefly before resuming its exponential trend.

 

More that than it is apparent that the US is incapable of managing a national effort to mitigate the spread of the virus.  Trump is now cutting funds for testing.  There has never been a national program of testing, isolating, and tracing contacts.  My expectation is that the daily new infection rate will grow beyond its current level of 36,000 and achieve new heights, but whether it takes six months or six years for the death toll to reach 2.2 million I expect that number will ultimately be achieved, because the US is a deer in the headlights, utterly unable to take action to save its citizens.  It is not that the Trump government has failed to contain the virus, but that they have refused even to try.

 

Add to this, the fact that of the seven coronaviruses now known, none result in long-term immunity after infection and no vaccine has ever been successfully developed against any of them, despite the considerable efforts mounted to develop vaccines for SARS and MERS, both coronaviruses.  So, I think there is a better than 50% chance that there will be neither herd immunity nor a vaccine.

 

New Cases graph for US:  https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by cmarshall

[J Town]

1 minute ago, cmarshall said:

The Imperial College study predicted a death count of 2.2 million for the US only in the case that the US did nothing to contain or mitigate the virus.

 

I would venture to say the US is starting to take the stance of "Virus over, we win!" based strictly on observation of the behavior from citizens and those who rule them. When you start restricting testing and roll back funding in the currently worst stricken state (Texas), it's not hard to imagine the number of 2.2 million deaths becoming a reality.

[yuyiinthesky]

It seems to be that the death rate is mainly pushed up by states which had a lock down. A new lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal reveals that the per-capita death rate for the coronavirus is 75% lower in states that did not panic into lockdown mode. 
 

Quote

So it's worth pointing out that states that didn't lock down this spring kept the virus under control and experienced fewer deaths than most [of the states] that did.

Unfortunately the Wall Street Journal is not free, so the complete article is only available for subscribers. If you are, here it is: https://www.wsj.com/articles/news-from-the-non-lockdown-states-11592954700

The analysis it is based on is from "The Sentinel, a Kansas Nonprofit". Some news stations have picked it up the Wall Street Journal article already, therefore I assume more details will be available elsewhere soon.


 

[yuyiinthesky]

10 hours ago, cmarshall said:

The Imperial College study predicted a death count of 2.2 million for the US

You didn't see that that Imperial College study was based on a flawed model with countless programming errors, which not even Microsoft engineers could not fix?
 

Quote

Computer code for Prof Lockdown's model which predicted 500,000 would die from Covid-19 and inspired Britain's 'Stay Home' plan is a 'mess which would get you fired in private industry' say data experts

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8327641/Coronavirus-modelling-Professor-Neil-Ferguson-branded-mess-experts.html
 

Quote

Coding that led to lockdown was 'totally unreliable' and a 'buggy mess', say experts

The code, written by Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London, was impossible to read, scientists claim

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/coding-led-lockdown-totally-unreliable-buggy-mess-say-experts/

And many more:

https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/failures-influential-covid-19-model-used-justify-lockdowns

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/
 

[utalkin2me]

10 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Yersinia Pestis did return intermittently for four hundred years and then 180 years after that.  So, not every plague dies out quickly.

 

The Imperial College study predicted a death count of 2.2 million for the US only in the case that the US did nothing to contain or mitigate the virus.  As the Johns Hopkins new case count graph for the US below shows, the US has effectively done nothing with the result that the current daily new case count is back to where it was in April.  So, the lockdowns and social distancing that has been imposed in the US has had no cumulative effect, except possibly to slow down the rate of growth briefly before resuming its exponential trend.

 

More that than it is apparent that the US is incapable of managing a national effort to mitigate the spread of the virus.  Trump is now cutting funds for testing.  There has never been a national program of testing, isolating, and tracing contacts.  My expectation is that the daily new infection rate will grow beyond its current level of 36,000 and achieve new heights, but whether it takes six months or six years for the death toll to reach 2.2 million I expect that number will ultimately be achieved, because the US is a deer in the headlights, utterly unable to take action to save its citizens.  It is not that the Trump government has failed to contain the virus, but that they have refused even to try.

 

Add to this, the fact that of the seven coronaviruses now known, none result in long-term immunity after infection and no vaccine has ever been successfully developed against any of them, despite the considerable efforts mounted to develop vaccines for SARS and MERS, both coronaviruses.  So, I think there is a better than 50% chance that there will be neither herd immunity nor a vaccine.

 

New Cases graph for US:  https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

 

I don't know why on earth you think testing and tracing is helpful. 

 

That is only a technique used very early on in an outbreak to stomp it our completely. It is completely, 100% non-applicable here. The only good that comes from it is we know a bit more where hotspots are, but in the end that is not going to matter much either. 

 

People need to start thinking of viruses like this like earthquakes. They are either going to knock the <deleted> out of you, or subside on their own. And, there is nothing you can do about that. You can sit around and think your government can mitigate an earthquake, but in the end the only one with any real say will be the earth. Same with a virus. All this started with one person. Why on earth would you think testing and tracing will do anything? Because CNN told you so? 

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, yuyiinthesky said:

You didn't see that that Imperial College study was based on a flawed model with countless programming errors, which not even Microsoft engineers could not fix?
 

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8327641/Coronavirus-modelling-Professor-Neil-Ferguson-branded-mess-experts.html
 

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/coding-led-lockdown-totally-unreliable-buggy-mess-say-experts/

And many more:

https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/failures-influential-covid-19-model-used-justify-lockdowns

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/
 

Heritage is a worthless source. It's a right wing political lobbying group closely allied with the 45's virus denial society.

[yuyiinthesky]

32 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Heritage is a worthless source. It's a right wing political lobbying group closely allied with the 45's virus denial society.

 

Well, even they might jump on a nice story. But fortunately there are so many others.

 

Forgive me if I included just a few links. I’m sure you find plenty others from media of all directions, it was all over the news. 

Here some more, as given by google, possibly right wing or left wing or up wing or low wing, I dunno, but all the same content nevertheless, the code was ridiculously flawed and wrong:

 

https://www.trustnodes.com/2020/05/08/neil-fergusons-lockdown-model-ridiculed-after-its-code-is-open-sourced
 

Quote

One of those people helping to refactor and extend was John Carmack, a well known coder who on the 27th of April released this on Github, the platform for open source code.

“As a software engineer, I’m appalled at the quality of this code and the role its played in public policy. The deficits in testing and quality assurance need to be immediately spoken for to assure the claims made by its data are valid,” says a coder going by the name of Tux who seems to have been coding since 2011.

“In a time where faith in scientific models is more important than ever, it’s truly disheartening to see that such widely-used models are based on such faulty testing logic,” says a Software Engineer at Capital One.

https://technocracy.news/neil-fergusons-computer-model-is-ripped-to-shreds/

 

Quote

Back in March, Ferguson’s faulty model estimated that up to 2.2 million Americans could die if no actions were taken to stop transmission in the US. The report about the model immediately created a domino effect of panic responses. The model was so highly flawed it never should have been relied upon for policy decisions to begin with.

 

https://techstartups.com/2020/06/02/disgraced-imperial-college-prof-neil-ferguson-whose-flawed-model-used-justify-lockdowns-now-admits-sweden-may-suppressed-coronavirus-level-without-draconian-measures/
 

Feel free to google yourself for more.

 

[cmarshall]

6 hours ago, utalkin2me said:

I don't know why on earth you think testing and tracing is helpful. 

 

That is only a technique used very early on in an outbreak to stomp it our completely. It is completely, 100% non-applicable here. The only good that comes from it is we know a bit more where hotspots are, but in the end that is not going to matter much either. 

 

People need to start thinking of viruses like this like earthquakes. They are either going to knock the <deleted> out of you, or subside on their own. And, there is nothing you can do about that. You can sit around and think your government can mitigate an earthquake, but in the end the only one with any real say will be the earth. Same with a virus. All this started with one person. Why on earth would you think testing and tracing will do anything? Because CNN told you so? 

Because testing, isolating positives, and contact tracing are the means by which the following countries contained the Covid to these deaths per million counts:

 

China 3.33

S. Korea  5.46

New Zealand 4.5

Thailand 0.84

Australia 4.16

 

China, as we all know, failed initially in Hubei Province and had to resort to a lockdown, but thereafter they successfully followed best practices throughout the country and succeeded in containing the virus.

 

The countries that never applied the best practices at a national level or, like Sweden, tried for a while and then gave up, failed completely to contain the virus with much higher deaths per million:

 

UK  647.94

Italy 573.94

US 372.34

Sweden 511.53

Brazil 256.98

 

It is true that if the best practices are not applied at the outset of infections then containment will fail and the only remaining option is the far less effective mitigation, including lockdowns.  So, if you fail to contain it you have failed and there will be lots of unnecessary deaths.  For instance, if the US had been as alert and proactive as S. Korea, the total US deaths would now be on the order of 2000, not 120,000 and climbing.  

 

S. Korea and Taiwan had prepared pandemic control plans before Covid appeared, a key component of which was surveillance of emerging viruses in China so that they could respond quickly.  The US had had a similar effort, the White House Pandemic Response Team, which was disbanded by Trump.  Surveillance turns out to have been easy as the following article reports.  

 

But none of the Western countries were surveilling China despite SARS, bird flu, and other viruses that had emerged in China during the last twenty years.  So, they failed, but, as the Asian countries show, failure was never inevitable.

 

Satellite images of hospital parking lots in Wuhan as well as internet search trends, show the coronavirus may have been spreading in China as early as last August, according to a new study from Harvard Medical School.

 

The study, which has not yet been peer-viewed, found a significantly higher number of cars in parking lots at five Wuhan hospitals in the late summer and fall of 2019 compared to a year earlier; and an uptick in searches of keywords associated with an infectious disease on China's Baidu search engine.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/satellite-images-of-wuhan-may-suggest-coronavirus-was-spreading-as-early-as-august/ar-BB15dy6n

[Mama Noodle]

19 hours ago, cmarshall said:

The rate of infection had been declining until Trump and the right-wing governors decided to ignore the pandemic altogether. 

 

Thats not really the true though, is it? The coronavirus uptick directly correlates with the mass protests and riots taking place over the last few weeks, and even NY is actively trying to cover that up. 

 

For example: 

 

Quote

The hundreds of contact tracing workers hired by the city under de Blasio’s new “test and trace” campaign have been instructed not to ask anyone who’s tested positive for COVID-19 whether they recently attended a demonstration, City Hall confirmed to THE CITY.

 

“No person will be asked proactively if they attended a protest,” Avery Cohen, a spokesperson for de Blasio, wrote in an emailed response to questions by THE CITY.

https://www.thecity.nyc/coronavirus/2020/6/14/21290963/nyc-covid-19-trackers-skipping-floyd-protest-questions-even-amid-fears-of-new-wave

 

And the OP Conveniently leaves out that California is also one of the ones that have had a massive spike in cases, which the timing correlates exactly with the weeks of protests. 

 

So it really isnt because 'right wing' governors did anything bad now is it? 

[Mama Noodle]

17 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Add to this, the fact that of the seven coronaviruses now known, none result in long-term immunity after infection and no vaccine has ever been successfully developed against any of them, despite the considerable efforts mounted to develop vaccines for SARS and MERS, both coronaviruses.  So, I think there is a better than 50% chance that there will be neither herd immunity nor a vaccine.

 

SARS and MERS both petered out on their own and that made the labs who were developing the vaccines lose funding. It wasn't that a vaccine isnt possible - its that they lost funding in various stages of development. 

 

However those same labs are using the blueprint they used for the other coronaviruses on COVID 19 and running the human trials in parallel - very much speeding it up. 

 

Finally, its known from other corona viruses that have been studied that immunity can last anywhere from 1-3 years - more than enough to stomp out the virus, and if more is needed then "Booster" shots can be given - also very common. 

 

So its very likely that a vaccine will be developed way faster than ever before, and that it will actually work.