COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Rob Waskis]

An article on Sweden I enjoyed reading because it supports my biases.

In Sweden, Will Voluntary Self-Isolation Work Better Than State-Enforced Lockdowns in the Long Run? – Reason.com

[Sean Berry]

Coronavirus: CDC reviewing ‘stunning’ universal testing results from Boston homeless shelter

This is all the health bureaucrat could distill from the situation:

Here's a thought:

ASYMPTOMATIC means you are NOT sick. This does not mean you are a "Typhoid Mary".

This tells me that the shit data is not just SHIT, but completely and utterly useless. It throws all the ratios off so far....just ugh. So frustrated.

Seems that the VAST majority may not show symptoms. At all. (I think there was a German study that showed something similar.)

So, why are we shuttered?

Incidentally, those NOT sick people were taken away to isolation facilities. See why I won't let my family or myself get tested?

sb

[Soule]

The CFR and IFR for COVID will not be known until this is mostly past us and we have had time to sift and sort data. Much of the back and forth on this board illustrates how erratic and inconsistent real-time epidemiologic data is.

CFR for seasonal influenza (though it varies a lot with each strain) is generally around 0.1%. Most estimates for CFR of covid appear to be settling around 1%. Some regions have reported MUCH higher CFRs for COVID, like 2-5%, but that is probably an artifact of the limited availability of testing (so only the sickest were tested).

I don’t know what the IFR is for a typical seasonal flu. This number is hard to find, probably because there is significant seasonal variation and not much appetite for doing big expensive studies every year on an illness whose properties we have a pretty good handle on. If anyone here has a solid IFR for seasonal influenza, please provide the citation.

So while IFR is an important number for individuals (“If i get exposed to this thing, what are my chances of dying?”), to compare the epidemiology and virulence of the illness with flu or others, we will probably be stuck using CFR, which is also an important number for individuals (“if I get sick with this thing, what are my chances of dying?”).

Isn’t the CFR for the flu typically based on a year of data? Wouldn’t the trend be for the CFR for covid19 to decrease as more data accumulates over the year?

[George Christiansen]

Czech delivery people and postal workers can now respond to domestic violence during quarantine - Prague, Czech Republic

Let me be perfectly clear here before I regret failing to me too-proof anything I say that might one day potentially be misconstrued: I'm not against this idea in principle, but holy shit Big Brother is real. I'm disappointed. This is exactly the sort of Gestapo-esque thinking that the legendary Czech resistance fought so valiantly against during WWII. R.I.P. UVOD.

I'm all for genuinely caring and nosey neighbors, without the power of the state behind them, keeping people in check through shame and even a good ass kicking in cases like this.

But how in the hell does a delivery person, who is supposed to stay 6' from the homeowner supposed to even catch this going on?

[Gerald Boggs]

I'm torn, proud that the towns near me both got F for social distancing, sad that next door, my county got a C. I don't think the C is correct, Nelson is mostly rural and the towns are small with little social activity. I can't remember the last time I saw someone walking on Main street of the county seat.
Covid-19 Social Distancing Scoreboard — Unacast

[BrunoLawerence]

Here's a thought:

ASYMPTOMATIC means you are NOT sick. This does not mean you are a "Typhoid Mary".

This tells me that the shit data is not just SHIT, but completely and utterly useless. It throws all the ratios off so far....just ugh. So frustrated.

Seems that the VAST majority may not show symptoms. At all. (I think there was a German study that showed something similar.)

So, why are we shuttered?

Incidentally, those NOT sick people were taken away to isolation facilities. See why I won't let my family or myself get tested?

sb

You might want to reread the history of "typhoid Mary". She was an asymptomatic carrier (not sick) who refused to participate in testing, causing many infections/deaths. Given that covid is easily transmissible by asymptomatic individuals, you are advocating for there to be hundreds if not thousands of potential typhoid mary's spread across the country. What happens when the next typhoid mary comes into contact with your family and your family becomes sick?

[Rob Waskis]

Isn’t the CFR for the flu typically based on a year of data? Wouldn’t the trend be for the CFR for covid19 to decrease as more data accumulates over the year?

I’ve been wondering the same thing, but I can’t find anything online that speaks to such a trend.

[Mark Rippetoe]

After Repeated Failures, It’s Time To Permanently Dump Epidemic Models – Issues & Insights

I have read several of his books, and Fumento has been a consistent voice of reason for decades. I'm very happy to repost his work.

You might want to reread the history of "typhoid Mary". She was an asymptomatic carrier (not sick) who refused to participate in testing, causing many infections/deaths. Given that covid is easily transmissible by asymptomatic individuals, you are advocating for there to be hundreds if not thousands of potential typhoid mary's spread across the country. What happens when the next typhoid mary comes into contact with your family and your family becomes sick?

How about we don't just give you this? How about you demonstrating this? How about you explain how an asymptomatic person who is not coughing and slobbering on everybody is "easily" transmitting the disease, with the same apparent ease with which you type this bullshit every fucking day?

[Soule]

I’ve been wondering the same thing, but I can’t find anything online that speaks to such a trend.

I would think that covid19 would statistically be more fatal during flu season when more people are sick from other seasonal ailments (the flu) and these deaths are being attributed to covid19. A full years worth of data must cause the CFR to decrease. Lets not forget the shortage of ventilators and the situation in New York. I don’t see how this wouldn’t artificially increase the CFR during the onset of the pandemic.

[Jovan Dragisic]

How about we don't just give you this? How about you demonstrating this? How about you explain how an asymptomatic person who is not coughing and slobbering on everybody is "easily" transmitting the disease, with the same apparent ease with which you type this bullshit every fucking day?

I can’t give you guys links since they would be articles written in Croatian, but they have traced several infection clusters here to asymptomatic carriers who returned from trips, weren’t put in self isolation because the countries they returned from weren’t deemed covid dangerous at the time, and ended up infecting dozens of people.
One such case is in a township with 5000 residents in the least populous region in the country. Another is a dude from a larger city who spread the infection to several other cities. And so on. Two smaller cities were put in Wuhan style quarantine when asymptomatic carriers flocking there after the quarantines were announced spread the infection locally.

There seems enough evidence pointing to easy transmissions by asymptomatic carriers.