57 COVID deaths in GA today: Post-opening spike starting?

obtusity endemic wrote:

GA Gal wrote:

Stop being obtuse.

Look, obtusity is a major risk factor for this virus but it's not that easy to just "stop being obtuse." It takes years to lose all that weight safely and most people just don't have the willpower to sustain proper diet and exercise.

Whether this was intentional or not, it's just brilliant. Well played, sir/ma'am.

I am not in a high risk group. I am being cautious for the same reason as you. It's my civic duty. And it is also my duty to keep my family safe.

The difference is that you seem to think that testing will keep you from getting the virus.

Are you engaging in risky behavior? Are you at high risk because of your job or other responsibility?

If are sheltering like me then you are at very low risk of getting the virus. You might be more likely to get a false positive test than a true positive test.

The data reported by GA Dept of Health is the only data we have for Georgia. That's where all the other sites get their data. It's not perfect, but it's the best we've got.

And yes, the positivity numbers are skewed as well, especially right now. We only have four days worth of data for this. When we have more data I'll be looking at the 7-day moving average for this stat. But even then it's not as good as I would like.

What we can clearly see from what little positivity data we have is that the positivity number is not where experts say it should be. What we are seeing is over 10% and experts say it should be at least below 5% to reopen. I think the chances that the numbers are off by that much is unlikely.

At what point are you going to end your personal lockdown? What information or data will you need before you think it is safe for you and your family to not be in lockdown?

I never said that getting tested will keep me from getting the virus. Experts say it is important for people to get tested - even people like you. I am engaging in behavior in line with experts say is okay.

Who is saying that someone like me should be tested? I'd be interested in seeing that.

Are you engaging in some behavior that puts you at higher risk of getting the virus than me?

Fat hurts wrote:Who is saying that someone like me should be tested? I'd be interested in seeing that.

I'd be interested to know that too. Neither my adopted country nor my home country are recommending testing for random people. Just sick people, or people with known exposure to sick people.

Fat hurts wrote:

GA Gal wrote:

At what point are you going to end your personal lockdown? What information or data will you need before you think it is safe for you and your family to not be in lockdown?

I never said that getting tested will keep me from getting the virus. Experts say it is important for people to get tested - even people like you. I am engaging in behavior in line with experts say is okay.

Who is saying that someone like me should be tested? I'd be interested in seeing that.

Are you engaging in some behavior that puts you at higher risk of getting the virus than me?

Google is your friend.

Yes. We all are at risk. You and your family are going out to the grocery store 1-2 times a month. That is still a risk. You may be at a slightly lesser risk than me, but by being tested regularly, I will actually know I have the virus. You will not unless you show symptoms. Test, trace, and quarantine will get us through this.

At what point are you going to end your personal lockdown? What information or data will you need before you think it is safe for you and your family to not be in lockdown?

GA Gal wrote:

Fat hurts wrote:

Who is saying that someone like me should be tested? I'd be interested in seeing that.

Are you engaging in some behavior that puts you at higher risk of getting the virus than me?

Google is your friend.

Yes. We all are at risk. You and your family are going out to the grocery store 1-2 times a month. That is still a risk. You may be at a slightly lesser risk than me, but by being tested regularly, I will actually know I have the virus. You will not unless you show symptoms. Test, trace, and quarantine will get us through this.

At what point are you going to end your personal lockdown? What information or data will you need before you think it is safe for you and your family to not be in lockdown?

Like most people, I've read lots and lots of information on COVID-19. Like a previous poster, I've never come across any expert who says someone like me should be tested. You are making the assertion that said expert(s) exist. Therefore, it is on you to provide evidence. Otherwise, everyone just assumes you are making stuff up.

I don't know when my personal lockdown will end and I don't have a specific criteria yet. But I know that every expert I've seen says that we should not be opened up under the current conditions in Georgia.

Fat, where did you get the above 1.3% IFR? Everything I'm seeing is trending much lower. For instance here, from Oxford Medicine CEBM

.

Also, the CDC put it around 0.20%, you can find it on their site.

What I meant by demographic is, that if you take that 0.1-0.40 rate, and break it down by age demographics, the IFR for those under 60 is far lower. Thus my belief that we should not be shut down, that we should only use extreme measures to protect the vulnerable.

That's a legitimate approach and it is the one taken by Sweden. However, it hasn't worked very well. They have been unable to protect the vulnerable and thus their per capita death rate is 7th worst in the world.

The study I was referring to is below. Note again that it's the IFR-S (symptomatic) rate and not IFR. IFR is extremely difficult to calculate because we don't know how many have the virus asymptomatically. This study used statistics from a time when you could assume that almost every positive test was a symptomatic case.

IFR is all over the map. For instance, this meta-study pegs IFR at 0.64%.

Also, I would argue that IFR-S is more useful that IFR when you are making public health decisions. IFR-S will always be more accurate than IFR.

Obsessing over IFR is idiotic. The main premise is that .26 or whatever IFR means that COVID is just another flu is just pure propaganda that ignores huge differences between COVID 19 and flu. Flu has a finite season. COVID 19 is still infecting 20-25k people and killing 750-1,000 a day long after flu season has ended. There is no vaccine for COVID 19 and no treatment. But most importantly, 1.3 out of every 100,000 are hospitalized for flu. 30 out of 100,000 are hospitalized for COVID 19. And COVID 19 hospitalizations are much more intensive due to the prevalence of pneumonia and the fact that it is highly contagious. Finally, COVID 19 can last much longer and has short term and long term effects after the virus has gone away. Some people are weeks on from recovering and still have no sense of smell or taste. For most people, the flu is a week or two with a cough that can last another week or two and then a full 100% recovery. So, just comparing the IFR for flu with the IFR for COVID 19 tells you nothing. When you look at the complete picture, there is nothing to debate. COVID 19 is way more dangerous than flu and everything should be done to control the outbreak of COVID 19.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-covid-19-isnt-the-flu#Hospitals-overwhelmed

So I think I found what you were talking about on the CDC web site. The 0.20% is not IFR. It's the Symptomatic Case Fatality Rate (CFR), which, as far as I can tell, is basically the same as IFR-S.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html#five-scenarios

Notice that your 0.20% is only for one of the scenarios. Another scenario has a CFR that is five times higher, or 1.00%.

Furthermore, the CFR for the United States has obviously not been as low as 0.20%. Given that we have had 107,350 deaths, this doesn't jibe with the available data. Even if you assume that nobody who currently has the disease will die then you find that:

107,350 deaths / 0.002 = 53,675,000 symptomatic cases.

That would mean that roughly 1 in 6 Americans have already been sick from COVID-19.

In adition to already linked pages, you might wanna check this one:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

It's not the be all end all of death rate pages, but I kinda find it more believeable that what the CDC published recently based on early march data, especially with the convoluted explaination excluding all death that didn't occure 13 days after the symptome onset of their cases, and mixing studies about very different sets of data. Moreover, their estimaye correspond roughly to the lower limit of the confidence interval of the diamond princess group. A group where old but not disabled people might be slightly over represented, but where every single person have been tested, not only the symptomatics.

For some reason, i think the testings of china outside Wuhan have been super intensive also, thanks to the jumpstart and as a consequence I also think that group includes asymptomatics. All in all, I've read the full CDC report. I'm not an expert but I call this BS. I would like to see the full data on which the worldometer article is based but again I at least find it beliveable. Maybe divide by 2 if you firmly believe part of the excess death is from confinment rather than Covid. It's still roughly 4 times the CDC estimate...

Again, a simple search will show you that most experts encourage everyone to get tested so people who are positive can be isolated and contact tracing can be done. If you are so well-read on the subject, you must know that people under near-lockdowns (like you) have gotten the virus and that people can be asymtomatic.

You are such an interesting case. I don’t know anyone else who is still under such a strict lockdown and doesn’t have any criteria for lifting their personal quarantine. Such paralyzation must be frightening.

Good luck to you.

Talk about paralysis by analysis. IFR, IFR-S, positivity rate, etc. I bet you keep spreadsheets on all this stuff. lol

It's no wonder you don't go out of your house.

Are people still debating this hoax? The most incredibly destructive overreaction in history.

That's funny. I know lots of people who are still under lockdown just like me. Just because some Americans are foolish doesn't mean all of us are.

Nations who have beaten the virus have stayed under lockdown. But America has taken the path of Sweden and we have the dead citizens to go along with that decision.

Now tell me again how the Case Fatality Rate is 0.2% and 1 in 6 Americans have already been sick with COVID-19.

This thread is now the official roll call for Certified Chicken Littles. Don't forget to check back in tomorrow with your End-of-The-World predictions!