agip wrote:
P wrote:
Daily Update
Daily case growth (%):
Mar 8: 16.7
Mar 9: 15.8
Mar 10: 15.3
Mar 11: 16.0
Mar 12: 16.6
Mar 13: 17.2
This means the total number of cases doubles TWICE in nine days! It will take 45 days for the current number of cases to be multiplied by one thousand - US cases to go from 2,269 to 2.3 Million before the end of April!
Daily death growth (%):
Mar 8: 43.1
Mar 9: 34.0
Mar 10: 32.1
Mar 11: 31.0
Mar 12: 29.6
Mar 13: 28.7
Fatality Rate (Cumulative deaths/cases)
Mar 8: 2.4%
Mar 9: 2.7%
Mar 10: 3.0%
Mar 11: 3.2%
Mar 12: 3.4%
Mar 13: 3.5%
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The numbers above probably don't mean much to you unless you are mathematically inclined. So,, today I will present to you a single fact that should be accessible to everyone. Feel free to ask questions.
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The following is not an opinion.
It is not a prediction.
It is a mathematical certainty.
A fact.
FACT: The entire US economy is going to be shut down by COVID-19 within the next 6 months.
That means that if you cannot work from home then you will be told to not work. Exceptions will be made for individuals working in the food supply chain, the medical supplies and care supply chain, public utilities such as electricity, gas, water, garbage . . . , police, fire departments, etc. Everyone else who cannot work from home will have no work for a period of time.
Every school will be shut down. Every gathering will be cancelled. Every single city and town in this country is going to look like a ghost town. Nobody will be outside. And when they are forced outside they will be wearing masks. They will be scared of each other and will cross the street to stay on opposite sides whenever their paths cross.
This is not a possibility.
This is a fact.
A mathematical certainty.
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There remain two options for us:
1) Shut down now: In this case, we will end up looking like South Korea. Even better than South Korea. The idiots among us (you know who you are, Sally) will say, "What?!? We shut down the entire US for a disease that caused a few hundred deaths?!? That's crazy!!!" Those who have some intelligence will say "Phew!" and will thank whatever god they recognize that the US somehow pulled itself out of the muck to act decisively and on time.
2) Wait three months and then shut it down: In this case, we will be Italy. Millions will die. Many of them will die after being turned away from hospitals with no capacity to help them. They will go back to their homes after being turned away and their families will watch them slowly suffocate on their living room floors. Then their bodies will remain for days because nobody will be available to take them away with the proper respects.
Those are our options.
This is from March 13, a month ago. Before the shutdown. A day we had just 7 deaths across the entire nation.
Have to say this was great post.
P predicted this thing.
And I pushed back against it, sadly.
It was partly right - and that was because it was not a mathematical certainty; nothing depending on human choices is. The country closed down by degrees, some states and localities more than others - some have resisted it, and still do. The slowness and variability of the US response has actually pushed the country into exceeding Italy's figures (and Italy has been the worst hit nation) for total deaths and daily deaths. The US has been caught in both scenarios forecast above; of an economy brought to a virtual standstill to try to contain the virus, and the public health disaster that has been Italy as it acted too late.
The central factor in the course of the virus in the US has been political, not mathematical - the tardiness of the Trump administration in recognizing the seriousness of the virus and acting on it, and its ongoing failure in providing coherent leadership and a plan for getting through this disaster. And now Trump talks of opening the economy up again while others warn the country may be far from ready. No mathematical model can factor in the caprice, uncertainty, impulsivity and sheer random stupidity of this administration.