• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Non-Political Coronavirus Thread

How are they testing people in Mecklenburg County? Is there drive through testing? Are they only testing people who are presenting severe symptoms in hospitals? It could just be that there are more infected people out and about than the numbers indicate. It could be that all of those people you see today could be checking into the hospital tomorrow.

Both Novant and Atrium have had multiple walk-in/drive-in testing locations for some time now.
 
Oh good - we’ve reached the “this was all overblown” phase of the discussion.

Oh good, we’ve moved into the #fakenews portion of the discussion.

I know it is hard to comprehend for the political hacks on here, but there is a big distance between #fakenews / "this was all overblown" and SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN NOW UNTIL 2022 OR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE BECAUSE INTERNET POSTS = #SCIENCE AND #BUBONICPLAGUE. There is a reasonable middle ground with which this situation can be viewed.
 
If you have 10 million people and 7 million are shutting it down but 3 million are not, then the 7 million should be irrelevant, that 3 million should be kicking off a hell of a lot more than 5,000 cases if the contagiousness that is reported is to be believed.

Personally I'm convinced that the NC pollen deluge acts like a natural Lysol on all exposed surfaces and the aerosols floating, but I'm always a few steps ahead of the scientists.

FACTS and LOGIC
 
Wonderful. So please explain how the reciprocal 85%, 60%, 50%, and 30% respective usage in Mecklenburg County, with its population of 1.11 million and 1,000 cases and 19 deaths makes sense unless either the virus does not spread as easily as reported or is much more asymptomatic than reported? To determine the danger of the spread of the virus, the issue is not the number of cases in light of who is NOT participating in society, it is the number of cases relative to those who are still actively participating in society.

What is the worst-case tolerable infection rate, 10%? Even that seems low given the low death rate, but assume it is 10%. So for our 1,000 cases that means 10,000 people would have to not be social distancing for it to be troublesome. There are a hell of lot more than 10,000 people who get the Essential Worker Participation Trophy in Meck Co, it is in the hundreds of thousands. The numbers just don't hold water.

I don’t think you understand how social distancing works. You do not need 100% isolation to completely stop the spread. In fact, in an extreme example, if you only had .001% of people social distancing but it was the first few people in the county affected and there was no travel, then that would completely stop the spread (this isn’t realistic, it’s just to explain why you don’t need perfect distancing).

In addition to social distancing, isolation (known infections) and quarantine (known exposures) are also taking place to greatly slow spread.

The numbers in Mecklenburg Co will continue to grow for months. If social distancing continues at the same rate, the growth will be modest. If things open up more, the growth will be faster. Hopefully testing capacity and turnaround time will greatly ramp up so we can track and isolate even more effectively so social distancing can be loosened up.
 
I don’t think you understand how social distancing works. You do not need 100% isolation to completely stop the spread. In fact, in an extreme example, if you only had .001% of people social distancing but it was the first few people in the county affected and there was no travel, then that would completely stop the spread (this isn’t realistic, it’s just to explain why you don’t need perfect distancing).

In addition to social distancing, isolation (known infections) and quarantine (known exposures) are also taking place to greatly slow spread.

The numbers in Mecklenburg Co will continue to grow for months. If social distancing continues at the same rate, the growth will be modest. If things open up more, the growth will be faster. Hopefully testing capacity and turnaround time will greatly ramp up so we can track and isolate even more effectively so social distancing can be loosened up.

Right, no model is assuming 100% isolation. Our in house modeling has various projections based on degrees of social distancing, I assume most places are doing the same. We are currently tracking along the 40-60% line right now in NE Ohio.

Census.png
 
I know it is hard to comprehend for the political hacks on here, but there is a big distance between #fakenews / "this was all overblown" and SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN NOW UNTIL 2022 OR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE BECAUSE INTERNET POSTS = #SCIENCE AND #BUBONICPLAGUE. There is a reasonable middle ground with which this situation can be viewed.

Either that or this is much less dangerous than reported. Either way it is good news, but puts us back in the 45 degree snowday scenario.

Which again is good given the numbers, but it means that the numbers are skewed one way or another from what is being reported.
 
Wonderful. So please explain how the reciprocal 85%, 60%, 50%, and 30% respective usage in Mecklenburg County, with its population of 1.11 million and 1,000 cases and 19 deaths makes sense unless either the virus does not spread as easily as reported or is much more asymptomatic than reported? To determine the danger of the spread of the virus, the issue is not the number of cases in light of who is NOT participating in society, it is the number of cases relative to those who are still actively participating in society.

What is the worst-case tolerable infection rate, 10%? Even that seems low given the low death rate, but assume it is 10%. So for our 1,000 cases that means 10,000 people would have to not be social distancing for it to be troublesome. There are a hell of lot more than 10,000 people who get the Essential Worker Participation Trophy in Meck Co, it is in the hundreds of thousands. The numbers just don't hold water.

I think the numbers hold water just fine. I think your understanding of epidemiology and virology is flawed.
 
I think the numbers hold water just fine. I think your understanding of epidemiology and virology is flawed.

I understand math just fine. So in a city of 1.1 million people, assume 80% are social distancing and 20% are not (from what I've seen the breakdown is much more even, but I'll go with 20% for argument's sake). So take it to the extreme and assume that none of the 880,000 who are social distancing get infected, the virus doesn't even know they exist. That still leaves a city of 220,000 people with no social distancing. So over the course of a month, those 220,000 non-social-distancing people have resulted in 1,000 cases deemed severe enough to be tested and 125 deaths. Assuming no natural interference (i.e. pollen) the only logical conclusions that can be drawn from that is that either: (a) it is much less contagious than believed, or (b) it is much more asymptomatic than believed.
 
A normal flu has a mortality rate of 1/10 of 1%. This one is 2-3%. That is massively more deadly.
 
You're assuming reintroducing 880,000 people into the potential virus pool would result in a linear increase (i.e. if 220k = 1k cases then 1.1 mil = 5k cases) when in reality (from what little I know about epidemiology) due to the way viruses transmit we'd likely be looking at an exponential curve based on a return to normal (i.e. if 220k = 1k cases then 1.1 mil = some unknown factor of those 1k cases [but a hell of a lot more than the linear increase])

That's just if we take the numbers of those who have been tested!
 
I understand math just fine. So in a city of 1.1 million people, assume 80% are social distancing and 20% are not (from what I've seen the breakdown is much more even, but I'll go with 20% for argument's sake). So take it to the extreme and assume that none of the 880,000 who are social distancing get infected, the virus doesn't even know they exist. That still leaves a city of 220,000 people with no social distancing. So over the course of a month, those 220,000 non-social-distancing people have resulted in 1,000 cases deemed severe enough to be tested and 125 deaths. Assuming no natural interference (i.e. pollen) the only logical conclusions that can be drawn from that is that either: (a) it is much less contagious than believed, or (b) it is much more asymptomatic than believed.

Math, ok. But this isn't a math problem. This is an epidemiology/virology/public health problem.

Who told you that 220,000 people failing to social distance resulting in 1,000 cases deemed severe enough to be tested and 125 deaths is illogical?

What I'm saying is that while it may be illogical to you, it's not illogical to those who actually understand the disciplines above.

Just because you don't have the education to understand a thing doesn't mean the thing doesn't make sense.
 
also, social distancing isn't a binary thing

e.g. 2&2 presumably isn't social distancing from his family within his house, but is also not going to the store a lot

part of the calculation is that, even for folks that are doing construction or whatever other job you list, they are keeping their interactions to the same people day in and day out, not going to the mall or church or the gym, so even people that are out there working close to each other, the rest of their day-to-day lives are greatly reducing the chances for the disease to spread
 
Correct. It's entirely possible, even probable, for one person in a couple to get the 'rona and the other partner or their children to not get it. Another example is car or plane travel. It's not like everyone in a same car or plane magically gets sick if someone has the virus. The droplets have to make the transfer from one person into the other. It takes specific contact pathways in a somewhat sustained manner for transmission to actually happen. That's not a 1:1 proximity thing. Sure, more probable in close proximity, but nowhere near guaranteed.

It's the 'rona, not the measles with it's ridiculously high R0 of 12-18 due to it's stability in air for hours.
 
I understand math just fine. So in a city of 1.1 million people, assume 80% are social distancing and 20% are not (from what I've seen the breakdown is much more even, but I'll go with 20% for argument's sake). So take it to the extreme and assume that none of the 880,000 who are social distancing get infected, the virus doesn't even know they exist. That still leaves a city of 220,000 people with no social distancing. So over the course of a month, those 220,000 non-social-distancing people have resulted in 1,000 cases deemed severe enough to be tested and 125 deaths. Assuming no natural interference (i.e. pollen) the only logical conclusions that can be drawn from that is that either: (a) it is much less contagious than believed, or (b) it is much more asymptomatic than believed.

Have you not seen NY and NJ? It can clearly spread quickly and be quite deadly. Social distancing is working to slow the infection rate in NC. Based on your knowledge of viral epidemiology, what percent of Mecklenburg Co do you think should have severe infections at this time?
 
A normal flu has a mortality rate of 1/10 of 1%. This one is 2-3%. That is massively more deadly.

Covid is clearly much more deadly than the seasonal flu. However, most articles I am seeing are saying the actual mortality rate is more like 1% - still 10 times worse than the flu but not the 2%-5% it was reported to be for a while. The discrepancy, of course, comes from the larger than previously known percentage of people with the infection that are asymptomatic and the lack of widespread testing.
 
Math, ok. But this isn't a math problem. This is an epidemiology/virology/public health problem.

Who told you that 220,000 people failing to social distance resulting in 1,000 cases deemed severe enough to be tested and 125 deaths is illogical?

What I'm saying is that while it may be illogical to you, it's not illogical to those who actually understand the disciplines above.

Just because you don't have the education to understand a thing doesn't mean the thing doesn't make sense.

But it is a math problem when gauging the relative response. Using the 1,000 cases and 125 deaths for 220,000 people without social distancing, that is an infection rate of 0.45% and a death rate of 0.06% of total population (which again doesn't even factor in the massive number of of asymptomatic people). By way of comparison, 1.33% of Americans were injured in car wrecks last year, but we aren't limiting families to one car per household to slow the number. The 2019 heart disease death rate across the population was 0.25%, yet we aren't limiting meat consumption. Recognizing that those are different types of incidents, the level of response has also been exponentially different.

And from what I've seen from the "models" of those who purport to "actually understand the disciplines above" their logic seems to be on par with the milkwich forecasters. They were predicting death in the streets unless competent responses were immediately undertaken, and by all account Trump's response has been the opposite of competent, yet the actual numbers are still significantly lower than "those who actually understand the disciplines above" predicted. So no I'm not putting much faith in the accuracy of their understanding or their models, as they clearly don't know shit more than someone throwing darts at the wall.
 
Last edited:
2&2 is like RJ-level arrogant without the intellectual chops to back it up
 
Back
Top