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COVID Thread 2: Operation Ludicrous Speed ! (Super Political!!!)

A normal seasonal influenza has an R0 close to one, the ability to halt transmission is pretty high. The covid-19 mitigation measures could easily drop the numbers to almost zero. Even just the simple change in attitude of I’m sick I stay home from work instead of exposing everyone in my office. You could make the argument that because of the system being overwhelmed influenza cases were being missed but in a hospital setting all the symptoms associated were checked with a covid and flu test so deaths were probably more accurate. The case count overall is usually a weird mathematical model anyways so the confidence interval on that number is high, but the take away is the mitigation strategies work, and work better for flu.
 
Liquid Karma said:
I am highly skeptical of those numbers, largely because we know that a large portion of the population did NOT mask up and surely those fuckers aren't at home washing their hands constantly.

Obviously, the lack of schools being opened played a huge role in reducing transmission. We know the numbers went down, but to see it almost statistically zeroed out doesn't pass the proverbial smell test.

All that said, this is great news and I am considering having my kids mask up during the heavy flu months when they are in school going forward.
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The numbers are absolutely insane, but they are correct. I posted a few weeks back that normally 200 kids die from flu in the US annually, but this year only 1 did. There was still a ton of flu testing (it was combined with COVID testing in most cases), but there just wasn't any flu. There are a lot of potential explanations - but I think social distancing (specifically minimal in-person school) was probably the biggest driver.
 
PhDeac said:
Even the anti-mask crowd masked up in places that required it. I have no doubt by staying at home, distancing, masking, we cut transmission by 99+%. Nobody lived the exact same life they did before all this. The story is how much worse COVID would have been if we didn’t do all of that.
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That is absolutely correct. COVID was horrible - we'll probably lose 800,000+ Americans - but it would have been so much worse without the measures that were put in place. There isn't a question that distancing and masking work - just look at the countries like New Zealand that took an aggressive approach.
 
Rafi said:
The numbers are absolutely insane, but they are correct. I posted a few weeks back that normally 200 kids die from flu in the US annually, but this year only 1 did. There was still a ton of flu testing (it was combined with COVID testing in most cases), but there just wasn't any flu. There are a lot of potential explanations - but I think social distancing (specifically minimal in-person school) was probably the biggest driver.
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If I'm reading the data correctly there were barely a million flu tests administered since September. That's not a ton of testing.
 
Rafi said:
The numbers are absolutely insane, but they are correct. I posted a few weeks back that normally 200 kids die from flu in the US annually, but this year only 1 did. There was still a ton of flu testing (it was combined with COVID testing in most cases), but there just wasn't any flu. There are a lot of potential explanations - but I think social distancing (specifically minimal in-person school) was probably the biggest driver.
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Good to know. Thanks.
 
Louis Gossett Jr said:
A normal seasonal influenza has an R0 close to one, the ability to halt transmission is pretty high. The covid-19 mitigation measures could easily drop the numbers to almost zero. Even just the simple change in attitude of I’m sick I stay home from work instead of exposing everyone in my office. You could make the argument that because of the system being overwhelmed influenza cases were being missed but in a hospital setting all the symptoms associated were checked with a covid and flu test so deaths were probably more accurate. The case count overall is usually a weird mathematical model anyways so the confidence interval on that number is high, but the take away is the mitigation strategies work, and work better for flu.
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I don't deny the mitigation strategies work. I've said before I personally hope public schools adopt a mask policy during FLU season going forward, but I know it won't happen. I'm just highly skeptical of the magnitude of the reduction. It's a 99.99% reduction.
 
"man, turns out people just don't get sick when you do stuff"

"nah, that's all just BIG COVID propaganda"
 
Liquid Karma said:
If I'm reading the data correctly there were barely a million flu tests administered since September. That's not a ton of testing.
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If you are looking at the CDC site (which is the best place to look), those are just tests reported to the CDC for virologic surveillance. Most-in-office or in-hospital rapid tests are not reported to the CDC. And the numbers are similar to previous years - in 2018-2019, for example, 1.1 million tests were reported.

In a typical year, about 20% of flu tests are positive. This year it was 0.2%.
 
Rafi said:
In a typical year, about 20% of flu tests are positive. This year it was 0.2%.
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Whoa. That's a massive change. Even if the number of tests over all are down, the positivity rate dropping by an order of magnitude is significant.
 
Weird how reducing transmission by 99% results in a 99% less positivity.
 
PhDeac said:
Weird how reducing transmission by 99% results in a 99% less positivity.
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To me, rates are more convincing than raw numbers. A 35000 reduction in the number of cases doesn't mean a whole lot if the number test declined as well. Rates allow inference independent of raw numbers and measurement effort problems.
 
I did a statistical cross survey of me (n=1) and there was no flu, not even a cold or extended period of cough this year and that particular population (me) always has an extended period of sumpin' each Winter.
 
DeacHead said:
I did a statistical cross survey of me (n=1) and there was no flu, not even a cold or extended period of cough this year and that particular population (me) always has an extended period of sumpin' each Winter.
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make that N=2
 
Yeah I feel like those numbers are far more believable for those of us with, say, a couple toddlers in daycare that used to bring home a weekly illness, however minor, from the human petri dish of group childcare. Neither of my kids got so much as the sniffles since mask times hit. It's kind of incredible really - definitely has me re-thinking the idea of masking up after COVID is really behind us.
 
Have to wonder if the era of handshaking is behind us also, though I doubt it. It’s so ingrained in what you might call our cultural muscle memory. But I do think/wish it could morph into an alternative greeting such as at least a fist bump or something akin to that. Or just a smile when you greet someone, what’s wrong with that?
 
DeacDaddy said:
Have to wonder if the era of handshaking is behind us also, though I doubt it. It’s so ingrained in what you might call our cultural muscle memory. But I do think/wish it could morph into an alternative greeting such as at least a fist bump or something akin to that. Or just a smile when you greet someone, what’s wrong with that?
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I am pretty surprised at how many times people have tried to shake my hand in recent weeks as I've ventured out into society more. The first time I just "instinctively" complied and shook back.
 
DCDeac said:
Yeah I feel like those numbers are far more believable for those of us with, say, a couple toddlers in daycare that used to bring home a weekly illness, however minor, from the human petri dish of group childcare. Neither of my kids got so much as the sniffles since mask times hit. It's kind of incredible really - definitely has me re-thinking the idea of masking up after COVID is really behind us.
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Yep. I'm a fully vaccinated masker. I don't miss airborne illnesses.
 
birdman said:
I am pretty surprised at how many times people have tried to shake my hand in recent weeks as I've ventured out into society more. The first time I just "instinctively" complied and shook back.
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Yeah. I instinctively tried to shake hands before thinking twice. So many cultures have had this figured out for centuries.
 
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