General Corona Virus Discussion

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Uwe

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-Uwe-
 
   #283  

DV52

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^^^^^hmm.......... interesting, but the curious dynamic in the graph begs the question - why?

Has the virus now mutated to make it less deadly ( but more virulent), have medical practices become more informed (and therefore more effective), or are deaths in the US now being allocated differently when there are other underlying issues that coincide with covid, and death occurs? Or a combination of these?

Don
 
   #284  

Uwe

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^^^^^hmm.......... interesting, but the curious dynamic in the graph begs the question - why?

Has the virus now mutated to make it less deadly ( but more virulent), have medical practices become more informed (and therefore more effective), or are deaths in the US now being allocated differently when there are other underlying other issues that coincide with covid, and death occurs? Or a combination of these?
Probably a combination.

I wouldn't necessarily say "mutated", The most successful viruses are ones that don't kill their host, and in fact, don't make the hosts so sick that they self-isolate, but that spread with the greatest ease. So some natural selection toward less severe and more virulent is to be expected.

Medical practices have indeed improved. We no longer blow people's lungs out by putting them on ventilators and cranking up the pressure. We've figured out that for bad cases, certain steroids can be quite helpful (which implies that it's not the virus itself that's killing people, but rather an immune system over-reaction to it).

We're also discovering (and thus reporting) a lot more cases than we were a couple of months ago. Hospitals are open for non-emergency procedures again, and they're testing everyone who's being admitted. Go to the hospital for surgery of some sort, get tested, have the test come up positive, and bam, you're a reported Covid case, whether you ever have any Covid symptoms or not. Early on, the only way to get tested was if you had severe Covid symptoms to begin with. Now, pretty much anyone who wants a test can get a test. Got a sore throat? A headache? A cough? Get a test. It's positive? You're a reported Covid case, whether the symptoms ever get any worse or not.

Then there's the demographic aspect. The people who are out and about and catching it are the young ones. In Florida, the peak of the age distribution curve of all these new cases in in the low twenties. These "kids" are highly unlikely to die of this virus.

I do not think that cause-of-death coding/reporting is a significant factor. If you look at all-cause mortality, it was clearly above seasonal averages for a while this spring, but has now reverted back to normal levels.

-Uwe-
 
   #286  

Uwe

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Let's see how the death trendline looks in 2 weeks.
Look at how tightly it tracked the rise in new cases back in March and early April, and how continued tracking the the slow decrease in new cases through the middle of May. Then then note the clear divergence that started in the second half of May. The steady rise in new cases started in early June, a full month ago, while the number of deaths has kept falling. Are you proposing that deaths now lag cases by well over a month?

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   #287  

Mike R

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Look at how tightly it tracked the rise in new cases back in March and early April, and how continued tracking the the slow decrease in new cases through the middle of May. Then then note the clear divergence that started in the second half of May. The steady rise in new cases started in early June, a full month ago, while the number of deaths has kept falling. Are you proposing that deaths now lag cases by well over a month?

-Uwe-

p3XJbQN.png


Cases started to rise the week of June 19th

8yF7iGf.png


Deaths have started rising this past week with July 8th.

3 weeks isn't really that unreasonable of a time for a disease like this.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/12/coronavirus-kills-average-185-days/

This is certainly an old article and it was based off of initial chinese numbers, but it claims average time to kill from testing positive was 18.5 days. Given our at least marginally better understanding of this now as well as better medical technology in the US, saying that it's slightly higher here seems entirely reasonable.
 
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Mike R

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Proportionally, I still expect to see a lower fatality rate as a whole given that many of the new cases are amongst younger people (but deffffffffffinitely not because of the protests. Nope. Couldn't be. Unless it's a lockdown protest........)

But lets not misconstrue the ultimate message I'm trying to say here. If you were in a vulnerable demographic before, you're still vulnerable now. If you weren't, then you still aren't now. If you're someone who's more at risk, you should not be throwing caution to the wind, and we all should still be wearing masks when we are near others.
 
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Uwe

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Party time or time to die?

https://people.com/health/30-year-old-dies-after-attending-covid-party-texas/?amp=true
Patient, 30, Dies After Attending 'COVID Party' in Texas, Told Nurse 'I Think I Made a Mistake'
There's no doubt that there will be an isolated death of a young person here and there, and that the media (People Magazine, really?) will hype them endlessly. Of course there are isolated deaths of young people from influenza, cancer, and even heart attacks, but the statistical risk to them from WuFlu remains negligible.

Notice also that they didn't mention whether he had any underlying conditions, and the fact that they didn't even try to claim he was a "healthy" 30 year old makes me wonder what information they're omitting.

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   #292  

Uwe

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Absolutely true! We've seen some stories of centenarians pulling through on this side of the pond as well.

However, there's no doubt that risk of death increases exponentially with age. This chart is a couple of months old, but I don't think the stats have changed much:

jAadPX8.png


And here's the US CDC's data through July 8th:
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku
The bottom of that page has a table with age-group break-downs.

-Uwe-
 
   #293  

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Absolutely true! We've seen some stories of centenarians pulling through on this side of the pond as well.

However, there's no doubt that risk of death increases exponentially with age. This chart is a couple of months old, but I don't think the stats have changed much:

jAadPX8.png


And here's the US CDC's data through July 8th:
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku
The bottom of that page has a table with age-group break-downs.

-Uwe-
For me the most interesting thing about that graph (I too saw it several months ago) is that the "normal" death rate increases with age at the same rate as the Covid-19 death rate.

Interesting fact - in most regions of the UK the death rate (due to all causes) is now LOWER than the 5 year average. Does that suggest that Covid-19 has brought forward the death of some who would have died anyway, resulting in a higher death rate in the April/May timeframe and a subsequently lower death rate?

Given the research made public last week that Covid-19 spreads best when the temperature is around 4 Celsius (40 Fahrenheit) it would be no surprise to see an increase in Covid-19 cases in late Fall and Winter.
 
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DV52

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For me the most interesting thing about that graph (I too saw it several months ago) is that the "normal" death rate increases with age at the same rate as the Covid-19 death rate.

Dave: do you have a theory for your observation?

Don
PS: the other "interesting" observation in the graph is the decreasing benefit with age of the XX chromosome in combating COVID. Probably to be expected, but nevertheless it supports the contention by some that the Y chromosome is nothing more than a mutation of the natural state of the species! ;)

Don
 
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Uwe

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Given the research made public last week that Covid-19 spreads best when the temperature is around 4 Celsius (40 Fahrenheit) [...]
Based on the outbreaks in meat processing plants, where the entire building is basically a giant walk-in refrigerator, this makes a lot of sense, but I didn't see the research you're referring to. Got a link?

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   #297  

PetrolDave

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Dave: do you have a theory for your observation?
In the UK we get daily updates on several different death figures - the deaths mentioning Covid-19 is just over 44,000 but the excess deaths (i.e. over the 5 year average) is around 65,000.

Is that difference solely down to untested Covid-19 deaths or are there also some "early" deaths in there? That's my theory.
 
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