When looking at COVID fatality data, 2 things jumped out at me. 1) correlation between state population density and deaths per capita and 2) the shape of the curve of fatalities. If you build a model that estimates per capita fatalities using pop density and weeks beyond peak fatality day, you get a very strong predictor (89% R^2).
The (linear) equation is: Est fatalities per million = -56 + 14 * (weeks from peak) + .92 * (Pop Density)
Where there are large differences between estimated and actual, one could hypothesize that they are an indication of where that state is in the “curve” or lifecycle of the outbreak.
States that are the farthest along in the curve (expect declining fatality counts) are as follows:
States that are the furthest behind (expect rising fatality counts) are as follows:
Annual global deaths attributable to influenza: 650,000
Annual global deaths attributable to tuberculosis: 1,600,000
Case fatality rate of influenza for confirmed cases = 10% (scary)
Here are some very rough GLOBAL COVID 19 Estimates:
In this model…
Total global confirmed cases reach 1 million on 4/2
Total global confirmed cases reach 5 million on 4/22
Total global confirmed cases reach 10 million on 5/16
Peak global fatality day: April 26, 18,000
Total global fatalities through April 9: 100k
Total global fatalities through May 6: 500k
Total global fatalities through June 30: 640k
A really bad flu season, but hardly an apocalypse.
Sanity check: Ignore the reported case numbers. The reported confirmed cases are essentially meaningless in that they are not random samplings of the population and are plagued with selection bias that indicates a grossly exaggerated fatality rate. in other words, the only people getting tested are the ones who are already ill. Mild or asymptomatic cases are almost entirely ignored in the calculations.
This has been shown in a CDC study of the H1N1 outbreak of 2009.
The study predicted “laboratory-confirmed case equaled 166 infections in reality”. In other words, the true infection rate of the H1N1 outbreak was 135 to 212 times the confirmed case rate! And the prediction of that infection factor was proven out by antibody tests of the population. Applying the low end of this factor range to the 3/26/2020 confirmed case total of 531,865 and 24,073 fatalities implies, by extension, a true case fatality rate of .03%, or 3 out of 1000, or 1/135th less than what is reported by our agenda-driven, sensationalist media.
Case fatality rate accounting for ALL infections would be between .04% to .4% using the 2009 Beijing H1N1 outbreak factor as the low end the Diamond Princess sample factor as the high end.
But more testing is a paradox. The more cases, the more media hysteria. The more hysteria, the more panic. The more panic, the more outrageous assaults on civil liberties by bureaucrats. Increased testing will dramatically increase the case counts, but that, in turn, if it becomes more random rather than just testing sick people, will start to reduce the case fatality rate… eventually.
South Korea
“Journalists” keep touting S. Korea as the model for handling the virus due to their very low fatality rate.
You want to know how they did it?
They created 500 testing locations and tested 250,000 people. Turns out, 3% of that somewhat random sample set was infected. In other words, they radically increased the “confirmed cases” number which caused the fatality rate to plummet. It also implied that the virus is already everywhere in South Korea.
The testing in Vo actually implies what I have suspected and suggested from the start, that 1) COVID 19 has already spread beyond any realistic possibility of containment, meaning the economic destruction we’re suffering is pointless political theater, and 2) the virus is largely benign and asymptomatic.
Good news, BTW: It looks like Italy may have topped.
We’ll see what happens.
I’ll predict that Big Brother will come riding in to take the credit for any “flattening of the curve”, when in reality, the home detention and economic shutdown was probably useless to stop the virus that has already infected 3% of the population.
When this is over, it’s probably going to look like a bad flu season. Trouble is, we will be in a terrible recession, or worse, with an added $3 trillion in U.S. federal debt, 10-15% unemployment, and 401k values cut in half.
Assuming a $6 trillion price tag to combat this virus, I wonder how many ventilators, medical care salaries, supplemental incomes for at risk individuals, and temporary hospitals could have been built for a tiny fraction of that cost?
Politics is not guided by rationality. It’s driven by fear.
Hat tip to Bear Bussjaeger…
#DeepState, #ContinuityOfGovernment, #COG
Leslie Fish – The Digwell Carol Lyrics
It is the time of Digwell, now Summer’s gone away.
People come from miles around to meet on Digwell day.
We all come here with mighty stones, with gravel, rocks, and sand,
Bring it here with oxcarts or with buckets in your hand.
Chorus:
Pile high, pile high, the devil’s underground.
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down.
And bring you all your blighted crops and blighted beasts beside,
And coffins of this season’s dead that of the blight have died.
Bring them to the mountain’s top and fetch the boulders near,
‘Tis fitting that the blighted dead should all be buried here.
So fetch the boulders, sand, and stones, and pile them deeply here.
We bury now the sorrows, sins, and bad luck of the year,
And when the mountain’s higher by the mound we build today,
Then we shall feast and dance and sing this autumn night away.
For back in our forefathers’ time, the devils ruled this land.
They made cruel wars and laws to rule the folks on every hand.
They spoiled the land and water, and they poisoned half the sky.
They cared for nothing but their power, though man and nature die.
In time the danger grew so fierce it threatened them as well,
And so they dug deep in the Earth and hid them safe in Hell.
They hoped to wait in comfort ’till the poisons wore away,
For then they could come out again and rule another day.
They hid themselves below the ground and left the people here,
Amid the blight that they had made and even they must fear,
But still the people stayed alive, and well they promised then
That all the devils hid in Hell would never rule again.
And so our fathers hunted ’til they found the secret gate,
And there they piled the boulders high above where devils wait,
And thus we’ve ever after done these many years and more,
So now our manmade mountain stands above their exit door.
Pile high, pile high, the devil’s underground, oh,
Pile high, pile high, keep the devil down
“The once-distant planets of consumer Big Tech and American surveillance agencies are fast merging into a single corporate-bureaucratic life-world, whose potential for tracking, sorting, gas-lighting, manipulating, and censoring citizens may result in a softer version of China’s Big Brother…”
“With so many pots of gold waiting at the end of the Washington, DC, rainbow, it seems like a small matter for tech companies to turn over our personal data—which legally speaking, is actually their data—to the spy agencies that guarantee their profits. This is the threat that is now emerging in plain sight. It is something we should reckon with now, before it’s too late.”
“The 2008 election of Barack Obama, a well-credentialed technocrat who identified very strongly with the character of Spock from Star Trek, gave the old-time scientistic-progressive religion new currency on the left and ushered in a cozy relationship between the Democratic Party and billionaire techno-monopolists who had formerly fashioned themselves as government-skeptical libertarians.”
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