COVID-19 Coronavirus Containment Efforts

[OmCheeto]

Such news items, in my experience, are full of data analysis fallacies.

Speaking of analysis fallacies, the other day I did some of my suspicious maths, and ended up with my state(Oregon) having the worst increase rate of cases in the nation. And there, after being the Australia of America as far as total death rates go... (#5 from the bottom)

Did I do this wrong?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Did I do this wrong?

This is PF, where we ask you to show your work.

I don't see wherre you get 36.2%. If you are comparing 186344/4217737 and 166822/4217737, you are comparing 4.42% with 3.96%. That looks to me more like 11% than 36%.

​

 

[OmCheeto]

This is PF, where we ask you to show you r work.

I don't see wherre you tget 36.2%. If you are comparing 186344/4217737 and 166822/4217737, you are comparing 4.42% with 3.96%. That looks to me more like 11% than 36%.

​

The very bottom of the image shows my work.

 

[Vanadium 50]

The very bottom of the image shows my work.

So that's what that is!

That expression is extremely sensitive to the value on 4/18. If for whatever reason those numbers go in one day early or one day late it will change your 36.2% by 28% (absolute) or 79% of its value.

 

[PeroK]

The very bottom of the image shows my work.

It's a fairly meaningless figure, which I don't think is telling you anything important. Not directly anyway.

That calculation is very sensitive to small variations. Imagine moving $2,000$ cases from the middle fortnight to the last. Overall that's not a big deal, but it would make a huge difference to your calculation.

 

[OmCheeto]

It's a fairly meaningless figure, which I don't think is telling you anything important. Not directly anyway.

That calculation is very sensitive to small variations. Imagine moving $2,000$ cases from the middle fortnight to the last. Overall that's not a big deal, but it would make a huge difference to your calculation.

I think the figure got us from "never being average" to "exceeding the average", for the first time in this pandemic.

This is the "Chubris" I was talking about the other day.
Fortunately, our vaccinations are getting up to snuff, and the death age demographic rates are to the point where they are what I would call 100% noise.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

I don't really get where that come from.

Here's a figure from a CDC publication on excess deaths in the US during the pandemic:

FIGURE 2. Percentage change in the weekly number of deaths in 2020 relative to average in the same weeks during 2015–2019, by age group — United States, 2015–2019 and 2020
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm

The data goes only up to Oct 3, 2020, so it misses the major surge in Winter 2020-2021 as well as later data where the newer variants account for most infections.

 

[AlexCaledin]

Even as a deadly second wave of Covid-19 ravages India, doctors are now reporting a rash of cases involving a rare infection - also called the "black fungus" - among recovering and recovered Covid-19 patients.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57027829

This aggressive infection affects the nose, eye and sometimes the brain.

 

[OmCheeto]

Even as a deadly second wave of Covid-19 ravages India, doctors are now reporting a rash of cases involving a rare infection - also called the "black fungus" - among recovering and recovered Covid-19 patients.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57027829

Wrichik mentioned the fungus a few days ago.

Not COVID-19, but definitely related to it:

https://www.hindustantimes.com/citi...-among-covid-19-patients-101620320873994.html

I was surprised to see that it causes blood clots, and was curious if it might be the cause of the breakthrough deaths in young women.

"One such sign is fungal invasion into the blood vessels which results in the formation of blood clots ..." ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucormycosis​

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Even as a deadly second wave of Covid-19 ravages India, doctors are now reporting a rash of cases involving a rare infection - also called the "black fungus" - among recovering and recovered Covid-19 patients.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57027829

This aggressive infection affects the nose, eye and sometimes the brain.

That fungus is deadly. The BBC article mentions surgical removal of the eye; I have read in other newspapers that jaw bone and nose had to be removed in many cases. The BBC article wrote that the intravenous injection that can treat the fungal infection costs about $48; but I have read in several other papers that it costs around $123 (INR 9000), and it has to be taken daily for 21 consecutive days. Diabetic patients are at the most risk.

 

[Rive]

Here's a figure from a CDC publication on excess deaths in the US during the pandemic:

Sorry, the question was not about sources. I was wondering about the reason why the existence of 'sudden deaths' was dismissed with such unrelated statistics.

 

[russ_watters]

There are/were reported cases among young about having negligible symptoms with already developing pneumonia

Also, there seems to be a percentage of victims having the first 'real' symptom as sudden death.

Thought it's common knowledge by now.
random link (with good references included) by looking for 'covid sudden death'.

Your source does not support your claim. Far from being "common knowledge", it looks to me like you're taking two extra steps of logic to reach a conclusion beyond what your sources says:

2. Your source was describing statistical associations between COVID infection rates and out of hospital cardiac arrest/sudden deaths (OHCA/OHSD) only. It makes no mention of whether any of the people who died suddenly were even tested for COVID much less presents data about those rates. It suggest a *possible* causal link between OHCA/OHSD and COVID infection, *or* between OHCA/OHSD and COVID lockdown.

1. As @Vanadium 50 keeps having to point out, there is a difference between dying *of* COVID and dying *with* COVID. A lot of people have gotten COVID over the past year and a lot of people die every year - more last year. Some of those deaths will overlap regardless of if COVID infection is the part of the cause of death or not. This is the same logical problem as having a blood clot after a J&J vaccination vs a blood clot from a J&J vaccination. Or even autism after MMR vaccination vs autism from MMR vaccination.

You can make the same spurious analysis with other causes of death, but the preposterousness of those shouldn't distract you from the logical problem being the same: does COVID infection cause blunt force trauma (car accidents) and penetrative injuries (gunshot wounds) too?

So again:
2. Statistical association does not prove causation.
1. Coincidence (positive test at the same time as the death) isn't even proof of causation.

 

[Rive]

2. Statistical association does not prove causation.

Sorry for the confusion. I did not intended to prove anything. I've just provided a starting point.

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry for the confusion. I did not intended to prove anything. I've just provided a starting point.

That's really not good enough. You made a very strong claim about something very dubious and you do in fact need to prove it (provide evidence for it). Your wording even implies it is beyond proven ("common knowledge"). You may retract it, but you can't just let it stand unsubstantiated.

 

[Vanadium 50]

This is the same logical problem as having a blood clot after a J&J vaccination vs a blood clot from a J&J vaccination.

Technically not. One is "Cum hoc ergo propter hoc" (with this, therefore because of this) and the other is "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" (after this therefore because of this). Learn those fallacies!

I think there actually is more to the J&J blood clot story than post hoc reasoning. All the victims were women under 50, which is not what one expects from random chance. I think the better argument is that the risk is very small compared to the Covid risk. To put it in perspective, vaccinating the entire US probably involves a billion or two miles of driving. That's maybe 20 deaths from traffic accidents compared to, I think, 4 from the vaccine.

 

[russ_watters]

Technically not. One is "Cum hoc ergo propter hoc" (with this, therefore because of this) and the other is "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" (after this therefore because of this). Learn those fallacies!

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not. "After vaccination" = "while vaccinated".

Latin is a dead language.

I think there actually is more to the J&J blood clot story than post hoc reasoning. All the victims were women under 50, which is not what one expects from random chance. I think the better argument is that the risk is very small compared to the Covid risk.

I agree, but when news of the association first came out it was just that, an association. We started running numbers on statistical likelihood that it was a coincidence/statistical anomaly. After some digging, it was found that certain specific types of blood clots are likely causally linked to the vaccine. We may yet find out that COVID infection causes heart attacks in otherwise asymptomatic people.

The line of reasoning starting from a vague statistical association to a possible causal link may end with a yes, a no, or a maybe. In that case it ends with a "yes". It may be a counterpoint, but it is also an illustration of how a proper endpoint of the investigation can be reached. I've seen no evidence so far that the necessary analysis has been done to lead to a conclusion for sudden death in otherwise asymptomatic people.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

I agree, but when news of the association first came out it was just that, an association. We started running numbers on statistical likelihood that it was a coincidence/statistical anomaly. After some digging, it was found that certain specific types of blood clots are likely causally linked to the vaccine. We may yet find out that COVID infection causes heart attacks in otherwise asymptomatic people.

The line of reasoning starting from a vague statistical association to a possible causal link may end with a yes, a no, or a maybe. In that case it ends with a "yes". It may be a counterpoint, but it is also an illustration of how a proper endpoint of the investigation can be reached. I've seen no evidence so far that the necessary analysis has been done to lead to a conclusion for sudden death in otherwise asymptomatic people.

I think this leaves out important sources of evidence that go beyond just statistical association and point to likely mechanisms behind the clotting, such as the observed similarities to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) and finding similar anti-PF4 antibodies in those experiencing the vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) as those experiencing HIT (see https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104840 and https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2104882).

As for the out of hospital cardiac arrest events reported in the link @Rive cited, recall that hospitals saw fewer admissions for conditions like heart attacks and strokes at the height of the pandemic (likely because people were hesitant to go to the hospitals for fear of getting infected and from news reports of the hospitals being overwhelmed), so it follows that there should have been more deaths from conditions like these outside of hospitals.

 

[russ_watters]

I think this leaves out important sources of evidence that go beyond just statistical association and point to likely mechanisms...

Understood; ultimately to prove a causal link you need a known cause (mechanism). The stats can help point to the issue being real (and may point toward the mechanism), but can't themselves prove it.

As for the out of hospital cardiac arrest events reported in the link @Rive cited, recall that hospitals saw fewer admissions for conditions like heart attacks and strokes at the height of the pandemic (likely because people were hesitant to go to the hospitals for fear of getting infected and from news reports of the hospitals being overwhelmed), so it follows that there should have been more deaths from conditions like these outside of hospitals.

Yes, I think that is a pretty obvious/likely explanation.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Latin is a dead language.

Horribile dictu!

An example of cum hoc is "he died after contracting Covid, therefore Covid killed him". An example of post hoc is "after she got the shot she died, therefore the shot killed her". The difference is subtle.

After some digging, it was found that certain specific types of blood clots are likely causally linked to the vaccine.

Is that known? Or do we have a chain of plausibility but nothing quite so direct. When I first heard women under 50, my first thought was birth control. (OK, that was my second thought - my first was "how much under 50"?) That's a known cause of blood clots in women in that demographic, especially if "under 50" means "well under 50". If that's the case, who is to say that vaccines cause blood clots in women on birth control or birth control causes blood clots in women who are vaccinated?

Even if this isn't the situation this time, I think it's a good illustration of the difficulty in assigning causality. Which cigarette was the one that gave someone cancer?

We may yet find out that COVID infection causes heart attacks in otherwise asymptomatic people.

We might.
Or we might find, as @Ygggdrasil suggests it is rooted in people's inability to see a doctor during the lockdown. (I have two friends with heart conditions, and both are having difficulty seeing their doctors)
Or we might find that it is rooted in the constant "we're all going to die!" messaging. (People's estimate of the risk of 45-and-unders is 10x worse than it really is.)
Or we might find that it is rooted in the stress of not being able to support one's family because one is non-essential and unimportant.
Or it might be something else.
Or a combination.

 

[fresh_42]

I (re)moved several posts about fauna. Please stay on topic.

 

[OmCheeto]

Just looking at the graph, it looks to me like there is a negative correlation overall (have you calculated the correlation coefficient for the data?).

0.026
(my apologies for taking so long. I'm fairly certain I've never run across "correlation coefficient" in my studies, and had to figure out what it was. I used the first wiki reference I could find.)

I think the better thing to do is to sum this into deciles

Not sure if I did this right.

I'm 99.9% confident that the maths is correct. My spreadsheet has a "Show R² Value" function when I make it display a linear trendline and the "r²" values match my "r" values in all 10 cases.

As to how to interpret this bar-graph, um, I'm going to need some assistance here.

It looked to me like decile #3 has a really nice "r" number(0.76). So I removed just one of the data points(Bronx NY) and "r" went down to 0.30. Removing the next two(Philadelphia PA and Nassau NY) changed "r" to -0.15. I stuck me as odd that 3 entries out of 25 could have such a large effect.

In other words, do you analyze each individual decile, or do you look at them as a collective?
Or perhaps groups? Deciles 4 and 5 seem to be not that different in population sizes, yet the coefficients are polar opposites. Ditto with deciles 3 & 4, 6 & 7, and 1 & 2.

 

[dlgoff]

Why haven't states made COVID-19 vaccinations required for schools?
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/records/schools.html
By State:
https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/healthdirectories/healthdepartments.html

 

[Vanadium 50]

Why haven't states made COVID-19 vaccinations required for schools?

Because the EUA is for people 16 and up.

 

[dlgoff]

Because the EUA is for people 16 and up.

Yes, but there are trials now for kids as young a 6 months. Do you think that after that maybe vaccinations for COVID will become mandatory for US kids in order to enroll in elementary school?

 

[Borg]

I didn't think that an emergency use vaccine could be mandated.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Do you think that after that maybe vaccinations for COVID will become mandatory for US kids in order to enroll in elementary school?

Probably not. Measles kills more kids (worldwide) and its not mandatory.

 

[dlgoff]

Probably not. Measles kills more kids (worldwide) and its not mandatory.

It is in the US.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html

 

[Vanadium 50]

There are plenty of unvaccinated kids - that's where the measles outbreaks come from.

By "mandatory" they mean "unless you don't want to".

 

[dlgoff]

There are plenty of unvaccinated kids - that's where the measles outbreaks come from.

View attachment 282915

By "mandatory" they mean "unless you don't want to".

Okay, maybe world wide.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

I didn't think that an emergency use vaccine could be mandated.

There are arguments on both sides of the issue:

Federal law prohibits employers and others from requiring vaccination with a Covid-19 vaccine distributed under an EUA
https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/23...-a-covid-19-vaccine-distributed-under-an-eua/

‘Authorization’ status is a red herring when it comes to mandating Covid-19 vaccination
https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/05...19-vaccine-red-herring-mandating-vaccination/

 

[russ_watters]

[April 12, 2021]
We're a bit behind what I was predicting overall, mostly due to the J&J vaccine continuing to not ramp up. It just started to ramp at the beginning of April, from about 100,000 doses administered per day, to 350,000 as of a few days ago. If it continues that ramp rate, it won't meet the 95M goal...

We could reach 5 million/day by the end of May, but that probably won't even happen. We're at 3 million/day now...

I've seen in my graph of the running totals that the distribution pipeline is starting to lengthen, which may be a result of starting to "run out of people to vaccinate" in Phase 1.

These are looking a week or so behind, but again we'll run out of people to vaccinate anyway before we get to them. We'll start to find out in a few weeks just how much vaccine hesitancy there is.

The J&J pause really threw a monkey-wrench into all of this, and it is impossible to tell how the pause affected the peak vaccination rate beyond simply establishing the date of the peak. The US's peak vaccination rate over a week was 3.22 million/day, in the week ending April 13, the day before the pause. At that time, the J&J vaccine accounted for 460,000 per day.

We're now running out of people to vaccinate, but it is tough to tell how much the J&J pause affected the timing of it. The pause took about 3 days to become effective, but even at that, the rate of vaccinations has dropped smoothly since then, to about 2 million/day as of 5/6. President Biden's directive was for "everyone else" to be made eligible by April 19. Assuming a backlog of "everyone else's" of about a week, one might have expected the rate to peak around April 26, about two weeks later than it actually did.

Even after being reinstated, J&J vaccinations are only back up to about 80,000 /day (though still slowly rising), so the pause totally destroyed the J&J vaccination effort. And reinstating it hasn't turned the total vaccinations/day needle back positive. Using myself as an example of the impact on the rates/timing, the pause caused me to re-schedule and change from J&J to Pfizer, delaying my first dose by 5 days and full vaccination by 3.5 weeks.

Overall, first doses peaked at 1.66 M/day on April 1st and were down to about 700,000 a week ago. Second doses peaked at 1.46 M/day on April 22 and are down to 1.25 M/day. 118M fully vaccinated is 45% of those aged 16+. That's not good enough. I don't expect the rates to continue their rapid decay, as up until a few weeks ago people have been pushing to be vaccinated. Even two days ago I drove 30 miles for my second dose and waited in line an hour for it. I think we'll soon settle into a somewhat steady rate of people being pulled to be vaccinated. But it might only be half a million 1st doses a day. There are 70 million "delivered" doses in the distribution pipeline and we will be hard-pressed to use them even if we stopped new shipments tomorrow.

My local news has been talking for weeks about how great the recent pandemic progress is and how our infection rates are "plunging". Sure; the infection rate's dropped by a little more than half over the past three weeks. It's still about triple what it was in the late summer lull. Perhaps by the time my vaccine is fully engaged the numbers will be low enough for me to feel comfortable in a restaurant.

 

[pinball1970]

The J&J pause really threw a monkey-wrench into all of this, and it is impossible to tell how the pause affected the peak vaccination rate beyond simply establishing the date of the peak. The US's peak vaccination rate over a week was 3.22 million/day, in the week ending April 13, the day before the pause. At that time, the J&J vaccine accounted for 460,000 per day.

We're now running out of people to vaccinate, but it is tough to tell how much the J&J pause affected the timing of it. The pause took about 3 days to become effective, but even at that, the rate of vaccinations has dropped smoothly since then, to about 2 million/day as of 5/6. President Biden's directive was for "everyone else" to be made eligible by April 19. Assuming a backlog of "everyone else's" of about a week, one might have expected the rate to peak around April 26, about two weeks later than it actually did.

Even after being reinstated, J&J vaccinations are only back up to about 80,000 /day (though still slowly rising), so the pause totally destroyed the J&J vaccination effort. And reinstating it hasn't turned the total vaccinations/day needle back positive. Using myself as an example of the impact on the rates/timing, the pause caused me to re-schedule and change from J&J to Pfizer, delaying my first dose by 5 days and full vaccination by 3.5 weeks.

Overall, first doses peaked at 1.66 M/day on April 1st and were down to about 700,000 a week ago. Second doses peaked at 1.46 M/day on April 22 and are down to 1.25 M/day. 118M fully vaccinated is 45% of those aged 16+. That's not good enough. I don't expect the rates to continue their rapid decay, as up until a few weeks ago people have been pushing to be vaccinated. Even two days ago I drove 30 miles for my second dose and waited in line an hour for it. I think we'll soon settle into a somewhat steady rate of people being pulled to be vaccinated. But it might only be half a million 1st doses a day. There are 70 million "delivered" doses in the distribution pipeline and we will be hard-pressed to use them even if we stopped new shipments tomorrow.

My local news has been talking for weeks about how great the recent pandemic progress is and how our infection rates are "plunging". Sure; the infection rate's dropped by a little more than half over the past three weeks. It's still about triple what it was in the late summer lull. Perhaps by the time my vaccine is fully engaged the numbers will be low enough for me to feel comfortable in a restaurant.

I do not think the UK halted at any point like Europe over the AZ/clotting issue but our numbers peaked at around 800,000 mid March then dropped right off

We are at around 130,000 per day

It is not as if we had a lot more older people at the beginning and now we are running out of younger people.

The government is now asking 30s age group

Also I have heard of a few anecdotal stories of much younger people being offered the vaccine (my son and his partner both 26)
Also people being offered in the street!
There has been some vaccine hesitancy so this is going to lead to wastages I presume?
Shelf life of the vaccine so getting younger and younger people to fill those gaps?

 

[PeroK]

I do not think the UK halted at any point like Europe over the AZ/clotting issue but our numbers peaked at around 800,000 mid March then dropped right off

We are at around 130,000 per day
View attachment 282974

It is not as if we had a lot more older people at the beginning and now we are running out of younger people.

The government is now asking 30s age group
View attachment 282975
Also I have heard of a few anecdotal stories of much younger people being offered the vaccine (my son and his partner both 26)
Also people being offered in the street!
There has been some vaccine hesitancy so this is going to lead to wastages I presume?
Shelf life of the vaccine so getting younger and younger people to fill those gaps?

We've only slowed on the first round because most of the vaccinations recently (since the beginning of April) have been second doses. We're still doing about 3.5 million a week, but that's over 2.5 million second doses and less than a million first doses. This is, I imagine, near full capacity.

This will continue for about another four weeks and then we should transition back to the majority being first doses of the younger age groups. That will be the key time to reveal any hesitancy.

I got my second jab yesterday and it was very busy.

 

[pinball1970]

We've only slowed on the first round because most of the vaccinations recently (since the beginning of April) have been second doses. We're still doing about 3.5 million a week, but that's over 2.5 million second doses and less than a million first doses. This is, I imagine, near full capacity.

This will continue for about another four weeks and then we should transition back to the majority being first doses of the younger age groups. That will be the key time to reveal any hesitancy.

I got my second jab yesterday and it was very busy.

I did not even take the second jab numbers into account.
That makes sense now.

A mention in the metro this morning that half of new cases in London are of the Indian variant and quick search I found this

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ant-in-the-uk-seems-to-be-more-transmissible/

Take away is that is not more dangerous in terms of severe disease and “it doesn’t have the E484Q mutation which, like the E484K mutation, may be linked to helping it evade antibodies.”

Also this

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...iant-may-be-spreading-faster-than-kent-strain

“Despite concerns over the B.1.617.2 variant, the React study findings are encouraging. Across England, prevalence of the virus has fallen to about 1 in 1,000 people, a level not seen since August last year; however, case rates are twice as high in participants of an Asian heritage compared with white people.”

 

[PeroK]

This Indian variant is a worry. The numbers are small, but if it really can evade the vaccine then we're in trouble.