COVID-19

[Treetop Flyer]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/...sting.html#click=[URL]https://t.co/CF8CZZzhTe

[/URL]

Turns out a lot of our testing has been wildly inaccurate, misleading, and counter productive.

“In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found."

"On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases... If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing."

“In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. 'I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,' he said."

 

[SlickAg]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/...sting.html#click=[URL]https://t.co/CF8CZZzhTe

[/URL]

Turns out a lot of our testing has been wildly inaccurate, misleading, and counter productive.

“In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found."

"On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases... If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing."

“In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. 'I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,' he said."

But Team Apocalypse says we have to test! test! test! our way out of this.

NFL has 77 apparently false positive coronavirus tests from New Jersey lab

The NFL had 77 positive Covid-19 tests from 11 teams re-examined by a New Jersey lab after false positives, and all those tests came back negative.

www.cnbc.com

 

[SlickAg]

Yep. They basically wrote a paper that theorizes that flattening the curve works.

Also, you don't usually turn to economists for your SMEs on pandemics.

On the contrary:

"We argue that failing to account for these four stylized facts may result in overstating the importance of policy mandated NPIs for shaping the progression of this deadly pandemic."

The premise of their argument is the the virus' cycle is natural and NPIs have little to no effect on the curve.

And no, economists usually wouldn't be the SMEs, but here we are. They seem to be concerned with analyzing the data, rather than using the data to seek affirmation of their belief that masks and lockdowns are effective.

 

[Spekkio]

On the contrary:

"We argue that failing to account for these four stylized facts may result in overstating the importance of policy mandated NPIs for shaping the progression of this deadly pandemic."

The premise of their argument is the the virus' cycle is natural and NPIs have little to no effect on the curve.

Their argument isn't supported by the results in the paper. But that's what you get when economists try to do research outside their swim lanes.

 

[taxi1]

On the contrary:

"We argue that failing to account for these four stylized facts may result in overstating the importance of policy mandated NPIs for shaping the progression of this deadly pandemic."

The premise of their argument is the the virus' cycle is natural and NPIs have little to no effect on the curve.

Directly from the first paragraph of the paper...my bold.

In the month of March 2020, in many of the hotspots for COVID-19 around the world, daily deaths from the disease grew very fast — doubling every 2-3 days in the most severely impacted locations. In contrast, in other locations, early on in this pandemic, daily deaths from the disease grew much more slowly. This pattern of high and highly dispersed growth rates of daily deaths from COVID-19 ended very rapidly.

So the inference from the paper is that what you did in the immediate reaction was key. An immediate lockdown would result in much lower steady state death rate. The flattened curve stays flat.

 

[magnetfreezer]

Economists and epidemiologists should both be consulted as SMEs. That way cost of shutdowns (both in $ and additional deaths, poverty, etc). can be weighted against the value of life saved, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States as well as estimates of lower sales, etc from people voluntarily staying in due to fear of COVID.

 

[SlickAg]

Directly from the first paragraph of the paper...my bold.


So the inference from the paper is that what you did in the immediate reaction was key. An immediate lockdown would result in much lower steady state death rate. The flattened curve stays flat.

From the article ABOUT the paper, bold is mine:

“The paper’s conclusion is that the data trends observed above likely indicate that nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – such as lockdowns, closures, travel restrictions, stay-home orders, event bans, quarantines, curfews, and mask mandates – do not seem to affect virus transmission rates overall.

Why? Because those policies have varied in their timing and implementation across countries and states, but the trends in outcomes do not.”

So no matter WHEN they are implemented, all of the countries, states, and regions studied showed that the virus followed the same trend REGARDLESS of any NPI. Ergo sum, NPIs DO NOT work.

 

[RedFive]

Interesting paper.

What it really says, is that the actions in the first 20-30 days were critical.

Simplifying, if you could suppress the growth rate during the first month so that on day 30 only 100 patients died, then you’d see a 100 or so die each day extending out.

If instead you screwed up the response and had 1000 dying on day 30, you’d have 1000/day extending out.

For areas that haven’t seen their first 25 deaths, when it comes, they need to respond aggressively.

You mean like this?




Let me get this straight....you guys want to completely disregard the paper that these well established economists wrote, but our opinions here as Naval Aviators/Officers are somehow more correct?

 

[wink]

Economists and epidemiologists should both be consulted as SMEs. That way cost of shutdowns (both in $ and additional deaths, poverty, etc). can be weighted against the value of life saved, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States as well as estimates of lower sales, etc from people voluntarily staying in due to fear of COVID.

Yes. This! And economists, at least Marco dudes, can advise on human behavior and market effects in logistics, vaccine production, etc. Idiotic to just "do what the scientists advise." Only lame lazy cowardly bureaucrats and politicians whould do that.

 

[taxi1]

From the article ABOUT the paper, bold is mine:

“The paper’s conclusion is that the data trends observed above likely indicate that nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – such as lockdowns, closures, travel restrictions, stay-home orders, event bans, quarantines, curfews, and mask mandates – do not seem to affect virus transmission rates overall.

Why? Because those policies have varied in their timing and implementation across countries and states, but the trends in outcomes do not.”

So no matter WHEN they are implemented, all of the countries, states, and regions studied showed that the virus followed the same trend REGARDLESS of any NPI. Ergo sum, NPIs DO NOT work.

Did you actually read the actual paper and not just an editorial on the paper?

The paper says that R0 goes to one at 20-30 days, and that the growth behavior is broadly distributed prior. It is very clear on that. That’s a clear statement that controlling the pandemic early is key. The first 30 days is key.

The paper then says all those things you mentioned don’t make a difference after the initial period.

Let me get this straight....you guys want to completely disregard the paper that these well established economists wrote

I’m not sure I even agree with the paper. The plot you referenced refutes it. But if someone agrees with the paper, they need to agree with its finding about the impact of the first 20-30 days.

 

[SlickAg]

Did you actually read the actual paper and not just an editorial on the paper?

The paper says that R0 goes to one at 20-30 days, and that the growth behavior is broadly distributed prior. It is very clear on that. That’s a clear statement that controlling the pandemic early is key. The first 30 days is key.

The paper then says all those things you mentioned don’t make a difference after the initial period.

It doesn't say that NPIs work for the first thirty days, or the last thirty days, or any thirty day period. It says that NPIs likely DO NOT MATTER. Some Other Factor(s) is what they said drove the decline in transmission. NOT NPIs. Period. Dot.

From the actual paper:

"Our finding in Fact 1 that early declines in the transmission rate of COVID-19 were nearly universal worldwide suggest that the role of region-specific NPI’s implemented in this early phase of the pandemic is likely overstated. This finding instead suggests that some other factor(s) common across regions drove the early and rapid transmission rate declines. While all three factors mentioned in the introduction, voluntary social distancing, the network structure of human interactions, and the nature of the disease itself, are natural contenders, disentangling their relative roles is difficult.

Our findings in Fact 2 and Fact 3 further raise doubt about the importance in NPI’s (lockdown policies in particular) in accounting for the evolution of COVID-19 transmission rates over time and across locations. Many of the regions in our sample that instated lockdown policies early on in their local epidemic, removed them later on in our estimation period, or have have not relied on mandated NPI’s much at all. Yet, effective reproduction numbers in all regions have continued to remain low relative to initial levels indicating that the removal of lockdown policies has had little effect on transmission rates."

 

[Spekkio]

Let me get this straight....you guys want to completely disregard the paper that these well established economists wrote, but our opinions here as Naval Aviators/Officers are somehow more correct?

When an economist is pontificating about the effectiveness of public health policy on the spread of infectious disease using a basic model, his opinion is exactly as good as a naval aviator's.

Put another way: why should we listen to this panel of economists that are claiming that the CDC's guidelines are crap?

 

[Spekkio]

Economists and epidemiologists should both be consulted as SMEs.

Yes, economists should be consulted to discuss economics.

 

[Spekkio]

From the actual paper:

In other words: 'We lack the education and experience to explain why this phenomenon occurs, so we'll just conclude that NPIs are ineffective.'

 

[SlickAg]

In other words: 'We lack the education and experience to explain why this phenomenon occurs, so we'll just conclude that NPIs are ineffective.'

Ah, yes. The classic ad hominem.

You know, if you take such umbrage with their sin of stepping outside their economic lane, and if you find their theories and arguments to be incomplete or inaccurate in some way, I challenge you to e-mail the authors of the study (their e-mails are located in the abstract), and engage with them. Instead of complaining about their lack of bona fides to a bunch of strangers on the internet.

Let us know what they have to say. I'm sure they'll find your credentials as a Naval Officer very impressive.