Posted on 03/25/2020 8:43:21 AM PDT by Keith Gentile
I’m with you.
Thanks. So our best information is the “doubling number” and our best source is #new deaths. As a nation we entered the “exponential phase last week when it was clear what the doubling number was, prior to that day the data was sporadic and there was “no signal in the noise”. I don’t recall which day it was but if you look at #new deaths form weeks ago the data was all sporadic. Since then the #number of new deaths has been doubling about every two days. So we are clearly in the “exponential phase” and have been, by definition, in an “epidemic”. Now agreed, new deaths is a lagging indicator but it’s the best we have.
Consider: all the groups with the disease have been progressing at their own rate but they are all pretty much parallel with the same slope. But the asymptomatic may be ten days ahead of the dead and the seriously ill may be only a couple of days ahead of the dead, on average. It’s like a train on a roller coaster. The asymptomatic are in the first car, etc. and the dead are in the last. So the disease itself is some two weeks out front of the dead. The dead will go over the top last. Next Monday we will know where we “are” and at that time our mitigation efforts kick in. If there should be something else we have done in the interval that may show up at that tie as well.
So everything up to Mar. 31 is very predictable. After that my crystal ball breaks. It’s anyone’s guess. The most effective thing we can do is “not get it” which is why isolation is so important. What the numbers are next week will be a “grade” on how week we have done. Let’s pray to God we “pass”.
Is that all comprehensible or just, what is the word for “professional vocabulary”, just jargon? I do hope not.
I understand how important new deaths are in deciphering all this. I use the figures Wikipedia posts at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_data/United_States_medical_cases
It accumulates daily data on deaths and new infections.
And, yes, this figure is very solid. Trying to use other solid data and then using other information that is out there but admittedly inaccurate, sort it and balance it, might be used as a way to predict the future. Pretty standard methodology.
Totally comprehensible. It’s just that some of us allow our curiosity about the future to lead us into our best attempts to predict it.
For me, as a retiree, all I want to know is “where we are”, i get bored pretty easy after that. Induction, exponential, and recovery. I am not really interested in what the numbers actually are just on which date do those events occur. There are a million questions to ask and smart people a plenty to answer them. “Not my table’ as we used to say when I was a Resident.
I have been looking at worldometers.
No one on earth knows what is going to happen next week. No one.
I understand. And I’m still amazed at how fast you manage to post.
Sorry. I have been reading the medical literature all my life. When I read an article I start with all the locations that reveal snake oil or red flag. If I detect those things I don’t bother wasting time reading it. Trash is pretty easy to recognize.
I’m not selling anything, i don’t have anything to gain, I am not a spy from Huffpo, I have two decades with 25,000 posts if you want to make sure. I consider FReeRepublic family. I am just hoping to help freepers understand what is going on, answer questions “What should I do?” As best I can. To provide a service. It occurs to me just about every doctor is pretty busy right now. I’m not but I can still help, her by answering freepers’ quesitons.
But I have to admit, I never thought I would actually. See an epidemic like this in my life. For most of us Epidemiolgy is boring crap you have to read for the Boards. Most of us., I believe, never thought we would be where we are today. This is an impressive virus, IMHO. Nasty sucker but you have to respect excellence.
I believe the word you are looking for is nomenclature. ;)
OMG! LOL. This is how stupid I am. You asked how it is that I can respond so fast? I thought, “What a strange question?” I don’t think I can type any faster than anyone one else? Does he think I have a special Internet connection that is faster than others? That couldn’t possibly even make a perceptible difference. Honest to God it just hit me. You thought I was looking all this stuff up! HaHa. I haven’t touched a medical book or publication in years. I actually “know” all this stufff. I took 4 semesters of statistics as an undergrad. Pay me 6 figures and let me have access to info outside my head and I could bury you in bull shit. Of the cuff I remember ANOVAs but i can’t off the cuff even remember what the hell the acronym stands for. Multivariate analysis or something. I quit doing research 30 years ago.
But it is funny. Stupid me.
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