Posted on 03/30/2020 2:55:56 AM PDT by dalight
When considering that possibility patterns in CDC’s regular ILI (Influenza Like Illness) surveillance data become interesting. I’ve taken their data, and applied my meager Excel skills to chart out some things that surprised me. Going into this, I expected to see mortality rates somewhere bump. Prior to January we weren’t looking for this virus. We’ve only had useful testing capability for a few weeks now. Given the information we have on disease progression, I assumed that there would be an upward trend in Pneumonia mortality as without looking for and testing for SARS-COV-2, victims should have been classified as deaths due to pneumonia. So I charted it, with the last 6 years of data published by CDC.
CDC calls week 40 of a year the beginning of the flu season, so all my charts are set to begin in week 40 of one year and end in week 39 of the next, showing years as flu seasons.
There is the customary increase at week 1, I assume related to holiday festivities and travel. However the 2019-2020 season shows week by week pneumonia mortality to be low compared to the last few years, which is not what I expected. What I truly did not expect was the sharp decline over the last few weeks.
I next looked at all-cause mortality. Perhaps COVID-19 deaths hadn’t been captured in the pneumonia data. But surely something this virulent would show somewhere. I was again, surprised.
(Excerpt) Read more at accordingtohoyt.com ...
Perhaps we should be hiring doormen again everywhere.
This was bugging the author too.. My wild speculation was that travel to and from China had already been blunted prior to the “official” response and many of the flu viruses we normally experience are vectored from China yearly. This is how the vaccine developers guess what is going to hit next year..
If 60% of Americans have the ability to work from home, then maybe Dec and January become “Work from Home if you can” months.
Everyone could wear a mask while shopping on the weekends when it’s most crowded during December.
Fauci is wrong. Likely the death toll will be far less than he is saying, as low as 20,000 when all of the screaming is over. Much depends on the next 14 days.. where that number goes. But, the introduction of mass utilization of Hydrochloroquine + Zinc in the initial phases of Corona infection like Italy is finally doing.. will stop this thing in its tracks.
Italy finally starts mass treatment with hydroxychloroquine
https://www.trustnodes.com/2020/03/29/italy-finally-starts-mass-treatment-with-hydroxychloroquine
Increased awareness and likely reduced travel as news of the Wuhan flu seeped out in to the public. But, there are very likely other reasons.. as the peak flu season deaths are way down in December/January vs previous years.
Sometimes discovering what went right is just as hard as discovering what went wrong.
Probably because the States are reporting all deaths as COVID. Everyone by now has been exposed to the virus so anyone who dies will show up as infected, regardless if the virus had anything to do with the person’s death.
Dismissing the admittedly-lousy reporting which contributes to CDC flu statistics...
...this post sounds like you’re suggesting an annual “stay-at-home” period to save lives.
On that basis, the federal government should ban private ownership of cars to eliminate road deaths.
/s
With it right now looking like our efforts may be saving literally millions of lives, yeah, telling you that your profits had to go on hold for a couple of months if they came at the cost of endangering others was a bargain.
Well.. it is a point. But, the mortality numbers are based on immutable facts from the various states and municipalities. This is a core statistical function and an error in this is like dow jones reporting the wrong average.. the system breaks.
Bureaucrats might dream of power, but they cower at the possibility of losing their job over embarrassing their department. It might seem like these folks can’t be fired until their co-workers hate them... and then gone. But, this is why they are paying attention to woke issues. Previous administrations cleaned out Conservatives while the Republican Presidents mostly kept those who in place. In the end, its all fire breathing progressives and then your job is based on relationship not merit.
That chart for all-causes mortality is very revealing. Decrease in Pneumonia deaths could be anecdotal based on how cause of death is being attributed, but a death is a death and not in question. I think it has to be from the social distancing, but that has to ease off soon.
I don't know why he would be surprised. The steps to combat Covid virus are the very same things that would control the influenza virus.
It looks like a nationwide quarantine and shutdown of businesses decreased ALL ILI deaths. Not surprising when you consider that.
Wouldn’t this suggest that there are lots of vacant hospital beds?
I imagine all this emphasis in isolating and sanitation is what’s downing the flu.
Plus touching fewer public surfaces, coughing into your sleeve, enhanced and more effective hand washing techniques, maybe less business travel and increased teleconferencing.
Lots of these may become semi-permanent until people get over-confident, memories fade, and we revert to what were normal practices.
I could get behind the China bans for risky months.
“No.. just people are being virus sensitive and the social distancing is really having an effect on common flu cases just the same as the Corona Virus.”
I think that could be the true result, and why the graphs show a drop in negative mortality both due to pneumonia and all causes.
NOW!!! What the nation has to consider is - (1) given that all the shutdowns have also LIKELY reduced the number of cases and deaths from seasonal flu (2) should the shutdowns, in spite of their economic pain, be national policy every year?
The alternative is:
(1) Massive testing, even for the many flu viruses,
(2) and social conditioning for rigid self-quarantine for all persons testing positive for a “flu” virus or Covid-19;
(3) and that persons who feel like they have a flu-like illness, or have tested positive for one, (a) stay away from work, (b) do not go to large-group social gatherings, (c) wear a mask when out anywhere, (d) never touch their own face (nose, mouth eyes) with their hand and afterward touch a public surface, (e) keep their distance from others in a public line, and (f) many other changes of behavior.
If testing is massive and self-quarantine and safe-health rules are followed by those who test positive, and/or are ill, massive shut downs of the healthy should not be needed.
That could have always happened for the seasonal flu. It can happen next year for Covid-19. It did not happen this year in the U.S. for Covid-19 because we failed to rapidly develop a test and rapidly get it deployed everywhere.
We have maybe only a year or two to more permanently, more fully change the social behavior of those who are ill and/or test positive for an infectious virus if we are to avoid many economically disastrous repeats of the shut downs of society and legalized and enforced seclusion of all from all - till a virus “passes”.
The desire to keep our freedoms requires standards of behavior that includes protecting the public from ourselves when necessary.
Thank you dalight for posting this, I’ve shared it with 3 others so far and 1 who also thanked me for encouraging news in spite of pandemic or is it dempanic - I’m dyslexic so...
Also sorry for how many negative responses and outright attacks you’ve received - this site obviously entertaining much more of the negative, liberal and leftist mindset that what was enjoyed at it’s inception some 23 years ago.
Off the top of your head you added “Fewer aeronautical deaths.”
For commercial aviation, that number hovers close to zero in the U.S. I take your point, but that isn’t the best example.
Yea, not the best point.
But I am a private pilot. I was thinking of General Aviation light aircraft when I wrote that. (And I had just woken up!)
But that is still a low number.....
I appreciate your comment.
” ... and hopefully, corporations and businesses will make it corporate policy that sick people STAY THE HELL HOME UNTIL THEY ARE WELL ... another thing that might happen is that social stigma will attach to sick people being at work and in public and social shaming will become the norm for those violating the new social standard ...”
And companies need to give sick leave to their employees so the employee will have an incentive to stay home till they are better.
Used to be, people got 12 days sick leave — apart from — the vacation time.
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