[ETCM]

We're on a crazy train

For some folks, the train has gone off the rails. Scanning the front page, "new theories" include:

1. It's a huge insurance scam. No one is dying of CV19, the hospitals are just saying that to defraud the government and collect big checks.

2. The hospitals in NY are empty. There are no people in the ICU. It's all fake.

3. No one is dying, these are crisis actors.

There are more, but I feel weird even scanning through those threads. There are some really strange people posting these days.

[cgbg]

This reminds me of the old Philip K. Dick (science fiction writer) joke/thought experiment.

“I claim New Zealand does not exist. Convince me otherwise.”

;-)

[Mariner]

” There are some really strange people posting these days. “

Weak minds will be culled, even those that do not catch the virus.

I expect multiple, isolated, explosions of violence around the country as people just plain lose their sh!t.

[LilFarmer]

Some elevators are not reaching all the floors.

You do learn a lot about people in a crisis, that’s for sure. I’ve learned that I wish all the regulars on this thread were my neighbors, lol.

[semantic]

Well, for people who follow numbers, the IHME models are beginning to look a bit suspect.

The US recorded its first CV death 8 days after Italy. Being on a fairly conservative side, Italy therefore provides us with 8 days of tracking history. In actual experience, one would expect the US to perform (much) better, not worse.

Can you name some instances where the US would actually perform worse than Italy? This would assume we acted later than they did - even with their 8 day lead time, that our demographic morbidity was higher, and that our HCS was less capable. Those are all some pretty tenuous assumptions.

So, with this 8 day lead in mind, would you be surprised that Italy's daily CV mortality has now been flat for 15 days? And is 25% off its high reached 8 days ago?

Italy	       Day	
3/20/2020	29	627
3/21/2020	30	793
3/22/2020	31	650
3/23/2020	32	602
3/24/2020	33	743
3/25/2020	34	683
3/26/2020	35	712
3/27/2020	36	919
3/28/2020	37	889
3/29/2020	38	756
3/30/2020	39	812
3/31/2020	40	837
4/1/2020	41	727
4/2/2020	42	760
4/3/2020	43	766
4/4/2020	44	681

If we track the US to this trend line (using an 8 day lag on the growth rate %), we'll end up at 700 deaths on 4/16; not 2.8k In order for the US to hit 2.8k and trace out to 93K total deaths, we would need to disengage from our current pattern, and radically start climbing. In fact, we'd have to go back and adjust our lag with Italy by a full 18 days to reach the current IHME projections. Yes, the period where Italy was experiencing a full on emergency situation.

Graphically, it looks like this:

I know it, I think you know it, and soon the whole world will know that the IHME model needs to be revised.

[Jane Long]

Or, the one about what the (empty) hospitals really are being used for.

Strange days, indeed.

[Vermont Lt]

There a ton of folks trying like hell to fit their hexagon shaped pieces into a square hole.