[Paul R.]

Most of us have been in lockdown for about six weeks. The objective was to flatten the curve and reduce the total number of victims of COVID-19. Well, the curve has been flattened indeed, but how is it six-weeks later there are 25,375 new cases in a single day?

With all the laws and policies implemented to knock out this virus, I expected we’d be on the last leg of the downward curve by now. But, instead of a peak and decline, we’ve had three peaks and shallow valleys between them. If people are staying at home, practicing social distancing, wearing masks in public, washing their hands and sanitizing everything in sight, how is it that COVID-19 continues to be transmitted from person to person?

A couple possibilities that occurred to me are that: 1) People flouting the laws, or 2) The virus is phenomenally virulent beyond anything ever seen before ( bio-weapon).

Mitigation efforts for people who had to, after all, go to the grocery store and such, ramped up slowly, as did store efforts to mitigate spread. It hasn't been very long since most states started requiring people out in public to wear masks, and, very few people have N95 masks, or even really effective cloth masks. (A good (good!) cloth mask can for a while reduce transmission by as much as 70%, but, I don't see a whole lot of people with such.) Then you have idiots with masks not covering their nose, no mask, etc. (I've seen some stores refuse entrance to the latter.) Dentists can still see true emergency cases, etc., etc., etc. We are not welding people into their apartments, like China.

OTOH, COVID-19 is quite contagious - obviously more so than flu*, but it is NOT "phenomenally virulent beyond anything ever seen before ( bio-weapon)." It is probably not even as contagious as the more contagious of the cold viruses. Heck, basically this thing IS a cold virus but with an extra punch for those with a weakness of one sort or another. COVID-19 is certainly not as contagious as measles or (IIRC) chickenpox, BUT, we have effective vaccines for those.

*COVID-19 certainly IS demonstrably more contagious than this year's flu strain. Mitigation for CV just stomped this year's moderately brisk (but not extraordinary) flu season.

Also note that once testing for CV got up to speed, the numbers of tests done are driven by demand -- that is, people who have whatever bug (like flu) that has them thinking maybe they have COVID-19 will want to be tested. If flu and other non-CV respiratory diseases are way down, we won't spot many of the asymptomatic CV cases: That means there could be a LOT of them - say, 5% of the population at this point? That in turn makes it very hard to snuff out COVID-19.

So... What we have is mitigation that appears to be SLIGHTLY stronger than the contagion, but not by much. That results in a slowly declining overall case rate* which can also be seen in the fatalities per day -- we've been in this long enough that allowing a little for the lag in fatalities the two slopes on average are very similar. A major treatment breakthrough would reduce fatalities faster, but that's not happened yet. I was fully on board with the lockdown orders when they were issued. It was what we needed to do to beat this. However, we are at the point that the cure is becoming worse than the disease. In addition to what this virus has done to people directly, what about the collateral damage, such as long-term damage to our economy? For instance, consider the first two trillion dollar bail-out. Who pays for it? If you are among the approximate one-hundred-million US tax payers, you do. The federal government just signed your name to a $20,000 loan. Don’t think so? Do the math.

Our glass jaw economy (and society) has caught up with us. I have no good answer for you.

It would be particularly interesting to hear the stories of COVID-19 cases that you’ve heard of in the last couple weeks and theories of how they were exposed.

A couple who are both Dr.'s and literally live within 300' of my wife's cousin (who functioned as "Mom and Dad" for my wife in her teens as Mom was dead and Dad deserted the family) both died of CV early on. They own a small establishment that hosts weddings (one 2 weeks before) and small group events, and so were likely exposed to many people in addition to their medical activities.

There has also been a CV death at the nursing home my Dad was in prior to his passing a couple years ago. My wife and I know 2 people who work there (both ok to date, so far as I know).

Should we just let this thing take an inevitable course, or should we double-down on lock-down?

Middle course - gradually reopen the country, try to "catch" outbreaks, and hope for the best.

"...sometimes the test is not to find the answer. It's to see how you react when you realize there is no answer." -- Dr. Lazarenn to Dr. Franklin in Babylon 5:"Confessions and Lamentations". Which was, of course, an episode about a really rough airborne "plague".

A lot of FReepers are failing this one.

[Valpal1]

Those spikes merely reflect regional differences in the infection curve. It’s not like the entire US was all infected at once.

[Paul R.]

Oops, forgot to address my 2nd "*".

To begin, I'll restate (slightly better worded, I hope!), because it is an important point, and I misunderstood it too, until recently, and am even now (unsuccessfully!) trying to get more data:

Note that once testing for CV got up to speed, the numbers of tests done became largely driven by demand -- that is, people who have whatever bug (like flu) that has them thinking maybe they have COVID-19 will go to be tested. If flu and other non-CV respiratory diseases are way down, that reduces that part of the demand. Flu we have definitely stomped. Right through the floor.

[Mr. Rabbit]

When looking at public “numbers” such as from Worldometer, you must always remember, Garbage In, Garbage Out.

The “cases” number is, frankly, scientific garbage. It has little to no bearing on the actual number of people who have been exposed to or got the CCP virus. It only counts those who actually got sick enough to deal with urgent care, copayments, long waits in the waiting room, and the chance of just having wasted all that to be told to take some wal-phed. Most people with a cold or cold symptoms just go to Walgreens and get the wal-phed. It’s a lot cheaper and less hassle. It’s turning out that the CCP Beer Virus leaves 97% or so of its recipients with “minor cold” symptoms. Those people aren’t getting into the medical system to become a “case”. They might show up later in an antibody test, if such tests turn out to be accurate in the first place. If it costs me $100 to get the test, many won’t bother. Many won’t bother or will outright refuse even if it’s “free”. So we may never actually know the true number of total infections, and thus the true fatality rate. However, we are getting glimpses here and there. A good example would be the prison in TN where 2000 or so inmates tested positive and almost all had no symptoms or “just a cold bro” symptoms. Only one or two were hospitalized. This is a captive population where everyone gets tested whether they want to or not so you have a more accurate infection rate number. There’s also the recent antibody sampling in CA and NY where if you look at the antibody positive rate, it’s likely that many times more people have been exposed to this bug than have become official “cases”h. Again, most people who get this just get a mild cold. Its only an unlucky few percent for whom it is like being allergic to a bee sting.

The bottom line is that you shouldn’t just trust raw numbers put out by the press. They’re usually incomplete, and incomplete in such a way as to cause maximum fear, to keep you looking at the ads.

Right now, the only numbers from sites like worldometers and the like that I think are reasonably true are deaths and hospitalizations. This is because both have a hard physical record, and in the case of death, a body. Even then, It’s a near certainty that deaths and hospitalizations are at least somewhat exaggerated because of the $$$ incentive to count cases as COVID due to Federal subsidies.

People are dying from CCP Virus, but not particularly more than from a bad flu. It’s dangerous, just like a bad flu, but it’s NOT Ebola or Marburg, either. And never forget that Bath House Barry wanted to import Ebola cases into the US! And actually did so!

The CCP Virus is going to run it’s course, one way or the other and the per-capita death and case counts will end up being similar either way. At this point, pandering to the mentally ill Howard Hughes germophobes is only wrecking our economy and ruining peoples’ lives, livelihoods, and freedom only to delay what is absolutely inevitable either way. It’s time to get back to work.

[Lockbox]

How about six weeks of increased testing has discovered new COVID-19 cases. It’s the deaths (real one caused by proven COVID-19) and hospital loading that we should be concerned about.

[a fool in paradise]

Aren’t some of the new numbers weeks old?

Results are not immediate and neither is national collection of data

[MachIV]

The lockdown(curve flattening) was never about saving lives. It was about preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed. We will most likely all get the virus at some point.

Having said this, I am sick and tired of everyone including the president of not acting like this is what it is.....an Act of War by China. China needs to have their s$#t f#$@ed up viscously.

[BlackAdderess]

Most of the rest of the world has the tb vaccine in their systems that is helping them. I think we should get our tb vaccine. Sweden may not have a current tb vaccine, but everyone born before 1975 (which is pretty much the target group, does have it, for example.

[BlackAdderess]

51.5 Billion would immunize everyone in the U.S. (for tb) That doesn’t take into account the large number of foreign born people who already have this immunization so the actual figure would be lower.

It is likely that this would pay for itself quickly by reducing costs to Medicare/Medicaid for various inflammatory diseases.

The current approach has us 3 Trillion in the hole.

[Alberta's Child]

I was fully on board with the lockdown orders when they were issued. It was what we needed to do to beat this.

There’s your mistake right there, pal. If you surrender your rights at the first sign of trouble, you've already showed us what a simpering coward you are. Don’t expect me to have any sympathy for you when you realize you’re sitting in a boxcar rolling into the death camp.

[LateBoomer]

It’s a numbers game. We’re testing more than before so we find more cases.

The only number that matters is hospitalizations. Because we were told this economic WMD was vital so that our hospitals weren’t overwhelmed.

That hasn’t happened. Time to get on with it.

[Jim Noble]

Well, the curve has been flattened indeed, but how is it six-weeks later there are 25,375 new cases in a single day?

The writer skipped school the day they had math, huh?

People talk about "the curve" and "the surge" as if they know the population epidemiology of the virus and the disease it causes, when no one has any idea.

The left hand side of the "curve" is the same everywhere, differing only in the height of the peak. Day One three cases, Day 14, BANG, five thousand, ten thousand, whatever. Everybody who writes about this presumes the right hand of the "curve" is symmetrical - fast up, fast down - but this is not true anywhere on earth.

Once cases reach a peak, they stay there for a while. Any decline is slow, and "spikey", meaning, during a decline there are good days and bad days, and it's hard over any few days to map a trend.

My assumption in my low incidence area is that there are many susceptibles and that this will go on for months at more or less the current rates.

The big issue for decision makers personal futures is, will loosening restrictions make things worse? We know that strong majorities favor continued restrictions BUT they also are mildly positive towards loosening using a "I hope they know what they're doing" rubric.

If loosening turns out badly, the voters are going to land on the politicians in power like a ton of bricks.

[ronnie raygun]

By what we are seeing in the number of people who have the antibodies we were in a herd environment from December late November before we were all ordered into a lock down quarantine.

[central_va]

It is virulent as hell but not really harmful. It only adversely affects a small demographic. The economic damage is so disproportionate to the threat and it has to stop.

[Hot Tabasco]

A virus is a virus and you are going to come in contact with it sooner or later and you will either get sick to some degree or not.

It can't be stopped and all these draconian measures are meant to stop our hospitals from being overwhelmed and we know that for 90 percent of the country, the hospitals aren't being overwhelmed.

So lets stop with all this nonsense and let the people go on with their lives.......

I'm sitting here typing this because I survived the 2017-18 epidemic without even knowing one existed........

[BobL]

“With all the laws and policies implemented to knock out this virus, I expected we’d be on the last leg of the downward curve by now. But, instead of a peak and decline, we’ve had three peaks and shallow valleys between them.”

Go shopping in the US, and then go shopping in Taiwan, and you’ll you EXACTLY why they have no new cases and we have 25,000 a day.

[cyclotic]

I did modified lockdown. I’ve been working on a special project at my company’s warehouse. Mostly working alone but interacting with the warehouse employees who don’t practice much social distancing.

Each day’s lunch was supporting a local carry out place.

Made at least one trip to Home Depot or Walmart every day, in a hotspot.

As of last week, they had no cases and most live in a hotspot area.

I haven’t gone in over the last week because I got sick. With bronchitis. Not a big deal.

If this thing is that bad, why didn’t I get it?

[fuzzylogic]

I had that same concern. Although I now believe it is quite explainable. Take a look at the NYC bell curve.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

Here’s another from Michigan.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/2020/04/09/michigan-coronavirus-covid-19-cases-up-to-21504-death-toll-now-at-1076/

This virus seems to have a 7 week bell curve, at least with distancing and lock-down. The problem is that you have different parts of the country that our going through this out-of-phase with each other. This gives the impression we’re not getting anywhere, as one is in decline another is ascending.

Looking at the graphs in the links you can see the declines. Considering we’ve had the lock-down for several weeks we should start to see that everyone has gone through the 7 week period and the numbers should decline.

I think we’re already seeing it. I expect the numbers to start dropping significantly over the next week.

[CodeToad]

This was always about hurting the economy and closing Trump’s rallies.

It worked. People from all demographics supported it.

Well, not the more educated and intelligent. We knew the excuses didn’t add up to closing the country, and we also knew there was no legal means to close it. It would take the support of the people to do anything they were told, and they did.

[foreverfree]

Bump