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A nobody; a nitwit; a pilot; a motorcyclist; a raconteur; a lover...of life - who loves to laugh, who tries to not take myself (or anything) too seriously...just a normal guy who knows his place in the universe by being in touch with my spiritual side. What more is there?

24 June 2020

CORONAVIRUS - New Cases and Death Rate: Is There A Connection?

Well the mainstream media is in a literal head-exploding panic, going crazy because the number of new COVID19 cases is increasing in many states.  They seem to think that this is some sort of catastrophe, or at least something unexpected.  Actually, it is neither.

We've known for a long time that the number of actual cases of COVID19 was quite a bit larger than the number of people who were getting tested and turning up positive.  

Back in April, the results from three different studies in three different cities told us that the actual number of people infected with the virus was between 25 and 80 times higher than the number of people testing positive.  So it stands to reason that if more people are getting tested, then more positive cases are going to turn up.  The logic of that seems to elude member of the media, who misinterpret the numbers and jump to some erroneous conclusions.

But okay, I'm not an idiot...is there more to it than just "more testing = more cases?"  Some states, like my home state of Florida are showing dramatic daily increases in the number of new cases.  Who would deny that some of that increase is the result of the unavoidable re-opening of society...bars, restaurants and beaches?  It's got to be a factor.  If we were to plot the age range of the new cases, I'd bet it would skew pretty young.

But by itself, the number of new cases doesn't matter a whole lot.  What matters is how many people will need to be hospitalized, and how many people are going to die.  And honestly, both of those numbers are extremely low for young, healthy people.  Many of them will get the virus and not even know it - the asymptomatics.  Others will get sick and go get tested, but won't be so sick that they require hospitalization.  Fewer still will die.

So the fact that the number of new cases is increasing is not, by itself, cause for alarm.  By the way, of the last two people who've died in my county, one was a 100 year-old woman in a nursing home.  Yes, they say she died OF CORONAVIRUS.  Now isn't that stupid?  And Dr. Fauci seems totally baffled by the fact that we're a skeptical society that distrusts so-called science and "authority figures."  Here's why, Doc: We Americans know bullshit when we smell it.  And we've been smelling it a lot throughout this whole pandemic.

I've been tracking the COVID19 numbers for a while now, internationally, nationally here in the U.S., and locally on state and county levels.  What has been frustrating is that there seems to be no correlation between the number of new cases and the number of deaths.  We "know" that if you're going to die from coronavirus, it'll take a month - maybe a little more from the time you contract the disease.  So COVID19 deaths "lag" behind the new cases by a bit...if that theory holds.

In fact, generally speaking, as the number of new cases goes up, the death rate is going down.  As an example, let's look at the state of Washington.  They had a peak of new cases around the end of March.  Conventional wisdom would tell us that Washington "should" have seen a spike in deaths around the end of April.  But the number of deaths peaked around the same time and has been on a downward slide ever since.  Compare the two charts below and see if you can come up with some sort of correlation, because I can't.



Even more confusing are the numbers for Florida.  Check 'em out!



Again, I cannot see a correlation between the two graphs.  They don't seem to be related at all.  I don't know what to make of it.  The number of new cases (blue chart) reached a peak on June 20th.  Then we've had two consecutive days of decline.  Is this the start of a trend?  Who can say.

The news media would like us all to panic and go back into lockdown-mode.  They throw catchphrases around like "second wave" as if they know what they're talking about.  On the contrary, I believe that some states are still in their  "first wave."  And if they keep trying to "tamp the virus down" they're only going to extend the time period that the people in that state suffer from the disease.  It's probably better to do like New York did and get everybody infected early.
 


Given that there doesn't seem to be any connection or correlation between the number of new COVID19 cases and the death rate, the question will now be whether this huge SPIKE!! that the media is panicking over will translate into more deaths?  I'm guessing that it won't.

If I were Florida Governor DeSantis, I wouldn't do a thing just yet.  I'd let this play out.  Just because more positive test cases are turning up doesn't mean we all have to go back and shelter-in-place like last time.

3 comments:

Ed said...

I don't believe the recent spikes are simply due to more testing. To test positive for Coronavirus, one must have gotten exposed sometime in the last two weeks, perhaps three weeks at the latest. So all those testing positive are recent infections. The height of the peak might be skewed higher simply because we have more testing capacity now and catching more that slipped through the cracks in the initial wave but it still indicates that there is an influx of new infections and if one looks at graphs showing the number of hospitalizations, this bears that out.

As for why the death rate isn't increasing with these recent spikes, it is because a different demographic is now being infected. Almost all the charts that I have seen show that young people are being hit the hardest this time around and as you rightly pointed out, very few of them suffer death as a result. We've "weeded" out a lot of the vulnerable the first go around when they died as a result so it makes sense to me anyway that the death rate will continue to go down as the healthier parts of our population continue to pass it around. I do agree with your assessment that "tamping this down" is only going to stretch this out until the virus mutates itself out or we are producing enough vaccinations for everyone who needs one gets one.

Bob Barbanes: said...

Ed, you and I seem to be on the same page here.

Every time I'm tempted to conclude and excuse the increasing numbers by saying, more testing = more positives, I ask myself, "Why on earth would anyone get tested if they weren't really sick?" I mean, come on, we've all heard how...uncomfortable...that most commonly-used testing procedure is...the one where they go in with a looooong Q-tip and massage the bottom of your brain. No way am I going to have that done to me unless I'm *seriously* ill and suspect that I might actually have coronavirus and not just a common cold.

So now, I'm of the opinion now that more testing = more new cases. And Florida surely is seeing more new cases! We're up to 5,000+ per day! We had been chugging along at less than 1,000/day up until the first of June, and then...oh boy!

However, is this unavoidable? Is this the inevitable result of the re-opening of the economy and there's really nothing that can be done about it? As we both agree, Ed, this virus isn't going to just disappear even if we'd kept the bars and restaurants and beaches closed.

Yes, the number of positive-cases is up...way up. But what does that mean? So far, most of the predictions about what this virus would do have been wrong. So I immunize myself against all the worrywarts who squawk about the coming disaster. We'll see.

Ed said...

A friend of our was tested and described it as having her soul ripped out through her nose. I think I will pass too.

Hopefully Florida will now burn through the population and you can get to where we are now. Our county saw only 2 new cases this week and we are down to only a handful of people currently in the hospital being treated. Although I do wear a mask when out and about and carry a travel sized bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket, I feel a lot more relaxed about things. It will still probably be a long time before I put myself among a crowd though.