Simple math: why COVID-19 will necessarily peak by April 21st in the US

GreatNews2night said:

That's death rate, not infection rate. What I'm saying is that there is a ceiling in infection rate, obviously, because the maximum that can happen infection-rate wise is the virus hitting every single American, or 100% of the population.

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That death rate is (will be) determined by the number of people that are able to get treatment. And number of people 'able to get treatment' is affected by number of infected people AND how closely concentrated those infections are over a period of time. If infections are spread out more, more medical resources will be available for treatment...thus saving more people. :roll:

This is not rocket science.

Hamish Howl said:

The death rate multiplying because the health care system has totally collapsed? I mean, there's that.

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Oh, and by the way, read the full explanation above, but also, see post #2 where I talked of caveats. I didn't fail to consider it. Here is what I said:

The problem with easing up the lockdown orders, though, is the sharpness versus flatness of the progression curve. If it continues to be sharp (and going up by a factor of 2.5 every 3 days is very sharp), the risk is that too many new serious cases will overwhelm the healthcare system, and then the case-fatality rate will go up due to lack of life-saving treatment like ventilators. If this happens, people with other conditions will die too (which affects all age groups) because clogged hospitals won't be able to see them as promptly or even at all (if all hospital beds, ICUs, ventilators, and healthcare workers are taken with COVID-19 patients, how do you treat and where do you put the people who present to the ER with severe asthma attacks, heart attacks, or trauma from car crashes?) This could increase the "collateral damage" overall fatality rate of direct COVID-19 deaths + other deaths indirectly caused by the pandemic.

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I did make two mistakes in my OP: a typo in "heard" immunity instead of "herd" (just a typo in that one post, I did use "herd" in other posts, before people pointed to the typo), and for some reason I though that Easter would be April 21st when it is April 12th, so, no, not by Easter, but that was just a dating mistake.

Everything else in my reasoning remains sound.

And I said, even if we find the death rate to be much lower, as in 0.6something%, we'd still reach saturation by April 19th, if this number of dead continues to progress the same way.

LosAngelesAngel said:

~ Why would anyone trust China ...

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Well, I don't, so, that's what I said, "if" we can trust their numbers.

Oddly enough, each time I use the word "if" in this thread, I get misinterpreted. It's happening over and over by multiple posters responding to this thread. Weird.

GreatNews2night said:

Well, I don't, so, that's what I said, "if" we can trust their numbers.

Oddly enough, each time I use the word "if" in this thread, I get misinterpreted. It's happening over and over by multiple posters responding to this thread. Weird.

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~ Well ... now you know better . ´

GreatNews2night said:

Well, I don't, so, that's what I said, "if" we can trust their numbers.

Oddly enough, each time I use the word "if" in this thread, I get misinterpreted. It's happening over and over by multiple posters responding to this thread. Weird.

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~ Well ... now you know better . ´

LosAngelesAngel said:

~ Well ... now you know better . ´

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LOL - OK, from now on I'll preface my "ifs" by yelling out lout:

HEAR HEAR FOLKS, I'LL USE A CONDITIONAL NEXT, IT MEANS I'M NOT SAYING THAT IT *WILL* HAPPEN BUT JUST MAKING AN UNLIKELY HYPOTHESIS FOR THE SAKE OF THE ARGUMENT, PLEASE DON'T BERATE ME FOR SAYING THAT SOME EXTREME SITUATION *WILL* HAPPEN WHEN I'M MERELY SAYING *IF* IT HAPPENED, IT WOULD BE THIS OR THAT WAY.

Maybe the misinterpretation will slightly decrease, with luck. I'm sure there will still be people who won't read the whole thread, will miss the disclaimer, and berate me anyway. LOL

GreatNews2night said:

That's because you didn't even understand the point I was making. I wasn't saying that this is what *will* happen. Again, like others here, you don't seem to understand the word *if* although it is a simple one, made of just two letters. I was pointing to a *ceiling* effect, that it *can't* pass a certain point because *if* the numbers were to get that high, the virus would run out of people to infect.

That's a well-known epidemiological concept. The daily growth factor starts decreasing (it's currently 1.25, which is obtained by dividing the number of new cases - in my calculations, deaths - today by the number yesterday), and when it consistently becomes 1.0, that's the middle point or inflection point, and then it starts declining below 1, which makes the exponential growth of the curve start flattening, simply because each infected person starts being surrounded by other infected or recovered (with immunity) persons so the virus can't move from person to person as fast.

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While a dropping rate indicates a dropping rate of the growth itself is trending downward - and it certainly trends upward on an additive basis. (The daily net addition of new deaths).

I calculated and plotted new deaths and the respective "growth rates" starting on March 14 and ending March 28. I also used the linear trend function. As you can see, the trend in growth while erratic, is UP. If it should continue, by April 21 it will be at 1.45.



And next day prediction is pretty useless - the variance is too great. That said, I think it is far to early to predict a peak. And if you want to make a real prediction for total or new deaths for Friday next or April 21st then feel free... the "absolute worst case" being as unlikely as the sun burning out on the same day.

PS - No, I'm not a math person. I just enjoy exploring statistics using spreadsheet functions. In the old days we had to use punchcards and a mainframe computer program - ughhhh.

maxparrish said:

I calculated and plotted new deaths and the respective "growth rates" starting on March 14 and ending March 28. I also used the linear trend function. As you can see, the trend in growth while erratic, is UP. If it should continue, by April 21 it will be at 1.45.

And next day prediction is pretty useless - the variance is too great.

the "absolute worst case" being as unlikely as the sun burning out on the same day.

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Yes, sure, but the point you CONTINUE to miss is, if the death growth rate (an epidemiological rather than only mathematical concept) continues to go up like this, it DOES mean that by April 21st, if the proportionality to the infected cohort holds, we WILL run out of new people to infect which is the MAIN point I'm making.

The growth rate going up to 1.45 only reinforces MY point: the peak in this case will happen even sooner because it would mean that a highly contagious virus would keep pushing up and up even faster until it reached the whole population (which coronaviruses CAN do, like I said - one of the representatives of this family of viruses is the common cold and it gets pretty much every American except the most secluded ones - it wouldn't get a bubble boy - two to five times per year).

"The next day prediction is pretty useless" - again, it is routinely used in epidemiology. But yes, it varies up and down especially regarding reporting... like I said, on Sundays you'll see a smaller number simply because reporting organizations are closed... you may catch up again on Mondays, and there are other intervening factors, like for example the virus gets to a retirement home complex and ravages through it getting a bunch of senior citizens, or gets a peak like in New Orleans given the 1.4 million tourists that visited on Mardi Gras and infected the locals, so 5 weeks later which is about how long it takes for the virus to kill, you may see a cluster of deaths.

But that's why in another thread / post I said if the death rate growth average for two consecutive 5-day periods remains 1.0, then you may realize that it's likely that you got to the inflection point, which is the mid-point of the curve and the peak of the epidemic; from that point on, the trend flattens and reverses and the number of new deaths starts to shrink day to day.

It is quite incredible, sorry for shouting but it's not just shouting but just highlighting: YOU CONTINUE TO MISINTERPRET ME THAT I'M MAKING A PREDICTION THAT WE'LL HAVE 4 MILLION DEATHS ON APRIL 21ST WHEN IT'S NOT WHAT I'M SAYING. I'm not saying that it is likely that we'll have the worst case scenario. I'm saying that WE CAN'T HAVE ANYTHING WORSE THAN THE WORST CASE SCENARIO, BY DEFINITION, AND WITH THIS PROGRESSION IF UNCHANGED, THE WORST CASE SCENARIO WOULD MANIFEST BY APRIL 21ST.

Anything that makes it less than the worst case scenario comes with the curve FLATTENING EARLIER which still makes my main point hold: that we will necessarily attain peak BY April 21st, that means, maybe earlier (which would mean we'd have fewer deaths than that), maybe then, but NO LATER than April 21st. Jesus!!!

This is due to the simplest of facts... because there are only three possibilities: either the progression doesn't slow down (due to the aggressive virological characteristics of this virus that is highly contagious and entered America by multiple entry points in all 50 states), or the virus is SO aggressive that the progression actually accelerates, or it does slow down given the caveats I've mentioned in post #2 (and also in post #1, the herd immunity phenomenon).

So, let's regroup and think.

Hypothesis # 1: the progression doesn't slow down. In this case we do reach saturation of the American population with 100% infected by April 21st therefore the peak happens by then because the virus has no one else left to infect. QED.

Hypothesis # 2: the progression even accelerates. In this case we do reach saturation even sooner than April 21st therefore my prediction that it will happen BY then still holds. QED

Hypothesis # 3 (the most likely one): the progression does decelerate, like is usually the case for all pandemics so that we never get to the absolute huge numbers of April 21st. That means by definition that we will have passed the peak, because epidemiologically speaking, a deceleration of the death rate growth below 1.0 *IS* the inflection point that marks the peak. Therefore, my hypothesis that the peak will come before April 21st still holds. QED.

I hope that NOW you will get it.

The thing is, like I said, let's just wait for April 21st. That day, we'll come back to this thread, you'll see that the Death Growth Rate will be necessarily less than 1.0, therefore you'll see that I was right, at which point I'll hope for an apology for having called my thinking "insane" and "whack-a-doodle."

Continues below in two posts

Continued from above, part 2

Sure, there is ONE intervening factor that may change the data, but I won't be "wrong" if it does because I did account for it on post #2 (which was only post #2 due to character limit of 5,000 characters; I had to divide my OP in two posts): if the health system collapses and the death total is artificially pushed up. If this happens, we may see an artificially enhanced death growth rate, giving the IMPRESSION that the virus still has space to grow.

No, it won't. It's because INFECTION rate is not the same as death rate. What I'm doing here, is trying to predict the maximum point of the INFECTION rate to the point of potentially reaching the whole population (it can't go higher than that; like I said, 100% is the maximum, there is no such thing as 101% of infection rate).

So, given the LAG in deaths from the fact that the virus takes 4 to 5 weeks to kill someone once the person is infected, if the death totals continue to grow past April 21st due to a collapse of the health care system, it doesn't mean that the infected cohort itself is still growing (it can't, because by that point it will have reached the whole population). Just, we'd be seeing the delayed effects of people dying from infections they had acquired before that point.

So presumably if we had the possibility of testing all 330,000,000 Americans (which of course we don't), at that point we'd see that the new cases, the infected cohort growth, would have flattened and would have started shrinking, while the death growth rate would still be piling up due to the health care system being unable to help those patients, who would be left to die instead of recovering through the help of a ventilator.

But like I explained to the other user, we haven't reached a collapse yet, so the data I used to project ahead still holds so the size of the infected cohort is still likely to reach maximum BY April 21st. QED.

Now, I admit to ONE way to have my calculation wrong: if the CFR (case-fatality rate) is actually higher than 1.2%.

Admittedly I used an *estimated* rate. Necessarily, because we don't know what it will be. An accurate CFR, epidemiologists will tell you, can only be calculated AFTER an epidemic is over. It is only by looking back at all confirmed cases and all confirmed deaths that we can get to the final number.

So, I'm not incurring in a big sin here by estimating it, because I'm not equipped with a crystal ball to find out what the future CFR will be. To use this model, it MUST be estimated, at this point.

Continued below

Continued from above, Part 3

Now, if the CFR is actually much higher than 1.2%, say 5%, then it would mean that the current total number of deaths and its projection, when pushed up to get to the number of people in the infected cohort, would be lower than the size of the US population by April 21st. That means, the virus would still have new people to infect, therefore the peak might still be ahead of April 21st. It would mean that I'm overestimating the size of the infected cohort, because a smaller cohort would be causing the large number of deaths, get it?

Most epidemiologists, though, don't believe that it will be much higher than 1.2%. Some said up to 1.4% which wouldn't make that much difference in my model. The main reason epidemiologists don't think it's higher than 1.4% is because of insufficient testing missing the mild, asymptomatic cases. We do have ONE case in which the entire population was tested and no mild cases were missed: the Diamond Princess cohort. Guess what? The rate was 1.4%, not higher, despite many cruise passengers being older than the general population, so it's unlikely that in the general population where people are not so old, it will be above 1.4%. In Italy it's been huge, above 10% (which is provisional because we don't know the size of the infected cohort), but there are 7 reasons for it, which I addressed in another thread. Italy's situation is not typical.

But that's the only way to defeat my model, if the CFR I used is underestimated and the real one is much higher. If the CFR I used is OVER-estimated, then, again, the peak will be reached even sooner, still confirming my *by April 21st* prediction (like i showed, April 19 if it's around 0.6%).

I mean, it's a MODEL, dammit, it's never guaranteed 100% to be right. But given all the available data, I think the odds are pretty high that I'm right.

Clarification: the real peak I'm talking about, is the peak in the size of the infected cohort. The death rate is just the only indirect way we have right now of estimating the infected cohort, given the lack of extensive testing. So, again, it's not guaranteed that the number of death won't temporarily continue to grow past April 21st, but it is guaranteed (if this model is right) that the cohort of infected people will pass its peak by April 21st (unless the CFR used for the calculation is underestimated).

I want to be very precise, so I re-read what I wrote above and realized that I made a little mistake. The following paragraph contains an error:

So, given the LAG in deaths from the fact that the virus takes 4 to 5 weeks to kill someone once the person is infected, if the death totals continue to grow past April 21st due to a collapse of the health care system, it doesn't mean that the infected cohort itself is still growing (it can't, because by that point it will have reached the whole population). Just, we'd be seeing the delayed effects of people dying from infections they had acquired before that point.

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That should read "if the death growth rate continues to grow", not the death totals.


I can no longer edit to correct, so I had to corrected it this way, by posting again about it.

The death totals will continue to grow way past the peak. First of all, like I said, it will still be impressively high right after the peak of the size of the infected cohort happens, given the lag of 4 to 5 weeks from infection to death. Second, even when the daily deaths fall below the threshold for epidemic level (defined as less than 10 new deaths per day), even when the new deaths drops to 1 per day or one every few days, the TOTAL will obviously still be going up, although very slowly.

Again, the point I'm making here is, the number of infected people in the US is likely to peak by April 21st, 2020, except if one important piece of information used for this calculation has been underestimated, that is, the projected CFR or case-fatality rate. Again, there is no way not to estimate this number, because the real one will only be known after the epidemic is truly over and nobody else is dying from COVID-19. Until the next wave, that is, (or it could continue to trickle in endemic levels) but I'm just talking about the current wave. Even if it continues to trickle in endemic levels, the epidemic CFR would still be accurately calculated WHEN THE EPIDEMIC ENDS. I can't help but estimate it, for now. But like I said, it's an educated guess based on data, not something I made up, and it is shared by epidemiologists, so I believe that the odds are that my model is fairly right.

The bottom line is, keep following the new deaths reported everyday. Get that number and divide it by the same number as reported the day before. Do it for five days, and get the average.

The average for the last 5 days, as of now, has been 1.25. That's called the "Death Growth Rate."

It jumps up and down a bit so that's why we should look at averages. Once you see two consecutive 5-day periods when the average of the DGR is about 1.0, it's likely that on the middle day of those two 5-day periods, we reached the mid-point of the curve, a.k.a. the inflection point.

Then look at the *total* number of deaths, up to that day (not the daily deaths but the total, from the beginning up to that point). Double it. That's roughly the expected death toll this pandemic will cause in the United States when it is over.

My prediction in this thread, is that this inflection point will happen BY (that means, could be sooner but it can't be later) April 21st, 2020, because the worst case scenario would have the whole US population infected by that point, and anything below the worst case scenario would make the peak happen even sooner.

After the peak a.k.a. inflection point, we will then start seeing the number of daily deaths being smaller than what was reported the day before (that is, the DGR will be less than 1.0), and smaller and smaller until it reaches zero. That's the end.

The number of daily deaths will still be impressive right after the peak due to the lagging effect coming from the fact that the virus takes 4 to 5 weeks to kill the host.

5 weeks after the peak, that is, by May 26th, we should see a sharp reduction of deaths and an even sharper reduction of new cases.

I'll give it one more month to be on the safe side (the month of June), and then I'll say this:

We might be off the hook by July (at least until the next wave hits us, something that is possible and might happen in the fall).

I look forward to the 4th of July celebration. I'll be grilling some burgers and drinking some craft beer, and enjoying the end of the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. That is, if I don't catch it and croak, haha. But I'm being very careful so I expect to survive.

By the way, my model is consistent with a completely unrelated model published by the University of Washington School of Medicine. They also believe that we'll be off the hook by July. QED.

I disagree with them on the projected total of dead people when it's all sad and done, but they reached similar conclusions to mine, regarding the timeline for the peak and for the US epidemic (first wave) to die out.

Of course, we can be left with endemic level residual transmission and another wave in the fall, but at least we should have some respite during the summer, and hopefully we'll be better prepared for the next wave, if it comes. And then eventually we'll have a vaccine, and conquer this sucker.

:cheers:

GreatNews2night said:

Yes, sure, but the point you CONTINUE to miss is, if the death growth rate (an epidemiological rather than only mathematical concept) continues to go up like this, it DOES mean that by April 21st, if the proportionality to the infected cohort holds, we WILL run out of new people to infect which is the MAIN point I'm making.

The growth rate going up to 1.45 only reinforces MY point: the peak in this case will happen even sooner because it would mean that a highly contagious virus would keep pushing up and up even faster until it reached the whole population (which coronaviruses CAN do, like I said - one of the representatives of this family of viruses is the common cold and it gets pretty much every American except the most secluded ones - it wouldn't get a bubble boy - two to five times per year).

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Okay, your idea is NOT insane - at least not the one that was only an "IF" speculation. Moreover, as to your other idea that the rate will be at or below 1 by April 21st is also not nuts, but it is very difficult to guesstimate.

First, after playing with the numbers (and using data from the 29th) I now see how sensitive the trend is. By adding the 29th growth rate (1.11) the trend line went negative. The wide variation may also explain why the R2 is so low (validation) for any trend line I construct...not enough data and too much variation (at least not without data smoothing).

Second, the current average growth rate (1.288 including today) must drop soon to meet my range of projections (upto 40 or 60K deaths total) by April 21. As I calculate it the growth rate average should reach 1.0 in 15 days (which means in 7 or 8 days we ought to see rates pop up at or below 1). In short, my peak is earlier than April 21.

Third, because growth rates are highly variable day to day AND because there is no particular reason the the rate of change of the growth rate (up or down) will be constant its difficult to know how wide the "inflection point" will be. The current strategy of "flattening the curve" and "extending the lower peak" might assist medical facilities but it doesn't insure any lower cumulative deaths.

In short, six weeks of bouncing around 1.0 in the growth rate may be a peak, but if 5000 people a day are dying in that time span it may not mean much.

Anyway, you've given us a tool to look at this is another manner. If the rates don't start going negative (on some days) in a week, and don't average 1.0 in two weeks my hope of no more than 50 to 60K deaths by April 21st is likely gone.

Thanks...

maxparrish said:

Okay, your idea is NOT insane - at least not the one that was only an "IF" speculation. Moreover, as to your other idea that the rate will be at or below 1 by April 21st is also not nuts, but it is very difficult to guesstimate.

First, after playing with the numbers (and using data from the 29th) I now see how sensitive the trend is. By adding the 29th growth rate (1.11) the trend line went negative. The wide variation may also explain why the R2 is so low (validation) for any trend line I construct...not enough data and too much variation (at least not without data smoothing).

Second, the current average growth rate (1.288 including today) must drop soon to meet my range of projections (upto 40 or 60K deaths total) by April 21. As I calculate it the growth rate average should reach 1.0 in 15 days (which means in 7 or 8 days we ought to see rates pop up at or below 1). In short, my peak is earlier than April 21.

Third, because growth rates are highly variable day to day AND because there is no particular reason the the rate of change of the growth rate (up or down) will be constant its difficult to know how wide the "inflection point" will be. The current strategy of "flattening the curve" and "extending the lower peak" might assist medical facilities but it doesn't insure any lower cumulative deaths.

In short, six weeks of bouncing around 1.0 in the growth rate may be a peak, but if 5000 people a day are dying in that time span it may not mean much.

Anyway, you've given us a tool to look at this is another manner. If the rates don't start going negative (on some days) in a week, and don't average 1.0 in two weeks my hope of no more than 50 to 60K deaths by April 21st is likely gone.

Thanks...

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Thank you too. Yay!!! FINALLY someone got what I was getting at, not without thousands of my words for the sake of explanation!!!

Yes, hopefully, let's get our fingers crossed and hope that your prediction that it will peak sooner than April 21st and the death toll won't climb too much, is accurate. It is not inconsistent with mine, since all I said is that I believe the contagion will peak BY April 21st, which means it could be sooner, too.

About the rate, again, let's wait for Monday's, because some deaths especially in rural and smaller counties may not have been tallied yet, given that health departments are closed on Sundays. I expect the rate to catch up a bit, tomorrow, when we'll have incorporated not only Monday's deaths, but Sunday's deaths that went temporarily uncounted.

And yes, we need to see the death growth rate come down soon, if we are to hope for the total death number to be not so horrible.

Today Trump said that he'd consider 100,000 a success, while Fauci said he is predicting 200,000.

I actually agree with Trump that if we keep it contained to 100,000, it would indeed be a success, considering the potential for a much higher number.

By the way, the up-and-down of the death growth rate is due to the United States dealing with a multi-pronged attack by this virus, present in various degrees of intensity in all 50 states. If we were dealing with only one epicenter, the death growth rate would probably be more static. It bounces so much because there are so many local factors pushing it up or down. Eventually things should even out.

GreatNews2night said:

The bottom line is, keep following the new deaths reported everyday. Get that number and divide it by the same number as reported the day before. Do it for five days, and get the average.

The average for the last 5 days, as of now, has been 1.25. That's called the "Death Growth Rate."

It jumps up and down a bit so that's why we should look at averages. Once you see two consecutive 5-day periods when the average of the DGR is about 1.0, it's likely that on the middle day of those two 5-day periods, we reached the mid-point of the curve, a.k.a. the inflection point.

Then look at the *total* number of deaths, up to that day (not the daily deaths but the total, from the beginning up to that point). Double it. That's roughly the expected death toll this pandemic will cause in the United States when it is over.

My prediction in this thread, is that this inflection point will happen BY (that means, could be sooner but it can't be later) April 21st, 2020, because the worst case scenario would have the whole US population infected by that point, and anything below the worst case scenario would make the peak happen even sooner.

:cheers:

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The italicized portion is the only part I disagree with, at least not without more explanation. Earlier you said the whole population would have had to be infected by April 21st from exponential growth in a worst case OR the peak have to be sooner. But I don't see why.

If you choose an infection rate that is lower than whatever you are assuming, the exponential growth will be lower and the peak of infection and death rates will be later. An exponential function doesn't require the doubling of cases for each day or week or month; the exponent may be any positive (or negative) number for the time period in question.

The rate of infection is controlled not just by the natural infectiousness of the virus, but also by population density, age, social distancing, climate, etc. How quickly or slowly this virus could reach the entire population is not clear; in other words, the inflection point can't be later than the infection of the entire US population BUT that nation wide infection doesn't have to be by April 21st.

maxparrish said:

The italicized portion is the only part I disagree with, at least not without more explanation. Earlier you said the whole population would have had to be infected by April 21st from exponential growth in a worst case OR the peak have to be sooner. But I don't see why.

If you choose an infection rate that is lower than whatever you are assuming, the exponential growth will be lower and the peak of infection and death rates will be later. An exponential function doesn't require the doubling of cases for each day or week or month; the exponent may be any positive (or negative) number for the time period in question.

The rate of infection is controlled not just by the natural infectiousness of the virus, but also by population density, age, social distancing, climate, etc. How quickly or slowly this virus could reach the entire population is not clear; in other words, the inflection point can't be later than the infection of the entire US population BUT that nation wide infection doesn't have to be by April 21st.

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No, that doesn't need to be by April 21st, but it's just that the data is pointing in that direction, if we estimate the case-fatality rate at 1.2%.

It's because if the doubling-and-a-half continues every 3 days, we'd get to 4 million deaths on April 21st, and if the estimate of 1.2% of CFR is correct, in order to have 4 million deaths we'd have to have everybody infected, because 1.2% of 330,000,000 is 3,960,000. So the only way to get to that number by April 1st would be the infection of the whole population, at which point the progression would come to a screeching halt for lack of other people to infect.

So, anything that is short of that (as long as the 1.2% CFR estimate is good and remains constant), if the deaths are not 3,960,000 by April 21st, means that the acceleration will have decreased sooner, so the peak will have happened sooner, because the peak is defined exactly at the point when the acceleration becomes a deceleration.

But yes, I see now a failure in my model. Yes, the death growth rate could drop to just slightly positive, say 1.05%, and STAY there for a while, with the virus being partially contained by the various factors you've mentioned. If this happens and it doesn't budge much for a good while, then yes, the peak might happen AFTER April 21st, invalidating my whole edifice. You did well, spotting this weakness in my model.

The reason I still think my model will prove to be accurate is that this thing is steadily going up very fast (yes, it's a very contagious virus and very difficult to contain given its long - but infectious - incubation period), and we don't have too many days left until April 21st.

So, I don't expect the rate to slow down to just slight but sustained growth. I suspect the number of daily deaths will go up and up and up fast then will reverse sharply as well, when the contagion saturates the surrounding population.

GreatNews2night said:

I'd like to ask you what part of the word "if" you don't understand, although it's a small word, made of only two letters.

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Like I said, its an assumption.

dixon01767 said:

Like I said, its an assumption.

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No, it's a model trying to figure out by when we'd be likely to reach a ceiling. It is not to say that we WILL get there in this way. It is to say that it can't get any worse than that point, given the ceiling. If you were to read my posts in context including the long explanations I issued a few posts back, you would understand (hopefully).

Death growth factor 1.58, darn! 573 deaths on Monday.

I remember the day when deniers were yelling "the flu kills 200 people in a day and nobody makes a fuss!!!!"

We don't see these morons being so vocal, now.

Crovax said:

Even with our current lockdown procedures we are still growing by 20% (or more) everyday, that can only last another 47 days before everyone is infected. So there’s not a lot of time for action to mitigate some massive damage

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You have to remember the incubation period and the time between catching the disease and showing symptoms. It will take 2 to 3 weeks after the lockdown period starts to have an effect on diagnosed cases and the death rate, we aren't at that point yet.

Whoever may think the daily death tally (deaths for that day, used to calculate the Death Growth Rate) has slowed down a little (in its rate of progressing), it's been reported that New York State is delayed in reporting deaths, and the numbers for Sunday and Monday will have to be revised up when it's all reported and tallied. It's not slowing down, for now.

RAMOSS said:

You have to remember the incubation period and the time between catching the disease and showing symptoms. It will take 2 to 3 weeks after the lockdown period starts to have an effect on diagnosed cases and the death rate, we aren't at that point yet.

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It will take even longer to show an effect in death rate because if someone who will eventually die of it is infected, death typically only occurs 4 to 5 weeks after the moment of infection.

Not to say, our "lockdown" has been anything but. First of all, it is highly irregular, with some states in stringent lockdown, others with no lockdown whatsoever, and others in-between with some sort of suggestion to stay home or loose orders to shelter in place with numerous exceptions and no enforcement by LEOs.

In my state, a state-wide order to stay home was issued by the governor but I see no visible impact on the car and foot traffic, so far. People are simply not obeying the order, and I saw no enforcement by police officers whatsoever. I'm in a professional category that is allowed to circulate, and even mandated to do so, therefore I was told by my employer to carry my badge in case police stops me and asks me what I'm doing that I'm not home. Well, nobody stopped me, and I saw nobody else being stopped either. So people just ignore the order and go about their business.

This is very different, for example, from the situation in Italy where if you are caught outside you have to pay a huge fine, and you get indicted on felony charges of "aiding an epidemic" - the Army is out there patrolling the streets, and they have indicted 40,000 non-compliant citizens, bringing the non-compliance to a screeching halt. Now, Italians ARE staying home, and we should start seeing an effect of the measure when 4 or 5 weeks after it started being enforced seriously go by.

Over here? I doubt we'll have a huge impact, due to the variable orders and poor compliance.

GreatNews2night said:

It will take even longer to show an effect in death rate because if someone who will eventually die of it is infected, death typically only occurs 4 to 5 weeks after the moment of infection.

Not to say, our "lockdown" has been anything but. First of all, it is highly irregular, with some states in stringent lockdown, others with no lockdown whatsoever, and others in-between with some sort of suggestion to stay home or loose orders to shelter in place with numerous exceptions and no enforcement by LEOs.

In my state, a state-wide order to stay home was issued by the governor but I see no visible impact on the car and foot traffic, so far. People are simply not obeying the order, and I saw no enforcement by police officers whatsoever. I'm in a professional category that is allowed to circulate, and even mandated to do so, therefore I was told by my employer to carry my badge in case police stops me and asks me what I'm doing that I'm not home. Well, nobody stopped me, and I saw nobody else being stopped either. So people just ignore the order and go about their business.

This is very different, for example, from the situation in Italy where if you are caught outside you have to pay a huge fine, and you get indicted on felony charges of "aiding an epidemic" - the Army is out there patrolling the streets, and they have indicted 40,000 non-compliant citizens, bringing the non-compliance to a screeching halt. Now, Italians ARE staying home, and we should start seeing an effect of the measure when 4 or 5 weeks after it started being enforced seriously go by.

Over here? I doubt we'll have a huge impact, due to the variable orders and poor compliance.

Click to expand...

Here, (In NY), they closed places of business for periods of time. Someone in a bar got arrested for violating that order. I think not enforcing things is just as bad as not having it to begin with. I think it 'has to be too late' for people to take it seriously in the u.s. I wish that wasn't so. The two factors seem to be 1) population density and 2) how well social distancing/lockdown is enforced

RAMOSS said:

Here, (In NY), they closed places of business for periods of time. Someone in a bar got arrested for violating that order. I think not enforcing things is just as bad as not having it to begin with. I think it 'has to be too late' for people to take it seriously in the u.s. I wish that wasn't so. The two factors seem to be 1) population density and 2) how well social distancing/lockdown is enforced

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Yes, I forgot to mention: do you know what's the sentencing guideline for the Italian charge of "aiding an epidemic"? 12 freaking years of hard prison. That's some enforcement!!! While I think it's excessive and most likely once the epidemic is over judges will dismiss most of these 40,000 indictments and only pursue the most egregious cases (like the real cases of people diagnosed with COVID-19 and ordered to quarantine at home, who didn't and continued to repeatedly leave home and interact with others), if we had some version of it here, we'd see better compliance.

Reportedly, the Indian Army threatened to shoot on sight people caught on the streets disobeying their lockdown. They haven't done it yet and it might be an empty threat, but it is interesting that the threat was issued, anyway.

RAMOSS said:

You have to remember the incubation period and the time between catching the disease and showing symptoms. It will take 2 to 3 weeks after the lockdown period starts to have an effect on diagnosed cases and the death rate, we aren't at that point yet.

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There are still a lot of places not on lockdown. My county just put in a “lockdown” order but it was just a suggestion and nonessential businesses are still open. Plenty of people still roaming around