Maps, science, data & statistics tracking of COVID-19

[Tatty_Two]

Test every death unless it's blatently clear it was not from the virus maybe?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Not enough tests to go around. I'd argue they shouldn't change their reporting from what it was before. Just as they wouldn't usually write influenza down, they shouldn't write COVID-19 down.

Death counts aren't even very relevant right now; what is critical is the burden load at hospitals. Leave fatality rates to statisticians when the dust settles which has always been the case. Macroanalysis of the data is how we've always generated mortality data. The only thing these constant numbers flying around the news know for sure is that someone died.

Death counts are driving panic which leads to excessive government force in lockdown when the only numbers that matter is how many ICUs are available and how many are in use.

 

[Vayra86]

Not enough tests to go around. I'd argue they shouldn't change their reporting from what it was before. Just as they wouldn't usually write influenza down, they shouldn't write COVID-19 down.

Death counts aren't even very relevant right now; what is critical is the burden load at hospitals. Leave fatality rates to statisticians when the dust settles which has always been the case. Macroanalysis of the data is how we've always generated mortality data. The only thing these constant numbers flying around the news know for sure is that someone died.

Death counts are driving panic which leads to excessive government force in lockdown when the only numbers that matter is how many ICUs are available and how many are in use.

Gotta say that this approach, completely isolated from the actual, I think, panic response when things truly took a turn for the worse in the US, is a good one.

But real panic was averted by publishing data as well. I've said it before, half this crisis is not a virus but the effects it has on society, on people. A number is something we can hold onto, to get an idea of things. It would not have worked out well if everyone handled this the way you describe. How will you explain thousands of mystery deaths and ill? Maybe now is the time to reconsider that, indeed.

The bigger driver for panic right now is politically tainted rhetoric. The stats on their own didn't cause a riot anywhere.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Not enough tests to go around. I'd argue they shouldn't change their reporting from what it was before. Just as they wouldn't usually write influenza down, they shouldn't write COVID-19 down.

They usually write influenza down. The flu is one of the biggest killers in the USA. In fact, Influenza is ICD-code J09.X2. (Actually, there are a bunch of different Flu viruses and I'm pretty sure they get different ICD codes).

The difference is that we have test kits for the Flu (as well as a vaccine). There aren't enough COVID19 test kits in the USA to test all the living symptomatic people... let alone all the dead people.

CDC is instructing doctors and morticians to write down COVID-19 even if they weren't tested positive for COVID-19. Here's an example: an 90 year old patient dies of ARDS but was not tested for any underlying diseases because they're 90 years old. The ARDS could have been caused by influenza but, due to the CDC direction, the mortician/doctor put down COVID-19 resulting in overcounting COVID-19 deaths.

What's your reference? You're pointing at an ICD code guidance, not actual CDC guidance on death certificates. The links I provided were death-certificate guidance.

The ICD Code, if you're not aware, is like the primary-key to a database (to all us Techies here). Or if you're not a techie, the ICD code is like the Dewey-Decimal Code on the old catalog card systems. Anything COVID19 related gets the ICD code, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the death certificate will say COVID19 will be the primary cause of death.

There have been many examples of people who died with COVID19 but have NOT been counted by the CDC as a COVID19 death.

Teenage boy whose death was linked to coronavirus 'turned away from urgent care for not having insurance'

Mayor confirms teenager’s death with heart-breaking statement: ‘The Friday before he died, he was healthy ... By Wednesday, he was dead’

www.independent.co.uk

However, Los Angeles’ County Department of Public Health later said the teen’s death was taken off a list of deaths associated with Covid-19 in the area. The department said the CDC would complete an investigation into the teen’s death. It remained unclear what symptoms he may have been experiencing prior to his death.

Simply dying with COVID19 in your blood doesn't necessarily mean you're counted as a COVID19 death.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

They usually write influenza down. The flu is one of the biggest killers in the USA. In fact, Influenza is ICD-code J09.X2. (Actually, there are a bunch of different Flu viruses and I'm pretty sure they get different ICD codes).

I linked sources for this. The influenza code was only used 3000-15000 times per year over the past many years. The reason why people say 60000+ is because influenza is grouped with pneumonia which is a far more common cause of death. Just because someone died of pneumonia doesn't necessarily mean they had influenza. Just going off of those numbers compared to the mortality data, the influenza code is used at 17% or lower from what CDC estimates simply because physicians don't use the influenza code. There's no reason why the COVID-19 code shouldn't be at 17% or less too.

Simply dying with COVID19 in your blood doesn't necessarily mean you're counted as a COVID19 death.

Which is the way it should be. Page 29, they tell physicians to write "probable" or "presumed" if it isn't conclusive:

 

[dragontamer5788]

I linked sources for this. The influenza code was only used 3000-15000 times per year over the past many years. The reason why people say 60000+ is because influenza is grouped with pneumonia which is a far more common cause of death. Just because someone died of pneumonia doesn't necessarily mean they had influenza. Just going off of those numbers compared to the mortality data, the influenza code is used at 17% or lower from what CDC estimates simply because physicians don't use the influenza code. There's no reason why the COVID-19 code shouldn't be at 17% or less too.

Archived Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths in the United States — 2017–2018 influenza season | CDC

Links to key resources on the burden of influenza - CDC

www.cdc.gov

CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 48.8 million illnesses, more than 22.7 million medical visits, 959,000 hospitalizations, and 79,400 deaths during the 2017–2018 influenza season.

Third, we used a mathematical model to estimate influenza-associated deaths, which relies on information about location of death from death certificates. However, death certificate data during the 2017–2018 season were not available at the time of estimation. We have used death certification data from the 2014–2015 influenza season as a proxy, as the 2014–2015 season had similar circulating viruses and death certificate data were available from the National Center for Health Statistics. Furthermore, our model uses the frequency of influenza-associated deaths that have cause of death related to pneumonia or influenza (P&I), other respiratory or cardiovascular (other R&C), or other non-respiratory, non-cardiovascular (non-R&C). These frequencies were not available from the 2017–2018 season at the time of estimation, so we used the 2014–2015 frequencies as a proxy. Analysis comparing the frequency of P&I, other R&C, and non-R&C causes of death across the 2012–2013 through 2015–2016 influenza seasons suggests that the distribution of cause of death within an age group does not vary substantially between seasons.

Death is complicated, and requires many months, or even years, of modeling, machine learning, sentiment analysis, statistics, and other math / SASS programs to distill.

Nonetheless, the CDC works to make a singular, consistent, figure year-to-year so that we can compare our death numbers to other years in a consistent manner. This is why I'm confident that all countries will have different counts, because the statisticians of each country need to make their own figures self-consistent with their own health agencies.

EDIT:

Page 29, they tell physicians to write "probable" or "presumed" if it isn't conclusive:

You know that the USA doesn't have enough test kits to prove every COVID19 case, right? If it is the opinion of the doctor that its a COVID19 case, who are you (or I) to disagree?

 

[Tatty_Two]

We have never hit capacity across the country as far as I am aware, there were a couple of reports about 5 weeks ago of one of the London hospitals on one day being code red (ICU Full) so they just took any new cases to the other London hospitals for 24 hours, shortly after that we had our Super Hospitals coming on line, they really have not been needed, the one in London has 4000 beds and in the 4.5 weeks it has been open less than 100 patients have been admitted, in Birmingham our 2nd City (20 miles from where I live) the Super hospital opened a week later with a 3000 bed capacity but they opened with just 500 beds and I don't think it has been used so despite a high death rate the cases have been managed. I am not sure though how the hospitals in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have faired but I have not caught anything on the news significantly relating to capacity...…. I think in England for the last couple of weeks we have been at around 50-60% capacity but I know there was a very tough period of about 3 weeks for healthcare staff and still is in our residential care system.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Archived Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths in the United States — 2017–2018 influenza season | CDC

Links to key resources on the burden of influenza - CDC

www.cdc.gov

Death is complicated, and requires many months, or even years, of modeling, machine learning, sentiment analysis, statistics, and other math / SASS programs to distill.

Nonetheless, the CDC works to make a singular, consistent, figure year-to-year so that we can compare our death numbers to other years in a consistent manner. This is why I'm confident that all countries will have different counts, because the statisticians of each country need to make their own figures self-consistent with their own health agencies.

EDIT:


You know that the USA doesn't have enough test kits to prove every COVID19 case, right? If it is the opinion of the doctor that its a COVID19 case, who are you (or I) to disagree?

The problem is that this is the first time ever CDC is telling people to use quantifiers like "probable" and "presumed." Under no context has this ever been done before. That's why doctors are raising red flags on these recommendations.

 

[dragontamer5788]

The problem is that this is the first time ever CDC is telling people to use quantifiers like "probable" and "presumed." Under no context has this ever been done before.

CDC H1N1 Flu | Questions and Answers Monitoring Influenza Activity, Including 2009 H1N1

www.cdc.gov

i.e. cases of presumed influenza and/or pneumonia based on ICD-9 coded hospitalizations or death reports each week.

Seems like they were using "presumed H1N1" Influenza back in 2009.

EDIT: And this is America. If you don't like the CDC numbers, then feel free to use New York's numbers, which split off their statistics into "confirmed" and "presumed" cases. This is why we have different 50 agencies across our 50 states, so that things are done how the locals want them to do. The CDC continues to report in the way it always has, but locals are free to make their own numbers.

Its not like the CDC really needs COVID19 on every death certificate to figure it out anyway. Statisticians will figure out the pattern of excess deaths and figure out the truth in a year's time or so. The truth will eventually come out (and I bet you, that the numbers will be revised upwards as more analysis is applied to the numbers). Weekly deaths is far higher in USA than typical, in far excess of COVID19 / presumed COVID19 deaths.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Beginning August 30, 2009, CDC modified this surveillance and asked states to report either laboratory confirmed hospitalizations and deaths or syndromic cases, i.e. cases of presumed influenza and/or pneumonia based on ICD-9 coded hospitalizations or death reports each week. This is a new system will be used to monitor trends in hospitalizations and deaths. CDC believes this system will provide a fuller picture of the burden of serious flu illness and deaths during this pandemic. This number will be cross-checked periodically against modeling studies to assess its validity. CDC has provided guidance for states on how to count and report these cases.

It seems like H1N1 was the first time they asked people to use those qualifiers and they're targeting them specifically for analysis. So CDCs mortality statistics, when they come out, should be quite accurate. Well...at least as accurate as influenza is...which is to say...not. Better than nothing though.

Looks like CDC is publishing a running, weekly, total:

Provisional COVID-19 Mortality Surveillance

National Center for Health Statistics

www.cdc.gov

Only 4 weeks (ending dates), USA went over expected deaths:
3/28/2020 104%
4/4/2020 117%
4/11/2020 125%
4/18/2020 115%

New York City, February 1 to May 2, has 223% more deaths than expected.

Oooo, visualization going back to 2017 of expected deaths per week versus actual:

Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19

Figures present excess deaths associated with COVID-19 at the national and state levels.

www.cdc.gov

United States:

New York City:

 

[rtwjunkie]

May 6th for Louisiana:

30,399 cases (29,,996 on May 5th)
2,094 deaths (2,042 May 5th)
1,465 hospitalized (1,512 on May 5th)
187 on ventilators (194 on May 5th)
194,672 tests have been conducted (188,231 on May 5th) -in a population of 4.6 million

20,316 Presumed recovered (17,303 on May 1st) confirmed this stat is only being updated weekly.

 

[HTC]

I think only France was counting care home deaths.

Portugal has, since the beginning.

Portugal's stance on the fatalities it declares from COVID-19: regardless of if they had other illnesses prior to catching COVID-19 or had something caused by COVID-19, the cause of death is officially stated as due to COVID-19.

Portugal's Azores archipelago currently has 13 deaths from COVID-19: TEN of those were in a single retirement home complex.

Today, they closed the place and moved all the residents as well as those with COVID-19: they had already tested everybody, between residents and workers.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Portugal has, since the beginning.

Our state has been counting nursing home, assisted living and long term care home facility deaths since the beginning. Those places have had a much higher rate of infection and death than the general population. In fact Louisiana’s first death was at an assisted living center.

 

[Vayra86]

In NL, we now know that just about half of all Covid related deaths have happened in nursing homes.

Another similarity is the expected versus actual pressure on IC beds. Despite the dangerous peak, it also quickly died down and never reached the worst case prognosis we prepared for at 2500 beds. We reached about half of it. Surprisingly similar to what @Tatty_One pointed out.

We've also gone full retard officially as of yesterday, making a non medical mouth mask (wet toilet paper, just fine.... ) mandatory in public traffic. I'm so glad I have a car. Most definitely not going to wear a scarf in summer 'out of solidarity'... serious damage in faith in humanity occurs here. It apparently makes people feel better. Puzzling, but let's see how long that really sticks...

 

[HTC]

In NL, we now know that just about half of all Covid related deaths have happened in nursing homes.

Another similarity is the expected versus actual pressure on IC beds. Despite the dangerous peak, it also quickly died down and never reached the worst case prognosis we prepared for at 2500 beds. We reached about half of it. Surprisingly similar to what @Tatty_One pointed out.

We've also gone full retard officially as of yesterday, making a non medical mouth mask (wet toilet paper, just fine.... ) mandatory in public traffic. I'm so glad I have a car. Most definitely not going to wear a scarf in summer 'out of solidarity'... serious damage in faith in humanity occurs here. It apparently makes people feel better. Puzzling, but let's see how long that really sticks...

I'm perfectly OK with a non medical mouth mask but "wet toiler paper"?????

It's mandatory over here in the public transport system: don't have one, not allowed to board. If found on board without a mask, they'll get from 120€ to 350€ fine. There's even those vending machines with masks and surgical gloves now, mostly on train / metro stations but elsewhere too: much better than fast food, and healthier too.

Supposedly, the vehicles were supposed to transport only up to 2/3 of their total capacity but, especially in rush hours, this is not being done with many BUSes, for example, being like before COVID-19: packed.

 

[Vayra86]

I'm perfectly OK with a non medical mouth mask but "wet toiler paper"?????

It's mandatory over here in the public transport system: don't have one, not allowed to board. If found on board without a mask, they'll get from 120€ to 350€ fine. There's even those vending machines with masks and surgical gloves now, mostly on train / metro stations but elsewhere too: much better than fast food, and healthier too.

Supposedly, the vehicles were supposed to transport only up to 2/3 of their total capacity but, especially in rush hours, this is not being done with many BUSes, for example, being like before COVID-19: packed.

It can be anything, from a scarf, some self made contraption, a plastic tank over your head... all with varying effectiveness and counter-productiveness. None of it truly helpful, all the evidence points at a highly conditional, mild effect at best. And that effect is ONLY PRESENT if you add strict personal hygiene and never take the mask off and put it on again without washing your hands.

Who are we kidding?

 

[HTC]

It can be anything, from a scarf, some self made contraption, a plastic tank over your head... all with varying effectiveness and counter-productiveness. None of it truly helpful, all the evidence points at a highly conditional, mild effect at best. And that effect is ONLY PRESENT if you add strict personal hygiene and never take the mask off and put it on again without washing your hands.

Who are we kidding?

I realize there's not enough masks for the whole population, and this is true for pretty much every single country.

Still, not everyone needs to go out @ the same time so it's quite feasible for everyone to wear masks while out.

Personally, i have 2 masks that can be re-used: one was provided by my employer and is good for "25 to 30" washing cycles and is this exact model:

https://piranhasupplies.com/wp-content/uploads/ptx_mask_v2.pdf

The other is a "community mask" but isn't a "medical grade" mask: it can also be washed but fewer times before needing to be replaced.

 

[Vayra86]

I realize there's not enough masks for the whole population, and this is true for pretty much every single country.

Still, not everyone needs to go out @ the same time so it's quite feasible for everyone to wear masks while out.

Personally, i have 2 masks that can be re-used: one was provided by my employer and is good for "25 to 30" washing cycles and is this exact model:

https://piranhasupplies.com/wp-content/uploads/ptx_mask_v2.pdf

The other is a "community mask" but isn't a "medical grade" mask: it can also be washed but fewer times before needing to be replaced.

Even if we had enough masks, I would not wear one. I also will not wear one, because there is no scientific basis for it, and I despise this herd mentality. They can keep their mindless drones in Asia.

What needs to happen is acceptance of risk and correct mitigation of it. This is not the way. Note; even all the epidemiologists and virologists unanimously agree on this. The decision to still use them, is based on other factors entirely. It has nothing to do with reduction of infection risk.

Also note: your emotional smiley response under this post. Herd mentality. Am I not still allowed to think for myself? What is happening here? Its worth reflecting on. The psychological effect works in both ways, and there is going to be a long term backlash too.

 

[HTC]

Even if we had enough masks, I would not wear one.

Also note: your emotional smiley response under this post. Herd mentality. Am I not still allowed to think for myself? What is happening here? Its worth reflecting on. The psychological effect works in both ways, and there is going to be a long term backlash too.

This is the reason for the "angry" smiley.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Boris is going to do an announcement on Sunday here in the UK, the feeling is we are going to start relaxing some of the Lockdown measures starting next week, pretty sure it is very small steps initially, no schools opening in the first wave of relaxation but some sectors are likely to start back to work as long as there are strict safety measures enforced in the work place around social distancing, the provision of medical grade hand washes etc...…. although I still remain sceptical.

It is also believed that to travel on any form of public transport some form of face covering will be required, whether that be a mask, scarf or home made thing, I see Spain are already doing similar but providing initially 6 million face masks at public transport hubs for it's people to wear, I predict within a month or so there will be 2 million people travelling to work in London on the Underground during rush hour, I am looking forward to see how they restrict numbers so that social distancing is in place.

There is a hope that small family gatherings can happen but outside in private gardens with social distancing observed, I am hopeful on that one if only because it's my wife's birthday next Thursday and she is desperate to see our daughters and granddaughter, for me selfishly if they allow that, they are likely to allow fishing again as it's very easy to distance when fishing But just in case I have ordered my wife a T Shirt for her birthday, it says printed on it "I had my 60th birthday whilst in lockdown and all I got was this stupid T Shirt"

Edit: Pics

 

[Vayra86]

But just in case I have ordered my wife a T Shirt for her birthday, it says printed on it "I had my 60th birthday whilst in lockdown and all I got was this stupid T Shirt"

OK that is just awesome

 

[HTC]

Boris is going to do an announcement on Sunday here in the UK, the feeling is we are going to start relaxing some of the Lockdown measures starting next week, pretty sure it is very small steps initially, no schools opening in the first wave of relaxation but some sectors are likely to start back to work as long as there are strict safety measures enforced in the work place around social distancing, the provision of medical grade hand washes etc...…. although I still remain sceptical.

Not sure if this isn't a bit premature: too high number of new daily cases, IMO.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Not sure if this isn't a bit premature: too high number of new daily cases, IMO.

Well he says he is following the Science guidance, this week we are testing the contact tracing app they have put together with an aim to roll it out before the end of this month, I don't think schools will re-open before the infection rates lower significantly but in context infection rates are a third of what they were 3 weeks ago during the peak, the measures will be very small though, smaller than even Italy or Spain introduced in their first wave...…… but as I said, I remain sceptical but he has already said it will start from Monday, we just don't know what.

 

[HTC]

Well he says he is following the Science guidance, this week we are testing the contact tracing app they have put together with an aim to roll it out before the end of this month, I don't think schools will re-open before the infection rates lower significantly but in context infection rates are a third of what they were 3 weeks ago during the peak, the measures will be very small though, smaller than even Italy or Spain introduced in their first wave...…… but as I said, I remain sceptical but he has already said it will start from Monday, we just don't know what.

Our Director-General of Health, on March 22nd, was saying not to wear masks because they caused a "false sense of security"

Graça Freitas: "Não use máscara, é falsa sensação de segurança"

translate.google.com

And now they are mandatory, @ least in Public Tansportation.

The understanding of this virus is changing, and so are the Science guide recommendations.

 

[Vayra86]

Our Director-General of Health, on March 22nd, was saying not to wear masks because they caused a "false sense of security"

Graça Freitas: "Não use máscara, é falsa sensação de segurança"

translate.google.com

And now they are mandatory, @ least in Public Tansportation.

The understanding of this virus is changing, and so are the Science guide recommendations.

There are different fields of science and they are at odds with one another. When it comes to a virus and its spread, I listen to the virologist and epidemiologist. I also understand the psychological angle, which is the main 'scientific' reason a mouth masks becoming mandatory in places. And sure, a mouth mask will possibly create a minimal reduction in the infection rate number, but again... there are so many caveats to that, the net result in practice across large groups of people is definitively, clearly going to be zero - or negative, due to false sense of security. The only places in which I understand mask usage is in any frequent-contact profession. You are at elevated risk and its worth mitigating that. Everyone else? Nah.

Its not really rocket science if you think of it. The fact you feel more comfy with a mouth mask is a direct confirmation of that false sense of security. Its the very reason you want it.

Anyway, that is my last word on masks, before we trigger a back and forth here that is unwanted.