wuhan - coronavirus

[Bootsie]

9 minutes ago, square_25 said:

That doesn't seem to be true anymore, if it was ever true (which doesn't sound right to me.) 

According to the Louisiana Dept of Health site there have been approximately 69,000 tests, which is a rate of about 14,750/million.  The US average is 5561/million according to Worldometer..  So, it does look as if Louisiana has had a high rate of testing.  

[TracyP]

10 minutes ago, square_25 said:

 

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm saying they do not know the number of deaths in places with insufficient testing... 

Well, like I said a few posts back - it is imperfect.

[Terabith]

I actually wonder if the best way to compute infection rates would be to start with number of deaths over baseline and extrapolate from there?  

I looked into the cold eze lozenges, but they're homeopathic zinc?  I would be willing to get some real zinc lozenges, but I'm not sure I want to go the homeopathic route.

[Terabith]

Just now, square_25 said:

Yeah, that wouldn't be my preference if I wanted to take zinc.

I was just looking, and literally ALL the zinc lozenges appear to be homeopathic.  It actually kind of baffles me, because I've heard about zinc lozenges for colds for years, but what lozenges are people using that aren't homeopathic.  

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Arctic Mama said:

The only problem with that is other causes of mortality are down, like car wrecks and even drug overdoses in this area. You’d overestimate cv deaths without specific breakdowns.

That is a good point.  Though if you're looking at change, and other causes of death are down, I'd think it would underestimate?  Or am I confused?  And of course, there's the people dying of heart attacks because they're afraid to go to the hospital set.  But I don't know what to do with that.  There may not be a great solution.

[Jean in Newcastle]

12 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I actually wonder if the best way to compute infection rates would be to start with number of deaths over baseline and extrapolate from there?  

I looked into the cold eze lozenges, but they're homeopathic zinc?  I would be willing to get some real zinc lozenges, but I'm not sure I want to go the homeopathic route.

This is not infection rate, but the way that I personally have been gauging how things are progressing in my (Washington) state has been to just look at the COVID19 death count each day.  Our state has been pretty good at catching things early but still deaths went from about 10 deaths a day (for a long time) and then went to around 20 deaths a day and now around 40.  Still nothing like NYC etc.  but it is going up.  But the new infection rate isn't going up so much so some of these deaths are people who were infected weeks ago and are now succumbing. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Jean in Newcastle

[Pawz4me]

Another tidbit from my vet source, FWIW --

Quote

There is an unpublished, non-peer reviewed paper out of China. I've read the summary and it's a little reassuring. They inoculated several domestic species with huge doses of virus and found that this virus was only able to grow and reproduce in cats and ferrets. The others were a no go. That doesn't mean that any animal couldn't act as a vehicle for spread, just as inanimate items. They also did not find serious disease in the cats, just that the virus was able to reproduce.
 

 

[SeaConquest]

13 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I was just looking, and literally ALL the zinc lozenges appear to be homeopathic.  It actually kind of baffles me, because I've heard about zinc lozenges for colds for years, but what lozenges are people using that aren't homeopathic.  

 

You have to search, but there are many that aren't. Nature's Way, for example, makes one that isn't. You just have to read the labels. 

[lewelma]

I'm still catching up on the thread, but I can answer questions about modelling.  My PhD is in mathematical/statistical modelling of population dynamics.. 🙂 

Time series models make notoriously poor forecasts. Because the infections today are based on the infections yesterday which are based on the infections the day before, it is like the butterfly effect.  They are *very* sensitive to initial conditions.  Basically, they compound the error in the model for every day out you try to predict.  So if you are building your model out of daily data (rather than hourly or monthly), you can make a decent prediction with large error bars ONE day out. By 2 days out, all the errors compound. 

In addition, the models can be built from both a data-fitting approach or from a biology-driven approach.  The data fitting approach is only as good as the data we have, which is obviously poor given the lack of testing, and poor given the uncertainty of the compliance with the lockdown.  The biology-driven approach is only as good as the knowledge about the virus, and that is poor.  They are not clear as to death rate or infection rate or spread conditions.  So neither approach will be great, so I'm sure they are trying both, and interweaving them.  

The assumptions required to be made for these types of models are just huge, and each modeller is trying different things.  I'm sure that they are also holding back current data, to then test the robustness of their model, and then if the forecasts are good, they will use those parameters with the full data set.  But clearly, they also have a problem with the variability in the data.  If all things were known, the growth of the virus would be completely smooth, but even the data coming out of NZ which has good testing, is quite ragged. So their models might only explain 70% of the variability in past data, and all their forecasts beyond one day, predict based on the forecasts from the previous day, etc. So compounding the uncertainty to make predictions useless.

There is also a massive problem with the spatial component. Every region in the US has a different type of lockdown and different compliance.  It is really fractal, with an equal amount of variability at each spatial scale measured.  This is Huge, and close to impossible to deal with.  Each model really needs to be for a very small physical area, and even then there would be variability in both the data for the dependent and independent variables. That is a crazy large number of models for a place as big as the US. Each of the models we see being published are clearly using a subset of the data in a constantly moving landscape.

I think the models were more consistent in the beginning because there was really only one approach for the independent variables and that was 'do nothing.' So a pure spread.  Now that there are all sorts of lockdown rules, that are being followed or not, that really shakes up the models and makes them even less accurate because the data over the time scale you are working on has the independent variables changing at different points along the x axis.  This makes for a messy situation, because when you add in more and more variables to explain everything, you can actually make your model less and less accurate because you have overfitted it. 

Finally, I spent 4 years of my life trying to make a reasonable model. Sure I was a newbie to modelling and the biology of my animal, but doing these models in just weeks is a BIG ask. The understanding of the biology keeps changing -- so the time based relationship between the data in the dependent variable. And the independent variables keep changing  -- lock down, masks for the public, etc. You can say that there are just a crazy number of modellers out there all working together, but 9 women cannot make a baby in a month.  

Point being. The models are no good, and I have been ignoring them.

Edited April 6, 2020 by lewelma

[Tree Frog]

34 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

 

You have to search, but there are many that aren't. Nature's Way, for example, makes one that isn't. You just have to read the labels. 

Silly question, but how do you know if something is homeopathic or not? When I check the labels, Nature's Way shows zinc in the form of zinc citrate and gluconate. When I look at Cold Eeze, it says the zinc is in the form of zincum gluconium. Is the difference in the form of zinc? Or is it because it doesn't give the dosage amount? This one would seem not to be homeopathic?

[lewelma]

I've just added 2 paragraphs to my big post as I think of more and more things.  So for those of you who have already read it, here are the 2 extra paragraphs I just put in on the spatial component and the why the models were more consistent in the beginning. 

There is also a massive problem with the spatial component. Every region in the US has a different type of lockdown and different compliance.  It is really fractal, with an equal amount of variability at each spatial scale measured.  This is Huge, and close to impossible to deal with.  Each model really needs to be for a very small physical area, and even then there would be variability in both the data for the dependent and independent variables. That is a crazy large number of models for a place as big as the US. Each of the models we see being published are clearly using a subset of the data in a constantly moving landscape.

I think the models were more consistent in the beginning because there was really only one approach for the independent variables and that was 'do nothing.' So a pure spread.  Now that there are all sorts of lockdown rules, that are being followed or not, that really shakes up the models and makes them even less accurate because the data over the time scale you are working on has the independent variables changing at different points along the x axis.  This makes for a messy situation, because when you add in more and more variables to explain everything, you can actually make your model less and less accurate because you have overfitted it.

[lewelma]

Oh goodness, thinking of more things.  When you look at the impact of the lockdowns and how they affect the spread, you can only model them with a theoretical understanding of their effectiveness, and not the reality of compliance. This is because they have only been in effect for like 10-20 days depending on the state, so there are not enough data points to actually do any statistical tests on the impact of the lockdown on spread.  For relationships between dependent and independent variables in a time series, you really need like 100 data points.  So once again, the early models had no inputs based on state-dictated public interventions, so were more consistent and accurate in their predictions of what would happen with a  'do nothing approach'.  All the current diversity of predictions has been caused by the inability to actually model the effect of the interventions.  They can't do the models theoretically because they don't actually know about compliance with lockdown or actually how the biology of the organism works in terms of the effects of the lockdowns. And they can't do the models with data fitting, because they don't have enough data points. 

[Katy]

2 minutes ago, kdsuomi said:

I just heard on the news that British P.M. Boris Johnson has been moved to the ICU.

 

I was coming here to say the same thing.

[Pen]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

I was just looking, and literally ALL the zinc lozenges appear to be homeopathic.  It actually kind of baffles me, because I've heard about zinc lozenges for colds for years, but what lozenges are people using that aren't homeopathic.  

 

A lot aren’t homeopathic.  

And Cold Eeze has measurable zinc. 

2x iirc means 1 part the zinc gluconate active ingredient to 9 parts inactive binder and succussed two times.

(X is the Roman numeral and indicates a 1 in 10 (X) dilution; the 2 is number of times succussed )

“Active Ingredient (Per Lozenge): Zincum Gluconicum 2X (13.3 Mg). Inactive Ingredients: Acesulfame K, Glycine, Isomalt, Natural Flavors. Ask a doctor before use if you are taking minocycline, doxycycline, tetracycline or are on Coumadin therapy, zinc treatment may inhibit the absorption of these medicines.

 

Cold Eeze Cold Remedy, Sugar Free, Lozenges, Natural Wild ...”

[Pen]

35 minutes ago, wilrunner said:

Silly question, but how do you know if something is homeopathic or not? When I check the labels, Nature's Way shows zinc in the form of zinc citrate and gluconate. When I look at Cold Eeze, it says the zinc is in the form of zincum gluconium. Is the difference in the form of zinc? Or is it because it doesn't give the dosage amount? This one would seem not to be homeopathic?

 

All 3 have measurable zinc.  See my note to Terabith above. 

The cold eeze is prepared by homeopathic method with succussing (shaking, or hard tapping (originally on Bible probably))— but even if you don’t believe that the homeopathic method with the shaking potentiates it and makes it better, just the mg dose is within a range to have ordinary “allopathic”— i.e. conventional — effects.   

“Zincum gluconicum” is just Latinizing the words zinc gluconate afaik. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Pen

[Pen]

11 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Boris Johnson has been moved to the ICU: 

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-06/prime-minister-boris-johnson-moved-to-intensive-care-after-being-admitted-to-hospital-with-coronavirus/

 

Who manages as acting PM if he’s in ICU (or dead)? 

Nm I see it’s in the linked article 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Pen

[Frances]

34 minutes ago, wilrunner said:

Silly question, but how do you know if something is homeopathic or not? When I check the labels, Nature's Way shows zinc in the form of zinc citrate and gluconate. When I look at Cold Eeze, it says the zinc is in the form of zincum gluconium. Is the difference in the form of zinc? Or is it because it doesn't give the dosage amount? This one would seem not to be homeopathic?

This is what I’m wondering, too. Natures Way doesn’t seem available. Hi Tech Pharmacy has some available with exact same zinc ingredients and dose as Natures Way. Others use zinc oxide and zinc gluconate.

[Pen]

@Terabith @wilrunner

btw while the glycine in coldeeze is listed as “inactive” it may be actually active, in fact

I don’t know anything about  acesulfame K

but glycine is interesting with regard to immune function 

For example: 

 

Multifarious Beneficial Effect of Nonessential Amino Acid, Glycine: A Review - NCBI

Mar 1, 2017 · Glycine regulates the immune function, production of superoxide, and synthesis of cytokines by altering the intracellular Ca²⁺ levels [7].

[73349]

I think acesulfame is artificial sweetener... yup, here you go: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318604#Like-other-artificial-sweeteners,-acesulfame-potassium-is-controversial

[Terabith]

Okay.  I'll order some homeopathic zinc.  I just got back from the store, which was frustrating because they didn't have some of the things I needed, but they're not ESSENTIAL needs (vanilla extract and tea and epsom salts), so I don't feel like I can make another trip to look.  But I might go later this week to the little, less busy store.  And man, masks are HOT!!!

[lewelma]

Just now, square_25 said:

The problem is that having no models is also no good. I’m enough of a statistician that I agree with your points, but I’m not sure what choice we have.

Oh, the models were super important to get the lockdowns in place. And they were accurate/consistent in predicting the outcome of 'do nothing.' But at this point, they are wildly skewed and useless individually.  And they are leading to confusion in the public as seen on this board, and I think that this confusion undermines compliance to the lockdown.

My dh said he read an article that said that a group interviewed a bunch of modellers and got their qualitative opinion, and the average of these opinions was way better than any model or even an average of many models.  This makes perfect sense to me because the process of the modelling helps you to intuitively understand what you are working with. The end product of the model is only as good as your data and assumptions, and because you are trying to be objective and not massage the data, your end-product model can be less informative than a qualitative opinion.  

[ElizabethB]

With the models, I would think that you couldn't really treat North Dakota the same way you treat New York, another variable.  You could account for density of the city and density of living arrangements somehow, but that is another variable that I don't think is being considered.  Also, although LA is fairly dense in some areas, it is a lot less dense than NY and there is a lot more car travel and less subway and bus travel.  But in both places, stores are way more crowded than in a rural area.  When we lived in the LA and DC area, you couldn't go shopping without bumping into someone.  In Arkansas, Alabama, Idaho, most non dense states and also the rural areas of CA and NY, you get natural social distancing except at lines for cash registers in normal times.  Even in the bigger cities of Arkansas and Alabama, grocery stores were not jam packed like in LA or NY.

[lewelma]

6 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

With the models, I would think that you couldn't really treat North Dakota the same way you treat New York, another variable.  You could account for density of the city and density of living arrangements somehow, but that is another variable that I don't think is being considered.  Also, although LA is fairly dense in some areas, it is a lot less dense than NY and there is a lot more car travel and less subway and bus travel.  But in both places, stores are way more crowded than in a rural area.  When we lived in the LA and DC area, you couldn't go shopping without bumping into someone.  In Arkansas, Alabama, Idaho, most non dense states and also the rural areas of CA and NY, you get natural social distancing except at lines for cash registers in normal times.  Even in the bigger cities of Arkansas and Alabama, grocery stores were not jam packed like in LA or NY.

This is what I was referring to with the spatial problem.  It is fractal, because within dense NYC there are places both more and less dense.  Every single area would need a different model.  I don't know how many *good* modellers are in the USA, but one per city/locality?  Not likely. These models take time to develop correctly, so a single modeller couldn't do multiple locations, not with the constantly changing variables. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by lewelma

[Jean in Newcastle]

I take 15 mg of zinc daily. (Pure Encapsulations)

[lewelma]

Gosh, my spell check is driving me nuts.  Modeller is the British/NZ spelling, and Modeler is the American spelling.  🙂 

Edited April 6, 2020 by lewelma

[lewelma]

At the time that I was publishing in population dynamics, I was the only woman in the field.  And there were only 10 people publishing.  Now, this was in the late 1990s, and it was in Biology not epidemiology, and this was the people publishing rather than working at the CDC or something.  But this is not a huge field. There are a limited number of good modellers. As with many things, it is easy to do a bad job, so many people can call themselves modellers, but make stink models. In many ways, model making is an art, not a science. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by lewelma

[Bootsie]

21 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Oh, the models were super important to get the lockdowns in place. And they were accurate/consistent in predicting the outcome of 'do nothing.' But at this point, they are wildly skewed and useless individually.  And they are leading to confusion in the public as seen on this board, and I think that this confusion undermines compliance to the lockdown.

My dh said he read an article that said that a group interviewed a bunch of modellers and got their qualitative opinion, and the average of these opinions was way better than any model or even an average of many models.  This makes perfect sense to me because the process of the modelling helps you to intuitively understand what you are working with. The end product of the model is only as good as your data and assumptions, and because you are trying to be objective and not massage the data, your end-product model can be less informative than a qualitative opinion.  

How do we know that they were accurate and consistent in predicting the outcome of do nothing?  Do we have enough data to conclude that?  One thing that would really be helpful in making policy decisions is the difference that occurs in taking different actions; the healthdata.org model does not provide any information about that.

[lewelma]

NZ announced yesterday that they don't think they will be doing random testing of the community to look for community spread.  They have been told by a number of epidemiologists that given our numbers are so low, it would require 100,000 tests to give any sort of statistically significant results.  We have currently done 40,000 tests in total and have 1100 cases identified, and that high percentage is because they have been testing either symptomatic cases or direct contacts or communities where there are clusters.  If they just test randomly, that percentage will be much lower, especially because yesterday they only identified 69 cases with 3700 tests.  So the plan is to identify communities that have not had much testing, and focus on them to make sure that we have data on all the regions.  

So sorry Square_25, I know randomized data collection is the gold standard for true understanding, but it won't be coming from NZ.

[Terabith]

5 minutes ago, Seasider too said:

I think someone posted this earlier in the thread, but has there been discussion here about the “we’ve already flattened the curve” article that appeared on medium.com?

A friend posted it, but medium took it down before I looked at it, so I assume there are questions about factuality?

[EmseB]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

This is what I’m wondering, too. Natures Way doesn’t seem available. Hi Tech Pharmacy has some available with exact same zinc ingredients and dose as Natures Way. Others use zinc oxide and zinc gluconate.

In the US, the package will say homeopathic on it somewhere. And the zinc or whatever ingredient will not be measured in quantity (like mg), it will say 2x or something like that. You don't know how much you're getting, if any. I know Pen disagrees but homeopathy is total bunk. It's based on the premise the the more diluted a substance is, the more powerful it becomes and that "like cures like". It is total pseudoscience.

Edited April 6, 2020 by EmseB

[ElizabethB]

20 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Gosh, my spell check is driving me nuts.  Modeller is the British/NZ spelling, and Modeler is the American spelling.  🙂 

I never know how to spell words like gray.  I actually like the British grey better.  I read widely and see both versions of several different words.

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

I never know how to spell words like gray.  I actually like the British grey better.  I read widely and see both versions of several different words.

I also prefer grey, but I had problems in elementary school with teachers constantly marking it wrong and me arguing.  

[Arcadia]

😞 https://abc11.com/business/no-ones-buying-it-wisconsin-dairy-farmer-forced-to-dump-56k-pounds-of-milk/6078309/

“GREANLEAF, Wisc. -- A Wisconsin dairy farmer said he was forced to dump 56,000 pounds of milk on Friday because no one is buying it.

Mark Mueller owns Mueller Dairy Farm in Greenleaf.

The milk harvested from the nearly 1,000 cows will rot, Mueller told  WFRV.

Mueller said he's worried the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing dairy farmers from getting their milk to the market.

He also says the restaurant closures severely hurt his business because there was no place for him to haul his product.

"It's really depressing," said Mueller. "It's like all your hard work just running down the drain."

Dairy groups in Wisconsin are now calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide help through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or CARES Act.”

[Arcadia]

https://abc7news.com/6081096/

“NEW YORK -- As the United States prepares for a tough week in the COVID-19 pandemic, White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said people who live in certain regions of the US where cases are starting to ramp up should avoid the grocery store and pharmacy for the next two weeks.

While many grocery store staples have an expiration date or sell-by-date, experts like Consumer Reports' Amy Keating told Good Morning America that by utilizing your freezer, you can extend the life of kitchen staples like leafy greens, eggs and bread.

"All the different dates, those are all related to the food's quality and not safety," Keating said.

First of all, Keating said eggs will last in the fridge for three to five weeks after their purchase date. However, eggs can be stored in the freezer for about a year if you beat them and put them in an airtight container.

If your grocery store is out of frozen veggie staples, Keating said you can blanch leafy produce before freezing--drop it in boiling water for a short amount of time, then transfer it to ice water to stop it from cooking.

Keating said blanched greens will last up to 10 months in the freezer.

For those spring and summer berries just starting to come into season, Keating said to remove the stems and put them in a paper-towel lined container to keep them from getting moldy.

"Just prior to eating them, wash them," Keating said. "Don't wash the whole batch and store them in the refrigerator. They're only going to spoil that much quicker."

Finally, Keating said bread will keep in the freezer for up to three months, but she recommended either buying pre-sliced bread or slicing it before putting it in the freezer.

"You want to make sure that it's pre-sliced so that you're not thawing and refreezing it," Keating said. "You're taking exactly what you need."”

[lewelma]

15 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

How do we know that they were accurate and consistent in predicting the outcome of do nothing?  Do we have enough data to conclude that?  One thing that would really be helpful in making policy decisions is the difference that occurs in taking different actions; the healthdata.org model does not provide any information about that.

The biology of the organism is the main thing that would be required for the early models. This is simple to model.  Even without complete information concerning the growth rate, the only thing that would impact is the speed of the exponential curve, not that it would be an exponential curve.  

However, the moment you try to correlate the population size of the virus with any independent variables, this is way way more complicated because there is a time delay on the effect and the time delay can be modelled with different decay rates. There are just too many unknowns. Plus, there is no way to check the robustness of these later models because there is not enough data. 

 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

https://abc7news.com/6081096/

“NEW YORK -- As the United States prepares for a tough week in the COVID-19 pandemic, White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said people who live in certain regions of the US where cases are starting to ramp up should avoid the grocery store and pharmacy for the next two weeks.

Is there any guidance on how to know if we're in one of those regions?

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, lewelma said:

This is what I was referring to with the spatial problem.  It is fractal, because within dense NYC there are places both more and less dense.  Every single area would need a different model.  I don't know how many *good* modellers are in the USA, but one per city/locality?  Not likely. These models take time to develop correctly, so a single modeller couldn't do multiple locations, not with the constantly changing variables. 

I really wonder if that is one reason why Memphis is acting much more aggressively than most of the region, and then the big modeling sites seem to indicate. I know the public health folks at the Med school are actively involved and maybe they are able to predict more closely because they know the local variables better. Reading local news is apt to give you mental whiplash because the newspapers are reporting much more positive models, which show the state generally being in good shape for the peak to come, but the local folks are preparing for a NYC level surge. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

24 minutes ago, Seasider too said:

 

Oh yeah, I am sure the article is under review now because it’s been disputed. I’m just trying to remember what was said about it here earlier. Because a local business owner here is trying to use it as reason to reopen a far-from-essential business.

(It’s also being tossed around with a lot of political commentary, I won’t go there here.) 

It was on another thread. One of the conspiracy/media ones. 

[DoraBora]

23 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Is there any guidance on how to know if we're in one of those regions?

Yep.  PA, CO, and Washington DC.  (She was asked to expand on something she had said the day before.  The advice wasn't directed at everyone.)

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by DoraBora

[Arcadia]

22 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Is there any guidance on how to know if we're in one of those regions?

@Farrar This is what I have found so far 

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/white-house-coronavirus-task-force-warns-dc-hotspot-for-covid-19/65-b16198d2-ec60-4a31-929e-a9b3897ee8f5

“Dr. Deborah Birx is looking at Pennsylvania, Colorado and D.C. as the United States' next big hot spots for the coronavirus, She said Sunday that 15 percent per 100,000 D.C. citizens are testing positive in coronavirus lab tests.

Birx also said Sunday that the District is starting to become defined more than other places in data maps that are being presented during White House news briefings, which have included President Donald Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Vice President Mike Pence.

She also said in recent statements that avoiding trips to the grocery store and pharmacy over these next two weeks could really help flatten the curve of the coronavirus. 

"The next two weeks are extraordinarily important, Birx said. "This is the moment to do everything that you can on the president's guidelines. This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store and not be going to the pharmacy – but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe.”

In regards to D.C., Pennsylvania and Colorado being the next virus hot spots in the U.S., Birx said: 

"We're watching them because they are starting to go up in the upside of the curve. Where hoping and believing that if people mitigate strongly (continue to practice social distancing) the work that they did over the last two weeks, will blunt that curve and they won't have that same upward slope and peak that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island are having."

Birx's answer came after a question by a White House media member to elaborate on why she believes these spots are of concern.”

[Arcadia]

@square_25 long article with more specific data after the portion I quoted
https://www.newsweek.com/us-coronavirus-hotspot-updates-latest-covid-19-cases-new-york-detroit-new-orleans-1496318

“Three of the five states with the most coronavirus cases are approaching the peaks of their outbreaks and the White House Coronavirus Task Force is expecting them to hit at the same time.

About 337,000 people in the United States have tested positive for the new coronavirus, more than double the number of cases in any other country. In Michigan, Louisiana and New York—three hot spots accounting for more than half the country's deaths—the peak in mortality is expected to hit simultaneously in the next five to six days.

Dr. Deborah Birx, a top advisor on the task force, didn't offer projections for the death toll during Saturday's briefing but referred people to the prediction on Healthdata.org. By August, the website projected 746 people in Louisiana would die, 2,963 in Michigan and 15,618 in New York.”

[Pen]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Okay.  I'll order some homeopathic zinc.  I just got back from the store, which was frustrating because they didn't have some of the things I needed, but they're not ESSENTIAL needs (vanilla extract and tea and epsom salts), so I don't feel like I can make another trip to look.  But I might go later this week to the little, less busy store.  And man, masks are HOT!!!

 

Make sure the one you choose has an amount of zinc in mg range.  

There are probably ones that don’t— for example anything with a homeopathic dilution listed as C such as 6 C would indicate iirc  a 1 part substance to 99 parts inert (where C is Roman numeral for 100) — which is good if you are dealing with something that would be poisonous in mg type quantities.  But when you want an mg type amount of substance, you want an X type dilution and a large enough total lozenge size that the mg will be in an effective range as a trace mineral. 

[Ausmumof3]

Bno:  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is suffering from coronavirus, has been admitted to intensive care as his condition has worsened

[Arcadia]

LA County, California https://abc7news.com/la-county-coronavirus-news-covid-19-safer-at-home-order/6081845/
“Officials are advising all residents of Los Angeles County to stay home this week, which they are calling critical in the widespread efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19.

At a Monday afternoon press conference, county public health director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said people should try not leave their homes for groceries or medications, but should instead arrange for them to be delivered, if necessary.

"If you have enough supplies in your home, this would be the week to skip shopping altogether," she said.

The recommendation comes as the number of cases across L.A. County topped 6,000. The county's death toll now stands at 147.”

[lewelma]

56 minutes ago, dmmetler said:

I really wonder if that is one reason why Memphis is acting much more aggressively than most of the region, and then the big modeling sites seem to indicate. I know the public health folks at the Med school are actively involved and maybe they are able to predict more closely because they know the local variables better. Reading local news is apt to give you mental whiplash because the newspapers are reporting much more positive models, which show the state generally being in good shape for the peak to come, but the local folks are preparing for a NYC level surge. 

I agree. The large cities will have good modellers.  Also, any place where any infectious disease (measles, TB) could be a problem (e.g. dense cities), the modellers will have already done the work on how virus's spread in their locality, so would be hugely more prepared to design covid-19 models.  Smaller places would not have had the resources to have been working on this for the past decade as our computing power has increased. 

When I was doing my models in the late 90s, there was no Web, and personal computers could not run my models.  I got an NSF grant to run my models on a mainframe using FTP to upload my files across the text-based Cleveland Freenet to the university where the mainframe was.  This field is young because we simply did not have the computer power to run the models until the last 20 years. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by lewelma

[Ausmumof3]

3,599 new cases and 636 new deaths in Italy. - not sure if this is the 24 hour total but I think so.  Definite downward trend in new cases

[Pen]

1 hour ago, EmseB said:

In the US, the package will say homeopathic on it somewhere. And the zinc or whatever ingredient will not be measured in quantity (like mg), it will say 2x or something like that. You don't know how much you're getting, if any.

 

13.3mg  according to several online sources. 

And I already posted that somewhere above. 

😊

1 hour ago, EmseB said:

I know Pen disagrees but homeopathy is total bunk. It's based on the premise the the more diluted a substance is, the more powerful it becomes and that "like cures like". It is total pseudoscience.

 

 

“Not all lozenges are created equal

In order for a lozenge to provide enough zinc to be effective, it needs to contain between 13 and 23 milligrams, Dr. Cooperman says. Yet only two of the four lozenges Consumer Lab tested—Cold-Eeze Homeopathic Cold Remedy and Nature’s Way Zinc—provided enough. (There are other brands of zinc they didn't test.)”

The relevant issue here imo  is whether the particular lozenge has an effective amount of zinc,  not whether it is called “homeopathic” or not.

For example,  Zand brand is conventional but iirc only has 5mg zinc /lozenge.  So not “homeopathic” but also apparently not an effective amount. 

That you don’t know how much zinc there is does not mean it is unknowable.  Sort of like if something were expressed in any other units you don’t understand.  It doesn’t mean it is unknowable.  Maybe that is true, maybe not. 

 

 

COLD-EEZE- zinc gluconate lozenge - 

Zincum Gluconicum 2x

(13.3mg)  Zinc Gluconate 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Pen

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, lewelma said:

I'm still catching up on the thread, but I can answer questions about modelling.  My PhD is in mathematical/statistical modelling of population dynamics.. 🙂 

Time series models make notoriously poor forecasts. Because the infections today are based on the infections yesterday which are based on the infections the day before, it is like the butterfly effect.  They are *very* sensitive to initial conditions.  Basically, they compound the error in the model for every day out you try to predict.  So if you are building your model out of daily data (rather than hourly or monthly), you can make a decent prediction with large error bars ONE day out. By 2 days out, all the errors compound. 

In addition, the models can be built from both a data-fitting approach or from a biology-driven approach.  The data fitting approach is only as good as the data we have, which is obviously poor given the lack of testing, and poor given the uncertainty of the compliance with the lockdown.  The biology-driven approach is only as good as the knowledge about the virus, and that is poor.  They are not clear as to death rate or infection rate or spread conditions.  So neither approach will be great, so I'm sure they are trying both, and interweaving them.  

The assumptions required to be made for these types of models are just huge, and each modeller is trying different things.  I'm sure that they are also holding back current data, to then test the robustness of their model, and then if the forecasts are good, they will use those parameters with the full data set.  But clearly, they also have a problem with the variability in the data.  If all things were known, the growth of the virus would be completely smooth, but even the data coming out of NZ which has good testing, is quite ragged. So their models might only explain 70% of the variability in past data, and all their forecasts beyond one day, predict based on the forecasts from the previous day, etc. So compounding the uncertainty to make predictions useless.

There is also a massive problem with the spatial component. Every region in the US has a different type of lockdown and different compliance.  It is really fractal, with an equal amount of variability at each spatial scale measured.  This is Huge, and close to impossible to deal with.  Each model really needs to be for a very small physical area, and even then there would be variability in both the data for the dependent and independent variables. That is a crazy large number of models for a place as big as the US. Each of the models we see being published are clearly using a subset of the data in a constantly moving landscape.

I think the models were more consistent in the beginning because there was really only one approach for the independent variables and that was 'do nothing.' So a pure spread.  Now that there are all sorts of lockdown rules, that are being followed or not, that really shakes up the models and makes them even less accurate because the data over the time scale you are working on has the independent variables changing at different points along the x axis.  This makes for a messy situation, because when you add in more and more variables to explain everything, you can actually make your model less and less accurate because you have overfitted it. 

Finally, I spent 4 years of my life trying to make a reasonable model. Sure I was a newbie to modelling and the biology of my animal, but doing these models in just weeks is a BIG ask. The understanding of the biology keeps changing -- so the time based relationship between the data in the dependent variable. And the independent variables keep changing  -- lock down, masks for the public, etc. You can say that there are just a crazy number of modellers out there all working together, but 9 women cannot make a baby in a month.  

Point being. The models are no good, and I have been ignoring them.

I also notice that in Australia they are claiming to be flattening the curve.  I feel like that’s not really accurate because growth in cases till now has been mostly imported.  International Travel ban might flatten that curve (or stop those seeds being sown) but community spread is a separate curve that’s still growing.  Would that be correct?

[lewelma]

1 minute ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I also notice that in Australia they are claiming to be flattening the curve.  I feel like that’s not really accurate because growth in cases till now has been mostly imported.  International Travel ban might flatten that curve (or stop those seeds being sown) but community spread is a separate curve that’s still growing.  Would that be correct?

They would not use total numbers in their models, because it would muck up the infectious rate they are using.  When you build a model, the population has dependent factors that link the population size to the previous day based on the biology of the animal. The imported cases won't work with that biology.  So they are likely to be adding them in as a separate variable, that then in the following day integrating them into the biological relationship.  However, here in NZ the infection rate will be different for the imported cases who are under quarantine and the community spread cases.  So they may be getting their dependent variable as a sum of different sub-variables that are linked to each other in time using different time-linked relationships. 

[lewelma]

11 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I also notice that in Australia they are claiming to be flattening the curve.  I feel like that’s not really accurate because growth in cases till now has been mostly imported.  International Travel ban might flatten that curve (or stop those seeds being sown) but community spread is a separate curve that’s still growing.  Would that be correct?

Oh, I don't think I answered your question.  I agree with you.  If the growing case load in Australia was originally based on imported cases, and now that is stopped so the growth rate has declined, that says nothing about community spread.  Flattening the curve is all about community spread.  Have you guys been testing for this?