Tracking the COVID-19-Virus in Germany, the USA, Italy and other hot spots in the world

I would hope that we have enough healthcare within the U.S. borders to not need help from other countries. New York is supposed to peak in 9 days; Texas isn't expected to peak until the middle of May. Logically, as long as the peaks aren't happening at the same time, we should be able to move people where needed. The current trend I'm seeing though is that every city and state is trying to stockpile and hoard everything they can get, including manpower. Government officials are definitely making decisions based on "borders do matter", as everyone resorts to the human nature of taking care of their own first.

 

Some folks notice that the partisan comments and insults are coming from both sides, just like always. One side justifies it as some sort of righteousness and the other justifies it as free speech....but it happens both ways. Nothing new.

 

6 days after sanitizing my car from within and without and then not using it for 6 days, just to be safe, I drove to do some necessary errands (stuff at the drugstore for my do), groceries, a birthday gift).

Today was the first day where, upon waiting to get into the shops, the 'Abstandslinie' (Distance-line) between customers was 3 meters instead of two, the number of people allowed in the grocery was drastically reduced and people's temperatures were checked twice: when on joined the queue-line and one right before you get to go through the door. 3 people were taken out of the line because the thermometer was showing slight fever. One lady had an open cut on her arm. She was not allowed in. So, today I saw a marked change in how the few businesses that are open are doing business. To their credit, most Germans are patient people and also they are usually not inconsiderate. In fact, I see more and more Germans smiling at each other and wishing the other good health than before. And there is no toilet-paper hoarding allowed. Most groceries have a limit per purchase.

 

The best answer is "No one knows." The second best answer seems to be "several weeks," which is neither precise nor comforting. Dr. Birx said a while back when New York City's numbers starting rising with alarming speed, that was an indication that the virus had been circulating through community spread for "several weeks" before the first case was identified.

 

I concur with you on that.

 

That is usually the pattern in most cases of community spread.

 

My sincere condolences. I'm very saddened to read that. My prayers go out to you and the man's other friends and family.

 

Just to illustrate the effect of small changes today impacting the end projection months down the line...

This was the projection from yesterday.



They estimated 638-781 deaths for March 31st. That number, according to this source, came in at 874. And because of that ~100 death total difference...



The model jumped nearly 10,000.

 

I recall the spokesperson from the Washington nursing home, followed by comments from other health care worker with first-hand experience, that they are amazed at how very quickly some patients are going from almost no symptoms to respiratory or other mortal organ failure. Others seem to survive 2-3 weeks.

 

Yes, the media continually and falsely claimed that Trump said that chloroquine would cure the corona infection and act as a prophylactic against infection. He did not say that but said that the drug showed promise.

 

How is your mom doing. A few days ago you were worried that she had symptoms. It doesn't sound like either of you leave the house very often.

 

It took a while for us to ramp up testing, but we have been told for a few weeks that we will see some frightening numbers. I am sad, but not surprised that they were correct.

 

We hope so! CDC is running an official scientific trial in New York, and is allowing "off label" use everywhere else.

 

Good to know that they made the model responsive to reality. Now that they are entering the actual numbers we might start to gain a better insight into where this is likely to end.

 

Yes, that is seriously concerning because it essentially means that the body's immune system was overwhelmed and there was nothing left in reserve.

I sincerely wish that we had more information about cases like those since it could give us a better understanding of what is happening. Did the virus mutate sufficiently so as to be able to replicate unrecognized while the immune system was occupied with defeating the original virus? Just speculating because we know so little about how it works and why some can be asymptomatic while others need critical ICU care.

 

MIRACLE COVIN-19 DETECTOR DEVICE?

Wow. I am just back from watching the mid-day news here in France.

There was a young-chap interviewed for an invention he has developed. It is a small device not too long and rectangular. It fits in the palm of his hand. It pin-pricks a finger, "reads" the droplet and identifies whether or not it contains COVIT-19.

Honest - this was a serious TV-interview by one of France's prime-time TV stations. The inventor said he would be producing 1-million devices per month starting next month.

Too good to be true? It does not appear on any Internet news-report, so let's hold-our-horses ...

 

Yes, I noticed that the numbers worsened overnight. Every day the model is showing a worse outcome for the U.S. than when the model was initially announced to the public.

 

Poor outcomes seem to be older age first, but in younger people heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure puts people of any age at high risk.

I worry about my boss who within the last 12 months had a checkup and they told him he has early signs of all three of the complicating health issues. He'll be 59 years old in May.

 

Any opportunity for hope is a good thing right now.

 

A couple of notes about testing in the US (neither of which are good).

The number of tests in the US are stagnating



While the number of deaths and the percentage of positives per test conducted are also increasing.



The former is self-explanatory, but the later implies that we are more blind to the real infection rate.

 

No, nothing new around here. I have railed against unjustified conjecture posted here, and got nowhere. True enough, I can't stand idiot one-liners (totally unjustified remarks made but unsubstantiated by factual evidence.)

Let's presume that the powers-that-be are also railing personally to those who put them up ...

 

There is in the US (I think) no central agency responsible for testing.

Perhaps the reporting problem stems from that fact ... ?

 

Carl Bergstrom has put out a model showing the projections for needed hospital beds, needed ICU beds, needed ventilators, also by state, through at least August, 2020.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

His model sees the peak of the first wave being hit nationally on April 16th, where, in his model (which is also incredibly optimistic), in terms of cases, needs and unfortunately, in terms of deaths.

It's an interactive model that you can scroll over. Each day lists a possible range or projected deaths nationally. For instance, in 7 days, on April 8, he is predicting between 1,458 and 2,544 deaths, the mean of which is 2,015 deaths. It sees an average of at least 2,000 deaths per day every day through April 27th - 20 days in a row, with the absolute high point currently predicted for 15 days from now, on April 16th, with a range of between 1,294 and 4,140 deaths, the mean for which is 2,607.

There is graphical data for all 50 states plus DC as well.

Ok, some key points:

-it's only one model, it could be way off.
-but it is actually more conservative than the information that Dr. Birx und Dr. Fauci gave yesterday. Bergstrom's analyis predicts slightly under 94,000 deaths by August 2020, the most of them already happening by June 2020.




-we all need to look at the data and realize that people from all over the spectrum are no longer speculating where large numbers of American citizens are going to die, but rather, how many, and when.

The actual number of true COVID-19 deaths could be smaller than this scenario (highly unlikely), or they could end up being between 15 and 30 TIMES worse, depending on behavior of individual citizens.

Bergstrom also may a twitter feed over his work: https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1244815009303023616?s=20

One of the researchers on this data, Chris Murray, was referred to by Dr. Birx last night at the WH press conference.

-Stat

 

Sounds like an adaption of the diabetic blood sugar detector which means that most of the technology already exists.

The ability to detect the Covid-19 RNA is novel and could be revolutionary if it works as promised.

Manufacturing a million a month seems unrealistic and that might be where the caveat that if it sounds too good to be true comes in.

 

The hoarding has ended in my city in UK - it took just over two weeks here. There is now plenty of essential items such as bread, milk, toilet rolls, paracetamol, meat, cheese and eggs. Shops are quite empty of people now, presumably most people have suddenly found that they bought too much. What is still not to be found is pasta and bars of soap.