dynato

There's a lot of ifs about the unknowns here, but the premise is right. CDC estimates that twice the people who have the flu never go in to get seen for it. This easily cuts the current COVID mortality rate that we are experience in half. I would like to think people would behave similar, if not lean towards a tendency to go get tested since we are in a pandemic, rather than stay at home. Proposing 99 out of 100 people in MN are staying at home and not getting tested if they have symptoms is a little extreme. Though more widespread testing would help validate this and position the USA to open up sooner. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

I posted global stats yesterday. Italy's numbers: Current estimates in the USA is that 8/10 covid deaths in the USA are from people aged 60+. I could not find any clear death rates by age grouping for the USA.

Short term with shelter in place, 3.7% are dying. No alternative facts. Current stats: 525K Positive Cases, 20.3K deaths. It's at 3.86% as of today in the good ol' USA. Long term death rate with studying of the virus, vaccinations, proper isolation and treatment of positive cases, and heard immunity: 1% (expert prediction).

1% of 160 million is 1.6 million deaths, not 160k

Our president appears to be more on the side of sheltering at home than opening up the economy now. He said that while he has the power to dictate longer isolation periods, he is going to let governors of individual states make that decision for what they assume is best for their state. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/10/trump-says-hes-not-going-to-reopen-economy-until-we-know-this-country-is-going-to-be-healthy.html

In the future, sure, the death rate is likely to be a magnitude above the flu, probably in the range of 0.1% to 0.5% mortality rate. This will come with time as we studying of the virus, provide vaccinations, proper isolation and treatment, and heard immunity. As of right now, we have absolutely none of that, so the world is resorting to social distancing, sheltering in place, and quarantine. With these measures, the mortality rate is much, much higher. In the USA It has progressed from being 1.7% to 3.7% mortality rate in the past two weeks alone, with no resigns of receding. This will be continue to be the death rate in the USA until a better response can be put together. Realistically, models/projections/predictions have become inaccurate after about two days of new data. So it is a good thing medical professionals like Dr. Fauci are revisiting them. However, enough changes to the predictions have happened to where nobody really trusts the numbers anyway.

Interestingly enough, President Bush was obsessed with pandemics. He passed a bill that budgeted 7 billion dollars towards preparing plans for a pandemic to be passed on from administration to administration. In 2005, he was quoted in a speech ""If we wait for a pandemic to appear," he warned, "it will be too late to prepare. And one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today."" https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-bush-2005-wait-pandemic-late-prepare/story?id=69979013

I do not, in any way, think MN will account for 1/3 of all USA deaths. I'll check the box yes that I agree with the MN model for a final death count range of ~9-36k COVID deaths in MN by the time this is done. I do not believe in the experts modeling there will only be 60k total deaths in the USA. I'll let you check the yes box for that one.

If you are comparing one state to national projections, I should be allowed to compare other states to the national projection. It is not dodging if you don't understand that.

The "experts" predicted 60k death nationwide, yet NY has 8K deaths, 1/8 of that despite there being 50 states. NY has 800 deaths a day now. Their projections are much worse.

That is a fairly good estimate for the information that we have. The range is still absurd, 20,000 plus or minus 60%. This adds in all the expected deaths through August too. Basically, if you take the situation in New York and apply it just to the twin cities and metro area. Pretty reasonably assumptions tbh.

In the past two weeks, 14 days, we have had 17K deaths. In the past five days, we have had 9K deaths. 17M unemployment is part of a larger problem than COVID and an entirely new discussion. Our country was heading towards a recession before COVID, as reflected by the feds lowering interest rates and pumping hundreds of billions into money markets before the first case of corona hit US soil. With the 4 trillion dollars in bailouts to corporations, why is it that companies were not able to keep any of these people on payroll?

Both indirect and direct causes of deaths add up to the total count. Just as how if you died as a result of not getting medical care during a natural disaster, the natural disaster played a role in your death. Without the natural disaster, you likely would not have died. I doubt that the indirect deaths will ever outpace the direct deaths though. The purpose of dividing them into two categories is for planning for the future. Most indirect deaths would be considered preventable with proper guidance.

I believe you are thinking about it backwards. Comparing it to day one, just as projecting outward from day one data (which you can appreciate), is just silly and inflates the numbers in each direction. What we need to look at what we know right now, which is that this virus has a death rate 37 times greater than the flu in the USA. We know it will continue to kill 1900 people a day without any additional efforts to slow it down. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the current average deaths per day is 1900. No projections. No Modeling. This is the number for today/this week. Over time, we can expect this number to trend way downward once proper measures are taken to get it under control. Unless you have reasonably conclusive evidence that those darn medical professionals are getting greedy and inflating numbers.

After hurricane katrina, congress passed a bill that offered guidelines for assessing true death tolls for disasters. They subjected it to two categories, direct and indirect deaths. Direct covid death would likely be you showed symptoms and died in the hospital. Indirect covid death would be dying as a result of not getting the necessary care due to COVID. IE, you dying as a result of getting out of surgery and you do not have the opportunity to be put on a ventilator because every ventilator has a COVID patient on it. In the heat of the moment, it would be reasonable to assume deaths are inflated on the direct side. However, medical professionals are very about documenting everything so that down the road the numbers can be adjusted as necessary. With regards to how deaths are being counted, Dr. Fauci said: "I think there is more of a chance of missing some that are really coronavirus deaths that are not being counted,” Fauci told NBC. “But I don’t think that number is significant enough to really substantially modify the trends that we are seeing, at all.” With regards to the death count President Trump said: "pretty accurate on the death count" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-death-overcount-anthony-fauci

Covid is hitting very specific cities and states hard. What this goes to show is that in cities where improper measures take place, COVID can get out of control very fast. Majority of major cities have put control measures in place at 25 cases. Yet they still top the list in deaths. It's true that the flu does not spread through our communities as harshly as it does most states, so we are fairly protected based on that. However, it would be naive to think we are stronger and better equipped to handle a pandemic that is ravaging states larger than us with better federal support. True. But I was comparing yearly totals based on the current numbers, which gets helps get rid of some of the bias separating the flu/covid into seasonal/weekly deaths. Flu season: October through March Average deaths per day: 330 Average deaths per day of flu outside of march: 30 Deaths per day to COVID, in April, if not mitigated further: 1900 So it is 5 times as deadly as the flu while the flu is in season, but 60 times deadlier than the flu out of season. Easier just to average them both out to a year so it is a one to one comparison.

I will say the problem with mitigation efforts are that they disproportionately impact non-major cities/ small communities like Grand Forks. The average major city has shut down at around 25 cases. ND communities had single digit cases/ 0 cases before essentially shutting down, despite us being remote and sparsely populated. Grand Forks still only has 11 cases that we know of. Unfortunately, we won't know the reduction of deaths resulting from these extreme measures, which makes it harder for our community to justify and agree with. However, it is clear that once it gets a foothold on a community, it is incredibly difficult to stop its growth. 60,0000 people dying from flu every year equates to 165 people dying a day (60,000/365=165). COVID in it's current stage has death rate of 3.7% in america, making it 37 times deadlier than the standard flu. What this means is that if COVID spreads with the same intensity as the flu (which we know it does), that there is a potential of (60,000*37) = 2.2 million people dying with no mitigation efforts. COVID has killed over 1900 people each of the past three days. Keep in mind, this is with social distancing and sheltering at home efforts in most states. This is without yet peak death rates/without "containing" the virus. This makes it 13 more times as deadly as the flu in this current stage without having the complete numbers. This means 780,000 could die this year if the curve is not flattened as a result from not taking it seriously enough. This would make it the highest cause of death in america, the equivalent of 1 in 5 deaths in america being COVID. For anyone wanting to dispute the death toll, our president said that he trusts the reported numbers and believes they are pretty accurate. Dr. Fauci also backs this up and shoots down claims of those stating the death toll is inflated. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-death-overcount-anthony-fauci. Extra Info for anyone curious: Below is the most recent covid death rate by age group. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/

Your experience is the best/accurate picture in my opinion. The public needs little wins and the media will frame the situation in a way to give them what they want. It's unfortunate if it leads to misrepresentation of what you are dealing with. Likely the full picture won't be accurately represented until things start slowing down and when time can be spent analyzing what happened and why.

NYTimes wrote a very detailed article on the breakout of COVID in New York (Released on April 8th). They address the shortcomings made on by local and state government officials that lead to the current situation. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-response-delays.html

Please avoid bringing up politics, I'd like this thread not to get locked. I get it, socialism triggers you. Please try to contribute more to moving the conversation forward, offer constructive criticism, post reliable sources, offer support for your stances instead of just projecting and going to extremes. You do not convince anyone to agree with you this way. I want to learn from you and understand. I want to know what hard lessons you think will be learned? Who will learn them? Why do you think what we are doing now wont be done again? How is it unsustainable? Here is a pandemic action plan to provide plenty of constructive criticism for: If this was biological warfare, our response would be swift and intense. If we get another virus in three years I want a similar response. I hope we the people ensure the government has an action plan in place to respond. The government should have criteria set up, possibly with the flu as a baseline (in terms of transmission rate, death rate, and hospitalization rate), for how and exactly when individual cities and states should respond. Medical professionals should be the primary source of developing information and the required response. Elected officials should defer to them. Medical units should be prepared to be mobilized to isolate the virus, perhaps similar to the national guard. Encourage testing, give support to those who test positive, making it possible for them to stay home so we don't have to. Government aid should be known to be distributed at certain stages. Good news is they now have a baseline for how many people would be put out of work if something similar comes around. Base the aid package off of that and be ready to be preemptive about it. This way the government should be able to prioritize life and the economy at the same time. Ultimately, I would like the USA's response to be the gold standard of the modern world, not the epicenter or joke of it.

Framed authentic jersey signed by the entire 2015-16 championship team. Was hoping I could add a similar one to my wall this year.

I do not think anyone is disputing that smaller, less traveled to rural cities would be disproportionately impacted by stricter guidelines and limitations in place. However, just one doctor dying in one of these rural counties would also have an equally large, disproportional impact on their community compared to densely populated areas of the state. The value of human life and accumulation of years of training, knowledge, and specialized skill-sets is often forgotten. I would not advocate for complete quarantine, just for better guidelines from our government so everyone can get on the same page on how to approach these pandemics.

Last week there were 1000 deaths total. Now we are at over 1000 deaths daily. The covid death rate in the USA has climbed to being 27 times deadlier than the flu. Trump's team predicts a death toll of 100k-240k with full mitigation and a peak daily death rate of 2,200 people a day on April 15th. If we reach this number before April 15th, it will be very telling where our country is heading. The danger here is asymptomatic transmission and resulting exponential growth of an airborne virus leading to a collapse of the healthcare system, leading to even more unnecessary deaths. ND will likely be the last state to be impacted, giving us the most time to be prepared and well positioned to attack this if we take it seriously. Currently, 16% of positive tested North Dakotans are being hospitalized. Anyone could see how damaging this could be to our healthcare systems and community if not kept under the slightest control. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.health.nd.gov/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/north-dakota-coronavirus-cases Unfortunately, the world has proven that eyes wont be opened by statistics alone. The comparison to the flu in the USA was ruined by misleading information spread by all parties and sensationalized by the media. For most that are not convinced, it will take them being impacted directly by losing their loved ones. By then, it will be too late. If they are lucky and do not get directly impacted by loss of life, then they will likely use it as a reason to protest limitations in place.

Statements need to be questioned about what they truly mean before taking them as gospel, just like any other statistic out there about covid. There is a lot of stat manipulation out there as you are aware. I would argue positive testing has many too many uncontrollable variables to it to correlate it to anything significant right now. The arguments down the road will be did we test too early and those who were first panic and tested negative got infected later? Did they get tested again? Where are we testing? Did we test too late? Are all tests account for? IS there a time lag between reporting of negative vs positive? Did we test enough people or not enough? Did we test the right people? Should we have been more or less selective about the people we tested? How does the positive test rate correlate to the entire population of infected? Most of these questions will be answered for us a year down the road. Many here are correct about comparisons. I brought up the flu because I've seen it attempted to be used as an argument to discredit the severity of Covid. Comparing the current 3,000 some deaths of COVID to the 33,000 deaths of the flu and calling COVID insignificant is a terrible comparison. Comparing raw totals for an incomplete dataset is an invalid argument that people will disregard. Covid is not an established virus with established weekly/yearly totals yet so it cannot be used for a valid comparison based on totals alone. The comparisons that you can draw, that will be respected and not challenged, have to be established variables between the two viruses chosen. In this case I went with the flu vs covid death rate variables, compared them in a ratio, and scaled up to get realistic theoretical totals. What is the spread of a virus in our environment? (10% of Americans get the flu in a year). Within reasonable certainty, you can deem that if a standard virus can easily spread to 10% of Americans every year, a virus of with a similar mode of transmission will also spread to a similar total of the population. In this case, COVID is found to be transmitted airborne and also linger on surfaces for long periods of time, giving it a faster rate of transmission from person to person than the typical virus. For transmission of COVID, it appears to be active in any season, making it deadly all year round (for the flu, it is primarily in the fall/winter season). This makes seasonal totals an invalid argument, at least until weekly rates for COVID are established for the duration of the virus/year. However, this supports the argument that COVID has the potential to spread to more than 10% of Americans if we are not cautious. Using the above info on the spread, we can use the established death rates of each virus to scale up to get a reasonable estimate. The COVID:Flu death rate ratio is currently 17.3:1 in the USA. It would be justifiable to use this ratio and multiply it by the average amount of Americans typically impacted by a person to person virus to receive a reliable death total estimate (165-500k). With vaccines being made, more sheltering in place, and supporting our hospital infrastructure by whatever is necessary, I'm hopeful we can lower the severity of it down to the level of the common flu by next year.

I never said I did not agree with your math/numbers. Your numbers are not unrealistic. There is not a narrative here. Giving someone the full details on the assumptions made to come to your conclusion is not taking away from your narrative. It helps keeps the reader informed and let the come to their own conclusion. Ultimately, your methodology to reach the low end is just as valid as someones methodology to predict the higher end. Experts use more predictive models that people have worked on for years that have been validated as feasible in the medical research community. They still need to be challenged, which we are obviously doing on both ends of the spectrum. Both sides have merit that can't be disproven until this is over. We can run numbers all day, but it won't change what is happening. Running the numbers on the flu and relate covid: 34 million Americans had the flu last year, for a total death toll of 33,000, or 0.1% of infected. Covid has an established death rate that is nearly 5 to 15 times more than the flu for this first go around. Assuming that covid spreads just as well and fast as the flu - the traditional virus, that would mean a total death toll of 165,000 to 500,000 in the USA. This can be considered conservative, as covid both seems to spread faster and isnt contained to spreading in specific seasons. With the shelters in place, the goal is to keep it on the lower end of whatever the theoretical range is. What this means in relation to north dakota: 152 flu deaths last year can translate to 1520 to 1800 covid deaths, placing it at the #1 cause of death in the state. The final death rate for covid would still only be 0.2% of the entire ND population. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/flu_pneumonia_mortality/flu_pneumonia.htm The scary sky is falling stat would be the recovered patients vs death statistic. ~160K registered cases in the USA. There has been only ~8000 resolved outcomes. 5000/8000 (62.5%) recovered, 3000/8000 (37.5%) died. Using small sample sizes means in this case means you are 37.5% likely to die if you get corona. CDC states these outcome stats are likely 2 weeks behind, which makes them unusable for now.