Dramatic Reduction in COVID-19 Disaster Projections
By: ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Readers who’ve been following along with me know I’ve been frustrated by the fuzziness of the coronavirus statistics. In particular, it is hard to nail down such crucial numbers as what a “confirmed case” is (e.g., is it a case of the virus or the potentially lethal disease caused by the virus?), and what counts as a “coronavirus death” (does it mean the virus or disease was merely present in the patient, that it played some contributory role in death, or that it was the proximate cause of death?).
I hope to have more on that soon. In the meantime, though, let me draw attention to a report by our Tobias Hoonhout that an influential model, on which the White House Coronavirus Task Force relies to project COVID-19 deaths and related statistics, has just been dramatically revised to lower its estimates. The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation now projects 12 percent fewer deaths (81,766, down from 93,531). While estimates about daily deaths in the peak period have actually increased, it is believed the peak may come somewhat earlier and be shorter in duration.
What is truly gripping is the sudden reduction, from a projection made just three days earlier, of the estimate of how many hospital beds that will be needed at peak. On April 2, IHME predicted 262,092; on April 5, that was reduced to 140,823. The estimated needs for ICU beds and invasive ventilators were also slashed.
The fact that the projections have been reduced by so much so quickly is not the only notable thing. Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson has been following the IHME modeling like a hawk on Twitter. As he tartly notes , it is not just that the IHME projections on which the government so heavily relies have proved unreliable; it is that they are wrong even about the here and now. The IHME projected on April 5 that hard hit New York would need about 24,000 hospital beds, including about 6,000 for ICU patients at that point; of course, April 5 has already happened, and New York announced that it had 16,479 people being hospitalized, including 4,376 ICU patients — i.e., the model was about a third off on the day it was published.
Berenson reasonably asks , if the model is significantly inaccurate in its application to current conditions that are more easily knowable, how much confidence should we have in its projections for a week from now, or a month from now?
Based on these models, the government is making policy, now and going forward. It is vital that we get more and better information about what is informing them. The decisions to substantially shut down the economy have been based on the assessment that surges in coronavirus infections will outstrip our health-care system’s capacity to treat patients, with the knock-on effect that otherwise treatable ailments will not receive treatment, needlessly increasing the number of serious illnesses and fatalities.
How reliable are these assessments? Do they justify the damage being done by the extreme measures that have been taken to counter the predicted scenarios? We need better information about the inputs.
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Adjustments need to be made.
An economic task force should be set up at once.
Dr Fauci should be placed under the control of the economic task force.
Also worth mentioning is what Dr Birx said yesterday - If someone dies with Covid19, it's being counted as a "Covid19 death.”
In other words you can die with the disease, but not from it and we are getting an inaccurate count
I had a go around about that very point yesterday. I was told that even the healthy were dying and I asked for stats. "No one is keeping track of that" was the answer. And most of the deaths I have heard about indicate there was underlying factors. In other words, as you say, with and not from seems to be the narrative twisted into "it's the virus' fault" without substantiation. Yes, it may aggravate but it aggravates pre-existing factors. Still sucks but jeez. Get to the meat.
It takes time these days to get to the truth and by the time we get there another news cycle is grabbing everyone's attention.
I doubt healthy people are really dying most likely they just had a unknown condition that contributed to their death. I know a lot of people who would call themselves healthy but couldn't walk up five floors of stairs without getting very winded, this is not healthy maybe not unhealthy enough to make you die from the virus but it sure as hell can't be a plus. We have a lot of people who's only exercise is walking through Walmart.
Actually I was thinking just the opposite!
If you're trying to cope with a pandemic, listening to people who are only motivated by short-term economic concerns will only make it worse...what yopu need to do is listen to an expert on medical issues...not the economy!
It's called balance................
And Fauci is your choice for the leadership role?
What did he inadvertently say last Thursday when asked if guidelines should be interpreted as a "stay-at-home-order"? (A very leading leftist question btw)
He said this:
"Well yeah, if you look at what’s in those 30-day recommendations of the guidelines, that’s essentially what it is. I mean I know it’s difficult, but we’re having a lot of suffering, a lot of death, this is inconvenient from an economic and a personal standpoint, but we just have to do it."
Inconvenient?
It's going to take years to recover from the devastation already caused by the voluntary lock down and make no mistake about it there is death involved in that as well as the broken lives. No, I'm afraid the expert needs a bit of managing.
I wonder how much it matters that Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx are registered Democrats advising a Republican president.
It shouldn't matter at all, however the radical left has made Dr Fauci their "boy" and have targeted Dr Birx as the "enemy." Funny how quickly they politicized it.
How so? And because that's what you think is not acceptable...........GO
There was no need to curse at me, Tessy. Please re-read my comment, because I did not state that the doctors' political parties made a "difference" to me or anyone else; I merely posed a hypothesis (proposition, theory, idea, premise, etc) for discussion.
I was reading too fast
I almost agreed with you that he should be arrested as soon as possible and shipped off to NK.
#dieforthedow
#diefortheleft
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Disease is not political, Vic. It's science. And my wallet hurts, too. But dead people don't spend their 401K's
Explain please?
It does you no good to be rich if you're dead...
And people starved and froze to death during the Great Depression. It's time for a lot more consideration of the economy and solving this as quickly as possible. The current approach is killing the patient.
I don't know how that relates to this?
We are not going to go into a depression. The moment the stay in place is removed, people will go back to normal activities. The depression was caused by a run on the banks and the stock market crash. This is not an equivalent event.
You posted #diefortheleft. I responded that disease is not political. In other words, this is not nor should it be a left or right issue. It is a science issue. It is a human issue.
The premise of the article is that the task force model used was over estimated....Do you dispute that?
In response to #diefortheDow.
I responded that disease is not political.
Yes, and it shouldn't be but IS
In other words, this is not nor should it be a left or right issue. It is a science issue. It is a human issue.
Then you singled out the wrong person.
Perrie just said this shouldn't be made political
You really think the economy can just snap back after shutting down for two months? I think you are really underestminating how much damage will be done to the economy, and the effect that damage is going to have on millions of people's lives. There is no "back to normal" in the near future, absent a vaccine. Poverty and stress kill and shutting down the economy is goingt to generate alot of both over the mid to long term.
The economy effects peoples health. That can't be overlooked.
I normally don't like to sell stocks when they are down so much...but I've been trimming.
Why?
Because I don't trust the government . . . it seems obvious they've been lying to us.
And the situation is much worse then they are telling us . . .
We need to have a system that is intellectually honest and not politicized.
If someone catches the flu and then dies of pneumonia, a complication caused by the flu, did they die of the flu or pneumonia?
I say the flu. To me it's common sense. In this case the person did not have pneumonia, then caught the flu, which caused the pneumonia that killed them.
It was the flu.
If a person is hospitalized with say kidney failure, would likely die without the hospitalization, then catches covis19 and then dies because of kidney failure via complications of the virus, then i would call that caused by the original kidney failure.
Its certainly not clear cut in cases like that but it is not the same as a healthy person catching the virus and then dying from it. That's the distinction we need to make somehow. The two ARE NOT the same.
But what if they were 30 years old 5'8" and weighed 300 pounds, don't you think that could be a contributing factor?
Contributing factor to what?
To them dying of coronavirus. 30 years old is fairly young but weighing 300 pounds is unhealthy and certainly would contribute to the severity of their illness. Maybe enough to make the difference between recovering or dying.
Okay, if we are going to "socially engineer" our system based on life style choices we can't stop there with just the over-weight. To be fair we should include all other higher risk groups as well right? For example:
All people with asthma and other respiratory problems like COPD are a higher risk
People with an Auto Immune disease and corresponding lifestyles are a higher risk.
Older people are a higher risk
Preemie babies are a higher risk
I could keep going but you get the point. I hear what you're saying but it's not that easy imo. Not when you consider all the complicating factors that are potentially involved.
And i wonder who is going to decided what a contributing factor is and isn't. That's got Federal goat rodeo written all over it.
If their only issue was their weight then it was the virus. Underlying conditions means actual disease. Being obese is not a disease.
How about hypertension and heart disease or COPD?
They are diseases that kill. They also accommodate the Corona virus.
We need to know the actual cause of death.
You have nailed it Sparty!
Hypertension is not. It's easily treated with a pill.
Some heart disease and COPD are. But what is your point? Most people have something up with them. Are they all underlying conditions? Most docs would say no.
Vic, if these people were living pretty good lives and then they get coronavirus and they die, it was the virus, since it aggravated their condition.
My point is your point - that you are somehow contesting what Dr Birx said yesterday, namely that people who may be dying of something other than the virus are being counted as dying from it simply because they happened to have it!
I for one don't even want to consider the dystopian nature of what some may be suggesting here.
It's a damn slippery slope. Damn slippery indeed .....
Please explain.
Like a doctor famously said - "Many men die with prostate cancer rather than from it."
Why are you against a correct cause of death?
Exactly! You are proving my point. If a man with prostate cancer gets the virus and dies, he died from the virus, not cancer.
If you had a condition that could be aggravated by a virus, but were otherwise fine, then they died of the virus.
That defies logic as well as what Dr Birx is saying. We got the message. She's the bad guy and YOU DO WANT TO CHALK ALL THE DEATHS UP AS CORONA VIRUS!
Why Perrie?
If you had a condition that could be aggravated by a virus, but were otherwise fine, then they died of the virus.
Sorry Perie, that just won't do!
Perhaps i am missing what some are saying but what i'm reading is that because for example someone is over weight, they may be more susceptible to getting the virus, the fault being because they are fat. If they are simply over-weight with no other problems and get the virus and pass away that's the virus in my mind and not weight. Blaming the weight for catching the virus is the dystopian part to me.
Now if someone is admitted to the hospital with say COPD and would die without the admit, then they catch covid19 and die, to me thats the COPD and not covid.
Regardless, these determinations really belong with trained professionals and not armchair QB's like us.
How does that defy logic? That man would have gone on just fine with his prostate cancer (unless he was undergoing chemo, which would have made him immune-compromised and then that would be an underlying condition). Just having prostate cancer is NOT an underlying condition.
It does since most of us have an underlying condition of one thing or another. If the individual was living life as they a normal person, the virus killed them. If they were not, then it was the underlying condition.
Exactly Sparty. Thank you for the explanation.
Perhaps this will help........................In New York
As we were discussing yesterday.............................
Every death has a clinical cause of death. Most people who get the virus recover from it. Some don't even know they had it. You want to assign the Coronavirus as the cause to everyone with it who dies. Dr Birx says it is wrong and I agree. So my question again is why you seek to attribute all deaths to the virus?
If the individual was living life as they a normal person, the virus killed them.
Then we don't need Dr Birx, do we?
Same as the flu has been for decades but somehow covid19 is viewed as worse somehow. It's the same thing. The only thing worse about it right now is we don't have a vaccination for it yet.
Also, flu vaccinations are not 100% effective either .....
That is not quite true, and I am not sure why people think that one virus is like another. They are not, even if they produce some of the similar symptoms. So I am going to take a chance and do Virus 101 in the hope that people better understand why this one is different.
Viruses are classified as neither alive or dead. To be alive, they have to reproduce on their own. They can't. Their whole purpose on this planet is population control. In this sense, they are very different from bacteria, which are alive and come in both good and bad versions. Viruses are always bad.
A virus can only reproduce inside the host's body. It injects it's DNA into a cell and uses that cells metabolism to make more viruses. This continues until the cell literally explodes and now you have 10's to 100's more viruses from that one cell. Its efficiency is reproduction is one way we measure how bad a virus is. The other way is how it spreads. Viruses that can go undetected for long periods of time are far more deadly than ones that become obvious quickly.
The flu usually shows pretty quickly and produces very noticeable symptoms. Its transmission is through coughing and sneezing and it's life span on surfaces is very short, usually hours. With most flues, people are not asymptomatic and therefore easily identified.
Coronavirus operates differently. First, it has a much longer incubation period, in which you are still spreading the disease. It has a longer life span on surfaces that lasts not hours but days. It doesn't rely on coughing or sneezing to spread, but just breathing and talking, too. So this disease spreads like wildfire, which is very different than the flu. Our bodys can't identify it with antibodies since they have never dealt with this virus and again, this makes it an efficient in causing illness.
Now I will address all of the above comments.
Jim,
I went to the link that was in your article. Here is what they listed as underlying conditions:
1Underlying illnesses include Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, and GI/Liver Disease.
That is a lot of underlying conditions and many people have those conditions are would go through life as fine and according to that grouping, I know almost a person with one of those conditions. So, they would have to be evaluated to see how bad they were (as already at the brink of dying from it or not). Otherwise, if they were living normal lives, the virus killed them.
Vic,
Read what I wrote above. If a person was living a normal daily life the virus killed them. If they were on oxygen, let's say, then there was a mitigating underlying condition.
Please don't do that. I never even implied that. I disagree with her, but I am sure she is otherwise a good doctor.
Sparty,
I think you will find the answer in my Virus 101 explanation. Yes, vaccinations are the key, but so are antibody tests, since we think (not 100% sure with this virus) that once you have gotten it, you can't get it again (unless it mutates, which would be a horror show). And yes no vaccine is 100% but it would be a game-changer in this case.
I think that someone who has some condition and contracts Covid-19 and dies, where the they would not have died had they not contracted the virus, it was a virus death. As I understand it, very few people actually die from things like the flu or this virus directly. Mostly it's the straw that breaks the camel's back.
As a side note, the regular flu is still out there. I wonder if there's an effort to separate flu deaths from Covid deaths.
I normally don't like to sell stocks when they are down so much...but I've been trimming.
Why?
Because I don't trust the government . . . it seems obvious they've been lying to us.
And the situation is much worse then they are telling us . . .
Of course not. This is the moment for those who have been waiting to buy into the market.
And the situation is much worse then they are telling us . . .
The article as well as others tends to differ..
The models for the pandemic essentially work the same as models for predicting stock market behavior. There isn't a lot of certainty in modelling crowd behavior because of the large number of unknown external factors. The accuracy of the pandemic models won't be any better than the accuracy of financial models. Epidemiologists are basically doing the same kind of predictive work as financial planners.
The COVID-19 pandemic began with no data available. That's really not any different than modeling the behavior of an IPO stock to predict future value. So, yes, predicting the behavior of the pandemic is really a wild assed guess just as with financial predictions.
If we aren't supposed to rely on pandemic models to guide response then why should we rely on financial models to guide the economy? They're both WAGs.
Actually Norm, you are 100% correct. There are a lot of factors seen and unknown that can influence the outcome.
India prepares to supply millions of hydroxychloroquine pills to America during the pandemic
Put me down for 2 pills
Were you prescribed this drug by a real board certified physician?