9 ms·

Unfortunately garbage-in -> garbage-out. That chart shows US at 233 confirmed cases. According to NYT, over 10x that number are self-quarantined in NYC alone

Unfortunately garbage-in -> garbage-out. That chart shows US at 233 confirmed cases. According to NYT, over 10x that number are self-quarantined in NYC alone [1]. Now it's technically true that those cases aren't medically 100% factually confirmed, because NYC has only performed 35 tests total so far. But it gives a very inaccurate picture of reality. Garbage in, garbage out. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/nyregion/coronavirus-new-...

claudeganon 7y ago
The US is already exporting cases to other countries: https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2020/03/05/person-who-attended-conference-in-vegas-tests-positive-for-coronavirus.html https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2020/03/05/person-who-a... Garbage out, indeed.
jessriedel 7y ago
No, people are instructed to self-quarantine merely for being exposed to an infected person. The large majority of those people are not expected to eventually test positive.
- jcadam 7y ago
  Burn two weeks of PTO when you may not even be sick. I wonder what the compliance rate is?
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    Yeah, self-quarantining went great in New Hampshire: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-new-hampshire-dartmouth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-new-hampsh...
    - jcadam 7y ago
      That's really bad - the guy even knew he was sick. I wouldn't have gone to a party with a fever no matter what virus I was hosting.
  - bilekas 7y ago
    If you're lucky to even get PTO! :|
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  From my perspective, if (whoever is in charge) was really in the business of providing accurate numbers, they would test a statistical sample of these 2,300 people to estimate what percentage of them actually have the virus.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    There are R0 and transmission probability estimates out there. If you sniff around I think you might find the study you're asking for. As usual, media outlets are not scientific, so if you want proactive understanding (as opposed to reactive reporting) you will need to follow the literature yourself. Too bad there is no news service for that.
    - thrownblown 7y ago
      i smell a market opportunity
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - porlex 7y ago
        I think that some of the science adjacent podcasts which provide in depth show note and literature analysis for people willing to pay 10/15 bucks a month are a step in that direction.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    Here in Germany a little known tidbit is that the routine sampling system that is already in place to observe influenza has started to check for SARS-CoV-2 as well. It's only a sampling of people sick enough to visit a doctor (not whole population random sampling), but at least this sampling is not limited to people with a known infection path which would completely blindside you to community spread. I don't think that this has been running for long enough to already have meaningful results, but it will eventually put an end to flying blind. Given the value of discovering undiscovered clusters and getting better statistics I think that this is a much much better allocation of testing resources than checking the most likely candidates whom you'd want to quarantine anyways due to the likelihood of false negatives during incubation. A very similar test allocation might also be running in America without anyone but a few experts taking notice. Here in Germany it has technically been on the news but it was completely drowned out by the pointless shouting match between "it cannot be worse than a cold" (because it would interfere with my precious vacation plans) and "our healthcare wouldbe just as overwhelmed as in Wuhan" (because, I don't know, maybe I'm just not racist enough to assume that it will somehow only be bad in China)
lacker 7y ago
In Seattle, there are not enough tests to test everyone diagnosed with the disease based on symptoms any more. So some patients are getting diagnosed with COVID-19, but if they are not in severe condition, they just get sent home without testing. These patients also don’t count toward the “confirmed” numbers.
ck2 7y ago
At first I thought US numbers were ridiculously wrong out of poor accounting but it is becoming increasingly obvious there is a massive coverup from the top down of the administration. They are likely waiting for tests to be privatized so then they can claim numbers can't be released because they are private. Except deaths will be recorded, so this is going to backfire badly, ie. there will only be 1000 tests but 1000+ people will have died. The numbers are going to explode at some point, especially in Washington State
el_cujo 7y ago
I agree that it's probably not a 100% accurate picture, but if you included in the "known cases" every single person who stayed home out of paranoia because they had a stuffy nose, then you'd have the opposite problem of numbers being bloated and overblown. The media is already chomping at the bit to sow fear and paranoia in exchange for views, I'm ok with looking at data with the understanding that it's probably underrepresented versus data that is probably just a complete guess. In an ideal world, yes, every single hospital would have thousands of test kits on hand to test everyone but we aren't there yet.
whatshisface 7y ago
According to this estimate[0] based on viral mutations, there were 600 cases in Seattle on March 4th. That puts the multiplier at about 20x cases per confirmed case. With an estimated doubling time of 7 days[1], that's about one month worth of spreading. (Disclaimer: all numbers approximate, high uncertainty everywhere.) [0] https://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/ https://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/ [1] https://bedford.io/projects/ncov-phylodynamics/ https://bedford.io/projects/ncov-phylodynamics/
lhorie 7y ago
Why is it inaccurate to state the number of confirmed cases, over reporting the number of self-quarantined? If I go to the hospital w/ flu-like symptoms and they tell me to stay at home just to be safe and it turns out I just got another disease, do I count towards the self-quarantine numbers? Does my family? If I work from home by choice to avoid exposure to public places, does it count? Does the number track compliance rates? Are we really getting accurate meaningful data from that measurement or are we feeding a bias towards alarmism?
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  It's inaccurate because the US is not testing people with symptoms who certainly would have been tested in other countries. South Korea has performed over 100,000 tests. NYC has performed ~ 35. [1] I'm really curious what possible reason there could be for that. Regardless, there is no reason to believe "tested cases" is going to give a remotely accurate picture of "actual cases." 1. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/coronavirus.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/coronavir...
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    > I'm really curious what possible reason there could be for that. It's right in the page you linked: > If you are experiencing fever, cough or shortness of breath, and traveled to an area where COVID-19 is spreading, call or go to your health care provider. Your provider will work with the Health Department to determine if you need COVID-19 testing. Right now, the city is only testing symptomatic people that have been outside the country recently to one of the five nations with widespread cases, and people in direct contact with confirmed cases in the city. It's a (possibly too) conservative rationale, but it is a rationale.
  - marvin 7y ago
    CDC’s lackluster response is absolutely confounding. One could suspect political involvement, but I can’t see who would stand to benefit.
    - 7y ago
panarky 7y ago
And the CDC itself says there are only 99 confirmed cases. What a shitshow. As of 3/6/2020 8:22 am PT: https://imgur.com/a/D0ICvoP https://imgur.com/a/D0ICvoP Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
- makomk 7y ago
  164 now, though note that "numbers close out at 4 p.m. the day before reporting" so that page is basically the count as of yesterday.
yreg 7y ago
This dashboard is not intended to visualize computed estimates from models. It tracks the official confirmed cases, which is a very different and useful piece of data. You are unfair by stating it is garbage and misrepresenting what it shows (confirmed cases vs. estimated cases).
- davidw 7y ago
  What's garbage is the US response to it. Italy is running 2500 tests a day. Oregon has the capacity to run a total of about 40.
  - parsecs 7y ago
    Agreed. Seems like people in Oregon choose to mostly ignore the issue
    - davidw 7y ago
      It's not just Oregon; that's just a number I saw this morning in the local paper, but I suspect it's similar everywhere. The US did not use the advance warning we had to prepare.
      - ethbro 7y ago
        Georgia ran 50 tests yesterday. And that's after only 3 positive results so far. All states not equally dysfunctional.
        davidw 7y ago
        Let's do some numbers: Georgia, with 50 tests/day and 10,000,000 people is at 0.005 per 1K people. Oregon, with 40 tests/day and 4,200,000 people, is at 0.0095 per 1K people. Italy, with about 2500 tests/day and about 60,000,000 people, is doing around 0.04 per thousand people. It's about an order of magnitude more. The point isn't a pissing match between states, it's that the entire US has not responded well so far. Hopefully things ramp up, so that we stop seeing these situations where people get exposed and have no idea what's going on. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-... I do not know why this is, just that it's not going well so far.
porlex 7y ago
I think if you keep in mind that it reports a specific thing, then it is useful.
egberts1 7y ago
New York Times? Are they like world-class science researchers like John Hopkin Institute or are they just a bunch of shady journalists with a fantasy narrative that they desperately need to maintain?

claudeganon 7y ago

The US is already exporting cases to other countries: https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2020/03/05/person-who-attended-conference-in-vegas-tests-positive-for-coronavirus.html https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2020/03/05/person-who-a... Garbage out, indeed.

jessriedel 7y ago

No, people are instructed to self-quarantine merely for being exposed to an infected person. The large majority of those people are not expected to eventually test positive.

jcadam 7y ago
Burn two weeks of PTO when you may not even be sick. I wonder what the compliance rate is?
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Yeah, self-quarantining went great in New Hampshire: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-new-hampshire-dartmouth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-new-hampsh...
  - jcadam 7y ago
    That's really bad - the guy even knew he was sick. I wouldn't have gone to a party with a fever no matter what virus I was hosting.
- bilekas 7y ago
  If you're lucky to even get PTO! :|
alexandercrohde 7y ago
From my perspective, if (whoever is in charge) was really in the business of providing accurate numbers, they would test a statistical sample of these 2,300 people to estimate what percentage of them actually have the virus.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  There are R0 and transmission probability estimates out there. If you sniff around I think you might find the study you're asking for. As usual, media outlets are not scientific, so if you want proactive understanding (as opposed to reactive reporting) you will need to follow the literature yourself. Too bad there is no news service for that.
  - thrownblown 7y ago
    i smell a market opportunity
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - porlex 7y ago
      I think that some of the science adjacent podcasts which provide in depth show note and literature analysis for people willing to pay 10/15 bucks a month are a step in that direction.
- usrusr 7y ago
  Here in Germany a little known tidbit is that the routine sampling system that is already in place to observe influenza has started to check for SARS-CoV-2 as well. It's only a sampling of people sick enough to visit a doctor (not whole population random sampling), but at least this sampling is not limited to people with a known infection path which would completely blindside you to community spread. I don't think that this has been running for long enough to already have meaningful results, but it will eventually put an end to flying blind. Given the value of discovering undiscovered clusters and getting better statistics I think that this is a much much better allocation of testing resources than checking the most likely candidates whom you'd want to quarantine anyways due to the likelihood of false negatives during incubation. A very similar test allocation might also be running in America without anyone but a few experts taking notice. Here in Germany it has technically been on the news but it was completely drowned out by the pointless shouting match between "it cannot be worse than a cold" (because it would interfere with my precious vacation plans) and "our healthcare wouldbe just as overwhelmed as in Wuhan" (because, I don't know, maybe I'm just not racist enough to assume that it will somehow only be bad in China)

lacker 7y ago

In Seattle, there are not enough tests to test everyone diagnosed with the disease based on symptoms any more. So some patients are getting diagnosed with COVID-19, but if they are not in severe condition, they just get sent home without testing. These patients also don’t count toward the “confirmed” numbers.

ck2 7y ago

At first I thought US numbers were ridiculously wrong out of poor accounting but it is becoming increasingly obvious there is a massive coverup from the top down of the administration. They are likely waiting for tests to be privatized so then they can claim numbers can't be released because they are private. Except deaths will be recorded, so this is going to backfire badly, ie. there will only be 1000 tests but 1000+ people will have died. The numbers are going to explode at some point, especially in Washington State

el_cujo 7y ago

I agree that it's probably not a 100% accurate picture, but if you included in the "known cases" every single person who stayed home out of paranoia because they had a stuffy nose, then you'd have the opposite problem of numbers being bloated and overblown. The media is already chomping at the bit to sow fear and paranoia in exchange for views, I'm ok with looking at data with the understanding that it's probably underrepresented versus data that is probably just a complete guess. In an ideal world, yes, every single hospital would have thousands of test kits on hand to test everyone but we aren't there yet.

whatshisface 7y ago

According to this estimate[0] based on viral mutations, there were 600 cases in Seattle on March 4th. That puts the multiplier at about 20x cases per confirmed case. With an estimated doubling time of 7 days[1], that's about one month worth of spreading. (Disclaimer: all numbers approximate, high uncertainty everywhere.) [0] https://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/ https://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/ [1] https://bedford.io/projects/ncov-phylodynamics/ https://bedford.io/projects/ncov-phylodynamics/

lhorie 7y ago

Why is it inaccurate to state the number of confirmed cases, over reporting the number of self-quarantined? If I go to the hospital w/ flu-like symptoms and they tell me to stay at home just to be safe and it turns out I just got another disease, do I count towards the self-quarantine numbers? Does my family? If I work from home by choice to avoid exposure to public places, does it count? Does the number track compliance rates? Are we really getting accurate meaningful data from that measurement or are we feeding a bias towards alarmism?

alexandercrohde 7y ago
It's inaccurate because the US is not testing people with symptoms who certainly would have been tested in other countries. South Korea has performed over 100,000 tests. NYC has performed ~ 35. [1] I'm really curious what possible reason there could be for that. Regardless, there is no reason to believe "tested cases" is going to give a remotely accurate picture of "actual cases." 1. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/coronavirus.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/coronavir...
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > I'm really curious what possible reason there could be for that. It's right in the page you linked: > If you are experiencing fever, cough or shortness of breath, and traveled to an area where COVID-19 is spreading, call or go to your health care provider. Your provider will work with the Health Department to determine if you need COVID-19 testing. Right now, the city is only testing symptomatic people that have been outside the country recently to one of the five nations with widespread cases, and people in direct contact with confirmed cases in the city. It's a (possibly too) conservative rationale, but it is a rationale.
- marvin 7y ago
  CDC’s lackluster response is absolutely confounding. One could suspect political involvement, but I can’t see who would stand to benefit.
  - 7y ago

panarky 7y ago

And the CDC itself says there are only 99 confirmed cases. What a shitshow. As of 3/6/2020 8:22 am PT: https://imgur.com/a/D0ICvoP https://imgur.com/a/D0ICvoP Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

makomk 7y ago
164 now, though note that "numbers close out at 4 p.m. the day before reporting" so that page is basically the count as of yesterday.

yreg 7y ago

This dashboard is not intended to visualize computed estimates from models. It tracks the official confirmed cases, which is a very different and useful piece of data. You are unfair by stating it is garbage and misrepresenting what it shows (confirmed cases vs. estimated cases).

davidw 7y ago
What's garbage is the US response to it. Italy is running 2500 tests a day. Oregon has the capacity to run a total of about 40.
- parsecs 7y ago
  Agreed. Seems like people in Oregon choose to mostly ignore the issue
  - davidw 7y ago
    It's not just Oregon; that's just a number I saw this morning in the local paper, but I suspect it's similar everywhere. The US did not use the advance warning we had to prepare.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      Georgia ran 50 tests yesterday. And that's after only 3 positive results so far. All states not equally dysfunctional.
      - davidw 7y ago
        Let's do some numbers: Georgia, with 50 tests/day and 10,000,000 people is at 0.005 per 1K people. Oregon, with 40 tests/day and 4,200,000 people, is at 0.0095 per 1K people. Italy, with about 2500 tests/day and about 60,000,000 people, is doing around 0.04 per thousand people. It's about an order of magnitude more. The point isn't a pissing match between states, it's that the entire US has not responded well so far. Hopefully things ramp up, so that we stop seeing these situations where people get exposed and have no idea what's going on. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-... I do not know why this is, just that it's not going well so far.

porlex 7y ago

I think if you keep in mind that it reports a specific thing, then it is useful.

egberts1 7y ago

New York Times? Are they like world-class science researchers like John Hopkin Institute or are they just a bunch of shady journalists with a fantasy narrative that they desperately need to maintain?