7 ms·

I fear that the situation is already at that state in the USA. There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are.

pbourke 7y ago
> There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are. 2,695 at the moment, per the NYT tracker https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-m...
- eyegor 7y ago
  Last official update from cdc was 1629 [0]. NYT seems to be aggregating data from state reports, and even that is out of date. NYT reports 607 in WA, but the state itself reports 642 [1] (cdc reported 457 in WA on Friday). [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html [1] https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus
  - dzdt 7y ago
    2969 right now at https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/ https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/. That site aggregates from news media reports and is the most real-time of the various sites I've seen. Plus it gives county-level breakdowns and links to reports with further details.
jerf 7y ago
Like China, "the USA" is very large and probably not something that can be treated as an atomic entity. Even much-smaller Italy is probably too large for that. While there may be hot spots that develop in the US, I can tell you from personal experience that there states that have taken strong measures when there are still single-digit numbers of infected in them. The state I'm in is not in a mandatory full lockdown per se, but pretty much every vector the virus has to spread by the dozens/hundreds/thousands at a time has been eliminated; what few are still left are fading fast. I don't know what will happen, but a full on r0-2.3 (or whatever the latest number is) spread isn't going to happen here under these conditions. (I highlight those last three words.)
- solotronics 7y ago
  I live in Dallas and two of my friends who work at hospitals both have multiple corona patients. It's everywhere, the official numbers are lying.
  - xnyan 7y ago
    I wish people were lying, that implies that officials know the reality and are hiding it. That is too optimistic I’m afraid.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Indeed, the reality is probably that they have no clue so there is nothing to hide. And that's a lot scarier.
- newtoday 7y ago
  'may be hot spots that develop in the US' You're kidding right? Under what conditions that things are fine are you preposing? If you're not taking this serious, and in the US, you're definitely part of the problem. That attitude, statistics aside, is going to get people killed.
  - jerf 7y ago
    Settle down and read more carefully. Among the things you should have derived from reading more carefully is the fact that state I'm living in is taking it quite seriously. Personally, my hatches are battened down and I'm prepared to be isolated for at least a month, maybe two. (Have to admit it's hard to tell how far my supplies will go, I've never actually had to live on them before.) You're talking to someone who specially prepped for this about seven weeks ago, in addition to the general prep I already had on hand. If you can match that, then maybe consider start lecturing me. I actually got a bit of flak from my wife for the amount of prepping I did, because it was before she'd hardly even heard there was a new virus. Now she's glad I did, because I bought all the things that are missing in the stores around here now long before it was "hoarding". I'm in the top tier of taking it seriously. At the same time... Don't panic. Don't advise panic. Don't fall into the cognitive trap of modeling this as a zombie apocolypse or some other thing where the virus is intelligently seeking out victims. Isolation measures will slow the virus down. It isn't possible to keep it "out of the US" but it remains possible to keep it out of your county, or your city, or your neighborhood, with sufficient steps. Total doom is not yet inevitable, and even then, how you are impacted remains significantly under your control even if your government is feckless. Or, at least, it was, if you got your prep in before the panic rush... you may be a bit more at the mercies of your government now.
fattire 7y ago
Leaving aside the fact that here in the US tests are literally not happening on an epic scale that will be the subject of numerous investigations, hearings (, and prosecutions?) in the years to come. And forget that even if we had legit numbers, those numbers we can see are a tip of the iceberg, representing at most 20% of the actual more-serious cases. Put that all aside. Remember-- the numbers we see now are a look at the PAST. The infection incubates silently for a median 5 days. Then symptoms present. Then a week goes by with relatively mild illness. THEN shit gets real. THEN comes the hospital visit, the fight for a test, the time it takes for the test results to come back (if it happens). THEN the number gets added. Then you see it on wikipedia or the news. These numbers we're seeing today are a time machine view backwards to recognize infections from 14 days ago. So infections spreading TODAY will show up AFTER the current Italy-like situation has already taken hold in the United States. If it is possible, STAY HOME.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > Don't forget-- the numbers we see now are a look at the PAST. The infection incubates silently for a median 5 days. Then symptoms present. Then a week goes by with relatively mild illness. THEN shit gets real. And the "shit gets real" part only occurs 20% of the time, give or take - which means the virus might spread quite a bit while showing symptoms no more severe than a common cold. That also introduces some further unpredictable lag between any social distancing behaviors being introduced and their effects on the actual numbers.
  - fattire 7y ago
    Yes, exactly. I said 14 days but again, that's the median. The US is flying blind right now. We're using a cracked, dirty camera lens to film a small fraction of the tip of a rapidly growing iceberg.... And the photo processing time is two weeks.
  - MetalGuru 7y ago
    It gets hospital-level serious for 20% of cases? I thought the lethality rate wasn’t even that high for the most at-risk demographics (something like 14%).
baron_harkonnen 7y ago
This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data. If there are truly only 1,600 confirmed cases then hearing a few stories from a friend of a friend that they know people are sick should still be very unlikely. The fact that many people here and around the web are sharing stories of sick friends is are a set of anecdotes that would be nearly impossible if the reported numbers were correct. I suspect by this coming weekend the US will feel very different. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a major update to official numbers came and completely changed the current state of where things are.
- ImaCake 7y ago
  >This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data I still disagree with this, although I somewhat agree with your sentiment. The anecdotes I have seen range from extremely mild to nightmarish. A large fraction of those made me false, deliberately or by accident. I find the statistics still tell the most concrete story.
- epistasis 7y ago
  I think some napkin math with the number of celebrities and professional sports players, who presumably have far better access to testing than the US public (which has essentially zero access), would show that we are at least at 150k-200k infections, if not more. At least, immediately before Tom Hanks announced his infection, I saw some napkin math that showed that since no politicians, movie stars, or professional athletes were positive, the rate was less than 1/2000 in the US. Now that we have multiple infections in that group, we are in the > 1/2000 == 150k infection regime.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Does this control for the fact that celebrities and politicians do way more travel and meet way more people?
    - epistasis 7y ago
      Nope! Napkin math will treat all cows as spherical. However, if they are traveling and meeting way more people, it's also likely they are spreading it far more in addition to having it at a higher rate than the more socially distant segment of the population. Also, would likely indicate vast amounts of community spread that is going completely undetected.
eyegor 7y ago
There are far more than that today, the number you're quoting is the last cdc report (published mid day Friday). Current number is likely around 3000. NYT last published ~2700 from aggregating state reports, and their per state numbers were a bit lower than every state website I checked. And this is with extremely limited testing.
newtoday 7y ago
I'd say we are late and in the 100s of thousands of cases that are untested. Edit: others seem to feel the same. See epistatis' comment
MuffinFlavored 7y ago
What's being done to fix the lack of tests in the USA? The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta. Where do the COVID-19 tests from them come from? Where are they manufactured, what ingredients do they require, how much do they cost to make, how long does it take to make them? What's the hold up on getting "unlimited" tests from the CDC? Do the tests even come from the CDC? How many are they producing a day? What are their blockers?
- TheFlyingFish 7y ago
  There are at least a couple of major upgrades to US testing capacity in progress from Roche[0] and Thermo Fisher[1]. [0] https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815522836/u-s-coronavirus-testing-gets-a-breakthrough https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815522836/u-s-coronavirus-tes... [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/14/thermo-fisher-to-produce-millions-of-coronavirus-diagnostic-tests/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/14/thermo-fisher-to-produce...

pbourke 7y ago

> There are 1600 confirmed cases but the lack of tests hides how many real infections there are. 2,695 at the moment, per the NYT tracker https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-m...

eyegor 7y ago
Last official update from cdc was 1629 [0]. NYT seems to be aggregating data from state reports, and even that is out of date. NYT reports 607 in WA, but the state itself reports 642 [1] (cdc reported 457 in WA on Friday). [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html [1] https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus
- dzdt 7y ago
  2969 right now at https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/ https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/. That site aggregates from news media reports and is the most real-time of the various sites I've seen. Plus it gives county-level breakdowns and links to reports with further details.

jerf 7y ago

Like China, "the USA" is very large and probably not something that can be treated as an atomic entity. Even much-smaller Italy is probably too large for that. While there may be hot spots that develop in the US, I can tell you from personal experience that there states that have taken strong measures when there are still single-digit numbers of infected in them. The state I'm in is not in a mandatory full lockdown per se, but pretty much every vector the virus has to spread by the dozens/hundreds/thousands at a time has been eliminated; what few are still left are fading fast. I don't know what will happen, but a full on r0-2.3 (or whatever the latest number is) spread isn't going to happen here under these conditions. (I highlight those last three words.)

solotronics 7y ago
I live in Dallas and two of my friends who work at hospitals both have multiple corona patients. It's everywhere, the official numbers are lying.
- xnyan 7y ago
  I wish people were lying, that implies that officials know the reality and are hiding it. That is too optimistic I’m afraid.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Indeed, the reality is probably that they have no clue so there is nothing to hide. And that's a lot scarier.
newtoday 7y ago
'may be hot spots that develop in the US' You're kidding right? Under what conditions that things are fine are you preposing? If you're not taking this serious, and in the US, you're definitely part of the problem. That attitude, statistics aside, is going to get people killed.
- jerf 7y ago
  Settle down and read more carefully. Among the things you should have derived from reading more carefully is the fact that state I'm living in is taking it quite seriously. Personally, my hatches are battened down and I'm prepared to be isolated for at least a month, maybe two. (Have to admit it's hard to tell how far my supplies will go, I've never actually had to live on them before.) You're talking to someone who specially prepped for this about seven weeks ago, in addition to the general prep I already had on hand. If you can match that, then maybe consider start lecturing me. I actually got a bit of flak from my wife for the amount of prepping I did, because it was before she'd hardly even heard there was a new virus. Now she's glad I did, because I bought all the things that are missing in the stores around here now long before it was "hoarding". I'm in the top tier of taking it seriously. At the same time... Don't panic. Don't advise panic. Don't fall into the cognitive trap of modeling this as a zombie apocolypse or some other thing where the virus is intelligently seeking out victims. Isolation measures will slow the virus down. It isn't possible to keep it "out of the US" but it remains possible to keep it out of your county, or your city, or your neighborhood, with sufficient steps. Total doom is not yet inevitable, and even then, how you are impacted remains significantly under your control even if your government is feckless. Or, at least, it was, if you got your prep in before the panic rush... you may be a bit more at the mercies of your government now.

fattire 7y ago

Leaving aside the fact that here in the US tests are literally not happening on an epic scale that will be the subject of numerous investigations, hearings (, and prosecutions?) in the years to come. And forget that even if we had legit numbers, those numbers we can see are a tip of the iceberg, representing at most 20% of the actual more-serious cases. Put that all aside. Remember-- the numbers we see now are a look at the PAST. The infection incubates silently for a median 5 days. Then symptoms present. Then a week goes by with relatively mild illness. THEN shit gets real. THEN comes the hospital visit, the fight for a test, the time it takes for the test results to come back (if it happens). THEN the number gets added. Then you see it on wikipedia or the news. These numbers we're seeing today are a time machine view backwards to recognize infections from 14 days ago. So infections spreading TODAY will show up AFTER the current Italy-like situation has already taken hold in the United States. If it is possible, STAY HOME.

zozbot234 7y ago
> Don't forget-- the numbers we see now are a look at the PAST. The infection incubates silently for a median 5 days. Then symptoms present. Then a week goes by with relatively mild illness. THEN shit gets real. And the "shit gets real" part only occurs 20% of the time, give or take - which means the virus might spread quite a bit while showing symptoms no more severe than a common cold. That also introduces some further unpredictable lag between any social distancing behaviors being introduced and their effects on the actual numbers.
- fattire 7y ago
  Yes, exactly. I said 14 days but again, that's the median. The US is flying blind right now. We're using a cracked, dirty camera lens to film a small fraction of the tip of a rapidly growing iceberg.... And the photo processing time is two weeks.
- MetalGuru 7y ago
  It gets hospital-level serious for 20% of cases? I thought the lethality rate wasn’t even that high for the most at-risk demographics (something like 14%).

baron_harkonnen 7y ago

This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data. If there are truly only 1,600 confirmed cases then hearing a few stories from a friend of a friend that they know people are sick should still be very unlikely. The fact that many people here and around the web are sharing stories of sick friends is are a set of anecdotes that would be nearly impossible if the reported numbers were correct. I suspect by this coming weekend the US will feel very different. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a major update to official numbers came and completely changed the current state of where things are.

ImaCake 7y ago
>This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data I still disagree with this, although I somewhat agree with your sentiment. The anecdotes I have seen range from extremely mild to nightmarish. A large fraction of those made me false, deliberately or by accident. I find the statistics still tell the most concrete story.
epistasis 7y ago
I think some napkin math with the number of celebrities and professional sports players, who presumably have far better access to testing than the US public (which has essentially zero access), would show that we are at least at 150k-200k infections, if not more. At least, immediately before Tom Hanks announced his infection, I saw some napkin math that showed that since no politicians, movie stars, or professional athletes were positive, the rate was less than 1/2000 in the US. Now that we have multiple infections in that group, we are in the > 1/2000 == 150k infection regime.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Does this control for the fact that celebrities and politicians do way more travel and meet way more people?
  - epistasis 7y ago
    Nope! Napkin math will treat all cows as spherical. However, if they are traveling and meeting way more people, it's also likely they are spreading it far more in addition to having it at a higher rate than the more socially distant segment of the population. Also, would likely indicate vast amounts of community spread that is going completely undetected.

eyegor 7y ago

There are far more than that today, the number you're quoting is the last cdc report (published mid day Friday). Current number is likely around 3000. NYT last published ~2700 from aggregating state reports, and their per state numbers were a bit lower than every state website I checked. And this is with extremely limited testing.

newtoday 7y ago

I'd say we are late and in the 100s of thousands of cases that are untested. Edit: others seem to feel the same. See epistatis' comment

MuffinFlavored 7y ago

What's being done to fix the lack of tests in the USA? The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta. Where do the COVID-19 tests from them come from? Where are they manufactured, what ingredients do they require, how much do they cost to make, how long does it take to make them? What's the hold up on getting "unlimited" tests from the CDC? Do the tests even come from the CDC? How many are they producing a day? What are their blockers?

TheFlyingFish 7y ago
There are at least a couple of major upgrades to US testing capacity in progress from Roche[0] and Thermo Fisher[1]. [0] https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815522836/u-s-coronavirus-testing-gets-a-breakthrough https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815522836/u-s-coronavirus-tes... [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/14/thermo-fisher-to-produce-millions-of-coronavirus-diagnostic-tests/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/14/thermo-fisher-to-produce...