4 ms·

Would be cool to have this for NY as well. I have this nagging suspicion that the press is only showing the small number of hospitals that are overflowing, and

by m0zg 7y ago

Would be cool to have this for NY as well. I have this nagging suspicion that the press is only showing the small number of hospitals that are overflowing, and not showing the ones that are under capacity, to stoke panic and drive clicks. Similar to the "mass graves" bullshit they wheeled out the other day. To see why it's bullshit, one has to do some basic arithmetic. Consider that if life expectancy in NY metro area is 75 years and 21 million people live there, 1/75th of the population, or 280K people die per year in NY metro area alone. That's 7671 person per day on average. At the time of this writing 7844 people have died of corona in the entire state, total. I'd bet good money a good chunk (if not most) of these people would die of something else if it wasn't corona, so that's not a "net" increase. If you want to tell me these deaths require mass graves, I have some fine swamp land in Florida that you might want to check out.

woodruffw 7y ago
The New York Times put out an article just yesterday[1] that directly addresses most of your doubts. In summary: * Substantially more people have died in both NYC and NY state than is demographically expected, suggesting a significant effect from the virus. * Virus deaths are probably still under-counted, as bodies retrieved from homes aren't being tested. Patients with significant comorbidities may also be being mis- or under-counted. I live in NYC, and all of my local hospitals are at the limits of their normal capacities (many have been able to expand their capacities, thankfully). The city has been asking for volunteers to come out of retirement. To my knowledge, none of my friends or family have been able to get non-urgent treatment or tests for coronavirus symptoms; the system is completely focused on (and occupied with) treating those most at need. Edit: I also forgot to mention: I don't know exactly what you're referring to w/r/t "mass graves," but I'm guessing it has something to do with Hart's Island. The city buries its unclaimed dead there; any uptick in activity probably tracks roughly with death's among the city's general demographics. It wouldn't be surprising for them to need a few more trenches. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-death-count.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/nyregion/new-york-coronav...
- m0zg 7y ago
  Yes, Hart Island is being sold as "mass graves". Plus this right here clown (of "come to celebrate the Chinese new year, in spite of coronavirus" fame) said the other day there'd be _temporary burials_ in city parks: https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ct... My point is, as bad as the situation on the ground is in NY, the single digit percentage uptick in the overall number of deaths would most definitely not overwhelm anything at all, and given the dis-use of the emergency hospital capacity and reduced hospital and ICU admissions over the past few days, crowding in the hospitals seems like a load balancing problem to me. And if anything, I would not be surprised if the official figures _overstate_ the death toll. Dr. Birx mentioned in the presser the other day that everyone who died _with_ C19 is counted as a C19 fatality, even if they did not die _of_ C19. Died of cancer but also have C19? You'll be counted as a C19 fatality.
  - akiselev 7y ago
    > crowding in the hospitals seems like a load balancing problem to me The problem is that once a patient is so far gone that they are on a ventilator in the ICU, even the regular movements of going over speed bumps and potholes become potentially life threatening. That's in the best of times. Given that hospitals are running out of PPE, what are the chances that they can even move an infected patient without collateral damage that would further serve to overwhelm the hospitals they are moving the patient to?
    - m0zg 7y ago
      > Given that hospitals are running out of PPE They aren't. You're being fed fake news. Hospital admissions and ICU admissions in NY are _way_ down. Nobody is running out of PPE. If you're going to dispute this, please provide a credible source familiar with the situation on the ground. My source is governor Cuomo: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/were-ok-andrew-cuomo-says-new-york-is-comfortable-with-supply-of-ventilators-and-protective-equipment https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/were-ok-andrew-cuomo.... Don't bother pasting that teary eyed nurse who was "forced to work without PPE". That's fake news. Look it up. She's not a nurse, she's an Instagram "influencer". > regular movements of going over speed bumps and potholes become potentially life threatening Yes. Move them ahead of time, before they need intubation. Seems like people are in some kind of a stupor there. These are pretty obvious things.
usr1106 7y ago
Yes, you really need to follow death rates. According to some claims up to 70% of corona infections could not result in observable symptoms. However, if you take just dying people, it would not come as a surprise that they are so weak that the additional infection can produce visible symptoms and their death is attributed to COVID. In some places in Lombardy (Italy) the death rate is clearly higher. You didn't need the army to transport coffins before. No statistical anlysis required here. The analysis is further complicated that death rates vary a lot over the year even under normal circumstances. I don't doubt that in some countries a corona peak will be seen, but it will still take months to be sure how big it is. https://www.euromomo.eu/ https://www.euromomo.eu/ shows long term death rates in selected European countries.
- m0zg 7y ago
  This is exactly what I want to see at at least county-level resolution for the US, and at a borough level in NY. This is something that's immediately usable. "X people died" is not usable on its own, because it contains no information on how X compares with what's "normal" in a geographic region.
- Lewton 7y ago
  > According to some claims up to 70% of corona infections could not result in observable symptoms. This is a ridiculous claim Any place that has done random sampling is reporting a very low asymptomatic rate
  - mrighele 7y ago
    Not ridiculous. After the first town in north east Italy was put in quarantine (Vo Euganeo) the local governor decided to test the whole town for Coronavirus (a few thousand people). More than half of the infected people where without symptoms.
    - Lewton 7y ago
      https://www.icelandreview.com/sci-tech/is-icelands-coronavirus-testing-showing-that-50-of-cases-have-no-symptoms/ https://www.icelandreview.com/sci-tech/is-icelands-coronavir... It should be obvious, when you have a virus with an infection rate doubling X number of days and it takes X or more days to start showing symptoms, if you do a random sample, 50% will be asymptomatic. That does NOT mean that they will continue to be asymptomatic
jmkerr 7y ago
So, everything is normal if we just ignore a factor of ten here and there :)
anonymouz 7y ago
Aside from the arguments others have already replied to, your numbers are wrong by an order of magnitude. 280K/year comes out to 767/day on average. Yesterday 777 people died of Covid, so, roughly, it seems to be doubling the death rate at the moment (not quite true, since we shouldn't compare to average, and maybe some of these people would have died now anyway, but +100% is a closer estimate than an increase by a single digit percentage). Note that the number of deaths/day are still on an increase, and without lockdown it'd have been expected to increase exponentially for a while longer. Of course, things get even worse when the disease is left unchecked or hospitals become overwhelmed; some tows in the Bergamo province in Italy reached daily death rates that where 6 times as high as the ones from last year in the same time period. Edit: The actual numbers for NY show a more than 2x increase so far, see here https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/corona...

by m0zg 7y ago

woodruffw 7y ago

The New York Times put out an article just yesterday[1] that directly addresses most of your doubts. In summary: * Substantially more people have died in both NYC and NY state than is demographically expected, suggesting a significant effect from the virus. * Virus deaths are probably still under-counted, as bodies retrieved from homes aren't being tested. Patients with significant comorbidities may also be being mis- or under-counted. I live in NYC, and all of my local hospitals are at the limits of their normal capacities (many have been able to expand their capacities, thankfully). The city has been asking for volunteers to come out of retirement. To my knowledge, none of my friends or family have been able to get non-urgent treatment or tests for coronavirus symptoms; the system is completely focused on (and occupied with) treating those most at need. Edit: I also forgot to mention: I don't know exactly what you're referring to w/r/t "mass graves," but I'm guessing it has something to do with Hart's Island. The city buries its unclaimed dead there; any uptick in activity probably tracks roughly with death's among the city's general demographics. It wouldn't be surprising for them to need a few more trenches. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-death-count.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/nyregion/new-york-coronav...

m0zg 7y ago
Yes, Hart Island is being sold as "mass graves". Plus this right here clown (of "come to celebrate the Chinese new year, in spite of coronavirus" fame) said the other day there'd be _temporary burials_ in city parks: https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ct... My point is, as bad as the situation on the ground is in NY, the single digit percentage uptick in the overall number of deaths would most definitely not overwhelm anything at all, and given the dis-use of the emergency hospital capacity and reduced hospital and ICU admissions over the past few days, crowding in the hospitals seems like a load balancing problem to me. And if anything, I would not be surprised if the official figures _overstate_ the death toll. Dr. Birx mentioned in the presser the other day that everyone who died _with_ C19 is counted as a C19 fatality, even if they did not die _of_ C19. Died of cancer but also have C19? You'll be counted as a C19 fatality.
- akiselev 7y ago
  > crowding in the hospitals seems like a load balancing problem to me The problem is that once a patient is so far gone that they are on a ventilator in the ICU, even the regular movements of going over speed bumps and potholes become potentially life threatening. That's in the best of times. Given that hospitals are running out of PPE, what are the chances that they can even move an infected patient without collateral damage that would further serve to overwhelm the hospitals they are moving the patient to?
  - m0zg 7y ago
    > Given that hospitals are running out of PPE They aren't. You're being fed fake news. Hospital admissions and ICU admissions in NY are _way_ down. Nobody is running out of PPE. If you're going to dispute this, please provide a credible source familiar with the situation on the ground. My source is governor Cuomo: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/were-ok-andrew-cuomo-says-new-york-is-comfortable-with-supply-of-ventilators-and-protective-equipment https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/were-ok-andrew-cuomo.... Don't bother pasting that teary eyed nurse who was "forced to work without PPE". That's fake news. Look it up. She's not a nurse, she's an Instagram "influencer". > regular movements of going over speed bumps and potholes become potentially life threatening Yes. Move them ahead of time, before they need intubation. Seems like people are in some kind of a stupor there. These are pretty obvious things.

usr1106 7y ago

Yes, you really need to follow death rates. According to some claims up to 70% of corona infections could not result in observable symptoms. However, if you take just dying people, it would not come as a surprise that they are so weak that the additional infection can produce visible symptoms and their death is attributed to COVID. In some places in Lombardy (Italy) the death rate is clearly higher. You didn't need the army to transport coffins before. No statistical anlysis required here. The analysis is further complicated that death rates vary a lot over the year even under normal circumstances. I don't doubt that in some countries a corona peak will be seen, but it will still take months to be sure how big it is. https://www.euromomo.eu/ https://www.euromomo.eu/ shows long term death rates in selected European countries.

m0zg 7y ago
This is exactly what I want to see at at least county-level resolution for the US, and at a borough level in NY. This is something that's immediately usable. "X people died" is not usable on its own, because it contains no information on how X compares with what's "normal" in a geographic region.
Lewton 7y ago
> According to some claims up to 70% of corona infections could not result in observable symptoms. This is a ridiculous claim Any place that has done random sampling is reporting a very low asymptomatic rate
- mrighele 7y ago
  Not ridiculous. After the first town in north east Italy was put in quarantine (Vo Euganeo) the local governor decided to test the whole town for Coronavirus (a few thousand people). More than half of the infected people where without symptoms.
  - Lewton 7y ago
    https://www.icelandreview.com/sci-tech/is-icelands-coronavirus-testing-showing-that-50-of-cases-have-no-symptoms/ https://www.icelandreview.com/sci-tech/is-icelands-coronavir... It should be obvious, when you have a virus with an infection rate doubling X number of days and it takes X or more days to start showing symptoms, if you do a random sample, 50% will be asymptomatic. That does NOT mean that they will continue to be asymptomatic

jmkerr 7y ago

So, everything is normal if we just ignore a factor of ten here and there :)

anonymouz 7y ago

Aside from the arguments others have already replied to, your numbers are wrong by an order of magnitude. 280K/year comes out to 767/day on average. Yesterday 777 people died of Covid, so, roughly, it seems to be doubling the death rate at the moment (not quite true, since we shouldn't compare to average, and maybe some of these people would have died now anyway, but +100% is a closer estimate than an increase by a single digit percentage). Note that the number of deaths/day are still on an increase, and without lockdown it'd have been expected to increase exponentially for a while longer. Of course, things get even worse when the disease is left unchecked or hospitals become overwhelmed; some tows in the Bergamo province in Italy reached daily death rates that where 6 times as high as the ones from last year in the same time period. Edit: The actual numbers for NY show a more than 2x increase so far, see here https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/corona...