4 ms·

Wyoming and South Dakota never locked down, and had the same infection curve as New York and California, which did? That sounds like a great argument in favor

by ken 6y ago

Wyoming and South Dakota never locked down, and had the same infection curve as New York and California, which did? That sounds like a great argument in favor of lockdowns. To a virus, here is a strategy which turns Times Square into the Great Plains. That's amazing.

tripletao 6y ago
New York has 1,529 deaths per million population, California has 105, Wyoming has 26, and South Dakota has 67 (using the Worldometer numbers). So they certainly didn't follow the same curves, nor did the lockdown turn Times Square into the Great Plains. On average, stricter measures seem correlated with higher mortality, not lower. That doesn't mean the measures kill people, just that governments don't tend to impose them until stuff gets bad. It's very difficult to disentangle the effects of the intervention from the effects of the pre-existing environment.
- akiselev 6y ago
  Viruses spread due to close contact so these stats need to be normalized for population density. The relevant number is deaths per million people per person per sq mile. New York state's population density is ~400 people per square mile, California ~250, South Dakota ~11, Wyoming ~6. So California's deaths per million are four times Wyoming's and less than twice of South Dakotas despite having ~40 and ~24 times the population density, respectively. New York is an anomaly because of New York City (~26,000 people per sq mile) and specifically Manhattan (~67,000 people per sq mile) - an order of magnitude more densely populated than the most densely populated cities in Wyoming (Jackson, ~3300 people per square mile) and South Dakota (Piedmont, ~3000 people per square mile or Sioux Falls with ~2000). The big states have several dense cities with populations larger than both Wyoming and South Dakota combined. It's also disingenuous to include New York because it was the initial epicenter on the Western hemisphere and the majority of those dead were infected before complete lock down procedures could be implemented or from unavoidable close contact with family or building tenants.
  - tripletao 6y ago
    Except that Japan has high population density, no significant lockdown, contact tracing that misses ~80% of the cases (estimating the total case count from their death count, using the IFR from serology elsewhere), and 7 deaths per million. So maybe it's the masks? The general culture of hygiene? The weather? Something else? There's a lot we don't know here. I wish people would admit and accept that, instead of looking for false confidence, finding it, and then arguing with people who found a different falsely confident answer.
    - akiselev 6y ago
      > Except that Japan has high population density, no significant lockdown, contact tracing that misses ~80% of the cases (estimating the total case count from their death count, using the IFR from serology elsewhere), and 7 deaths per million. So maybe it's the masks? The general culture of hygiene? The weather? Something else? According to Worldometer Japan has tested ~284k people while New York and California have combined tested almost four million despite together having half the population of Japan. Last time I saw excess mortality statistics a few weeks ago they were lagging with several prefectures missing and bad normalization for aging and other factors. Assuming the numbers are accurate, I'm more interested in how South Dakota and Wyoming are doing so much worse than Japan with such a low population density. I suspect the answer lies in the crumbling rural health infrastructure. > There's a lot we don't know here. I wish people would admit and accept that, instead of turning this into yet another polarized political debate. Mortality, population density, and basic division are not political and if by themselves they're polarizing, then we're too far gone already.
      - tripletao 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you intend by those test counts? Japan has 874 dead. Assuming IFR of 1%, that implies about 87k infected. But they report 17k confirmed cases, so they're missing ~80% of the cases. I mentioned this to head off any suggestion that Japan's trace and test operation was responsible for their success, since at best it's decreasing R by that ~20%. Perhaps Japan is failing to catch some deaths too; but they're an open society with freedom of speech, so I don't expect their numbers to be grossly wrong. So what could South Dakota and Wyoming's public health system be doing that's worse than Japan? I don't know the answer, but it's not clear to me at all that the difference is in their government responses vs. some aspect of their initial situations. I gave deaths per capita because that's the probability that someone in that state will have died of coronavirus, which is what most people care about directly. Your (deaths/people)/(people/area) has no corresponding direct significance. To then call that "the relevant number" overstates the importance of population density, and also models population density badly when it's non-uniform (as you note for NYC). I agree that population density is an important factor, just not as determinative as your post would seem to imply. Oh, and looks like you quoted my post before I edited it, sorry. But I believe false confidence is polarizing and would like to see less of it, as uncomfortable as the true uncertainty may be.

by ken 6y ago

tripletao 6y ago

New York has 1,529 deaths per million population, California has 105, Wyoming has 26, and South Dakota has 67 (using the Worldometer numbers). So they certainly didn't follow the same curves, nor did the lockdown turn Times Square into the Great Plains. On average, stricter measures seem correlated with higher mortality, not lower. That doesn't mean the measures kill people, just that governments don't tend to impose them until stuff gets bad. It's very difficult to disentangle the effects of the intervention from the effects of the pre-existing environment.

akiselev 6y ago
Viruses spread due to close contact so these stats need to be normalized for population density. The relevant number is deaths per million people per person per sq mile. New York state's population density is ~400 people per square mile, California ~250, South Dakota ~11, Wyoming ~6. So California's deaths per million are four times Wyoming's and less than twice of South Dakotas despite having ~40 and ~24 times the population density, respectively. New York is an anomaly because of New York City (~26,000 people per sq mile) and specifically Manhattan (~67,000 people per sq mile) - an order of magnitude more densely populated than the most densely populated cities in Wyoming (Jackson, ~3300 people per square mile) and South Dakota (Piedmont, ~3000 people per square mile or Sioux Falls with ~2000). The big states have several dense cities with populations larger than both Wyoming and South Dakota combined. It's also disingenuous to include New York because it was the initial epicenter on the Western hemisphere and the majority of those dead were infected before complete lock down procedures could be implemented or from unavoidable close contact with family or building tenants.
- tripletao 6y ago
  Except that Japan has high population density, no significant lockdown, contact tracing that misses ~80% of the cases (estimating the total case count from their death count, using the IFR from serology elsewhere), and 7 deaths per million. So maybe it's the masks? The general culture of hygiene? The weather? Something else? There's a lot we don't know here. I wish people would admit and accept that, instead of looking for false confidence, finding it, and then arguing with people who found a different falsely confident answer.
  - akiselev 6y ago
    > Except that Japan has high population density, no significant lockdown, contact tracing that misses ~80% of the cases (estimating the total case count from their death count, using the IFR from serology elsewhere), and 7 deaths per million. So maybe it's the masks? The general culture of hygiene? The weather? Something else? According to Worldometer Japan has tested ~284k people while New York and California have combined tested almost four million despite together having half the population of Japan. Last time I saw excess mortality statistics a few weeks ago they were lagging with several prefectures missing and bad normalization for aging and other factors. Assuming the numbers are accurate, I'm more interested in how South Dakota and Wyoming are doing so much worse than Japan with such a low population density. I suspect the answer lies in the crumbling rural health infrastructure. > There's a lot we don't know here. I wish people would admit and accept that, instead of turning this into yet another polarized political debate. Mortality, population density, and basic division are not political and if by themselves they're polarizing, then we're too far gone already.
    - tripletao 6y ago
      I'm not sure what you intend by those test counts? Japan has 874 dead. Assuming IFR of 1%, that implies about 87k infected. But they report 17k confirmed cases, so they're missing ~80% of the cases. I mentioned this to head off any suggestion that Japan's trace and test operation was responsible for their success, since at best it's decreasing R by that ~20%. Perhaps Japan is failing to catch some deaths too; but they're an open society with freedom of speech, so I don't expect their numbers to be grossly wrong. So what could South Dakota and Wyoming's public health system be doing that's worse than Japan? I don't know the answer, but it's not clear to me at all that the difference is in their government responses vs. some aspect of their initial situations. I gave deaths per capita because that's the probability that someone in that state will have died of coronavirus, which is what most people care about directly. Your (deaths/people)/(people/area) has no corresponding direct significance. To then call that "the relevant number" overstates the importance of population density, and also models population density badly when it's non-uniform (as you note for NYC). I agree that population density is an important factor, just not as determinative as your post would seem to imply. Oh, and looks like you quoted my post before I edited it, sorry. But I believe false confidence is polarizing and would like to see less of it, as uncomfortable as the true uncertainty may be.