4 ms·

Do you have a source for your R0 values? As far as I know there have been no per-state R0s released, though current estimates put ~20% at antibody positive [^1]

Do you have a source for your R0 values? As far as I know there have been no per-state R0s released, though current estimates put ~20% at antibody positive [^1] in New York meanwhile Texas has a very low infection rate in comparison. This likely has much more to do with relative densities than lockdown strategy. Texas is low density, and it was necessary to have looser restrictions in many areas due to distance to essentials like groceries. And indeed for Texas this seems to have been a fine call. And Texas still has a declining rate of new cases despite continuing to reopen, and we have been in a decline for over 30 days despite bars and restaurants being open. The complaints against mask wearing have primarily been against legal mandates. I wear a mask but I don't support fining or jailing Americans if they choose not to, especially since they are likely to be old, poor or a minority. I don't believe anyone has been piling bodybags in the streets, though it's an excellent scaremongering claim. Remember lockdown was planned for a few weeks to flatten hospitalization rate - which it did. [^1]:https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-numerical-language-of-covid-19-a-primer-11589535004 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-numerical-language-of-covid...

NotSammyHagar 6y ago
You can get per state R0 values. rt.live is a website (that is not part of russia today), the RT url comes from "R0". It's from the people that sold instagram to facebook. They do have per state R values. This does show that NY is at about 0.8. Texas is 1.02 currently. The one negative with their calcs is their R values seem too sensitive to daily conditions. It's a great visualization of infection rates too, please look at that. To look at the daily infection numbers, find Texas, click on the "show new cases" tab. Texas has about 1500 new cases per day now. They've had a steady increase in new cases per day since mid April, when they were about 750 new pos cases/day. They are really growing. I'm not sure where your stats about Texas doing well are. It looks to me like the positive cases are unfortunately increasing there steadily, and it's a precursor to increasing hospitilization. I have family there, I'm increasingly concerned. They get their data feed from https://covidtracking.com/api/v1/states/daily.csv https://covidtracking.com/api/v1/states/daily.csv which is downloadable. Look at TX (some days have multiple updates, you have to calculate the delta yourself). US date style, positives: 6/7 74978, 6/6 73553, 6/5 71613, the increases are very clear in daily positive cases; those counts are total pos counts to that date of course. Another place to see per state (such as Texas) is https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/. Go down to 'daily new cases in texas' click on 7 day moving average. They've really been growing per day in new positive cases. One note, different websites show the current day's data differently (some show values that up dated in the middle of the day, others show one day late, so looking at the very latest rhs data point is sometimes confusing). Texas absolutely shows the potential of opening up increasing infection rates. Alabama is another state that is hurting but reached a top, see Arkansas too. Florida was down but is now showing highest per day infection rates historically (7 day average, looks like new records beating 2 months ago). Some states are better, plenty are getting worse.
- nradov 6y ago
  The number of diagnosed cases or positive test results is only loosely correlated with the number of actual infections. Thus any calculation of R values based on cases isn't mathematically valid.
  - bsder 6y ago
    > The number of diagnosed cases or positive test results is only loosely correlated with the number of actual infections. Then that just means that we are likely underestimating R0--possibly by a huge amount. Okay, I agree with you. Infections aren't LESS than the diagnosed cases and positive test results. So, all the calculations from data about the estimates of R0 are all a lower bound, not an upper one. As such, our estimates of R0 are likely painting a much rosier picture than reality. Probably not the point you were trying to make.
    - nradov 6y ago
      You missed the point. There are a lot of cases which are never formally counted as "cases" because people recover without ever being diagnosed. We don't know whether that fraction of unreported cases has increased or decreased over time. Outside of a few limited areas there hasn't been enough random population sampling to draw any reliable conclusions one way or the other.
      - bsder 6y ago
        You have just said that we probably have quite a few cases of Covid which are not counted and are not part of the model because they were undiagnosed. I agree. If we somehow magically started accounting for those cases the R0 would immediately go up (more cases per unit time means increased R0) unless the number of those cases is zero. Thus, the R0 estimates we have are currently all underestimates. Covid is likely more contagious than we are calculating, not less. Now, this doesn't matter to the people who recover, of course. And it effectively is correct in that people who simply recover aren't a big problem and so the R0 is roughly "correct" in the aggregate. However, that incorrect R0 DOES matter when you start talking about vulnerable populations and how far you need to go to protect them.
bsder 6y ago
> I don't believe anyone has been piling bodybags in the streets, though it's an excellent scaremongering claim. New York was. Although the point wasn't intended to be about scaremongering, it was more about how people don't seem to have the ability to pay attention unless life kicks them personally in the balls. Most people in the Northeast knew someone personally who died of Covid--when someone's Grandma you know dies of Covid, you'll put your mask on and stay locked down so yours doesn't, and you'll get mad about the people who won't. That's why I chose California, which nominally has a lockdown, to contrast against Texas, which nominally doesn't, to contrast against New York, which really locked down, to show that the US really didn't lockdown very well. I was in California after the orders--"Hey, we can't hang out inside the coffee shop. I got it! Let's hang out on the sidewalk outside!" <facepalm> Or, "Hey let's have a Mother's Day party"--two of which now account for more than 50% of the Covid cases in Santa Cruz county. And all this is because we didn't have a unified response in the US to make people pay fucking attention. And, even in "Open all the things!" Texas, it's not helping much. Most businesses run until they get a Covid case in the employees and then shut down for several weeks--lather, rinse, repeat. So, instead of everybody shutting down simultaneously and cutting down the number of cases, we have individual businesses shutting down hodgepodge which still hammers people's jobs and as a bonus doesn't help bring the Covid numbers down. Yes, I'm glad we shut down to prevent overrunning the medical system. However, that was just "Step 1". "Step 2" was not supposed to be "Do nothing else and then throw up your hands in 90 days."

NotSammyHagar 6y ago

You can get per state R0 values. rt.live is a website (that is not part of russia today), the RT url comes from "R0". It's from the people that sold instagram to facebook. They do have per state R values. This does show that NY is at about 0.8. Texas is 1.02 currently. The one negative with their calcs is their R values seem too sensitive to daily conditions. It's a great visualization of infection rates too, please look at that. To look at the daily infection numbers, find Texas, click on the "show new cases" tab. Texas has about 1500 new cases per day now. They've had a steady increase in new cases per day since mid April, when they were about 750 new pos cases/day. They are really growing. I'm not sure where your stats about Texas doing well are. It looks to me like the positive cases are unfortunately increasing there steadily, and it's a precursor to increasing hospitilization. I have family there, I'm increasingly concerned. They get their data feed from https://covidtracking.com/api/v1/states/daily.csv https://covidtracking.com/api/v1/states/daily.csv which is downloadable. Look at TX (some days have multiple updates, you have to calculate the delta yourself). US date style, positives: 6/7 74978, 6/6 73553, 6/5 71613, the increases are very clear in daily positive cases; those counts are total pos counts to that date of course. Another place to see per state (such as Texas) is https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/. Go down to 'daily new cases in texas' click on 7 day moving average. They've really been growing per day in new positive cases. One note, different websites show the current day's data differently (some show values that up dated in the middle of the day, others show one day late, so looking at the very latest rhs data point is sometimes confusing). Texas absolutely shows the potential of opening up increasing infection rates. Alabama is another state that is hurting but reached a top, see Arkansas too. Florida was down but is now showing highest per day infection rates historically (7 day average, looks like new records beating 2 months ago). Some states are better, plenty are getting worse.

nradov 6y ago
The number of diagnosed cases or positive test results is only loosely correlated with the number of actual infections. Thus any calculation of R values based on cases isn't mathematically valid.
- bsder 6y ago
  > The number of diagnosed cases or positive test results is only loosely correlated with the number of actual infections. Then that just means that we are likely underestimating R0--possibly by a huge amount. Okay, I agree with you. Infections aren't LESS than the diagnosed cases and positive test results. So, all the calculations from data about the estimates of R0 are all a lower bound, not an upper one. As such, our estimates of R0 are likely painting a much rosier picture than reality. Probably not the point you were trying to make.
  - nradov 6y ago
    You missed the point. There are a lot of cases which are never formally counted as "cases" because people recover without ever being diagnosed. We don't know whether that fraction of unreported cases has increased or decreased over time. Outside of a few limited areas there hasn't been enough random population sampling to draw any reliable conclusions one way or the other.
    - bsder 6y ago
      You have just said that we probably have quite a few cases of Covid which are not counted and are not part of the model because they were undiagnosed. I agree. If we somehow magically started accounting for those cases the R0 would immediately go up (more cases per unit time means increased R0) unless the number of those cases is zero. Thus, the R0 estimates we have are currently all underestimates. Covid is likely more contagious than we are calculating, not less. Now, this doesn't matter to the people who recover, of course. And it effectively is correct in that people who simply recover aren't a big problem and so the R0 is roughly "correct" in the aggregate. However, that incorrect R0 DOES matter when you start talking about vulnerable populations and how far you need to go to protect them.

bsder 6y ago

> I don't believe anyone has been piling bodybags in the streets, though it's an excellent scaremongering claim. New York was. Although the point wasn't intended to be about scaremongering, it was more about how people don't seem to have the ability to pay attention unless life kicks them personally in the balls. Most people in the Northeast knew someone personally who died of Covid--when someone's Grandma you know dies of Covid, you'll put your mask on and stay locked down so yours doesn't, and you'll get mad about the people who won't. That's why I chose California, which nominally has a lockdown, to contrast against Texas, which nominally doesn't, to contrast against New York, which really locked down, to show that the US really didn't lockdown very well. I was in California after the orders--"Hey, we can't hang out inside the coffee shop. I got it! Let's hang out on the sidewalk outside!" <facepalm> Or, "Hey let's have a Mother's Day party"--two of which now account for more than 50% of the Covid cases in Santa Cruz county. And all this is because we didn't have a unified response in the US to make people pay fucking attention. And, even in "Open all the things!" Texas, it's not helping much. Most businesses run until they get a Covid case in the employees and then shut down for several weeks--lather, rinse, repeat. So, instead of everybody shutting down simultaneously and cutting down the number of cases, we have individual businesses shutting down hodgepodge which still hammers people's jobs and as a bonus doesn't help bring the Covid numbers down. Yes, I'm glad we shut down to prevent overrunning the medical system. However, that was just "Step 1". "Step 2" was not supposed to be "Do nothing else and then throw up your hands in 90 days."