Crucial_Infra

IHME model now predicts earliest each state could start relaxing social distancing, assuming infection rates below 1 per million and robust testing/contact tracing/isolation plans etc. healthdata.org/covid/updates One again, NC is in great position, but still got a few more weeks to go.

I’ll miss you (the drone pics) but bye

If that study turns out to be true, that’s great news! Means we’re closer to possible herd immunity and that the CFR is lower. That said, it’s still not the flu in any sense at all. The novel coronavirus has a much much higher R0 (contagiousness) than the standard flu. Even higher than we knew if those numbers check out. Remember this has killed 35,000 people in a month. With severe mitigation efforts. The only flu in history to do something similar to that was the 1918 Influenza which is what the experts compared COVID-19 to from the beginning.

Therein lies the rub and why I’m concerned at the moment. The coordination necessary between state, federal and private industry to pull this off would be a heavy lift for any administration, and/but this group isn’t exactly the A-Team.

I’ll give you my non expert answer: the people calling for a re-opening of America are largely wrong right now, but they won’t be forever. The truth is that each week that passes we get closer to that date even though we all agree it will cause an increase in infections and death; it’s inevitable. Good news is every week we delay opening, that risk lowers exponentially but it’s also unrealistic to get that risk to 0. If the models show we’re likely to have 10,000 future deaths with a continued lockdown compared to a 10,200 death toll (a 2% increase) if we re-open, then people are going to want to re-open imo. On the other hand, if the models show a 10% or more increase in future deaths by re-opening, I think most people would agree it’s too soon.

Here’s some good news: the IHME model has been updated and it’s down again to about 60,000 deaths. The bad news is it seems to have settled into a range of 60-70k which makes me think it’s getting more reliable. Starting to think 50k dead is almost a guarantee at this point. NC has been revised downward too, but NY is up again. LINK

After reading the above post responding to @Dale, I’m pretty sure he should be forced to delete his account. Sorry, @Dale :-)

BREAKING: The coronavirus death toll in NYC just soared to more than 10,000 people after officials revised the count. Get ready for cries of FAKE NEWS from the right wing media sphere The city has added more than 3,700 additional people who were presumed to have died of the coronavirus but had never tested positive. (NYT)

While IHME has revised its nationwide death toll upwards today to ~70,000, its North Carolina projections dropped from around 500 to ~400. A small bit of good news, at least locally. Also, Mecklenburg seems to be stabilizing in per capita cases. Orange County is now the worst “large” NC county in per capita cases.

Also, the latest IHME model is out and the death toll estimate has been revised again: UPWARD to nearly 70,000 (through August if the entire country keeps full mitigation efforts). Let’s all hope it’s wrong and it gets revised downward again soon. Meanwhile, the official US death toll — which we know is an UNDERCOUNT because of lack of testing — has just surpassed 25,000!! And y’all want to compare this to a bad flu epidemic that killed 70,000 over a full year?? COVID has killed more than 25,000 in THREE WEEKS! Read it again: TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND in THREE WEEKS!! And that’s with a nationwide shutdown! But sure, let’s open the country back up with no contact tracing or testing. Sounds like an excellent plan that will not only cause more deaths but will also collapse the economy further.

Why would we do that? Covid-19 is not comparable on any level to either of those.

This is idiotic. The IHME model that the White House and many others have relied on first projected about 90,000 deaths and has since dropped to around 60,000. BFD. It’s one f’n model, man. As far as those other numbers you’re quoting, no one even knows where the White House even came up with that 100,000 - 240,000 figure. And that 2.2 million death figure was based on NO MITIGATION EFFORTS. As for the 11 million figure you mentioned, pretty sure you pulled that one out of your ass. And please don’t come back at me dropping a link to a Medium post! Show us some respect. This isn’t InfoWars.

The CDC has traced Chicago's coronavirus outbreak to just *two* family gatherings. The new case study, one of the most detailed looks at how covid-19 moves through communities, shows how just one person can set off a chain reaction of infections. LINK THIS is why doing your part in social distancing is so important. You’re actually making a difference.

Birx rejects idea promoted on Fox that deaths inflated because ppl really die of other things: "Those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when it's related to covid infection. In fact, it's the opposite." Fauci adds: "You will always have conspiracy theories when you have a very challenging public health crises. They are nothing but distractions. ... I would just hope we just put those conspiracy stuff and let somebody write a book about it later on. But not now." LINK Keep this in mind the next time Brit Hume tweets out or gets on Fox News to say that the COVID-19 deaths are overstated which is then picked up by Bill Mitchell and amplified by Candace Owens so that the MAGA crowd begins to really believe there is a conspiracy going on.

Great news: latest IHME death projection has dropped again. The stay at home orders and social distancing are working just like the experts said they would. Again, these projections are if we continue full mitigation efforts through the entire month of May. That remains to be seen.

That gives me hope. I’m worried people are going to start relaxing a bit too soon as it’s only human nature. We are so close to really putting a major hurt on this virus if we can stay the course for another month. And unfortunately, maybe even one more after that. But I see light at the end of the tunnel for this summer in the Carolinas.

Ridiculous that these people are out and about like this. Nearly 1 in 50 people in NYC is confirmed to be infected which means in those photos you are looking at active cases. With that much viral load in the public, folks are being needlessly reckless being in such a crowded environment. FWIW, same goes for people in places that have much lower infection rates too (like NC and SC). Now is not the time to be in crowded public spaces.

It’s the most audacious immoral power grab I think I’ve ever seen. Beyond disgusting.

It blows my mind that by end of this week the death toll will exceed 20,000. It’s just hard to imagine this is actually happening but it most assuredly is. And all of this is happening while 90% of the country is under some sort of lockdown. Can you imagine how much worse it would be if we hadn’t locked down? We truly are talking millions of dead in the U.S. alone, and an economy in ruins. Whatever economic pain this is causing — and it is extreme — it is NOTHING compared to the pain and fear that would result from the death of MILLIONS of Americans. People need to wake up that the actions we are taking are not an overreaction at all. If anything, we may still be under reacting. The entire planet is locked down! Why? For some new global order? No, to save as many lives as possible. The science couldn’t be more clear. Until there is a vaccine, social distancing is all we have to stop the spread.

Whoa things seem to have gone off the rails here. Much love to my uppers out there. As bad as things are about to get, I’m still hopeful NC is going to suffer much less than most places but that’s only if we continue to social distance for the good of everyone. Today, NC ranks 45th in deaths per capita. Only WV, WY, UT, and HI have better numbers than NC — the ninth most populous state. Again, hang in there folks. It’s working. We’re gonna be back to work sooner than later if we stay the course. If we get slack now, the economic toll will be much worse and go on far longer.

^More than anyone, Taiwan knew better than to believe the numbers the Chinese government was putting out.

Georgia finally closes the barn door... after 14x as many deaths as NC which began shutting down weeks ago.

NC is testing more than any other southeastern state except Florida so when compared to our peers, we’re doing quite well. But again, because testing is so inconsistent from state to state, you must look at death rate. NC only has 10 deaths total with ~1600 positive tests. Compare that GA, which has 14x as many deaths as NC but only 3x as many positive tests. That shows that GA is way under testing compared to NC. GA’s true infection number is likely 5-10x what the current testing shows. NC’s deaths are very much inline with our total confirmed infections. When this is over, I predict NC will be lauded as a place that did it right/got lucky.

So many factors at play for sure but that’s a good point about age. Another is that we aren’t a densely populated state — even our cities. It’s the one time I thought, “hey suburban sprawl might actually be good for us!”

North Carolina is one of the leading states when it comes to testing. One of the ways you can tell we aren’t under testing is our incredibly low death rate compared to the rest of the country. Just 9 deaths which ranks 35th in nation. NC ranks 19th in total cases which is low considering NC is the ninth most populous state. Per capita, NC is doing better than probably any other state. Could that change? Of course. But right now, NC is doing really well. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/