Herd Immunity Update

Unlike Sleepy Joe, I will try, in the following post, to keep my decimal points in the right place.

Now, the World Health Organization has recently estimated that 10% of the world’s population has been exposed to Covid-19 (see: MSN Story) ... that’s about 730 million people! If we compare this to the World Meters actual reported numbers, roughly 36 million, we quickly realize that WHO is estimating the worldwide multiplier between asymptomatic to symptomatic cases is almost 20X.

If this multiplier be true (hate to rely on WHO) and applies to the U.S., then total Covid cases (asymptomatic+symptomatic) cases here might easily approximate 160 million (20x the 8 million that have  been reported to date). Now, stay tuned kind readers ... this is damn close to 50% of our American population (330 million).

Finally, herd immunity is generally estimated at 50-60% ... so we are also getting damn close to herd immunity (a vaccine should put us over the top) ... the place where we should see a dramatic drop-off in our Covid infection rates ... and may well have achieved it in places like New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey already ... where current new-case statistics seem to confirm this possibility.

Have I made your day a little brighter?


Afterward ... see: Politico Article

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Today’s Poser

If China has, today, only 7 new cases and no new deaths (see: World Meters), why is it in such a rush to develop a coronavirus vaccine?

Afterward: Maybe its numbers are cooked?

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Offsetting Malice

Anyone who follows the coronavirus new cases and new deaths closely and believes that they are not being manipulated by local officials for political advantage is criminally naive. However, at some point, the truth will seep though all this subterfuge because of offsetting malice ... and some gross incompetence.

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Obvious Truth

“Garbage in, garbage out.” — Old Data Processing Saying

Why is it not illegal to inflate or deflate Covid new case and death numbers for partisan political purposes? We have proof positive that both have occurred and are still occurring. This results in national pandemic policy decisions being almost impossible to make confidently.

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Herd Immunity

Is herd immunity the only real solution to the increasing infection rate of the COVID-19 pandemic? Well many epideniologists think so ... and I am beginning to agree. The current hot spots in the USA are Florida, Texas and California ... replacing New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, all three of which might be approaching some sort of plateau in daily new cases ... each generating only a few hundred cases per day while the hot spots are in the thousands. (There are other states that could be placed in each group ... only to complicate things ... so we will ignore them here.)

To normalize things between these states we will look at new daily cases per million of population ... see: World Meters. Here they are today:

                                Total

                     Cases per 1 million

New York               22,843

New Jersey             21,128

Massachusetts       17,064

Florida                    22,350

Texas                      15,315

California               12,799

Total USA              14,351

As been demonstrated in various blood tests for this virus’ antibodies, the number of asymptomatic cases can be as much as twenty or more times diagnoses cases. Therefore we can see from the above that New York, New Jersey and Florida might really have as many as 400,000 cases per million (40%) of population. Now, herd immunity is estimated to be achieved at 50-60% ... so, we might be getting close to herd immunity in these three states. (Maybe why these states, excepting the special case Florida might be slowing down.) And Texas, California and Massachusetts still have a way to go ... as does the overall USA. (Caveat: our much more extensive testing now might have reduced this multiplier between asymptomatic and diagnosed cases to well below 20.)

(We are not dealing with coronavirus death rates here because therapeutics have gotten a whole lot better ... and we have also learned to concentrate mitigation efforts on nursing homes. Texas, California and Florida are still doing worlds better than the other three on this count.)

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Short Note

I recently wrote about how new national coronavirus deaths,  not new cases was the metric to follow how we were progressing against this virus ... see: Scaredy Cats. Now, new deaths are starting to creep up ... primarily because of new cases spikes in Florida, California and Texas are causing new deaths to follow. (Not so much in Arizona.) I think the issue in the Southwest is all driven by what is happening in border leakage from Mexico. But the Florida numbers well might be the result of some number funny business.

Bottom line: Overall new deaths are still the metric to use ... but until new cases in California and Texas level out and decline I have gotten less optimistic and, as President Trump has said, things are likely to get worse before they get better.


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Scaredy Cats

President Trump recently “joked” about the best way to reduce the number of new coronavirus cases would be to reduce virus testing. There is no doubt that our testing has expanded almost ten-fold since our last pandemic peak in April. However, the number of new cases are only roughly twice what they were in April. This comparison has a wrinkle ... tests for antibodies done back then ... in two places in California and one in New York State suggested the real (asymptomatic) cases were 10 to even 40 times higher (pick 10) ... which, given our testing capability back then, our April peak could have been, in reality, as much as five times higher (10/2) than our current peak. In other words, our current “Covid spike” is a convenient fiction ... being used for political advantage.

This possible conclusion is borne out by also looking at coronavirus deaths during the same period (see:Washington Post Numbers) which are down to a third of what they were back then. Thus, new deaths are better relative to new case by a factor of 6 (down by 3 x up by 2). Now we have better virus treatments that should account for some of this difference ... but, there seems no doubt that most of the increase in new cases today can be attributed to better and more extensive testing  ... now totaling over 48 million ... the best in the world (other than China’s questionable numbers). And it should thus be the number of new deaths ... not the number of new cases ... that should be the better metric when measuring progress in combating this pandemic.

But why might Trump suggest, even in jest, that testing should be reduced? Because the Democrats and their media pals are focusing on the current fallacious “spike” in new cases to panic states into re-closing their economies and not opening their schools ... both of which would dampen Trump’s re-election chances in November.

Human nature being what it is ... if enough scaredy cats believe that President Trump’s policies are putting them at greater risk, they will be less inclined to keep him in office ... even though he might be doing what is right for our country. What is that old saw? “Perception is reality.”

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Garbage In

Garbage out.

The clouds may be beginning to part on the recent spike in coronavirus cases ... without the concomitant spike in virus deaths ... particularly in Florida and the Southwest. It seems that there may be some funny business in how these numbers are being collected ... at least in Florida ... and possibly elsewhere. Before we delve into this analysis, dear reader, you need to first read what crack bit of real reporting started this whole onion-peeling ... see: Florida Expose.

So, at least 36 virus-testing labs in Florida have been reporting jiggered results ... 22 of which have indicated that 100% of the tests they performed came back positive ... impossible! ... and 14 of which are highly suspicious. To say that such result are unusual and likely political is an obvious conclusion.

Let us now move into the analysis part. If one assumes that Florida’s overall positive test results would have been 10% (was 12.5%) and each lab tested on average 50 people (needs further clarification), then the labs reporting 100% positive results likely overstate virus cases by 45@ ... and 45x22 is 990 false positives. Add 280 as a rough guess from the obviously inflated results,  produces an overall false positive reading of 1,270 IN ONE DAY ... a significant overstatement.

My guess is that the real overstatement, given the visible evidence, is a whole lot higher ... one reason that new virus deaths did not follow new virus cases as would have been expected.

Are these same data collection shenanigans taking place in Texas, Arizona and California? Probably ... augmented by a cross-border flow of real cases of Mexicans and American ex-pats, since Mexico is experiencing a real surge.

I have no idea if there is a law against such data manipulation ... but there should be. And the Trump administration and the governors of all states experiencing a spike in cases should investigate this possible political malfeasance further. (And see if the virus death numbers are also now being tinkered with.)

Perplexed

None of this makes any sense. Looking at the latest COVID-19 statistics leaves me scratching my head. Before we go any further, please, dear reader, inspect the graphs of new cases and new deaths in the United States as per WaPo ... see: Washington Post Stastics.

You should immediately notice that we are currently living through a spike in new cases ... twice what they were in April at their height ... yet hospitalizations, ICU COVID admission and deaths are all substantially lower than at that previous peak. How can this be? There are a number of possible answers. Let me deal with new cases and new deaths separately:

New Cases
- It is certainly possible that our poor testing capacity and reliability back in April considerably undercounted the new cases. Now with more and better testing, our number of new cases are closer to reality.
- Most of the current increase in new cases are occurring in our South and Southwest. This might have something to do with American ex-patriots returning from Mexico and other Central and South American hot spots for treatment here at home.
- Yes, the economic reopening of many states has caused many more group gatherings ... which might be upping the virus spread. But then so must have been the weeks of racial protests, rioting and looting.
- Changing measurements. For some stupid reason, possibly political, the criteria for measuring new cases has become considerably more liberal ... inflating case counts. Read the following explanation of this shift from a previous blog: Fudge ... including the inbedded Conservative Treehouse hyperlink.

New Deaths
This new deaths statistic has, until most recently, showed a remarkable divergence from the number of new cases ... even after an appropriate lag of two or three weeks. This can be the result of a few factors:
- After being embarrassed by the huge number of such deaths occurring in nursing homes in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the governors of  all the states have instituted remedial measures to correct this problem.
- Many more of the current new cases must be younger people ... who have a much lower morbidity likelihood profile.
- One cannot discount the new therapeutics that have been developed to treat COVID ... as well as the improvements coming from the medical treatment learning curve.
- Nonetheless, we are beginning to see new deaths creep up. I am at a loss to explain this ... other than the obvious result in the spike in new cases ... or a new way of classifying such deaths ... or maybe even political bias insinuating itself in. See also the following explanation found on a site displaying such data:

Criteria for reporting deaths has changed in some states and cities, and numbers in this story may fluctuate as jurisdictions adjust their counting and reporting procedures. For instance, in mid-April, New York City added more than 3,700 deaths of people who were presumed to have the coronavirus but were never tested, and New Jersey added more than 1,800 on June 25.

Fudge

I have been perplexed at the disconnect between the spike in COVID-19 cases and the continued downward slope of the deaths from this virus ... even with a two week plus lag. How can this be? Well I have posited some reasons: the virus is weakening, there are better therapeutics, mostly young people, with less morbidity being infected, etc. But I have not considered another possibility — the new cases numbers are being fudged!

How can this happen ... and why? Well the why is fairly obvious — politics is involved ... more cases equals longer lockdowns and slower economic recovery ... equals problems for the Orangeman. 

The “how” is just now being discovered. In Texas at least, health authorities have changed the definition of those with COVID-19 from one who tests positive for this virus to, ta-da, someone who has been in close contact with this positive person ... whether this “contact” tests positive or not! Clearly, good reason to see the number of cases surge in this state ... see: Conservative Treehouse explanation.

So, can politics affect public health? You bet your bippy!

Now, kind reader, are other fudgings of case counts happening elsewhere? We will have to wait and see. But, if new cases keep surging while new deaths keep to their downward path, one would have to suspect so.

COvID Deaths

Social Distancing

Everybody has their favorite measure of what is happening with the progress of COVID-19 in the United States: new cases, percentage testing positive,  new hospitalization, new ICU admissions, new deaths, etc. Since COVID has become a political issue, the measure selected often depends on your political party.

My preferred measure is new deaths ... which it seems should be a lagging indicator ... but, I suspect is now a leading one ... due to the rapid increase in testing, possible mutations in the virus itself or possibly even better therapeutics. Nonetheless, this is my preferred metric ... see: Washington Post Graphic.

These numbers there suggest to me, despite what one reads or sees in the media, the opening up of our economy seems to be moving apace.

We shall see.