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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Coronavirus: The California Herd

2020-04-01

VDH. Sorry, Abu Uluque, RJS, and I are too stubborn to die..
[Nat'l Review] By now, California should be, as predicted in so many models, ground zero of infection.

The bluest state's public officials have been warning for weeks that California will be overwhelmed, given federal-government unpreparedness and the purported inefficacy of the local, state, and federal governments.

California governor Gavin Newsom has assured his state that over half of the population ‐ or, in his words, 56 percent ‐ will soon be infected. That is, more than 25 million coronavirus cases are on the horizon, which, at the virus's current fatality rate of 1–2 percent (the ratio of deaths to known positive cases), would mean that the state should anticipate 250,000–500,000 dead Californians in the near future. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti predicted that this week Los Angeles would be short of all sorts of medical supplies as the epidemic killed many hundreds, as is the case in New York City.

It's been well over two months since the first certified coronavirus case in the United States, so one might expect to see early symptoms of the apocalypse recently forecast by Governor Newsom. Yet a number of California's top doctors, epidemiologists, statisticians, and biophysicists ‐ including Stanford's John Ioannides, Michael Levitt, Eran Bendavid, and Jay Bhattacharya ‐ have expressed some skepticism about the bleak models predicting that we are on the verge of a statewide or even national lethal pandemic of biblical proportions.

The skeptics may be right. As of this moment, California's cumulative fatalities attributed to coronavirus are somewhere over 140 deaths, in a state of 40 million. That toll is a relatively confirmable numerator (though coronavirus is not always the sole cause of death), as opposed to the widely unreliable denominator of caseloads (currently about 6,300 in the state) that are judged to be only a fraction of the population that has been tested. The Iceland study, for example, suggests that half of those who are infected show no symptoms. Currently, even with fluctuating statistics, California is suffering roughly about one death to the virus for every 250,000–300,000 of its residents.

The rate certainly will go up each hour, and no doubt in geometric fashion, as the virus spreads. Yet we should remember that California loses about 270,000 lives to all causes every year ‐ meaning, on any given day, around 740 Californians die. So far there is no published clear evidence that in January, February, and March more Americans have died from pneumonia-related diseases than in an average year. Note too that not all deaths attributed to coronavirus are the work of COVID-19 alone; they are often accompanied by advanced age and serious chronic conditions that may have soon led to death without any accompanying viral infection.

Posted by:Frank G

#16 What to Do If You Get COVID – from an ER Doctor & Former Special Forces Medic

What to Do If You Get a cold – from an ER Doctor & Former Special Forces Medic

Posted by: KBK 2020-04-01 20:32

#15 Interesting, g(r)omgoru.

Thank you, Besoeker — I’ve copied it to my coronavirus file. I substitute steamy showers for a hot mist humidifier, which would reduce the risk to others.

Posted by: trailing wife 2020-04-01 19:52

#14 Some useful tips, if you didn't see it elsewhere in today's Burg:

What to Do If You Get COVID – from an ER Doctor & Former Special Forces Medic

Posted by: Besoeker 2020-04-01 16:10

#13 ^Two viruses: A & B; BP. An immune memory for A prevents immune response for B.
Say, B carries non-functional epitopes of A inducing a secondary response to A instead of (completely different) to B. In principle possible, but you'll have to assure retention of non-functional epitopes - which means frameshift coding (same piece of DNA codes several proteins depending where you start reading), which we can't do today.
Why mess with all this? Just paste gp120 DNA sequence to influenza virus genome.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-04-01 15:55

#12 What if someone had invented a binary virus weapon?

One infectious, the second fatal?

Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-04-01 15:11

#11 Me3. Took a trip to NY for bidness in late January. My wife felt really bad for about three weeks afterwards, and I did too for a couple of days. No real symptoms except a lot of body ache and loss of energy.

Wouldn't making policy based on solid data be racist or sexist or somethingist?

Posted by: Matt 2020-04-01 13:43

#10 Most of us have probably already contracted the virus.

Certainly many millions of coastal Californians were exposed to it during the last five months.

I wish to God our leaders would start listening to experts like Dr. Ioannidis, Dr. John Lee, Profs. Bendavid and Bhattacharya et al. We really need to set up and run proper tests and start making policy based on solid data.

Posted by: Lex 2020-04-01 13:12

#9 I agree with grom. An antibody test will likely be enlightening. I suspect CA got hit this winter with a lighter version and many built up immunities that are proving to be helpful now.

Posted by: rjschwarz 2020-04-01 13:02

#8 #6,7 wait for antibody test.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-04-01 12:32

#7 Me2, Abu. Back in February. Worst cough I can remember having. Mucinex helped with the...um...production -- gross, but effective. Helped keep crepe out of my lungs. The runs and vomiting also. The wife had what she called a weird cold back in November.

Been wondering ourselves.

Posted by: JHH 2020-04-01 12:30

#6 I had a crummy cold just after Christmas that lasted about two weeks. My previous understanding was that a cold should only last one week. No fever. The coughs were productive and icky. My nose ran and ran and ran. The really crummy part was the way the back of my nose felt. Probably it was just a cold but all this makes me wonder.

Posted by: Abu Uluque 2020-04-01 11:57

#5 BLUF: Of all the advanced world's regions, California should be the epicenter for deaths attributable to this virus. It's the opposite, with a death rate about as low as Germany's. We need to run some well-constructed tests using available resources and start making policy based on much more accurate data than has been used so far.

VDH notes that California is joined to the hip with China, including Wuhan itself.

During the months of October, November, January, and February alone — before the travel ban — perhaps nearly 1 million Chinese citizens arrived in California on direct and indirect flights originating in China.

VDH notes that California experienced about 10,000 Chinese arrivals every day - again, including flights from Wuhan itself - prior to the lockdown that began two weeks ago. These people - many tens of thousands, probably more than 100,000 unique individuals in total - have been circulating among the general population in LA, the Bay Area and the San Diego area, in universities and corporate offices, working and shopping and studying and going about life in close proximity to hundreds of thousands of Californians, for months.

It is therefore nearly certain that millions of Californians have been exposed to this virus during the last four months.

So it's also highly likely that the real morbidity rate observed in California - not the co-morbidity or the case fatality rate, but the actual risk of death from exposure to this virus, based on solid data, on the actual mass exposure that has taken place in coastal in California, is minuscule, on the order of less than 1 in 10,000. This is what Stanford's Eran Bendavid, and Jay Bhattacharya concluded:

“First, the test used to identify cases doesn’t catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections...

"...a total quarantine may not be worth the [costs to public health]... The data are consistent with an extraordinary range of estimates ... We desperately need a population-representative estimate of the seroprevalence of the disease so we can reduce that uncertainty and make better policy based on our improved knowledge. ... [such a test is currently] feasible to run immediately."

Wearing masks, not shaking hands, isolating and protecting the elderly, some curbs on mass gatherings in stadiums and clubs: fine, no problem. But imposing the equivalent of martial law on California counties that have already experienced mass exposure to this virus - and thereby destroying the livelihoods of millions - is unwise.

/rant

Please direct your objections to Victor Davis Hanson and the other Californians referenced: Stanford's top epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis and the Stanford public health experts Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya.

Posted by: Lex 2020-04-01 10:18

#4 Try finding any.

Posted by: Deacon Blues 2020-04-01 09:13

#3 Studying this shi* everyday. Wish I knew more. The only bug people I am still in contact with (microbiologists who have been on it for years), one won't talk, the other insists it stops at the wet market. So I got nutten, dead end.

My theory of altered Histoplasmosis (Cave Disease) spores, going nowhere. If you look it up, 'non-contagion' symptoms are amazingly similar. Out of my league. I'll just keep reading.

Posted by: Besoeker 2020-04-01 08:51

#2 It's all for the common good! For the children!

I'm hip-deep in sarcasm.

Herd Immunity

Reproduction rate. Compare to measles and the common cold

Posted by: Bobby 2020-04-01 08:42

#1 Now it's a total lockdown in NorCal.

It's the equivalent of martial law. Can't even meet with anyone who's not a member of immediate family; aside from a walk with your spouse - 6 feet apart - around the block, it is now forbidden to even go outside except for "essential services"; county DA has a hotline for anyone wishing to report his neighbor to the authorities.

The economy is being destroyed in front of our eyes. The state's most brilliant epidemiologists and Nobellists decry this absurd overreaction with logic and evidence but are ignored.

When the panic subsides, someone needs to be held accountable for this foolishness.

Posted by: Lex 2020-04-01 01:01

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