When is Covid19 no longer a pandemic? When will the Corona Virus be done?

Knowing people in the healthcare industry are turning away emergency visits who have Covid symptoms without testing unless they needed treatment means our projects COULD be way off. Say you turn away 4 people who have it for every 1 that you actually test and admit… Your 3.7% death rate would be cut to less than 1%. (0.925).

So the power of small numbers is ripe for manipulation and wild swings in projections.

Tangent on small numbers:

The issue with small numbers to make projections is easy to understand with investing money. Let’s say you invest $100 into penny stocks (0.17 a share) and they go up 2 pennies in a day. 100 dollars =588 shares so you made 1176 pennies (11.76%) in a day! Simple right?
Now — as a good science person let’s calculate THE NUMBERS! Guys, we need to look at the data!! ARGH!!!! What do the charts show? The CDC/WHO data — look at the percentages… DATA DATA DATA!

Since we know day 0 we started with 100 dollars — earning 2 pennies the first day we could calculate that within 7 days you should be at 217.77 net value — within 30 days you should be at 2,809.26 — within 1 year you should be at $42,124,376,303,855,430,000.00

Why aren’t you a bazillionaire yet? Simple! All it takes is 100 bucks and some DATA!

The issue is that while a share may go up 2 cents in a day, you can’t accurately or reasonably plan on that rate to continue unchecked. The data — when viewed under some situations… is actually misleading.

“An analysis of the blood of some 3,300 people living in Santa Clara County in early April found that one in every 66 people had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. On the basis of that finding, the researchers estimate that between 48,000 and 82,000 of the county’s roughly 2 million inhabitants were infected with the virus at that time — numbers that contrast sharply with the official case count of some 1,000 people reported in early April.”

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Let’s look at the actual data.

Say in a given county 37 people die that tested positive for Covid. If you project that 1000 people had Covid — you then calculate 1000/37 and you get 3.7% death rate.

This is the death rate and not death total. BE CLEAR in your conversations about Covid. People are mixing up the two all the time — showing how the US has more cases than Italy. Of course we do -we have more people. The issue is the percent of deaths to the population.

So with an estimated 1000 cases — 37 people died and they determine it’s a 3.7% death RATE.

If we extrapolate to 2 million people @ 3.7% that’s 74,000 death total. INSANE! We need to shut down the world, let this blow over, let hospitals brace for 74,000 people on ventilators… order body bags… Let funeral homes build crematoriums.

BUT…

If, however, your number of cases were actually way higher — actually, say 60,000 people had Covid and since we know that only 37 people died (that’s much easier to track versus asymptomatic Covid people). If 60,000 people contracted it and had such mild symptoms they thought it was just a cold or “being under the weather” with the regular seasonal flu… That has HUGE implications on the projections.

If you calculate 60,000 cases with a death TOTAL of 37 deaths, that’s a death RATE of just 0.0616% ? Sorry — I’m not the best so please verify my numbers — calculator said 6.1 e-4?

Easier math to determine projected total deaths from COVID:

2,000,000 population divided by 60,000 = 33.3x

Meaning of the 60,000 people that already have had Covid (based off of the most recent data now) > 33.3x more deaths will occur since 2 million is 33.3 times larger than 60k.

So 37 people died out of the 60,000 cases so far — so 37 deaths x 33.3 times more = 1233 total (in that county).

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So to the people crying at the top of their lungs how the world is ending and how the data was off but it’s still so bad — sorry (not sorry) 1,233 projected deaths is far off the 74,000 that was originally projected.

Now before you get all angry — I am not proposing the actual rate is actually that low (meaning only 37 deaths per 60,000 cases) but I also don’t think it’s 3.7% high. It’s somewhere in between.

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The question I have is WHAT LEVEL would you consider “safe enough to go back to work in a reasonable and responsible manner”?

I’m not advocating we open up the state fair or stadium sporting events. I’m talking reasonable — responsible businesses that can operate using social distancing and reasonable personal protective equipment and cleaning policies.

Let’s say that the original estimates which relied on data from China before this blew up. Assume for a second this is the case — just imagine if it ACTUALLY turns out the numbers / the death rate is less than seasonal flu then would this be an overreaction and should be re-open?

If the rate was equal to the seasonal flu would we be ready to re-open?

If the rate was 2x, 5x, 10x, 100x the seasonal flu then would this be an overreaction?

It’s kinda like Abortion. At what point do you say you cannot kill the thing inside the mother? They now do surgeries on that fetus and let the mother deliver it weeks later… Is it the first breath and then you can’t kill it? If you do a C-section can you kill it as long as it’s “inside” still? Is it once the heart starts beating? I don’t mean to be crude or short — but at a certain point you say it’s not the mother’s choice and it’s not a fetus it’s a baby. James Elgin Gill (born on 20 May 1987 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) was the earliest premature baby in the world, until that record was broken in 2004. He was 128 days premature (21 weeks and 5 days’ gestation) and weighed 1 pound 6 ounces (624 g). He survived (thanks Google!). So do we pick 21 weeks and 5 days as “baby) and before that fetus? (Honestly let’s not talk about abortion — but let’s talk about purely “picking an arbitrary number).

What arbitrary numbers do we need to hit to be “safe enough” to open up businesses with reasonable, responsible, safe working conditions?

Just like there could be medical reasons to abort a baby (say they have no arms, legs, no brain and their heart isn’t beating at 12 weeks… Perhaps abortion is ok and should be done in a safe setting. So in the case of opening up the economy — perhaps there is a need to quarantine and flatten the curve — which we’ve done.

Now WHEN is the curve flattening actually done?

I feel like we’ve invaded Iraq with no gameplan as to when the war will really end. Let’s define the end. What are the numbers we need to reach to declare we won and bring home the troops?

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