I get the confirmation bias that would be implicit with justifying policy based on case numbers with regional variant differences... but wouldn’t you find it relevant if there is not divergence given the variants?
Bad News Thread
- Thread starter kickingandscreaming
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I get the confirmation bias that would be implicit with justifying policy based on case numbers with regional variant differences... but wouldn’t you find it relevant if there is not divergence given the variants?
With n=3? And 3 different levels of seroprevalence?
No. Not really. If CA has the worst growth, what does it prove? All three states are changing their policies in multiple ways. If CA has a spike, what caused it? Youth soccer just started up. We just opened indoor dining. Schools are opening. And, if CA numbers are good, what does that prove? The weather improved. We have more vaccines distributed. Outdoor sports are open, displacing indoor activities. You can grind any axe you want to with those numbers.
CDC ran a full, county by county regression on this. I’m not going to toss out a regression on 2000 time series data sets because someone wants to pretend to be a data guy with a single snapshot with n=3.
There's also something afoot though that can't be fully explained by the variants. Remember in Europe in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe they are hitting new peaks. In the US, states from Maine east of the Appalachians as far south as Virginia have plateaued while Florida is still falling though the rate of decline is still slowing. The only way the variants can fully explain this is if the Northeast has a higher variant proportion than Florida and a new epidemic wave is spreading out of the northeast. Since it started in New York that would make it ground zero in the new variant wave. The other thing to note is that in New York and Massachusetts the cases have been plateaued since the end of January at roughly the same levels, neither accelerating nor decelerating. Maybe the vaccine is acting is a counter to the accelerator or maybe it's the weather. New York, though is out performing Florida right now in vaccination, and neighboring Georgia ranks dead last.....if it was the vaccination alone you'd expect to see irregular pockets of some places doing worse than others than this regional pattern that seems to be spreading out now touching as far south as Viriginia.
I was thinking first of the comparison of TX to FL going forward. Open for business, high previous exposure rates and FL with a growing variant % of cases. If there is no divergence there, I think that tells us something (or at least implies something).
If CA then follows similar trends, with policy differences and a variant of their own, that would imply something significant as well.
It wouldn’t be proof of a point, but it could isolate some variables as relevant or not.
I further point out that this is a similar pattern to what we saw last year around the same time, with New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts being ground zero for the initial spring wave that started all this.
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
I think this is bad news @Desert Hound. I am hearing rumors that if Reach 11 stays closed, ECNL will be moving the Showcase to Texas. Any thoughts on what will happen?
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
NY Times indicating there's no sign of any increase in cases in FL where B.1.1.7 is widespread.
But — here’s the second idea — the overall evidence on the variants has been more encouraging so far than many people expected. The vaccines are virtually eliminating hospitalizations and death in people who contract a variant. Reinfection does not seem to be widespread. And even if the variants are more contagious, they have not caused the kind of surges that seemed possible a couple of weeks ago. |
In Florida, where B.1.1.7 has spread widely, “there’s no sign of any increase in cases,” Dr. Eric Topol of Scripps Research wrote. |
Desert Hound
DA
I haven't heard anything one way or the other to be honest.
I know nothing of what ECNL is doing/trying to do...City of Phoenix is not prioritizing loosening their restrictions on having any events at their facilities.
I haven't heard rumor that they are considering opening anytime soon. It's beyond me why they would continue to keep all of their facilities closed, given the current environment. Impacts are being felt by clubs who use their facilities throughout the city's footprint in the valley.
Hopefully their are conversations being had and the ECNL spring event happens - opens the door for local clubs to regain access.
Why would you expect to see a change to overall cases now?
If b.1.1.7 is small, but growing exponentially, you would not expect to see overall case growth until the growth in b.1.1.7 exceeds the decline in normal cases. Exceeds in absolute value, not in proportionate rates.
The second paragraph is more promising. At least for the UK variant, both vaccines and traditional immunity appear to work. That puts a pretty short time limit on how long the UK variant has to do damage.
A little late for LA County to be doing this.....
losangeles.cbslocal.com
Kroger To Close 3 Stores In Los Angeles In Response To Approval Of 'Hero Pay' Mandate
Two Ralphs stores -- at 9616 West Pico Blvd. and 3300 West Slauson Ave. – and a Food 4 Less at 5420 W. Sunset Blvd. will be shut down on May 15, according to Kroger.
losangeles.cbslocal.com
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
Yo, Jimbo (your new nickname - both words - I'll see about getting you a bowling shirt), do you have more qualifications than Dr. Eric Topol? Maybe this is a case of the reporter not understanding what was said. I don't really want to argue, I have a significant other for that. As you say, we'll see in a few weeks. Let's hope.
I try to be clear that I am a math guy with utterly no qualifications on this.
It does make me uncomfortable when I end up disagreeing with actual experts. They know many things I don't.
Not so much the Topol case: I agree with him that so far you can't see any spike. And he wasn't quite saying whether a FL spike was in the future or not.
But I do keep wondering what Osterholm sees that I am missing. I don't get the numbers behind his hurricane prediction.
- Jimbo
I also have no qualifications for bowling. But I am probably qualified to wear a shirt.
Hüsker Dü
DA
I saw a meme that said the same thing except instead of a mask he was wearing a maga hat.
Pretty much everywhere in Europe including Ireland and Spain now plateaued. Meanwhile Germany coming under criticism despite the early praise.
www.dw.com
What's gone wrong with Germany's COVID management? – DW – 03/12/2021
A year ago, Germany was effusively praised for its coronavirus response. Nobody would think to do that now. If anything, the international view today is a mixture of astonishment and schadenfreude.
www.dw.com
Interesting study. There's an interesting section there too about the impact in Ireland of dining restrictions.
www.nature.com
RETRACTED ARTICLE: Stay-at-home policy is a case of exception fallacy: an internet-based ecological study - Scientific Reports
A recent mathematical model has suggested that staying at home did not play a dominant role in reducing COVID-19 transmission. The second wave of cases in Europe, in regions that were considered as COVID-19 controlled, may raise some concerns. Our objective was to assess the association between...
www.nature.com