Another day, a little more data from the state. The list of larger group living facilities with confirmed cases is now well over fifty—at least one of them is an addiction treatment facility, not a nursing home. The median ages increased slightly again, and the percentage of cases living in single-family homes declined slightly. The overall trend remains more or less linear; it is frustrating to see these weeks of lockdown and relative idleness for so many being largely wasted, so far as building immunity in the less-vulnerable population goes. While at the same time the most vulnerable are starting to get mowed down by the virus.
The day’s tests came back 94% negative again. I’m starting to wonder if they’re testing the wrong people; some medical workers ought to be immune by now, for example. And it would be good to find out what the false negative rate is; I can’t believe that it is zero. If it is very high, they could be missing as many cases in testing as they catch—keeping in mind that false positives are also possible, though I would guess that they are less likely than false negatives here.
A notable mini-trend emerging over the last few days is that daily deaths are up somewhat, which is keeping the ICU demand flat, even as new cases are coming in.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Friday, April 10, 2020
Dribbles of information
The governor extended the shelter-in-place order until May 4; it originally was to end today. I am working hard to be grateful that my family and I have everything that we need for now.
For the last two days of published numbers, coronavirus tests in Minnesota have been 94% negative; that’s not very useful without knowing the testing numbers and thresholds for the different groups involved. Nursing home cases continue to increase, as can be seen in the increase in median age, and in the breakdown by residence type. It appears that there are increasing cases among health care workers.
Since we’ve already been shut down for two weeks, the continued spread is through “essential” activities. Detected cases could be as little as 1% of actual cases.
The state has released a few slides giving some of the details of the scenarios being modeled. They are assuming that social distancing will do little to “flatten the curve”, and will at best delay the peak ICU demand by some weeks; possibly out into July, given the present shelter-in-place order.
Present ICU surge capacity is projected to be about 1000 beds short of what would be needed at the peak, based on the graph.
The scenarios include various degrees of social distancing through the summer, expressed as percentage reductions in contacts: 20% and 50%, compared to 80% for shelter-in-place. They claim to be modeling far enough out to see a second peak in later months, but no further information is given about them.
Digging further, they have put out some technical information on the model. For the most part, I have no technical quibbles with it; my computer modeling experience is in large atoms, which while being governed by extremely complex physics, will at least behave consistently within the given physics. Things like coronavirus spread and climate change involve entire systems changing over time, so the whole thing is a moving target (and is very, very likely to diverge from the model’s predictions).
That said, their range of estimates for R0 looks overly conservative to me. A single person could infect dozens of other people, even now. They are figuring R0 = 3.87, on average.
I’m doubtful now that there will be much of a lull in the summer; they certainly didn’t model one. In the Twin Cities, a lot of activities come to a halt in the summer, as people go off on summer vacations or up north to their cabins, but there is going to be less of that this summer. So my guess is that the first big peak is going to include almost everyone; even efforts to isolate the nursing home residents are failing already.
The other thing I noticed is that their ICU survival rate seems extremely optimistic, with a mortality rate of only 0.111 per 10 person-days for octogenarians. Or perhaps I’m misunderstanding that part; I would have guessed it was no better than a 50-50 chance of survival for that age and severity, and that many of them would die in the early days of their ICU stay.
Projected deaths for the state are now 9,000 to 36,000.
Hopefully there is a corresponding model for the economic effects of shutting down. But I haven’t heard that there is.
For the last two days of published numbers, coronavirus tests in Minnesota have been 94% negative; that’s not very useful without knowing the testing numbers and thresholds for the different groups involved. Nursing home cases continue to increase, as can be seen in the increase in median age, and in the breakdown by residence type. It appears that there are increasing cases among health care workers.
Since we’ve already been shut down for two weeks, the continued spread is through “essential” activities. Detected cases could be as little as 1% of actual cases.
The state has released a few slides giving some of the details of the scenarios being modeled. They are assuming that social distancing will do little to “flatten the curve”, and will at best delay the peak ICU demand by some weeks; possibly out into July, given the present shelter-in-place order.
Present ICU surge capacity is projected to be about 1000 beds short of what would be needed at the peak, based on the graph.
The scenarios include various degrees of social distancing through the summer, expressed as percentage reductions in contacts: 20% and 50%, compared to 80% for shelter-in-place. They claim to be modeling far enough out to see a second peak in later months, but no further information is given about them.
Digging further, they have put out some technical information on the model. For the most part, I have no technical quibbles with it; my computer modeling experience is in large atoms, which while being governed by extremely complex physics, will at least behave consistently within the given physics. Things like coronavirus spread and climate change involve entire systems changing over time, so the whole thing is a moving target (and is very, very likely to diverge from the model’s predictions).
That said, their range of estimates for R0 looks overly conservative to me. A single person could infect dozens of other people, even now. They are figuring R0 = 3.87, on average.
I’m doubtful now that there will be much of a lull in the summer; they certainly didn’t model one. In the Twin Cities, a lot of activities come to a halt in the summer, as people go off on summer vacations or up north to their cabins, but there is going to be less of that this summer. So my guess is that the first big peak is going to include almost everyone; even efforts to isolate the nursing home residents are failing already.
The other thing I noticed is that their ICU survival rate seems extremely optimistic, with a mortality rate of only 0.111 per 10 person-days for octogenarians. Or perhaps I’m misunderstanding that part; I would have guessed it was no better than a 50-50 chance of survival for that age and severity, and that many of them would die in the early days of their ICU stay.
Projected deaths for the state are now 9,000 to 36,000.
Hopefully there is a corresponding model for the economic effects of shutting down. But I haven’t heard that there is.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
More deliveries
Another week of having people grocery shop for us, because of Symptoms. Again they were more or less able to get everything on our list. People from church dropped off some additional things, which were welcome.
I have been learning how to make artificial flowers from coffee filters. Except that I don’t have coffee filters. What I do have is several boxes of unused letterhead paper, which is harder to cut, so I’ve been making one less fold than in the video. I also don’t have food coloring, only paints.
I’m also planning on covering another cardboard box with fabric, for prettier storage.
The trend of confirmed cases in my state remains more or less linear, with gradual increases in the numbers currently hospitalized and in the ICU. The state has a summary of available medical resources up now.
The state is also publishing a list of the larger senior living places that have confirmed cases, which is now over forty, and scattered over many counties. The median age of confirmed cases has increased slightly, as expected.
I have been learning how to make artificial flowers from coffee filters. Except that I don’t have coffee filters. What I do have is several boxes of unused letterhead paper, which is harder to cut, so I’ve been making one less fold than in the video. I also don’t have food coloring, only paints.
I’m also planning on covering another cardboard box with fabric, for prettier storage.
The trend of confirmed cases in my state remains more or less linear, with gradual increases in the numbers currently hospitalized and in the ICU. The state has a summary of available medical resources up now.
The state is also publishing a list of the larger senior living places that have confirmed cases, which is now over forty, and scattered over many counties. The median age of confirmed cases has increased slightly, as expected.
Monday, April 6, 2020
I made a mask, and some children made pinatas
I used the instructions from the link that I gave a few posts back for the mask.
More ideas for elastic substitutes: T-shirt yarn—cut a strip about three-quarters of an inch wide, and pull it to make the edges curl in. These have a nice amount of stretchiness for ties. Another idea I saw is to use elastic hair ties for ear loops. Those might require making the mask wider, since they are shorter than the listed elastic length. I used the T-shirt yarn this time.
Based on other designs I saw online, I decided to add a little channel at the top edge for wire from a small paper clip, to allow for a better fit around the nose. I used needlenose pliers to bend over the ends of the wire, to help keep them from poking through the fabric.
The mask turned out all right, but I find it a bit short, and will add half an inch or so if I make any more of them. It also makes my glasses fog up a bit, so I don’t see myself wearing it while driving.
I foresee a trend in a few years, of making quilts out of all these masks that are being sewn. The question is, how much wear the masks will have gotten before being recycled.
The children with birthdays coming up have planned ahead and made themselves papier-mâché piñatas. The paste used is just water with some flour whisked in, so they were able to carry the whole thing out very nearly independently.
It was neat to see how the older ones have learned from watching me in the past, and how now the younger ones are learning from watching the older ones.
More ideas for elastic substitutes: T-shirt yarn—cut a strip about three-quarters of an inch wide, and pull it to make the edges curl in. These have a nice amount of stretchiness for ties. Another idea I saw is to use elastic hair ties for ear loops. Those might require making the mask wider, since they are shorter than the listed elastic length. I used the T-shirt yarn this time.
Based on other designs I saw online, I decided to add a little channel at the top edge for wire from a small paper clip, to allow for a better fit around the nose. I used needlenose pliers to bend over the ends of the wire, to help keep them from poking through the fabric.
The mask turned out all right, but I find it a bit short, and will add half an inch or so if I make any more of them. It also makes my glasses fog up a bit, so I don’t see myself wearing it while driving.
I foresee a trend in a few years, of making quilts out of all these masks that are being sewn. The question is, how much wear the masks will have gotten before being recycled.
The children with birthdays coming up have planned ahead and made themselves papier-mâché piñatas. The paste used is just water with some flour whisked in, so they were able to carry the whole thing out very nearly independently.
It was neat to see how the older ones have learned from watching me in the past, and how now the younger ones are learning from watching the older ones.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
A bad time to not be healthy
I've received second-hand information that parts of the local medical-industrial complex are in such bad shape financially that they are closing down entire clinics, "essential" or not. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it is likely that the underlying issues for that--some of which preceded the pandemic--are not unique to the Twin Cities.
Friday, April 3, 2020
Some helpful links
Via Power Line, some posts by Kevin Roche:
Why computer models need to be taken with very large grains of salt
Why it's too late for "test and trace"...which I am still seeing recommended, by people who ought to know better.
Ways to stop the spread of the virus...at this point, there are no perfect solutions.
Why computer models need to be taken with very large grains of salt
Why it's too late for "test and trace"...which I am still seeing recommended, by people who ought to know better.
Ways to stop the spread of the virus...at this point, there are no perfect solutions.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Slow recovery
My husband got one of those little inexpensive pulse oximeters a few weeks back. It has been handy for quantifying just how ill we are, and how close we are to needing to go to a hospital. I'm much better now than I was last week, but far from completely well.
Minnesota's new confirmed cases per day has remained flat, after almost a week of shelter-in-place, at about 60. So the total number of cases appears to be growing linearly, not exponentially, which is good, but it is still growing, and at a constant rate.
Given that rate, I figure that it will take about 220 years for Minnesota to achieve herd immunity. Actually, it won't really be that long, because so many cases go untested, or get false negatives when tested. If I take the confirmed cases as the "tip of the iceberg", 10% of the actual cases, then it will only take 22 years. Maybe a bit longer than that, as some of those who are immune will die of old age or other causes each year.
I've received some fourth-hand-at-best information, though, that a number of senior living complexes in the area have been reached by the virus. Linear models no longer apply in those situations, and I think there is probably going to be a spike in severe cases soon. Which will give the state government an excuse to keep the shelter-in-place restrictions in place for everyone.
The health department says that the median age for confirmed cases is 47, for hospitalized confirmed cases is 64, and for confirmed deaths is 84.
To me, the median age of 47 looks to be just about in the center of the population age distribution, allowing for very low detection rates among the young. There have been very few confirmed positives under age 20, less than 3% of the total.
A few days, it was said that one in five of the total confirmed cases was a health care worker. It was thought that many of these had caught it through "community spread"; remember that they have better access to testing than the general population does. The health department attributes 30% of total confirmed cases to community spread, although realistically that has to be a lower limit, considering they don't know about the cases that they don't know about, and also considering that some of the cases that they attribute to other causes could have been caused by community spread instead.
One thing I've noticed in the graphs that are being given, is that the age cohorts are often not equal either in years covered or in population. In Minnesota, they've been breaking it down as 0 to 5 years, 6 to 19 years, 20 to 44 years, 45 to 64 years, and 65 and over. It's not surprising that there are very few cases in the 0 to 5 years bracket, which covers 5 years, compared to the the 65-plus bracket, which includes a 104-year-old and therefore spans 39 years. I don't know those categories compare in size on the demographic pyramid, but I do probably know more retirees around here than I do small children.
Minnesota's new confirmed cases per day has remained flat, after almost a week of shelter-in-place, at about 60. So the total number of cases appears to be growing linearly, not exponentially, which is good, but it is still growing, and at a constant rate.
Given that rate, I figure that it will take about 220 years for Minnesota to achieve herd immunity. Actually, it won't really be that long, because so many cases go untested, or get false negatives when tested. If I take the confirmed cases as the "tip of the iceberg", 10% of the actual cases, then it will only take 22 years. Maybe a bit longer than that, as some of those who are immune will die of old age or other causes each year.
I've received some fourth-hand-at-best information, though, that a number of senior living complexes in the area have been reached by the virus. Linear models no longer apply in those situations, and I think there is probably going to be a spike in severe cases soon. Which will give the state government an excuse to keep the shelter-in-place restrictions in place for everyone.
The health department says that the median age for confirmed cases is 47, for hospitalized confirmed cases is 64, and for confirmed deaths is 84.
To me, the median age of 47 looks to be just about in the center of the population age distribution, allowing for very low detection rates among the young. There have been very few confirmed positives under age 20, less than 3% of the total.
A few days, it was said that one in five of the total confirmed cases was a health care worker. It was thought that many of these had caught it through "community spread"; remember that they have better access to testing than the general population does. The health department attributes 30% of total confirmed cases to community spread, although realistically that has to be a lower limit, considering they don't know about the cases that they don't know about, and also considering that some of the cases that they attribute to other causes could have been caused by community spread instead.
One thing I've noticed in the graphs that are being given, is that the age cohorts are often not equal either in years covered or in population. In Minnesota, they've been breaking it down as 0 to 5 years, 6 to 19 years, 20 to 44 years, 45 to 64 years, and 65 and over. It's not surprising that there are very few cases in the 0 to 5 years bracket, which covers 5 years, compared to the the 65-plus bracket, which includes a 104-year-old and therefore spans 39 years. I don't know those categories compare in size on the demographic pyramid, but I do probably know more retirees around here than I do small children.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)