I have no dog in this “discussion”, can you explain to me(Non doctor, no medical training, don’t know shit about most things), why the average number of deaths would be significantly higher? If it’s not covid, what else would explain those numbers. If you could explain that to me, i would be grateful.
This Thread Blows - C19 and beyond
- Thread starter Paul H
- Start date
The_Mountainside_Menace
Well-Known Member
I mean it is pretty telling
that graph is 100% explained by the covid numbers 4,483 according to worldometer (which gets it from johns hopkins)
check the deaths tab and the NJ row.
The_Mountainside_Menace
Well-Known Member
Monkey Soup
Angry Wanker
So what kind of physicist are you? Nuclear, theoretical, astrophysicist like Dr. Sheldon Cooper? Are you an oncologist? Straight to radiation for everything, huh? Your trying to pass yourself off as a Dr., but you ain’t one, are you?
You should probably preach to the mirror here. You’d be wise to heed your own words.
The_Mountainside_Menace
Well-Known Member
AMP, DABR, MS physicist in radiation oncology. I thought I stated that in my opening post, but must be losing my mind. I mostly lurk on the forums but I believe that I can contribute to this thread in a constructive manner and about a topic that I feel strongly about. In my profession, I am basically the pharmacist of the radiation oncology world. Not passing as an MD, but yes a PhD is on the radar. So the ultimate goal is to have that Dr. title, which is mostly just to climb a political ladder. In a nutshell, MDs rely on me to develop treatment plans and make sure our machines do not kill patients through calibrations. This allows the MD to focus on radiobiology, coming up with treatment plans based off of pathology, pain management, and managing side effects with the nursing team. Am I a Sheldon Cooper, not really. I was once a particle smasher at Brookhaven, but I needed a job that was more stable, practical, and something that would benefit society in my lifetime (who cares about the Higgs). I feel as though I have more common sense than the typical physicist, but I am still as socially awkward. Feel free to totally ignore my posts or call me out. It won't affect me personally, but hopefully more comments may lead to an interesting conversation since we can't all ride bikes together just yet.
Not sure why your mask comment was quoted. I must have done that by mistake. i agree with you on the mask side. My question related to the unexplained numbers of higher than normal deaths. I cant remember the exact numbers, but if there were 1000 corona deaths in April, and there were 5000 extra deaths, I am curious to what the explanation is, for the extra deaths? (these numbers are just an example, I do not the remember the exact numbers, but I remember thinking it was significant). My thoughts are that COVID is undercounted, not overstated. I really do not think doctors would say somebody died of COVID, if they did not.
mfennell
Well-Known Member
You're entire argument is anecdotal and you're calling me out for it? Yes, that was an anecdote, followed up with the results of a study.
The recommendations have changed because scientists learned new things about this new virus. That's how science works. You didn't pick up on that on your way to a PhD?
There's no consensus that it's airborne. We wear masks because it gets carried by droplets and simple masks go a long way to containing that. Honestly, it's hard to take you seriously if you don't know that.
Earlier studies of related coronaviruses suggested there would be a reduction of COVID-19 cases related to rising temperatures and humidity. Recent studies show that sunlight reduces the half-life significantly.
So what is it then? Why are all these extra people dying? Occam's razor.
The recommendations have changed because scientists learned new things about this new virus. That's how science works. You didn't pick up on that on your way to a PhD?
There's no consensus that it's airborne. We wear masks because it gets carried by droplets and simple masks go a long way to containing that. Honestly, it's hard to take you seriously if you don't know that.
Earlier studies of related coronaviruses suggested there would be a reduction of COVID-19 cases related to rising temperatures and humidity. Recent studies show that sunlight reduces the half-life significantly.
Monkey Soup
Angry Wanker
I know what I know, and don’t know what I don’t know. But I don’t make assumptions and come up with false theories.
Community spread through aerosols has been known for a looooong time. The N95 mask thing was a knee-jerk reaction, which is typical these days. Oh, and there’s pretty much universal consensus that route of spread is through said aerosols (airborne). And why are all these extra people dying? I don’t know, but comb through the raw data and I bet that it’s not anywhere as significant as it seems, comb though the mountain of verbatim reports and I’ll bet you find a ton of errors.
So sunlight kills viruses, wow, what a revelation. Virology 101, as soon as a virus particle finds itself outside of a host and in the environment, the clock is ticking. It’s either picked up by a new host or eventually becomes non-viable. In the case of enveloped viruses, that time is relatively short, and would be more relevant If the spread was predominantly through fomites, but it’s through the air, person to person. So you and your bros can be hanging on the beach on the hottest and brightest of days, but if one of you sneezes, nothing is going to die in the 10 seconds it takes to leave ones mouth and get breathed in by someone else.
If you don't know what you don't know how can you be so sure that what you know is actually wrong in lieu of something you don't know?
Personally, as I get older, I have come to the conclusion that I have been wrong so many times previously in my life that there's a good chance I'm still wrong now. IMO back-and-forth conversation goes better that way. Again, I could be wrong.
So while i was comet hunting last night, I started thinking about the chances of getting C19 given
that I need to come in close contact for a period of time with someone who is sick.
Really simple model came to mind - probably too simple, and i fudged the factors - trying to error on the side that
would produce a higher chance of getting sick.
----
Indoor contact has been extremely limited. Just my neighbor, for a short amount of time.
Otherwise, everyone I see is outside..
I do go to the store a couple times a week - so there is risk there.
Just about all people I come across are masked indoors - store.
I don't go out to eat.
----
For NJ.
So how many people are walking around sick, and undiagnosed/asymptomatic or DGAF?
If we take the "daily confirmed" and multiply it by 10 - that is the "new" case number for that day (10 to 1 under-reported discussed a few pages back.)
Then we need days to symptom/test/result - should we call that 10 days? And then days pre-symptomatic, 5?
So if the new cases is currently a stable number - NJ yesterday was 451 (single data point). so 451x10x15 is roughly the number of people
walking around infected in the state? less the people that actually were tested and decided to quarantine + the people
who don't care if they spread it. Then subtract out some daysXpeople when they are not spreading (not sure)
so some weird ballpark number of 60,000 people possibly spreading the virus in NJ?
With a large majority not knowing it.
next - half of the cases are from camden and passic counties - so cut that ballpark number in half.
or do it the other way - i spend most of my time in somerset/hunterdon/morris/warren -
summing that up, about 10% of the cases come from those counties - and if i eliminate morris, i'm closer to 1% of the sick people.
so rounding that to 5,000 walking around sick includes morris (just go with it for now)
The population of those counties total is around 1M - and i'm not hanging out where there is a transient presence (say dunkin' on route 22)
5 out of 1,000 are potential spreaders multiplied by the chance of actually catching it (behavior based ?)
Gotta be pretty low.
Let's say my masking/remain outdoors/stop picking my nose/distancing behavior puts it at 10% (which i think is high?)
.5% chance of encountering someone, and a 1/10 chance of contracting if i do .05% overall - 1 in 2,000
for any given contact event with the outside world - then the chances of catching from the inner circle.
and the cumulative of going out multiple times per week - (like playing the lottery every week, independent chance of winning,
but over time eventually you win - or lose in this case) -
take the probability of not getting sick - 99.95% and raise it (exponent) to the number of contact times - this number is less than 1, so it gets smaller.
(the chance of staying healthy gets smaller) - two contacts reduces it to 99.9% 10 contacts 99.5%
----
Then i went and looked for a risk calculator and found one from Mathmatica : https://19andme.covid19.mathematica.org/
They estimated my weekly risk at 0.011% (1 in 10,000)- about 1/4 of what i was thinking for a contact event. 50x smaller for a week(?)
Check it out - they have all their premises listed, with the sources.
YBMV - your behavior may vary.
---
yes, this is the stuff i think about when thinking about nothing.
that I need to come in close contact for a period of time with someone who is sick.
Really simple model came to mind - probably too simple, and i fudged the factors - trying to error on the side that
would produce a higher chance of getting sick.
----
Indoor contact has been extremely limited. Just my neighbor, for a short amount of time.
Otherwise, everyone I see is outside..
I do go to the store a couple times a week - so there is risk there.
Just about all people I come across are masked indoors - store.
I don't go out to eat.
----
For NJ.
So how many people are walking around sick, and undiagnosed/asymptomatic or DGAF?
If we take the "daily confirmed" and multiply it by 10 - that is the "new" case number for that day (10 to 1 under-reported discussed a few pages back.)
Then we need days to symptom/test/result - should we call that 10 days? And then days pre-symptomatic, 5?
So if the new cases is currently a stable number - NJ yesterday was 451 (single data point). so 451x10x15 is roughly the number of people
walking around infected in the state? less the people that actually were tested and decided to quarantine + the people
who don't care if they spread it. Then subtract out some daysXpeople when they are not spreading (not sure)
so some weird ballpark number of 60,000 people possibly spreading the virus in NJ?
With a large majority not knowing it.
next - half of the cases are from camden and passic counties - so cut that ballpark number in half.
or do it the other way - i spend most of my time in somerset/hunterdon/morris/warren -
summing that up, about 10% of the cases come from those counties - and if i eliminate morris, i'm closer to 1% of the sick people.
so rounding that to 5,000 walking around sick includes morris (just go with it for now)
The population of those counties total is around 1M - and i'm not hanging out where there is a transient presence (say dunkin' on route 22)
5 out of 1,000 are potential spreaders multiplied by the chance of actually catching it (behavior based ?)
Gotta be pretty low.
Let's say my masking/remain outdoors/stop picking my nose/distancing behavior puts it at 10% (which i think is high?)
.5% chance of encountering someone, and a 1/10 chance of contracting if i do .05% overall - 1 in 2,000
for any given contact event with the outside world - then the chances of catching from the inner circle.
and the cumulative of going out multiple times per week - (like playing the lottery every week, independent chance of winning,
but over time eventually you win - or lose in this case) -
take the probability of not getting sick - 99.95% and raise it (exponent) to the number of contact times - this number is less than 1, so it gets smaller.
(the chance of staying healthy gets smaller) - two contacts reduces it to 99.9% 10 contacts 99.5%
----
Then i went and looked for a risk calculator and found one from Mathmatica : https://19andme.covid19.mathematica.org/
They estimated my weekly risk at 0.011% (1 in 10,000)- about 1/4 of what i was thinking for a contact event. 50x smaller for a week(?)
Check it out - they have all their premises listed, with the sources.
YBMV - your behavior may vary.
---
yes, this is the stuff i think about when thinking about nothing.
Paul H
Fearless OOS Poser
The_Mountainside_Menace
Well-Known Member
They wouldn't. The theory all spurns from some very right wing MD from Montana that made a claim that MDs were pushed to consider all deaths Covid deaths and they would be reimbursed better if they did so. She made a decently coherent argument using conspiracy theory rhetoric on death certificates. However she left out the part that if someone does die from a comorbidity and they believe the primary cause of death was due to COVID, the comorbidity does still get listed on the death certificate and would be part of the statistics regarding who this virus is killing.
thegock
Well-Known Member
So, Dr. Soup (may I call you Monkey?), what is the citation for the perhaps peer reviewed scientific study that supports C19 deaths being overcounted?
You seem to both rely upon and criticize anecdotal evidence, but still haven't provided a link to any study supporting your theory. Odd for someone like yourself who has a PhD in biochemistry, don't you agree?
This is the third time I am asking you for a citation, for those of you keeping score at home.
Monkey Soup
Angry Wanker
When I talk hard science, I'm right, because its what I do for a livin. Also, If I was wrong, Gock would have gone back to Dr. Joe. and shot me down.
The hard reality? I don't care enough impress a bunch of stranger on the internet, to go into PubMed or the other sources at my disposal to find links to post for you. Its easier more fun to just watch y'all spin.
Dusty the Whale
Mr.Chainsaw
Its ok to be quiet sometimes.
The_Mountainside_Menace
Well-Known Member
@Monkey Soup PhD in biochemistry? Impressive. I must have missed that earlier. Since this is your field, what are the latest biomarker assay strategies for diagnosis of Covid-19? Care to elaborate on these tests and how they have evolved and become more refined throughout the recent months? Genuinely curious. Recently, I had been given a saliva test as opposed to a swab test and was assured that the saliva test had superior specificity and sensitivity in comparison to swab testing. I find this hard to believe because swab testing is used over saliva for all of our biomarker assays for various cancers (again not my field). How can this be the case? Is it because many at drive up testing centers were asked to self swab? I understand how hard it would be to self swab. The swab test was extremely uncomfortable. This would lead me to believe that there are more false negative results than there should be.
jdgang
Well-Known Member
I am learning about your world at this time. I work at a hospital in IT, and I am dealing with a application called Moasic. Just finished the update to it, was a little stressful since it all had to be working by Monday morning.