COVID-19

[FlammableFlower]

In which Simon Jenkins tries to apologise but can’t quite manage to.

And also manages to completely grasp the wrong end of several sticks in attempts to have to not say he's wrong...

[sTeamTraen]

On only 14 of the 31 days of March did Italy see a new daily high in terms of numbers of deaths. They still saw an exponential rise, but one which had relative good days and bad days. If C&P'd a graph from here, but not before highlighting with red dots the days that an Italian version of Nick Triggle would've spaffed himself daft at the rise being less than or not that much bigger than previous days.

On the ECDC figures, Italy's new cases peaked on 22 March at 6,557 and have been lower than that every day (11 so far) since. So it seems quite likely that the lockdown has stopped the exponential growth. I'm hoping to see the same pattern from Spain, which started its lockdown about 9 days after Italy.

20200402.png (26.09 KiB) Viewed 4487 times

[lpm]

In which Simon Jenkins tries to apologise but can’t quite manage to.

And also manages to completely grasp the wrong end of several sticks in attempts to have to not say he's wrong...

People today quoting that Oxford "50%" model need to also mention the study was from 8 days ago, Wed 25th March.

To have got to 30 million infections by then, R0 must have been really high, with faster doubling than twice a week. 8 days later. Those 30 million would have infected millions more in the past 8 days, even with the lockdown. There would have been a surge of cases emerging now, rather than mere thousands. This thing would basically be over in another week.

[shpalman]

In which Simon Jenkins tries to apologise but can’t quite manage to.

And also manages to completely grasp the wrong end of several sticks in attempts to have to not say he's wrong...

People today quoting that Oxford "50%" model need to also mention the study was from 8 days ago, Wed 25th March.

To have got to 30 million infections by then, R0 must have been really high, with faster doubling than twice a week. 8 days later. Those 30 million would have infected millions more in the past 8 days, even with the lockdown. There would have been a surge of cases emerging now, rather than mere thousands. This thing would basically be over in another week.

If 50% of the population were infected on the 25th of March, when only about 10,000 cases had been identified, then you have to assume that 99.97% of cases are effectively mild/asymptomatic, but it would mean you would have peaked by now since you have less than 50% of the total population susceptible to the virus (i.e. an infected person is now more likely to meet an infected or recovered person rather than a susceptible person, so they won't pass the virus on).

Or if that means that 8 days ago 50% of the population was incubating the virus and symptoms hadn't appeared yet, then yes, they would be appearing now.

Neither makes sense when you consider the data properly; better to assume that maybe there are 5-10 mild/asymptomatic cases for every officially noted case. There's too much noise and uncertainty with this business of assuming today's death rate corresponds to people who were incubating the disease 4 weeks ago and trying to scale that up with an uncertain exponential rate.

[FlammableFlower]

Also Jenkins' massive failure to understand the More Or Less programme and the risk of mortality discussion.

It's not someone's annual risk of dying of flu compressed into a few weeks and then passing that off as not such a problem. First, it's their mortality risk for the whole year compressed into a few weeks (i.e. those with underlying health problems really have it stacked against them), but more than that (and it's the same thing John Oliver has a rant about in his latest programme) - that the knock on effect of all these extra deaths at once will well and truly f.ck over the economy. Someone going into hospital doesn't suddenly disappear into a void, there's implications first for the hospital but also for their workplace and any dependants they have; and even if they sadly die, again it's not something that has no impact. If you do nothing (or very little), that multiplies up very quickly and you're economy is buggered. (Oliver's much better on this than I am).

[FredM]

In which Simon Jenkins tries to apologise but can’t quite manage to.

And also manages to completely grasp the wrong end of several sticks in attempts to have to not say he's wrong...

I made a similar comment on the Graun site but it was promptly deleted by the moderators.

[sTeamTraen]

On a normal day in Spain, 1500 people die of the usual things (cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc).

Yesterday, 900 died with a COVID-19 diagnosis, which has to be the lower bound on people who actually had a COVID-19 infection when they died.

So for it to be the case that almost all of those who died had life-threatening underlying illnesses, the prevalence of the virus in this population group --- a set of people who typically probably don't go to a lot of major gatherings or indeed to the pub very much --- would have to be in the ballpark of 100%.

[greyspoke]

Also Jenkins' massive failure to understand the More Or Less programme and the risk of mortality discussion.

It's not someone's annual risk of dying of flu compressed into a few weeks and then passing that off as not such a problem. First, it's their mortality risk for the whole year compressed into a few weeks (i.e. those with underlying health problems really have it stacked against them), but more than that (and it's the same thing John Oliver has a rant about in his latest programme) - that the knock on effect of all these extra deaths at once will well and truly f.ck over the economy. Someone going into hospital doesn't suddenly disappear into a void, there's implications first for the hospital but also for their workplace and any dependants they have; and even if they sadly die, again it's not something that has no impact. If you do nothing (or very little), that multiplies up very quickly and you're economy is buggered. (Oliver's much better on this than I am).

That last bit is a lopsided argument though. With the measures, millions of people are being rendered economically inactive and many of them also unable to support themselves. If the measures were not in place, the effort being currently put in to supporting people and businesses affected by them could be directed to supporting those affected by the unexpected advance deaths. If you are going to go down this route, you have to do it properly.

[badger]

Also Jenkins' massive failure to understand the More Or Less programme and the risk of mortality discussion.

It's not someone's annual risk of dying of flu compressed into a few weeks and then passing that off as not such a problem. First, it's their mortality risk for the whole year compressed into a few weeks (i.e. those with underlying health problems really have it stacked against them), but more than that (and it's the same thing John Oliver has a rant about in his latest programme) - that the knock on effect of all these extra deaths at once will well and truly f.ck over the economy. Someone going into hospital doesn't suddenly disappear into a void, there's implications first for the hospital but also for their workplace and any dependants they have; and even if they sadly die, again it's not something that has no impact. If you do nothing (or very little), that multiplies up very quickly and you're economy is buggered. (Oliver's much better on this than I am).

That last bit is a lopsided argument though. With the measures, millions of people are being rendered economically inactive and many of them also unable to support themselves. If the measures were not in place, the effort being currently put in to supporting people and businesses affected by them could be directed to supporting those affected by the unexpected advance deaths. If you are going to go down this route, you have to do it properly.

I think FF did go down that route properly - see my bold - but I guess you could add - do we want to being paying for and organising a massive increase in mortuary attendants and services in and around hospitals, more funeral directors and building extra funeral homes, and more grave diggers and building more incinerators/crematoria, and more grief counsellors and all the bureaucrats and processes of death for a few months? It's not a good look. Or maybe it's not that massive. Spiegelhalter in the More or Less programme seemed to think it was an issue, however.

Cummings probably had a go at selling the idea at some point behind closed doors, I reckon.

[Martin Y]

In a hundred years we'll all be dead, but there will still be c.nts. Some of them will look at 2020 and the economic damage we caused trying to save people, compare it with 1918, and declare that on balance, comparing misery inflicted vs self-inflicted, we shouldn't have bothered. Or at least shouldn't have tried so hard. I wonder if it'll just be c.nts though. Might we do so much harm trying to save each other that we regret it later?

Do your own joke about 2020 and hindsight.

[raven]

You can toggle linear vs exponential axes on this visualisation site
https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/

I can't get that to work -- browser issue with Firefox?-- but you can get theJohn Hopkins page to show data for individual countries by clicking on them in the list on the left. (It's a bit twitchy though, sometimes I have to click a couple of times to get it to switch.)

Once you've done that, you can toggle the graph between confirmed cases, daily cases and log scale.

They've also changed the graph on the PHE dashboard so it shows cumulative & daily cases, same for deaths. You can disable them to look at one or two variables at a time as well. No log scale though.

[sTeamTraen]

56% of Britons believe that the 23rd of March was too late to introduce strict measures; 35% believe that it was the right time. Only 4% believe it was too soon.

That suggests to me that if they would have been introduced earlier, there would anyway have been a decent amount of public support.

That's presumably 56% of Britons being polled now, though. I would have been interested to see the numbers at the time. On 23 March the UK had about 5000 total cases and about 230 deaths. I think you might have struggled to get a majority, or even a third, to support a lockdown. Only a week earlier, there were around 1200 cases and 21 deaths, and a lot of people would have seen it as an Italian problem.

I humbly suggest that if the lockdown had have started say a week earlier and you polled Britons now, you would still get a decent proportion saying it was the right time, fewer saying that it was too late, and a few more saying it was too soon.

Sure, but again, that's what they think now, after the realisation this is a bit f.cking serious has washed away the thoughts they had that it was all a lot of fuss about nowt.

[greyspoke]

Also Jenkins' massive failure to understand the More Or Less programme and the risk of mortality discussion.

It's not someone's annual risk of dying of flu compressed into a few weeks and then passing that off as not such a problem. First, it's their mortality risk for the whole year compressed into a few weeks (i.e. those with underlying health problems really have it stacked against them), but more than that (and it's the same thing John Oliver has a rant about in his latest programme) - that the knock on effect of all these extra deaths at once will well and truly f.ck over the economy. Someone going into hospital doesn't suddenly disappear into a void, there's implications first for the hospital but also for their workplace and any dependants they have; and even if they sadly die, again it's not something that has no impact. If you do nothing (or very little), that multiplies up very quickly and you're economy is buggered. (Oliver's much better on this than I am).

That last bit is a lopsided argument though. With the measures, millions of people are being rendered economically inactive and many of them also unable to support themselves. If the measures were not in place, the effort being currently put in to supporting people and businesses affected by them could be directed to supporting those affected by the unexpected advance deaths. If you are going to go down this route, you have to do it properly.

I think FF did go down that route properly - see my bold - but I guess you could add - do we want to being paying for and organising a massive increase in mortuary attendants and services in and around hospitals, more funeral directors and building extra funeral homes, and more grave diggers and building more incinerators/crematoria, and more grief counsellors and all the bureaucrats and processes of death for a few months? It's not a good look. Or maybe it's not that massive. Spiegelhalter in the More or Less programme seemed to think it was an issue, however.

Cummings probably had a go at selling the idea at some point behind closed doors, I reckon.

Without the numbers it is impossible to take this that far (and it is hypothetical). I am not an economist, let alone the type to be able to have a stab at the calculations. It depends a bit on how coldly logical the "let them die and don't waste money on it" plan would be. But the current investment in supporting the economy is massive, and the economy is still tanking. There will be painful long-term consequences (and guess which part of society will feel them most...). A big unknown to factor in is I think the political risk. As you say, it would become unacceptable to people (selling the "lots of death now for less death and economic destruction later" argument is going to be impossible). This could well lead to civil unrest that would itself have economic consequences as well as political ones. This might have turned proponents of such a plan (if there really were any of importance, I am not convinced) away from it. However, I would generally go for cock up over conspiracy, probably they just got the numbers wrong initially and didn't realise quite the magnitude of the issue.

[dyqik]

The evidence from 1918 is that cities and areas that restricted the most recovered quickest and had strong economies sooner.

https://amp.wbur.org/bostonomix/2020/04 ... panish-flu

[Brightonian]

It occured to me today that the ongoing lack of bogroll in our local stores might not just be due to hoarders. It could be the effect of a population-level redistribution from workplace-based shits to domestic settings, which is presumably accompanied by a switch from wholesale to retail supplies of toilet paper.

This seems to confirm that.

[EACLucifer]

The evidence from 1918 is that cities and areas that restricted the most recovered quickest and had strong economies sooner.

https://amp.wbur.org/bostonomix/2020/04 ... panish-flu

I posted that study earlier, and it's still just as true as it was then, and indeed in 1918-19. It's almost as if the economy depends on healthy workers

Unfortunately, a lot of thse rushing in to claim they prioritise the economy don't actually understand the first thing about epidemics. They are so keen to appear to prioritise the economy over human wellbeing - especially the wellbeing of the kind of humans they don't like, ie the poor, the disabled, etc - that they advocate actions that would f.ck over the economy too, because they just don't understand it isn't zero sum, and you can't buy your way out of this with the lives of the elderly and infirm.

[Millennie Al]

It occured to me today that the ongoing lack of bogroll in our local stores might not just be due to hoarders. It could be the effect of a population-level redistribution from workplace-based shits to domestic settings, which is presumably accompanied by a switch from wholesale to retail supplies of toilet paper.

This seems to confirm that.

Different goods should allow us to check that theory. Goods which have a long shelf life and people expect to use eventually might be subject to panic buying (e.g. pasta, rice), but goods with a short shelf life (e.g. milk) should not. Goods which are interchangeable between commercial use and domestic use should show less shortage than goods which are different, with the difference reducing as the supply chain switches. Many products (especially food) are required by law to have certain notices on them, so if the supply chain was supplying bulk goods it might be difficult to switch to retail sizes.

I think milk is probably a good indicator. People will still use a similar amount of milk, and it has a short shelf life, so by now the commercial supply chain would be empty. While places like restaurants might get large quantities, it seems to be still in sizes sold at retail, so we would expect possible restrictions on the sizes available (as packaging facilities might not be able to switch to smaller sizes) but supply shouldn't be far off the level of what people want, since the cows still need to be milked.

In contrast, packaged meat should be problematic as I expect a lot of catering was being supplied in bulk and, although this could be sold via butchers' shops, customers are going to want it pre-packaged to avoid personal interactions.


Can people think of better examples of goods that ought to distinguish between panic buying and supply chain switching?

[greyspoke]

The evidence from 1918 is that cities and areas that restricted the most recovered quickest and had strong economies sooner.

https://amp.wbur.org/bostonomix/2020/04 ... panish-flu

I posted that study earlier, and it's still just as true as it was then, and indeed in 1918-19. It's almost as if the economy depends on healthy workers

Unfortunately, a lot of thse rushing in to claim they prioritise the economy don't actually understand the first thing about epidemics. They are so keen to appear to prioritise the economy over human wellbeing - especially the wellbeing of the kind of humans they don't like, ie the poor, the disabled, etc - that they advocate actions that would f.ck over the economy too, because they just don't understand it isn't zero sum, and you can't buy your way out of this with the lives of the elderly and infirm.

Given the difference in the way economies work now compared to 1918, to say "it is as true now" does appear to be mainly hopeful arm-waving. It is an interesting study though.

[greyspoke]

To add, the greater inter-connectedness of economies might mean that cities that don't take tough early measures will still be brought down economically by those that don't.

[shpalman]

The daily reported numbers of deaths are not the number of people who died in the previous 24 hours

the data suggested the UK was about two weeks behind Italy. “[it's going up exponentially]” he said.

[PeteB]

Couple of really interesting posts from James Annan, playing around with his simple box model

https://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2020 ... wuhan.html

https://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2020 ... kdown.html


Couple of take-aways :

1) it takes 3 weeks for the first hint of the lockdown being effective to show up in the death rate - clearer after 4 and 5 weeks
2) that even with an R0 of 1.2 after the lockdown measures the graph starts to trend down once the herd immunity threshold gets to 20% total infected/recovered. I suppose this is obvious to anyone that understands this - but that didn't include me until he pointed it out [-1/R is the herd immunity threshold as you can see from the basic logistic equation dx/dt = Rx(1-x) ]

[dccarm]

Amid all the noise in certain quarters about the lockdown measures crippling the economy unnecessarily, there doesn't seem to be any recognition that most of these businesses are in poor health and would have failed within the year anyway.

[shpalman]

Amid all the noise in certain quarters about the lockdown measures crippling the economy unnecessarily, there doesn't seem to be any recognition that most of these businesses are in poor health and would have failed within the year anyway.

That was probably true in the case of Flybe.

[FlammableFlower]

Looks like the US is having similar issues on household food and supplies:

At one food pantry in Central Texas, the queue of cars waiting to pick up boxes of food stretches a quarter-mile. In Dayton, Ohio, the line extends about a mile.

In Pittsburgh, it’s miles, plural, as families wait hours so they won’t go hungry.

Across the country, one of the less visible parts of the social safety net — tens of thousands of food pantries and food banks — is starting to fray. The federal government must do more before it unravels.

[Martin Y]

I think milk is probably a good indicator. People will still use a similar amount of milk, and it has a short shelf life, so by now the commercial supply chain would be empty. While places like restaurants might get large quantities, it seems to be still in sizes sold at retail, so we would expect possible restrictions on the sizes available (as packaging facilities might not be able to switch to smaller sizes) but supply shouldn't be far off the level of what people want, since the cows still need to be milked.

In contrast, packaged meat should be problematic as I expect a lot of catering was being supplied in bulk and, although this could be sold via butchers' shops, customers are going to want it pre-packaged to avoid personal interactions.


Can people think of better examples of goods that ought to distinguish between panic buying and supply chain switching?

Flour and eggs are a curious outlier and I'm not clear why. Most of the supermarket shelves have returned to a semblance of normality but (when I last shopped on Tues) were still swept clear of flour and almost devoid of eggs.

I don't know who's doing it, but it's going to be one hell of a cake when they're finished.