Corona virus modelling and analysis

[Porchdog]

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

Is there anyone on the board who can weigh in on the validity of this?

Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now
Politicians, Community Leaders and Business Leaders: What Should You Do and When?
With everything that’s happening about the Coronavirus, it might be very hard to make a decision of what to do today. Should you wait for more information? Do something today? What?
Here’s what I’m going to cover in this article, with lots of charts, data and models with plenty of sources:
How many cases of coronavirus will there be in your area?
What will happen when these cases materialize?
What should you do?
When?
When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:
The coronavirus is coming to you.
It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.

[cabmandone]

DR Fauci right now: "Modeling is as good as assumptions"

[hcoles]

What Peuyo is saying seems to make sense. I don't have the feeling he has an agenda other than to prevent or reduce deaths.

[ossiblue]

Both post responses are correct.

Any modeling is based on assumptions. Those assumptions are based on available data. The problem at this point, the data for the U.S. is weak because of the lack of testing. There are no hard numbers to know who does and who doesn't have the virus, symptomatic or not. What we do have is data from other countries which have dealt with the infection earlier.

The scenario described is based on real evidence in other areas, specifically Italy. The rapid spread and overwhelming of their medical system is real and a result that anyone can observe. The spread cannot be stopped. However, it can be slowed to a point that a sudden surge of those in need of hospitalization does not overwhelm our medical system. That is the social distancing element. The U.S. has only 2.5 beds/1000 people and those are not distributed evenly around the nation. If (assumption) the virus requires the hospitalization of a certain percentage of the population, like it has in other countries, and that percentage happens suddenly, the worst case scenario could play out.

Based on assumptions (and round numbers):

U.S. population 3.5 million (Edit: Typo. actually 350 million. Credit Tobra for correction.)
Number likely to contract virus=70-150 million (best guesses as of this date)
percent likely to need hospitalization=10-15% (best estimates from known infected countries)
number of beds needed=7 million-22.5 million
number of beds available, nationwide=924,107

This is what the medical community is concerned about and one can see why preventing a sudden surge in hospitalizations is imperative, especially since the "beds available" are not uniformly dispersed and are also used for non-coronavirus patients. This virus is known to spread exponentially which creates the possibility of such a surge. Slowing the spread is the best method to prevent the overwhelming of our medial care.

[RWebb]

IIRC, Pueyo is a business modeler not an epidemiologist.

If you see anything from a joint group of virologists & epidemiologists that is what you should pay attention to. And you will see some things like that in due course.

That said, most of his predictions at the top of the list are quite reasonable.

your healthcare system may or may not be overwhelmed... take it from there

you should treat this like a really bad flu season - one you have not seen before or don't remember if you are 55+

[Tobra]

350 million LJ, not 3.5

Statistics are statistics. Economics, genealogy, epidemiology, math is math. Tough to figure out where we are, because the Chinese have been lying about it from the beginning.

[Sooner or later]

We might have 924,107 beds available but 65% are already occupied.

I don't have ICU numbers but I am sure they would also be in short supply.

[ossiblue]

Originally Posted by Tobra

350 million LJ, not 3.5

Statistics are statistics. Economics, genealogy, epidemiology, math is math. Tough to figure out where we are, because the Chinese have been lying about it from the beginning.

Yes, typo. Thanks for the correction. The rest of the post was based on 350 million.

And all that this points out is the need for accurate, reliable data. Numbers are numbers. Disregarding anything from China, we still have the statistics from Italy, So. Korea, and other highly impacted countries. We just don't know, at this time, what the numbers are in the U.S., let alone project with any reliability what they may become.

[Tobra]

Yeah, obviously a typo, but if it is not pointed out, someone who is all ate up with knucklehead comes along...



Good point about the ICU beds. We are at the tail end of flu season, so it is less of an issue. Number of beds and adequate staffing both come into play, particularly a problem here, thanks to the California Nursing Association.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Statistics are statistics. Economics, genealogy, epidemiology, math is math. Tough to figure out where we are, because the Chinese have been lying about it from the beginning.

The problem is that statistics can be used to present the data in different ways depending upon how it's calculated which can be based on faulty logic, bias of the calculator or bias of the folks that provided the source data to the statistician for calculation.

Think about ads from the big truck manufacturers
biggest engine in its class
most powerful engine in its class
most powerful standard engine in its class
Then is the biggest the most powerful, and even most powerful, how, most area under the torque curve, hp curve, highest peak torque, highest peak hp?

For another interesting case, consider Wald, the WWII bombers' armor and survivorship bias.

[RWebb]

US Deaths are unlikely to exceed 2 million; 1 million is more likely

if mitigation measures are adhered to, then deaths could be much, much lower

[Tobra]

Garbage in, garbage out Steve