4541

Ontario has declared a state of emergency. Businesses are still open but no dine in at restaurants.

4542

Press meeting again here in Denmark at 3 PM with danish Prime Minister - rumour is a total ban against leaving your home unless its for vital reasons. We’ll see, but given how some people act, it would not surprise me.

4543

Sure, take your time. One thing to consider: the essence of your argument is that the rate of spread of the infection is naturally a function of population size, which becomes obviously wrong if you take it to the extreme.

4544

‘Best of luck penguins; we’re all sick, now. Oh, and this is why there aren’t any penguin aliens’.

4545

Madrid is giving interesting numbers. It’s one of the few places where they are actually counting and making public how many non-confirmed suspicious cases (people with symptoms in isolation, but not tested due to the symptoms being mild) are there.

The number they gave today is a little different: 20.000 non-hospitalized cases. Madrid probably has about 3k confimed but not hospitalized cases (we know total confirmed cases and people in ICU, but not total hospitalized, or at lest I can’t find the number). So at this point in Madrid there are about 4k confirmed cases and 17k non confirmed but isolated cases.

Now, as you say some of these people will have the flu, as some poeple with really mild symptoms won’t call the health services (but that’s probably not a lot of people unless we are talking almost asymptomatic, given we are in lockdown and people freak out at the smallest cough).

But we do know the number of cases is at least 5x that of the confirmed ones.

4546

And the queen addressing the nation tonight. I don’t think that she has ever done that, outside of the annual new years speech.

4547

OTOH, population centers with higher population are probably denser, so might facilitate spread. Also, in the early stages of spread, larger population centers are more likely to have more carriers arrive from outside, so more loci for spread to begin from.

4548

no. more. monkey. business!

comparing the German numbers to the Italian, we are on the same path. We have a shutdown schools, bars, clubs, gyms etc but not yet restaurants/shops. borders are closed for private travel. It will take at least 7-10 days to see if it has an influence on the numbers. Yesterday I saw too many people sitting in cafés in the sun. I was tempted to shout “no more monkey buisness” … I am not there, yet

4549

Sure, density is a factor, as is being a hub. But for populations of hundreds of thousands or millions, with relatively similar pop density, you aren’t going to see the virus spread twice as fast for the city / province that is twice as large. You’re going to see the same rate of infection, because it is largely a question of person-to-person contact.

4550

First, the thought experiment constraints are not analogous to Lodi and Bergamo, where there is a 5x difference in population. But fine, it is after all a thought experiment. So we are looking at Cleveland (2M metro area) versus Rochester (1M metro area). There’s much more to do in Cleveland, be it arts, professional sports, or number of colleges and universities, or large corporate campuses, i.e. more opportunities for people to congregate (and spread the infection at a faster rate). That is why people move to cities in the first place and why people move to even larger cities like New York from Rochester…it’s not to reduce the social opportunities!

For the second half of the question, I can’t begin to speculate. Are we taking into account people displaying symptoms and the uninfected taking precautions?

~~

Lastly, I did more research into population densities, as suggested by Thrag, and Bergamo has a 10x population density compared to Lodi. (3,000 per sqkm vs just under 300). By that measure, they’re doing really well compared to Lodi, at only 2x the cases! And there are studies that show population density is highly correlated to how fast a disease spreads.

Again, I don’t have a problem with lockdowns, but I do think that that chart is carefully crafted to tell a story, including the intentional use of signalling colors and omitting when the shutdowns were put into place. When total population and population density and even the timing of the shutdowns are known, the story doesn’t look as good.

4551

France, Germany, and Austria have done way more tests than listed.

4552

I’d check those numbers. Bergamo has 1.1m in 2700 km2, or about 407/km2. Lodi has 229k in 783 km2, or about 293/km2. They are generally of equal density, not a difference of an order of magnitude.

Unless it is your contention that people who live in cities all go to those kinds of events / activities every week, or that people who work for larger companies all come into contact with all the members of those larger companies, these things are just not going to be as big a factor in the early stages of spread as is the circle of personal contact. Otherwise you would see e.g. once one person is infected at large corporation, everyone is infected at that large corporation.

Again, you’re arguing that the virus naturally spreads faster in larger countries than in smaller ones, and in larger cities than in smaller ones. Can you point to some real world examples that show this is true?

Edit: Sorry mean to add this.

This is an extraordinary claim. You’re saying the authors are being deliberately deceptive about a matter of public safety, about a matter of the life and death of thousands. Do you have some evidence of that?

4553

Trust in Trump going down because of Covid-19. This is amazing thought. Somehow fewer republicans believe coronavirus is a real threat this month as compared to last month.

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(March 13-14 poll)

Just 40% of Republicans now say it is a real threat, down from 72% in February. A majority of Republicans (54%) said they think it has been blown out of proportion, more than double what it was in February (23%).

4554

Good lord

4555

I feel like a lot of conservatives are often the way they are because change is scary and denial is comforting. Along with the fact that the GOP are toadies for the oil and gas industry, I feel like that’s a large part of why they are climate change denialists. If the problem is real, that means we need to change our lifestyle and how we do things. That’s scary to think about, so it’s better to just believe in a vast scientific and liberal conspiracy to lie about it all in order to chase grant money or something.

Same with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is terrifying, especially when you think about what this means for how we are going to live this year and for our economy. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, and I’m worried we could be heading towards a great depression type scenario if half of the people can’t back to work for months. So again, it’s easier to just be in denial and insist that this is overblown and fake news. That way you can just go about your life and not have to worry about all the scary ramifications and you don’t have to change what you’re doing at all.

4556

Nah brah, MMT, it’s all good.

I’m sure in no way will all of this money essentially end up in the pockets of the CEOs Trump trotted on stage last Friday, with probably about 10% of it actually doing something useful for society and the sick.

4557

Nah, this is 100% tribalism. During Ebola the world was ending and it was Obama’s fault. But now that Trump has gotten serious their tones may change as well.

4558

Agreed and retracted. I thought I was looking at the province, but was actually looking at the city. 1.33x is vastly different.

~~

I think that the chart is crafted on many levels to emphasize the importance of lockdowns. There is no intention to cause more deaths on their part, quite the opposite.

In my initial response to Thrag I noted the original flatten the curve chart, first made by the CDC and then remade by The Economist, and then made once more recently with the addition of a line indicating healthcare capacity. I thought it was a great chart, until magnet pointed out that line was bullshit and that the healthcare capacity is not known and the lower curve could very well still be above healthcare capacity. It is nevertheless a very compelling chart with honorable intentions, but…crafted.

4559

You know what they say - “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics”

4560

NC shutting down dine-in starting at 5p today.