Peregrine

Interesting. Maybe just wearing masks is enough to halt the spread - two COVID-positive symptomatic hairstylists who wore masks saw 140 customers over 8 days and none of them have tested positive since. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/us/missouri-hairstylists-coronavirus-clients-trnd/index.html

The Medallion fund doesn't do equities I believe and has been deliberately kept small to keep the high returns going. Their marketed funds have not been as successful due to size and different asset classes that they're involved in.

And you are sure thie R0 decline is because of the 13% population testing positive and not because of the lockdown/social-distancing/masks? ::) I think a whole host of factors are at play. But the speed of the decline in New York City vis-a-vis other cities (that have also instituted lockdowns and changed their behaviors) suggests that the relatively higher levels of infection already in place have a strong deterence on the virus's transmissibility. Btw, New Yorkers haven't really abided by social distancing for the last few weeks and positivity rates are at 1.7% versus the rest of the country at 5-6%.

This may be due to people of certain lifestyles, such as that of the bus driver or the hair dresser, who are most at risk to contract the virus in the first place, and while they have the virus are likely to spread it to the greatest number of people. Such people probably test at higher than 20%-30%. If they don't, throw all common sense out the window. Could be - there's been strong evidence of the 80/20 rule - superspreaders accounting for the lion's share of transmission. There's also strong evidence that susceptibility varies highly across the population - that some people are just a lot more susceptible to being infected when exposed to the virus, namely the old. Either way, both data points suggest that we likely don't need 70% of the population infected to see R0 fall sufficiently under 1 to see large case declines. Hell, New York State's estimated R0 has fallen to the 0.7 level and serology tests show 13% of the population have tested positive for antibodies.

Yeah, it's not about the nominal number of cases. Italy has 60m people, so talks of herd immunity after 35k deaths doesn't make sense. A country known for chaos and bad management has been able to totally crush its curve while the US has one of the worst curves in the world (which isn't surprising when you look at how bungled almost everything has been from leadership). 4.3% of world population with over 27% of deaths so far. The data coming out of the hardest hit places have been quite positive IMO: case counts, hospitalizations and positive test rates have been dropping steepest in the places that have seen the worst outbreaks yet serology testing in those places suggests 20-30% infection rates in those populations. This suggests that we might not need anywhere near the arbitrary but oft-cited 70% infection rate level to see sharp declines in the virus's prevalence. Has the very high false-positive rates in serum tests been addressed? I don't put much weight on those. Trying to spin things to say that the US hasn't made things much worse than they had to be isn't realistic. Weeks and weeks were wasted, opportunities to push masks were wasted, the federal government mostly hindered states and did little at crucial times, everything was politicized and made confusing to citizens, etc. Not it hasn't which is why serology tests for those with limited outbreaks (i.e. the Santa Clara study) or for individuals aren't useful. Serology tests in places with far more widespread outbreaks provide a much better gauge of the population's exposure level and it may well even understate the level of exposure at the time the tests were taken given the weeks it takes for antibodies to appear + sampling bias that favors a less susceptible population (i.e. healthy people going into grocery stores). Either way, it's the hardest hit places that are seeing their numbers decline fastest. Not trying to put a spin on anything just providing data points that show that the transmissibility of the virus may be far less potent than what many originally thought.

Yeah, it's not about the nominal number of cases. Italy has 60m people, so talks of herd immunity after 35k deaths doesn't make sense. A country known for chaos and bad management has been able to totally crush its curve while the US has one of the worst curves in the world (which isn't surprising when you look at how bungled almost everything has been from leadership). 4.3% of world population with over 27% of deaths so far. The data coming out of the hardest hit places have been quite positive IMO: case counts, hospitalizations and positive test rates have been dropping steepest in the places that have seen the worst outbreaks yet serology testing in those places suggests 20-30% infection rates in those populations. This suggests that we might not need anywhere near the arbitrary but oft-cited 70% infection rate level to see sharp declines in the virus's prevalence. As far as deaths per 1mm pop, US is at 351 vs Italy's 566.

Saying he is 'disingenuous' is a bit harsh and there are other explanations for his remarks: disingenuous: not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does: Such as not first considering your points made here, and doing so because you had not yet made these points: Agreed - poor choice of words. What I meant was that the comparison wasn't properly contextualized.

You're not? Sorry I may have been mistaken since you put this chart up a few posts ago.

Comparing new case counts in Italy to that of the US is disingenuous. For one, Italy is a far smaller country while the US is much more spread out. And two, the worst hit places in Italy likely already have a sufficient degree of immunity such that their numbers continue to fall even with limited mitigation. New York's numbers looks a lot like Italy's for instance - and this despite having widespread crowded protests daily for more than two weeks already.

One more thing about the rise in hospitalizations in some states: because hospitals put off elective surgeries and people were completely avoiding hospitals over the last few months, there has been a sizeable backlog of people coming in over the recent weeks. Anyone who enters the hospital gets tested for COVID so even those who come in for completely different ailments and are asymptomatic will be listed as a COVID hospitalization if they test positive for it. With that said, there has not been anywhere close to the huge spikes we saw in NYC.

The interesting case is New York City. Despite widespread protests beginning about two weeks ago, COVID positivity rate and new hospitalizations continue to come down day after day. This may indicate that a place like NYC has already reached a level of herd immunity and that you don't need to see immunity get anywhere near the 70% level that everyone says is needed to see the R0 fall below 1. FYI, antibody testing in NYC suggests 20-25% infection rate - so maybe that's even enough.

Yes. Now can all you have to is turn Americans into Japanese. Hygiene obsessed, mask wearing little drones, social distance, no kissy huggy stuff. Good luck. This is who you get to work with. That's fair, though I suspect that mask adherence in the denser populated blue states will be a lot higher which can help mitigate the spread more in these places where transmission rates are a lot higher.

On another note, it's interesting how Japan has had 6 COVID-related deaths per 1 mm capita (near the lowest in the world) despite not having a lockdown and having one of the oldest populations in the world and some of the densest cities in the world. I'm guessing that simply hand washing and wearing a mask in public places does 90% of the work in reducing transmissions?

Hey! Can people who have no idea what the IFR of the flu is please stop saying Covid "is just as deadly as the flu"? Hey! With the CDCs latest best estimate we maybe getting close to that. Keep in mind that the flu has that IFR with a widely available cheap vaccine and now 2 approved medications to treat it. Corona of course has neither a vaccine or approved widely available meds. So looking at it this way if there was not a flu shot available, and no meds to treat it, how high would its IFR be? There's also the matter of counting. It isn't at all clear what deaths are caused by the flu, so the numerator and denominator are all guesses. While standard practice (likely for expediency) for counting COVID deaths is to count all deaths for which the deceased tested positive for it. So the stated IFRs may not be as comparable as one might think.

Then please cite the actual CDC best estimate and leave the other extrapolations out of it. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html Scroll down to: Scenario 5: Current Best Estimate It would be great news if this doesn't turn out to be overly optimistic propaganda that was produced due to political pressure from the Trump administration, but I don't plan on holding my breath. The US CDC's reputation has probably been more tarnished than the other US agencies involved and this might just turn out to be another blow to the CDC's reputation, which may be a reflection of current leadership and not the vast majority of those at the CDC. These estimates don't seem to match other current research and at best it is on the extreme optimistic end of the spectrum and that apparent bias is already being criticized as such by some experts. I think they’re basing the IFRs off the serology tests which have estimated IFRs anywhere from 0.05% to 0.5% (in NYC). There’s been a very wide range of CFRs between countries. So I’m not sure why we should weight the experience in NYC more than that of a place like Singapore where CFR has been 0.1%.

Then please cite the actual CDC best estimate and leave the other extrapolations out of it. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html Scroll down to: Scenario 5: Current Best Estimate

See my edits above. AFAIK, the CDC never said 0.27%. Someone else made that inference based on CDC estimated IFR-S of 0.4%. Yup. So 0.4% IFR for symptomatic and 35% asymmptomatic mix gets u 0.27%. Um...sure... let's multiply a highly uncertain IFR-S estimate with a highly uncertain asymptomatic rate to get a very precise IFR. And then compare to a highly uncertain "commonly accepted" estimate of the IFR-S for flu. Sounds rigorous. Sorry that the 10x number I pulled out of my keister isn't rigorous enough for you. I think you're mistaking what I'm saying. I'm citing CDC's latest "best estimate". Maybe it's best we leave it there.

See my edits above. AFAIK, the CDC never said 0.27%. Someone else made that inference based on CDC estimated IFR-S of 0.4%. Yup. So 0.4% IFR for symptomatic and 35% asymmptomatic mix gets u 0.27%.

Hey! Can people who have no idea what the IFR of the flu is please stop saying Covid "is just as deadly as the flu"? I'm just posing the question - not sure if it's deadlier or not deadlier than the flu. Indications in some places (NYC, Italy) says that it is while in other places (Singapore, Japan) says that it isn't. Flu deaths are also highly ambiguous and aren't counted the same as COVID is, so I'm not sure the quoted IFRs here (0.27% vs 0.1%) are even directly comparable, plus there's high degrees of variation between demographics/general health condition in the affected population/quality of health systems/etc. Okay, fine. Then the answer is no. Covid is approximately 10x deadlier than the flu. I"m always skeptical when people answer so definitely to questions for which the answer is still very much in doubt. The CDC just revised their estimates down to an COVID IFR of 0.27%. If IFR for the flu is the commonly accepted 0.1%, that'd make it 2.7x not 10x. I'm always skeptical when people answer so definitely to questions for which the answer is still very much in doubt. If you believe that the IFR of Covid is precisely 0.27%, then why shouldn't you believe that Covid is precisely 9.76x as deadly as the flu? I didn't say that - it's the newest estimate provided by the CDC.

Hey! Can people who have no idea what the IFR of the flu is please stop saying Covid "is just as deadly as the flu"? I'm just posing the question - not sure if it's deadlier or not deadlier than the flu. Indications in some places (NYC, Italy) says that it is while in other places (Singapore, Japan) says that it isn't. Flu deaths are also highly ambiguous and aren't counted the same as COVID is, so I'm not sure the quoted IFRs here (0.27% vs 0.1%) are even directly comparable, plus there's high degrees of variation between demographics/general health condition in the affected population/quality of health systems/etc. Okay, fine. Then the answer is no. Covid is approximately 10x deadlier than the flu. I"m always skeptical when people answer so definitely to questions for which the answer is still very much in doubt. The CDC just revised their estimates down to an COVID IFR of 0.27%. If IFR for the flu is the commonly accepted 0.1%, that'd make it 2.7x not 10x. You're confusing IFR with CFR. I'm really not. Most estimates of flu IFR I've seen hold it at 0.1%. Since most flu cases aren't confirmed or identified, these are necessarily estimates.

Hey! Can people who have no idea what the IFR of the flu is please stop saying Covid "is just as deadly as the flu"? I'm just posing the question - not sure if it's deadlier or not deadlier than the flu. Indications in some places (NYC, Italy) says that it is while in other places (Singapore, Japan) says that it isn't. Flu deaths are also highly ambiguous and aren't counted the same as COVID is, so I'm not sure the quoted IFRs here (0.27% vs 0.1%) are even directly comparable, plus there's high degrees of variation between demographics/general health condition in the affected population/quality of health systems/etc. Okay, fine. Then the answer is no. Covid is approximately 10x deadlier than the flu. I"m always skeptical when people answer so definitely to questions for which the answer is still very much in doubt. The CDC just revised their estimates down to an COVID IFR of 0.27%. If IFR for the flu is the commonly accepted 0.1%, that'd make it 2.7x not 10x.

Would it not have been more informative to tweet "Emergency Rooms still open!" than "Liberate Michigan!"? I sympathize with the difficulty in public messaging during a time of panic and confusion. But I don't think public figures have devoted enough attention to nor sounded the alarm enough about the huge public health collateral damage. The media hasn't helped either. That treatments for all these afflictions that are many times as deadly as COVID have been forgone can only be charitably viewed as a failure by public health officials. Moreover, we won't see the effects immediately - they'll only surface over time at which point they'll surely be another data point and forgotten. My wife is in HR at a large healthcare company that owns and operates hospitals and clinics. She was telling me that some organ transplants didn't happen because they were classified as "elective surgery". She works from home so I hear a lot on the conference calls about the red ink spilling. Yeah, just sad. What demarcates the line between elective and non-elective? It also seems like an arbitrary line that hospitals are unsure of as well. Any scheduled surgery is elective. Cancer surgery is elective because it is scheduled. They were all banned in order to make room for the surge that never came close to occurring. Meanwhile, the elective surgeries are the bread-and-butter cash cow for the company. Cancelling surgeries was supposed to free up staff, but instead they had to lay off staff. Mistakes were made in what was locked down, but it would look different if the surge really did come. That makes sense - thanks. I'm surprised by that because wouldn't some people who really needed surgeries were denied then?

Hey! Can people who have no idea what the IFR of the flu is please stop saying Covid "is just as deadly as the flu"? I'm just posing the question - not sure if it's deadlier or not deadlier than the flu. Indications in some places (NYC, Italy) says that it is while in other places (Singapore, Japan) says that it isn't. Flu deaths are also highly ambiguous and aren't counted the same as COVID is, so I'm not sure the quoted IFRs here (0.27% vs 0.1%) are even directly comparable, plus there's high degrees of variation between demographics/general health condition in the affected population/quality of health systems/etc.

Would it not have been more informative to tweet "Emergency Rooms still open!" than "Liberate Michigan!"? I sympathize with the difficulty in public messaging during a time of panic and confusion. But I don't think public figures have devoted enough attention to nor sounded the alarm enough about the huge public health collateral damage. The media hasn't helped either. That treatments for all these afflictions that are many times as deadly as COVID have been forgone can only be charitably viewed as a failure by public health officials. Moreover, we won't see the effects immediately - they'll only surface over time at which point they'll surely be another data point and forgotten. My wife is in HR at a large healthcare company that owns and operates hospitals and clinics. She was telling me that some organ transplants didn't happen because they were classified as "elective surgery". She works from home so I hear a lot on the conference calls about the red ink spilling. Yeah, just sad. What demarcates the line between elective and non-elective? It also seems like an arbitrary line that hospitals are unsure of as well.

Would it not have been more informative to tweet "Emergency Rooms still open!" than "Liberate Michigan!"? I sympathize with the difficulty in public messaging during a time of panic and confusion. But I don't think public figures have devoted enough attention to nor sounded the alarm enough about the huge public health collateral damage. The media hasn't helped either. That treatments for all these afflictions that are many times as deadly as COVID have been forgone can only be charitably viewed as a failure by public health officials. Moreover, we won't see the effects immediately - they'll only surface over time at which point they'll surely be another data point and forgotten.