Update, March 12: A short time after Trump’s speech, he backtracked and said that he would not interfere with goods coming in from Europe. The administration is keeping their Coronavirus discussions top secret, so the speech may not have been vetted by anybody. What do they know that we don’t know? Are they acting on the apocalyptic predictions? I saw one this morning that predicted 20% to 60% would catch it. They predicted 40 million for the US, which is 1/8 or 13%. I see the concept of spreading the curve or slowing it down to not overwhelm the health care system is becoming popular.
March 11. This was a scary day. First, I learned that Ted Cruz was wrong, and that a Coronavirus infected person can transmit the virus even before symptoms were shown. However, I was told the good news, that the mortality rate could be as low as 0.3%, instead of 3.4%. But then, I learned that the Doctor to the Congress said that half or 45% of the US population may get infected, which is 150 million. Even with the 0.3% mortality rate, which is twice the normal flus, that means that 450,000 will die in the US. That is ten times more than a usual flu year! That could only occur if we are far less effective than China, which has four times our population, and has limited their number of cases to 81,000. The WHO stresses not to give in, but to fight the spread with all of our spirit and expertise.
The other ray of hope, was that Trump actually spoke to the seriousness of the problem, for the first time. Sure he was reading a speech, written by Steven Miller, but he gave in to doing it. Of course, there were four main points that were highly unnecessary. First, there was the blaming others: this time China, and then all of Europe, except for the dear UK, where Trump has a resort and golf course, and his mother is from. Then, there was the ban on Europeans and goods (since changed, see update above) not coming to America for a month, except for properly screened (undefined) returning Americans. This to deflect blame from Trump’s destruction of government agencies meant to protect us, and his hoax fantasy. Then, instead of helping stop the virus spread, he proposed $250 billion dollars to solve money problems for businesses coming from the virus spread. That is 100 times as much as his original proposal of only $2.5 billion to stop the virus. Finally, as usual, he turned his free airtime into a campaign talk, about his great economy. Self-praise is not going to hide the 20% loss of the stock market to his Republican investors, mostly due to the denial and incompetence that Trump has shown for weeks.
Since Johns Hopkins converted from County to State coverage, I can just reference the lists now on the NY Times, and the Washington Post. However, they don’t point out the daily gains for each state, yet. They also cover the World data.
Finally, lets look at the percent case gain for the US today. We drop the 45 plus 21 cruise cases, and look at only the spreading land cases. Soon, the number of cases will be so large, that this will be a small correction. We start with 1,312 cases today, and subtract the 66 to get 1,246 land cases. Yesterday, there were 959 land cases. The increase is 287 land cases. The increase ratio is 287/959 = 29.9%.
The daily increases, starting with March 3, are: 33.3%; 42.5%; 64.9%; 44.7%; 34.9%; 33.0%; 24.2%; 39.4%; and today, March 11, 29.9%. Setting aside the highest 64.9% and the lowest 24.2%, momentarily, the other seven range from 30% to 45%. This is a fair amount of uniformity, considering that the numbers are determined by the number of available tests and the criteria for testing, rather than the true mathematics of disease spread. We showed before that a daily increase of 33% leads to a factor of 7 increase for each week.
The above data should be averaged, not by an arithmetic sum, but multiplicatively, as in minimizing deviations from a straight line log plot. An exercise for tomorrow. However, we are not dealing with a physical law for identical particles, so there is no universal constant being measured here.
While more tests should increase the daily ratios, the ever present messages on prevention and their increasing adoption should decrease the ratios. Experience with treatment should lower the death rate, but eventual overwhelming of care resources will increase the death rate. While we have great health care and an educated population, our health coverage has a lot of holes in it. It wasn’t clear that the government’s conditions cover all of these gaps.
For health advice, in order not to overwhelm the system, or get yourself involved in it for the flu, get a flu shot. You will be healthier, and avoid a lot of anxiety and inconvenience for yourself and many others. Also, get a pneumonia shot if you are over 65, or have weakening conditions. Finally, if you are sneezing or coughing or have a temperature, don’t go to work or in crowds, and seek medical help.
