Know Your Bias

Wikipedia:

Bias is disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, or a belief. In science and engineering, a bias is a systematic error. Statistical bias results from an unfair sampling of a population, or from an estimation process that does not give accurate results on average.

Your Bias Is

COVID-19 Update

The growth rate for deaths is holding pretty steady (1.002).

We can hope there are two basic things at work.

First, testing has widened enough now to catch a lot more of the milder cases.

(Which is what fuels President Stoopid's ridiculous contention that testing is actually causing us to have more cases - swear to phony god, if he'd just keep his tater trap shut and let the docs explain it, he wouldn't be in quite the mess he's in. But he doesn't know one fuckin' thing about one fuckin' thing, so he just goes on spouting bullshit)

Second, the medicos are getting a lot better at treating the patients. The problem now though is that they're running into the same problems in practically every city that they struggled with in NYC and Jersey - too many patients and not enough clinicians, PPE, beds or equipment.

WaPo:

The Health 202: The coronavirus death rate is likely to rise again as cases spike, experts say

President Trump has seized on a bit of positive news as coronavirus cases surge in new hot spots across the country: The country's deaths are still going down.

It's true that even as cases spike in western and southern states, deaths haven’t followed the same steep, upward curve — at least so far. Deaths are still on a downward trajectory; while as many as 3,000 people died daily from the illness in April, that figure has fallen to around 550 deaths per day.

“Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down,” he pronounced in a pair of otherwise misleading tweets over the weekend:

But coronavirus deaths are almost certain to rise. The key question is how quickly.

“I do expect to see an increase in deaths in the coming weeks,” Lauren Ancel Meyers, a professor of biology at the University of Texas, told me. “Exactly how many more is uncertain, but unfortunately that is what we expect at this point.”

President Trump's former Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “the total number of deaths is going to start going up again as the number of hospitalizations starts to spike again.”

“You’re going to have more deaths, tragically," he said.

Epidemiologists say there are several potential reasons for why the death rate is trailing infections.
Infections appear to be spreading fastest among younger people as they start mingling more.

Younger Americans are far less prone to serious illness or death than elderly Americans, so it’s feasible that as the virus burns through this population, it may cause proportionally fewer hospitalizations and fatalities.

In Arizona, around 40 percent of known cases were among people younger than 44 at the beginning of May but that’s now up to 60 percent of all cases. Florida officials have said people ages 18 to 44 are primarily responsible for the state’s recent spike in cases. And in Texas, more than half of new cases in the counties that encompass Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are among the young.

And as testing becomes even more widespread — between 600,000 and 700,000 tests are now being conducted in the United States every day — more people with only mild cases of covid-19 or no symptoms at all are being included in the testing tallies.
Deaths also lag behind infections by three or four weeks.

Patients seriously ill with covid-19 generally don’t die until weeks into their illness. So, as infections and hospitalizations surge in states including Arizona, California, Texas and Florida, deaths will follow.

“We know death is a lagging indicator,” said Abraar Karan, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “You have cases show up first, hospitalizations next and deaths show up after that.” 

It’s been clear for more than a month that infections are rising rapidly. Hospitalizations in most of these states are also climbing; over the weekend, coronavirus-related hospitalizations rose to their highest levels to date in Arizona and Nevada.

There are emerging signs that deaths are already trending upward in some states.

Compared to two weeks ago, the seven-day average of daily deaths is up nearly 50 percent in Florida and 54 percent in Arizona, according to the tracking website 91-DIVOC, which pulls data from Johns Hopkins University. The statewide death rate in both California and Texas is still holding steady, but some hospitals in both states have reported they’re nearing capacity in intensive care units.

“After Texas reported another single-day record for new coronavirus cases over the weekend, Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) told CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ that there won’t be enough medical personnel to keep up with the spike in cases if the rate of increase continues unabated in his city,” Robert Barnes and Derek Hawkins report.

“If we don’t change this trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun,” Adler said, noting that the city's intensive care units could be overflowing within 10 days.
There's some good news: Doctors have figured out better ways of treating covid-19 patients.

Experts say this could be a small factor in lower death rates.

Physicians have come a long way in developing a standardized way of caring for covid-19 patients, compared to the pandemic’s outset. They’ve learned — and research has confirmed — that dexamethasone cuts the risk of death for patients on a ventilator by a third and reduces the risk of death for patients on oxygen by a fifth.

Another drug, remdesivir, has been shown to speed up hospital recoveries by four days, but didn’t have a statistically significant impact on survival rates. Doctors have also discovered that putting severely ill patients in a prone position improves the flow of oxygen to their lungs.

And here's the big one:

By the time deaths go up again, it could be too late to turn the trend around with more drastic restrictions.

New coronavirus infections in Florida, for instance, exceeded 10,000 in a day for the third time in the past week, after the state posted a record of 11,458 the previous day. “The new infections pushed the state’s total caseload past 200,000, a mark passed by just two other states, New York and California,” Robert and Derek write.

“Frustration about the pandemic response has mounted among local leaders, who say they have had to grapple with conflicting orders and frequently changing guidelines from governors and the White House as they try to curb sharply rising infections,” Derek and Marisa Iati report.

“We don’t have room to experiment; we don’t have room for incrementalism when we’re seeing these kinds of numbers,” said Judge Lina Hidalgo (D), the top elected official in Harris County, Tex., which encompasses the sprawling Houston metro area. “Nor should we wait for all the hospital beds to fill and all these people to die before we take drastic action.”

Today's Pix

click

👇🏻

COVID-19 Update

Coming off a peak, we posted "just" 45,000 new cases, and "only" a few hundred new deaths. 

Yay.

And we'll see what comes of the holiday weekend. Memorial Day gave us a nice spike in June, and there were some pretty big crowds at certain places the last coupla days, but it seems a fair bunch have begun to understand the realities, so maybe enough people are aware enough to make a difference. (not bloody likely, but hey - a guy can hope)

WaPo:

It seemed this spring that the pandemic sweeping America had passed Joplin by.

The meticulously prepared coronavirus unit at the hospital was all but deserted. The health department dutifully reported each day it had nothing new to report. The novel coronavirus was terrorizing the coasts and larger inland hubs, killing people by the thousands. But in the modest southwest Missouri city where Bonnie and Clyde once hid out from the law, it was more rumor than reality.

“We’re dead center in the middle of the nation,” said Joplin Mayor Ryan Stanley. “It took so long to get to us.”

Now that it has arrived following a rapid statewide reopening, however, it’s hitting the region with a vengeance. After starting June with no active cases in the city, Joplin entered July at the heart of one of the country’s fastest growing coronavirus hot spots. And like many places that skipped the springtime surge only to be walloped this summer, it’s fighting back with a much-diminished arsenal.

Missouri’s stay-at-home order is gone and unlikely to return. Tests are in short supply. The hospital is bumping against capacity as coronavirus cases pile up and doctors work their way through a backlog of non-emergency procedures.

Meanwhile, the one measure that medical experts say could turn the coronavirus tide — widespread use of masks — has become mired in politics. Joplin’s city council spent nearly five hours debating whether to require them last week, only to reject the proposal by a single vote.

In a deeply conservative region where Donald Trump won nearly 80 percent of 2016’s presidential ballots, any attempt to force people to mask up was likely to backfire, Stanley concluded. Most residents who had spoken at the meeting argued against the measure, citing infringement of their personal freedom.

“I’m surprised it’s as divisive as it is,” said the mayor, who personally wears masks and advocates that others do the same, but who cast the deciding vote against mandating them. “If we’re having this crazy spike in the area, don’t you think we’d want to err on the side of caution?”

Reason has gone out the fucking window. The mayor of Joplin wears a mask, knowing it's the best thing for himself and others, but he votes against the mandate because he's afraid it'll backfire(?) He laments that the issue is divisive and political, and then he votes in line with the divisive politics of the moment.

Fake lord have mercy.

Not that the story is particularly sunny and optimistic in the first place, but it gets worse, so that's as far as I'm gonna go with it.

Today's Beau

Again - it's the ideals, not the symbols.

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

COVID-19 Update

WaPo:

The United States tallied its largest single-day total of coronavirus infections Friday since the start of the pandemic, 57,497 confirmed cases, as President Trump attended a fireworks display at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, where the crowds were not required to wear masks or practice social distancing.

Friday’s record, which comes a day after a peak of 55,220, is the seventh reported high in nine days. With the rate of new coronavirus cases rising in nearly 40 states, Fourth of July celebrations across the United States have been canceled or scaled back as anxious governors and mayors urge people to take a more restrained approach to the holiday.

Trump delivered a fiery speech Friday, for the first of two nights of Independence Day celebrations he will attend.

Heading into the holiday weekend, at least 20 states set record highs for the average of new cases over seven days, with Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina tallying the highest number of infections.

Today's Today

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

Here's that list:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.