Coronavirus COVID-19 Acts Hysteria & Common Sense (Madison, York: designs, estimated)

[MisterEd51]

Originally Posted by Chris_NorthHSV

Well now she has finally come the the realization of what needs to be done........

Stay at home orders start Saturday.

The list of non-essential businesses seems rather small. Does that mean that all other businesses can stay open as long as people stay at least 6 feet apart? I find it hard to figure out which ones have to close and which ones can stay open. In between are businesses that can't serve the public on premises but are allowed to have takeout or deivereries

[TCW2]

Probably the best thing a mask does is keep you from touching your face.

[madisondaviiss]

Stay home and try N95(a medical mask meeting the N95 NIOSH air filtration rating) should be the best solution right now.

[denofhc]

Are we allowed to bicycle on the greenways and streets now?

[leadfoot4]

Originally Posted by madisondaviiss

Stay home and try N95(a medical mask meeting the N95 NIOSH air filtration rating) should be the best solution right now.

Excellent idea..................now just try and find one of those masks!!!!

[chucksnee]

Originally Posted by MisterEd51

The list of non-essential businesses seems rather small. Does that mean that all other businesses can stay open as long as people stay at least 6 feet apart? I find it hard to figure out which ones have to close and which ones can stay open. In between are businesses that can't serve the public on premises but are allowed to have takeout or deivereries

I received an email from the Alabama WMA, Hunting, Fishing, Trail walking, etc....are all considered essential as long as you stay 6 feet away....

[Rick In Madison]

First and foremost, you can make statistics support whatever narrative you may want to put forth to people.
Typically those types of statisticians work for special interest groups to include political parties. I'm neither a statistician or work for a special interest group other than the group of "Me".

I was wondering last night how the current deaths that have been attributed to COVID-19 compare to the average death rate in each state since we've been in this thing for about a month now.

A few searches later, some cut/paste into a spreadsheet, and a formula or two and BAM, I have a comparison. I tried to keep it simple so I wouldn't miss simple comparisons. Unfortunately I could not figure out how to provide the information in a table on this forum. Too big as a picture (jpg & etc).

For each state, I found 2019-July estimated population (from wiki).
For each state, I found 2017 death rate per 1000. (from wiki)
For each state, I found current (as of 5-April) COVID-19 cases & deaths. (from cnn)

Home::
Alabama:

Est Pop. - 4,903,185
Ave Death per 1000 - 10.9
Ave Death per month - 4,454
COVID-19 Deaths - 45

Hot spots::
New York:

Est. Pop. - 19,453,561
Ave Death per 1000 - 151,738
Ave Death per month - 12,645
COVID-19 Deaths - 4,159

New Jersey:
Est. Pop. - 8,882,190
Ave Death per 1000 - 8.3
Ave Death per month - 6,144
COVID-19 Deaths - 917

Michigan:
Est Pop. - 9,986,857
Ave Death per 1000 - 9.8
Ave Death per month - 8,156
COVID-19 Deaths - 617

[roodd279]

Not sure what your point is. Why don't you do it by day? New York City per day is about 400. Right now they are doing 500 more - on top of that 400. It's quite possibly MORE than 500 more - as they can't count them that fast.
The "overall" dead in the long run is not the problem. It's the logistics of dealing with the minute to minute dead.
You don't need to do any "statistics" to know that Alabama, New Jersey and Michigan are all on the "upswing" with regard to daily death. Their "regular" totals are:

AL - 148 per day
NJ - 204 per day
MI - 271 per day
ALL OF THEM are going to blow right past that "per day" - THAT is the reason for the "lockdown" - not the overall dent in the annual totals. That is pretty much irrelevant. No statistics needed.
If you're going to do it by month, why not by year? Decade? Century?
The grand total is not the issue - the resources to deal with the daily load are what the lockdown is all about.

[Rick In Madison]

Roodd279: Not sure what your point is.
As originally stated; I was wondering last night how the current deaths that have been attributed to COVID-19 compare to the average death rate in each state since we've been in this thing for about a month now.

Roodd279: Why don't you do it by day?
As originally stated; we have been going at this for about a month.
Granted, this may have started here in the states much sooner than a month but effectively our focus was largely outside of CONUS. In addition, viewing the numbers by day rather than by month would be too small of a sampling in my opinion regardless of the outliers (in this case, the hot spots).

I agree with you that dealing with the logistics of the pandemic is staggering and difficult to image.
In regards to upswing in deaths; given the various stages of lockdown in each state would presume the lockdowns will result in fewer vehicular deaths? If so then how would that compare to the current rate of death due to the virus? How will it effect the monthly standard deviation?

[Stefan_from_Germany]

Originally Posted by zenjenn

I'll be the first to criticize our society for being overly fear-driven, and for assessing risk poorly in the favor of erring too much on the side of safety.

But in this case, the response is appropriate at best, and too little too late at worst.


I understand why people are inclined to cry 'overreaction'! Both because exponential math is counterintuitive and because there has been too much aforementioned Chicken Little hysteria about things in the past.

But look to anyone who knows anything substantial about epidemics and they are all pretty much saying the same thing. That this virus has a very, very real risk of overrunning our healthcare system if these measures aren't taken.

While I'm concerned we may not have done enough, soon enough, I'm not freaked out right now because people are starting to freak out. I'd be freaking out if people *weren't* freaking out.

Because that's the math here.

And "freaking out" here is a little bit of a misnomer. People are being prepared and prudent measures are being taken. I've not seen any signs of hysteria. What you see in the stores is pretty typical of what you'd expect of a momentary widespread shift in demand for goods. The inventory on shelves is much, much thinner than most people realize. It doesn't take much of a demand shift to create those empty shelves, but it's not as alarming as it looks.

Shutting down society as much as possible can have a dramatic impact on exponential disease spread. People don't get it, but it's true.

Part of me is kind of hoping that we're *just enough* little too late so that the general public has enough of an allegorical case to pocket for future reference. Because had the government responded perfectly, very few people would have gotten sick and I fear the public would have said "Look! All that reaction for nothing!"

Which would be tragic, because next time (and there will be a next time eventually) it might be a much more frightening virus, and when that 'next time' comes, it might be for the best if whatever happens now increases vigilance instead of causing complacency.

How refreshing to read such an intelligent post. Thank you.