If you are trying to argue that fatality counts are currently higher in NY than in CA, Fl, NJ, IL, see figure 1, below. If you are trying to argue that currently per capita fatality rates are higher in NY than in CA, Fl, NJ, IL, see figure 2. (Note Figure 1 on a log scale.) [graphs from Financial Times‘s excellent interactive website]
Source: Financial Times, accessed 9/11.
Source: Financial Times, accessed 9/11.
And that is why I did linear instead of log. I remember a claim about why and when some use log scales to represent data.
New or cumulative? Log vs. linear shouldn’t matter except for scale as long as you know what you are charting.
“as long as you know what you are charting”
That is the key caveat. CoRev has proven millions of times on so many issues he has no clue what the heck he is doing.
This is your excuse for being blinder than Mr. Magoo? Lord – you are one dumb idiot.
“f you are trying to argue that currently per capita fatality rates are higher in NY than in CA, Fl, NJ, IL, see figure 2.”
This is what CoRev argued at first but his own link said just the reverse. Of course CoRev then denied he made this claim in the first place. CoRev has learned well from Donald Trump.
The same source for figure 2 could be applied to Texas, which is in a race with Florida for 1st place. The governors of both states are Trumpian clones.
Your graph shows 5 states which I trust you choose because that is what is in CoRev’s babbling comment. The link he provided allows one to graph 6 states at a time. So why didn’t CoRev include Texas? Oh wait – the daily death counts in Texas match those in California and in Florida. Since this is a Republican state, I guess CoRev did not wish to show this. And this troll falsely accuses others of cherry picking?
Then again Mr. Magoo was never good at picking fruit. And since CoRev looks at this graph and thinks NY is higher than the other 4, he is even blinder than Mr. Magoo.
i have been arguing for a while that texas is doing poorly. the state reopened much too early, and cannot lower the floor because there are simply too many independent minded texans serving as a virus reservoir for the public. texas has lowered itself as far as it can go, unless it can get the trumper to start behaving in a more responsible manner.
“i have been arguing for a while that texas is doing poorly.”
If CoRev had bothered to include Texas in his cherry picked states this assertion would clearly be demonstrated. And the causes – you got that right.
Fauci Dismantles Trump’s Latest End-In-Sight Rhetoric On COVID: Statistics Are ‘Disturbing’
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fauci-covid-stats-disturbing-denies-final-turn
Leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday disagreed with President Donald Trump’s claim at a news conference just a day before that the country is victoriously winding down in its battle with coronavirus. “We have rounded the final turn,” Trump told reporters on Thursday as he fended off questions about revelations that he had intentionally misled the American public about the deadliness of the coronavirus in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, “Rage.” President Trump made the remarks hours after Fauci urged Americans to “hunker down and get through this fall and winter, because it’s not going to be easy.” Fauci pushed back on Friday afternoon telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an interview that contrary to Trump’s insistence that outbreaks are subsiding, the real-time statistics are “disturbing.” “We’re plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day,” Fauci said bluntly, adding that he had hopes that a surge in cases wouldn’t trail the Labor Day weekend as it did following July 4th. Fauci who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease also warned that the current high baseline of infections and threats of “increased test positivity” in certain parts of the country needed to be addressed heading into the fall season as people spend more time indoors. “You don’t want to start off already with a baseline that’s so high,” Fauci said, adding that his warning about reducing baseline infections were not new. “I’ve been stressing this over the last few weeks to a month or more,” Fauci said.
If he had the time, I would love it if Dr. Fauci got into a battle of statistics with CoRev and Bruce Hall. But may such a duel would be way too easy for Dr. Fauci.
Fauci Dismantles Trump’s Latest End-In-Sight Rhetoric On COVID: Statistics Are ‘Disturbing’
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fauci-covid-stats-disturbing-denies-final-turn
Leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday disagreed with President Donald Trump’s claim at a news conference just a day before that the country is victoriously winding down in its battle with coronavirus. “We have rounded the final turn,” Trump told reporters on Thursday as he fended off questions about revelations that he had intentionally misled the American public about the deadliness of the coronavirus in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, “Rage.” President Trump made the remarks hours after Fauci urged Americans to “hunker down and get through this fall and winter, because it’s not going to be easy.” Fauci pushed back on Friday afternoon telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an interview that contrary to Trump’s insistence that outbreaks are subsiding, the real-time statistics are “disturbing.” “We’re plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day,” Fauci said bluntly, adding that he had hopes that a surge in cases wouldn’t trail the Labor Day weekend as it did following July 4th. Fauci who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease also warned that the current high baseline of infections and threats of “increased test positivity” in certain parts of the country needed to be addressed heading into the fall season as people spend more time indoors. “You don’t want to start off already with a baseline that’s so high,” Fauci said, adding that his warning about reducing baseline infections were not new. “I’ve been stressing this over the last few weeks to a month or more,” Fauci said.
If he had the time, I would love it if Dr. Fauci got into a battle of statistics with CoRev and Bruce Hall. But may such a duel would be way too easy for Dr. Fauci.
And CoRev continues to abjectly refuse to learn anything or admit it when he’s wrong.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, Amen.
When he is shown to be wrong (which is quite often) he decides to attack the rest of us. I do think he needs to take Anger Management classes.
Corev is a political animal. Much like all you are. He doesn’t seek truth, but satisfy his dialectical bias.
Speaking of animals, CoRev is a lot like barnyard dawg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qOziY41dG4
As a knuckle dragger and sometime barnyard animal, I am offended to be compared to CoRev. Even an outhouse economist who relies on visual analysis of graphs has some pride, y’know.
I’m not a political animal. I just come here to read snotty comments.
“If you are trying to argue that fatality counts are currently higher in NY than in CA, Fl, NJ, IL, see figure 1, below. ” Only PGL wants to argue a single day’s values. Doing so is his single point analysis, and is a Ho Hum attempt at a political point. If you accept his single point analysis for his Sept 8, 20 data, then you must accept just as valid any date in April for comparison. NY’s peaks were higher then and those early peaks are still today higher than his selected states’ peaks on Sept, 8, 20, but liberals here knew that and couldn’t/wouldn’t admit it.
This discussion started after Bruce Hall correctly claimed that the average daily rates were falling in early August. PGL picked a date in that period and said, oh look this day is higher than the one before trying to claim Bruce wrong. Even Menzie, well over a month later has to admit that Bruce was correct https://econbrowser.com/archives/2020/09/are-us-covid-19-fatalities-declining-probably
“Only PGL wants to argue a single day’s values.” I’ve been presenting 7-day averages over and over. OK I once off hand noted the daily count from the day before. You know this but you LIE over and over. It is childish but hey you are a spoiled little lying brat.
Now this thread on state 7-day averages. NY State’s 7-day average has remained 5 for 3 weeks. That is 0.25 per million. Your national 7-day average represents 2.25 per million. Nine times higher than NY. But YOU claimed NY was higher than the other states. Yes – you are THAT stupid. But fine – deny it by lying over and over again.
“This discussion started after Bruce Hall correctly claimed that the average daily rates were falling in early August. ”
He was making that claim back in July. Guess what really happened in July? Come on CoRev – you need to start telling the truth about the conversation. Oh wait – you follow Trump’s lead. Lying 24/7.
pgl: July…August…June. What difference does it make? It’s truthiness that matters.
CoRev If you accept his single point analysis for his Sept 8, 20 data, then you must accept just as valid any date in April for comparison.
This is quite possibly the silliest thing you’ve said yet. We’re not interested in the death rate in April because that month has long since passed. What we’re concerned about is the current death rate. Is that difficult to understand? You don’t make policy decisions today based on what was happening back in April. You make today’s policy decisions based on contemporaneous data. That should be obvious. It’s like buying your clothes today based on the size shirt you wore when you were 10.
This discussion started after Bruce Hall correctly claimed that the average daily rates were falling in early August.
Except that in early August they were not falling. In early August the death rates were essentially flat. Don’t believe me? Take the 7-day moving average values from 1 August through 16 August and run a simple OLS regression with a constant and a trend variable. The trend variable has a p-value of 0.15. In other words, there is no downward trend. The 7-day moving average is a simple constant.
“Except that in early August they were not falling. In early August the death rates were essentially flat.”
True but remember Bruce Hall started his claim that deaths rates were falling back in early July. CoRev knows this as we have reminded him many times. Of course everything CoRev presents excludes July data. I wonder why. Oh yea – daily death rates exploded back then.
2slugs, tell PGL “The 7-day moving average is a simple constant.”
Why did you ignore the next sentence of that paragraph: “…then you must accept just as valid any date in April for comparison. NY’s peaks were higher then and those early peaks are still today higher than his selected states’ peaks on Sept, 8, 20, but liberals here knew that and couldn’t/wouldn’t admit it.” The peaks are the indicator of successful policy, and the mostly blue states have a record of poorer policy, HIGHER PEAKS.
You’ve worked in DOD and know the value of after action reports, learning from the March, April performance to adjust current policy. They’re done so the mistakes made early on can be eliminated or minimized later. Thinking that this is a uniformly spreading virus ignores the worlds’ history and the science. NOT ALL LOCALES EXPERIENCE INFECTIONS AT THE SAME TIME AND LEVEL. Lower peaks mean better performance.
CoRev You’re getting desperate and making a fool of yourself. You know perfectly well that Washington state and the northeast corridor got slammed early and without any warning. They locked down hard and got the spread under control. They learned from their mistakes. You should be asking why states like Florida or South Dakota or Texas didn’t take proactive measures even though they had the advantage of advance warning and “lessons learned” of how to control the spread. And some of those states still haven’t learned. A peak in a state like Florida is an indicator that the governor was asleep at the switch. There never should have been a peak. Those states had plenty of warning.
You’ve worked in DOD and know the value of after action reports
I also worked their long enough to know the difference between an after action report and a CYA report. Apparently you don’t.
Yes. This. Exactly. Why are Texas and Florida screwing it up when there is a clear path to some form of success. Imperfect though it is. They could learn from New York as well. But no, ideology triumphs over learning and obvious example and lots of Texans and Floridians die. Sacrificed on tribal loyalty. Econ 101, which is all I ever has, would lead a rational person to see this as self defeating and against one’s interest in maximizing utility. It is not so hard, ya’ll, especially if I can figure it out.
“Why did you ignore the next sentence of that paragraph: “…then you must accept just as valid any date in April for comparison.”
Because I ignore your lies as there are so many. Come on CoRev – this is worse than even your rants over soybean prices. So many words but not a single coherent point. Move on troll.
2slugs, tell PGL “The 7-day moving average is a simple constant.”
CoRev must have pulled this quote out of his a$$. I doubt this troll even knows what the word “constant” even means. Now WTF does this word salad means in the context of this discussion – who knows? But if one follows the 7-day moving average over time, it is certainly not constant.
Maybe we should send over 100 monkeys each with their own typewriters to write CoRev’s comments for him. At least one of the comments would on occassion make sense. CoRev by himself writes nothing but gibberish.
“Even Menzie, well over a month later has to admit that Bruce was correct”
Seriously? Bruce may have gotten a data point correct but missed the whole point. He has a habit of doing that. And of course CoRev missed the entire point of this post. Bruce may be a bit stupid but you are still the master – Stupid Man Alive!
I actually tried to go through CoRev’s babbling about how my sources on crossnational comparisons were not reliable and it came down to two arguments:
(1) He is mad I used a world source to do comparisons across nations whereas he is using a US source to measure the US data. But wait his source does not do cross national comparisons since it is looking at US data only. Isn’t that like me saying I’m the taller person in the room even though I’m only 5’6″. Now if I walked into a kindergarten class maybe but not if I walked out onto the court in tonight’s game between the Lakers and the Rockets. Crossnational comparisons using only 1 nation – how is that done again CoRev? Maybe you should write a paper on this neat procedure.
(2) He accuses me of using single day data but I guess he did not notice the header from my source clearly stated it was reporting 7-day averages.
It is hard to tell whether CoRev is just lying or simply relying on trained monkeys to type his usual gibberish.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/rudy-has-been-playing-footsie-with-sanctioned-active-russian-agent-for-months
‘The Ukrainian MP sanctioned by the Treasury today for interfering in the 2020 election has had a long streak of cooperation with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and has been peddling information to the GOP for years. Andrii Derkach met with Rudy Giuliani at least twice during period of time in which the Treasury says Derkach was waging “a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election.” The Ukrainian MP, who was once a member of the political party that employed Paul Manafort, has spent much of the past three years trying to broadcast disinformation from the former Soviet Republic that would help Republican politicians and hurt the Democrats. Most recently, that has taken the form of supposed recordings of Vice President Joe Biden speaking with Ukraine’s head of state in 2016.’
I watched traitor Rudy being interviewed this morning. So many lies, so little time that I thought I was reading the usual comments from the Usual Suspects. But as the interview went on and Rudy spewed so many lies in record time, I thought to myself that we should tell Bruce Hall and CoRev up their games. Rudy is kicking their a$$ses with his serial dishonesty. RUDY!
Well, clear evidence that Trump needs to fire SecTreas Mnuchin who allowed such sanctions on a Trump ally. That dept needs to be run by a full-blown Trump sycophant flunkie like DOJ, ONI, DHS, and other crucial departments and agencies. Can’t have these “independent” decisions happening that do not support the Trump reelection bid!
Willie, the subtlety of your comment may be lost. One shows new when it is the intent to show where the problems currently exist; one shows cumulative when the intent is to compare cumulative severity.
This is useful when one wants to compare absolute levels of deaths by state:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covid19-deaths-us-by-state/
This is useful when one wants to compare deaths adjusted for population by state:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/
This is useful when one wants to compare current conditions by state:
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-Counts-of-Deaths-by-State-and-Select-Causes/muzy-jte6
However, this requires downloading the data and summarizing in either Numbers or Excel.
NPR attempts an in-depth look as state data and comes up with some interesting charts and maps. There is one tally that is helpful: Total Cases And Weekly Trends, By State And Territory. But it is not interactive, so you can’t sort by different dimensions. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/01/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s
“Willie, the subtlety of your comment may be lost. One shows new when it is the intent to show where the problems currently exist; one shows cumulative when the intent is to compare cumulative severity.”
Wow – such utter word salad gibberish over a simple matter of presenting growth rates in logs. No wonder your comments are worthless 100% of the time!
Bruce Hall: The log operator induces a monotonic transformation.
Gee Bruce – you start a conversation by making false claims about the daily increases in death rates. So what does the serial liar Bruce Hall do? He switches the metric. OK CoRev lies a lot too but at least he does not move the goal posts to an entire new nation.
You are wrong. I am never subtle.
I’ve been looking at the state data that Menzie provided us with. At the height of the crisis in NY, we were seeing almost 800 deaths (all figures based on 7-year averages) a day. But for the last 3 weeks, the daily death count in NY on a 7-year average has been 5. Still more than it should be but considerable progress.
Of course CoRev’s magical data research concluded that the NY daily death count was still quite high relative to other states. Given that the national count is still well over 700, we must have a lot of states beyond the official 50.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/mar/25/trump-says-he-hopes-to-win-coronavirus-battle-by-easter-video
Remember when Trump predicted this virus would be over by Easter. That was April 12, 2020. It seems the virus death count peaked just after Easter with over 2000 people dying per day. But now Trump says we have rounded the final corner. Note in this video how Dr. Fauci keeps looking down. I bet he was restraining himself from calling BS on Trump’s BS.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809
Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19
The politically appointed HHS spokesperson and his team demanded and received the right to review CDC’s scientific reports to health professionals.
The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals. In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump’s optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation. CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes, but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon.
OK – Trump lies about everything as all that matters is his reelection. If you mother dies – that does not matter. MAGA!
For those who (for some peculiar reason) insist that NY is “worse” than everybody else, there is only one twisted parameter left that they can cling their desperate hopes to – the “total number of COVID-19 deaths per million people since the beginning of the pandemic”. It is not a parameter that serves any informational or scientific purpose – its only purpose seems to be political. It simply tells us that NY (and NJ) took the first early hit from the Trump administrations incompetence in stopping COVID-19 before it got out of hand.
Well said. NY State over the last 3 weeks has seen 0.25 daily deaths per million.
CoRev is telling us that we have turned the final corner because the national death count has finally gotten down to 750 per day. Which is 2.25 per million. Nine times that of NY State.
Of course Bruce Hall has to change the subject as his job is to lie for Trump. As far as CoRev – he has just gone delusional.
You will note that places like Texas and Florida never compare themselves to Washington State. This state got hit early, locked down early, and is still mostly locked down. The death rate since early time has only had one bad spike in July. We may have another this month due to Labor Day, but we don’t know yet. The infection rates are not going up much. And our economy is not appreciably worse than any other state.
Another point that the right conveniently forgets is that the state of the art for treating an infection was a ventilator when early states got hit. The body of knowledge has progressed way beyond that to far more effective treatments. We have an inkling of how to prevent the spread and then how to treat those who get sick now. This makes the abysmal performance of Texas, Florida, Georgia, and the like just that much more inexcusable.
It took CoRev literally forever to understand what Menzie meant by “The concept of local maxima/minima might be useful to keep in mind.”
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2020/09/covid-19-fatality-projections
And CoRev’s latest angry rant shows he already forgot. Look it may be good news that daily deaths have dropped from over 1000 to 750 but this is still too high. And there is no guarantee that this will not rise again. Dr. Fauci patiently explained his concerns.
Of course none of this can get past CoRev’s thick skull as it is an empty shell.
File this under how stupid some people are. A college kid in Ohio has had this virus for a week. So he invites 100 people over to his house for a big old party. His excuse? Everyone of his guest also tested positive for COVID-19. The reporter forgot to ask – was CoRev and Bruce Hall at this party? Party on!
At least they have an excuse…they’re dumb college kids. The real crime is that our “law and order” President is flagrantly violating local and state laws with his large rallies. They should arrest his advance team that set up these illegal rallies.
No need. They will all end up in quarantine when they test positive. It is only a matter of time before it gets past the head coward’s wall of safety.
“They should arrest his advance team that set up these illegal rallies.”
in truth, this is how to combat trump. trump had a great ability to distort other people’s moral compass-my brother accurately called trump a magnet for this distorting ability. it may take awhile, but if you begin to target the nitwits who follow trump, either blindly or knowingly, you will eventually have an impact on his ability to cause damage. trump does not do the damage himself, he relies on others to take up his motives and execute the crimes. like a mafia boss. trump may be an idiot, but he has effectively trained himself to make sure the sh!t don’t stick to him-it sticks to those around him. once you understand that, and target those around him, you will have much more impact on his abilities.
Menzie, I wasn’t commenting on log scale vs. linear. I was commenting about timeframes and instances/population. Without introducing population, we can only talk about rates of change. But now I see, in very fine print on your charts (15-inch laptop screen), that “per capita fatality rates” are what is being depicted on the second, but not the first chart.
While your second chart appears to be correct (as much as I can identify of it), the spaghetti nature of it makes it a little more confusing other than to identify that New York and New Jersey had significantly higher deaths early on than California, Florida, and Illinois which now show higher rates than New York… which is what I was offering up in different formats that make it a bit easier to compare states’ data:
• total cumulative deaths (hard to identify from your charts)
• death rates (reasonable “eyeball” approximations)
• current active areas (that’s a relative concept when “active” now is about 1/8 to 1/6 of what it was in April and difficult to see on your chart as the lines tend to merge)
• current trends (almost impossible to see on your charts which is where the NPR chart excels)
We are in agreement about the data; we just have different opinions about what communicates the important data.
Bruce Hall: The FT has a very easy to use interactive device if you want to see any of these things you are interested in, including cumulatives. In fact you have (for countries or for US states), log, linear; raw, per million; new, cumulative. Check it out: https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=ustx&byDate=0&cumulative=0&logScale=1&perMillion=0&values=deaths
Menzie, thanks. I took a quick look at the cumulative data for the purpose of comparing with CDC data. New York immediately pops out as understated by about 7,600 deaths. The other states are closer to agreeing with the CDC and other sources, but have variances both plus and minus, so I’m not sure if their sources are reliable.
But I appreciate the link.
FT has been at the top of reporting the progression of the pandemic, on both sides of the atlantic and far east. they have done a very good job explaining the poor performance of sweden, both economically and pandemic ally. they have pointed out the failures in the us response. they have also had pretty good reporting on how china has maintained control of the virus while growing their economy. i have been impressed with ft, so much so that i no longer follow the wsj.
“If you are trying to argue that fatality counts are currently higher in NY than in CA, Fl, NJ, IL, see figure 1, below. If you are trying to argue that currently per capita fatality rates are higher in NY than in CA, Fl, NJ, IL, see figure 2. (Note Figure 1 on a log scale.) ”
bruce hall, this is the FIRST line of menzie’s post. notice the words “fatality counts” and “per capita fatality rates”. listed in the FIRST line of the post. i do not believe menzie had any difficulty on the communication side. i think you had an inability to read and comprehend. before you criticize the host, why not actually read what the host has to say?
“Without introducing population, we can only talk about rates of change. ”
This is why we call you Single Statistic Bruce no relationship to Robert Hall.
Most 3 year olds know how to do per capita series. Most 4 year olds know how to convert a total series to its first derivative aka rate of change.
I guess you think combining the two elementary concepts is left for Ph.D. programs in advance mathematics. Which is why the kindergarten kids are laughing at you.
The basic data is there. Excel makes these trivial concepts easy to execute. But if we must – we will all pitch in and send you a copy of Data Analysis for Dummies.
pgl, lots of word salad, but no actual work on your part.
You might have noticed, if you actually read the comments, that I was not disagreeing with Menzie, but stating that the data could be shown/communicated better. You might have also noticed that there is a glaring error for your home state’s data from FT.
But you are too busy trying to come up with “cute” personal attacks, so ….
I’m sorry. I forgot you have a patent on word salad. Have you taken your daily dose of bleach?
I checked the latest data on NY State’s 7-day moving average for COVID-19 daily deaths and it has dropped by 4.9. Of course CoRev is now trying to tell us that this type of a series is a “simple constant” whatever the heck that means. I guess this is how CoRev has concluded that NY State has a higher daily death count than other states.
Let’s see. Florida is at 113 and Texas is at 96. Oh wait – I did not do this per capita.
OK, the NY count represents 0.25 deaths per million. Texas is a mere 3.25 per million and Florida is tiny 5.2 per million. Yes – NY is so much higher than the other states if one does basic arithmetic the way CoRev was taught.
Following is some information regarding the potential cardiac health risk to people–of all ages–who have been exposed to the Coronavirus. What may be especially concerning to parents is the potential short-term to long-term health risk to younger people, from undiagnosed myocarditis resulting from a very mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 infection–especially given that myocarditis can reportedly lead to cardiac arrest, with exertion. Because of this risk, the Red Sox’s 27-year old pitching ace, who tested positive for the virus and myocarditis, is sitting out the season. Note that almost all of the college athletes in the article linked below–who tested positive for the virus and myocarditis–had no or very mild COVID-19 symptoms.
The cardiac risk data are especially concerning in the context of what we have recently learned is the discrepancy between what President Trump has said in private versus what he said in public regarding the COVID-19 threat over the past several months.
I also outlined a hypothetical “What if,” to-wit, what if the US government had chosen to implement the same type of COVID-19 response that South Korea implemented?
COVID-19 MYOCARDITIS RISK TO YOUNG AN OLD
There seems to be increasing evidence that the Coronavirus may pose a short-term to long-term health risk to both young people and older people, because of frequently undiagnosed myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle, usually caused by a viral infection.
According to the Myocarditis Foundation, “For most patients, if they receive an early diagnosis, they are able to survive myocarditis without needing a heart transplant. However, 1-8% of those diagnosed with myocarditis require a heart transplant.” Of course, requiring a transplant does not necessarily mean receiving a transplant.
Regarding COVID-19, a doctor at Ohio State found that about one out of seven college athletes who contracted the Coronavirus had evidence of myocarditis.
A German study, of all Coronavirus infected age groups, revealed “Cardiac involvement in 78% of patients, and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60%.”
If we extrapolate these two studies, it seems to me that it suggests that the total number of largely undiagnosed COVID-19 related myocarditis conditions could be somewhere between about one million and four million people in the US, just using the current confirmed total infection case count of 6.4 million in the US.
Note that due to limited testing, the actual number of COVID-19 cases in the US is probably much higher than 6.4 million, and by extension, the total number of largely undiagnosed myocarditis conditions would plausibly be much higher than one to four million to date.
Given the current confirmed daily new US COVID-19 case count of about 40,000 per day, based on the above studies it’s possible that the number of potential COVID related myocarditis cases is increasing at the rate of about 6,000 to 24,000 per day.
By the way, the new COVID-19 case count for South Korea is running at 121 per day. Adjusted for population differences, our current new daily case count is about 50 times higher than South Korea’s.
Some relevant links:
Red Sox ace, 27, won’t pitch this season because of heart ailment (Myocarditis) linked to covid-19
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/08/02/red-sox-ace-27-wont-pitch-this-season-because-heart-ailment-linked-covid-19/
Doctors Enter College Football’s Politics
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/sports/ncaafootball/college-football-myocarditis-coronavirus.html
Excerpt:
Dr. Curt Daniels, the director of sports cardiology at Ohio State, had also been busy, working to publish a three-month study whose preliminary findings were presented to Pac-12 and Big Ten leaders before they shut down football earlier this month. Daniels said that cardiac M.R.I.s, an expensive and sparingly used tool, revealed an alarmingly high rate of myocarditis — heart inflammation that can lead to cardiac arrest with exertion — among college athletes who had recovered from the coronavirus.
The survey found myocarditis in close to 15 percent of athletes who had the virus, almost all of whom experienced mild or no symptoms, Daniels added, perhaps shedding more light on the uncertainties about the short- and long-term effects the virus may have on athletes.
Frankfurt study finds high rate of cardiac complications in recovered COVID-19 patients
https://cardiovascularnews.com/frankfurt-study-finds-high-rate-of-cardiac-complications-in-recovered-covid-19-patients/
Excerpt:
A German study of recently-recovered COVID-19 patients examined using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed cardiac involvement in 78% of patients, and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60%. Published online in JAMA: Cardiology, the study’s findings indicate the need for ongoing investigation of the long-term cardiovascular consequences of COVID-19, according to lead author Valentina Puntmann (University Hospital Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany) and colleagues.
Myocarditis Foundation (With a pediatric myocarditis brochure)
https://www.myocarditisfoundation.org/about-myocarditis/
Mayo Clinic
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/myocarditis/symptoms-causes/syc-20352539
DEPRAVED INDIFFERENCE?
I’m sure everyone has heard about Bob Woodward’s book. Following is a link to the Washington Post article and a link to a brief Lincoln Project summary:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump/2020/09/09/0368fe3c-efd2-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1303761269455904768?s=20
Carl Bernstein, who of course, along with Woodward, exposed Nixon’s crimes during the Watergate investigation, called Trump’s actions regarding the virus “Homicidal negligence,” and “The worst presidential felony in US history.”
For example, Trump can be heard on tape telling Woodward on February 7 that the virus was airborne and at least five times more deadly the seasonal flu, describing the Coronavirus as “Deadly stuff.” Note that using the 5% COVID-19 fatality number that Trump used in early February, the COVID-19 fatality rate would actually be about fifty (50) times more deadly than the seasonal flu.
On March 19, Trump admitted to Woodward that he deliberately minimized the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said.
Later, on March 25, Trump told the American public that he wanted the US economy fully reopened by Easter, on April 12. He also publicly described the concern over the virus as a “hoax” and publicly asserted that it was no worse than the flu.
Note that South Korea and the US had their first diagnosed COVID-19 cases at the same time. Adjusted for population differences, if we had the same death rate as South Korea, we would have had total COVID deaths to date of about 2,200 instead of rapidly approaching a total death count of 200,000.
Trump is asserting that he declined to tell the truth about the Coronavirus because he didn’t want to cause panic, and he is comparing his response to Churchill’s response to the Nazi threat in the Second World War, quoting the phrase, “Keep calm and carry on.”
There are at least two problems with this analogy. First, as the Washington Post pointed out, the phrase was actually not used in Great Britain during the war and second, Churchill was brutally honest about the threat posed by the Nazis. In May, 1940, Churchill said, “If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground”.
‘Keep calm and carry on’: Trump compared himself to Brits in the Blitz. But that phrase was never used in WWII.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/11/trump-churchill-covid-calm/
Excerpt:
Jon Meacham, the author of “Franklin and Winston,” a history of Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s friendship, suggested a Churchill quote that might be more apt to Trump’s situation: “The British people can face any misfortune with fortitude & buoyancy as long as they are convinced that those in charge of their affairs are not deceiving them, or are not dwelling in a fool’s paradise.”
End Excerpt.
Since President Trump has invoked the Second World War, following is a relevant quote from that time period, by Joseph Goebbels:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Following is a link to and an excerpt from an editorial in Science Magazine:
Science Magazine: Trump lied about science
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/11/science.abe7391
Excerpt:
Trump was not clueless, and he was not ignoring the briefings. Listen to his own words. Trump lied, plain and simple.
End Excerpt.
Given Trump’s position and access to data, one could plausibly make a case that he is probably guilty of depraved indifference, and interesting enough, a former federal prosecutor agrees with me:
Depraved Indifference Law and Legal Definition
https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/
Excerpt:
The crime (depraved indifference) differs from intentional murder in that it results not from a specific, conscious intent to cause death, but from an indifference to or disregard of the risks attending defendant’s conduct.
Former federal prosecutor: Trump admitted to ‘2nd degree murder’ in Woodward interview
https://news.yahoo.com/former-federal-prosecutor-trump-admitted-190200145.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=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&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMdckgbmlYsXWHn-gmhjHbdB7WTOmF1itUapXFSdQCBg5kZUZxeKuDs0kZ8tsyx0347-ToN_oJ0lxY0gGTvzc1zvm1MogNOX-RTuNPxGJNWKVFhJYNyl3Y_f_uF95Dv7fLjM2MAnbl9x6TR71xLDjYUi1r9RfVgijAWDn-t6rRBv
Excerpt:
Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner thinks President Trump’s coronavirus admissions should land him in prison. . .
“There are only two elements for second-degree murder. The first is you caused the death of another,” Kirschner said Thursday. That factor was fulfilled because Trump “was lying to the American people about the danger this virus posed,” and now 190,000 people are dead, Kirschner said. “The second element is the intent element,” which would “get tricky if we didn’t have Trump’s incriminating admissions,” he continued. But “in my opinion as a career prosecutor,” Trump admitted to “conscious disregard” of the risk his coronavirus downplay created, thus admitting to “second-degree murder” that he “must be held accountable” for, Kirschner finished.
TOTAL ESTIMATED US COVID-19 FATALITIES AND WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
Let’s assume that the US government chose to emulate South Korea’s approach to the virus, and let’s assume that the government was successful in this regard. In round numbers, this would probably imply that we would have seen a total cumulative COVID-19 death count of about 5,000 or so in the US.
The following study, which so far appears to be accurate, suggests a most likely US total death count of about 410,000, just through the end of 2020.
Again in regard to the Second World War, note that the difference between 410,000 and 5,000 is 405,000, which happens to be equal to the estimated total number of Americans who died in the Second World War.
Key coronavirus forecast predicts over 410,000 total U.S. deaths by Jan. 1: ‘The worst is yet to come’
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/key-coronavirus-forecast-predicts-over-410000-total-us-deaths-by-jan-1.html
Excerpt:
IHME released three new projections based on different assumptions: a worst-case scenario, a best-case scenario and a most likely scenario. The most likely scenario estimates that Covid-19 will kill 410,450 people in the U.S. by Jan. 1. The worst-case scenario, which assumes that restrictions and mask directives will ease, projects up to 620,028 people in the U.S. will die by then and the best-case scenario, which assumes universal masking, predicts that 288,380 people in the U.S. will die from Covid-19 in 2020.
Peter Navarro loses it again:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/navarro-trump-covid-woodward-cherry-picking
“Navarro Grows Irate As He Accuses CNN Host Of ‘Cherry Picking’ Trump’s COVID Downplay
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Sunday found himself in a heated exchange with CNN’s Jake Tapper as the anchor took him to task on President Trump’s purposeful downplaying of the COVID-19 pandemic in its early stages, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book.”
When I first watch this tirade by Navarro, I started to laugh the way I laugh at CoRev’s irate and overheated nonsense. But this has been happening so much, one has to wonder if someone should check out whether Navarro has not lost his marbles entirely. Then again – could it be? CoRev and Navarro are the same person?
navarro simply wants to argue by authority. he will be a target of the biden department of justice after all is said and done. he is too arrogant to cover his tracks like trump. and he is guilty of crimes against america. he is symbolic of how entitlement and privilege can wreck the nation.
Some interesting cross national comparisons:
https://www.pairagraph.com/dialogue/fc2f8d46f10040d080d551c945e7a363
“Life expectancy at birth in the United States today is 78.6 years. Life expectancy at birth in Japan today is 84.5; in Singapore, 85.1; in Switzerland, 84.3; France, 83.1; in Germany, 80.9. U.S. life expectancy is on a par with Poland, Tunisia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Albania; below Peru, Columbia, Chile, Jordan, and Sri Lanka; and only a year greater than China.
The United States currently has ~300 deaths per hundred million people per day from the coronavirus plague. The United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Germany, and Canada each have less than 10.
The United States has the amazing spectacle not just of Donald Trump as president, but of a huge number of American worthies—from Mitch McConnell in the Senate and Kevin McCarthy in the House, from Paul Ryan to Chris Christie, from Dean Baquet and Maureen Dowd and James Bennet to James Comey, all of them deciding that rather than do their proper jobs they would work to raise the odds that Trump would obtain and maintain power and increase the likelihood that he would do major damage in order to boost their personal positions in various ways.”
One co-author was Brad DeLong. I noted over at Brad’s place that the Usual Suspects will likely get overheated over these statistics.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/woodward-trump-failed-covid-19-threat-downplay
The 60 Minutes interview with Bob Woodward is tonight. A key preview.
I’m afraid that Mr. Trump does not fare very well in regard to the Woodward interviews, but as a prior president said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Of course, in what would be an unbelievable plot twist in a novel, 45 years after a prior president arranged to have himself taped while committing crimes, we have another president acquiescing to having himself recorded, while making incriminating admissions, with Bob Woodward being the common connection between the two events. When it comes to presidential hubris, as a cartoon character decades ago said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Woodward had little to do with those tapes. Some dude named Butterworth did. Actually I think Nixon had forgotten about the taping system he asked to be installed. Trump on the other hand thought these Woodward interviews would make him look good. Yes – Trump is that delusional.
Of course it’s obvious that Woodward was not involved in the Nixon tapes per se. My point is that Woodward is the common denominator between Watergate and “Coronagate.”
However, it’s entirely possible that the Congressional hearings that revealed Nixon’s taping system might not have happened without Woodward & Bernstein’s investigative journalism.
In any case, as one TV analyst said, forget the fact that Trump probably caused the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, Trump is too stupid to serve as president (because he agreed to recorded interviews with Woodward right before an election)–and this is the last thing in the world that Republicans in tight races want to be talking about. To modify a lyric from a song, “How do you like him now?”
COVID-19 Can Wreck Your Heart, Even if You Haven’t Had Any Symptoms (8/31/20)
Carolyn Barber, M.D.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-19-can-wreck-your-heart-even-if-you-havent-had-any-symptoms/?print=true
Carolyn Barber, M.D., has been an emergency department physician for 25 years. She is co-founder of the homeless work program Wheels of Change, and the author of many articles and a new book, Runaway Medicine: What You Don’t Know May Kill You.
Excerpt:
We’ve also known for a while that some COVID-19 patients’ hearts are taking a beating, too—but over the past few weeks, the evidence has strengthened that cardiac damage can happen even among people who have never displayed symptoms of coronavirus infection. And these frightening findings help explain why college and professional sports leagues are proceeding with special caution as they make decisions about whether or not to play. . .
Here’s the background: Myocarditis appears to result from the direct infection of the virus attacking the heart, or possibly as a consequence of the inflammation triggered by the body’s overly aggressive immune response. And it is not age-specific: In The Lancet, doctors recently reported on an 11-year-old child with multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C)—a rare illness—who died of myocarditis and heart failure. At autopsy, pathologists were able to identify coronavirus particles present in the child’s cardiac tissue, helping to explain the virus’ direct involvement in her death. In fact, researchers are reporting the presence of viral protein in the actual heart muscle, of six deceased patients. Of note is the fact that these patients were documented to have died of lung failure, having had neither clinical signs of heart involvement, nor a prior history of cardiac disease.
Ossama Samuel, associate chief of cardiology at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York, told me about a cluster of younger adults developing myocarditis, some of them a month or so after they had recovered from COVID-19. One patient, who developed myocarditis four weeks after believing he had recovered from the virus, responded to a course of steroid treatment only to develop a recurrence in the form of pericarditis (an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart). A second patient, in her 40s, now has reduced heart function from myocarditis, and a third—an athletic man in his 40s—is experiencing recurring and dangerous ventricular heart rhythms, necessitating that he wear a LifeVest defibrillator for protection. His MRI also demonstrates fibrosis and scarring of his heart muscle, which may be permanent, and he may ultimately require placement of a permanent defibrillator.
This is an incredibly tricky diagnosis. Patients with myocarditis often experience symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain, fever and fatigue—while some have no symptoms at all. . .
Experts estimate that half of myocarditis cases resolve without a chronic complication, but several studies suggest that COVID-19 patients show signs of the condition months after contracting the virus. One non–peer reviewed study, involving 139 health care workers who developed coronavirus infection and recovered, found that about 10 weeks after their initial symptoms, 37 percent of them were diagnosed with myocarditis or myopericarditis—and fewer than half of those had showed symptoms at the time of their scans.
Any such cardiac sequelae lingering weeks to months after the fact is clearly concerning, and we’re seeing more evidence of it. A German study found that 78 percent of recovered COVID-19 patients, the majority of whom had only mild to moderate symptoms, demonstrated cardiac involvement more than two months after their initial diagnoses. Six in 10 were found to have persistent myocardial inflammation. . . .
Samuel called it “extremely dangerous” for athletes diagnosed with myocarditis to play competitive sports for at least three to six months, because of the risk of serious arrhythmia or sudden death, and several athletes already have made the decision to heed those dire warnings. We’ll likely see more such decisions in the very near future, as each sport enters its peak season.
And for the rest of us? Wear a mask, social distance, avoid large gatherings, and spend more time in the great outdoors. I would echo the advice of J.N.: “Be careful. Just don’t get the virus in the beginning.” As of today, it’s still the best defense we’ve got.
pgl’s favorite update: https://www.dropbox.com/s/254j3076qstairp/Covid-19%20Deaths%2C%20Cases%2C%20and%20Hospitalizations%20-%209-15-20.pdf?dl=0
Apparently, the “second wave” peaked the week of July 25.
7-day moving “cases” are decreasing rapidly despite the inclusion of asymptomatic infections.
Hospitalizations are dropping and among school-age children are extremely low.
Bruce,
Actually that was the peak of the second part of the first wave, which had different time patterns in different parts of the country. We have not seen second wave yet anywhere in the country, with our gradual decline from the peak of the first wave still going on, with US way above most other countries in both new cases per capita as well as hospitalizations and deaths. Some other nations are now having second waves, such as Spain and Israel.