Althouse: "The coronavirus pandemic could kill more than 81,000 people in the United States in the next four months and may not subside until June..."

March 27, 2020

"The coronavirus pandemic could kill more than 81,000 people in the United States in the next four months and may not subside until June..."

"... according to a data analysis done by University of Washington School of Medicine. The number of hospitalized patients is expected to peak nationally by the second week of April, though the peak may come later in some states. Some people could continue to die of the virus as late as July, although deaths should be below epidemic levels of 10 per day by June at the latest, according to the analysis. The analysis, using data from governments, hospitals and other sources, predicts that the number of U.S. deaths could vary widely, ranging from as low as around 38,000 to as high as around 162,000."

Reuters reports.

This is reassuring.

434 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 434 of 434

narciso said...: https://mobile.twitter.com/topsecretk9/status/1243718970403741696?s=21; 3/27/20, 9:13 PM
Dude1394 said...: Is t it strange. I look on worldometer. It has 104,000 cases 2500 or so recovered. It should be about 102,000 or so recovered. It really is exploitive.; 3/27/20, 9:13 PM
narciso said...: are you sure; 3/27/20, 9:16 PM
Ken B said...: Unknown
Dead and recovered are end states. Eventually everyone ends up in one or the other. But first they are active
Most cases are still active, over 99,000 of them; 3/27/20, 9:17 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Rush will be around for 30 more years. In person, live. Rush is a great American.; 3/27/20, 9:20 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: What Buckley gave Limbaugh was political power.

Yes, being naive, he squandered it, assuming Althouse-level decency among the Dick Gepharts and Joe Leibermans and ,,,,,,,,, well whatever.; 3/27/20, 9:24 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Rush might be one of the very greatest of Americans, a high honor indeed.; 3/27/20, 9:26 PM
Michael K said...: Ken B: "Inga is helping. She has answered technical medical questions. She has tried to provide useful information, and has done so.

Look at who is sniping at her endlessly about unimportant stuff. A poster who has done none of those things."

Michael K is a medical professional with a broad range of experience and insight. He has provided much useful information and guidance and is helping.

Yet Ken B continuously snipes at Michael K every time Michael posts and especially when Michael doesn't immediately accept whatever statistical nonsense Ken B is peddling that day.

Discuss.

Why I scan the comments and post elsewhere most of the time. This is a political blog. Sometimes it is interesting.

There are a few commenters whose comments I always read. Then there are commenters who wish I was dead. Those I don't read and I avoid threads they are commenting in.; 3/27/20, 9:32 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Italy had a major flu problem before anyone had ever heard of the virus called SARS-CoV-2. They had 68,000 excess deaths (focus on word "excess") from the flu.

Source: Rosano et al. (2019); 3/27/20, 9:37 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Only time I left American Spain was bombed by terrorists.

I see patterns before pattern see'ers see patterns, since Ireland 2005.; 3/27/20, 9:47 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Don't make sense but I guess it was 2004.

Don't get it.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/terrorists-bomb-trains-in-madrid; 3/27/20, 9:51 PM
narciso said...: The planner was a syrian national who had been involved in the bombing at torrejon afb in 1985 (previously attributed to hezbollah); 3/27/20, 9:57 PM
Achilles said...: Browndog said...
Jordan Schachtel
‏Verified account @JordanSchachtel

Hardest hit countries from COVID-19 (deaths/million):
1) Italy 136
2) Spain 104
3) Netherlands 32
4) France 26
5) Belgium 25
6) Switzerland 24
All pursuing harsh lockdown policy^

No lockdown but social distancing:

S Korea 3
Taiwan 0.08
Japan 0.4
Singapore 0.3

Worth monitoring.

Actually I think temperature and humidity had more to do with this than any policy.

COVID-19 follows a fairly narrow band.; 3/27/20, 9:58 PM
narciso said...: Comey shutting down the stellar winf on the night of march 10th had more to do with it.; 3/27/20, 10:03 PM
Drago said...: You know, it never occurred to me that one day the US would equal China for the number of Chicom propagandists in its midst.; 3/27/20, 10:03 PM
Drago said...: It appears there is now a second completed study by renowned epidemiologist Dr. Didier Raoult in France where he was able to repeat his findings that HC+Azithromax was effective for almost 100% of patients.

In this study, HC+Az was given to 80 patients and all improved except for one 86 year old with an advanced case of this virus.

Of course, we won't really know how to assess this result until the Chinese Communists review the results and lets the US media know if they are allowed to tout the results or not.

Let's hope the media's ChiCom masters do this quickly.; 3/27/20, 10:12 PM
narciso said...: Theodore dalrymple, shows cautious approval; 3/27/20, 10:13 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: This is a link Gram ought be proud of, the great artist.; 3/27/20, 10:18 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: As Gram knew, it's not now, nor has it ever been about now, it's about this:

Hardin makin' he link text known boy.; 3/27/20, 10:26 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: The real lyric by the Satanic racist homophobic evil band The Rolling Stones is: Graceless slave.

Not Graceless lady.

Graceless slave.

By the racist hateful Satanic ultra-cunt mother&^^%%^ band The Rolling Stones,

slave-advocating fuckheads.

British suck it.; 3/27/20, 10:40 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Some Brit Billionaire to any American: I watched you suffer.

Next.

Keep your dullcunting ultra-unpain away from us Mick. Son of bitch. You killed enough Americans for this go. Go rot away from us wrinkle-stink fuck.; 3/27/20, 10:45 PM
Yancey Ward said...: "But some ventured pretty certain predictions. Ward said 7500 dead in the US, tops. I asked him two days ago if he stood by that. He did. He's confident. I hope no one relies on his confident assurances."

I made that prediction, Ken, when the "experts" were predicting up to 2.2 million dead, or more.

Whose prediction is likely to end up closer? If 20,000 end up dead in the US by the end of the year, would I really be wrong, or just more correct than the experts?; 3/28/20, 12:06 AM
Yancey Ward said...: The experts have already moved their predictions within my order of magnitude, so if you have a complaint, take it up with them.

By the way, what was your prediction, Ken?; 3/28/20, 12:07 AM
Ken B said...: What expert changed his prediction Yancey? Not Ferguson. His prediction of what would happen with no interventions still stands. He said so. He made another prediction, based on the current British interventions being maintained for a year or more until a vaccine is found. Making a different prediction under different circumstances is not walking back the original one.

But clever of you to try to triple your prediction there. You are already getting what you call an orders of magnitude break since the US is doing something akin to what the Brits are. If anything 7500 should end up too high if your initial analysis was correct and then we had a partial lockdown.; 3/28/20, 12:35 AM
Greg the class traitor said...: Ken B said...
Greg tct
Which numbers?

The $10 trillion dollars worst case estimate of the "cost" of letting Chinese Coronavirus run amuck, vs the cost of all these "stay at home orders"

I think US infections are showing exponential growth. The graphs are available online.

1: US is finally ramping up testing. We should be seeing an increase in the "known cases" curve on the log view. Instead, if anything, it's bending slightly down

2: Consider our Host's home State of WI: https://covidtracking.com/data/state/wisconsin/

842 positive tests, 13,140 negative. We're looking at a 6% positive test rate, even with the tight criteria for getting to get tested.. This isn't a widely spread disease.

3: NYC, maybe a couple other crowded US cities that rely on mass transit (esp if they rely on subway systems, which appear to be designed to spread infections, even worse than buses) are going to get screwed by the Chinese Coronavirus.

The rest of the US? Not so much; 3/28/20, 1:07 AM
Nichevo said...: Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
Francisco D ... insane partisan stupidity

ARM, I thought I taught you not to do that, but you are a slow learner.

Ken B,

I'm on the fence about you. While you've displeased me before, you have a certain knowledge, a certain facility; but the ease with which you have been drawn into personality conflicts doesn't reflect well upon the intellectual detachment you profess. Pretty testy for a Canuck, aren't you.

Why don't you take it as a compliment, that you should be better than to lower yourself to argle-bargle. Instead, though, you seem to prefer it to answering legitimate, well-intended questions, e.g. mine.

FYI, my estimate of US deaths is a loose 15K-50K, glad to be lower than that; doubt higher than 65K. The faster drug therapies and other treatments such as plasma inoculation may be found and tried, the lower it will be, as well as rushing a vaccine into deployment before next season hits, assuming seasonal which seems likely. A wild card is this specter of fulminating reinfection.

A second priority is bronchial therapy for afflicted survivors. This needs a look.; 3/28/20, 1:18 AM
walter said...: Sigmund Friedrich
@SigmundFriedri1
·
3h
Raoult vs. Levy (INSERM) conflict dates back to his harsh critic of Levy's specialty: HIV vaccine research. Raoult: "a fantasy that cost billions + will never happen because of HIV's specific properties". HIV vaccine = tons of money and prestige for many people. Raoult=PITA; 3/28/20, 1:43 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Nichevo, a slow learner.; 3/28/20, 7:16 AM
bagoh20 said...: The current rate of increase in deaths over the last week has averaged about 30%/day.

Simple arithmetic tells that you get to this 81,000 deaths in less than two weeks. Who thinks we'll get there?; 3/28/20, 10:16 AM
Ken B said...: Nichevo
Thank you.

Let me state the argument that is really irking me. “We were told millions dead if we didn’t take serious and costly steps. Now we have taken those steps, and it’s hurting, and suddenly they tell us only thousands will die. We shouldn’t have taken those steps!” Put like that most people can see the error. And that really is the argument some here make. Just last night one person looked at the 81k number and said if that’s the estimate we have paid too high a price.

PS I lived in Michigan for 15 years. That might explain the testiness! 😉; 3/28/20, 10:32 AM
Ken B said...: Greg
Your point about rapidly growing testing is the most important one. If the situation were static then you would see exponential growth in what you test for. That is true. But you wouldn’t see it in other things. We do see it in other things, including the death rate. The US death rate is a straight line on the logarithmic graph. That is the definition of exponential growth. There are other measures growing exponentially. That is why the idea that it’s just an artifact of more tests doesn’t hold up.

The virus spreads geographically. You cannot just look at states where it has not spread much yet and conclude that, if unchecked, it won’t spread there the way it has elsewhere.

I have no idea where the $10T number came from, so I have no comment on it except that it’s an estimate too.; 3/28/20, 10:42 AM
Jeff Brokaw said...: It seems to me that the only metric that is worth paying attention to is the number of cases requiring hospitalization, locality by locality, and comparing this to both a) number of beds available locally and b) current flu-season numbers with the understanding the timelines are different.

That one family of metrics tells us everything we need to know. And avoids all the manufactured fear and panic.

Illinois does not report # hospitalized but they sure do push the fear and panic side. What does that tell you?; 3/28/20, 11:37 AM
Ken B said...: Jeff Brokaw
I agree the usage numbers are critical.
Why the flu numbers? This isn’t a flu. I know people want to make the argument that since people die of flu these covid deaths are not so important. But I assume you have a more pertinent reason?
I think, especially as we know so little, all measures are important; 3/28/20, 4:54 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Etienne,

By law you have absolutely no requirement to put a serial number on a firearm you manufacture yourself. But if you feel so moved, instead of your old service number let me suggest "FOAD" as much more appropriate to the times.; 3/29/20, 11:50 AM