Thanks a lot Covid Kim

[Pinehawk]

It was the right decision at the time. Just because you didn’t like it doesn’t make it wrong.

No, it wasn't. That is understood by most. The data shows that. Just because you wanted to be overly cautious, and it did a lot of damage, doesn't make it right.

You just want people to be able to make their own decisions...as long as they make the ones you agree with.

 

[SB_SB]

No, it wasn't. That is understood by most. The data shows that. Just because you wanted to be overly cautious, and it did a lot of damage, doesn't make it right.

You just want people to be able to make their own decisions...as long as they make the ones you agree with.

You’re the ones always claiming people should be able to make their own decision but yet Art ridicules the people in the airport. Mask did and do make a difference. I get you don’t like it, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

 

[Pinehawk]

You’re the ones always claiming people should be able to make their own decision but yet Art ridicules the people in the airport. Mask did and do make a difference. I get you don’t like it, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

That's right, they should make their own decisions. That doesn't come free from ridicule though...from either side. But, nobody is preventing someone from wearing a mask. Although, people were prevented from their decision to not wear one.

They did not make a difference. The real world case data proves it. And, many experts have increasingly gone public about masks being ineffective.
I get you want everyone to wear one, but that doesn't make them work.

 

[SB_SB]

That's right, they should make their own decisions. That doesn't come free from ridicule though...from either side. But, nobody is preventing someone from wearing a mask. Although, people were prevented from their decision to not wear one.

They did not make a difference. The real world case data proves it. And, many experts have increasingly gone public about masks being ineffective.
I get you want everyone to wear one, but that doesn't make them work.

I don’t care if you wear a mask or not. Whether you decide to wear a mask or not doesn’t have any influence on whether masks work. If people want to wear a mask, I don’t care at all and I certainly won’t ridicule them.

 

[TJ8869]

I'll run the maths for you here.
Let me know where you cannot keep up.

Total deaths:
NY:68714
Iowa: 9510

Raw deaths per 1M-
NY: 3532
Iowa: 3014

NY looks LOTS worse than Iowa, right?

But look at the March-June data.

If you review the running Case Fatality Rates for the first months of the pandemic, they were well north of 5%.

March: 8.2%
April: 7%
May: 5.3%
June: 2.84%

(those are the CFRs for JUST the month period, using a 7-day crude lag for CFR, which means using April 1-30 for deaths and March 24-April 23 for leading cases for that month)

Every month since June 30, 2020, CFR monthly numbers dropped to mostly between 1% and 2%. Why? Because doctors figured out how to treat patients, and dexamethasone became Standard Of Care treatment for severe cases, which was not known or available during the first 3 months.

So, how do we correct for that, since NY was hit first and hit hard? Adjust their deaths from March-June using that 1-1.5% CFR that became the norm for when others got hit. Early CFRs were easily 4x to 5x worse for NY and others "first in line".

So, how many deaths did NY and Iowa have from March to June 30?

NY: 32152
Iowa: 715

Let's use the 4x ratio, so if they HAD dexamethasone for those first patients, their CFRs would have been 1.5% or so, meaning 3/4ths of those patients would have lived.

Adjusted deaths for Iowa and NY during that period:
(these are 1/4th of actual, based on the CFRs being inflated about 4x-5x; I used 4x)
NY: 8038
Iowa: 179

So, now you can take their total deaths counts, subtract the March-June 30th numbers off, and add back on that 25% estimator that uses a 1.5% CFR.

New adjusted total deaths numbers
NY: 44600
Iowa: 8973

Now, your deaths per 1M are
NY: 2292
Iowa: 2844

When we correct for early CFRs, particularly for states hit very hard early on, we can see that they actually fared a lot better than the crude data show you. This would be the "least biased" comparison you can make, because CFRs are nominally similar across all the time-frames.

The DanGoodspeed charts I've linked before ignored those early 3 months, which is really not a bad metric because CFRs AFTER that date are nominally consistent; they do, however, fail to make the adjustments above for the first 3 months, which is how I would recreate those plots, for every state.

You are Welcome.

P.S. You can take an even more granular approach, by separating out each monthly CFR and correcting those 4 months from March-June with the close CFR numbers, and you'll get an even better "least biased" correction. Feel free to do so. I used numbers off WorldOMeters for this.

You’re ascribing far more life-saving power to dexamethasone than it deserves. It is helpful only for patients once they are on invasive mechanical respiration. And even then it only makes you somewhat less likely to die. It certainly doesn’t account for a 90% drop in CFR. Not even close.

There must be other explanations for the precipitous drop in CFR aside from our forehead-slapping realization that the same corticosteroids that have been used for decades to accelerate lung development in premature infants might also be of some benefit to patients whose lungs are failing due to a respiratory virus.

One such explanation is that the CFR from the first few weeks and months is total bullshit because we had extremely limited testing capacity and we have no idea how many people actually had the virus but never confirmed it with a lab test. Thousands of people - maybe millions - contracted COVID and simply recovered and went on with their lives without ever having been tested because there simply weren’t enough test kits available.

That tends to skew the numbers a bit.

We also had a policy that hospitals could classify a fatality as being COVID related even in the absence of a positive test if their symptoms indicated they likely had COVID. In other words, if someone was admitted to the hospital with COVID-type symptoms they might not have been tested due to a lack of available kits but were treated under the assumption that they had it.

Thousands of people died and were counted toward the COVID fatality list without ever having been counted toward the case positive list.

That tends to skew the numbers a bit.

New York fvcked up badly. Hundreds of elderly COVID patients were discharged from hospitals and sent back to the nursing homes from whence they came, infecting thousands more elderly residents in those nursing homes.

The people who died as a result of that policy don’t get a Mulligan and neither does New York. You don’t get to decide when COVID deaths started counting for real.

 

[Joes Place]

1/3 does not equal 4/5.

One of many techniques they learned to keep people alive.

You'd know this if you read up on the topic.

 

[Joes Place]

You’re ascribing far more life-saving power to dexamethasone than it deserves.

It was one of many interventions they learned kept people alive.

The fact remains: CFR was 7x-8x during NY's outbreak, compared to when most others had large outbreaks. If you cannot agree there needs to be a correction for that, I cannot help you here. It's why the guy with the charts used the simple "post June" metric. Which isn't perfect, but is less biased.

The correction I'd posted for you is consistent with that.

 

[Joes Place]

Thousands of people died and were counted toward the COVID fatality list without ever having been counted toward the case positive list.

No; If they died of Covid, and it's on the death certificate, they were counted as a case.

You seem flummoxed now, faced with the reality that the lethality of Covid was many times higher in the first 3 months than any other time during the pandemic (this also played out in Italy before the US, in case you've forgotten already)

 

[NCHawk5]

One of many techniques they learned to keep people alive.

You'd know this if you read up on the topic.

🚨 goalposts are on the move 🚨

 

[Joes Place]

🚨 goalposts are on the move 🚨

Again: go read up on it.

I've provided you a correction for the high CFRs early in the pandemic. You haven't come up with any alternatives, and then run the numbers. Which tells me you cannot, because this topic is too complicated for you.

 

[NCHawk5]

Again: go read up on it.

I've provided you a correction for the high CFRs early in the pandemic. You haven't come up with any alternatives, and then run the numbers. Which tells me you cannot, because this topic is too complicated for you.

You are truly an incompetent fool. Your logic is full of holes, I gave you all of the problems with it. It’s not even remotely complicated.

 

[NCHawk5]

@Joes Place

Linear vs. Multiple Regression: What's the Difference?

Learn the difference between linear regression and multiple regression and how the latter encompasses both linear and nonlinear regressions.

www.investopedia.com

You can’t use linear for very complex variables like CFR. That’s lazy and idiotic. You do it frequently.

 

[TJ8869]

No; If they died of Covid, and it's on the death certificate, they were counted as a case.

You seem flummoxed now, faced with the reality that the lethality of Covid was many times higher in the first 3 months than any other time during the pandemic (this also played out in Italy before the US, in case you've forgotten already)

I'm not flummoxed at all. You're conveniently overlooking a basic fact. We simply did not have enough test kits to get an accurate gauge of how many people were infected during the early months. Maybe you've forgotten, but people would get angry when they found out some rich guy or some celebrity paid $250 for a test. "It's not fair that only the rich can get tested!" Now anybody can walk into their nearest Walgreens or CVS and buy an armload of test kits for 10 bucks a pop.

As of June 1, 2020 the United States had an "official" total of 1,907,295 confirmed cases and 109,570 deaths. The 109K deaths is probably a reasonably accurate number, give or take a few thousand. The 1.9M total cases is vastly understated. There were potentially millions of Americans who contracted COVID but were never included in the count because there simply wasn't a test kit available for them. So they just dealt with the symptoms for a few days and then recovered and went on with their lives.

Dexamethasone and other treatments have had a modest effect on CFR. One study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that patients who were admitted to a hospital with COVID were about 10% less likely to die if treated with dexamethasone than if they were treated without it. It did not cause CFR to plummet 80-90%. Not even close.

The idea that the actual CFR was >8% is pure horseshit and you know it. You're of the flawed opinion that the death count would have been significantly lower in the early months if we had known about and used corticosteroids, when in fact the reality is that the total number of people infected at that time was much higher than the statistics showed.

 

[NCHawk5]

I'm not flummoxed at all. You're conveniently overlooking a basic fact. We simply did not have enough test kits to get an accurate gauge of how many people were infected during the early months. Maybe you've forgotten, but people would get angry when they found out some rich guy or some celebrity paid $250 for a test. "It's not fair that only the rich can get tested!" Now anybody can walk into their nearest Walgreens or CVS and buy an armload of test kits for 10 bucks a pop.

As of June 1, 2020 the United States had an "official" total of 1,907,295 confirmed cases and 109,570 deaths. The 109K deaths is probably a reasonably accurate number, give or take a few thousand. The 1.9M total cases is vastly understated. There were potentially millions of Americans who contracted COVID but were never included in the count because there simply wasn't a test kit available for them. So they just dealt with the symptoms for a few days and then recovered and went on with their lives.

Dexamethasone and other treatments have had a modest effect on CFR. One study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that patients who were admitted to a hospital with COIVD were about 10% less likely to die if treated with dexamethasone than if they were treated without it. It did not cause CFR to plummet 80-90%. Not even close.

The idea that the actual CFR was >8% is pure horseshit and you know it. You're of the flawed opinion that the death count would have been significantly lower in the early months if we had known about and used corticosteroids, when in fact the reality is that the total number of people infected at that time was much higher than the statistics showed.

Only a clown would think reducing deaths by 75% seems like a reasonable thing to do with data.

 

[TJ8869]

Only a clown would think reducing deaths by 75% seems like a reasonable thing to do with data.

Exactly. The CFR plummeted because we ramped up production of test kits and started getting a better gauge of how many people actually were infected. Not because we suddenly realized, "Hey, let's try using corticosteroids on people who are intubated!"

 

[NCHawk5]

Exactly. The CFR plummeted because we ramped up production of test kits and started getting a better gauge of how many people actually were infected. Not because we suddenly realized, "Hey, let's try using corticosteroids on people who are intubated!"

That’s blatantly obvious to anyone without a political agenda when looking at his argument.

 

[Rifler]

There were potentially millions of Americans who contracted COVID but were never included in the count because there simply wasn't a test kit available for them.

And there continue to be thousands of Americans contracting covid and choosing not to be tested...

 

[RollingBallofButcherKnives]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This is the correct answer.

And those congratulating Kimberly should also express their sympathies to the families of nearly 10,000, and likely more, dead Iowans.

IDPH data was never accurate throughout the entire time.

Yep. She was responsible for every. Last. One. 🙄

 

[TJ8869]

And there continue to be thousands of Americans contracting covid and choosing not to be tested...

Yep. Or testing at home. Like millions of Americans, my wife and two of my daughters (no pics) all contracted COVID a few months ago but were never included in the “official” case count because they used at-home test kits from Walgreen’s and never sought medical attention.

That’s one of the reasons our “official” CFR is going back up. There was a time when the only way you could get tested was at a hospital or clinic or a pop-up drive-thru testing site. Now anyone can buy a home kit and most of them who test positive never report it to officials.

 

[Rifler]

Yep. Or testing at home. Like millions of Americans, my wife and two of my daughters (no pics) all contracted COVID a few months ago but were never included in the “official” case count because they used at-home test kits from Walgreen’s and never sought medical attention.

That’s one of the reasons our “official” CFR is going back up. There was a time when the only way you could get tested was at a hospital or clinic or a pop-up drive-thru testing site. Now anyone can buy a home kit and most of them who test positive never report it to officials.

And It's my opinion that there are many, many more who will contract covid and not get tested because they either don't want to know, or simply don't care....

 

[RollingBallofButcherKnives]

What's "over"?

I just provided you a lesson on how to adjust deaths rates. You are welcome.

Nobody read it Joe. Nobody.

 

[Joes Place]

The idea that the actual CFR was >8% is pure horseshit and you know it. You're of the flawed opinion that the death count would have been significantly lower in the early months if we had known about and used corticosteroids, when in fact the reality is that the total number of people infected at that time was much higher than the statistics showed.

The presumption that the medical care during the first three months was "equivalent" to that 3-6 months later is horseshit and you know it.

If you disagree with my adjustment, then come up with your own estimates.

 

[Joes Place]

Nobody read it Joe. Nobody.

Quite a few did, because they keep posting about it.

 

[TJ8869]

The presumption that the medical care during the first three months was "equivalent" to that 3-6 months later is horseshit and you know it.

If you disagree with my adjustment, then come up with your own estimates.

There you go, blatantly lying again. That’s so typical of you. I never said it was “equivalent”. I said that dexamethasone had a modest effect on the actual case fatality rate. One study of about 7000 hospital patients showed that once admitted, about 22% of patients died after being treated with it compared to about 25% of those who were not treated with it. That’s certainly an improvement, but it’s nowhere near the 90% game changer that you keep insisting it was.

I don’t need to conjure imaginary estimates and I have no intention of doing so. All you need to know is that the actual case fatality rate was never anywhere near 8%. There was a time when the “official” statistical cfr was 8% because we had very limited testing capacity and no way of knowing how many people actually had the virus. We had a pretty good idea how many people died from it because there were bodies that we could count. But we had absolutely no way of knowing how many people got infected, couldn’t get tested to confirm their infection, and ultimately recovered and went on with life.

There was never a time when 1 out of every 12 people who contracted the virus died from it. And the notion that corticosteroids and similar therapeutics changed that ratio from 1 out of every 12 to 1 out of every 80 is pure fallacy.

 

[NCHawk5]

The presumption that the medical care during the first three months was "equivalent" to that 3-6 months later is horseshit and you know it.

If you disagree with my adjustment, then come up with your own estimates.

You took away 75%+ of deaths. Proof that out. There’s no way in hell that’s logical. Pull your head out of your ass and read the link I provided above.

 

[TJ8869]

You took away 75%+ of deaths. Proof that out. There’s no way in hell that’s logical. Pull your head out of your ass and read the link I provided above.

The single biggest reason for the discrepancy is the unknown number of undocumented lab-confirmed infection cases, not however many deaths there might have been if we had been using dexamethasone from day one.

JP knows this, but his refusal to acknowledge it is consistent with his long history of being bullheaded even when it makes him look like an idiot.

 

[NCHawk5]

The single biggest reason for the discrepancy is the unknown number of undocumented lab-confirmed infection cases, not however many deaths there might have been if we had been using dexamethasone from day one.

JP knows this, but his refusal to acknowledge it is consistent with his long history of being bullheaded even when it makes him look like an idiot.

I’m not convinced that he knows it. I can’t even count how many ridiculous claims he has made on here with his own careless manipulation of data.

 

[MikeyHawk]

You took away 75%+ of deaths. Proof that out. There’s no way in hell that’s logical. Pull your head out of your ass and read the link I provided above.

Joe is back to be a Covid expert, in addition to the war expert. Impressive

 

[TJ8869]

I’m not convinced that he knows it. I can’t even count how many ridiculous claims he has made on here with his own careless manipulation of data.

He knows. A third-grader can figure it out. He’s not stupid, he’s just stubborn as all hell.

 

[Joes Place]

There you go, blatantly lying again. That’s so typical of you. I never said it was “equivalent”.

Then you must AGREE that SOME adjustment to those first 2-3 months of deaths, where CFRs are 8x what they were months later, is necessary.

Yet, you continue to avoid proposing any rational and logical approach to it....

 

[Joes Place]

You took away 75%+ of deaths

Yep. For BOTH NY and Iowa, based on far higher CFRs during that period.

And I showed you how the numbers work out. If you have a different "adjustment" based on data and facts, then post it.

 

[NCHawk5]

Yep. For BOTH NY and Iowa, based on far higher CFRs during that period.

And I showed you how the numbers work out. If you have a different "adjustment" based on data and facts, then post it.

After you read the linear regression link I provided earlier come talk to me. Until then, please stop spreading disinformation and pretending to be a doctor.

 

[TJ8869]

Then you must AGREE that SOME adjustment to those first 2-3 months of deaths, where CFRs are 8x what they were months later, is necessary.

Yet, you continue to avoid proposing any rational and logical approach to it....

One major study showed that dexamethasone reduced hospital deaths by roughly 10%. So I’ll give you a 10% reduction up to June 1.

That means we subtract 3060 deaths from New York’s total and 57 from Iowa’s total. That leaves New York with an adjusted total of 65,669 deaths, or about 338 per 100K population. And it leaves Iowa with an adjusted total of 9453 deaths, or about 300 per 100K population.

Iowa still did better than New York even if we adjust for the potential life-saving effects of dexamethasone in the early stages of the pandemic.

Now fvck off.

 

[Joes Place]

One major study showed that dexamethasone reduced hospital deaths by roughly 10%.

....and you continue to ignore the far higher deaths rates in the first 2-3 months (when hospitals in areas were overrun).

If you cannot come up with an alternative adjustment method, just say so.

 

[TJ8869]

....and you continue to ignore the far higher deaths rates in the first 2-3 months (when hospitals in areas were overrun).

If you cannot come up with an alternative adjustment method, just say so.

Dexamethasone wouldn't have helped keep the hospitals from being overrun. It does nothing to help with mild or moderate COVID cases. It doesn't help keep you out of the hospital. It doesn't even help if you're on supplemental oxygen. The only statistical benefit of dexamethasone is that once you're on a ventilator it helps improve your odds of not dying.

And the only way the >8% CFR that you keep touting holds any water is if you believe that the case counts in the early months of the pandemic accurately reflected how many Americans were actually infected with the virus.

Are you prepared to state for the record that you believe the case counts from March to June accurately reflected the number of Americans who were actually infected?

 

[NCHawk5]

Dexamethasone wouldn't have helped keep the hospitals from being overrun. It does nothing to help with mild or moderate COVID cases. It doesn't help keep you out of the hospital. It doesn't even help if you're on supplemental oxygen. The only statistical benefit of dexamethasone is that once you're on a ventilator it helps improve your odds of not dying.

And the only way the >8% CFR that you keep touting holds any water is if you believe that the case counts in the early months of the pandemic accurately reflected how many Americans were actually infected with the virus.

Are you prepared to state for the record that you believe the case counts from March to June accurately reflected the number of Americans who were actually infected?

It’s simple TJ. The steroids clearly would have saved 75%+ of Covid patients in the early pandemic. Don’t you remember all of the news that came out about the lifesaving new treatment for covid? @Joes Place now plot deaths in the US assuming the steroid was never used as a treatment. What would we be at now, like 10 million?

 

[TJ8869]

It’s simple TJ. The steroids clearly would have saved 75%+ of Covid patients in the early pandemic. Don’t you remember all of the news that came out about the lifesaving new treatment for covid? @Joes Place now plot deaths in the US assuming the steroid was never used as a treatment. What would we be at now, like 10 million?

He knows damn well that you can't know the real CFR if you don't know how many people actually were infected. But he'd rather keep up this silliness for 7 pages than admit he was wrong about something.

 

[artradley]

He knows damn well that you can't know the real CFR if you don't know how many people actually were infected. But he'd rather keep up this silliness for 7 pages than admit he was wrong about something.

I had that argument with him a couple of times in the past. If you have no clue what the number of actual cases are, the CFR is meaningless.

It’s like reporting a pitcher’s ERA based on his earned runs, while having no idea how many innings he pitched. 100? 300? 500? Let’s guess 100 and go with an ERA of 10.