COVID thoughts

I wrote this on a friend's thread.

There is no doubt that we have to band together and place community first.. However it isn't easy in the US where individual rights are paramount. There are also numerous examples of where government overreach has gone too far under the auspices of national security . Woodrow Wilson's action during WWI (that were so egregious that it helped birth the ACLU) and FDR's decision to intern Japanese-Americans in WWII are but two examples.

It is also true that American innovation is tied into a recourse toward individual ingenuity. This has always been the case and from all accounts it is ingenuity that will likely play a key role in extricating ourselves out of this mess. The reality is that you need a dynamic fusion of both the individual and the community.

What will work in the United States is not necessarily the same as what bears fruit in South Korea or Taiwan.

On the Asian Tigers

South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have done relatively well so far with COVID but they are not out of the debacle yet. They also framed their specific responses in a way that would be inconsistent with certain facets of North American civil liberties.While I commend their approach it is important to note that there is a specific cultural aspect to the way other countries are dealing with this that is not necessarily transferable to the West,

Oddly enough the South Koreans have not been as forceful with respect to a national lockdown as we have. Where they have succeeded is in targeting and isolating the infected and adhering to an early testing regime. SK has been planning for this for some time as they were hard hit by both SARS and MERS.

Wishing them all continued success.

Estimating Viral spread

Written on April 6th.

Ignoring China and Iran for now as well as Russia, I think it is safe to say that the death rate for those who test positive for COVID-19 is probably in the 0.1% to 1.5% range not 3-4% as originally reported by the WHO. This better range is based on several models out there. I would argue that 1% is a legitimate working number. The closed Icelandic and Diamond Princess numbers are valuable in this regard as well.

So how can we estimate the number of people who are infected with this pathogen? This is the denominator problem.

Test case numbers are way too low and vary from country to country based on the testing regime. They clearly understate the number infected. However the denominator is vital. It will help justify decision making on a go forward basis.

Having said that I believe we can ballpark the number infected using the death date.

Here is quick way to do it. Using coronavirus worldometer data.

Add up Deaths + Serious critical and multiply by 100. The 100 takes into account the 1% mortality factor.

Looking at a few countries

US = (9620+8702)*100 = 1,032,200 infected. Official 336,581.
Canada = (280+426)*100 = 70,600 infected
Italy = (15887+3977) *100= 1,986,400 infected.

Note these numbers include those who have recovered.

Liberalism v Socialism

The difference between socialism and liberalism. My answer on Quora.

Liberalism values the free market and individual ownership of property. It is individualistic at its core and sees the person as a sovereign unit. Its key driver is the maximization of freedom (including freedom of speech, action and belief) within the context of the rule of law.

Socialism is a collectivist philosophy that rejects the notion of the free market. It is driven by the so-called Will of the Majority (or the Will to Power) and at its epicenter opposes private ownership of property. However on a practical level, it may tolerate certain aspects of private property ownership and the free market usually as a temporary provision on the road to some ideal. Various versions of socialism differ in methodology.

Liberalism is concerned with Equality of opportunity. Socialism values both Equality of opportunity and outcome. It is not adverse to using social engineering to achieve its goals

Sweden vs Denmark

Despite its obviously morbid undertone the Danish-Swedish experiment looks to reveal some worthwhile data on public management of a disease outbreak.

For those of you who are unaware of this Nordic side act - the two countries are following very different strategies in coping with the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Danes have opted for a strong lockdown (similar to the US, Canada and the UK at present) while the Swedes have chosen to lock down only the vulnerable, encourage but not enforce social distancing and keep the country's businesses open. High school and universities in Sweden have closed (they are operating via e-learning) but children below 16 are for the most part attending school.

Like the Dutch, who are following a similar policy in the low countries, the Swedes are banking on herd immunity to kick in and eventually halt the spread of the pathogen.

Since the demographics for each country are rather similar from an epidemiological status the results could be illuminating.

It is indeed a big gamble but it could pay dividends for the Swedes if they can emerge from this no worse than the Danes but with an economy that has been spared the worst.

COVID urgencies

Flattening the curve and increasing health care capacity are vital in the fight against COVID-19 but so are these two other essential items

1. The wholesale widespread distribution of the antibody test, that is far more reliable than the more commonly used antigen test. (better in the false negative department)

2. Randomized testing of large samples of the general population as a whole. This data is necessary to allow us to obtain a better understanding of the denominator in the fatality ratio...ie. the number of actual people infected.

If we can't accurately estimate this denominator our planning models, that ultimately determine resource capacity, will be subject to a high margin of error impacting resource allocation and straining our logistic efficacy.. At the fundamental level both 1 and 2 are related

German COVID Study

Another one of those German studies that argues that infected rates are far higher than what we are seeing. From the Article:

Covid Study

Insufficient and delayed testing may explain why some European countries, such as Italy and Spain, are experiencing much higher casualty numbers (relative to reported confirmed cases) than Germany, which has detected an estimated 15.6% of infections compared to only 3.5% in Italy or 1.7% in Spain. Detection rates are even lower in the United States (1.6%) and the United Kingdom (1.2%) – two countries that have received widespread criticism from public health experts for their delayed response to the pandemic.

THE US has greatly ramped up its testing so the number now may be double 1.6%. If that is the case then the number infected in the Us is probably (as of April 11th)

(100/3.2)*522,000 = 14.5 million. Lethality would then be 20,000/14,500,000 = 0.14%. I suspect that the death numbers though may be understated by half of the actual value so that a lethality of around 0.3% is reasonable.

Season flu is about 0.1%