Oh not to mention the MASKS = TYRANNY folks insisting that protestors wear them
I love getting international reports like this, and Iâm continually impressed how many different countries have representation on this little corner of the internet. Thanks for sharing, and fuck those assholes.
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Too many protesters I guess
DC data modeler update:
June 24th Update â Updated Potential Mortality from Trumpâs June 20th Tulsa Rally
SHORT VERSION: The much smaller attendance of the rally in Tulsa drops the estimated mortality directly arising from this event by the end of August from 770-9,000 down to just 62-248. This is obviously better news, but remember that Tulsa County has only had 66 deaths SO FAR, and Oklahoma in total hasnât seen more than 5 deaths in a single day since May 19th. Itâs a lot of dead Oklahomans, but much MUCH fewer than if the expected crowds had arrived. Hard to celebrate unnecessary deaths of any size, but this is 2020 and my bar has gotten really, really low.
tl;dr as alwaysâŚ
Iâve been getting requests for an update to my June 20th post about the potential cost of life from Trumpâs rally in Tulsa now that we know that attendance was a tiny fraction of the 100,000 number being circulated by the Trump campaign and the press. It has been widely reported that, according to the local fire marshals working the event, the total attendance was about 6,200 people. Thankfully, many people who might have otherwise attended were smart enough to choose to avoid such a potential spread event â especially in the context of a rising infection rate in Tulsa County as well as Oklahoma generally. Also, thank you K-Pop fans and Tik-Tok aficionados for your relentless efforts in the service of public health (no need to fact check that statement, Iâm being flip).
Rather than repeat everything in the June 20th update, following the same math:
6,200 people attended, and letâs assume that an additional 800 people were in close enough contact with the event to be countable. These would include BOK center staff, security, vendors lined up outside, and the Presidentâs own people (at least 8 of whom were tested positive prior or after the event). Given 7,000 people with an estimated 0.2% infected suggests about 14 people who are potential spreaders were naturally present in the crowd. Because we know outsiders who attended were infected and that this is a group in general with a higher likelihood of infection (less likely to wear masks, avoid crowds, etc.) I will assume that there were 20 infected individuals present, which would suggest there to be about 4 super spreaders. The super spreader individuals are then likely to successfully spread the disease to between 200 and 400 people. The average household in Oklahoma has about 2.5 people in it, and itâs probably that most everyone in the homes these newly infected people return to will also become infected. Thereâs some debate about in-home transmission, but for the sake of comparison, letâs assume this is true. That brings the total likely infected estimate BEFORE community spread to an estimated 500 to 1,000 people. At a mortality rate of 0.75%, this will result in approximately four to eight dead solely among the rally goers and their households.
If we assume the less conservative such as the reported, 0.3% infection rate, R=100, and 1.5% mortality, the number of infected at the event jumps to 600, the number infected including their households rises to 1,500, and the death toll estimate before community spread increases to 23 dead.
So the DIRECT COST OF LIFE FROM THE 1ST GENERATION OF INFECTIONS as a result of this rally is reasonably going to fall within the range of 4 to 23. Then thereâs community spread.
In the update example of this super-spreader event we have 200 to 400 new infections (1st gen) on June 20th who will become contagious in about five days on average. By June 25th, these folks become contagious and, because mitigation efforts within households is very rare, will begin to infect their families, roommates, friends, etc. If we assume an average reproductive rate of 4 household plus community spread, there will be an additional 800 to 1,600 cases (2nd gen) between June 30th and July 10th. This group will start to become contagious on July 15th and at R=3 spread to an additional 2,400 to 4,800 people (3rd gen) who will start getting sick around July 21st. At this point, people in the second generation will start showing up for testing and in hospitals. This would be the time that communities would, one hopes, start contact tracing and quarantines to reduce the reproductive rate of the virus. Around July 25th the first noticeable increases in COVID-19 deaths would start to occur from the 2nd generation. About a week later the deaths from the 3rd generation would start to appear. Assuming mitigation efforts get the reproductive rate down to two infections per infected individual after folks start showing up in hospitals, we would see an additional 4,800 to 9,600 infected people in the 4th generation around July 23rd who will become contagious around July 28th. It is at this point (July 28-Aug 3) when the increase in death rates should start showing up from the 3rd gen and will begin to look like a an exponential and statistically valid increase. In that single month, excluding the folks who arrived at the rally sick, there will have been 8,200 to 16,400 new cases (many more than the number of people who showed up at the rally) of whom 62 to 124 will eventually die with my assumed mortality rate of 0.75%. Using the les conservative 1.5% mortality rate, those numbers double to 124 to 248. Until and unless additional mitigation efforts are undertaken, this number will double weekly. For comparison, Tulsa has only had 66 deaths SO FAR, and Oklahoma hasnât seen more than 5 deaths in a single day since May 19th.
So the updated anticipated death toll from this rally is estimated to be between 62 and 248 by the middle of August in excess of what might be expected from the normal course of the disease spread in the community. Thatâs way less than the 770 to 9,000 previous expectation from a 50,000 to 100,000 person event. Iâd be inclined to be happier about this if the event itself werenât such an intentional, avoidable happening. That said, people choosing to stay home likely saved at least 700 lives, possibly thousands. And in 2020, honestly, Iâll take any good news I can find. Even if thatâs just taking things from unimaginably bad to just plain awful.
As a reminder, if you are considering attending events like this, there are things you can do to mitigate your personal risk and spread to your community.
- DONâT GO, just like most of the expected people at this rally didnât go. These events are televised, and you should consider carefully whether attending in person is worth your life and the lives of your family, friends, and neighbors 2. If you go, wear a mask and encourage others to do the same. Make it clear that the virus itself has no political affiliation 3. To the extent possible, social distance. Try to stay six feet apart from fellow rally-goers 4. Wash your hands regularly and use hand sanitizer when soap and water are unavailable 5. Donât raise your voice for any reason, and donât exert yourself physically to the extent than you are respirating more deeply. This limits the virus you release into the air if youâre sick, or into of your lungs if you are being exposed.
- Quarantine and test after the rally. The best thing you can do if youâve risked infection at the rally is to limit your ability to spread the disease further. If infected you will be sick before you show symptoms, so quarantine from everyone for at least a week, and get tested. Donât interact with others until you either have a negative test or 14 days have passed.
- Stay away from vulnerable populations. At the very least, donât go near people who are especially vulnerable to the disease such as the elderly, diabetics, asthmatics, or people who have suppressed immune systems. These conditions are not all visible, so you never know whoâs life you might be threatening.
- Never forget that you canât ever be certain that you arenât contagious because you may be able to pass the virus before symptoms appear.
From a public health perspective these events are a bad idea. From an economic perspective these are a bad idea. This entire concept is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.
As always, donât forget that I am not an epidemiologist or a medical professional of any kind. Iâm just a guy that does math for a living. Please pay careful attention to real health professionals and if they disagree with what Iâm saying, believe them instead. Be smart, stay safe, wear a damn mask.
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Meanwhile, over on cruisecritic, they just canât wait till cruises definitely positively absolutely resume this time in September, theyâre so sure of it!
Edit: Costa Cruises (subsidiary of Carnival) literally still accepting deposits and bookings on a ship that they have already sold for scrap. You canât make this shit up.
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Ok I hate watched last night after Perry Mason. I guess the resurgence of the virus maybe convinced him to find new shtick because he wasnât whining about being locked down, plus it was the show before his usual summer hiatus. Not as bad this time. Truly the best part of the show was James Carville v. His Phone. First Carville was outside and it started raining so that was hilarious as he scrambled to get inside and get set up again. Then he kept freezing up. It was one glorious screwup after another and easily the funniest part of the show
Florida 9585 new cases. Beating out yesterdayâs insane #.
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Bobo had a paper on this the other day. Your immune system can fight off a virus even without creating specific antibodies for it. Factor that in plus there may be people who donât retain antibodies and things become immensely uncertain when we try to guess how many people have actually been infected.
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I feel like we need to have bingo cards about COVID scapegoats.
Yesterday was Hispanic farmers. I wonder what it will be today. Protests? Increased testing? Busloads of outside agitators? Prisoners?
Maybe we should try to test a bunch of people who had confirmed positive viral tests for antibodies now and see what happens.
It seems like someone should already have done this.
You forgot Soros. He is probably paying people to come in and spread it.
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And OBAMA is the free space in the middle.
Tiny ass Nevada with almost 1k cases today.
That already happened months ago
Story from 3/27
It also doesnât help that these antibody tests are wrong an astonishingly high percentage of the time, which makes the data a mess. Weâve been left trying to puzzle out if people are getting infected twice, itâs all a hash.
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One thing Iâve been confused about is the definition of âexposedâ for someone who then tests negative.
Does this mean due to physical circumstances she was thought to have had a good chance to inhale the virus?
or
She likely came into contact with such a low quantity of the virus it never could take hold?
The one thing he did not do was adjust for age and health, and we all know that Trump rallies skew older and less healthy. The mortality rate in that population should be somewhere between 5 and 15 times higher than the overall population, I would think.
Seems like they could get something going by testing everyone before they get on board, then not stopping in any ports⌠But I guess stopping at ports is kind of the whole point, right? But in the current circumstances, there might be huge demand to get on a ship full of people who tested clean, with staff who tested clean, and sail around for a week getting drunk and socializing with known clean people. Shit, Iâd pay for that if I was convinced it was safe.
I guess the one thing is we donât know how the timeline goes from infected â testing positive. In theory, there may be a day or two before itâs detectable in a test if the initial viral load is low.
This is very very very bad, for two reasons. First, obviously, youâd hope that yesterday was an aberration for some random reason. Second, it would be really concerning if they kept pumping out 9-10K cases a day every day, as it would signal being at testing capacity and mean that the actual number could be just about anything.
Two days in a row happens, even four or five do, but with an R0 that is clearly positive, that trend is going to continue upward. If the number of positives does not, then we know they are either maxing out testing capacity or cooking the books dramatically.
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I think many of them have about a 1% false positive rate. The issue is that when only a small percent of the tested population is actually positive, then a high percent of the positives turn out to be false positives.
Now some good news! A larger and growing percent of the population is actually positive. Therefore the data is getting more reliable every day in places like Florida.
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Test, quarantine for a week, retest, then start the orgies.
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