I’m being a bit of a nit, I know, but you can’t change R0 via mitigation. It’s the constant that is defined as the natural rate of spread with no mitigation. Our understanding of what the R0 is can change as we do more studies, but the number is a constant. You can change Rt through mitigation. Dan can correct me if Rt is the wrong way to speak of the current rate of transmission with mitigation in place.
Obviously I am learning on the fly with all this so I don’t mind being corrected at all, quite the opposite. I was under the impression R0 is the number of people each infected person subsequently infects? Is that actually Rt?
They both are - but R0 is the natural number with no attempts to mitigate. Rt is the current actual number with efforts to mitigate. So R0 can’t change (our understanding of it can, or a mutation can change it) but Rt is always changing based on behavior and policies.
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R0 is supposed to be a property of the contagion.
People are mostly using R or Rt for effective transmission ratio. (Technically it’s ratio not rate). But yeah, R0 is used this way in common usage by media and politicians.
I try to use R or Rt here. I’m sure I slip from time to time. It’s all I can do to not miss words or get thwarted by auto spell.
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And there is something about R0 I don’t get because it must assume some normal level of person to person interactions. That could vary across societies?
Let’s all try to use just R or Rt.
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Yeah it’s tough to establish that normal behavior because it’s like once we have even a clue what’s up, we’re deviating.
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I think the other thing about people looking for upticks in the numbers here have to remember is that the numbers here are really really bad still. Even if we just manage to maintain the current rate of infection and death that will be about 6m confirmed cases and 400,000 dead by the end of the year. (Assuming 20k new cases a day/1,300 new deaths a day)
In other words we really need to be seeing declines over time while reopening for any hope of avoiding a pretty terrible outcome.
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Schrodinger’s virus?
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Amen. Having somewhere around 2-4% contagious people walking around is beyond insane. (5-10x the acknowledged unresolved cases).
Just had a conversation with one of our drivers who delivers all our product. Feeling pretty good right now. Apparently this is just the flu (this is brand new information!), and the government is just trying to see what they can enforce on the American people. That’s right, the mostly right wing government is going all Big Brother on us.
Also, he knows this isn’t that bad because he knows a guy whose 90 year old parents had it but recovered. So why should we be worried?
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The rubber covering of one of the joysticks on my X-Box controller wore off last night. Shopping online for a replacement, and almost everything is sold out except for 3rd-party sellers with markups. First they came for our toilet paper, then they came for our meat, and then they came for our video games.
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and the rest of the world is providing cover
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There’s no natural human behaviour and the idea of R0 pertaining only to a virus is absurd.
R0 seems to be used as the initial R ratio before measures are introduced to modify human behaviour. I agree it’s best just to use R.
I don’t see how a virus can have an inherent transmissibility independent of its environment.
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That’s because it can’t.
Oh I forgot. The CDC stopped counting flu deaths in February. All these deaths are just COVID and flu deaths combined.
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Time to upgrade to PS4. (Now let’s have a real derail, enough of that to takeout or not to takeout hissyfit!)
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For the first time in my life I have all 3 current gen consoles, and I’m loving it.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court just struck down the stay at home order issued by the governor. Case had been brought by R legislators against D governor. 4-3 vote.
Alberta doing stage one opening tomorrow except my city. Bit of a bummer but makes sense since we represent 75% of all cases in province.
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