Corona Virus Panic

[nakman]

we'll get through this folks.

 

[J Kimmel]

What do you propose people do?
in just 24 hours, cases soared by more than 40%.

I don’t have the answer. Watching the government forcefully shut down the economy in the name of safety should frighten every American to the core. Watching the government forcefully limit our freedom in the name of safety should rattle everyone and we should be looking for drastic change.

 

[J1000]

China did that, yes. I'm still working and the stores are all still open here. Temporary measures taken in isolated locations are not the same as permanent limits on freedom. No need to summon Ron Paul just yet.

 

[BritKLR]

I don’t have the answer. Watching the government forcefully shut down the economy in the name of safety should frighten every American to the core. Watching the government forcefully limit our freedom in the name of safety should rattle everyone and we should be looking for drastic change.

It’s called Emergency Management/Critical Incident Management.....you can bet someone is crunching the numbers of shutting things down, thereby resulting fewer deaths versus not shutting things down and the deaths associated with that decision and providing that information to those that have the authority (elected) to make those decision. Everything comes with a cost..

 

[DaveInDenver]

It’s called Emergency Management/Critical Incident Management.....you can bet someone is crunching the numbers of shutting things down, thereby resulting fewer deaths versus not shutting things down and the deaths associated with that decision and providing that information to those that have the authority (elected) to make those decision. Everything comes with a cost..

If someone is doing cost-benefit analysis why don't they just tell us? Don't they work for us?

As it is right now the recession that will hit is probably going cost at least 5 million jobs and so far the Federal government has passed $100 billion in aid. So since they've assigned 171 deaths to COVID-19 that means the current valuation is $585 million per death. There's been 2,100 cases meaning each illness is worth $48 million. A well paid electrical engineer might be able to charge $200/hr and if he's out two weeks sick that's about $16,000 in billable hours. So if all 2,100 sick people were EEs that's only $33.6 million.

If they pass the $1 trillion stimulus you add a zero to each. Meaning each death so far would be valued at $5.8 billion and that assumes the hyperbole stops now and everyone picks up and starts their jobs and businesses tomorrow. And that's only the money Congress is spending. It doesn't account for the hit to GDP. Our GDP is valued at $21 trillion, meaning just a 2% decline is $400 billion that disappears from the economy. The tax base lost with failed businesses and lost income means deeper deficits, more public debt, inflation on the horizon.

Emotionally any death is sad. Especially if it's your grandparent. But isn't there a limit to what cost we can bear socially?

 

[satchel]

If someone is doing cost-benefit analysis why don't they just tell us? Don't they work for us?

As it is right now the recession that will hit is probably going cost at least 5 million jobs and so far the Federal government has passed $100 billion in aid. So since they've assigned 171 deaths to COVID-19 that means the current valuation is $585 million per death. There's been 2,100 cases meaning each illness is worth $48 million. A well paid electrical engineer might be able to charge $200/hr and if he's out two weeks sick that's about $16,000 in billable hours. So if all 2,100 sick people were EEs that's only $33.6 million.

If they pass the $1 trillion stimulus you add a zero to each. Meaning each death so far would be valued at $5.8 billion and that assumes the hyperbole stops now and everyone picks up and starts their jobs and businesses tomorrow. And that's only the money Congress is spending. It doesn't account for the hit to GDP. Our GDP is valued at $21 trillion, meaning just a 2% decline is $400 billion that disappears from the economy.

Emotionally any death is sad. Especially if it's your grandparent. But isn't there a limit to what cost we can bear socially?

All those numbers are assuming that the program the fed is initiating isn't doing anything to the spread of the virus, meaning if instead of closing everything and making us all stay home, we all kept on as normal and still only 171 people died. Then yeah, the money they are spending would be crazy. If on the other hand, the program is saving 1 million lives that we never knew we would have lost, then is the aid and stimulus worth it since we kept 1 milllion more lives as consumers in a month along with the damages of losing a million lives? I'm not making the argument that the program is for sure saving a million lives, but it is saving lives for sure so the cost should be based on that number, not on the number of lives lost.

 

[BritKLR]

If someone is doing cost-benefit analysis why don't they just tell us? Don't they work for us?

As it is right now the recession that will hit is probably going cost at least 5 million jobs and so far the Federal government has passed $100 billion in aid. So since they've assigned 171 deaths to COVID-19 that means the current valuation is $585 million per death. There's been 2,100 cases meaning each illness is worth $48 million. A well paid electrical engineer might be able to charge $200/hr and if he's out two weeks sick that's about $16,000 in billable hours. So if all 2,100 sick people were EEs that's only $33.6 million.

If they pass the $1 trillion stimulus you add a zero to each. Meaning each death so far would be valued at $5.8 billion and that assumes the hyperbole stops now and everyone picks up and starts their jobs and businesses tomorrow. And that's only the money Congress is spending. It doesn't account for the hit to GDP. Our GDP is valued at $21 trillion, meaning just a 2% decline is $400 billion that disappears from the economy.

Emotionally any death is sad. Especially if it's your grandparent. But isn't there a limit to what cost we can bear socially?

Everything they are doing is/will be available under FOIA requests, unless deemed secret or a security issue.....ask.

http://www.coemergency.com/p/local-info-sources.html

https://www.dhs.gov/freedom-information-act-foia

https://www.colorado.gov/governor/CORA

 

[DaveInDenver]

All those numbers are assuming that the program the fed is initiating isn't doing anything to the spread of the virus, meaning if instead of closing everything and making us all stay home, we all kept on as normal and still only 171 people died. Then yeah, the money they are spending would be crazy. If on the other hand, the program is saving 1 million lives that we never knew we would have lost, then is the aid and stimulus worth it since we kept 1 milllion more lives as consumers in a month along with the damages of losing a million lives? I'm not making the argument that the program is for sure saving a million lives, but it is saving lives for sure so the cost should be based on that number, not on the number of lives lost.

You can't account for that because it's not possible to say that would be the case. But to get to those numbers you must speculate that the 3% mortality rate is genuine and that 100% of Americans are infected. Neither of those are givens. Less than half of us get flu infections annually and there's several of those circulating.

For example, Dr. Ioannidis at Stanford wrote this article a couple of days ago. He analyzes the data and mentions it could be very wrong.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17...e-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

"We don’t know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300. Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population.

This evidence fiasco creates tremendous uncertainty about the risk of dying from Covid-19. Reported case fatality rates, like the official 3.4% rate from the World Health Organization, cause horror — and are meaningless. Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.

The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.

Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases — a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%."

ETA: He's no small figure.

https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/john-ioannidis

Professor of Medicine, Biomedical Data Science, Statistics, Epidemiology and Population Health and Director of Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford

 

[DaveInDenver]

Everything they are doing is/will be available under FOIA requests, unless deemed secret or a security issue.....ask.

http://www.coemergency.com/p/local-info-sources.html

https://www.dhs.gov/freedom-information-act-foia

https://www.colorado.gov/governor/CORA

I know it will be a matter of public record, presumably if it's not classified as you say. But the damage is already done by then. "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." or something like that.

 

[satchel]

I think that's my point. You can't say for sure 1 million would be saved any more than you can say none would be saved which is the numbers you were stating by showing deaths. But go ahead and say that...

You can't account for that because it's not possible to say that would be the case. But to get to those numbers you must speculate that the 3% mortality rate is genuine and that 100% of Americans are infected. Neither of those are givens. Less than half of us get flu infections annually and there's several of those circulating.

For example, Dr. Ioannidis at Stanford wrote this article a couple of days ago. He analyzes the data and mentions it could be very wrong.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17...e-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

"We don’t know if we are failing to capture infections by a factor of three or 300. Three months after the outbreak emerged, most countries, including the U.S., lack the ability to test a large number of people and no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population."

 

[DaveInDenver]

I think that's my point. You can't say for sure 1 million would be saved any more than you can say none would be saved which is the numbers you were stating by showing deaths. But go ahead and say that...

My number of deaths and cases associated are those by the CDC to date and a bill already passed. So if nothing else changes that $585 million per death, $48 million per case is the cost just so far.

The $1 trillion stimulus is being discussed but is indeed not yet law. As more cases occur and deaths are associated then, yes, the cost per each reduces. My point is comparing is that the number of cases will have to go up by 3 orders of magnitude (to 2.1 million cases) just to break even with equivalent work time lost if no more money is spent.

The number of jobs lost and GDP hit are speculation which is why I did not use them in the per death and per case valuation. I don't think anyone is claiming that shutting down the economy will have a positive result but there's no way to know the full extent of the impact since we haven't even stopped doing damage yet.

 

[satchel]

I'll just leave it at this since you are kinda going round in circles, but you can't say any more than I can that shutting down the economy has a positive or negative impact since you don't know what the cost would be of not doing it. You don't know how many lives it does or does not save, so if you want to propose that none or very few lives are saved and therefore the closing of the economy must be a negative process then go for it.

My number of deaths and cases associated are those by the CDC to date and a bill already passed. So if nothing else changes that is the cost just so far.

The $1 trillion stimulus is being discussed but is indeed not yet law.

The number of jobs lost and GDP hit are speculation which is why I did not use them in the per death and per case valuation. I don't think anyone is claiming that shutting down the economy will have a positive result but there's no way to know the full extent of the impact since we haven't even stopped doing damage yet.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I'll just leave it at this since you are kinda going round in circles, but you can't say any more than I can that shutting down the economy has a positive or negative impact since you don't know what the cost would be of not doing it. You don't know how many lives it does or does not save, so if you want to propose that none or very few lives are saved and therefore the closing of the economy must be a negative process then go for it.

I'm presenting the argument that there is a real economic and political cost to the action. I of course can't say it's accurate to the penny but are the relative values are wrong?

 

[satchel]

You win. Basing the cost of the program using how many people have died is a better way than stating how many people it is believed to have saved. Sorry for the difficulty. Now time to go rewrite those cost-benefit analysis books to remove the benefit part of the equation.

I'm presenting the argument that there is a real economic and political cost to the action. I of course can't say it's accurate to the penny but are the relative values are wrong?

 

[J1000]

Colorado Public Health Order 20-23:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KNqVxX8m2Y_cInIMSqIZeMoxIlAFtNo0/view

"Pursuant to Colo. Rev. Stat. § 25-1.5-101(1)(a) and §25-1.5-102(1)(a)(I), this
Public Health Order ..."

You are right I definitely was wrong. I think my later statement that isolated limitations during an emergency are different than the reduction of freedoms permanently or slowly over a long period of time.

If someone is doing cost-benefit analysis why don't they just tell us? Don't they work for us?

As it is right now the recession that will hit is probably going cost at least 5 million jobs and so far the Federal government has passed $100 billion in aid. So since they've assigned 171 deaths to COVID-19 that means the current valuation is $585 million per death. There's been 2,100 cases meaning each illness is worth $48 million. A well paid electrical engineer might be able to charge $200/hr and if he's out two weeks sick that's about $16,000 in billable hours. So if all 2,100 sick people were EEs that's only $33.6 million.

If they pass the $1 trillion stimulus you add a zero to each. Meaning each death so far would be valued at $5.8 billion and that assumes the hyperbole stops now and everyone picks up and starts their jobs and businesses tomorrow. And that's only the money Congress is spending. It doesn't account for the hit to GDP. Our GDP is valued at $21 trillion, meaning just a 2% decline is $400 billion that disappears from the economy. The tax base lost with failed businesses and lost income means deeper deficits, more public debt, inflation on the horizon.

Emotionally any death is sad. Especially if it's your grandparent. But isn't there a limit to what cost we can bear socially?

Can you please source these numbers? The 5 million jobs part specifically.

According to this study by the Lancet, the quicker that a country makes bold moves they have a far, far better outcome and the problem doesn't last as long. It can be up to 60% reduction. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30567-5/fulltext

"
No vaccine or effective antiviral drug is likely to be available soon. Vaccine development is underway, but the key issues are not if a vaccine can be developed but where phase 3 trials will be done and who will manufacture vaccine at scale. The number of cases of COVID-19 are falling quickly in China,
4
but a site for phase 3 vaccine trials needs to be in a location where there is ongoing transmission of the disease. Manufacturing at scale requires one or more of the big vaccine manufacturers to take up the challenge and work closely with the biotechnology companies who are developing vaccine candidates. This process will take time and we are probably a least 1 year to 18 months away from substantial vaccine production.
So what is left at present for mitigation is voluntary plus mandated quarantine, stopping mass gatherings, closure of educational institutes or places of work where infection has been identified, and isolation of households, towns, or cities. Some of the lessons from analyses of influenza A apply for COVID-19, but there are also differences. Social distancing measures reduce the value of the effective reproduction number R. With an early epidemic value of R0 of 2·5, social distancing would have to reduce transmission by about 60% or less, if the intrinsic transmission potential declines in the warm summer months in the northern hemisphere. This reduction is a big ask, but it did happen in China."

With this reality, any move we can make now will reduce the cost in the long term. The White House guidelines are titled "15 Days to Slow" emphasizing that the next 15 days were crucial. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/03.16.20_coronavirus-guidance_8.5x11_315PM.pdf

According to the latest press conferences yesterday and today, the numbers of COVID19 cases in the USA should dramatically increase over the next 4-5 days. This is because there is no longer a backlog of testing, new tests are in possession of the states that are easier to use and return results faster and more reliably.

If nothing at all was done, and we continued life as normal quoting facts about car accidents and heart attacks then the cost would be much higher. According to studies between 200,000 and 1.7 million Americans could die from COVID19 --in one year-- if it was uncontrolled and 200 million Americans contracted it.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/487489-worst-case-coronavirus-models-show-massive-us-toll
"One model from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested that between 160 million and 210 million Americans could contract the disease over as long as a year. Based on mortality data and current hospital capacity, the number of deaths under the CDC's scenarios ranged from 200,000 to as many as 1.7 million.

It found as many as 21 million people might need hospitalization, a daunting figure in a nation with just about 925,000 hospital beds."

So if we re-run your numbers using the forecast numbers we'd arrive at between $500,000 to $58,000 per death. That brings it down to 1-5 years salary for the average American. And that cost would only rise the longer time dragged on.

21 million people might need hospitalization but only 1.7 million deaths? Those two numbers don't jive for obvious reasons. If you need a hospital, but you don't get one...

 

[DaveInDenver]

The 5 million was the number of jobs lost in China in 2020.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/china-economy-millions-lose-their-jobs-as-unemployment-spikes.html

The food service industry is expecting 5 to 7 million jobs lost.

https://www.qsrmagazine.com/finance...n-expects-225b-impact-5-7m-jobs-lost-covid-19

Just a number I picked, seemed to come up often enough.

 

[J1000]

The 5 million was the number of jobs lost in China in 2020.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/china-economy-millions-lose-their-jobs-as-unemployment-spikes.html

The food service industry is expecting 5 to 7 million jobs lost.

https://www.qsrmagazine.com/finance...n-expects-225b-impact-5-7m-jobs-lost-covid-19

Just a number I picked, seemed to come up often enough.

Yes, they are expecting 5-7 million jobs lost, but that's why the feds are working to provide $100 billion stimulus to keep those people employed during the disruption, provide paid sick leave for people who don't earn it, etc. It's not 5 million jobs lost AND $100 billion spent, the money is being spent to KEEP the jobs. Using your sources.

 

[DaveInDenver]

21 million people might need hospitalization but only 1.7 million deaths? Those two numbers don't jive for obvious reasons. If you need a hospital, but you don't get one...

Yeah, I am not skilled in reading CDC data. They track pneumonia and influenza based on inflection and hospitalization on a cumulative basis but deaths are tracked as number of P&I associated deaths relative to all deaths. Which seems to be typically about 50,000 deaths a week and around 3,000 are called pneumonia caused by influenza and 400 are called just called influenza. I am definitely unfamiliar with how they survey and account so perhaps those estimates are similarly derived? IOW, presuming some 'X' infections of which 'Y' turn serious and some percentage death is assumed. I dunno.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Yes, they are expecting 5-7 million jobs lost, but that's why the feds are working to provide $100 billion stimulus to keep those people employed during the disruption, provide paid sick leave for people who don't earn it, etc. It's not 5 million jobs lost AND $100 billion spent, the money is being spent to KEEP the jobs. Using your sources.

Economic analysis like that does I admit have to assume a lot of things. A job lost or maybe better said temporarily not done but still in the interim paid is a drag on productivity from somewhere else. My way of picturing the principle at work is attempting to flatten a presumed front end rush for health care and loss of economic activity on the back end by damping the social and thus economic effect over time through debt servicing and inflation. Kind of like "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Either way the economy is prevented from immediately freeing the labor, which can be a benefit or a loss depending on perspective.

 

[J1000]

Yeah, I am not skilled in reading CDC data. They track pneumonia and influenza based on inflection and hospitalization on a cumulative basis but deaths are tracked as number of P&I associated deaths relative to all deaths. Which seems to be typically about 50,000 deaths a week and around 3,000 are called pneumonia caused by influenza and 400 are called just called influenza. I am definitely unfamiliar with how they survey and account so perhaps those estimates are similarly derived? IOW, presuming some 'X' infections of which 'Y' turn serious and some percentage death is assumed. I dunno.

I assume they just calculate the death rate with current numbers expecting everyone will get the treatment they need. 21 million vs. 925,000 hospital beds speaks for itself.