the no-nonsense, nothing-but-the-facts-m'am C19 thread

[gh]

meanwhile in Britain....

A scientist whose modeling helped set Britain’s coronavirus strategy said Wednesday that the country’s death toll in the pandemic could have been cut in half if lockdown had been introduced a week earlier.

https://apnews.com/052a8a930b7a214f225d3ba009058436

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile....

"When you look at hotspot regions like Arizona and Texas, they have to be concerned, particularly areas around Houston right now. they could lose control of this very quickly," says @ScottGottliebMD
on balancing re-opening with public health.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SquawkCNB...66344774729729

“There’s certain parts of the country that look pretty hot right now,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb says about coronavirus spread in places like Arizona and Texas."

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBC/status/1270553774403141634

[Master403]

Major BS.

OK. Grade this nugget from the Nature study on your BS scale:

In the U.S., Slow the Spread Guidelines increased Covid-19 growth rate by 5%.

[gh]

OK. Grade this nugget from the Nature study on your BS scale:

In the U.S., Slow the Spread Guidelines increased Covid-19 growth rate by 5%.

I'm not finding that anywhere

[Master403]

I'm not finding that anywhere

From the downloaded pdf, page 6, figure 2, section c, Effect of individual policies.

[Master403]

[gm]

Meanwhile....

"When you look at hotspot regions like Arizona and Texas, they have to be concerned, particularly areas around Houston right now. they could lose control of this very quickly," says @ScottGottliebMD
on balancing re-opening with public health.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SquawkCNB...66344774729729

“There’s certain parts of the country that look pretty hot right now,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb says about coronavirus spread in places like Arizona and Texas."

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBC/stat...53774403141634

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/

Very helpful site for Houston's enormous medical center

[Master403]

Last one (I promise) from the Nature study:

In Italy, the combined policies of Work From Home, no gathering, and other social distancing, increased Covid-19 spread by over 15% per day.

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile...

Widespread mask-wearing could prevent COVID-19 second waves: study

The study found that if people wear masks whenever they are in public it is twice as effective at reducing the R value than if masks are only worn after symptoms appear.

In all scenarios the study looked at, routine face mask use by 50% or more of the population reduced COVID-19 spread to an R of less than 1.0, flattening future disease waves and allowing for less stringent lockdowns.

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23G37V?__twitter_impression=true

[Trickstat]

Last one (I promise) from the Nature study:

In Italy, the combined policies of Work From Home, no gathering, and other social distancing, increased Covid-19 spread by over 15% per day.

Compared with the parallel universe where Italy didn't do that?

[tandfman]

Last one (I promise) from the Nature study:

In Italy, the combined policies of Work From Home, no gathering, and other social distancing, increased Covid-19 spread by over 15% per day.

Increased over what? The spread that would have happened without those policies? They're going to have a tough time convincing me of that.

[Master403]

Compared with the parallel universe where Italy didn't do that?

Increased over what? The spread that would have happened without those policies? They're going to have a tough time convincing me of that.

"Estimated effects of individual policies or policy groups on the daily growth rate of infections ..."

There have been some shockingly bad "studies" published with no peer review, not even reality checks, during this pandemic. None of the 15 authors looked at the results and said Hey, this makes no sense. Maybe our economic model doesn't apply here. Nature published with disclaimers. The author at Mother Jones pulled out one number to make his point, ignoring the crap it was buried in. Undoubtedly other lazy journalists will parrot it in their articles.

The sad thing is, this isn't the worst example.

[Master403]

Brazil June 10

Daily new cases 33,100
Total Cases 775,184

Daily new deaths 1,300
Total deaths 39,797

[El Toro]

Major BS. Classrooms are petri dishes of contagion. Bugs sweep through on a regular basis. COVID is no different in this regard. I'm glad I just retired, because if my school tries to re-open in situ with some cockamamie scheme they call social-distancing, I'd be out.

Normally, you'd be right. BUT, this coronavirus is not the flu and is very different to other respiratory infections, so the problems and solutions are also different.

The accumulation of evidence indicates that children are not a great reservoir of infection and do not transmit to others on any significant scale.

A big HOWEVER, as PVP mentioned, transmissibility from children is age dependent:
<10 at zero practical risk,
11-15 slightly higher but still negligible,
16-20 quick increase of transmission risk year by year up to adult level.

The proposed mechanism is the immaturity of the cells infected by coronavirus. This results in lower ACE2 expression, the compound that coronavirus uses to enter cells. As children mature, ACE2 increases over time until they hit adulthood and consequently, so does infection risk. This is still to be confirmed and other factors may emerge, but it's still clear that children are different.

For all teachers, the greatest infection risk at school is time spent in crowded staff rooms and canteens with other teachers, or time spent with parents. Time in the classroom is not really a problem even with older students unless you are doing something like an extended tutorial at close quarters. "Chalk and talk" is OK.

A Chinese study could not find any evidence of children transmitting to adults in the home, a much more intimate space than school, all infections were from adults bringing the infection into the home first and passing to children.

Be scared of adults, not children.

PS. Congrats on retirement!

[Atticus]

Be scared of adults, not children. PS. Congrats on retirement!

I am and thanks!