[pilowsky]

Quite a lot of the students that I taught at University did not graduate.
It amazed me how they gained entry in the first place. Combine a toxic combination of adolescence, surging hormones, alcohol and whatever other inhibition loosening drugs that are available and it's hardly surprising.

Worth remembering that young people are invincible until they get on a motorcycle.

[cherdano]

When I was 20, I was probably more risk-averse than most of my peers. Still, if someone told me that some of my friends are at a party, the idea that I wouldn't go because there are some rules against it seems - uhm, let's call it "unrealistic". Remember that for them, the risk of getting covid-19 by going to a party is probably considerably less than the risks from getting completely drunk. And orders of magnitude lower than driving while drunk.

I think today's 20-year olds are on average more responsible than my generation when we were 20-year old. But what we are expecting them to do - inviting them to leave home and come to a University town, but then asking them not to mingle with all the friends they can potentially make, is utterly unrealistic. We have set them up for failure. (And I write this as an employee of one of these Universities who invited and highly encouraged students to come back to campus.)

[pilowsky]

Not forgetting that a photograph of young people on a University campus does not mean that the people in the photograph are students.
I used to go to Rock concerts at the university when I was 14. Gownies and Townies? Even regular house Parties get 'crashed'.
Who knows anything about this photograph really? Even the word Coventry may just have been added for verisimilitude.

[pilowsky]

Finally, Trump succeeds in passing a test without cheating.

[Cyberyeti]

Saw this recently, wonder what people with more direct knowledge make of it:

https://www.theatlan...Jz1wTM3ypFTlYCs

[shyams]

 Cyberyeti, on 2020-October-02, 03:58, said:

Saw this recently, wonder what people with more direct knowledge make of it:

https://www.theatlan...Jz1wTM3ypFTlYCs

Thank you for sharing; I would not have come across it otherwise. This is an interesting and useful article.

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2020-October-02, 03:58, said:

Saw this recently, wonder what people with more direct knowledge make of it:

https://www.theatlan...Jz1wTM3ypFTlYCs

1. Read EVERYTHING written by Zeynep Turfekci.

2. Christian Drosten (the most prominent covid-19 expert in Germany) made similar points before, but I didn't full understand them until I read this article. I had understood that the importance of superspreading means the epidemic is impossible to predict, as (especially when you have low prevalence) luck is such an important factor. But I hadn't understood how much importance it gives to backwards tracing (Who did you get the infection from? Whom else could they have infected?)

I have to say, I have been puzzled for months by the comparison of the UK and Germany. The UK has stricter measures in place. (Weddings with up to 100 guests are allowed in most regions in Germany.) For all the criticism of the UK testing regime, it is probably (we still don't get figures about number of people tested, only number of tests) testing more than Germany, and my anecdotal evidence suggests results don't take longer either. And yet the UK has consistently done just a little bit worse.

However, I presume Germany does a lot more backwards contact tracing; it's a bit hard to know for sure because it is decided case-by-case by local public health teams, but the daily RKI report (available also in English on https://www.rki.de/D...hte/Gesamt.html ) always mentions a lot of clusters responsible for local outbreaks - which were presumably found by backwards contact tracing.

[Zelandakh]

I suspect that Germany does less contact tracing than you might think Arend, although when I play table tennis in the league I have to provide my phone number, so probably more than the UK. However, the standard response here to someone calling the doctor and saying they have symptoms is asking them to stay at home. No test is done so I assume it is not counted as an "official" case and therefore also no tracing. What is true of Germany though is that almost everyone observes the social distancing rules extremely well. Everyone wears their mask in shops or on public transport and if you meet someone on the street, most will move to make sure the maximum possible separation occurs. Why the death rate here is so low though is something of a mystery to me and I have not yet seen any truly convincing explanation for it. I just feel very fortunate to live in a country that has generally handled things well and been hit less hard than many others.

Incidentally, the conclusions of that Atlantic article, as well as the recent Indian contact tracing study that has brought the issue into focus, is one that seemed fairly obvious back a while after Arend pointed out research about the change of infection rate over time for a given patient. Armed with that knowledge, it is surely clear that if an infected person goes to a large event (school/university/bar/party/etc) during that peak time they are going to infect a large number of people, whereas the majority who manage to avoid that infect few, if any. It is good that the research has caught up and confirmed that but I am sure that the experts have essentially known it for some time just from the underlying numbers.

[y66]

Laurence Kotlikoff and Michael Mina said:

Mr. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University. Dr. Mina is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He was a paid panelist at an Abbott Labs Covid conference in May.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it’ll be mid-2021 before a Covid-19 vaccine is available in quantities sufficient to “get back to our regular life.” Does that mean nine more months of lockdown? Not necessarily. There’s an alternative: repeated, frequent, rapid at-home testing. At least one such test, Abbott Labs ’ BinaxNOW, is already being produced for the government. Others are in development.

Details vary, but each is simple enough to be self-administered. With the BinaxNow test, you swab the front of your nose, insert the swab into one side of a small card, add saline to the other side, close the card, and see if the reader on the front lights up green or red. A phone app records a negative result for use as a digital passport.

Asking those presumed to be infectious to stay home would cut transmission chains, ending Covid outbreaks within weeks. Each transmission stopped may prevent hundreds more. This isn’t herd immunity, but it has the same effect. Like vaccines, the tests don’t have to be perfect. It’s enough to drop the virus’s reproductive number (the average number of people each infected person infects) below 1.

Cornell University’s quick defeat of its Covid cluster shows the power of frequent testing. Cornell tests all undergraduates twice a week and quarantines those who are positive. After an unauthorized party, Cornell had 60 positive cases a week before starting surveillance testing. It now has about three a week.

Frequent at-home rapid testing could help keep outbreaks at bay and restore the economy. Health departments would ensure that hot-zone populations get priority access. Digital passports would be required, like masks, to go to work, attend school, make reservations, enter stores, etc. Private-sector requirements would strongly encourage collective compliance

Current rapid tests, including Abbott’s, generate 2% false positives, too high for at-home use. Each pack of tests must come with a confirmatory test that detects a different part of the virus. Both would need to turn red to deem a person positive. This plus repeat use 24 hours later could drive the false-positive rate well below 0.1%. Rapid tests are most accurate on subjects who have high viral loads and are contagious, making them ideal for public-health use.

Our models show outbreaks can be driven down in weeks even if only half a community uses rapid tests every four days. Fifteen million tests a day could stop outbreaks across the U.S. Based on data from symptomatic Covid patients, the Food and Drug Administration has approved BinaxNOW for use in a doctor’s office or clinic. This will help, but such “point of care” tests are too cumbersome to use on the scale needed to reopen the economy.

Rapid tests need to be tested with asymptomatic infected patients. If they work as well, particularly on those with high viral load, the FDA will be closer to approving them for home use. The agency is highly focused on bringing safe and effective Covid testing into the home.

Ford Motor Co. produced an average of one B-24 bomber every 63 minutes in World War II. We can print tens of millions of paper-strip tests a day—enough to end Covid world-wide. The administration should organize a Manhattan Project, run by the Defense Department, to produce and provide free at-home rapid tests to all Americans, starting in hot spots.

Transmission is likely to increase this fall. Pending the rollout of rapid home tests, the country should hunker down and cancel potential superspreader events—including in-person classes in public schools, colleges and universities—when outbreaks arise. Covid-19 is ravaging the land, but there’s a clear way to fight back quickly and safely.

https://www.wsj.com/...ine-11601594473

[y66]

Lessons from Israel's second wave by Eran Segal: https://twitter.com/...831721981415428

[y66]

Nature Research said:

(Kelly Barnes/Getty)

This is Floki, a springer spaniel that scientists at the University of Adelaide in Australia are training to detect signs of coronavirus infection in human sweat. The research is part of an international effort to train sniffer dogs to rapidly screen people for COVID-19. The canines are rewarded with positive reinforcement — in Floki’s case, being allowed to play with his favourite toy — when they pick a sweat sample from someone with the disease out of a line-up. Preliminary studies show that dogs trained in this way are able to identify people who are infected with the coronavirus before they develop symptoms. A pilot scheme involving 4 sniffer dogs at Helsinki airport indicated that dogs can detect the presence of the virus in less than 10 seconds with nearly 100% accuracy.

[y66]

Quote

They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

The New England Journal of Medicine calls out US leaders’ handling of COVID-19 in a uncharacteristically scathing editorial.

https://www.nejm.org...77501c-45443718

[y66]

David Cutler and Larry Summers said:

The SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) pandemic is the greatest threat to prosperity and well-being the US has encountered since the Great Depression. This Viewpoint aggregates mortality, morbidity, mental health conditions, and direct economic losses to estimate the total cost of the pandemic in the US on the optimistic assumption that it will be substantially contained by the fall of 2021. These costs far exceed those associated with conventional recessions and the Iraq War, and are similar to those associated with global climate change. However, increased investment in testing and contact tracing could have economic benefits that are at least 30 times greater than the estimated costs of the investment in these approaches.

Since the onset of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in March, 60 million claims have been filed for unemployment insurance. Before COVID-19, the greatest number of weekly new unemployment insurance claims (based on data from 1967 on) was 695 000 in the week of October 2, 1982. For 20 weeks beginning in late March 2020, new unemployment claims exceeded 1 million per week; as of September 20, new claims have been just below that amount.

Recessions feed on themselves. Workers not at work have less to spend, and thus subsequent business revenue declines. The federal government offset much of the initial loss owing to the shutdown, which has averted what would likely have been a new Great Depression. But the virus is ongoing, and thus full recovery is not expected until well into the future. The Congressional Budget Office projects a total of $7.6 trillion in lost output during the next decade.

Lower output is not the only economic cost of COVID-19; death and reduced quality of life also can be measured in economic terms. To date, approximately 200 000 deaths have been directly attributable to COVID-19; many more will doubtless occur. In the US, approximately 5000 COVID-19 deaths are occurring per week and the estimated effective reproduction number (Rt [ie, the average number of people who become infected by a person with SARS-CoV-2 infection]) is approximately 1. If these rates continue, another 250 000 deaths can be expected in the next year. Seasonal factors could increase mortality, although whether COVID-19 will display a large seasonal pattern is unknown. In addition to COVID-19 deaths, studies suggest increased deaths from other causes, amounting to almost 40% of COVID-19–related deaths. Thus, if the current trajectories continue, an estimated 625 000 cumulative deaths associated with the pandemic will occur through next year in the US.

Although putting a value on a given human life is impossible, economists have developed the technique of valuing “statistical lives”; that is, measuring how much it is worth to people to reduce their risk of mortality or morbidity. This approach has been used as a standard in US regulatory policy and in discussions of global health policy.

There is a lengthy economic literature assessing the value of a statistical life; for example, in environmental and health regulation. Although no single number is universally accepted, ranges are often used. In environmental and health policy, for example, a statistical life is assumed to be worth $10 million. With a more conservative value of $7 million per life, the economic cost of premature deaths expected through the next year is estimated at $4.4 trillion.

Some individuals who survive COVID-19 are likely to have significant long-term complications, including respiratory, cardiac, and mental health disorders, and may have an increased risk of premature death. Data from survivors of COVID-19 suggest that long-term impairment occurs for approximately one-third of survivors with severe or critical disease. Because there are approximately 7 times as many survivors from severe or critical COVID-19 disease as there are COVID-19 deaths, long-term impairment might affect more than twice as many people as the number of people who die.

Given the predominance of respiratory complications among COVID-19 survivors, affected individuals may be like those with moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which has been estimated to have a quality-of-life disutility of approximately −0.25 to −0.35. Assuming a total reduction in quality-adjusted life expectancy, including length as well as quality of life, of 35% and taking into consideration the assumed value of a year of life yields an estimated loss from long-term complications of $2.6 trillion for cases forecast through the next year.

Even individuals who do not develop COVID-19 are affected by the virus. Loss of life among friends and loved ones, fear of contracting the virus, concern about economic security, and the effects of isolation and loneliness have all taken a toll on the mental health of the population. The proportion of US adults who report symptoms of depression or anxiety has averaged approximately 40% since April 2020; the comparable figure in early 2019 was 11.0%. These data translate to an estimated 80 million additional individuals with these mental health conditions related to COVID-19. If, in line with prevailing estimates, the cost of these conditions is valued at about $20 000 per person per year and the mental health symptoms last for only 1 year, the valuation of these losses could reach approximately $1.6 trillion.

The estimated cumulative financial costs of the COVID-19 pandemic related to the lost output and health reduction are shown in the Table [see link]. The total cost is estimated at more than $16 trillion, or approximately 90% of the annual gross domestic product of the US. For a family of 4, the estimated loss would be nearly $200 000. Approximately half of this amount is the lost income from the COVID-19–induced recession; the remainder is the economic effects of shorter and less healthy life.

Output losses of this magnitude are immense. The lost output in the Great Recession was only one-quarter as large. The economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since September 11, 2001, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. By another metric, this cost is approximately the estimate of damages (such as from decreased agricultural productivity and more frequent severe weather events) from 50 years of climate change.

For this reason, policies that can materially reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 have enormous social value. Consider a policy of wide-scale population testing, contact tracing, and isolation. For example, assuming 100 000 individuals are tested, the cost of testing would be approximately $6 million. According to current values for SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in some areas, approximately 5000 people will test positive.

Many infections could be prevented by this approach. Not every person who tests positive for SARS-CoV-2 is infectious; perhaps 20% of people who test positive are sufficiently late in the course of infection that transmission probabilities are low.8 In addition, approximately 25% of people who test positive would likely not quarantine.9 However, given an Rt of about 1, reducing transmission by 45% could lead to approximately 2750 fewer positive cases. This could prevent about 14 deaths (estimated value ≈ $96 million) and about 33 critical and severe cases (estimated value ≈ $80 million). These subsequent cases not occurring could ultimately lead to even fewer cases, but even ignoring that, the projected economic return from the test and trace strategy is approximately 30 times the cost (ie, investment of approximately $6 million leads to averted costs of an estimated $176 million).

The Rockefeller Foundation estimates that a policy of 30 million tests weekly would require an additional $75 billion in spending during the next year; adding the cost of contact tracing might bring the total to approximately $100 billion.

Congress is currently discussing whether to provide economic support to mitigate the economic damage caused by COVID with legislation following up on the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The highest-return investments that should be included in such legislation are increased testing and contact tracing. A minimum of 5% of any COVID economic relief intervention should be devoted to such health measures.

More generally, the immense financial loss from COVID-19 suggests a fundamental rethinking of government’s role in pandemic preparation. Currently, the US prioritizes spending on acute treatment, with far less spending on public health services and infrastructure. As the nation struggles to recover from COVID-19, investments that are made in testing, contact tracing, and isolation should be established permanently and not dismantled when the concerns about COVID-19 begin to recede.

https://jamanetwork....YylrEN8.twitter

Preparation is good. Ditto for timely testing, backward tracing, distancing, masks and enforcing restrictions on large gatherings.

[pilowsky]

I haven't visited this site for a while. Here's the latest.

[pilowsky]

...and of course, things that sound too good to be true, usually aren't. And it isn't quite as Daniel Dale might say.
1. Dogs (apparently) can't get COVID - but they can get other things.
2. Dogs can't sniff out sars-cov-2 or any other virus. Because well, viruses don't have an odour that I'm aware of.
3. What dogs do detect are called VOC - viral olfactory compounds. Actually, that's just a fancy name for - when humans heat up they release specific compounds that dogs can smell. Nothing to do with COVID - could be any virus.
4. This is how urban myths get propagated. The image is probably not even the dog from Adelaide Uni. The image has a KellyBarnes/Getty signature. The Adelaide uni website shows another dog whose head is not in a can.
I wonder if they have noisy dogs that can sniff out bullshit? Then we could take a pack to a Trump press conference and drown out the sound of him emitting lies.

So, this story doesn't pass the sniff test. .

[hrothgar]

Interesting infographic

https://dangoodspeed...ases-since-june

[Zelandakh]

 hrothgar, on 2020-October-13, 02:57, said:

Interesting infographic

https://dangoodspeed...ases-since-june

This site appears to be blocked for me but the upvotes suggest not for others. Is it a European thing or is there some secret to getting past the security?

[StevenG]

 Zelandakh, on 2020-October-13, 08:25, said:

This site appears to be blocked for me but the upvotes suggest not for others. Is it a European thing or is there some secret to getting past the security?

Blocked for me too.

[shyams]

 Zelandakh, on 2020-October-13, 08:25, said:

This site appears to be blocked for me but the upvotes suggest not for others. Is it a European thing or is there some secret to getting past the security?

Works for me; I'm accessing it from the UK.

There is a possibility that the website uses Flash or some equivalent software for their infographic. In which case, your web browser may be configured to auto-block such software.

[Zelandakh]

 shyams, on 2020-October-13, 09:05, said:

Works for me; I'm accessing it from the UK.

There is a possibility that the website uses Flash or some equivalent software for their infographic. In which case, your web browser may be configured to auto-block such software.

OK I worked it out. The site needs to be opened with Chrome in incognito mode. The graphic is no great surprise given the different levels of restrictions in red versus blue states but it is particularly telling when you take into consideration that red states tend to be more rural with a significantly lower population densities.