March Madness and Covid-19

[stormspencer]

By the way, Texas had a new high for new Covid-19 cases yesterday, 1,355.

This needs to be qualified. Texas has over the last two weeks really ramped up testing to include prisons and additional public testing locations. With that, you're going to naturally see more positive cases identified. A better filter is a metric that incorporates a % of positive cases per test.....i.e. 2000 tests confirming 100 positive cases is statistically a better % than 1000 tests confirming 60 positive tests.....even though 100 cases in more than 60 cases. It needs to be viewed more from this lens.....is the positive % rate per test going up or down?

 

[BCSooners]

The seat of Cleveland County, America.

That’s scary he can’t get a test seeing Oklahoma’s low numbers & all the time that has passed. Makes is scary that we are opening back up and didn’t get prepared during the shutdown.

 

[steverocks35]

This needs to be qualified. Texas has over the last two weeks really ramped up testing to include prisons and additional public testing locations. With that, you're going to naturally see more positive cases identified. A better filter is a metric that incorporates a % of positive cases per test.....i.e. 2000 tests confirming 100 positive cases is statistically a better % than 1000 tests confirming 60 positive tests.....even though 100 cases in more than 60 cases. It needs to be viewed more from this lens.....is the positive % rate per test going up or down?

The governor of Texas has ordered that prisons and nursing homes be tested, but that hasn't been done yet. As of Monday, only 2,300 of 140,000 inmates had been tested. Texas ranks 48th in the nation in tests per capita.

The turnaround time on these tests in most cases is 3-5 days and is up to 7-9 days in some cases (I know this from experience). So the tests collected the last few days won't be reported yet.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/05/12/texas-prisons-coronavirus-testing/

 

[stormspencer]

I don't believe it's a fallacy.....and there are plenty of polls that support my statement....

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/13/poll-coronavirus-reopen-trump-republicans-252726

From the article.....

But it also risks putting Trump and the GOP out of step with the majority of voters on the most urgent issue facing the country just months before the presidential election. Fifty-six percent of voters overall say they’re more concerned about public health than the economy, though that is a drop of 8 percentage points from April 10 to 12, when they were first asked.

“As Congress reconvenes, a sharp political divide continues, as Republicans are increasingly more concerned with the pandemic's economic impact, though a plurality of voters feel the country is reopening too quickly,” said Tyler Sinclair, vice president at Morning Consult.

There are other polls....I was unable to find one that stated that most people thought it was time to reopen.

Dr. Fauci testified during the senate hearing a couple of days ago.....warning that reopening too soon could have dire consequences. Yesterday, the President rejected the warning.

Yesterday, there was a motion in the Senate to release the CDC report on reopening guidelines.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/schume...rt-reopening-guidelines-coronavirus-pandemic/

It was rejected.....you can probably guess as to who objected.

It seems painfully obvious that some want to listed to the experts on the pandemic.....and others are more concerned with opening the economy today.

And I'm not saying that we can't do both.....but you need a plan. And there hasn't been a plan in the last four months. And I don't expect one now either.

Letting the state's governors decide is risky bc they are easily swayed by politics. They see their economies failing, so they bet on the chance that they can ignore the scientists. The problem is that a lot of the public is listening to the scientists......and the scientists are revising the death estimates upward.
https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...d-us-coronavirus-deaths-jump-as-states-reopen

From the US News and World Report article above...
Projected U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Jump as States Reopen
A new model projects that 147,000 Americans could die from the coronavirus by August – a sharp increase over a total predicted as recently as Sunday.

I live in SW Oklahoma.....and there are plenty of people walking around in walmart that never wear a mask, totally disregard all the safety precautions that the governors suggest. But there are also plenty of people that refuse to leave their homes because of the other people. If any plan is to work, it has to be enforced.

I'm inherently skeptical of "polls" simply because the wording of the questions can be manipulated in a manner that creates a false conclusion or drive a narrative. CNN had to redact an article/poll a few days ago because it was a misrepresentation based upon Americans and their comfort with going back to work without a vaccine. Initially, they reported only appx 14% of Americans were comfortable returning to work without a viable vaccine. But that isn't what the poll actually reflected. (it was a tweet that they have since deleted that I'm trying my damn-dest to find). I will keep looking.

I also think many outlets are simply taking advantage of a well served market for gloomy outlooks.

Testing and tracing is a strategy designed to tamp down epidemic spikes beyond the capacity of the health care system, not to end the spread of covid-19 completely....thus I'm not sure why this is hardly ever presented in that particular context....oh wait....yes I do. And also the notion that all scientific experts/epidemiologists/physicians are universally aligned regarding the state of the disease and "what we should do" just isn't the case. We have a physician in this forum (Eielson) who has actually treated the disease. I tend to trust what he says since he has seen it firsthand.

I do agree that if we all can't on some semblance of the same page, then any degree of re-opening is going to be klunky and not have the positive effect that we all want.

 

[WTSooner]

This needs to be qualified. Texas has over the last two weeks really ramped up testing to include prisons and additional public testing locations. With that, you're going to naturally see more positive cases identified. A better filter is a metric that incorporates a % of positive cases per test.....i.e. 2000 tests confirming 100 positive cases is statistically a better % than 1000 tests confirming 60 positive tests.....even though 100 cases in more than 60 cases. It needs to be viewed more from this lens.....is the positive % rate per test going up or down?

This x1000.

I have no interest in "hard numbers" like how many positives we had, b/c so much about the testing and who is tested is changing. Need to know % of those tested that were positive. That number has been going down, significantly, just about everywhere. But you have to dig to get to those numbers, b/c that isn't how the info is reported.

 

[WTSooner]

The turnaround time on these tests in most cases is 3-5 days and is up to 7-9 days in some cases (I know this from experience). So the tests collected the last few days won't be reported yet.

I know a handful of people (including my brother and myself) that have been tested. We all received the results the following day. Generally the following morning.

 

[stormspencer]

The governor of Texas has ordered that prisons and nursing homes be tested, but that hasn't been done yet. As of Monday, only 2,300 of 140,000 inmates had been tested. Texas ranks 48th in the nation in tests per capita.

The turnaround time on these tests in most cases is 3-5 days and is up to 7-9 days in some cases (I know this from experience). So the tests collected the last few days won't be reported yet.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/05/12/texas-prisons-coronavirus-testing/

"TDCJ had only reported testing about 2,300 inmates — less than 2% of its inmate population. Of those tested, nearly 74% had the virus. That’s a staggeringly high rate compared with the state overall, where less than 8% of those tested had the virus."

Yikes....if that trend continues, that's going to leave a mark on the positive case graph. But I am encouraged by the second sentence.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

I know a handful of people (including my brother and myself) that have been tested. We all received the results the following day. Generally the following morning.

Mine took a week to get the results but I think they had the results in a day. We were told they would call us within 24 hours if it was positive. SO a lot of the lag time, I believe is just logistics of gathering the data and getting it sent out.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

"TDCJ had only reported testing about 2,300 inmates — less than 2% of its inmate population. Of those tested, nearly 74% had the virus. That’s a staggeringly high rate compared with the state overall, where less than 8% of those tested had the virus."

Yikes....if that trend continues, that's going to leave a mark on the positive case graph. But I am encouraged by the second sentence.

That is crazy.

So let's release them all and replace them with moms going on a walk

 

[steverocks35]

I know a handful of people (including my brother and myself) that have been tested. We all received the results the following day. Generally the following morning.

Okay, but I'm talking about testing of institutions that don't have on-site laboratories. In our laboratory, we can do the testing here, but the number of tests on-site is EXTREMELY limited. If we want to do a routine test we send them out to other laboratories. If we send to RML, the average turnaround time for us is 72 hours +/-, it's about the same for state health. If we send to LabCorp the turnaround time is 7-9 days and it's the same if we send them to Palo Alto.

Now, I'm talking about testing prisons and nursing homes. That means collecting mass amounts of samples. That takes TIME, lots of time. Then you have to transport the samples, because they won't be tested on-site. That takes time, sometimes multiple days. Then those samples get put in the rotation, usually behind a massive amount of other samples that are sitting and waiting to be tested, this can also take days. Then you have the test time, which is usually a few hours. Then you have the time to generate the report, the time to enter the results and the time to report the results. This is highly variable and can also take hours or days.

 

[coolm]

Now, I'm talking about testing prisons and nursing homes. That means collecting mass amounts of samples. That takes TIME, lots of time. Then you have to transport the samples, because they won't be tested on-site. That takes time, sometimes multiple days. Then those samples get put in the rotation, usually behind a massive amount of other samples that are sitting and waiting to be tested, this can also take days. Then you have the test time, which is usually a few hours. Then you have the time to generate the report, the time to enter the results and the time to report the results. This is highly variable and can also take hours or days.

But that could really feed straight into some kind of group testing thing. As you're putting a framework and network together you start routine weekly collections. Take those for a few weeks and group them however, a couple of different ways. Whichever grouping isolates out the most non-infected you pass ... and the others don't. It would come down to local groups vying to keep one another clean to get their badges or whatever for walking around without PPE's and going to work and restaurants. Some almost dystopian thing such as that.

 

[steverocks35]

But that could really feed straight into some kind of group testing thing. As you're putting a framework and network together you start routine weekly collections. Take those for a few weeks and group them however, a couple of different ways. Whichever grouping isolates out the most non-infected you pass ... and the others don't. It would come down to local groups vying to keep one another clean to get their badges or whatever for walking around without PPE's and going to work and restaurants. Some almost dystopian thing such as that.

Right, but I was responding specifically to Texas testing their prisons and nursing homes, and how long that might take to get reportable results.

 

[WTSooner]

Oklahoma CV-related deaths in recent days:
5/13 - 0
5/12 - 5
5/11 - 1
5/10 - 2
5/9 - 4
5/8 - 6
5/7 - 7
5/6 - 6
5/5 - 9
5/4 - 0
5/3 - 0
5/2 - 8

 

[steverocks35]

Oklahoma CV-related deaths in recent days:
5/13 - 0
5/12 - 5
5/11 - 1
5/10 - 2
5/9 - 4
5/8 - 6
5/7 - 7
5/6 - 6
5/5 - 9
5/4 - 0
5/3 - 0
5/2 - 8

We had 6 in the last 24 hours.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

We had 6 in the last 24 hours.

Nope, 3.

The number they report at 11 each days is just the reported numbers. but usually only half of them +/- are from the previous 24 hours

 

[coolm]

Right, but I was responding specifically to Texas testing their prisons and nursing homes, and how long that might take to get reportable results.

I understand. It was just that the prison structure makes it such that you can perfectly demonstrate using groups to isolate a contagion in fewer tests. Have a rational, logical basis for groupings and eliminate larger chunks if you choose your methodology correctly. Like looking at an NCAA tourney bracket in reverse.

 

[AdaSooner]

Nope, 3.

The number they report at 11 each days is just the reported numbers. but usually only half of them +/- are from the previous 24 hours

You are correct, sir! A copy and paste straight from the written transcript:


“Health officials reported Thursday there are six additional deaths; three of them occurred in the past 24 hours and the others died between May 4-May 11.”

 

[steverocks35]

Nope, 3.

The number they report at 11 each days is just the reported numbers. but usually only half of them +/- are from the previous 24 hours

If you scroll down to "OK deaths' next to the number 6 you will see an asterisks. If you look at the bottom next to the corresponding note it says, "DoD* indicate the delta (↑ ↓) or rate of change (%) over the past 24 hours only."

https://coronavirus.health.ok.gov/

 

[steverocks35]

You are correct, sir! A copy and paste straight from the written transcript:


“Health officials reported Thursday there are six additional deaths; three of them occurred in the past 24 hours and the others died between May 4-May 11.”

Must be looking at a different website than I am. Oh well.

 

[steverocks35]

I understand. It was just that the prison structure makes it such that you can perfectly demonstrate using groups to isolate a contagion in fewer tests. Have a rational, logical basis for groupings and eliminate larger chunks if you choose your methodology correctly. Like looking at an NCAA tourney bracket in reverse.

That's exactly right.