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Stats Medicine United States

New Imperial College Research Estimates Coronavirus Still Spreading Uncontrolled in 24 US States (msn.com) 197

Posted by EditorDavid from the pandemic-predictions dept.
New research from Imperial College London suggests the coronavirus "may still be spreading at epidemic rates" in 24 different states in America, reports the Washington Post: Some states have had little viral spread or "crushed the curve" to a great degree and have some wiggle room to reopen their economies without generating a new epidemic-level surge in cases. Others are nowhere near containing the virus. The model, which has not been peer reviewed, shows that in the majority of states, a second wave looms if people abandon efforts to mitigate the viral spread. "There's evidence that the U.S. is not under control, as an entire country," said Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer in geostatistics at Imperial College....

The Imperial College researchers found in 24 states, the model shows a reproduction number over 1 [suggesting the virus is not waning]. Texas tops the list, followed by Arizona, Illinois, Colorado, Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, Alabama, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, New Mexico, Missouri, Delaware, South Carolina, Massachusetts, North Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Maryland....

This has become a geographically complex pandemic, one that will evolve, especially as people increase their movements in coming weeks. Laws and health regulations vary from state to state, county to county and city to city. There are communities where wearing facial coverings is culturally the norm, while in other places it is rejected on grounds of personal liberty or as refutation of the consensus view of the hazards posed by the virus... Experts in Tennessee are also concerned about people from other states beginning to flock to Nashville and Memphis on summer vacations.

If a surge happens, said David Aronoff, director of the Vanderbilt University infectious disease division, "the tricky part will be putting the toothpaste back in the tube" by shutting down again.
In addition to "behavioural precautions," the researchers recommend rapid testing and contact tracing. But If there's no change in the relationship between mobility and transmission, their report states bluntly that "We predict that deaths over the next two-month period will exceed current cumulative deaths by greater than two-fold...

"We predict that increased mobility following relaxation of social distancing will lead to resurgence of transmission, keeping all else constant."
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New Imperial College Research Estimates Coronavirus Still Spreading Uncontrolled in 24 US States More

New Imperial College Research Estimates Coronavirus Still Spreading Uncontrolled in 24 US States

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  • Waiting on the research findings by the Metric College London

    We all know Metric > Imperial

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Metric is garbage too. Where's the report from Furlong Fortnight College? That's the good stuff.

  • I live in a semi-rural county (Score:5, Insightful)

    by olsmeister ( 1488789 ) on Saturday May 23, 2020 @01:45PM (#60095048)
    and we haven't had a positive test in over two weeks. However a significant part of our economy is tourism based and driving around today, after a partial re-opening, I see half the vehicles have out-of-state tags. I have a feeling we're making a deal with the devil by re-opening and allowing in the tourists. I hope the shop owners feel it's worth it in about a month from now.

    • Re:I live in a semi-rural county (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday May 23, 2020 @02:07PM (#60095162)

      The only good thing in this is that the US is now doing a massive medical experiment with opening up things far too early. The rest of the world will benefit from that.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by zugmeister ( 1050414 )
        Some statements don't age well. For an example, google "are US hospitals overwhelmed". You'll note a ton of FUD mid march through mid(ish) April then only a tiny number of articles detailing how hospitals are starting to take in regular patients as the horrible crisis failed to manifest.
        You can yell and scream about the apocalypse, but people have been doing that for years. Maybe you should get a Bible and a street corner. The rest of the US is sick of this (mostly) nothingburger and ready to get on with ou

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          You are ignoring the places where the hospitals actually were overwhelmed. There were two mentioned in the news yesterday.

          This is a thing that has peaks and troughs, partially based on how people change their behavior. And, yes, a lot of hospitals never came close to being overwhelmed. But if you don't know which will be, what do you propose doing?

          • >"You are ignoring the places where the hospitals actually were overwhelmed. There were two mentioned in the news yesterday."

            Exactly. There were a couple, for a short time, out of thousands and thousands. Meanwhile, many hospitals are starting to go under due to severe LACK of patients for many weeks.

          • Do you remember that Navy ship that came to NY? Do you know how many patients the one in NY treated? In the 180s. That thing was built for way more patients than that (war is hell). That doesn't sound like the system was overwhelmed. Maybe logistics problems, but not resources.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          You see _religious_ stupidity in my statement? Are you on drugs?

          Incidentally, I just said that you are doing the rest of the world a massive favor by opening up early. I was perfectly honest on that one.

      • >"The only good thing in this is that the US is now doing a massive medical experiment with opening up things far too early"

        It is far too late, not too early, in most areas. The country is huge, so making a blanket statement like that is just silly.

      • the plague rats will run around for a few months, get sick, some will die and the problem will self-sort.

        everyone I know is staying inside and waiting this out.

        it sucks that the country is so polarized, but I can't say I'll cry all that much if the plague rats burn themselves out.

        they are dangerous, they are ignorant and if their numbers decrease over the next few months, its not such a bad thing.

    • Re:I live in a semi-rural county (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday May 23, 2020 @02:13PM (#60095182) Journal
      The biggest worry in many rural/tourist areas is that although the population is small, they also do not have much hospital capacity, so even a small surge in the area can cause serious problems.

      • ...they also do not have much hospital capacity

        But they are most likely reasonably close a larger town or city that does have the capacity, a capacity which is most likely severely underused. During the entire manufactured* crisis, the starkest stories were those where many, many hospitals were like ghost towns waiting for the attack that never came.

        *manufactured in the sense that the actual danger was vastly overblown, causing panic where none was warranted. The fearmongers focused on the number of people who were infected, while calmly downplaying ho

        • manufactured in the sense that the actual danger was vastly overblown

          What do think was the actual danger?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      Same here. Our county supervisors seem more interested in opening up businesses for the tourists than protecting people from infection. No new cases in our county in a few weeks but this weekend we are inundated with people traveling from infected areas (in violation of the Governor's stay at home order). I predict more cases in the next week.

    • Fifty two percent [heritage.org] of all counties had ZERO coronavirus deaths, and just 1% of all counties [heritage.org] account for HALF of all CoVID-19 deaths. This is an Acela Corridor epidemic. The rest of the US? Meh...

  • I'm a Hoosier native,.. (Score:3)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Saturday May 23, 2020 @01:54PM (#60095094) Journal

    The governor and mayor are absolutely in a race to see who can out do Jaws the fastest. This makes no sense since most of the of biggest events have already been cancelled like the Indy 500 and Gencon.

    Many people here are acting like this is over and it very much isn't.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Many people here are acting like this is over and it very much isn't.

      Indeed. The US still has almost the same rate of daily infected as it had at the peak. With that, doing contact-tracking is completely impossible, there are far too many new cases each day. Hence open things up and getting exponential growth again just takes a few weeks.

      From the outside, it looks like the US is trying to prevent a 2nd wave by never stopping the first one.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by janeil ( 548335 )

        Pointless post here, but I just have to thank you for your contributions, some refreshment in an otherwise irritating buzz. I also find +1 browsing to almost make slashdot like the olden days.

    • We only need to get a fat lady to sing.

  • Mystery solved (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by russotto ( 537200 )

    We now know where the Iraqi Information Minister [wikipedia.org] ended up.

    "The Iraqi invasion f... err, coronavirus is not waning. It is unstoppably strong in 24 states!"

    • "Texas is safe. The battle is still going on. The viruses are committing suicide by the hundreds at the gates of the Alamo. Don't believe those liars."

  • An R > 1 simply means that each infected person is spreading it to more than one person, and thus the number of infections with each generation is growing.

    An R == 1 means that each person infects on average one person, and the number of infections per generation is constant.

    An R 2 - which is the R when action isn't taken to curb it. So in reality it is probably being 'controlled' to some extent, just not sufficiently to cause the long term trend to be shrinking or constant rather than growing.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      R = 1 together with a high absolute number (and the US certainly has that) means there is nothing effective being done about the problem. I would very much call that "uncontrolled". There is something worse than "uncontrolled", namely "uncontrolled and growing exponentially". The US will see what that means in the near future if they really are going to be stupid enough to open up things again at this stage.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      You can approximate the R0 by looking at one week's new cases compared with the previous cases. In Santa Clara County, for example, we were doing well. Based on week-over-week growth, R0 was below 1 from April 6, spiking only briefly over 1 on April 13, reaching as low as 0.38 on April 24 before climbing back above 1 for three days, from April 29 through May 1, and then quickly settling back down to .68 by May 3. It remained around .7 until it started climbing again on May 12, a little less than two wee

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      From TFA:

      In 24 states, however, the model shows a reproduction number over 1.

      So it's reasonable to say that in 24 states the epidemic is not "controlled".

      • >>"In 24 states, however, the model shows a reproduction number over 1."

        >"So it's reasonable to say that in 24 states the epidemic is not "controlled"."

        That depends on the definition of "controlled." R=1.3 is a lot better and more "controlled" than R=3 or 4, like it was when it first hit. Look at their data. All but one state is below 1.3 or so.

        And even in the states with R > 1, it is probably mostly just the dense cities. Making local decisions about containment makes sense.

        https://www.impe [imperial.ac.uk]

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Sure, there's varying degrees of "uncontrolled", and nobody has *totally* uncontrolled transmission, which is a good thing. Nobody has done as badly as if they had done nothing.

          The issue here is matching your actions to your situation. If the data suggests the number of infections are rising in your state you should be looking for more ways to reduce transmission. If it's falling, you have the luxury of looking for the safest ways to relax restrictions.

  • Two major problems with the numbers (Score:5, Informative)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday May 23, 2020 @02:27PM (#60095236)

    First, there are states, such as Florida, which are both undercounting the number of cases and the number of deaths and trying to hide those numbers [floridatoday.com] (Jones was fired because she refused to manually change the data).

    Second, some states, including Pennsylvania, have been mixing both confirmed cases (the person is infected now) with those receiving positive antibody results (the person had been infected). The CDC is doing the same thing [theatlantic.com]. What this means is the real rate of infection is probably higher than what is being reported, and we don't have a handle on how the virus is spreading.

    So in short, this study is most likely correct and possibly even conservative, since most of the states mentioned have governors who are trying their best to toe the con artist's line of reopen at all costs by not testing large numbers of people and fudging the numbers which come up.

    • Jones was not fired for any such thing. Totally debunked. She's a felon and a liar and got fired for not following the process the Florida state epidemiologist told her to follow.

      Google is your friend.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by quonset ( 4839537 )

        Right. We're to believe the word of a communication director who has presented no evidence to substantiate the claim of insubordination in a state which does its best to hide information and whose governor denies there's anything going on in the state.

        It should be noted, since Jones was fired, data has become more difficult to access and the site keeps going offline for unspecified reasons, after which the data is miraculously changed.

        So yeah, totally debunked.

        • https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20200520/coronavirus-florida-desantis-pushes-back-on-fired-data-manager

          I'm sure you only read what she said about it. Try something more balanced that actually presents the other side which makes a lot of sense given her history of unstable behavior in other parts of her life and her clear inability to keep her emotions out of her professional and academic life.

          She's a nut case. Don't believe me. Read the god damned article and do 5 seconds of google searching for thing

    • >"First, there are states, such as Florida, which are both undercounting the number of cases and the number of deaths "

      And there are many areas that pretend that it is COVID-19 that is killing people, not their underlying health problems. Many died WITH COVID-19 more than DUE to COVID-19. The tracking and media not breaking out the co-morbidity factors has been just as irresponsible as comparing area deaths NOT BY CAPITA, which I see regularly. By nature, the media focuses on the extreme, novel, and u

      • that it is COVID-19 that is killing people, not their underlying health problems.

        If you have cancer but get run over by a bus and die, it wasn't the cancer which killed you. Covid-19 exacerbates any underlying condition but also adds blood clotting, organ failure and fluid filled lungs [cnn.com]. Last I heard, diabetes can't do any of that.

        • >"If you have cancer but get run over by a bus and die, it wasn't the cancer which killed you."

          True. But for all but a very tiny percent of those infected with COVID-19, it doesn't kill without pre-existing conditions. Being run over by a bus is likely to kill almost anyone. You could be on death's bed- old, diabetes, heart problems, COPD, and along comes COVID-19. It becomes the straw that broke the camel's back. But "COVID-19 death."

          Hence I think it makes more sense to try and split and report deat

    • Second, some states, including Pennsylvania, have been mixing both confirmed cases (the person is infected now) with those receiving positive antibody results (the person had been infected).

      It should come as no surprise that Texas, which tops the list in the Imperial College study, was caught doing the exact same thing. [fox4news.com]

  • Excellent! And remember: You're not a True Republican if you wear a mask. Unwrap that rascal!

    • >"Excellent! And remember: You're not a True Republican if you wear a mask. Unwrap that rascal!"

      Yeah, just like you're not Truly Black, unless you vote for Biden, right?

      "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't [sic] black"

      https://thehill.com/homenews/c... [thehill.com]

  • Wisconsin (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Torodung ( 31985 ) on Saturday May 23, 2020 @02:44PM (#60095304) Journal

    I can tell you that in Wisconsin the data indicating epidemic is regional. Just look at the John Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard. Shutting down the entire state when there is little activity in the north and west of the state is dumb as bricks, except initially, when we had no idea how bad it was going to be. Now we have data, and whether or not to open should be left to county and municipal government, based on that data.

    Wisconsin does not have a statewide emergency. It is regional, so statewide action is punitive to some and needed by others. Therefore local leadership is for making decisions about policy, state and federal leadership should be about supporting hotspots with resources. Whether each arm of that functions is up for debate, but we haven't even agreed on a good leadership model yet.

    This crisis can't be managed from the air. It needs to be managed in the streets (testing and tracing). Right now we're coming up with "air reconnaissance" level decisions.

  • I live in Arizona. We've got one incident of a girls' boarding school skewing the results.

  • And Yet... (Score:3)

    by dcw3 ( 649211 ) on Saturday May 23, 2020 @09:55PM (#60096960) Journal

    How is it possible that the daily fatality count has been on a downward slope for 5-6 consecutive weeks? And realize that these counts are actually delayed by the antiquated reporting system by up to 3 weeks according to the CDC.

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