Cases/Deaths per day vs. Cumulative Cases/Deaths

SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
I've been browsing around the Internet looking at hot spots and areas which are going down and areas not so fortunate - trying to see some correlation between increased testing and increased number of testing and I notice something that is - well - pointless.

In looking at how bad the virus has BEEN - cumulative numbers give you that. But we're dealing with a disease, not a crime spree. When you get 10 shootings yesterday, you don't breathe a sigh of relief that there were only 4 TODAY. DAILY data is relevant with disease, because it generally follows a pattern.

What people - what EVERYONE - wants to know is - where are we now? Eight months ago, almost no one was dying from this. We assume at SOME point in the future - that will be the case. It's not unreasonable. How many cases of Ebola or SARS do we get now? We want to know, is it getting better, or is it getting worse?

What I OFTEN see is county and state data only reporting cumulative numbers. The strange thing about such numbers is, if you're still getting a few new cases a day - or even ZERO - that graph always looks ominous. A great big ramp upward. But deaths or hospitalizations per day tell the real story (I'm not going to bother with "cases per day" - we all know by now that if we tested EVERYONE in a geography, the number of cases would ZOOM upward, because MANY people have the virus and not only don't know it, probably would never know it without a test).

ALMOST every where I browse I see - peak usually happened months ago. DEATHS per day is dropping off. Total hospitalizations - itself a lagging indicator because of the time spent in the hospital - is usually tapering off.

Looking at cumulative numbers is like counting the cars behind you in a traffic jam. Who cares? All that tells you is, you made it through a mess. What people WANT to know is, when will it end.
 
GURPS

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
SamSpade said:
ALMOST every where I browse I see - peak usually happened months ago. DEATHS per day is dropping off. Total hospitalizations - itself a lagging indicator because of the time spent in the hospital - is usually tapering off.
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I've been beating Sapidus over the head with this for weeks, he keeps touting the total death count numbers as Trumps fault

yeah they are still going up - we are at 163k dead ..... or .049% of the population

only 1.49% have been infected and of those something like 3.2 % have actually died
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
GURPS said:
I've been beating Sapidus over the head with this for weeks, he keeps touting the total death count numbers as Trumps fault

yeah they are still going up - we are at 163k dead ..... or .049% of the population

only 1.49% have been infected and of those something like 3.2 % have actually died
Click to expand...

I can't say that I place much faith in ANY data that doesn't originate from this country.

I don't believe ANYTHING that comes from a nation with an authoritarian government. I don't believe China at all. This is a disease that without a vaccine is likely to claim SOME victim for years to come, but they not only don't show any deaths since spring, their total is less than SWEDEN. And nations such as Laos and Cambodia have had NO COVID deaths? It's TRUE! At least Myanmar - pop. 57 million - lists 6. Vietnam - pop. 96 million - just 15.

Of course, North Korea not only has had NO COVID deaths, they don't even have a single case.

Admittedly - until I began reading and watching videos regarding how to determine cause of death - I kind of thought it was fairly cut and dried. But when a person dies, it can be a number of things that contributed to the death - but - what caused it? Something that affects the lungs might affect the brain which might affect the heart, which might induce an attack - and it all goes from there. When someone dies of AIDS - did they die of pneumonia? Or AIDS?

But in this country, unlike nations which have an image to protect and it being in their interest to boast very FEW cases, comparative to their populations - because let's be honest, India and Bangladesh have HUGE populations, incredible poverty, VERY dense cities, disease and squalor and their numbers are kind of small. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated regions in the world - and they have about the same number of death as ST MARY'S COUNTY. In this country - because we want to give as much federal assistance as possible to infected regions - there is, sadly, a very strong incentive to rule ANYTHING as COVID. My mom passed this past week - and she had COVID. I'll throw a fit if they rule it a COVID death - she's been suffering seizures for many years, had heart trouble, in and out of hospitals and wore a pacemaker.

So trying to specifically quantify the pandemic is pointless. I just want to see if the trend shows it is soon to end. Because I'm telling you, I'm going to be furious if we get down to 1-2 deaths a day and they still want us to stay home.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
GURPS said:
covid 19 was a contributing factor
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Actually with my mom, COVID probably extended her life for a few days. She was a registered nurse although most of her last few years working as a nurse, she was a director at assisted living places - not doing much in practicing medicine - but she was, to be honest, a terrible patient. She was very adamant about this or that with regard to her health, and would check out of hospitals when good sense said she should remain. I'm a nurse, dammit, I know what's wrong with me. The doctor is wrong.

COVID - once she had it - meant she couldn't leave. She couldn't just say, I'm fine, I can leave, I know how the process works and you can't keep me here. With COVID - YES they could. The DOWNSIDE, from what I can tell is she wasn't necessarily being examined as frequently by the people most familiar with her seizures.
 
H

herb749

Well-Known Member
With the current political climate big numbers make the party in the WH look bad. There'd be a different outlook if it was reversed.
 
kwillia

kwillia

n/a
SamSpade said:
COVID - once she had it - meant she couldn't leave. She couldn't just say, I'm fine, I can leave, I know how the process works and you can't keep me here. With COVID - YES they could. The DOWNSIDE, from what I can tell is she wasn't necessarily being examined as frequently by the people most familiar with her seizures.
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How severe were her COVID symptoms? Did COVID had taken over her lungs? Was it chest congestion that overcame her or was it seizures/pre-existing issue caused event? To me, you would have to take it all into consideration as people with pre-existing conditions can and do survive COVID as long as the COVID isn't too invasive.
 
Rommey

Rommey

Well-Known Member
SamSpade said:
In looking at how bad the virus has BEEN - cumulative numbers give you that. But we're dealing with a disease, not a crime spree. When you get 10 shootings yesterday, you don't breathe a sigh of relief that there were only 4 TODAY. DAILY data is relevant with disease, because it generally follows a pattern.

What people - what EVERYONE - wants to know is - where are we now?
Click to expand...
Not sure this is what you are looking for, but about halfway down, there is a chart with the New Cases per Day information:
www.cdc.gov

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the U.S.

View the number of confirmed cases COVID-19 in the United States.
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov

Of course, a Google search of "new cases of covid-19" returns data, including a graph of the new cases, searchable by state and US as a whole. Sorry, I don't know how to embed a graph from the page to show it.
 
Hijinx

Hijinx

Well-Known Member
Well Sam My condolences.
Having said that you stated you did not believe anything about Covid that did not come from this country.
You are a better man than me. I don't trust anything about Covid coming from this country either.
 
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