Coronavirus pandemic

[Duke87]

Moreover, the blacklist appears to be reviewed at two-week intervals and is entirely backward-looking (only cases already found are considered).  Wouldn't it yield a significantly higher degree of protection if it were reviewed daily and states that are not already on the list, but where it is clear cases are in an exponential growth pattern, were evaluated for addition to the list on the basis of their projected two-week case count up to two weeks later?  (Apropos of a parallel thread, this looks like an interesting use case for Excel conditionals and pivot tables.)

You know, I have already been thinking about this and how it relates to the way HVAC controls are programmed in order to deliver better end results. What you're suggesting parallels one of them - the concept of PID (Proportional, Integral, Derivative) loops, where how the HVAC system is told to run is determined not just by the current temperature and humidity inside the building, but also by whether they're going up or down and how fast.

Another older and simpler one is the concept of the deadband, designed to prevent rapid cycling by requiring a stricter condition to turn the system off than to turn it on. Delaware went on the NY/NJ/CT naughtly list a couple weeks ago only to come off it last week and then go back on it this week. Minnesota is possibly poised to get caught in a similar pattern. Currently NY will put you on the list if you exceed 70 new cases per 100k people in a week and take you off if you drop below this same number. The naughty list could be made more stable if, say, you waited until states hit 80 cases/100k before putting them on but then also required they drop below 60 cases/100k before taking them off.



Ultimately though neither of these methods would solve what I find to be the greater problem here, which is that looking at things at the state level is not nearly enough level of granularity to really make a proper risk assessment. As Scott previously pithily put it:

policies do not discriminate between "drove through unincorporated Ochiltree County without stopping" and "licked every toilet in Houston"

Vermont, for their part, determines whether quarantine is required for visitors on a county by county basis rather than a state by state one, at least for states that they've deemed to be within a reasonable day's drive (OH, WV, VA, and every state north and east of these).

New York and Connecticut meanwhile have gone a different route with this and while they will put entire states on the naughty list at once, they don't require you to quarantine unless you spend more than 24 hours in one. The intent of this is to not ding people for passing through naughty states en route to nice ones, but it does create an interesting loophole where in theory you can road trip all across America and not be required to quarantine upon return so long as you do not spend more than 24 hours in any single naughty state. You can even fly to Florida, go to Disney World, and spend the night so long as you get on a flight home the next day that leaves at an earlier time than your outbound flight arrived.

I wouldn't recommend doing the latter, though the former is readily exploitable for roadgeeking purposes.

[webny99]

States should be focused on reducing spread within their own population first: encouraging mask wearing and social distancing, scaling back bars and restaurant openings, encourage spending time outdoors, etc., etc., and worry about out-of-state travelers later, once you've got the spread contained.

Why?  The goal of the governor is presumably to keep the number of new infections low–no matter who it is that infects a resident or where they came from.  Whether an New Yorker or a fellow Kansas infects a Kansan, it's one more case regardless.  Besides which, spread cannot be "contained" without accounting for people coming from outside the state.

Because, there's only so much travel across state lines. Quarantine requirements are useful for maintaining low case numbers, but they don't have much value in reducing the case numbers in the first place. If the virus is spreading rapidly, almost all of it is happening between residents of the state, so cutting that spread out is where the big reduction in cases is going to come from.

Travel to/from other states is trivial until you've got things under control. The virus is going to keep spreading at roughly the same rate regardless of whether out-of-state visitors are allowed, until you can dramatically lower the cases through other means like the ones I mentioned above. Additionally, if potential visitors join the locals in taking these proper precautions, they're less likely to spread the virus.

[SEWIGuy]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/coronavirus-northeast-governors.html

Learn from Europe. Learn from the northeast.

[tradephoric]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/coronavirus-northeast-governors.html

Learn from Europe. Learn from the northeast.

Are we learning from the northeast how to achieve the highest death rate?  The top 5 states with the highest death rates are all from the northeast.  Compare that to other states outside of the northeast that got hit hard by the virus in March (e.g., Michigan and Louisiana) and their death rates are nowhere close to the top northeastern states. 

Arizona is getting hit hard by the virus yet their death rate is only a quarter of what New York and New Jersey is (and Arizona's total cases and test positivity rates are dropping suggesting it will not see anywhere close the same number of deaths per capita as NY/NJ saw).   

[kalvado]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/coronavirus-northeast-governors.html

Learn from Europe. Learn from the northeast.

Thing is, nobody knows what would be the long-term winning strategy. Virus eradication is out of question short term - for a decade at the very least - so long term strategy is to learn to coexist with it. Or maybe vaccine would be available in a few months. 
Virus comeback is definitely a possibility, and then all european/northeast sacrifices would be for nothing.
And I, for one, think that at least some of current measures are plain overreaction - and sometimes a costly one.

[Roadgeekteen]

Isn't Spain having a second wave?

[kalvado]

Isn't Spain having a second wave?

Probably just a small flare. Nothing compared to the first peak.  That's not really what they mean by the "second wave". Think about 1918 spanish flu, when the second wave was THE wave. Big concern is that history may repeat itself and we're still to see the real pandemic in action.

[Max Rockatansky]

Isn't Spain having a second wave?

Probably just a small flare. Nothing compared to the first peak.  That's not really what they mean by the "second wave". Think about 1918 spanish flu, when the second wave was THE wave. Big concern is that history may repeat itself and we're still to see the real pandemic in action.

Isn't it also suspect that the second wave of the Spanish Flu was a deadlier mutated strain?

[kalvado]

Isn't Spain having a second wave?

Probably just a small flare. Nothing compared to the first peak.  That's not really what they mean by the "second wave". Think about 1918 spanish flu, when the second wave was THE wave. Big concern is that history may repeat itself and we're still to see the real pandemic in action.

Isn't it also suspect that the second wave of the Spanish Flu was a deadlier mutated strain?

Who knows? Looks like the most interesting one to decipher would be the "Russian flu" of 1893. I read 2 very interesting hypotheses about that one, with ties to 1918 and 2019 events;  both of them look plausible - but there is a small problem: they are mutually exclusive. I suspect there should be some search for permafrost burials to get samples of those old viruses. Actually, 1918 virus was reconstructed that way - but it didn't quite match some parameters. Hard to tell though...  Definitely worth spending some money and effort on analyzing those events!
 

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Isn't Spain having a second wave?

Sort of. The most affected areas right now are Aragon (my home region) and Catalonia. The former has just announced they are tightening restrictions for some areas, including Zaragoza city which now accounts for a quarter of all new (PCR-confirmed) cases. Other areas remain under the same restrictions as before, including my hometown Huesca (which is seeing about a dozen new cases per day now and remains stable).

[hbelkins]

...in effect for the entire Sixth Circuit (Michigan, Ohio, Kntuckky, and Tennessee.)

...and you've only been warning us about Louisville all these years?   

Darn typos and fingers finding the wrong keys on the laptop keyboard.

[tradephoric]

Daily cases in Michigan have been steadily rising from a 7-day average of 181 on June 16th to an average of 743 on July 21st.  Even with a 4x increase in daily cases the daily deaths have been falling (averaging 13 daily deaths on June 16th and 8 daily deaths on July 21st).  This is with the test positivity rate rising from 1.5% to 2.7%.  So rising cases and a bump in the test positivity rate yet deaths have been dropping.  It's interesting data.

[US 41]

The Swedish model seems to be working. They hit their peak early with the deaths and it has been a constant slope downwards. They have only had a couple deaths a day lately.

[SSOWorld]

Daily cases in Michigan have been steadily rising from a 7-day average of 181 on June 16th to an average of 743 on July 21st.  Even with a 4x increase in daily cases the daily deaths have been falling (averaging 13 daily deaths on June 16th and 8 daily deaths on July 21st).  This is with the test positivity rate rising from 1.5% to 2.7%.  So rising cases and a bump in the test positivity rate yet deaths have been dropping.  It's interesting data.

Think about it what you said about the death rate lagging there.

[ozarkman417]

My school district has announced a strange re-entry plan for when school starts in the end of August. There is the in-person option and the online option.. even though the in-person option is only actually in person two of five days a week. Plus, Students A-K and L-Z will never see each other, which is an insult as if I wanted to do the in-person option most of my friends are A-K and my last name is L-Z.

[jeffandnicole]

My school district has announced a strange re-entry plan for when school starts in the end of August. There is the in-person option and the online option.. even though the in-person option is only actually in person two of five days a week. Plus, Students A-K and L-Z will never see each other, which is an insult as if I wanted to do the in-person option most of my friends are A-K and my last name is L-Z.

May not be a bad thing, because social distancing.

[noelbotevera]

My school district has announced a strange re-entry plan for when school starts in the end of August. There is the in-person option and the online option.. even though the in-person option is only actually in person two of five days a week. Plus, Students A-K and L-Z will never see each other, which is an insult as if I wanted to do the in-person option most of my friends are A-K and my last name is L-Z.

Same deal here. I'm gonna do my health a favor and opt for online, since it also frees up my schedule (more of a go-at-your-own-pace atmosphere).

[wxfree]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/coronavirus-northeast-governors.html

Learn from Europe. Learn from the northeast.

Thing is, nobody knows what would be the long-term winning strategy. Virus eradication is out of question short term - for a decade at the very least - so long term strategy is to learn to coexist with it. Or maybe vaccine would be available in a few months. 
Virus comeback is definitely a possibility, and then all european/northeast sacrifices would be for nothing.
And I, for one, think that at least some of current measures are plain overreaction - and sometimes a costly one.

We don't know what the long-term winning strategy will be, so we have to settle for a short-term winning strategy.  It may be that lives that were saved early at great cost will be lost later.  But we know that lives that are lost early will not be restored if we find that a different strategy is better in the longer term.

[Roadgeekteen]

My school district has announced a strange re-entry plan for when school starts in the end of August. There is the in-person option and the online option.. even though the in-person option is only actually in person two of five days a week. Plus, Students A-K and L-Z will never see each other, which is an insult as if I wanted to do the in-person option most of my friends are A-K and my last name is L-Z.

Same deal here. I'm gonna do my health a favor and opt for online, since it also frees up my schedule (more of a go-at-your-own-pace atmosphere).

If there is an option, I will opt for in person as this is my senior year, and I have friends who's last name starts with all different letters so I should be fine.

[Scott5114]

My school district has announced a strange re-entry plan for when school starts in the end of August. There is the in-person option and the online option.. even though the in-person option is only actually in person two of five days a week. Plus, Students A-K and L-Z will never see each other, which is an insult as if I wanted to do the in-person option most of my friends are A-K and my last name is L-Z.

Same deal here. I'm gonna do my health a favor and opt for online, since it also frees up my schedule (more of a go-at-your-own-pace atmosphere).

If there is an option, I will opt for in person as this is my senior year, and I have friends who's last name starts with all different letters so I should be fine.

Funny, if I had had the option, I would have opted for online, since I had people I disliked whose last names started with all different letters...

[bandit957]

Schools and colleges have got to come back like normal. They should allow students to use remote learning, but that should not be mandatory.

[kphoger]

The Mexican government has announced that there is a possibility of resuming in-person classes in September–in states that have reached the "Green" phase of the four-phase COVID system.  Sounds like good news, right?  Well, until you realize that not a single state is even to the "Yellow" phase yet...

[Eth]

Schools and colleges have got to come back like normal. They should allow students to use remote learning, but that should not be mandatory.

I try not to be prone to hyperbole, but normal college life right now seems like it would have a pretty good chance of near-apocalyptic consequences, at least at the local level. You're gonna have no chance whatsoever of enforcing the necessary safety precautions.

[kphoger]

Schools and colleges have got to come back like normal. They should allow students to use remote learning, but that should not be mandatory.

I try not to be prone to hyperbole, but normal college life right now seems like it would have a pretty good chance of near-apocalyptic consequences, at least at the local level. You're gonna have no chance whatsoever of enforcing the necessary safety precautions.

I believe Rice University plans to return to in-person classes this fall, in phases.  But it won't be "normal college life", really. For example, disobedience to campus mask and distancing rules will be subject to disciplinary action.  They're also reworking their housing plan, utilizing a staggered move-in schedule, prohibiting even students from visiting other dorm floors, requiring students to clean their own rooms and bathrooms, giving students a specific timeframe for receiving lunch and dinner, etc.  Each dorm room is being treated as if its residents were a family unit.

[bandit957]

I believe Rice University plans to return to in-person classes this fall, in phases.  But it won't be "normal college life", really. For example, disobedience to campus mask and distancing rules will be subject to disciplinary action.  They're also reworking their housing plan, utilizing a staggered move-in schedule, prohibiting even students from visiting other dorm floors, requiring students to clean their own rooms and bathrooms, giving students a specific timeframe for receiving lunch and dinner, etc.  Each dorm room is being treated as if its residents were a family unit.

Nothing less than "normal college life" should be accepted.

It's too bad they're using a plan written in April to decide what happens in August or September.