Jackson Jambalaya

Projected & Actual @ 24% daily rate

Mar…22…sun…256…249…
Mar…23…mon…317…320…
Mar…24…tue…393…377…
Mar…25…wed…487…485…
Mar…26…thu…603…579…
Mar…27…fri…747…TBD…
Mar…28…sat…926…TBD…
Mar…29…sun…1148…TBD…

Sorry Axios. Warren and Lincoln counties ARE NOT part of the Jackson MSA.

Predicted by one writer: 752 Friday 3/27/2020. Today listed at 579 with 8 deaths. Using the last numbers for MS, 2.9 million souls. Rates today for infected and dead well below 0.01%.

And rising. Wake the hell up Mississippi!

Beloved Medal of Honor recipient Bennie Adkins critically ill and hospitalized with COVID-19. Alabama.

Yeah, hero. Let's "thin the herd" and cut out the "unproductive ones." Just want to beyotch slap a few idiots who say stupid shit like that.

so much for flattening the curve

Even if the social distancing works (and I'm not seeing a lot of Mississippians following the recommendations), the curve is not going to flatten until next week. Closures of places that are petri dishes for infections like restaurants and bars didn't start in earnest until last week. With a 5-10 day delay between infection and noticeable symptoms and another three or four days before the lab can get the results back, the cases we are seeing today are likely infections caught last weekend or earlier.

Of course you'll have the asymptomatic spring breakers and St. Patrick revelers who will pass it on to their parents and grandparents, and those secondary infections might cause a spike next week.

Bottom line is we won't have a good idea if we are doing enough to control the virus for at least another week or more. The numbers are going to climb before they go down simply because we are looking at a point two weeks in the past as far as when these newest 94 confirmed cases got exposed.

11:15 we'll know if there was "flattening the curve" was ever really a real thing when this is over not next week.

KF - The cartoon means wash your hands and don't touch your FACEBOOK. LOL.

It is what it is. Goes up or down, we need to move forward. Let's get back to work.

The modeling used for predicting this pandemic seems similar to those used for climate change. Lots of variables and if's. At the end of this road, regardless of the number of deaths, those who are pro-virus will say 'see, it would have been so much worse without all these measures we demanded.' Those who are anti-panic will say 'that was way overblown and needless.'

One thing is sure, we will get to the end, and there will be a reckoning. Wash your hands but don't lose your heads.

Now that Coach Saban has spoken on this subject, I’m going do what he says and take this thing seriously. If we all will follow his leadership, sports will come back sooner than later and then things will be back to normal.

How many of the new cases being reported are from test drawn 5 days ago.

11:15 am You are right, of course. We certainly see lots of the yahoos pretending doing absolutely nothing to protect themselves or anyone else even where mayors are trying to do the right thing.
And, of course, they ignore South Korea and China and so many other countries they couldn't find on a map ( so no point in listing), that make clear that enforced sheltering in place works and the earlier the better.
And, they can't acknowledge what ONE lawyer did to New Rochelle , NY.
Since it's beginning to look as if the elderly are the first victims, we can only hope the naysayers die from their stupidity.

@12:25 It only seems that way due to lack of understanding. Go look at my data. So far the MS daily infection rate is _very_ close to a 24% increase each day. We don't have to know the variables feeding into the results, we can calculate directly from results (positive tests) themselves.

That's not like climate prediction where we can only get close to knowing what temps were thousands/millions of years in the past. I agree... that's some hard math/modeling and there's a lot of politics in it.

I work in a critical, yes really critical not 'pretend' critical, business. Been working from home as much as possible, but had to go out this morning. I was nervous at what I saw... lots of people out and about, people standing back to back in lines, people talking face to face, etc.

At this rate there will be over 10,000 cases by Easter. At around that point, hospitals will be overwhelmed and care will have to be rationed.

Pay attention to Better than Ever, their model is Legit

Sorry this is long, but for the panicked and fear mongers,Article written 26 March 2020, "White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Deborah Birx warned the public not to panic when they hear about models and projections of the pandemic's spread.

"Models are models," she said. "When people start talking about 20% of a population getting infected, it's very scary, but we don't have data that matches that based on our experience."

She said the media should not "make the implication that when they need a hospital bed it's not going to be there, or a ventilator, it's not going to be there, we don't have evidence of that."

"It's our job collectively to assure the American people," she also said. "There is no model right now -- no reality on the ground where we can see that 60% to 70% of Americans are going to get infected in the next eight to 12 weeks. I want to be clear about that." DR. DEBORAH BRIX: I'm sure you have seen the recent report out of the U.K. about them adjusting completely their needs. This is really quite important. If you remember, that was the report that says there would be 500,000 deaths in the U.K. and 2.2 million deaths in the United States. They've adjusted that number in the U.K. to 20,000. Half a million to 20,000. We are looking at that in great detail to understand that adjustment.

I'm going to say something that is a little bit complicated but do it in a way we can understand it together. In the model, either you have to have a large group of people who a-asymptomatic, who never presented for any test to have the kind of numbers predictepredicted. To get to 60 million people infected, you have to have a large group of a-symptomatics. We have not seen an attack rate over 1 in 1,000. So either we are measuring the iceberg and underneath it, are a large group of people. So we are working hard to get the antibody test and figure out who these people are and do they exist. Or we have the transmission completely wrong.

So these are the things we are looking at, because the predictions of the model don't match the reality on the ground in China, South Korea or Italy. We are five times the size of Italy. If we were Italy and did all those divisions, Italy should have close to 400,000 deaths. They are not close to achieving that.

Models are models. We are -- there is enough data of the real experience with the coronavirus on the ground to really make these predictions much more sound. So when people start talking about 20% of a population getting infected, it's very scary, but we don't have data that matches that based on our experience.

And the situation about ventilators. We are reassured in meeting with our colleagues in New York that there are still I.C.U. Beds remaining and still significant -- over 1,000 or 2,000 ventilators that have not been utilized.
Article originally on Fox and written in Real Clear Politics.

And as opposed to the minimalizers and "concern trolls," here is an opinion piece with a working scale model to play with. Yes, it has caveats marked below, but it CLEARLY demonstrates why the ones spouting "handwringers" are wrong.

Play with the models yourself.

Then, out of your neighborhood of 450 people, pick the 3 folks you'll "sacrifice" to keep Bubba's Snow Cone Stand and Used Tires humming along, with almost NO real economic benefit long term, if you go weak sister and slack off on social distancing.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/opinion/coronavirus-trump-response.html

Do it. Pick 68 days or 21 days, and look at the deaths, hospitalizations, loss of long term economic wealth, versus staying the course temporarily. When to go weak kneed in leadership and Go Party Time Nawlins Style will bring you little economic relief.

@1:14 That's why we all need to do everything possible to bring the transmission rate down. Even a single percentage drop in transmission has large effects. A 1% drop in transmission equals a 3k projected drop in infection in 2-3 weeks, taking 15k down to 12k.

@1:44 Thank you. I hope I have to recalculate based on decreasing rates!

@1:57 Agreed insomuch as we don't know how many are asymptomatic and walking around. That's a HUGE, MASSIVE, unknown piece of data that will drastically limit (or not) how far this will go. When comparing to Italy be aware their median age is about 10 years older than the USA, which pushes their case mortality rate upwards.

Better than ever:
@12:25 It only seems that way due to lack of understanding. Go look at my data. So far the MS daily infection rate is _very_ close to a 24% increase each day. We don't have to know the variables...

Respectfully, the problem with your estimate is that it is based on a skewed metric - the number of reported positive cases. Keep in mind that those numbers are heavily weighted toward the most symptomatic folks, who in turn are tested at the highest rate. Your numbers shoot upward as we do more testing. Further, those who are positive do not equal the morbidity rate.

Any model or estimate is only as good as the data you have to feed it. Granted, your estimate is as reliable as any other, but I question exactly what it is that you intend to prove with it.

Time will tell who is right. My reading tells me that this is serious, but not at all what CNN wants it to be.

I appreciate your "essential" job. I'm in a 'fake' essential job at a bank. Be safe.

Fyi from the NE Journal of Medicine:
If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387

12:25 characterized the debate as "pro-virus" v. "anti-panic." Kind of stacked the deck there, didn't you?

Better, I don't trust any data I get from China just as I wouldn't have trusted any from the Soviet Union, North Korea, or Iran.

@2:56 If we mass-tested the entire state tonight, then all numbers/projections would be rewritten. But I think we're going to have our hands full with confirmed cases very quickly and that will 'push back' mass testing or even very much selective testing.

And if we knew the absolute # of infected in MS, infection would still follow the same exponential function, although with hopefully a lower contagion rate.

I really wish I did _not_ have such a job. I would be just fine with not leaving the house for the next 4-8 weeks. Spouse works for a local hospital also... so we are in it till the (or our) end I suppose.

To calm down @2:56. Don't sell yourself short. If the banking/financial infrastructure wasn't essential, I seriously doubt the feds would be throwing trillions of dollars at it.

-4:26

Hey, can't make an omelette with cracking a few eggs.

@2:56 I hit reply too soon. Left off some stuff.

I would call banking essential. I can't deposit checks so that I can pay employees without you.

The nice thing about 'my model', which is not mine, is that you only have to feed it 1 piece of data. Then you adjust the contagion value as you get more data points and it's accurate until things significantly change. It's not as accurate for very low (starting) values nor very high (peak) values.

And what I'm trying to accomplish... people have gotten away from trusting data, experts, formulas, etc. If some see that the case numbers can actually be predicted then maybe they will 1) start to turn toward science-based analysis instead of how they feel and what Trump (or any other wishful thinking idiot) says and 2) understand and accept that this is actually a very real thing and it's time to get on board and stay home.

I would like to see figures indicating who required hospitalization, who required a vent, who went home and recovery numbers. By the way Kingfish, great and appropriate cartoon.

Yep, love the cartoon. Furthermore, 2:56, I suspect that if the banks closed, our form of currency would quickly switch over from dollars to ammunition (loaded in a firearm, that is). Then we'd really be screwed.

-4:26

Use the MSDH website link in the original post to get some of the information you are looking for on hospitalizations. It breaks it down by age and % of total positives, but no information on ventilator usage.

C’mon KF, enough of better than ever. His model is accurate until you get more data, than you adjust it. C’mon man, what a joke.

@8:10 The equation stays the same, you adjust contagion rate to reflect the population's actions. Then, assuming their actions don't change, you can predict future infection numbers. This is literally high school math.

Same stuff used in antilock brakes. Send full braking power until wheel lock detected then back off until wheel regains traction. Then repeat the process.

I posted proposed numbers many days ago using a 33% daily rate, and this was not even back of napkin math. After there were a few days more, it was easier to get to the 24% rate I'm using now. The more data points = more accurate transmittal rate = more accurate future predictions. Again... high school math.

Go look at the numbers so far. I challenge you to do better. So either put up or shut up.

I like to break down percentages based on per million people. Seems to make it easier to absorb. 123,781 US cases as of this morning and 2,229 deaths seems like a bunch, but when you back that number into 327,000,000 people in the US, it’s really not. 123,781/327,000,000 = .00037% multiply this number by 1,000,000 people and you get 378. Out of every 1,000,000 people, 378 would have the virus. Now take the deaths of 2,229/327,000,000 = .0000068% multiply this by 1,000,000 people and you get 7 people. Out of 1,000,000 people at todays numbers, 378 would have the virus and 7 would die. Don’t be dumb out there picking up candy off the ground to eat it, but don’t think the world is going end either.