Going back to this, of why can’t old people just stay home in cocoons while everyone else freely spreads it and gets herd immunity. Here are two professors of global health with their take:
3 Likes
“The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round…”
Mystery solved. Georgians ignored their governor and stayed home.
2 Likes
Well, I live in Georgia and don’t think that is an accurate assessment.
Do you have a link to this graph so the data can be assessed?
I am talking about the website or study authors, not you Jay, when I recall the old adage:
Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.
However, if it is true, it means people should be trusted to do the right thing and the government should not be taking away their freedoms. Instead, the government should respect their freedom and give them the information they need to decide for themselves.
Either way, mandating shelter-in-place orders are unnecessary. Either they did not help Georgia because they are ineffective or they did not help Georgia because people overall do what is right.
Perhaps @Chris_Falter will provide additional information with his control group analysis today or tomorrow.
It’s pretty easy to track because it comes from cell phone GPS data. The source is listed on the graph: Opportunity Insights. Go to the website, click on “Economic Tracker,” click on “Time Outside Home,” check the box that says “Show National Figures” and then click on your state. Here’s what it looks like:
1 Like
Thanks for the link, Jay.
Comparing more-open Georgia to closed Virginia,
Georgians are out a little more and their case growth is far less.
So let’s trust people and stop taking their freedoms.
Why the disparity?
What…so getting out more spreads it less? Can you clarify? 
tongue in cheek. I am missing something here.
2 Likes
I have discussed at length in post 283 why Virginia is a very inapt comparison to Georgia or Wisconsin.
You have never disputed any of the factual considerations I raised in describing the comparison as inapt, so I am forced to assume that you have no factual basis for disputing my analysis.
Thanks for your patience as I lived my life outside the forum. A good comparison for Georgia is Michigan:
- Approximately the same population
- Similarly sized major metro areas (Atlanta, Detroit). Metro Detroit has a population density about 5% greater, which offsets its slightly smaller size.
- Different reopening dates.
Based on the following assumptions…
- ASSUMPTION #1: Lockdown policies have no effect on new case rates
- ASSUMPTION #2: A higher density of cases should yield higher new case rates because of more spreaders
… I would expect Michigan to have higher new case rates at the end of May, since the total number of Michigan cases is 25% higher than Georgia’s overall.
Since I do not think the second assumption is in doubt, let’s take a look at case rates over the past 2 months to see whether the first assumption is supported by the evidence.
Georgia:
Michigan:
Instead of a higher new case rate in Michigan, we see that the new case is far lower than Georgia’s.
Best,
Chris
P.S. Data source: US States beating Covid-19 — EndCoronavirus.org
P.P.S. Y-axis is not absolute in the 2 graphs.
2 Likes
I don’t think I can explain the difference, Randy, but I can draw conclusions:
- Locked down Virginia has cases growing faster than open Georgia.
- Lock downs restrict freedom.
- So lock downs diminish freedom and don’t seem to help.
Thanks. However, I don’t agree here. I think WHO and CDC have lots more information than I do, and I’ll stick with them, in spite of my loving relative’s protests against Whitmer. However, here’s a funny Babylon Bee. While I like Whitmer and think she has put her reputation and career on the line to push an unpopular stance, this tickled my funny bone (living in Michigan):
Very interesting link, by the way, @Chris_Falter. Thanks.
2 Likes
Doesn’t that mean that Michigan is closer to herd immunity and should have fewer cases? So isn’t your comparison inappropriate, since it compares states on different stages of the pandemic?
Do you understand that more existing cases means there are fewer potential new cases?
The more people who have had the disease, the fewer there are to get the disease (since Dr. Birx says there is a 99.9% probability of immunity).
In Georgia people can travel as they wish. In Michigan, people (last I heard) can’t even take out a motor boat on a lake or go to their own cabins at the lake. Virginia is on lock down too.
So Virginia has 8.5 million people. Michigan has 10 million people. Georgia has 10.5 million.
Their data:
All three have about the same number of cases, but I suspect Michigan has more and the natural log scale obscures that.
Are you familiar with terms and concepts like confidence interval?
Michigan has fewer people than Georgia and more cases, so there are fewer people that can be infected in the future in Michigan. That means we should expect fewer future cases there.
Randy, which part do you disagree with, that lock downs diminish freedom or that lock downs don’t seem to help?
I suspect you know lock downs diminish freedom.
So I suspect you disagree that lock downs don’t seem to help. I agree that logically they should help, but it is a difficult case to make from the data.
Whitmer’s plan to bbq inside makes good sense with the rest of her program. I suspect her plan is to skewer her husband after he tried to get his boat out of the marina.
Oh, great point. What is liberty? Lord Acton wrote, “Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.”
I know that as you were in the military, you always did your duty. However, freedom can be also to follow rules, just as it can be to have freedom to move freely.
1 Like
Like working to feed our families?
Michigan is far, far from herd immunity, just like Georgia.
A population needs to reach about 70% “recovered” status to have reached herd immunity.
Based on their official case counts, Michigan and Georgia are at 0.5% recovered and 0.4% recovered, respectively. Even if we were to assume 10 occult infections for every official case, they would be at 5% recovered and 4% recovered, respectively.
Thus the importance of spreader count far overwhelms the tiny reduction in R-nought from the existing infections.
The key factors in new case rates are network density, cluster concentrations, and transmission rates along network edges. (Note: you have not mentioned these key factors even once.) Michigan’s major cluster (metro Detroit) is far more concentrated than Georgia’s, yet its susceptible population (in an S-I-R model) is very close in size to Georgia’s. I.e., assuming the occult case rate mentioned above, Michigan’s susceptible population is 9,950,000, and Georgia’s is 10,450,000.
This is why–given the 2 assumptions I mentioned–Michigan’s new case rate should be 25% higher than Georgia’s.
FWIW, epidemiological models rely on the mathematics of networks rather than the mathematics of regression analysis. Thus your experience with regression analysis is not germane to this topic.
Best,
Chris
4 Likes
Yes, exactly. I just meant to put down an addendum that one can have freedom in both situations. I’m sorry I was not clear. However, I know you agree with me that Is not even Liberty that’s the issue. we’re both working for what we believe is to serve the most people and have to work out what the wisest thing is based on our knowledge. thanks for your discussion
1 Like
Wikipedia has a table estimating that herd immunity falls between 29% and 74%.
And you don’t seem to have thought about the self-selection aspect of immunity and distancing. Some people have had the daylights scared out of them and aren’t going out. Others are still going out. The resulting difference in exposure likelihood will also drive the case numbers during this phase of the pandemic.
By the way, Chris, do you think such comments enhance your credibility?
Also:
We don’t know that at all.
We actually do not have the data to determine the susceptible population. We don’t know that everyone can get the disease. We know many people are asymptotic when they test positive, but we don’t know that everyone can catch the disease.
You keep talking about herd immunity. I like simple math. 30% of 325 million is 97.5 million infections. If that many cases overwhelm the health care system or the consensus mortality rate of nearly 1% holds true, a million people could die. Imagine that scenario if herd immunity requires 50-60%. Herd immunity isn’t a limit we want to test or a risk we want to take.
Facts are facts. Businesses are reopening whether everyone agrees or not. A mask doesn’t protect the wearer from catching the disease, but it protects from the wearer spreading the disease. The obvious hole in the system is that everyone must wear masks for them to work.
Rubber to the road: Are you willing to surrender a small portion of your liberty, which costs you nothing, to protect the health and lives of others, or will you uphold your principles and refuse to wear a mask in public spaces for the sake of personal liberty?
4 Likes