Tag Archives: Healthcare

We Need a Shadow Government Republican rule in the US is a horror show.  We get incoherent ramblings from our president on injecting bleach into our veins, calls for the states to file for bankruptcy from the Senate majority leader, a veto of modest IMF support for developing countries hammered financially by the virus, and a complete absence of guidance on the most crucial aspects of public health. We already know this. The greater tragedy is that the...

Heads up for tomorrow! Tomorrow morning I have a very long post quoting about 20 medical articles at length, explaining (what we think we know so far about) the whole biochemistry of how the novel coronavirus attacks the body. By the time you finish reading it, you will understand a lot about why the disease attacks the organs it does, why it progresses in the order it does, why it produces some extremely unusual complications in victims who otherwise...

The actual US coronavirus trajectory: “flattening the curve” at least until 2021 “Flattening the curve” was not such an appetizing option either, because it meant that *everybody* got infected with the disease during the period of flattening, and so the death toll would still be horrifying, perhaps 1% to 3%. It also meant that the period that the infection would curtail society was extended to several years. Shortly a much better alternative, based on...

Trends in US States compared by coronavirus response I mentioned over the weekend that I wanted to break out and look at some different aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s the first: how are States at different ends of the restrictions and testing spectrums faring? Seven States have never even mandated lockdowns. Let’s look at these, alphabetically: Arkansas: Iowa: Figure 1 Nebraska: North Dakota South Dakota: Utah: Wyoming: Four of the seven...

Advocates of quickly ending the shutdowns are in the news. Mostly, because one of them is President. Like most Americans, I think reopening soon would be a mistake (and remember I am in Italy where the shut down is severe compared to any State in the USA). I’m just going to assume that reopening by May 1 is a bad idea and try to understand who advocates it and why they do. First the vast majority of Americans do not support reopening soon. There was the...

Coronavirus dashboard for April 20: a few positive development Here is the update through yesterday (April 19) As usual, significant developments are in italics. Yesterday saw the biggest number of daily tests, and ratio of total vs. positive tests so far, both positive developments.  The number and rate of daily infections and deaths also declined, but that may be a function of lower weekend reporting. Here are yesterday’s numbers. Number and rate of...

Abbreviated coronavirus dashboard for April 18 Here is the update through yesterday (April 17) There are some extended comments I want to make about the pandemic, and some graphs comparing States, etc., that are best done separately, so this will be an abbreviated update. Here are yesterday’s numbers. Number and rate of increase of Reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com) Number: up +35,354 to 706,779 (vs. 35,219 prior peak on April...

Reposted from Brad DeLong’s Grasping Reality: What is the Real Prevalence of Coronavirus Across States? Click on the image to enlarge Tests per million times cases per test gives you confirmed cases per million. But we want true cases per million. Tests per million are different across states because (a) the states are undertaking testing with different levels of effort and (b) the prevalence of the virus is different in different states. Confirmed...

I have repeatedly argued that, based on in vitro evidence, hydroxychloroquine should be prescribed while we wait for the results of clinical trials. Such results were just published. They are very disappointing. The link is to an LA Times Article: latimes.com 2020-04-17 malaria-drugs-fails-to-help-coronavirus-patients-in-controlled-studies On the other handEarly peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment The...

Jason Brennan has a new post up doubling down on his earlier criticism of epidemiologists and government policy in response to the COVID crisis.  I responded to his earlier blog posts here.  I am still not convinced, but there are useful lessons to be learned from going through his argument. Brennan continues to claim that epidemiologists produced bad statistical analysis, and that we should not take their advice seriously (all bolding is mine): I’ve been...