Day 38: Better than Yesterday and Deaths Down to IHME Model

• COVID-19 Report As of Wednesday, April 22, 2020 GA DPH NOON
• Consecutive day #1 of decreasing growth (14 needed) ▼
• Confirmed COVID-19 Cases: 20,740 (+859) ▼
  • Daily Growth Rate: 4.2% (-0.8%) ▼
  • Weekly Growth Rate: 4.7% (-0.2%) ▲
  • % of Population Affected: 0.1979% (+0.0079%) ▼
  • Hospitalized: 3,959 (+180) ▼
  • Deceased 836 (+37) ▼
  • Morbidity Rate: 4.02% (+0.01%) ▼
• Estimated Numbers
  • Double Number of cases every 24 days (was 20) ▼
  • Total Contagious: 165,920 (+6,872) ▼
  • Contagious (but appear healthy): 161,961 (+6,692) ▼
  • Contagious Ratio: 15 in every 1,000 Georgians (was 15) ▼
• ▼= getting better; ▲= getting worse; ✓ = same

Another day, another about-face in the data. It seems unnatural that one day all the numbers will jump up and the next day things are looking great. It makes me question the data, since it is unlikely that the COVID-19 is checking its calendar to decide what days to take off. As you can see above, today everything is better while everything was worse yesterday. Go figure. The weekly growth rate was red only because it did not go down as much as it went down yesterday. It is still going down and that has been the consistent good news. Fig 1.

It is now clear to me that the real “threat” of this virus is the morbidity rate, otherwise we are just talking about some body aches and fevers. Without the spectre of a bunch of deaths, there is simply nothing to see here. So the “money shot” is the morbidity rate and the accompanying deaths. I received an anecdotal report from a reliable source that in NYC yesterday, but did not write about it then. Some local nurses have volunteered to work in NYC. One such nurse reported the conditions there to be like The Walking Dead scenario we are all dreading. In short, she reported “bodies” all over the place. The bodies are all being cremated in order to stop the spread that is possibly by post-mortem contact. I’ve read elsewhere that the metro NYC area accounts for HALF of all U.S. deaths! It is clearly the fear of this sort of situation happening across the country that keeps us all worried.

The morbidity rate is important because it tells us how much of a threat a give activity is. Everything we do has a morbidity rate, not just diseases. The morbidity rate is the percentage chance you will die by doing something like driving a car, taking a shower, or skydiving. Today, DPH calculates the morbidity rate at 4.03% while I calculate it at 4.01% I’ve noticed that my morbidity rate has been different from the DPH’s calculation–but just a tiny bit, so I’ve not delved into it any further. Today, I did about 30-seconds of Googling about calculating the morbidity rate and found an answer at worldmeters.info. It purports to be a US-based organization not tied to any group or entity. Since everyone has both a boss and an agenda no matter who you are, and since anyone who asserts their intellectual independence is unlikely to be actually independent, I take what they say with a grain of salt since they tout the New York Times as someone who has quoted them. When someone says that they are a “trused authority,” I put my hand on my wallet to make sure it is not stolen by this allegedly trusted authority. It IS pretty interesting to watch the numbers spin by at an inhuman rate though, and many numbers, like abortion, is sad to look at. What interested me was their morbidity rate calculation.

They assert that dividing the deaths for COVID-19 by the number of confirmed cases (the way I do it and the way I presume Ga DPH is doing it) is incorrect. Worldmeters recommends using a date offset to make sure that you are not expecting people to die on their first day on the list. That makes some sense, since it takes on average 14 days for the virus to kill the unlucky person. They say that WHO is estimating the COVID-19 mortality rate at 3% (I don’t believe anything WHO has to say nor China for that matter), and they produce some other numbers for comparison. Swine Flu is 0.02%, Seasonal Flu is 0.1%, COVID-19 is 2% (their estimate), SARS is 9.6% and MERS is 34%! So I’m putting “not having a SARS or MERS outbreak on my list of things to be thankful for. Starting tomorrow, I will add a 7-day offset for calculating my version of the COVID-19 morbidity rate and see if that is more or less accurate in predicting deaths tomorrow than the current methodology. That means that I will divide the deaths reported today by the total confirmed cases from a week ago, and see what happens. Today that number is 5.56%! That is not looking promising for their methodology.

I broke this paragraph out because it is more boring that talking about a mathematical formula (above, as if that is possible), but my death estimate today was off by -4 while the IHME estimate was off by +1 out of 836 reported. That means that we are on the first day tracking with the IHME model since the Governor announced that he was going to ease some restrictions. Since I talk about the death prediction so much, I was going to make a separate graph about deaths and predictions thereof so the variability is easier to see, but my first attempt gave me some trouble. When I get the graph working, I will publish it. Until then, you will have to just read about it. For what it is worth, my overall prediction for today was off by +11 out of 20,740.