[conspire] Correction

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Texx (texxgadget at gmail.com):

> Im seeing some huge disagreements on the numbers which shakes my confidence
> in any of the numbers.
> One of the graphics on the news seems to be off by 1000 for CA & WA (did
> they miss last nights updates?
> I believe the 2300 number over the 1900 number.

{sigh}

It's really rather academic whether the confirmed case number is 1900 or
2300 or 3800, etc.  The point is:

o  exponential growth, and
o  the true number of cases being many times the confirmed case number, and
o  the sharpness of the curve (absent strong 'flattening' measures) 
   posing the terrible risk of overwhelming the medical system

Harvard researchers have arrived at a rule of thumb that, in pretty much
any given location inthe USA, you can multiply the confirmed case number 
by 50, and that'll probably be a reasonable ballpark estimate of the
true number.  (This attempts to estimate the large surrounding number 
of undetected but real cases, taking into account the almost unavailable
nature of testing, stil.)

Meanwhile, the best estimates I've been hearing of the doubling time is
about three days (absent effective suppression techniques such as 
consistent social distancing and the rest).

Exponential.  Growth.
Three.  Days.

Concentrate on that.  And on the fact that reported confirmed case
numbers are _inherently_ a drastic undercount.


> Back to the math:
> CA seems to have only gone up 300 in 24 hrs.

This is of course a drastic undercount.

> Lockdown ends in 2 weeks.

_Want to bet?_

Seriously, I have a buck here.  Got one to stake against it?


> Based on that, I dont see CA hitting 40k cases in that time.
> Thats a good thing.

You are _still_ not grappling with the math.

Yesterday, there were 2,181 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California.
(This is a total by the S.J. Mercury News of figures from county public
health departments.)  _Confirmed_ cases.  If you trust to the Harvard
researchers' guesstimating technique, and, for the sake of current
discussion I do, then the true case count would be about 50 * 2,181  or 
at bit over 100,000 cases.

For the sake of discussion, imagine that health guidelines, e.g., social
distancing, CDC-type hand washing, shutting down non-essential
businesses, avoiding non-essential activities, are being widely ignored.  
Then, the total true case count statewide would tend to follow this
approximate trajectory:

3/26:    200,000
3/29:    400,000
4/01:    800,000
4/04:  1,600,000
4/07:  3,200,000
4/08:  6,400,000
4/11: 12,800,000
4/14: 24,000,000
4/17: At this point, you've saturated the state population.
      (Numbers will fall within the week as about half a million die.)

The hope (and, I keep saying, see the Imperial College London report
about this) is that a 'suppression' strategy, applied maybe 2 months 
on and one month off until something better gets found, will avert the
exponential explosion.

When I said you were failing to grapple with the math, I _didn't_ mean
'Texx didn't look up official confirmed case numbers'.  I meant the
_math_.  E.g., not seeing what exponential growth does, here.

You could also look up what is California's ICU capacity and in
particular the current number of usable mechanical ventilators (not
counting ones vaguely promised to become available Real Soon Now), 
which is a hard limit that, if the number of real (as opposed to
'confirmed') cases rises too high, the significant percentage needing
help with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome will basically just die 
(of suffocation), either at home or in hospital corridors, to the extent
they exceed hospital capacity.

You could calculate that.  (The percent of ARDS patients can be 
estimated from public information.)  I'm not going to walk you through
it.  I have a lot of other things to do.


> What happens after that?
> Do we loosen up for a week and then lockdown for another 3 weeks?

_Dude._  Read the Imperial College London report, particularly pp. 11-13.

> I just dont see people in the US complying with a longer lockdown.

OK, sure.  Megadeaths are always a possibility.