Just to keep track of the nonsense that has wrecked our economy and generally made our politicians run around as if their fool heads were on fire, each day I publish the corona virus total death toll in the US based upon the latest data I can find. A single death is an immense tragedy if you love the person. However, we are not talking about love, but rather public policy, which should always involve a sober analysis of risk and cost. Please recall that in a bad normal flu year our death toll in the US can be as high as 90,000.
Note this will be a total death toll since the beginning of this bad farce, and not a daily toll. As of March 23 the death toll is 417.
Putting this in perspective, the public health hysteria currently destroying out economy is premised on the prediction that between 1 to 3 million people will die in the United States if these draconian measures aren’t taken. I know, seems rather absurd.
Can I make a suggestion Don? Your total for the date looks to me like it’s running about a day to a day and a half behind the current numbers. And I think that’s because you’re posting in the am, EDT, whereas the numbers are being updated throughout the day. (I know in my state, the Dept. of Health reports at noon, daily; I don’t know what other states are doing.
(Compare Worldometer’s totals, here, which, as of it’s last update, 19:05 GMT [3:05pm EDT], is reporting 504 dead.)
So, could I suggest retitling your posts going forward, “Date: U.S. Death Toll for (previous date),” e.g. March 23, 2020: U.S. Death Toll (for March 22, 2020)?
It’s interesting: Just under half of the confirmed cases are in New York. I’d be interested to know how many of those case are in the immediate vicinity of New York City.
No wonder our media thinks the world is coming to an end.
Don, Ernst makes a good point about being consistent with time when you take the data and the source. I find the Johns Hopkins scary map (red circles) changes from 7am onwards. The data it has for Pennsylvania is different than that from the PA department of Health. The latter updates at noon.
a note about numbers: the change of the change (curvature or second derivative is positive for the US for today, negative for S. Korea…SK is flattening, we’re still climbing.
we’re still climbing.
hmmm. I wonder why?
“In a powerful show of defiance of #coronavirus scare, huge crowds gathering in NYC’s Chinatown for ceremony ahead of annual #LunarNewYear parade. Chants of “be strong Wuhan!”
“If you are staying away, you are missing out!”
[Yeah. You missed out on the #cornonavirus, you lucky dog.]
Thanks, China, thanks New York City. I guess we are as dumb as Italy.
But then, there’s a lot of Italian-Americans in New York City, isn’t there? (He noted cynically).
Ernst-
while Worldometer is going to have the most up-to-date claims of deaths, it’s also going to catch stuff that is misidentified; I just checked the CDC, and they say 400 deaths as of today. That’s more than Worldometer has for yesterday, much less today.
That said, these are posted in the morning, while the listed source for worldometer has a death update as of 40 minutes ago.
a note about numbers: the change of the change (curvature or second derivative is positive for the US for today, negative for S. Korea…SK is flattening, we’re still climbing.
The blowhard in New York was screaming at that sportsball team who got tested and only had two pop positive– because only those who are already in critical care in the hospital should be tested, per said blowhard.
A testing policy like that will make sure we are selecting both for more positive tests, and more deaths per positive case.
In contrast, Korea is testing everyone.
The blowhard in New York?
I can think of at least four.
watches that hit go out of the park
I’m not sure why they want to waste tests on people they know are sick, rather than trying to identify who is and isn’t sick that you CAN’T tell and aren’t already isolating so they don’t catch anything in the hospital.