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Speaking of WAGs, we have no idea about the true herd immunity number. I'm inclined to believe 20%, but sure, it could be 50% -- or more.

Not sure where you're getting your flu figures, but this is from the Houston Chronicle:

The 9,470 deaths [from the 2017-2018 flu season] represent[ed] a spike of nearly 27 percent from the 7,459 deaths in 2016-2017, and an increase of nearly 82 percent over the 5,215 deaths in 2015-2016, the only previous years when overall deaths were tracked.

Based on this data, it seems to me that 6,500 is a good and fair estimate of annual Texas flu deaths.

JasonB wrote:

ponyboy wrote:

JasonB wrote:If you combine the past two weeks with the next two weeks, we will equal the number of deaths in a one month period that we normally hit in a flu season in Texas.

Yep. Unless something materially changes (e.g. reaching "herd immunity" or another some such barrier to the continued growth), I think you're right about this point, for two reasons:

1. As expected, the daily deaths curve took a sharp turn for the worse in early July -- from an average of about 30 deaths per day (a figure we'd consistently been seeing for the three months leading up to that date) to what looks to be about 300 deaths per day today. And looking at the curve, I do think we could easily find ourselves in the 500 deaths per day region by mid August.

2. Normal flu season is 6,500 deaths. We're at about 2,316 new deaths in the last two weeks. And I'd estimate we'll get another 5,250 in the next two weeks, given the direction of the curve right now. (Total deaths are currently 6,190).

If this happens, by mid August we'll be very to close my estimate from a few weeks back that total COVID-19 deaths in Texas would end up at about 10.5K when all is said and done. (And I predicted that this thing would be "played out" by August 31st). It'll be interesting to see whether we do get over that hump soon and start reversing course.

We aren't close to herd immunity though... 10% of the population and 10K deaths is what we are looking at. Herd immunity is 50%+ of the population.

Flu on average kills 11.1 Texas per 100,000 residents. 30M people, 3,300K per year on average.

There are several studies that are coming to the conclusion that herd immunity will be effectively reached at 20% - due to 40% likely to have T cell immunity (20+40= effective herd immunity). Even more interesting when you realize that everywhere they think 20% have been exposed you see huge drop offs in the cases (all European cities and NYC etc..here in states.

ponyboy wrote:Speaking of WAGs, we have no idea about the true herd immunity number. I'm inclined to believe 20%, but sure, it could be 50% -- or more.

Not sure where you're getting your flu figures, but this is from the Houston Chronicle:

The 9,470 deaths [from the 2017-2018 flu season] represent[ed] a spike of nearly 27 percent from the 7,459 deaths in 2016-2017, and an increase of nearly 82 percent over the 5,215 deaths in 2015-2016, the only previous years when overall deaths were tracked.

Based on this data, it seems to me that 6,500 is a good and fair estimate of annual Texas flu deaths.

I'm getting my data from the CDC. It is all over the website, from a death rate per 100K people for the flu. And if you google the yearly trackers, they will show the data I am referring to. I've read the articles about the 9K+ deaths in the bad flu seasion, but I haven't found a single data source that actually has that total. I'm not sure where it comes from. Maybe P+I instead of just flu? I think there might have been a data mixup.

Texas has 10% of the population of the US. So I would expect that while regionality might cause a higher death rate, if 60K people died in a bad year and 30K on the low end, I would expect 3K to 6K deaths annually in Texas from the flu. From a regionality perspective, in a typical year, again according to the CDC, Texas actually has a lower deaths per 100K than the vast majority of other states.

Ahhh, okay, I see. The 20% number for herd immunity is based on the t-cell theory.

I hope that pans out, but I would not put that in the "probable" category. Less than 5o-50 shot that it turns out true.

Now, let me really mess everything up . According to Bayes Rule, IF:
* The virus is in 10% of the population
* A positive test result is 95% accurate
* You get a false positive 5% of the time

The list of people that test positive actually only have a 65.88% chance of having the virus!

Crazy information like that is why the calculations behind the scenes on IFR and forecast models aren't just simple multiplications. There are a ton of probabilities involved that change as more data becomes available.

It will be awesome if for some reason herd immunity is only 20% instead of 60%. Or if Texas has a magic spell that allows it to have a significantly different IFR than the rest of the world, or even the rest of the USA.

But if you place your bet on those things being true, just be aware it is a low percentage bet.

This is a good watch to understand more about probabilities...

https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_donnell ... n#t-245850

PonySnob wrote:https://twitter.com/keff_c/status/1290253069335310336?s=21

Cases in Dallas county dropped to a third of where they were just two weeks ago. This thing could be losing steam pretty quickly.

Amazing how we can all go on with our lives if people just put in a minimal amount of effort to curtail the spread!

mustangxc wrote:Amazing how we can all go on with our lives if people just put in a minimal amount of effort to curtail the spread!

I'm shocked.

I have no comment on the effectiveness of masks, the selfishness of not wearing one, etc. But can we step back and get a little perspective?

1. We've kind of forgotten that people die from all sorts of stuff. If you're marked to die -- and I hope no one here is -- your overall chance, regardless of age, of dying from something other than corona is 91%. (That's just the overall number. As you'll see below, the younger you are the lower the chance is that it will be this virus that gets you).

2. I want to talk for a moment specifically about the risk of mortality for young people, those under 25 years old. The numbers are just so crazy, especially since we hear nonsense like this idea that young people are at risk of dying of corona. No. No they're not. There's no material risk. Here are the numbers:

a) Per official CDC data (through 7/25/20), we’re up to 135,579 COVID-19 fatalities in the United States for all age groups.

b) The grand total for people under age 25 is 244. That’s two hundred and freaking forty four deaths -- in the entire United States -- out of more than one hundred and thirty five thousand. To give you some perspective, during this period 27,942 people under 25 died from causes having nothing to do with the virus.

Let this sink in for a moment: People under 25 comprise one third of the total U.S. population, yet they account for less than two tenths of a percent of COVID-19 deaths.

The American Council on Science and Health summarizes all of this very well:

While [COVID-19] is obviously concerning and a very real threat to some people (namely, the elderly and immunocompromised), the data also show that the risk for the rest of the population is quite low.… Deaths in young people (from babies to college students) are almost non-existent….

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-C ... -hcku/data

https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/06/23/co ... race-14863

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/red- ... lb-season/

This goes beyond just the numbers of people dying.

It might. One data point does not a trend make. Let's follow the larger story to see if it's truly an issue.

ponyboy wrote:I have no comment on the effectiveness of masks, the selfishness of not wearing one, etc. But can we step back and get a little perspective?

1. We've kind of forgotten that people die from all sorts of stuff. If you're marked to die -- and I hope no one here is -- your overall chance, regardless of age, of dying from something other than corona is 91%. (That's just the overall number. As you'll see below, the younger you are the lower the chance is that it will be this virus that gets you).

2. I want to talk for a moment specifically about the risk of mortality for young people, those under 25 years old. The numbers are just so crazy, especially since we hear nonsense like this idea that young people are at risk of dying of corona. No. No they're not. There's no material risk. Here are the numbers:

a) Per official CDC data (through 7/25/20), we’re up to 135,579 COVID-19 fatalities in the United States for all age groups.

b) The grand total for people under age 25 is 244. That’s two hundred and freaking forty four deaths -- in the entire United States -- out of more than one hundred and thirty five thousand. To give you some perspective, during this period 27,942 people under 25 died from causes having nothing to do with the virus.

Let this sink in for a moment: People under 25 comprise one third of the total U.S. population, yet they account for less than two tenths of a percent of COVID-19 deaths.

The American Council on Science and Health summarizes all of this very well:

While [COVID-19] is obviously concerning and a very real threat to some people (namely, the elderly and immunocompromised), the data also show that the risk for the rest of the population is quite low.… Deaths in young people (from babies to college students) are almost non-existent….

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-C ... -hcku/data

https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/06/23/co ... race-14863

Already surpassed 150,000 several days ago.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... eaths.html

Interestingly irrelevant.

By the way, all I've shown is that mortality risk is nearly zero. Let's put it this way: If you're a young person who's gonna die, there's a greater than 99.9% chance it's going to be something other than corona. But there might be a material risk of other serious effects for this age group. Jury's out on that.

Let's tack on the 20,000 deaths you omitted to the current total of 154,000 to make it 174,000 and we are left with an "irrelevant" 28% increase in total deaths in the USA. You constantly dismiss many sources as fake news yet publish erroneous information and now when corrected dismiss it as irrelevant. Frankly most of your analysis is irrelevant.