igor67

Other than the headline containing the word grim what in there is sensationalist? They are altering procedures to ration care. That is not business as usual. It is debatable whether it is the most troubling news about the situation in NYC, I would say the presence of both the army hospital, navy hospital ship, and 3rd world international relief agency are more troubling. Yet the prose in the story is pretty boring, lacking in inflammatory metaphor, so what is the sensationalist part?

Add on thought I had seen a news story this morning from Reuters and someone had gotten around to using the method we will probably end up using as our starting point for getting final Covid numbers, or at least how we will estimation corrections. Namely just looking at the current total deaths vs. recent historic numbers for this time of year. The numbers for the various Italian states looked to be an overall death rate 2-3 times higher than normal. I wouldn't be surprised if New York is getting to that point. That rate over an entire year in the US would be 2.4-4.8 million deaths (not going to happen, but in line with the worst case scenario, do nothing estimates) and for an entire month that gets you about 240,000

When the schools were closed 3 weeks ago MN and Wisconsin had almost identical numbers of cases. Wisconsin now has more than twice as many. And its not just a testing issue because the death totals are significantly lower in MN than WI. Both states have as far as I can tell basically taken all the same measures at basically identical times. Based on the locations in WI for most of the cases it certainly seems like proximity to Chicago has been a big factor in the difference in pace. What seems for more noteworthy about MN is how well it has seemingly avoided the cases numbers getting into an extended exponential growth phase. Applying your math to the world and you've got about 800,000 active cases to only 225,000 recovered. Yet MN is going slow enough that recovered are out pacing active. That's a rather impressive public health success, one that if they can get enough rapid testing online to do more rapid monitoring, along with a viable antibody test for who has already been exposed could enable MN to fairly rapidly move out of Safer-at-home compared to other locations where the sheer number of stealth infections at this point would lead to a huge resurgence if things are reversed before the actual case numbers go down. Yet it sounds like you want to snatch defeat from the jaws of a possible victory. As I had said up thread a co-worker of mine was borrowing sterilization equipment for his wife to take to her Twin Cities hospital to help them stretch their masks and other PPE. Even in 3M's home state the shortage of other places in the US is showing up.

Technical communication is really hard, as in peer reviewed research in any relevant field should make you pessimistic communication is even possible. This in itself of course a great simplification (which can alternately be read as somewhat wrong). A big part of the reason it ends up being difficult is that there are multiple causes. 3 big ones that are most relevant at the moment would be lack of background knowledge, bias, impatience. 1) Impatience- most people don't want to learn everything they would need to learn to fully become an expert on the topic. This is actually reasonable given how much time that actually takes 2) Background knowledge- What is the proper level of detail when your audience is going to have statistics PhDs and folks who passed high school algebra with a merciful D? This is very crucial when paired with the above because in a very important way every technical question I would love to be answered in a news cast I also recognize that is has a large potential to confuse other parts of the audience or worse become the tiny detail that gets focused on by folks who aren't prepared to digest all of the information. 3) Bias- While political bias is an obvious potential issue, what actually comes out more often in the research is that other underlying differences in personality, beliefs, and education are much more of a cause of how people interact with technical information. Based on that I'd give CBS and ABC a solid B on there reporting. For example while 9-11 and Covid-19 are radically different tragedies the point of the comparison is actually to try and give emotional context for people who don't do well with numbers. As a scientist I hate that type of sloppy comparison, but as a teacher I've learned sometimes that is the way to go in communicating an essential message. The detail that Ferguson's model was a worst case scenario was reasonably well reported. So I'm not seeing anything to be skeptical about particularly when I have not seen more than passing hedged (read typical science speak) references to it by media or doctors. It was pretty clear from the get to me at least we should be able to do better than that since at least some individual states started implementing policies to avoid it. Could news reports have dissected the model on air? Sure, but there are plenty of highly relevant factors that were and still are completely unknown. Like what measures would be implemented? Will the virus be seasonal? When will treatments be discovered? How effective will the treatments be? What are the real risk factors? How many people have stealth/ mild infections? Any one of those can radically alter the final death toll. So diving into the details really complicates the discussion and is likely to obscure a simple necessary message: without direct serious action people will die on a massive scale. With significant steps, but poorly coordinated at a national level action we have hospitals in cool zones anticipating running out of supplies without action in a week. We are actually loaning a sterilizing UV light and gloves to a place in MN, which has been hit less hard than Wisconsin. Multiple hotspots around the country that are is serious disaster mode, and New York which has now mobilized the army and navy and is benefiting from NGOs like it's a 3rd world country. If you somehow missed that news that literally means they are setting up hospital tents to deal with the influx of patients. It may have come to some of this in any event, but many things could have happened a week or more earlier than they did to prepare. Items that would have had little economic impact and just represent planning.

It is certainly plausible that the actual transmission rate in the US has dropped off given significant pull backs have been happening for weeks now. Given what seems likely to have happened in New York, New Orleans, and that province in Italy where there were some larger very public events that happened right before hand, it is a little scary to imagine what would have happened if things were 2-3 weeks later and Opening day still happened... I do hope we can thread the needle and things end up being relatively modest in scope at the end of the day, but most people realize how close to epic catastrophe we got.

Well 3 days later my toy projection hasn't changed much. It does appear to be down ever so slightly, just missing 1.4 million a week from now. I think most people paying attention to numbers understand that the confirmed cases is an underestimate to some extent, though the amount of undercounting has proven difficult to pin down. What I'm starting to think we've thought about somewhat less is to what extent the official death count is a significant under count. From the initial ramp up in Italy the anecdotes always seemed to be worse than the data. I came across a news story yesterday where 1 particular Italian state had 1600 confirmed deaths, but local officials thought the real total was 4 times that. By itself this would increase the current death total more than 10%. Given that this is only part of Italy their actual toll could be dramatically higher. Similarly there were early reports that Iran was under reporting, and while that number eventually rose it seems to have plateaued rather quickly given where their rhetoric was a week ago. In a similar vein there have been less reliable though plausible accounts that Russia has suppressed their total. Perhaps the most dramatic though was a Reuters report this morning that the British government was convinced that China had under reported their totals by a factor of 10.

For fun I did some curve fitting, nothing super rigorous but attempting to plot the data makes it very clear that there have been many different phases of the outbreak. Which we already kind of know. Normally you'd want to add more data in to get a better prediction, but I found pretty consistently that the recent rate of increase in cases has been more than exponential growth, when compared to earlier. Given all the testing wonkiness that is not really a surprise, but it does mean the best fit of a curve to the graph uses only the last 10 days of data. If in included earlier numbers it just keep more and more under predicting our actual current total. So what I came up with has the world at 1.4 million cases 10 days from now Nothing formal, but I do think it gives a decent idea where things are headed. I'd be stunned if we don't break a million by then, on the other hand unless the death rate moderates significantly over that time if we end up significantly over that number I would be very worried because it would be signalling yet another acceleration in the infection rate.

For fun I did some curve fitting, nothing super rigorous but attempting to plot the data makes it very clear that there have been many different phases of the outbreak. Which we already kind of know. Normally you'd want to add more data in to get a better prediction, but I found pretty consistently that the recent rate of increase in cases has been more than exponential growth, when compared to earlier. Given all the testing wonkiness that is not really a surprise, but it does mean the best fit of a curve to the graph uses only the last 10 days of data. If in included earlier numbers it just keep more and more under predicting our actual current total. So what I came up with has the world at 1.4 million cases 10 days from now Nothing formal, but I do think it gives a decent idea where things are headed. I'd be stunned if we don't break a million by then, on the other hand unless the death rate moderates significantly over that time if we end up significantly over that number I would be very worried because it would be signalling yet another acceleration in the infection rate.

The question was asked why not just risk the cholorquine in very sick patients. xisxis addressed this with his biotech experience. But I'll try and be direct. Until you do the testing which is what they are doing you do not actually know if the drug is worse than the disease. Not everyone on respirators dies and I think it should be clear by how different the death rates seems to be in different locations that we currently have a poor understanding of the diseases mortality. Our experience with all manner of drugs is that there are unforseen effects and interactions. Sure chloroquine is FDA approved, but approval doesn't mean safe. Approval means in certain understood cases it is a better option than doing nothing. There is good stuff to read throughout, but the well documented side effects are towards the bottom. Keep in mind that these would be added onto the stress the patient is already suffering from the disease. https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/chloroquine-oral-route/side-effects/drg-20062834?p=1

It's only a matter of time before there is an esports (what a horrible name) tournament with major leaguers simulating the season.

That would potentially be an option. I dislike the phrasing because we have done a lot of work in the last 50-60 years to improve medical ethics, and attempts to walk that back by framing things as a 'right' can really undermine the principles of informed consent. For example extra levels of precaution when using vulnerable populations as research subjects. In this case its not clear in a reliable way yet what signs would be used to determine they were beyond other means to help them. I think it would be justified to make a judgement based on current information where that line is and go from there. I do think we'll have some answers relatively soon given the increase in cases and how rapidly it works. It should be clear if the drugs provide a noticeable benefit.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by right to try testing, Peavey.

The potential for even some relief from existing drugs is pretty big. I just get nervous because I do understand why there are still precautions in place and reasons to want to test them out under these new conditions at least somewhat rigorously. This is certainly a case where you are willing to take a few more risks and starting getting medicine out, but there are still potential unknowns. It does make it easier to see how with a few other things like the possibility that warmer weather helps to reduce the infection rate that the impact may end up on the low side.

I'm beginning to think my praise was premature. 645 is quoting stats like pitcher wins (metaphor). Only in this case it is worse because epidemiologists have had actual math models (and empirical data) that are way more sophisticated going back decades longer than anything sabermetric related. Seriously you are comparing death totals for the yearly flu, where you know the key adjective is 'yearly' whereas this out break is only a few months old and most of the depths have been within the last week. Again actual comparison to actual reporting even in the last 20 years will show that expert guidance has lead to much less severe responses to things like Ebola with a drastically higher death rate because the transmission rate is so much lower. If the track record of making appropriate recommendations to minimize the impact of all of these recent outbreaks doesn't convince you that you're as way off base, I would encourage you to post exactly what type of evidence can convince you that you're wrong. If you can't imagine how your mind could be changed at all that is a real problem.

Not an epidemiologist, but trained in some nearby areas so I can judge pretty well. First on balance this thread reminds of why Brewerfan is still an impressive place. For a complex unprecedented scenario the quality of the discussion is so far above the average internet nonsense it is impressive. Some general thoughts: 1) At least here in MN all of the actions have been a pretty even balance of trying to take significant measures but not jumping the gun until there was some additional supports in place to help deal with some of the issues. 2) The viral characteristics definitely align with factors I have heard about for years as being things to be nervous about. In this case the very easy transmission, combined with the ability to be asymptomatic and still transmit makes it noticeably worse than other recent outbreaks. Which is mirrored by the higher level of response than SARS or H1N1. 3) There are still significant uncertainties with the actual death rate, but it is comfortably higher than other bad flu's to warrant the concern. 4) Stressing the healthcare system also has a big negative impact on everyone else who needs medical care. I haven't seen that directly acknowledged, but you can definitely get to a point where people start dying of other things they shouldn't have because of scarce resources. 5) While I can certainly see some decisions made to speed up any vaccine approval the rules and testing are in place for a reason as well. I'm cautiously optimistic that we will be able to beat the timeline (1-1.5 years) commonly cited, but not by a huge margin since among other things there will be a huge production ramp up. 6) We also have no real idea if and to what extent there will be long term complications for some folks who recover. As an extreme example it was only a couple of years ago by going through historical records that researchers discovered that measles biggest issue may have been that it made survivors significantly more at risk of others diseases for up to 3-5 years after they 'recovered'.

The inconsistent political responses in various locations would be less frustrating, but public health official and scientists have predicted this for years.

There is some utility to recognizing that from a business standpoint not all wins have equal value. However this case does rather neatly illustrate the problems with thinking that. That math that Eye black is talking about is analyzing things from a marginal wins perspective. In a very strict, but important sense once the Brewers ink their next player to a contract Yelich is no longer a marginal wins decision he is a fixed quantity. So the tricky part about the analysis is figuring out how to recognize the utility of that type of thought without counting everyone's wins from a marginal perspective.

generally agreeing with adam's post with 3 years to go before he could really cash in there is a non-zero risk especially with some labor risk thrown in that he doesn't get the huge deal. As a position player that is rather unlikely, but still possible. So I think another factor maybe a combination of liking Milwaukee and/or not really wanting to hold out for the biggest markets in the future.

I saw the thread title and immediately looked at the date and was even more surprised. Mark A. should probably be in the rotation he loves to throw the curveball.

From a player perspective I agree for a pitcher this should be a no-brainer, unless you you have a gambling problem. If I had some time to think I'm sure just with young Brewer pitchers I could come up with a big list of players who in retrospect would have loved a super early career deal. Nuegebauer and Saenz come to mind right away. The position player risks are somewhat lower, so I would not expect the same level of 'discount' but it is really more career insurance than a discount. The conventional contract valuations for young players rarely seem to properly account for the flame-out risk accurately on the player side. Players only get 1 career to play the odds with whereas the team has many chances so they can actually make-up the losses.

Expanded playoffs or not Braun's tenure in Milwaukee has produced way more playoff relevant seasons than Yount, Ganter, or Molitor. One can of course complicate that argument, but for most of his time here the focus has not been over hyping Braun.

Someone posted they thought Donaldson would have 2 great years, an OK year, and a time for retirement year. If I knew for sure that would happen I agree that the money would be worth it with the current team construction. But not only is aging rough 3rd basemen seem to age pretty poorly historically and Donaldson by that metric is already past his sell-by date. So I certainly understand not getting involved with that contract. I used to think Prince would beat the odds for large bodied 1st basemen...

The column only lists cutting payroll as a descriptive term. Which is important because it really offers zero context for why it is happening. Frankly it is not that much of a stretch to look at what has been done and recognize that the team has about he same chances of getting to the playoffs as they did before last year while being significantly cheaper. The team may have identified the sharp price spike this offseason early and looked at the large pile of OKish role players on the roster and come to the conclusion that doing almost as good for a discount this year sets them up for good chances in subsequent years because we aren't stuck with aging declining players. That is what is really meant by looking for value not overly simplistic analysis alleging the management is using our market size as a crutch. Another benefit of this is roster flexibility in the sense that you are not expecting for all of these players to rebound, but if the team gets off to a solid start again it is easy to jettison the underperforming players and look to trade a 2nd tier prospect for an upgrade later once you have figured out who is rebounding and who isn't.

That Illini game is looking really painful right now

Ceephus