“”Wisconsin is now experiencing unprecedented, near-exponential growth of the number of COVID-19 cases in our state,” said Governor Tony Evers in a video message.“ Dear Governor Evers, “Near exponential growth” is not a thing. You either have exponential growth or you don’t – and I’m sorry to tell you, you do. I promise I’ll write … Read more
I watch too many news shows and one consequence is that I see way too many talking heads saying things for which they are unqualified to have an opinion on. The worst offenders are the MDs. Look, obviously becoming a board certified doctor in any specialty is hard and you are probably pretty smart, but … Read more
I love back of envelope calculations and I love Rachel Maddow, she is so bright and usually does her homework. Yesterday, not so much. In this segment: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/math-on-trump-covid-strategy-has-millions-dying-before-it-works-91958341539 she completely screws up a back of envelope calculation on how many deaths might happen before we get to herd immunity. She starts out correctly: if you … Read more
Noah Feldman, a very smart law professor at Harvard wrote a terribly misguided column for Bloomberg on an emergency use authoritrization for a Covid 19 vaccine (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-09-04/we-should-cheer-a-covid-19-vaccine-even-from-trump-s-fda). I wrote this response and submitted it to Bloomberg but they decided not to publish it. My mom used to tell me that just because I was able … Read more
I always love back of envelope calculations so I thought I would do some for the number of freezers needed for the Pfizer vaccine which, as I pointed out in my last post, needs a -80C medical grade freezer. First off, let’s assume we want to have lots of vaccination stations and we want to … Read more
I was hoping to finish a blog about the latest press release by Moderna on their Phase 1 trial of their vaccine candidate for seniors. (Sheesh I wish they would release preprints instead of press releases…) But I just saw this and wanted to bring it to the attention of my readers. It’s going to … Read more
Understanding the difference between these two concepts is vital to understanding the results of clinical trials. Heck, it’s vital to understanding just about every intervention in medicine. Get your patient to stop smoking and (obviously) both their absolute risk and relative risk of getting lung cancer drops dramatically. But the numbers are quite different, and … Read more
Some people asked me for the official definition of vaccine efficacy (or VE as it is usually abbreviated). As I suspect you might be thinking, it’s a fraction expressed as a percent. For example, suppose you had 300 cases in the unvaccinated group and 100 cases in the vaccinated group. The VE is then gotten … Read more
Fauci is a great virologist, but he doesn’t seem to (automatically) do a back of envelope calculation before throwing out a statement. And so one of his most recent statements (on voting), doesn’t pass the smell test. So what happened? Fauci said this week there is “no reason” Americans can’t vote in person for the … Read more
Some people asked me how the mathematics of vaccine testing works. So, because vaccine trials are actually a bit different than a traditional drug trial, and the popular press isn’t really clear on how they work (to put it mildly), I thought I would explain, in quite general terms how they work. Unfortunately, the mathematics … Read more