Thank goodness. When I first glanced at the percentage of new positive cases per day (Washington State), I felt optimistic. After reflection, I decided. “Yes, it’s good that the percentage is not increasing rapidly, but even no change is still bad.” Even a constant flow of new patients into the health care system will eventually overwhelm it. A linear curve, as opposed to an exponential curve, merely postpones the day when we exceed capacity.
Someone might say, “Oh, linear isn’t bad.” Yes, it is and here’s why. It’s not like an acute care patient arrives, is given some magic cure and is sent home. Mean duration of hospitalization in Chine was 12.8 days. [Please see “Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China” in the New England Journal of Medicine.] Even with a so-called linear curve, acute care patients are admitted and stay. Most hospitals are “right sized” during normal times by administrators interested in efficency. So, it doesn’t take long before capacity and staff are exhausted.
China had hospitalization rates ranging from 15% to 20%. In the Chinese epidemic, 41.3% of patients received oxygen therapy and 6.1% received mechanical ventilation.
There is only one advantage to a linear curve vs. exponential — it gives hospitals and other facilities an opportunity to ramp up for the influx of acute care patients. The availability of respirators and ventilators is a critical concern as well as temporary beds and infrastructure for convalescence and recovery.
We need to push the number of new COVID-19 cases downward through social distancing and good hygiene. I’m glad that Governor Inslee has issued a full stay-at-home order. Now, we all need to listen to it and act.
New York City
Governor Cuomo of New York was visibly more alarmed today. I pulled together a quick table of new case and new testing statistics for New York City (NYC).
I’m alarmed, too.
New York City (NYC) Cum New Cum New Percent Date Positive Positive Tests Tests Ratio Hospital ------ -------- -------- ------ ------ ----- -------- Mar 20 4408 1939 14386 4852 40.0% 18% Mar 21 6211 1803 19463 5077 35.5% 15% Mar 22 9045 2832 26389 6927 40.1% 13% Mar 23 12305 3260 33003 6614 49.3% 13% Mar 24 14904 2599 38390 5387 48.2% -- Mar 25 17856 2952 44076 5686 51.9% 12% Mar 26 21393 3537 51031 6955 50.9% 14% Mar 27 25398 4005 57954 6923 57.9% 15% Mar 28 29766 4368 65902 7948 55.0% -- Mar 29 33768 4002 73104 7202 55.7% 14% Mar 30 37453 3685 -- -- -- 14%
24% of hospitalizations are ICU patients (March 23) 23% of hospitalizations are ICU patients (March 24) 24% of hospitalizations are ICU patients (March 26) 24% of hospitalizations are ICU patients (March 27) 24% of hospitalizations are ICU patients (March 29) 25% of hospitalizations are ICU patients (March 30)
The percentage of new positive cases per day (which takes the ever-varying number of tests into account) for Washington State is around 6.5%. The ratio for New York City is 6 times higher than Washington. (Update: Washington State calls this ratio “Positivity Rate.”)
I fear that NYC is already in the weeds. Folks, NYC is the largest financial center in the United States. So, even if all you care about is money, this is the wrong time to lift restrictions and to restart the American economy. Plain and simple, that’s crazy talk. And, immoral.
Stay distant and stay healthy — P.J. Drongowski
Update quoting CNBC News:
New York and New Jersey are seeing coronavirus attack rates at least five times higher than other parts of the country, a U.S. official in charge of the White House’s pandemic response efforts said Monday.
“The New York metro area of New Jersey, New York City, and parts of Long Island have an attack rate close to one in 1,000,” Dr. Deborah Birx, a physician and the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said at a press briefing Monday evening. The attack rate is the percentage of a population that gets the disease.
She said roughly 28% of the specimens submitted in that region have tested positive for COVID-19, while less than 8% have tested positive for the disease in the rest of the country.
New York is currently the hardest-hit state in the country, ahead of New Jersey, California and Washington state. New York City, alone, accounts for 12,305 of the 20,875 confirmed infections in the state as of Monday morning.
Thanks to The Seattle Times and the Washington State Department of Health (DOH), I have built a table that summarizes COVID-19 case statistics since late February. Data before March 10 is somewhat spotty and lacks the number of tests per day, etc. The raw numbers are shown in the table below.
I have tried to make this table as accurate as possible. Please forgive any transcription errors. The Washington Department of Health has suffered technical issues, so there are gaps in the data. Their database has been overwhelmed and they have had trouble tallying negative test results and the number of tests.
The State DOH reports the cumulative number of positive cases (tests) negative test results daily — the second and third columns in the table. The fourth columb, cumulative number of tests, is the sum of the cumulative positive and negative results each day.
From these numbers, we can compute the number of new positive cases and the number of new tests for each 24 hour period:
Tests.Today = Positive.Today + Negative.Today New cases = Positive.Today - Positive.Yesterday New tests = Tests.Today - Tests.Yesterday Ratio = (New cases / New Tests) * 100.0
The seventh column, ratio, is the percentage of positive new cases per day. I believe that this percentage is an appropriate measure for tracking COVID-19 over time. The ratio normalizes the number of positive cases for the number of tests performed. Thus, it makes daily results comparable even as our test capacity and number of daily tests grow.
Update: Washington State calls this ratio/percentage “Positivity Rate.”
The bar chart below is a quick and dirty plot of the daily percentage of positive cases over the last ten days. Be sure to check the vertical scale when interpreting the chart!
Percentage of positive COVID-19 tests per day (Washington State)
I hope this trend declines. Please remember that any measurements taken today show what COVID-19 was doing 10 to 14 days ago. The delay is due to the time required for COVID-19 incubation, worsening of symptoms, clinical presentation and testing.
The last column in the table, Notes, are my mental notes marking significant events along the COVID-19 timeline in our area. The events are:
Snohomish County (my home) declares a state of emergency.
Vice President Pence visits the State of Washington.
Governor Inslee bans groups of more than 250 people.
The State advises people to stay at home, especially the elderly.
The City of Everett (a stone’s throw away from home) imposes a stay at home order.
Up to today, Governor Inslee has not imposed a blanket “stay at home” order. Suggestions made by the state are similar to a stay at home order, but do not have the force of law.
Don’t do this
Here is the egregious chart of the day by way of Cleveland.com. I still check in with my original hometown. Hope the Cavs can hit the court again.
To be fair, the author did put a few caveats about number of tests, etc. in the article. The caveats are lost in the TL:DR age. Please don’t publish meaningless charts and comparisons.
If I were teaching a math or science class today, I think I would use this chart in class about critical thinking and interpetation of the graphs thrown at us by the media.
No one (CNN, etc.) should compare state-by-state number at this point in time. There isn’t a standard for reporting and test capacity is, literally, all over the map.
Life has dropped into a bit of a routine. Get up, start the coffee pot and watch the briefing by Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York. The Guv can be a little tedious and pedantic (well-known characteristics to New Yorkers), but he is a wonderful communicator. First, he speaks slowly and in simple, clear sentences — good for people for which English is not their first language.
He also has been presenting clear statistics on testing and the number of new COVID-19 cases. His interpetation and remarks are correct. The more you test, the more you will find the disease. One of his charts today had three columns: locality (county and entire state), cumulative COVID-19 cases to date and the number of new cases identified for the preceding 24 hour period. At the very least, the Governor needs to add a fourth column, the number of tests performed during the preceding 24 hour period. The fourth column would show the concurrent growth of new cases and tests.
I also heard the Governor struggling, just a bit, to put the number of new cases in context with the growth in testing. [New York has done an excellent job of ramping up its testing, BTW.] That’s where the ratio of new cases to tests comes into play:
Percentage of new positive cases = ((New cases) / (New tests)) * 100
I get that most people do not think in terms of ratios between 0.0 and 1.0, so this measure can and should be expressed as a percentage.
The percentage (ratio) accounts for the growth in testing. I believe that this percentage (ratio) is a better tracking metric than the raw number of new cases alone. It is certainly better than the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the epidemic. The cumulative number expresses the depth of suffering, but it does not adequately convey the growth or decline of the disease. Given that we will experience recurring waves of COVID-19 (if we suppress this disease successfully), the cumulative number of cases alone will obscure the rise and ebb of COVID-19.
I was encouraged to see New York using a metric similar to my COVID-19 Key Performance Indicator (KPI). New York officials are monitoring the number of all acute care patients. This is the most relevant number with respect to the capacity of the health care system. Please note that acute care includes all of the “every day” acute care patients (heart attacks, strokes, etc.) and COVID-19 patients. All of these patients need to be hospitalized and all of them put a load on the health care system.
If I have to add a public service announcement (PSA) of my own, please don’t drive under the influence and please don’t drive distracted (i.e., texting). Hospital emergency rooms don’t need additional patients. And be careful with that axe, Eugene.
The Seattle Times
I’d like to give a shout-out to my (new) hometown newspaper, The Seattle Times. They publish a concise daily summary of new and cumulative test results (March 19, 2020 below; click to enlarge).
The summary has the daily number of tests performed, positive cases identified and negative cases. Charts break out positive cases and deaths by age. Tests per day has its own chart and shows the growing number of tests. There is a chart showing the cumulative number of positive cases and deaths over time since February 28.
All good work. The raw figures come from the Washington State Department of Health, who should be commended for their transparency.
The UW Virology Laboratory upped their game and publish daily results in the UW Virology COVID-19 Dashboard. [Click images to enlarge.]
University of Washing Virology Laboratory COVID-19 Dashboard
This is a screenshot of the dashboard for March 19, 2020. It’s easy to see the number of tests (“Sample Count”) performed each day, the number of positive and negative cases identified, and the number of inconclusive results. You can hover the cursor over a bar segment and get the raw count for the chosen segment.
Very nice work. The trend of positive cases is easy to see. The chart shows the raw number of positive cases, so interpretation is still biased by the number of tests performed. A separate chart is needed which plots the percentage of new positive cases over time.
One additional suggestion for UW Medicine — Please explain “Inconclusive”.
As I mentioned yesterday, each day’s results are a glimpse into the past. COVID-19 has a 2 to 14 day incubation period according to the CDC. Other medical experts estimate the infection to test delay at 10 to 14 days (infection, incubation, symptoms, clinical presentation, test). Even though the trend of new COVID-19 cases is relatively flat, we won’t really know for another 14 to 21 days if we successfully flattened the curve and delayed onset of the disease in the community.
On March 16, President Trump warned that the COVID-19 outbreak could last until July or August 2020. This was the first official recognition that the outbreak could take months to quell, not a few weeks. On March 18, The New York Times and other media outlets published the U.S. Government COVID-19 Response Plan. The plan states that a moderately severe outbreak could last 12 to 18 months with multiple “waves.”
The duration and potential number of waves may shock some. However, the timing and waves of resurgence/subsidence are fairly typical for epidemics and other phenomena in nature. Consider, for example, predator-prey population models. Predators thrive and reproduce when prey are plentiful. When the food supply dwindles, predators die off and the predator population dwindles. With fewer predators, prey survive and multiply. The cycle of growth and decline repeats.
Viruses need susceptible, infectable hosts in order to reproduce. Thanks to bodily immunilogical response, human hosts may develop an immunity as a result of infection and recovery. Immunity may be limited to the specific infecting strain of the virus. Unfortunately, viruses are adaptable and a strain may mutate into a new different strain which is not suppressed by immunity to the original strain.
The specific behavior of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus which causes the disease COVID-10 — is not fully known, including human immunilogical response to SARS-CoV-2. Citing Dr. Anthony Fauci, no scientific study to date has demonstrated acquired immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Fauci and other experts believe that acquired immunity is likely.
Timeline
The U.S. Government COVID-19 Response Plan states, “Late December 2019, authorities from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced a possible epidemic of pneumonia of unknown etiology centralized on a local large seafood and live animal market in Wuhan, China. Estimated case onset was early December.”
Given the lack of Chinese transparency, slow governmental response and the speed/extent of modern jet travel, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has probably been circulating in Snohomish and King County Washington for quite some time. The report states, “The first U.S. case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Washington State on January 20 and was travel-related.” This patient landed from Wuhan, China on January 15 without symptoms and eventually presented on January 19 with symptoms of pneumonia.
The first case of community spread in the U.S. (California) was confirmed by the CDC on February 26, 2020. The first case of community spread in Snohomish County, WA was confirmed on February 28. Thus, SARS-CoV-2 circulated in the Snohomish and King County area for nearly six weeks. Detection of community spread is a red flag for a developing epidemic.
On March 9, the Washington Department of Health confirmed 162 total cases including 22 deaths. Most of these deaths occurred at Life Care Center of Kirkland, a nursing home linked to at least 54 confirmed cases as of March 9. King and Snohomish Counties had 116 and 37 total cases, respectively, as of March 9. If you are interested in the details, the March 18, 2020 CDC MMWR is short and to the point.
Washington State immediately announced and slowly ramped up community mitigation. Governor Inslee issued the most stringent order on March 16. As of today, March 20, the state government has not issued a “stay/shelter at home” order like California.
State of Washington Social Distancing Summary
Washington’s new cases
The timeline is important in understanding current new case data and in knowing what to look for in the coming two to three weeks.
UW Virology COVID-19 test results (March 20, 2020)
On a positive note (literally), the number of new COVID-19 cases detected by UW Virology is relatively flat. We are now 5 days into the most stringent social distancing rules and practices (March 20).
Although the results are promising, this is not the time to let up.
This graph is a snapshot of the past. According to the CDC, “The following symptoms may appear 2 to 14 days after exposure: fever, cough, shortness of breath.” COVID-19 tests are (effectively) rationed. A patient must meet testing criteria such as COVID-19 symptoms, contact with a known COVID-19 case, or travel from a COVID-19 hot-spot. Thus, the graph shows cases that are 2 to 14 days after infection.
Social distancing in Washington State did not “get serious” until March 16. The next three weeks (21 days) will tell us if social distancing in Washington State has really been effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19.
The curves (again)
Quoting the San Francisco Chronicle, “More than half of Californians could be infected with the new coronavirus over an eight-week period if nothing is done to stop it, according to a projection from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.”
Let’s hope this statement motivates California’s to adopt social distancing, hygiene and other measures suggested by health autorities.
Gov. Newsome is referring, of course to the orange curve in the now well-known CDC “flattening the curve” chart. If Californians (or the citizens of any other region or city) do not practice social distancing, then new cases will grow exponentially and hospitals, doctors and nurses will be overwhelmed.
Epidemiologists have studied disease for a very long time. And, like any other science, they have built mathematical models to predict the growth and decline of epidemics. The SIR model (Susceptible, Infectious, Recovered model) is one of the simplest — and classic — models. Typically, these models are driven by parameters such as the reproduction number, R0, pronounced “R naught”. R0 is the average number of people who catch the disease from one contagious person.
If R0 is less than one, then the disease will die out.
If R0 is one, the disease remains alive, but does not break out into an epidemic.
If R0 is greater than one, then the disease will spread, possibly growing into an epidemic.
The epidemiologists advising Gov. Newsome have plugged different values of parameters like R0 into their models, run the simulation and assessed the resulting statistics.
“Flattening the curve” essentially means reducing R0 as much as possible.
Here’s the rub which may have escaped some folks. The same number of people will catch the disease (COVID-19) in both the orange unmitigated scenario and the blue mitigated (social distancing) scenario. For the mathematically inclined, the area under the orange curve is equal to the area under the blue curve. The onset of the disease is delayed for some people in order to reduce the strain on the health care system.
The long haul
I started this blog post with statements that more realistically indicate the duration of our battle with COVID-19.
Ideally, we could like to control the growth of COVID-19 (the ramp up) and then stomp it out of existence (the ramp down). Unfortunately, real-world systems tend to behave more like the predator/prey model.
Viruses are opportunistic and adaptible. As long as SARS-CoV-2 circulates in the community, it will find susceptible individuals and infect them. Therefore, as soon as we reduce or abandon social distancing, COVID-19 will have a resurgence. The community will always be in danger of a resurgence as long as SARS-CoV-2 can find enough susceptible people to infect and thrive.
In the opinion of many health experts, our bodies likely acquire an immunity to SARS-CoV-2 as we fight and recover from the disease. At some point, when the so-called “herd immunity” is high enough, the disease will have trouble sustaining itself. We also anticipate a vaccination program against SARS-CoV-2 which will add to the herd immunity. [Yeah, no one likes to be thought of as a “herd”.]
Viruses are composed of proteins and nucleic acid. Without deep-diving molecular biology, viruses contain a form of genetic material: RNA, DNA or possibly both. Viruses usually depend upon a host cell for replication. Short story: viruses can steal genetic material anywhere in this process and mutate. Some mutations are bad and the mutants die out. Some mutations are good and the mutants thrive. That’s adaptation, that’s evolution.
SARS-CoV-2 could mutate. The mutated strain could thrive and grow because acquired immunity and/or the vaccine are specific to the original SARS-CoV-2 strain. Mutation could bring about a resurgence of COVID-19 although the underlying pathogen would be genetically different.
Realistically, it will be difficult to maintain stringent social distancing. We want to be together socially and we will definitely want to get our economy back to full strength, too. In the long haul, we should expect to see cycles of COVID-19 resurgence and decline. We may need to re-impose social distancing to keep COVID-19 in check.
The United States continues to struggle with COVID-19 testing. Communities do not have sufficient COVID-19 test kits and they are, effectively, rationing tests. Generally, a patient must satisfy several criteria before a COVID-19 test is authorized and performed. Example criteria include cough, fever (high temperature), shortness of breadth, exposure to an infected individual, or travel to a known COVID-19 hot-spot. A patient may be tested first for influenza, receiving a COVID-19 test after influenza is ruled out, i.e., the patient fails the flu test.
Even in the face of shortage, the number of COVID-19 tests performed each day is steadily increasing albeit slowly.
With the current situation in mind, let’s look at few metrics.
Media reports
The most frequently reported statistics are the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and the number of deaths due to coronavirus. A few news organizations report the number of new confirmed cases for the preceeding 24 hour period (AKA “per day”).
Most numerate people realize that “If you test, you will find the disease.” If you test more, then the raw number of confirmed cases will also rise.
Very few news organizations report the total number of tests performed per day as well as the number of new confirmed cases per day. Lacking the number of tests performed for each day, one cannot put the number of new confirmed cases in context. Nor can an investigator determine a trend over time, i.e., , is community mitigation (e.g., social distancing, etc.) controlling the spread of COVID-19?
We should insist on receiving three per-day metrics: the number of tests performed that day, the number of new confirmed cases and the number of negative cases. The number of tests performed will tell us if COVID-19 test capacity has improved or not. Then, I recommend computing, tracking and comparing the ratio of new per-day COVID-19 cases (confirmed positives) divided by the number of tests performed that day. The ratio better indicates the growth (or decline) of the disease in the community.
The Washington State Department of Health does report a daily break down. Their page breaks out confirmed cases by county, by age and by sex. The Department of Health also provides testing information. Unfortunately, the number of individuals tested, positive and negative are cumulative. As of March 17, the test figures are:
Positive: 1,012
Negative: 13,117
Individuals tested: 14,129 (Positive+Negative)
Percent positive: 1,012 / 14,129 = 7.7%
Please give us nonaggregated results for each day!
Beware sampling bias
One might be inclined to interpret the daily percentage of new confirmed cases as the rate of incidence of the disease in the community (the population at large). Unfortunately, the pre-testing criteria guarantee a biased sample. We are testing patients for COVID-19 only if they have symptoms, have a certain risk factor and/or do not have the flu. The ratio may overstate the incidence of disease or, worse, understate the incidence by missing asymptomatic, infected individuals.
The lack of COVID-19 test capacity leaves public health officials in a terrible bind. One would like to randomly sample (test) the population at large in order to estimate the number of infected people (symptomatic and asymptomatic) in the community. This is akin to taking a political poll. We need to select randomly (say, 1,600 people) from the community and test the selected individuals for COVID-19. We estimate the total number of infected people by multiplying the proportion of infected people as measured by sampling (“the poll”) times the overall population size.
One needs the right kind of test, of course. We want to measure current, active infections, not past infections that have resolved (recovered). This leads us (almost) to the classic SIR model (susceptible, infected, recovered) for epidemics — yet another topic! Also, time to ask the Google about “real-time reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)” and COVID-19 testing. Who said self-isolation was uninteresting? 🙂
From statistics theory, 1,600 tests has a margin of error of plus/minus 2.45%. 1,600 tests is a modest number and, unfortunately, we can barely perform medical diagnostic testing let alone conduct a necessary statistical study at this time. Ideally, we would have sufficient capacity to conduct “tracking polls” to determine the overall trend, i.e., are there more (or less) infected people today than last week? Our officials are truly flying blind at the worst possible time.
Recent studies suggest that asymptomatic people are a significant source of new infections. That’s why public health officials are saying, “Act and behave as though you are infected.” We need tests. We need tools.
If you are interested in COVID-19 numeracy, I suggest reading the comments section. There are good insights there.
Here is my own response.
Thank you for posting your study. I started blogging about “COVID-19 numeracy” in response to the rather poor way media outlets have portrayed the disease numerically. We are in this fight for the long haul (12 to 18 months) and need metrics that guide our actions.
Please listen to the recommendations in this comment section. Many of us have spent years in measurement and statistics.
Raw numbers, e.g., the number of (new) confirmed cases, are not always meaningful or useful. We know that the number of new confirmed cases per-day will rise dramatically as testing increases. The number of new confirmed cases needs to be “normalized” against the number of tests performed. I suggest tracking the ratio of new confirmed cases divided by the number of tests.
I strongly agree that we need to track the progress of COVID-19 on a daily basis. (A seven day moving average is a good idea.) The total (cumulative) number of cases/deaths — as tracked and reported by most media outlets — will not be useful 2, 3, 4 months into the crisis, especially when there will be “waves” of resurgence and subsidence. We need to understand the dynamics of the pandemic.
Health authorities need to report the number of tests per day, the number of positive cases for that day and the number of negative cases. The raw number of tests per day will tell us if authorities are meeting their commitment to increase the number of tests and allow us to compute ratios, etc.
Should we ever get to the point of spare testing capacity beyond diagnosis, we need to conduct periodic community studies, something akin to a political poll. Take a random sample of the community and determine the number of symptomatic and asymptomatic cases (by age, by sex, etc.) Such polling will allow us to track the actual infection rate in the population at large.
First off, I would like to say how sad I am for those who have lost their lives to COVID-19, offering my support and empathy to their loved ones. We live in Sonomish County, Washington, not very far from King County and Kirkland. We’ve already seen the devastation which COVID-19 can wreak on care facilities for elderly people. This disease is all too real.
By now, you’ve heard the phrase “flattening the curve” and have probably seen the graph from the CDC (below). Our global goal is to slow the spread of COVID-19 through the population such that severe cases do not overwhelm the health care system. In a nutshell, the health care system has a fixed number of beds, doctors, nurses, caretakers, respirator, ventilators, etc. When capacity is exhausted, the system cannot treat all incoming patients (COVID-19 plus the regular, on-going stream of emergency situations like heart attacks, strokes, etc.) and, quite frankly, people will die.
The graph has done a good job of educating us as to the need for social distancing, hygiene, and other measures which slow the spread of disease.
It also suggests a metric — a key performance indicator (KPI) — which can tell us how well we are doing. A KPI is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively an organization is achieving its objective(s). It’s important to note that a KPI can and should be applied at different levels in the organization. We also need to know how the KPI changes over time.
Let’s consider a KPI which measures the number of all critical care patients above or below the capacity of the health care system (below). This delta tells us if we are successfully suppressing the spread of COVID-19 or not. We must measure all critical care patients because they all are vying for the same medical personnel, beds and equipment. If the KPI is positive, i.e., the number of critical care cases exceeds capacity, then we are failing. If the KPI is negative, then we are succeeding.
COVID-19 Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
A national KPI value is only somewhat useful. The KPI needs to be measured at the state level and regional (metro) level. State-level values are useful only for small states such as Rhode Island with one major population center. Regional-level values are more useful in large states like California or Washington with two or more major population (and health care) centers. The U.S. is a very large country and health care capacity in West Virginia, for example, is not available to residents in San Francisco. Thus, regional numerical break out is required.
We need to track the KPI over time. The trend will tell us if we are successfully supressing the spread of COVID-19 or not. Tracking by region over time will tell us if hot spots are cooling off or if new hot spots are developing.
Why am I proposing this KPI, especially now? As a people, we need to walk a fine line between actionable concern and fearful panic.
I see tables and graphics in the media which tally the total number of confirmed cases and the total number of deaths. Yes, we mourn the loss of our neighbors. If we have even an ounce of humanity, can we not? I agree that such figures convey the sense of urgency needed to motivate new behavior that slows the spread of disease.
However, the total number of confirmed cases and fatalities alone are flawed measures for decision making. With respect to confirmed cases, the number can only go up — drastically — as we ramp up testing. Media need to at least report the number of people tested each day along with the number of negative results as well as the number of new confirmed cases. Even then, perhaps only the ratio of new confirmed cases to the number of new tests is truly meaningful.
Just to be clear, “each day” means the number of people tested, confirmed positive and negative in a specific 24 hour period, not an accumulated tally to date.
Aggregated and accumulated measurements are not practical and may be unnecessarily misleading. News media please take notice.
We also need to break out and track new critical COVID-19 cases which require hospitalization. These are the people who need the health care system. By tracking this number, we will see if the load on the health care system is trending upward toward catastrophe or trending downward successfully. As much as I love my younger and/or healthier brothers and sisters, if they are successfully recovering in self-isolation, then they are not loading the health care system with negative implications, and possibly death, for critical care patients.
I apologize to anyone who may feel offended by my frank discusion. I’m trying to come to grips with all of the information thrown at me by media outlets. Hopefully, you will find this approach to be useful. Even if you do not adopt my proposal, I hope to have started a practical discussion.
A Keyboard Corner member asked what people did for keyboard amplification before PA. Man, that question really kicked off some memories.
Back in the day (1966), I played a Farfisa Mini Compact Deluxe through an Ampeg SB-12 bass amp. It was all I could afford. Mom and Dad lent me the money and I mopped floors at the local donut shop to pay them back. The shop had a wooden floor that was impregnated with grease. I still can’t face donuts to this day. 🙂
The Portaflex was pretty cool with its flip top. The amp was mounted to a covered board which acted as a base for the head and, when flipped over, it became the cabinet cover. The clamps held the base/cover board in place and did double-duty as the speaker connections to the cabinet.
Ampeg SB-12 bass amplifier
The SB-12 had a 12″ Jensen speaker powered by a 25 Watt tube amp. It weighed 47 pounds — the first of a long line of heavy schleps.
Being the 1960s, of course, that wasn’t enough. Since I started playing with electronics and DIY at an early age, I tried my hand at an extension cabinet. I somehow came into a 15″ JBL speaker with a small tear in the cone. Impedance be damned, I just hooked it up in parallel with the Jensen via the clamps. Before building a cabinet, I would carry the JBL around in a suitcase which doubled as a “cabinet.” (!) The tear in the cone lent more bad-itude. [Why fizzy digital distortion doesn’t cut the mustard.]
In the R&B band, the guitars and vocals went through matching Ampeg guitar amps (probably Gemini’s). Only the top local bands could really afford PA for vocals (typically Fenders). Nobody put instruments through PA. The bass player had a Guild ThunderBass amp with that funky head. The bass player was quite good and laid down decent grooves. Can’t remember too much about the psychedelic band…
My failed experiments at extension and PA speaker cabs wound up as end-of-gig props. When we saw The Who trash their gear, we thought “What the heck!” I’d pull one of the legs off of the Farf and ram it through one of the prop cabinets.
My dream rig would have been a Vox Continental through a Fender Twin Reverb or Fender Super Reverb. I copped the Fender tilt-back idea and built a tilt-back stand for the SB-12. That got the speaker pointing up toward my ears.
Both the Connie and the Fenders were out of my financial reach. It took me three years to pay back my folks. By then, I had to sell the whole rig in order to make the college tuition nut. Given the rigors of college math, physics and computer science, it was the end of playing for quite a while. I can’t believe how much a vintage SB-12 fetches on the market these days!
The Farfisa Mini Compact Deluxe left me with no delusions about 1960s electronics. I tried tuning the F# oscillator and bunged the tuning coil. That was an unnecessary repair expense. That’s why I’m happy as a clam to play the Yamaha Reface YC today. The YC does a good job nailing the Farfisa and Vox.
A few other memories stick out like playing music fairs on stage/demo gear with the psychedelic band. One stage was incredibly small and I had a horn driver literally right in my ear. We played Doors, Steppenwolf, Vanilla Fudge, etc. at phenomenally loud volume, attracting every biker within earshot. They loved us. I think I still suffer hearing loss from those jobs.
Before signing off, I want to plug “Classic Keys: Keyboard Sounds That Launched Rock Music” by Alan Lenhoff and David Robertson. I received a copy yesterday and gave it a quick browse. The photography is excellent and the example gear is in tip-top shape. The book is long on history — less on playing technique and artistis, so some may be disappointed. Discount and used copies are coming onto the market and you may be able to save a few bucks if you can’t pony up the full $60USD. Recommended.
The Sonogenic lacks three critical features that one finds in a typical desktop synth:
Although the Sonogenic has 28 great voices and two drum kits built-in, it lacks many important instruments like organ, double reeds, tuned percussion and soft synth pads.
Internal voices cannot be edited, e.g., attack, filter cutoff and so forth cannot be adjusted.
The chorus and reverb types are preselected and cannot be changed.
Edits and changes cannot be stored into and recalled from user memory slots.
This is the ideal situation for a tablet-based app.
MIDI Designer is an iPad-based tool which supports creation and use of MIDI voice editors and controllers called “layouts.” Users have built and shared layouts for many popular synths. Now, I’m pleased to add the SHS-500 Sonogenic layout. With this layout, you can play the General MIDI (GM) voices, change reverb and chorus types, edit General MIDI (GM) voices and save all of your work in MIDI Designer presets. If you turn Sonogenic LOCAL sound generation on, you can layer an internal voice with a GM voice.
This post describes the Sonogenic layout. I recommend reading my post about MIDI Designer to Sonogenic communications (MIDI flow) first. It will help you to understand the relationship between the SHS-500 and the MIDI Designer Sonogenic layout. The write-up may even inspire a new way of using MIDI Designer with Sonogenic.
One thing that’s nice about MIDI Designer and layouts — you can customize them. So, if you want to modify my layout, don’t hesitate. First, though, you should read my post describing Sonogenic’s MIDI implementation. Then you will know more about the MIDI messages behind the layout’s controls.
Click this link to download my Sonogenic layout for MIDI Designer. Use iTunes file sharing to install the layout in MIDI Designer. I plan to upload the Sonogenic layout to the MIDI Designer web site.
Connection
Although you could connect by USB or 5-pin MIDI, the Sonogenic, MIDI Designer and Bluetooth MIDI are made for each other.
midimittr Bluetooth connection to Sonogenic
First, launch the free midimittr app which acts as a bridge between Sonogenic, Bluetooth MIDI and MIDI Designer. midimitter lets MIDI Designer echo Sonogenic’s MIDI note on/off, modulation and pitch bend messages back to the Sonogenic. You should turn Sonogenic LOCAL off unless you intend to layer a Sonogenic voice with a GM voice.
MIDI Designer connection
Next, launch MIDI Designer and make connections to midimittr as shown in the screenshot above. Then load the Sonogenic layout into MIDI Designer. You should be ready to go at this point.
Voices and effects
The Sonogenic layout is separated into three tabs: Effects, Voice and Voice Edit. (See the screenshot below.) Effect-related controls are on the left-hand side of the screen and voice-related controls (tabbed pages) are on the right-hand side.
Effect and voice selection
Selecting a GM voice
The Sonogenic has a strict division between its keyboard sound and the General MIDI sounds over MIDI. You can think of the keyboard sound and GM sounds as two distinct tone generators, each with their own controls. The keyboard sound is selected and controlled through the Sonogenic front panel. The GM sound(s) is selected and controlled by the MIDI Designer layout.
The Voice page has an array of voice buttons. The 28 buttons at the top of the page select one of the preset “panel” voices. The two large buttons in the middle select one of the two preset panel drum kits. The buttons at the bottom of the page select a voice from the General MIDI sound set.
Please note: if you select a panel voice on the Voice page, you are changing the current General MIDI sound. The Sonogenic keyboard sound remains the same. The separation may seem artifical, but it lets us layer two sounds: the keyboard sound and a General MIDI sound.
The Sonogenic panel voices are generally better-sounding than the equivalent GM voice. The layout provides direct access to the panel voices while providing 12 buttons which can be customized for your own favorite GM voices. Of course, you’ll need to learn how to edit the GM buttons…
Effects
The large buttons on the Effects page choose the current reverb and chorus type. Like the voice buttons, the reverb and chorus effect type buttons are “radio buttons,” i.e., you can select only one effect type at a time within the reverb group or chorus group.
The reverb (Rev) and chorus (Cho) sliders adjust the reverb and chorus level for the General MIDI sound. [By the way, the GM voice and its effect levels are on MIDI channel 1.] Change the amount of reverb or chorus effect here. The sliders do not affect the keyboard sound — only the GM sound.
Changing the chorus and reverb type also affects the keyboard sound because the chorus and reverb units are shared by the keyboard sound and the GM tone generator. Reverb and chorus level only affect the GM sound [MIDI channel 1].
The four small buttons are utility buttons:
XG On: Sends an XG System reset to the GM tone generator. This resets the voice (acoustic piano) and all internal MIDI controller values.
Local: Turns Sonogenic LOCAL CONTROL on and off.
All Off: Turns off all notes which may be sounding — a panic button.
C3: Plays the MIDI note C3. Good for testing edits and changes.
Use the XG On button sparingly. The GM tone generator and layout do not automatically re-synchronize with each other.
Voice editing
The Voice Edit page is where you adjust basic voice characteristics like volume (Vol), attack time (Atk), release time (Rel), filter frequency (Freq) and filter resonance (Res). You can spruce things up with these controls. The attack, release, frequency and resonance controls behave like “quick edit” controls, that is, they are offsets from the preset voice parameter values. The middle position (64) specifies a zero offset leaving the original value unchanged. Higher values add an offset and lower values subtract an offset. So, if you want to increase attack time, move the attack slider up. If you want to shorten attack time, move the attack slider down.
Effects and Voice Edit pages
Portamento adds a glide between notes. Press “Porta On” to turn portamento on and press “Porta Off” to turn portamento off. The portamento time slider (Porta Time) sets the glide time.
The velocity sensitivity knobs change how the voice responds to MIDI note velocity (touch). The two voice parameters are:
Velocity Sense Depth (VelDepth)
Velocity Sense Offset (VelOffset)
Please see Yamaha’s explanation in the figure below.
Velocity Sense Depth and Offset
Organ voices, in particular, should not respond to velocity, i.e., a note is either on or off. To achieve this kind of touch response, set velocity sense depth to zero and set velocity sense offset to a value in the range 110 to 127.
The keyboard voices have a default volume which is louder than the General MIDI voices. You may need to set the volume slider (Vol) above 100 in order to get a better balance (mix) between panel and GM voices.
MIDI Designer presets
MIDI Designer itself implements preset storage and recall. A MIDI Designer preset is a snapshot of all the current values in a layout. Here’s a typical usage scenario:
Select a voice.
Select and adjust chorus and reverb effects.
Tweak the voice (e.g., change filter cutoff, etc.)
Save the finished voice as a MIDI Designer preset.
It’s easy to save a preset. Press the more button, press the “Save” button at the bottom of the drop-down menu, and then press one of the ten preset buttons. To recall a preset, simply press more followed by the desired preset button.
MIDI Designer has two groups of presets: regular and alternative. There are ten preset slots in each group, so you get twenty presets total. The Alt button selects the alternative group.
Potential issue: Portamento sometimes stays on (or off) after selecting a preset that changes portamento state. [I’m still investigating.]
Limitations
I experimented with several other controls of the kind normally found on a desktop synth. Unfortunately, the SHS-500 MIDI implementation is rather limited. Here are some known shortcomings:
Transpose and note shift
DSP effect control
Mono and poly mode selection
Should I make any progress with these deficiencies, I will issue an update.
If you have watched the Korg video assembly instructions, you know that there isn’t much to the actual assembly process. The printed circuit boards (PCBs) are fully populated, tested and ready to go. All you need to do is to break the boards down, to stick on and connect the ribbon controller, and to insert and tighten a few screws.
Assembled Korg NTS-1 Digital Synthesizer Kit
Overall, the assembly process took about 40 minutes. I kept an iPad with the assembly instructions nearby, pausing the video at the end of each major step. Assembly was easy and if a small modest amount of labor keeps the kit cost low, I’m all for it!
Here’s a few short comments.
Breaking the boards apart was the step that I feared most. One needs to be firm when snapping boards apart at the seems, but no major issues with flex. Be bold!
Those silver screws are tiny!
Inserting the ribbon controller cable was the biggest issue. The locking tabs were closed and I didn’t suss the direction in which they slide. (They slide in the same direction as the cable, not perpendicular to it.) Thus, I used needle nose pliers to insert the ribbon cable, using more force than necessary.
Keep the tiny screwdriver. You may need to fix your eyeglasses some day. 🙂
Once everything was assembled, I rushed upstairs and connected the NTS-1 to the Yamaha SHS-500 Sonogenic. When I bought the NTS-1 from Sweetwater, their site recommended the Make Noise O-Coast 5-pin to 3.5mm TRS adapter cable as an add-on accessory. Fortunately, I went for it and didn’t have to search through storage bins looking for an appropriate adapter. The MIDI cabling looks baroque with a 5-pin MIDI adapter on each end.
Sonogenic to NTS-1 over 5-pin MIDI
The wiring rat’s nest makes me wish for a wireless solution. Someone needs to invent a Bluetooth MIDI board that 1. plugs into a USB-B device connector and 2. connects to an advertising Bluetooth MIDI peripheral. With the current state of things, most (all?) devices act as a peripheral, assuming that they will connect to a central tablet-based application. Currently, there isn’t a general way to replace a 5-pin cable with a Bluetooth MIDI link (i.e., you can’t connect a keyboard to a keyboard!)
It’s ugly, but everything worked! The NTS-1 is a single oscillator, monophonic synthesizer. Its user interface is easy to navigate. I soon had the classic Chameleon synth bass dialed in. The single oscillator by itself sounds a little bit thin, but the Ensemble effect is a good thickener.
The filter is decent, especially the 4-pole low pass filter (LPF). It isn’t difficult to push the filter hard into ringing self-oscillation. It truly is a shame that the external audio input bypasses the filter. I would love to put the Sonogenic’s signal through the filter.
Korg NTS-1 signal flow
My final experiment for the day involved connecting the NTS-1 to my iPad Air 3. Immediately, I got the dreaded:
Cannot use assessory. NTS-1 digital kit: This accessory requires too much power.
Oddly, the iPad Air 3 continued to power the NTS-1, just killing data communication. The NTS-1 specifications claim 500mA or less power consumption. So, what the what, Apple?
I was hoping to unlock a few more instruments in Korg Module. I guess that experiment will wait for another day.
