Coronavirus

[deonb]

Baseline mortality looks like about .1-.2% for the avg healthy 1st world population, increasing wildly from there if you react poorly and it impacts treatment.

Name even one example of that mortality rate? Or are you thinking even SK is undercounting by 10?

 

[Daniel in SD]

People keep quoting that Imperial College report with mortality rates ranging 2-4% and 2M+ deaths in the US. That's simply not looking remotely possible. They did the same thing with SARS. Trumpeted a 2+% death rate(!) then it turned out to be .2%.

The CFR of SARS was about 10%! How are you calculating 0.2%?

 

[Singuy]

From Instagram...

Stories like this I don't understand. Is it more or less dangerous? If people walk around almost not feeling sick to this then what if the actual case number is 10x more than what is counted? If that's the case, wouldn't this virus become less damaging than the average flu? Because the bias here is that the FLU cause more people to be sick while this virus is more invisible? Great, then none of the data we have is reliable. We always thought it's more deadlier than the FLU because FLU's denominator is a much bigger number, but is it? Now they are coming out ways to detect antibodies for the healthy...so clearly some people think it isn't.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

t finally acknowledge they're spreading nonsense with these 4% mortality rates.

I think if you look at decent quality news publications, they would mention the fatality rate in Korea and in Germany and would not claim anything over 1.5%.

If you're watching cable news or whatever, sure, it'll be all alarmist. But that's standard for pretty much anything.

But you still seem to be massively understating the mortality rate. There is simply not any reasonable evidence that an IFR of 0.1-0.2% can be inferred from a CFR of 1.2%! It will be hard to know for CERTAIN until antibody testing is done after the fact, but it simply makes no sense that for a contained outbreak that you'd only have detected 10%-20% of the active infections. If 80% of the people with the virus weren't caught, you'd see massive continuing spread! It's much more reasonable to assume no more than 20-30% undercounting, with the transmission chains associated with those remaining cases dying out (likely asymptomatic people will be coughing less and transmitting less readily).

Reasonable quality publication (WaPo):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/19/coronavirus-kills-more-men-than-women/

"South Korea presents a stark contrast to Italy. Rapid action by public health authorities, who have administered coronavirus tests at a higher rate than any other country in the world, has slowed the spread of the outbreak there. As of March 19, the country had 8,565 confirmed cases and 91 deaths. As a result, its current case fatality rate of 1.06 percent is far below the global average."

The article goes on with more analysis of the affected population (church was composed of a lot of young people, and many women), etc., which may have skewed the survival statistics towards a slightly better result in SK. Would not be surprised with a slightly worse result (say 1.5%) in the United States, even if the hospital system were not overwhelmed. If overwhelmed (seems likely in NY), obviously going to go higher.

 

[bkp_duke]

Sonoma County closed all parks last night because people weren’t abiding by the 6’ rule over the weekend. They looked nothing like this, though.

San Diego County did the same thing for beaches today. Tons of Darwin Award winners flooded the beaches here over the weekend.

 

[carterm2]

I am looking for a way to acquire population density and overlay the maps. BUT...


Look at the even distribution of cases in the South...

each dot can be clicked and gives local data. Some dots are 1 or 2 confirmed cases.

I wonder how many people are infected relative to confirmed cases given lack of testing.

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

 

[Daniel in SD]

@TheTalkingMule has been praising Korea's response for weeks and now he's saying that their extensive testing actually missed 90% of the cases! I'm starting to wonder if he might be arguing in bad faith...

Hearing reports from Korea that all is pretty much contained. No mandatory shutdowns, just heavy (Korean style) cooperation with distancing.

The major difference this is absolutely diligent testing of anyone showing symptoms and follow-up to sterilize anywhere they were.

Panic works too tho I guess.

Glad to see this narrative on the top of Reuters app.

Special Report: How Korea trounced U.S. in race to test people for coronavirus

Testing, modern information technology, and logic is more than enough to control this without locking anything down.

Perhaps we're past the point where that's possible or we are incapable, but it's easily possible.

The single most effective reaction has been that of South Korea, by far. That reaction was calm, rational, and included no mandatory lockdowns. Testing and quarantining has quite clearly worked best.

Amazing how many times we have a perfectly successful template right in front of our faces and ignore it.

It's my understanding that most new cases in Korea are non-domestic arrivals coming home from abroad.

Again, I think we need to focus on the concept of vigilant testing being the clear answer and our solution seems to be a combination of panic and isolation.

Korea exists. It's a large nation 1/6 the size of the US that was hit hard and essentially stopped CV without lockdowns.

Why does everyone insist on glossing over this clear example of how it's done?

Korea was almost a hard hit. Are they covering it up too? Or are you panicking?

That's what Korea did, and maybe we'll do(but I doubt it). They got absolutely crushed by Swine Flu in 2015 and put some pretty impressive measures in place to make sure it didn't happen again. And they executed.

The odds we can plan or execute are very slim.

The reason deaths are mostly 35-59 is that's by far the largest group of cases in Germany. And nearly none of them are dying. Less than 50 in that age group.

My favorite Tesla motors club forum pastime is posting about the logical activities of Germans. Primarily in the renewable energy world, but I bet this is related. Old people are staying indoors, logical steps are being taken voluntarily as was the case in Korea.

It's safe to take Korean stats as a mature dataset at this point, right? They've been stable for more than a week and it's safe to say deaths have caught up to cases making the 1.24% mortality rate reliable. These guys tested more broadly and thoroughly than anyone by far.

Now....in a country of 51M people, do we honestly think only 8,961 people have contracted cv? Step back and take a look at Korea's 111 total deaths and tell me the true mortality rate of this thing won't be .2% or lower when all is said and done.

Doctors are estimating 40+% of people will contract this virus(similar to the 20-30% that got SARS). If that's even remotely close to true and mortality is over 1%, why are there only 111 deaths in Korea? How can anywhere hit heavily by this, regardless of response or quarantine, have only 111 deaths if mortality is so high?

Perhaps I'm making a glaring logic error as well?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I wonder how many people are infected relative to confirmed cases given lack of testing.

Based on the current nationwide fatality rate of ~1.3% at this early stage (which should be closer to 0.3% at this stage due to the lag...), I would estimate about 200k cases nationwide, compared to the 50k identified. This number also tracks well with epidemiologists' predictions of current number of active cases in the United States that were made a couple weeks ago, and also 4 weeks ago. There are no surprises here - everyone was aware in January that this virus was active and undergoing community spread since mid-January in the United States.

@TheTalkingMule has been praising Korea's response for weeks and now he's saying that their extensive testing actually missed 90% of the cases! I'm starting to wonder if he might be arguing in bad faith...

He IS The Talking Mule, so I guess that would not be surprising.

 

[EVNow]

Actually 4,207 new cases today (and they don't test unless someone comes to the hospital, AFAIK). 475 new deaths - on track to exceed China in total fatalities tomorrow. Italy has the worst demographics for this virus - older population, dense and highly social lifestyle. If Bombay or similar city gets affected, this is what I'd expect. Spain is on a trajectory similar to Italy.

Unfortunately Spain is still accelerating. Tomorrow on track to exceed China in fatalities. Madrid looks worse than Lombardy.

In other news - India now has a very strict lockdown. People can't even go out to get groceries. Only deliveries allowed.

Ofcourse, actual implementation will probably be not that strict, unlike in China. But complete stoppage of public and private transportation should help.

 

[bkp_duke]

I KEEP seeing a significant number of posters (here, and more so elsewhere) that keep reposting the "I had similar symptoms X weeks ago, so I must have had it and gotten over it".

FOR THE RECORD - the constellation of symptoms for COVID-19 is NOT UNIQUE. The are generalized and similar to anything from the common cold, to the flu, to full blown ARDS.

UNLESS you had a positive test during your symptoms, and have since recovered, you CANNOT claim immunity status. The data do NOT support that leap in logic.


So, Greta Thunberg and others are just hypothesizing with lack of data to support their hypothesis. Specifically, the below statement from her is 100% BS:
"I have therefore not been tested for COVID-19, but it’s extremely likely that I’ve had it, given the combined symptoms and circumstances."

 

[Daniel in SD]

He IS The Talking Mule, so I guess that would not be surprising.

A mule is only half ass. I was being optimistic.

 

[bkp_duke]

Unfortunately Spain is still accelerating. Tomorrow on track to exceed China in fatalities. Madrid looks worse than Lombardy.

In other news - India now has a very strict lockdown. People can't even go out to get groceries. Only deliveries allowed.

Ofcourse, actual implementation will probably be not that strict, unlike in China. But complete stoppage of public and private transportation should help.

Those New Yorkers are looking like they won't be outdone by anyone. . .

 

[Singuy]

So 3/4th of people who got the flu has no symptoms.

It's anyone's guess now. Only real number are deaths, everything else is just who the F knows.

Three-quarters of people with flu have no symptoms

 

[Norbert]

I think if you look at decent quality news publications, they would mention the fatality rate in Korea and in Germany and would not claim anything over 1.5%.

I take it from your post that you referring to mortality within diagnosed cases.
If you compare the _known_ cases 2 weeks ago with deaths today, you get:

South Korea: 120 / 7513 is about 1.6 %.
Germany: 149 / 1545 is about 9.6 %.

Both are more than 1.5%. If you see a problem with this calculation, please tell me now.

 

[N5329K]

Based on the current nationwide fatality rate of ~1.3% at this early stage (which should be closer to 0.3% at this stage due to the lag...), I would estimate about 200k cases nationwide, compared to the 50k identified. This number also tracks well with epidemiologists' predictions of current number of active cases in the United States that were made a couple weeks ago, and also 4 weeks ago. There are no surprises here - everyone was aware in January that this virus was active and undergoing community spread since mid-January in the United States.
He IS The Talking Mule, so I guess that would not be surprising.

WHO decided yesterday that a more accurate estimate (!) of case fatality should take current-day deaths and compare it to the number of cases registered two weeks prior; that being the "typical" time delay between confirming a case and death. If you do that, you are working with relatively more deaths and fewer cases, and that raises the rate to more than 6%.
Some juggling of numbers is inevitable, I guess. Especially since the numbers of undiagnosed "dark" cases (mild to no symptoms) is unknown...especially when you do as piss poor a job of testing as we have.
Robin

 

[FoverM]

So 3/4th of people who got the flu has no symptoms.

It's anyone's guess now. Only real number are deaths, everything else is just who the F knows.

Three-quarters of people with flu have no symptoms

How contagious were the no-symptom cases?

 

[deonb]

Italy today:
Cases: 5249 (+8.2%)
Deaths: 743

 

[Doggydogworld]

Interesting. So New York state of population of 20 million has now surpassed the amount of tests done by South Korea, population of 55 million.

NY now does more daily tests per capita than South Korea, not more total tests. And nowhere near as many cumulative tests.

Now it is very likely that they are under-counting, but to say that it's a factor of 10 is not supported by anything factual. Could just as likely be by 2 or 3.

There is factual support for a 10x-ish under-count. They tested everyone in Vo a week or two ago and found 2-3% positives (reports vary). That would map to 200-300k in Lombardy vs. 30k detected. Current hospitalized plus dead exceeds total case count 7 days ago, another clear sign of massive under-count.

South Korea isn't the only data set that indicates ~1% IFR. Diamond Princess had 9 deaths (Worldometers now says 10) from 712 positive tests for 1.26% and studies of fully tested population subsets in China also come in around 1%. IFR in Italy is probably higher due to overwhelming their hospitals, but even adjusting for that it's clear their count was an order of magnitude too low two weeks ago when the lockdowns were starting.

 

[sparcs]

India's prime minister orders lockdown of country of 1.3 billion people for 21 days

To save India and every Indian, there will be a total ban on venturing out of your homes,” Modi said, adding that if the county failed to manage the next 21 days, it would be set back by 21 years.

Sounds like they don't even remotely have the resources to deal with this.

 

[Singuy]

NY now does more daily tests per capita than South Korea, not more total tests. And nowhere near as many cumulative tests.

There is factual support for a 10x-ish under-count. They tested everyone in Vo a week or two ago and found 2-3% positives (reports vary). That would map to 200-300k in Lombardy vs. 30k detected. Current hospitalized plus dead exceeds total case count 7 days ago, another clear sign of massive under-count.

South Korea isn't the only data set that indicates ~1% IFR. Diamond Princess had 9 deaths (Worldometers now says 10) from 712 positive tests for 1.26% and studies of fully tested population subsets in China also come in around 1%. IFR in Italy is probably higher due to overwhelming their hospitals, but even adjusting for that it's clear their count was an order of magnitude too low two weeks ago when the lockdowns were starting.

Isnt NY at about 300k tested already? What is Korea?