Coronavirus

[wdolson]

Dr Birkx who spoke from Washington (White House) today made an important admission.

The numbers they are getting are not consistent with their modeling SW.

If I have it correctly, either of 2 cases are implied by the actual data.

1. They are seeing the tip of a very broad triangle of infections

2. They don’t have the transmission method correct.

She kept referencing a ratio of 1 per 1,000 coming up which conflicted with their model.

I thought this was big deal but I hear crickets. I connected this with The rise in market the last 3 trading days.

I think it's #1. I started coming down with it mid-February. I had a mild case with no complications, but there were only a few cases in Oregon (south of us) and the Puget Sound cases (north of us) were a much smaller outbreak than now.

The problem with this epidemic is such a large portion of the population has a mild case or an asymptomatic case that it's spread is hard to track. In the places where it has been stamped down like China and South Korea there is almost certainly a low level of asymptomatic cases going around now. Most of the public testing in those places looks for fever, but asymptomatic cases don't have one. I only had symptoms of a mild fever for a few hours of one day.

It may be the percentage of those who are likely hospital cases is less than 20%, but that's the best number we have right now. Even 10% of the population needing hospitalization all at once is too much for the system to handle.

The US has 900,000 hospital beds and 100,000 ICU beds (part of the 900,000). There are always people needing those beds for reasons other than infectious disease (my next door neighbor had a stroke a week ago, for example). We can expand that to some extent with emergency measures like using military field hospitals, scrounging up other resources, but at best we're going to maybe double capacity. 10% of the population is over 30 million.

One of the critical failures in all this is the complete failure to ramp up testing. If we had militarized the medical supply system as the law Trump signed over a week ago allows for, the entire economic resources of the country could be focused on testing for active cases, making equipment necessary, and ramp up testing for the antibody.

Antibody testing is absolutely critical to tell us who had silent cases. If we can get a handle on how many people actually have it and how many are recovered, that's going to get us way down the road. Another thing is those who are known to have recovered can be tested for contagiousness and we can know for sure how long people remain contagious after infection.

Once we have a handle on who is now immune, those who are immune can be set free to move about society and do the work necessary to keep things going. Some people might be called on to do different jobs, but this is an emergency.

I'm not making any predictions, just looking at data. That report was from 3/16 and was likely written long before any definitive outcomes in China/Korea/Germany. The crisis is essentially over in some countries and we can tally up the impact. Look at the deaths and likely number of infections.

Those countries are not over it. They just temporarily halted the spread. They won't be over it until they have herd immunity through enough people getting it or a vaccine.

 

[UCF3]

Can you please stop repeating your totally unqualified assertion that the fatality rate will be "0.2% or less" - it has no support in reality.

And another thing, even with your assumption that 80m million Americans will be infected, the hospital system would be vastly overwhelmed spiking the death rate far far higher than it otherwise would be under a countrywide lockdown.

No support in reality? We have no idea how many people have caught the virus and recovered. Everyone agrees that the official number of cases in the US is understated

 

[Daniel in SD]

I'm not making any predictions, just looking at data. That report was from 3/16 and was likely written long before any definitive outcomes in China/Korea/Germany. The crisis is essentially over in some countries and we can tally up the impact. Look at the deaths and likely number of infections.

What about SARS? How did you calculate that fatality rate?
Your Korea calculation assumes they have missed 86% of their cases. Find one epidemiologist who thinks that...

 

[MXLRplus]

30% of everyone got it and they were separated much of the time.

The first 12h you are a sardine.

 

[Daniel in SD]

No support in reality? We have no idea how many people have caught the virus and recovered. Everyone agrees that the official number of cases in the US is understated

What about Korea? How did they get the virus under control?

 

[Daniel in SD]

The first 12h you are a sardine.

Supposedly you have to be closer than 6 feet. What percentage of the passengers are you closer than 6 feet to?

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Earlier in this thread, I was with you, but the more I'm learning, the more I see everyone else's point. That 0.2% death statistic you cite is based on a functioning health-care system. If 80M get infected, even at 1-2 weeks apart, the hospitals would be overwhelmed, and all the statistics showing critical cases (10x that of death so far) would become the new death cases column, since people who are in critical condition won't get the ventilators they'll need to survive.

That may very well be a possibility, but that's not the basis of the original report. Ferguson started out with a baseline that this virus killed 2% of those infected, therefore 100M+ US infections equals 2.2M deaths.

Could we screw up so badly that 2.2M people die? It would be hard to get anywhere near that figure, but it's hard to put anything past us at this point!

I've seen your posts about the infected cases being under-reported, but that's only a valid assumption if you believe the death rate to be static/correct - a cart-before-the-horse logic. The death rate should only be certain AFTER we know that the infected cases are correct.

100% agree. I'm making an assumption here, but it's a pretty safe assumption considering the nature of this virus and it's spread. We're just now starting to see the "everyone's infected" stage in Philadelphia and people are losing their minds. Posting about one case at the local supermarket, then another at the Wawa convenience store. This thing will be everywhere in PHL within a week or two if it isn't already.

The good news is that fully healthy people under 50 seem to get mild cases or no symptoms at all. 51-70 can be more severe but not generally life-threatening. Nearly all the threat is for those with underlying conditions or those over 80. Not a great situation, but far far better than what was outlined in that report. I think it had the death rate for 40 or 50 year olds at like 1.5%.

I have no clue why I'm ranting about this, if we're not gonna test it's probably best that we panic anyway.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

19% in a floating petri dish?

That's for a group only together a handful of days. Everyone on land needs to mix eventually.

 

[Daniel in SD]

19% in a floating petri dish?

19% is an incredible rate of transmission! I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying that everyone on every cruise gets sick? Why would anyone subject themselves to that? I guarantee you that at least one person on every single 3600 person cruise goes on with an illness.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

The first 12h you are a sardine.

Might depend on the cruise line. My trip with Disney was definitely not anywhere near sardine level, and only during boarding time. The closest we got to anyone else was during special mealtimes and only with the same family, or during pool hours. Pretty separate from everyone else at other times.

 

[Norbert]

I'm not making any predictions, just looking at data. That report was from 3/16 and was likely written long before any definitive outcomes in China/Korea/Germany. The crisis is essentially over in some countries and we can tally up the impact. Look at the deaths and likely number of infections.

Germany is still in middle of things and doesn't really know its own state.

China and South Korea have stabilized more or less, and it would be nice if we could use them as an upper limit.
But the US already has more deaths per capita than either of them, so the US showed that those are not upper limits.

 

[bkp_duke]

Supposedly you have to be closer than 6 feet. What percentage of the passengers are you closer than 6 feet to?

A lot. Cruised recently? They literally line you up in a grid shoulder to shoulder for the Muster Drill (i.e. here's what happens and where you go if we call an emergency).

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

That may very well be a possibility, but that's not the basis of the original report. Ferguson started out with a baseline that this virus killed 2% of those infected, therefore 100M+ US infections equals 2.2M deaths.

Could we screw up so badly that 2.2M people die? It would be hard to get anywhere near that figure, but it's hard to put anything past us at this point!

100% agree. I'm making an assumption here, but it's a pretty safe assumption considering the nature of this virus and it's spread. We're just now starting to see the "everyone's infected" stage in Philadelphia and people are losing their minds. Posting about one case at the local supermarket, then another at the Wawa convenience store. This thing will be everywhere in PHL within a week or two if it isn't already.

The good news is that fully healthy people under 50 seem to get mild cases or no symptoms at all. 51-70 can be more severe but not generally life-threatening. Nearly all the threat is for those with underlying conditions or those over 80. Not a great situation, but far far better than what was outlined in that report. I think it had the death rate for 40 or 50 year olds at like 1.5%.

I have no clue why I'm ranting about this, if we're not gonna test it's probably best that we panic anyway.

Do you mind re-linking that study? Because the stats your pulling for your "good news" don't seem to match up with other people's stats. It's way too optimistic. And again, your optimism is predicated on a functioning healthcare system. The "infect everyone scenario" will break healthcare for ALL. I'm most intrigued about Lousiana right now, as their deaths have already surpassed CA's, and in a much shorter time frame too. I think they'll provide the evidence of what happens with an overloaded hospital.

 

[UCF3]

This whole thread reminds me of Charlie Hebdo. I’d rather take a 0.2% chance to die standing than live on my knees. Some of the people in this thread are trying to cripple the world economy by forcing everyone onto their knees

 

[TheTalkingMule]

This whole thread reminds me of Charlie Hebdo. I’d rather take a 0.2% chance to die standing than live on my knees. Some of the people in this thread are trying to cripple the world economy by forcing everyone onto their knees

I'll get on my knees gladly if it's a logical and proven strategy to combat the spread of a deadly virus.

 

[linux-works]

This whole thread reminds me of Charlie Hebdo. I’d rather take a 0.2% chance to die standing than live on my knees. Some of the people in this thread are trying to cripple the world economy by forcing everyone onto their knees

correct: some people value lives over money.

amazing, that.

wish more had that human being like trait.

oh, and btw, its so nice of you to volunteer everyone's mom and dad to be 'sacrificed' so that your stocks are intact. so very very nice of you.

 

[MXLRplus]

Supposedly you have to be closer than 6 feet. What percentage of the passengers are you closer than 6 feet to?

In the first 12h hundreds. The departure terminal is like a train station. Boarding day you cannot go to your room for about 4h. Everybody is on the decks, and the restaurants and room service is not open, so it's all buffet. The muster drill is mandatory, and you are packed in tight. The elevators are as full as they can get.

You probably contact more different humans on boarding day on a cruise than you would normally touch in a month. So this is the peak.

Best I can tell, guests were not quarantined on the Diamond Princess for the first 12 days of a 2 week cruise?

 

[Daniel in SD]

A lot. Cruised recently? They literally line you up in a grid shoulder to shoulder for the Muster Drill (i.e. here's what happens and where you go if we call an emergency).

View attachment 526272

I'm talking about how many individual people a single passenger is next to over the course of cruise. I've never been on a cruise, maybe it's even worse than I imagine.
For one person to spread it to 696 people makes it seem pretty contagious. I don't know of any other explanation for the exponential growth in deaths we're seeing (positive test results can obviously be influenced by many factors). Is there some new conspiracy theory I'm not aware of?

 

[Daniel in SD]

This whole thread reminds me of Charlie Hebdo. I’d rather take a 0.2% chance to die standing than live on my knees. Some of the people in this thread are trying to cripple the world economy by forcing everyone onto their knees

Most of us don't believe it's 0.2% because almost all the data says otherwise.

 

[UCF3]

correct: some people value lives over money.

amazing, that.

wish more had that human being like trait.

oh, and btw, its so nice of you to volunteer everyone's mom and dad to be 'sacrificed' so that your stocks are intact. so very very nice of you.

I’m a lot more worried about the significant increase in mental health issues and severe child abuse cases than I am about people in nursing homes getting sick