OT: Corona virus

[Canoerebel]

Congratulations, Geoff, on inserting that ridiculously flawed calculus into this thread. By that logic and method, the USA currently has 56.8% mortality. We're done for.

[Canoerebel]

I don't know anybody affected and hope not to know anyone who passes away. But I may. But I don't expect this to reach close to seasonal flu mortality levels. Why? Read back through this thread. (Honestly, it's far too much for anybody to try to follow.) As noted many times, this is by no means a certainty yet. I think we'll know a lot more about how this operates, and how long it lasts, once Italy turns the corner. If that's already happened or about to, we're not going to reach seasonal flu levels. If that doesn't happen for a week or weeks, then revision of estimates will be necessary.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Congratulations, Geoff, on inserting that ridiculously flawed calculus into this thread. By that logic and method, the USA currently has 56.8% mortality. We're done for.

Where are you getting your numbers from?

[Canoerebel]

Same way you did: I divided deaths by (total of deaths + recoveries).

[alanschu]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I don't know anybody affected and hope not to know anyone who passes away. But I may. But I don't expect this to reach close to seasonal flu mortality levels. Why? Read back through this thread. (Honestly, it's far too much for anybody to try to follow.) As noted many times, this is by no means a certainty yet. I think we'll know a lot more about how this operates, and how long it lasts, once Italy turns the corner. If that's already happened or about to, we're not going to reach seasonal flu levels. If that doesn't happen for a week or weeks, then revision of estimates will be necessary.

The thing I'm worried about is that, assuming we see Italy and things course correct and we are successful at limiting any resurgence of the disease, that low numbers will be hard to isolate between "it wasn't that big of a deal" versus "our measures really helped."

I'm anxious of benchmarks against influenza, because influenza numbers come with a very limited mitigation strategy (basically just flu vaccines).

If we even approach influenza deaths with the measures much of the world has taken, it seems to me that things would very likely have been much worse without the measures. Is there a threshold of severe impacts that makes it easier to say "yeah, we just over reacted?"

[Canoerebel]

Those are good questions, alanschu. The situation should clarify somewhat as we progress through this, but conclusive answers may not come until near the end or later.

[Zorch]

The more time I spend here, the more I regard the virus as a Turing Test to see if sentient life exists. [:(]

[Canoerebel]

[:D]

Actually, I'm really not sure what that means, but it sounds pithy and funny.

[alanschu]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Where are you getting your numbers from?

Same way you did: I divided deaths by (total of deaths + recoveries).

I do think that there is some value in isolating the numbers in this way because we don't *know* how active cases will resolve, it does require there to have been some time to make sure that those numbers get larger and we have a better idea on typical paths the illness can take. I feel China is the only nation that can be used as a measuring stick here, and it's still going to probably be a small overestimate as there are probably some people that just didn't know and healed up before awareness escalated.


That said, given Italy compared to other parts of the world, I *do* feel that examining their numbers could tip higher given that they started to have issues with rationing care. Would be interesting to see what general mortality is like as a situation like that would likely mean that other illness are being triaged as well.

[geofflambert]

Forget the US numbers so far, they are worthless.

[Canoerebel]

We have a darned good feel for how active cases will resolve. We've seen it in many countries, including China and Korea but also places like Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Germany and a host of other countries that have begun to accumulate meaningful recoveries. Without exception, as the virus matures in a given population, the percentage of deaths drops dramatically and the percentage of recoveries rises dramatically. An example from Korea, below. Early on, the "death rate" approached 50%, but eventually dropped well below 10%. It should continue to drop down to the 1% to 3% (or thereabouts) figures being used.

There will be some outliers, positive and negative, but this is how the virus has progressed across the spectrum thus far.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I used to donate plasma. They don't want mine anymore nor blood from me. [:(] Unless they are mosquitoes . . . [:@]

Same thing happened to me after my melanoma. I was cleared of any recurrence after 10 years of monitoring but they still didn't want my blood.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I used to donate plasma. They don't want mine anymore nor blood from me. [:(] Unless they are mosquitoes . . . [:@]

Same thing happened to me after my melanoma. I was cleared of any recurrence after 10 years of monitoring but they still didn't want my blood.

You too with melanoma? I could show a picture of my right foot after the removal of the melanoma but Zorch might complain.

They do not want mine because I ate too much English beef.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

. note: Italy has done a much better job than the US at testing, so far.

This chart cannot be correct about 42.5% mortality. 2978 deaths is a bit over 8% or 35,713 known cases. I realize some of those cases are still not clear of the infection, but there is no indication that most of them will die.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I used to donate plasma. They don't want mine anymore nor blood from me. [:(] Unless they are mosquitoes . . . [:@]

Same thing happened to me after my melanoma. I was cleared of any recurrence after 10 years of monitoring but they still didn't want my blood.

You too with melanoma? I could show a picture of my right foot after the removal of the melanoma but Zorch might complain.

They do not want mine because I ate too much English beef.

I have a large hole in my back where they excised as much flesh as they could until they got to the spine. After my wife told me I had a spot that should be checked, I too had to nag the military doctor who cut it off initially and sent it in for testing. After hearing nothing for a couple of weeks, I asked him to expedite diagnosis and within a day he called me in with the bad news. Within a week I had preliminary visits with the Oncologist and Surgeon. Shortly after they removed the area they thought might be affected and grafted skin from my side to cover the hole. In follow up visits a couple more suspicious growths were cut off but they were small and not likely to have spread.

A somewhat comical consequence - last year during airport screening I was randomly picked for the full body scan that can see through clothing. Then they asked me what I had taped to my back. It took me a moment to realize that it was the scar tissue from the surgery. They were obviously going to send me to the body search room so to prove it was scar tissue I told the screener I would take off my shirt and he could see for himself. He thought about that for a couple of seconds before deciding he really didn't want to see that! [:D]

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I don't know anybody affected and hope not to know anyone who passes away. But I may. But I don't expect this to reach close to seasonal flu mortality levels. Why? Read back through this thread. (Honestly, it's far too much for anybody to try to follow.) As noted many times, this is by no means a certainty yet. I think we'll know a lot more about how this operates, and how long it lasts, once Italy turns the corner. If that's already happened or about to, we're not going to reach seasonal flu levels. If that doesn't happen for a week or weeks, then revision of estimates will be necessary.

Sadly, Italy announced today that they had their highest death toll from the virus - 475. A doctor being interviewed about it pointed out that there is approximately a three week time lag from getting the virus to dying from it. The shut down measures in Italy were instituted 10 days ago so we don't see the effect of that yet.

[BBfanboy]

In better news, China had no new infections reported yesterday. Will be interesting to watch as workers return to their jobs there. I would expect that they will do temperature checks on each employee as they arrive at work. That was Singapore's key strategy - frequent temperature checks everywhere.

[Scott_USN]

Well if you follow the places that are on recovery this entire thing is a joke compare to other illness in the world.

[Scott_USN]

Completely over blown and as I said in a few weeks people will be "Oh!" what.

[Scott_USN]

The draconian rights violations upset me more than the virus. Also so many people seem to have no problem with it. The swine flu was far more dangerous than this.