OT: Corona virus

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Ian R

But perhaps Niall should stick to history, and not dabble in mathematics.

Professor Niall Ferguson from Imperial College in London agrees that one death corresponds to at least 1,000 cases in the community, assuming a death rate of about 1 per cent.

In above link.

Ahhh, the joys of choosing soundbites out of context. I'm pretty sure basic maths is in his sphere of knowledge.

The nicest thing I've Heard said about Niall was by Sir Antony Beevor (during questions at the end of a a talk) - something to the effect -

'I prefer to leave the counter factuals to Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts"

[witpqs]

Not to mention population of Italy = 60 million, population of USA = 327 million.

[DD696]

The governor of New York is giving daily news conference, predicting their apex in 14-21 days and they will need 140,000 hospital beds and 40,000 ventilators. They have 3000 ventilators and states he has procured an additional 7000. He wants FEMA to send ALL of their stockpile - 20,000 - to New York now. When he is through with them he will send them to whoever needs them next.

I think there is something wrong with that view. We all will have needs. Ration them appropriately.

[Canoerebel]

Thanks, Kull.

As goes Italy, so goes the the world.**

**Generally speaking. There will be perturbations, some countries better and some worse, some sooner and some later. But if Italy, with all the handicaps it faced (earlier onset of the virus, age, social proximity, etc.) turns the corner now, the numbers most certainly aren't going to be apocalyptic.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The Daily Mail posted this startling, misleading graph. It tells the truth but not the whole truth. A percentage of the population (certainly Forumites) understand the utility and weaknesses of this graph, but the media presents it without context (without "the whole truth" so often key to comprehension). The casual reader - the layman - doesn't have context, takes a look, and shudders. He knows that Italy has been ground zero for weeks and concludes that the US is in far worse shape. He doesn't have time to do the quick calculation needed to understand this is raw numbers rather than per capita, that the graph has a seriously distorted y axis, etc.

"Figures don't lie, but liars sure do figure"

Yep, it's a function of the increased testing currently underway in the the US, now over 303K country-wide. Here's the upper half of the current chart on the wiki. Note in particular that the subsets for New York and Washington appear directly above those for Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, in each case the the two hardest-hit provinces/states in their respective countries. The "tests per million" in each state is almost at the Italian level for the country as a whole, and will probably reach those of Lombardy/ER within the next few days. Meaning the "scary chart" will definitely look scarier, but in most cases it's showing things that are already there, just currently invisible.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

And here is what is happening in India:

Situation in Inda

A fundamental difference between India and Australia, according to experts, is that many Asian countries have experience in dealing with the threat of a disease epidemic.

"Asian countries have been primed for some time now," Professor K Shrinath Reddy from the Public Health Foundation of India told the ABC.

"You [Australia] have lost a bit of touch with infectious diseases."

I think India's hot weather will make it less vulnerable than countries up north; Virus die quicker in warm weather. The opposite of bacterial diseases, which are so common there

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Ian R

But perhaps Niall should stick to history, and not dabble in mathematics.



In above link.

Ahhh, the joys of choosing soundbites out of context. I'm pretty sure basic maths is in his sphere of knowledge.

The nicest thing I've Heard said about Niall was by Sir Antony Beevor (during questions at the end of a a talk) - something to the effect -

'I prefer to leave the counter factuals to Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts"

Assuming I'm not being whooshed by a joke here - I think this is a sub-editing error. There is a Neil Ferguson at Imperial College who is an epidemiologist who I assume is the person who is actually being quoted.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/neil.ferguson

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

A very interesting article, and something I mentioned very early on, when those first two cases showed up. No testing, who knows how many cases, and odd isn't that people leaving Indonesia seem to have contracted it there?

ORIGINAL: Ian R

But perhaps Niall should stick to history, and not dabble in mathematics.

Professor Niall Ferguson from Imperial College in London agrees that one death corresponds to at least 1,000 cases in the community, assuming a death rate of about 1 per cent.

In above link.

Ahhh, the joys of choosing soundbites out of context. I'm pretty sure basic maths is in his sphere of knowledge. [:D]

[/font][font="Trebuchet MS"]Professor Niall Ferguson from Imperial College in London agrees that one death corresponds to at least 1,000 cases in the community, assuming a death rate of about 1 per cent.

But he believes the spread of coronavirus may be doubling even more quickly.

"We think epidemics in the absence of control measures … probably double every five days or so. And only about one in 100 people infected die," Professor Ferguson said.

"The deaths we see today take 20 days or so from when you develop symptoms to when they die. So the deaths we see today correspond to the epidemic 20 days ago.

"And that gives you … the epidemic must have been about 10 times smaller then. You multiply that by a factor of 100 in cases to death. And you get about a 1,000-fold multiplier."

In fact, a lower death rate — of say 0.5, which some scientists support — would indicate an even higher number of cases in the community, because statistically it would mean one death per 200 cases instead of one in every 100.[/font]

And adding on fro the article on India (thanks Ian R, very interesting read).

[font="Trebuchet MS"]Over the past two decades, Professor Reddy listed a range of diseases as having "knocked at the door" of India, including H1N1 (swine flu), H5N1 (bird flu) and SARS.

Swine flu in particular has been difficult to eradicate, and so far at least 28 people have died from the infection this year, compared to only three confirmed deaths from COVID-19.

The experience has reinforced the view in India that harsh responses might come at an economic cost, but they're worth it.

"The economic cost of letting it run through the country like a blazing fire is much higher," Professor Reddy said.[/font]

So we may see two countries with similar demographics battle this in very different ways. The last sentence makes me fear the impact of Indonesia's response so far.

Love Niall Ferguson. Great speaker and I've enjoyed his books immensely. But he's *not* an infectious disease expert. His quote reinforces my previous comments about mortality being a 'lagging indicator' (as economists would say) though.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

Assuming I'm not being whooshed by a joke here - I think this is a sub-editing error. There is a Neil Ferguson at Imperial College who is an epidemiologist who I assume is the person who is actually being quoted.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/neil.ferguson

Correct. Niall is an economist and historian, not an epidemiologist.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: DD696

The governor of New York is giving daily news conference, predicting their apex in 14-21 days and they will need 140,000 hospital beds and 40,000 ventilators. They have 3000 ventilators and states he has procured an additional 7000. He wants FEMA to send ALL of their stockpile - 20,000 - to New York now. When he is through with them he will send them to whoever needs them next.

I think there is something wrong with that view. We all will have needs. Ration them appropriately.

Agreed. The governor of the state of New York doesn't care (by definition) about the governor or the people of Idaho. Federal reserves (e.g., FEMA) need to be held for the greater national need rather than apportioned to whomsoever makes the greatest land grab first.

[ITAKLinus]

Today's data from Italy:

- Cured : 894 (total of 8.326)
- Infected : 3.612 (total of 54.030)
- Deaths : 743

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

This is the cases chart with the relatively new multi-country charts below. Very interesting comparisons, and some countries that are starting to have worrying trajectories, like Turkey, Pakistan and Ecuador.

Any charts that correct for per capita cases, obvert? The United States is the third most populous country in the world. Comparing raw case numbers for the trajectory compared to a place like Switzerland with less than 10% of our population seems spurious.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

Switching focus to our northern neighbor, Indonesia's apparent "luck" seems to simply be a case of non testing, non reporting, and non treatment.

Coronavirus COVID-19 death rate in Indonesia is the highest in the world. Experts say it's because reported case numbers are too low

"I'm surprised!" said noone. I gave a talk in Colombia in the late 1990s about "why" they don't have recognized cases of avian influenza. It wasn't well received by the locals. It turns out that they don't test for it and have all manner of other endemic diseases with similar clinical signs. So they assume that it's those, don't test for AI and...voila! No avian influenza.

[Canoerebel]

As noted by ITAKLinus above, Italy's numbers just updated. Up from yesterday but below peak numbers. IE, still in line with leveling off, hopefully. Kull, with his knack for working with granularity, might offer further insight. [8D]

[ITAKLinus]

I believe that we have to wait until the end of the week. If it doesn't change the trend, we are really, really fucked.


This morning the commander in chief of the emergency said that there are probably ten times more cases around the country (asymptomatics) and with today's not encouraging data, it's gonna be tough.

Let's see whether tomorrow will be better. Second highes deathtoll since the beginning of the epidemy is not encouraging at all.

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

... I gave a talk in Colombia in the late 1990s...

Was your talk at about the same time as Ross's (crsutton's) chat with the Chilean prostitute?

[alanschu]

Unfortunate about Italy though based on say, China, I suspect that part of the flattening will involve an actual plateau, as opposed to a sudden decline.

It's funny how anxious I am for their results hahaha.

[Canoerebel]

We're all pulling for Italy!

It would've been encouraging to see those numbers drop again. Given Italy's population, the death toll is significant by seasonal flu measures. But the new case reports and daily mortality figures have been relatively stable the past four to six days.

ORIGINAL: ITAKLinus

I believe that we have to wait until the end of the week. If it doesn't change the trend, we are really, really fucked.


This morning the commander in chief of the emergency said that there are probably ten times more cases around the country (asymptomatics) and with today's not encouraging data, it's gonna be tough.

Let's see whether tomorrow will be better. Second highes deathtoll since the beginning of the epidemy is not encouraging at all.

[Canoerebel]

I feel the same way, alanschu. I'm sure a lot of folks here do.

ORIGINAL: alanschu

Unfortunate about Italy though based on say, China, I suspect that part of the flattening will involve an actual plateau, as opposed to a sudden decline.

It's funny how anxious I am for their results hahaha.

[Canoerebel]

Per alanschu's observation, the daily mortality figures were roughly flat, with perturbations, for about 15 days.

ORIGINAL: alanschu

Unfortunate about Italy though based on say, China, I suspect that part of the flattening will involve an actual plateau, as opposed to a sudden decline.

It's funny how anxious I am for their results hahaha.