OT: Corona virus

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: 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?

Different country. Different audience.

BTW, shouldn't that be "Ross' " chat instead of "Ross's " chat? Just wanted to do my part to make sure we still have grammatical standards around these here parts. [:'(]

[obvert]

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.

Exactly. The Daily Mail is not known for its journalistic integrity.

Good example of bad data visualisation. I'd add total cases and the entire curve as well instead of this tiny section of it.

[obvert]

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"

Maybe Antony Beevor has trouble with historians who try to view the legacy of the British Empire without Union Jack tinted glasses on?

ORIGINAL: 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.

That is funny!

I remember now. He actually has contracted Covid-19, and was the lead author of the recent paper about effects of Covid on the UK and US without more extreme measures.

[Canoerebel]

"Ross's" is correct. Either method is acceptable but I prefer the one that most closely mimics speech. I would audibly say it "Ross's," so that's how I punctuate it.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: 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?

Different country. Different audience.

BTW, shouldn't that be "Ross' " chat instead of "Ross's " chat? Just wanted to do my part to make sure we still have grammatical standards around these here parts. [:'(]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive
I would not be surprised if a combination of travel restrictions, proactive testing and contact tracing and the simple dispersion of rural populations leads to some US states having very different, much more positive, outcomes and experiences than what has been seen elsewhere in the world.

I agree. Our country is quite heterogenous in its population distribution. Big cities on the East coast, West coast and a few in the Midwest and South. With lots of smaller communities in between. New York City's epidemiologic curve will likely wind up looking very different than Ames, Iowa or Houston, Texas.

I mentioned earlier that the differences in this big sprawling country could cause both difficulties and advantages at local levels depending on how the State and county leadership deal with this.

The difficult factor to deal with is movement of people. As the virus hits hard someplace it could lead to an exodus, bringing it elsewhere in force as has occurred in Iran, Italy and other locations.

When you mention a 'this big sprawling country' were you referring to the UK or the US? I just don't see that happening here-an exodus of people uniformly fleeing one area en masse. Apart from some New Yorkers heading to the Hamptons rather than the heart of the city per se, I've really not heard much about that panicked flight response.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: 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.

Why spurious? China and India are here too.

The interest for me, and this may just be for me, is to see the doubling rate, which is not different depending on population , right?

It's all spurious since we don't know anything about "real numbers" but if this does show evidence of the curves, the trajectories, the successes and more difficult areas, then it's useful as a comparative tool.

It's more useful when you have some knowledge of testing programs and other factors as we do on this thread. So I see it as one of the tools, not a comprehensive one. Maybe one could be designed with every interesting factor, but I think it could become more difficult to read quickly.

So as the US stays above the doubling every three day curve we know that is because to the recent surge in testing, and when it dips under that it'll be likely that it's heading toward the peak of the curve.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

Back in Oz, we now have 8 deaths and just over 2000 cases.

Interestingly, the majority of the increase is straight from a series of returning cruise ships including the Ruby Princess.

The cruise ship passengers might be easiest to trace, but airlines would have brought the virus into every city with an international airport already.

Canada's first cases were all airline travel related. Now we are seeing a surge because our "snowbirds" are returning from vacations and lengthy stays in other countries (up to 5.5 months) to avoid our winter. Many are arriving by car from the US - they are allowed to cross the border to return home.

Over a million have returned in the last two weeks and all are expected to self-isolate on arrival at home. But greater testing and greater awareness of symptoms has resulted in a spike of positive tests, mostly from these snowbirds. So if they got the virus in the US or some other country, the cases there are being exported! [8|] Much of the timing of these people returning is driven by the assurance of health care here vs. the fear that other countries health care systems reaching or exceeding capacity.

[Kull]

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.

I won't have granularity until the province data is available tomorrow, but here's a quick look at the trend based on the new country total. The rate of increase at the country level has stayed roughly the same for two days now. The death rate increase, while high, is definitely a trailing indicator and yet still a lot lower than it was a few days ago.

Also, the numbers posted by ITAKLinus are not accurate. I used the 3/24 update from Worldometers, which has proven to be correct (at least with respect to countries whose data we trust)

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy




I agree. Our country is quite heterogenous in its population distribution. Big cities on the East coast, West coast and a few in the Midwest and South. With lots of smaller communities in between. New York City's epidemiologic curve will likely wind up looking very different than Ames, Iowa or Houston, Texas.

I mentioned earlier that the differences in this big sprawling country could cause both difficulties and advantages at local levels depending on how the State and county leadership deal with this.

The difficult factor to deal with is movement of people. As the virus hits hard someplace it could lead to an exodus, bringing it elsewhere in force as has occurred in Iran, Italy and other locations.

When you mention a 'this big sprawling country' were you referring to the UK or the US? I just don't see that happening here-an exodus of people uniformly fleeing one area en masse. Apart from some New Yorkers heading to the Hamptons rather than the heart of the city per se, I've really not heard much about that panicked flight response.

The UK is not sprawling, and it doesn't have states. [;)]

In Italy one of the reasons this has been hard to contain is that every time a lockdown occurred it was either weak or the info leaked and people left to go other areas where they had family, friends, holiday homes, etc. This carried the virus and made it hard to contain.

I don't think basic human instinct is too different anywhere. If you can move and you have a place to go, like mom and dad's, or uncle's beach house, or grandpa's mountain cabin, or just a camping ground or RV park, you might just think about getting out while you can.

This has interestingly been happening here, and has led to restrictions tightening. National Parks are having to close due to overwhelming visitation. I've heard of this in the States as well. I'll try to find a link.

Edit: Found some.
https://abc7news.com/6039701

https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/20 ... -says.html

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

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.

Why spurious? China and India are here too.

The interest for me, and this may just be for me, is to see the doubling rate, which is not different depending on population , right?

It's all spurious since we don't know anything about "real numbers" but if this does show evidence of the curves, the trajectories, the successes and more difficult areas, then it's useful as a comparative tool.

It's more useful when you have some knowledge of testing programs and other factors as we do on this thread. So I see it as one of the tools, not a comprehensive one. Maybe one could be designed with every interesting factor, but I think it could become more difficult to read quickly.

So as the US stays above the doubling every three day curve we know that is because to the recent surge in testing, and when it dips under that it'll be likely that it's heading toward the peak of the curve.

I'd rather see raw case numbers per capita to account for larger populations and avoid the extrapolation from small sample sizes/small population countries. By looking at 'cumulative numbers of confirmed cases' on the X axis and 'number of days since 100th case' on the Y, it gives a picture that-without accounting for vastly different populations-is misleading.

If you replaced the raw numbers X axis with a per capita numbers, the US curve would look very different (lower) than Spain, France, Germany or most of the other countries sandwiched into that upper graph major band. Of course, China's curve would be significantly lower too. Italy and Spain would remain standouts.

[Canoerebel]

When this thread began 2/26/20, China was far past peak on new cases and dropping fast on daily deaths; South Korea was midway up the exponential increase in new cases; Italy was in the very early days, just beginning it's long climb; everywhere else, cases were pretty spotty (as I recall now, Vancouver and Washington State were early hotspots in North America, followed by Toronto and Illinois and California, though modest numbers, at that time).

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: obvert




I mentioned earlier that the differences in this big sprawling country could cause both difficulties and advantages at local levels depending on how the State and county leadership deal with this.

The difficult factor to deal with is movement of people. As the virus hits hard someplace it could lead to an exodus, bringing it elsewhere in force as has occurred in Iran, Italy and other locations.

When you mention a 'this big sprawling country' were you referring to the UK or the US? I just don't see that happening here-an exodus of people uniformly fleeing one area en masse. Apart from some New Yorkers heading to the Hamptons rather than the heart of the city per se, I've really not heard much about that panicked flight response.

The UK is not sprawling, and it doesn't have states. [;)]

In Italy one of the reasons this has been hard to contain is that every time a lockdown occurred it was either weak or the info leaked and people left to go other areas where they had family, friends, holiday homes, etc. This carried the virus and made it hard to contain.

I don't think basic human instinct is too different anywhere. If you can move and you have a place to go, like mom and dad's, or uncle's beach house, or grandpa's mountain cabin, or just a camping ground or RV park, you might just think about getting out while you can.

This has interestingly been happening here, and has led to restrictions tightening. National Parks are having to close due to overwhelming visitation. I've heard of this in the States as well. I'll try to find a link.

There's a difference between a few cases and instances and mass exodus. It's a question of degrees. I've not seen or heard anything about an 'exodus' (your word) of people fleeing lockdowns here. This may be different in Europe or elsewhere, but that's not part of our base instinct.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: 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.

Third most populace? China and India are one and two, and isn't Russia number three?

[Canoerebel]

Yes, national (Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield, for instance) and state and local parks (beaches) are closing in some areas. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, which manages the famed trail, has urged thru-hikers to get off the trail. So many people are doing day hikes, or section hikes, that parking areas at road crossings are jam packed, at least in the South, where it's definitely springtime. (I'd be on the trail backpacking now, except I don't wish to leave my family during a time of uncertainty.)

ORIGINAL: obvert

....
This has interestingly been happening here, and has led to restrictions tightening. National Parks are having to close due to overwhelming visitation. I've heard of this in the States as well. I'll try to find a link.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy
Third most populace? China and India are one and two, and isn't Russia number three?

Not even close, Comrade.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-pop ... y-country/

[Zerberus_MatrixForum]

ORIGINAL: ITAKLinus


In some countries there are weird ways of assessing the death cause (your Kaposi's sarcoma example and mine regarding lung cancer in Ukraine) and Germany is definitely counting the people died OF coronavirus, instead of died WITH it as we do in Italy.

Thats not correct. Any case, where an infection with covid is detected, does count in current german statistics, wether covid was the direct reason for death or not. An other question is, wether all deaths are tested before, but density of testing seems high at least.

Still a word to your remark to economic consequences: This situation is completely different than debt crisis in the years before. Also the public opinion of the northern bean counters (at least here) makes no doubt, that we will have to fight this together in Europe and that it is necessary to support each other - now and afterwards.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: obvert

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.

Why spurious? China and India are here too.

The interest for me, and this may just be for me, is to see the doubling rate, which is not different depending on population , right?

It's all spurious since we don't know anything about "real numbers" but if this does show evidence of the curves, the trajectories, the successes and more difficult areas, then it's useful as a comparative tool.

It's more useful when you have some knowledge of testing programs and other factors as we do on this thread. So I see it as one of the tools, not a comprehensive one. Maybe one could be designed with every interesting factor, but I think it could become more difficult to read quickly.

So as the US stays above the doubling every three day curve we know that is because to the recent surge in testing, and when it dips under that it'll be likely that it's heading toward the peak of the curve.

I'd rather see raw case numbers per capita to account for larger populations and avoid the extrapolation from small sample sizes/small population countries. By looking at 'cumulative numbers of confirmed cases' on the X axis and 'number of days since 100th case' on the Y, it gives a picture that-without accounting for vastly different populations-is misleading.

If you replaced the raw numbers X axis with a per capita numbers, the US curve would look very different (lower) than Spain, France, Germany or most of the other countries sandwiched into that upper graph major band. Of course, China's curve would be significantly lower too. Italy and Spain would remain standouts.

I think you miss the point. The curve in relation to the total population is not what this is trying to show. that is some other visual I've not seen. interesting, sure, but this is about doubling speed of the virus cases. So comparing countries without population totals is actually just fine for that.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: 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.

Why spurious? China and India are here too.

The interest for me, and this may just be for me, is to see the doubling rate, which is not different depending on population , right?

It's all spurious since we don't know anything about "real numbers" but if this does show evidence of the curves, the trajectories, the successes and more difficult areas, then it's useful as a comparative tool.

It's more useful when you have some knowledge of testing programs and other factors as we do on this thread. So I see it as one of the tools, not a comprehensive one. Maybe one could be designed with every interesting factor, but I think it could become more difficult to read quickly.

So as the US stays above the doubling every three day curve we know that is because to the recent surge in testing, and when it dips under that it'll be likely that it's heading toward the peak of the curve.

To put those country charts in perspective, here are the testing stats for 4 of the 5 countries named in the above posts, all of whom are in the bottom 20 countries in the world in terms of "tests per million". Which basically means those countries are only testing the most obviously symptomatic individuals.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: obvert

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.

Why spurious? China and India are here too.

The interest for me, and this may just be for me, is to see the doubling rate, which is not different depending on population , right?

It's all spurious since we don't know anything about "real numbers" but if this does show evidence of the curves, the trajectories, the successes and more difficult areas, then it's useful as a comparative tool.

It's more useful when you have some knowledge of testing programs and other factors as we do on this thread. So I see it as one of the tools, not a comprehensive one. Maybe one could be designed with every interesting factor, but I think it could become more difficult to read quickly.

So as the US stays above the doubling every three day curve we know that is because to the recent surge in testing, and when it dips under that it'll be likely that it's heading toward the peak of the curve.

I'd rather see raw case numbers per capita to account for larger populations and avoid the extrapolation from small sample sizes/small population countries. By looking at 'cumulative numbers of confirmed cases' on the X axis and 'number of days since 100th case' on the Y, it gives a picture that-without accounting for vastly different populations-is misleading.

If you replaced the raw numbers X axis with a per capita numbers, the US curve would look very different (lower) than Spain, France, Germany or most of the other countries sandwiched into that upper graph major band. Of course, China's curve would be significantly lower too. Italy and Spain would remain standouts.

I think you miss the point. The curve in relation to the total population is not what this is trying to show. that is some other visual I've not seen. interesting, sure, but this is about doubling speed of the virus cases. So comparing countries without population totals is actually just fine for that.

Yeah - I wouldn't want per capita on this. You can only compare country to country if you use absolute numbers of cases.


Also, unsure if this was posted last week and I'm not digging through the thread for it, but worth reposting even if it was: https://projects.propublica.org/graphic ... -hospitals

Interesting that they chose to highlight Takoma Park (that's about 5 miles from me) [EDIT: turns out it uses a best guess based on your IP.]. There used to be a hospital located there, but no longer. Also it's easily part of the greater DC area so you'd think that they'd just look at the metro area for that with its handful of very large hospitals, but...

[MakeeLearn]

Took this pic in the store today