OT: Corona virus

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

"Worldometer shows estimated current numbers based on statistics and projections from the most reputable official organizations.

Our sources include the United Nations Population Division, World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank.

We analyze the available data, perform statistical analysis, and build our algorithm which feeds the real time estimate.

Our counters have been licensed for the United Nations Conference Rio+20, BBC News, U2 concert, World Expo, and prestigious museums and events worldwide."

"We try to be as accurate as possible. For each set of statistics we perform extensive research and data mining in order to bring the most authoritative, comprehensive, and timely information to be displayed on the live counters.

As with any statistic, the numbers are not expected to be exact to the single digit, but to provide a fairly accurate and informative description of a phenomenon. This inherited limitation must be taken into account for the correct interpretation of the information.

Worldometer is cited as a source in over 10,000 published books, in more than 6,000 professional journal articles, and in over 1000 Wikipedia pages.

Worldometer was voted as one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world."

This often accounts for differences between sources on the Internet.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy




Interesting. Decades of managed health and squeezing out 'excess capacity' from expensive hospitals hard at work. My dad was CFO of a number of managed health operations in California in the 1980s and 1990s. His tales of 'cost cutting' (read: hospital surge capacity cutting / 'cutting beds') back then have continued. I wonder if this episode will rekindle a national interest in developing standing capacity for the long run or if we'll just keep on the same path...

Never underestimate the mendacity of bureaucrats, and their inability to learn. [8|]

Oh, I don't blame the managed health groups for the inescapable trends towards efficiency over time. That's their mandate. If they don't do it, they go bankrupt. Period. Lots of them did in the managed care / hospital group bloodletting of the 80s and 90s. It's just that managed health groups' mandates-entirely legitimate-are not the same as a viable public health service run by the Federal or State government for the general public good.

If the Feds or individual states want to spend lots of money and manhours on keeping a viable public health surge capacity going that's up to them. It hasn't really been done in decades. Or they can buy/rent/force majeure parking garages, dilapidated malls and motels and the like when it's too late. [8|]

I know that's the stated intent, but they are ALWAYS subject to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

[Chickenboy]

Most of the Epidemic curves on the John Hopkins' website look pretty typical-whether on the ascendant or the descendant or somewhere in between. This one of Denmark is odd. Any insight as to why they're seeing a bimodal hump with a gap in between?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Most of the Epidemic curves on the John Hopkins' website look pretty typical-whether on the ascendant or the descendant or somewhere in between. This one of Denmark is odd. Any insight as to why they're seeing a bimodal hump with a gap in between?

It seems like what many have cautioned about, regarding a re-surge of infections after non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI's) are lifted.

[MakeeLearn]

Norway
Confirmed: 2,779
Deaths: 12
Recovered: 6
Active: 2,761


Read online, posted by a Norwegian, low death due to eating lots of onions in the winter.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Most of the Epidemic curves on the John Hopkins' website look pretty typical-whether on the ascendant or the descendant or somewhere in between. This one of Denmark is odd. Any insight as to why they're seeing a bimodal hump with a gap in between?

It seems like what many have cautioned about, regarding a re-surge of infections after non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI's) are lifted.

Did they life their NPIs though? My thinking was along the lines of the "Wuhan spike" with different reporting / diagnostic case definitions / laboratory testing anomalies. Any Danes here that can shed further light on this?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Most of the Epidemic curves on the John Hopkins' website look pretty typical-whether on the ascendant or the descendant or somewhere in between. This one of Denmark is odd. Any insight as to why they're seeing a bimodal hump with a gap in between?

It seems like what many have cautioned about, regarding a re-surge of infections after non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI's) are lifted.

Did they life their NPIs though? My thinking was along the lines of the "Wuhan spike" with different reporting / diagnostic case definitions / laboratory testing anomalies. Any Danes here that can shed further light on this?

Don't know the answer to question about Denmark, but the numbers for China are highly suspicious overall. Caution gleaning lessons from them is advisable.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Most of the Epidemic curves on the John Hopkins' website look pretty typical-whether on the ascendant or the descendant or somewhere in between. This one of Denmark is odd. Any insight as to why they're seeing a bimodal hump with a gap in between?

March 13 was a Friday, weekend?

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Did they life their NPIs though? My thinking was along the lines of the "Wuhan spike" with different reporting / diagnostic case definitions / laboratory testing anomalies. Any Danes here that can shed further light on this?

See chart below which confirms the curve (with daily numbers). There's a compilation of Denmark-specific Covid-19 news articles here, but my cursory scan didn't find a reason for the early spike-then-drop. By no means a detailed look, so there probably is an explanation in there somewhere.

[MakeeLearn]

"On 10–11 March, Aalborg University Hospital, Regionshospital North Jutland Hjørring and Zealand University Hospital Roskilde introduced "drive-through" test facilities"

[Kull]

Why a different curve for Denmark? Here it is:

From the end of February to March 11, people with both mild and more severe respiratory symptoms who traveled to Denmark from high-spreading countries were tested for COVID-19. This happened as part of the containment phase. As of March 12, as part of the mitigation strategy, people with inpatient symptoms for COVID-19 have been tested.

Thus, the number of confirmed cases in the report cannot be directly compared in the period before and after 12 March.

[MakeeLearn]

Looks like Denmark has a bigger problem with Campylobacter outbreaks.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy



I am beginning to wonder about the provenance of Worldometer figures. There were questions here about the COVID-19 figures and graphs. On Russia, I remember seeing a population figure of around 350 million - that was after the Soviet Union broke up too.
Worldometer also shows a larger land area for US than Canada when other references I have seen for many years say Canada is larger in area.

So the question is - who sponsors Worldometer, what is its expertise and sources of information and what fact-checking is done before they put stuff up? This could be a couple of guys publishing any old thing to get the advertising revenue rather than provide a solid source.

Why use anything but Wikipedia for these sorts of things?

Right, I already added the Wikipedia screenshot to my post.

Ah ha - it's because the number for Canada which is most frequently cited includes its landlocked lakes. For "land only", the US is bigger but only just barely.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy



I am beginning to wonder about the provenance of Worldometer figures. There were questions here about the COVID-19 figures and graphs. On Russia, I remember seeing a population figure of around 350 million - that was after the Soviet Union broke up too.
Worldometer also shows a larger land area for US than Canada when other references I have seen for many years say Canada is larger in area.

So the question is - who sponsors Worldometer, what is its expertise and sources of information and what fact-checking is done before they put stuff up? This could be a couple of guys publishing any old thing to get the advertising revenue rather than provide a solid source.

Why use anything but Wikipedia for these sorts of things?

OK. Here you go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... population

Russia still in 9th place.

Well yeah, Russia isn't that populous.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
so, 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. Decades of managed health and squeezing out 'excess capacity' from expensive hospitals hard at work. My dad was CFO of a number of managed health operations in California in the 1980s and 1990s. His tales of 'cost cutting' (read: hospital surge capacity cutting / 'cutting beds') back then have continued. I wonder if this episode will rekindle a national interest in developing standing capacity for the long run or if we'll just keep on the same path...

I'm going with: I really doubt it. Because that would be expensive and we don't pay for expensive things here unless they're sexy, shiny, or (insert more cynicism here).

ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
so, 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. Decades of managed health and squeezing out 'excess capacity' from expensive hospitals hard at work. My dad was CFO of a number of managed health operations in California in the 1980s and 1990s. His tales of 'cost cutting' (read: hospital surge capacity cutting / 'cutting beds') back then have continued. I wonder if this episode will rekindle a national interest in developing standing capacity for the long run or if we'll just keep on the same path...

Never underestimate the mendacity of bureaucrats, and their inability to learn. [8|]

It's not bureaucrats, it's management consultants, politicians obsessed with (often short-sighted) "cost savings", and so on. Bureaucrats are, by and large, overworked and underpaid public servants who are doing laudable jobs with nowhere near enough in the way of resources.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Oh, I don't blame the managed health groups for the inescapable trends towards efficiency over time. That's their mandate. If they don't do it, they go bankrupt. Period. Lots of them did in the managed care / hospital group bloodletting of the 80s and 90s. It's just that managed health groups' mandates-entirely legitimate-are not the same as a viable public health service run by the Federal or State government for the general public good.

If the Feds or individual states want to spend lots of money and manhours on keeping a viable public health surge capacity going that's up to them. It hasn't really been done in decades. Or they can buy/rent/force majeure parking garages, dilapidated malls and motels and the like when it's too late. [8|]

Yep - it's a problem of political will more than anything else. The "Iron Law of Bureaucracy" (first time I've heard that term) is IMO, at its root, a political problem as well.

Lots of people were making fun of the Chinese rapidly building hospitals, with an obvious photo op at the start of their groundbreaking, but at least they were literally building temporary hospital capacity instead of dilly-dallying.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Lots of people were making fun of the Chinese rapidly building hospitals, with an obvious photo op at the start of their groundbreaking, but at least they were literally building temporary hospital capacity instead of dilly-dallying.

Credit where it is due, certainly, but the dilly-dallying took place weeks earlier with disastrous effect.

That photo-op non-sense just shows the shamelessness of journalism today, going for the click bait implication that whole hospitals were being built (and concrete drying!) in 3 days instead of covering the story in a legitimate way by showing and describing the massive, practical effort which was put forth.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Kull

Why a different curve for Denmark? Here it is:

From the end of February to March 11, people with both mild and more severe respiratory symptoms who traveled to Denmark from high-spreading countries were tested for COVID-19. This happened as part of the containment phase. As of March 12, as part of the mitigation strategy, people with inpatient symptoms for COVID-19 have been tested.

Thus, the number of confirmed cases in the report cannot be directly compared in the period before and after 12 March.

Good find. Thanks.

[MakeeLearn]

Easy Peasy

[obvert]

Ok. This just blew my mind. Not sure what to make of it and if there is anything to it or not.

It doesn't seem plausible in any of the other major early centers of the disease; Wuhan, but especially Italy, as the population shouldn't support this theory. On the other hand there are so many reported asymptomatic cases and the Diamond Princess is still a conundrum. Thoughts?

I'll post some details since there is a paywall.

https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd ... pe=blocked

The new coronavirus may already have infected far more people in the UK than scientists had previously estimated — perhaps as much as half the population — according to modelling by researchers at the University of Oxford.

If the results are confirmed, they imply that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with Covid-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment, said Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study. The vast majority develop very mild symptoms or none at all.

“We need immediately to begin large-scale serological surveys — antibody testing — to assess what stage of the epidemic we are in now,” she said.

The modelling by Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group indicates that Covid-19 reached the UK by mid-January at the latest. Like many emerging infections, it spread invisibly for more than a month before the first transmissions within the UK were officially recorded at the end of February.

The research presents a very different view of the epidemic to the modelling at Imperial College London, which has strongly influenced government policy. “I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model,” said Prof Gupta. 

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Lots of people were making fun of the Chinese rapidly building hospitals, with an obvious photo op at the start of their groundbreaking, but at least they were literally building temporary hospital capacity instead of dilly-dallying.

They've had plenty of time (last 18 years?) of dilly-dallying too. After the known connection between wildlife 'wet markets' associated with SARS (and avian influenza too-but that's a different story), a number of unenforced laws were passed which-on paper only-restricted such a hazardous zoonotic breeding ground. But they thrived anyways until the exact same dynamic arose with the Wuhan coronavirus.

The rapid construction of the tent cities (I choose not to use the term 'hospital') for the sick was window dressing for a disastrous series of public health choices over the last 20 years. All to not roil the population's antiquated tastes for wildlife wet markets.

They also literally welded people's doors closed to enforce the quarantine edicts. It'd take a lot of tent cities to offset their complicity in the introduction and spread of this disease in my mind.

[witpqs]

Regarding Obvert's post about the Oxford study:

The obvious problem is the notion that it spread for more than a month without being noticed. No one at risk got it and would up in ICU or worse?

The trouble with anti-body testing (AFAIK) is that it does not confirm when a person was infected or developed the anti-bodies, so by the time that could be done it still might do nothing to confirm this theory.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Lots of people were making fun of the Chinese rapidly building hospitals, with an obvious photo op at the start of their groundbreaking, but at least they were literally building temporary hospital capacity instead of dilly-dallying.

They've had plenty of time (last 18 years?) of dilly-dallying too. After the known connection between wildlife 'wet markets' associated with SARS (and avian influenza too-but that's a different story), a number of unenforced laws were passed which-on paper only-restricted such a hazardous zoonotic breeding ground. But they thrived anyways until the exact same dynamic arose with the Wuhan coronavirus.

The rapid construction of the tent cities (I choose not to use the term 'hospital') for the sick was window dressing for a disastrous series of public health choices over the last 20 years. All to not roil the population's antiquated tastes for wildlife wet markets.

They also literally welded people's doors closed to enforce the quarantine edicts. It'd take a lot of tent cities to offset their complicity in the introduction and spread of this disease in my mind.

+1

In January they claimed to other countries that the virus could not be transmitted human to human, in addition to punishing MD's who were trying to sound the alarm. Credit for the good things they did, and the bad too.