ORIGINAL: 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.
Not enough there for me to grab onto, obvert. Sorry.
I would like to know more about why so many politicos are grabbing onto the "40-70% of us will get this disease" bilge in general. There's ZERO evidence to suggest such an extraordinary outcome based on real-life global data. South Korea-clearly on the mend side of their experience has <6500 cases? Let's say only 10% of the cases were actually tested / reported-then that's 65,000 cases? In a country of 51.7MM? That's 0.125%. China? Assuming the same (1/10 cases reported/tested) logic with China? 850,000 cases: 0.006%. Japan? Another rounding error. Either they're grasping at the straws of really poor models or they're ignoring reality in countries that are clearly recovering from this issue.
When I see a model with exorbitant assumptions or characterizations that don't pass the smell test, I have to hold them in quarantine until further real-world confirmation comes around. Most times, the models fail because of GIGO. You can model anything you want to get any outcome you think you'd like if you futz around with / bias the input variables accordingly.
On a semi-related note: One of my favorite articles of all time on foodborne disease was published in a poultry trade magazine in the mid-late 1990s. Entitled "Food poisoning's phony figures", it poked abundant holes in the USDA/FDA computer models for how widespread certain foodborne diseases were compared to historical trends, facts on the ground and comparatives to gold standard testing. USDA/FDA models routinely overstated morbidity and mortality caused by bacterial contaminants in the food chain, throwing up guesses as to how many cases really existed.
For those of you (Makeelearn-are you listening?) whose Google-Fu is strong, you would be my hero forevermore if you could find the article I mention above.
; Julia Child
