OT: Corona virus

[Canoerebel]

The proof is in the pudding. We've done a darned good armed-chair job (IE, we're mostly interested laymen). The proof is in the pudding.

[:'(]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Armed with multiple inputs from around the globe, using resources pointed to by this community for raw data and projections, and lots of arm-chair analysis (and some from experts too), this thread has been more accurate and faster, repeatedly and notably, than just about anything in media. We are a go-to source for solid information.

[:)]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not really. I'll paraphrase from a much wiser and more respected forumite (you know who you are!) that:

One must not just accept any report without understanding the assumptions and quality of what goes in to it.

A great deal of the info that's went in to populating the spreadsheets/web sites posted here are accepted at face value.

Having a good index finger to click on web sites does not make one knowledgeable or an analyst per se.

[Canoerebel]

Lots of encouraging revisions to state projections too. New York total mortality dropped considerably and the peak estimated to be tomorrow.

Similar good things for my state and for others too.

The link to the source: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Wither there is agreement or not is immaterial: demonstrated fact is fact.

I'll take the bait, however:

"This film portrays an idealized notion of plantation life and slavery in Southern America during the Civil War. The conditions for large numbers of Americans in slavery was harsh and brutal."

Hard to dispute any of that, is it?

warspite1

I'm afraid you didn't quite understand the point. And I'm not going to further this on a coronavirus thread as our debates tend to be rather lengthy.

[Canoerebel]

CBS

[MakeeLearn]

Coronavirus origin: Few leads, many theories in hunt for source

Coronavirus most likely to have jumped to humans from intermediary host, but some say lab accident cannot be ruled out.
an hour ago

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/ ... 09327.html

"But as the virus spread globally, the role of public-health laboratories in Wuhan came under increasing scrutiny.

In two labs in Wuhan, long-running experiments with bat viruses helped scientists quickly identify the coronavirus as most likely to have come from the nocturnal mammal, but those same labs have also fuelled biosafety concerns.

The practice of collecting viruses from bats first burst into public view in the early weeks of the outbreak when Shi Zhengli, a noted scientist with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, refuted a swirl of online accusations both at home and abroad that the coronavirus may have leaked from her institute, where a lab certified as BSL-4, the highest level for handling dangerous pathogens, opened three years ago."

------------

While stasioned at Ft. Hood I was with a unit that in time of war would have the ability to use chemical agents. One day we were shown pictures of a researcher than had accidentally carried Blister Agent type home to his wife and child. It was on his clothes They all died. It was never in the news,

[Canoerebel]

CNN

[MakeeLearn]

Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources
April 8, 2020, 3:01 AM


https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelli ... d=70031273


" As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.

Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.

The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home."

[Canoerebel]

Fox (my first visit to this site)

[MakeeLearn]

I dont watch tv. Is CNN Coronavirus News Network[;)]

[Canoerebel]

I don't watch TV either.**

**We have a television and watch movies on DVD. We've never had cable or satellite service but in the old days used an antenna to pick up two stations in Chattanooga. When the industry converted from analog to digital (around 2010?), we opted out.

[MakeeLearn]

"Dr Fauci-There will be a surprise outbreak WHOA! Dr. Fauci in 2017"

10, Jan 17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu2Ftcv ... e=youtu.be

Video clip

Dr Fauci says that there will be a surprise outbreak.

[MakeeLearn]

A ‘liberty’ rebellion in Idaho threatens to undermine coronavirus orders
Updated April 7, 2020 at 5:28 pm

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... us-orders/

"SANDPOINT, Idaho — Inside an old factory building north of Boise, a few dozen people gathered last week to hear from Ammon Bundy, the man who once led an armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge.

The meeting, which appeared to violate orders by Idaho Gov. Brad Little to avoid group gatherings, was an assertion of what Bundy said was a constitutional right to peacefully assemble. But Bundy said he also hoped to create a network of people ready to come to the aid of those facing closure of their businesses or other interference from the government as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

“If it gets bad enough, and our rights are infringed upon enough, we can physically stand in defense in whatever way we need to,” Bundy told the meeting. “But we hope we don’t have to get there.”"

[MakeeLearn]

I just don't understand it. I'am not too bright...

We made it to a current world population of 7.8 billion as of April 2020, with the majority of it equivalent to the care of a Horse Doctor.


And now something that is only fatal for a small percentage of people, will be the motivation for a "change" of way of life.

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: obvert


No. You're very intelligent and the last thing I want to seem is condescending, but you are simply neglecting the obvious that we don't have to use a place name for this virus, and if we do it could cause harm to others.

By listing these other diseases with specific place names I know that you know they're a totally different category that have no implication of pointing to a vulnerable population in our societies that may in fact be targeted by those who, for instance, link Chinese (or Asian) people with this current pandemic. I know you know this, but it seems, (and I'm just guessing here) that you just don't like the current trend toward more PC language, less inflammatory humour, etc.

Partly I object to the intrusion of political correctness into EVERYTHING, yes, but this is irrational and inconsistent. The WHO picked the name "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome" in 2003. They picked this because the disease seemed to pop-up in several places in the Middle East and the exact location of origin could not be identified. The naming helped people across disciplines easily recognize what was being discussed. I don't recall any Arabs being singled out for creating MERS. MERS is also a Coronavirus. They might have picked "Wuhan Respiratory Syndrome" if they wanted to have rationality and consistency. Then there is the decades long naming convention for influenza approved by the WHO which, by convention, includes geographic names for first place of isolation. Take "bird flu" (a layman's term)...the actual official WHO name is "A/Hong Kong/156/97 (H5N1)"

Influenza type A
Isolated in Hong Kong
Clade 156
Year 1997
Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase (viral protein) mutations

Perfectly rational..the human brain can remember place names better than numbers..et voila!

Now take COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019). All that is true but it completely lacks specificity. It doesn't mention geographic origin, species of origin, taxonomy etc. etc. The Coronaviridae cause disease in dozens, perhaps thousands of species. What happened? The CCP sent a stooge to the WHO meeting at a fancy hotel and over fois gras and steak tartare he made them an offer they could not refuse. This was the CCP trying to buff out the damage.

Here is a perfectly sedate scientifically sound, toxonomically accurate proposal for naming newly discovered Coronaviridae

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0695-z

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Peak in deaths also dropped by four days.

There is a big movement underway - a major trend. What the nation is doing, and the way the experts project, are combining to bring this into a sharper focus that is much more encouraging. Just one week ago, the nation was riveted on 100k to 200k.

Just one note of potential caution on getting ahead of ourselves here with comparisons to the Washington modelling.

As far as I can tell the model has three main assumptions (I don't use that word in a negative sense - somebody with more of a science background might know of a better word) - 1) a base rate assumption about how quickly the virus spreads and the proportion of people requiring hospital admission and in particular ICU care, 2) an assumption of the extent to which varying levels of lockdown are able to slow the spread of the virus and 3) an assumption of the extent to which reaching the limit of healthcare provision will result in excess mortality.

If the actual numbers are lower than the predicted ones then that suggests that some of these assumptions were not correct. The problem that we still have at this point is that we don't know which or to what extent.

An optimist will look towards assumptions 1) and 3) and suggest that the evidence is showing that either the virus is less communicable and/or (more likely) less lethal than was assumed or that health services are in reality more agile and resilient to stress than was assumed (as an example of the latter point - the UK prediction is using our historic ICU availability of c.800 beds unoccupied - the new hospital built in London has added another 500 of these beds on its own).

A pessimist on the other hand might look more at assumption 2) i.e. that the various lock-down measures have had a stronger than assumed effect on slowing the spread of the virus. They might also worry in more general terms that the model appears to assume that the only way to reverse the rapid increase of cases and consequent deaths is by imposing significant lock down measures on society and the economy - and that it appears to have been accurate in that assumption. In other words from that point of view the predicted deaths potentially have not all been avoided - more kicked down the road to a later date.

I would probably class myself as somewhere in between. I think there is a lot of encouragement to be taken from the reduction in the predictions. But I think the largest political/economic challenge may still lie ahead. I think that national governments are going to need to hold firm with the lockdown measures (and indeed the public will need to hold firm in their adherence), not just until the case numbers are dropping but until they are confident that they have the testing regime in place to identify and squash outbreaks at source and the administrative/logistical/economic structure in place to put down hard lockdowns/quarantines on very specific localities (as the Italians were able to do in the small villages that showed very early cases in the Veneto province, which subsequently had a much better ride of things compared to Lombardy etc). I think that if national governments and the public are premature in going 'back to normal' then we may well find ourselves back to square one and at the start of another 'curve'. So I think there is a long road ahead and the more pessimistic mortality predictions remain very much in play in the longer term.

[Cap Mandrake]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not really. I'll paraphrase from a much wiser and more respected forumite (you know who you are!)

[8|] <facepalm>

Santa Maria! What on Earth is wrong with you? The US healthcare system shite. The US Navy is shite. America is racist. "I'm smarter than everyone". Give it a rest, man.

Did your mama have to pay kids to come to your birthday parties?

[Canoerebel]

Sammy always expresses himself well. I envy his abilities in that regard.

Bottom line for me: The current template/narrative about what we're facing has been pretty doggone frightening/cataclysmic. If projections from reputable sources were being revised upward, that would be terribly alarming. What if the underlying data supported that trend? What if the 100k to 200k estimate in use last week was revised first to 300k to 500k and then a few days later to 750k? The feeling of spiraling ever downward (well, upward) would be awful.

But when a reputable source consistently updates positively, that is good news! And when the underlying data supports those revisions, "Huzzah!" Man, this is encouraging news.

[Canoerebel]

I don't think any of us feel that things are set in stone or assured.

Regarding the projected mortality, we're using that number as a useful reference point while not losing sight that it's within a range. Nor overlooking that the range is trending encouragingly downward.

[MakeeLearn]

Horowitz: WHEN did coronavirus begin in the US? And why it matters
March 24, 2020

https://www.conservativereview.com/news ... s-matters/


"Given that the virus was discovered in Wuhan on November 17 (at the latest), when did coronavirus really begin in this country? Roughly how many cases do we think occurred before we began testing during the first week in March, and how many fatalities occurred? How many of the presumed flu deaths, and particularly the presumed pneumonia deaths during what was thought of as a bad flu season, were really due to coronavirus?"




Here’s the ultimate question they need to answer: What would be the value added for locking down all Americans rather than allowing most healthy Americans in most parts of the country to go back to work by next week with proper precautionary measures? Where is their evidence that, given the virus has already been in the country for months, further lockdown will save more lives and that the economic depression won’t cost more lives? In order to answer those questions, we need more information on how we got here."

[Canoerebel]

Makee, I scanned the original text when you posted it. The quote from the health official in Italy was thought-provoking. Would you mind adding that back into your post? I have no idea if he is quoted accurately and if he is a credible source but what's he's quoted as saying is noteworthy because it's contrary to what I'd been hearing.