Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: obvert

They went on to say though that influenza may transmit more effectively if it's 30-50% asymtomaitic transfer rate is above that of Covid-19. So it's important to find out more about these asymptomatic cases.

I completely agree. It's not clear how the asymptomatic people can even spread this thing. I linked to a CDC statement in an earlier post and they flatly stated that the primary cause of transmission involved breathing in virus directly from the "cloud" coughed out by a carrier.

If so, it's hard to see how that occurs when somebody is asymptomatic. Although the clue may be that "78-85%" (another number from the WHO report) of infections occurred within households. Sustained contact? Easing up on personal sanitary procedures in a perceived "safe" environment? Dunno.

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Using the John Hopkins numbers I see an interesting anomaly. Assuming reporting from Korea and Italy is accurate, and there is no reason tho think it isn't, the 2 countries have wildly different mortality rates. Korea is well below 1% while Italy is at 4%. Either the responses are significantly different or they are counting mortality differently. Meaning Korea may only be counting people that strictly died from this and Italy may be attributing already sick people that also passed while testing positive. Interesting data point to watch

It could also be testing rates. Korea is the most progressive in terms of testing right now in the world. This leads to earlier isolation and earlier treatment.

I'm sure Italy has a higher rate of unknown cases than Korea based on testing rates alone, which cold account for some part of this difference at least.

Have a look at this from the Economist yesterday.

[font="Trebuchet MS"]South Korea and China test regularly. In both places—excluding Hubei, where the virus began claiming lives before authorities formulated a response—0.5-1% of people who have tested positive have died. In other countries with at least one death, this rate is five times higher. Deaths are easier to count than infections are. The most likely explanation for this gap is that for every person diagnosed in these countries, four more do not know they are infected.[/font]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Using the John Hopkins numbers I see an interesting anomaly. Assuming reporting from Korea and Italy is accurate, and there is no reason tho think it isn't, the 2 countries have wildly different mortality rates. Korea is well below 1% while Italy is at 4%. Either the responses are significantly different or they are counting mortality differently. Meaning Korea may only be counting people that strictly died from this and Italy may be attributing already sick people that also passed while testing positive. Interesting data point to watch

Just my personal opinion, but I think there's too much statistical noise in the numbers until you start to see a lot more cases. That said, Italy is looking like an anomaly (or more like "early China"). Here's the top 4 nations who have numbers we can probably trust:

---------Cases--Deaths--Death Rate
Korea - 7313 - 50 - 0.7%
Italy - 5883 - 233 - 4.0%
France - 949 - 16 - 1.7%
Germany- 951 - 0 - 0.0%

Erik, normally I wouldn't comment anything further, but there is a public (!) Pool of all scienticfic papers(*) where you can inform yourself, R0, complications, including possible long term issues etc.
I'm on my phone so can't provide any link atm (and happy that I canceled my med studium decades ago) but I think you will found the link on reddit. The abstracts are quite understandable without medical Background d.
As Camus said, the bigger enemy fighting plague is ignorance ...

What did they know what we didn't know?
It makes no sense, neither for China nor Italy to risk their ecconomy and their powerbase etc. for... 'just-a-flu'.
The big decision came after decisionmakers get in touch with normal mortals and suddenly reaklized that their nice cottage isn't place to hide any longer.

Greetings a good wishes to all, I'm def. Out here with a phone that 'corrects' every word into my own lingo.

(*) science, spectrum, medical Journals

Well, I can understand you and sometimes I have difficulty understanding English.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I posted this in the General Discussion thread on this topic. However, I believe that due to the seriousness of this, it behooves me to paste here too in case people haven't seen it.

I'm really surprised that no one commenting on these Coronavirus threads has picked up on the key news. It was reported in a newspaper in the UK on Friday that there is an area in California that has recorded its first case... and that is just ten miles from where the Kardashians live.

Can we get real here people - let's stay concentrated on what's important. I say again, ten miles.

[:D]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I posted this in the General Discussion thread on this topic. However, I believe that due to the seriousness of this, it behooves me to paste here too in case people haven't seen it.

I'm really surprised that no one commenting on these Coronavirus threads has picked up on the key news. It was reported in a newspaper in the UK on Friday that there is an area in California that has recorded its first case... and that is just ten miles from where the Kardashians live.

Can we get real here people - let's stay concentrated on what's important. I say again, ten miles.

[:D]

CB, Warspite is being alarmist. After all, that's 16 kilometers.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I posted this in the General Discussion thread on this topic. However, I believe that due to the seriousness of this, it behooves me to paste here too in case people haven't seen it.

I'm really surprised that no one commenting on these Coronavirus threads has picked up on the key news. It was reported in a newspaper in the UK on Friday that there is an area in California that has recorded its first case... and that is just ten miles from where the Kardashians live.

Can we get real here people - let's stay concentrated on what's important. I say again, ten miles.

[:D]

CB, Warspite is being alarmist. After all, that's 16 kilometers.

But that is still too far away. [:(]

ORIGINAL: obvert

interestingly, the RO quoted here is 2-2.5. Similar but slightly lower than the WHO listed RO from the later Bloomberg article, which was 2.8. The RO for seasonal flu is 1.3.

Be verrrrry careful when using R0 values to compare Covid-19 and the flu. Here's the critical piece of information that Bloomberg failed to include in their article (shocker):

"Importantly, a disease’s R0 value only applies when everyone in a population is completely vulnerable to the disease. This means:

- no one has been vaccinated
- no one has had the disease before
- there’s no way to control the spread of the disease"

Does that apply to Covid-19? The first two yes, the third, well "it depends" (as we are seeing country-by-country around the world).

Does it apply to the flu? The factors are actually reversed. The first two are usually mitigators (depressing the R0), while very little is done on the 3rd, since society willingly accepts half a million global deaths every flu season (i.e. no travel bans, no social distancing, etc).

And really, since NONE of those three values are completely true in the case of each disease, it means you need to take R0 values with a very large grain of salt, every time you see them used.

Read up on R0 values and what they mean here.

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

What did they know what we didn't know?
It makes no sense, neither for China nor Italy to risk their ecconomy and their powerbase etc. for... 'just-a-flu'.
The big decision came after decisionmakers get in touch with normal mortals and suddenly reaklized that their nice cottage isn't place to hide any longer.

Greetings a good wishes to all, I'm def. Out here with a phone that 'corrects' every word into my own lingo.

(*) science, spectrum, medical Journals

Well obviously it's not just a flu - but the most exposed population is arguably the elderly. And I am going to sound like a butt, but my feeling is that France, right now, is not doing more simply because it is making that kind of cynical calculation. That losing another fraction of our GDP is not worth protecting further people who cost money because of our public retirement plan and social security, and might have died in the next flu or heat episode. They even say that the most exposed group is the elderly with pre-existing condition - how nice! Go back home if you can still walk - if not, feel welcome to lay in this bed, you're the lucky one! [8|]

Any measure we would take now would only have a real result between 12 and 16 days AFTER it is taken. And still we don't take them. So that we can grab each and every little bit of richness and growth we can and hopefully not get (further) into the recession that the bad numbers of late 2019 were already announcing, even without a flu to blame for.

And who knows! "the virus doesn't like the heat"! Well maybe fortune will favor the bold and Spring will come in kicking ass, solving France's problem in her stead! Ain't that beautiful? Silly Italians, am I right!

I am French, I live in China, and I find this situation distasteful, if not disgusting. Cheers.

(of course it's not directed at you Wuffer, just used your post as a stepstone for my own rant [:o])

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: obvert

interestingly, the RO quoted here is 2-2.5. Similar but slightly lower than the WHO listed RO from the later Bloomberg article, which was 2.8. The RO for seasonal flu is 1.3.

Be verrrrry careful when using R0 values to compare Covid-19 and the flu. Here's the critical piece of information that Bloomberg failed to include in their article (shocker):

"Importantly, a disease’s R0 value only applies when everyone in a population is completely vulnerable to the disease. This means:

- no one has been vaccinated
- no one has had the disease before
- there’s no way to control the spread of the disease"

Does that apply to Covid-19? The first two yes, the third, well "it depends" (as we are seeing country-by-country around the world).

Does it apply to the flu? The factors are actually reversed. The first two are usually mitigators (depressing the R0), while very little is done on the 3rd, since society willingly accepts half a million global deaths every flu season (i.e. no travel bans, no social distancing, etc).

And really, since NONE of those three values are completely true in the case of each disease, it means you need to take R0 values with a very large grain of salt, every time you see them used.

Read up on R0 values and what they mean here.

I hear you. I think in this case they're using a value from the seasonal flu with the vaccine included in the value. The purpose being to see what numbers would be like if Covid-19 transferred as well or more effectively as the flu (and into a population who were not vaccinated).

The numbers listed for the 2017-18 flu season were huge, and if that is into a population that was vaccinated, it scares me even more to think of Covid-19 having an equal or higher RO to that flu. It may not at all, but the goal is to imagine worst case in order to be prepared.

This article in the lancet also makes this correlation. I would trust the lancet, being a top medical periodical. A lot more in here but I haven't read it all since it's time for family dinner.

[font="Trebuchet MS"]What do these comparisons with influenza A and SARS imply for the COVID-19 epidemic and its control? First, we think that the epidemic in any given country will initially spread more slowly than is typical for a new influenza A strain. COVID-19 had a doubling time in China of about 4–5 days in the early phases.3 Second, the COVID-19 epidemic could be more drawn out than seasonal influenza A, which has relevance for its potential economic impact. Third, the effect of seasons on transmission of COVID-19 is unknown;11 however, with an R0 of 2–3, the warm months of summer in the northern hemisphere might not necessarily reduce transmission below the value of unity as they do for influenza A, which typically has an R0 of around 1·1–1·5.12 Closely linked to these factors and their epidemiological determinants is the impact of different mitigation policies on the course of the COVID-19 epidemic.[/font]

If they can get a vaccine for it, I wonder if they would include it in the influenza shot or just one separate.

I wonder how injecting people with just that one protein in the outer shell would work to build up an immunity? I refer to the outer protein in a previously posted picture.

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth
Using the John Hopkins numbers I see an interesting anomaly. Assuming reporting from Korea and Italy is accurate, and there is no reason tho think it isn't, the 2 countries have wildly different mortality rates. Korea is well below 1% while Italy is at 4%. Either the responses are significantly different or they are counting mortality differently. Meaning Korea may only be counting people that strictly died from this and Italy may be attributing already sick people that also passed while testing positive. Interesting data point to watch

South Korea has been an exemplar on the testing side, so their confirmed cases are closer than most to the real number of infections. With that said, they've also identified most of their cases in the last two weeks, whereas this virus seems to take 3-4 weeks to kill those it's going to. Because of that time lag, it's hard to use the real-time numbers for much other than helping understand the extent and location of the spread. There are studies that have looked at a set of cases from start to finish and that's where the "official" estimates on mortality come from.

Regards,

- Erik

Also, we now have a confirmed case in the closest significant town to my location. Went grocery shopping there this morning, saw the news after I returned.

Got our 1st case in the county a couple of hours ago. I work in NYC so things are going to get interesting. I take a train in. I could drive, but everybody else seems to have thought of that and it would takes hours. Train was half empty Friday and I expect that pattern to continue. Job is a couple of miles from the train station. I almost always skip the subways and walk to work. I absolutely have banned myself from riding the subway until further notice. Should be fun

It's cool to see someone trying to do the right thing.

https://q13fox.com/2020/03/08/gates-foundation-to-soon-offer-home-testing-kits-for-coronavirus-in-seattle-area/

Johns Hopkins screen grab as of 3/8/20 at about 7 p.m. eastern (USA) time. 110k cases; 3.8k deaths.

On 3/2/20, I posted a screen grab showing 80k cases and 3.0k deaths. So, about 800 deaths this week and nearly 30k new cases, only a small percentage of which were in China.

I noted a few days ago that the first cases were reported in my little town in northwest Georgia. As best I can tell, life continues normally. Grocery stores fully stocked; restaurants full; etc. Yesterday, I went on a long hike on Pigeon Mountain to take photos for a story. Today our family was in church and then met other family for lunch in Marietta, where there's another confirmed case. The virus has been a topic of conversation but without any real alarm. I don't know if we're like Noah's non-listening neighbors as he warns of coming flood, or if our intuition is on target. Hopefully the latter.

If you are going on walks and taking pictures, you need to start another AAR and post the pictures!

How could so many have recovered in Iran already? Does that mean it was just mild case and they were not in need of ICU and are recovering? Are they still contagious during recovery? Or do they test for the virus and it is no longer in their system? Just curious 1 week or so seems very fast for recovery. They only got hit really hard in the last what 2 weeks?

I have little faith in Irans numbers. Many stories about those numbers being entirely cooked