OT: Corona virus

[CaptBeefheart]

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

So South Korea has stopped the large numbers from growing. Good for them.

Yeah, touch wood. I'm hoping things can get back to normal within a few weeks (and by that I mean events stop being cancelled, my kid finally goes to pre-school, the British Embassy pub reopens, etc.).

Cheers,
CB

[Scott_USN]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

So South Korea has stopped the large numbers from growing. Good for them.

Yeah, touch wood. I'm hoping things can get back to normal within a few weeks (and by that I mean events stop being cancelled, my kid finally goes to pre-school, the British Embassy pub reopens, etc.).

Cheers,
CB

Yeah nice to see some good news even if a little over a 100 contracted it better than it was going up! I remember when it was 50 in SK then wow 5000! I suspect it will follow China and fall off rapidly. Thankfully most children seem safe from it.

[JohnDillworth]

so far the numbers are doubling every 3 days or less in the United States. Likely we are still on the upside of he curve so that doubly every 3 days is likely to continue for a while. My daughters college closed yesterday due to a positive case. Waiting to hear what department had the case

[JohnDillworth]

so far the numbers are doubling every 3 days or less in the United States. Likely we are still on the upside of he curve so that doubly every 3 days is likely to continue for a while. My daughters college closed yesterday due to a positive case. Waiting to hear what department had the case

[CaptBeefheart]

As more people get tested, it's inevitable the Stateside numbers will grow quickly. Same thing happened here. Expect school closures just about everywhere.

Cheers,
CB

[Canoerebel]

John doubled his posts to make his point more effectively.

[:)]

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

As more people get tested, it's inevitable the Stateside numbers will grow quickly. Same thing happened here. Expect school closures just about everywhere.

Cheers,
CB

Thanks for posting information from/about South Korea. What y'all are experiencing there seemingly will shed light on what we can expect here.

[Canoerebel]

Since I posted about 14 hours ago, three new cases have been reported in Mainland China. If the numbers are accurate, the virus has almost run its course there. There are still about 17,000 active cases, but few new ones per day, few deaths per day, and a sizeable number of "recoveries" per day. In China, the epidemic lasted about three months, from start to this point.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Since I posted about 14 hours ago, three new cases have been reported in Mainland China. If the numbers are accurate, the virus has almost run its course there. There are still about 17,000 active cases, but few new ones per day, few deaths per day, and a sizeable number of "recoveries" per day. In China, the epidemic lasted about three months, from start to this point.

Dan,

You are falling prey to the update cycles of various web sites. Just since midnight GMT there are 26 new cases and 17 new deaths reported from China, and there were quite a few more of each for the full day yesterday.

[Canoerebel]

There were 103 new cases in Mainland China from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th. There were 900 new cases in the first nine day of March. In comparison, over five days in the middle of February, China reported a total of 8k new cases. So the average per day has tailed off dramatically. That's the point I'm making, not that there are necessarily 3 or 18 or 25 in a short-term period.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

There were 103 new cases in Mainland China from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th. There were 900 new cases in the first nine day of March. In comparison, over five days in the middle of February, China reported a total of 8k new cases. So the average per day has tailed off dramatically. That's the point I'm making, not that there are necessarily 3 or 18 or 25 in a short-term period.

China had a good containment and treatment isolation plan and the means to accomplish it after their initial delay in reacting. Yet there may still be further outbreaks once non-infected people are again exposed.

We're now seeing the effects of a lack of containment and testing with treatment isolation in Italy, Iran (probably), and it looks like in the US.

Recent genetic studies on the virus in the Seattle area suggest the virus has been circulating there for six weeks. There might be 500+ cases in just that area. But, testing is not moving quickly.

How Does the Coronavirus End?

[font="Trebuchet MS"]Just because the virus isn’t being contained doesn’t mean we’re powerless to prevent serious illness and deaths among the most vulnerable. There’s still a lot communities can do to slow the spread, save lives, and buy crucial time for either a cure or a vaccine to be developed. There are many forking paths on the way from outbreak to endemic. Lives can still be saved, and the worst-case scenario can still be avoided.

Why scientists think the containment scenario is now unlikely

Earlier this week, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he believes containment is still possible and should be a top priority for all countries.

What the epidemiologists and virologists told me is that containment, in the US at least, so far isn’t working. And the longer containment efforts fail, the harder they become to implement.

The biggest failure is the slow rollout of diagnostic testing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports as of March 6 that it has counted 164 cases of Covid-19 in the US, with 110 of those cases under investigation. (The New York Times is reporting 308 cases, including those who were infected overseas, as of March 7.)

Epidemiologists fear the actual case count is a lot higher. The CDC has been slow to get Covid-19 diagnostic testing out to labs (due in part to a production error). And initially, testing was restricted to small numbers of people who had known travel to affected countries.[/font]

I'm worried as both my parents are in OR. I'm also worried in general because if the US fails to contain this enough to reduce and extend the maximum infection curve (to delay max infection peak) then it's going to be bad for everyone. Europe is at least taking some heed of Italy's plight, but it's my fear that this will probably just become an endemic disease we deal with every year. Hopefully with a vaccine in the near future, but for now a dangerous one to many.

[alanschu]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Chickenboy posted several pages back about one key reason we'll see a bump in positives in the coming week.

If the data coming from China is true, why would we have more than 1,000,000 cases when China has about 80,000, to this point?

As I noted a page or two back, the epidemic grew quickly in China for about a month, then dramatically leveled out and has remained there. IE, only a few hundred new cases per day.

If we follow that general curve, we should see an increase for about three more weeks, then a leveling out.

I can't envision how we'd have 10 times as many cases as China, or anything close.

I just don't see this happening.

I think it'd depend largely on the response. China population is largely collectivist and has an authoritarian government so implementation of quarantines and curfews could be pretty aggressive.

I saw a thread by Nicholas Christakis (Yale Professor on Social Science) and he commented on how China has a lot of movement restrictions with people needing permits to leave home, and often leaving home only once a week. When those people enter communities their body temperatures are checked. There's also food delivery. Permits also contain messaging about "it's everyone's responsibility to fight the virus." This is on top of schools being online and so forth.

He posted pictures about how elevators in Beijing only allow 4 people on them at a time, asking for people to please be patient.

Worst case had anecdotes of people being shot if they violated curfew, but substantiating claims like that are challenging for obvious reasons.

If stuff like this is happening and it ramped up aggressively, it would certainly slow the transmission rate.


Thread is here: https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status ... 8781460480


EDIT: Of course stuff like this was already discussed in the thread and I probably should have read it first

[Erik Rutins]

This is worth reading:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/sim ... -covid-19/

[RangerJoe]

Here are some links:

https://blog.getpocket.com/2020/03/coro ... ket-newtab

How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... 180965222/

Coronavirus: nine reasons to be reassured
Yes, Covid-19 is serious, but context is key and the world is well placed to deal with it
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -reassured

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

There were 103 new cases in Mainland China from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th. There were 900 new cases in the first nine day of March. In comparison, over five days in the middle of February, China reported a total of 8k new cases. So the average per day has tailed off dramatically. That's the point I'm making, not that there are necessarily 3 or 18 or 25 in a short-term period.

The point I am making is you are using figures updated too infrequently to make the statements you are making about parts of a day, such as "from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th". The other comparisons you are making are valid (IMO).

[Erik Rutins]

Another important read: https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/12 ... 4951305216

[RangerJoe]

True but if that is the best information available then you have to go with it which is better than saying "I don't really know what is going on."

[Canoerebel]

I don't think so. I'm using the same source (Johns Hopkins), so the numbers are going to be relatively consistent. And if there's a lag in reporting in the first half of the day, the second half will balance it, etc. That's why I'm using only the one source.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

There were 103 new cases in Mainland China from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th. There were 900 new cases in the first nine day of March. In comparison, over five days in the middle of February, China reported a total of 8k new cases. So the average per day has tailed off dramatically. That's the point I'm making, not that there are necessarily 3 or 18 or 25 in a short-term period.

The point I am making is you are using figures updated too infrequently to make the statements you are making about parts of a day, such as "from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th". The other comparisons you are making are valid (IMO).

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

This is worth reading:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/sim ... -covid-19/

Since all the really scary stuff in that article starts with the premise that "infection counts double every 6 days", lets take a close look at that. First off, we have the South Korea numbers (posted earlier and updated through today). However, I've added a third column so you can see the % increase compared with the total 6 days earlier. A few things to keep in mind:

- The early counts are ludicrous in size (the totals were too small to be meaningful), so we'll start by comparing the total on 2/28 with the one on 2/20, and will maintain the 6-day comparison up through 3/10 (today)

- When looking at the percentages in the 3rd column, 100% means the numbers doubled, and anything higher means an even greater rate of increase.

OK, here we go:

2/18 - 31
2/19 - 58
2/20 - 111
2/21 - 209
2/22 - 436
2/23 - 602
2/24 - 833
2/25 - 893
2/26 - 1261
2/27 - 1766
2/28 - 2022 - 364%
2/29 - 3150 - 423%
3/1 - 3526 - 323%
3/2 - 4212 - 372%
3/3 - 4812 - 282%
3/4 - 5328 - 202%
3/5 - 6088 - 201%
3/6 - 6593 - 109%
3/7 - 7041 - 100%
3/8 - 7134 - 69%
3/9 - 7382 - 53%
3/10 - 7513 - 41%

Roughly 2 weeks into the epidemic, the 6-day comparisons are extremely high, 300%+. But starting with Day 15 (3/3), it's in the 200's and falling rapidly. To the extent that by today, it's down to 40%. Which means, barring something crazy, the "nightmare scenario" is not happening in South Korea.

OK then, do we have any other examples of relatively reliable data that's "mature" in numbers? (i.e. enough data so it's not just statistical noise) Well let's take a look at Italy. That would appear to be the textbook case (so far) in how NOT to handle this thing. The epidemic took off in Italy around 2/21, so we'll look at the same three columns of data, and will commence the 6-day percent tracking on 3/2 (looking back at 2/25), since it's 10 days in and roughly the same total case count we started with when examining South Korea:

2/21 - 20
2/22 - 79
2/23 - 150
2/24 - 227
2/25 - 320
2/26 - 445
2/27 - 650
2/28 - 888
2/29 - 1128
3/1 - 1694
3/2 - 2036 - 536%
3/3 - 2502 - 462%
3/4 - 3089 - 375%
3/5 - 3858 - 334%
3/6 - 4636 - 311%
3/7 - 5883 - 247%
3/8 - 7375 - 262%
3/9 - 9172 - 267%
3/10 - 10149 - 229%

The only good news is that the rate has dropped noticeably, but nothing like South Korea. In fact it's been stuck in the 200%+ range for 4 days now (which is a 4x increase, not 2x), so you can kind of see why they went uber-draconian today and shut down the whole country (the "China solution").

Anyway, for those interested in seeing how their country is handling this (at least in terms of rate of increase), that's how to analyze your national numbers.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I don't think so. I'm using the same source (Johns Hopkins), so the numbers are going to be relatively consistent. And if there's a lag in reporting in the first half of the day, the second half will balance it, etc. That's why I'm using only the one source.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

There were 103 new cases in Mainland China from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th. There were 900 new cases in the first nine day of March. In comparison, over five days in the middle of February, China reported a total of 8k new cases. So the average per day has tailed off dramatically. That's the point I'm making, not that there are necessarily 3 or 18 or 25 in a short-term period.

The point I am making is you are using figures updated too infrequently to make the statements you are making about parts of a day, such as "from the morning of the 7th through late evening on the 9th". The other comparisons you are making are valid (IMO).

When you posted numbers late one evening you thought they were for that day, but in reality they only counted a small part of that day. I was able to see that because I was also looking at the other site which is updated more frequently from the very same data source. You had made a comment about there being being few (something like 20+) cases that day, whereas the other source showed way over 100 reported for that day.

It's most accurate to be looking at prior days, and even then there are issues. If you have a moment go to the WHO Situation Reports (https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease ... n-reports/). Scrolling down an individual PDF, you will come to a chart (at least in recent reports) showing growth in cases outside of China. Notice that currently the growth rate is pretty high, but that it's uneven. There are big days interspersed with two days in a row with very little growth. Why? Almost certainly the issue is the uneven reporting of statistics to WHO.

I noticed in the past, when I was primarily looking at JH, that Johns Hopkins was not completely consistent with their updates. There can be lots of reasons, but if numbers don't make it into their (less frequent) updates in time, it can look like the day was different than it actually was. This is just the nature of the beast. Better off not focusing on individual days, most especially not the current day or previous day.

That Worldometer site updates many times throughout the day, and I have seen several times where you posted a pic of JH from a times after the last time I checked Worldometer and JH showed thousands less cases and hundreds less deaths, not because JH figures were wrong they were just older.

Getting too excited about how good or bad yesterday looked just isn't realistic.