OT: Corona virus

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

An article with an interesting conclusion. https://townhall.com/columnists/marinam ... n-n2566915

"“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks,” Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concluded. The reason why coronavirus follows a fixed pattern is yet unknown. "I have no explanation,” he told Mako, “There are is kinds of speculation: maybe it's climate-related, maybe the virus has its own life cycle.” "

Interesting article. I've seen no comments on it.

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe




Hasn't Italy, especially Northern Italy, have had problems with influenza outbreaks overwhelming the healthcare system?

I think that, with the exception of Germany and the Scandinavian countries, Western European health systems are run on a 'just in time' basis. So they are all vulnerable to spikes in demand - whether it be from a particularly bad flu season or from something like the 2003 heatwave which caused c.35,000 deaths in Europe.

The idea in theory is that if something exceptional happens central government funnels money in to give a short term fix. That's why the Washington projections for the UK went from 60k deaths to 20k deaths - we basically threw a whole load of money and logistics into massively increasing our ICU capacity temporarily.

The Japanese "just in time" system works for automobile manufacturing when you can predict how many Toyota Camry red leather seats you need. It does not work for needed maintenance or upgrades on health care infrastructure which might takes months to install or custom build. It also does not work for vents or PPE when everyone in the world is trying to buy the stuff at the same time.

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

ORIGINAL: Nomad

An article with an interesting conclusion. https://townhall.com/columnists/marinam ... n-n2566915

"“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks,” Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concluded. The reason why coronavirus follows a fixed pattern is yet unknown. "I have no explanation,” he told Mako, “There are is kinds of speculation: maybe it's climate-related, maybe the virus has its own life cycle.” "

Interesting article. I've seen no comments on it.

Yes, quite interesting. It behaves like herd immunity kicking in but it doesn't seem like we have enough immune individuals to account for that. It makes me wonder if existing endemic coronaviruses might confer immunity to a portion of the population.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Just a visual of US uneployment...?

That's unemployment insurance claims though? Is that something that is run by the government or through private insurance? Either way it represents people who have been in stable employment for long enough to be entitled to claim - exactly the demographic that would be worst hit by a sudden heavy change in circumstances like we have now.

In terms of pure unemployment both the US and UK have been gradually tracking down from c. 8% towards the end of 2011 to c.3.5% in late 2019. The OBR forecasts we had for a situation where we had to stay in lockdown into summer had unemployment going up to 10% in the UK.

Going of the same forecasts the thing to look at is not unemployment but reduction in GDP - they were forecasting a drop of 35% which would be a far bigger retraction than any of the recessions of living memory (and worse than the retraction that followed the Spanish Flu epidemic)

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe




Hasn't Italy, especially Northern Italy, have had problems with influenza outbreaks overwhelming the healthcare system?

I think that, with the exception of Germany and the Scandinavian countries, Western European health systems are run on a 'just in time' basis. So they are all vulnerable to spikes in demand - whether it be from a particularly bad flu season or from something like the 2003 heatwave which caused c.35,000 deaths in Europe.

The idea in theory is that if something exceptional happens central government funnels money in to give a short term fix. That's why the Washington projections for the UK went from 60k deaths to 20k deaths - we basically threw a whole load of money and logistics into massively increasing our ICU capacity temporarily.

The Japanese "just in time" system works for automobile manufacturing when you can predict how many Toyota Camry red leather seats you need. It does not work for needed maintenance or upgrades on health care infrastructure which might takes months to install or custom build. It also does not work for vents or PPE when everyone in the world is trying to buy the stuff at the same time.

I don't disagree. From a UK perspective we have tried to have the best of both worlds for too long. If you want a universal health service that is effective all of the time and doesn't rely on government bailouts you have to pay for it like they do in Germany or Scandinavia.

As it is I think that the money that has been thrown into the UK health service has just about done the job. Going off those Washington predictions we have 'just in timed' it soon enough to save c.40,000 lives. The problem will come further down the line when the government comes asking the public to pay the bill as they did here after the 2008 financial crash.

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
Hasn't Italy, especially Northern Italy, have had problems with influenza outbreaks overwhelming the healthcare system?

Not that I'm aware of. Nothing that made the big news, like an emergency, AFAIK.

Italy usually has 2,500,000-3,000,000 flu cases every year, starting in late october and peaking in mid-January. Northern Italy has always more cases than the Mid-South, but it is also more populate and people travel more.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

ORIGINAL: Nomad

An article with an interesting conclusion. https://townhall.com/columnists/marinam ... n-n2566915

"“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks,” Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concluded. The reason why coronavirus follows a fixed pattern is yet unknown. "I have no explanation,” he told Mako, “There are is kinds of speculation: maybe it's climate-related, maybe the virus has its own life cycle.” "

Interesting article. I've seen no comments on it.

For me the problem is that there is no true 'control' population. As far as I am aware the only country that has pretty much said we are going to do nothing is Belarus. Everybody else has taken measures to a lesser or greater extent. I'd suggest that even where the 'official' measures have been less than the norm either in terms of speed or extent of implementation the wider public in those countries have been ahead of the 'political curve' in terms of protecting themselves.

The comparision with those Imperial College predictions is misleading I think - they were predictions of possible mortality if little or no social distancing measures were put in place. Once everybody locked down those predictions would inevitably be way off the mark.

I didn't realise that Professor Ferguson had got it so wrong with BSE/CJD - that was definitely a major goof-up on his part.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
Hasn't Italy, especially Northern Italy, have had problems with influenza outbreaks overwhelming the healthcare system?

Not that I'm aware of. Nothing that made the big news, like an emergency, AFAIK.

Italy usually has 2,500,000-3,000,000 flu cases every year, starting in late october and peaking in mid-January. Northern Italy has always more cases than the Mid-South, but it is also more populate and people travel more.

It's a long way back in this thread now but I remember looking at comparative deaths/1000 people for influenza/pneumonia and Italy and Spain I think were the 2nd and 3rd highest in the world (can't remember which way round). At that time I discounted the link because #1 by a fair way was Japan who have been doing very well compared to elsewhere.

Let me know if you want me to dig up the link - it'll take a fair bit of internet history 'archaeology'!

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
Hasn't Italy, especially Northern Italy, have had problems with influenza outbreaks overwhelming the healthcare system?

Not that I'm aware of. Nothing that made the big news, like an emergency, AFAIK.

Italy usually has 2,500,000-3,000,000 flu cases every year, starting in late october and peaking in mid-January. Northern Italy has always more cases than the Mid-South, but it is also more populate and people travel more.

It's a long way back in this thread now but I remember looking at comparative deaths/1000 people for influenza/pneumonia and Italy and Spain I think were the 2nd and 3rd highest in the world (can't remember which way round). At that time I discounted the link because #1 by a fair way was Japan who have been doing very well compared to elsewhere.

Let me know if you want me to dig up the link - it'll take a fair bit of internet history 'archaeology'!

No, I believe you [;)]

Remember: generally speaking, Italy suffers from an aging population (the second after Japan) amid other factors, so "sick people and deaths by flu" are statistically higher.

What I guess is that this anomaly - being known by Italy's health officials - is already factored in the healthcare budget and planning. The only real scare I remember was SARS in 2003.

I looked at this year's data ("normal flu", no Coronavirus cases): form mid-October to mid-January Italy had 2,768,000 cases. This didn't cause problems to the healthcare infrastructure. The deaths were 240. My data is from mid-January, so the total tally could be higher, but not by much. After this date I fear that the numbers could have become muddled - because the COVID19 emergency really exploded out of nowhere and there was a lot of chaos in classify what was what during those first days...

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69




Not that I'm aware of. Nothing that made the big news, like an emergency, AFAIK.

Italy usually has 2,500,000-3,000,000 flu cases every year, starting in late october and peaking in mid-January. Northern Italy has always more cases than the Mid-South, but it is also more populate and people travel more.

It's a long way back in this thread now but I remember looking at comparative deaths/1000 people for influenza/pneumonia and Italy and Spain I think were the 2nd and 3rd highest in the world (can't remember which way round). At that time I discounted the link because #1 by a fair way was Japan who have been doing very well compared to elsewhere.

Let me know if you want me to dig up the link - it'll take a fair bit of internet history 'archaeology'!

because the COVID19 emergency really exploded out of nowhere and there was a lot of chaos in classify what was what during those first days...

Just picking up on this - Italy deserves a huge amount of credit for how they/you have dealt with this. As far as I can tell you have kept cases and certainly deaths below the equivalents that are being seen in Spain/France/UK. You've managed that without any of the warning that we had having the benefit of looking at what you were dealing with.

[Nomad]

sorry

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive


... I didn't realise that Professor Ferguson had got it so wrong with BSE/CJD - that was definitely a major goof-up on his part.

He has a well established track record of getting it seriously wrong, a fact overlooked by unqualified journalists who just accept any "expert's" mo9delling without looking at the assumptions underpinning any model.

1. 2005, Ferguson claimed bird flu could claim up to 200 million. Result was 282 world wide deaths between 2003 and 2009.

2. 2009, the claim was swine flu had a fatality rate of 0.3 to 1.5%. He/Imperial College settled for a 0.4% rate which fed into a UK government estimate of 65,000 UK deaths. Actual result was 457 UK deaths, a rate of 0.026% 9f those infected.

3. 2001, their modelling of foot and mouth disease led to UK government policy which cost the UK 10 billion pounds. The modelling was strongly criticised as being severely flawed by Michael Thrusfield, professor of veterinary epidemiology at Edinburgh University.

4. 2002, their modelling expected 50 to 50,000 people dying from mad cow disease, increasing to 150,000 if there was also a sheep epidemic. Result is 177 UK deaths.

5. Nor is their current COVID-19 modelling far from being generally accepted as being accurate. Besides the Oxford study which produces quite different results, Professor John Ioamidis of Stanford University has commented that some of the major assumptions and estimated seem to be substantially inflated.

None of this is surprising when it is realised (as disclosed by Ferguson on 22 March 2020) that their model is based on undocumented 13 year old computer code written for an influenza pandemic, not a coronavirus pandemic. IOW the model is not available for peer review nor does it fully incorporate the specific characteristics of the current pandemic.

Alfred

[RangerJoe]

Finland puts brakes on EU unemployment scheme
Helsinki has concerns about how much it could have to pay into the SURE scheme.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented SURE two weeks ago as a tool to support countries worst-hit by the coronavirus crisis. The Commission and the Croatian presidency of the Council of the EU had pushed for the instrument to be adopted next week as a sign of EU solidarity and financial support ahead of a videoconference of EU leaders next Thursday.

Although SURE could theoretically be adopted by a two-thirds majority of EU countries, in practice it needs approval from all countries because they have to issue financial guarantees to the Commission to make the scheme work.

According to two diplomats, Kulmuni on Thursday urged her EU partners not to adopt SURE against Finland's will, warning this could have implications on the Finnish parliament's readiness to approve the required guarantees.

SURE requires countries to put up €25 billion in guarantees so the Commission can issue debt of up to €100 billion on capital markets and distribute loans for aid to employers that would otherwise lay off workers.
.
.
.
This raised fears that if other countries were to delay their payments, or even renounce on them, then Helsinki might need to shoulder a much higher financial burden.

https://www.politico.eu/article/finland ... nt-scheme/

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

ORIGINAL: Nomad

An article with an interesting conclusion. https://townhall.com/columnists/marinam ... n-n2566915

"“Is the coronavirus expansion exponential? The answer by the numbers is simple: no. Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks,” Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concluded. The reason why coronavirus follows a fixed pattern is yet unknown. "I have no explanation,” he told Mako, “There are is kinds of speculation: maybe it's climate-related, maybe the virus has its own life cycle.” "

Interesting article. I've seen no comments on it.

I checked out his support page, and from what I could discern (not being able to read Hebrew) is that he's using Sweden as a prime example of how the virus curve will "flatten" after eight weeks regardless of lockdown or not.

Sweden is not doing nothing. A lot is open, but not everything, and the government is acting on it's knowledge of the social awareness and responsibility of its citizens (usually remarkably good in Northern European countries) to reduce virus transmission.

Polling suggests many Swedes continue to support the government’s strategy, which has entailed urging citizens to take personal responsibility for following physical distancing guidelines rather than strictly enforcing mandatory rules.

While authorities have closed senior high schools and banned gatherings of more than 50 people, they have asked – rather than ordered – people to avoid non-essential travel, work from home and stay indoors if they are over 70 or are feeling ill.

Statistics show roughly half the Swedish workforce is now working from home, public transport usage has fallen by 50% in Stockholm and the capital’s streets are about 70% less busy than usual – but Swedes are still able to shop, go to restaurants, get haircuts and send children under 16 to class even if a family member is ill.

They still have a much higher rate of infection than neighbouring countries that did have lockdowns.

So I don't really think this article (from a non-peer reviewed study) in a news source that is debatably fairly extreme in its viewpoint (article on how the "Kennedy matriarch named her dog Che after Che Guevarra) will be something I'd hang my hat on as a milepost in this pandemic.

[obvert]

This is interesting. Not peer reviewed. From Stanford.

Actual numbers of cases might be 50 to 85 times more than indicated from testing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ly-thought

Just for kicks, if that is true in the US it would be 35,344,000 to 60,084,800 as of today's numbers!!! [X(]

In the UK that would be 5,434,600 to 9,238,820! [X(][X(]

So that Oxford study stating 5 million might have already been infected a few weeks ago might not be as far off as it seemed then.

[Cap Mandrake]

Santa Clara County, Calif. prevalence estimate using serologies was between 1.8 and 5.8% (95% CI). The study ended on April 1 so it would presumably be higher now.

In any event, it was 60-80x higher than the reported cases based on nasal swab PCR testing.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... ht3lBZyMgA

1000 positive by PCR out of about 5000 sailors aboard Roosevelt...that's about 20%

The stuff is contagious as Hell and the mild/asymptomatic cases are HUGE. Why are there so few new cases in Wuhan?

1) Either the Chicoms are lying

2) Everyone there already had the damn thing

3) They have achieved herd immunity

[mind_messing]

None of this is surprising when it is realised (as disclosed by Ferguson on 22 March 2020) that their model is based on undocumented 13 year old computer code written for an influenza pandemic, not a coronavirus pandemic. IOW the model is not available for peer review nor does it fully incorporate the specific characteristics of the current pandemic.

That got a few raised eyebrows when he revealed that. Given the tools for collaboration online, especially in coding, that was something of a suprise.

That said, I can appreciate why having bad code now is better than perfect code in three weeks time.

This is why you should always comment your code people!

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Just a visual of US uneployment...?

That's unemployment insurance claims though? Is that something that is run by the government or through private insurance? Either way it represents people who have been in stable employment for long enough to be entitled to claim - exactly the demographic that would be worst hit by a sudden heavy change in circumstances like we have now.

In terms of pure unemployment both the US and UK have been gradually tracking down from c. 8% towards the end of 2011 to c.3.5% in late 2019. The OBR forecasts we had for a situation where we had to stay in lockdown into summer had unemployment going up to 10% in the UK.

Going of the same forecasts the thing to look at is not unemployment but reduction in GDP - they were forecasting a drop of 35% which would be a far bigger retraction than any of the recessions of living memory (and worse than the retraction that followed the Spanish Flu epidemic)

Private insurance has no role in providing unemployment benefits. They are provided by states and backstopped by the federal government. 'Insurance' is what it is presented to the people as representing.

[Cap Mandrake]

Man there is some good news evolving.

--Remdesivir seems to work for severe cases
--We AREN'T Going to run out of vents
--The number of mild cases means we can achieve some form of herd immunity sooner than expected
--Maybe we can halt the economic damage before we are mud gatherers

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: obvert

This is interesting. Not peer reviewed. From Stanford.

Actual numbers of cases might be 50 to 85 times more than indicated from testing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ly-thought

Just for kicks, if that is true in the US it would be 35,344,000 to 60,084,800 as of today's numbers!!! [X(]

In the UK that would be 5,434,600 to 9,238,820! [X(][X(]

So that Oxford study stating 5 million might have already been infected a few weeks ago might not be as far off as it seemed then.

I don't find this to be in any way as surprising as you seem to.
Aren't something like 80% of cases exhibiting almost no symptoms?

40m people with no symptoms are not gonna freak out over having it.