Coronavirus Thread. Virus v humans

[Clogs]

I am sure well all hope that is the case, as that would be great.

But look at the Korean data. Look at the death rates there. The Korean data is probably the most accurate data we have right now due to the range and scope of their testing. Their death rate is 1.4%. 13.6% in those over 80, 6.4% in those over 70, 1.7% in those over 60. Those are not numbers to just wave away.

Australia's scope of testing has been pretty sound...

Over 180 000 tests (might be the most per capita)
3 000 confirmed
13 deaths

[Clogs]

Antibody tests are going to be very interesting. We don't know how many people are asymptomatic carriers who never show symptoms. Even with Korea's widespread testing, it's more for people who think they either have it or have been exposed to someone who has it. There may be many more who are asymptomatic carriers who never knew they had it in the first place. Still, that's not something we can bank on for policy.

Yep. I think that is what the Oxford study is trying to find out. They have apparently got funding to get testing underway too. Fingers crossed it is very contagious (doubles every 3 days), 99.99% of infections are in fact mild and we can all practice sensible social distancing and hand washing in order to reduce the spread. Herd immunity would build up over a month or two and we are out of the woods.

[Sensible Stephen]

I am sure well all hope that is the case, as that would be great.

But look at the Korean data. Look at the death rates there. The Korean data is probably the most accurate data we have right now due to the range and scope of their testing. Their death rate is 1.4%. 13.6% in those over 80, 6.4% in those over 70, 1.7% in those over 60. Those are not numbers to just wave away.

Australia's scope of testing has been pretty sound...

Over 180 000 tests (might be the most per capita)
3 000 confirmed
13 deaths

Its not the most per capita. Koreas number is 6k/million, UAE 12.7k/million, Australia 4k/million. Korea did mass testing when the numbers were low and testing far and wide. Australia has only just ramped up testing with the number of cases already being quite large.

Australia is early days. The death rate really seems to rocket once the hospitals become overwhelmed, lets hope that doesn't happen.

[Clogs]

I am sure well all hope that is the case, as that would be great.

But look at the Korean data. Look at the death rates there. The Korean data is probably the most accurate data we have right now due to the range and scope of their testing. Their death rate is 1.4%. 13.6% in those over 80, 6.4% in those over 70, 1.7% in those over 60. Those are not numbers to just wave away.

Australia's scope of testing has been pretty sound...

Over 180 000 tests (might be the most per capita)
3 000 confirmed
13 deaths

Its not the most per capita. Koreas number is 6k/million, UAE 12.7k/million, Australia 4k/million. Korea did mass testing when the numbers were low and testing far and wide. Australia has only just ramped up testing with the number of cases already being quite large.

Australia is early days. The death rate really seems to rocket once the hospitals become overwhelmed, lets hope that doesn't happen.

On this point we totally agree. Let's hope. It is interesting to note the number of cases per day seems to be dropping, so we may have gotten ahead of it..?

[Sensible Stephen]

Antibody tests are going to be very interesting. We don't know how many people are asymptomatic carriers who never show symptoms. Even with Korea's widespread testing, it's more for people who think they either have it or have been exposed to someone who has it. There may be many more who are asymptomatic carriers who never knew they had it in the first place. Still, that's not something we can bank on for policy.

Yep. I think that is what the Oxford study is trying to find out. They have apparently got funding to get testing underway too. Fingers crossed it is very contagious (doubles every 3 days), 99.99% of infections are in fact mild and we can all practice sensible social distancing and hand washing in order to reduce the spread. Herd immunity would build up over a month or two and we are out of the woods.

I hope that is the case, but an overly cautious approach is far more sensible until we can do the wide ranging testing. And hopefully have those anti viral drugs going to stop severe cases in their tracks.

So far, not too bad for Australia. Lets hope the death rate stays low.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/healt ... f3630d1030

[Sensible Stephen]

On this point we totally agree. Let's hope. It is interesting to note the number of cases per day seems to be dropping, so we may have gotten ahead of it..?

That would be nice. I went out yesterday to get a flu jab. The Adelaide central markets were packed, zero social isolating going on. 95% of the people would have been 60+ as well.

I think the number of cases in SA is 250ish. Definitely not peaked here, and a lot of scope for community transmission through those dumbass boomers.

[Clogs]

On this point we totally agree. Let's hope. It is interesting to note the number of cases per day seems to be dropping, so we may have gotten ahead of it..?

That would be nice. I went out yesterday to get a flu jab. The Adelaide central markets were packed, zero social isolating going on. 95% of the people would have been 60+ as well.

I think the number of cases in SA is 250ish. Definitely not peaked here, and a lot of scope for community transmission through those dumbass boomers.

WTF? Are South Australians really as thick as Queenslanders?

[paddyor]

Interesting tid bit. My friend works as a doctor in a Kent hospital. She says that they still have no masks/PPE. SO the command is do not resuscitate, because doing so could leave the recovered patient coffin out viral particles over non-protected staff. I wondering why haven't the hospitals got their PPE yet? The government claim they have been distributing it all week.

Also the the doctors who are working on the Coronavirus the longest have become seriously ill with it. The new thinking is while the old are most vulnerable for the young it's the volume of viral particles you absorb that matters. Which might be bad for NHS staff.

I think the viral load theory has been debunked as of a few days ago. I'm not digging it out though.

WRT masks and other PPE. Surgeons don't wear them to protect themselves from patients, it's the other way around. Mask offer some protection vice versa but they wear them in Japan when they've a sniffle to protect others.

[OptimisticJock]

Interesting tid bit. My friend works as a doctor in a Kent hospital. She says that they still have no masks/PPE. SO the command is do not resuscitate, because doing so could leave the recovered patient coffin out viral particles over non-protected staff. I wondering why haven't the hospitals got their PPE yet? The government claim they have been distributing it all week.

Also the the doctors who are working on the Coronavirus the longest have become seriously ill with it. The new thinking is while the old are most vulnerable for the young it's the volume of viral particles you absorb that matters. Which might be bad for NHS staff.

I mentioned this pages ago. It's not quite DNR but no ventilations are to be carried out unless everyone has the correct PPE.

[paddyor]

Interesting tid bit. My friend works as a doctor in a Kent hospital. She says that they still have no masks/PPE. SO the command is do not resuscitate, because doing so could leave the recovered patient coffin out viral particles over non-protected staff. I wondering why haven't the hospitals got their PPE yet? The government claim they have been distributing it all week.

Also the the doctors who are working on the Coronavirus the longest have become seriously ill with it. The new thinking is while the old are most vulnerable for the young it's the volume of viral particles you absorb that matters. Which might be bad for NHS staff.

Viral load. I was reading a paper on this earlier. Seems to be the case that the heavier the exposure the heavier the illness in respect of things like SARS, CV, etc. Makes sense I suppose. Although I have to admit, I’d previously thought from what I’d been hearing that a fleeting brush against an infected door handle was every bit as dangerous as a pair of infectees coughing in your face for ten minutes. Apparently not so clearcut. Grey areas.

Door handle -> touching face = you get infected.

How badly you handle being infected is down to a number of factors, not all of which are understood it seems, but increasing the viral load simply makes it harder for your body to fight it.

Which is why if you're sharing a place with someone, if they get sick you shouldn't just go "oh well I guess I'll be getting it" - you have to try and isolate them because if you do get sick, the two of you do not want to be increasing the viral load for each other.

That's not defo true. There's a lot of face to touch without injesting the virus and you need to transfer the cirus from your hand to face. It's not a bateria that will multiply and spread. THe primary driver outside imtimate relationships is people coughing and sneezing in enclosed areas.

[MrJonno]

With regards to the numbers I think a lot of people are taking a rather simplistic approach. Recently a man in his 90s in the Czech Republic who had numerous underlying health issues, was clining on to life and expected to expire any minute, caught covid 19 and then 'moved on'. There was some debate as to whether he should be considered a covid fatality and the medical consensus was he shouldn't because he was dying this week regardless of whether he caught it or not, and also, the official cause of death was one of his other major issues, but tin foil hat wearers are crying conspiracy (much like some on here with the German figures based on news stories and no further understanding).

As this affects the old and sweeps through hospitals there are going to be some people specifically killed by C19 but there are presumably going to be a not insignificant number of people who catch it and then die of whatever they were in there for in the first place, possibly at little earlier than otherwise expected but sometimes, presumably not.

It must be reasonably straight forward to account of the number of deaths that would be expected to occur without covid, for example, there must be a rough figure for how many elderly people are expected to die from flu, if the current number is half that I think it is a little disingenous to discount that in terms of the effect C19 is having on society.

The problem is with everyone on lock down there is no other news so the media are focusing on this and for some reason feel vindicated if they sensationalise something and then finish with a piece of people clapping nurses

[goeagles]

Way to miss the obvious sarcastic point.

What is it about exponential growth that you're not getting?

Well there is exponential growth up to a limit. In the ridiculous example I provided, I was trying to show that simply applying exponential growth to this problem is not how it works. If it did then all of America would be dead and 3 Billion more Americans would need intensive care...

Viruses follow logistic growth curves. Logistic curves are very close to exponential growth in early stages, which we still are in as a very low percentage of people have actually caught the virus.

Are you sure?

The epidemic started in China sometime in November or December. The first confirmed U.S. cases included a person who traveled from Wuhan on Jan. 15, and it is likely that the virus entered before that: Tens of thousands of people traveled from Wuhan to the U.S. in December. Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infectio

Dr. Bendavid and Dr. Bhattacharya are professors of medicine at Stanford. Neeraj Sood contributed to this article

Some very smart people seem to think the infection rate is actually quite high...

Had a little more time to think this through. Ignore the fact that spread is not evenly distributed (superspreaders make the distribution fat tailed), that their seed 2 weeks prior to first confirmed case is pulled out of thin air (which has a huge impact on their calculations), that growth is logistic not exponential or that the two week lag between initial infection and death is not only pulled out of thin air but doesn't make much sense from what we've heard.

Let's use their same exact methodology for Italy as they've used for the US. The first confirmed case in Italy was on January 31. So let's go back 2 weeks and make the seed case on January 17th. If we double the number of cases every 3 days until March 2nd, we get 32,768 cases. And if we use their 2 week lag between infection and death, we would use the number of deaths on March 16th, which was 2158. If we use their same methodology, even with all of its spurious assumptions, we get a death rate of 6.59%!

You can play around with those numbers and changes in assumptions (date of first seed case, average length from initial infection to death) make huge differences. If you change the average time from death to infection from 14 days to 23 days, you get a death rate of 25.07% in Italy, all else held constant, which is obviously bullshit. So is the death rate 6.59% in Italy and 0.01% in the US using their methodology. It makes no sense.

[goeagles]

With regards to the numbers I think a lot of people are taking a rather simplistic approach. Recently a man in his 90s in the Czech Republic who had numerous underlying health issues, was clining on to life and expected to expire any minute, caught covid 19 and then 'moved on'. There was some debate as to whether he should be considered a covid fatality and the medical consensus was he shouldn't because he was dying this week regardless of whether he caught it or not, and also, the official cause of death was one of his other major issues, but tin foil hat wearers are crying conspiracy (much like some on here with the German figures based on news stories and no further understanding).

As this affects the old and sweeps through hospitals there are going to be some people specifically killed by C19 but there are presumably going to be a not insignificant number of people who catch it and then die of whatever they were in there for in the first place, possibly at little earlier than otherwise expected but sometimes, presumably not.

It must be reasonably straight forward to account of the number of deaths that would be expected to occur without covid, for example, there must be a rough figure for how many elderly people are expected to die from flu, if the current number is half that I think it is a little disingenous to discount that in terms of the effect C19 is having on society.

The problem is with everyone on lock down there is no other news so the media are focusing on this and for some reason feel vindicated if they sensationalise something and then finish with a piece of people clapping nurses

The COVID-19 official count also does not include people who die from other diseases because hospitals are overloaded and can't get adequate care as a result. When a heart attack patient who would have lived under normal conditions has to wait 2 hours and dies, that doesn't count in the COVID-19 stats.

[Anonymous 1]

Found out yesterday a friend of mines whole family got infected. That's wife two adult kids and the ancient in laws. They were self isolating at the in laws property with huge stock of food thinking everyone was healthy. Then one by one they all got a bit sick. Luckily the ancient in laws with all sorts of underlying health conditions are well enough to look after the rest of them.

[frillage]

Found out yesterday a friend of mines whole family got infected. That's wife two adult kids and the ancient in laws. They were self isolating at the in laws property with huge stock of food thinking everyone was healthy. Then one by one they all got a bit sick. Luckily the ancient in laws with all sorts of underlying health conditions are well enough to look after the rest of them.

That’s one way to get rid of the mother in law, straight out of Globbies playbook.

[Clogs]

Well there is exponential growth up to a limit. In the ridiculous example I provided, I was trying to show that simply applying exponential growth to this problem is not how it works. If it did then all of America would be dead and 3 Billion more Americans would need intensive care...

Viruses follow logistic growth curves. Logistic curves are very close to exponential growth in early stages, which we still are in as a very low percentage of people have actually caught the virus.

Are you sure?

The epidemic started in China sometime in November or December. The first confirmed U.S. cases included a person who traveled from Wuhan on Jan. 15, and it is likely that the virus entered before that: Tens of thousands of people traveled from Wuhan to the U.S. in December. Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infectio

Dr. Bendavid and Dr. Bhattacharya are professors of medicine at Stanford. Neeraj Sood contributed to this article

Some very smart people seem to think the infection rate is actually quite high...

Had a little more time to think this through. Ignore the fact that spread is not evenly distributed (superspreaders make the distribution fat tailed), that their seed 2 weeks prior to first confirmed case is pulled out of thin air (which has a huge impact on their calculations), that growth is logistic not exponential or that the two week lag between initial infection and death is not only pulled out of thin air but doesn't make much sense from what we've heard.

Let's use their same exact methodology for Italy as they've used for the US. The first confirmed case in Italy was on January 31. So let's go back 2 weeks and make the seed case on January 17th. If we double the number of cases every 3 days until March 2nd, we get 32,768 cases. And if we use their 2 week lag between infection and death, we would use the number of deaths on March 16th, which was 2158. If we use their same methodology, even with all of its spurious assumptions, we get a death rate of 6.59%!

You can play around with those numbers and changes in assumptions (date of first seed case, average length from initial infection to death) make huge differences. If you change the average time from death to infection from 14 days to 23 days, you get a death rate of 25.07% in Italy, all else held constant, which is obviously bullshit. So is the death rate 6.59% in Italy and 0.01% in the US using their methodology. It makes no sense.

I think where you are getting to is that the first case in Italy was way way before the 31st of Jan. Even way before the 15th of Jan.


Some high tech Photoshop work to visually demonstrate...




Based on this superb photoshop, the blue is what people think is the infected rate (largely due to testing) but the red and blue is the actual because the seed case was way way earlier than detected. Italy's death rate much higher because their seed date was so much earlier. Same for Spain. South Korea got onto it early, as it appears has NZ and hopefully Australia.


Reverese engineer a 0.1% death rate and you get the infected rate. Reverse engineer a 1% death rate and you can get the infected rate. You constant (and accurately measured) is the death rate. At 0.1% reverse engineered it show Italy was massively infected. We will know if this was true if their total number of deaths start dropping (is it because of isolation or because they actually suffered such a high infection rate withouth knowing). I tend to think their population was massively infected hence the high total deaths relative to other countries. Sadly that may play out for the US before they turn the corner because even a 0.1% death rate on a hugely infected population is tens of thousands dead...

[MrJonno]

With regards to the numbers I think a lot of people are taking a rather simplistic approach. Recently a man in his 90s in the Czech Republic who had numerous underlying health issues, was clining on to life and expected to expire any minute, caught covid 19 and then 'moved on'. There was some debate as to whether he should be considered a covid fatality and the medical consensus was he shouldn't because he was dying this week regardless of whether he caught it or not, and also, the official cause of death was one of his other major issues, but tin foil hat wearers are crying conspiracy (much like some on here with the German figures based on news stories and no further understanding).

As this affects the old and sweeps through hospitals there are going to be some people specifically killed by C19 but there are presumably going to be a not insignificant number of people who catch it and then die of whatever they were in there for in the first place, possibly at little earlier than otherwise expected but sometimes, presumably not.

It must be reasonably straight forward to account of the number of deaths that would be expected to occur without covid, for example, there must be a rough figure for how many elderly people are expected to die from flu, if the current number is half that I think it is a little disingenous to discount that in terms of the effect C19 is having on society.

The problem is with everyone on lock down there is no other news so the media are focusing on this and for some reason feel vindicated if they sensationalise something and then finish with a piece of people clapping nurses

The COVID-19 official count also does not include people who die from other diseases because hospitals are overloaded and can't get adequate care as a result. When a heart attack patient who would have lived under normal conditions has to wait 2 hours and dies, that doesn't count in the COVID-19 stats.

Same principle in reverse can be used to account for these**

** I'm not suggesting it should be done in real time as there are obviously more important things to worry about

[goeagles]

I think where you are getting to is that the first case in Italy was way way before the 31st of Jan. Even way before the 15th of Jan.


Some high tech Photoshop work to visually demonstrate...

No, what I’m getting at is that their methodology is garbage. Ignoring fat tailed distributions due to superspreaders will completely screw up your growth as the amount of superspreaders early on greatly impacts how fast things grow. It’s even possible that the first seed never causes an outbreak and requires later seeds due to low R0.

But want the easiest example that their 0.01% number, and transitively their methodology, is nonsense? More than 0.01% of the entire population of Italy has already died.

[goeagles]

With regards to the numbers I think a lot of people are taking a rather simplistic approach. Recently a man in his 90s in the Czech Republic who had numerous underlying health issues, was clining on to life and expected to expire any minute, caught covid 19 and then 'moved on'. There was some debate as to whether he should be considered a covid fatality and the medical consensus was he shouldn't because he was dying this week regardless of whether he caught it or not, and also, the official cause of death was one of his other major issues, but tin foil hat wearers are crying conspiracy (much like some on here with the German figures based on news stories and no further understanding).

As this affects the old and sweeps through hospitals there are going to be some people specifically killed by C19 but there are presumably going to be a not insignificant number of people who catch it and then die of whatever they were in there for in the first place, possibly at little earlier than otherwise expected but sometimes, presumably not.

It must be reasonably straight forward to account of the number of deaths that would be expected to occur without covid, for example, there must be a rough figure for how many elderly people are expected to die from flu, if the current number is half that I think it is a little disingenous to discount that in terms of the effect C19 is having on society.

The problem is with everyone on lock down there is no other news so the media are focusing on this and for some reason feel vindicated if they sensationalise something and then finish with a piece of people clapping nurses

The COVID-19 official count also does not include people who die from other diseases because hospitals are overloaded and can't get adequate care as a result. When a heart attack patient who would have lived under normal conditions has to wait 2 hours and dies, that doesn't count in the COVID-19 stats.

Same principle in reverse can be used to account for these**

** I'm not suggesting it should be done in real time as there are obviously more important things to worry about

Look at the total deaths for a week for a region with an outbreak and compare to that same week’s average over the last 5 years. Small sample size, but something like this:

[Clogs]

I think where you are getting to is that the first case in Italy was way way before the 31st of Jan. Even way before the 15th of Jan.


Some high tech Photoshop work to visually demonstrate...

No, what I’m getting at is that their methodology is garbage. Ignoring fat tailed distributions due to superspreaders will completely screw up your growth as the amount of superspreaders early on greatly impacts how fast things grow. It’s even possible that the first seed never causes an outbreak and requires later seeds due to low R0.

But want the easiest example that their 0.01% number, and transitively their methodology, is nonsense? More than 0.01% of the entire population of Italy has already died.

60 million people in Italy and 8 000 deaths?

[goeagles]

I think where you are getting to is that the first case in Italy was way way before the 31st of Jan. Even way before the 15th of Jan.


Some high tech Photoshop work to visually demonstrate...

No, what I’m getting at is that their methodology is garbage. Ignoring fat tailed distributions due to superspreaders will completely screw up your growth as the amount of superspreaders early on greatly impacts how fast things grow. It’s even possible that the first seed never causes an outbreak and requires later seeds due to low R0.

But want the easiest example that their 0.01% number, and transitively their methodology, is nonsense? More than 0.01% of the entire population of Italy has already died.

60 million people in Italy and 8 000 deaths?

Yes that is .013%

[Clogs]

No, what I’m getting at is that their methodology is garbage. Ignoring fat tailed distributions due to superspreaders will completely screw up your growth as the amount of superspreaders early on greatly impacts how fast things grow. It’s even possible that the first seed never causes an outbreak and requires later seeds due to low R0.

But want the easiest example that their 0.01% number, and transitively their methodology, is nonsense? More than 0.01% of the entire population of Italy has already died.

60 million people in Italy and 8 000 deaths?

Yes that is .013%

Are you sure?

[pigaaaa]

Rudy W. Giuliani
@RudyGiuliani

“Approximately 7500 people die every day in the United States. That’s approximately 645,000 people so far this year. Coronavirus has killed about 1,000 Americans this year. Just a little perspective.”

He should have said that after 9/11...

[goeagles]

No, what I’m getting at is that their methodology is garbage. Ignoring fat tailed distributions due to superspreaders will completely screw up your growth as the amount of superspreaders early on greatly impacts how fast things grow. It’s even possible that the first seed never causes an outbreak and requires later seeds due to low R0.

But want the easiest example that their 0.01% number, and transitively their methodology, is nonsense? More than 0.01% of the entire population of Italy has already died.

60 million people in Italy and 8 000 deaths?

Yes that is .013%

Are you sure?

Yes, unless I somehow screwed up a decimal point on my phone.

[pigaaaa]

Surreal and emotional seeing / hearing all my neighbours clapping and cheering the NHS tonight.

It’s similar in Poland. Quite funny too when you remember that just a few short months ago the nurses went striking the same people were saying they should fudge off to private sector if they don’t like it.

[Clogs]

No, what I’m getting at is that their methodology is garbage. Ignoring fat tailed distributions due to superspreaders will completely screw up your growth as the amount of superspreaders early on greatly impacts how fast things grow. It’s even possible that the first seed never causes an outbreak and requires later seeds due to low R0.

But want the easiest example that their 0.01% number, and transitively their methodology, is nonsense? More than 0.01% of the entire population of Italy has already died.

60 million people in Italy and 8 000 deaths?

Yes that is .013%

Are you sure?

Yes, unless I somehow screwed up a decimal point on my phone.

No you didn't. I did.

All of which means the death rate is closer to 0.1% than 0.01% and probably closer to 1%. Which may be skewed because they were 'swamped'?

[message #2527204]

I think where you are getting to is that the first case in Italy was way way before the 31st of Jan. Even way before the 15th of Jan.


Some high tech Photoshop work to visually demonstrate...




Based on this superb photoshop, the blue is what people think is the infected rate (largely due to testing) but the red and blue is the actual because the seed case was way way earlier than detected. Italy's death rate much higher because their seed date was so much earlier. Same for Spain. South Korea got onto it early, as it appears has NZ and hopefully Australia.


Reverese engineer a 0.1% death rate and you get the infected rate. Reverse engineer a 1% death rate and you can get the infected rate. You constant (and accurately measured) is the death rate. At 0.1% reverse engineered it show Italy was massively infected. We will know if this was true if their total number of deaths start dropping (is it because of isolation or because they actually suffered such a high infection rate withouth knowing). I tend to think their population was massively infected hence the high total deaths relative to other countries. Sadly that may play out for the US before they turn the corner because even a 0.1% death rate on a hugely infected population is tens of thousands dead...

It was fairly devious of the virus to only infect people who would be asymptomatic for a month or so, before starting to infect the others.

[Blake]

First 2 deaths in South Africa, just as our 21 day lockdown starts.

Still many people not getting how serious this is going to get. Partying until midnight and counting down the curfew like new yours. Mother fuckers.

[Leffe]

I feel like once this is over, we should allocate nationality not on geographical birth place, but whether you listened to scientists or not. All the party YOLO types can fudge off somewhere else and people that listened to scientists and followed their advice can live here. We'll have burgundy coloured passports and they can have blue ones.

[Sensible Stephen]

I feel like once this is over, we should allocate nationality not on geographical birth place, but whether you listened to scientists or not. All the party YOLO types can fudge off somewhere else and people that listened to scientists and followed their advice can live here. We'll have burgundy coloured passports and they can have blue ones.

okkkkaaayyyy

Yeah, this is just another version of only people with an IQ of 140+ should be allowed to make decisions/vote/run the country.

Its bullshit. Either you let everyone have a voice, or no one.

[MrJonno]

With regards to the numbers I think a lot of people are taking a rather simplistic approach. Recently a man in his 90s in the Czech Republic who had numerous underlying health issues, was clining on to life and expected to expire any minute, caught covid 19 and then 'moved on'. There was some debate as to whether he should be considered a covid fatality and the medical consensus was he shouldn't because he was dying this week regardless of whether he caught it or not, and also, the official cause of death was one of his other major issues, but tin foil hat wearers are crying conspiracy (much like some on here with the German figures based on news stories and no further understanding).

As this affects the old and sweeps through hospitals there are going to be some people specifically killed by C19 but there are presumably going to be a not insignificant number of people who catch it and then die of whatever they were in there for in the first place, possibly at little earlier than otherwise expected but sometimes, presumably not.

It must be reasonably straight forward to account of the number of deaths that would be expected to occur without covid, for example, there must be a rough figure for how many elderly people are expected to die from flu, if the current number is half that I think it is a little disingenous to discount that in terms of the effect C19 is having on society.

The problem is with everyone on lock down there is no other news so the media are focusing on this and for some reason feel vindicated if they sensationalise something and then finish with a piece of people clapping nurses

The COVID-19 official count also does not include people who die from other diseases because hospitals are overloaded and can't get adequate care as a result. When a heart attack patient who would have lived under normal conditions has to wait 2 hours and dies, that doesn't count in the COVID-19 stats.

Same principle in reverse can be used to account for these**

** I'm not suggesting it should be done in real time as there are obviously more important things to worry about

Look at the total deaths for a week for a region with an outbreak and compare to that same week’s average over the last 5 years. Small sample size, but something like this:

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You have to be able to be dispassionate and rational when considering and talking about something like this so you can identify potential overestimates of the effects.... and when you find out it is the opposite of what you thought it might be THEN you can sh1t yourself and panic.

As you say, small sample but a bit worrying.

[6.Jones]

It's not 'people' listening to scientists that's been the problem here, but states. There seems to have been a low level of civil disobedience when states have set limits. People express their disdain by singing from balconies. When Australia actually closed the beaches, instead of 'recommending' people not go to beaches the beaches were empty. We have laws for occasions like these.

States are a more complex problem. Governments have to balance economics with health. Unfortunately, politicians by and large don't have the skills to make that assessment. When presented with conflicting opinions, they 'choose'. That's a problem. May as well toss a coin, or get Olly the Octopus out of retirement.

Case in point. Scotty from Marketing does not have the skills to adjudicate a scientific debate. So he prevaricates. He chooses the course of least action until the numbers demand action, when a pandemic demands action based on what the numbers will be in two weeks.

A deer in the headlights isn't a prudent deer. It's a fcuking deer.

[Sensible Stephen]

I feel like once this is over, we should allocate nationality not on geographical birth place, but whether you listened to scientists or not. All the party YOLO types can fudge off somewhere else and people that listened to scientists and followed their advice can live here. We'll have burgundy coloured passports and they can have blue ones.

okkkkaaayyyy

Yeah, this is just another version of only people with an IQ of 140+ should be allowed to make decisions/vote/run the country.

Its bullshit. Either you let everyone have a voice, or no one.

I don't think that's really the problem we face - it more seems to be only people with an IQ of 105 - 120 and a twitter account should be able to vote - that increasingly seems to be the media / information culture we live in.

To be fair, in Australia it doesn't matter. All electable options are a joke. Has been that way for almost a decade with a few exceptions.

Turnbull could have been good, but the far right hated him.

[Duff Paddy]

First 2 deaths in South Africa, just as our 21 day lockdown starts.

Still many people not getting how serious this is going to get. Partying until midnight and counting down the curfew like new yours. Mother fuckers.

It really is incredible the stupidity of mankind. Like each country in the line of dominos and still some people refuse to believe what is coming down the line

[DragsterDriver]

I feel like once this is over, we should allocate nationality not on geographical birth place, but whether you listened to scientists or not. All the party YOLO types can fudge off somewhere else and people that listened to scientists and followed their advice can live here. We'll have burgundy coloured passports and they can have blue ones.

Get back on the barge drinking you loon

[deadduck]

It was fairly devious of the virus to only infect people who would be asymptomatic for a month or so, before starting to infect the others.

You wouldn't have to be asymptomatic. Just mild enough not to seek medical treatment and normal enough symptoms that you would not attribute it to an exotic virus

[eldanielfire]

It's starting to be a sport to find those going on TV or the papers insulting various government responses to the virus are finding their own positions early on don't stand up to scrutiny.

Speaking on BBQT Richard Horton said:
“This is a national scandal. We knew in the last week of Jan that this was coming. The message from china was absolutely clear that a new virus with pandemic potential was hitting cities”
Odd, because he tweeted this in the last week of Jan:

[CM11]

The argument that the mortality rate might only be 0.1%, like flu, ignores the fact that because of the flu vaccine not everyone, particularly the vulnerable, gets it. So 0.1% flu mortality rate actually equates to less than 0.01% of deaths worldwide. It would take the flu 10-20 years to kill as many people as covid, using a 0.1% rate for covid.

Now that's simplistic too because not everyone will get covid but a lot more will than flu this year.

And that's before we get to people dying because they don't have access to a ventilator.

[Raggs]

If this was far more transmissible than thought, and already in half the population, a lot more of the tests run would have come back positive. Whilst some mayhave already got over it so not test positive, a huge number should have still been well within the range of a positive test.

[Double]

It was fairly devious of the virus to only infect people who would be asymptomatic for a month or so, before starting to infect the others.

You wouldn't have to be asymptomatic. Just mild enough not to seek medical treatment and normal enough symptoms that you would not attribute it to an exotic virus

Yeah. Most virulent virus outbreaks are eventually found to be seeded long before the first cases are diagnosed. Covid would be very unusual for being so infectious and not following that pattern.