Wuhan coronavirus

[Essjayess 307]

Those are interesting stats Surfer, 50,000 deaths is of course a high number, sad indeed. But that figure did not say 50,000 flu deaths but 50,000 excess winter deaths, whatever that covers. I presume it includes all manner of Bronchial, respiratory and other illnesses. that Nick Stripe did say the high number increase was due to the predominant strain of flu.

There is no doubting that the Virus has the capability to be the cause of many thousands of deaths over the coming months, how many no one can say,will also be difficult to compare it with seasonal Winter totals as this virus will be likely at its peak between mid Spring to early Summer, maybe even longer than that. The virus itself also seems to have no relevance itself to cold or heat, any variations connected to deaths and temperature  look likely to be due to the  different seasonal habits of a society in different nations, not to the virus in itself.

[kick it off 1,956]

1 hour ago, Surfer said:

A data point. From todays NHS results.

It says ~ 3.5% of those tested are testing positive. Of those testing positive ~ 2.5% have died, i.e. ~ 90 per 100K

2.5% of 100k is 2500, not 90.

[nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159]

looks like old people will be targeted to sit at home alone. They know since 2012 that isolation kills people, so why do it? This crazy Government is talking of Herd immunity and stretching out the peak of the pandemic here so the NHS is seen to cope.

1} Herd immunity is not something you can acquire in a short time, its an evolutionary development, not something you can spread in a 'herd' in two years flat. A longer curve also means people not adhering to the quarantine, because their needs are not met. They want to employ retired health staff, which places the oldies in danger and not the employed staff.

"2} The Government has postponed and dithered over their inability to develop a new care policy, the mental health provisions have been unable to cope for years, so trying to enact an isolation policy will not be something they could cope with. Will they place yellow stars on their doors? or a cross?

[Essjayess 307]

Staggering and sad stats from Italy every day,,today 3,500 new cases, serious / critical increasing each day, 368 deaths in a single day...its obvious that Italy's near total lockdown of the past few days has not yet had any impact on even stabilising, never mind decreasing the numbers of affected. We can only hope that it does have an effect sooner rather than later, the medical authorities in the North already said a day or two ago they were over run. Makes me wonder when it will peak in Italy, no sign of it as yet.

[Hairy Canary 713]

I’m afraid those figures are debatable Surfer, unfortunately.

To estimate the likely number of deaths we need two figures. The percentage who will catch the virus and the percentage of infected people who will die.

unfortunately the estimate that just 3.5% of the population will catch the virus is way way lower than the figures being suggested by the CMO. The last estimate I heard him give was between 50 and 70%.

sixty percent of a population of 60 million times 2.5% death rate is 900,000 deaths. 
 

I’m not suggesting that the figure will end up being that high as there are too many variables. The plan to isolate over 70’s for a number of months until the virus starts to run out of steam for instance. Also the 2.5% death rate is based on those who have been tested positive when we know that there are many more untested people who have the virus and have nor died.
 

 It does show however is that 50,000 is likely to be far too optimistic a number. It’s grim.

 

[Hairy Canary 713]

3 minutes ago, Essjayess said:

Staggering and sad stats from Italy every day,,today 3,500 new cases, serious / critical increasing each day, 368 deaths in a single day...its obvious that Italy's near total lockdown of the past few days has not yet had any impact on even stabilising, never mind decreasing the numbers of affected. We can only hope that it does have an effect sooner rather than later, the medical authorities in the North already said a day or two ago they were over run. Makes me wonder when it will peak in Italy, no sign of it as yet.

This is absolutely shocking. I have relatives in Italy, none have the virus yet thank goodness but everyone is just so worried, frightened even, about what is around the corner.

[ricardo 7,416]

Italy numbers looking like a WW1 battle.

Ireland closing all pubs and bars

Austria bans all gatherings of more than 5 people.

[Surfer 1,547]

22 minutes ago, kick it off said:

2.5% of 100k is 2500, not 90.

Yes that would be true, but it would be the wrong calculation KOF.

The reported stats are 35 deaths over 42,000 tested for the virus. Which equals 83 in 100,000. I rounded that up to 90. 

 

[Surfer 1,547]

41 minutes ago, Essjayess said:

Those are interesting stats Surfer, 50,000 deaths is of course a high number, sad indeed. But that figure did not say 50,000 flu deaths but 50,000 excess winter deaths, whatever that covers. I presume it includes all manner of Bronchial, respiratory and other illnesses. that Nick Stripe did say the high number increase was due to the predominant strain of flu.

Yes that is true. I'll correct my post to reflect that. Thanks Essjayees. 

[ricardo 7,416]

7 minutes ago, Surfer said:

Yes that would be true, but it would be the wrong calculation KOF.

The reported stats are 35 deaths over 42,000 tested for the virus. Which equals 83 in 100,000. I rounded that up to 90. 

 

However those testing negative does not mean they will be ok. They may well get it at later stage.

[Surfer 1,547]

52 minutes ago, T said:

Surfer unfortunately I don’t think your analysis works  because just because someone tested negative this time doesn’t mean they won’t get it in the future.

It does suggest that as a lot of the testing was done on contacts it is relatively difficult to get at least from casual contact. Obviously the more contact you have and the more often the greater the risk.

What it does highlight is the mortalities are still so far exclusively older people with underlying health conditions which supports the govt policy to protect these people. 

What is important is that we spread the load and build capacity to care for people. Somewhat shocking is lack of UK capacity to build ventilators although I suspect that there are some firms with capabilities they could adapt. 

Yes I agree with that, I just wanted to share some actual data from the NHS. 

Of course testing negative is a point in time result, you could catch it the next day. Testing positive and recovering, PROBABLY takes you out of the future infection opportunity and infectious carrier pools. If testing has been biased towards contacts it does suggests the ability to catch it is lower than has been suggested but that flies against the evidence of rapid spread of the disease in Italy etc.

Protect the old and vulnerable is clearly what should be done. How is the question. 

More political leadership please. What is the clear plan and let's get everyone on board with that. 

[kick it off 1,956]

1 hour ago, Surfer said:

Yes that would be true, but it would be the wrong calculation KOF.

The reported stats are 35 deaths over 42,000 tested for the virus. Which equals 83 in 100,000. I rounded that up to 90. 

Gotcha - I did try and piece together what the stat was meant to be but couldn't. 

[kick it off 1,956]

1 hour ago, Essjayess said:

Staggering and sad stats from Italy every day,,today 3,500 new cases, serious / critical increasing each day, 368 deaths in a single day...its obvious that Italy's near total lockdown of the past few days has not yet had any impact on even stabilising, never mind decreasing the numbers of affected. We can only hope that it does have an effect sooner rather than later, the medical authorities in the North already said a day or two ago they were over run. Makes me wonder when it will peak in Italy, no sign of it as yet.

Two week incubation period means that the impact of lockdown won't be clear for a while yet.

[kick it off 1,956]

1 hour ago, Hairy Canary said:

Also the 2.5% death rate is based on those who have been tested positive when we know that there are many more untested people who have the virus and have nor died.

Also unclear is the actual death rate from the virus. It seems to be killing roughly 10% of those testing positive in Italy, whereas in China the figure was much lower, and here the figure seems to be lower but sample size is much smaller. Also to be considered is the fact that new strains could develop which may or may not be worse in terms of impact.

[Butsy 0]

Quick update from the Netherlands: at 17:30 this afternoon the government announced that all pubs, restaurants and coffeeshops would close at 18:00 for at least 3 weeks.

half of Holland jumped on their bike and headed for the queue by the coffee shop! 
I was in the pub with a table booked for English Sunday roast at 18:30, cancelled. 😭

[ricardo 7,416]

More results of a failure to act quickly as did the Chinese.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

And why we are behind the curve.

[ricardo 7,416]

33 minutes ago, kick it off said:

Also unclear is the actual death rate from the virus. It seems to be killing roughly 10% of those testing positive in Italy, whereas in China the figure was much lower, and here the figure seems to be lower but sample size is much smaller. Also to be considered is the fact that new strains could develop which may or may not be worse in terms of impact.

Because China locked down Wuhan with far fewer cases than we now see in France, Spain, Germany, UK etc

It was tough but they quickly reaped the benefits. Our slow reaction will be costly.

[kick it off 1,956]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

Because China locked down Wuhan with far fewer cases than we now see in France, Spain, Germany, UK etc

It was tough but they quickly reaped the benefits. Our slow reaction will be costly.

Don't disagree with you, but the Wuhan lockdown has nothing to do with how deadly the virus is to those infected which was my point. I'm not talking about the number of deaths, but rather the percentage of those who are infected, that die.

[Barbe bleu 834]

2 hours ago, nevermind, neoliberalism has had it said:

looks like old people will be targeted to sit at home alone. They know since 2012 that isolation kills people, so why do it? This crazy Government is talking of Herd immunity and stretching out the peak of the pandemic here so the NHS is seen to cope.

1} Herd immunity is not something you can acquire in a short time, its an evolutionary development, not something you can spread in a 'herd' in two years flat. A longer curve also means people not adhering to the quarantine, because their needs are not met. They want to employ retired health staff, which places the oldies in danger and not the employed staff.

"2} The Government has postponed and dithered over their inability to develop a new care policy, the mental health provisions have been unable to cope for years, so trying to enact an isolation policy will not be something they could cope with. Will they place yellow stars on their doors? or a cross?

I'm  not sure where this would leave us though.  Are you advocating a complete lockdown for all until we can be sure that it has disappeared completely?

 

In the issue of herd immunity I guess the policy works when the recovered population is sufficiently large to reduce the number of susceptible people a carrier comes into contact with.

 

In other words the immune population must be large enough to reduce R0 to less than 1.  What point this is reached depends on the original R0.  A really virulent disease will require a much higher proportion than a less virulent version. Ie the higher the initial R0 the greater the proportion required.

 

If on average the disease is spread from one carrier to less than one new person the disease burns itself out.

[ricardo 7,416]

2 minutes ago, kick it off said:

Don't disagree with you, but the Wuhan lockdown has nothing to do with how deadly the virus is to those infected which was my point. I'm not talking about the number of deaths, but rather the percentage of those who are infected, that die.

Hereis the info you need for each country

https://covid19info.live/

[kick it off 1,956]

5 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Hereis the info you need for each country

https://covid19info.live/

Thanks, that's really helpful.

It still leaves me wondering why the death rate is exponentially higher in Italy than anywhere else. The UK and USA have roughly 2% of cases resulting in death. Iran is 5.2% which can be explained presumably by the fact it has a poorer quality of healthcare system than US or UK, but Italy is nearly 7% and I would think their healthcare is on par with ours..... China was 4%. 

Death rate globally is 3.7%

Edited March 15, 2020 by kick it off

[Surfer 1,547]

Massive story developing here ... Germans up in arms over this, US getting first news reports this morning.... could make today’s 5pm press conference “interesting”

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/curevac-coronavirus-replace-ceo-menichella/574015/

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2120IV?__twitter_impression=true

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/15/trump-offers-large-sums-for-exclusive-access-to-coronavirus-vaccine?__twitter_impression=true

Not a scandal yet because it’s not proven to be true that US was seeking exclusive rights to use any vaccine created, but will be if it is true. 
 

Not an immediate issue either way to what the world needs to being doing to contain the virus except to further destroy international trust and cooperation. “America First” in action here. 

[ricardo 7,416]

Just now, kick it off said:

Thanks, that's really helpful.

It still leaves me wondering why the death rate is exponentially higher in Italy than anywhere else. The UK and USA have roughly 2% of cases resulting in death. Iran is 5.2% which can be explained presumably by the fact it has a poorer quality of healthcare system than US or UK, but Italy is nearly 7% and I would think their healthcare is on par with ours..... China was 4%.

Maybe the tactile nature of their culture plus an older age profile.

[kick it off 1,956]

4 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Maybe the tactile nature of their culture plus an older age profile.

Germany has similar median age (older in fact) and their death rate so far (off 25% of the total cases Italy has) is 0.2%. That will rise though as those who are currently ill start to pass away as they're behind Italy's infection timeline.

Possibly something in the tactile culture helping to spread the disease but doesn't explain why it's killing more of them.

I'm not suggesting any kind of conspiracy here btw - I'm just genuinely interested to know the cause of Italy's statistics.

Edited March 15, 2020 by kick it off

[Yellow Fever 3,844]

9 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Maybe the tactile nature of their culture plus an older age profile.

Older age profile almost certainly. Having said that China with its 1 child policy.... maybe have to check that out.

Maybe generally fitter older people in China. Despite all you hear about Chinese food its usually very much healthier than European. Yes different to what we find normal but less meat more vegetables etc (protein is scarce which is why their diet includes creatures we would pass on )

Lots of smokers in Italy and China too in the older populations.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Yellow Fever
Smoking

[ricardo 7,416]

Tuetonic discipline v Latin ca sera sera

[BigFish 1,988]

10 minutes ago, kick it off said:

Thanks, that's really helpful.

It still leaves me wondering why the death rate is exponentially higher in Italy than anywhere else. The UK and USA have roughly 2% of cases resulting in death. Iran is 5.2% which can be explained presumably by the fact it has a poorer quality of healthcare system than US or UK, but Italy is nearly 7% and I would think their healthcare is on par with ours..... China was 4%. 

Death rate globally is 3.7%

I heard that the UK was working on the basis of a mortality rate of 0.1%. The discrepancy is down to the rate of testing e.g. the fewer you test, the lower the divisor, the higher the "death rate". This is not to say it isn't a big number or it isn't a matter of concern. Just that we should be careful with statistics.

[T 190]

People should really stop posting fake news. Covid 19 is a serious issue and posting fake news suggests that people are not taking this seriously and more concerned about trying to prove some point rather than actually caring about facts which impact people’s lives. By all means post from credible qualified sources who may have different views bit not from some unqualified  charlatan with no relevant qualifications experienve and knowledge who are just trying to make some money out of this. Of course other countries are sharing data and info in particular China and of course other countries are looking at this.  Wuhan doctors are in Italy. I appreciate people are scared but playing the blame game does not help  The most important thing here is expertise rather than some peacocking attempt to show that they know better than the CMO and CSA based on some dodgy source. That is just sick in the head.  The model will be published shortly and then experts can review the assumptions and actions 

[Van wink 2,994]

30 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Older age profile almost certainly. Having said that China with its 1 child policy.... maybe have to check that out.

Maybe generally fitter older people in China. Despite all you hear about Chinese food its usually very much healthier than European. Yes different to what we find normal but less meat more vegetables etc (protein is scarce which is why their diet includes creatures we would pass on )

Lots of smokers in Italy and China too in the older populations.

There are so many unknowns, certainly cultural differences and behaviour may explain different levels of infection but what’s more significant is the proportion of those infected who go on to develop serious illness. There are a number of theories doing the rounds that certain types of medication, eg ACE inhibitors used to lower blood pressure or treat heart disease cause cellular changes that make serious infections more likely. Do more people in western culture take more medication to control high blood pressure? My guess would be yes.

[Yellow Fever 3,844]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

There are so many unknowns, certainly cultural differences and behaviour may explain different levels of infection but what’s more significant is the proportion of those infected who go on to develop serious illness. There are a number of theories doing the rounds that certain types of medication, eg ACE inhibitors used to lower blood pressure or treat heart disease cause cellular changes that make serious infections more likely. Do more people in western culture take more medication to control high blood pressure? My guess would be yes.

It may also be simply a matter of resources. China was lucky that it could pull in huge resources in both staff and material from the rest of China... plus they threw the kitchen sink at very early on (lock down was at approx our stage) China is not a third world country which I think many still half think. It's quality of care and competence can be second to none especially in these mass  critical care conditions.