Merged 2019-nCoV / Corona virus

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Giordano said:
I wonder how many of those 61 were already infected when they were officially quarantined and told to stay in their cabins. Perhaps there was not much cabin to cabin spread.
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Not many, I'd think.

Being a cruise ship, they would have boarded at different ports.

Meadmaker said:
Today's situation report from WHO has 2676 new confirmed cases. Yesterday's had 3419.

Outside of China there were 19 new today and 18 new yesterday. 54 new two days ago.

I think that's pretty good news.

I'm pretty impressed with the modern world. It may be that this thing will get shut down after all.
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Jury still out, but I agree the latest news is encouraging.

Until you think about Africa & India...
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You can't tell from the numbers people in this thread are using!!!!!!!
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More utter bollocks from you - all of the numbers, be they from Johns Hopkins, Wikipedia, or the Worldometer site, all come from exactly the same source. Do you think Johns Hopkins somehow has different data to that released by China's NIH because they're a university in USA?

And please, please, please read this Wired article, as it could have written specifically for you and addresses many of your posts: https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-is-bad-comparing-it-to-the-flu-is-worse/
 
Giordano said:
Yes, the numbers could be wrong because of limited capacity to test, ability to tally accurately, veracity of government reports, etc. Which is exactly why I wrote "If you accept the numbers..." Sorry to be prickly about this but I was both aware of the limitations and sought to qualify my comment appropriately. I don't like having me put in to larger context of not understanding, Dunning Krueger, or people in this thread throwing numbers around that they do not understand when I was careful to indicate the limitations of my statement.

Okay, all's forgiven.
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I'm glad you forgive me because what I said about D-K does not apply to a number of people in this thread that I respect the expertise of. You are one as is Capsid and a few other people.

But you did fall into the same trap of drawing an unsupported conclusion.

What does "even if the numbers were correct" mean? Does it mean if newly detected cases and actual new cases are the same? Does it mean if there is no delay in reporting the numbers we are seeing? Maybe fewer numbers are reported on the weekend. Does it mean if everyone is being tested? Does it mean as long as lower numbers in some provinces are not diluting the number of new cases because those areas are in a different stage of the epidemic?

For example, it may look like a slowing of the epidemic but that is a temporary illusion because there is some control in the center of the outbreak but it's about to take off in areas the virus has newly arrived.

Think of it like a fire where you get some control in the center of it, but those embers are out there starting new fires that are not controlled. Are the decreased numbers, even if correct meaningful?

This is pedantic, yes, I know. But this thread is full of unsupportable claims because epidemiology is not understood.

What good is pondering the epidemic might be subsiding without enough information?
 
The Atheist said:
More utter bollocks from you - all of the numbers, be they from Johns Hopkins, Wikipedia, or the Worldometer site, all come from exactly the same source. Do you think Johns Hopkins somehow has different data to that released by China's NIH because they're a university in USA?
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You missed the whole point. Clearly you made no effort to read my post to see what I was referring to.

For example:
Diagnosis of viral infection will precede recovery or death by days to weeks and the number of deaths should therefore be compared to the past case counts --
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You are using numbers from different phases of the epidemic. And you completely discount the unreliability of the denominator you are using.

A precise estimate of the case fatality rate is therefore impossible at present....
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And please, please, please read this Wired article, as it could have written specifically for you and addresses many of your posts: https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-is-bad-comparing-it-to-the-flu-is-worse/
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Given there is no 'one flu strain' which flu season are you referring to?

But looking at that article, it doesn't apply to what I've said. I've not said the world shouldn't do anything about coronavirus because flu is worse. I've said quit acting like Chicken Little exaggerating the situation and that you don't understand the significance of the numbers you are using.

I'm trying to keep people in the thread focused on the science, on the evidence, and not on the level of social media fear mongering going on in the thread.
 
A lot of the major newsite forums on this topic have a number of sound alike rants about how bad it is to dare to criticise the Chinese Government over this.
So Beijing is taking a page from Putin's book and using Internet shills bigtime?
 
The Atheist said:
Two pieces of news from different ends of the spectrum:

1 - the cruise ship quarantined in Japan has now been cleared of the virus, so it didn't spread further than the 61 cases found.
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Cruise ship case count has risen to 70. Good chance the increase was from people that were infected but early enough not to have tested positive let alone shown symptoms. So not an indication the virus hasn't been effectively stopped on the ship. Next few days s/b informative.
 
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dudalb said:
So Beijing is taking a page from Putin's book and using Internet shills bigtime?
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Heck, it couldn't be people like me, who have been highly critical of China's human rights records but who are honest enough to give credit where it's due.

It just has to be a conspiracy...

Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm trying to keep people in the thread focused on the science, on the evidence, and not on the level of social media fear mongering going on in the thread.
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Yeah, right:

Skeptic Ginger said:
Influenza is thousands of time more deadly and more easily spread.
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marting said:
Cruise ship case count has risen to 70. Good change the increase was from people that were infected but early enough not to have tested positive let alone shown symptoms. So not an indication the virus hasn't been effectively stopped on the ship.
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Well, I see they've let the other 3500 off, so they'd better hope they have them all.
 
The Atheist said:
Two pieces of news from different ends of the spectrum:

1 - the cruise ship quarantined in Japan has now been cleared of the virus, so it didn't spread further than the 61 cases found.
an the other.
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The release of passengers was from the cruise ship in Hong Kong and not the one in Yokohama. The passengers in the latter are still in quarantine with 70 confirmed cases so far (up from 61).

https://www.businessinsider.com/cruise-ship-quarantine-coronavirus-passengers-disembark-2020-2?IR=T
 
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Ok, thanks - mea culpa, only reading the headline.

9 new cases off the Japanese one doesn't sound too bad, so I hope they've nipped it in the bud. The passengers must be bored out of their minds.
 
The Atheist said:
Ok, thanks - mea culpa, only reading the headline.

9 new cases off the Japanese one doesn't sound too bad, so I hope they've nipped it in the bud. The passengers must be bored out of their minds.
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Agreed they would be bored. And worse. Imagine signing up for a great time, only to be told you are stuck in your cabin all day for several days. They will want their money back and more. Stayed tuned for more news on this topic (just not in this thread please!).
 
Today's update shows a reduction in all categories except deaths, which reached a new high of 93 yesterday, all in China.

The most encouraging news is the rate of climb outside China, which is nothing like logarithmic, and shows very limited transmission. New infections are only 6% of the total, a fair old drop from 22% on 1 Feb.

I'm certainly giving credence to the possibility the virus is losing its virulence through generations. Nobody has died outside of China for a week or so, and there are now 400-odd cases outside China, only 10 of which are listed as serious.

Interesting Thailand seems to be curing theirs faster than anyone else, which may be related to their novel treatment. Going by the treatment Foolmewunz was getting, I doubt it's the quality of hospital treatment in general in Thailand.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
 
The Atheist said:
Today's update shows a reduction in all categories except deaths, which reached a new high of 93 yesterday, all in China.

The most encouraging news is the rate of climb outside China, which is nothing like logarithmic, and shows very limited transmission. New infections are only 6% of the total, a fair old drop from 22% on 1 Feb.

I'm certainly giving credence to the possibility the virus is losing its virulence through generations. Nobody has died outside of China for a week or so, and there are now 400-odd cases outside China, only 10 of which are listed as serious.

Interesting Thailand seems to be curing theirs faster than anyone else, which may be related to their novel treatment. Going by the treatment Foolmewunz was getting, I doubt it's the quality of hospital treatment in general in Thailand.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
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I think you need to be careful about terminology. Virulence would refer to death rate, Ebola is highly virulent. I think you mean transmissibility. Legionella is virulent, but not transmissible. The common cold is transmissible but not virulent. There is no reason to assume that an infection would become less transmissible. They should evolve to be more transmissible. With a mortality rate of about 1% there is not a big selective pressure to become less virulent, especially as there seems to be a significant infectious prodrome. Infections outside of China are not from a single source so there is no reason to assume they would carry common mutations. I think what we are seeing is very effective public health interventions, and a skewed population, most of the exposed are likely to be young and healthy so far, the cruise liner may be the first elderly population outside of China, I would be looking for deaths there.
 
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rjh01 said:
Agreed they would be bored. And worse. Imagine signing up for a great time, only to be told you are stuck in your cabin all day for several days. They will want their money back and more. Stayed tuned for more news on this topic (just not in this thread please!).
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Just did a bit of number crunching using the Johns Hopkins numbers re the Diamond Princess case.

We have confirmation of a 2019-nCoV infected 80-year-old man from Hong Kong on the 31st of Jan. On this day, there were 12 confirmed cases in Hong Kong and presumably this man was one of them. The man disembarked on the 25th of Jan – total confirmed cases in all the world on that date were 2,015 (Hong Kong 5 confirmed, 36 suspected).

Let us assume he was the only infected passenger because if not, the odds of there being more than one, based on population and confirmed cases, make the probabilities of having two infected people incredibly low or a very unlucky ship and rightly pissed off passengers.

Even with 1 infected passenger from Hong Kong, population 7.4 million people of which over 1 million are over 65 and the confirmed and or suspected cases, the odds are astounding or, the virus is hardly noticeable and many more people have it with no symptoms.

Against that, the lockdown in China does seem rather extreme, but being a dictatorship, I suppose they can.

It could just be bad PR PR – geddit?
 
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Planigale said:
I think you need to be careful about terminology. Virulence would refer to death rate,...
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I am careful about terminology - that's exactly what I meant.

Viruses often drop in virulence after a few generations, and hopefully that's what's we're seeing.
 
The Atheist said:
I am careful about terminology - that's exactly what I meant.

Viruses often drop in virulence after a few generations, and hopefully that's what's we're seeing.
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Could well be. May also be due to the reduction in people to people interactions that have occurred over the last 2 weeks. Possibly a combination. Time will tell.

There was an interview with a couple on the Diamond Princess (the one anchored in Japan with 70 cases) a few days back. Seemed in good spirits, asymptomatic, and awaiting their test results. They indicated their quarantine would be another 10 days assuming nothing further. At this point it looks like little or no transmission through the ship's ventilation which is encouraging.
 
Deaths have reached 908 but infections have started to plateau at 40.3k. Looks like the Chinese efforts at containment are starting to bear fruit.
 
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