2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 2

[ynot]

I'm quite sure it will be over by then.

I'm quite sure it won't. Even if the virus is more under control the collateral damage effects on society won't be.

Also I don't know about US, but here the elections are pretty calm event, I hardly ever meet anyone there.

Voting in NZ is like lining up to buy tickets for a popular rock concert face masks .

 

[The Atheist]

Well she could be the one!

Is Charles standing in the wings rubbing his hands together?

I hope NZ's food, water, electricity and money keep flowing throughout however long this is going to last.

Mate, we are screw-diddly-ewed. I just posted in the humour thread how our Ministry is still only looking at possible cases where the person has travelled to an area with Covid-19, or been in contact with a known case.

Utterly insane - they have learned nothing at all in the past six weeks.

If too many are sick and/or isolated next spring wonder if the NZ election will have to be postponed?

God, I hope not. I worked for a Labour victory and voted Jacinda last time, but she has been bloody useless.

Interesting you mention Trump in the same paragraph, because she's every bit as hopeless at him at this stage of the outbreak.

But hey, she'll be really empathetic with the families of the deceased!

I'm quite sure it will be over by then. Also I don't know about US, but here the elections are pretty calm event, I hardly ever meet anyone there.

I wouldn't be betting it on it being over by then. It's going to spring up in pockets for a long time.

 

[rjh01]

<snip>

Looks like it's going to more or less screw up my wedding though!

I suggest you get married fast. Otherwise you might not get married this year.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Epidemic is just medical jargon for "lots more people have the disease at the same time", and it is really an arbitrary label.

Environmental factors can lower infection rates, but not 100%.

From what I've read this is likely to become endemic unless we can develop an effective vaccine and have very high take up of the vaccine.

The WHO reluctantly called it a pandemic today with the admonition it can still be controlled.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

A major problem for making inferences about morbidity and mortality from the statistics being presented is that they are NOT based on random samples and use tests that can only detect if an individual is currently infected.

Having said that, as the infection is transient it doesn't make sense to do random sampling with the present test and resources available; only a small number of positives would be detected even in areas where the number of symptomatic cases is relatively high.

We're only going to get a reliable idea of what the true situation is once unbiased sampling is performed using tests sensitive to both current and historic infection, or next year, whichever comes first.

Looks like it's going to more or less screw up my wedding though!

Hi Ivor. Haven't seen you in a while. Bummer about your wedding. Congrats anyway and nice to see you.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

All gatherings of 2500 people or more banned in Travis County (Austin), state of emergency declared, total number of cases 0.

I thought there was one case and a couple hundred suspected?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The word being bandied about now is "pandemic". CNN has reported that they are calling it that now. That's an arbitrary label as well, but it covers a much larger scope.

Those are not arbitrary labels. They have very specific medical definitions. The WHO has just been reluctant to actually apply the definitions.

 

[Trebuchet]

Queen has it!



Well she could be the one!

Hmm. Harry and Meghan have been back in Jolly Olde lately. From where they were staying on Vancouver Island. Which is near Seattle! It's a conspiracy, I tell you!

 

[Armitage72]

Walmart has confirmed that an employee in Cynthiana, Kentucky tested positive.

 

[Giordano]

I hope NZ's food, water, electricity and money keep flowing throughout however long this is going to last.

If too many are sick and/or isolated next spring wonder if the NZ election will have to be postponed? Wonder if Trump will postpone US election so he can stay in power longer to save the US and world?

Water and power are among everyone's very top priorities. And they do not require the enormous levels of staffing of many other functions, such as medical care and teaching. Nor do they involve the levels of person to person contact of the latter two, reducing exposure of the personnel. I have no doubt sufficient staffing can and will be provided.

Similarly police departments will be affected but I am certain that support from the military will be another top priority and will be adequate.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Some very grim stories coming out of Lombardy, Italy. Outbreak exploded seemingly overnight and hospitals swamped. Narratives emerging of desperate triage decisions being made, where those less likely to survive are not getting the intensive treatment they need.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/virus-spread-pushes-italian-hospitals-toward-breaking-point

i still very much get the impression that the US is going to sleep-walk right into this disaster and only react once it's largely too late to slow the spread. Social distancing should be implemented very soon.

 

[dudalb]

Some very grim stories coming out of Lombardy, Italy. Outbreak exploded seemingly overnight and hospitals swamped. Narratives emerging of desperate triage decisions being made, where those less likely to survive are not getting the intensive treatment they need.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/virus-spread-pushes-italian-hospitals-toward-breaking-point

i still very much get the impression that the US is going to sleep-walk right into this disaster and only react once it's largely too late to slow the spread. Social distancing should be implemented very soon.

And how the hell do you enforce social distancing?
It's a good idea, but skeptical if it;'s one you can enforce by law.

 

[The Atheist]

The WHO reluctantly called it a pandemic today with the admonition it can still be controlled.

I agree with them - it could be.

It won't, though.

Walmart has confirmed that an employee in Cynthiana, Kentucky tested positive.

Well, according to NZ guidelines, customers have nothing to fear, because it can't be caught from casual contact.

We are going to be one of these countries:

i still very much get the impression that the US is going to sleep-walk right into this disaster and only react once it's largely too late to slow the spread. Social distancing should be implemented very soon last week.

FTFY

There are going to be ten or twenty Italys in a couple of weeks' time, and a hundred in the next month or so.

What grinds my bloody gears is that not only did we know it was coming, we have the perfect example of South Korea, which has stopped it in its tracks.

 

[JeanTate]

<snip>

You forgot India, which is showing very few cases, and yep, the first mention was way back in the thread Part 1.

<snip>

Taking a somewhat broad definition of "neighbor", yesterday's WHO situation report gives these as the number of confirmed cases (in addition to the ones I already mentioned):
- S Korea: 7382
- Japan: 488
- Hong Kong: 114
- Thailand: 50
- Taiwan: 45
- India: 43
- Vietnam: 30
- Macao: 10
- Philippines: 10
- Cambodia: 2
- Bhutan: 1

 

[pipelineaudio]

Man, Japan actually seems to be doing pretty good considering how bad they blew it for the entire world early on

 

[JeanTate]

Skeptic Ginger, it seems that Pence and his lackeys are treating purple state Texas as badly as WA, when it comes to being responsive and making test kits available.

From a Scott Aaronson blog post dated today (10 March, 2020; my hilite):

A week ago, most of my grad students were in the Bay Area for a workshop; they then returned and spent a week hanging around the CS building like normal. Yesterday I learned that at least one of those students developed symptoms consistent with covid19. Of course, it’s much more likely to be a boring cold or flu—but still, in any sane regime, just to be certain, such a person would promptly get tested.

After quarantining himself, my student called the “24/7 covid19 hotline” listed in an email from the university’s president, but found no one answering the phone over the weekend. Yesterday he finally got through—only to be told, flatly, that he couldn’t be tested due to insufficient capacity. When I heard this, I asked my department chair and dean to look into the matter, and received confirmation that yeah, it sucks, but this is the situation.

If it’s true that, as I’ve read, the same story is currently playing itself out all over the country, then this presumably isn’t the fault of anyone in UT’s health service or the city of Austin.

"Anybody who wants a test gets a test" I wonder who said that?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Skeptic Ginger, it seems that Pence and his lackeys are treating purple state Texas as badly as WA, when it comes to being reponsive and making test kits available.

From a Scott Aaronson blog post dated today (10 March, 2020; my hilite):



"Anybody who wants a test gets a test" I wonder who said that?

I know I know The same guy that said we have lots of tests, perfect tests: Incompetrump! The new Comic-con superhero.


Disgusting isn't it.

 

[JeanTate]

Possible reasons I can think of
1) You can't trust China although I don't think they could hide that many deaths.

Agreed.

2) It hasn't been long enough yet.

As long as the virus is circulating in places from which people travel to Hubei/Wuhan, true.

3) The rates being used are too high.

Always possible, but the inputs are quite robust.

4) All or some of the above.

Yep.

By far the biggest effect, I think, is that waaaaay less than 40-80% of the population has been exposed to the virus, so far.

 

[ynot]

Skeptic Ginger, it seems that Pence and his lackeys are treating purple state Texas as badly as WA, when it comes to being reponsive and making test kits available.

Given Pence believed prayer was better than clean needles to prevent the spread of HIV in Indiana, why wouldn't he also think prayer will be better than test kits for coronavirus?

 

[JeanTate]

Thanks.

As I wrote earlier:

A major problem for making inferences about morbidity and mortality from the statistics being presented is that they are NOT based on random samples and use tests that can only detect if an individual is currently infected.

Both of these factors are going to skew the estimates.

ETA: Good Slate article: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

Indeed.

If you click back you'll see the method I'm using, and my sources.

Yes, it's an OOM (or if you prefer a BOTE) method, but a pretty robust one.

By now I think it's nigh on impossible to get either of the two key input values wildly wrong, which leads almost certainly to the conclusion that near 100% containment and/or a very effective vaccine is all that will stop numbers like these being realized. Oh, and a change in the behavior of the virus ... but that could go either way ...