2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 2

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Here is an Epidemic Calculator to play with.


You can change all the relevant parameters and see what happens. It was linked to in The Hammer and the Dance article I posted above. Everyone who says 'just let it run it's course' should give it a careful read. I'd like to hear what you think.
 
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Cheetah said:
Next article by Tomas Pueyo


Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance
Click to expand...

chart 3 -- U.S. deaths if virus unchecked: > 10,000,000
based on 4% -- because health care has collapsed

this was my basic intuitive opinion of where we're headed (unless things go much better than they have been)

Again, my opinion is worthless. Also, this isn't a "debate". No point in responding to this post.
cheer up mate if you're very stupid. not you, cheetah.
 
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Cheetah said:
Next article by Tomas Pueyo


Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance
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Good summary, but the latter part of his article on which he recommends the 'dance' is based on made up data (as he admits). Unfortunately policy cannot be based on his made up impacts and costs of certain interventions.

Certainly taking advantage of time gained by suppression to build up e.g. ITU beds, testing and contact tracing resources is sensible. I am sure policy will change as more information becomes available. Currently many countries do not have the resources to do mass testing. (My understanding is SK could do this because the outbreak was geographically and socially limited.)
 
Planigale said:
Good summary, but the latter part of his article on which he recommends the 'dance' is based on made up data (as he admits). Unfortunately policy cannot be based on his made up impacts and costs of certain interventions.
Click to expand...
Only the bits about costs and exactly all you need to do to get R to around 0.5. All the principles remain.
In Hubai they got it down to 0.32 so we know approximately what needs to happen to replicate that, less severe measures might be adequate.
 
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Cheetah said:
Here is an Epidemic Calculator to play with.


You can change all the relevant parameters and see what happens. It was linked to in The Hammer and the Dance article I posted above. Everyone who says 'just let it run it's course' should give it a careful read. I'd like to hear what you think.
Click to expand...

Many countries have a choice
1. Drastic intervention. This will go on for months. The economy will suffer massive damage as not much productive work is done for months. or
2. Many lives lost, the economy damaged due to so many workers sick. Many of the deaths would be elderly or in poor health (though that includes high blood pressure and other things not normally considered serious with treatment). But there would be many people killed who are highly productive members of society. This is the "just let it run its course" option mentioned above.
3. Something in between the two.

There are still many unknowns. Like if people are told to stay at home, how quickly would this slow the virus? What happens if people go out shopping who have the virus? Or one of the people who work in the shops has it? These things will happen. Everyone would need to wear masks while outside. Yet they need to be produced first.

If certain countries had intervened very early then the outbreak could have been kept outside of the country, especially if that country is an island. But now that option is open only to a few places, like Tasmania (it hopes).
 
Cheetah said:
Here is an Epidemic Calculator to play with.
Click to expand...

I've just been explkaining to a few people how exponential growth works.

It's a good time to be really dumb at maths.

rjh01 said:
There are still many unknowns. Like if people are told to stay at home, how quickly would this slow the virus? What happens if people go out shopping who have the virus? Or one of the people who work in the shops has it? These things will happen. Everyone would need to wear masks while outside. Yet they need to be produced first.
Click to expand...

Masks? I'll be in full Hazmat gear mate.

rjh01 said:
If certain countries had intervened very early then the outbreak could have been kept outside of the country, especially if that country is an island. But now that option is open only to a few places, like Tasmania (it hopes).
Click to expand...

Just like NZ could have done if we had any politicians with either brains or balls.
 
rjh01 said:
Many countries have a choice
1. Drastic intervention. This will go on for months. The economy will suffer massive damage as not much productive work is done for months. or
2. Many lives lost, the economy damaged due to so many workers sick. Many of the deaths would be elderly or in poor health (though that includes high blood pressure and other things not normally considered serious with treatment). But there would be many people killed who are highly productive members of society. This is the "just let it run its course" option mentioned above.
3. Something in between the two.
Click to expand...


:boggled:

Did you read the article?


All countries have a choice. The question is which is best.
Look at Japan and South Korea.
 
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The Atheist said:
I've just been explkaining to a few people how exponential growth works.

It's a good time to be really dumb at maths.



Masks? I'll be in full Hazmat gear mate.



Just like NZ could have done if we had any politicians with either brains or balls.
Click to expand...

Sad but true.
Now we grind through the grades like piano exams
No diploma but.
 
Today's cunning plan comes to you from Japan, where schools are going back in April, at the start of the academic year.

That will be certain evidence one way or the other on whether kids and schools are important in transmission, so thanks!
 
Cheetah said:
:boggled:

Did you read the article?


All countries have a choice. The question is which is best.
Look at Japan and South Korea.
Click to expand...

Well, Japan is going to be reopening schools very soon. They have also begun the Olympic torch relay. Hokkaido has lifted its state of emergency. Today the botanical gardens near me were open again. The bars, restaurants and nightclubs never closed as far as I know. The government seems to think it might all blow over...

I would love to know what Abe is smoking.
 
angrysoba said:
Well, Japan is going to be reopening schools very soon. They have also begun the Olympic torch relay. Hokkaido has lifted its state of emergency. Today the botanical gardens near me were open again. The bars, restaurants and nightclubs never closed as far as I know. The government seems to think it might all blow over...

I would love to know what Abe is smoking.
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That seems spectacularly stupid. No doubt everyone will be keeping their eyes on what things are like there in 10 days' time.
 
a_unique_person said:
It can't survive long outside the human body. If infections cease then I guess it is gone. Smallpox is gone, for example. In a year we will have an effective vaccine.
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Maybe. But the world is turning. Not everyone will be isolated, by any stretch. As soon as we come out of quaranteen and the trade resumes, people will start infecting each other again.
 
Something else to think about - we have the epidemic itself, plus an epidemic of terrible financial news, and with the amount of time it will take to get through the viral epidemic, we will be building an epidemic of mental illnesses.

People with anxiety must be doing it pretty hard already, and we're only just starting.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
CNN: Washington Post: US intelligence warned Trump in January and February as he dismissed coronavirus threat

When the US recognized the 2009 H1N1 virus we had an extensive influenza monitoring system in place.

You're acting like 6 weeks is some kind of international crime. I told you, there were local officials who didn't want to face reality. But China's national government did act quickly once they recognized what was going on. And I'm pretty sure those local officials who tried to cover the problem up were disciplined.

Whatever actions China took, incompetrump dropped the ball anyway. Talk about a coverup. What do you think of the POTUS dismissing the threat despite multiple people in his administration trying to warn him?
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I entirely agree about Trump. He dropped the ball completely, as I said from my very first comment. I completely agree with everything you say about him.

My point is that this does not mitigate China's deliberate, top down coverup and slowness to act, that you seem to be minimising. It is entirely possible to criticise China's response and the US's response at the same time.

They did not act quickly once they recognised it, you keep repeating this, but it is false: both local and national governments knowingly and deliberately covered it up once recognised, lied that it was not human transmissible (they knew this 15th December), and denied the scale until the news reports that were getting out were too prevalent to ignore. And even then they applied the shutdown badly, allow 5 million to leave Wuhan and spread it globally.

It was not just local officials, you keep repeating this, but it is false: Xi knew about it Jan 5th.

This has all been reported in the South China Morning Post, a fairly pro-establishment Hong Kong based broadsheet (owned by Jack Ma, the owner of Alibaba) since the start of the outbreak.

At least we can both agree that trump is a cockwomble, but you are incorrect on the points above.
 
William Parcher said:
That article begins by saying that pangolins are a prime suspect and a contender for being the source animal. That is not what you said at all.
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I don't even know what a pangolin is. Yes, I know I could look it up in two seconds, but I prefer to keep picturing them as those little Porg things from Luke's island in The Last Jedi.
 
The Atheist said:
That seems spectacularly stupid. No doubt everyone will be keeping their eyes on what things are like there in 10 days' time.
Click to expand...

Maybe more like mid-April. The schools are mostly on holiday now because it is the end of the school year anyway. But they are due to reopen in the first or second week of April.
 
I've been saying this for a while, but to say that there is no endgame until we have a vaccine, or enough people have been infected for herd immunity, seems overly pessimistic. It's even hinted at in the Imperial College document that people are now discussing: on current modelling, it seems that repeated waves of very tight restrictions would be needed, but they note that the situation might change due to new measures being developed.

There are quite a few possibilities. Better tracking by technology. Possibly even approximate diagnosis by a `big data' approach. Get as many people as possible to enter all their possible symptoms into an app every day, as well as allow their contacts to be traced. It's quite possible that some kind data mining could then lead to (far from completely reliable) diagnosis based just on this data, so available for everyone and not limited by testing capacity. The suspected people need to self-isolate. Not perfect, but could have a big effect on the spread. Perhaps technological approaches to lock-down: you can go outside, but not meet in groups. And anyone who wants to go outside has to agree to run a tracking app while outside, which reports violations of the no groups rule. Yes there are problems with all of these ideas!

To assume we are in the same position whenever we lift restrictions in future is a mistake.

So is saying any particular approach will work: the real situation is that we don't know where will be in terms of possible counter-measures in a few months time.
 
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