Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[Arcade22]

You may recall my wife and I were quite sick here in Tennessee for most of the month of January, with symptoms very much like coronavirus. Sicker than I’ve been in my adult life. And I wondered if maybe coronavirus had been circulating in the US before anyone became aware of it.

Looks like that might not have been so farfetched:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/did-...oms-antibody-tests_l_5e7cb319c5b6cb9dc19b74b4

No.

 

[Roboramma]

Were you tested and quarantined on arrival?

Yes. I'm still in quarantine, though because my test came up negative and I didn't have any other problem signs I'm allowed to do quarantine at home, which is nice. I think I've got six days left.

 

[William Parcher]

But mine was published the same day as another article that claimed that pangolins could have been the source:

https://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/sars-cov-2-related-coronaviruses-found-pangolins#.Xn_8m0BFzIU

I'm not sure what you are saying here. It's the same scientific paper that I posted about several days ago.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13033325&postcount=119

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

I'm not sure what you are saying here. It's the same scientific paper that I posted about several days ago.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13033325&postcount=119

I'm saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

[Roboramma]

I'm wondering if the projections/predictions are taking into account possible (I said possible for all the goddamn pedantic twits) upticks in other diseases.

Okay so you're a hospital. You have X number of ventilators, let's say to use a common example. If the current trends continue you will have more Covid patients that need ventilators then you have ventilators in Y number of days.

But something as big and far reaching is as this mass quarantine is bound to have secondary and unforeseen consequences. Through some means we have a spike in some totally unrelated health issue Z because of the outbreak or response to the outbreak.

People are staying home, people are avoiding doctors offices, people are making medication they have last longer, medical supplies are running low... it's not crazy to thing this could all cause a secondary medical issue of some kind.

And then the Covid Patients plus the new "Auxiliary Issue Patients" overwhelm your number of ventilators weeks before even the optimistic predictions.

This is a valid point.

On the other there's influences in the other direction. For example other infectious diseases are going to be spread less easily due to social distancing measures. We should see far fewer cases of the flu than is usual, because measures take to limit the spread of CoVid19 should be effective against spreading the flu as well.

Where things fall out in balance isn't very clear though.

 

[The Atheist]

And I wondered if maybe coronavirus had been circulating in the US before anyone became aware of it.

We can't discount it.

It might not be very likely, but it's certainly within the bounds of possibility. That's exactly why I can't wait to see the results of serological testing. Then we'd be able to say for certain.

It would also be an answer as to why places that should have had high early counts and epidemics didn't - Aussie, Hawaii & Japan*. An earlier, maybe milder version of it having circulated immediately would fit that scenario.

Fun to speculate in the absence of evidence, anyway!

*ETA, bloody Hong Kong, which is only just higher than NZ on the chart, and that does not add up at all.

 

[Blue Mountain]

The current situation in Canada

Province, territory or other | Number of confirmed cases | Number of deaths
British Columbia|

884​

|

17​

|
Alberta|

542​

|

2​

|
Saskatchewan|

134​

|

0​

|
Manitoba|

64​

|

1​

|
Ontario|

993​

|

18​

|
Quebec|

2,498​

|

22​

|
New Brunswick|

51​

|

0​

|
Nova Scotia|

110​

|

0​

|
Prince Edward Island|

11​

|

0​

|
Newfoundland and Labrador|

120​

|

0​

|
Yukon|

4​

|

0​

|
Northwest Territories|

1​

|

0​

|
Nunavut|

0​

|

0​

|
Repatriated travellers|

13​

|

0​

|
Total |

5,425​

|

60​

Confirmed cases are up 16% from yesterday; deaths are up 13% (from 53).

The latest points covered by CBC News

• Trudeau announces new rules for domestic travel.
• More than a dozen Canadian flight attendants are sick with COVID-19
• Ontario to crack down on price gouging on essentials, bans gatherings of 5 people or more.
• Sophie Grégoire Trudeau says she has recovered from COVID-19.
• 'I'm phobic of debt': Small business owners not in love with federal government's emergency loans
• Hockey equipment company Brian's Custom Sports shifts to producing medical supplies
• Canadian nurse working at Detroit hospital: 'We are fighting a war'

Growth curve

Date | Cases | Change
2020-03-13|

155​

|
2020-03-16|

440​

|

184%​

|
2020-03-18|

656​

|

49%​

|
2020-03-19|

873​

|

33%​

|
2020-03-20|

926​

|

6%​

|
2020-03-21|

1,081​

|

17%​

|
2020-03-22|

1,471​

|

36%​

|
2020-03-23|

2,091​

|

42%​

|
2020-03-24|

2,792​

|

34%​

|
2020-03-25|

3,409​

|

22%​

|
2020-03-26|

4,043​

|

19%​

|
2020-03-27|

4,742​

|

17%​

|
2020-03-28|

5,485​

|

16%​

The growth rate for cases has decreased every day now for a week. I really hope this trend continues.

Canada vs the USA. Because Canada's population is 1/8.7 that of the States, typically ratios for raw numbers in many areas run 1:8.7 (or 10 to 87) for Canada:USA.

The source for Tested is Wikipedia. The source for Confirmed cases and Deaths is also Wikipedia. That page is often more up-to-date than the Canadian government page, meaning the numbers for confirmed cases and deaths may differ from what I posted above.

Metric | Canada | Expected US number based on 1:8.7 ratio | Actual US Number | Actual Canada:US ratio | Yesterday's ratio
COVID-19 tests|

184,201​

|

1,602,548​

|

801,416​

|

1:4.3​

|

1:3.7​

|
COVID-19 cases|

5,528​

|

48,094​

|

123,311​

|

1:22​

|

1:22​

|
COVID-19 deaths|

60​

|

522​

|

2,211​

|

1:37​

|

1:33​

I see the US is really ramping up on testing. They're still behind Canada's test numbers per 1,000,000 population, but the gap is narrowing. The ratio of Canadian cases to the USA's is unchanged at 1:22, but sadly ratio of deaths has widened to 1:37.

 

[GraculusTheGreenBird]

And there are signs China severely underreported deaths from COVID-19. Though I hope no one took their official numbers at face value.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/shipm...questions-about-chinas-coronavirus-reporting/

Whilst I certainly didn't believe their numbers, I think this particular example is too weak to extrapolate from.

As someone else pointed out, Wuhan is just emerging from lockdown, so there will certainly be a run on burial services and the need for extra urns, as those services will have stopped until now.

Secondly, Wuhan is a huge city, with 11+ million. So with an average Chinese death rate (before Covid-19) of 13.5/1000, we would expect 148,500 deaths a year anyway.

Wuhan has been on lockdown for 2 months, so we'd expect at least 24,000 non-Covid deaths in that time, and probably a lot more, that would normally be successfully treated by the overloaded health service. Then add the claimed 3000 Covid deaths.

So suddenly needing to deal with 27,000+ burials? A lot of urns would be needed.

Of course, this is just one funeral business, and there are obviously going to be more than one such business in a huge city, but without knowing how often they get urn deliveries and how many are typically delivered before the lockdown, we don't know if this is more than normal.

So whilst I do expect China to be underreporting numbers, take this particular example with a pinch of salt, we just can't know.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

For people ill with high fever, cough, severe headache and muscle aches in Jan, don't forget influenza was circulating widely then.

COVID - definitely possible
Influenza - much greater odds.

 

[GraculusTheGreenBird]

We can't discount it.

It might not be very likely, but it's certainly within the bounds of possibility. That's exactly why I can't wait to see the results of serological testing. Then we'd be able to say for certain.

It would also be an answer as to why places that should have had high early counts and epidemics didn't - Aussie, Hawaii & Japan*. An earlier, maybe milder version of it having circulated immediately would fit that scenario.

Fun to speculate in the absence of evidence, anyway!

*ETA, bloody Hong Kong, which is only just higher than NZ on the chart, and that does not add up at all.

The Hong Kong population has been stringent about wearing masks since late January, and has been ultraparanoid since SARS, so also went overboard on the hand sanitizer.

I really think this has had an effect; whilst there were contradictory messages from the HK government over whether those who weren't sick needed to wear them, people ignored that and everyone wore them anyway. I would estimate 99% of the population wear masks constantly.

As it now seems that people can be asymptomatic for longer than expected but still be contagious, this is bound to have had an effect, even if minor, as those asymptomatic HK people have also been wearing masks since the beginning, thus reducing their own droplet spread to others.

Its only really possible because we have good supply chains from China, Vietnam and Japan, and because at 7+ million, we are a small country. Even so, that's millions of masks used every day. Not easy to scale that up to larger countries.

 

[Dr.Sid]

There was article in local news, couldn't fin it in English. It was from some small city in Italy. They said they on average have 35 deaths in March. Covid killed 31. But there are 150 total deaths this March. Sadly they didn't go into causes of those deaths. It was also quite small sample. But it's clear there are deaths outside those counted, for whatever reason.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

This is another good point illustrating why comparing these numbers is useless.

No, it's a point illustrating why it takes careful consideration to make appropriate comparisons.

Time from "patient zero" in a given area. Time from x number of cases. Time from first symptoms developing in 2nd infected, time from 20 known cases (or whatever the local "community spread" number is), whatever.

We are on a very bad path compared to the path other countries took.

From this, I place a high probability of seeing a wave of fatalities over the next 7-14 days. When that wave ends is up to the American people.

From my view, they seem content to commit suicide by retail therapy. Heads totally in the goddamn sand.

 

[rjh01]

Private hospitals say that without elective surgery they will have to shut down as they won't be making any money.

Australia's private hospitals face closure after coronavirus causes elective surgery ban

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ry-ban?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Could they be converted into public hospitals? Then even more coronavirus cases can be looked after in hospitals.

 

[AnonyMoose]

A little bit of happy news on the Canadian front:

The Bank of China sent a big shipment of PPE supplies to Canada as a "Thank You" to Canada for sending aid to China back in early February when they were in the midst of their outbreak.

The donation includes 30,000 medical masks, 10,000 sets of protective clothing, 10,000 goggles and 50,000 pairs of gloves, the embassy said, adding N-95 masks would also be sent.

In February, Canada sent 16 tonnes of protective equipment to China when they were in the midst of fighting COVID-19. The supplies included clothes, masks, face shields, goggles and gloves.

Edit to add: Trudeau got a lot of flack for sending China those supplies, so it seems those same people now have egg on their face. I'm glad to see China returned the favour now that we're about to hit the ugly part of this outbreak.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, it's a point illustrating why it takes careful consideration to make appropriate comparisons.

Time from "patient zero" in a given area. Time from x number of cases. Time from first symptoms developing in 2nd infected, time from 20 known cases (or whatever the local "community spread" number is), whatever.

We are on a very bad path compared to the path other countries took.

From this, I place a high probability of seeing a wave of fatalities over the next 7-14 days. When that wave ends is up to the American people.

From my view, they seem content to commit suicide by retail therapy. Heads totally in the goddamn sand.

What good are comparisons when the denominators are unreliable? What good is calculating all these fatality rates when the denominators are unreliable as are some of the death rates?

What good are all these calculations when few if any people are using the appropriate denominator from the date relevant to the fatalities that you noted.


I've given up more than a passing comment after pointing this out ad nauseum early on in the discussion.

If people want to banter around meaningless data, whatever.

We don't need faulty statistics to assess the fact the US is still on a path upwards in this pandemic. I think WA State might be seeing some benefit from the actions our mayors and governor took after recognizing the public health had fallen down on the job.

IMO, trying to put the US in the queue for who's next to take Italy's or Spain's place on the disaster list isn't useful either.

We are where we are and that's what we have to work with. We have plenty of people in small communities who have yet to recognize they are not invulnerable just because it hasn't hit a nursing home near them yet.

 

[smartcooky]

Coronavirus social distancing limit is at least four times too short because infectious droplets can fly much further than current 6 foot (2 metre) restriction, study warns


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...cing-EIGHT-metres-avoid-coronavirus-risk.html

Yeah, right. This is typical edge-case scaremongering from the Daily Mail, so until I see this information framed as a real threat, from a more reliable outlet, I'm not going to pay much heed.

Any measure short of something like putting every person on the planet in a hermetically sealed glass tube, feeding them intravenously, and supplying uncontaminated oxygen to breathe, is going carry a transmission risk greater than zero. What really counts is how much greater than zero the measures we DO take - what level of risk is acceptable?

The 6ft/2m distance is the point at the medical experts have determined the risk of transmissions is low enough, and beyond that point, no tangible gain is made.

At this time, of all times, we need to be warning people about where they should be getting their information from. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms should be the very last place to get information from about this pandemic. People have already died by taking advice given on social media. We should be sticking with reliable, fact-checked, mainstream media, and just ignore sensationalist tabloids like the Daily Fail.

I wish the idiots at the Fail would really think about it long and hard before publishing this kind of unnecessary bollocks.

 

[William Parcher]

so until I see this information framed as a real threat, from a more reliable outlet, I'm not going to pay much heed.

Daily Mail is reporting on the research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

 

[pipelineaudio]

How accurate is this? Starting to get sick of canned food and lots of local restaraunts are doing curbside. Is this just asking to get sick and infect my older parents? https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03...-ej16-FcBu_bLFdhP_GZ3b92EarAipWvzf61GkkmtGxQo

 

[angrysoba]

I'm wondering if the projections/predictions are taking into account possible (I said possible for all the goddamn pedantic twits) upticks in other diseases.

Okay so you're a hospital. You have X number of ventilators, let's say to use a common example. If the current trends continue you will have more Covid patients that need ventilators then you have ventilators in Y number of days.

But something as big and far reaching is as this mass quarantine is bound to have secondary and unforeseen consequences. Through some means we have a spike in some totally unrelated health issue Z because of the outbreak or response to the outbreak.

People are staying home, people are avoiding doctors offices, people are making medication they have last longer, medical supplies are running low... it's not crazy to thing this could all cause a secondary medical issue of some kind.

And then the Covid Patients plus the new "Auxiliary Issue Patients" overwhelm your number of ventilators weeks before even the optimistic predictions.

Sure. Many of these certainly are taking this into account and explaining that the common or garden accidents, emergencies etc... are one factor in overwhelming the health services. This has certainly been pointed out a number of times in the press conferences that Chris Whitty (chief medical officer) and Patrick Vallance (chief scientific officer).

ETA: Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. If you mean an epidemic B on top of the pandemic, then I don't know.

There could be other serious problems that you might think some healthcare systems would have a ramp-up/spillover/overflow capacity for. Japan, you would hope, would have some emergency care reservoir for earthquakes.

Of course, there was a mini-version of this problem when that hotel in China looking after Covid 19 patients collapsed.

ETA II: However, I imagine the short answer is that this is simply what is meant by stretching a countries healthcare capacity to its limits.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

How accurate is this? Starting to get sick of canned food and lots of local restaraunts are doing curbside. Is this just asking to get sick and infect my older parents? https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03...-ej16-FcBu_bLFdhP_GZ3b92EarAipWvzf61GkkmtGxQo

I have nothing but good experiences with information from this site, and what I've read from your link is in line with the current health recommendations.

The problems seems to be people more than stuff.