Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[JoeMorgue]

A 4 year old Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for COVID-19, and 6 other large cats has also fallen ill.

https://www.wcax.com/content/news/T...tests-positive-for-coronavirus-569394791.html

 

[crescent]

Since the US has been under quarantine regulations for the past two weeks,
I've been measuring regular rates of just a tiny bit under 15% daily growth.
So by 2020 April 15 we should see only 1.25 million cases in the United States
and 0.5 million cases in New York state.

I calculated the percentages from the last few numbers from an article in Vox
titled: Conformed Coronavirus Cases by Dylan Scott and Rani Molla.

I've just been using deaths, since testing has been so scattered - several people I know have been sick with symptoms consistent with Covid-19, but have been unable to get tested. Using numbers off the Worldmeter site.

I've been thinking that a three or five day running average of deaths might be a better measure, as that would provide a sort of smoothing to account for daily variation. But stats are not my strong suit. I get the impression we won't know if any downturn is real until we've been in that downturn for at least four or five days - there is just too much variation for downturns of one or two days to mean much by themselves

I'm mostly been following American numbers because I'm American, and we've got a lot of cases. No disparagement of other nations there, it is just more in my personal interest to follow what happens in my own nation. I've been paying some attention to Germany as well, because my wife is German and we have tickets to go there near the end of May. I don't think we'll make the trip, but we are still holding out for a miracle. Germany seems to be handling things better.

Another thing to look for is cases or deaths per-capita. America was down around 40th place on that measure a few weeks ago, no we are at 18th for per-capita deaths and 24th for total cases. Many of the nations above us are tiny little nations like Andorra or elements of the UK like Isle of Man and the Channel Islands and such. Sticking with nations that have more than a million people, we are about 14th in terms of per-capita deaths so far.

 

[marting]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2

Nature article (Apr. 3, 2020) on the presence of various virus types distinguishing between droplets ( > 5um) and aerosols ( < 5um) in breathing collected over 30 minutes. Also examined was a set where surgical masks were worn.

Interesting results.

We also demonstrated the efficacy of surgical masks to reduce coronavirus detection and viral copies in large respiratory droplets and in aerosols (Table 1b).

 

[JeanTate]

Yes.

And no.

26/27 March had the lowest growth in that period (~0.12), and 24/25 March the highest (~0.43; leaving out 19/20, which is 0.50).

Before obtaining the data, I had expected a fair bit of scatter at the beginning of the period, but not much towards the end. I was wrong. And while there is indeed a trend, a linear fit doesn't get to ~0.12 until ~17 April.

YMMV, of course, but my bet is that Dogghouse Reilly will lose the bet with Roboramma by the first week of May at the latest, and could lose it by the last weekend of April. I truly hope that I'm wrong.

I understand exponential growth, projections, etc., but to me it's just bizarro world thinking. This virus has been across the world for a few months now, and in the US for almost 2 months, yet the entire global death toll is under 85k, but somehow in less than a month, the US will surpass the entire global death toll?

If you turn out to be right, I will most certainly have been proven epically wrong. And if that comes to pass, I will certainly admit it and eat crow. But I think your projections are absurd.

You may not have read this post by me, from an older thread*.

TL;DR version:
~57% of the US population gets COVID-19.
~1% of those infected die (due to the infection).
-> ~1.9 million deaths (due to the infection).

The basics:
~no one avoids being infected (100% infection and 0.57% death from infection gives the same result, so swings and roundabouts).
No widely deployed vaccine in time.
No better way to treat severe cases than what we're aleady doing (ICU, ventilator, etc).
No significant changes in the behavior of the virus.

There may have been a time - late January, up to mid-February? - when the world could have driven SARS-COV-2 to extinction (or effectively so). Led by the US. Now somewhere between 240k and 1.9 million of those living in the USA will die avoidable deaths. Ditto tens of millions elsewhere in the world.

*In the Planigale post I quote there is an arithmetical error, which she corrected, but not in time to edit the original post.

 

[The Atheist]

This virus has been across the world for a few months now, and in the US for almost 2 months, yet the entire global death toll is under 85k, but somehow in less than a month, the US will surpass the entire global death toll?

I made the comment very early on that people who don't understand how dangerous Covid is are those who don't understand maths, and that post is a perfect example of that effect.

I'd love to play you at poker.

My *impression* of India is that there's so much infectious-disease background as "noise" that teasing out coronavirus illnesses/deaths will be very, very difficult, and that the PTB will take advantage of that to lowball the count.

I'm going to say they won't be able to hide it for long in India.

It's in the slums and all hell is about to break loose, I'd say.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...m-reports-covid-19-cases-200403053646046.html

 

[JeanTate]

I've just been using deaths, since testing has been so scattered - several people I know have been sick with symptoms consistent with Covid-19, but have been unable to get tested. Using numbers off the Worldmeter site.

I've been thinking that a three or five day running average of deaths might be a better measure, as that would provide a sort of smoothing to account for daily variation. But stats are not my strong suit. I get the impression we won't know if any downturn is real until we've been in that downturn for at least four or five days - there is just too much variation for downturns of one or two days to mean much by themselves

I'm mostly been following American numbers because I'm American, and we've got a lot of cases. No disparagement of other nations there, it is just more in my personal interest to follow what happens in my own nation. I've been paying some attention to Germany as well, because my wife is German and we have tickets to go there near the end of May. I don't think we'll make the trip, but we are still holding out for a miracle. Germany seems to be handling things better.

Another thing to look for is cases or deaths per-capita. America was down around 40th place on that measure a few weeks ago, no we are at 18th for per-capita deaths and 24th for total cases. Many of the nations above us are tiny 0little nations like Andorra or elements of the UK like Isle of Man and the Channel Islands and such. Sticking with nations that have more than a million people, we are about 14th in terms of per-capita deaths so far.

As an economist would say, deaths is a lagging indicator. But it's the most reliable one we have at the moment.

A three-day moving average applied to the data I mentioned earlier reduces the range, in fractional daily increase in deaths, from ~(0.12, 0.43) to ~(0.20, 0.33), but the numbers are still jumping around a lot.

 

[Minoosh]

I'm going to say they won't be able to hide it for long in India.

It's in the slums and all hell is about to break loose, I'd say.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...m-reports-covid-19-cases-200403053646046.html

Poor people might have a hard time practicing social distancing. Fourteen people living in one room would make it difficult.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Believe it or not, I got a jury duty notice for the week of April 13th. I received it about 3 weeks ago, but just double-checked the date.

It will be interesting to see what happens when I call in.

 

[Myriad]

I made the comment very early on that people who don't understand how dangerous Covid is are those who don't understand maths, and that post is a perfect example of that effect.

I'd love to play you at poker.

Fully understanding exponential growth is rare. Those who get how fast it can increase, tend not to get how long it can increase very slowly before you get to the fast part.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

This virus has been across the world for a few months now, and in the US for almost 2 months, yet the entire global death toll is under 85k, but somehow in less than a month, the US will surpass the entire global death toll?

It took the US 12 days to go from 850 deaths to 8,500 deaths.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I revised my post after re-reading the paper.

Yes, I noticed after posting my reply. But my point still stands. Even if the risk of getting infected at soccer game was higher than in a crowded train, supermarket, or pub, the much lower frequency of visits makes it a lower risk overall. Assuming 'business as usual'.

Personally I would not accept any unnecessary risk. Aside from going to the supermarket about once a week I stay indoors and avoid all contact with others. Overreacting? Perhaps - but at my age I can't afford to take the risk.

They were claiming going to the game or not you would have contact with 5 people in either case. It's not a reasonable estimate of how many people you have contact with in a sports stadium.

Evidence please, not argument from incredulity.

And if one goes to the game, don't a lot of people take mass transit to get there?

Not now they don't. But assuming they did, would it be any different from the mass transport they take to go to work etc.?

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

I made the comment very early on that people who don't understand how dangerous Covid is are those who don't understand maths, and that post is a perfect example of that effect.

I'd love to play you at poker.



I'm going to say they won't be able to hide it for long in India.

It's in the slums and all hell is about to break loose, I'd say.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...m-reports-covid-19-cases-200403053646046.html

I understand math and am very good at poker, so, anytime. I don't believe the death rate is as high as the models are accounting for, hence my difference of opinion. I believe it is as low as flu, hence my reasons for believing it will not surpass flu. That's entirely different than not understanding math.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

It took the US 12 days to go from 850 deaths to 8,500 deaths.

Yes, it did. What is your point? You assume it will take another 12 days to go to 85,000? That's not how this works, it hasn't happened that way anywhere else, and in a few weeks all of you will see that. I look forward to it. It's amusing to see so many on a skeptical message board prognosticate and soothsay visions of extreme plague that won't come to pass.

 

[marting]

I understand exponential growth, projections, etc., but to me it's just bizarro world thinking. This virus has been across the world for a few months now, and in the US for almost 2 months, yet the entire global death toll is under 85k, but somehow in less than a month, the US will surpass the entire global death toll?

On March 5, the USA had reported a total of 9 deaths from COVID-19. On April 5, the USA reported a total of 7020 deaths.

Fortunately, the strong social distancing and lockdown of non-essential businesses will, with luck, have reduced R below 1 for at least the last couple weeks and probably less than 2 for earlier in March when social distancing was increasingly encouraged.

Hard to say what the impact of that is since the effect on deaths lags about 3 weeks but we should be seeing that soon. Within the next week or so.

 

[Samson]

"The Guardian was told last week that Johnson was more seriously ill than either he or his officials were prepared to admit, and that he was being seen by doctors who were concerned about his breathing."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/05/boris-johnson-admitted-to-hospital-with-coronavirus

I thought early use of a ventilator was indicated if possible.

Note: This is a question dissociated from politics, but important eg for New Zealand where we have plenty of ICU capacity currently.

 

[JesseCuster]

Yes, it did. What is your point? You assume it will take another 12 days to go to 85,000?

No-one has assumed such a thing. You're reading into that post something that wasn't said.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

I made the comment very early on that people who don't understand how dangerous Covid is are those who don't understand maths, and that post is a perfect example of that effect.

We're not solving a math problem though.

All models are wrong, but some are completely wrong

DR is saying he thinks the model his interlocutors are using is wrong.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Yes, it did. What is your point? You assume it will take another 12 days to go to 85,000? That's not how this works, it hasn't happened that way anywhere else, and in a few weeks all of you will see that. I look forward to it. It's amusing to see so many on a skeptical message board prognosticate and soothsay visions of extreme plague that won't come to pass.

I was not making a forecast. My intent only was to point out that the death toll had increased by a factor of 10 in 12 days, meaning that I don't see how it increasing by a factor of 10 once more in less than a month is implausible. The current number of confirmed infected people in the US right now is more than the number of confirmed infected people in the entire world 15 days ago (though that is in part due to more extensive testing).

 

[The Atheist]

"The Guardian was told last week that Johnson was more seriously ill than either he or his officials were prepared to admit, and that he was being seen by doctors who were concerned about his breathing."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/05/boris-johnson-admitted-to-hospital-with-coronavirus

I thought early use of a ventilator was indicated if possible.

Note: This is a question dissociated from politics, but important eg for New Zealand where we have plenty of ICU capacity currently.

As I see it, the people who go into hospital with Covid have a good chance of coming out in a box.

NZ's ICU capacity is feeble, so I certainly can't blame Jacinda for trying not to break it.

We might have another death to add in, too: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/he...ington-motel-after-suffering-flulike-symptoms

 

[pipelineaudio]

Poor people might have a hard time practicing social distancing. Fourteen people living in one room would make it difficult.

Which makes Hawaii an absolute terror! Multiple three generation, morbidly obese, anti-science families living under one roof.