Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[Meadmaker]

For the life of me, I can't figure out the China obsession. I get it. We can't trust Chinese data.


Now, who cares?

Of course, academics trying to get to the bottom of the story of this virus care, and it's unfortunate that there might be obstructions, but I think most of us are concerned about the management of this virus and the response to it in the places they happen to live, which for most of us is somewhere in the US, Europe, or other heavily Caucasian zones. I get that China isn't trustworthy, but that knowledge does absolutely nothing for getting toilet paper back on the shelves, or for getting test kits into places where it might slow the spread of the virus or lower the death rate in Peoria.

 

[JeanTate]

I see, from a later post by you, that you will not likely be returning to post here for a while. Let’s hope so.

Well thankfully, unlike the rubes here, most health officials around the planet are highly skeptical of China's ridiculous numbers.

<snip>

Believing stats from the Chineses government on a Skeptic site, thanks for the free comedy.

Would I be correct in guessing that you have not lived in China? Nor Hong Kong? Have not lived in Macau? Taiwan?

Perhaps you have not even visited - as a tourist, sportsperson, academic, student, ... - any of those places?

What is common, among Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the 31 provinces of China, is the ethnicity of most of the people who live there*.

Perhaps, in your ha(s)te, you projected ignorance, not racism?

*Definitions matter of course. For example, many of the 31 provinces have large “minority” populations, Guangxi for example.

 

[JeanTate]

For the life of me, I can't figure out the China obsession. I get it. We can't trust Chinese data.


Now, who cares?

Of course, academics trying to get to the bottom of the story of this virus care, and it's unfortunate that there might be obstructions, but I think most of us are concerned about the management of this virus and the response to it in the places they happen to live, which for most of us is somewhere in the US, Europe, or other heavily Caucasian zones. I get that China isn't trustworthy, but that knowledge does absolutely nothing for getting toilet paper back on the shelves, or for getting test kits into places where it might slow the spread of the virus or lower the death rate in Peoria.

It’s important, in part, because until there’s something like a widely deployed successful vaccine, deciding how to lower the death rate in Peoria involves understanding what seems to have worked elsewhere (and what didn’t work).

And it seems that what was done to keep the death rate low in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, ... oh and maybe China too (other than in Hubei) ... might be useful to the mayor of Peoria (or the Governor of Illinois).

 

[JeanTate]

Today is the 12th of April and we're not even close to being on pace with your forecast. Looks like we're waiting longer than you thought. Or was your "supposing" not meant to be taken seriously, as it was simply "supposing"? It certainly felt as though your intention was to show me, through "supposing" in simple exponential fashion (since apparently you, as so many others,
thought I was too simpleminded to comprehend the premise) just how foolish I was to doubt the claims of massive impending doom and death.

Isn’t it extraordinary what piling up thousands of sand bags can do?

Suppose that you have a poor track record of correctly divining my intentions.

If you assume that “suppose” may be used to mean something like “assume, for the sake of discussion”, you are not supposed to misunderstand.

 

[Andy_Ross]

UK death toll reaches 11,329 a rise of 717 from Easter Sunday's total.

 

[Andy_Ross]

BBC reporting more than 2,550 new cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Russia in the past 24 hours - the country's largest daily rise in infections so far.
About 11,500 of the 18,328 people infected have been in the capital Moscow. There have been recorded 148 deaths.

 

[Meadmaker]

It’s important, in part, because until there’s something like a widely deployed successful vaccine, deciding how to lower the death rate in Peoria involves understanding what seems to have worked elsewhere (and what didn’t work).

And it seems that what was done to keep the death rate low in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, ... oh and maybe China too (other than in Hubei) ... might be useful to the mayor of Peoria (or the Governor of Illinois).

That part makes sense, and it's unfortunate that you can't be sure of what comes out of China. Taiwan ought to be pretty reliable, though.

Anyway, I think the rest is politics, so not for this thread.

 

[JeanTate]

With a fatality rate of 0.47%, if SARS-COV-2 had been allowed to run its course with no mitigation steps, with the claimed 60 percent infection rate before herd immunity put a stop to it there would have been over 900,000 deaths in the US. If it instead behaved like a typical influenza outbreak and infected 10-15 percent, that would have meant 155,000-227,000 deaths in the US (though given the lack of immunity to SARS-COV-2 in the general population and the lack of a vaccine, one would expect it to infect a higher percentage than influenza).

Given the high age dependence of fatalities from COVID-19, it shouldn't be assumed that the CFR will be the same in every country. If I did the estimations correctly (a 50-50 chance), while Italy currently has a per capita fatality rate about 5 times that of the US, for the under 60 population it is around 2 times. Iceland is one of the youngest countries in the west and should be expected to have one of the lowest CFRs.

There are also disparities in the distributions of underlying conditions*.

For example, Iceland is green in the sense that it uses no fossil fuels to generate the electricity delivered on the grid, nor for heating (cars, buses, and planes however are mostly not electric). No surprise then that PM2.5 numbers are far lower there than in New York City, say, or Shanghai. Icelandic lungs may be much healthier than Chicago ones.

What is called racial (ethnic?) differences here in the US is also likely important (the incidence of type 2 diabetes, for example, is lower among Asian Americans than it is among African Americans): so, for example, if certain heart conditions are known to elevate risk of dying if you get Covid-19, then if Latin Americans have a higher incidence of those heart conditions, their Covid-19 death rates will likely be higher too (cet. par.).

Etc.

*and still a lot of unknowns about which ones contribute to higher death rates, and to what extent having more than one delivers an even more lethal punch.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Isn’t it extraordinary what piling up thousands of sand bags can do?

Suppose that you have a poor track record of correctly divining my intentions.

If you assume that “suppose” may be used to mean something like “assume, for the sake of discussion”, you are not supposed to misunderstand.

Nice try, but you made it very clear that you believed the outcomes you were painting a picture of were going to come to pass regardless of the "sandbags."

 

[JeanTate]

Washington Post: China reports highest number of new coronavirus cases in six weeks.

Most of which are attributed to people arriving from other places (same source, WaPo).

As I read it, much the same has been happening in Hong Kong, Australia, and Singapore (although in Singapore there’s a danger of difficult to control outbreaks in the dormitories of migrant laborers).

Important experiences to inform decisions JB Pritzker will have to make in the coming days and months.

 

[Childlike Empress]

*Turkmenistan is, apparently, one exception

Belarus is another one. Lukashenko called it (paraphrasing) "a psychosis that won't happen in my country".

 

[Pixel42]

From today's UK briefing

One of these lines is not like the others.

 

[quadraginta]

Iceland has tested 10% of its entire population, finding that half of all people who get it don't even have symptoms, with an overall fatality rate so far of 0.4%.

I, for one, am not surprised that when real testing of a populationis done, the death rate is far lowerthan what has been claimed.

ETA: number correction and removed incorrect statement about flu death rates.

"Real" testing is a pipe-dream. Too many possible variations of what "real" means, and too many oportunities missed already.

The numbers which will show us the actual effect of the virus are going to be the change in overall incidence of deaths in any given period as compared to the historical record.

This has been at the core of many of your posts.

Some of those numbers are already coming in, and they aren't pretty.

The NYT, has some figures on all deaths reported in the past month in NYC, our U.S. hotspot. Here's a link to the article.

There have been more than twice as many deaths within the city limits as there were in the month which included 9/11, and only about half of them are considered to be Covid 19 deaths.

Because everyone didn't get tested, and everyone didn't go to a hospital where they were treated for Covid 19.

Funny, though, that it is all peaking at the same time.

Coincidence?

 

[pipelineaudio]

From today's UK briefing

One of these lines is not like the others.

OUCH! That is carnage Is there one per capita of the same sort of graph?

 

[Darat]

When the dust settles we'll be able to have an idea of the impact by looking at how many more people died than was typical for that particular time of year. Of course, that won't tell us how many of those deaths were directly from covid-19 and how many were indirect. But it should give us a fair idea of how many people died who otherwise wouldn't have.

Be interesting to see if we see a drop in deaths from pollution in cities like London,

 

[JeanTate]

Well thankfully, unlike the rubes here, most health officials around the planet are highly skeptical of China's ridiculous numbers.

<snip>

Believing stats from the Chineses government on a Skeptic site, thanks for the free comedy.

Um, while the sources which published the numbers I quoted (the original sources, not the WHO) are agencies, or branches, of government, they are four different ones*.

The point of my post - which you seem to have missed - is that the numbers from sources independent of the government in Beijing are consistent with those from the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China (excluding those for Hubei).

But maybe you did intend to say that numbers from the Ministry of Health and Welfare (based in Taipei) are equally unacceptable?

*Or more, if you count each of the 31 provinces rather than the central one, in Beijing

 

[Darat]

There is something called "gaslighting", you know. But yeah, let's trust totalitarian government of China.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make? Are you saying we should be skeptical of where the Chinese have said the disease started infecting people?

 

[pipelineaudio]

I have no idea what point you are trying to make? Are you saying we should be skeptical of where the Chinese have said the disease started infecting people?

When they say it was started by the US Army? Most definitely yes

 

[JeanTate]

From today's UK briefing

One of these lines is not like the others.

Even in the source, I can’t quite make out what the y-axis is. Is it deaths?

 

[Darat]

When they say it was started by the US Army? Most definitely yes

The Chinese authorities are saying it started in China.