Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[novaphile]

Brazilian study of chloroquine is ended - doesn’t work and causes heart problems and death.

Same as the other studies then...

 

[The Atheist]

A lot of people infected with Covid-19 are not having any symptoms at all.
How does this compare with the regular flu?
Is it similar to the flu or is this exceptional for a corona virus?

I don't think other coronaviruses are asymptomatic, but influenza definitely can be, as shown by the H1N1 swine 'flu.

 

[Planigale]

In the UK there is a lot of discussion about deaths in care homes from Covid-19. To inform the discussion I attach a break down of deaths in care homes pre-covid. Flu is the fourth most common cause, and will of course be predominantly seasonal. See table 3.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ent_and_temporary_residents_of_care_homes.pdf

 

[Darat]

There are many more cities in the world with much worse particulate pollution than London.
It doesn’t even figure in the top 500.
There are a number of non-Chinese cities to choose from if the Chinese COVID numbers are regarded as questionable.

And?

 

[ohms]

In the UK there is a lot of discussion about deaths in care homes from Covid-19. To inform the discussion I attach a break down of deaths in care homes pre-covid. Flu is the fourth most common cause, and will of course be predominantly seasonal. See table 3.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ent_and_temporary_residents_of_care_homes.pdf

This morning, the ONS have released death statistics for the week up to 3rd April for England and Wales:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...glandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020

There is an analysis of deaths due out on Thursday which will take a more in-depth look at deaths related to Covid-19 which is linked to in the above webpage.

 

[Samson]

In New Zealand we have 2 deaths in their 70.s 4 in their 80's and 3 in their 90's
8 were in rest homes.
Daily admissions to rest homes are 700, that number surprised me, population less than 5m.

Eta I think it must be 700 a week or 100 a day.

 

[JesseCuster]

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%.

Assuming those figures are correct, we're dealing with a viral infection that's 4 times deadlier than seasonal flu and known to be far more infectious.

And 40 times deadlier than the lowball figure of 0.01% you referenced earlier in the thread.

And 100 times deadlier than casebro's bizarre 0.004% fatality rate.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Germany has more recovered than ill now.

 

[dann]

Meanwhile in Cuba...

It's actually bloody awful that Cuba, if only in part, resorts to quack medicine in this situation. Cuba's enemies have already caught on to it and are using it in their propaganda against the country, but fortunately Cuban medical doctors also oppose the idea that homeopathic remedies, i.e. "agitated water", has anything in common with actual, science-based medicine:

The announcement about the homeopathic remedy, however, has generated discontent within the Cuban medical community.
“Are these people just ignorant and irresponsible, suggesting meaningless measures, selling agitated water?” asked Dr. Luis Carlos Silva on the website of the local newspaper Venceremos.
Silva said that portraying the use of the product as a preventive measure was “irresponsible” because “people without enough knowledge might believe they are protected.”
Silva, a professor at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana who works with several universities and international health organizations, declined to comment further.
Cuba promotes homeopathy as effective ‘weapon’ against the coronavirus (Miami Herald, April 7, 2020)

And fortunately, in spite of some Cubans being taken in by the pseudo-science, others also criticize that elements of the medical establishment in Cuba resort to pseudo-scientific medicine.


While Cuban health-care workers are doing a tremendous job (and not based on quack medicine!) all around the world in some of the hardest hit countries like e.g. Andorra, this is how the country is treated by the USA:

While Cuban medical collaboration is extended around the world to help contain the COVID-19 pandemic, the insane blockade imposed by the United States on our country, has just denied our public health system access to two regular suppliers of ventilators, key to the care of the most serious cases of the disease.
In another twist of this genocidal, inhumane policy, the manufacturers IMTMedical AG and Acutronic, announced the end of commercial relations with Cuba, after the companies were acquired by the U.S. firm Vyaire Medical Inc.
"Unfortunately, the corporate guideline we have today is to suspend all commercial relations with Medicuba," both stated, according to the director for Latin America and the Caribbean at Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex), Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, on his Twitter account.
U.S. company buys ventilator supplier and cancels shipments to Cuba citing blockade (Granma, April 13, 2020)

A similar thing happened when a Danish company was bought by Americans some years ago - they were no longer allowed to deliver necessary spare parts of apparatus for medical analysis to Cuba - but that didn't happen in an emergency like the present situation.

 

[Childlike Empress]

According to their timeline I've posted, China used among other things "traditional Chinese medicine" to combat the virus.

 

[JeanTate]

According to their timeline I've posted, China used among other things "traditional Chinese medicine" to combat the virus.

No doubt among the thousands of TCM concoctions there are chemicals which reduce fever, suppress coughs, etc.

And, like homeopathic stuff, there is surely a placebo effect ... the “mind games” part of medicine, traditional or not, is both real and not all that well understood yet.

 

[dann]

According to their timeline I've posted, China used among other things "traditional Chinese medicine" to combat the virus.

Yes, and I suppose that many Chinese medical professionals are as ashamed about the fact as they are in Cuba! You might as well have priests pray for coronavirus victims (which I'm sure they're already doing).

 

[The Moog]

Interesting graph compiled from the ONS data of death registrations in England and Wales.
0 on the graph is the average number over the last 5 years.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Interesting graph compiled from the ONS data of death registrations in England and Wales.
0 on the graph is the average number over the last 5 years.

Change in deaths compared to average is another statistic we need now. We already have good some overview about the testing rates.

Especially since this is often compared to flu, and flu death rate is usually estimated the same way. You can't compare confirmed cases of COVID with estimated cases of flu.

 

[The Moog]

Another from the ONS statistics just showing the total number of registered deaths in London.
It shows the increase quite starkly.

 

[lomiller]

The US is more concentrated in urban centers and, indeed, those are the areas being hardest hit.

82% of Canadians live in urban areas vs 80.7% in the US. Other than New York & New York area the population densities of urban areas in Canada and the US is comparable as well. What's different is the distance between these urban centers, but this doesn't change how connected these areas need to be.

 

[JeanTate]

IIRC, there is a good article on this general question in a recent issue of The Economist*.

The relationship between economic cycles and deaths, cet. par., is pro-cyclical: in boom times deaths go up; in recessions they go down.

*which I seem to have misplaced. It may the one with the charts/graphs in Matthew Best’s recent post.

Found it!

It is that issue, April 4th 2020. In the Briefing section, “Hard choices”. Here are some extracts:

“Counter-intuitive as it may be, the economic evidence indicates that mortality is procyclical: it rises in periods of economic growth and declines during downturns. [...] found that in America a 1% rise in unemployment was associated with a 1.3% increase in suicides, but a decline in cardiovascular deaths of 0.5%, in road deaths of 3.0%, and in deaths from all causes of 0.5%.”

“The fact that some of the people now arguing that the exorbitant costs of decisive action against Covid-19 will lead to poorer public health in the future were, after the financial crisis, supporters of an austerity which had the same effect is not without its irony.”

 

[Belz...]

According to their timeline I've posted, China used among other things "traditional Chinese medicine" to combat the virus.

To probably very little effect. What's your point?



Oh, right.

 

[JeanTate]

Thanks for posting this.

Another from the ONS statistics just showing the total number of registered deaths in London.
It shows the increase quite starkly.

Interesting Xmas/New Year effect.

Of the years plotted, which was the worst for the flu?

 

[JeanTate]

Thanks for posting this.

In the UK there is a lot of discussion about deaths in care homes from Covid-19. To inform the discussion I attach a break down of deaths in care homes pre-covid. Flu is the fourth most common cause, and will of course be predominantly seasonal. See table 3.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ent_and_temporary_residents_of_care_homes.pdf

Any idea when some comparable analysis, showing the impact of Covid-19, might be published?