Merged 2019-nCoV / Corona virus

Status
Not open for further replies.
marting said:
A cluster of unknown origin in Washington State is likely:

https://apnews.com/f175d89567a26d59cab27725c9e8a0d7

Dr. Frank Riedo, medical director of Infection Control at Evergreen, said local hospitals are seeing people with severe coronavirus symptoms but it’s probable that there are more cases in the community.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
...
One is a Life Care worker, a woman in her 40s who is in satisfactory condition at a hospital, and the other is a woman in her 70s and a resident at Life Care who is hospitalized in serious condition.
....
“In addition, over 50 individuals associated with Life Care are reportedly ill with respiratory symptoms or hospitalized with pneumonia or other respiratory conditions of unknown cause and are being tested for COVID-19,” Seattle and King County officials said. “Additional positive cases are expected.”
Click to expand...
Did you miss my posts on this?
 
Oh crap, now one of the fire stations is "under quarantine". I imagine they transported the patient to Evergreen.

I told the MSO just yesterday they needed a department wide reminder that infection precautions needed to be meticulous.
 
Last edited:
rdwight said:
Stores around here completely sold out of hand sanitizer.
Click to expand...

We've been out more than a week, might not get more before this is all over as our essentials in crisis "fall off the ship" before leaving portland, seattle or san diego
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Oh crap, now one of the fire stations is "under quarantine". I imagine they transported the patient to Evergreen.

I told the MSO just yesterday they needed a department wide reminder that infection precautions needed to be meticulous.
Click to expand...

THAT is hardcore! The firestations would be wiped out from just a few rides, that really sucks

Hawaii always takes its cues from sanfran/portland/seattle so please, give our locals something good to emulate instead of the usual anti-science and anti-vax they get from there.

What are the firemen supposed to do? Should the private paramedics be wearing full suits?
 
pipelineaudio said:
THAT is hardcore! The firestations would be wiped out from just a few rides, that really sucks

Hawaii always takes its cues from sanfran/portland/seattle so please, give our locals something good to emulate instead of the usual anti-science and anti-vax they get from there.

What are the firemen supposed to do? Should the private paramedics be wearing full suits?
Click to expand...

They know what to do, they just don't do it. On the news a few minutes ago they showed three fire fighters moving a patient from the affected nursing home into an ambulance. They had gloves, gowns and masks, but no eye cover. That's exactly what I discussed with the MSO. He said he had to get after a couple guys just that day to put on their eye protection.

I will be talking to the department Mon morning about this issue.
 
alfaniner said:
On the other hand, pandemic-related changes may solve the global climate change crisis!

Coronavirus: Nasa images show China pollution clear amid slowdown
Click to expand...
Meh, I'll take the silver linings where they are.

News just now: Two dozen Kirkland police and fire are off the job and under quarantine. That will wake up the Bellevue department. None are ill. That's going to be difficult to fill the positions.

Another new case in Federal Way, works in a postal distribution center. That's about 15 miles to the south.

And the exposed nursing students exposed the school.
 
Last edited:
Skeptic Ginger said:
Meh, I'll take the silver linings where they are.

News just now: Two dozen Kirkland police and fire are off the job and under quarantine. That will wake up the Bellevue department. None are ill. That's going to be difficult to fill the positions.

Another new case in Federal Way, works in a postal distribution center. That's about 15 miles to the south.

And the exposed nursing students exposed the school.
Click to expand...

Doesn't Australia owe you a few firies?
 
marting said:
Oops. Just saw that. Stuff is happening fast.

Here's an interesting bit of research that says this puppy has been out and about 6 weeks.

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1233970271318503426

https://nextstrain.org/ncov?f_division=Washington
Click to expand...

Bingo!

That's exactly what I was saying: that it's been brewing for weeks - it's been creeping under the radar until it got to an old folks' home.

With that kind of unfettered spread, it's going to go nuclear very quickly.

alfaniner said:
On the other hand, pandemic-related changes may solve the global climate change crisis!

Coronavirus: Nasa images show China pollution clear amid slowdown
Click to expand...

It's also vastly reduced air travel pollution, and still dropping.

Things are so bad in the aviation industry our national carrier is advertising $69 fares to Aussie, about 1/3 of their previous lowest cost. I'm guessing they're trying to keep the planes in the air to keep staff employed at the smallest loss they can manage.

Another month and air travel will just about cease.
 
Even if it happened it's far too late to matter now.

I'm seeing them grounded through total lack of customers.

Would you shut yourself in a tin tube with 400 other people, breathing recycled air right now?
 
I can't believe people were doing it this whole last month. Crazy. I would think grounding the planes could slow it a bit, especially on islands. Give our health system a chance to treat cases slower
 
The Atheist said:
As this outbreak is now over 2 months old, I'm trying to use a bit of hindsight, along with a sceptical appraisal of where this bloody virus is actually headed, because I have a suspicion using the day-by-day numbers are giving an incorrect impression. The spread of cases unconnected to previous case or China is the clue, for me.

13 January:

Thailand reports first case of covid-19.

On 29 February they have 42 cases.

22 January:

USA finds first case.

On 29 February, USA has 68 cases identified, most of which are ex-China.

22 January:



22 January:

First case hits the Philippines

On 29 February, Philippines have had zero more cases.

23 January:



25 January:

Four cases identified in Australia.

On 29 February, Australia has 25 cases.

31 January:




Pandemics are discovered when the serious cases show up. Prior to that, nobody's looking, so the infection can spread by mild cases long before those serious cases are seen, and we know for certain covid-19 not only produces mild cases, but also completely asymptomatic ones.

Imperial College London has always maintained actual numbers are at least ten times the officially identified cases. I suggested at the start that it could be as high as 100 times more, and the way cases with no contacts in China are now springing up gives a strong likelihood of under-reporting. This was noted all the way back on 17 January, when people started applying maths to the situation.

Based on a r0 of 2.6, we would be seeing something in the order of 1,000,000 cases right now.

And maybe we have that, but haven't counted 90% of them because those people aren't sick enough to bother going to the doctor.

I'm going to say that's where we actually are, and it's going to be impossible to control or even limit the spread now it has clear traction.

I think we're over-estimating the deadliness by under-estimating the spread and there seems to be no other way the virus could be spreading internally in cases with no connection to past cases, other than wrong input.
It's still going to be a nightmare for health systems, but I think attempts to slow the spread are futile and we're stuck with this as an extra human pathogen until someone strikes a vaccine. (which may not work if the virus mutates)
Click to expand...

To put an opposing argument, if we look at the cruise liner Princess Diamond surveillance for infection was high, about 600 cases identified and 6 deaths; giving a 1% mortality rate accepting the passengers will be predominantly elderly. China reports 1,700 healthcare staff infected (again probably a highly surveilled population), with 6 deaths giving a 0.3% mortality in likely younger population.

This paper
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022566v1.full.pdf
predicts peak covid 19 cases in June / July for England and Wales (about 4 months after in country transmission commences). It estimates 80% infected (asymptomatic and symptomatic), with a peak incidence 1 million infected. Estimates for symptomatic from elsewhere are 50%, with 5% requiring hospital type care and 1% requiring ITU level care. So at peak 5,000 requiring ITU level care in E&W. Current ITU beds (which run at about 80% occupancy) are about 4,000. The number of acute beds in the NHS are about 50 - 100,000, at peak the number of cases requiring hospital care would be just over 100,000.

ETA there are different estimates for proportion infected requiring hospital level care. 50,000 at peak requiring admission to hospital looks more correct.
 
Last edited:
Planigale said:
To put an opposing argument, if we look at the cruise liner Princess Diamond surveillance for infection was high, about 600 cases identified and 6 deaths; giving a 1% mortality rate accepting the passengers will be predominantly elderly. China reports 1,700 healthcare staff infected (again probably a highly surveilled population), with 6 deaths giving a 0.3% mortality in likely younger population.

This paper
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022566v1.full.pdf
predicts peak covid 19 cases in June / July for England and Wales (about 4 months after in country transmission commences). It estimates 80% infected (asymptomatic and symptomatic), with a peak incidence 1 million infected. Estimates for symptomatic from elsewhere are 50%, with 5% requiring hospital type care and 1% requiring ITU level care. So at peak 5,000 requiring ITU level care in E&W. Current ITU beds (which run at about 80% occupancy) are about 4,000. The number of acute beds in the NHS are about 50 - 100,000, at peak the number of cases requiring hospital care would be just over 100,000.

ETA there are different estimates for proportion infected requiring hospital level care. 50,000 at peak requiring admission to hospital looks more correct.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of the Diamond Princess as an example of how to assess mortality rate, and in fact it may have rises to seven with the Australian passenger, no? Given that there were 705 confirmed with coronavirus then yes that would make 1% mortality rate. BUT,... wasn’t the over 80s mortality rate around 14%? Given that the cruise liner passengers are likely skewed much older, wouldn’t we actually expect a much higher than 1% overall among the passengers if the gen pop mortality rate is 1%? In other words, is the Diamond Princess really a random representative sample?

Similarly with healthcare workers? I have no idea how these things work, but I have seen some people arguing that repeated exposure to the virus can overwhelm the immune system faster and lead to worse outcomes... I don’t know if that is true, but if it is then they would also not be a representative sample.
 
angrysoba said:
I was thinking of the Diamond Princess as an example of how to assess mortality rate, and in fact it may have rises to seven with the Australian passenger, no? Given that there were 705 confirmed with coronavirus then yes that would make 1% mortality rate. BUT,... wasn’t the over 80s mortality rate around 14%? Given that the cruise liner passengers are likely skewed much older, wouldn’t we actually expect a much higher than 1% overall among the passengers if the gen pop mortality rate is 1%? In other words, is the Diamond Princess really a random representative sample?

Similarly with healthcare workers? I have no idea how these things work, but I have seen some people arguing that repeated exposure to the virus can overwhelm the immune system faster and lead to worse outcomes... I don’t know if that is true, but if it is then they would also not be a representative sample.
Click to expand...

All fair comments. So I think not accurate but ball park; say an estimate of 0.1 to 1% mortality. Obviously varying on age, sex and underlying co-morbidity. Given an estimate of 80% of total population at risk of infection this gives estimates of total global deaths over the whole time course of the pandemic 5,000,000 to 50,000,000. (Assuming no effective intervention such as vaccine or drugs.)

In comparison annual deaths from other infectious diseases respiratory including flu 3,000,000 (0.5 million due to flu), TB 1,000,000, Diarrhoea 1,000,000, HIV 1,000,000. (These are very rounded estimates to the nearest million.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom