Coronavirus

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Zero Gravitas
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Coronavirus

Post by Zero Gravitas »

Novel flu virus.

No one has any immunity.

Closest parallel is Spanish flu?

Current estimates seem to be that 70% of people will get it, of whom 20% will be ill.

Death rate is between 1% - 2%. But this is very unclear. Could be a lot better, could be a lot worse.

UK population is ~70m. 70% = 49m. 1% = 490k.

Caribbean
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by Caribbean »

Factoids that I've gleaned so far from various publications (I am not in a position to verify any of the "facts" stated, so will leave you to construct your own conspiracy theory):

a. Not a flu virus. Related to SARS and MERS. Causes a viral pneumonia and multiple-organ failure (particularly kidney) in the worst affected.
b. Transmission rate around 2-3 (i.e. slightly higher than "normal" flu)
c. Approx. 80% or those who get it have little or no symptoms
d. Of those who do, their outcome is based on age, pre-existing conditions, whether or not they are smokers and how polluted their environment is.
e. Pre-existing conditions need not be that serious (elevated cholesterol, high blood-pressure, pre-diabetes, asthma etc, etc). A lot more people fall into this category than think they do - no need to have a serious pre-existing illness
f. Death rate (so far) between 2.5 and 3% overall (vs. 0.1% for most flu's), but a lot of people have not actually recovered from it, even after 3 or 4 weeks in hospital, so could well go higher. Over age 80, death rate is 20% or more, Over 60, or with pre-existing condition, 10% or more.
g. Main suspects for origin - bats or pangolins
h. The Wuhan "wet-market" was probably not the origin, though may have been where most of the early victims were infected.. There was a report from China around 10 days ago that "Patient Zero" was a bed-ridden stroke victim who had not left his house for two years.
i. The only BSL-4 Laboratory in China (which apparently admits to researching bat-based Coronaviruses) is in Wuhan and not very far from the market (as in 5 or 600 metres)
j. The virus apparently does better in very low ( < 10%) or very high humidity (> 80%), and at middling temperatures (20-25C)
k. The early research paper that claimed that the virus' DNA contained sections of HIV DNA has been withdrawn, but a recent Today program interview stated that "HIV retroviral drugs were being tested against the new virus, because there were certain similarities between sections of the COVID-19 virus DNA and HIV".
l. Incubation time between 2 and 14 days.
m. There were reports from China two or three days ago that around 14% of previously "cured" victims were testing positive again some 3 or 4 weeks after being released from hospital.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Carrying on from my post on the Brexit thread (about what happens next when supply chains are widely cut or disrupted), this https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brita ... KKBN20P0Z7 is only the first step: support confidence through the wealth effect (the extra money overnight finding its way)

Step two is where the dangers hide: so much liquidity - a different order of magnitude - injected, simply to keep the wheels turning, when normal cash flows dry up
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)


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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Could be anywhere. Let's consider the ME (comes close enough to our defence interests and on-going conflicts, too):

The good old 100 yr War between us and the French had to take a breather, when the plague hit.

We could equally see the ME conflicts, save for Turkey's forays, moving into a suspended state... perhaps to come back with a vengeance, a couple of years later?
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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SKB
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by SKB »

Londoner's logic....

Image
Image

Literally a plastic box over the head. If the virus doesn't kill her, inhaling her own exhaled CO2 will...
:roll:

bobp
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by bobp »

Caribbean wrote:Death rate (so far) between 2.5 and 3% overall (vs. 0.1% for most flu's), but a lot of people have not actually recovered from it, even after 3 or 4 weeks in hospital, so could well go higher. Over age 80, death rate is 20% or more, Over 60, or with pre-existing condition, 10% or more.

Hmmm I fit into the latter category of having a pre existing condition so not so good for us folks of senior years.

Caribbean
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by Caribbean »

The current "resolved" cases (discharged or died) show an average mortality of 6%. Current unresolved cases (still sick) show about 15% are seriously or critically ill. This may well be the deciding factor in many countries, with limited facilities to handle high-dependency cases.

As the data builds up, the death rates are being refined. The over-80s rate has come down to c. 15% and over 60s to around 9%

Useful reference site: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

bobp
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by bobp »

I read that in Italy there has been 197 deaths so far out of 4900 reported cases.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Excellent source https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/; even has the log scale option for the graphs
- I guess the bump in the "cases" graph reflects Italy & Iran being slow in their early actions?

What I haven't seen a source for is the role of multiple-organ failures in the number of deaths. Will/ can affect the not-discharged number in a dramatic way
- and thereby the capacity to deal with the newly (seriously) ill
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

bobp
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by bobp »

So almost 4000 deaths and 6000 critically ill out of 100000 cases worldwide. The NHS would be in trouble if the numbers grew like that in the UK.

Caribbean
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by Caribbean »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Excellent source https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/; even has the log scale option for the graphs
- I guess the bump in the "cases" graph reflects Italy & Iran being slow in their early actions?

What I haven't seen a source for is the role of multiple-organ failures in the number of deaths. Will/ can affect the not-discharged number in a dramatic way - and thereby the capacity to deal with the newly (seriously) ill
Oi! I already posted that link :wave:

Seriously, though - I've seen it reported that multiple organ failure is a significant issue and it's prevalence is probably indicated by the number in the serious/ critical category. My guess (and it's only that) is that the serious cases are mainly those suffering major pulmonary distress and the critical are mainly those with that AND organ failure.

The only figure on the split that I've seen (The Scientist) is that 5% of cases result in multiple-organ failure, however their figures were published on the 25th Feb, when around 20% fell into the serious/ critical category. Extrapolating from that figure, it would seem that around one quarter of those in serious/ critical condition are multiple organ failure cases (so currently around 3.5-4% of total cases). According to one interviewee on R4 last week, a lot of the short-term research in the UK is going into developing better treatment regimes for the serious/ critical group, rather than the search for a vaccine (plenty of others are researching that - we have an agreement with Senegal to produce and distribute any UK-developed vaccine in the third world).

For those who think this is just another seasonal flu, take a good look at the figures (and take some time to drill down into the details, rather than just look at the headline figures). A 6% overall death rate and 15% needing major medical intervention is a significant illness (sufficient to cause major capacity issues in the UK). By contrast, the flu probably "causes" around 30 deaths per year in the UK, though it is "associated" with several thousand deaths a year (for example, someone with flu might also contract pneumonia. It's the pneumonia that kills them, not the flu, but without being weakened by catching the flu, they may not have caught pneumonia - these "excess deaths" are often attributed solely to 'flu, and quoted as such, when this misrepresents the real situation.)

Italy's resolved cases are running at 27% death rate, which is unusual, but it may be that the majority of those getting it are in the high-risk groups already.

If Iran is anything to go by, where the deaths are running at 13% of resolved cases, this could be catastrophic in less-well-equipped third-world countries (Iran has decent, but limited, medical facilities, < 10% of the population is over 60 and half is under 35%, so less susceptible, making it a reasonable model for the demographics of many "third-world" countries)
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

SW1
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by SW1 »

Assuming of course numbers are accurately reported and ALL people with the disease are being captured which a very many are sceptical of. Perhaps the best barometer of what’s going on is data supplied by South Korea. They have had a large and aggressive testing program from the being testing more than 140K people and there preliminary findings suggest overall death rate of .6% which chimes with what the chief medical officer expressed to parliamentary committee at the end of last week. This of course does not take into account that it dispiritingly affects older people in the 60+ catergory that we see from data in Italy were the average age of those that have died is 81. So while it right to take precautions and be prepared the general hysteria and loss of reasoned discussion and language is not at all helpful buts seems prevalent in a social media generation.

Caribbean
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by Caribbean »

While your point about whether we are accounting for all cases of infection is definitely a good one, there is also the point that there is evidence that China (whose figures heavily influence the overall statistics) initially adopted a deliberate policy of ascribing COVID-19 deaths to other causes. They have gone some way towards correcting this by accepting x-ray evidence in current cases, but it's likely that they have not yet accounted for all deaths prior to the "change of heart".

You also need to make some fairly major assumptions to arrive at the 0.6% figure for S. Korea, namely that, all those that have been identified as having contracted the disease (currently 7133 - and, as you say, they have a major testing program underway) will survive and that the deaths will remain at 50. The accurate figures will only come out after months (possibly even years) of follow-up sampling and research, to determine the true spread of the virus throughout the population. At the moment, all we can really talk about are cases where infection has been confirmed.

You get a truer figure if you look at the currently "resolved" cases. For S. Korea, there are currently 180 resolved cases, of which 50 died, a death rate of 27%, not 0.6%. The 7133 active cases are unresolved and may yet result in more deaths (I hope not, but it's probable). Without knowing detailed data on the victims, you can't really extrapolate to whole populations, but the current worldwide gross figures show a death rate of 6% amongst identified cases. One good point about the S. Korean figures is that only 36 cases are in critical condition, which is relatively low compared to others. It may be that they have developed better treatment regimes (or it could be that they have just been lucky).

There is a great deal of massaging of figures by Governments to play down the severity of this outbreak, primarily to avoid economic damage, but also there is the spectre of mass panic, which is one thing that terrifies all Governments.

That said, there's not much evidence of panic down at our local Tescos. They've run out of hand gel and paracetamol, but that's about it. Oddly, there are actually fewer gaps on the shelves than before this all started - maybe they are actively trying to avoid the perception that shelves are being emptied.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

bobp
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by bobp »

China seems to have gone quiet over its number of cases.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Not having prders cancelled, the 'back to work' theme may be a part explanation to that
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Coronavirus

Post by SW1 »

Yes there is caution with any numbers at this stage because as you say we don’t know outcomes and the numbers are small having an illness of about 45k active cases that we know of in world of 7.7 billion.

One thing the WHO did say was that the death rate out side wuhan was considerably less than in it, now as you say that could of been due to fiddling figure but there take it on it was that it was because the health service outside Wuhan hadn’t become swamped with cases. If there was capacity to detect and intervene with oxygen and like earlier people didn’t get as sick and as such better outcomes all round. We maybe seeing a similar pattern in Italy. It looks like the virus was circulating undetected for a while given the numbers now appearing with links to Italy and it appears the health service is under tremendous pressure in the northern area now quarantined.

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Re: Coronavirus

Post by Caribbean »

After doing a bit of research through the figures available on worldometers.com, I can see why the Chinese were in a big panic back when this started. Back around Feb 2nd, there were approx. 16,000 active cases (presumably all in China and mainly in Wuhan at that point), but the resolved cases were showing a > 40% death rate. It dropped pretty fast after that (two weeks later it was down to 13.9% and yesterday stood at 5.6%), but initially they must have been really worried
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

bobp
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by bobp »

SW1 wrote:t looks like the virus was circulating undetected for a while given the numbers now appearing with links to Italy
I wondered if this was the case because of how rapidly it spread from presumably China, maybe it had already spread before it was detected.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

They finally seem to be getting to grips with incubation period:4-5 days of carrying it, before the symptoms (not so clear-cut in themselves) make themselves known
- yesterday, for the first time this year, received change in bank notes. Stupid me, put them into the wallet.
- the central bank in S Korea quarantines all incoming for two weeks and gives them a good steaming at the end, before they go back into circulation

If the Gvmnt had any degree of lateral thinking, they would have instructed banks to raise the max sum that contactless payments are applicable to
- academia has discovered years ago that having only doctors enter the Public Health stream at universities is a disaster, as the (practising) community needs to be made up in such a way that problems can be approached in a 360-degree way
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

Caribbean
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by Caribbean »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:yesterday, for the first time this year, received change in bank notes. Stupid me, put them into the wallet.
Yup - we're all money-launderers now. The new plastic notes arrived just in time.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

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SKB
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by SKB »

The US will suspend all flights from Europe from Friday 13th March 2020 for a period of 30 days. The UK is exempt.


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Re: Coronavirus

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Miss Armchair Soldier wrote:Image
I really don't know what to say.

For decades I've been trying to "educate"/ inform/ influence economists... or more than them, the policy makers NOT TO

"steer by looking into the reversing mirror"
... no other comment
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

SW1
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Re: Coronavirus

Post by SW1 »

This was out of curiosity but there has been a lot of talk that we should be doing what the likes of Singapore has been doing so I thought I’d look for myself you can see there advise here there at DORSCON orange.

https://www.gov.sg/article/what-do-the- ... evels-mean

Now there maybe local differences but it looks to me there’s not a massive difference in requests on the population, there contract tracing looks very comprehensive and detailed.

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