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Covid 19 virus

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Stray Electron:
    When was the last time that a financial services company gave medical advice???  NEVER! 

     Companies like Alianz have a lot more at stake than just life insurance payouts and they're probably a lot more concerned about the loss of business to the entertainment parks, cruise lines and air lines, manufacturing companies and import and export companies and the like so, just considering their possible conflict of interest alone, I shouldn't won't trust their advice. In addition to having other possible interests, they are NOT in the medical profession so why in the hell would you even consider taking their advice??? 

   Just because they know something about risks, doesn't mean that they're going to tell you the truth. They're going to tell you what they think will save them money in the long run.

   One of the first rules of life that everyone should know: Consider the source! (and what's in it for them.)

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: Stray Electron on February 29, 2020, 01:38:26 pm ---  Yeap, and the number of cases in Germany jumped from 49 to 60. That's a 22+% increase in two days. And France has jumped from 38 to 57. That's a 50% increase in the last two days! Anyone that understands anything about geometric progression knows where this is leading. Japan who has been treating this very serious for weeks now has had 20 new cases in the last 24 hours.  And China is still getting something like 500 new cases everyday, for weeks nows.

--- End quote ---

It's exactly that kind of thinking that leads people to panic rather than approach this rationally.

Firstly saying "the number of cases in Germany jumped from 49 to 60. That's a 22+% increase in two days." as if that "22+%" means anything. That's the kind of percentage used by red top newspaper subeditors to make something out of nothing. Even the use of the emotive "jumped" instead of 'increased' or some other less loaded word is straight out of the same playbook. Why not go the whole hog and say 'soared'.

It sounds a lot less apocalyptic if you use a proper epidemiological basis and note that "the infection rate in Germany has risen from 0.059 people per 100,000 to 0.072 people per 100,000 in two days, an increase of 0.01 per 100,000 in two days". Eleven extra infections out of 83 million people is insignificant, from an infection rate of 0.000 059% of the population to 0.000 072% of the population. That's not an epidemic, it's an inconvenience. Over the same two days on average 18 people in Germany will have actually died on the roads (Rate 4.1 deaths per 100,000 per year). With the current estimate fatality rate for Covid-19 of 2-3%, that 11 extra infections amounts to only 1/3 of a death at most.

You say "Anyone that understands anything about geometric progression knows where this is leading" and yet two sentences later say "And China is still getting something like 500 new cases everyday, for weeks nows (sic).". Is an ongoing rate of 500 people per day a geometric progression? No, it it not. Rather, in the place most affected, for the longest time, where the spread pattern is likely to have settled into what's typical for the disease it is showing anything but a geometric growth rate of infection.

Even if that infection rate persisted in China, that means an extra 15 deaths a day, 5500 a year in a country with a population of 1.435 billion people. That would push the annualised death rate of China up by 0.383 per 100,000 from 711 per 100,000 to 711.38 per 100,000, a 0.1% increase.

Please folks, less histrionics. This disease is a legitimate health concern. It's a highly virulent variant of the common cold virus that has a much higher fatality rate than the standard virus (which nevertheless does kill some people each year). But with a fatality rate of 2-3% for people who actually get infected it is not going to wipe the world out, it is not even going to decimate it.

The level of precautions being taken at the moment to contain its spread will be quite adequate to ensure that in years to come hardly any of us will have tales to tell of the death of someone we knew due to Covid-19. I, and I suspect most of us apart from the very young, can tell tales of having friends taken from us by AIDS, motorcycles, motor cars, alcohol and cancer. Very few of you will be telling those tales about Covid-19. Be cautious, yes, but don't panic.

hamster_nz:

--- Quote from: Cerebus on March 01, 2020, 11:38:30 pm ---It's exactly that kind of thinking that leads people to panic rather than approach this rationally.

Firstly saying "the number of cases in Germany jumped from 49 to 60. That's a 22+% increase in two days." as if that "22+%" means anything. That's the kind of percentage used by red top newspaper subeditors to make something out of nothing. Even the use of the emotive "jumped" instead of 'increased' or some other less loaded word is straight out of the same playbook. Why not go the whole hog and say 'soared'.

--- End quote ---

I disagree - it makes sense to talk about % of population once equilibrium is found within the population (e.g with heart disease or sexually transmitted diseases), but not with a new emerging infectious disease.

In Wuhan cases were originally increasing at 40% day on day - at the time I was keeping a spreadsheet of the WHO Situation Report numbers and could predict them days in advance withing a +/- a few %.

Then very extensive measures were taken to reduce spread by reducing person to person contact, and build emergency medical facilities, on the 23rd Jan . For the next week the new cases per day still increased, then started to level off, then fell dramatically. The cause of this was those who were already exposed developing symptoms and seeking medical assistance.

(There was then the blip when the included clinical diagnosed cases, but the leveling off has continued, with now cases just trickling in).

The Wuhan lockdown have not yet been relaxed - the latest is "20 February 2020, the Chinese government has issued extension of order to shut down all non-essential companies, including manufacturing plants, and all schools in Hubei Province until at least 24:00 10 March"

To me, it seems to be a very unstable situation - any relaxation will cause a jump in cases in 14 days, but the lockdown cannot be in place indefinitely.

I would wager that Italy and the US will see double-digit day-on-day growth rate in cases until either lockdowns have been in place for a week or more, or more that 25% of the population have experienced the illness. The growth rate will vary country to country because of population density health systems, sanitation and so on, but without intervention it won't stop.

All you have to do is look at the Johns Hopkins graph on a log scale to see where this is going without meaningful intervention. Another week and there will be more cases outside China than inside (see attached image)

Oh, and reporting in the USA is so stuffed up for political and social reasons. Only the number of deaths will be reliable. At a guess I work backwards and say for every death there were 50 cases about 2 weeks ago, and this has increased at 20% day on day - I know it sounds fanciful, but there may be as many as 10,000 undiagnosed there! The USA really need to sort their testing out.

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: hamster_nz on March 02, 2020, 08:21:26 am ---All you have to do is look at the Johns Hopkins graph on a log scale to see where this is going without meaningful intervention. Another week and there will be more cases outside China than inside (see attached image)

--- End quote ---

Absolutely. You have a disease with a minimum 2 day period before people show symptoms (2-14 days before symptoms appear) and for at least part of that time they are infectious (infectious time versus infected time currently unknown). Uncontrolled that would indeed spread following a power law. However, there is intervention, worldwide, and it seems to be working.

Yes, it's a nasty disease. For some it has been a tragedy, but perspective is necessary. There have been around 5000 deaths worldwide at the time of writing. Currently daily it is killing less than malaria does, killing less than road traffic accidents do, killing less than the effects of war are in Yemen - all things that most of us are not even paying any attention to. Heck, there are probably more people dying daily in the developed world from the complications of obesity.

We need to respond to Covid-19, but we don't need to lose our heads. It's the old story of humans reacting to unfamiliar threats with exaggerated fear out of proportion to the threat while treating familiar threats with disdain. For most of us getting into our cars to drive to the shops is more likely to kill us this month than Covid-19 is but it's not causing people to panic buy and lock themselves up in their houses as some people have reacted to Covid-19.

It doesn't help that the disease first appeared in a slightly different tribe of bipedal monkeys, so our reactions are also loaded with our innate bipedal monkey xenophobia to other tribes as well. Not that any of the wise, rational people on here have ever exhibited an overreaction to that particular tribe like, say, saying that everything that tribe makes is crap, or counterfeit, or the product of mere copying. Oh no, we're thankfully all immune to that particular fallacy of thought.  :P

But seriously. The Chinese response to this has been quite amazing and they have taken measures at a speed and scale that has taken a lot of the brunt of dealing with this off the shoulders of other countries. It's down to the rest of the world to manage the relatively light load of carefully monitoring and quarantining of people leaving the affected area and returning to other parts of the world (possibly extending this if other hotspots appear). As long as the rest of us don't do something stupid* that encourages people to avoid/evade the necessary controls then we'll all be fine.

All that's needed on top is a system to manage and isolate any cases that have already slipped through the net. In the UK there's been adequate and reasonable public advice issued: if you get symptoms and have cause to believe it's Covid-19 stay home, phone the NHS helpline and you'll get help (at no cost to yourself).

* The US state department evacuated an American from Wuhan and then forced him and his family into quarantine. So far so good. BUT, he was then hit with a US hospital bill, at rapacious US hospital rates for the six days he was quarantined there, for which he is not insured. (For those not familiar with US hospital charging this will be at least a $1000 a day for each member of his family.) The hospital has since fixed this and is billing the government instead, BUT this is just the kind of thing that would encourage some people to evade controls. Further this from the same story:


--- Quote ---The incident highlighted how the American government’s response to a public health emergency, like trying to contain a potential coronavirus epidemic, could be handicapped by relying on a system built around private hospitals and for-profit health insurance providers. Last month, a man in Miami who returned from a work trip to China feeling sick went to a hospital to be tested for coronavirus. The test came back negative, but his high-deductible health insurance provider told him he would have to pay at least $1,400, the Miami Herald reported, and provide three years of medical records to prove that the flu he got was not related to a preexisting condition. Without producing the records, he would owe $3,270 for getting tested.

--- End quote ---

Nothing beats a system set up to effectively punish people for being responsible as a means of encouraging them to be irresponsible.

splin:

--- Quote from: Cerebus on March 02, 2020, 02:46:18 pm ---
As long as the rest of us don't do something stupid* that encourages people to avoid/evade the necessary controls then we'll all be fine.

All that's needed on top is a system to manage and isolate any cases that have already slipped through the net. In the UK there's been adequate and reasonable public advice issued: if you get symptoms and have cause to believe it's Covid-19 stay home, phone the NHS helpline and you'll get help (at no cost to yourself).

--- End quote ---

But that's the problem - there are plenty of people who will ignore/evade the necessary controls. On a BBC Radio 2 phone-in today the issue of self isolation was being discussed. One caller said he could not afford the loss of income of self isolation so if he contracts the virus he will carry on working. Various others talked of the financial difficulties of self isolating (but didn't go as far as to admit on air that they might not self isolate if push came to shove).

I'm sure he's not alone, especially when people, such as my wife's work colleagues who are saying it's nothing to worry about; it's all hype, it only affects old people with underlying conditions (implying they are likely to die soon enough anyway?) and most people who get it have very mild to non-existent symptoms.

There were reports last week of many guests at the Tenerife hotel which was supposed to be in lockdown who blatently ignored instructions to stay in their rooms and wear masks otherwise and decided to continue their holiday poolside taking no precautionary measures.

You don't need many with these attitudes to guarantee widespread dissemination of the virus. I suspect there will be a lot like them.

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