General > General Technical Chat
Covid 19 virus
Zero999:
--- Quote from: engrguy42 on March 20, 2020, 01:31:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: thinkfat on March 20, 2020, 01:11:04 pm ---
--- Quote from: engrguy42 on March 20, 2020, 12:32:04 pm ---Zero999: "That's a huge increase. Imagine if the death rate increased at that rate for the next 10 days. We're dealing with exponentials and numbers get big, very quickly."
That's the point. You can imagine anything you want. You're assuming we're dealing with exponentials in every case, and that today's results predict the future. Today China reported its second day with no new cases. That's not exponential. The country where it started is reporting no new cases. Now you're free to dismiss China's numbers as propaganda, and you may be right. But then why would they report so many cases prior to this, or even mention it at all?
The WHO reports that the Western Pacific region has been declining in cases since early February.
And if you consider that most countries have locked everything down recently, at some point it seems reasonable to expect that to have a positive impact.
Or, as some seem to want to believe, the world is ending tomorrow. Take your pick.
--- End quote ---
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
See the graph for total fatalities. Nice exponential growth. Do you expect this curve to just flatten out over night?
--- End quote ---
Just keep in mind that it's pretty much guaranteed that the total number of deaths in the US will increase in the near term (I'm guessing on the order of weeks). So any graph of total deaths will show a constantly increasing curve. And you can always say "OMG, it's getting worse !!!".
But IMO what's more important is whether there is a slowing trend, which means the rate of new deaths is trending lower. That's what happened with SARS. The isolation measures worked, and it died out. But assuming exponential for the future IMPLIES that everyone will get it very soon and we'll all die.
I don't think that's rational. It might end up that we all die, but I think there's a reasonable case to be made, based on the results of SARS and MERS, etc., that these protective measures might end up working.
Or, we'll all die tomorrow.
--- End quote ---
That's because it's not a true exponential, but a logistic function and it doesn't kill everyone who gets it. The number of new cases has only stopped in China because of the extreme restrictions imposed by the authorities over there. The rest of the world need to do the same to stop it, but most governments aren't authoritarian, like China's.
It's common sense really. Imagine someone unknowingly has the virus. They will pass it on to lots of others, as they walk around feeling fine. In the process the other people they infect, will also infect others.
As mentioned above, SARS and MERS were very different beasts because they didn't have such a long incubation period and were more deadly.
Siwastaja:
In Finland, we have some very interesting times going on: as of today, opposite to what every other country is doing, the government is now lifting some restrictions, and opening schools again, all 1st to 3rd graders are free to go back if their parents so wish.
We mostly don't get news about Italy and Spain now in the mass media anymore, because the news are too bad. Most of the information from our Government from now is echo chambering how well they think they are handling the situation, and how Finland has definitely enough resources in the healthcare (as the only country in the world!)
So the sane people here are in the survival mode, practically we are expecting a war-like situation, not only against the virus, but against the government which we have lost all trust, and which is now endangering the lives of tens of thousands.
Those who only follow local mainstream media, are reassured that nothing bad will happen. We only have "recommendations" that you "should" limit the social connections "a bit".
Our president is, luckily, a somewhat sane person, so we hope he will overdrive most of the madness going on, but we'll see. He actually had to force the government and the PM to declare the state of emergency against their will; but after that was done, very little actual emergency laws have taken place, limitation to drug hoarding being one of the actual actions taken.
The police has reported that they will do absolutely nothing to enforce the limititations of >10 person social activities, because there is no law to permit them to take any action.
It's important to get international publicity to these actions; negative international response typically makes Finnish politicians change their views because we are very afraid about what everybody else thinks about us (refer to the elephant joke as expressed by Nominal Animal earlier).
Very interesting times!
engrguy42:
I guess I'm not too concerned about companies going under. Maybe I'm naive, but businesses exist, buyers exist, demand will never go away, buildings and/or websites exist, and it seems like if they shut down for, say, a month or something none of that changes.
In fact I thought that in Europe many businesses shut down for a month or so every year as standard practice for some holiday or something? Or maybe I'm mis-remembering.
Universities take long, multi-month summer breaks every year. Amazon will thrive, as will its suppliers and all the associated manufacturers and delivery companies. Sounds like the US government will be sending checks to all taxpayers, businesses are still paying employees, there will be more government hand-outs to businesses, etc.
Some businesses will do fine (probably Walmart and grocery stores). And just imagine all the suppliers who can find ways to continue their business while maintaining protective measures. They'll do fine.
So yeah, definitely it will be tough. But what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. :D
engrguy42:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on March 20, 2020, 02:09:07 pm ---
We mostly don't get news about Italy and Spain now in the mass media anymore, because the news are too bad. Most of the information from our Government from now is echo chambering how well they think they are handling the situation, and how Finland has definitely enough resources in the healthcare (as the only country in the world!)
--- End quote ---
Yeah, according to WHO today Italy is doing the worst of all, with 473 new deaths in the last day, compared to 42 in US and 11 in China. Spain is at 107.
By the way, WOW, Finland has NO DEATHS at all from COVID19. Bravo.
Actually there are a whole bunch of countries with no deaths at all. Israel, Vietnam, Iceland, much of Southeast Asia (eg, India region), etc.
mzzj:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on March 20, 2020, 02:09:07 pm ---In Finland, we have some very interesting times going on: opposite to what every other country is doing, the government is now lifting some restrictions, and opening schools again, all 1st to 3rd graders are free to go back if their parents so wish.
We mostly don't get news about Italy and Spain now in the mass media anymore, because the news are too bad. Most of the information from our Government from now is echo chambering how well they think they are handling the situation, and how Finland has definitely enough resources in the healthcare (as the only country in the world!)
So the sane people here are in the survival mode, practically we are expecting a war-like situation, not only against the virus, but against the government which we have lost all trust, and which is now endangering the lives of tens of thousands.
Those who only follow local mainstream media, are reassured that nothing bad will happen.
Our president is, luckily, a somewhat sane person, so we hope he will overdrive most of the madness going on, but we'll see. Very interesting times!
--- End quote ---
On the other hand they are closing down the skiing centres in Lapland (but too slow IMO)
Maybe virus spread looked too slow on the models and they have excess capacity on ICU units? Why bother slowing down if strategy is anyways to infect almost everyone eventually? >:D :popcorn:
1-2 week lag and little testing makes it "interesting" to adjust the infection rate to suitable level. :popcorn:
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