Covid 19 virus

[BrianHG]

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Darwin award

I know how we can easily point and judge, but this Christian pastor who has been fed false information through the US's 'republican media' and certain chosen US government's official claims, including those who he preaches to as a community.  To no fault of his own, I'm sure he truly believed his claims.  If he truly wanted to protect as many lives as possible of those who follow him who get their news from the same sources, though he is no longer among the living, he may have chosen this outcome if it warns and saves as many of his followers as possible.

[hendorog]

FYI, the reason I focus on deaths is because there are far too many unknowns, IMO, to draw any meaningful conclusions on the ultimate impact based solely on number of confirmed cases. For example, Spain and Germany have vastly different numbers of total deaths to date (4089 vs 253, respectively), but have 56k vs. 42k confirmed cases, respectively.

And in the last 2 weeks the US has had a fairly flat average death rate, which is certainly not directly proportional to the increasing # of confirmed cases.

"Fairly flat" isn't how I'd define the US Covid-19 death rate, given the graphs compiled by these folks:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

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That's the total. It's the increment (new deaths day per day)  that is fairly flat and gives an almost linear progression. But at this early stage I doubt it has any relevance. Mostly these are the dead that resulted from the number of infected about two weeks earlier (as per a study on Lancet IIRC). Not enough data.
The exponential for the death is starting to kick off in these days, unfortunately.

Besides, the number of deaths is the most controversial number because each Country seem to be using a different protocol in classifying death for Covid-19. The number of infected, on the other hand, reflects the number of 'mature' cases (that require medical attention) but also depends on the number of tests done. So, it seems to me there is not a surefire metric to compare how different countries fare.

I think you are dead right  (!)

Confirmed cases is a poor metric for comparison, as it depends on testing capacity - and contact tracing capacity to find cases to test based on known cases.
And there are many people who don't have symptoms - combined with people how have minor symptoms -so there could be big hidden clusters of people who are not tested.

Deaths are easier to count, but of course are delayed too much to be useful, impacted by the demographic and existing health conditions,, and impacted by the capacity of the medical system to treat people (ICU beds etc)

Comparing countries is not easy. Germany is clearly a big outlier. Perhaps they are awesome at testing and contact tracing. And so they have detected many more people with minor infections than other countries.

[Electro Detective]

The questionably sourced graph casualties are dying from what they were going to die from anyway, no invisible believers' C is necessary.

Why should the few low lifes keep beating this up and capitalize on it,
and send everyone else buying into the force fed BS to the poor house,
without even a sniffle or sneeze to show for it 

[maginnovision]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/not-wearing-masks-protect-against-coronavirus-big-mistake-top-chinese-scientist-says#

Chinese CDC official says clinical trial results for remdesivir should be available in April.

[iMo]

While looking for some info on asthma vs. covid I've come across this picture - NO2 concentration in Europe. Would be interesting to compare covid data with the map..

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/satellite-images-emissions-climate-crisis-coronavirus-europe-map-a9426436.html
Infection rates are unlikely to be the correlation, its more about control measures/restrictions being applied in each area.

The percentage of people in ICUs does show a correlation, it seems..

[Simon]

I'm curious, why does Johns Hopkins always show more than CDC? I'd expect CDC to be the authority.

They always show the figures ahead of them going up on the UK's own public health england map. Some countries like the UK are just hopeless.

[JPortici]

Until than  the world owner "mutate" the Covid-19 in another pest more mortal . Today, i found a interest video of the Covid-19 origins. Regrettably, this is in italian and translated in spanish.

An italian TV program from the public channel RAI 3,specialized in scientist info, told in 2015 , the "achievement " of the chinese scientists to modify the SARS virus for difusing the bats to humans  and affect their respiratory tract.

https://youtu.be/YHD5bfIghNU   Rafael Palacios ,alias "Rafapal" ,investigation journalist.
 

oh god.. DON'T. that video resurfaced a few days ago and has been misinterpreted to death here by salvini and his goons already for propaganda

here, translate away..
https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/03/25/news/coronavirus_tg_leonardo_esperimento_cinese_pipistrelli-252312426/
https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2020/03/25/news/salvini-posta-un-vecchio-video-della-rai-su-facebook-il-coronavirus-nato-in-un-laboratorio-cinese-1.38637381
https://www.agi.it/cronaca/news/2020-03-25/coronavirus-tg-leonardo-7861064/

[not1xor1]

Until than  the world owner "mutate" the Covid-19 in another pest more mortal . Today, i found a interest video of the Covid-19 origins. Regrettably, this is in italian and translated in spanish.

An italian TV program from the public channel RAI 3,specialized in scientist info, told in 2015 , the "achievement " of the chinese scientists to modify the SARS virus for difusing the bats to humans  and affect their respiratory tract.

https://youtu.be/YHD5bfIghNU   Rafael Palacios ,alias "Rafapal" ,investigation journalist.
 

that has nothing to do with SARS-CoV-2 which has been proven of natural origin (Nature Medicine recent article)

[not1xor1]

Once again, Josep Borrell had to open the mouth , and fuck the situation.

"Huawei will stop donating face masks to Europe after being accused of hiding political intentions

The statements of the European Foreign Minister, Josep Borrell, make Huawei go back on its health donations."

https://translate.google.es/translate?hl=es&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fhipertextual.com%2F2020%2F03%2Fhuawei-mascarillas-europa-josep-borrell

"The article"  https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/76434/node/76434_es

I read the Italian translation and I can't see anything wrong in Mr Borrell statements.
Huawei was probably just looking for an excuse to retract the donations, and I do not know how much real are those as I read that Italy is paying Chinese supplies (and using its own Air Force airplanes to deliver them).
I would have mentioned anyway Russia more than China, although so far Russian involvement seems to be limited into Italy.

[iMo]

"Using a delay-adjusted case fatality ratio to estimate under-reporting"

https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/severity/global_cfr_estimates.html

[not1xor1]

FYI, the reason I focus on deaths is because there are far too many unknowns, IMO, to draw any meaningful conclusions on the ultimate impact based solely on number of confirmed cases. For example, Spain and Germany have vastly different numbers of total deaths to date (4089 vs 253, respectively), but have 56k vs. 42k confirmed cases, respectively.

And in the last 2 weeks the US has had a fairly flat average death rate, which is certainly not directly proportional to the increasing # of confirmed cases.

"Fairly flat" isn't how I'd define the US Covid-19 death rate, given the graphs compiled by these folks:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

(Attachment Link)

may be it is just a flat EEG 

[Cerebus]

FYI, the reason I focus on deaths is because there are far too many unknowns, IMO, to draw any meaningful conclusions on the ultimate impact based solely on number of confirmed cases. For example, Spain and Germany have vastly different numbers of total deaths to date (4089 vs 253, respectively), but have 56k vs. 42k confirmed cases, respectively.

And in the last 2 weeks the US has had a fairly flat average death rate, which is certainly not directly proportional to the increasing # of confirmed cases.

"Fairly flat" isn't how I'd define the US Covid-19 death rate, given the graphs compiled by these folks:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

(Attachment Link)

Are we failing basic maths now? That graph does seem to show a fairly flatish death rate. That's a cumulative deaths graph, death rate is ^{d deaths} / _dt

[not1xor1]

Deaths are easier to count, but of course are delayed too much to be useful, impacted by the demographic and existing health conditions,, and impacted by the capacity of the medical system to treat people (ICU beds etc)

Comparing countries is not easy. Germany is clearly a big outlier. Perhaps they are awesome at testing and contact tracing. And so they have detected many more people with minor infections than other countries.

here is an interesting article on the subject (unfortunately for some reason the graphics do not appear in the google translated page)
https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&tab=wT&sl=it&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.corriere.it%2Fsalute%2Fmalattie_infettive%2F20_marzo_27%2Fstudio-ispi-ecco-qual-vera-letalita-covid-19-italia-b95d19cc-7029-11ea-82c1-be2d421e9f6b.shtml

[Cerebus]

While looking for some info on asthma vs. covid I've come across this picture - NO2 concentration in Europe. Would be interesting to compare covid data with the map..

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/satellite-images-emissions-climate-crisis-coronavirus-europe-map-a9426436.html
Infection rates are unlikely to be the correlation, its more about control measures/restrictions being applied in each area.

The number of people in ICUs does show a correlation, it seems..

Well it does at any time. Try looking at a control period or two, you'll find a correlation between measures of atmospheric pollution and ICU admissions there too (rising NO_x => rising ICU occupancy). What you'll then see if you look further is a fall in NO_x emissions recently (because nobody is using the roads) and a rise in ICU admissions (coronavirus infections). If you're looking at correlation from the absolute magnitude of difference from the mean (e.g. using variance like the Pearson correlation coefficient, R, which Excel uses) it will treat both positive and negative effects as correlation. If you're using a method that simply looks for any correlation (like Pearson) you'll find it, you need to use something sensitive to the sign of the difference from the mean before you'll see something half meaningful. Let us not forget the mantra of all scientists when dealing with statistics "Correlation does not imply causation".

[hamster_nz]

Are we failing basic maths now? That graph does seem to show a fairly flatish death rate. That's a cumulative deaths graph, death rate is ^{d deaths} / _dt

I guess it looks sort of flat, if you hold your head on the side...

[engrguy42]

Definition of "rate" from Merriam Webster:

"quantity, amount, or degree of something measured per unit of something else"

As I described in my post, I chose to define "rate" in this case as "new deaths per day". And as I showed in my chart (but apparently some didn't read), the number of new deaths each day has been fairly flat, on average, jumping between 50 to 200 or so new deaths each day. If you don't like my choice of definition, I'm sure you can still get my point. Just look at the blue bars in the chart.   

Also, I caution folks to try to avoid grabbing data from the internet to prove whatever point you want to make without verifying the source of the data. And trying to compare 254 different data sources is somewhat ludicrous at this point. Yeah, you can always find someone saying stuff that confirms what you want to believe, but by using a single, reasonably credible (ie, CDC and WHO) data source at least gives a good uniform and relative comparison.

I'd also caution folks to try to avoid predicting what will happen. Nobody knows. And if actual data doesn't agree with what you've chosen to believe, maybe you should reconsider your beliefs rather than throwing in a bunch of unsubstantiated "what if's". Or at least allow the possibility that you might be wrong.

[thinkfat]

Deaths are easier to count, but of course are delayed too much to be useful, impacted by the demographic and existing health conditions,, and impacted by the capacity of the medical system to treat people (ICU beds etc)

Comparing countries is not easy. Germany is clearly a big outlier. Perhaps they are awesome at testing and contact tracing. And so they have detected many more people with minor infections than other countries.

here is an interesting article on the subject (unfortunately for some reason the graphics do not appear in the google translated page)
https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&tab=wT&sl=it&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.corriere.it%2Fsalute%2Fmalattie_infettive%2F20_marzo_27%2Fstudio-ispi-ecco-qual-vera-letalita-covid-19-italia-b95d19cc-7029-11ea-82c1-be2d421e9f6b.shtml

As far as I understood, over here the reporting method is going to change. It was found that the majority of PCR tests came back negative and from now on everyone in contact with a confirmed case is reported infected but not tested. I'm now part of that statistic group. Lab tests with the PCR test kit are only being done on  symptomatic patients with a contact history. That's going to skew the numbers of course. Mass testing will close the gap eventually, but those need to be carefully planned, too. ELISA tests are being rolled out soon, but those a still lab tests. Lateral Flow tests are not yet available, at least nothing that was validated. I heard you can buy them, though, at least they're being offered to MDs and pharmacies. No idea about their origin, though.

For me personally, that's a weird situation. I show up in the "infected" group, but I'm only sent into isolation for two weeks to see what I breed. After that, if I'm not getting worse and being admitted to hospital I'm not getting tested. If in two weeks I show no further symptoms, I'll show up as "recovered" but I have no idea if I'm now immune and can go about my business, for example, get in contact with my parents or if I still risk to become infected and potentially spread the virus further. This is very unsatisfying.

[PlainName]

Or at least allow the possibility that you might be wrong.

What? Are you crazy??!

[drussell]

I'd also caution folks to try to avoid predicting what will happen. Nobody knows.
...
Or at least allow the possibility that you might be wrong.

You honestly still believe that the near-term progression in the USA cannot be predicted?  Wow.

[drussell]

As I described in my post, I chose to define "rate" in this case as "new deaths per day". And as I showed in my chart (but apparently some didn't read), the number of new deaths each day has been fairly flat, on average, jumping between 50 to 200 or so new deaths each day.

Of course the new deaths per day has been relatively flat, and low, as the number of infected people was low 2-3 weeks ago.  The number of infected hadn't started rising exponentially yet.  Once some of those cases from the explosive-spread phase start having outcomes, things aren't going to be pretty and the line is not going to be flat.

I don't understand how you can refuse to see that.  I'm beginning to think this is deliberate trolling.

Good luck, regardless...  Try to stay healthy.

[engrguy42]

I'd also caution folks to try to avoid predicting what will happen. Nobody knows.
...
Or at least allow the possibility that you might be wrong.

You honestly still believe that the near-term progression in the USA cannot be predicted?  Wow.

As usual, I provide data and you provide facepalms and unsupported, handwaving predictions.

[Mortymore]

[Cerebus]

I'd also caution folks to try to avoid predicting what will happen. Nobody knows.
...
Or at least allow the possibility that you might be wrong.

You honestly still believe that the near-term progression in the USA cannot be predicted?  Wow.

As usual, I provide data and you provide facepalms and unsupported, handwaving predictions.

No he didn't, no prediction, no handwaving. He expressed incredulity at what he sees as your beliefs. Not the same thing at all. If you're going to criticise someone, criticise them for what they actually said.

[drussell]

"Using a delay-adjusted case fatality ratio to estimate under-reporting"
https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/severity/global_cfr_estimates.html

I will have to read the whole paper that the calculatons in your above cited paper are using (where they estimate the 1.38%) which was based on a data from January on a few thousand cases in China:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033357v1.full.pdf

At first glance of your cited paper, though, they don't really specify any backup data to show that their procedure for estimating how under-reported cases are in a given area are sound.  They're basically assuming that a) the 1.38% is a reliable reference percentage, b) that anywhere that the rate appears higher than 1.38%, it must be entirely due to under-reporting of infections.

Now, it is true that I don't expect the actual CFR in the US to be >20% when all is said and done, but there is certainly the potential for it to be higher than their "standard" of 1.38%.

As an aside, their chart essentially shows that Canada "must be" only finding 15-40% of our true cases, yet this does not seem to correlate with the 1-1.5% positive rate on all the testing we've done thus far.  Where are all these supposedly un-diagnosed symptomatic cases hiding?

It will be very interesting to see the results of some antibody tests on more of the general public once those become available to test for markers of past infections.  That will finally give us some real data on that front to make better estimates and plan who can do what, where, before a vaccine is (hopefully, potentially, eventually) available for those who have not yet been exposed.

[drussell]

"Fairly flat" isn't how I'd define the US Covid-19 death rate, given the graphs compiled by these folks:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

That's the total. It's the increment (new deaths day per day)  that is fairly flat and gives an almost linear progression. But at this early stage I doubt it has any relevance. Mostly these are the dead that resulted from the number of infected about two weeks earlier (as per a study on Lancet IIRC). Not enough data.
The exponential for the death is starting to kick off in these days, unfortunately.

Indeed, the flat section of the "deaths" graph corresponds to the flat section of the "infected" curve from a couple weeks ago.  It's not going to be flat again, at least not for a while: