The new Coronovirus, Covid-19 and its spread globally

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Pope francis has asked all of us to pray the Rosary at 9pm our time for St Joseph’s Day.
 
Thank you for sharing this article. I am in the small minority who share this view and think we are really going to do so much more long term damage than if we did nothing all because we are basing decisions based on extremely unknown data.

But the moment I speak up people’s emotions and fears take complete control and they start saying how I want people to die. There is then no point in having any rationale discussion about it.
 
I assume my clients with intellectual disabilities will eventually get it in time but praying to God it doesn’t happen.
 
Maxirad said:
Click here to check out an optimistic piece on the COVID-19 situation.
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The cruise ships are essentially floating human petri dishes with regard to the virus.
“Those are extremely comfortable conditions for the virus and still, only 20% were infected. It is a lot, but pretty similar to the infection rate of the common flu,” Levitt said. Based on those figures, his conclusion was that most people are simply naturally immune.
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What is interesting is that, for example, a relatively complete set of data is available from the Diamond Princess.

A total of 3,711 passengers and crew were on the cruise ship.

Six weeks later there are 7 dead.

That means about 1% of those infected died from the virus.

The number of positive tests were 712 and everyone on board was tested. That means about 3000 persons were not infected even though they were in "extremely comfortable conditions for the virus."

So the infection rate is about 20% of the population and the death rate is about .0019 of the total population.

There is a proviso here in that 178 cases are still unresolved and 14 of those are critical.

Even assuming all 14 of the critical cases ended in death (21 total), that would still be death rate of .005 under optimal conditions for the virus (worse case scenario for humans).

Running the stats for Canada (pop=37 m), for example — and Canada is far from being a human petri dish compared to a cruise ship — the current numbers (20% test positive) would mean about 7 million Canadians would eventually test positive and (at a .0019 death rate) would mean about 14, 000 deaths.

An average flu season ends with 500 to 1500 deaths in Canada. Definitely will tax the health system but also that all the measures we now put into effect will hopefully reduce those numbers greatly.

Edit: CBC reported in 2012 that the average flu season results in 2000 to 8000 deaths in Canada.


That implies the corona virus is about twice as deadly as the seasonal flu.

There are unknowns in play here, so we ought not get careless, but the numbers are hopeful. Panic and fear do not help the situation.
 
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A remark about Grand Princess that @HarryStotle didn’t mention: the passenger population was very skewed toward older persons. Something the paper I posted about this mentions. Here’s that paper again:
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.10.2000180

So if one extrapolates the Grand Princess numbers to a greater population, keep the age mix in mind.

On a different topic: this may be of interest. A private testing company specializing in at-home tests will offer an at-home Covid-19 test starting next week. They are offering it at their cost so not free, but the more tests we can get out there the better. They are planning to scale up to 250k tests per week.

Our commitment to fighting COVID-19 - Blog | Everlywell: Home Health Testing Made Easy

Looking to access coronavirus testing easily? Read on to learn how we’re giving people access to at-home coronavirus testing.
www.everlywell.com www.everlywell.com

I’m fully expecting other testing companies to publish their own tests as well.
 
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This virus doesnt just affect and kill older people, that was a flawed judgement. It can also leaves those who recover with i pacted lung health.
 
Zzyzx_Road said:
A remark about Grand Princess that @HarryStotle didn’t mention: the passenger population was very skewed toward older persons. Something the paper I posted about this mentions. Here’s that paper again:
Eurosurveillance | Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, Yokohama, Japan, 2020

This may be of interest. A private testing company specializing in at-home tests will offer an at-home Covid-19 test starting next week. They are offering it at their cost so not free, but the more tests we can get out there the better. They are planning to scale up to 250k tests per week.
https://www.everlywell.com/blog/news-and-info/our-commitment-to-fighting-covid-19/

I’m fully expecting other testing companies to publish their own tests as well.
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It might be interesting to do random testing of the public (when the stresses on resources are not so onerous) in order to get a better sense of how prevalent the virus is in the general population. That would help get a better picture of its spread and actual lethality.
 
HarryStotle said:
It might be interesting to do random testing of the public (when the stresses on resources are not so onerous) in order to get a better sense of how prevalent the virus is in the general population. That would help get a better picture of its spread and actual lethality.
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Keep in mind I posted an article on South Korea over a week ago that stated the South Koreans had tested 214,000 persons who reported respiratory symptoms as of March 10th. Of which only about 7700 tested positive. So a 4% infection rate among those reporting at least some symptoms. So there is that.

The biggest unknown is still the ratio of the infected but asymtomatic to the infected and symptomatic. This ratio could be somewhere between 6 to 5 (Grand Princess study) and 3 to 1 (more normal age distributed populations). But we don’t know because we don’t yet have the capability to test everyone. Hence studies of isolated populations like the Grand Princess are just about the closest thing we have.

The next biggest unknown is the R0 number for the infected but asymptomatic. Again, studies of isolated populations represent the closest we can get.

We’re not going to know more until a lot more people get tested in the hotspots around the country.
 
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Exactly. Fear and panic have taken over, and it is impossible to reason with emotion. Emotions like fear are much stronger and can more easily take over because they are primal.

I want to reshare this article by @Zzyzx_Road (so I could give him/her credit for posting the article):

www.statnews.com

A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data

A fiasco in the making? As the #coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.
www.statnews.com www.statnews.com

Please people, we could be doing so much more harm than good. We just do not have enough real data to know if we are actually making a bad decision for something that is naturally going to happen anyways. In fact, the “flattening” of the curve just means that we will spread out the deaths over a longer period of time, making it seem less severe, not that we will reduce the deaths.

Illinois has now issued a quasi-martial law / shelter in place. Governor Pritzker announced today. You can go to grocery stores, pharmacies and your doctor, and get gas and walk your dog. All non-essential businesses are shut down. If you are found to be “violating???” the order, the police can remind you to do your part (whatever that means) but then go get a cease and desist order and potentially lock you up.
 
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Zach said:
Has anyone read or heard what is the window period from the time of infection to the time a would detect the infection? I have not seen this anywhere.
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The incubation period is anywhere from 2 days to 24, but 5 days is average.
 
The infection and death rate for men is twice that for women. Anyone got info on why this is so?
 
JoeFreedom said:
In fact, the “flattening” of the curve just means that we will spread out the deaths over a longer period of time, making it seem less severe, not that we will reduce the deaths.
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What it does is spread out the resources over time in ICU.

That is why authorities are imposing the restrictions relevant and why we need to heed them. A couple of countries are recording 1 death every 10 minutes. ICU are also full of young and old people. If this virus ever practiced age discrimination, it dropped that line of attack a while ago
 
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OurLadyofSorrows said:
That is why authorities are imposing the restrictions relevant and why we need to heed them. A couple of countries are recording 1 death every 10 minutes. ICU are also full of young and old people. If this virus ever practiced age discrimination, it dropped that line of attack a while ago
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The virus is still practicing age discrimination with respect to deaths. You are apparently confusing this with infections sufficient to cause the victim to seek medical attention. Which can strike younger people to some extent. But remember over 99% of Italian dead had another significant health issue and most of them were over 60. The actual numbers may differ some from what was initially reported out of Wuhan, but the gist is that older people still have a higher mortality rate than younger people. This is one of the factors that explain why the South Korean death rate is well below the Italian death rate; it has to do with the population demographics.

But what did take place in Italy that we didn’t see anywhere but Wuhan so far is that the health care system was so overloaded that addressing the sick took on the appearance of battlefield triage. In Italy, I believe the cutoff age was 65 at which if the patient was over that age and went into cardiac arrest, that was an automatic DNR. The same could take place here.
 
Zzyzx_Road said:
The virus is still practicing age discrimination with respect to deaths. You are apparently confusing this with infections sufficient to cause the victim to seek medical attention.
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Actually no I am not, I said age discrimination and did not specify the data for deaths, recoveries and those critical, because quite frankly we have no robust data at the moment globally. What we know is this virus has stopped discriminating regarding age, or that was a myth put out initially because China also has Many young people in ICU.

If we were to test everyone , regardless of symptoms, I am sure, based on those who have no symptoms and are testing positive , quite an interesting picture statistically. That is not possible at the moment due to lack of testing for this scale.
 
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Love your username. I may or may not have made the drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas many, many times in my younger and more vulnerable years…
 
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