Coronavirus

[Chinahand]

It's interesting extrapolating straight line growth rates on the WHO numbers.

The number of cases are slowing, though the cumulative totals are still heading upward pretty quickly with over 40,000 confirmed cases and 1,000 deaths (2.4% of the total cases have died):

Rates of growth though are slowing, with the number of new cases reported each day actually now dropping from a peak of nearly 4,000 new cases reported in a day, to about 2,500 today:

Deaths, however, continue to grow passing 100 a day.  It will be interesting if deaths peak out soon too - basically in the average time between diagnoses and death - lets say two weeks or so.

So, have the draconian quarantines China has put in place worked?  Is the disease going to wind down to obscurity like SARS?

Still far too early to tell.  Cases abroad are growing - as the address by the Singaporean PM (above) admitted.  My worry is Africa where I suspect the lack of reporting has little to do with economic isolation - there are lots of contacts between China and African countries - and more to do with lack of ability to monitor health in poor countries.

If Covid-19 escapes China, there are few societies on Earth regimented enough to use the mass quarantine techniques China used to slow the growth in cases.

My understanding is that epidemics can come in waves, and this peak could simply be the end of the first peak.

So what of the future?  Well ... straight line extrapolations are silly - things rarely stay constant, but what can we learn if they did hold?

The growth rate in daily cases is about 6.3% a day at the moment (over the last 5 days it averaged 8.8% per day).  If the current growth rate were to remain constant we would reach a million cases in less than the next 52 days; if the last 5 days are more representative it would just be 37 days.

The growth rate in deaths is more constant and a bit higher - deaths grew by 11.9% today compared to yesterday and over the last 5 days the average was a growth rate of 12.5% per day.  If these growth rates remain constant then we will reach a million deaths in total in roughly the next 60 days.

Ah the power of compounding.

It is a big world, and some seriously heroic and draconian methods are being used to try to stop the virus.  The next two months are going to be critical.  I highly doubt a million people will die - it is highly unlikely growth rates will be able to remain so high.  But it isn't impossible either.  Interesting times.

[Albert Tatlock]

5 hours ago, WTF said:

there was a direct flight from here to geneva last weekend  with quite a few passengers set to go skiing in france,   i don't suppose they all went to the same resort but now they've upped it from 2 weeks to 4 weeks before symptoms may show will they all be quarantined when they get back this weekend ?

Will we be asking shortly...'why wasn't something done'?

...or get the usual old 'lessons will be learned' bollox.

[WTF]

1 hour ago, Chinahand said:

It's interesting extrapolating straight line growth rates on the WHO numbers.

The number of cases are slowing, though the cumulative totals are still heading upward pretty quickly with over 40,000 confirmed cases and 1,000 deaths (2.4% of the total cases have died):

Rates of growth though are slowing, with the number of new cases reported each day actually now dropping from a peak of nearly 4,000 new cases reported in a day, to about 2,500 today:

Deaths, however, continue to grow passing 100 a day.  It will be interesting if deaths peak out soon too - basically in the average time between diagnoses and death - lets say two weeks or so.

So, have the draconian quarantines China has put in place worked?  Is the disease going to wind down to obscurity like SARS?

Still far too early to tell.  Cases abroad are growing - as the address by the Singaporean PM (above) admitted.  My worry is Africa where I suspect the lack of reporting has little to do with economic isolation - there are lots of contacts between China and African countries - and more to do with lack of ability to monitor health in poor countries.

If Covid-19 escapes China, there are few societies on Earth regimented enough to use the mass quarantine techniques China used to slow the growth in cases.

My understanding is that epidemics can come in waves, and this peak could simply be the end of the first peak.

So what of the future?  Well ... straight line extrapolations are silly - things rarely stay constant, but what can we learn if they did hold?

The growth rate in daily cases is about 6.3% a day at the moment (over the last 5 days it averaged 8.8% per day).  If the current growth rate were to remain constant we would reach a million cases in less than the next 52 days; if the last 5 days are more representative it would just be 37 days.

The growth rate in deaths is more constant and a bit higher - deaths grew by 11.9% today compared to yesterday and over the last 5 days the average was a growth rate of 12.5% per day.  If these growth rates remain constant then we will reach a million deaths in total in roughly the next 60 days.

Ah the power of compounding.

It is a big world, and some seriously heroic and draconian methods are being used to try to stop the virus.  The next two months are going to be critical.  I highly doubt a million people will die - it is highly unlikely growth rates will be able to remain so high.  But it isn't impossible either.  Interesting times.

i imagine most of the deaths in china are executions like putting down rabid dogs,   i was told the mortality rate is in the low teens as a percentage,  i imagine if you sneeze in china at the moment you get shot and burned just in case.

[sir nige]

11 hours ago, WTF said:

i imagine most of the deaths in china are executions like putting down rabid dogs,   i was told the mortality rate is in the low teens as a percentage,  i imagine if you sneeze in china at the moment you get shot and burned just in case.

well it is the year of the rat.......

[WTF]

3 hours ago, sir nige said:

well it is the year of the rat.......

i remember consuming a whole bottle of dandelion an burdock in a single sitting  and puking my guts up 5 minutes later ,  never drank D&B again, similar story for pernot & black a few years later but didn't manage the whole bottle,  not even 1/4 of it,  fuck aniseed.

[doc.fixit]

Yup! I drank a whole bottle of cherryade followed by an orange. The resultant vomit was a spectacular sight to behold. The most colourful and textured I've ever seen.

[manxy]

Some speculation about China and the virus from this link HERE (36 minutes)

 

[wrighty]

On 2/12/2020 at 12:08 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

Will we be asking shortly...'why wasn't something done'?

...or get the usual old 'lessons will be learned' bollox.

Or more likely “what was all the fuss about”

Emergency planning is a never-win. You either do it right, avert the disaster, and since nothing much happens wonder why you wasted time and money on the planning. Or, you don’t do enough, disaster ensues, and you get your “lessons learned” scenario.  Y2K may have been an example of the first situation. 

[sir nige]

[paswt]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:25 AM, wrighty said:

Or more likely “what was all the fuss about”

Emergency planning is a never-win. You either do it right, avert the disaster, and since nothing much happens wonder why you wasted time and money on the planning. Or, you don’t do enough, disaster ensues, and you get your “lessons learned” scenario.  Y2K may have been an example of the first situation. 

Over the last fortnight passengers on cruise ships going around Singapore/Malasia/Cambodia/ Thailand have been issued with masks , required to use hand sanitisers on access and egress to shore and prior to entering eating areas /sanitary accommodation  and are scanned with temperature guns when going ashore . On return to Gatwick these same passengers are told to wait in the aircraft as "Public Health UK" will be monitoring passengers . However passengers then moved straight though immigration/customs without any surveillance . Just saying

[sir nige]

[Chinahand]

Ireland-Italy Six Nations match likely off due to Coronavirus. 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/51631954

[woolley]

On 2/10/2020 at 5:19 PM, The Phantom said:

We're talking about a country that bans Facebook and Twitter.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[woolley]

I agree totally with this post by BallaDoc in the parallel thread. It is a sober assessment of where we are with this. The containment efforts are just causing global panic and are a classic case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Time to let it take its course because we can't stop it anyhow. Just shows that no matter how smart we think we are, we are powerless in the face of mother nature if she chooses to turn malevolent. It could have mutated into something far deadlier and someday a virus will do just that.

15 hours ago, BallaDoc said:

My purely unofficial opinion is:

1. The pattern of virus transmission so far suggests it can't be stopped.  If an authoritarian country like China can't stop it, I can't realistically see liberal Western democracies being able to stop it either.

2. There is no point cancelling major public events like the Olympics and the TT if the virus is going to spread anyway and it won't make any difference to the ultimate outcome.

3. Those and many other events will be cancelled anyway because the authorities will want to be seen to be "doing something" and to absolve themselves from legal liability.  

4. Keep a sense of perspective.  The authorities are being cagey about the death rate but reported figures suggest it is somewhere between 1-5%, mostly among the old and the sick.  Therefore, if you are an averagely healthy person, you are very unlikely to die from it.

5. The best defence against the Coronavirus is to be generally healthy (don't smoke, don't be obese, have at least some fresh food in diet) and the best time to start this is about 10 years ago.

Just in: this here from the BBC news website:

"Tests for coronavirus are being increased to include people displaying flu-like symptoms at 11 hospitals and 100 GP surgeries across the UK.

The tests will provide an "early warning" if the virus is spreading, Public Health England medical director Prof Paul Cosford said."

This at least partially bears out what I was saying.  We are now moving from containment mode to monitoring mode - "lets monitor how fast the virus is spreading".  

[Chinahand]

Good expert analysis from Professor Neil Ferguson at Imperial.