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[elbows]

Hopefully we will soon be past peak WHO do you think you are?

I dont think I need to repeat all of my previous remarks in order to indicate why I am thinking their current stance is increasingly counterproductive.

Coronavirus: Risk of spread upgraded to highest level

The World Health Organization says healthcare systems are still unprepared, but containment is possible.

www.bbc.co.uk

Dr Ryan also stressed that current data information does not suggest the virus has become a global pandemic.

"If we say there's a pandemic of coronavirus, we're essentially accepting that every human on the planet will be exposed," he said. "The data does not support that as yet and China has clearly shown that that's not necessarily the natural outcome of this event if we take action."

Dr Tedros reiterated that the spread had the potential to become a pandemic, but cautioned against unnecessary panic.

"Our greatest enemy right now is not the virus itself, it's fear, rumours and stigma," he said.

Pandemics are human stories, and much of the horror is about human behaviour, true. But I just dont think this sort of talk actually helps much with the fear, rumours and stigma. And I dont care which element wins the award for 'greatest enemy'. Its the virus that drives the story and is the underlying threat. Yes it will be magnified or tackled via human decisions made in the past, the present and the future. But you could win a war against the infodemic, the fear, the panic and the stigma without winning anything in the struggle against the virus itself.

They really do want to have their cake and eat it this time. But I'll save more on that thought for another day.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Hopefully we will soon be past peak WHO do you think you are?

I dont think I need to repeat all of my previous remarks in order to indicate why I am thinking their current stance is increasingly counterproductive.

Coronavirus: Risk of spread upgraded to highest level

The World Health Organization says healthcare systems are still unprepared, but containment is possible.

www.bbc.co.uk

Pandemics are human stories, and much of the horror is about human behaviour, true. But I just dont think this sort of talk actually helps much with the fear, rumours and stigma. And I dont care which element wins the award for 'greatest enemy'. Its the virus that drives the story and is the underlying threat. Yes it will be magnified or tackled via human decisions made in the past, the present and the future. But you could win a war against the infodemic, the fear, the panic and the stigma without winning anything in the struggle against the virus itself.

They really do want to have their cake and eat it this time. But I'll save more on that thought for another day.

Yes, it's so obviously contradictory and without the benefit of any (possibly short-term) future knowledge, when there are already very obvious lessons to be taken from the length of incubation etc, let alone on the possibility that Wuhan wasn't at the centre.

elbows - I did also mean to say that I hope you're taking proper breaks!
Also that I don't think you should feel obliged to post links to your previous posts, or explain the same thing multiple times, if/when people haven't bothered reading through them all themselves. I get why you're doing it - but you're also doing more than enough already.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

@elbows - I did also mean to say that I hope you're taking proper breaks!

And washing his hands!

 

[elbows]

Cheers. The way I tacked things in February is not going to be sustained, I'll be changing phase myself at some point in the next, I dunno, 10 days. There will be less repetition eventually too. Especially since a lot of what I've been saying was quickly built on top of past learning I did in 2005 and then what I learnt, observed and said the last time round in 2009. As the effects of this coronavirus on civilisation travel off in a different direction, I will quickly reach the point where my past observations and themes become less relevant. If I've been something of a guide then this is only for the pre-pandemic phase really, I dont intend to stick out as a particular contributor to this thread once things have reached a different point, I'll have less of use to offer then.

 

[elbows]

Yes, it's so obviously contradictory and without the benefit of any (possibly short-term) future knowledge, when there are already very obvious lessons to be taken from the length of incubation etc, let alone on the possibility that Wuhan wasn't at the centre.

Oh I dont know what you mean about Wuhan not being at the centre. Such ideas are only on the vague periphery of my radar at most, and the genetic-based report the other day was going on about 2 possible clades in Wuhan, and non-seafood market starting point, but not a non-Wuhan starting point. And Wuhan was the centre of the original epidemic, even if there is some prior part of the story that has eluded all but the most speculative of theories so far, Wuhan still counts as the centre for me.

Having said that, there isnt much that would surprise me if completely new evidence emerged. The timing of certain things might yet be reevaluated one day, but right now these are minor details to me, compared to the challenge of dealing with the reality that is slowly emerging that we have to respond to.

 

[weltweit]

So, Wales has its first infected individual.

Apparently they recently came back from Italy, so that is fine.

They probably caught it in Italy no?

Well I hope their thought process and investigations go further than, been to Italy there you have it, because it is possible that they came back from Italy hale and hearty and caught their virus in Wales!

 

[Fez909]

So, I've been thinking about the numbers again. I'm on a train trying to pass time so this is all just speculative stuff to pas some time.

So, China's population is insane...1 in 5 people are Chinese I think? Google says it's 1.386 billion currently.

The 'confirmed' Covid-19 case numbers are 78,824 for China.

That's 0.00577200577 per cent, or half of a thousandth of a per cent of people in China were/are infected. Most of those are concentrated in Hubai, I believe, but it doesn't matter for the kind of thing I'm trying to work out.

Apparently the R0 for SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be between 2 and 3 currently.

We know the incubation period is about 10-20 days, and so it seems unlikely that the virus is contagious during incubation if we're sticking with R0 of 2 or 3. Incubation means no sneezing etc, so obviously some of the main transmission vectors aren't happening, but still - I probably share more beers ("Try this. Sure, let's have a taste of yours", etc) than that in a 3 week period, meaning I'd defo pass it on from IPA tasting alone!

I think that means it's probably only contagious during the symptomatic stage. And I think once in recovery, that must stop, too. Otherwise, we'd have 30-odd thousand people who have 'recovered' back in the community infecting even more people. And I don't think we're seeing that kind of exponential growth in new cases. It feels like we're going through an exponential growth stage in Europe/RoW, but China seems to be linear.

At least reported cases.

There's a point to all this speculation. I'm just trying to think how to tie it all togeher.

I reckon there must be way, WAY, more cases than 80k worldwide to see the spread we're seeing worldwide. If we're up to 100s of thousands of infections in Iran, and thousands of cases in Italy, how can we be 'only' 80k in China, given the length of time it's been there, and the population density of the places it's in.

We're at 20 confirmed cases in the UK now, but only a handful seem to be community spread. They're all spread out though, meaning we're like at hundreds of cases here already, if not 1,000s - undetected for now, of course.

Even such a small amount of cases though seems unlikely given the tiny fraction of cases in China compared to their population.

Our cases are 2.5 × 10-5 percent of the population so far, btw, so maybe it is right. That's a tiny, tiny number.

Anyway, it's my stop now so gonna leave this rambling here in the hope that someone will pick it up/put some meat on it/shoot down my back-of-fag-packet calcs.

Happy Friday, Urbz

 

[sheothebudworths]

Oh I dont know what you mean about Wuhan not being at the centre. Such ideas are only on the vague periphery of my radar at most, and the genetic-based report the other day was going on about 2 possible clades in Wuhan, and non-seafood market starting point, but not a non-Wuhan starting point. And Wuhan was the centre of the original epidemic, even if there is some prior part of the story that has eluded all but the most speculative of theories so far, Wuhan still counts as the centre for me.

Having said that, there isnt much that would surprise me if completely new evidence emerged. The timing of certain things might yet be reevaluated one day, but right now these are minor details to me, compared to the challenge of dealing with the reality that is slowly emerging that we have to respond to.

Apologies, as if to prove my own point, lol (ignoring factual, rational information etc).
Sorry for making you have to repeat that

 

[elbows]

I reckon there must be way, WAY, more cases than 80k worldwide to see the spread we're seeing worldwide. If we're up to 100s of thousands of infections in Iran, and thousands of cases in Italy, how can we be 'only' 80k in China, given the length of time it's been there, and the population density of the places it's in.

Its one of the unanswered questions of February.

I still havent read the WHO-China team report yet, but if I go by the thing Bruce Aylward said in his press conference earlier this week, the WHO contends that the extreme containment/mitigation steps that China took are responsible for the way their numbers have gone.

So its a question of whether that is the correct interpretation of the China numbers or not. Maybe there are things wrong with the data, maybe there are some other unknown factors, maybe its a combination of factors including milder versions of some of our guesses.

We probably only get the answer when we see more weeks of the story of other countries, countries that try similar sorts of drastic social distancing and travel restrictions, and countries that dont. And what the numbers inside China do once their staggered return to work picks up more pace.

I did not want this virus to spread all over the place but since it has, we will at least be able to get data from so many countries that we should be able to rule in or out any dramatic meddling of data/trends, regime and politics stuff, etc. Certain surveillance and estimating limitations probably exist everywhere though, so I'm not claiming we will suddenly get a stunningly clear picture, and of course certain forms of, err, data massage may be common to multiple states.

 

[elbows]

Apologies, as if to prove my own point, lol (ignoring factual, rational information etc).
Sorry for making you have to repeat that

There might be something rational in what you said, and I'm pretty sure there are articles I have missed out on reading recently. And I do keep a rather open mind overall, its just that priorities right now require zooming in on areas that I dont consider to be too close to that sort of speculation about origins.

But some of that may just be personal taste. The area I favour speculating about still regards quantity of mild cases. But I'm too tired right now to go there, maybe sometime over the weekend.

 

[sheothebudworths]

I think that means it's probably only contagious during the symptomatic stage. And I think once in recovery, that must stop, too. Otherwise, we'd have 30-odd thousand people who have 'recovered' back in the community infecting even more people. And I don't think we're seeing that kind of exponential growth in new cases. It feels like we're going through an exponential growth stage in Europe/RoW, but China seems to be linear.

Isn't it just too early to make those assumptions, though - and with China having locked down, too?

 

[Fez909]

Isn't it just too early to make those assumptions, though - and with China having locked down, too?

My assumption is based off the official figures. I think either it's a sound assumption or the figures are way, way off.

 

[sihhi]

Regarding data from China, the Epoch Times FaLun Gong newspaper had a leak from Shandong province a couple of days ago with zip files attached underneath.
Its overall conclusions extrapolating from one province are that figures of infected are 6倍以上 at least 6 times more than officially reported.

I can't verify the documents (who can though?) but my instinct is to trust it, I refrained from posting because previously reliable tweeters have probably been duped with false information.

Link here for those interested: 【獨家】山東內部文件：確診數是公布的數倍 - 大紀元

 

[elbows]

Well I hope their thought process and investigations go further than, been to Italy there you have it, because it is possible that they came back from Italy hale and hearty and caught their virus in Wales!

It is not possible for them to determine that. So such cases will always assume to be travel/contact related, unless something not a part of this routine just happens to turn up that somehow proves otherwise.

What they use to determine that there are signs of wider community spread, are cases where they know travel/contacts/known clusters arent involved.

Which is mostly fine, because the purpose of detecting wider community spread is not to find every case of it. If it is happening at levels they care about, some signs of it will still be picked up via various forms of surveillance, in the same way surveys are done using a small subset of the population.

Its not starting that surveillance soon enough that can be the issue, as opposed to having to rule out some potential candidates because they have a travel history as well. Cases with such doubts are no use, so you just disregard them as not being useful to explore the subject of community transmission.

 

[Fez909]

Regarding data from China, the Epoch Times FaLun Gong newspaper had a leak from Shandong province a couple of days ago with zip files attached underneath.
Its overall conclusions extrapolating from one province are that figures of infected are 6倍以上 at least 6 times more than officially reported.

I can't verify the documents (who can though?) but my instinct is to trust it, I refrained from posting because previously reliable tweeters have probably been duped with false information.

Link here for those interested: 【獨家】山東內部文件：確診數是公布的數倍 - 大紀元

That makes half a million. I would say that sounds more likely than what is officially reported. Even that might be 'low'

 

[Treacle Toes]

What I personally want to know and have read/heard nothing about is how many people contract the virus and survive? This is important information and needs to be factored into any 'pandemic' equation information.

 

[Fez909]

What I personally want to know and have read/heard nothing about is how many people contract the virus and survive? This is important information and needs to be factored into any 'pandemic' equation information.

It's on the Wikipedia page..there's a handy chart (based on WHO figures)

Currently, it's 80k-ish infections across the world, 30k recovered. 2.5k dead, the rest still ill/infected.

I'll dig the link out for you in a sec..

 

[Fez909]

Here you go : 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak - Wikipedia

 

[sihhi]

It's on the Wikipedia page..there's a handy chart (based on WHO figures)

Currently, it's 80k-ish infections across the world, 30k recovered. 2.5k dead, the rest still ill/infected.

I'll dig the link out for you in a sec..

Current stats for China are 36311 recovered 2791 dead.

 

[elbows]

We're at 20 confirmed cases in the UK now, but only a handful seem to be community spread. They're all spread out though, meaning we're like at hundreds of cases here already, if not 1,000s - undetected for now, of course.

This evenings case is the first one they found that could count in that category.

I am only just reading the BBC article about it and I'm assuming its the case the Guardian said was a GP earlier, havent checked that aspect out yet to see what the story is there.

Coronavirus: Latest patient was first to be infected in UK

It is unclear how the Surrey man caught the virus, with no obvious link to overseas travel, officials say.

www.bbc.co.uk

So yeah, this is potentially a key moment for the UK in terms of detection and awareness of what stage we have reached (which obviously lags some distance behind reality).

Who did this man catch the virus from?

This is the urgent question that needs answering about the 20th case in the UK.

So far, no connection with anyone who has travelled to an affected country has been discovered.

Until we know the answer it is difficult to know how big a development this is.

This could be an "outbreak of two" - with just one other, still to be identified, person that caught coronavirus abroad.

Or is this the first case to be detected from a much larger outbreak? We know this can happen, Italian scientists believe the virus was circulating there unnoticed for weeks.

For now, we simply do not know, but this is a scenario officials have been preparing for.

 

[Part-timah]

Prof Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology, University of Nottingham, said:

“This case – a person testing positive for novel coronavirus with no known link to an affected area or known case – marks a new chapter for the UK, and it will be crucial to understand where the infection came from to try and prevent more extensive spread.”

expert reaction to new UK case of COVID-19, where transmission occurred within the UK | Science Media Centre

www.sciencemediacentre.org

We should expect an explosion of cases with 2-3 weeks domestically...if I was looking into my crystal ball.

 

[sihhi]

This evenings case is the first one they found that could count in that category.

I am only just reading the BBC article about it and I'm assuming its the case the Guardian said was a GP earlier, havent checked that aspect out yet to see what the story is there.

Coronavirus: Latest patient was first to be infected in UK

It is unclear how the Surrey man caught the virus, with no obvious link to overseas travel, officials say.

www.bbc.co.uk

So yeah, this is potentially a key moment for the UK in terms of detection and awareness of what stage we have reached (which obviously lags some distance behind reality).

BBC article has him as a patient

He was a patient at Haslemere Health Centre in Surrey which has been closed for "deep cleaning" since Friday morning.

 

[elbows]

I'm assuming its the case the Guardian said was a GP earlier, havent checked that aspect out yet to see what the story is there.

The Guardian updated their story, the GP is another possible case. Maybe linked to the one that was actually announced this evening, for all I know.

 

[Fez909]

expert reaction to new UK case of COVID-19, where transmission occurred within the UK | Science Media Centre

www.sciencemediacentre.org

We should expect an explosion of cases with 2-3 weeks domestically...if I was looking into my crystal ball.

2-3 days I reckon

 

[elbows]

Coronavirus may have been in Italy for weeks before it was detected

Test results worry experts as new cases emerge in Nigeria, Mexico and New Zealand

www.theguardian.com

“I can’t absolutely confirm any safe estimate of the time of the circulation of the virus in Italy, but … some first evidence suggest that the circulation of the virus is not so recent in Italy,” he said, amid suggestions the virus may have been present since mid-January.

The beginnings of the outbreak, which has now infected more than 821 people in the country and has spread from Italy across Europe, were probably seeded at least two or three weeks before the first detection and possibly before flights between Italy and China were suspended at the end of January, say experts

No shit, Italy started to detect deaths at the same time as the cluster, so of course it had been there for weeks. And at some scale now, judging by the number of cases that have been found in other countries after people returned from parts of Italy.

If there was one thing I wanted to make clear this month it was this sort of possibility of how the story would evolve around the world. Sometimes I wonder if I went too easy on it, I didnt exactly spend half my time posting about how many cases the UK might actually be experiencing all throughout February.

I meant it when I made reference to 'seek and you shall' find the other day. It felt closer and we changed our criteria for suspicion of cases, and also the bigger it gets over time the more likely we are to notice it. I wouldnt like to provide UK estimates for how long ago, what size a week ago, now, or in a week. It is reasonable to expect much more news on this front in the days ahead. And the timing compared to other countries does tend to suggest that now is the time. At least to the extent that if we were still sitting around in early-mid March without an outbreak here, I would be wondering what the story was and searching for an explanation.

 

[sihhi]

The lesson from China is run ahead, do it sooner rather than later.

Zhang suggested that all foreign countries and regions with imported cases take precautionary measures "to run ahead" and prevent a large-scale spread among the community.

"When there's a considerable number of secondary and tertiary infection cases or those with unknown origins in a city, the situation will become dangerous as it's difficult to conduct tracing. Plus, very few countries can adopt a containment strategy that is as aggressive as China's," he said.

The same virologist made this categorisation:

Three outcome scenarios: one good, one bad, one ugly

Scenario 1: Win
“This would entail no patients still requiring treatment after two to four weeks, and controlling the epidemic within two to three months. This, of course, is the most optimistic situation.”

Scenario 2: Hold
“This means we partially control the epidemic, with cases continuing to climb, but at a mild rate. The anti-epidemic measures (under this scenario) might last from six months to one year, as was the case with SARS.”

Scenario 3: Failure
“This means the new virus would evolve to become a recurring seasonal disease,” Zhang said, adding that such an outcome would be “so dangerous.”

I think we are on course to be Scenario 3 unless non pharmaceutical measures are rapidly instituted.

 

[little_legs]

Apologies if this is not the relevant thread.

What would you, good folks, do if you had a week booked in Tuscany for the end of April, would you cancel it? I still have the time to cancel but I really don't want to.

Thank you

 

[elbows]

I see a new BBC piece covers various aspects of figuring out the death rate that we've talked about in this thread:

Coronavirus death rate: What are the chances of dying?

The current best guess of a 1% death rate does not apply to everyone.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[existentialist]

I see a new BBC piece covers various aspects of figuring out the death rate that we've talked about in this thread:

Coronavirus death rate: What are the chances of dying?

The current best guess of a 1% death rate does not apply to everyone.

www.bbc.co.uk

Do you think they're following urban75?

 

[Part-timah]

Apologies if this is not the relevant thread.

What would you, good folks, do if you had a week booked in Tuscany for the end of April, would you cancel it? I still have the time to cancel but I really don't want to.

Thank you

Looks like there’ll be fewer middle class next year.