The Coronavirus Thread

[Brian Peacock]

The last Dutch news:

171 coronapatiënten op de intensive care, ziekenhuizen 'stralen rust uit'

Op dit moment liggen er 171 mensen met het coronavirus op intensivecareafdelingen in Nederland. Dat meldt de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Intensive Care (NVIC). Twee dagen geleden ging het nog om 96 mensen. Gisteren waren het er 135.

In a population of 17 million.

In China 8% of over 70s who contracted the virus, and 15% of over 80s, have died. The number of confirmed cases in the UK currently stands at 2,626 - a jump of over 600 in 24hrs. Given the infection rate of the virus, the initial long asymptomatic period, and that people only started taking social isolation as a concept seriously on Monday after the Prime Ministers briefing, it's estimated that up to 80% of the population may have been exposed.

According to the most recent government statistics from June last year there are 8,769,122 over 70s in the UK. If the Chinese mortality rate were to be reproduced in the UK then we'd expect over 700,000 over 70s to die from the contagion. Now, we aren't China, we have been forewarned about the virus and we have different health systems. Even so if the mortality rate in over 70s is, say, only 1% then we'd still expect 87,691 deaths. And of course, if the mortality rate is even lower, say, 0.5% then we're still looking c.44,000 over 70s deaths in that group alone.

So what's the UK mortality rate? If we plot the number of confirmed cases against the number of deaths attributed to the virus so far, 104, then we can guess that it stands just under 4%. Of course, the figures are skewed by the fact that only sick people have been tested so far - and if we apply that figure to the estimated 80% of the population who might have the virus then we're suddenly into frightening numbers of deaths. However, only a fraction of the people who contract the virus develop serious symptoms, and only a fraction of those will need hospital treatment, and only a fraction of those will die - but faced with the facts about the UK ageing demographic, the infection rate, and the mortality risk to older people relatively small percentages can still amount to a significant burden on the health system and a significant number of deaths, both due the virus itself and to the inability of other sick people to access acute and intensive treatments in an over-burdened health care system.

So my question to you is: what percentage of deaths due to the virus in the general population is acceptable and at what point would you stop considering it trivial?

[Cunt]

That exponential growth thing sounds sensible, and I would rather believe nb over sd, but something is off with that doomsday-sounding thing, nineberry.

If you use that 'exponintial growth', and start a few weeks ago in Wuhan, how long until the all of China is infected?

Did that happen?

How long until all the world?

Did that happen?

I started asking these to tear a hole in 'exponential growth', as it obviously doesn't match, but I honestly don't know the answers to those either...

I guess we could start to examine the question of when will we know about those things. I think we have to wait until 90 days of S. Korea doing a good job, and um...other data.

[Scot Dutchy]

For a start Brian you make a few mighty presumptions. You accept without question the Chinese figures. You also accept that all deaths are due to the virus. I dont and never will. We will never know the truth. Just why would the Chinese leopard change its spots? The UK has no idea who lives in the country then how in the hell do they know who is sick? We have a pretty good idea who lives thanks to compulsory registration. Any data coming from the UK I take with a lorry load of salt and with American data 10 lorry's load of salt.

To say what is acceptable is rhetorical and I throw it back. Which figures do you accept and what would be your limits. Dont play their game.

We have 14 yes, one four, in a population of well over a half million. Let me weep. How many people died on the roads? But no there are no increase in speed controls (the biggest killer). We would save more people by shutting down the roads.

My major question is why?

[NineBerry]

That exponential growth thing sounds sensible, and I would rather believe nb over sd, but something is off with that doomsday-sounding thing, nineberry.

If you use that 'exponintial growth', and start a few weeks ago in Wuhan, how long until the all of China is infected?

Did that happen?

How long until all the world?

Did that happen?

I started asking these to tear a hole in 'exponential growth', as it obviously doesn't match, but I honestly don't know the answers to those either...

I guess we could start to examine the question of when will we know about those things. I think we have to wait until 90 days of S. Korea doing a good job, and um...other data.

The exponentiell growth didn't continue at some point in China because they took extreme measures to stop it.

[Svartalf]

I don't know if those measures are not a bit too extreme

[Brian Peacock]

...
We will never know the truth....

While this sounds like wilful ignorance I'd ask why this statement should not be applied to your own presumptions? The Chinese figures have been confirmed by the WHO. The UK figures are being constantly updated, and the population figures are the most recent available from June last year. If you think the figures are dubious then what figures are you relying on - what are the real figures, do you have any solid information or are you just kind of making things up to serve your own intuitions about the contagion? At the moment China is still the primary data point - are governments to ignore that information or respond to it? Simply, the efforts of the EU and the rest of the world are to ensure that they push those Chinese infection and mortality rates down as far as possible. More data is being gathered more systematically across the world now, but one must not assume that how things stand today represents the entirety of the situation, particularly given the infection rate and the relatively long asymptomatic infection period.

[Cunt]

This leads me to think that analysis of the many different countries and regions, and their approaches:results, might better inform future efforts.

Social science, tragically happening.

I've been wondering if copying S. Korea, highly tracking individuals, then using that info if infection is found...I wonder if that will lead to significant loss of civil liberties around health.

Might be fairer to describe them as updates, rather than losses.

[NineBerry]

By this time tomorrow, the number of deaths in Italy will have surpassed that in all of China.

[Brian Peacock]

...
I've been wondering if copying S. Korea, highly tracking individuals, then using that info if infection is found...I wonder if that will lead to significant loss of civil liberties around health.
...

That's not a bad point. I guess it depends upon your view of Public Health, it's function and/or role, and whether restricting someone else's liberty in an attempt to limit the possilbe infection risk to you - and similarly restricting your ability to potentially infect someone else - is a broader social good even if it's something that doesn't sit well with individuals.

[Cunt]

My region (NWT) and many others, have stopped gatherings of a certain size, which stops all jury assembling.

Ours are all cancelled until May 1.

There are rumors that, in the US, interruption of jury trails allows for some other kind of justice to take place. I wonder if that is also true here. As far as I understand, Canada (and therefore NWT) has a duty to prompt justice, not just justice.

[NineBerry]

Aren't juries in the US in quarantine anyway?

[Cunt]

Aren't juries in the US in quarantine anyway?

It's the paranoid group theorizing, but in order to enact military tribunals on US citizens, one way is to 'break' the usual justice system.

No juries? Officials announcing that they won't prosecute certain crimes?

Sounds a bit less far-fetched this week, than it did last.

[NineBerry]

Eh right. I think my work colleague is behind this virus epidemic. He wanted to do home office more than one day a weak but our boss wouldn't allow that. Now surprise a few weeks later every one has to do home office 5 days a week!!!

[Cunt]

Eh right. I think my work colleague is behind this virus epidemic. He wanted to do home office more than one day a weak but our boss wouldn't allow that. Now surprise a few weeks later every one has to do home office 5 days a week!!!

I think Chinese government fuckery is behind the virus, and it worries me that I hadn't even thought about what their propaganda might look like until quite recently.

It's also worrisome that the earliest (in some ways best) information is still being filtered through whatever lenses that authoritarian country decided to use.

Not that everything IS propaganda, but if Russia did it (they DID) we would all suspect it as soon as we saw Russia in the equation. China, as a country, has been almost beneath notice for me (and many others, it seems)

Back when there was an NBA, they were pressured to communicate a certain way with regards to the (now cancelled) Hong Kong protests.

[Animavore]

President Fuckwit, a timeline.