Help the Fight Against COVID-19

Status
Not open for further replies.
First case official here. Someone got off a cruise in Mexico, flew here, then became sick. No idea when he flew or how long before he got tested. So it definitely has the possibility that it spread. With a R0 as high as 7, he possibly infected 7, who could infect 7 more each, and so on. Potentially spread it to people on that flight.

Yeah. I’m not liking this.
 
The "German Administration for Citizen Protection and Disaster Relief" (Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe) made a risk analysis in 2012 about a hypothetical corona virus they titled "Modi-SARS". The assumptions regarding R0, letality etc. were scarily close to the actual properties of CoVid-19. The outcome of their risk analysis, for Germany alone: 3 years until a vaccine is available (on mass vaccination scale), until then 50% of the German population had contracted it, death toll 7.5 million. Can be downloaded from their website, however, only in German.
 
The "German Administration for Citizen Protection and Disaster Relief" (Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe) made a risk analysis in 2012 about a hypothetical corona virus they titled "Modi-SARS". The assumptions regarding R0, letality etc. were scarily close to the actual properties of CoVid-19. The outcome of their risk analysis, for Germany alone: 3 years until a vaccine is available (on mass vaccination scale), until then 50% of the German population had contracted it, death toll 7.5 million. Can be downloaded from their website, however, only in German.
Would be cool if those responsible for this prediction actually had any skin in the game. I.e. you predict wrong, you personally lose a million euros. You predict right, you get 10M and never have to work again. As things stand, I can just as well predict total eradication of humanity by assuming the worst possible outcome at every juncture. Can it happen? Yes. Will it happen? Not likely, no. But in the meanwhile I'll get to be famous.
 
on a side note - I've worked in the hvac field since I was 20 years old (I'm 54 now :eek:). You can get a uv light installed in your duct system that should kill 99+ % of virus and bacteria in any space with conditioned air. I believe these should be mandatory in hospitals and public schools/buildings at least. I do very little residential work anymore but the last time I checked it was around $400-500 for the system which was pretty easy to install. If I had a public accessible business, I would have one.
They were tested with a mix of sick people with the flu and people with out in a closed room together and the flu didn't transfer to the non-infected group. Of course they didn't have physical contact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_germicidal_irradiation
 
First case official here. Someone got off a cruise in Mexico, flew here, then became sick. No idea when he flew or how long before he got tested. So it definitely has the possibility that it spread. With a R0 as high as 7, he possibly infected 7, who could infect 7 more each, and so on. Potentially spread it to people on that flight.

Yeah. I’m not liking this.
Yep, the longer the incubation period, the higher the R0 “R-naught”.
For comparison, seasonal flu has an R0 of 0.9 – 2.1, with a mean of 1.3; the R0 of the 1918-1919 pandemic-causing Spanish flu is estimated to have ranged from 1.4 – 2.8, with a mean of 2.
 
Okay, so every now and then I like to throw out ideas or arguments in front of a large group of people who can poke holes in them.

I'd like to get you guys to poke some holes in the following analysis, please. That is to say: If it's wrong, help me find out all the ways it's wrong.

The data comes from a BBC television news broadcast posted on YouTube 3 hours ago (as I type this, 9:27 p.m. EST). It gives the following figures for deaths and recoveries from coronavirus:

TOTAL KNOWN CASES THUS FAR: 101,781
CASES RESOLVED BY DYING: 3,460
CASES RESOLVED BY RECOVERY: 55,866
TOTAL RESOLVED (either died or recovered): 59,326 ( = 55,866 + 3,460 )
TOTAL CASES AS-YET UNRESOLVED (still sick): 42,455

Let's presume what is probably NOT true; namely, that the 101,781 cases currently known are ALL the cases that actually exist.

Given that presumption,
and given that 3460/59326 = 0.058322,
isn't it correct to say that,
IF a person (age, country, state-of-health, and treatment-quality unknown) contracts COVID-19,
THEN he has about a 5.8322% chance -- better than 1 in 20 -- of dying from it?

That is to say: We shouldn't be measuring the dead as a percentage of total cases, but as a percentage of resolved cases; that is, cases whose final outcome is already known.

Of the cases whose outcome is NOT already known, our best guess is that their outcomes will follow similar percentages IF their age, country, state-of-health, and treatment-quality is similar to that of the already-resolved group.

(Fortunately, now that we're learning about the virus, treatment-quality will turn out to be much better in many cases.)

Okay, done. That's the analysis. I'm not wedded to it; I just want a lot of input to improve it.

So, feel free to poke holes in it, now.

Oh, but...please poke useful holes; i.e., things not already stated/implied above. For example, please don't say, "Actually, there are probably many cases not recognized as COVID-19" ...since I already said as much. (However, if you have some way to estimate how many unrecognized cases there are, and how much that would change the outcome percentages, THAT would be useful information!)
 
Last edited:
Okay, so every now and then I like to throw out ideas or arguments in front of a large group of people who can poke holes in them.

I'd like to get you guys to poke some holes in the following analysis, please. That is to say: If it's wrong, help me find out all the ways it's wrong.

The data comes from a BBC television news broadcast posted on YouTube 3 hours ago (as I type this, 9:27 p.m. EST). It gives the following figures for deaths and recoveries from coronavirus:

TOTAL KNOWN CASES THUS FAR: 101,781
CASES RESOLVED BY DYING: 3,460
CASES RESOLVED BY RECOVERY: 55,866
TOTAL RESOLVED (either died or recovered): 59,326 ( = 55,866 + 3,460 )
TOTAL CASES AS-YET UNRESOLVED (still sick): 42,455

Let's presume what is probably NOT true; namely, that the 101,781 cases currently known are ALL the cases that actually exist.

Given that presumption,
and given that 3460/59326 = 0.058322,
isn't it correct to say that,
IF a person (age, country, state-of-health, and treatment-quality unknown) contracts COVID-19,
THEN he has about a 5.8322% chance -- better than 1 in 20 -- of dying from it?

That is to say: We shouldn't be measuring the dead as a percentage of total cases, but as a percentage of resolved cases; that is, cases whose final outcome is already known.

Of the cases whose outcome is NOT already known, our best guess is that their outcomes will follow similar percentages IF their age, country, state-of-health, and treatment-quality is similar to that of the already-resolved group.

(Fortunately, now that we're learning about the virus, treatment-quality will turn out to be much better in many cases.)

Okay, done. That's the analysis. I'm not wedded to it; I just want a lot of input to improve it.

So, feel free to poke holes in it, now.

Oh, but...please poke useful holes; i.e., things not already stated/implied above. For example, please don't say, "Actually, there are probably many cases not recognized as COVID-19" ...since I already said as much. (However, if you have some way to estimate how many unrecognized cases there are, and how much that would change the outcome percentages, THAT would be useful information!)
I've stayed out of this discussion but am following it with interest.

One thing that might make all the reported math be way off is that we only know "confirmed" infected, not "actual" infected.

What if the number actually infected is 10x what is known? Then the death rate is 1/10th of what is being reported.

Based on what I've seen posted on the R0 value, isn't that plausible?
 
The flaw with this is that the only valid denominator in this equation is the total number of infections, not the number of cases for which shit got bad enough that those people sought treatment. Given that in the majority of cases symptoms are mild, the total number of cases is likely far higher than 100K, and the fatality rate is far lower than 3% or whatever misinterpreted estimates are floating around. People mistake case fatality ratio with population mortality ratio. The difference is explained here: https://www.britannica.com/science/case-fatality-rate

TL;DR: case fatality ratio is the number of people who have died of the disease divided by the number of people who were actually diagnosed with the disease, whereas mortality is the number of people who have died of the disease divided by the estimated number of people who likely had the disease. The latter is a good measure of your risk. The former is a good measure of the risk of someone who's likely already in the hospital by now, coughing their lungs out.

These numbers can be very different, especially when everyone is freaking out, and latching onto the ones that look "worse".
 
That is to say: We shouldn't be measuring the dead as a percentage of total cases, but as a percentage of resolved cases; that is, cases whose final outcome is already known.
Yea, that's the argument @FractalAudio made a few pages back when I mentioned the 0.3% fatality rate. It's a legitimate argument to only consider the recovered vs. died cases when computing the mortality rate because you don't know how the currently unresolved cases will pan out.

The chances of dying from it aren't as simple as 1:20 though. The risk is much higher if you're older or immunocompromised already. But for ballpark figures, this works for trying to figure out overall impact to the population, yes.
 
(Fortunately, now that we're learning about the virus, treatment-quality will turn out to be much better in many cases.)
If in case hospitals get flooded, people won’t be able to get treatment.
What if the number actually infected is 10x what is known? Then the death rate is 1/10th of what is being reported.
The number of deaths due to the Coronavirus might be higher than what is known too. I think you’re probably right but who knows.

Numbers from Korea will be informative in the coming days I think.
 
What if the number actually infected is 10x what is known? Then the death rate is 1/10th of what is being reported.

That would still make it far more deadly than seasonal flu. However, there is no herd immunity for COVID19 like there is for seasonal flu, so there is nothing to prevent it from spreading far more widely than seasonal flu and killing a lot more people.

Barring a concerted global effort to enforce social distancing, this is likely to be the most deadly pandemic in the past 100 years. It isn’t too late though. Aggressive containment measures over the next few weeks could make a big difference. Maybe someone doesn’t feel personally threatened by the virus, but by going to a Lakers game or theme park they are unwittingly spreading the disease.
 
If you start to feel funny eat 150mg of zinc. If you still feel funny that night, eat 100mg more. Then eat 100mg of zinc per day until you feel normal, you won't get sick if you eat enough zinc, not flu not the plague, zinc would probably kill cancer itself.
 
If you feel really funny after a few days of that, though, or if you're older than 65, go to the doctor.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom