Peter wrote:
1% is 10x of influenza, no?
I should have quoted the entire paragraph, you can’t really simplify it:
On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. 4 In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. 5 report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively. 2
If the China experience is accurate it can be beaten but it takes draconian action.
Just a few days ago (on Tuesday, or was it Monday?), the official strategy for Norway changed from slowing it down to beating it. We don’t have Draconian measured compared with France, Spain, Belgium etc.
Personally I can’t decide if the government has gone insane or bananas, but looking at the numbers, it does suggest it is possible. Social distance is the key, and simple measures like 1-2 m distance and hygiene IS enough to get that “R” below 1. Another thing is that this is the fastest and cheapest way, and by far the one that causes least fatalities. As a bonus the normal influenza, apparently also a mass murderer these days, has plummeted, and I would guess a whole bunch of other diseases. Time will show.
Peter’s point about politicians and celebrities avoiding public transport is probably correct, but they are probably more likely to meet and greet a lot of people too. In both the UK and Iran, the health ministers/deputy health ministers became infected early on and I doubt this was a coincidence. I don’t know how the various factors balance out.
A lot of our early ‘false alarms’ tested positive for various forms of the ’flu so whilst I also had a somewhat odd mild but long-lived infection starting in January, I think it is unlikely to have been mild COVID.
Rwy20 wrote:
If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases
There is this crucial “if” there … which I do not see as really supported by data, more of a wishful thinking and sometimes careful selection of data to fit the desired narrative (the Oxford study ….).
New mortality numbers have been updated yesterday on https://www.euromomo.eu/
Now you can see an uptick in Italy and Switzerland, but France as a whole is below average. No country is above the levels of the 2016/17 flu season.
LeSving wrote:
the official strategy for Norway changed from slowing it down to beating it
That would only work if the whole world subscribed to it, or Norway would permanently isolate itself. I suspect that will not be sustainable in the long run.
LeSving wrote:
As a bonus the normal influenza, apparently also a mass murderer these days, has plummeted, and I would guess a whole bunch of other diseases.
Can I rest my case? Am I the only one thinking the implications of that observation is quite obvious?
hmng wrote:
Can I rest my case? Am I the only one thinking the implications of that observation is quite obvious?
No, you can’t.
Wait 2-3 weeks and if then the numbers support your rosy view, then it might be the time. Frankly, it is obvious that severe restrictions will lower the influenza numbers. That does not mean that this is just another influenza – like.
Even with the current restrictions in place, influenza has never brought the hospitals to the state they are now in Lombardy/Madrid … and soon elsewhere (Switzerland? Netherlands? London?)
Based on all indicators, we are just at the beginning (OK, Lombardy is past the inflection point, but not even Italy as a whole is there).
Hopefully, due to the restrictions in place in will not be Lombardy over the whole western world … but still quite a mess.
hmng wrote:
Can I rest my case? Am I the only one thinking the implications of that observation is quite obvious?
Yes, I guess. I still don’t know your motivation for the supposed scepticism of the measures taken so far.
Ibra wrote:
You can have a better guess by simply asking how many celebrities have SARS2 virus? and how many famous people are around? Famous is relative but 1 in 5000 is a good number (comes from counting Wikipedia pages of english living population, credit goes to Samuel Arbesman from Harvard), I am sure the number of celebrities who has COVID19 is higher than 5 and sure less than 1000 and there is zero time lag for this information
Sadly another UK celebrity got it, as I said before we are more in the 1%-10% population (surely we are not in only 10k cases reported or Oxford 30 millions)
kwlf wrote:
Peter’s point about politicians and celebrities avoiding public transport is probably correct, but they are probably more likely to meet and greet a lot of people too. In both the UK and Iran, the health ministers/deputy health ministers became infected early on and I doubt this was a coincidence. I don’t know how the various factors balance out
It still indicate a correct sampling of population, everybody is connected to any celebrity/politician after max 6 layers of handshake…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdős_number
Just read on Spiegel.de that Boris Johnson himself has been tested positive for SARS2-CoV…
