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Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

Infection rates are mainly driven by 2 factors: Number of physical interactions and intensity of physical interactions.

While high population density might obviously influence number of interactions, it is not automatically the case: In social groups that meet every Sunday in a big church, even if they have to drive 2 hrs to get there, and greet each other with a hug one would expect more infections than in societies where people are living densely together but don’t leave their homes that often and nod to each other for greetings (which partly explains Japanese numbers).

On impact of obesity: While on individual case level it is clear, there are many open questions when coming to population level. Life expectancy is significantly lower in communities with high obesity rates so that these have an on average younger population. Therefore the share of elderly that are highly at risk is lower, compensating at least partly for the increased cases of younger obese.

What we must not forget when comparing US to Europe numbers: US is in the middle of a tremendous opioid abuse crisis that goes far beyond what we can imagine here in Europe in terms of substance abuse – therefore there are additional groups with sigificantly increased risk that we don’t have in Europe to that extend.

Last Edited by Malibuflyer at 03 Jul 10:17
Germany

Also for the states could it not be their counting of “probable cases” which is everyone who has been in contact with an infected individual.

Off_Field wrote:

ould it not be their counting of “probable cases” which is everyone who has been in contact with an infected individual.

No, it can’t for severe reasons:
- CDC differentiates in its reporting between confirmed and probable cases
- Opposed to what your graphic seems to indicate, the number of “probable cases” in the US is by orders of magnitude smaller than the number of confirmed cases for the entire US with the single exception of Puerto Rico
- Last observation hints at the inaccuracy you make when summarizing the picture: “Probable case” is not everyone “who has been in contact with an infected”. To qualify as probable case you need to have been in contact and show Covid related symptoms or be tested positive with an antibody test (as CDC only counts cases as confirmed if they are tested positive with PCR). Therefore the better summary of what “probable” means is: Sick people that have not (yet) been properly tested.

Last Edited by Malibuflyer at 03 Jul 12:48
Germany

Malibuflyer wrote:

No – it’s just the expression of the fact that Slovenia has introduced extremely har measures in first half of April that factually cut down the new infection rate very close to zero – and the vast majority of people that got infected before that are cured by mid May – the steep increase is just an expression of the fact that a certain time (typically 3-4 weeks but depends on the country) after positive test you are “declared” cured if you are symptom free.

Gee thanks that explains the steep drop from one day to another.

Maybe I was wrong to suggest it as a possible cause, This aeticle seems to suggest the bar is pretty low for the covid symptoms Link

Just have a look at CDC-Data (link): For NYC, e.g. there are 213k confirmed and only less than 5k probable cases.

Germany

That’s an excellent link, but doesn’t give a split for probable cases for Texas that I can see. I do see that deaths / 100k in Texas is an order of magnitude less than New York

BTW I got my test from confirmtesting.com.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Malibuflyer wrote:

Sweden has 500 deaths per million citizens so far – that puts them in the top 5 globally – even beyond USA and Brazil and very close to Italian numbers. Switzerland is at half of that number and Germany at 1/5.

Sweden is number 7, the US is still holding at number 9, here’s the data:

Off_Field wrote:

do see that deaths / 100k in Texas is an order of magnitude less than New York

Here’s the data for US states, Texas currently has 5% of the deaths per 100,000 of New Jersey and is far enough down on the scale that I didn’t count the number of rows. About 80% that of Germany as of today.



Last Edited by Silvaire at 03 Jul 14:38

Malibuflyer wrote:

Yes, but Sweden case is not so easy – and yes, some of the reporting in all countries include questionable cases but in the grand scheme of things 2 fatalities in a traffic accident that were wrongly counted don’t change the needle.

Sweden has 500 deaths per million citizens so far – that puts them in the top 5 globally – even beyond USA and Brazil and very close to Italian numbers. Switzerland is at half of that number and Germany at 1/5.

Things has not gone well in Sweden, that is clear.

But I feel pretty confident (as I have written in several previous posts) that the reason for the high death rate in Sweden is not due to the Swedish strategy but to other factors — primarily to chronic shortcomings in the Swedish elderly care system. Or in other words, there wouldn’t have been much — or any — difference if we had adopted a formal lockdown approach. We can see that the Swedish strategy was effective in preventing disease spread as the deaths in influenza have been below average this spring and the number of calcivirus infections suddenly dropped to essentially zero when the strategy was put in place (and that even with kindergartens kept open).

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 03 Jul 16:15
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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