Median incubation period estimated as 5 days (4.5 to 5.8 at 95% CI).
Lauer SA, Grantz KH, Bi Q, et al. The Incubation Period of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) From Publicly Reported Confirmed Cases: Estimation and Application. Ann Intern Med. 2020; [Epub ahead of print 10 March 2020]. doi: https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-0504
It appears there’s a world shortage of the special nasal swabs needed to test for this virus. The news about the US hitechs supplying test kits in California may not be beneficial action for the rest of us.
Iceland started well, and had tested over 1% of the population, but that seems to have been a premature use of resources.
From the Icelandic Review Online:
“Icelandic authorities have been informed that a shipment of 5,000 testing swabs arriving to the country next week will be reduced to around 2,000. The Chief Epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason stated in a press conference last Friday that there were only around 2,000 of the swabs remaining in the country. Þórólfur says Icelandic authorities have all of their feelers out and are even researching whether the swabs can be manufactured in Iceland.”
hmng wrote:
Since most of us started to worry only after Italy’s numbers, I want to ask; where else in Europe are we seeing excess mortality from respiratory diseases?
On a national level, even in Italy, there is no significant excess mortality: https://www.euromomo.eu/index.html
Whether this is significant depends on the hypotheses applied to the spread of this virus. If you apply the current consensus view that it is spreading in Europe since January, and the median time between infection to death is maybe 6 weeks, then you wouldn’t expect to see excess mortality in the national statistics yet.
Rwy20 wrote:
On a national level, even in Italy, there is no significant excess mortality: https://www.euromomo.eu/index.html
Yes, I’ve seen that and found it cute that they had to add that disclaimer on the page.
I agree that total mortality increases are really going to be hard to spot, on national and international level. A lot of people die every day of lots of reasons.
So the question for me is still where is the excess mortality due to respiratory issues? Where are more people dying from that, in higher numbers than average/normal?
Peter wrote:
Can’t be this particular virus; it’s not anywhere near that quick.
2/3 days apparently….edited to add ’’symptoms’’.
On an amusing / depressing note, many will have seen the videos of Brits abroad being pretty stupid. I read today that the woman who decided to jump into the swimming pool in Tenerife and was dragged out by security happened to be a Labour councilor and parliamentary candidate for them the last three elections. You’d have hoped they could be a bit more sensible about things.
The all-europe stats are interesting.
7500 deaths in 65 year olds and
4500 deaths in >65 year olds
For a total of 12000 deaths a week as a baseline.
Italy is getting about 600 COVID deaths daily, Spain 500, UK 50, France 200, Germany 30. Round it up to 1500 deaths a day (there are other countries) and you get 10.5K deaths a week. So it’s wrong to claim there is no discernible effect against the baseline mortality.
One explanation might be that the people who are dying of COVID are the people who would be dying anyway, but most people aren’t infected with COVID so that wouldn’t explain it.
Another explanation might be that people aren’t doing risky things like mountain biking or having elective operations.
I think the idea that the figures haven’t caught up yet is more plausible.
Excess mortality supposes that these people wouldn’t have died otherwise. In your 10.5K you’re most probably counting people who would have died of another cause/pathogen (or who actually died from it but also happened to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the hospital).
And at least in Italy only 1 in 10 are confirmed to be Covid19 related:
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus," https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/
hmng wrote:
And at least in Italy only 1 in 10 are confirmed to be Covid19 related:
So why a lock down and a globally induced panic?
