Coronavirus - potential Black Swan?

[Andy T]

14 hours ago, Billy Ray Valentine said:

Bizarre isn't it? The wearing of masks should go hand-in-hand with social-distancing. Anything strapped to your face is better than nothing. They'll soon become the norm though without a doubt.

Seem to becoming more and more common in the small town where I work.

 

8 hours ago, Dorkins said:

So almost 10% of the population of Italy and 3% of the population of the UK are thought to have been infected with coronavirus already. Total deaths 10k and 1k respectively. It's easy maths to do, multiply that up to 60% of the population to get to herd immunity levels and you get 60k total deaths in Italy and 20k in the UK. Those predictions of a few hundred thousand deaths in the UK look very wrong.

Just 3% ?  who was it that suggested that 50% of UK could of already been infected last week?

 

8 hours ago, Dorkins said:

I know 8 people currently self-isolating with coronavirus symptoms (7 in the UK, one in Spain, aged children to late 50s), they all seem very mild compared to flu. I've had proper flu twice and could barely stand up to get to the bathroom, was mildly hallucinating/delusional etc. The self-isolating coronavirus symptoms people I know have been able to carry on working from home, no way could you do that with flu.

Some seem to get very mild symptoms, but others get very serious symptoms very quickly, including some of the young and healthy. I guess they will be working around the clock to try and figure out why this is.

[Bruce Banner]

3 hours ago, HovelinHove said:

I got shrieked at for standing a bit to close to someone in a store. I was wearing an N95 mask. There are a large number of nasty British people out there.

Annoying, but my wife (who would not know an N95 mask from any other type) has a dreadful time trying to keep her distance from other shoppers.

Children (to her anyone under 30) are the worst offenders and often brush past her. 

Perhaps the person who shrieked at you was having a bad day.

A 2M chain mace, or a cricket ball on a string could be the answer? 

[Riedquat]

3 hours ago, regprentice said:

Over the last few days I've become horrified at the language and attitudes a growing number are expressing online and in the street. I'm beginning to get a sense of what Weimar Germany must have been like.

Genuinely, the response a pensioner gets on our local Facebook for daring to walk a dog on the scrap ground behind her house is turning my stomach. People who've been friends 15 years threatening each other with the police. 

Just shows how easy it is to scare a lot of people into doing whatever you want.

[Billy Ray Valentine]

10 hours ago, Dorkins said:

So almost 10% of the population of Italy and 3% of the population of the UK are thought to have been infected with coronavirus already. Total deaths 10k and 1k respectively. It's easy maths to do, multiply that up to 60% of the population to get to herd immunity levels and you get 60k total deaths in Italy and 20k in the UK. Those predictions of a few hundred thousand deaths in the UK look very wrong.

Estimates. The best guideline at the moment is resolved cases. Italy have 26'200 resolved cases. 41% of those (over 11'500) have resolved in the patients death. They currently have 4'000 in critical condition, at least half of which will resolve themselves in the patients death. If every one of their 75'000 active cases (which includes the 4'000 critical) resolved in the patient recovering, and they had absolutely no new cases from here on in, the death rate of confirmed cases in Italy would be 11%.

If the COVID-19 mortality rate was 0.2% that would mean a mere 5 million would have been infected in Italy, 8.5% of their population. Without widespread testing the theory that there have been 4.9m other cases of COVID-19 that have had either very mild symptoms or or asymptomatic. At this point all of this is nothing but guesswork and speculation, nobody knows how many people have been infected.

The death toll in the areas which are quarantined and in lock down will be at least 20'000. Wouldn't surprise me if it was more than 30'000. That's just from the current confirmed cases. These areas account for about 1/5 of the countries population.

Without the quarantine and lock downs, and just letting the virus take its course, it's not difficult to speculate the death total could have run into the many hundreds of thousands.

[Riedquat]

2 hours ago, winkie said:

 

Quite possibly true......these masks are not N95 quality that they have to use in hospitals, they are the sort of masks you would buy in a DIY store to filter dust and pollution.....a clean mask helps prevent droplets and small aerosol spray from breath from going into the atmosphere...better a clean steralised mask than no mask at all when masks are so rare and hard to comeby they have to be reused..... ideally they should be used and replaced daily.?

Dust, yes, but any mask capable of filtering out pollution is a pretty serious affair.

Anyway the whole mask business is almost entirely about giving people the illusion that they're being responsible about not putting others at risk and protecting themselves. Another example of how easy it is to persuade the panicked into anything.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Riedquat

[Confusion of VIs]

3 hours ago, HovelinHove said:

Those were possible numbers for Saturday. Given that the virus was spreading at a doubling rate of about 3 days in the UK until early last week, then the majority  (probably 2 thirds to 3 quarters) would be in the early stages of the symptomatic period or still asymptomatic. It takes up to a month, even longer, to die, so your maths needs to take that into account.

There are a few stories going around saying that how many viral particles you initially come into contact with determines how severe the infection is likely to be. However, none explain why this is the case I would have thought (guessed) that once you get it how your body responds would be the determining factor.

Do you know if the initial "viral load" a strong factor in whether you get a severe infection.

[reddog]

Belgium's numbers seem to be growing rapidly, is there something unusual about their control model, or could it be some of their people won't socially distance? 

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

2 hours ago, winkie said:

 

Quite possibly true......these masks are not N95 quality that they have to use in hospitals, they are the sort of masks you would buy in a DIY store to filter dust and pollution.....a clean mask helps prevent droplets and small aerosol spray from breath from going into the atmosphere...better a clean steralised mask than no mask at all when masks are so rare and hard to comeby they have to be reused..... ideally they should be used and replaced daily.?

I bought a pack of 3 for DIY last december from Homebase. They are all marked FFP3 and with an EN standard.

[Bruce Banner]

22 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

Just shows how easy it is to scare a lot of people into doing whatever you want.

“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

― Hermann Goering

[Billy Ray Valentine]

10 hours ago, Dorkins said:

Spain is a quarter of the way to herd immunity, 8k deaths. According to the early predictions this should be approaching 100k deaths.

It looks like the deadliness of this virus was overestimated by about 10-fold. My guess is this is because 1918 influenza really did kill about 250k in the UK and all the models were built around the return of such a virus. Covid-19 is not 1918 influenza, it is an order of magnitude less dangerous.

Did the early predictions take into account lock downs and quarantines?

Resolved cases in Spain number 24'500. 31% of resolved cases are deaths. There are still 63'500 active cases (which will very likely continue to keep rising) of which 5'200 are classed as 'critical'. The death toll is going to be significantly higher than what it currently is.

[Billy Ray Valentine]

10 hours ago, Dorkins said:

I know 8 people currently self-isolating with coronavirus symptoms (7 in the UK, one in Spain, aged children to late 50s), they all seem very mild compared to flu. I've had proper flu twice and could barely stand up to get to the bathroom, was mildly hallucinating/delusional etc. The self-isolating coronavirus symptoms people I know have been able to carry on working from home, no way could you do that with flu.

Just because they have 'symptoms' doesn't mean they have COVID-19. As of yesterday the U.K had tested 134'000 people, with only 22'000 testing positive. The vast majority of those tested would have been displaying 'symptoms'. The chances are the people you know who are self isolating don't have COVID-19.

[HovelinHove]

23 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

There are a few stories going around saying that how many viral particles you initially come into contact with determines how severe the infection is likely to be. However, none explain why this is the case I would have thought (guessed) that once you get it how your body responds would be the determining factor.

Do you know if the initial "viral load" a strong factor in whether you get a severe infection.

That one has flummoxed me I must admit...never heard of that before. I know that initial immune response seems quite slow which is why you don’t see symptoms for a few days, so it may be that if you are exposed to a lot of the pathogen it has a chance to do more irreversible damage to the lungs before the immune system Marshall’s its forces. They are saying that lung damage occurs even before symptoms. In HIV, where I have most of my anti-viral knowledge, it takes about 2 weeks before you get the immune response, but there’s never been any evidence that a larger number of virions entering at the start will cause more damage, but then HIV targets different cells.

[HovelinHove]

6 minutes ago, Billy Ray Valentine said:

Just because they have 'symptoms' doesn't mean they have COVID-19. As of yesterday the U.K had tested 134'000 people, with only 22'000 testing positive. The vast majority of those tested would have been displaying 'symptoms'. The chances are the people you know who are self isolating don't have COVID-19.

Precisely. COVID is still pretty rare, Which is why we need more testing so we can really target those who have it.

[longgone]

9 hours ago, MonsieurCopperCrutch said:

Volunteered yet? Nope didn’t think so. 

£2k a week i will happily provide my services. 

[longgone]

4 hours ago, regprentice said:

Over the last few days I've become horrified at the language and attitudes a growing number are expressing online and in the street. I'm beginning to get a sense of what Weimar Germany must have been like.

Genuinely, the response a pensioner gets on our local Facebook for daring to walk a dog on the scrap ground behind her house is turning my stomach. People who've been friends 15 years threatening each other with the police. 

The state has successfully scared the chit out of certain groups of the public, but for what reason ?

[Billy Ray Valentine]

27 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

There are a few stories going around saying that how many viral particles you initially come into contact with determines how severe the infection is likely to be. However, none explain why this is the case I would have thought (guessed) that once you get it how your body responds would be the determining factor.

Do you know if the initial "viral load" a strong factor in whether you get a severe infection.

I would suggest the amount of medical personnel dying from the virus indicates that this is the case.

 

[Billy Ray Valentine]

13 minutes ago, longgone said:

£2k a week i will happily provide my services. 

I think most volunteers will end up speaking to an old dear on the phone a few times a week to check up on her, and to pick up her groceries if you've got a car, they're not expecting people to get mucking in at A&E.

11 minutes ago, longgone said:

The state has successfully scared the chit out of certain groups of the public, but for what reason ?

If anything I feel they're playing it down a little to try and stop panic. The fact that people are informing on their neighbour for walking their dog in a field indicates that people would freak out if they were told they had to be quarantined for 3 months straight and couldn't go anywhere without a pass and the mandatory wearing of masks, not to mention that the Government themselves don't even know how deadly this virus is.

[pig]

1 hour ago, Riedquat said:

Dust, yes, but any mask capable of filtering out pollution is a pretty serious affair.

Anyway the whole mask business is almost entirely about giving people the illusion that they're being responsible about not putting others at risk and protecting themselves. Another example of how easy it is to persuade the panicked into anything.

Actually, occams razor and all that, masks are probably just about reducing the probability of virus spread.

[Giraffe]

1 hour ago, Confusion of VIs said:

There are a few stories going around saying that how many viral particles you initially come into contact with determines how severe the infection is likely to be. However, none explain why this is the case I would have thought (guessed) that once you get it how your body responds would be the determining factor.

Do you know if the initial "viral load" a strong factor in whether you get a severe infection.

Chris Martenson / Peak Prosperity is running the the best commentary on the pandemic bar none.

regarding the inoculum size on initial infection see here at 14.21 (this is his 15th March report)

 

 

[markyh]

1 hour ago, Billy Ray Valentine said:

Just because they have 'symptoms' doesn't mean they have COVID-19. As of yesterday the U.K had tested 134'000 people, with only 22'000 testing positive. The vast majority of those tested would have been displaying 'symptoms'. The chances are the people you know who are self isolating don't have COVID-19.

We wont really know until 12-18 months time when this has run its course and is fully over. I hope all governments invest in full population testing of the antibody test so we can at least get data of who did get it and had little, or mild symptoms. From there all other data can be calculated. I think for future Pandemic planning it will be crucial.  

[markyh]

3 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

Chris Martenson / Peak Prosperity is running the the best commentary on the pandemic bar none.

regarding the inoculum size on initial infection see here at 14.21 (this is his 15th March report)

 

 

Been listening to him daily since early Feb I think. Certainly from before I installed my 550 ltr rainwater capture 7th-9th of Feb.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

9 minutes ago, markyh said:

 

1 hour ago, Billy Ray Valentine said:

Just because they have 'symptoms' doesn't mean they have COVID-19. As of yesterday the U.K had tested 134'000 people, with only 22'000 testing positive. The vast majority of those tested would have been displaying 'symptoms'. The chances are the people you know who are self isolating don't have COVID-19.

 

I guess COVID19 is the disease, it is possible to have the virus and not the disease. 

1 hour ago, Confusion of VIs said:

There are a few stories going around saying that how many viral particles you initially come into contact with determines how severe the infection is likely to be. However, none explain why this is the case I would have thought (guessed) that once you get it how your body responds would be the determining factor.

Do you know if the initial "viral load" a strong factor in whether you get a severe infection.

Yes, I guess this is because the virus is new and if your body hasn't seen it before, ingesting/breathing in large quantities will result in large numbers of cells being invaded and damaged. If you body recognises it, then probably you mount a better defence and secondly your body won't produce loads of virus itself to virally load yourself and other people. 

I do slightly wonder if in the end we may realise hospitals are contributing to the spread and death count.  With the Spanish Flu they set up medical camps which probably concentrated the viral load, I suspect hospitals may be the modern equivalent. 

May be the secret is to safe immunity is regular small exposures to the virus. 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Mikhail Liebenstein

[ticket2ride]

9 minutes ago, markyh said:

We wont really know until 12-18 months time when this has run its course and is fully over. I hope all governments invest in full population testing of the antibody test so we can at least get data of who did get it and had little, or mild symptoms. From there all other data can be calculated. I think for future Pandemic planning it will be crucial.  

What do you think the chances of that happening are, given they are currently testing <10k per day?

[markyh]

1 minute ago, ticket2ride said:

What do you think the chances of that happening are, given they are currently testing <10k per day?

Depends on the cost and public pressure I guess. There will be plenty of paranoid at risk younger and boomers who don't really know if they got it , scared for ages , until it is proven to them. I would have thought as we can do things in the 21st century we couldn't in 1918/19 the public will demand it.

[Confusion of VIs]

51 minutes ago, Billy Ray Valentine said:

I would suggest the amount of medical personnel dying from the virus indicates that this is the case.

More likely it shows how many health staff are being infected, talking to people working in hospitals they say that infection control has broken down with multiple cases occurring in areas that are meant to be kept free of coronavirus.

Several of my wife's immediate colleagues are currently self isolating after developing symptoms, they don't know for sure they have it because none have yet been tested (ridiculous as these are consultants, some of whom probably have colds etc and could be back at work if tested)