Coronavirus - potential Black Swan?

[GeordieAndy]

Anyone seen the temporary morgue being built at Birmingham airport... can take up to 12,000 ? 

Do those still thinking this is just normal flu deaths think they are building that for a laugh ?

I would also think if you end up in that nightingale 'hospital' in London your chances of surviving are even lower than others due to the sheer numbers and lack of one on one specialist care☹️

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-temporary-mortuary-being-built-at-birmingham-airport-11964675

Edited March 28, 2020 by GeordieAndy

[onlooker]

55 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Did you actually read that Telegraph completely fact free non story.

I suspects facts are in short supply in totalitarian China.

[Jolly Roger]

Seems like there are several complications that can skew the understanding of the real threat (as opposed to a calculated or estimated threat), the two most important being a) how causes of death are recorded, and b) how much testing is being carried out and how that feeds into modelling and fatality rates.

The testing is obviously not currently reflective of infections as a whole, including recoveries and asymptomatic cases, and the wildly varying rates across countries indicate disparities in testing regimes as well as variance in recording causes of death.  The latter point is interesting as according to the most popular article in The Spectator by a retired consultant pathologist:

Quote

But there’s another, potentially even more serious problem: the way that deaths are recorded. If someone dies of a respiratory infection in the UK, the specific cause of the infection is not usually recorded, unless the illness is a rare ‘notifiable disease’. So the vast majority of respiratory deaths in the UK are recorded as bronchopneumonia, pneumonia, old age or a similar designation. We don’t really test for flu, or other seasonal infections. If the patient has, say, cancer, motor neurone disease or another serious disease, this will be recorded as the cause of death, even if the final illness was a respiratory infection. This means UK certifications normally under-record deaths due to respiratory infections.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think

This suggests that, previously, many flu deaths might be recorded as cancer or motor neurone deaths but in the current epidemic the reverse may be true - if a cancer patient dies and tests positive for coronavirus then it is likely to be recorded as a COVID-19 fatality.  This makes ultimate death rates problematic to determine and also comparisons against flu trickier.

I suppose the government would "prefer" a high-ish predicted CFR to justify the extreme lockdown measures and economic damage, with as low a real death total as possible to demonstrate that the measures are working.

I read a Telegraph article earlier describing how Neil Ferguson, behind the Imperial College "510,000 deaths" paper, was also criticised for his earlier modelling of BSE deaths and the total cull of livestock during the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001 - subsequent studies suggested that the mathematical models behind the cull strategy were not "fit for purpose".  Millions of healthy animals were destroyed as a result.  If this guy has the ear of the Prime Minister then I really hope the calculations are fit for purpose, though Ferguson did tweet that the model is based on thousands of lines of undocumented C code from 13 years ago (lol).

Seems like anecdotally there are "happenings" that are quite concerning, around clusters of deaths, hospitals full and staff at breaking point, bu the wider picture is very strange and confused.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Jolly Roger

[mattyboy1973]

2 hours ago, HovelinHove said:

My gut feeling is that if we had let virus this run riot we would have seen a much higher than normal mortality rate this year, but in following years it would have been lower as the virus would have cut out the dead wood.

It goes without saying that if people die this year, they can't die again in subsequent years so this isn't really a stunning insight. The fundamental issue is that these people are not - yet - "dead wood" (charming term), and all of the efforts we are putting in are intended to keep it that way. Many of these potential victims are living happy and fulfilling lives right now, underlying condition or not, and could have many more years of life left. 

[anonguest]

24 minutes ago, onlooker said:

I suspects facts are in short supply in totalitarian China.

Nah. Facts are just as abundant in China as they are here.  The problem is that (and sadly increasingly here sometimes too!)  we are not allowed to hear/see them.

Edited March 28, 2020 by anonguest

[smash]

50 minutes ago, GeordieAndy said:

Anyone seen the temporary morgue being built at Birmingham airport... can take up to 12,000 ? 

Do those still thinking this is just normal flu deaths think they are building that for a laugh ?

I would also think if you end up in that nightingale 'hospital' in London your chances of surviving are even lower than others due to the sheer numbers and lack of one on one specialist care☹️

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-temporary-mortuary-being-built-at-birmingham-airport-11964675

Scary. Nightingale is going to have 4000 beds but the West Midlands morgue can have capacity to 12,000?

There is of course City airport right next to Nightingale that has just closed. Guess its going to be your last few hours in Excel before being shifted to a fridge on the re-purposed tarmac.

[GeordieAndy]

7 minutes ago, smash said:

Scary. Nightingale is going to have 4000 beds but the West Midlands morgue can have capacity to 12,000?

There is of course City airport right next to Nightingale that has just closed. Guess its going to be your last few hours in Excel before being shifted to a fridge on the re-purposed tarmac.

Yeah flight radar between those two places might be something to watch in the coming weeks ?

Edited March 28, 2020 by GeordieAndy

[Confusion of VIs]

48 minutes ago, onlooker said:

I suspects facts are in short supply in totalitarian China.

Why did you post this non story?

I presume it aligned with your own prejudices, so its lack of facts and general incoherency didn't worry you.

[pig]

260 deaths today. Looks like the calm before the storm is almost over.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52077997

[onlooker]

15 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Why did you post this non story?

I presume it aligned with your own prejudices, so its lack of facts and general incoherency didn't worry you.

Seeing as you want to be a spokesman for the Chinese government, why are the Chinese and Wuhan fatality figures now seriously out of line with the picture now emerging across Europe?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/27/doubts-surface-chinese-virus-death-toll-thousands-urns-spotted/

Conservative estimation based on numbers of urns being given out at 8 crematoriums in Wuhan by financial analyst @charles984681
Total death in Wuhan: 59K
Total death in China: 97K
Total infection in China: 1.21 M

[regprentice]

3 hours ago, HovelinHove said:

Which means you had double the normal chance of dying as COVID would have been additive to the “normal” death rate.

Still puts most groups well over a 500 to 1000 in one chance of dying. 

[Sour Mash]

Pretty grim couple of months ahead - hopefully the 'lockdown' will help but so many people totally ignoring it or applying their own extremely loose interpretation.

There have already been quite a few mortalities of young, healthy people.  The media should probably stop telling everyone that it's only the old at risk (a narrative which they have been pushing to try to stop panic) and really focus on the risk to everyone, now that people have adjusted to the fact that a dangerous pandemic is here.  It might focus a few minds and help people to make the enormous 'sacrifice' of staying at home except for urgent things like getting food/ medicine and a bit of exercise once a day.

Hopefully everyone reading this thread listened to the oft-given advice to stock up and take precautions - shame on those idiots who mocked the idea.

 

 

[regprentice]

1 hour ago, PeanutButter said:

Yay for death! Why not cut the NHS even further? We could probably save a lot of money! Money is far more important than human lives, especially old or weak ones (it’s definitely 100% only old and weak people who die). Flush those leukaemia kiddies down the river, focus on making good productive, obedient consumers instead. Gotta keep that capitalist pyramid growing. 

In fact, why are we even bothering with ventilators at all? Makes sense to let nature take its course. 

You are ignoring the impact of imprisoning 66mn people indefinitely. There's clearly no moral cost there for you 

Perhaps you would rather oates had stayed in his tent and argued with his companions he was just as important as everyone else? 

The at risk groups should have been isolated in February. Each with a portacabin in a field in Surrey or something similar. Every other system in the country can cope with the elevated levels of need from the virus in the population excluding the at risk groups. But instead we've decided to imprison an entire population of 66mn people. 

It's because we are cowards, afraid of hard decisions, and if we do this in the face of a more serious pandemic in the future we will all die because it is a foolish thing to do. It has nothing to do with capitalism, and you've completely lost me there, my statement was about the social cost of a group of people, 99% of whom have on average 2.5 years left to live, holding an entire society hostage. 

[smash]

During the lockdown and self isolation I think I might re-read American Anthropologist Ernest Becker. His central theory is that what makes human beings unique organisms is awareness of death and this creates an conscious/un-conscious dilemma for the individual and society. Social scientists developed "Terror Management Theory" is a way of empirically testing Becker's ideas.

 

 

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

3 hours ago, markyh said:

Has anyone seen any estimations / projections what this might save the UK Gov in future Pension payments for those in retirement now (65-67) up to expected average life span (79 man , 83 Woman)? Also how do you think you could estimate the savings of CV 19 Deaths of Pensioners Already  older that 79 for a man and 83 for a woman, as how much longer they live for is unkown. But maybe it could just be assumed if you make 80 as a man and 84 as a woman you will reach 100 in the 21st Century.

I assume the possible ongoing future savings is in the Billions over the next 14-33 years (67 year old living to 79 , or maybe 100)

Well 18% of the population are over 65 I believe. If say 4m get infected in the whole  population with noticeable symptoms, and then 3% of those die. 

4,000,000 x 0.18 x 0.03 = 21,600 deaths in the over 65 category. 

Assuming the average over 65 year old man has 7.5 years to live on average (midway between 65 and 80) and the average women 9.5 years, the average for all people is about 8.5 years. 

If the state pension is £160 per week then the savings in pension will be about

8.5 years x 21,600 x (£160 x 52) = £1.5bn over those 8 years.

Of course this doesn't include the costs of managing ongoing health conditions.

Of course this dynamic shifts are more get infected. 

 

[Orb]

42 minutes ago, regprentice said:

Still puts most groups well over a 500 to 1000 in one chance of dying. 

1000 in 1? We're all doomed, doomed I tell ya!

1 in 1000 would calm me down a bit though. 

[winkie]

[Clarky Cat]

1 hour ago, onlooker said:

Seeing as you want to be a spokesman for the Chinese government, why are the Chinese and Wuhan fatality figures now seriously out of line with the picture now emerging across Europe?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/27/doubts-surface-chinese-virus-death-toll-thousands-urns-spotted/

Conservative estimation based on numbers of urns being given out at 8 crematoriums in Wuhan by financial analyst @charles984681
Total death in Wuhan: 59K
Total death in China: 97K
Total infection in China: 1.21 M

58 million people live in Hubei province, 11 million in Wuhan itself.

In the absence of covid, and excluding increased mortality rates over the winter, you would expect there to have been over 14k deaths anyway in Wuhan over the last 2 months and no-one would've been able to collect any ashes. Add the known deaths from covid on and this will be well within the margins of error that you'd get from estimating deaths by counting urns.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Clarky Cat

[Sour Mash]

13 minutes ago, regprentice said:

You are ignoring the impact of imprisoning 66mn people indefinitely. There's clearly no moral cost there for you 

Perhaps you would rather oates had stayed in his tent and argued with his companions he was just as important as everyone else? 

The at risk groups should have been isolated in February. Each with a portacabin in a field in Surrey or something similar. Every other system in the country can cope with the elevated levels of need from the virus in the population excluding the at risk groups. But instead we've decided to imprison an entire population of 66mn people. 

It's because we are cowards, afraid of hard decisions, and if we do this in the face of a more serious pandemic in the future we will all die because it is a foolish thing to do. It has nothing to do with capitalism, and you've completely lost me there, my statement was about the social cost of a group of people, 99% of whom have on average 2.5 years left to live, holding an entire society hostage. 

Oh the humanity - asking people to stay at home as much of possible in the teeth of a global pandemic.  Never before in human history have the people of the West suffered so much!  Those drafted and sent to die on the beaches of Normandy could never know the pain of having to stay in your house, drink booze and watch movies/ TV/ play videogames.  They had it so good.  ?

 

It's utterly necessary to stop the number of new infections and hence ultimately serious cases and deaths, to stop increasing at an exponential rate.  This will help stop the hospital system from being overloaded resulting in the deaths of many who could otherwise have been saved.  For an example of what happens when your medical system overloads, see Spain and Italy right now and probably the UK in a few weeks.

 

If/when the exponential growth rate levels off, we can work on ways of dealing with the presence of the virus.  Better testing and targetted quarantining, masks for everyone in public, adapted working practices. 

We can also make more ventilators over time (plenty of work going on, on quick-to-build designs) as well as more masks (EVERYONE should wear a mask in public for the foreseeable future) and hopefully for effective treatments to be developed to minimise the number of people ending up on ventilators.

 

  Ultimately, a vaccine will be developed (no sooner than one year away) or the disease will burn through enough to confer herd immunity (probably 2 years).   Let's try and make it so fewer people have to die before that point is reached, eh?

[Bluestone59]

16 minutes ago, smash said:

During the lockdown and self isolation I think I might re-read American Anthropologist Ernest Becker. His central theory is that what makes human beings unique organisms is awareness of death and this creates an conscious/un-conscious dilemma for the individual and society. Social scientists developed "Terror Management Theory" is a way of empirically testing Becker's ideas.

 

 

Well I never heard of him and he may be a big shot but I have experienced instances of animals showing awareness of death, both personally and the Australian crows on a wild life prog that were reported to hold a wake for the deceased. Elephants are said to also.

[Peter Hun]

2 hours ago, pig said:

Theres been a bit on the MSM and the internet about how everybody who dies from Coronavirus would have died anyway.

Long term we are all dead.

[Peter Hun]

1 hour ago, GeordieAndy said:

Yeah flight radar between those two places might be something to watch in the coming weeks ?

Dead from Excel will be shipped via the Thames. Birmingham morgue will be for the Midlands.

[Peter Hun]

1 hour ago, onlooker said:

why are the Chinese and Wuhan fatality figures now seriously out of line with the picture now emerging across Europe?

Because the Chinese applied unlimited resources  ($17trillion dollor economy) to their pandemic plan and locked down completely almost immediately to stop the spread in its tracks, They also traced every case and the case contacts to eliminate the disease completely.

We have gone for herd 'immunity' to protect the economy.

[Sour Mash]

Definitely a hard core of 'roll the dice and let the weak die' advocates out there.

I would suggest something similar to what I suggest for warmongers - before asking others to risk their skin you put your own skin in the game.  Go isolate yourself somewhere for a few weeks and infect yourself at the start.

Then, if and when you come out the other side, you can propose such sociopathic strategies without the rest of us considering you to be an utter masterb8er.

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Sour Mash

[Sour Mash]

1 minute ago, Peter Hun said:

Because the Chinese applied unlimited resources  ($17trillion dollor economy) to their pandemic plan and locked down completely almost immediately to stop the spread in its tracks, They also traced every case and the case contacts to eliminate the disease completely.

We have gone for herd 'immunity' to protect the economy.

 

I think that was the strategy at the start before they realised it wasn't going to work and the economy was trashed in any case.

If China - probably the Worlds greatest example of a country that cares nothing about individual life and wellbeing compared to that of their economy, had to institute drastic lockdown measures to prevent mass infection and deaths, it should be a pretty good indicator that everyone else would need to do likewise.