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2020-03-18 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Coronavirus roundup: Global death toll 7,813; nearly 190,000 infected

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Posted by trailing wife 2020-03-18 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top

#1 Huh? Four digits?!

I thought this was a pandemic -- you know, the kind that takes tens of millions of lives.

Which would be counted with not four but EIGHT DIGITS. There is no curve imaginable that gets us from 4 to 8 digits within weeks or months-- or even years.

And the world's leaders are destroying the global economy and potentially ruining a BILLION young people's lives in order to save... a few thousand old folks?

Has the world gone insane?

Posted by Lex 2020-03-18 02:57|| 2020-03-18 02:57|| Front Page Top

#2 "There is no curve imaginable that gets us from 4 to 8 digits within weeks or months-- or even years. "

Lex, the exponential curve is a bitch. With a daily growth rate of 25% (and this is what countries without strict measures are seeing now, you get into millions within a month.

Posted by European Conservative 2020-03-18 03:59|| 2020-03-18 03:59|| Front Page Top

#3 I think the KungFlu will be hard pressed to get above normal flu

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2020-03-18 05:41|| 2020-03-18 05:41|| Front Page Top

#4 And the world's leaders are destroying the global economy and potentially ruining a BILLION young people's lives in order to save... a few thousand old folks?

The current economy is based on China producing 90% of everything. This is war to divest from China.
USA can do it, the way you did war materials production in WWII.
Just imagine a bunch of Greta-freaks gathering to protest a new industrial complex and being arrested under the limitations on public gathering rules! In fact, since these are the psychos who want to live forever - they'll, most likely, to protest from home on Twitter.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-18 05:57|| 2020-03-18 05:57|| Front Page Top

#5 I thought this was a pandemic -- you know, the kind that takes tens of millions of lives.

Not all pandemics are equally virulent, Lex. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the subject here.

Posted by trailing wife 2020-03-18 08:46|| 2020-03-18 08:46|| Front Page Top

#6 Neither WHO nor CDC has made a statement about people taking quinine yet as a treatment or prophylactic.

Research paper was made public on 13 March. Lots of analysis in past two days and even some new clinical information (generally positive).

and, yes, I bought some tonic water yesterday and had some tonic, cranberry and vodka with supper

Posted by lord garth 2020-03-18 10:00|| 2020-03-18 10:00|| Front Page Top

#7 Not so, EC. In modern societies there is a natural limit to how many people can be infected. If your logic were correct, that entire cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, would surely have been infected. Even there, in the most ideal transmission conditions imaginable - thousands in closed quarters, sharing single crowded dining area, with central ventilation systems - even there the infection rate only reached twenty percent!

Listen to Nobel Laureate and Stanford Biophysicist Michael Levitt:

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who teaches structural biology at Stanford University and spends much of his time in Tel Aviv, unexpectedly became a household name in China, offering the public reassurance during the peak of the country’s coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. Levitt did not discover a treatment or a cure, just did what he does best: crunched the numbers. The statistics led him to the conclusion that, contrary to the grim forecasts being branded about, the spread of the virus will come to a halt.

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The calming messages Levitt sent to his friends in China were translated into Chinese and passed from person to person, making him a popular subject for interviews in the Asian nation. His forecasts turned out to be correct: the number of new cases reported each day started to fall as of February 7. A week later, the mortality rate started falling as well.

Levitt received his Nobel prize for chemistry in 2013 for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems." He did not in any way intend to be a prophet foretelling the end of a plague; it happened by accident. His wife Shoshan Brosh is a researcher of Chinese art and a curator for local photographers, meaning the couple splits their time between the U.S., Israel, and China.

When the pandemic broke out, Brosh wrote to friends in China to support them. “When they answered us, describing how complicated their situation was, I decided to take a deeper look at the numbers in the hope of reaching some conclusion,” Levitt explained. “The rate of infection of the virus in the Hubei province increased by 30% each day—that is a scary statistic. I am not an influenza expert but I can analyze numbers and that is exponential growth.” At this rate, the entire world should have been infected within 90 days, he said.

But then, the trend changed. When Levitt started analyzing the data on February 1, Hubei had 1,800 new cases each day and within six days this number reached 4,700, he said. “And then, on February 7, the number of new infections started to drop linearly and did not stop. A week later, the same happened with the number of the deaths. This dramatic change in the curve marked the median point and enabled better prediction of when the pandemic will end. Based on that, I concluded that the situation in all of China will improve within two weeks. And, indeed, now there are very few new infection cases.”

...
The messages his friends translated quickly made waves in China and people wanting to make sure he did indeed write the information attributed to him started contacting Levitt. “That is how I knew I needed to continue,” he said. “I could have said, yes, that’s what I said,’ and left it at that.”
New numbers were being reported every day by various entities, such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Levitt started sending regular reports to his Chinese friends, and their popularity led to interviews on Chinese television, for example on CNN-equivalent CGTN. Based on the diminishing number of infection cases and deaths, he said, the virus will probably disappear from China by the end of March.

Initially, Levitt said, every coronavirus patient in China infected on average 2.2 people a day—spelling exponential growth that can only lead to disaster.... When discussing diseases, it frightens people a lot because they keep hearing about new cases every day. But the fact that the infection rate is slowing down means the end of the pandemic is near.”

There are several reasons for this, according to Levitt. “In exponential growth models, you assume that new people can be infected every day, because you keep meeting new people. But, if you consider your own social circle, you basically meet the same people every day. You can meet new people on public transportation, for example; but even on the bus, after some time most passengers will either be infected or immune.”

Another reason the infection rate has slowed has to do with the physical distance guidelines.

“You don’t hug every person you meet on the street now, and you’ll avoid meeting face to face with someone that has a cold, like we did,” Levitt said. “The more you adhere, the more you can keep infection in check. So, under these circumstances, a carrier will only infect 1.5 people every three days and the rate will keep going down.”

Posted by Lex 2020-03-18 10:13|| 2020-03-18 10:13|| Front Page Top

#8 For EC: Reuters Stealth-Edits Debunked Story Claiming Trump Sought ‘Monopoly’ on COVID-19 Vaccine

Posted by Frank G 2020-03-18 11:31|| 2020-03-18 11:31|| Front Page Top

#9 Points made about the Diamond Princess are very interesting and helpful.

Posted by Tom 2020-03-18 13:32|| 2020-03-18 13:32|| Front Page Top

#10 Most of the Americans on the Diamond Princess got the Gilead drug intravenously while on board. all of them got better. Just learned that.

Posted by lord garth 2020-03-18 18:19|| 2020-03-18 18:19|| Front Page Top

#11 Most of the Americans on the Diamond Princess got the Gilead drug intravenously while on board.

That would change our understanding of the numbers, lord garth.

Posted by trailing wife 2020-03-18 19:21|| 2020-03-18 19:21|| Front Page Top

#12 Lex

Unfortunately the Diamond Princess isn't a good example, because people didn't stay in quarantine long enough on board to get all infected.

That's the thing with exponential curves. They stay quite flat for a number of days until they explode. Without protective measures, within two months, at least two thirds would have been infected (this is the point when herd immunity kicks in).

You just don't think much of a 30% growth per day when the number goes 10 - 13 - 16 - 20...

The "natural limit to how many people can be infected" (provided that a person who got it and survived can't get infected again) stands at approx. 70%.

Let's also stress the fact that we don't know enough about the virus.

But if we don't flatten the curve now hospitals WILL get overwhelmed and this means not only the number of COVID19 deaths will shoot up, also the number of people who die from other illnesses, as they no longer can be properly attended to.

Posted by European Conservative 2020-03-18 21:06|| 2020-03-18 21:06|| Front Page Top

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