Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread VI (Don't Read Post 1 & FAQ)

[Dirk]

Our continued lack of good data is a huge problem

Read on Twitter

?s=19

It may just be me, but it feels like they write that too casually and then tweet it out and it becomes a "reality". Most people are idiots who do the bare minimum when it comes to information. So mere tweets become gospel.

It is entirely possible and likely that some people who died weren't tested (there is a shortage of tests pretty much everywhere), there are various stories of different nursing homes where they have had 3x more deaths than in previous years. I have read and heard these sorts of stories where some died and weren't tested. Was this done to hide anything? Not really I don't think.

They just write this:

In Italy, authorities have conceded that their coronavirus death toll did not include those who had died at home or in nursing homes. Similarly in France, officials have said that only those who died in hospitals had been recorded as pandemic-related — a practice they said would change in the coming days.

The Italian health authorities give a press conference every day and from what I understand, they are asked tough questions. The Italians would be talking about it themselves... Their death rate is what? 10%... incredibly higher than some other countries. Spain at 7.4 last I checked...

Ironically, Spain and Italy in particular (their media) have challenged Germany's death rate... Italians have disputed Germany's numbers and France's numbers. Precisely because there is a sense that the Italians have actually been "generous" in the way they catalogue their deaths (some say that some other countries aren't as 'free' attributing the cause of death to covid19 when people have multiple underlying conditions*).

I won't dismiss the chance that countries may mask the reality of some things, more so to not bring morale down (I feel they are constantly masking reality with regards to the lack of protection equipment and testing for instance), but I find it a bit unlikely when it comes to Italy that they've hidden numers or masked reality.

Even if you concede that loads of people who have died over the past few months may have been infected and weren't tested, it won't really change the global panorama that we are already well aware.

*Number of comorbidities - Official Italian report


For what it's worth, this is an Italian article that is saying that their "death rate" could "be lower" --- think that those testes usually have symptoms and at advanced stages many times. More likely to die. The real numbers of infected (they estimate 530K here) is much higher... and many more people survive. So they do that math and their '10%' death rate drops down.

Coronavirus, that's why lethality could be up to ten times lower
https://www.nogeoingegneria.com/news/coronavirus-ecco-perche-la-letalita-potrebbe-essere-fino-a-dieci-volte-piu-bassa/

Spoiler:

Real lethality of the virus at 1.14%
The lethality rate of Covid-19 in Italy - recalls the Ispi report - «is a much discussed figure. If compared to the main countries of the world, the lethality of the virus in Italy is clearly the highest. But using this data would be a mistake. In fact, it says almost nothing about the real lethality of the virus, which recent studies estimate in 0.7% for China, while Ispi estimates in 1.14% for Italy ".

The buffer variable
"The difference between this realistic figure and the" out of scale "one - reads the Ispi analysis - is attributable to the number of people who have been infected but not subjected to the swab to check its positivity. In fact, Ispi estimates that the currently positive people in Italy are in the order of 530,000 ", that is to say the average figure between a minimum estimate of 350 thousand and a maximum of 1.2 million. The forecast is obtained by taking into account the calculation method of international study done on China (Estimates of the severity of COVID-19 disease) which has tried to recalculate the lethality rate and the total infected by relying on the data of some individual cases.

Compare apparent and plausible lethality
Hence the conclusion of the investigation. "The figure on apparent lethality is therefore an unreliable indicator, and nothing suggests that the plausible Italian lethality is so different from the expected figures. On the other hand, comparing apparent lethality with plausible lethality allows us to better trace the curve of contagions in Italy, following the trend of the epidemic in a more realistic way

".

Put this article on google translate, it has relevant ideas
https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cronache/covid-19-qual-vera-letalit-risposte-dello-studio-dellispi-1846817.html.

[LKN]

Spoiler:

Our continued lack of good data is a huge problem

Read on Twitter

?s=19

It may just be me, but it feels like they write that too casually and then tweet it out and it becomes a "reality". Most people are idiots who do the bare minimum when it comes to information. So mere tweets become gospel.

It is entirely possible and likely that some people who died weren't tested (there is a shortage of tests pretty much everywhere), there are various stories of different nursing homes where they have had 3x more deaths than in previous years. I have read and heard these sorts of stories where some died and weren't tested. Was this done to hide anything? Not really I don't think.

They just write this:

In Italy, authorities have conceded that their coronavirus death toll did not include those who had died at home or in nursing homes. Similarly in France, officials have said that only those who died in hospitals had been recorded as pandemic-related — a practice they said would change in the coming days.

The Italian health authorities give a press conference every day and from what I understand, they are asked tough questions. The Italians would be talking about it themselves... Their death rate is what? 10%... incredibly higher than some other countries. Spain at 7.4 last I checked...

Ironically, Spain and Italy in particular (their media) have challenged Germany's death rate... Italians have disputed Germany's numbers and France's numbers. Precisely because there is a sense that the Italians have actually been "generous" in the way they catalogue their deaths (some say that some other countries aren't as 'free' attributing the cause of death to covid19 when people have multiple underlying conditions*).

I won't dismiss the chance that countries may mask the reality of some things, more so to not bring morale down (I feel they are constantly masking reality with regards to the lack of protection equipment and testing for instance), but I find it a bit unlikely when it comes to Italy that they've hidden numers or masked reality.

Even if you concede that loads of people who have died over the past few months may have been infected and weren't tested, it won't really change the global panorama that we are already well aware.

*Number of comorbidities - Official Italian report


For what it's worth, this is an Italian article that is saying that their "death rate" could "be lower" --- think that those testes usually have symptoms and at advanced stages many times. More likely to die. The real numbers of infected (they estimate 530K here) is much higher... and many more people survive. So they do that math and their '10%' death rate drops down.

Coronavirus, that's why lethality could be up to ten times lower
https://www.nogeoingegneria.com/news/coronavirus-ecco-perche-la-letalita-potrebbe-essere-fino-a-dieci-volte-piu-bassa/
[spoiler]Real lethality of the virus at 1.14%
The lethality rate of Covid-19 in Italy - recalls the Ispi report - «is a much discussed figure. If compared to the main countries of the world, the lethality of the virus in Italy is clearly the highest. But using this data would be a mistake. In fact, it says almost nothing about the real lethality of the virus, which recent studies estimate in 0.7% for China, while Ispi estimates in 1.14% for Italy ".

The buffer variable
"The difference between this realistic figure and the" out of scale "one - reads the Ispi analysis - is attributable to the number of people who have been infected but not subjected to the swab to check its positivity. In fact, Ispi estimates that the currently positive people in Italy are in the order of 530,000 ", that is to say the average figure between a minimum estimate of 350 thousand and a maximum of 1.2 million. The forecast is obtained by taking into account the calculation method of international study done on China (Estimates of the severity of COVID-19 disease) which has tried to recalculate the lethality rate and the total infected by relying on the data of some individual cases.

Compare apparent and plausible lethality
Hence the conclusion of the investigation. "The figure on apparent lethality is therefore an unreliable indicator, and nothing suggests that the plausible Italian lethality is so different from the expected figures. On the other hand, comparing apparent lethality with plausible lethality allows us to better trace the curve of contagions in Italy, following the trend of the epidemic in a more realistic way".

Put this article on google translate, it has relevant ideas
https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cronache/covid-19-qual-vera-letalit-risposte-dello-studio-dellispi-1846817.html.

To be clear - I'm not (and I don't think Hayes is) claiming that we are hiding anything. More just calling attention to the possibility that the numbers are pretty inaccurate.

[sfernald]

Where are the China bots of realgm at? I’m surprised they’ve been quiet on here.

Do you really believe there are China bots on realgm? This is a very small message board. China bots, Russia bots etc... are on Youtube, Reddit, Twitter etc...

Well honestly I was thinking the same thing with that Vader account. Seemed like Chinese gov was pushing their agenda on here, as little sense as that possibly could make. Well chinese do love nba basketball so maybe this site gets some hits in China and was noticed by government.

[Hornet Mania]

My wife is a school teacher, and it appears Austria has officially raised the white flag on this school year.

Administrators have started notifying teachers that they can move forward under the assumption schools will not reopen by the normal end of the Austrian school year (late June/early July) and the current program of using Zoom/Skype/Microsoft Teams for all education is all that will be possible. There is some speculation that students who have to take the Matura, the equivalent of the final exam for HS, may simply be given a waiver and accepted for graduation even without the tests. The only historical precedent for that is the end of WW2 when the newly formed government waived that requirement for an entire generation effected by the war to help get the work force back on its feet.

Government also announced this morning that the expectation is the country will reach the limit of its hospital capacity by mid-April. We're still not nearly as hard hit as other places so it likely won't be an Italy/Spain situation - knock on wood - but a certain amount of strain on the system will be unavoidable around the world.

For quite awhile the Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has taken a relatively optimistic posture, if we do the lock down we have a great chance to avoid the worst more or less. The new message seems to be intended to get out in front of claims that the situation is/has been underestimated and to keep people from getting a false sense of security that things haven't gone to hell yet so they can go out and socialize. So we shift from 'it's only a little while' to 'prepare to dig in'.

Edit: Last note, starting Wednesday all grocery stores will be required to start handing out masks to customers who do not already have one of their own as they enter the building. The government will supply the masks and they expect all stores will have them if not by Wednesday than very soon afterwards. I think this is an excellent idea.

[Archx]

This is true. In addition, even the death rate from Italy has some other difficulties because they are including people who died and had been confirmed to be infected by covid19 even if they were already sick and their death was not directly caused by the virus.

I wouldn't doubt that they're trying to keep the death rates down in certain areas, to make it appear they're doing a better job.

When the hospitals fill up they won't be able to hide that.

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

1)hospitals in Lombardy have been at full capacity for weeks. As a consequence ICU beds have almost been doubled in the last month.
2)I sense a bit of "holier than thou" from you......
3) In addition to you being misinformed, you're a full-time troll if you think Italy is "hiding" deaths like China when Italy has been the most transparent country in the world in terms of both associating death with covid and also post-mortem tests

I'm from Slovenia and we're getting constant updates on what's going on over there, specially because it's so close to our border as well. The fact that some people are still trying to downplay this whole situation or saying that Italy is hiding numbers or whatever is really extraordinary. Ignorant people who haven't (yet) experienced either lock down or virus itself, shouldn't even comment. There is literally a war situation going on in northern Italy that hasn't been seen since WWII. Their hospitals are stacked to the fullest, even doctors are dying....

[madmaxmedia]

It’s not surprising in retrospect that the reported deaths in Italy that we’ve been following are only confirmed hospital deaths. Considering what it’s like inside the hospitals, how would they have the resources to go out and investigate and then test and confirm all COVID deaths right now?

I wonder if that could also be a factor in Wuhan with the reports of all those urns being delivered.

[Dirk]

Tests per 100.000 people source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_WihbCriZ9E5GovFnWE1J8vMNcdfI66FPfGZ-UVKWiM/edit#gid=0 (some numbers may not be fully updated. US seems to be at the time of post)

[paxson_4_3]

Tests per 100.000 people

Hey Dirk, could you post a link for the source of this data? Thank you in advance.

[Dirk]

Hey Dirk, could you post a link for the source of this data? Thank you in advance.

I will when you give us a goo breakdown on the situation in Germany.
Testing, if the extremely low death rate is 'trusted', how the population is dealing with the government orders and what they project as being the peak and 'return to some normality'.

[spikeslovechild]

I think when looking at mortality rates people have to be careful not everyone is getting tested. Likely in a pandemic situation where a lockdown is already in place only the worst are tested.

People go on about testing, testing, testing but to me it seems like we are already past the point of it being all that useful. Maybe when we get the pandemic under control and decide to reopen the economy it will make more of a difference but right now everyone is isolated anyways. The time where it would have been extremely useful would have been before losing control of the virus and doing at the very least screening at airports and ports of entry and for essential personnel.

But as of now New York and these cities have already lost control of the virus. We are basically just trying to manage the fallout and flatten the curve when the pandemic hits.

[og15]

this thing of pathologies to indicate the cause of Covit-19 deaths seems to me a bit of a syllogism... if you are on a precipice protected by a railing and one gives you a push and makes you fall, the cause is the push ... if you you are on a precipice without a railing and one gives you a little push and you fall, what is the cause of your death? It seems obvious to me

those who are hiding something are other countries...

I'm not suggesting that Italy is trying to hide anything, they aren't China (no offense but it is something China would do). What I'm referring to is the difficulty of getting "accurate" numbers right now. Italy said that they have not been separating deaths that were due to COVID19 from deaths that happened to people who were already ill and died due to a combination of illnesses. It's not even necessarily that COVID-19 was what pushed them over the edge, they were dying and acquired COVID-19, so due to the current situation they are just adding those as COVID-19 deaths, it's not anything malicious.

They probably should be doing that in most cases though. What's happening is that COVID-19 is killing people with conditions like diabetes, obesity, COPD, etc. These people are dying because they got COVID-19, even though they have the other conditions (the other conditions just make the mortality rate higher).

It's not like we are mostly talking about people on "death's door" that are getting pushed over (I'm sure there's a few of those people of course).

Sure, they should be doing that if possible, but things are pretty difficult there from the reports, and it kind of exploded unto the country. The majority of the deaths associated with Covid19 will be due to the disease itself, I can't tell you what that majority number is in a percentage of course, just that it will be the majority.

Comorbidities such as diabetes, obesity, even COPD depending on the severity are not likely what they would be talking about in this case. I don't think that would make much sense. Diabetics have greater risk of infection, if an uncontrolled diabetic gets an infection and can't resolve it and dies, we don't say they died from diabetes, we say they died from the infection. I think everyone would be pretty clear about that when it comes to cause of death.

In this case I think they would likely be talking about people with end stage diseases such as CHF (chronic heart failure), end stage renal failure, etc. They are saying that they aren't distinguishing whether it was covid that caused the death of those patients. Now this would not be a large percentage of the covid19 deaths, but when trying to get as accurate statistical data as possible, you would want to know.

Like I said, this isn't about any malicious intent, just how things were done. Of course this might be balanced out by people who died due to covid19 but were not confirmed as infected, etc.

The main point though is that due to all these factors, "accurate" numbers on the effect of the disease are currently difficult to get, all we know it is very bad, but it is still difficult for us to say it is "this amount of very bad" in terms of a specific number value. That's just the reality of something that is still ongoing. It is important though to get as accurate numbers as possible because it affects how countries will prepare and plan, and affects policies, but we have to do the best we can with what we have.

[LKN]

I think when looking at mortality rates people have to be careful not everyone is getting tested. Likely in a pandemic situation where a lockdown is already in place only the worst are tested.

People go on about testing, testing, testing but to me it seems like we are already past the point of it being all that useful. Maybe when we get the pandemic under control and decide to reopen the economy it will make more of a difference but right now everyone is isolated anyways. The time where it would have been extremely useful would have been before losing control of the virus and doing at the very least screening at airports and ports of entry and for essential personnel.

But as of now New York and these cities have already lost control of the virus. We are basically just trying to manage the fallout and flatten the curve when the pandemic hits.

I think the #1 priority has to be ICU/hospital capacity. However - the only way we are going to get out of this mess and back to anything approaching normal life without a vaccine is mass testing.

Mass testing is the only thing that will allow officials to make any recommendation other than "shelter in place".

It's almost important the people have an accurate idea of how dangerous this thing is or they won't take orders seriously. There are still too many people saying "only a couple of thousand people are dead - way less than the flu", etc.

[Xpressure]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

[Dirk]

Italy update
• Current cases: 75.528 (+1.648)
• Deceased: 11,591 (+812)
• Healed: 14,620 (+1,590)
• Hospitalized in Intensive Care: 3.981 (+75)

Total cases: 101,739 (+4,050, + 4.1%)

Blue - daily tests
Orange - positive tests
Black line - % positive

[madmaxmedia]

Daily new cases in Italy appear to have peaked (hopefully they won't exceed March 21 high of 6,557 new cases). The daily death rate has not peaked yet, but is a lagging indicator compared to daily new cases.

Italy started its nationwide quarantine on March 9. Our country's shelter in place rules haven't been nearly as consistent and stringent nationwide, we'll see what happens. It's hard for me personally to not expect other areas to blow up like New York (there already are of course, just on a different timeline.)

[LKN]

Daily new cases in Italy appear to have peaked (hopefully they won't exceed March 21 high of 6,557 new cases). The daily death rate has not peaked yet, but is a lagging indicator compared to daily new cases.

Italy started its nationwide quarantine on March 9. Our country's shelter in place rules haven't been nearly as consistent and stringent nationwide, we'll see what happens. It's hard for me personally to not expect other areas to blow up like New York (there already are of course, just on a different timeline.)

The % positive rate seems to have stabilized around 20% the last few days; I'll feel better when that starts going down consistently

For whatever reason the testing in Italy fell about 10K the last 2 days (could be good news - maybe less sick people are presenting).... but that does seem to explain the lower infection rate given the steady percentage.

[Triples333]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

While Covid is clearly more dangerous to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions (and not done spreading), you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard. And that is with widespread vaccinations.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO). Those are the people who will need to get back to work/life sooner than later.

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

We need to also bear in mind that the true positive rate for those who have been infected (and are recovering or have already recovered) in the U.S. alone is VERY likely already in the millions.

[Xpressure]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

While Covid is clearly more dangerous and not done spreading, you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO).

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

It will be more comparable once we have Coronavirus data for a year, but that is about 4100 deaths a month for "Unquarantined Flu".

People should also stop comparing "Quarantined Coronavirus" numbers vs "Unquarantined Flu". If the world never started quarantining the Coronavirus and let it spread freely just like the Flu, just imagine how much more death we'd see.

[LKN]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

While Covid is clearly more dangerous and not done spreading, you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard. And that is with widespread vaccinations.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO).

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

We need to also bear in mind that the true positive rate for those who have been infected (and are recovering or have already recovered) in the U.S. alone is VERY likely already in the millions.

I've seen data indicating hospitalization rates of 20% (granted that likely is mostly only out of symptomatic people) in some areas for people who test positive.

These flu comparisons just don't make any sense (and flu death data is pretty rough as it is). The hospitalization rate for people who test positive for the flu is miniscule compared to COVID-19.

[KingDavid]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

While Covid is clearly more dangerous and not done spreading, you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO).

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

It will be more comparable once we have Coronavirus data for a year, but that is about 4100 deaths a month for "Unquarantined Flu".

People should also stop comparing "Quarantined Coronavirus" numbers vs "Unquarantined Flu". If the world never started quarantining the Coronavirus and let it spread freely just like the Flu, just imagine how much more death we'd see.

That's what gets lost in all this. Perspective. Excellent reminder.