1539 replies to this topic

[Florin]

 

COVID-19 deaths in Italy: 6,820
Lower respiratory infection deaths in 2017 in Italy: 13,167

To put this data into better context it would be good to know the number of (non-corona) lower respiratory deaths in Italy over the last 12 months, and add that to the 6,820

 

That data is probably not available yet.

But this might be the next best thing:
 

We estimated excess deaths of 7,027, 20,259, 15,801 and 24,981 attributable to influenza epidemics in the 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17, respectively, using the Goldstein index. The average annual mortality excess rate per 100,000 ranged from 11.6 to 41.2 with most of the influenza-associated deaths per year registered among the elderly.

 

Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons)
https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/31401203

Edited by Florin, 25 March 2020 - 12:49 AM.

[ymc]

https://www.thenews....-covid-19-in-us

 

A 26 years old male dies from coronavirus in Washington DC

 

He happens to be the son of a Pakinstani Major General's son.

[ymc]

https://www.reddit.c...k_high/fla4cux/

 

According to an NHS doctor, by default the ICUs in UK are self-selecting to favor the young. This might explain

why you see more young people getting ICU beds in Spain. He thinks the situation can be different for private

hospitals because they treat whoever can pay.

 

 

Quote from one of his posts.

"Firstly I have to point out that the ICU population is a self-selecting one. The older you and the more pre-existing conditions you have, the less chance you have of making it to intensive care. This is not because of COVID, this is a medical decision based on how likely you are to survive critical illness.

That said, what national data we have for the first three weeks has shown the following:

~2% <30yr

5% 30-39yr

10% 40-49yr

20% 50-59yr

27% 60-69yr

28% 70-79yr

8% 80yr

I do not believe the soft lockdowns will work in a population where a significant minority continues to ignore government advice. It may flatten it a bit and buy a small amount of time, but ultimately, I don't think it will be close to enough.

(and thank you - your sentiment will be passed on)"

[Florin]

South Korea seems to have this thing under control with minimal deaths and without massive lockdowns, apparently due to testing with contact tracing and mandatory quarantines. The fact that the general public wears masks probably doesn't hurt either. Italy didn't do this and has paid the price. And if a magic bullet doesn't appear soon, the pain is gonna get a lot worse for those countries that didn't do what South Korea did.

 

https://en.wikipedia..._in_South_Korea

Edited by Florin, 25 March 2020 - 07:57 PM.

[xEva]

https://www.nytimes....ml#link-c4b73d0

 

"A nurse at Mount Sinai West hospital who colleagues said had advocated for better protections for medical workers died of the coronavirus late Tuesday, friends and relatives said."

 

 

Does not look like an old guy with health problems.

The other day a 21-yo healthy girl died in UK

[HBRU]

Many deaths in Lumbardy happens at home and are not recorded as coronavirus case...

[albedo]

I think this is useful contextual information:

 

Onder G, Rezza G, Brusaferro S. Case-Fatality Rate and Characteristics of Patients Dying in Relation to COVID-19 in Italy. JAMA. 2020;

https://jamanetwork....=jama.2020.4683

 

 Italy 23 march 2020.jpg   66.13KB   0 downloads

[xEva]

I am scared of this maybe even more than the health impact of coronavirus itself. What do you think?

unemployment.jpg

 

i'm rather optimistic now that antibody tests are coming out and there are several drug candidates in trials. In the US, it looks like the strategy will be to order all those in risk groups to stay home and monitor the spread in the communities imposing the lockdowns when necessary. They plan to shift the resources from different regions according to need. iow, mitigation.

 

Antibody testing will allow to ID those who have already had it and, presumably, are immune. They will be 'set free' to roam and work.

 

Re those who went through it already, it'd be funny if, instead of identifying bracelets or badges, as was already suggested, they will start chipping us (for added security). That would be in addition to surveillance via phones a la China and Singapore.  Though this will significantly lessen the impact on the economy, the world will never be the same.

[ta5]

These are some nice charts showing projected hospital resources and deaths in the US:

https://covid19.heal...org/projections

I hope it's being updated daily, but I can't tell yet.

[Iporuru]

Another New Zoonotic Virus Disease Emerging In China - Orthohantavirus

 

 

[BlueCloud]

Youngest person ever to die in France of coronavirus , a 16 yo girl, with no comorbidity : http://www.leparisie...020-8288850.php

 

Edited by BlueCloud, 28 March 2020 - 04:40 PM.

[Florin]

The latest stats from Italy can be found at https://www.epicentr...it/coronavirus/.
 

8. Deaths under the age of 50 years

As of March 26th, 84 out of the 6801 (1.2%) positive COVID-19 patients under the age of 50 died. In particular, 17 of these were less than 40 years, 14 men and 3 women (age range between 30 and 39 years). For 5 patients under the age of 40 years no clinical information is available; the remaining 8 had serious pre-existing pathologies (cardiovascular, renal, psychiatric pathologies, diabetes, obesity) and 1 had no major pathologies.

 
Characteristics of COVID-19 patients dying in Italy Report based on available data on March 26th, 2020
https://www.epicentr...6_marzo_eng.pdf

Edited by Florin, 28 March 2020 - 09:17 PM.

[Dorian Grey]

China's meat markets are back in business!  

 

https://www.dailymai...lling-bats.html

 

Terrified dogs and cats crammed into rusty cages. Bats and scorpions offered for sale as traditional medicine. Rabbits and ducks slaughtered and skinned side by side on a stone floor covered with blood, filth, and animal remains. Those were the deeply troubling scenes yesterday as China celebrated its 'victory' over the coronavirus by reopening squalid meat markets of the type that started the pandemic three months ago, with no apparent attempt to raise hygiene standards to prevent a future outbreak. As the pandemic that began in Wuhan forced countries worldwide to go into lockdown, a Mail on Sunday correspondent yesterday watched as thousands of customers flocked to a sprawling indoor market in Guilin, south-west China.

[Mind]

Today's WHO situation report has a crude unadjusted mortality rate of 4.7%.

 

The mortality rate is still being driven by the European region at 6%

 

Outside Europe the mortality rate is 2.5%

[BlueCloud]

The fatality differences between various european countries are amazing. While Italy is at 10.8 % , Germany is only at 0.72 %

[Florin]

Deaths in South Korea: 162
Deaths in Japan: 56
Deaths in Taiwan: 5

 

No lockdowns, densely populated, and lots of mask-wearing.

[Kalliste]

Deaths in South Korea: 162
Deaths in Japan: 56
Deaths in Taiwan: 5

 

No lockdowns, densely populated, and lots of mask-wearing.

 

It could be they are cooking the books. Remember the Japanese hundred year olds who turned out to be mostly pension frauds and not IRL 100 year olds.

 

But they are avid tea drinkers, green and black. I Think some people drink 7 cups a day: Epigalleocatechin, quercetin etc all came up vs Covid.

[Florin]

 

If they admit 3.4% then the true rate is going to be much higher perhaps 10% or more.

Likewise with the numbers outside china. Those are more likely to be true or at least not as likely to be deliberately falsified. Since corona has not had as much time to do its thing, we will see the numbers rise and the percentage of death rise as well. The mortality rate will lag behind the true numbers for a variety of reasons. Right now, since it spreads so fast and takes a few weeks at least to kill, there will be many more new cases than month+ old cases pushing down the apparent mortality rate.[/size]

People ask why is china reacting so extremely some say "hysterically" to the outbreak? They did not go to such lengths when it was sars or other deadly diseases. Consider that they have had more experience with corona than anyplace else since it started there. They see first hand what it does and they are very afraid, therefore extreme measures even if they risk a revolt and crash the economy.

The bringing in of 40 large industrial incinerators tells us more than the carefully managed figures they release.

Which reliable source has said that the figures from China are carefully managed? Where is this idea that China is manipulating the figures coming from?
 
The WHO has praised China for being open and transparent with this outbreak, and for sharing their data with the rest of the world. Sure, in the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak China initially hid this, but they have learnt since then.
 
The fact that the death rate in Chinese cities other than Wuhan closely matches the death rate found in other countries only goes to show that China is providing reliable figures. 
 
The only unreliable and dubious players in this outbreak are the Western conspiracy theory merchants, who as always have got a few screws loose.

 

I don't know about the WHO (which unfortunately has turned into a bunch of crazed, mask-hating clowns recently), but no one else seems to trust China's figures now.

 

https://time.com/581...atistics-wuhan/

https://www.bloomber...telligence-says

[Mind]

WHO situation report today, number of deaths vs confirmed infections, is 4.9%. It keeps going up.

[Hip]

I don't know about the WHO (which unfortunately has turned into a bunch of crazed, mask-hating clowns recently), but no one else seems to trust China's figures now.

 

https://time.com/581...atistics-wuhan/

https://www.bloomber...telligence-says

 

Possibly it may now be the case that China are manipulating figures a bit, but the WHO while they were working in China at the peak of the Chinese outbreak praised China for being forthcoming with the info.

 

We certainly had enough info from China back in January to realize that the virus was quite likely to hit other countries, but the West rather foolishly did little to prepare itself. Only 5 weeks ago, scientists in the UK were saying the risk to the UK is low. 

 

 

 

The WHO and lots of media outlets are saying masks are not necessary for people, and do little good, but I suspect they are tell white lies, in order to protect the limit supply of masks for frontline medical staff who need them most.

 

A better option would have been to get industry to make masks on an emergency schedule, so that there would be enough for everybody. 

 

This virus transmits if it enters the mouth, nose or eyes, so it's quite extraordinary that with our high-tech and high-output manufacturing capabilities, we seem unable to devise and supply suitable protection to prevent the virus from getting into these areas. If everyone had a proper mask or respirator and was made to wear it by law, we might be able to halt this pandemic.

 

But instead we partially close down the entire world economy to control the pandemic, at a cost of $trillions.

[Florin]

Possibly it may now be the case that China are manipulating figures a bit, but the WHO while they were working in China at the peak of the Chinese outbreak praised China for being forthcoming with the info.

Underreporting deaths and infections by 20X is way off, not a bit off.
 

We certainly had enough info from China back in January to realize that the virus was quite likely to hit other countries, but the West rather foolishly did little to prepare itself. Only 5 weeks ago, scientists in the UK were saying the risk to the UK is low.

 
Yes and no. It took until the 20th of January to get confirmation of human-to-human transmission, and I'm sure that many were waiting to see if it would burn itself out like SARS and MERS did. And China fed the WHO false data which served to increase the world's false sense of security. China could also have likely snuffed this thing out if it acted just 3 weeks earlier than it did. So yeah, most of the world (not just the West) seems to be bungling the response to this pandemic, but China deserves a lot of the blame here.
 
And if the fact that China didn't shut down it's wild animal trade or suppress other bad behavior (stuff which caused the coronavirus to jump to humans) is taken into account, it deserves most of the blame.
 

The WHO and lots of media outlets are saying masks are not necessary for people, and do little good, but I suspect they are tell white lies, in order to protect the limit supply of masks for frontline medical staff who need them most.
 
A better option would have been to get industry to make masks on an emergency schedule, so that there would be enough for everybody. 
 
This virus transmits if it enters the mouth, nose or eyes, so it's quite extraordinary that with our high-tech and high-output manufacturing capabilities, we seem unable to devise and supply suitable protection to prevent the virus from getting into these areas. If everyone had a proper mask or respirator and was made to wear it by law, we might be able to halt this pandemic.

The WHO is still playing dumb but many major media outlets are starting to admit that mask-wearing in public is probably a good idea.
 
It should have been obvious from the start that advise against mask-wearing would likely accelerate the pandemic and possibly eliminate any gains in the mask supply of health care workers. So, the pragmatic justification for lying isn't all that great.
 
Besides pushing industry to increase the supply of masks a lot more, there should have been official guidelines on how to make homemade masks and how to reuse any kind of mask. Even homemade masks for public use should slow down the infection rate and decrease the amount of masks needed by health care workers.

[Hip]

Underreporting deaths and infections by 20X is way off, not a bit off.

Do we have solid evidence for the 20x figure? I heard it came from our spies in China; but how are these spies gathering data? Unless the spies are working in high-level positions where they are privy to this information, it is hard to see how they can get their hands on the figures.



 

And China fed the WHO false data which served to increase the world's false sense of security.

Which false data do you mean?
 
The WHO praised China for being forthcoming with info. China seemed to learn their lesson from the 2003 SARS incident, when they tried to hide that outbreak. China certainly screwed up by silencing the doctor who tried to alert us about the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the first few weeks, but I am not aware of any major suppression of important info that is vital for the rest of the world to know after that mistake. 
 
 

 

The WHO is still playing dumb but many major media outlets are starting to admit that mask-wearing in public is probably a good idea.

 
I think the WHO may be more culpable in terms of distorting the truth than China: it may turn out to be a dreadful error by the WHO to tell these little white lies that masks for the general public are of no benefit and do not help control the pandemic.   
 
Avoiding mask shortages for medical workers was likely the reason the WHO and Western medical authorities made such (likely false) statements. And Western journalists never even questioned these statements, and just went along with the lie.
 
But this statement on masks by the WHO and Western medical authorities may actually result in millions of people dying unnecessarily. So let's get our own house in order before we criticize other nations about telling lies. 

A started new thread on this subject here: Advice that masks don't help for coronavirus woefully wrong?

Edited by Hip, 02 April 2020 - 04:21 PM.

[Mind]

Seeing how the disease has spread and seeing the CFR in other countries, it is impossible for me to believe that the number of fatalities in China was only around 3,000.

 

After it was first detected, It took China a month to institute the lock-down. In that time, millions of people traveled in and out of Wuhan. How could there not have been hundreds of thousands, or millions of infections. Magic? It goes against all modeling of the spread in every other country of the world (that did not immediately go into a hard lockdown).

 

Italy instituted a lock-down a lot quicker than China and a month later, the number of infections is still climbing.

[BlueCloud]

I don't think there is anyone left who actually believes China's numbers, including the WHO ( who are probably just not saying it upfront for diplomatic reasons ). The only subject for debate now is by how much they are under-reporting the numbers.. 2x, 5X, 10X, 20X ?

 

The issue about the masks is interesting. I think that it is true that the asians have  already a real "mask culture", and are more likely to use it correctly than in the West. And they had lots of masks in stock being confronted already with 2 previous epidemic in a short time.

There is also the dilemna for various western ( and other non-asian) governments of sending 2 different messages to the population : "Hey everyone, you should really wear a mask, it does protect against infections. But , oh, by the way, we don't have any in stock for you, sorry "

Most governments have been caught by surprise by all this, and found themselves with not enough mask stocks for the population. So what do you do ? Do you tell them the truth , with the risk of making the population panic even more ? Or do you lie a bit about masks not being that helpful, until you have enough in stock and change your tune a bit ? It's not that simple a choice in my opinion.

 

[Florin]

These are the most comprehensive COVID-19 stats pages I've seen:

 

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – Statistics and Research
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

 

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – the data
https://ourworldinda...oronavirus-data

 

The following stats are especially interesting:

 

Case fatality rate of COVID-19 by age
https://ourworldinda...covid-19-by-age

 

Case fatality rates: COVID-19 vs. US seasonal flu
https://ourworldinda...he-seasonal-flu

 

Total confirmed deaths due to COVID-19 per million people
Daily new confirmed deaths due to COVID-19 per million people
https://ourworldinda...-the-population

 

Death rate of COVID-19: Total confirmed deaths per million people
https://ourworldinda...ories-of-deaths

 

COVID-19 data: Total tests performed per million
people
https://ourworldinda...us-data#testing

[Florin]

Do we have solid evidence for the 20x figure? I heard it came from our spies in China; but how are these spies gathering data? Unless the spies are working in high-level positions where they are privy to this information, it is hard to see how they can get their hands on the figures.
 

Which false data do you mean?
 
The WHO praised China for being forthcoming with info. China seemed to learn their lesson from the 2003 SARS incident, when they tried to hide that outbreak. China certainly screwed up by silencing the doctor who tried to alert us about the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the first few weeks, but I am not aware of any major suppression of important info that is vital for the rest of the world to know after that mistake.

 

You might want to read Time article I linked to earlier.

 

https://time.com/581...atistics-wuhan/

Edited by Florin, 02 April 2020 - 07:25 PM.

[shp5]

excess mortality calculations in bergamo seem to indicate double the death toll than previously assumed. 5400 deaths Q1 2020, 900 in Q1 2019, and 2060 official covid deaths. a gap of 2500 deceased.

https://www.ecodiber...-of_1347414_11/

Edited by shp5, 03 April 2020 - 08:38 PM.

[Mind]

WHO situation report from today indicates a crude unadjusted mortality rate (current deaths divided by total known infections) of 5.5%, quite a change from earlier in the thread. Keeps climbing every day. 

 

One of the best managed countries during the outbreak is South Korea. Even there, the CFR has risen to 1.8%, up a full percentage point from a couple weeks ago.

[adamh]

What has been happening is now almost all pneumonia deaths are being called covid even if no test was given. Reasons for this are varied. Higher numbers put the city or state in position to request greater amounts of aid and to justify lockdown and stay at home orders. In fact, the number of deaths attributed to the chinese virus even including most normal pneumonia deaths are way below estimates based on models. Not a few percent lower but much lower.

 

WHO itself has come under withering criticism for its ties to communist china and for repeating statements from china as absolute truth despite no confirmation and outside reports that show china is still lying. The head of WHO is a communist and a former leader of a terrorist group. WHO itself has received large amounts of money from china giving a great conflict of interest. 

 

The damage to the economy of every country doing the quarantine is enormous. It simply can't be allowed to continue much longer. Some politicians are calling for a 3 to 6 month continuance which would put us into a serious depression that would take years to climb out of. Sweden is one of a few countries which have not done quarantines nor shut down "non essential" business and their rate of infection and death is no worse than the rest of europe. 

 

https://www.national...rrupt-wasteful/

https://www.centerfo...chinese-regime/

Edited by adamh, 05 April 2020 - 09:15 PM.

[OP2040]

A little good news, It's really looking like most of the world is over the hump.  Western Europe is clearly so and the USA shouldn't be too far behind it statistically. 

 

It really does look like there is some seasonality, but like other coronaviruses the seasonality is later and higher temp than with flu.  It can't be an accident that the virus weaved its way way around the world roughly in line with 30-50 F temps, and started it's decline roughly in line with 50-70 F temps.  That would explain why Canada, Northern Europe and Russia had an easier time flattening the curve.  They had a much longer time to prepare and will see milder spikes, as they are indeed seeing right now.    Sure it will last the summer at low levels, just like it is around in equatorial regions but at lower numbers.