980 replies to this topic

[gamesguru]

So it's not that you disagree with threatening to kill people with whom you disagree on principle? 

 

Wrong, it's not the people.  It's the reasonableness of their stance.  Do you understand now?

 

It's not like debating a Christian Empire Radical.  They won't run off stage like some corrupt, conservative cuck.. they will actually answer your questions and face forward fearlessly.  When someone consistently shies away from reasonable debate, they should be rightly viewed as fascist, or at the very least, an incompetent chicken shit

 

When they shamelessly abuse their power and avoid any attempt at reasonable debate, there really are not many choices so I don't blame them wanting a fascist out.  Compare that to the Governor's orders which are based in science and statistics.  Probably impossible for you though

[gamesguru]

At first, I'd follow the examples of the successful Asian countries which don't seem to have any exceptions for less populated areas; If it ain't broke, don't fix it. After a while, I might start to reduce mandatory masking in less populated areas.

 

So, the approach would probably depend on the type of mask we're talking about and how fast it can be produced and distributed.

 

The problem is mask wearing is already part of the culture in Asia.  When you're sick with the cold or flu, you wear a mask.  They also live under what is perceived as a great difference in the West, but the actual government is not that different, rather it is the values, the culture, the people that make it more humble and subservient than Western democracy.  People here will literally threaten to kill you if you try to enforce what they perceive as oppressive or unreasonable policy

 

I thought you were just going to have everyone make their own?  Now they're being produced and distributed?

[Hebbeh]

https://www.yahoo.co...-233500208.html

Sweden's per capita coronavirus death toll is among the highest in the world — a sign its decision to avoid a lockdown may not be working

[Florin]

The problem is mask wearing is already part of the culture in Asia.  When you're sick with the cold or flu, you wear a mask.  They also live under what is perceived as a great difference in the West, but the actual government is not that different, rather it is the values, the culture, the people that make it more humble and subservient than Western democracy.  People here will literally threaten to kill you if you try to enforce what they perceive as oppressive or unreasonable policy

That's what was being said about lockdowns. And lockdowns are worse than masking.

 

The guys with the guns can be ignored as they're just a tiny minority. And their mostly pissed about the lockdowns anyway.
 

I thought you were just going to have everyone make their own?  Now they're being produced and distributed?

If I was the guy in charge. But with the geniuses we have now, everyone will probably have to make their own N95s.

[Florin]

https://www.yahoo.co...-233500208.html

Sweden's per capita coronavirus death toll is among the highest in the world — a sign its decision to avoid a lockdown may not be working

 

Per capita stats aren't all they're cracked up to be.

 

https://www.euromomo...graphs-and-maps

[albedo]

Per capita stats aren't all they're cracked up to be.

 

https://www.euromomo...graphs-and-maps

Sorry Florin, I do not understand well what you write. Can you better explain?

 

[Florin]

Sorry Florin, I do not understand well what you write. Can you better explain?

 

Look at the stats for Sweden and Spain. What do you see?

Edited by Florin, 15 May 2020 - 07:58 PM.

[albedo]

Look at the stats for Sweden and Spain. What do you see?

 

Higher than "substantial increase" for Sweden compared to Spain, the latter being similar to Switzerland (where I live) or Italy? And say pretty terrible for UK? Do I understand correctly those curves?

 

[albedo]

https://www.yahoo.co...-233500208.html

Sweden's per capita coronavirus death toll is among the highest in the world — a sign its decision to avoid a lockdown may not be working

So let me see if I understand and try to interpret, also for the future.

He says:
"We never really calculated with a high death toll initially, I must say," he said. "We calculated on more people being sick, but the death toll really came as a surprise to us."

Wouldn't that mean that a correct policy (assuming there is such a thing) would have been and should be adequately "merging" epidemiology with the known medical fact that age and age+comorbidity give the highest hazard score? I mean if you calculate more people being sick you should know elderly will pay a much too high toll and you have a much higher excess, right?

 

Edited by albedo, 15 May 2020 - 09:26 PM.

[Florin]

Higher than "substantial increase" for Sweden compared to Spain, the latter being similar to Switzerland (where I live) or Italy? And say pretty terrible for UK? Do I understand correctly those curves?

 

Hmm, I was referring to the second chart, but it looks like that's another kind of death rate (coronavirus deaths divided by the number of reported cases), not per capita death. So, nevermind.

 

The bottom line for me is that Sweden has a low excess death rate compared to a lot of the full lockdown countries, but could've done better. It also avoided the collapse of its health care system. Compared to all of the other countries, it has a middling excess death rate, so it's not exactly perfect. It would've done even better if it isolated its nursing homes sooner and mandated mask wearing.

 

Also, the article is kind of misleading, because it claims that lockdowns worked while ignoring the east Asian countries and territories that didn't do full lockdowns, mandated mask wearing, and did a lot better than any country (excluding China and India which I haven't looked at that much) that was mentioned.

Edited by Florin, 15 May 2020 - 10:46 PM.

[gamesguru]

Sweden recorded over 100 death again on Friday, it's the highest per capita daily deaths now higher than the US or UK.  Now in 8th place, soon their cumulative deaths will rival Belgium.  Not the least surprising given their casually misinformed perspective

[albedo]

Looks like Sweden is doing unfortunately much worse than other Nordic countries in EU protecting the elderly during the pandemic:

https://www.nytimes....rus-deaths.html

 S.PNG   58.85KB   0 downloads

Edited by albedo, 17 May 2020 - 11:57 AM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Looks like Sweden is doing unfortunately much worse than other Nordic countries in EU protecting the elderly during the pandemic:
https://www.nytimes....rus-deaths.html
S.PNG

 
Worse than other Nordic countries, but better that many Western European countries. Sweden has gotten worse in the last week. but so have the other major Western European countries (these are after all cumulative deaths, a monotonically increasing function by definition).  Sweden's death rate has increased of late, and I'm not sure why.  Unlike the US and a lot of Europe, they haven't recently relaxed their social distancing measures which have to date been mainly voluntary (though with some mandatory limits on group sizes). Maybe people are relaxing their self enforced distancing.  The really amazing thing to me is all through this Sweden hasn't shut down their schools.  In fact just the opposite - they have sent letters to parents reminding them that school attendance is mandatory and that excess absence will be enforced as usual.

 

As usual below, covid-19 deaths from Worldometers.com sorted by deaths per 1M population.  The really striking one is Belgium which no one is talking about.  They more than 2x as bad off as Sweden and they have virtually identically sized populations (roughly 11M each).  What's going on there? I have no idea.  

[Florin]

Sweden has gotten worse in the last week. but so have the other major Western European countries (these are after all cumulative deaths, a monotonically increasing function by definition).

Not excess deaths.

[Daniel Cooper]

Does anyone know of a site that has covid data by country in tabular form (say  .csv format)? Worldometers doesn't appear to have it.

[gamesguru]

Googled a bit and found this,

• Cases and deaths: https://datahub.io/core/covid-19#data
• Granular data for USA: https://github.com/n...s/covid-19-data

[Daniel Cooper]

 

Googled a bit and found this,

• Cases and deaths: https://datahub.io/core/covid-19#data
• Granular data for USA: https://github.com/n...s/covid-19-data

 

 

Thanks.

[geo12the]

Maybe one factor that is effecting the variability of COVID case numbers from region to region is the "Super-spreader" phenomenon combined with randomness and luck.   If a small % of COVID  infected people shed much more virus, that can translate to disproportionately higher infection rates in the region where that individual lives.  Super-spreaders have not characterized with COVID as far as I am aware but the phenomenon has been studied in SARS and other diseases. From One of the papers below:

 

"Given their high propensity to spread infection, super-spreaders should be able to shed higher levels of pathogen and/or for a longer period of time after infection. This would increase the probability that the pathogen contacts and subsequently infects a naive host."

 

Cell Host Microbe. 2015 Oct 14; 18(4): 398–401.

Published online 2015 Oct 14. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2015.09.013

PMCID: PMC7128246

PMID: 26468744

 

MERS, SARS, and Ebola: The Role of Super-Spreaders in Infectious Disease

 

Gary Wong,1,2 Wenjun Liu,1,2 Yingxia Liu,3 Boping Zhou,3 Yuhai Bi,1,2,3,∗ and George F. Gao1,2,3,4,∗∗

Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer

 

 

 

Abstract

Super-spreading occurs when a single patient infects a disproportionate number of contacts. The 2015 MERS-CoV, 2003 SARS-CoV, and to a lesser extent 2014–15 Ebola virus outbreaks were driven by super-spreaders. We summarize documented super-spreading in these outbreaks, explore contributing factors, and suggest studies to better understand super-spreading.

 

 

Int J Infect Dis

. 2011 Aug;15(8):e510-3. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2010.06.020. Epub 2011 Jul 6.

 

Super-spreaders in Infectious Diseases

 

Richard A Stein 1

Affiliations collapse

Affiliation

1Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, One Washington Road, LTL320, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. ras2@princeton.edu

PMID: 21737332 PMCID: PMC7110524 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2010.06.020

Free PMC article

 

Abstract

Early studies that explored host-pathogen interactions assumed that infected individuals within a population have equal chances of transmitting the infection to others. Subsequently, in what became known as the 20/80 rule, a small percentage of individuals within any population was observed to control most transmission events. This empirical rule was shown to govern inter-individual transmission dynamics for many pathogens in several species, and individuals who infect disproportionately more secondary contacts, as compared to most others, became known as super-spreaders. Studies conducted in the wake of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) pandemic revealed that, in the absence of super-spreading events, most individuals infect few, if any, secondary contacts. The analysis of SARS transmission, and reports from other outbreaks, unveil a complex scenario in which super-spreading events are shaped by multiple factors, including co-infection with another pathogen, immune suppression, changes in airflow dynamics, delayed hospital admission, misdiagnosis, and inter-hospital transfers. Predicting and identifying super-spreaders open significant medical and public health challenges, and represent important facets of infectious disease management and pandemic preparedness plans.

 

Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

 

 

 

 

[Florin]

Excess deaths

https://www.cdc.gov/...s/vsrr/covid19/
https://www.cdc.gov/...cess_deaths.htm
https://www.ft.com/c...b3-955839e06441

 

Everything else

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
https://ourworldinda...s-data-explorer

Edited by Florin, 19 May 2020 - 08:51 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Excess deaths

https://www.cdc.gov/...s/vsrr/covid19/
https://www.cdc.gov/...cess_deaths.htm
https://www.ft.com/c...b3-955839e06441

 

Everything else

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
https://ourworldinda...s-data-explorer

 

That second site is very good.  When I asked for the underlying dataset above the first thing I was going to do was to plot a 7 day rolling average to filter out the fact that they aren't recording data for the most part on the weekends which then gets pushed into the week which makes the data look more volatile than it really is.  That has already done it for you.

[Florin]

EuroMOMO vs OWID (+US)

https://www.euromomo...graphs-and-maps

https://ourworldinda...NLD NOR PRT CHE

Edited by Florin, 19 May 2020 - 08:52 PM.

[Florin]

Norway has admitted that its lockdown was probably unnecessary and ordered out of panic. But it still won't reopen everything until June 15 and still doesn't have a mask mandate or even a recommendation for universal masking. Without mask wearing, cases and deaths will skyrocket, of course. These are grossly incompetent people.

 

https://www.dailymai...eries-fear.html

Edited by Florin, 07 June 2020 - 04:50 AM.

[albedo]

Norway has admitted that its lockdown was probably unnecessary and ordered out of panic. But it still won't reopen everything until June 15 and still doesn't have a mask mandate or even a recommendation for universal masking. Without mask wearing, cases and deaths will skyrocket, of course. These are grossly incompetent people.

 

https://www.dailymai...eries-fear.html

 

Yes. Also, it is now relapsing dramatically in Iran and I see little reasons why it should not happen elsewhere, eventually to different extent due to a multitude of factors, after full reopening on 15 in EU. Coming months will be needed to be watched carefully ......

 

I now expect a change by every government regarding masks as recommended in the WHO update of June 5, now that shortage and prioritization should no longer be a problem and there is more evidence for better fabrication of own devices:

 

"...However, taking into account the available studies evaluating pre- and asymptomatic transmission, a growing compendium of observational evidence on the use of masks by the general public in several countries, individual values and preferences, as well as the difficulty of physical distancing in many contexts, WHO has updated its guidance to advise that to prevent COVID-19 transmission effectively in areas of community transmission, governments should encourage the general public to wear masks in specific situations and settings as part of a comprehensive approach to suppress SARS-CoV-2 transmission (Table 2)..." (bold mine)

https://apps.who.int...279750/retrieve

 

(edit: correction of link)

Edited by albedo, 07 June 2020 - 09:13 AM.

[albedo]

And in addition, in countries which managed well despite the circumstances (e.g. Switzerland in close proximity of the pandemic focus of N. Italy and S.E. France) contact tracing is extremely important at reopening.

[Florin]

I now expect a change by every government regarding masks as recommended in the WHO update of June 5, now that shortage and prioritization should no longer be a problem and there is more evidence for better fabrication of own devices:
 
"...However, taking into account the available studies evaluating pre- and asymptomatic transmission, a growing compendium of observational evidence on the use of masks by the general public in several countries, individual values and preferences, as well as the difficulty of physical distancing in many contexts, WHO has updated its guidance to advise that to prevent COVID-19 transmission effectively in areas of community transmission, governments should encourage the general public to wear masks in specific situations and settings as part of a comprehensive approach to suppress SARS-CoV-2 transmission (Table 2)..." (bold mine)
https://apps.who.int...279750/retrieve
 
(edit: correction of link)

 
Almost every country in the world had mask mandates even when WHO claimed that masks were useless. It will be interesting to see how long holdouts like Norway remain stupid.

Arguments about shortages, prioritization, and evidence are nonsense; either they're being used as an excuse to avoid accountability or a sign of continuing incompetence.
 

And in addition, in countries which managed well despite the circumstances (e.g. Switzerland in close proximity of the pandemic focus of N. Italy and S.E. France) contact tracing is extremely important at reopening.

Mask wearing beats the hell out of testing, tracing, social distancing, and lockdowns. Just ask Japan.

https://ourworldinda...country=CHE~JPN
https://masks4all.co...asks-in-public/
https://www.nytimes....irus-masks.html

[albedo]

From the last paper in Nature, it looks like the measures in EU, in particular the differentiated lockdowns, saved 3.1 million people in EU from possible deaths (table 1). The research team is from UK and US.

Flaxman, S., Mishra, S., Gandy, A. et al. Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe. Nature (2020). https://doi.org/10.1...1586-020-2405-7

https://www.nature.c...1586-020-2405-7

 interventions EU.PNG   113.25KB   0 downloads

[albedo]

"We have elucidated the transmission pathways of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in the three epicenters. Our results show that the airborne transmission route is highly virulent and dominant for the spread of COVID-19. The mitigation measures are discernable from the trends of the pandemic. Our analysis reveals that the difference with and without mandated face covering represents the determinant in shaping the trends of the pandemic. This protective measure significantly reduces the number of infections. Other mitigation measures, such as social distancing implemented in the United States, are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public. Our work also highlights the necessity that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics." (emphasis mine)

 

Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19

Renyi Zhang, Yixin Li, Annie L. Zhang, Yuan Wang, Mario J. Molina

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jun 2020, 202009637; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009637117

 

[Florin]

Sweden's solution to keeping the ICUs from being overwhelmed was to murder nursing home residents suspected of having COVID-19.

 

Questions raised about Sweden’s Covid-19 policy on nursing homes
https://www.bioedge....ing-homes/13479

[albedo]

Switzerland: at first signs of a small increase of cases after full reopening: mandatory use of masks in public transportation when distance cannot be ensured. Was so far recommended but not well followed, even in a well disciplined Country:

https://www.bag.admi...g-id-79711.html (available in D, F and I)

 CH 0701.PNG   8.29KB   0 downloads

https://gisanddata.m...423467b48e9ecf6

(edit: add 2nd link)

Edited by albedo, 01 July 2020 - 01:40 PM.

[Florin]

Here's a few interesting mask wearing stats:

• Mask wearing compliance has increased in the United States from about 43% in April to about 80% today.
• In Northern European countries, there's little mask wearing probably because their health authorities still don't recommend mask wearing.
• Interestingly, several countries which had no culture of mask wearing before the pandemic now have more mask wearing than even Japan.
• Switzerland recommends mask wearing but has no mask laws.

https://docs.cdn.you...l 29, 2020).pdf

https://www.nytimes....e-mask-map.html

https://masks4all.co...asks-in-public/