Comparing Corona Virus Success Stories with Abysmal Failures

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Not sure what you are referring to by the bold...

It seems most of the early cases were German skiers in Northern Italy, which would mean they would mostly be in a younger and fitter part of the population. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/guymartin/2020/03/20/with-its-covid-19-caseload-spiking-to-14000-heres-why-germanys-mortality-rate-is-002-or-4000-times-lower-than-italys/#1346c5d977ad

 

Must have been a remnant of something else (can't recall what). That was another explanation, yes. But again that would indicate that so far Germany just has gotten lucky. 

[StringJunky]

9 hours ago, CharonY said:

The issue is that they started up late, most of the tests started up sometime around the second week of March. The response as a whole was not different from Italy. As such the outcome so far is more unexpected and could be a considered a lucky break rather than the outcome of some specific measures.

The age distribution as well as the fact that in Italy there is more intergenerational contact has been speculated to play a role. However, the other issue is that it has circulated for quite a while untracked and that the testing is still way behind the actual rate. Depending on which metrics you use, Germany is about as old or a smidge older (depending on what age brackets you make). 

Japan seems to be having a relatively low infection rate. An author in Japan Times speculated this might be down to being generally more reserved in social contact behaviour and people who are ill customarily wear face masks, which long predates this issue. They hold their sneezes as well if they can IIRC. They have a high elderly population as well.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/03/21/commentary/japan-commentary/japan-still-coronavirus-outlier/

Edited March 23, 2020 by StringJunky

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Japan seems to be having a relatively low infection rate. An author in Japan Times speculated this might be down to being generally more reserved in social contact behaviour and people who are ill customarily wear face masks, which long predates this issue. They hold their sneezes as well if they can IIRC. They have a high elderly population as well.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/03/21/commentary/japan-commentary/japan-still-coronavirus-outlier/

Culture is difficult to subvert, I guess that's why italy et al is ahead of the curve.

[StringJunky]

3 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Culture is difficult to subvert, I guess that's why italy et al is ahead of the curve.

Yeah, social kissing is customary there.

[dimreepr]

For once I'm glad to be a working class Brit with social issue's... 😊

[CharonY]

13 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Japan seems to be having a relatively low infection rate. An author in Japan Times speculated this might be down to being generally more reserved in social contact behaviour and people who are ill customarily wear face masks, which long predates this issue. They hold their sneezes as well if they can IIRC. They have a high elderly population as well.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/03/21/commentary/japan-commentary/japan-still-coronavirus-outlier/

From what I have read most think that the situation in Japan is still unclear, there is comparable little testing done considering the timeline (one of the few countries testing way below capacity). The latest data indicates that about 20k folks have been tested so far, of which 1k have been found positive.

On a different note, rates of detection and deaths are somewhat informative when it comes to active situations (i.e. the slope of the respective curves) and it does seem like in Germany the death rates are slowly catching up. Most cases are still active, unfortunately. Without measures to curb spread, there is a risk of that the situation in Italy (overwhelmed medical system) will be repeated through the rest of Europe.

[Alex_Krycek]

Next step:  just lie:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/life-after-lockdown-has-china-really-beaten-coronavirus

It was only a matter of time before China reopened to save the economy; more countries will follow. 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The US is so far behind at this point:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCMhG-523g

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Alex_Krycek

[MigL]

13 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Yeah, social kissing is customary there.

Another custom is total disregard for rules.
Lockdown ? What lockdown ?
I'll do as I please.

[CharonY]

36 minutes ago, MigL said:

Another custom is total disregard for rules.
Lockdown ? What lockdown ?
I'll do as I please.

I am repeating myself, but I find it extremely confusing (and disappointing) that folks see what is happening elsewhere (good and bad) and somehow decide that it does not apply to them or that there are no lessons to learn.

Italy's (and before that Wuhan's) health system is on the brink of collapsing and apparently there are no lessons to be learned from that. Meanwhile there were successful measures elsewhere in use for the last few months and now it is being discussed whether one should consider them in the first place. In world where information transfer is so fast, this seems almost medieval.

I have got grad students who are rightly worried and then at the same time undergrads who think the "free time" now is the right opportunity to party. Sometimes I feel that folks only got two modes, ignoring the situation and utter panic. There is apparently no setting for measured response.

Edit: again I should say that in Asia a number of countries actually opted for early measured responses (though to be really fair one should add that there were also panic peaks), which makes the current state even more ridiculous.

[MigL]

I believe it was only about a week or two ago that 60 000 Italians, from the affected northern region, travelled to Switzerland daily for work.
Now even the Swiss, who follow the rules religiously, are heavily infected, and thein infection/death numbers ( per capita ) are getting lose to Italy.

The population of southern Italy consists mostly of old people, as the young move North where work is.
Even my home town ( of 4000 people ) had its first case last Thursday.
If people don't take this seriously and follow procedures, most of the population of these small towns will die off.

[CharonY]

Many other countries in Europe have similar trajectories as Italy or at least China. The optimistic scenario (China delays and in the meantime other countries implement measures and draft plans to slow down or even stop outbreak) clearly has not happened. Responses were conducted after the horses were out of the barn (I.e. rising deaths, which again are a bad indicator unless in retrospective).

[Strange]

The FT has some very good graphs comparing progress of the disease in different countries an regions: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

 

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

The FT has some very good graphs comparing progress of the disease in different countries an regions: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

 

Pollution down 28% in China. There will probably be more interesting coincidental data gleaned from this crisis.

[Strange]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Pollution down 28% in China. There will probably be more interesting coincidental data gleaned from this crisis.

Fish and swans in the canals in Venice

[StringJunky]

2 minutes ago, Strange said:

Fish and swans in the canals in Venice

I take it there wasn't any significant numbers before? 

Edited March 24, 2020 by StringJunky

[Strange]

47 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I take it there wasn't any significant numbers before? 

I think it was too polluted from all the boats (fish may have been there but not visible) and cruise liners.

I must admit, I only read the headline not the article so it could be exaggerated!

[StringJunky]

7 minutes ago, Strange said:

I think it was too polluted from all the boats (fish may have been there but not visible) and cruise liners.

I must admit, I only read the headline not the article so it could be exaggerated!

It would be so much nicer for people and water life if the water was unpolluted and unmolested by outboard motors. I would just allow the gondolas.

Edited March 24, 2020 by StringJunky

[J.C.MacSwell]

8 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

It would be so much nicer for people and water life if the water was unpolluted and unmolested by outboard motors. I would just allow the gondolas.

But the James Bond movies would suffer...

[Strange]

20 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

It would be so much nicer for people and water life if the water was unpolluted and unmolested by outboard motors. I would just allow the gondolas.

I would certainly ban the massive cruise ships; they bring no money to the local economy. (Dare I say it, just to the pockets of those who authorise them.)

(But this is off topic, so enough said.)

[John Cuthber]

On 3/23/2020 at 4:26 AM, Alex_Krycek said:

Obviously not.  

So, your metric isn't a good one, because it's massively distorted by the pattern of testing.

 

[Alex_Krycek]

11 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

So, your metric isn't a good one, because it's massively distorted by the pattern of testing.

 

Testing is assumed.  If the number of deaths increases as the confirmed cases do, then that shows that a country is doing something right.  Some countries are testing far more than others, and their number of confirmed cases keeps rising, but the number of deaths does not - because they have some form of effective treatment regimen in place, combined with early detection which allows physicians to catch the virus before it has the chance to become terminal.  Some countries, like South Korea, claim to have already passed the peak: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/09/asia/south-korea-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html  South Korea has tested 140,000 people for the coronavirus. That could explain why its death rate is just 0.6% — far lower than in China or the US.

So the metric isn't necessarily distorted by testing as the confirmed cases increase, unless a country has an ineffective strategy.     

https://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-coronavirus-testing-death-rate-2020-3?op=1

Edited March 25, 2020 by Alex_Krycek

[CharonY]

The graph shows trajectories in the number of cases and it does show that in most cases they will rise further.

 

 

[Alex_Krycek]

8 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Testing is assumed.  If the number of deaths doesn't increase significantly as the confirmed cases do, then that shows that a country is doing something right.  Some countries are testing far more than others, and their number of confirmed cases keeps rising, but the number of deaths does not - because they have some form of effective treatment regimen in place, combined with early detection which allows physicians to catch the virus before it has the chance to become terminal.  Some countries, like South Korea, claim to have already passed the peak: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/09/asia/south-korea-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html  South Korea has tested 140,000 people for the coronavirus. That could explain why its death rate is just 0.6% — far lower than in China or the US.

So the metric isn't necessarily distorted by testing as the confirmed cases increase, unless a country has an ineffective strategy.     

https://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-coronavirus-testing-death-rate-2020-3?op=1

Correction.

[Alex_Krycek]

Solid interview.

Biowarfare Experts On Coronavirus (COVID19)- Dr. Gerald Parker Associate Dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M and Professor Andrew S Natsios Executive Professor at The Bush School and Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs have a sit down with Patrick Bet-David about the Coronavirus Pandemic

 

About the guests:

• Dr. Gerald Parker https://vetmed.tamu.edu/news/press-releases/cvm-global-one-health-expert-discusses-coronavirus-outbreak/

• Andrew S. Natsios:https://bush.tamu.edu/faculty/anatsios/

 

[John Cuthber]

15 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Testing is assumed.

Have you been tested?
I haven't.