Coronavirus - Is this the killer flu that will wipe us out?
Discussion
There does seem to be a worldwide disconnect between the potential harm and the reaction from world governments. A sudden threat to world financial institutions and a bail out package worth billions is found, and yet so far the UK government has chucked 20 million quid towards vaccine development. I work on clinical trials for a big pharma company and 20 million doesn't buy you much in the world of drug development.
It's a token amount, like chucking a quid into the pot for a new church roof.....
It's a token amount, like chucking a quid into the pot for a new church roof.....
Gregmitchell said:
nffcforever said:
They offer very little value for their 100's of millions in funding.In this kind of potential scenario I feel you need an organisation who's powers go beyond that of an individual country.
RTB said:
There does seem to be a worldwide disconnect between the potential harm and the reaction from world governments. A sudden threat to world financial institutions and a bail out package worth billions is found, and yet so far the UK government has chucked 20 million quid towards vaccine development. I work on clinical trials for a big pharma company and 20 million doesn't buy you much in the world of drug development.
It's a token amount, like chucking a quid into the pot for a new church roof.....
Agreed, death is cheap.It's a token amount, like chucking a quid into the pot for a new church roof.....
EddieSteadyGo said:
V6 Pushfit said:
The basis of this ‘so called method’ being to see how many people recover against die? Seems to be a good basis for err seeing how many recover against die to me.
Did you read the latest WHO sitrep? The problem with your original "analysis" is that it was based on the information from the Chinese government. Fair enough you might say - that's all we had to go on at the time. However, it then became clear that the China data contained some fundamental issues, namely only serious cases were being recorded, and many with mild symptoms were being ignored from the numbers.
This is why your percentages were wildly incorrect. And we pointed it out to you at the time. But because this doesn't fit your apocalyptic vision of how this plays out, you keep ignoring it.
Edited by EddieSteadyGo on Thursday 20th February 23:01
EddieSteadyGo said:
Did you read the latest WHO sitrep?
The problem with your original "analysis" is that it was based on the information from the Chinese government. Fair enough you might say - that's all we had to go on at the time. However, it then became clear that the China data contained some fundamental issues, namely only serious cases were being recorded, and many with mild symptoms were being ignored from the numbers.
This is why your percentages were wildly incorrect. And we pointed it out to you at the time. But because this doesn't fit your apocalyptic vision of how this plays out, you keep ignoring it.
I have said each time that it’s based on dodgy Chinese numbers, and that where was the lost cohort. This is probably the 20th time. I’ve also said it’s based on Wuhan hospitals so there’s loads to discuss there such as are they full are they capable are they an indoor firing squad. The problem with your original "analysis" is that it was based on the information from the Chinese government. Fair enough you might say - that's all we had to go on at the time. However, it then became clear that the China data contained some fundamental issues, namely only serious cases were being recorded, and many with mild symptoms were being ignored from the numbers.
This is why your percentages were wildly incorrect. And we pointed it out to you at the time. But because this doesn't fit your apocalyptic vision of how this plays out, you keep ignoring it.
Edited by EddieSteadyGo on Thursday 20th February 23:01
However rather than discuss that, it seems better for some on here to simply cherry pick parts of a post and ignite the rest. Not you personally, but there is too much ignorance of basics for any discussion to get off the starting blocks.
We’ve even had people tonight congratulating eachother for the Uk recoveries being down to screening. Unbelievable. Clue: it’s too late for screening once you’ve got it.
I’ve also explained my reasoning, which no one has countered properly apart from a couple of ‘let’s find somebody wrong’ numpties who include admissions without the slightest understanding that doubling the admissions in a day would halve their death rate. We’ve had all sorts ‘whatabout the Uk rate’ I mean WTF - sample of 9 ??? Seriously?
I’ve also found over this week that certainly hospitals in the North are being made ready in case. Not so much last week in the South. (’oh yeah who gets to talk to Hospital Directors innit’. I do. Simple really)
Anyway good luck to those that like to quote someone else’s figures, let’s hope it works out. I certainly do.
The whole ethos of what I’ve said from the start is if you’re told a rate look at the data. From the start that data has been at serious odds with the rate being told. Accept it? Fine stroll on.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 21st February 00:18
emperorburger said:
V6 Pushfit said:
emperorburger said:
LimSlip said:
emperorburger said:
UK cases 9
Recovered 8
Deaths 0
Discuss.
What's to discuss? Screening people from affected countries appears to be working better than most hoped.Recovered 8
Deaths 0
Discuss.
We have basically done practically nothing.
We have been proactive in practically nothing.
If we dodge the bullet, it will be more by luck than action or judgement.
Edited by philv on Friday 21st February 01:01
EddieSteadyGo said:
V6 Pushfit said:
The basis of this ‘so called method’ being to see how many people recover against die? Seems to be a good basis for err seeing how many recover against die to me.
Did you read the latest WHO sitrep? The problem with your original "analysis" is that it was based on the information from the Chinese government. Fair enough you might say - that's all we had to go on at the time. However, it then became clear that the China data contained some fundamental issues, namely only serious cases were being recorded, and many with mild symptoms were being ignored from the numbers.
This is why your percentages were wildly incorrect. And we pointed it out to you at the time. But because this doesn't fit your apocalyptic vision of how this plays out, you keep ignoring it.
Edited by EddieSteadyGo on Thursday 20th February 23:01
Since it is all over the place, how can anything be concluded?
Yes, no doubt many with mild symptoms went unrecorded.
But isn't that probably even more so now china have decided to change how they identify confirmed cases, as it resulted a large daily drop?
isaldiri said:
philv said:
In that time that calculated rate has gone from 27% to 11% and still going down.
So unless you think the virus is getting much less virulent, isn't it obvious that the initial calculation (and handwringing/doom laden predictions) of fatality rate at 20+% was completely bulls
t and continuing to use that same calculation and repeating it like it's the gospel truth is idiotic? Maybe, just maybe the people that actually deal with these things ie the medical statisticians who have come up with estimated numbers like 1% per the earlier imperial paper might have a clue what they are doing as having some so called 'method' that goes from 27-11% in the space of 2 weeks suggests it's pretty much worse than useless as an accurate estimate.
This has led to a large drop in daily confirmed cases.
This should mean that previously confirmed cases may be overstated by quite a large percentage.
Which in turn would point to a much higher death rate.
With china pissing around with it's figures, i don't see how we can say it is 1% . 10% or anything in between.
Exactly what significant data have the who got?
It appear hat the Chinese data is unreliable at best.
philv said:
This.
We have basically done practically nothing.
We have been proactive in practically nothing.
If we dodge the bullet, it will be more by luck than action or judgement.
They have done a lot of stuff even by V6’s posts. Hospitals are contingency planning. The U.K. gov’s analysts are monitoring pneumonia spikes. We have basically done practically nothing.
We have been proactive in practically nothing.
If we dodge the bullet, it will be more by luck than action or judgement.
Edited by philv on Friday 21st February 01:01
Quite clearly they are of the view that the infection is inevitable (which given international travel and the criticality of the Far East to the global economy seems pretty much spot on).
Reverse the situation: given that we can’t build a wall and block out any interaction with the external world what would you suggest?
You can put in place barriers but I am assuming that given the initial R0 estimates and the feedback from the WHO the British government took a decision which was something along this lines:
1) it appears to be extremely virulent
2) the numbers out of China are skewed by local circumstances and not to be trusted
3) we are a trading nation with a multi ethnic population
Ergo we will get it.
Next step: what do we do?
It seems that the response is:
1) monitor
2) prepare
3) not get over excited and suggest we are facing the Black Death because that would probably have all sorts of unintended consequences.
I stopped posting the WHO updates a couple of days ago because it became clear to me that the WHO has no idea what’s going on (pace Iran). They’re monitoring and making recommendations. That’s all. There is no certainty on
1) death rates
2) incubation
3) reinfection
4) transmission
The U.K. gov is monitoring and frankly I’m not sure what else they can do.
The good news such as it is that every day the numbers tick over the more positive outcome becomes more likely.
Ridgemont said:
philv said:
This.
We have basically done practically nothing.
We have been proactive in practically nothing.
If we dodge the bullet, it will be more by luck than action or judgement.
They have done a lot of stuff even by V6’s posts. Hospitals are contingency planning. The U.K. gov’s analysts are monitoring pneumonia spikes. We have basically done practically nothing.
We have been proactive in practically nothing.
If we dodge the bullet, it will be more by luck than action or judgement.
Edited by philv on Friday 21st February 01:01
Quite clearly they are of the view that the infection is inevitable (which given international travel and the criticality of the Far East to the global economy seems pretty much spot on).
Reverse the situation: given that we can’t build a wall and block out any interaction with the external world what would you suggest?
You can put in place barriers but I am assuming that given the initial R0 estimates and the feedback from the WHO the British government took a decision which was something along this lines:
1) it appears to be extremely virulent
2) the numbers out of China are skewed by local circumstances and not to be trusted
3) we are a trading nation with a multi ethnic population
Ergo we will get it.
Next step: what do we do?
It seems that the response is:
1) monitor
2) prepare
3) not get over excited and suggest we are facing the Black Death because that would probably have all sorts of unintended consequences.
I stopped posting the WHO updates a couple of days ago because it became clear to me that the WHO has no idea what’s going on (pace Iran). They’re monitoring and making recommendations. That’s all. There is no certainty on
1) death rates
2) incubation
3) reinfection
4) transmission
The U.K. gov is monitoring and frankly I’m not sure what else they can do.
The good news such as it is that every day the numbers tick over the more positive outcome becomes more likely.
seriously?
Received text massagers from nhs about what to do ff you have symptoms, about hygene, etc?
Seen anyone using hand gels or changing habits re sneezing etc?
I haven't.
Leaflets handed out at airports etc? No.
There are literally dozens of things that could be done.
I can think of plenty more.
I have head a few infomercials on the radio.
That's it.
You reckon we just have to accept we will bet it and it is inevitable?
China doesn't act that way....they are doing all they can to prevent the spread.
We seem to be accepting an inevitable outcome.
philv said:
What more could we do?
seriously?
Received text massagers from nhs about what to do ff you have symptoms, about hygene, etc?
Seen anyone using hand gels or changing habits re sneezing etc?
I haven't.
Leaflets handed out at airports etc? No.
There are literally dozens of things that could be done.
I can think of plenty more.
I have head a few infomercials on the radio.
That's it.
You reckon we just have to accept we will bet it and it is inevitable?
China doesn't act that way....they are doing all they can to prevent the spread.
We seem to be accepting an inevitable outcome.
And yet.seriously?
Received text massagers from nhs about what to do ff you have symptoms, about hygene, etc?
Seen anyone using hand gels or changing habits re sneezing etc?
I haven't.
Leaflets handed out at airports etc? No.
There are literally dozens of things that could be done.
I can think of plenty more.
I have head a few infomercials on the radio.
That's it.
You reckon we just have to accept we will bet it and it is inevitable?
China doesn't act that way....they are doing all they can to prevent the spread.
We seem to be accepting an inevitable outcome.
China is a full on disaster zone with unreliable figures and no one knows why. We have been sat watching those figures for 3 or 4 weeks.
In the meantime it’s spreading. It doesn’t matter what China is doing. It’s a flu pandemic. It’s in Japan. It’s probably in Iran. It is probably in Africa. This thing is out there.
Given that it is the plan from U.K. gov is quite clearly to prepare for it. Your example above are meaningless.
And to be clear it is accepting an inevitable outcome. But mitigating it. It appears to be a pandemic and that containment has failed.
That’s not the end of the world; it just means that focus turns on reducing the impact. Yes you can do leaflets and text messages but I suspect from my experience of being in and out of the local NHS clinic until stuff gets real behaviours won’t change. Loud casting government messages in the interim is pointless.
That’s not the end of the world; it just means that focus turns on reducing the impact. Yes you can do leaflets and text messages but I suspect from my experience of being in and out of the local NHS clinic until stuff gets real behaviours won’t change. Loud casting government messages in the interim is pointless.
Thinking about how infectious it is / how likely it is to kill someone it infects.
It looks to be the case that it is pretty infectious. I think the early symptoms are generally very mild and that many people infected would think they had a cold / mild flu / similar, rather than something more serious.
However, if treatment (I can’t find a definitive treatment schedule: if anyone has it, I’d like to see it) is delayed, the infection does seem to have the potential to get much more serious quite quickly. I think that point is reached somewhere between 6 and 14 days post infection.
So the plan, if it can be described as such, seems to be to make people aware of the contagion risk, to advise people with the symptoms to get tested and to quickly instigate quarantine and treatment of anyone testing positive
In a country like the uk, getting the balance of warning / action right, especially when the number of certain cases is so low, isn’t a job I would want. For now I think it’s about right, but it would need to ramp up quickly if the outbreak grows. Not sure the country is ready for that....
I think the higher level of deaths in wuhan is down to the available testing / quarantine / treatment capacity being overwhelmed. When the infection first emerged (December?), no one thought ‘oh hello, this is a novel virus that will be a problem’ they thought ‘hey ho, I’ve got a cold / sniffle, I’ll crack on as normal’. That caused a surge in the number of cases that they are now wrestling to get to grips with
It will take time to get on top of that and a lot of people will die who might not have died if it had been possible to have higher awareness / testing / quarantine / treatment sooner.
It looks to be the case that it is pretty infectious. I think the early symptoms are generally very mild and that many people infected would think they had a cold / mild flu / similar, rather than something more serious.
However, if treatment (I can’t find a definitive treatment schedule: if anyone has it, I’d like to see it) is delayed, the infection does seem to have the potential to get much more serious quite quickly. I think that point is reached somewhere between 6 and 14 days post infection.
So the plan, if it can be described as such, seems to be to make people aware of the contagion risk, to advise people with the symptoms to get tested and to quickly instigate quarantine and treatment of anyone testing positive
In a country like the uk, getting the balance of warning / action right, especially when the number of certain cases is so low, isn’t a job I would want. For now I think it’s about right, but it would need to ramp up quickly if the outbreak grows. Not sure the country is ready for that....
I think the higher level of deaths in wuhan is down to the available testing / quarantine / treatment capacity being overwhelmed. When the infection first emerged (December?), no one thought ‘oh hello, this is a novel virus that will be a problem’ they thought ‘hey ho, I’ve got a cold / sniffle, I’ll crack on as normal’. That caused a surge in the number of cases that they are now wrestling to get to grips with
It will take time to get on top of that and a lot of people will die who might not have died if it had been possible to have higher awareness / testing / quarantine / treatment sooner.
Ridgemont said:
They have done a lot of stuff even by V6’s posts. Hospitals are contingency planning. The U.K. gov’s analysts are monitoring pneumonia spikes.
Quite clearly they are of the view that the infection is inevitable (which given international travel and the criticality of the Far East to the global economy seems pretty much spot on).
Reverse the situation: given that we can’t build a wall and block out any interaction with the external world what would you suggest?
You can put in place barriers but I am assuming that given the initial R0 estimates and the feedback from the WHO the British government took a decision which was something along this lines:
1) it appears to be extremely virulent
2) the numbers out of China are skewed by local circumstances and not to be trusted
3) we are a trading nation with a multi ethnic population
Ergo we will get it.
Next step: what do we do?
It seems that the response is:
1) monitor
2) prepare
3) not get over excited and suggest we are facing the Black Death because that would probably have all sorts of unintended consequences.
I stopped posting the WHO updates a couple of days ago because it became clear to me that the WHO has no idea what’s going on (pace Iran). They’re monitoring and making recommendations. That’s all. There is no certainty on
1) death rates
2) incubation
3) reinfection
4) transmission
The U.K. gov is monitoring and frankly I’m not sure what else they can do.
The good news such as it is that every day the numbers tick over the more positive outcome becomes more likely.
I think that’s pretty much it. There would be a couple of further aspects:Quite clearly they are of the view that the infection is inevitable (which given international travel and the criticality of the Far East to the global economy seems pretty much spot on).
Reverse the situation: given that we can’t build a wall and block out any interaction with the external world what would you suggest?
You can put in place barriers but I am assuming that given the initial R0 estimates and the feedback from the WHO the British government took a decision which was something along this lines:
1) it appears to be extremely virulent
2) the numbers out of China are skewed by local circumstances and not to be trusted
3) we are a trading nation with a multi ethnic population
Ergo we will get it.
Next step: what do we do?
It seems that the response is:
1) monitor
2) prepare
3) not get over excited and suggest we are facing the Black Death because that would probably have all sorts of unintended consequences.
I stopped posting the WHO updates a couple of days ago because it became clear to me that the WHO has no idea what’s going on (pace Iran). They’re monitoring and making recommendations. That’s all. There is no certainty on
1) death rates
2) incubation
3) reinfection
4) transmission
The U.K. gov is monitoring and frankly I’m not sure what else they can do.
The good news such as it is that every day the numbers tick over the more positive outcome becomes more likely.
- if (as) China figures are not the true picture which way will they be out?
- there is still time. So if it can be stalled for a while (8 weeks?) there may be a much better dataset from a more open and honest country with accurate recording.
China - it’s won’t be great for them if they are shown to have skewed the figures (probably either way) as the rest of the world is trying to use the info for strategic planning.
Figures from the John Hopkins tracker WITHOUT Hubei Province:
Confirmed cases: 14,065
Deaths: 103
Recovered: 6,774
In comparison to yesterday, 369 more confirmed cases, 4 more deaths and an increase of 632 in recovered patients.
Deaths/(Deaths plus Recovered cases) is now at 1.5% and of course each day the data becomes more statistically mature. A week ago it was 2% and has dropped every day. (Interestingly Hubei has dropped from 27% to 15% in that time and so clearly does not help statistical analysis in comparison to the mainly China without Hubei data). Of course that ignores undiagnosed cases which we are led to believe could be up to 90-95% of all cases. Not that anyone can trust the Chinese figures.
Confirmed cases: 14,065
Deaths: 103
Recovered: 6,774
In comparison to yesterday, 369 more confirmed cases, 4 more deaths and an increase of 632 in recovered patients.
Deaths/(Deaths plus Recovered cases) is now at 1.5% and of course each day the data becomes more statistically mature. A week ago it was 2% and has dropped every day. (Interestingly Hubei has dropped from 27% to 15% in that time and so clearly does not help statistical analysis in comparison to the mainly China without Hubei data). Of course that ignores undiagnosed cases which we are led to believe could be up to 90-95% of all cases. Not that anyone can trust the Chinese figures.
Ridgemont said:
philv said:
What more could we do?
seriously?
Received text massagers from nhs about what to do ff you have symptoms, about hygene, etc?
Seen anyone using hand gels or changing habits re sneezing etc?
I haven't.
Leaflets handed out at airports etc? No.
There are literally dozens of things that could be done.
I can think of plenty more.
I have head a few infomercials on the radio.
That's it.
You reckon we just have to accept we will bet it and it is inevitable?
China doesn't act that way....they are doing all they can to prevent the spread.
We seem to be accepting an inevitable outcome.
And yet.seriously?
Received text massagers from nhs about what to do ff you have symptoms, about hygene, etc?
Seen anyone using hand gels or changing habits re sneezing etc?
I haven't.
Leaflets handed out at airports etc? No.
There are literally dozens of things that could be done.
I can think of plenty more.
I have head a few infomercials on the radio.
That's it.
You reckon we just have to accept we will bet it and it is inevitable?
China doesn't act that way....they are doing all they can to prevent the spread.
We seem to be accepting an inevitable outcome.
China is a full on disaster zone with unreliable figures and no one knows why. We have been sat watching those figures for 3 or 4 weeks.
In the meantime it’s spreading. It doesn’t matter what China is doing. It’s a flu pandemic. It’s in Japan. It’s probably in Iran. It is probably in Africa. This thing is out there.
Given that it is the plan from U.K. gov is quite clearly to prepare for it. Your example above are meaningless.
China is struggling to contain it so we should do nothing/far less than china?
Is every area in china as bad as wuham?
No,,,so china's actions are having an affect.
If it is inevitable and we should only prepare for it and not bother about prevention/spread, why bother isolating infected people?
There have been plenty of actions mentioned in these forums that would help reduce the spread.
None of them have been implemented.
Many are very easy to implement.
Ridgemont said:
And to be clear it is accepting an inevitable outcome. But mitigating it. It appears to be a pandemic and that containment has failed.
That’s not the end of the world; it just means that focus turns on reducing the impact. Yes you can do leaflets and text messages but I suspect from my experience of being in and out of the local NHS clinic until stuff gets real behaviours won’t change. Loud casting government messages in the interim is pointless.
So, when hundreds self present at surgeries or hospitals, because of scant public awareness, that can't be avoided?That’s not the end of the world; it just means that focus turns on reducing the impact. Yes you can do leaflets and text messages but I suspect from my experience of being in and out of the local NHS clinic until stuff gets real behaviours won’t change. Loud casting government messages in the interim is pointless.
Washing hands, etc has no effect on the spread of a virus?
etc etc
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