Health Coronavirus 2020 / Worldwide (Stats live update in OP)

[Chief]

This is PART 1 of this thread.

PART 2 can be found here:

Health - Coronavirus 2020 / Worldwide (Stats live update in OP) Part 2

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/pages/covid-stats-australia/

www.bigfooty.com

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[Blue1980]

They're not, covid 19 is more than twice as contagious with a longer incubation period and estimates are it is between four and ten times more deadly.

And the obvious but still needing to be mentioned point there is no vaccine for COVID-19.

More deadly and no cure as yet.

 

[NicNat2TimKelly]

If Trump conceeds to the forces of capitalism and ends isolation prematurely, this will rise even more dramatically. It will be a holocaust.

He won't be conceding to anything.

 

[The Speaker]

They're not, covid 19 is more than twice as contagious with a longer incubation period

Would you say that being twice as contagious = 'way more'? It seems Blue was referring to its closest relative, SARS, in any case, which is true - it is much more contagious, and much, much less deadly. If it was the real SARS, then this kind of response would be understandable. Nothing we're seeing indicates that it is.

and estimates are it is between four and ten times more deadly.

And how deadly is that, from this very early estimate among the many that have actually been all over the place?

 

[Gralin]

Please. Deaths are always a tragic and unnatural experience.

I find it 'unpalatable' that you are entirely avoiding thinking about the serious long-term consequences of this never-before-seen action for a virus that has yet to show anything like the lethality the response would suggest.

Stay home if you're sick or at serious risk is an entirely reasonable response. Furthermore, we should be willing to embrace cultural changes, such as wearing a mask, working from home if you have a cough, and the like. What we should not be doing is destroying the quality of life of the potentially vulnerable because they might get sick, and crippling our ability to actually care for the sick for years to come.



Always.



You accuse me of coming to a conclusion too early, and now you turn around and claim that this is akin to SARS?

Even the most chicken little modellers don't think it's anything like as lethal as that.

This is a Coronavirus with severe acute respiratory syndrome
Same as SARS.
SARS had a estimated death rate of just under 10%
It had 8k known cases and less than 800 deaths.
Given the stats currently do you think Covid 19 which is up to almost 1 million known cases and over 48k deaths isn't serious?
Death rate is lower for this but the spread is so much wider. The total impact matters.

We are getting these measures based on the potential impact. I agree that deaths from economic measures will happen. I see that as more of an issue of our society. We have pushed social support to the bottom of the pile for profit.

We've removed social responsibility from our normal culture for climbing the ladder.

That's half the reason we've got to enforce everything this way.

People have no safety net to stay home. People don't feel responsible for others wellbeing.

We aren't all in this together is how too many think.
But we are.

You're dismissive of this virus because you think its not that deadly

On a small scale it isn't. Not everyone has bad symptoms or any. You can't easily track the spread and it's the kind of virus that could infect everyone
So it's the kind of virus that could do maximum damage.

SARS was tracked and shut down very well and we didn't feel the impact of that because it didnt reach us

We read about it and because of that we go well it wasn't that bad just hysteria.

Well this one is here.

People don't take the flu that seriously and people die from that every year.

We always think it won't be us and if it won't be us we don't care.

 

[Demons09]

Gotta laugh just about every country is in lock down , and yet we have posters questioning the reason for it, lot of nothing to see here experts on BF.

 

[Kurve]

Would you say that being twice as contagious = 'way more'? It seems Blue was referring to its closest relative, SARS, in any case, which is true - it is much more contagious, and much, much less deadly. If it was the real SARS, then this kind of response would be understandable. Nothing we're seeing indicates that it is.

Should we have waited to see given this is a new virus we really don't know a lot about, until it started to look like Spain? We were doubling the rate of infection only a week ago every two or three days.

 

[Over The Post]

The might rig elections once they get in. But even if they didn't get absolute majorities when first elected they did get a very sizable vote.

I've got a handful of Brazilian internet acquaintances, nicest people you'd hope to meet under normal circumstances, pre last election they were all rabidly Bolsonaro-this, Bolsonaro-that, putting up facebook pics of Bolsonaro in front of a giant Brazilian flag, Bolsonaro walking among the people, Bolsonaro signing an important-looking piece of paper, you get the drift. And they still are. And they set upon anyone who criticises Bolsonaro, attack as liars anyone who questions what's happening in the Amazon, etc. It's like MAGA on steroids, and I'm buggered if I know why.

 

[The Speaker]

This is a Coronavirus with severe acute respiratory syndrome
Same as SARS.
SARS had a estimated death rate of just under 10%
It had 8k known cases and less than 800 deaths.
Given the stats currently do you think Covid 19 which is up to almost 1 million known cases and over 48k deaths isn't serious?

Ignoring the overblown rhetoric, it seems you actually think that the stats currently provided are a true figure of the real fatality rate of this virus. As has been stated numerous time, the real case fatality rate is being estimated to be significantly lower than the stats suggest.

Should we have waited to see given this is a new virus we really don't know a lot about, until it started to look like Spain? We were doubling the rate of infection only a week ago every two or three days.

Do none of you have an argument that goes beyond a cursory look at the statistics?

The most recent study to appear in the The Lancet that is supported by people like Neil Ferguson - and therefore at the more dramatic end of the spectrum - has estimated a real fatality rate of 0.66%. Studies from the lower end of the estimates put it at around 0.05%. By all means, shut the borders and test people both coming from overseas and at random, to get a sense for where this virus is at when it appears. But bringing everything to a grinding halt requires more information than what was available. They acted out of fear.

 

[Over The Post]

Yes but people do need food and basic supplies. I mean we could just reduce the whole thing to home delivery if we want to go totally hardcore.

My mate's wife, her mother and teenage son were (or maybe still are?) locked down in Jilin in north-east China, 2200km from Wuhan. Not allowed to leave their flat, every morning at 7:30 a couple of people knock on the door, record their temperatures and drop off 3 meals each and Grandma's medication.

Don't see that happening here, unless its for the really old and frail people who are pretty much confined to their house anyway.

 

[NicNat2TimKelly]

There is a virus, but nothing to lose your s**t over - storm in a teacup. Even bird flu - how many Australians died?

This one hasn't aged well.

 

[Over The Post]

Then what are the tents for?
If not to treat sick people, then why?

To handle queues of campaigners coming in to be tested for the virus. You don't want people crowding into a confined space inside the hospital and mingling the infected and the uninfected.

 

[Kurve]

Don't see that happening here, unless its for the really old and frail people who are pretty much confined to their house anyway.

I don't know who all these oldies are in the supermarket, every time I've gone into my local Woolies admittedly the staff are starting to look a bit frayed they've been under a lot of pressure but the carpark is only a quarter full to what it usually is. Living in this house on and off for a lot of years and being active in the community when I'm about, I know nearly everybody around here and anybody over about 60 has locked themselves in and getting deliveries. They're not going out at all if they can avoid it.

 

[Suspense]

The lives that will be lost from the apparent ruination of the economy are.

The economy isn't ruined its been placed into hibernation. It's gonna be shitty for a while - and yes - ruinous for some people's livelihoods. The Govt is putting in place programs to minimise the effect - but many people will still suffer. This is a genuine dilemma - and one that Govts grappled with across the world until they saw what was happening in Europe.

Social distancing and lockdown measures are required due to the spread of the virus and the lack of preparedness to deal with the virus on a large scale. Without these measures, we would lack sufficient medical resources (ventilators, ICU bed) as well as PPE equipment for healthcare providers which would result in many more deaths than if we bought ourselves time to scale up over the next six months. I'd rather Nonna feels a bit lonely for a few months vs overwhelmed and under-resourced healthcare workers. In addition, we are also buying time to allow for testing and tracing initiatives to improve.

My hope is that in 6 months, with a well-scaled up medical service, proper PPE and much better testing technology, we could go back to Stage 1 restrictions - basically no large gatherings (these are super-spreading events). Cafes, restaurants, cinemas, local tourism all back open - with social distancing measures in place. Wash your hands.

Health care, in the long run, will suffer from governments needing to claw back their debts.

Maybe. I have a feeling that Health care may be more prioritised after this. There is a lot of frivolous s**t that Govt spends money on which I would hope - now having experienced a pandemic rather than simply reading about it in a textbook - now gets put into health care.

 

[Kurve]

Maybe. I have a feeling that Health care may be more prioritised after this. There is a lot of frivolous s**t that Govt spends money on which I would hope - now having experienced a pandemic rather than simply reading about it in a textbook - now gets put into health care.

Got caught with our pants down I think, if we'd been better prepared we might not have moved so quickly into a stage 3 lockdown.

 

[The Speaker]

The economy isn't ruined its been placed into hibernation. It's gonna be shitty for a while - and yes - ruinous for some people's livelihoods. The Govt is putting in place programs to minimise the effect - but many people will still suffer. This is a genuine dilemma - and one that Govts grappled with across the world until they saw what was happening in Europe.

'Hibernation' was a clever rhetorical move from them, but I see very little chance of everything just returning to normal afterwards. It'd be nice if it did, but it will be smaller, and it will be overseen by a government in serious debt. Multiply that across the world and that's not a recipe for normality. Furthermore, there will be serious consequences of China's relationship with the world on the otherside, and we will be caught in the middle of it.

Social distancing and lockdown measures are required due to the spread of the virus and the lack of preparedness to deal with the virus on a large scale. Without these measures, we would lack sufficient medical resources (ventilators, ICU bed) as well as PPE equipment for healthcare providers which would result in many more deaths than if we bought ourselves time to scale up over the next six months. In addition, we are also buying time to allow for testing and tracing initiatives to improve.

This is, as always, only according to models that made certain assumptions that may turn out to be completely wrong.

My hope is that in 6 months, with a well-scaled up medical service, proper PPE and much better testing technology, we could go back to Stage 1 restrictions - basically no large gatherings (these are super-spreading events). Cafes, restaurants, cinemas, local tourism all back open - with social distancing measures in place. Wash your hands.

I don't think we'll last six months - and if we do, we're going to be a very different society at the other end. And if it is six months, then there is no way the economy will return to normality after its 'hibernation'.

Maybe. I have a feeling that Health care may be more prioritised after this. There is a lot of frivolous s**t that Govt spends money on which I would hope - now having experienced a pandemic rather than simply reading about it in a textbook - puts into health care.

I hope so. Even among all this grappling, it is clear that most health care systems do not cope with epidemics in general, let alone pandemics. But it's also the kind of thing that is easy to whittle away over time, because hey, how often does a pandemic come along?

 

[RobbieGray17]

Anyone got access to dates of these cruise ships. I heard one departed on March 8. I can't get into it without a subscription.

 

[DaRick]

I've got a handful of Brazilian internet acquaintances, nicest people you'd hope to meet under normal circumstances, pre last election they were all rabidly Bolsonaro-this, Bolsonaro-that, putting up facebook pics of Bolsonaro in front of a giant Brazilian flag, Bolsonaro walking among the people, Bolsonaro signing an important-looking piece of paper, you get the drift. And they still are. And they set upon anyone who criticises Bolsonaro, attack as liars anyone who questions what's happening in the Amazon, etc. It's like MAGA on steroids, and I'm buggered if I know why.

They're projecting their hopes and ideals onto him.

Same thing occurred with Trump and Obama.

 

[Suspense]

This is, as always, only according to models that made certain assumptions that may turn out to be completely wrong.

Do you honestly believe that a press release saying:

• Stay home if you're sick or at serious risk
• wear a mask
• work from home if you have a cough

Would sufficiently minimise the spread of the virus in Australia now that we have community transmission - to such an extent that our existing health-care resources (ICU beds, ventilators, PPE equipment etc.) would be able to effectively manage and cope with this virus over the next 6 months?

Where do you stand on travel restrictions? On gatherings? On social distancing?


I can understand that you think some of the measures are OTT - and it may turn out that they were. But I completely get it. At the moment, Govts world-wide are s**t-scared of this taking off in their country and the only two strategies that have been shown to work are:

1. Mass testing / Strong Test and Trace capabilities / Mask culture (South Korea, Singapore etc.)
2. Lock-down measures

We don't have the resources to effectively do the first option (but it is something we could scale up over the next few months), so we are stuck with the second.

 

[The Speaker]

Do you honestly believe that a press release saying:

• Stay home if you're sick or at serious risk
• wear a mask
• work from home if you have a cough

Would sufficiently minimise the spread of the virus in Australia now that we have community transmission - to such an extent that our existing health-care resources (ICU beds, ventilators, PPE equipment etc.) would be able to effectively manage and cope with this virus over the next 6 months?

Where do you stand on travel restrictions? On gatherings? On social distancing?


I can understand that you think some of the measures are OTT - and it may turn out that they were. But I completely get it. At the moment, Govts world-wide are s**t-scared of this taking off in their country and the only two strategies that have been shown to work are:

1. Mass testing / Strong Test and Trace capabilities / Mask culture (South Korea, Singapore etc.)
2. Lock-down measures

We don't have the resources to effectively do the first option (but it is something we could scale up over the next few months), so we are stuck with the second.

Don't patronise me.

I've already said that closing the borders and testing everyone coming from overseas along random sampling would've been a reasonable response. Again, your talk about minimising the spread of the virus otherwise everything collapses is based on assumptions about its seriousness and lethality that are yet to hold up to scrutiny. Every model that has been warning about dire futures has had to continually come down from their initial numbers, and that is not merely a result of actions already taken.

 

[Mateyman]

That's not an answer.

As has been stated repeatedly, the actual rate of infection is much higher than records show and the actual deaths from the virus are necessarily lower than records show (because, like with influenza, having a coronavirus does not automatically mean that the virus directly caused the death), which means that the real fatality rate is nowhere near what the stats show.

Mate do you really reckon that the highly trained epidemiologists doing mathematical models for the government haven't considered what old mate on Bigfooty has worked out, which is that there will be some people with undiagnosed cases and others who were going to die anyway? Plenty of modeling out of the UK and the US suggesting that if you just let this thing fly it'd kill anywhere from 0.25-1% of the population. Nobody is saying that the 10% death rate from Italy is the true fatality rate, but even if there are 10 times more cases there than we realise, that still leaves it at 1% which is still quite high when you consider world wars killed about 1% of the population.
There are also multiple other factors to consider with the death rate:
- deaths lag cases - while there will be more cases out there in the community that we don't know about, there will also be more deaths from the currently confirmed cases that we can't yet account for (as it takes people a while to die with this).
Countries with high levels of testing have had fatality rates around 1%. Even if we halve that and say our true fatality rate is 0.5% (which isn't necessarily correct as in a place like South Korea they've been catching many of the asymptomatic cases as well and still have numbers around 1%). Even assuming this that is a huge number of deaths. The countries with low fatality rates are also the ones where the healthcare system isn't overwhelmed. If the true rate is 0.5% (when the disease doesn't overwhelm your healthcare system), not hard to imagine it could reach 1 or 2% very easily if it does.

Yes there are many unknowns about this virus. However, even if it's half as deadly as it looks it's going to cause massive damaged if left unchecked. If you're going to try to combat it with some sort of distancing, you need to properly commit to it or you won't make much difference at all.

 

[Suspense]

Don't patronise me.

I've already said that closing the borders and testing everyone coming from overseas along random sampling would've been a reasonable response.

I'm not patronising you. I believe your deliberate contrarian stance is full of holes. Why bother shutting the borders? It's just a 'run-of-the-mill' coronavirus, right?

Anyway, this may have worked a month ago - completely ineffective now with community transmission. Only lockdown measures or Mass testing / Strong Test and Trace capabilities (which we don't currently have the resources for) have been shown to effectively minimise community transmission.

Again, your talk about minimising the spread of the virus otherwise everything collapses is based on assumptions about its seriousness and lethality that are yet to hold up to scrutiny. Every model that has been warning about dire futures has had to continually come down from their initial numbers, and that is not merely a result of actions already taken.

Assumptions? Models? Look at the news. The lethality rate may drop - but it is undeniable that health-care systems worldwide have been unable to cope with the exponential spread of this virus. The ability of a health-care system to manage is a key factor in the lethality of the virus. How do you think Victoria would cope with its 1,000 ventilators?

 

[Chief]

Don't patronise me.

I've already said that closing the borders and testing everyone coming from overseas along random sampling would've been a reasonable response. Again, your talk about minimising the spread of the virus otherwise everything collapses is based on assumptions about its seriousness and lethality that are yet to hold up to scrutiny. Every model that has been warning about dire futures has had to continually come down from their initial numbers, and that is not merely a result of actions already taken.

Why do you think Australia would be different to the US? Spain? France? Italy?

 

[Mateyman]

Why compare? NY city has more people living in close quarters than adelaide, melbourne and perth combined. How is that a fair comparison?

Simply by being so spread out we can manage this thing. Closed borders was a good idea. Should have happened sooner. 3 weeks this thing is under control but for the love of god stop looking overseas and thinking it could be us. It wont be.

The rate of growth may be higher elsewhere. What is the same though is that nobody has natural immunity to this virus. Even if the spread is slower here without significant distancing measures/testing it will still spread to a significant proportion of the population, even if this spread is slower than it has been in Europe and the US.

 

[Mateyman]

My point is that what we are seeing from this virus is not suggestive of anything worse than other mild coronaviruses, of which there are a number already floating around in humans.

Yeah I remember all these other 4 mild coronaviruses completely overloading entire hospital systems meaning that people 65+ in multiple countries weren't able to be given the healthcare that might keep them alive. Pretty common occurrence now I think about it

 

[RobbieGray17]

Yeah I remember all these other 4 mild coronaviruses completely overloading entire hospital systems meaning that people 65+ in multiple countries weren't able to be given the healthcare that might keep them alive. Pretty common occurrence now I think about it

Statistically over 2 million deaths in USA if nothing done.