Covid 19 virus

[iMo]

.. This is a disease with a basic reproduction number (R₀) of 2.3 at best current estimates. That means that without containment every person who is infected infects another 2.3 people. It has an overall case fatality rate of 1.2% on current best (age adjusted) estimates. Those two figures alone combine to make this serious. The (age adjusted) case fatality rate for seasonal flu is around 0.01% (typical year, western countries with good health care), R₀ for typical seasonal flu is 1.2.

There is also a parameter called "viral load".
An expert from a virology lab [no reference, sorry] was talking on the cov19 vs. flu and he mentioned "..the viral load of the sars-cov-2 in the samples of our asymptotic patient was unbelievably high compared to influenza-A, the same load with flu and you would be dead.."
How the viral load could affect those calculations?

[Someone]

But now you are entering a semantic discussion which can be halted very simply by asking: how long would those people have lived if they didn't got infected with Covid19?

One can also ask how long they would have lived if they didn't have pre-existing conditions. Judging by the numbers the overwhelming majority would likely have been fine. This virus seems to bring any existing cracks to light. Regardless, it seems sensible to count them as Covid deaths but as far as I can tell that's happening.

Years of potential life lost will need lots more data and research to settle on, but historically (in Australia) deaths from Influenza claimed 4 years of life on average which is right down at the low end with things like heart disease (also 4 years). Contrast against the publicised/emotive examples:
Childbirth, 48 years
Accidental Drowning in Swimming Pools, 46 years
Transport Accidents, 34 years
Suicide, 34 years
Breast Cancer, 11 years
Digestive Cancers, 7 years

[VK3DRB]

Noticed nice detail ... a small gesture of valuable gratitude .. a special printed boarding pass ... 

Something not right here. Western doctors are saying masks do nothing unless you are already infected. But these Chinese doctors all are wearing masks, most of them cheapo surgical masks, not P95's. Notice all the carefully selected scenery is modern and clean. Heaps of red army style saluting going on. All these exhausted doctors are all laughing and happy. They would be suffering from exhaustion in reality, and they would be emotional wrecks after they have witnessed so much misery. Buses are modern and the passengers all have high end phones, taking photos of the benign scenery. New China TV is owned by the notorious government news agency Xinhua. The video is propaganda .

The first casualty of war is the truth.

[Simon]

but western doctors wear masks.

[nctnico]

Yea, people crowding into shops are just stupid. I will be wearing a P2 dust mask next time and safety glasses if i have any in the house. i also have a couple of pairs of P3 filters on the way that had not sold out.

I have a welding mask, leather gloves, gum boots and an oil skin coat so might have to take the gas torch and flame nozzle as well to keep those sicko's at a safe distance.   

Nowadays someone could make a fortune from sweat smell perfume!

[nctnico]

Buses are modern and the passengers all have high end phones, taking photos of the benign scenery. New China TV is owned by the notorious government news agency Xinhua. The video is propaganda .

The first casualty of war is the truth.

Probably. One of my thoughts is: why would they build new hospitals in China when they could just as easely have emptied a hotel or office building? If you look at the construction videos you notice that the prefab buildings they erected are just office buildings. Something is not right.

[VK3DRB]

We have been told by doctors here masks worn by the public do nothing unless the wearer has the virus. I went shopping yesterday in a shopping centre, and except for one westerner the only people wearing marks were Chinese. Maybe we have been fed by our government too because they did not want a run on masks.

[Cerebus]

.. This is a disease with a basic reproduction number (R₀) of 2.3 at best current estimates. That means that without containment every person who is infected infects another 2.3 people. It has an overall case fatality rate of 1.2% on current best (age adjusted) estimates. Those two figures alone combine to make this serious. The (age adjusted) case fatality rate for seasonal flu is around 0.01% (typical year, western countries with good health care), R₀ for typical seasonal flu is 1.2.

There is also a parameter called "viral load".
An expert from a virology lab [no reference, sorry] was talking on the cov19 vs. flu and he mentioned "..the viral load of the sars-cov-2 in the samples of our asymptotic patient was unbelievably high compared to influenza-A, the same load with flu and you would be dead.."
How the viral load could affect those calculations?

It doesn't. R₀ and case fatality ratio may be an effect of viral load, but they measure end points that might be affected by viral load not something that you can then add a 'viral load' factor to.

[Mr. Scram]

Aww c'mon. Do you really think that the criteria for "seriously ill enough to need a hospital bed" are going to be downgraded from an abundance of caution at a time when there is pressure on hospital beds?

I think at this point it's becoming pretty clear that you want to believe this to be less serious then it is and you're not going to be convinced by the pretty conclusive evidence that we've already seen that this is an order of magnitude more serious than seasonal flu.

Taking a reasoned, proportioned reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, based on facts, is one thing. It helps no one if people's reaction to this gets out of proportion. Downplaying it to the point of near denial of how serious the situation is, is just as unhelpful in the other direction.

This is a disease with a basic reproduction number (R₀) of 2.3 at best current estimates. That means that without containment every person who is infected infects another 2.3 people. It has an overall case fatality rate of 1.2% on current best (age adjusted) estimates. Those two figures alone combine to make this serious. The (age adjusted) case fatality rate for seasonal flu is around 0.01% (typical year, western countries with good health care), R₀ for typical seasonal flu is 1.2.

It's unfortunate people seem to be misconstruing my words. Anyone who thinks I'm of the opinion we don't have a very serious situation on our hands and need to act with conviction is gravely mistaken. This is reflected by my behaviour in real life as well. I'm doing my part.

That being said, some people are treating this as an outbreak with very little chance of survival. Instead, the vast majority of cases will resemble a minor to a severe flu without requiring treatment. The large number of simultaneous infections and the treatment of the most severe infections is the issue. It goes without saying Covid 19 isn't exactly like the flu as it's not the flu and we wouldn't be discussing it if it was. The reality is that we're not all going to die and the vast majority will be fine, but also a non trivial amount of people will die. This unfortunately isn't entirely unlike the flu either. Our efforts will decide how many preventable deaths will occur.

[Cerebus]

The video is propaganda .

The first casualty of war is the truth.

Of course it is propaganda. Being propaganda does not necessarily imply untruth. Was Allied WWII propaganda untrue? In the most part no.

You, from reading many of your postings over the years, are clearly an ideologue. Ideology and propaganda are firm bedfellows. Does that mean we should treat every thing you say as propaganda and therefore untrue? No, and no.

The problem here is that you are dealing with a government and ideology that are strongly at odds with your own ideology. That tends to be a bit denting to objectivity and truthiness too.

[Mr. Scram]

Others have pointed out the distinction made by the Italian statistics, but let me add that even in today's conference by the "Protezione Civile", Roberto Bernabei, specialist in geriatry, said that of the first 355 clinical documentations analyzed resulted that "only 3 patients died FOR coronavirus", all the others dies WITH coronavirus. I mean, I understand when they did that pantomime  the first and second week, to try sugarcoat the pill, but now...

A member of the press asked why there is such a big difference in mortality (or letality - it's the press) between Italy and Germany and the answer was on the line of 'we don't know how these deaths are classified". Now, it's possible the the German had small clusters promptly identified and isolated and that extensive testing of nonsymptomatic patients is keeping the count down, but back in february when Italy had run 20 thousand tests, only 2000 were positive. Where were all those asymptomatic ninjas?
Also, do you believe Iran is giving the right number of deaths?

But, aside from this, my point is that it's the media that is making this distinction, namely that you don't die of Covid-19. You die of other illnesses and covid-19 just give old farts with a foot in the grave the coup-de-grace.
And you can see this is the message that goes to the masses and is surfacing in this very forum as well.

It kills old people with preexisting conditions.

WHOOOOOO, SPRING BREAK!!! LET'S PARTYYYYYYEEEEAHHHHHHH!!!

Let me ask you something: how many people over sixty has a preexisting condition that can result in death from covid-19?

The worldometer website at the time om writing reports 4032 deaths. Are you saying these are exclusively healthy people with no pre-existing conditions and that when those are included the number is much higher?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

[Cerebus]

Buses are modern and the passengers all have high end phones, taking photos of the benign scenery. New China TV is owned by the notorious government news agency Xinhua. The video is propaganda .

The first casualty of war is the truth.

Probably. One of my thoughts is: why would they build new hospitals in China when they could just as easely have emptied a hotel or office building? If you look at the construction videos you notice that the prefab buildings they erected are just office buildings. Something is not right.

Having been involved in building and electrical work in hospitals may years ago I know that a lot of specification goes on that you wouldn't see in commercial premises. Are surfaces easily sterilized, can electrical outlets be sterilized. Anything that can trap dust is a no no - there are brackets for electrical conduit know in the trade as 'hospital brackets' that stand proud enough from surfaces that the conduit can be cleaned all around. And so on, and so on.

On the other hand, if there's anybody who thinks that the Chinese Government is going to pass up any propaganda opportunities that present themselves, that they are not going to exaggerate and put the best face on everything they possibly can is woefully naïve. That said, don't think that Voice of America or other western propaganda channels would behave in any more saintly manner.

[Sredni]

The worldometer website at the time om writing reports 4032 deaths. Are you saying these are exclusively healthy people with no pre-existing conditions and that when those are included the number is much higher?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

You clearly did not understand anything of what I wrote.
I am just curious: do you happen to own a red baseball hat?

At any rate, what you clearly do not understand is that who should worry of being at risk of dying is not the average citizen (because of the 3.4% lethality, or let's say 1%), but the Country's health systems (for which the lethality is 20%).

[Electro Detective]

We have been told by doctors here masks worn by the public do nothing unless the wearer has the virus. I went shopping yesterday in a shopping centre, and except for one westerner the only people wearing marks were Chinese.
Maybe we have been fed by our government too because they did not want a run on masks.

They probably don't want a run on any sort of public hard 'thinking' either,
especially how they are researching, verifying and handling things 

It's the same here too in Melbourne/MelboRRRne CBD and beyond.
Just about 100% 99% of anyone that looks/is chinese are masked,
most pulling/pushing on wheeled luggage to who knows where.. or why 

yet NO ONE else bothers with masks, nor battles with luggage on lumpy bitumen 
 
afaict: the non mask wearers sort of 'look' happier, maybe because they're not breathing back their own bad breath? 
 

Yea, people crowding into shops are just stupid. I will be wearing a P2 dust mask next time and safety glasses if i have any in the house. i also have a couple of pairs of P3 filters on the way that had not sold out.

I have a welding mask, leather gloves, gum boots and an oil skin coat so might have to take the gas torch and flame nozzle as well to keep those sicko's at a safe distance.   

Spray some Glen20 first to sanitize the area and help pump along the torch flames too   

Try not to cook any slabs of dunny paper the fleeing hoarder idiots drop,
to cover your torch gas expense, time and effort 

 

One intriguing point is the fact children seem not to be affected by this virus - or so lightly that it goes unnoticed.

They haven't had years of FEAR MONGERING pumped into them yet by TV, news, movies, poor education, 'end of the world' (again..?) gossip/rumors, generic ignorance etc

Give them time, they'll get there just like we did,

and like us they can choose whether to be civil and exercise concern and courtesy during a panic show,

or become low life 'look after #1' attitude dunny paper hoarders,
that only think about their own family's pampered rear ends
and kcuf everyone else


These are the weighty human trash a pressured captain should consider to toss overboard FIRST, to keep a sinking ship afloat longer 

[Cerebus]

I am just curious: do you happen to own a red baseball hat?

Now keep it civil, he's clearly not that deluded.

[Nusa]

I am just curious: do you happen to own a red baseball hat?

Now keep it civil, he's clearly not that deluded.

Nothing wrong with my Cardinals hat!

[Cerebus]

Nothing wrong with my Cardinals hat!

You have my sympathy. (Hoping that this joke works for American team supporters the same way that it does for British team supporters) 

[DrG]

.. This is a disease with a basic reproduction number (R₀) of 2.3 at best current estimates. That means that without containment every person who is infected infects another 2.3 people. It has an overall case fatality rate of 1.2% on current best (age adjusted) estimates. Those two figures alone combine to make this serious. The (age adjusted) case fatality rate for seasonal flu is around 0.01% (typical year, western countries with good health care), R₀ for typical seasonal flu is 1.2.

There is also a parameter called "viral load".
An expert from a virology lab [no reference, sorry] was talking on the cov19 vs. flu and he mentioned "..the viral load of the sars-cov-2 in the samples of our asymptotic patient was unbelievably high compared to influenza-A, the same load with flu and you would be dead.."
How the viral load could affect those calculations?

It doesn't. R₀ and case fatality ratio may be an effect of viral load, but they measure end points that might be affected by viral load not something that you can then add a 'viral load' factor to.

I don't know the reference you referred to (if you meant that there is one) or if it was just from a talk. No comment either on the hyperbole or conclusions (same load with flu....). I think that is more complicated - certainly more complicated for me.

What I think that is very important is that the emerging picture is that asymptomatic folks (or folks with very mild symptoms) can be carrying around a similar viral load as symptomatic folks. Intuitively, that means that they are infectious (this is the load estimate in the upper respiratory tract).

Please, don't jump on me and say that everyone knows this already. In fact, hard data like the cases that appeared yesterday in this NEJM letter are not yet so commonplace and the report is only from one asymptomatic case and seventeen systematic symptomatic cases. This is anecdotal in contrast to a controlled study. IOW they analyzed swabs from patients during treatment - the asymptomatic guy was swabbed and tracked because of a contact association, if I read correctly.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001737

For TL;DR, reluctantly, two short quotes are below, but reading the short report is a good idea in my view (how many times have you said - Read the ^%$#*& data sheet? Same idea .

Patient Z reported no clinical symptoms, but his nasal swabs (cycle threshold [Ct] values, 22 to 28) and throat swabs (Ct values, 30 to 32) tested positive on days 7, 10, and 11 after contact.


The viral load that was detected in the asymptomatic patient was similar to that in the symptomatic patients, which suggests the transmission potential of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic patients. These findings are in concordance with reports that transmission may occur early in the course of infection⁵ and suggest that case detection and isolation may require strategies different from those required for the control of SARS-CoV. How SARS-CoV-2 viral load correlates with culturable virus needs to be determined.

Reference # 5 is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32003551?dopt=Abstract

[DrG]

....only because laughter can help get through tough times....

[not1xor1]

The Spanish flu some 100 years ago was pretty nasty and devastating - let us hope it does not get that bad. So it depends on which flu season one compares. A big difference with the flu is that at least the medical personal is usually vaccinated. So treatment in the hospitals is much easier - much less personal and masks needed. Still the death toll from the regular flu can be pretty high, but it is largely unnoticed as is does not overwhelm the medical system so easy. Most of the years the flu shot is pretty effective so the spread is slowed down and limited.

most deaths were not caused by the virus itself, in many cases they were bacteria (we had to wait until WW II for penicillin) in many other cases it was even just aspirin overdose

reference: Salicylates and Pandemic Influenza Mortality, 1918–1919 Pharmacology, Pathology, and Historic Evidence

[not1xor1]

One intriguing point is the fact children seem not to be affected by this virus - or so lightly that it goes unnoticed.

And guys die 4 times more likely to it compared to women based on Italian data!
Smoking might explain part of it.

Some doctor said it might be related to that missing leg in the XY chromosomes.

that mainly affects life expectancy... it is also reversed in species where sex is determined by chromosomes difference in females

apart from smoke I read some think better survival rates depend on estrogen hormones

[not1xor1]

But now you are entering a semantic discussion which can be halted very simply by asking: how long would those people have lived if they didn't got infected with Covid19?

no need to worry about that
climate change deniers were not enough... we just got a new category of deniers... 

[not1xor1]

Noticed nice detail ... a small gesture of valuable gratitude .. a special printed boarding pass ... 

Something not right here. Western doctors are saying masks do nothing unless you are already infected. But these Chinese doctors all are wearing masks, most of them cheapo surgical masks, not P95's. Notice all the carefully selected scenery is modern and clean. Heaps of red army style saluting going on. All these exhausted doctors are all laughing and happy. They would be suffering from exhaustion in reality, and they would be emotional wrecks after they have witnessed so much misery. Buses are modern and the passengers all have high end phones, taking photos of the benign scenery. New China TV is owned by the notorious government news agency Xinhua. The video is propaganda .

The first casualty of war is the truth.

of course that is also a form of propaganda, but medical staff exhaustion is over since days if not weeks as new cases have been lower and lower for a while
stop looking for evil plots

[Muttley Snickers]

The video linked below was just shown here on a current affairs program and it was a good reminder to me of just how much I hate staying in hospitals. This video also gives a good indication of what the doctors and nursing staff are currently up against in regards to the virus.

[iMo]

Let me ask you something: how many people over sixty has a preexisting condition that can result in death from covid-19?

In countries with a healthy way of life the number will be lower and vice versa.

Go to this page

https://www.who.int/nmh/countries/en/

select your country and you'll get the WHO statistics on the Civilization Diseases which maps to the pre-existing conditions almost directly.

Below an example USA vs Japan.

PS: Smoking, Obesity and Hypertension are indicated as the key factors with this pandemic.