Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

Shifty Geezer said:
That said, the UK was testing many people in the initial phases, and out of 20,000 tested, only 150 ish were positive. If the virulence was that high, we should have seen lots more of the UK tests positive and then for PHE to track those people and find no symptoms developing.
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Yes, but it's believed that it had been circulating in Northern Italy for some weeks before it really took off. Almost all of our cases discovered came from those who flew back from Italy/the Alps. You wouldn't expect to find too many cases in such situations but it will really have ratcheted up since they only started testing in hospitals. Plenty of other cases would have flown in from elsewhere and begun more widespread infection. No surprise that London and the South East would be a hot spot given the packed commuter trains in that neck of the woods.

We'll just have to hope that the majority of infections will be asymptomatic/quasi-symptomatic with just a proportion showing the typical symptoms. At least, then, the number of critical cases might end up being lower than feared.
 
That's the possibility. If the 75% no-symptoms figure were correct, the virus could be far more widespread than it appears, and in essence be burning through the population really quickly. However, if that were true, loads more of the people tested in the UK would have tested positive unless the test was floored.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
That said, the UK was testing many people in the initial phases, and out of 20,000 tested, only 150 ish were positive. If the virulence was that high, we should have seen lots more of the UK tests positive and then for PHE to track those people and find no symptoms developing.
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Yeah, that's weird... After we've being said that the virus is so, so contagious. And what about Italy? As I said, something's off. Italy can't possibly be the only place in the world where the mortality is that high...
 
Shifty Geezer said:
That's the possibility. If the 75% no-symptoms figure were correct, the virus could be far more widespread than it appears, and in essence be burning through the population really quickly. However, if that were true, loads more of the people tested in the UK would have tested positive unless the test was floored.
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Dunno.

I'm not so convinced there was all that much community testing going on even before they announced they would only test people admitted to hospital. Difficult to know without having an idea of how they were carrying out the testing. Time will tell.
 
eloyc said:
Yeah, that's weird... After we've being said that the virus is so, so contagious. And what about Italy? As I said, something's off. Italy can't possibly be the only place in the world where the mortality is that high...
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Indonesia mortality rate reached 8%.

The hospital is already overcrowded even before covid19 hits.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
That's the possibility. If the 75% no-symptoms figure were correct, the virus could be far more widespread than it appears, and in essence be burning through the population really quickly. However, if that were true, loads more of the people tested in the UK would have tested positive unless the test was floored.
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It's definitely more widespread. Russia for example only lists a few hundred cases of COVID-19, but they've coincidentally had thousands more cases of pneumonia this year over last. If you tag those as COVID-19 and multiply by the 5 to account for the asymptomatic and minor symptoms who don't seek medical attention, now you're at 10 to 20 thousand.
 
Mariner said:
Dunno.

I'm not so convinced there was all that much community testing going on even before they announced they would only test people admitted to hospital.
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The government site for Coronavirus kept updated stats. It mentioned how many people were tested and how many were positive. Unless they were lying, the data while tracing the infected during the containment phase shows it wasn't at all prolific.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

As of 9am on 19 March 2020, 64,621 people have been tested in the UK, of which 61,352 were confirmed negative and 3,269 were confirmed positive. As of 1pm 144 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.​

The testing in this case is people likely to have caught it from association with known infections. From these raw numbers, at best, the chances of me of anyone else in the UK having Covid19 is 1 in 20. It's actually very low, suggesting my symptoms were something else. But then I wonder if Covid19 could have mutated into something less dangerous in the meantime? Or there's another coronavirus doing the rounds who's very related in symptoms?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
The government site for Coronavirus kept updated stats. It mentioned how many people were tested and how many were positive. Unless they were lying, the data while tracing the infected during the containment phase shows it wasn't at all prolific.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

As of 9am on 19 March 2020, 64,621 people have been tested in the UK, of which 61,352 were confirmed negative and 3,269 were confirmed positive. As of 1pm 144 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.​

The testing in this case is people likely to have caught it from association with known infections. From these raw numbers, at best, the chances of me of anyone else in the UK having Covid19 is 1 in 20. It's actually very low, suggesting my symptoms were something else. But then I wonder if Covid19 could have mutated into something less dangerous in the meantime? Or there's another coronavirus doing the rounds who's very related in symptoms?
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For most people covid19 is mild. It's mainly elderly, people with lung condition, high blood pressure etc. who are at danger. Also it can take very long time for symptoms to appear and there are even people who are sick, no symptoms and they still spread the virus.

The other issue is that R value for covid19 is 2.2 which means that unchecked it spreads exponentially. this means that worst case most people are sick at same time and the elderly/sick will not get care as there is only so much capacity at hospitals. 1000-2000-4000-8000-16k,32k,64k,128k,256k,512k,million. As seen in italy for example the situation will get keeping a lot worse after guarantees are in place. It takes something like 2-3weeks after starting guaranteen to hit the peak deaths. It's too late to act when situation is bad.

Main reason for these lockdowns is to slow down the spread so we can actually take care of the minority that gets seriously sick.
 
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manux said:
For most people covid19 is mild. It's mainly elderly, people with lung condition, high blood pressure etc. who are at danger. Also it can take very long time for symptoms to appear and there are even people who are sick, no symptoms and they still spread the virus.
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This is the common understanding, but actually info is incredibly conflicted. Young people don't get symptoms? Well, Korea had 30% of those tested being aged 20-30 but didn't have many hospitalised. And then the US reports 20% of those with a serious condition are aged 20-44...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid19-young-adults-can-face-severe-cases

The CDC analysis, released March 18, covers 2,449 reported cases from February 12 to March 16. Among 508 patients who required hospitalization, 20 percent were 20 to 44 years old. And of 121 people who were admitted to an intensive care unit, 12 percent were in that age group.
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There is actually no clear idea at all what this disease does and how it spreads and who's at risk. The data from some of these sources must be completely wrong.
 
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Shifty Geezer said:
The government site for Coronavirus kept updated stats. It mentioned how many people were tested and how many were positive. Unless they were lying, the data while tracing the infected during the containment phase shows it wasn't at all prolific.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

As of 9am on 19 March 2020, 64,621 people have been tested in the UK, of which 61,352 were confirmed negative and 3,269 were confirmed positive. As of 1pm 144 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.​

The testing in this case is people likely to have caught it from association with known infections. From these raw numbers, at best, the chances of me of anyone else in the UK having Covid19 is 1 in 20. It's actually very low, suggesting my symptoms were something else. But then I wonder if Covid19 could have mutated into something less dangerous in the meantime? Or there's another coronavirus doing the rounds who's very related in symptoms?
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I'm not doubting the government figures, but just wonder where the testing was taking place. My guess is that a lot of it would have been with patients already admitted to hospital as well as those for other hospital admissions, of course.

I don't get the impression that they've been very well organised in this regard and the WHO has been nagging them about wider testing for some time now.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
This is the common understanding, but actually info is incredibly conflicted. Young people don't get symptoms? Well, Korea had 30% of those tested being aged 20-30 but didn't have many hospitalised. And then the US reports 20% of 20-44 year old get a serious condition...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid19-young-adults-can-face-severe-cases

The CDC analysis, released March 18, covers 2,449 reported cases from February 12 to March 16. Among 508 patients who required hospitalization, 20 percent were 20 to 44 years old. And of 121 people who were admitted to an intensive care unit, 12 percent were in that age group.
​
There is actually no clear idea at all what this disease does and how it spreads and who's at risk. The data from some of these sources must be completely wrong.
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To me it feels the problem is noise in data + everything we don't know yet. Some young person might get very bad symptoms. Did that person have some existing condition, bad genes, bad life situation(tired, not eating well),... To me it seems there is huge spread from almost no symptoms to people dying. Wide variety of what can happen.

From my POV it would be best to assume worst case and react accordingly. Once dust settles do proper post mortem and learn. Then when next thing happens apply learnings.
 
Mariner said:
I'm not doubting the government figures, but just wonder where the testing was taking place. My guess is that a lot of it would have been with patients already admitted to hospital as well as those for other hospital admissions, of course.
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Current numbers, yes. However, in the early days when the infection rate was around 10 people, there were thousands of people tested who would have been those who were in contact with these early infections. Infection rate was a tiny percentage.
 
Ohio's numbers today: 169 confirmed up from (119), 69 in Cuyahoga County (up from 53), with 39 hospitalized (up from 33), and 1 DEATH (Lucas County Resident).

They're still burying their hands in the sand by restricting testing to over age 60. A coworker is not feeling well and has been trying to get tested. She's spent hours waiting on the phone just to get the run around. Her doctor's office told her to call the Ohio hotline. Ohio hotline told her to call her doctor. At this point she'd even settle for just a flu test.

I've been keeping my distance from everyone and been working from home since Friday the 13th.

I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop when they realize the virus is more wide-spread than their numbers indicate. People are not ready to face the new reality, but businesses seem to be the most in denial.
 
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Italy was also the most affected country when the Black Death thrived.
Italy had been hit the hardest by the plague because of the dense population of merchants and active lifestyle within the city states. For example, the city state of Florence was reduced by 1/3 in population within the first six months of infection. By the end, as much as 75% of the population had perished, which left the economy in shambles. Widespread death was not limited to the lower classes. In Avignon, 1/3 of the cardinals were dead. Overall, 25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352.
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https://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/plague.htm
 
Yes they were practically the center of the world then with Venice being the major city in the western world I think.
 
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