covid-19 epidemiologic data

[TheVat]

Starting a thread specifically for tracking the pandemic. Feel free to post global counts, country-specific counts, hospital beds, any graphs that help illuminate trends, math analysis, demographic analysis, etc.

Cultural and political/economic effects and issues can still go in the original Year of the Rat Fears thread.

[TheVat]

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease ... on-reports

[Serpent]

This is one of the maps available; don't know whether it's the best.
https://google.org/crisisresponse/covid19-map
I like to see the numbers who have recovered, alongside the dead.

[toucana]

I found this clip quite interesting. It's a Numberphile video on YouTube where a mathematician called Ben Sparks demonstrates how to set up and run a standard SIR model using the free Geogebra mathematical software modelling tool.

[BadgerJelly]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

[TheVat]

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projecti ... KL3WPrIGmg

Looks at possible needs projections for ICU beds, ventilators, and such.

[Serpent]

It's not like we're all slacking --
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/hopes-of-a-coronavirus-vaccine-mount-as-three-key-biotech-players-make-progress.html
Vaccine research is charging ahead
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/covid-19-fast-tracked-vaccine-receives-approval-in-china-to-begin-human-trials-at-virus-epicentre
Those were a week ago. This one's new:

“The speed with which we have [produced these candidates] builds very much on the investment in understanding how to develop vaccines for other coronaviruses,” says Richard Hatchett,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/coronavirus-vaccine-when-will-it-be-ready

[toucana]

https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1243296025651154951

[toucana]

One more reason why China’s official COVID-19 mortality statistics are being treated with some scepticism by overseas observers:

http://shanghaiist.com/2020/03/27/urns-in-wuhan-far-exceed-death-toll-raising-more-questions-about-chinas-tally/

Journalists from a Chinese language news service called Caixin (财新传媒) have discovered that one mortuary in Wuhan had recently taken delivery of 5000 urns in the space of just two days. And this was at just one of seven known mortuaries located in Wuhan.

According to official Chinese government data, 50,006 were infected with COVID-19 virus in Wuhan with 2,535 dying from the disease.

[BadgerJelly]

I mentioned something about this a few days ago when looking at data on flu deaths. In a number of countries they didn’t count flu induced pneumonia as flu deaths.

I don’t think it is always a case of purposeful misinformation in every case, but more or less a difference in how the data is recorded.

Think about how a simple checklist reduced fatalities in US surgeries ... sometimes the most basic errors in organisation can lead to fatalities.

I think we’re better off to encourage useful practices than to point fingers and distribute blame. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if something was done inefficiently. It matters more that we put aside differences and show and encourage why certain procedures work better than others for everyone.

Anyway, this thread is for information so we can debate this elsewhere if need be.

Take care all

[BadgerJelly]

I’ve been a big fan of this site for a few years. He’s not an expert on this subject, but the basic models shown help illustrate a number of scenarios in a very tangible manner.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs

Recommended for ALL other videos too :D

[toucana]

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if something was done inefficiently. It matters more that we put aside differences and show and encourage why certain procedures work better than others for everyone.

Actually it does matter, and big time too, because mathematical modellers in Europe and USA who are trying to predict the likely behaviour of this pandemic have to rely on morbidity and mortality figures coming from medical authorities in countries like China, Iran and Italy that are several weeks ahead of us on their respective disease trajectories.

If that data reporting is suspect, or has been contaminated by political interference so that COVID-19 deaths in China say, for example, were actually five or even ten times higher than those officially reported - that skews the parameters that mathematicians build into their SIR models. And that can lead to wholly incorrect predictions about infection rates, recovery rates and the length of time needed to bring the pandemic under control.

Governments have to rely on the advice of mathematicians and their models to formulate viable policies to maintain some form of social-economic order, and to save as many lives as possible. - The stakes couldn't be higher.

[BadgerJelly]

Caught Between Herd Immunity And National Lockdown, Holland Hit Hard By Covid-19

While Covid-19 hasn’t wreaked nearly as much havoc in the Netherlands as in Italy and Spain, it’s still conspicuous that a healthcare system as finely tuned and well coordinated as the Dutch system would have such alarming numbers in terms of mortality and morbidity.

The confirmed case fatality rate in the Netherlands of 6.3% stands in stark contrast to its neighbor Germany’s 0.6%. The Netherlands, with a younger overall population and one that is almost 5 times smaller than Germany’s, has 60% more deaths. And, unlike Germany, the Dutch haven’t done widespread testing, so it’s likely its number of confirmed cases significantly underestimates the actual number of infections.

While the number of confirmed cases in Germany is large, partly due to its testing campaign, the case fatality rate and overall death toll have been relatively small, compared not only to Holland, but also almost all other European nations. Similarly, the numbers of patients in serious or critical condition have remained very low.

Both the German and Dutch healthcare systems are relatively well-funded, and score well internationally on population health indicators, such as life expectancy and morbidity. Yet, thus far, the impact from Covid-19 in Holland has been worse. It has led to a situation in which the Netherlands now faces the real possibility of an impending shortage of intensive care units.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/03/27/caught-between-herd-immunity-and-national-lockdown-holland-hit-hard-by-covid-19/#20fd1fa13557

[BadgerJelly]

For the sake of sanity: https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommunity%2fbirthsdeathsandmarriages%2fdeaths%2fdatasets%2fdeathregistrationssummarytablesenglandandwalesdeathsbysingleyearofagetables%2f2018/deathsyoauk2018.xls

Some quick and rough number crunching shows that round about 690 people 60+ died every day on average in 2018. Including everyone an average of 832 people died every day. So under 60’s would amount to roughly 140 deaths per day.

That’s just for some perspective.

[Serpent]

Some intelligent response
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-19-makeshift-hospitals-1.5513846

[TheVat]

One more reason why China’s official COVID-19 mortality statistics are being treated with some scepticism by overseas observers:

http://shanghaiist.com/2020/03/27/urns-in-wuhan-far-exceed-death-toll-raising-more-questions-about-chinas-tally/

Journalists from a Chinese language news service called Caixin (财新传媒) have discovered that one mortuary in Wuhan had recently taken delivery of 5000 urns in the space of just two days. And this was at just one of seven known mortuaries located in Wuhan.

According to official Chinese government data, 50,006 were infected with COVID-19 virus in Wuhan with 2,535 dying from the disease.

Initially this looked like some deception, but then I started thinking about the need for more in-depth reporting on this.

For instance, they just lifted Wuhan's 10 week complete lockdown.

I would assume that delivery of 5,000 urns is part of a 2.5 month backlog of distributing remains. As no one was supposed to be going out except to get food or medicine. So activity is just resuming. And now they want to get all ashes back to families ahead of the April 4 Qing Ming holiday, known as the Tomb Sweeping holiday where people pay respects to their dead ancestors, especially those who have died within the past year.

I have no idea how many people die per month in a city of 11M such as Wuhan. Especially during the cold winter months. And this year probably worse with some Wuhanese likely unable to get surgery or other hospital care as facilities were filled with virus cases.

So possibly the urn numbers aren't so sinister.

[TheVat]

(continued)

Some quick googling reveals that circa 2010 an average of 146 people died in NYC per day. Wuhan a comparable population. So lets say 146 x 70 day lockdown = roughly 10,000 urns.

So Wuhan could be expected to have a backlog of 12,500 urns, from 10K normal deaths and 2,500 viral deaths. Again, getting caught up before the Chinese equivalent of Memorial Day, after over two months distribution backlog, ordering 5000 urns doesn't seem that strange.

[toucana]

Agreed - The approach of the annual Qingming (清明) festival is indeed a likely reason for the Wuhan mortuaries to be making every effort to clear any backlog in time for families to pay their traditional respects.

The worrying detail is that this sighting was made at just one of seven known mortuaries in Wuhan. Now conceivably this site was a focal distribution point for all such deliveries in Wuhan. But if it turns out that all of the other six mortuaries were also receiving similar bulk deliveries, then there really would be cause for concern about the true nature of the COVID-19 mortality figures for Wuhan.

[Serpent]

The worrying detail is that this sighting was made at just one of seven known mortuaries in Wuhan. Now conceivably this site was a focal distribution point for all such deliveries in Wuhan. But if it turns out that all of the other six mortuaries were also receiving similar bulk deliveries, then there really would be cause for concern about the true nature of the COVID-19 mortality figures for Wuhan.

Or, they may get a better price, ordering in bulk. Or they may be stockpiling/hoarding in case of future shortage, economic disruption, blockade, sales opportunity? Too many interpretations to conclude from too little data.

[Lomax]

That image could be photoshop for all I know, but I'd prefer to approach Chinese figures with skepticism from the outset. Any official datum from a state that executes inconvenient journalists is scrap.

Including everyone an average of 832 people died every day.

All else being equal, then, today's death toll was 20% above the average. By Thursday it'll be about 40% above the average. Too many people are still making the mistake of looking at the present numbers rather than the trajectory.

[Serpent]

This is a good one for trajectory. Some countries are harder to pick out, but you can keep track pretty well.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/infection-trajectory-flattening-the-covid19-curve/

[TheVat]

No Paywall at the NYT, so click away...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/heal ... ssion.html

Published March 31, 2020
Updated April 1, 2020, 8:54 a.m. ET

As many as 25 percent of people infected with the new coronavirus may not show symptoms, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns — a startlingly high number that complicates efforts to predict the pandemic’s course and strategies to mitigate its spread.

In particular, the high level of symptom-free cases is leading the C.D.C. to consider broadening its guidelines on who should wear masks.

“This helps explain how rapidly this virus continues to spread across the country,” the director, Dr. Robert Redfield, told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast on Tuesday.

The agency has repeatedly said that ordinary citizens do not need to wear masks unless they are feeling sick. But with the new data on people who may be infected without ever feeling sick, or who are transmitting the virus for a couple of days before feeling ill, Mr. Redfield said that such guidance was “being critically re-reviewed.”

[Serpent]

I wear one every two weeks when I go to the grocery store. The operation is planned with the precision of a military strike. Mask, rubber gloves and a light overcoat that goes straight into the washing machine. One supermarket, arrive at opening time, go in alone with a list, touch nothing I don't buy, stay clear of other shoppers; pay with tap-card; out by 8:30, home by 9:15; leave shoes on porch, swab down purchases before storing.)
Here's an informative article on epidemics:
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-deadly-is-the-coronavirus-compared-to-past-outbreaks

and a little more on how to calculate this thing:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19-pandemic-data-primer-stats-charts-1.5513222

[toucana]

An article by Mark Sumner in the Daily Kos makes a couple of good points that help elucidate the conundrum of the Wuhan urns.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/1/1933307/-Coronavirus-Myths-China-s-numbers-and-the-real-danger-of-COVID-19#read-more

In fact, there’s one very good reason to believe many more people have died due to the outbreak in Hubei, and it’s not because someone passed on a rumor, who passed on a rumor, who passed on a rumor about urns. The reason is something that affects not just China, but every country, and has been repeatedly demonstrated in Italy—and is even now being seen in New York City. As hospital beds fill up with COVID-19 patients, those patients go into competition with those who arrive at the hospital with other life-threatening conditions. Deaths from COVID-19 may be slanted toward the elderly, but caseloads do not appear to be. Younger patients catch COVID-19 just fine.

This is not true of heart disease, or strokes, or any number of conditions that preferentially affect the elderly. So medical personnel all over the planet are coming down to the same brutal calculus: An otherwise healthy young patient stricken with COVID-19 isn’t just competing for attention with older COVID patients who may have additional underlying conditions, that patient is also competing with heart attack patients, with car accident patients, with stroke patients … and so on.

The result of COVID-19 overloading the healthcare system is that standard of care plummets for everyone whether or not they have COVID. Already in the United States, ventilators are being pulled from cardiac care and other specialty units. A bed is a bed is a bed, and doctors in China, Italy, or the U.S. are unlikely to kick a 25-year-old COVID patient out of that bed to replace them with a 60-year-old heart attack victim whose odds aren’t great on the best day.

In a couple of communities that have been examined so far, the overall rate of death has been much greater than just the numbers that are being written down for COVID-19. Like two or three times higher. This is almost certainly true of Hubei Province, just as it is of every other facility. During the period in which their facilities were overloaded, deaths from all causes soared in Hubei. Those people are also victims of the pandemic, but their numbers definitely do not make the daily totals.

Any claims that there were more funeral urns coming out of, or going into, Hubei than could be accounted for by the number of people who died, not of COVID-19, but because of it.

[TheVat]

I wear one every two weeks when I go to the grocery store. The operation is planned with the precision of a military strike. Mask, rubber gloves and a light overcoat that goes straight into the washing machine. One supermarket, arrive at opening time, go in alone with a list, touch nothing I don't buy, stay clear of other shoppers; pay with tap-card; out by 8:30, home by 9:15; leave shoes on porch, swab down purchases before storing.)

First, wow.

Second, the non-touching of items one doesn't buy is a good practice and one I've not heard mentioned, but seems obvious when you hear it. And very hard for many of us to do. I opt to sanitize my hands on entering the supermarket, so that I feel less like a felon when I squeeze a melon. Or a desperado when I probe an avocado.

I am unable to obtain an N95 mask here, hope that changes. My dust masks are probably not terribly protective, but better than nothing. One interesting tip I heard was that men must be clean-shaven when donning a mask, or the seal is poor. Makes sense, and I wonder if this pandemic will reduce the number of beard wearers in the world, at least where they are not mandated by strict Islamic sects.

[Serpent]

I would feel very guilty wearing a medical grade mask, when nurses are crying. All we have is the ordinary disposables you can buy at the hardware store* - or could, last year.. I have them for mixing soil for the greenhouse: that peatmoss gets right up your nose.
I don't know whether it protects me at all. It does deter scratching my nose or eyes. At the very least, it reassures other people that I can't sneeze on them.

The gloves are non-essential: I happen to have some for painting. I probably wouldn't go to this much trouble on my own, but I'm married to a borderline hypochondriac and we are both in our seventies, with a range of health issues. Let it never be said I didn't do my conscientious best.
But I will have to insist on a liquor store raid asap.


* Incidentally, they went into the washing machine and came out just fine, so I'm wondering whether the useful life of hospital supplies could be stretched.
It also crossed my mind that brassiers, especially the padded type, could be used as face masks, but can't get a thrift store for experimental subjects. However, it seems I'm way behind the curve.
https://www.insider.com/women-making-coronavirus-face-masks-out-of-their-bras-2020-3

[TheVat]

Bra cup for a facemask? IMO that's simply a case of replacing one kind of boob with another.

[Serpent]

Bra cup for a facemask? IMO that's simply a case of replacing one kind of boob with another.

This, from a serial fruit-molester!

[hyksos]

Starting a thread specifically for tracking the pandemic. Feel free to post global counts, country-specific counts, hospital beds, any graphs that help illuminate trends, math analysis, demographic analysis, etc.

Cultural and political/economic effects and issues can still go in the original Year of the Rat Fears thread.

Maps of the coronavirus appear to indicate that the pandemic is ravaging Europe. Particularly southern Europe. https://ig.ft.com/autograph/graphics/coronavirus-map.svg?frame=webL

So that's what the raw circle maps and color-coded maps say, prima facie. I might take those maps and start extrapolating about the nature of the virus itself and its virulence.

I could assert coronavirus appears dis-coordinated with weather and temperature. The evidence for that would be the way Seattle had an outbreak and seemingly shrugged it off.

Los Angeles is not experiencing a cataclysmic outbreak like New York City is. Why? Presumably as an educated guess, coronavirus cannot survive in sunny, hot dry weather, and thus explain the disparity there. But that would mean that cold, dreary, rainy late March Seattle would be getting ravaged by the virus. But it is not. https://ig.ft.com/autograph/graphics/coronavirus-map-united-states.svg?frame=webL

Italians?
Perhaps people who are Italian, or of "Mediterranean" ancestry, are more susceptible to COVID-19 than others. For example, the highest concentration of Italians and Italian-americans in the entire Western hemisphere is no other than New York City. The data is . . . suggestive of this hypothesis. Under this hypothesis, NYC is experiencing unprecedented outbreak because it has more people of Italian ancestry than does Seattle, and not say because of temperature/humidity/sunlight.

Testing
Is coronavirus actually ravaging Europe? I mean, the people of India are packed together in crowded shanty towns and slums in cities like Kolkata. Why no outbreaks in the crowded slums of the third world?

Are Indians genetically immune to COVID-19?

The answer is 'no' . We have to consider that the maps we are seeing are first approximations. The poorer the country the more approximate the number is. Those nations don't have the advanced medical infrastructure for widespread testing. Lack-of-testing could be the reason why the circles in Africa and India are so small.

Others have suggested that the government-run media of China is outright lying about the spread of the virus in its own borders.

[Serpent]

Remember, too, even the most accurately reported numbers are not the same age.
There is the obvious disparity in staffing, tallying, communications capability and reporting criteria - each of which factors can account for a big discrepancy, and then they compound to cause major distortion.
And that's before you consider geography. From a big, disparate country like India or the USA, that reports by state or territory, one day's totals may be from as much as a week apart, while in a compact country like Belgium, the same day's information would be only a few hours old.
Factor in methods of reporting and agencies responsible for passing information, and the daily dots become terribly confusing.
However, you can use them for comparison to imagine a trajectory: look at two of those maps side by side: today and a two weeks ago today.
This is not a sprint; this is the marathon.