Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Tekkommo]

Will we get a true report on deaths once this is finished, will it even be possible?

[Belize]

Will we get a true report on deaths once this is finished, will it even be possible?

No, since a lot of countries simply aren't testing the dead/dying.

[Tuor]

Current situation in Portugal:
1 173 at hospital
241 in ICU
409 deaths
29 deaths in the last 24h

[Wezmon]

Will we get a true report on deaths once this is finished, will it even be possible?

Unlikely to get it directly. Even more transparent countries like the USA have trouble reporting. For example the swine flu death range is 8k to 18k which is a ridiculous range. At the end of it all best figure will probably just come from comparing seasonal average deaths and seeing what the rise is.

[Ripster42]

Unlikely to get it directly. Even more transparent countries like the USA have trouble reporting. For example the swine flu death range is 8k to 18k which is a ridiculous range. At the end of it all best figure will probably just come from comparing seasonal average deaths and seeing what the rise is.

Even then, it's not remotely that simple. You essentially have to account for how social distancing (and just the response in general) has changed people's behaviors.

[breadisfunny]

so uhm why isn't the u.s. reporting any more cases?

[Puupi]

so uhm why isn't the u.s. reporting any more cases?

Because it's midnight/morning there. Didn't you ask this same thing a couple of days ago?

[CostinR]

Will we get a true report on deaths once this is finished, will it even be possible?

You'll probably get an estimate from the experts.

[Spectral]

Will we get a true report on deaths once this is finished, will it even be possible?

You'll want to look at both officially tested, declared dead from COVID-19 and annualized excess mortality data. Nations will have different ways of handling record keeping that can lead to inaccuracy in either direction if they're not testing enough or if someone gets marked as a coronavirus death but had a multicause mortality. Keep in mind that putting actual final numbers on pandemic tolls is hard. We still don't have a great handle on how many people died from swine flu for example. Here's the CDC on the matter:

June 25, 2012 — A study published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases Online Firstexternal icon provides the first global estimates of how many people died as a result of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. The study, co-authored by 9 members of the CDC Influenza Division, used an improved modeling approach which resulted in an estimated range of deaths from between 151,700 and 575,400 people who perished worldwide from 2009 H1N1 virus infection during the first year the virus circulated.

The authors of the study had to overcome numerous challenges to arrive at these estimates, including lack of data specific to influenza in many countries, variability in terms of the level and timing of influenza virus circulation and differences across countries based on socio-economic factors listed above. They did this by using influenza surveillance data from high-, middle- and low-income countries, case fatality ratios reported from high income countries and the World Health Organization Burden of Disease data on lower respiratory tract infection mortality.

The estimated number of deaths from this model was similar to previous mortality estimates during the first 12 months of 2009 H1N1 virus circulation in some countries, including the United States.

These are really big error bars! They're tighter in the United States and other countries with good record keeping, with expert consensus on American fatalities being between 12,000-18,000. If someone tries to put a highly precise number out for COVID-19, it should be cause for suspicion of their methods - there will be a lot of uncertainty from experts.

[Demolitia]

-snip-

Both the drawing and Ferrari's ousting were already discussed

[Thepersona]

No, since a lot of countries simply aren't testing the dead/dying.

Nor they are testing the infected.
probably we'll se something along the lines of the swine flu, with the death number being revisited to be around an order of magnitude bigger than the reported one (and the infection number being also an order of magnitude bigger).

[PhaelixWW]

I'm trying to find that study whether New York was infected from Europe and haven't found the actual article.

The article isn't necessarily that important. I mean, they did their own study, but the evidence was already out there.

Nextstrain.org has been keeping track of reported genomes for the known variants pretty much since the beginning of the international spread.

If you search for "USA/NY" under "search strains", you can highlight the variants found in NY. You'll notice that the majority of them are in the top of the chart, and by investigating the branches, you can see that the NY cluster came primarily from France in the last week or so of February. Before that, that particular branch came to France from Belgium in late January. And before that, it came to Belgium from China in early January.

That means those branches not only came to the US from Europe before the Europe travel ban, but that Europe had them from China before the China travel restrictions were even imposed in the US.

[Gorsameth]

The article isn't necessarily that important. I mean, they did their own study, but the evidence was already out there.

Nextstrain.org has been keeping track of reported genomes for the known variants pretty much since the beginning of the international spread.

If you search for "USA/NY" under "search strains", you can highlight the variants found in NY. You'll notice that the majority of them are in the top of the chart, and by investigating the branches, you can see that the NY cluster came primarily from France in the last week or so of February. Before that, that particular branch came to France from Belgium in late January. And before that, it came to Belgium from China in early January.

That means those branches not only came to the US from Europe before the Europe travel ban, but that Europe had them from China before the China travel restrictions were even imposed in the US.

Did the US do enough testing to conclude that those strains that went from China to Belgium also didn't travel to the US at the same time?

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52212390


<Snip image>

Yes, how terrible that the fiscally more responsible parts of the EU are not willing to give the irresponsible parts a blank check.
Both sides agree that financial support is needed, but one sides wants to use existing mechanisms and the other wants a big pile of 'free' money.

[alexw]

-snip-

This is quite funny. But its pretty much a cartoon for the clueless by the clueless who don't understand how the EU works. Its not a federal government and doesn't play the role of one, so it doesn't oversee healthcare or public health issues. Nor does it have a mandate or the structures necessary to do so.

If it tried interfering on this then the EU member nations would quite rapidly tell it where to go.

[Benggaul]

Well this is pretty grim, considering the US hasn't even reached the peak yet.

Coronavirus Becomes Leading Cause of Death in U.S.

[Einsz]

Germany did a case study in the village/city first hit by the virus and after a sample test around 15% of the people in the city already have antibodies. Its a village with around 12.000 inhabitants so 1.800 people did have the virus already and many did not even notice. I can not find how many people are tested positiv in the city itself but only disctric numbers. The disctrict of Heinsberg (which Gangelt is part of) has 1.527 positv tested cases with a total population of 252.651. So the number of unreported cases seems to be huge. It amounts to a death rate of 0.37% in Gangelt according to german media. It's worse than the flu of course but not to bad to be honest.

In the next days another study about the city of munich will also release data. It will be interesting to compare these two.

Any chance you can link that study? Would like to check it out myself.

[Aurgjelme]

Did the US do enough testing to conclude that those strains that went from China to Belgium also didn't travel to the US at the same time?

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, how terrible that the fiscally more responsible parts of the EU are not willing to give the irresponsible parts a blank check.
Both sides agree that financial support is needed, but one sides wants to use existing mechanisms and the other wants a big pile of 'free' money.

Yes, when European people are dying from a plague we must think of financial matters, we must be reasonable!
But when people are drowning in the Mediterranean to get there we must not let financial matters get in the way! then you would be a monster...

[Wezmon]

Germany did a case study in the village/city first hit by the virus and after a sample test around 15% of the people in the city already have antibodies. Its a village with around 12.000 inhabitants so 1.800 people did have the virus already and many did not even notice. I can not find how many people are tested positiv in the city itself but only disctric numbers. The disctrict of Heinsberg (which Gangelt is part of) has 1.527 positv tested cases with a total population of 252.651. So the number of unreported cases seems to be huge. It amounts to a death rate of 0.37% in Gangelt according to german media. It's worse than the flu of course but not to bad to be honest.

In the next days another study about the city of munich will also release data. It will be interesting to compare these two.

That's interesting, seems to confirm the Danish study findings a couple of pages back.

I think what people aren't realizing, is these lockdowns are to slow the virus, not to eradicate it. Eventually most people will contract it, and it's key to keep the number of bad cases below the limit of the medical faciilites. If it turns out the bad cases are less often than we thought, then that limit increases and in turn means we can allow the spread to increase faster than originally thought.

[Aurgjelme]

This is quite funny. But its pretty much a cartoon for the clueless by the clueless who don't understand how the EU works. Its not a federal government and doesn't play the role of one, so it doesn't oversee healthcare or public health issues. Nor does it have a mandate or the structures necessary to do so.

If it tried interfering on this then the EU member nations would quite rapidly tell it where to go.

But this is the endgame for the European union. To become this united states of Europe.
My country voted twice, in the 70's and the 90's to NOT become a part of this union.
Nevertheless, here we are with 11000 directives from the EU we have to follow, 500 new ones added every year.
Rules that involve our every day life, from food to energy, just so we can sell some fish to hungry Europeans.

It is slowly transforming to what you described, with its own army, and a democracy removed more and more from the voters.

[PhaelixWW]

Did the US do enough testing to conclude that those strains that went from China to Belgium also didn't travel to the US at the same time?

This isn't US testing, this is global testing. They map a timeline of genetic mutations like a genealogical tree.

The samples of viruses tested in NY almost all contain the mutations that were pinpointed in France, and before that, Belgium. If the branch had gone from China straight to the US there, it wouldn't have the mutations that were pinpointed to those locations.

That's not to say that some tests done in the US haven't been able to trace back directly the China. But the NY cluster is very, very much predominantly the branch from France via Belgium.

Notably, the other big cluster in Washington, apparently came into the US via Canada around 1/25.



It should absolutely be noted that nowhere close to every sample is being gene mapped, of course. But the larger the tested cluster, the more reliable conclusions can be drawn.