Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Gorsameth]

Fun fact, its actually possible to hook up multiple people to one ventilator. I mean its risky, they need similar lung sizes and oxygenation/pressure requirements, and it'll be crowded since they'll prettymuch all need to be the same distance from the ventilator, and you'll need to basically babysit the machine making changes on the fly. But if it comes down to life and death, and the surge is overwhelming, hospitals can make the call to start desperate measures. Disconnecting people from ventilators when they need them to live is not really a thing btw (in this country). Bipap machines could also work potentially, but those would come with other issues.

Yeah, the Netherlands is expecting to run out of ventilators and needing to double up to cope before the peak passes.

[Puupi]

Globally both the reported numbers of infected and dead have been rising quite steadily by roughly 10% per day for two months already.

10% per day stacks up to insane numbers rather quickly....

[Gaidax]

This could also mean that china had much more asymptomatic cases. I ve read somewhere that the true number of cases is 10x the reported one and the vast majority of people dont develop symptoms.
In fact i'm desperately counting on this and on the arrival of serological tests.

I only know that MoH released their study based on existing cases and 8% of them were completely asymptomatic, no fever, no coughing. Sure, probably been very light cases, lucky, but still contagious.

We got told about a week and a bit ago that current estimate for us is that there are at least 3x cases in the country than they managed to find so far and I'm sure it's a very optimistic number.

[Thepersona]

I only know that MoH released their study based on existing cases and 8% of them were completely asymptomatic, no fever, no coughing. Sure, probably been very light cases, lucky, but still contagious.

We got told about a week and a bit ago that current estimate for us is that there are at least 3x cases in the country than they managed to find so far and I'm sure it's a very optimistic number.

Consider this. If you consider that the true number of cases is 3×-10× the number of reported cases, with a lag of 3 days, that means that there's a huge amount of asymptomatic carriers.
That's both fucking great news and bad news.

[For_The_Horde]

Corona-virus cases are skyrocketing, we've overtaken China and Italy, and Trump literally spent almost the entire briefing today rambling (campaign rally style), mostly about how great the economy is going to be after throwing 2.2 trillion dollars at it and how we beat the pants off China in the trade war. And the rest he talked how we're doing such a good job testing people, and that the death rate isn't that high, and that since he has a "feeling" its just about over he wants the country to get back to work ASAP.

The whole situation is going from bad to worse, and our effort so-far is so lacking its like we're doing nothing at all. And yet our glorious leader has decided for us that everything is fine, bad news is fake news, doctors are lazy and he's almost single-handedly fixed everything.

[Acidbaron]

Consider this. If you consider that the true number of cases is 3×-10× the number of reported cases, with a lag of 3 days, that means that there's a huge amount of asymptomatic carriers.
That's both fucking great news and bad news.

Can take up to two weeks before the virus show symptoms and attacks your repository system.

[Omega10]

Well seems like the government aims to import another 10k machines. by the winter and veterinary workers will be trained to support the efforts. They currently project that there will be a second, more severe wave starting early autumn, simply because they can't keep country locked down indefinitely, so they try to prepare for that.

Their projections are that 12 weeks of lockdown will be 16% of GDP and 5 weeks is half of that, they hope it won't come to this, but still there is intent to raise our debt to GDP ratio from 60% to 70% to fight the virus and prop the economy.

Currently there is noise about enacting 7 day complete lockdown, nothing official, just leaks, but usually for us if people blab, there is some merit to it.

So this is the sound of a country taking this seriously.

[Gaidax]

So this is the sound of a country taking this seriously.

Well, not to throw a bucket of cold water on the thing. For all I know it could be just "wants" as opposed to "do's", but at the upside the PM is the alarmist kind, so at least there's hope there. Minister of Health though, completely unqualified for the job, so it's not like all is well in the kingdom.

Seems like every country fails in its own way, after all.

I do have to give the PM a credit, it's almost funny how every time he goes up to address the nation with a stern look, he keeps telling us that we're fucked and that's why he piles on more restrictions. His latest from 2 days ago is that if curve continues he will issue complete lock-down and how 15 days from now physicians will have to start deciding who lives and who dies.

[Thepersona]

Can take up to two weeks before the virus show symptoms and attacks your repository system.

I mean. Yeah, but i was talking about a very high R0 and lower IFR than reported initially. Of people that were infected but never developed any symptom. I suppose that with antibody testing we'll see if that theory holds some merit. If that's true it would mean that

A ton of people would be able to work, as they would be inmune.
There would be a huge pool of people to ask for their blood to make serums.

[TirielWoW]

I'm hearing that Trump is probably going to change the social distancing guidelines tonight. I'm really hoping he doesn't, but this is the worst timeline, so...

[PACOX]

Here in chile we have 1.3k cases and 4 ventilations (and 60 admited in ICU)

God help them. There's a brilliant physician or team out there that will find a way to kick this things ass.

[Gaidax]

PM's streamed address to the nation from 2 days ago, just to give some perspective.


"Citizens of Israel, you know the saying: 'Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the whole world'. But with the coronavirus, that saying has a second, vicious side: 'Whoever infects one person, it is as if he infected the whole world.' There is no 'as if', he truly has infected the whole world.



I want you to know the facts. The last time I spoke to you, which was only five days ago, there were 41,000 patients in Italy with 3,400 dead. Today in Italy there are almost 71,000 patients and more than 7,000 dead. On Thursday there were 18,000 patients in Spain with 831 dead. Today, a mere five days later, there are 47,000 patients in Spain and 3,400 dead. There has been a tremendous jump in the number of dead.



For these reasons, many countries, such as Britain, or states in the US such as California and New York, have decided to dramatically stiffen the restrictions they are imposing on their residents. The steps that we have taken here in Israel are today being taken all over the world; however, they are not enough because the number of patients is doubling itself every three days. In two weeks we are liable to find ourselves with thousands of patients many of whom will be in danger of death. Therefore, I am already telling you that if we do not see an immediate improvement in the trend, there will be no alternative but to impose a complete lockdown, except for essential needs such as food and medicines. This is a matter of a few days. We are making all of the requisite preparations – logistical and legal.



In the meantime, we have published emergency regulations for the coming days. They further reduce going out into the public sphere. I know that there are many paradoxes there and it is possible to say a great many things but it does not matter. First, read them and stay home; this is the main thing. I say this as clearly as possible: You must stay home! Stay home – stay alive. The danger lurks for everyone. It does not distinguish between those are bareheaded and those who wear kipot, or between those who wear a kipa and those who wear a kafiyeh; everybody must obey. There are no discounts. 'Take good heed unto yourselves.' [Deuteronomy 4:15]



What is required of each and every one of you, beyond obeying the official directives, what is demanded above all, is strict self-discipline. If you do not mobilize to look after yourselves and your families, there will be a disaster here. I have no other way of putting it. Do not go out of your homes! And even inside your homes, be strict about the directives: Wash your hands, air out the apartment, maintain a safe distance. These are not small things. These are matters of life and death.



I know that with small children it is very difficult to keep them at home but there is no choice. To this end, I have decided to hold the remote learning program, and I would like to thank the teachers, men and women. I would also like to thank the teachers' unions and the Education Ministry.



I would like to tell you about several other important things that we have done. We are investing very great efforts in procurement. There is fierce – I would even say wild and vicious – competition around the world, to acquire medical equipment – protective clothing, swabs and ventilators. We have established a national command center led by the head of the Mossad, together with the Director General of the Defense Ministry and the Health Ministry, to advance medical procurement abroad and to promote the local production of the necessary equipment.



We have dramatically increased the number of tests for the coronavirus. Today we carried out more than 5,000 tests and I would like you to know that per capita that is almost double than in Germany and South Korea – and we will increase it further. In the next 24 hours, we will publish an expanded economic assistance plan to generously help business owners, the self-employed, wage earners and the unemployed. I see and hear the distress. I hear your distress at work, in earning a living, in running a business. This goes to my heart. We will help you. We will look out for you. We have a strong economy. We have resources, great resources even, and we will help you. We will help each other in order to overcome this crisis.



This evening, I cannot tell you, nobody can tell you, when exactly the corona crisis will end. However, we are already starting to think about the day after. We have established a team to plan for after the crisis including the best minds in Israel, in my opinion, among the best minds in the world. The moment we are past the event, we will quickly rebuild our economy and with G-d's help we will return to normal life.



These are days of gratitude. I would like to express gratitude from the depths of our hearts to the doctors, nurses, medics, pharmacists and police – men and women. The medical teams around the country, together with the security forces, are doing holy work. We all salute you.



Citizens of Israel, the coronavirus joints the deadly epidemics that have hit humanity – the Black Death, cholera and the Spanish flu early in the last century. When these epidemics struck, we did not have a state. Today, Israelis around the world, Jews and non-Jews, are now seeking to come home. They understand how much the country is a refuge in times of trouble. I would like to thank all of the airlines and the air crews for rising to this sacred mission. All of us together, citizens of Israel, are writing a new chapter in the history of Israel. Coming generations will look at us in order to learn how to act in times of crisis. This requires all of us to take personal responsibility. This requires all of us to take national responsibility.



I know that there is considerable unrest in all parts of the people, in both parts of the people. I say as clearly as possible: We must put an end to this. We are one people. We are one state and the order of the day is unity. I reiterate my call to immediately establish a national emergency government to deal with the crisis.



The [Hebrew] month of Nissan, which begins tonight, the month of spring and the exodus from Egypt, reminds us that our people has withstood fierce storms. This gives strength. This gives hope. We survived Pharaoh and though the battle will be hard and uncompromising, we will also survive corona, with G-d's help and with yours, citizens of Israel. Thank you very much."

[Knaar]

I'm hearing that Trump is probably going to change the social distancing guidelines tonight. I'm really hoping he doesn't, but this is the worst timeline, so...

Well, Trump already officially declared the end of covid19 and how the usa has won a very hard fight so.... only logical next step is to re-open the whole country and get the economy back rolling, right? It's not like the virus isnt even at half point done spreading lol

[Shadowferal]

Why this Nobel laureate predicts a quicker coronavirus recovery: ‘We’re going to be fine’

Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, began analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide in January and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted.

Now he foresees a similar outcome in the United States and the rest of the world.

While many epidemiologists are warning of months, or even years, of massive social disruption and millions of deaths, Levitt says the data simply don’t support such a dire scenario — especially in areas where reasonable social distancing measures are in place.

“What we need is to control the panic,” he said. In the grand scheme, “we’re going to be fine.”

Here’s what Levitt noticed in China: On Jan. 31, the country had 46 new deaths due to the novel coronavirus, compared with 42 new deaths the day before.

Although the number of daily deaths had increased, the rate of that increase had begun to ease off. In his view, the fact that new cases were being identified at a slower rate was more telling than the number of new cases itself. It was an early sign that the trajectory of the outbreak had shifted.

Think of the outbreak as a car racing down an open highway, he said. Although the car is still gaining speed, it’s not accelerating as rapidly as before. “This suggests that the rate of increase in the number of deaths will slow down even more over the next week,” Levitt wrote in a report he sent to friends Feb. 1 that was widely shared on Chinese social media. And soon, he predicted, the number of deaths would be decreasing every day.

Three weeks later, Levitt told the China Daily News that the virus’ rate of growth had peaked. He predicted that the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in China would end up around 80,000, with about 3,250 deaths.

This forecast turned out to be remarkably accurate: As of March 16, China had counted a total of 80,298 cases and 3,245 deaths — in a nation of nearly 1.4 billion people where roughly 10 million die every year. The number of newly diagnosed patients has dropped to around 25 a day, with no cases of community spread reported since Wednesday.

Now Levitt, who received the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing complex models of chemical systems, is seeing similar turning points in other nations, even those that did not instill the draconian isolation measures that China did.

He analyzed data from 78 countries that reported more than 50 newcases of COVID-19 every day and sees “signs of recovery” in many of them. He’s not focusing on the total number ofcases in a country, but on the number of new cases identified every day — and, especially, on the change in that number from one day to the next.

“Numbers are still noisy, but there are clear signs of slowed growth.”

In South Korea, for example, newly confirmed cases are being added to the country’s total each day, but the daily tally has dropped in recent weeks, remaining below 200. That suggests the outbreak there may be winding down.

In Iran, the number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases per day remained relatively flat last week, going from 1,053 last Monday to 1,028 on Sunday. Although that’s still a lot of new cases, Levitt said, the pattern suggests the outbreak there “is past the halfway mark.”

Italy, on the other hand, looks like it’s still on the upswing. In that country, the number of newly confirmed cases increased on most days this past week.

In places that have managed to recover from an initial outbreak, officials must still contend with the fact that the coronavirus may return. China is now fighting to stop new waves of infection coming in from places where the virus is spreading out of control. Other countries are bound to face the same problem.

Levitt acknowledges that his figures are messy and that the official case counts in many areas are too low because testing is spotty. But even with incomplete data, “a consistent decline means there’s some factor at work that is not just noise in the numbers,” he said.

In other words, as long as the reasons for the inaccurate case counts remain the same, it’s still useful to compare them from one day to the next.

The trajectory of deaths backs up his findings, he said, since it follows the same basic trends as the new confirmed cases. So do data from outbreaks in confined environments, such as the one on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Out of 3,711 people on board, 712 were infected, and eight died.

This unintended experiment in coronavirus spread will help researchers estimate the number of fatalities that would occur in a fully infected population, Levitt said. For instance, the Diamond Princess data allowed him to estimate that being exposed to the new coronavirus doubles a person’s risk of dying in the next two months. Most people have an extremely low risk of death in a two-month period, so that risk remains extremely low even when doubled.

[swiftowner]

Globally both the reported numbers of infected and dead have been rising quite steadily by roughly 10% per day for two months already.

10% per day stacks up to insane numbers rather quickly....

It’s more like >20% today, and the day isn’t over yet for reporting cases

[Acidbaron]

Even with Levitt's optimistic approach it is going to slow growth after Easter in the US. So using those predictions as a way of saying it is all going to be alright when you are not even in full swing yet in the US is very misguided.

[PACOX]

I'm hearing that Trump is probably going to change the social distancing guidelines tonight. I'm really hoping he doesn't, but this is the worst timeline, so...

I'm not even sure who really has authority in the matter.

When places started to locked down it more a conscious effort than a government mandate. Then some local governments made it 'official' in their areas - businesses saying they are shutting down. I mean if Walmart says they are only open 12 hours a day people will follow.

We just go a 'stay in place order' but people have assumed one was already in place.

Trump can lift travel bans but that would be stupid and cause local governments to retaliate for the safety of their locals. Local LEOs will still enforce their movement restrictions.

'Non-essential' businesses can still be prohibited by their local governments and people aren't going to them anyway. Even 'essential' places like grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations are seeing significant loses. The people who will follow Trump are the same ones parading around now anyway. I think we've been doing this long enough for people to be smart.

Most people don't want to play roulette with the virus and respect those are keeping this country going.

[Skulltaker]

New York Times piece

God damn. We really did get off lucky in Germany, at least so far...

I mean. Yeah, but i was talking about a very high R0 and lower IFR than reported initially. Of people that were infected but never developed any symptom. I suppose that with antibody testing we'll see if that theory holds some merit. If that's true it would mean that

A ton of people would be able to work, as they would be inmune.
There would be a huge pool of people to ask for their blood to make serums.

For those who don't know what R0 is; R0 (pronounced either R-nought or R-zero) is the base reproduction number a pathogen has in an unimmunized population. It tells you how many people are infected in turn by each people already exposed. As an example, Measles, an airborne disease, have an R0 factor of 12-17. Covid-19 is currently assumed to have an R0 factor of 2.5-3.3, which puts it slightly above the assumed R0 factor of the Spanish flu. The R0 factor is used, among other things, to calculate how many people in a population need to be immune for herd immunization to take effect. Since measles is so dramatically contagious, you need an incredibly high percentage of immune individuals for herd immunity to take effect.

The IFR, Infection Fatality Rate, is derived from the CFR, the Case Fatality Rate. What we see in numbers of deaths is the CFR, which encompasses all documented cases. The IFR can only ever be estimated, although rather effectively. Since, so far, almost all lethal cases in the west are still being documented, our CFR is rather accurate, the IFR, however, should be significantly lower, as many many cases go undocumented.

Keep in mind that even if the actual number of infected is significantly higher, by factors of 10, 20 or even 30, we're still billions people away from achieving herd immunization.

[Gorsameth]

Snip giant wall of text

The key part in that whole text is

especially in areas where reasonable social distancing measures are in place.

And that is why people are so scared of the US compared to the rest of the world, because of a lack of measures and already talking about lifting them.

Yes if countries react appropriately it will be fine. But what about those that don't?

[muto]

The USA is once again the best. We now officially have the most confirmed Covid-19 cases. The rest of the world can eat our dust.

That’s assuming China is being honest with their total number of cases, which I highly doubt they are. It’s China they filter everything.