Chris Martenson likes to say "If the facts scare you, the problem isn't with the facts". (also check out his COVID-19 updates, I think they are very well done! [0])
You may think "it's not here yet". It is.
You may think "the numbers are low". They aren't. We are failing miserably in our testing, our numbers are easily off by a factor of 10 (for infections).
You might not want to be "weird" and not want to practice social distancing. You need to.
You need to act when it feels too early and honestly, in the US, that was a week+ ago so at least act now.
I don't say these things to whip people up in a panic, I say them because we are about to get hit hard here in the US. If you know a nurse maybe send them a text and ask how they feel. I can tell you the nurses I know are freaking out because they know we are not prepared. A have a friend who works at a big hospital. They have 2 cases (at least as of a day ago) and they almost buckled under it. They don't have many masks, they don't have training, and the hospital itself has no plans in place. When asked "How many masks do we have?" the answer (on Thursday of this week) was "I don't know" from the head of infections diseases. Let that sink in. March 12th.
I can understand not knowing the count off the top of your head in November 2019, I can understand it in December 2019, I can still wrap my head around not knowing it in January 2020 but damn it... It's March, you are in a meeting to discuss COVID-19 and you don't know how many masks you have on hand?
The world has been warning us for months now and they had no plans for how to handle visitors. The nurses have not done n95 mask fit tests. They are not getting clear direction on how handle mask reuse. We are not prepared for this. If this hospital (which I would trust for any major procedure) is feeling the strain with 2 patients what happens when there are 4? 8? 16? 32?
As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus.
It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
Why on Earth is this a good model?
Undoubtedly for the safety of citizens, but even with all the people shouting about a "fascist revolution" going on with the previous government, it only took three orders to strip everyone of most of their freedoms without anyone batting an eye (especially since no one knows for how long, the April 3rd date is a joke).
Quarantining is probably inevitable (although it won't help the overloaded ICUs until two weeks from now, so more capacity will always be needed), but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles.
And this letter should be sent to the media and the government, since both can't even understand an exponential, or basic statistics (even with the so-called "peak" reached, cases will keep on increasing until recoveries are due).
Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead (those are the ones which will get out of this mess, quarantining is just flattening the curve, although immensely beneficial), along with setting up place for non-intensive care COVID-19 patients. Every ICU bed freed is a victory.
> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus.
China dropped the ball for a full 10 days back when the disease was nicely contained to a small part of Wuhan, and then largely to Wuhan itself and Hubei - they didn't let the population know about the danger, so for quite some time no one was thinking about protecting themselves by wearing masks, social distancing etc. But the trouble is, Italy then made the exact same mistake by being late with containment measures, and now the UK and US are doing the same. So there's nothing to roll one's eyes or raise eyebrows about.
> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state,
You know what is MUCH more effective than an authoritarian response? An _earlier response_.
An earlier response, even if it weaker, is much more potent than a stronger later response.
The intensity of china's response would not be necessary where the response is faster.
> but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles.
The best way to preserve civil rights and not have to bend them to protect against loss of life is to respond as early as you can reasonable justify.
In the US the fact that our principles (and laws!) tie our hands somewhat is all the more reason that it's important that we act aggressively within the space that our society allows.
> Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead
Responding earlier keeps people alive longer for those drugs to become available.
> could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
I don't understand this logic. Because China made a mess at the beginning of the pandemic, so we shouldn't copy the model they employed at later stage that is proven to be working?
Or because China is an authoritarian state, so everything it does is bad and nothing we can learn from them? Well China has been copying and learning from any countries for a while now and that's what makes it stronger by day. Just keep blaming China and do nothing. That will surely make China less powerful and less influential.
You know what's scary? All major democracies failed to manage the pandemic while China becomes the most powerful country after all this.
Drugs are not a solution in the next 2-3 months. There's no way a drug can be tested and ensure safe and scaled up to the tens/hundreds of millions of doses you would need. It's impossible so don't even bother considering it.
Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. There's no other solution we have as a society to slow down the pace of infections. People who normally wouldn't die will die because of the lack of medical care.
The problem we face in the US is lack of testing, which makes it impossible to do anything except a quarantine.
Pretty much all countries have mechanisms for emergency powers. China being authoritarian has nothing to do with it. I'm not familiar with Italy's constitution or laws, but I assume it has similar provisions?
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
Huh? On the one hand you're arguing China was too draconian (and Italy shouldn't copy), then a sentence later you're complaining it wasn't enough and this is all China's fault?
What exactly do you suggest China ought to have done to prevent it from spreading outside of China? I haven't heard any reputable source suggest there was any practical way of containing it perfectly.
Your comment comes across as knee-jerk anti-China rather than anything based in science or public policy.
Just like China, there was a time when Italy had 1 case, then 2 cases, then 4, etc. Italy was unable to stop the spread before reaching a huge level and spreading to other countries.
Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same?
Because it worked. Millions of lives have been saved - 1% of 1.3B is 13M people. That's 1/5 of Italy.
Are there better models? Maybe. But there are also much worse models, as I suspect we might soon find out in the US [1]. Personally I'd much rather take the Chinese model for the next few months than risk me and my family dying or going bankrupt over the next few months.
And, instead of thinking that China could "afford to take the economical hit", consider the economic impact of 13M people suddenly dying. At this point, there's definitely going to be a hit to the economy. It's just going to be either A) from stricter lock downs and government aid, or B) from more people dying due to overrun hospitals. It might not be a wash in terms of the dollar amount, but it's clear which option will save more lives.
[1] Comparing China and US response:
- China has made treatment (not just testing) for coronavirus free for everyone. In the US...better hope you have good insurance.
- Tests performed per million people: China 2,800, US 5
- China is ordering banks to increase loans to SMBs rather than hoarding cash to protect themselves. It has rolled out a bunch of policies to support SMBs and employees. The US...well, not much so far.
Far more importantly IMO is the Chinese gov not shutting down live wildlife markets earlier, stopping dangerous non-scientific medicinal use, and enforcing trafficking of known-carriers. Specifically with COVID-19, the trade of Pangolins which are the "most trafficked animal in the world", which largely end up in China and Vietnam often via other SEA countries:
Xi was aggressive shutting stuff down but then went on to praise Chinese medicine (basically Naturopathy) multiple times after the Coronavirus became apparent. Which is where the quack medicine that results in people grinding up Pangolin scales and taking them like medicine, then eating the meat. Not to mention having markets with live wildlife in unsanitary areas in the middle of major urban areas with high density.
I'm surprised the continued spread of woo by Chinese authorities isn't taking more of a beating. Not just doing nothing, but promoting it.
Even the recent wildlife market "ban" has a giant loophole:
> The coronavirus epidemic prompted China to permanently ban trade of wild animals as food, but not for medicinal use.
China's initial response was terrible. When they realized what they had on hand and how fast it was developing they did what they could to turn it around.
That said, I would take any numbers coming out of China with a very large grain of salt; Italy looks way worse than China going by the numbers but I'd trust the Italian numbers more.
Also: it is much better to go by deaths and critical cases than it is to go by the number of cases themselves. The deaths and the critical cases are a lot harder to hide.
I mean sure - they dropped the ball on a new virus emerging from a familiar situation and getting blindsided by incompetent and image obsessed party officials who silenced the alarms and it took a while for the highly concentrated power structure of blindly loyal party officials to pivot and move.
However ...
It was not an unknown anymore for Europe
There was months of warning time
There is no suppression of scientific at scale
There was daily warnings from WHO and many countries
There was precedent for effective measures from Asia
There is no no no reason this should happen in a western democracy right.
And lets not even look at the US where image obsessed national officials with highly concentrated power and blind loyal party following have been actively downplaying (flu), suppressing the national response and hampering testing and effective containment.
It's like China in reverse - the stupid version playing out right in front of our eyes.
We all here love to repeat the virtues of western democracy over the autocratic China but right now we need to take a really good look at how much the theoretical ideals have been replaced by practices that combine the worst of both systems to absolutely devastating results.
If we don't want a major collapse down the road from all the other wait-and-see known threats, from antibiotic resistance to resource exhaustion to broken pension systems to climate change, we better start thinking about how we get of the 'reality is what we want it to be as long as we vote for people who tell us what we want to hear and cast out people who tell us what we need to act upon' train.
Darwin is about survival of the most adaptable to an ever changing world, not necessarily the strongest and right now China looks a lot more adaptable than we do- so if we like our values and system we better start making sacrifices to the gods of science and reality again.
That however would require us to even admit there is a problem and it's not looking promising
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
That's not alarming.
What's alarming is that the Chinese regime admitted that the people who they placed in charge of the crisis response have been continuously lying and falsely reporting the real amount of victims and how far the disease has spread. They've done it jus prior of replacing them, but the Chinese regime just replaced them with loyalist party officials, which makes it sound like a desperate attempt to keep falsifying reports.
It's not but I guess it's the best they have right now.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore are still functioning and have "contained" the virus. The number of cases/deaths did not explode despite contracting the virus much earlier.
It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
Can we stop using mode of government as an explanation for success and failure?
Clearly your country have its head screwed on better than mine. Meanwhile, my president is complacency in chief, more worried about the stock market than lives being lost. The local governments know what they're doing moreso than the feds, when it should be the other way around.
South Korea certainly seemed to have its head screwed most on head. They learned from previous lessons and are very successfully in applying them.
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
So did Italy, and they even got a head start in knowledge about the virus of about a month. Yet, the majority of cases here in Germany can be traced back to Italy, and not directly to China.
It's depressing how every country still tries their best to ignore their own failings and defaults to "well China should have stopped it right in the beginning"
I am absolutely sure that things would have been at least as bad if not worse, had this virus originated in Italy. Or Germany, or pretty much anywhere else.
Part of the problem here is that people see this as a competition between nations, i.e. arbitrarily defined borders.
China has implemented measures that have objectively worked: that have effectively contained an outbreak of this disease within their nation, despite having had the least knowledge and warning, and within a short amount of time. So, this is a good model to follow, in the absence of any other.
Certain Western governments appear to have decided to stretch the limits of that model to protect their economy in the short-term.
That will potentially result in everyone across the globe suffering further outbreaks.
Your assumption that drugs will save us is not safe. Novel drug development may be quick, or it may take decades.
As a physicist, you are familiar with formulas similar to this:
N_obs = p_detect * 2^( n_days / T_double )
N_obs : The number of observed cases
p_detect : The fraction of actual cases that are detected (assumed to be constant)
n_days : number of days
T_double : The number of days it takes for the number of real cases to double
If you examine the formula, the p_detect constant is almost insignificant. If T_double = 2, a difference in a detection rate of 0.2 and 0.8 is only 4 days for n_days.
As long as T_double is less than several months (and constant), an absolute catastrophy will occur. Within a weeks from now, nearly the entire fraction of the population that is receptive to infection will get infected, and will be sick basically at the same time. With 10-15% of the population requiring intubation, we can end up with a significant part of the population in each country ending up dead.
No one is 'confident' about a lot of things. But everyone who has seen what is happening in Italy is confident that taking a 'wait and see' attitude will cost lives.
If you make a bunch of assumptions about the distribution, you don't need a large sample size to make decent estimations about the population. Of course, the only way that works is with random or stratified random sampling. With reporting bias, I'm not sure any country has enough data to make statistically confident statements with any precision.
Folks with a stronger statistics background are welcome to correct me.
It's interesting that you lead by saying "as a physicist".
As a physicist I'm used to thinking about orders of magnitude and whether something grows like log(N) or N!. I'm pretty sure all the data points to this being O(a big problem) but I'd leave it to the epidemiologists to say anything with confidence.
So, as a physicist, you should know how exponential growth works. Let's say you have a pile of Uranium that's juuuust sub-critical. You would likely to be confident to stand next to it without significant fear.
But if someone throws on just enough additional Uranium for the pile to go supercritical, you would run for your life because none of the following will matter[1] all that much to the final outcome:
1) How much neutron radiation there was to start with.
2) The specific exponential growth coefficient.
3) How much total Uranium there is, as long as it's a nontrivial amount
4) Whether your Geiger counter is off by some constant factor or not.
None of those matter. It's going boom. It might go boom a bit sooner or a bit later, but it is going to go boom. That's just how exponential growth works. There's no maybe. There's no "let us wait and see". There's no "we'll hope for the best". No: It. Will. Go. Boom.
All of the factors that are irrelevant are just shifting a figurative vertical wall on your graph paper a bit to the left, or a bit to the right. It's adding or subtracting "a couple of doubling times". If the doubling time is short, then you're not really achieving anything by fiddling with constant factors.
With the Coronavirus just about every country has a doubling time of 4-5 days.
I live in Australia, where we're about a "month behind" everyone else. So of course, the dumbass government is saying things like "the heat here will slow it down". But it hasn't, our doubling time is 4.75 days at the moment. They're saying that it's "premature to lock down the country". No it isn't, it's already weeks too late and getting literally exponentially worse daily! They're saying that the hospitals are being prepared, but no amount of extra beds or ventilators will help. If they double the number, it just delays the catastrophe by 4.75 days. Not even a whole week! Quadrupling beds and ventilators buys just under 10 days before people are being turned away to go home and die.
So, again. I ask you: If you were the nuclear physicist in charge of a nuclear pile and someone told you it's gone critical and the radiation is rising exponentially, is your first reaction to: just "stand around and wait and see what happens", or to: take drastic action right this second? Do you SCRAM, or do you call the communist party leadership for permission? Are you the hero of the Chernobyl story, or the villain?
[1] Ignoring thermal effects slowing down the reaction. This actually has an analogy with disease spread, where there are fewer susceptible people remaining because everyone is already sick or dead. If we reach this point, we'll be seeing millions infected and hundreds of thousands dead.
As someone who's dealing with analytics data regularely, thank you !
i absolutely don't understand how can someone give any ratio about this disease knowing how only the most severe cases got tested ( except in SK), and that the symptoms are almost undistinguisable from the flu.
Maybe Italy is a worst case, both because it didn't quarantine early enough, and because greater population inversion.
> It's now a well-established fact that older people and those with underlying health issues are more susceptible to succumbing to Covid-19. With 23 percent Italians aged 65 or above and a median age of 47.3, the Italian population is the oldest in Europe. This is chiefly responsible for the high fatality rate in Italy.[0]
Also these articles.[1,2] And similar to the age effect in China.
Italy isn't the worst case, they're just 2 weeks' ahead of most other countries.
Looking at the latest SitRep from WHO, my home country (Sweden) has small no. infected (775), but grew 25% vs the previous day. If that rate keeps up, number of infected will keep on doubling every 4-5 days and in 14 days' time will be at what Italy is today (17k infected). And then another week later it'll break 100k. Exponential growth is a bastard in that sense.
what's the source for italy being the oldest country? As of 2018 Germany was the oldest in the EU and their crude mortality ratio is among the lowest so far.
"Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after will seem inadequate." - Michael Leavitt, former HHS Secretary under President George W. Bussh
My co-founder and I are really struggling with the decisions ahead of us. We feel we should act quickly, and enforce our team to work from home, but the spread in our city is quite low for now. We also wonder how long this can go on, are we going to be isolated for months?
We are at a critical point where we have just closed our seed round this past week. We have both put so much energy and time into this moment and we were ready to work harder and focus on scaling and growth.
Of course, the more tragic situation around us makes our issues seem small. I think we will likely announce to our team to work from home starting Monday. How surreal.
Here in France even with the Italian experience relayed in the press, i.e doctors having to make many times a day a choices between the ones who will live or die, many people don't take it seriously.
I am shocked but not surprised by the behavior of my fellow citizens. Many people still went out shopping, went to the restaurants, still think it is a simple seasonal flu and do not at all comply with the recommendations of avoiding contacts.
The government decided at last today to close the restaurants and most of the shops except grocery stores and drug stores.
Also I think in France at some point the army will have to be called to help, to let policemen enforce the rules and be used to secure sensitive sites.
With the periodic social unrest that France endures since the last major "ethnic" riots of 2005 and the more recent and more social yellow vest protests, I am afraid that in France there will be also a lot of indirect deaths of the sars-cov-2 pandemic.
"Flatten the curve" scenario requires r0 to between 1.0 and a small number above 1.0, like 1.1. In other words, it's not happening, you either contain the virus or let it explode.
It's unlikely that other countries can do what China has done. As an example, China is able to do 200 CT scans a day at each fever station throughout the affected regions. In the US we can maybe do what 10 CT scans a day with a single machine? In China they were able to figure out within a short duration if someone needed to be quarantined. They built hospitals in days. It's not just about locking down. China has people taking temperatures of people entering their apartments or when they show up at work. There are drones patrolling the streets that detect people with a high temperature. I have a hard time seeing us in the US build out what China did in just a few days.
The last part urges lockdowns like China and South Korea but my understanding is that South Korea has not been doing lockdowns and instead was able to ramp up testing quickly and isolate infected from others. Is that incorrect?
Here in the U.S.A. in Indianapolis, my 60 year old dad is out at a club right now dancing with his old people girlfriends. He is a smart dude (on paper - tenured professor of finance), but he doesn't think he has a thing to worry about.
I hope we get a lock down here. Many people are too selfish, arrogant, and stupid to make the right choices even when it is obvious.
Here in Israel, ministry of health wanted a full lockdown. But business won, so only a partial lockdown is enforced, and they are shutting down only clubs and restaurants. People will still be able to visit parks, roam freely, etc. Today there was an article [1] that some idiot that was in quarantine left it and was arrested on the street. There is no discipline. A hard lockdown is likely the best option everywhere. It works, as evident in countries that have enforced it.
> Every minute is exceptionally important as it means saving lives. Don’t waste it!
The fact that the US Senate did not speed up the emergency measure by staying is loosing 2 days. At that time the measures are in place the problem is twice as large. In normal times this is just a business day delay but in these times calendar days are the measure and weekends are counted too. We really need to start thinking and acting differently.
It's too late for the U.S. There isn't a clear, organized, unified direction of testing and action plan for all humans within its borders. That's the only way to get and organize an effective response.
We're canceling/closing off large groupings of humans and basically hoping/praying? for the best for the next few weeks. It's sad. This type of haphazard response drives conspiracies and confusion that is then opportunistically taken advantage of by all sectors of power.
Lockdown resident: i fear our population will get bored off the lockdown, and/or fearful of shops running out of goods (part caused by sick workers, sick transporters, and people taking a risk and going shopping anyway), and by Wednesday there'll be reports of social unrest.
This will be seen by other countries, who will impose more stringent curfews, and a cycle of restrictions will start. When the forces of law and order get sick, then the real fun will begin.
Of three local food shops to me, one just got closed as a workers spouse has been hospitalised. Tomorrow, do i go get whatever food may be left in the other stores, play hide and seek with the police, then perhaps get sick, or let my family go hungry?
The fact that growth rates seem very similar in all affected countries, baffles me. Surely lifestyles, social structure (number of families/kids etc.), hygiene habits differ slightly and testing rates/effectiveness of the health system varies greatly among them. If these factors aren't important, does social life even matter? The effectiveness of China's lockdown is a good argument for it, but perhaps they were just more effective at identifying and isolating spreaders? My point is that there's a chance that it spreads through the air or in some other way unaffected by curfews etc. (if you leave the windows open...).
Lockdown is not a long term solution though. This virus isn't going to disappear anytime soon. It might be good for countries that are getting out of control, but for places where it isn't a problem yet it just delays when it his.
Places without a problem yet should take reasonable sustainable precautions to flatten the curve instead. (https://www.flattenthecurve.com/)
[+] [-] joshstrange|6 years ago|reply
You may think "it's not here yet". It is.
You may think "the numbers are low". They aren't. We are failing miserably in our testing, our numbers are easily off by a factor of 10 (for infections).
You might not want to be "weird" and not want to practice social distancing. You need to.
You need to act when it feels too early and honestly, in the US, that was a week+ ago so at least act now.
I don't say these things to whip people up in a panic, I say them because we are about to get hit hard here in the US. If you know a nurse maybe send them a text and ask how they feel. I can tell you the nurses I know are freaking out because they know we are not prepared. A have a friend who works at a big hospital. They have 2 cases (at least as of a day ago) and they almost buckled under it. They don't have many masks, they don't have training, and the hospital itself has no plans in place. When asked "How many masks do we have?" the answer (on Thursday of this week) was "I don't know" from the head of infections diseases. Let that sink in. March 12th.
I can understand not knowing the count off the top of your head in November 2019, I can understand it in December 2019, I can still wrap my head around not knowing it in January 2020 but damn it... It's March, you are in a meeting to discuss COVID-19 and you don't know how many masks you have on hand?
The world has been warning us for months now and they had no plans for how to handle visitors. The nurses have not done n95 mask fit tests. They are not getting clear direction on how handle mask reuse. We are not prepared for this. If this hospital (which I would trust for any major procedure) is feeling the strain with 2 patients what happens when there are 4? 8? 16? 32?
[0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRgTUN1zz_oeQpnJxpeaE...
[+] [-] lbeltrame|6 years ago|reply
It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
Why on Earth is this a good model?
Undoubtedly for the safety of citizens, but even with all the people shouting about a "fascist revolution" going on with the previous government, it only took three orders to strip everyone of most of their freedoms without anyone batting an eye (especially since no one knows for how long, the April 3rd date is a joke).
Quarantining is probably inevitable (although it won't help the overloaded ICUs until two weeks from now, so more capacity will always be needed), but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles.
And this letter should be sent to the media and the government, since both can't even understand an exponential, or basic statistics (even with the so-called "peak" reached, cases will keep on increasing until recoveries are due).
Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead (those are the ones which will get out of this mess, quarantining is just flattening the curve, although immensely beneficial), along with setting up place for non-intensive care COVID-19 patients. Every ICU bed freed is a victory.
[+] [-] zozbot234|6 years ago|reply
China dropped the ball for a full 10 days back when the disease was nicely contained to a small part of Wuhan, and then largely to Wuhan itself and Hubei - they didn't let the population know about the danger, so for quite some time no one was thinking about protecting themselves by wearing masks, social distancing etc. But the trouble is, Italy then made the exact same mistake by being late with containment measures, and now the UK and US are doing the same. So there's nothing to roll one's eyes or raise eyebrows about.
[+] [-] nullc|6 years ago|reply
You know what is MUCH more effective than an authoritarian response? An _earlier response_.
An earlier response, even if it weaker, is much more potent than a stronger later response.
The intensity of china's response would not be necessary where the response is faster.
> but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles.
The best way to preserve civil rights and not have to bend them to protect against loss of life is to respond as early as you can reasonable justify.
In the US the fact that our principles (and laws!) tie our hands somewhat is all the more reason that it's important that we act aggressively within the space that our society allows.
> Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead
Responding earlier keeps people alive longer for those drugs to become available.
[+] [-] theseadroid|6 years ago|reply
I don't understand this logic. Because China made a mess at the beginning of the pandemic, so we shouldn't copy the model they employed at later stage that is proven to be working?
Or because China is an authoritarian state, so everything it does is bad and nothing we can learn from them? Well China has been copying and learning from any countries for a while now and that's what makes it stronger by day. Just keep blaming China and do nothing. That will surely make China less powerful and less influential.
You know what's scary? All major democracies failed to manage the pandemic while China becomes the most powerful country after all this.
[+] [-] jennyyang|6 years ago|reply
Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. There's no other solution we have as a society to slow down the pace of infections. People who normally wouldn't die will die because of the lack of medical care.
The problem we face in the US is lack of testing, which makes it impossible to do anything except a quarantine.
[+] [-] crazygringo|6 years ago|reply
Pretty much all countries have mechanisms for emergency powers. China being authoritarian has nothing to do with it. I'm not familiar with Italy's constitution or laws, but I assume it has similar provisions?
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.
Huh? On the one hand you're arguing China was too draconian (and Italy shouldn't copy), then a sentence later you're complaining it wasn't enough and this is all China's fault?
What exactly do you suggest China ought to have done to prevent it from spreading outside of China? I haven't heard any reputable source suggest there was any practical way of containing it perfectly.
Your comment comes across as knee-jerk anti-China rather than anything based in science or public policy.
[+] [-] tuna-piano|6 years ago|reply
Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same?
(Italy even had a warning that it was coming!)
[+] [-] sdkaufman|6 years ago|reply
Because it worked. Millions of lives have been saved - 1% of 1.3B is 13M people. That's 1/5 of Italy.
Are there better models? Maybe. But there are also much worse models, as I suspect we might soon find out in the US [1]. Personally I'd much rather take the Chinese model for the next few months than risk me and my family dying or going bankrupt over the next few months.
And, instead of thinking that China could "afford to take the economical hit", consider the economic impact of 13M people suddenly dying. At this point, there's definitely going to be a hit to the economy. It's just going to be either A) from stricter lock downs and government aid, or B) from more people dying due to overrun hospitals. It might not be a wash in terms of the dollar amount, but it's clear which option will save more lives.
[1] Comparing China and US response:
- China has made treatment (not just testing) for coronavirus free for everyone. In the US...better hope you have good insurance.
- Tests performed per million people: China 2,800, US 5
- China is ordering banks to increase loans to SMBs rather than hoarding cash to protect themselves. It has rolled out a bunch of policies to support SMBs and employees. The US...well, not much so far.
Sources: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-many-coronavirus-tes... https://qz.com/1813181/china-is-taking-pleasure-in-us-mishan... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3052474/c... https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-latest-regional-m...
[+] [-] dmix|6 years ago|reply
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/coronavirus-china...
Xi was aggressive shutting stuff down but then went on to praise Chinese medicine (basically Naturopathy) multiple times after the Coronavirus became apparent. Which is where the quack medicine that results in people grinding up Pangolin scales and taking them like medicine, then eating the meat. Not to mention having markets with live wildlife in unsanitary areas in the middle of major urban areas with high density.
I'm surprised the continued spread of woo by Chinese authorities isn't taking more of a beating. Not just doing nothing, but promoting it.
Even the recent wildlife market "ban" has a giant loophole:
> The coronavirus epidemic prompted China to permanently ban trade of wild animals as food, but not for medicinal use.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/science/coronavirus-pango...
[+] [-] jacquesm|6 years ago|reply
That said, I would take any numbers coming out of China with a very large grain of salt; Italy looks way worse than China going by the numbers but I'd trust the Italian numbers more.
Also: it is much better to go by deaths and critical cases than it is to go by the number of cases themselves. The deaths and the critical cases are a lot harder to hide.
[+] [-] hatenberg|6 years ago|reply
I mean sure - they dropped the ball on a new virus emerging from a familiar situation and getting blindsided by incompetent and image obsessed party officials who silenced the alarms and it took a while for the highly concentrated power structure of blindly loyal party officials to pivot and move.
However ...
It was not an unknown anymore for Europe There was months of warning time There is no suppression of scientific at scale There was daily warnings from WHO and many countries There was precedent for effective measures from Asia
There is no no no reason this should happen in a western democracy right.
And lets not even look at the US where image obsessed national officials with highly concentrated power and blind loyal party following have been actively downplaying (flu), suppressing the national response and hampering testing and effective containment.
It's like China in reverse - the stupid version playing out right in front of our eyes.
We all here love to repeat the virtues of western democracy over the autocratic China but right now we need to take a really good look at how much the theoretical ideals have been replaced by practices that combine the worst of both systems to absolutely devastating results.
If we don't want a major collapse down the road from all the other wait-and-see known threats, from antibiotic resistance to resource exhaustion to broken pension systems to climate change, we better start thinking about how we get of the 'reality is what we want it to be as long as we vote for people who tell us what we want to hear and cast out people who tell us what we need to act upon' train.
Darwin is about survival of the most adaptable to an ever changing world, not necessarily the strongest and right now China looks a lot more adaptable than we do- so if we like our values and system we better start making sacrifices to the gods of science and reality again.
That however would require us to even admit there is a problem and it's not looking promising
[+] [-] rumanator|6 years ago|reply
That's not alarming.
What's alarming is that the Chinese regime admitted that the people who they placed in charge of the crisis response have been continuously lying and falsely reporting the real amount of victims and how far the disease has spread. They've done it jus prior of replacing them, but the Chinese regime just replaced them with loyalist party officials, which makes it sound like a desperate attempt to keep falsifying reports.
[+] [-] csomar|6 years ago|reply
It's not but I guess it's the best they have right now.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore are still functioning and have "contained" the virus. The number of cases/deaths did not explode despite contracting the virus much earlier.
[+] [-] incompatible|6 years ago|reply
The faster and better that you deal with it, the smaller the economic hit is going to be. China is going to be the big winner here.
[+] [-] kiba|6 years ago|reply
Can we stop using mode of government as an explanation for success and failure?
Clearly your country have its head screwed on better than mine. Meanwhile, my president is complacency in chief, more worried about the stock market than lives being lost. The local governments know what they're doing moreso than the feds, when it should be the other way around.
South Korea certainly seemed to have its head screwed most on head. They learned from previous lessons and are very successfully in applying them.
[+] [-] iforgotpassword|6 years ago|reply
So did Italy, and they even got a head start in knowledge about the virus of about a month. Yet, the majority of cases here in Germany can be traced back to Italy, and not directly to China.
It's depressing how every country still tries their best to ignore their own failings and defaults to "well China should have stopped it right in the beginning"
I am absolutely sure that things would have been at least as bad if not worse, had this virus originated in Italy. Or Germany, or pretty much anywhere else.
[+] [-] learnstats2|6 years ago|reply
China has implemented measures that have objectively worked: that have effectively contained an outbreak of this disease within their nation, despite having had the least knowledge and warning, and within a short amount of time. So, this is a good model to follow, in the absence of any other.
Certain Western governments appear to have decided to stretch the limits of that model to protect their economy in the short-term.
That will potentially result in everyone across the globe suffering further outbreaks.
Your assumption that drugs will save us is not safe. Novel drug development may be quick, or it may take decades.
[+] [-] gameswithgo|6 years ago|reply
While a state like China would be a bad idea, here in America we could perhaps learn the benefits of not heading too far in the opposite direction.
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|6 years ago|reply
It seems only SK has earned that right and has tested enough people to get reliable statistics. If you only measure the sick in the hospital...
[+] [-] soVeryTired|6 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...
[+] [-] trashtester|6 years ago|reply
N_obs = p_detect * 2^( n_days / T_double )
N_obs : The number of observed cases p_detect : The fraction of actual cases that are detected (assumed to be constant) n_days : number of days T_double : The number of days it takes for the number of real cases to double
If you examine the formula, the p_detect constant is almost insignificant. If T_double = 2, a difference in a detection rate of 0.2 and 0.8 is only 4 days for n_days.
As long as T_double is less than several months (and constant), an absolute catastrophy will occur. Within a weeks from now, nearly the entire fraction of the population that is receptive to infection will get infected, and will be sick basically at the same time. With 10-15% of the population requiring intubation, we can end up with a significant part of the population in each country ending up dead.
[+] [-] loeg|6 years ago|reply
Start reading at "2. What Will Happen When These Coronavirus Cases Materialize?"
[+] [-] davidw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eyegor|6 years ago|reply
Folks with a stronger statistics background are welcome to correct me.
[+] [-] dguest|6 years ago|reply
As a physicist I'm used to thinking about orders of magnitude and whether something grows like log(N) or N!. I'm pretty sure all the data points to this being O(a big problem) but I'd leave it to the epidemiologists to say anything with confidence.
[+] [-] jiggawatts|6 years ago|reply
But if someone throws on just enough additional Uranium for the pile to go supercritical, you would run for your life because none of the following will matter[1] all that much to the final outcome:
1) How much neutron radiation there was to start with.
2) The specific exponential growth coefficient.
3) How much total Uranium there is, as long as it's a nontrivial amount
4) Whether your Geiger counter is off by some constant factor or not.
None of those matter. It's going boom. It might go boom a bit sooner or a bit later, but it is going to go boom. That's just how exponential growth works. There's no maybe. There's no "let us wait and see". There's no "we'll hope for the best". No: It. Will. Go. Boom.
All of the factors that are irrelevant are just shifting a figurative vertical wall on your graph paper a bit to the left, or a bit to the right. It's adding or subtracting "a couple of doubling times". If the doubling time is short, then you're not really achieving anything by fiddling with constant factors.
With the Coronavirus just about every country has a doubling time of 4-5 days.
I live in Australia, where we're about a "month behind" everyone else. So of course, the dumbass government is saying things like "the heat here will slow it down". But it hasn't, our doubling time is 4.75 days at the moment. They're saying that it's "premature to lock down the country". No it isn't, it's already weeks too late and getting literally exponentially worse daily! They're saying that the hospitals are being prepared, but no amount of extra beds or ventilators will help. If they double the number, it just delays the catastrophe by 4.75 days. Not even a whole week! Quadrupling beds and ventilators buys just under 10 days before people are being turned away to go home and die.
So, again. I ask you: If you were the nuclear physicist in charge of a nuclear pile and someone told you it's gone critical and the radiation is rising exponentially, is your first reaction to: just "stand around and wait and see what happens", or to: take drastic action right this second? Do you SCRAM, or do you call the communist party leadership for permission? Are you the hero of the Chernobyl story, or the villain?
[1] Ignoring thermal effects slowing down the reaction. This actually has an analogy with disease spread, where there are fewer susceptible people remaining because everyone is already sick or dead. If we reach this point, we'll be seeing millions infected and hundreds of thousands dead.
[+] [-] ISL|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsaul|6 years ago|reply
i absolutely don't understand how can someone give any ratio about this disease knowing how only the most severe cases got tested ( except in SK), and that the symptoms are almost undistinguisable from the flu.
[+] [-] feral|6 years ago|reply
I wrote an analysis of how this is going to hit Ireland, including the best calculations I could find on fatality rate:
https://medium.com/@fergal.reid/predicting-the-impact-of-cor...
I think that left unchecked this could kill millions of Americans in a couple of months. I'd love to be wrong.
[+] [-] mirimir|6 years ago|reply
> It's now a well-established fact that older people and those with underlying health issues are more susceptible to succumbing to Covid-19. With 23 percent Italians aged 65 or above and a median age of 47.3, the Italian population is the oldest in Europe. This is chiefly responsible for the high fatality rate in Italy.[0]
Also these articles.[1,2] And similar to the age effect in China.
0) https://www.ibtimes.sg/fatality-rate-7-16-why-coronavirus-de...
1) https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/heres-why-the-coronavirus-deat...
2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/03/italy-elderly-...
[+] [-] sorum|6 years ago|reply
Looking at the latest SitRep from WHO, my home country (Sweden) has small no. infected (775), but grew 25% vs the previous day. If that rate keeps up, number of infected will keep on doubling every 4-5 days and in 14 days' time will be at what Italy is today (17k infected). And then another week later it'll break 100k. Exponential growth is a bastard in that sense.
[+] [-] Ericson2314|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toolz|6 years ago|reply
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/median-age/
[+] [-] mackrevinack|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willart4food|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cknoxrun|6 years ago|reply
We are at a critical point where we have just closed our seed round this past week. We have both put so much energy and time into this moment and we were ready to work harder and focus on scaling and growth.
Of course, the more tragic situation around us makes our issues seem small. I think we will likely announce to our team to work from home starting Monday. How surreal.
[+] [-] bengalister|6 years ago|reply
I am shocked but not surprised by the behavior of my fellow citizens. Many people still went out shopping, went to the restaurants, still think it is a simple seasonal flu and do not at all comply with the recommendations of avoiding contacts.
The government decided at last today to close the restaurants and most of the shops except grocery stores and drug stores.
Also I think in France at some point the army will have to be called to help, to let policemen enforce the rules and be used to secure sensitive sites. With the periodic social unrest that France endures since the last major "ethnic" riots of 2005 and the more recent and more social yellow vest protests, I am afraid that in France there will be also a lot of indirect deaths of the sars-cov-2 pandemic.
[+] [-] RivieraKid|6 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea...
"Flatten the curve" scenario requires r0 to between 1.0 and a small number above 1.0, like 1.1. In other words, it's not happening, you either contain the virus or let it explode.
[+] [-] rosybox|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exegete|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakub_g|6 years ago|reply
The best way to explain the exponential growth (and shock people) is ask them about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem
[+] [-] liquidify|6 years ago|reply
I hope we get a lock down here. Many people are too selfish, arrogant, and stupid to make the right choices even when it is obvious.
[+] [-] iRobbery|6 years ago|reply
"In just 3 weeks from the beginning of the outbreak, the virus has reached more than 10.000 infected people."
Does this mean only tested 10.000 people? Reads a bit odd though too, i assume they were not infected already when the virus reached them?
"From our data, about 10% of patients require ICU (Intensive Care Unit) or sub ICU assistance and about 5% of patients die."
Is this from 10% of the people actually going to the hospital, or 10% of all tested, or 10% of all people that got the virus?
[+] [-] LeoNatan25|6 years ago|reply
1: https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5694758,00.html
[+] [-] heisenbit|6 years ago|reply
The fact that the US Senate did not speed up the emergency measure by staying is loosing 2 days. At that time the measures are in place the problem is twice as large. In normal times this is just a business day delay but in these times calendar days are the measure and weekends are counted too. We really need to start thinking and acting differently.
[+] [-] throw7|6 years ago|reply
We're canceling/closing off large groupings of humans and basically hoping/praying? for the best for the next few weeks. It's sad. This type of haphazard response drives conspiracies and confusion that is then opportunistically taken advantage of by all sectors of power.
[+] [-] C19is20|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazyjones|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seles|6 years ago|reply
Places without a problem yet should take reasonable sustainable precautions to flatten the curve instead. (https://www.flattenthecurve.com/)