This seems like a simple math problem. There are estimates, however imprecise, for the R0 and mortality rates of both. Are these numbers similar for both? Is COVID-19 closer to the 1918 Spanish flu for these values than it is to the regular flu? A little closer or a lot closer?
Just whip out your numbers and have a nerd fight over it.
If we go by the numbers coming out of SK, this is much more like regular seasonal flu than the 1918 outbreak.
Isn’t it more like ~10 times the mortality of the regular flu and ~ a third the mortality of 1918? (Dunno how to adjust for the average age of victim)
Talked to my sister who lives in Brisbane, has long standing anxiety triggered by fear of disaster (terrorism, natural disaster etc) and has type 1 diabetes, a risk factor for COVID-19. She’s doing better than I feared she might be.
I’ve already shown my math several times as have others and have many of the real experts been quoted and linked. The other viewpoint is hand waving, waiting for the maths.
Gosh golly gee, maybe it’s only 10% as bad as 1918. Still pretty effin bad. And it’s only already old or sick people and me doing what I want is more important than their lives.
As someone that has seen viral evolution in real time, lethality can change in either direction. One of the biggest drivers is the number of replication events (infections), the odds of mutation go with with the number of cases.
Good result-higher infectivity and lower lethality.
Bad result- higher lethality and a possibly change in population.
We are a living (and dying) science experiment right now. I guess it’s going to run it’s course and we will see what happens.
Is there any reason to believe that these numbers for the US will resemble South Korea more than Italy?
None
If anything we’re going to be significantly worse than Italy.
You have no idea what the mortality rate is in Italy. They are only testing people who show symptoms.
Is there anything the doom and gloom crowd would have the rest of us do other than wash our hands, avoid crowds, and stay the fuck home if we get sick? Because if not, I really don’t see the point in trying to whip everybody up into a frenzy over shit we can’t control. Overreactions can be just as dangerous as under-reactions.
The Trumpkins are swinging from denial to xenophobia as we type.
I’ve never claimed to know the mortality rate in Italy. It does seem to be higher than South Korea’s, though. We also don’t know the true mortality rate in 1918.
Stock up on toilet paper.
I mean this all started because JT was mocked for insisting on working from home, eventually getting it as a company wide policy, and taking his kids out of school.
You should definitely do that if you can.
What makes it seem higher than SK? They have completely different criteria for testing.
It’s not both true that this easily spreads by being in the same room as an infected person and Italy has just 9000 infected people. They could easily have had 90000 infections.
As far as 1918 goes, I don’t know how accurate the estimates are, but I would think someone took their time by now and looked not just at tests (didn’t have one right?) but all the info and did all kinds of adjustments and extrapolation. Using the confirmed cases at this point as a denominator is not at all the right way to do it.
I think people are advocating for locking things down Italy-style now, rather than waiting for it to get really bad.
I’m personally undecided, but it did occur to me that it’s pretty silly of me to be waiting for instructions/direction on this from the government, given my general faith in it. I have somewhat more faith in state and local officials in California, but even they are subject to pressure from groups that aren’t necessarily putting the health of the citizens first.
From a WaPo newsletter:
Anthony Fauci, director of the infectious disease division at the National Institutes of Health, has said around 4 million coronavirus tests will be available by the end of this week, and two of the country’s largest commercial labs have announced they’re ready to begin testing: LabCorp said its test has been available since Thursday, while Quest Diagnostics said it planned to start testing as of yesterday.
But the health centers aren’t yet able to order coronavirus tests, Ron Yee, chief medical officer for the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), told me yesterday.
The billing codes are not yet in place on electronic medical records, so medical professionals haven’t been ordering them yet.
This fucking country.
@zarapochka ahead of the curve!
463 people have died in Italy. Not that that’s nothing, but locking things down for any length of time will seriously impact the 200 million Americans who can’t afford take a month off and that alone may end up killing just as many people.
But is also true of every virus ever. Did you go around last year freaking out and telling everyone the seasonal flu was gonna be just like the 1918 pandemic?