Corona Virus 2019-nCoV

There is still considerable hardship, with people still living in tents and caravans etc. but at least there has been good rain which means this fire season coming may be a little more gentle which is a good thing because living in a tent, with high fire danger and COVID floating around would add up to to a nightmare...
ps. I am avoiding the China problem for the moment...
Oh, that's so sad. :redface: Weren't several arsonists partially responsible for those fires?
 
Oh, that's so sad. :redface: Weren't several arsonists partially responsible for those fires?
yes. But we have a Royal commission going on to determine the details of Gov. failure to address the under laying climate change effects.
There are always going to be pyromaniacs but not always the incredibly dry conditions that were present last year.
The main reason for the extent of these fires was primarily this dryness...
 
It took 83 days to reach the first million cases worldwide and just 14 days for the second million.
src: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04...obal-covid-19-cases-pass-two-million/12151982

How many days before the next million?
I'm going with another 14 days, followed by 28 days for the next million after that, assuming we stick with the lockdowns we have right now. The rate of new cases has plateaued and is now dropping. (That's rate of new cases, not total number of new cases.)
 
I'm going with another 14 days, followed by 28 days for the next million after that, assuming we stick with the lockdowns we have right now. The rate of new cases has plateaued and is now dropping. (That's rate of new cases, not total number of new cases.)
We can't assume there are effective control measures in much of the world: Latin America, Africa, even India, though they have tried there.

Has the rate of daily hospital admissions in the US reached a plateau yet? The last I heard it was still increasing, but linearly rather than exponentially.

(The trend in deaths will lag the trend in admissions by 1-2 weeks, as it takes that long for them to die. The trend in hospital admissions will lag the infection rate by another ~2 weeks, but it's the only marker we have.)
 
We can't assume there are effective control measures in much of the world: Latin America, Africa, even India, though they have tried there.
India is doing considerably better than the US (with 3x the population and a lot more crowding) so they must be doing something right.
Has the rate of daily hospital admissions in the US reached a plateau yet? The last I heard it was still increasing, but linearly rather than exponentially.
Right. That's what I am looking at; the rate of increase. Total number of infected (or total dead) will look like a sigmoid curve, so when you see a linear increase you are roughly half way through the curve.
 
I am unsure why you think it plateaued...
Look at the logarithmic representation. If you see a straight line on a log plot you are getting a straight geometric increase; if the log plot is flattening then you are starting to see the "second half" of that sigmoid function.
 
India is doing considerably better than the US (with 3x the population and a lot more crowding) so they must be doing something right.

Right. That's what I am looking at; the rate of increase. Total number of infected (or total dead) will look like a sigmoid curve, so when you see a linear increase you are roughly half way through the curve.
Let me go carefully here, because there seems to be scope for confusion in the various trends being talked about in the media.

The sigmoid curve, I presume, will be the cumulative total cases over time. When that is linear i.e. we reach the point of inflexion, we are halfway through the epidemic. Is that what you mean?

What I was asking about is the daily rate of new cases admitted to hospital. That will be a bell curve rather than sigmoid and should be proportional to the rate of new infections in the population, but with a time delay of 2 weeks or so, as that is how long it take between people catching it and showing up at hospital after it has got bad enough. We are halfway through when that curve is flat, i.e. at the peak of the bell curve.

To the left of that bell curve you have an initial exponential rise, that deviates progressively from exponential until it is a linear increase, and then that flattens out to horizontal at the peak and then down the other side. In the UK we are now said to be just about past the peak.

I must admit I had thought the US had only reached the linear rise part of that bell curve, not the peak, but I'm quite likely out of date. Do I understand you to say it has reached the peak of the daily rate bell curve already? If so that is good news indeed.
 
What evidence is there that it’s safe to start “reopening” in the US?

I fear this is a political ploy from the government because Trump’s only leg to stand on has been a thriving economy. Now that the economy has stalled, he is worried for his own political future. My opinion.

Someone should tell him...dead people can’t vote. Meanwhile, the UK has extended its lockdown by three weeks and so have other countries. The US death rate is the highest but America needs to reopen before everyone else!

Yea, this makes sense.
 
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Let me go carefully here, because there seems to be scope for confusion in the various trends being talked about in the media.
The sigmoid curve, I presume, will be the cumulative total cases over time. When that is linear i.e. we reach the point of inflexion, we are halfway through the epidemic. Is that what you mean?
Yes, with the caveat that the numbers we are seeing is not the cases over time - it's the DETECTED cases over time. So there's some error there.
What I was asking about is the daily rate of new cases admitted to hospital. That will be a bell curve rather than sigmoid and should be proportional to the rate of new infections in the population, but with a time delay of 2 weeks or so, as that is how long it take between people catching it and showing up at hospital after it has got bad enough. We are halfway through when that curve is flat, i.e. at the peak of the bell curve.
Agreed there.
 
What evidence is there that it’s safe to start “reopening” in the US?
Very little. It's going to be more an experiment than solid evidence.
I fear this is a political ploy from the government because Trump’s only leg to stand on has been a thriving economy. Now that the economy has stalled, he is worried for his own political future. My opinion.
That's certainly true.
Someone should tell him...dead people can’t vote.
Well, but now that he knows that deaths will only be in the hundreds of thousands - that's not so many voters out of the 230 million eligible voters.

Ironically if we had shut down the country when the CDC first issued the warning, we'd be poised to reopen it by now.
 
What evidence is there that it’s safe to start “reopening” in the US?

I fear this is a political ploy from the government because Trump’s only leg to stand on has been a thriving economy. Now that the economy has stalled, he is worried for his own political future. My opinion.

Someone should tell him...dead people can’t vote. Meanwhile, the UK has extended its lockdown by three weeks and so have other countries. The US death rate is the highest but America needs to reopen before everyone else!

Yea, this makes sense.
I'm not the best person to comment on the progress of the epidemic in the States, but what really disgusts me is the abysmal lack of leadership from Trump, during a national emergency.

In every other country in the world, the leaders have sought to unite the country in taking the tough and unpleasant measures needed to get the virus under control. Trump however has, from the start, used it as yet a further way to divide the country and foment vicious antagonism. Possibly the most revolting behaviour of all, in an admittedly crowded field, has been his selective threat of withholding of medical supplies to states governed by people who are not sufficiently obsequious to him personally. He is willing to cause deaths for his own self-aggrandisement.

And now he is presenting even the lifting of the lockdown in an adversarial way, too, speaking of "freedom" and naming Democrat state governors as if they are part of an occupying enemy force. This is unbelievable from the president of the United States of America. Unbelievable.

Perhaps most amazingly of all, there is no uproar from the citizens about this. People seem used to it. Nobody trusts each others' sources of information any more, thanks to Trump, so there is no yardstick of truth to tell you what's going on. I really think there is now a danger of the death of democracy in the USA. Things are so bad there could be another civil war a few years from now, and perhaps the break-up of the country.

Putin must be loving it. Maybe Xi too.
 
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Yes, with the caveat that the numbers we are seeing is not the cases over time - it's the DETECTED cases over time. So there's some error there.

Agreed there.
OK. So are you saying the USA is already at the peak of this daily admissions curve, or just on the linear increase part of it?
 
I'm not the best person to comment on the progress of the epidemic in the States, but what really disgusts me is the abysmal lack of leadership from Trump, during a national emergency.

In every other country in the world, the leaders have sought to unite the country in taking the tough and unpleasant measures needed to get the virus under control. Trump however has, from the start, used it as yet a further way to divide the country and foment vicious antagonism. Possibly the most revolting behaviour of all, in an admittedly crowded field, has been his selective threat of withholding of medical supplies to states governed by people who are not sufficiently obsequious to him personally. He is willing to cause deaths for his own self-aggrandisement.

Perhaps most amazingly of all, there is no uproar from the citizens about this. People seem used to it. Nobody trusts each others' sources of information any more, thanks to Trump, so there is no yardstick of truth to tell you what's going on. I really think there is now a danger of the death of democracy in the USA. Things are so bad there could be another civil war a few years from now, and perhaps the break-up of the country.

Putin must be loving it. Maybe Xi too.
Nah, you have a good read on the situation. Trump is only interested in Trump, and how he looks. (well, obviously not literally) But, you are absolutely right - he has not handled things well, and not getting people to come together as a united front, will be his downfall, because there will be more deaths. He wants the economy opened, and he doesn't really care about deaths, I don't think. He only cares in as much it affects how he is perceived, maybe...by his party. Interestingly, Pence has been a calming voice of reason, separate and away from Trump. I've been pleasantly surprised at how he has stepped up, and provided guidance.
 
OK. So are you saying the USA is already at the peak of this daily admissions curve, or just on the linear increase part of it?
Sorry, wasn't talking about admissions curve - I was talking about the new-cases curve and the death rate curves since those are more widely reported. We are on the linear part of that curve.
 
Sorry, wasn't talking about admissions curve - I was talking about the new-cases curve and the death rate curves since those are more widely reported. We are on the linear part of that curve.
OK, I presume the new cases curve will be a bell curve like the hospital admissions curve, won't it? If you are on the linear part of that, then the peak of that curve is yet to come. So you know you're getting it under control with your lockdowns, but the maximum stress point for the health system still lies ahead. Is that where you are?
 
Nah, you have a good read on the situation. Trump is only interested in Trump, and how he looks. (well, obviously not literally) But, you are absolutely right - he has not handled things well, and not getting people to come together as a united front, will be his downfall, because there will be more deaths. He wants the economy opened, and he doesn't really care about deaths, I don't think. He only cares in as much it affects how he is perceived, maybe...by his party. Interestingly, Pence has been a calming voice of reason, separate and away from Trump. I've been pleasantly surprised at how he has stepped up, and provided guidance.
Anybody half normal, who believes in democracy and the good of his country, would be better. I'm sure Pence, for all his faults, is such a man.
 
OK, I presume the new cases curve will be a bell curve like the hospital admissions curve, won't it? If you are on the linear part of that, then the peak of that curve is yet to come. So you know you're getting it under control with your lockdowns, but the maximum stress point for the health system still lies ahead. Is that where you are?
Yes. (Again not hospital admissions; cases.) So that means they are at about half of maximum cases, and about a quarter of total cases. Assuming it's a perfect Gaussian curve, of course, which it isn't - but it's a reasonable approximation.
 
Yes. (Again not hospital admissions; cases.) So that means they are at about half of maximum cases, and about a quarter of total cases. Assuming it's a perfect Gaussian curve, of course, which it isn't - but it's a reasonable approximation.
OK, thanks that's clear and more or less in line with my understanding. But that's not great, given that you have already had over 30,000 deaths, though it is slap bang in the range Fauci estimated (and for which he seems now to be being unaccountably vilified :?).
 
Some issues yet to be addressed:
  • Immunity after recovery
    • Currently there appears to be no confirmation that heard immunity is even possible yet alone real.
  • Disability and permanent injury acquired
    • According to some testimony the outcome can be debilitating.
  • Reactivation vs re-infection after recovery
    • The scientists have yet to determine whether it is re-infection or activation, both have serious ramifications.
  • Limitations of test accuracy
    • Many false negatives and accuracy levels are poor.

any others?

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notes:
Media chatter suggest the situation is seriously deteriorating with in the Russian Federation.
 
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