Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Watching data come in hour by hour is pretty brutal because usually it will take at least three days of consistency to establish a trend with any degree of confidence.

Nevertheless, the data coming from Italy remains a key to understanding progression and containment. So I'll be looking at that today (yesterday it came in about 1 p.m. eastern (USA) time).

In the meantime, new cases in Spain, France, Germany, USA and lots of other counties are on the rising (discouraging) side of the bell-shaped-curve. Knowing when Italy tops out and then begins to decline (as South Korea did about 10 days back) is meaningful info.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

The virus has now been reported in every state except for West Virginia, according to the CDC."

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

CORONA CHAOS Coronavirus LIVE news: UK airports could shut ‘within weeks’ – latest updates
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11176662/coronavirus-live-news-updates-cases/
17 Mar 2020, 13:44



"LONDON's transport network could come to a near halt as Britain is gripped by the coronavirus lockdown with the English capital at the centre of the outbreak.

Britain has entered lockdown with millions of Brits staying at home and over-70s being urged to shield themselves from the outside world.

Medical advisers have warned that Britain's coronavirus death toll, currently at 55, will soar to 260,000 unless the lockdown is made stricter."

quote:

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The USA benefitted from being a bit later in virus onset (in most places) and getting to see what was going on in Europe and how things were being handled. As a result, federal, state and local governments began taken strong action comparatively early and in some ways we've caught up to Western Europe (and perhaps surpassed some, in some ways).

That may not be the case with all states, like Washington State which saw an early outbreak back in February and dealt with far more uncertainty in what to do.

We do have that advantage, but IMO, we have squandered some of that through mis-management of testing. Truth is we have no way of knowing right now how widespread it is.

We are also behind in respirators; the US has a Strategic Reserve of Medical devices that includes respirators. We need to not only be deploying those right now, but also training additional staff in their use. In fact, we should be training additional medical help staff right now. We can't train up more nurses and doctors, but we can provide some basic training to Guardsmen and others to help in an emergency.

It's almost a certainty that as the hospitals admit more patients, there will be fewer nurses, because a) some will get sick, and b) 38% of the Nurses in this country have school-age children; some of those need to watch their kids!!!!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kull

I'll spare you the links since it's happening everywhere, but jury duty and trials are being suspended all across the country. Apparently the "right to a speedy trial" isn't such an important right after all. Which other rights aren't so important? It shouldn't matter whether you are liberal or conservative, dangerous precedents are being set.

quote:

ORIGINAL: alanschu

I'm concerned about the 10-12% jump in new cases in a day, though.

quote:

ORIGINAL: alanschu

I'm concerned about the 10-12% jump in new cases in a day, though.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kull

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Coming back to this.

This is just critical care beds of all types, yes? What's important is the number of critical care devices that can assist patients with symptoms of severe respiratory infections - so respirators/ventilators and any other devices that can assist in breathing for a patient. It's notable because what's going on in Italy is they are having to decide which patients get the ventilator when it's available and which don't.

In general, we aren't talking about just the bed, but the unit and it's support capabilities for "X" number of CCBs. I haven't been able to find any stats relative to "ventilators per CCB", but it's got to be very high, although it may vary from country to country. There are interesting stats at the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, in particular:

quote:

Mechanical ventilation is one of the most common interventions implemented in the intensive care unit. More than half of the patients in the ICU are ventilated the first 24 hours after ICU admission; comprised of individuals who have acute respiratory failure, compromised lung function, difficulty in breathing, or failure to protect their airway.

And this:

quote:

790,257 hospitalizations involving mechanical ventilation in 2005, representing 2.7 episodes of mechanical ventilation per 1000 population; estimated national costs were 27 billion representing 12% of all hospital costs.

That means there have to be a lot and given the regulatory environment, it wouldn't surprise me if a high ratio was mandated (possibly even 1-to-1).

Here's some information on ventilators from the American Thoracic Society. What they do, how they work, and more.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The good news, Alanschu, is that number of new cases has been basically level for four days now! Truly, that might be the leveling out of the bell-shaped-curve.

quote:

ORIGINAL: alanschu

I'm concerned about the 10-12% jump in new cases in a day, though.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The good news, Alanschu, is that number of new cases has been basically level for four days now! Truly, that might be the leveling out of the bell-shaped-curve.

quote:

ORIGINAL: alanschu

I'm concerned about the 10-12% jump in new cases in a day, though.

I'm extremely skeptical that it is sustainable. I think it is far more likely that the perceived flattening is the result of one of two things: (1) testing is still not being done widely enough to accurately capture the actual spread; or (2) the relatively draconian (compared to normal times) measures that are already in place in the US's major population centers may actually be working, but would need to be maintained for over a year and possibly as long as 18 months for this rate of spread to be sustainable without the rate of spread exploding upwards again.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kull

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Ten days after passing the peak of the bell-shaped-curve, recoveries in South Korea are rapidly increasing. That country has had 84 deaths and 1401 recoveries, which is 33 more deaths and nearly 1300 more recoveries than a week ago.

In western democracies, a lockdown is only going to work for a short period, and it's really imperative that we use that time to lay the groundwork for opening society back up along the lines of the South Korean model. People who are talking about lockdowns lasting for months and months are insane.

The healthcare system isn't the only one that has a finite capacity, the same is true of the criminal justice system. What WILL millions of young people do when they can't work or socialize for months and months? I'd rather not find out.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I agree that testing is questionable, Loka. That's why I prefer using mortality numbers.

(Note that the discussion you commented actually wasn't about the USA. It was about Italy.)

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A very high likelihood, I think. Almost as high as that Australian group that estimated 15,000,000 deaths under the best case of seven scenarios.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Surprising the Switzerland, Norway and Iran have such high infection rates per million population.
Too much heavy breathing from climbing mountains or just heavy testing?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

A very high likelihood, I think. Almost as high as that Australian group that estimated 15,000,000 deaths under the best case of seven scenarios.

Even "just" 200K dead by mid-summer (as opposed to 1.1-1.2M) is a whole lot of extra dead people. If 1.1-1.2M is 50K deaths per day at peak, 200K would be ~10K deaths per day at peak?

That's more than double the typical daily mortality rate of 7K-something.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Yeah, and why the huge concentration and outbreak of cases in the Lombardy province of Italy?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Surprising the Switzerland, Norway and Iran have such high infection rates per million population.
Too much heavy breathing from climbing mountains or just heavy testing?

Iran was notoriously... I'll just say careless.

Switzerland and Norway - what's the population density where people actually live? I.e., the average population density that a person there experiences? If it's high, I'd expect higher rates of infection than I would in, say, a rural US state.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

On the flip side, I've gotten a lot more interesting insight into this from this thread than from any other source I've accessed.

I just wish Chickenboy was participating more often.

Hey, has anybody heard from him since he went to that renaissance fair in Texas?

quote:

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

On the flip side, I've gotten a lot more interesting insight into this from this thread than from any other source I've accessed.

I just wish Chickenboy was participating more often.

Hey, has anybody heard from him since he went to that renaissance fair in Texas?

I've heard a rumor that he's been named "King" of central Texas and is busy putting together a government.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ITAKLinus

Oh guys...

I came back from Liberia a couple of weeks ago. Decided intentionally not to stop by my friends and parents in Italy and I went directly to Prague, where my partner lives.

Now I'm stuck there with no apparent possibility to go back to Africa anytime soon. Remote working and everything closed.


In the meanwhile, since coronavirus is too mainstream, I had to go to the hospital where they do treat people for coronavirus here in Czech Republic because I was having a moderate dengue. Of course, since I'm also very lucky (...), the only tropical disease department in the country is the one treating coronavirus. They are doing very well, but I wasn't that happy to be stuck there for quite a while.

The only positive aspect so far is that me and my opponent we doubled the amount of turns per day

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Surprising the Switzerland, Norway and Iran have such high infection rates per million population.
Too much heavy breathing from climbing mountains or just heavy testing?

Iran was notoriously... I'll just say careless.

Switzerland and Norway - what's the population density where people actually live? I.e., the average population density that a person there experiences? If it's high, I'd expect higher rates of infection than I would in, say, a rural US state.

Unless a lot of Chinese people go to Switzerland and Norway for skiing, I would not expect many visitors in the winter that would drive the infection rate per million so much higher than other countries. Switzerland probably can be explained by proximity to northern Italy, but Norway? How many visitors from high-risk areas does Norway get in the winter? And don't the mountains limit travel somewhat so geographic isolation is more prevalent?
So I wonder whether the virus is spreading faster there or if they are just very vigilant in their testing so they count more cases earlier than other countries on the chart.