We now at 1500+...The scary fact about Corona in South Africa. Using technology

[lumberjack]

Not going to say too much, I believe the graph says it all...

Corona1.jpg (60.64 KiB) Viewed 728 times

[mainhatten]

Not going to say too much, I believe the graph says it all...

Yes, but only insofar as that european states had ample warning and tests available, isolated first occurrences and had hence a breather period until asymptomatic spreaders seeded enough to make certain exponential curve was started.

First occurrence is easiest way to build such comparisons - but better comparison can be reached when using a certain number clearly already in spreading phase like 100 or 500. Even doing that there are marked differences between tsts available, tests done and so on. Other measures, like first death, death count rise and so on also are not easy to compare due to different age pyramids and triage hightening count if available beds are all filled, as that and age structure seem to play a big role in Italy.

SA starting to rise sooner I'd summarize under first occurrence not realized.as early as elsewhere: Germany "found" first infections in plane evacuating citizens from china early February and company Webasto in late January, which both were quaranteened. That is the ONLY reason of long parallel line at start, and the identical slope of rise when infection was spreading just proves that this period was gambled away.

my 0.02€
thomas

[lumberjack]

We now at 554...weekend 1000

[wriedmann]

Hi Johan,

We now at 554...weekend 1000

we have tuesday... at saturday your country will be a lot over 1000, I think.
Here rates are increasing about 15% every day, and Italy now seems in the phase where the incremention rates seem to slow down a bit.
Wolfgang

[lumberjack]

We now at 554...weekend 1000

704 and counting...

[mainhatten]

We now at 554...weekend 1000

704 and counting...

As symptoms will show 3 to 18 days after infection happens, you will see further exponential rise in the next days and have to hope that the angle of log scale is/falls low enough that by the end of next week infection count is still in low 5 figures.
Infection rate less encumbered by warmer climate than hoped for at first (see Iran and Egypt) still might have something to do with "window of opportunity" standing wide open as no antibodies currently bolster "immunity". Not enough data...

don't panic, try to plan on data known to be insufficient
thomas

[ic2]

A model which has proven to be pretty reliable, was made March 11 by a Dutch (Eindhoven) University for 12 countries:
https://www.tue.nl/en/our-university/de ... nfections/
They wrote yesterday that it had been a bit too pessimistic for The Netherlands and the USA.

Thomas is right however when he says you can prove and predict much but it depends how you look at it. Starting from the first deaths, or the 1st 100 cases, graphs look a lot less grim.

I find the daily growth factor graphs on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... wth-factor good. Just like the numbers of most individual countries you can see that there is no stable trend yet. March 21 it was 0,96, meaning a small decline, then it rose 2 days to 1,27 and March 24 it's 1,06. I think the absolute numbers are still "low" (compared to the flue for example) and a small change in tests, registering, or a bit larger outbreak in a specific area can increase growth dramatically in 1 day while the other day the growth falls so sharply that you can read "See, a lock down works". Probably we have millions of people infected in a few weeks with a few 100.000's of death (seasonal flue kills 300,000 to 650,000 people a year, up from earlier figures 250000-50000 according to the Lancelot (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... cestitle10) and perhaps all these drastic measurements will finally have effect and the world won't reach these figures.

In short: it is easy to worry about statistics but there are too many unsure factors. It can go either way...

Dick

[mainhatten]

A model which has proven to be pretty reliable, was made March 11 by a Dutch (Eindhoven) University for 12 countries:
https://www.tue.nl/en/our-university/de ... nfections/
They wrote yesterday that it had been a bit too pessimistic for The Netherlands and the USA.

Nice find! A few points: Such curve fittings tend/try to be better than reality, which in part is reflected in the VERY different scales shown on X any Y axes of graphs of different countries. They can be interpreted as markers of other hidden variables: such as testing only done on symptomatic patients vs. contact persons, age pyramid differences and so on. This is a methological weakness of the approach: on the other hand it has a benefit, insofar as curve fitting within subgroup is not diffused with the error variance introduced by the different values typically distributed on at different strata in countries looked at. That way inhabitants of said country get a better approximation of their surroundings.

Thomas is right however when he says you can prove and predict much but it depends how you look at it. Starting from the first deaths, or the 1st 100 cases, graphs look a lot less grim.

I feel less morbid seeing that others also view lethality as better comparison marker. There is still large area of "sampling" error, as not all deaths are routinely checked for Corona - and stats from Italy also show a marked difference of (expected deaths + identified Corona cases) vs. actual deaths since January, which IMO should be attributed mostly to Corona - even if some part might be indirect, as in Corona patient filling the bed usually going to non-Corona patient.

I find the daily growth factor graphs on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... wth-factor good. Just like the numbers of most individual countries you can see that there is no stable trend yet. March 21 it was 0,96, meaning a small decline, then it rose 2 days to 1,27 and March 24 it's 1,06. I think the absolute numbers are still "low" (compared to the flue for example) and a small change in tests, registering, or a bit larger outbreak in a specific area can increase growth dramatically in 1 day while the other day the growth falls so sharply that you can read "See, a lock down works".

I know the site, personally prefer /#countries, as growth pattern per se was clear since end of February.
Missing good site on # of tests done, currently using https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing and https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus- ... ource-data - Led me to plan personal tactics of trying to bolster immune system to lessen "Window of Opportunity" and search for patterns of combating that thing without killing economy or surpassing big brother dreams of some big way. Will be interesing to see if China can avoid 2. wave, and how they do it. Temperature checking often coupled with contact hunting might keep infection rate down, but is hard to stomach for anybody knowing what can be done with the profiles generated that way.

Probably we have millions of people infected in a few weeks with a few 100.000's of death (seasonal flue kills 300,000 to 650,000 people a year, up from earlier figures 250000-50000 according to the Lancelot (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... cestitle10) and perhaps all these drastic measurements will finally have effect and the world won't reach these figures.
In short: it is easy to worry about statistics but there are too many unsure factors. It can go either way...

The really bad point is: unless a working vaccine is found soon, measures reaching same effect have to be in place within a few weeks to start economy again. Thats my reason for looking at China (somewhat dubious on the near perfect elimination...) and to South Korea.
About the only thing German gov did well was push for high test# early on - cheap tests for current infection and recovery from infection (with luck granting immunity for 6-12 months) would be a huge step in direction I hope to see, as well as mandatory temperature measurement at least at ports of entry, pehaps coupled with tests on signs of infection. The contingency plan is to hack together about 100000 breather machines - below current hospital standard, but probably better than no machine at all. Here I expect we will buy either Chinese or American models, as we are regulating ourselves too much.
Next week # of new infections and week later # of deaths will show effects of lockdown working. Another way to calculate is that with recovery time of less than 30 days of those needing hospitalization and a guessed factor of 80% symptom-free to symptom-harmless needing only isolation in theory you could handle new infection rate of 10-15% of all currently infected (they NEED to be all identified, not only those showing stronger symptoms... which currently clearly is NOT the case), as mortality then might stay as low as in Singapore, China except hard hit area or South Korea while building herd immunity. Vaccine still much preferred!

Interesting times...
thomas

[lumberjack]

We now at 554...weekend 1000

704 and counting...

We have reached 907...

We now 1 hour 40 minutes into total lock-down in South Africa... All business except essential services are allowed to operate and even they have reduced their hours. Food/Health and some other essential services are still operating. Even those have some strict measurements. Supermarkets need to lock non-essential alleys, yes they not even allowed to sell clothes/cigarettes/alcohol... the list goes on and on...

Are we going to contain the spread of Covid-19? I doubt it... As Nostradamus said: I see in the year with the twin digits (2020)...

Closer to home in the words of "Seer" van Rensburg, a Boer prophet who lived during the 1900's: "I see a dark period in South Africa when the worlds eyes will be turned to Europe, a dark cloud moves over SA from the East and the Boers will move West and the land will be filled with white tents..." Well up to today everything he said became true regarding this country... Let's not speculate, time will tell...

[mainhatten]

Hi Johan,

Are we going to contain the spread of Covid-19? I doubt it... As Nostradamus said: I see in the year with the twin digits (2020)...

I wrote earlier that I believe we will be hosts a new virus. So what, it is only nature, if not Rock'n'Roll.
Snap out of it - Even the Chinese, who encountered the virus first and had to work on no data at all, were able to survive:

Do the simple math yourself:
https://assets.tue.nl/fileadmin/content ... _Virus.pdf
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7b48e9ecf6

to calculate mortality if tested positive a) if inside Hubei b) elsewhere in mainland China
to get an idea how well humans can cope with harsh, but intelligent measures
add the knowledge that you can a) bolster your own bodies defenses (a little) b) can modify behavior to minimize risc of infection

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/heal ... ns-us.html
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/ ... d/12089028

Even if your country was at first following flawed reasoning resulting in more deaths than necessary,
"just" do your damn best to allow your lump of cells to survive
Rekindle that fighting spirit - or at least determination to out outsmart that virus...

(is a friendly online jump-starting-kick-in-the-behind allowed under social distancing?)
thomas