Covid-19 exponential growth

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

Spanish newspaper El Pais published an article comparing the logarithmic growth of the covid-19 cases around the world.

 

Bold curve = number of cases

Thin curve = number of deaths

Superior dotted line = number of cases double in 2 days

Inferior dotted line = number of cases double in 3 days

Red line = increase 10 times in less than 10 days

Yellow curve = increase 10 times in between 10 and 20 days

Green curve = increase 10 times in more than 20 days.

 

 

CHINA

ITALY

USA

SPAIN

GERMANY

IRAN

FRANCE

SOUTH KOREA

SWITZERLAND

UNITED KINGDOM

 

These curves can give an idea of how the different countries are managing the spread of the virus. However the accuracy of these curves depends also on the quality of the data and for the number of cases on the number of diagnostic tests done.

You'll find the curves for many other countries in the article :

https://elpais.com/sociedad/2020/03/21/actualidad/1584819543_395549.html

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Guillaume Albasini

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Really, at this point, who cares? The virus is out there, governments are doing what they can, information is being shared, and labs are working towards a vaccine.

I’m in lockdown. I couldn’t care less about graphs or curves at this point.

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

You should care about it. The time you'll remain in lockdown wil depend of the shape of this curves.

[Marcin2 + 724]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Really, at this point, who cares? The virus is out there, governments are doing what they can, information is being shared, and labs are working towards a vaccine.

I’m in lockdown. I couldn’t care less about graphs or curves at this point.

In East Asia ( I hope also in Malaysia) governments are doing what they SHOULD and the epidemic is contained.

In the rest of the world they are still only doing what they CAN and that is not enough.

In Poland : schools and some shops closed but people still behave in a very irresponsible way ( Less than 5% wearing masks and gloves when in public spaces, and we have over 100 cases in Warsaw) so I think we are on a curve double every 3 maybe  4 days.

Even Italy is still far from hard lockdown the Chinese way so they are still on a curve double every 3 or 4 days.

All the other countries the same.

I would think 1,000 dead every day in Italy should be enough for other governments to be smart , East Asian way, but hell  no.

 

[El Nikko + 2,145]

And then it will peak just like other virus's.

All flu kills, epidemics of it (and other diseases/virus's) overrun health services all the time especially in poorer countries.

Causing mass hysteria is counterproductive and going to change very little other than destroying the economy and ensuring most people will be poorer in the near future.

The Italian death rates seem to be skewed as people with very serious underlying health problems who also happen to catch it and then for example die of a heart attack are still added to the coronavirus death stats according to the 'specialist' quoted in an article I posted in a different topic.

Every year I try to take precautions against catching flu due to being asthmatic, if I get it and then a secondary infection I too could end up in hospital with pneumonia, I don't live in fear and I'm not now. Wash your hands, if you have serious health issues then stay away from people while the health services are under so much pressure and if you are healthy and relatively young carry on because if you get it you will just be ill for a few days. It's called being practical and realistic.

I don't mean to sound 'preachy' I'm just utterly sick of seeing the mass panic on social media much of which is being spread by people who are not at risk of serious ilness. Imagine how many old people and those with anxiety must feel to see their facebook constantly filled with fear mongering?

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

1 hour ago, El Nikko said:

Causing mass hysteria is counterproductive and going to change very little other than destroying the economy and ensuring most people will be poorer in the near future.

So the choice seems to be to save the economy or save the elderly and your choice seems to be save the economy. Elderly people should be much more worried about that attitude than about the concerned citizens that are posting on facebook.

I've been on this for a few weeks now. If the west had taken this semi-seriously from the beginning we wouldn't be looking at major lockdowns. Deal with the problem before it becomes a problem and then manage it.

If 5% of infected people need an overwhelmed ICU, then 5% of people die. That's all there is to it. You get into a car accident and need the ICU during that time? You're dead too.

This has to be delayed so we can build more bed space and develop treatments. Doing that will save millions of lives that can't be saved with our current unprepared state.  Here's an excellent followup article by Tomas Puyeo on this subject.

Or, we can decide to just protect the economy and just let those people die.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

^

I'm a baby boomer. A lifelong runner. A mountain climber. A biker. And wouldn't you know it, I contracted a bad disease a few years back that left me with only one functioning lung. So, at age seventy-five, I'm in the highest risk category. If this gets really awful, and I present to the ER with say 120 other C-virus victims, I'm going to get triaged to the parking lot. 

And I'm okay with that. I'm not suicidal and very few people appreciate life more than I, but I think if we come out of this with our same bloated population of elderly people (all that 90 is the new 50 bullshit) and a badly damaged economy, we're in a world of hurt. 90% of Medicare is spent in the last year of a person's life, 25% in the last month. I've had a good run. Most of us have.

Yes, protect the economy. Believe it or not, with age comes a modicum of a special kind of wisdom: old people understand the need for a strong economy. Without it there is no future for our children and grandchildren. And that's paramount for most of us.

 

[El Nikko + 2,145]

9 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

So the choice seems to be to save the economy or save the elderly and your choice seems to be save the economy. Elderly people should be much more worried about that attitude than about the concerned citizens that are posting on facebook.

I've been on this for a few weeks now. If the west had taken this semi-seriously from the beginning we wouldn't be looking at major lockdowns. Deal with the problem before it becomes a problem and then manage it.

If 5% of infected people need an overwhelmed ICU, then 5% of people die. That's all there is to it. You get into a car accident and need the ICU during that time? You're dead too.

This has to be delayed so we can build more bed space and develop treatments. Doing that will save millions of lives that can't be saved with our current unprepared state.  Here's an excellent followup article by Tomas Puyeo on this subject.

Or, we can decide to just protect the economy and just let those people die.

You let people die each year when there is a flu outbreak or would you like to shut the entire economy down then as well? I don't hear anyone crying about those people who catch it because people didn't wash their hands and use the precatious we're all talking about now. Nor do they shut the schools down to reduce the spread of it. Killing the economy will kill more people than this virus (only in western countries), there will be less money to spend on medical care and everything else that keeps people alive.

You've been on this for weeks you say, you look fairly young and healthy to me and the overwhelming odds are if you caught it you would make a full recovery. Even better if you have a healthy immune system you probably wont even catch it.

Delaying is already in place as it was in previous pandemics, mass hysteria is not going to help. If you are at risk stay away from people, practice good hygene and stay home if you feel ill.

I don't doubt many countries didn't use the 2 months warning to prepare but there is probably  a reason for that, the financial crisis of 2008/2009 crippled many countries fiancially, corupt practices such as PFI initiative in the UK where huge chunks of hospital budgets are syphoned off into private companies that charge obscene amounts and other mismanagement has put the health service under strain even though it's budget appears huge. We could go on and on with what is wrong with the system but more money not less will pay for the extra beds, ventilators, medicine and research.

And don't put words in my mouth, I have not advocated for putting the elderly at risk, if they stay away from people they cannot catch it period. When the state is handing out billions to crippled business's and people out of work there is less to go in to the medical services and that will be needed if there is a second wave in Novemeber when flu season starts.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Overall it is a good article except for the potential 10,000,000 deaths projected as possible in the U.S.A. which is ludicrous IMO. I would say way under a million doing absolutely nothing.

We have taken quicker action than anyone by isolating foreign cases from coming into the United States. The article doesn't even mention that issue as a factor. 

Internationally, the most damage seems to be to Italians due to allowing lots of Chinese leather workers in to make faux "Italian made" shoes. 

Aside from our large cities, which are not as dense as many worldwide, we have natural social distancing in America and should strive to maintain it. We do need more emergency medical care support personnel and equipment. I have urged that all my life since being discharged from the army where I was a medic in an air mobile field unit. By the way, there is nothing wrong with tented field hospitals but we have plenty of vacant buildings in this country thanks to Amazon. 

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

22 minutes ago, El Nikko said:

And don't put words in my mouth, I have not advocated for putting the elderly at risk, if they stay away from people they cannot catch it period. When the state is handing out billions to crippled business's and people out of work there is less to go in to the medical services and that will be needed if there is a second wave in Novemeber when flu season starts.

I'm not intending to put words in your mouth, I'm actually intending to show what your stance will lead to.  Apologies that it comes across that way.

The problem with this pandemic is that the normal 20-30,000 dead is off by potentially one or two orders of magnitude. I encourage you to read the article that's linked. 2 million dead in the US is not impossible. Imagine that - house prices would probably fall 30% off the bat. That could cripple the economy itself.

I recognise that there is going to be a lot of gaming the system going on for the next couple of years. That's going to be a massive issue something will have to be done after we act.

I'm also not sure that our economic model is going to survive this without major modifications. What those modifications are, I don't pretend to understand what they might entail. This, though, is likely the real end of our post-WW2 way of running economies - I happen to think it was a great run and thinking of the repercussions of those changes fills me with both hope and trepidation.

EDIT: one of the areas that fills me with both hope and trepidations is this. Ventilators can be produced for $100 with a 3D printer and a Raspberry Pi. On the other side, these companies have spent millions developing different types of ventilators that they sell from $5,000 to $50,000. With a changed economic system, who gets the preference?

23 minutes ago, El Nikko said:

more money not less will pay for the extra beds, ventilators, medicine and research.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Geoff Guenther

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

18 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Overall it is a good article except for the potential 10,000,000 deaths projected as possible in the U.S.A. which is ludicrous IMO. I would say way under a million doing absolutely nothing.

I think he was trying to show if every number was absolutely worst case in the US, there is an outside possibility of 10 million deaths. I'd say it's a wild chance, but it's something we probably need to prepare for in case we have an evil mutation.

I think he's also being too generous with what the UK has actually done. If you want a proper conspiracy theory, the PM had a eugenics supporter advising him until last month. https://www.itv.com/news/2020-02-17/boris-johnson-faces-calls-to-sack-controversial-number-10-adviser/

[El Nikko + 2,145]

55 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

I'm not intending to put words in your mouth, I'm actually intending to show what your stance will lead to.  Apologies that it comes across that way.

The problem with this pandemic is that the normal 20-30,000 dead is off by potentially one or two orders of magnitude. I encourage you to read the article that's linked. 2 million dead in the US is not impossible. Imagine that - house prices would probably fall 30% off the bat. That could cripple the economy itself.

I recognise that there is going to be a lot of gaming the system going on for the next couple of years. That's going to be a massive issue something will have to be done after we act.

I'm also not sure that our economic model is going to survive this without major modifications. What those modifications are, I don't pretend to understand what they might entail. This, though, is likely the real end of our post-WW2 way of running economies - I happen to think it was a great run and thinking of the repercussions of those changes fills me with both hope and trepidation.

EDIT: one of the areas that fills me with both hope and trepidations is this. Ventilators can be produced for $100 with a 3D printer and a Raspberry Pi. On the other side, these companies have spent millions developing different types of ventilators that they sell from $5,000 to $50,000. With a changed economic system, who gets the preference?

We just won't know until this is over but I would hope people still remember that we've had previous pandemics and various experts made horrifying predictions. It's a struggle now to find some of them because say you start searching swine flu 2009 you will be swamped with comparisons between that and this one. I looked at the archived articles and quickly found several for example CNN claiming that 90,000 people wqould die in the US and one I believe was used by the British government that had a top end estimate of 750,000 dead (yes you read that right). Now that is over we see the CDC figures of 12,000 (I've seen lower ones though) and 370 in the UK. Social media was in it's infancy then and the media while overhyping reports behaved a little more responsibly in my opinion. But today every shocking video from a hospital circulates around the world so quickly.

I am not a fan of social media and only have a small anonymous facebook account with a few friends and even still I can see what is happening, go on groups and there is real panic and this is in a country which only has 5000 confirmed cases. Initially our PM was fairly calm, and repeated the exact same advice we were given during the swine flu which we've both covered above, keeping the vulnerable away from infection and hygene but even back then terrifying estimates were still being pumped out in 2009 we did not shut the entire economy down. However as I was traveling frequently at the time people were being tested at airports for having temperatures and they did test people who had them.

I think they made a mistake not shuting down flights to and from China and then Italy, they also failed to test people coming home and I don't think they were telling people to stay home for a week after coming back. Some measures are going to be needed, I'm not an expert but my fear is that once the economic damage has been done you will have a lot of poverty and it could lead to serious social unrest and that actually worries me as much if not more. Our national debt is pretty huge, our budget deficit was just coming under control and now our government are going to borrow vast amounts of money to pay healthy people to stay at home instead of inject it into the medical system!! Imagine what half a trillion pounds would do for that.

I don't know exactly what is happening elsewhere but this is what happened in the UK. Once the media hysteria took hold people clamoured for action on schools (including myself) I believe the main reason this was sparked was because some senior health official had said they planned to keep the schools open to deliberately spread it to 80% of the population and as someone who definately doesn't want to deliberately catch a flu that did get me worried. From then on the government had to backtrack on that but mass panic had already set in. More and more people started demanding shut downs and the like. The PM then told people (and I'm sure he really meant just those at risk) to work from home if possible and that lead to masses of companies sending people home...maybe they didn't realise what would come next because tens if not hundreds of thousands of people then decided to treat it like a paid holiday and set off for the seaside (Where I live incidentally). This sparked even more panic amongst the locals here who seem to think horded of plague victims were on their way. More pentions started and now the entire tourist economy is being shut down. It's what people here want because they think the government is going to pay everyone to be off work and I'm quite sure that is not going to be the case.

The situation is terrible right now and that is with hardly anyone with the virus in this country and 281 deaths.

I am just trying to be logical and level headed, and I've looked back to previous pandemics to see how they panned out over time instead of studying the early part of a pandemic. I think this could be worse than the swine flu, maybe by an order of magnitude (with swine flu the over 60s have some immunity to it and it killed kids unlike this one) but it will probably be another month maybe two before we get some trustworth data (I don't trust the chinese figures).

We're all worried, I'm sick of hearing about it to be honest and I'm watch people tear chunks out of each other as if it's their fault just becasue they don't have the same opinion. If this thing ends up no worse that the wine flu we will have done massive damage to our society, if I'm wrong then I'm wrong but I'm not the government and I don't get to make any decisions anyway so it's not my fault either.

Sorry for any typos and keyboard is also dieing

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

Johnson needs to be sacked. If he had acted when he needed to we could have avoided a lockdown. Instead he decided to play God. When he realised his pretend numbers were wrong (about the same time Trump did) he made small steps to try to get back on course. He restarted testing, not that anyone unimportant can get a test yet. He told people to stay home, and half the population still thinks they can act with no repercussions. 

The longer we take dabbling with half-hearted measures, the longer we'll take to get this under control. Who does Johnson think he is? Jeremy Corbyn? Take a stance instead of blaming the people who believed you when you said it wasn't a big deal. 

This won't be 1918, but it's already worse than 2009. We actually don't know how the economy dealt with 1918 because we were just coming out of a war. 

As such, it's lots of guesswork, but it would be nice if it was educated and published models we were using, not something decided in the back halls of Downing Street.

[Bob D + 562]

yes   all political leaders need to be sacked.  genius!  BoJo did a bad job ... sack him.  Trump did a bad job ... sack him.  Italy PM did a bad job ... sack him.  If only the Magic 8 ball could steer everyone to the correct decisions.   

Geoff ... you are now in charge.  What do we do??  If you make one bad decision ... your sacked.  Doesn't matter what the reason is for your mistakes/errors.  Can't blame opposing views from medical professionals.  Can't blame the gov't bureaucracy lack of movement.  Any new information that renders your decisions wrong cannot be used as a crutch.  Can't blame lies from certain countries about when/where the virus started, it's contagious and mutating abilities.  Can't blame the political blame game of reporting.  If masks do not exist in quantities necessary for any population and you can't magically make them appear ... sacked.  Good luck.   

[Bob D + 562]

.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Bob D
dupe post no idea how to delete it ... sacked

[0R0 + 6,251]

3 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Yes, protect the economy. Believe it or not, with age comes a modicum of a special kind of wisdom: old people understand the need for a strong economy. Without it there is no future for our children and grandchildren. And that's paramount for most of us.

 

I posted a video from Neil Howe (a demographer so handy with epidemic stats) and he pointed out that the best strategy is to isolate the high risk population, and have the rest go on a kissing spree to spread the disease broadly so that everyone young gets it and once they are done - appx 2 weeks, they should be virus free (that is the release criterion from follow up - till then you are an active case even if you are fine) and we can let the at risk population resume interacting with society.

[0R0 + 6,251]

1 hour ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Johnson needs to be sacked. If he had acted when he needed to we could have avoided a lockdown. Instead he decided to play God. When he realised his pretend numbers were wrong (about the same time Trump did) he made small steps to try to get back on course. He restarted testing, not that anyone unimportant can get a test yet. He told people to stay home, and half the population still thinks they can act with no repercussions. 

 

That was due to the Oxford paper from Ferguson. It changed lots of minds.

[Marcin2 + 724]

We are in uncharted territory, next 2 weeks in Italy would tell how bad it can get 10 days later in United States, UK or Germany.

80% of COVID-19 cases mild symptoms - you survive even with shitty or no healthcare.

15% of serious cases - you most probably die with high probability without respirators / decent hospitalization. As I said we will see in Italy in next weeks.

5% of critical cases - dead on arrival without ICU.

So we would only know in 2 weeks on the basis of Italy how high mortality could get, now in Italy it is over 5%, could it get to 10% or 15% ?

So maybe 10 million deaths in US is off but not by a high margin.

In my opinion unless you have 1,000-5,000 ICU per 1 million people so up to 1.5 million ICU in US - the only solution is quarantine.

[Marcin2 + 724]

1 hour ago, 0R0 said:

I posted a video from Neil Howe (a demographer so handy with epidemic stats) and he pointed out that the best strategy is to isolate the high risk population, and have the rest go on a kissing spree to spread the disease broadly so that everyone young gets it and once they are done - appx 2 weeks, they should be virus free (that is the release criterion from follow up - till then you are an active case even if you are fine) and we can let the at risk population resume interacting with society.

But during this mass exercise in dying , 2-5% of „low risk” population would die cause actually  no healthcare available.

As far as I know since Pasteur we opt for real vaccination not pure Darwinism.

[0R0 + 6,251]

10 minutes ago, Marcin2 said:

But during this mass exercise in dying , 2-5% of „low risk” population would die cause actually  no healthcare available.

As far as I know since Pasteur we opt for real vaccination not pure Darwinism.

The low risk death rates are about 0.5% @Tom Kirkman posted the risk tables by age group. The average age of people who died in Italy was 80. 

Of course, it is more difficult to do in Europe because the at risk population is larger than in the US. 

[El Nikko + 2,145]

12 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

The low risk death rates are about 0.5% @Tom Kirkman posted the risk tables by age group. The average age of people who died in Italy was 80. 

Of course, it is more difficult to do in Europe because the at risk population is larger than in the US. 

I think there might be an issue with the death figures coming out of Italy. Some easily explained like demographics but also the way they are being attributed to the virus. I'm not a doctor and it's just a 'news' article.

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus."

“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three,”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,129]

10 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

You should care about it. The time you'll remain in lockdown wil depend of the shape of this curves.

Well no, not true, unless the virus is allowed to run free as everyone goes about daily lives.  What we are doing currently around the world just means that everyone will eternally be on lockdown till a vaccine is developed or no international commerce is allowed....

[TooSteep + 142]

6 hours ago, Geoff Guenther said:

"So the choice seems to be to save the economy or save the elderly and your choice seems to be save the economy. Elderly people should be much more worried about that attitude than about the concerned citizens that are posting on facebook.

..."

I'm a newcomer here, and I've liked everything you've written so far ... but this post sounds a bit like woke people being outraged over a 'racist' comment that a real person in the alleged victim group wouldn't even notice.

My parents are 94 and 86, in excellent health, with full cognitive abilities. Their number one concern right now is social isolation, not dying of a virus. I think everyone needs to read Susan Pinker's excellent work 'The Village Effect', on longevity. The reason my parents have been so fortunate is that family and friends 'are' their life. Heck, they still volunteer a few days a week at the local center to 'help the seniors'.

They know it's not the flu. But they also know their clocks are ticking, and they hate that the government has mandated they live in social isolation. This only works for them, and millions like them, if it is very short-term to buy time for a therapeutic. 12-18 months is completely out of the question for them to live like that.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,129]

5 hours ago, Geoff Guenther said:

I think he was trying to show if every number was absolutely worst case in the US, there is an outside possibility of 10 million deaths. I'd say it's a wild chance, but it's something we probably need to prepare for in case we have an evil mutation.

The deaths are going to happen regardless; unless a vaccine is found.  Otherwise what is currently happening just means another wave will hit later.  So what?  Whole world goes on lockdown every ~6 months?  How many die due to lockdown?  Old people and world as no one is working.  Who dies due to this virus?  Old people with existing complications and a few younger who have severe complications and a few young odd balls who look healthy. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

From the Medium article. Highly speculative and as I live in the US there are many no's that should say yes. Why not? Oh because the authors think the USA is like teeny tiny Singapore and should be treated as one big monolith. In point of fact, Washington, California and New York to name a few have instituted the serious measures. Podunk, Iowa has not, because no one is infected there. The universities are all closed, the NCAA tourney is cancelled along with every other major crowd event. But we're 50 states with 50 different ways to do things. 

Edited March 23, 2020 by Ward Smith