Guest essay by Eric Worrall
CDC efforts to contain the Chinese Corona Virus in the USA have focussed on identifying chains of infection and isolating everyone who might have come in contact with infected people. But a case of Chinese Corona Virus infection has appeared in California, without an obvious chain of infection, prompting fears the virus may be spreading undetected in the community.
CDC Confirms Possible First Instance of COVID-19 Community Transmission in California
Date: February 26, 2020
Number: NR20-006
Contact: Corey Egel | 916.440.7259 | CDPHpress@cdph.ca.govSACRAMENTO – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today confirmed a possible first case of person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 in California in the general public. The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County. The individual had no known exposure to the virus through travel or close contact with a known infected individual.
California has a strong health care system and public health infrastructure. California has prepared for the potential spread of diseases, such as H1N1, in the past and is prepared and actively responding to the potential community spread of COVID-19. Contact tracing in this case has already begun.
The health risk from novel coronavirus to the general public remains low at this time. While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate. From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80 percent do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date. California is carefully assessing the situation as it evolves.
“Keeping Californians safe and healthy is our number one priority,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, Director of the California Department of Public Health and State Public Health Officer. “This has been an evolving situation, which California has been monitoring and responding to since COVID-19 cases first emerged in China last year. This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know. We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California. That’s why California has been working closely with federal and local partners, including health care providers and hospitals, since the outbreak was first reported in China — and we are already responding.”
As in any public health emergency, the Department of Public Health’s Emergency Operations Center has been actively coordinating response efforts across the state and preparing for possible community transmission. California continues to prepare and respond in coordination with federal and local partners.
This would be the first known instance of person-to-person transmission in the general public in the United States. Previously known instances of person-to-person transmission in the United States include one instance in Chicago, Illinois, and one in San Benito County, California. Both cases were after close, prolonged interaction with a family member who returned from Wuhan, China and had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus. As of today, including this case, California has had 7 travel-related cases, one close contact case, and now one community transmission.
As with any virus, especially during the flu season, the Health Department reminds you there are a number of steps you can take to protect your health and those around you:
- Washing hands with soap and water.
- Avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands.
- Avoiding close contact with people who are sick are all ways to reduce the risk of infection with a number of different viruses.
- Staying away from work, school or other people if you become sick with respiratory symptoms like fever and cough.
The California Department of Public Health will not be providing additional information about this patient due to patient confidentiality. For more information about novel coronavirus, please visit the CDPH website.
Source: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/NR20-006.aspx
How do you prepare for a virus?
The most important thing is not to panic. Panic is useful if you need an extra burst of speed to escape a hungry lion, but it messes up your ability to think clearly. Panic does not help you think your way to safety.
At the same time, don’t ignore this.
My personal response has been to buy a few extra tins of food, stock up with a month worth of non-perishable food. Almost exactly the same precautions I take when my district is threatened by floods and storms.
Make sure that if you have to lock your front door for a few weeks, you won’t go hungry. And don’t run out of toilet paper, like we almost did in 2013 when we were cut off by floods.
What else should we do? Personally I’m continuing to go about my normal life. Because bills still have to be paid, and life goes on.
Excellent advice. I would note that China has some regions where people have been locked up for going on two months now so after one has one month of stuff stocked, then one should stock up on two months. Also don’t forget your prescription and nonprescription meds.
Appreciate the update Eric. It’s mostly a good thing to be “isolated” out here in flyover country right now although that does not make us immune. And I’m flying on business to New York, through Chicago, in 4 weeks. And the workmate I spend most of my time with is at a training course in Tucson this week, so maybe not so isolated after all.
In any case, we’re in the safest country in the world when it comes to dealing with things like this novel virus. I expect it to be mostly over in 2-3 months.
As the veterinarian said about the cat’s hair balls “This too shall pass!”
” I expect it to be mostly over in 2-3 months.”
I expect not.
I expect this is a new disease of human beings, and it shall remain with us along with all the rest.
Tonight we heard about the first Dutch person with the virus, probably contaminated in the North of Italy. Another person, just on the other side of the border with Germany was celebrating Carnaval about a week or ten days ago. It is spreading quickly.
The first Dutch person also was celebrating Carnival: several nights. Just some kilometers from the village from a good colleague. Like I said yesterday: it is coming close. And our authority is waiting……. In Greece they cancelled next weekend of Carnival. It hasn’t been discussed in the Netherlands, even not when there was a big upsurge in infected people in the North of Italy, a one day drive from here.
And this: “1 new case in Spain (Valencia): a 44-year-old male who traveled to Milan to watch the Champions League match between Atalanta and Valencia of Feb. 19.
Info from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Next Sunday in the place I live there is a big run: ten thousand or more people. So far no discussion about the virus.
Tokyo Olympics start on July 24, hopefully this virus will have burned by then.
I’ve read that Saudi Arabia has closed Mecca to the Hajj for the duration as well.
I would be willing to take odds the Olympics will be delayed if not called off outright.
Travel restrictions, being avoiding large crowded places, many people in close association from all over the world.
These are all things we will be dealing with for quite some time.
It is possible the disease will mostly go away with warmer and humid weather in the northern hemisphere.
Mostly.
But it will not be eliminated in any case.
I personally think the only reason for doing anything out of the ordinary is to hinder the spread so avoid large numbers getting it all at once, and also because there will likely be treatments of one or several types sooner or later.
At this point there are undoubtedly people who know if remdesivir is working, and if so how well and on what percentage of people, how soon after becoming infected one must begin taking it (with Ebola, CFR went from near 90% with no treatment to ~35-50% with remdesivir, and the lower CFR was associated with taking it soon after exposure/infection), etc.
If it does work, it will have to be determined how well it suppresses contagiousness, length of convalescence, the likelihood of reinfection/chronic infection (there is increasing evidence of either chronic infection or reinfection in at least some people), etc.
Late news reports tell of first US fatality, virus now in isolated cases in all three West Coast states (which means either someone is spreading it intentionally or there is a super spreader who travels a lot, or there are many people who have it and are spreading it and are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms…), cases now in Mexico, Brazil…a longer and growing list of countries.
To me it is obvious the disease is highly contagious and many people have very mild or absent symptoms, and can spread it nonetheless…and are doing so.
But there is no indication the virus is very dangerous for young and for healthy people in the vast majority of cases.
The free world is not gonna weld people’s doors shut and force anyone suspected of being infected to be warehoused for several weeks, lock down entire cities, or anything like that.
Such measures will ultimately turn out to be counterproductive, IMO and in my estimation.
People need all manner of things to stay healthy and prosperous, and healthy prosperous people will survive and disease far more readily that poor people who have had jobs eliminated due to recession, closed factories, halting of commerce, etc.
But Iran has welcomes the Covid19 virus in. Bodies are stacking up in Qom and Terhran,
new Virus flu wards are being instituted, and even China has stopped accepting plane flights from Iran.
Persian commenter “Sinbad” at JoNova climate blog has posted the grim and devastating details.
I like that site. As of today, Feb 28, the mortality rate for all countries other than China and Iran is only 0.08%
The US has had 60 cases, no deaths, and none in critical condition.
Australia has had only 24 cases and no deaths, and none critical.
Early in the virus of exponential growth the mortality rate is always artificially skewered low.
let me explain why the current 1 percent mortality method is, IMV, completely wrong. ( As well as support your post with disparate yet in kind thoughts.)
This is the method commonly used.
Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases) = probability of dying if infected by the virus (%).
This ONLY works after all patients are either cured or dead. So, excluding this year, and going by the past 9 year history of either cured or dead, the flu is just above one tenth of one percent fatal. ( One in every thousand flu cases dies). U.S. numbers.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
From the link above, average flu cases per year in the US is about 30 million. Multiply that times one tenth of one percent, or .001 which equals 30,000 dead in an average flu year. Actual average est was about 33,000 dead each year, but 30 k is well within the error bars of the link, as is one tenth of one percent.
Average flu hospitalization is a bit over 4 million, which, over the 13 week flu season, this is 308,000 hospitalizations per week with an average stay of about 5 days per patient.
Now, from this link… https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
regarding global death rate of the Coronavirus…
Infected 84,173
Deaths: 2,876
Recovered 36,880
Active 44,417
Serious or critical 8,095 (18%)
So assume that by a magic wand, patient 84,173 is the last patient. We currently have 8,095 serious or critical. We also have about 20,000 of those 84,173 cases that are new in the last two weeks, the vast majority of which have not had time to go critical or fatal.
Let’s conservatively take a WAG that an additional 18 percent of 15,500 cases go serious or critical. That’s about 2,800 more serious to critical cases. So call it 10,000 serious or critical, and we can expect about 20 percent of those to be fatal. ( Early number , may need an update) So about 2,000 more fatal. 2,000 plus 2,876 is 4,876 likely deaths in 84,173 cases. A 5.8 percent mortality!
BTW, death to recovered for the Coronavirus, which is exactly what the flu statistics are based on, is 7.8 percent!
Now this is mostly China’s numbers. They are simply FUBAR. It could be there are many mild cases that were never counted, lowering the mortality. It could also be that there are thousands of deaths never assigned to the Coronavirus, both in hospitals and in homes, and in incubation-quarantine centers, ( group quarantine is not quarantine) and in rest homes for the elderly, that died and never got recorded as cases and or deaths. Link… https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-china-continues-with-fake-reporting-of-71-new-deaths,-508-new-infections-and-as-more-contradictory-cases-emerge-
If you were in China with flu symptoms, and knew the hospitals were over whelmed, and full of the Coronavirus, and you thought you were, like 80 plus percent of the infected, just fine with only mild flu like symptoms, and or thought your illness may be the regular flu, also more likely at this time, and so figured you had a 95 percent plus chance of making it without medical help, why would you report your symptoms, which would likely result in being thrown into a giant room of thousands of other possibly exposed, row after row of beds in large single room facilities with common restrooms or, if lucky, placed in an overcrowded understaffed hospital. That is an infection trap, worse then the Princess cruise, which had a very high R-naught.
In Summary it is very likely that China has far more cases, recoveries and dead then their official numbers. Let’s hope they are at least balancing the case load totals; hospitalized to fatal, so that the percentages are helpful to the R.O.W.
An average U.S. flu year of 30 million cases, and 30,000 deaths, becomes, with a mortality rate of 5.8 percent, 1,740,000 dead with this illness. 58 times as deadly as the flu under the same case load, IF they are equally infectious. Unfortunately they are not.
Now let’s consider the R- naught of the flu, 1.3, vs the Coronavirus. It is very generous to go with an R- naught of 2.6 for the Caronavirus. Here is one of several studies which show a higher R-naught then the CDC. In this case 3.1. Researchers from Lancaster University
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549v2.full.pdf
Several credible medical institution’s have placed the Coronavirus R-naught up to 6.9 to 7.0.
( Link to follow)
So, going with just the 2.6 R-naught, the U.S. then have 60 million infected and 3,480,000 dead. We also have 18 percent of 60 million needing hospital beds for a week. That is 10,800,000 hospital beds. Divided by a typical flu season that is 839,770 beds needed each week. ( In reality it would be better in the early phase, and much worse at the peak)
The US only has about 900,000 hospital beds! The U.S. has an overall hospital occupancy of 63 percent. During the flu season ( other illnesses peak along with the flu) I am guessing that this occupancy rate increases by about 22 percent of total beds to 85 percent occupancy, leaving about 135,000 beds available. ( Best case) With an R-naught of 2.6 and a serious to critical hospitalization need of 839,770 beds, the U.S. would be 705,000 beds short each week! This would tremendously overburden our medical facilities. ( Did you see the videos out of Wuhan of medical staff breaking down, streets lined up to get into hospitals, etc…) How many more people, with other serious diseases, would die if this scenario occurred?
This is why China has destroyed their own economy at a critical time of economic vulnerability. This is why every nation with borders to Iran, when it had only 30 cases, closed those borders. This is why South Korea is stopping public events, putting cities on lock down, closing businesses.
My perspective is to watch what nations do, not what buricrats say.
BTW, other nations, seeing the economic collapse of China, are very likely to also greatly minimize the real numbers.
The above scenario is what is very realistic IF we treat this as a common flu. It could be considerably worse, a higher R-naught for instance, and reports of up to 14 percent of cured still testing positive and re-infections, therefore much greater fatalities.
However we are not treating this as a common flu. It could mutate to a less virulent form. We could develop an effective vaccine while we take necessary painful steps to slow this down. As individuals we can decide to stock up now on extra food now, to lessen the panic later. Same with water, medicines, pet needs.
We can self quarantine IF this gains a foothold in the country you live in. We can work together locally and with other nations to lessen the pain that is yet increasing. Let’s hope – pray that the R- naught is lower and the mortality is lower in developed nations of cleaner air and less smoking addicted, and with summer coming a greatly reduced viral load and R-naught.
Unfortunately in early stages of exponential growth the mortality rate is skewered low because of the mean time to death. ( In this case about 21 days from infection to death.)
Given the fact the MMR type vaccines have been known to (rarely) cause infections, and given the suggestion to use GM measles to make the vaccine, are you sure that mass vaccination is such a great idea?
US now has community spreading and has had the first death of a patient.
How do you know the condition of every person who is infected?
I would like to see that information, but have not seen anything first hand to date.
Not knowing of something is not the same as there being none.
At least one person in the US is now dead, so obviously no one in critical condition was either wrong, or someone dropped dead suddenly while not known to be in serious condition.
Yes and why were the cruise ship passengers allowed voluntary confinement at home rather than mandatory quarantine at Travis AFB. Is it any wonder that the first community transmission and death was within foraging range of their home confinement?
My son Just called and said two of his close friends from High School (TX girls, now Jr’s in college) were studying abroad in Tuscany and went to Milan & Venice 2 weeks ago. When they got back to Tuscany, both felt sick with flu like symptoms. They are currently self quarantining. They have not been tested, but they suspect they were infected with Covid 19.
Both are 20 years old, both have medical professionals in their family and told my son that “it wasn’t that bad”. This indicates that in Italy at least, there a more people infected than government statistics.
Neither plan to evacuate. They plan to stick out the semester (Mid May).
From:
They have not been tested, but they suspect they were infected with Covid 19.
To:
This indicates that in Italy at least, there a more people infected than government statistics.
They don’t want to get tested because when it comes back negative they won’t have their great survival story.
UNGN,
No, that does NOT “indicate” anything at all about the government statistics in Italy. I had flu like symptoms last week, but I didn’t go into the doctor and I have no idea what virus caused it. I suppose I could self-diagnose myself and claim to be the first Covid 90 case in my state, but it wouldn’t mean a damn thing.
The regular flu is yet more likely.
Just a thought!
What about if the virus has been here all along, living in plain sight, but the test to identify and detect it has only just arrived. So what we see as “spread” of the virus is actually only “spread” of the test?
This is possible but unlikely. China had to build lots of new hospital beds, so even if the mortality rate is overestimated, large scale spread would still make a lot of people sick, unless there is something about China which makes them more susceptible.
When clusters of people show up in emergency rooms with pneumonia, they get tested.
That was true last month, two months ago, three months ago, last year, etc.
We already know that the disease was circulating in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people that manufactures cars and TV screens and stuff that is shipped around the world, at least as early as December, and very possibly prior to that.
If it had been around a lot longer than a month or two, there would already be very many sick people with pneumonia in emergency rooms around the world, that are testing negative for all prior known viruses and bacteria.
The exact details are murky, but the general story and timeline is very likely to be what is actually going on.
The people that are on top of public health in the US know what they are doing, as do emergency room doctors and nurses.
NM, says When clusters of people show up in emergency rooms with pneumonia, they get tested.
That was true last month, two months ago, three months ago, last year, etc.”
Not for this virus AFAIK, please show a link.
I think you’re right. The disease would have been diagnosed as flu before the test kits arrived. Quite likely it has been circulating around the world since December last year, given the millions of Chinese tourists on the move. Closing the barn door now will likely have little effect, to contain. Maybe slow it down a bit.
A CAT scan can accurately diagnose the disease as long as the radiologist knows what to look for.
I’ve read that the mortality rate for those with a compromised immune system and viral pneumonia is 60%.
Also noticed that the Escaped from a Lab Theory and could be a BioWeapon meme is gaining traction with more and more evidence piling up. It helps that the US CDC team is in China now.
It’s gaining traction, but not because there is more evidence.
The live animal market was first proposed as the origin, but now, not so much.
And don’t forget the BSLM-4 Lab right around the corner.
The game is afoot!
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/summary.html
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/27/china-silent-coronavirus-origins-amid-wuhan-seafoo/
Even if true, let’s hope it gets swept under the rug. I shudder to think about the ramifications of that knowledge being made official and widely known. There is a non-zero probability that something leaked from that lab. There is a very close to zero probability that this is bioengineered. I think it was MedCram who recently referenced an article from 5 years ago that mapped 400 coronaviruses found in bats – one of which was almost an exact match to SARS2.
Where did you get the notion that the notion that it started in the wet market is now being discarded?
Every report I’ve read recently indicates that.
Just because a lab is level 4 is not evidence that they are creating biological weapons. Nor is it evidence that they are doing anything more dastardly than studying dangerous germs and viruses.
For those who missed the history of where this virus came from, here is a travelogue of the move from Saudi->Netherlands->Canada->China research labs.
BTW, the head of the Canadian Research Lab, died recently while in Africa…
https://greatgameindia.com/coronavirus-bioweapon/
see also: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/virologists-escorted-out-of-lab-in-canada-66164
In other words, just another paranoia site.
Not real information.
@MarkW
Oh, there’s plenty y of information, you just have to bother to read the articles.
This reminds me of the early Russia!,Russa!,Russia! days.
The power of imagination is an amazing thing. Approaching half of the people with confirmed infections are now listed as recovered. As bioweapons go this is a pretty useless example. Not exactly the walking dead is it.
Those who have succumbed are overwhelmingly the very elderly and those with pre-existing co-morbidities.
Just to play devils advocate (because it’s fun), bio weapons do not necessarily need to be something specific to wiping out masses of people indiscriminately.
Rather, the virus being extremely effective at killing a target population (elderly or those with pre-existing conditions in this case) while being relatively mild otherwise would strengthen the case for it being a bio weapon, not weaken it. As for motive? It’s well known that chronic conditions and elderly put massive strains on public resources, especially healthcare and retirement funds. A bio weapon to cull those individuals while leaving your healthy populations mostly untouched would be extremely effective and leave plenty of plausible deniability since it would be acting like a more aggressive flu. To even further strengthen this angle, it appears to only barely affect young children, which in this case would be the target demo that you’d want to leave mostly untouched, and which is very unlike the flu and other viruses that typically hit children and elderly equally hard.
The flu does HIT children and elderly equally hard. It’s just Big Vaccine propaganda to inject dangerous and ineffective drugs and by making them mandatory, to break their parents’ minds.
The reality is WWI ended in no part due to the Spanish flu. So yes a bio weapon only need to debilitate to be effective, causalities in war may are not those killed but those that have been eliminated from the battle field and can no longer fight.
True. But China has a long history of denying such bio-warfare research, getting caught, swearing it off! Then doing it again, just like with trade agreements, and other international matters.
Why on Earth would people need to their front door and stock up on food? Nobody bothers to do that for influenza, which is far more contagious, and kills far more people. This is another article full of misinformation, and is conjuring up unwarranted scenarios that are along the lines of a book or movie, and nowhere near reality.
Someone here said that the first person to panic panics best. Perhaps there is really no need to stock up except that when a large fraction of other people do, then they clear out the shelves.
We understand influenza… we don’t corona.
Influenza does not kill more people who are infected, so while flu is more common, it is not more deadly.
Holly,
in other countries they do contact tracing and if you have had close contact with an infected person, they tell you to self quarantine at you house for 14 days. I suspect governments in the US will act similarly.
Most millenials have about 1.5 days worth of food in their house. i would recommend having a 14 day supply, just in case. Its food, its not like you won’t eat it sometime in the future.
Spring break is coming in the US. inconsiderate douchebags are going to go on non refundable vacations they bought last year and are going to comeback sick and spread their diseases at work and school (like they do every year), but this year, your neighbor might come back with coronavirus, and if you share a mailbox said douchebag, its 14 day home quarantine for you.
Singapore had 2,800 people on 14 day self quarantine for 90 infected people (only 250 people are left on self quarantine.) The US may not cane you for going out to buy food if you are under a self quarantine, but it will be frowned upon
Sorry Holly but you are wrong. The flu has a death rate of 0.1%, this has a death rate of 2-3% if you go by China numbers, 10%+ if you go with Iran…
There have been 13 Million flu cases so far this year in the US, if 13 Million people get COVID 19 we would be looking at 290,000 to 360,000 deaths. Considering the R0 for flu is 1.4ish and the current estimate for COVID is 2.8 that is double the infection rate. So now we are looking at 26 million infected and 580,000 to 720,000 deaths.
Also, COVID causes severe infection requiring hospitalization in 20% of cases…thats 5.2 MILLION people needing to be in the hospital…we dont have that type pf capacity…no one does…
re: “Also, COVID causes severe infection requiring hospitalization in 20% of cases…thats 5.2 MILLION people needing to be in the hospital”
I’ll choose to die at home, thank you, rather than spend remaining days in hospital, thank you … I think a lot of people will take that same course, too.
As I’m sure a lot of people in China did as well..
Yes, but you might just want that oxygen the hospital can give you, when you become breathless with pneumonia. I’m speaking hypothetically of course, when I use the second person.
re: “Yes, but you might just want that oxygen the hospital”
Make peace with God, and all will be taken care of; if you’re an atheist, I have NO idea what you’ll do in those final days or final hours.
Have you thought about that, or are you thoughtless on that subject?
I was functionally blind coming into 2018, and using a walking stick (cane) coming into June 2018 … I’m now back (fully restored sight) to where I could, and would like to take up paramotoring having followed Tucker Gott and his exploits the last few years … I’ll bet YOU have never faced a similar end-of-the-road scenario of losing your sight, losing the use of your eyes and so have NOT considered just what YOU will do in your end days. Again, I have.
Your chances of surviving are much higher in a hospital. However, it’s your choice to make.
re: “Your chances of surviving are much higher in a hospital”
I normally don’t engage in hypotheticals where the chance occurrence of the ‘situation’ is nil. I think one knows when one’s time is near at hand; I went through this with an individual I befriended on 160 meters about the time my vision was fading in 2015. His return to The Church and re-involvement with the liturgy was testament to this. We lost him early 2018 when my vision at the time was shot. Really shot, hence little blog activity of any kind …
Comparing basically 3rd world death rates with abominable health care to the US is not valid. Just saying, with proper health care I think the rate will be much reduced, as evidenced by the cases outside of those 2 places, Mostly just fear porn methinks.
Erich, I broke all this down near the top of the thread. You are correct, yet understating.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/27/cdc-covid-19-possible-us-case-of-chinese-corona-virus-from-an-unknown-source/#comment-2928004
“Why on Earth would people need to their front door and stock up on food? Nobody bothers to do that for influenza, which is far more contagious, and kills far more people. This is another article full of misinformation, and is conjuring up unwarranted scenarios that are along the lines of a book or movie, and nowhere near reality.”
Flu is not more contagious. Sorry.
you dont understand exponentials or R0
https://www.healthline.com/health/r-nought-reproduction-number
Mosher is correct.
First time I have said that (-;
Regarding mortality rates. ( Please read)
please let me explain why the current 1 percent mortality method is, IMV, completely wrong.
This is the method commonly used.
Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases) = probability of dying if infected by the virus (%).
This ONLY works after all patients are either cured or dead. So, excluding this year, and going by the past 9 year history of either cured or dead, the flu is just above one tenth of one percent fatal. ( One in every thousand flu cases dies). U.S. numbers.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
From the link above, average flu cases per year in the US is about 30 million. Multiply that times one tenth of one percent, or .001 which equals 30,000 dead in an average flu year. Actual average est was about 33,000 dead each year, but 30 k is well within the error bars of the link, as is one tenth of one percent.
Average flu hospitalization is a bit over 4 million, which, over the 13 week flu season, this is 308,000 hospitalizations per week with an average stay of about 5 days per patient.
Now, from this link… https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
regarding global death rate of the Coronavirus…
Infected 84,173
Deaths: 2,876
Recovered 36,880
Active 44,417
Serious or critical 8,095 (18%)
So assume that by a magic wand, patient 84,173 is the last patient. We currently have 8,095 serious or critical. We also have about 20,000 of those 84,173 cases that are new in the last two weeks, the vast majority of which have not had time to go critical or fatal.
Let’s conservatively take a WAG that an additional 18 percent of 15,500 cases go serious or critical. That’s about 2,800 more serious to critical cases. So call it 10,000 serious or critical, and we can expect about 20 percent of those to be fatal. ( Early number , may need an update) So about 2,000 more fatal. 2,000 plus 2,876 is 4,876 likely deaths in 84,173 cases. A 5.8 percent mortality!
BTW, death to recovered for the Coronavirus, which is exactly what the flu statistics are based on, is 7.8 percent!
Now this is mostly China’s numbers. They are simply FUBAR. It could be there are many mild cases that were never counted, lowering the mortality. It could also be that there are thousands of deaths never assigned to the Coronavirus, both in hospitals and in homes, and in incubation-quarantine centers, ( group quarantine is not quarantine) and in rest homes for the elderly, that died and never got recorded as cases and or deaths. Link… https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-china-continues-with-fake-reporting-of-71-new-deaths,-508-new-infections-and-as-more-contradictory-cases-emerge-
If you were in China with flu symptoms, and knew the hospitals were over whelmed, and full of the Coronavirus, and you thought you were, like 80 plus percent of the infected, just fine with only mild flu like symptoms, and or thought your illness may be the regular flu, also more likely at this time, and so figured you had a 95 percent plus chance of making it without medical help, why would you report your symptoms, which would likely result in being thrown into a giant room of thousands of other possibly exposed, row after row of beds in large single room facilities with common restrooms or, if lucky, placed in an overcrowded understaffed hospital. That is an infection trap, worse then the Princess cruise, which had a very high R-naught.
In Summary it is very likely that China has far more cases, recoveries and dead then their official numbers. Let’s hope they are at least balancing the case load totals; hospitalized to fatal, so that the percentages are helpful to the R.O.W.
An average U.S. flu year of 30 million cases, and 30,000 deaths, becomes, with a mortality rate of 5.8 percent, 1,740,000 dead with this illness. 58 times as deadly as the flu under the same case load, IF they are equally infectious. Unfortunately they are not.
Now let’s consider the R- naught of the flu, 1.3, vs the Coronavirus. It is very generous to go with an R- naught of 2.6 for the Caronavirus. Here is one of several studies which show a higher R-naught then the CDC. In this case 3.1. Researchers from Lancaster University
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549v2.full.pdf
Several credible medical institution’s have placed the Coronavirus R-naught up to 6.9 to 7.0.
( Link to follow)
So, going with just the 2.6 R-naught, the U.S. then have 60 million infected and 3,480,000 dead. We also have 18 percent of 60 million needing hospital beds for a week. That is 10,800,000 hospital beds. Divided by a typical flu season that is 839,770 beds needed each week. ( In reality it would be better in the early phase, and much worse at the peak) Unfortunately also understand that a fair percentage of the population us immune to the flu each year, and the virus starts active globally; yet the Coronavirus has virtually zero immunity in populations, and it started two months ago in one person. ( This is not the flu)
The US only has about 900,000 hospital beds! The U.S. has an overall hospital occupancy of 63 percent. During the flu season ( other illnesses peak along with the flu) I am guessing that this occupancy rate increases by about 22 percent of total beds to 85 percent occupancy, leaving about 135,000 beds available. ( Best case) With an R-naught of 2.6 and a serious to critical hospitalization need of 839,770 beds, the U.S. would be 705,000 beds short each week! This would tremendously overburden our medical facilities. ( Did you see the videos out of Wuhan of medical staff breaking down, streets lined up to get into hospitals, etc…) How many more people, with other serious diseases, would die if this scenario occurred?
This is why China has destroyed their own economy at a critical time of economic vulnerability. This is why every nation with borders to Iran, when it had only 30 cases, closed those borders. This is why South Korea is stopping public events, putting cities on lock down, closing businesses.
My perspective is to watch what nations do, not what buricrats say.
BTW, other nations, seeing the economic collapse of China, are very likely to also greatly minimize the real numbers.
The above scenario is what is very realistic IF we treat this as a common flu. It could be considerably worse, a higher R-naught for instance, and reports of up to 14 percent of cured still testing positive and re-infections, therefore much greater fatalities.
However we are not treating this as a common flu. It could mutate to a less virulent form. We could develop an effective vaccine while we take necessary painful steps to slow this down. As individuals we can decide to stock up now on extra food now, to lessen the panic later. Same with water, medicines, pet needs.
We can self quarantine IF this gains a foothold in the country you live in. We can work together locally and with other nations to lessen the pain that is yet increasing. Let’s hope – pray that the R- naught is lower and the mortality is lower in developed nations of cleaner air and less smoking addicted, and with summer coming a greatly reduced viral load and R-naught.
Unfortunately in early stages of exponential growth the mortality rate is skewered low because of the mean time to death. ( In this case about 21 days from infection to death.)
“Why on Earth would people need to their front door and stock up on food? Nobody bothers to do that for influenza, which is far more contagious, and kills far more people. ” Because a flu season is a natural background cost of living like bath tub injuries and auto accidents.
By contrast, this novel, Coronavirus may be up to 20X more deadly, and because new, can be avoided, and because effective treatment and vaccines are in the development pipeline. The longer the vulnerable and often older – who may also have spent a lifetime working and investing to enjoy retirement – have a vested and well-motivated interest in avoiding painful premature death to do so…YOU wanking misanthrop!
I still think somebody lied. This all part of the scare campaign to keep the stock market crashing so the Democrats have a chance at winning the election. Only problem is, they blew their wad a tad prematurely. It’s February people ….. the stock will likely hit new highs before the end of the year.
The CDC is still investigating the patient’s known contacts, it would be a huge relief if one of the infected confessed to lying about a trip to China, because then the chain of infection would be known.
He seems to be saying the whole thing is a hoax.
Deanster, I will bet you a lot of money that the stock market will not be making any new highs this year.
We will be lucky to avoid a bad recession and a crisis of confidence where people are afraid to go to any public place or to travel.
50% drop is more likely than a new high, IMO.
Here is something I was just writing to some friends on FB.
This is only random musings, not a prediction:
” I am thinking that this could wind up feeding on itself, and becoming a crisis of confidence.
If people stop travelling, stop going to stores, movies, concerts, and place where there are people crowded into a space, it will be a very widespread and general hit to earnings.
At this point it seems there will be layoffs in some industries.
Then that can feed into such things as home sales, and services and just about everything.
So I wonder, if in a month there are thousands of people in every country with COVID-19, and some fraction of them are dying, half a percent to two or three percent…people will react badly.
This may at this point already have made a global recession inevitable.
The only chance it will not happen, perhaps, is if the disease fizzles out.
But if it does become a widespread pandemic, and the demographics are like in China…mostly old people…a lot of old people are very wealthy.
We really need to hope remdesivir works.”
… and if a market fearful of COVID-19 continues to fall to the point where it diminishes a Trump re-election, then it may continue to fall from fear of a Burney election … negative feedback due to overhyping.
I don’t think people will blame Trump for economic turmoil caused by the Corona Virus. But they will judge him on how he handles the crisis.
“I don’t think people will blame Trump for economic turmoil caused by the Corona Virus. But they will judge him on how he handles the crisis.”
Agreed.
Problem is fear affects investment decisions. Would a person be wise to buy new home today ? There is a risk there of housing crash due to virus. So investments start to dry up.
re: “If people stop travelling, stop going to stores …”
Luckily, we have Amazon.
This isn’t your dad’s pandemic.
I have live through two pandemics and found out about it some thirty years later when I was require to write up a pandemic plan for the bank I worked for due to the requirements of the FDIC. The only reason this one is so big is we now have a 24/7 news cycle.
Well Nicholas ….. we already have the NYT coming out calling this the “trumpvirus”. We have democratic candidates coming out faulting Trump, with a lie that AP Fact Check determined was a lie, .. AP, who is no friend of Trump. Anyone who knows the stock market recognizes this is an emotional sell off, not based on anything but overblown reports about how we are all gonna die. This is like watching the play by play of hurricane coming to shore. The forecast is always we are gonna die. The weather channel hits the scene and has people kayaking around in ankle deep water proclaiming we are all going to die. Afterwards, nobody died, and it leaves the news cycle, and things rapidly return to normal.
As for COV19, it is impossible to get an accurate read on the lethality, as most all the deaths are in China, and are subject to China’s subpar healthcare system (WHO rank 144/197). News reports have noted that most infections are just mild to moderate colds, handled at home. The CDC has stated that the caution being taken is due to the fact that we know little about it. At the moment with the wall to wall news coverage, investors are running for cover “in case” this turns out to be Armageddon . In another month, the spread will fizzle, it will drop out of the news, Trump will say “squirrel” … everyone will run to see the squirrel, and the sharks will pick up the bargains and the market will rapidly recover.
Ya have to ask yourself, … just how much influence is the media having here on the market? We know that the basics of the economy are fine and there is no reason other than emotionalism that is driving this. China will quickly get back to work, as they need the revenue. A loss of 5000 people in China doesn’t even register.
JMO
“Anyone who knows the stock market recognizes this is an emotional sell off, not based on anything but overblown reports about how we are all gonna die. ”
No, it is based on concerns about the ongoing interruption of the global supply chain (of which China is a key part), which will have widespread ripple effects once stockpiled parts are exhausted. So will the interruption of global tourism.
Roger you are right, yet Trump was the person who has point out from the onset of his campaign and Presidency the danger the China posed and our dependency on them. The only silver lining in this is exposed how screwed were are in a global economy where so few places produce the items we need. relying o a one or to plants world wide is stupid, it was shown a few years ago when on resin plant had a fire and the world lost half it production in computer chip manufacturing. Now we find out all our penicillin, surgical mask and exam glove are out of China. Our so called elites have not server us well as they got rich selling us down the river.is
I believe the person with the virus lives in Fairfield, CA, home of Travis AFB. He could have been exposed by someone who came back from Asia.
Someone on the TV this morning pointed out that the new patient does live (or work) somewhat near Travis AFB, not far from Sacramento. Travis was the quarantine destination for a couple of 474 loads of ‘shipmates’ from the Princess liner quarantined in Yokohama. Since some of those from the cruise ship already have shown few or no symptoms even they test positive for the virus, it is certainly possible for one of these to be released to the civilian area outside Travis in error.
From China
Fish, Almonds (shelled and unshelled), Apples (fresh and dried), Apple Juice, Bamboo shoots, Beef and beef products, Cabbage, Candy, Cantaloupe, Catfish, Cauliflower, Celery, Cod, Eggs, Figs (fresh and dried), Fish and fish products (including live, fresh, frozen, fish sticks, fish, Garlic, Grapefruit, Honey, Kale, Lamb, Mushrooms, Oranges, Peanut butter, Pork(fresh and frozen including but not limited to pork chops, liver, head, legs, and casings),Poultry, Prunes, Rice Salmon, Salt, Sardines, Sauerkraut, Scallops, Shrimp, Tea, Tilapia, Vitamin C, Watermelon, Wine
That’s quite a party you’re going to throw there …
A few years ago my wife came up with a drug resistant urinary track infection(yes she had to got to the hospital isolation unit and I did have to dress up as a well covered smurf to see her.) Looking at all possibilities of where it may have come from my conclusion was she had recently help me peel frozen shrimp that was south east Asia source. I now only buy US source shrimp.
30,000 deaths/year in the US from flu. Right how I think it’s the media that are most infected.
20% of people infected need hospital, and the virus seems more contagious than flu. Don’t underestimate it.
That’s not quite right. 20% of confirmed cases required hospitalization, but I’ve read nothing that suggests that the set of confirmed cases was measured from a sample randomly drawn from any country’s population. If there is a large number of asymptomatic or mild cases among those infected who have no reason to be tested, and testing is biased towards those that show moderate to severe symptoms, then the 20% figure would be overinflated.
5% of confirmed cases needs an intensive care bed. How many intensive care beds are available? And how many doctors and nurses are available?
Agree with both of you. The 20% figure is an estimate, so it could be wildly overestimated.
But Wuhan still needed to build a large number of new hospital beds, and the Chinese are taking it very seriously, so I think there is substantial evidence it is a lot worse than seasonal flu.
My hope is they will find the mortality rate is much lower than recent guesses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/asia/coronavirus-treament-recovery.html
“large number of new hospital beds”
Hospital beds?
Concentration camp beds?
In China, what’s the diff?
” If there is a large number of asymptomatic or mild cases among those infected who have no reason to be tested, and testing is biased towards those that show moderate to severe symptoms, then the 20% figure would be overinflated.”
In China and Korea contact testing is being done.
its called survellience, the first step in stopping a spread.
20000 have already been tested in Korea, we will hit 210,000 soon
On the flipside the US has a few cases. No testing, no cases. neat trick
re: “On the flipside the US has a few cases. No testing, no cases. neat trick”
AND our doctors are too stupid to recognize unusual flu symptoms –
and report them.
.
.
JUST thought I would ‘throw that out there’.
“AND our doctors are too stupid to recognize unusual flu symptoms –
and report them.”
******
Then again, I have had dozens of colds in my life, as well as several very bad cases of influenza. Only reported a total of three or four to a doctor.
NO testing basically
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/27/a-single-coronavirus-case-exposes-a-bigger-problem-the-scope-of-undetected-u-s-spread-is-unknown/
ok, 445 tested.
to repeat in Korea we have tested 20000 and will roll out a test of 210000
UK testing?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/16/coronavirus-more-than-3000-britons-tested
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/25/mass-testing-uncover-spread-coronavirus-britain/
Steve won’t be happy until we have weekly, mandatory testing of everyone in the country.
MarkW.
test everyone? that would be stupid. Only you would suggest that.
that is NOT how surveillance testing works. hey I’m in Korea I will tell you how testing works. very similar to China, expect china had no drive though testing.
1. the CDC here does not LIMIT testing or CONTROL who gets tested. You will not in the USA doctors had to ask the CDC who they could test. Thats because the CDC here
used the WHO test kits and didnt try to fix something that wasnt broken like the US did
2. If you have symptoms or feel you were exposed ( there are maps ) you can go
to DRIVE THOUGH TESTING. Yup. No waiting in the doctors office or hospital
where you could infect others. Drive through, get tested results follow
3. The epidemiology teams do contact tracing. If you may have been in contact
they will test you. So, in early Feb a few thousand people in Dageu where in
a confined space, close together they will be tested. In the end all 310,000 member of that church will be tested. Except for those who flew home to other places..
Now TRUMP understands testing finally, so that vistors from Korea and Italy will
be tested prior to flying. I doubt it will be a PCR test, but even Trump has more brains that you
USA is finally getting prepared. But we knew the potential of this back in Jan. well at least some of us did
“The California Department of Public Health said Friday that the state will receive enough kits from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention to test up to 1,200 people a day for the COVID-19 virus — a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom complained to federal health officials that the state had already exhausted its initial 200 test kits. ”
Folks were given TIME, not to panic or poopoo, but to prepare.
The calculation will get much easier now that there is apparently an antibody test. Which means it will tell if a person ever had the virus even if they have recovered. The current test used is PCR but that only works if the person currently has the virus.
So with antibody test we can now randomly test say 1000 names of people in a hot zone that were alive before virus. We then count how many died, how many recovered, how many never got it how many still have it.
Intriguing,
An antibody test is sorely needed, I hope you’re right that there is one. I’ve not seen it reported anywhere else.
Not quite right? It’s absolute nonsense.
In early phases, confirmed cases are usually limited to those who feel sick enough to go to a doctor.
It seems remarkable how many people conflate reported with actual cases. We simply don’t know how many people are infected. Quite like orders of magnitude greater than the reported number.
70,000 opioid deaths a year in this country and not even a yawn from the public. Doctor errors kill about as many, again a excepted death rate, so no one notices.
In Italy, now 17 deaths out of 655 confirmed cases.
Mortality over 2% comparable to Spanish flu.
Ren
Re Italy … unconfirmed reports out of Switzerland are saying tomorrow, at a press conference, Swiss will shut Italian/Swiss border.
We shall see.
Problem is fear affects investment decisions. Would a person be wise to buy new home today ? There is a risk there of housing crash due to virus. So investments start to dry up.
Depends, a standalone house with a garden now looks more appealing then an apartment complex with central air so poor you can smell your neighbors smoking. A crowded city is now scarier to some. After spending two weeks at home with an old computer will you decide to upgrade? Lots of unknowns. But, I think some shrewd people are going to make a lot of money during and afterwards.
In America, now 0 deaths out of 68 confirmed cases. Mortality 0%.
somebody doesnt understand stats
Now that’s funny.
you must be a frequentist.
now think, what would a baysian say?
Lets suppose you use Korean rates as your Prior.
1%
now with 68 confirmed cases please calculate the expected mortality.
hint 0 out of 68 cases doesn’t tell you much.
So if 1 person dies tomorrow is the rate suddenly 1.5% ?.
you guys are funny
What’s funny is steve complaining about other people not knowing how to use statistics.
What’s even more funny is watching the joke go completely over his head.
Mosher
You asked, “…, what would a baysian say?” He would say, “I wish I had a time machine so that I could go forward in time to obtain the posteriori results and bring them back to the present to use as my a priori estimate. Nothing like knowing the answer before even starting! That’s how ‘climastrology’ works.
“You asked, “…, what would a baysian say?” He would say, “I wish I had a time machine so that I could go forward in time to obtain the posteriori results and bring them back to the present to use as my a priori estimate. ”
No you would use the data from other countries as a Prior
and expect a death Any day now.
OPPS looky there! 1st death
Thanks for the win guys
So what is the current mortality IN THE US?
~ 1.5%
As any good baysian would have predicted
6%
“hint 0 out of 68 cases doesn’t tell you much.
So if 1 person dies tomorrow is the rate suddenly 1.5% ?”
Steven, I think it’s you who doesn’t understand statistics and the use of statistics. The answer to your question is yes, it is 1.5%. If there are 68 cases, we have 100% of the population so the answer is simple. But the question you didn’t ask is if it is meaningful. You are like the sports announcers who bandy about all kind of statistics, not understanding that they cannot predict the future and can be completely meaningless.
“Steven, I think it’s you who doesn’t understand statistics and the use of statistics. The answer to your question is yes, it is 1.5%. If there are 68 cases, we have 100% of the population so the answer is simple. But the question you didn’t ask is if it is meaningful. You are like the sports announcers who bandy about all kind of statistics, not understanding that they cannot predict the future and can be completely meaningless.”
assumes that 68 cases are 100%. with the testing protocal CDC had in place this is highly unlikely. 68 does not represent the number of actual cases. This is a censored sample. duh.
Opps there’s the death I was expecting! Questions?
Now, You can expect some folks in the USA to go looking through recent deaths that were listed
as viral Pneumonia and perhaps some will be reclassified. Perhaps. Expect to see this in Thailand for example, where deaths from Viral Pneumonia are rising, but they have yet
to attribute them to COVID.
In short. Assuming that 68 is the total number of cases makes a simple and wrong assumption. And assuming the deaths were zero, is also wrong as it assumes that every
case of death by viral pneumonia was properly classified.
How many cured?
And a tiny subset is meaningless.
6 people disagree with you
Spanish flu killed kids, too, this is mainly killing 80 year olds. There are far more 80 year olds to kill today than there was in 1918. Every 80 year old COVID 19 is killing, Spanish flu would have got, also.
Even with advances in Science, Spanish flu was probably still worse.
Simple isolate the 80 year olds. Put them all on a six month cruise around the world in the empty cruise ships. Everyone benefits. 🙂 Hmmm new business model. Six months virus free cruise. Travel in luxury and isolation visiting deserted islands around the world. Only 6 figures per person. No new people allowed on after launch.
PS not serious about any of above
My mother was a nurse in roughly the time-frame of the Spanish Flu. She told us that the ones most likely to die were those who had thought they were strong enough that they didn’t need to go to bed. According to other sources, getting up too early was also very risky.
Mosher is correct.
First time I have said that (-;
Regarding mortality rates. ( Please read)
please let me explain why the current 1 percent mortality method is, IMV, completely wrong.
This is the method commonly used.
Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases) = probability of dying if infected by the virus (%).
This ONLY works after all patients are either cured or dead. So, excluding this year, and going by the past 9 year history of either cured or dead, the flu is just above one tenth of one percent fatal. ( One in every thousand flu cases dies). U.S. numbers.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
From the link above, average flu cases per year in the US is about 30 million. Multiply that times one tenth of one percent, or .001 which equals 30,000 dead in an average flu year. Actual average est was about 33,000 dead each year, but 30 k is well within the error bars of the link, as is one tenth of one percent.
Average flu hospitalization is a bit over 4 million, which, over the 13 week flu season, this is 308,000 hospitalizations per week with an average stay of about 5 days per patient.
Now, from this link… https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
regarding global death rate of the Coronavirus…
Infected 84,173
Deaths: 2,876
Recovered 36,880
Active 44,417
Serious or critical 8,095 (18%)
So assume that by a magic wand, patient 84,173 is the last patient. We currently have 8,095 serious or critical. We also have about 20,000 of those 84,173 cases that are new in the last two weeks, the vast majority of which have not had time to go critical or fatal.
Let’s conservatively take a WAG that an additional 18 percent of 15,500 cases go serious or critical. That’s about 2,800 more serious to critical cases. So call it 10,000 serious or critical, and we can expect about 20 percent of those to be fatal. ( Early number , may need an update) So about 2,000 more fatal. 2,000 plus 2,876 is 4,876 likely deaths in 84,173 cases. A 5.8 percent mortality!
BTW, death to recovered for the Coronavirus, which is exactly what the flu statistics are based on, is 7.8 percent!
Now this is mostly China’s numbers. They are simply FUBAR. It could be there are many mild cases that were never counted, lowering the mortality. It could also be that there are thousands of deaths never assigned to the Coronavirus, both in hospitals and in homes, and in incubation-quarantine centers, ( group quarantine is not quarantine) and in rest homes for the elderly, that died and never got recorded as cases and or deaths. Link… https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-china-continues-with-fake-reporting-of-71-new-deaths,-508-new-infections-and-as-more-contradictory-cases-emerge-
If you were in China with flu symptoms, and knew the hospitals were over whelmed, and full of the Coronavirus, and you thought you were, like 80 plus percent of the infected, just fine with only mild flu like symptoms, and or thought your illness may be the regular flu, also more likely at this time, and so figured you had a 95 percent plus chance of making it without medical help, why would you report your symptoms, which would likely result in being thrown into a giant room of thousands of other possibly exposed, row after row of beds in large single room facilities with common restrooms or, if lucky, placed in an overcrowded understaffed hospital. That is an infection trap, worse then the Princess cruise, which had a very high R-naught.
In Summary it is very likely that China has far more cases, recoveries and dead then their official numbers. Let’s hope they are at least balancing the case load totals; hospitalized to fatal, so that the percentages are helpful to the R.O.W.
An average U.S. flu year of 30 million cases, and 30,000 deaths, becomes, with a mortality rate of 5.8 percent, 1,740,000 dead with this illness. 58 times as deadly as the flu under the same case load, IF they are equally infectious. Unfortunately they are not.
Now let’s consider the R- naught of the flu, 1.3, vs the Coronavirus. It is very generous to go with an R- naught of 2.6 for the Caronavirus. Here is one of several studies which show a higher R-naught then the CDC. In this case 3.1. Researchers from Lancaster University
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549v2.full.pdf
Several credible medical institution’s have placed the Coronavirus R-naught up to 6.9 to 7.0.
( Link to follow)
So, going with just the 2.6 R-naught, the U.S. then have 60 million infected and 3,480,000 dead. We also have 18 percent of 60 million needing hospital beds for a week. That is 10,800,000 hospital beds. Divided by a typical flu season that is 839,770 beds needed each week. ( In reality it would be better in the early phase, and much worse at the peak) Unfortunately also understand that a fair percentage of the population us immune to the flu each year, and the virus starts active globally; yet the Coronavirus has virtually zero immunity in populations, and it started two months ago in one person. ( This is not the flu)
The US only has about 900,000 hospital beds! The U.S. has an overall hospital occupancy of 63 percent. During the flu season ( other illnesses peak along with the flu) I am guessing that this occupancy rate increases by about 22 percent of total beds to 85 percent occupancy, leaving about 135,000 beds available. ( Best case) With an R-naught of 2.6 and a serious to critical hospitalization need of 839,770 beds, the U.S. would be 705,000 beds short each week! This would tremendously overburden our medical facilities. ( Did you see the videos out of Wuhan of medical staff breaking down, streets lined up to get into hospitals, etc…) How many more people, with other serious diseases, would die if this scenario occurred?
This is why China has destroyed their own economy at a critical time of economic vulnerability. This is why every nation with borders to Iran, when it had only 30 cases, closed those borders. This is why South Korea is stopping public events, putting cities on lock down, closing businesses.
My perspective is to watch what nations do, not what buricrats say.
BTW, other nations, seeing the economic collapse of China, are very likely to also greatly minimize the real numbers.
The above scenario is what is very realistic IF we treat this as a common flu. It could be considerably worse, a higher R-naught for instance, and reports of up to 14 percent of cured still testing positive and re-infections, therefore much greater fatalities.
However we are not treating this as a common flu. It could mutate to a less virulent form. We could develop an effective vaccine while we take necessary painful steps to slow this down. As individuals we can decide to stock up now on extra food now, to lessen the panic later. Same with water, medicines, pet needs.
We can self quarantine IF this gains a foothold in the country you live in. We can work together locally and with other nations to lessen the pain that is yet increasing. Let’s hope – pray that the R- naught is lower and the mortality is lower in developed nations of cleaner air and less smoking addicted, and with summer coming a greatly reduced viral load and R-naught.
Unfortunately in early stages of exponential growth the mortality rate is skewered low because of the mean time to death. ( In this case about 21 days from infection to death.)
Ren, the mortality in the early stages are way low due to the exponential growth and mean time to death.
For this virus it is 6 days asymptomatic, and then about 10 days in the hospital where people either turn up and heal, or due about 4 days later.
So in Italy we have almost zero that have progressed to the mean pathological death time. Those early deaths are most certainly the most vulnerable. Best to compare death to cured.
It’s already been around the world a dozen times!
I have a ‘what if?’ question.
What if, COVID-19 has already been in the United States, and other countries for that matter, doing it’s thing for weeks before anyone started testing for it?
The symptoms, once they present, aren’t any different than most flu bugs or a bad cold. The vast majority of people who get a cold or flu never visit the doctor and the majority of those who do visit are never tested to see what is making them sick. The diagnosis is by symptoms presented, most times, unless there’s a hospital admission.
I ask the question because the official timeline for the discovery of the virus, and it’s spread in China, seems questionable, to me anyway, and the what if question would go a long way toward explaining why COVID-19 just popped up out of nowhere in a California community. It was already there, quietly doing it’s thing for weeks already, without anyone noticing until it was tested for. My guess is that, anywhere in the USA it is tested for extensively, COVID-19 is going to turn up.
Regards
Max
Wuhan had to build thousands of new ICU beds, and lots of their medical people got infected, even after the risks were known. I think if it was widespread in the USA there would be a lot more seriously ill people.
I bet the person got it from some passenger that was on a flight with that infected airline stewardess. The flight went out of LAX. Some passenger likely picked it up and became a silent spreader. Somewhere the passenger and this patient crossed paths. Could have been in a cafe, grocery store, anywhere. Could have been passenger to another person, to another person etc until reaching this patient.
it has been spreading for weeks
you cant find it unless you test
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/485426-hhs-investigating-defect-in-coronavirus-tests
The coronavirus transmission period is longer than with influenza and continues during the onset of symptoms.
I wonder how many may have had the virus through “community transmission” already in the US over the last month + & just thought they had the flu & never sought medical help &/or for even those who needed more advanced treatment that were simply diagnosed with the flu without further testing. I have been thinking about this and the CA cases / those under watch in CA got me thinking more that this is a possibility. Related, here in Colorado , there have been a lot of sick people I know with symptoms very similar to how covid-19 is described. People have been joking about the “ccv” (Colorado coronavirus ) for weeks …. perhaps not as much of a joke as we thought ?? On the positive side, everyone I know with the “ccv” has recovered just fine.
Everybody take it easy for cryin out loud! We’ve become a nation of fearful wimps
Dennis: probably testable as a factor of age, youngsters ‘educated’ into wimphood, scared of the weather, thermometers, ozone, ants, Republicans, salt, beef steaks, gluten, egg yolks, the opposite sex, old white guys…..trained to need nanny government help and playdough therapy.
Exactly what I’m sayin
I lived through two pandemics before I was twenty at the time I did not even know about it. Yes people today are wimps, of-time they have information they have no idea what it means or to do with it so they panic. This is the information age yet a lot of the “information” is of little value.
Don’t forget aroma therapy, gotta have aroma therapy. And essential oils, can’t forget them either.
Someone who has a clear understanding of the need for a stock of toilet paper!!!!
Yep, learned that lesson the hard way – almost 🙂
Bidets are a girl’s best friend. No TP needed.
But will he drop out of the running for President? Oh, wait. You said Bidet/b.
I shop at Cosco, so if the timing right I will be well supplied.
Since the cat is out of the bag, I wonder if we wouldn’t be better to allow most of the citizenry to contract the COVID-19 virus and the majority that survive will have some acquired immunity antibodies that will protect them when a possible round 2 mutation comes along next year that may be much worse if one hasn’t already been exposed to it. Perhaps isolating the young and old as best as possible would be a better solution right now presently than imposing a quarantine on the entire population and suffer an economic meltdown. The ‘cure’ (quarantine) may be worse than the disease.
I say this because all 4 of my grand parents who were already 25-30 years old, were married and when they caught the Spanish Flu in early 1918, while bad, they all survived. When that version of H1N1 which had mutated returned with a vengeance in 1919 when people were were dropping like flies, they didn’t catch it, but others who didn’t catch round 1 wound up dying very quickly. I suppose the downside is that the very vulnerable may perish, but they may anyway, if not next year if this returns and the mutation is worse. It looks like nothing can be done anyway in containing it, so let the chips fall where they fall. Try our best to isolate the vulnerable right now, but they will be exposed anyway sooner or later it looks like. If the spread of COVID-19 is similar to the Spanish Flu era, remote islands in the South Pacific and Arctic communities that had no contact with the outside world wound up catching this as well, so it appears the best defence is to allow the body to build an immune response to this. Maybe I am way off base with this line of thinking, and I certainly don’t have any expertise in this subject so am just throwing this out there.
No, slowing it down is good, because there is a limited supply of ICU beds and people qualified to care for the severely ill. If hospital care broke down death rates would rise substantially. Even if everyone eventually gets infected, the slower the rate of infection the more people will survive.
However if Earthling2’s observation is correct, then X no. of deaths from non-interventions during round 1, would be less than nX no. of deaths in round 2, where n > 1. On the other hand, how are subsequent rounds determined? I know, let’s get the CAGW crowd to model this!
I just asked them. The response was:
“It’s much worse than we thought. We need to tax you massively to fix this problem, and you have to submit to socialist control. By the way, it’s Trump’s fault.”
If the healthcare system gets overwhelmed, people will start dropping dead from otherwise normally avoidable CODs. Hell, if we were to run out of antibiotics strep would kill a lot of kids.
Slowing it down is a good thing – buy us time to get a vaccine or treatment regime sorted out. Scientists (real scientists, not the climate modeler types) are making great strides on both of these fronts.
“No, slowing it down is good, because there is a limited supply of ICU beds and people qualified to care for the severely ill.”
This is the point JoNova has been stressing on her site. (She starts updte threads on the virus two or three times a week.)
“when people were were dropping like flies,”
Where and where did that happen?
I missed it, considering the fact the H1N1 “pig” “pandemic flu” was extremely mild compared to the regular one.
The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus, with the second being the swine flu in 2009.
re:
Had ‘germ theory’ and practical use of it been fully implemented by 1918? Here’s what was happening in 1905:
In 1905 Florence Nightingale discovered that being clean was essential in patient care and reducing infectious diseases and earns an award for it. Joseph Lister developed a use of chemicals to help in reducing the spreading of microbes and also wins an award for it, and William Stewart Halsted was one of the very first to use gloves while performing surgery as a way to prevent the spread of microbes.
and
Between 1870 and 1918, researchers using more sophisticated laboratory methods had isolated the causal microorganisms responsible for many of the most feared communicable diseases of the past, including cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis (TB), syphilis, and bubonic plague.
and finally
public health experts faced the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic with a much greater capacity to teach the rules of disease avoidance and to punish those who failed to observe them through the use of fines and other coercive forms of sanitary policing. In 1918, public health authorities recognized influenza as a respiratory infection spread by coughing, sneezing, and spitting. To minimize its spread, they drew on infection-control methods that had been elaborated and tested for decades, in some cases centuries, including quarantine, isolation, disinfection, ventilation, and personal hygiene designed to limit droplet infection.
Excerpts from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862334/
Eric,
In Australia, as at 28 February, there are 23 confirmed cases of COVID-19,
.8 in Queensland
.4 in NSW
.7 in Victoria
.3 in South Australia and
.1 in Western Australia.
15 of these cases are reported to have recovered. The remaining cases are in a stable condition.
There are no fatalities.
8 cases were people repatriated from the Diamond Princess in Japan.They were in a quarantine centre near Darwin after testing positive to COVID-19 but all have returned to the home States for medical treatment.
So far, so good.
Before any Pandemic the Australian Press are publishing these points from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security-
.Store a two week supply of water and food.
.Periodically check your regular prescription drugs to ensure a continuous supply in your home.
.have any non-prescription drugs and other health suppliés on hand including pain relievers, stomach medicines, cough and cold medicines, fluids with electrolytes and vitamins.
.Get copies and retain an electronic version of health records from doctors etc.
.talk with family members and loved ones about how they would be cared for if they got sick, or what will be needed to care for them in your home.
During a Pandemic-
Avoid close contact with people who are sick,
When you are sick, keep your distance from others,
.Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing,
.Wash your hands often,
Avoid touching your eyes nose, or mouth,
Practice other good health habits.Get plenty of sleep, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids and eat nutritious food.
Pretty sensible advice at all times, although I’d add keeping away from sick people generally. I follow all this except the face-touch thing, although if the virus gets to near me I’ll definitely adopt that too. I firmly believe that face masks help but only to prevent the typical constant face-touching most of us do.
Money is also a serious contact point. Even EFTPOS machines. I pity people in retail if it spreads.
Australians and southern hemisphere folk have heightened immune systems (Summer sun/vit D etc) and not our flu season. I would expect Australians to recover better than Northern Hemisphere folk at this time of the year. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320099
Our problem in the South will strike (if it does) in our winter season coming up.
This case is in the same area as Travis AFB. The US Government has repatriated US citizens exposed to and having contracted Covid-19 to Travis AFB. Is this a coincidence?
I don’t think its a coincidence at all.
Here is my speculation based on my personal experience:
In August 2018, I crashed my race car at a high speed rally… went off the road @ over 110 mph, Flew 150 feet after the initial impact, rolled 8 times, broke my back, was airlifted 100 miles to the hospital, yadda yadda yadda…
That was a Thursday afternoon. By Friday evening, 10 people were checking into 5 rooms at a Douchebag Hotel 1,500 miles away in NYC (rooftop pool, DJ, Cabana service, the works), using my credit cards (last seen in the pocket of the racing suit the EMT’s cut me out of).
I found out about all of this 3 months later when my corporate credit card came after me for $3,500 (still not working, recovering from a crushed vertebrae).
What I learned firsthand is that Hospitals/rehab facilities are filled with drug addicts and scumbags that may or may not work there, that steal/sell other people’s shit. If they dig through someone’s infected shit looking for something of value, oops.
My story happened in rural Nebraska, where you can live comfortably on $30K/year. I’m the sure the rate of bay area hospital scumbags/drug addicts is much higher than rural Nebraska…. I know this is speculation, but I’m just sayin…
I can confirm functioning drug addicts gravitate towards hospitals. They are the easiest places to get hold of opiates, which are often very poorly monitored and losses are covered up to avoid legal problems.
This is based on knowledge of people doing it, unfortunately.
Eric Worrall,
What is your opinion using UV light to disinfect air/door handle/bathroom etc at home and public area? Like workplace, hospitals shopping centre etc.
UV LED for small places and Mercury lamps for bigger ones.
Use auto detect for people entering and turn off…. back on
mostly at night. Why we not using it everywhere?
In your wide knowledge of things, what you think?
Mick from AU
I don’t know Mick, I haven’t researched use of UV for sterilisation.
The sun is a potent UV source, and that isn’t enough. So I suspect the UV would have to be incredibly bright to make a difference, and intense UV from say a sodium lamp or welding arc could damage people’s eyes. I usually end up with mild sunburn when I forget to use suncream when welding.
hospital op rooms have UV sterilising systems in some places
the chinese are disinfecting and UV treating banknotes then storing for a while to try n stop that means of spread
and printing new notes as well
Eric
“UV from say a sodium lamp” I’m not going to take the time to verify, but I’m almost certain there is no UV in sodium lamps. Mercury vapor is what is usually used. There are many organisms that are resistant to chlorine and oxygen/ozone, but are susceptible to UV. The problem is that there can be shadow areas that aren’t reached by UV.
No single solution is 100% effective.
I have a UV system installed in my AC/heating system at home which should kill off any virus circulating through the house.
In general, UV light is effective in killing bacteria and viruses. Sunshine is also great for helping ones body to produce vitamin D.
Also, if you live in a dry climate, it’s beneficial to humidify the air. This hydrate mucous membranes so that the function well and helps to remove airborne viruses by nucleation.
“Also, if you live in a dry climate, it’s beneficial to humidify the air. This hydrate mucous membranes so that the function well and helps to remove airborne viruses by nucleation.”
How effective is the nose at preventing viruses from entering further into the body? Would it be a benefit to keep one’s mouth closed and breath only through the nose as an effort to avoid the flu?
How bout this. Use an IR camera at the entrance of every crowded facility, and Tackle the ones who show up as above normal temperature, force check them for COV19 and the Flu, then send them packing back to the house?
That aught to really sink the market.
The Taiwanese did this with SARS, + a doctor in the lobby of hotel rooms checking everyone’s temperature. Never drank so much grapefruit juice in my life.
The new Corona Virus seems a bit more slippery, likely a symptom free infectious period.
I heard a doctor on tv say yesterday say they can distinguish COVID-19 from other lung infections by using a CT scanner. Apparently, COVID-19 shows up as a unique pattern in the lungs that is easily identified.
You won’t find CT scanners in airports anytime soon.
No you won’t but it does make hospital diagnoses a lot easier, and does not require a test kit. In this country we do have plenty CAT scanners.
A CT scan diagnoses can be done in minutes also.
jorgekafkazar: ” You won’t find CT scanners in airports anytime soon. ”
Mark: ” A CT scan diagnoses can be done in minutes also. ”
Mobile (van mounted)/portable (erectable on site) CT scanner anyone? (BTW I know _nothing_ about this technology.)
I understand that this person may have been in contact with those being brought back to the US with the virus on a nearby Air Force base.
I am sure the homeless encampments will slow down the spread in California. Nothing like human feces to act as a firewall to the transmission mechanism.
Except this new virus can be transmitted by contaminated surfaces – one report I read suggested a high viral concentration in faeces.
I suspect Vangel was being sarcastic (but could be wrong). And yes, there is a really bad outcome possible if/when it hits the homeless here.
Has instant posting been cancelled again? Or is it just me?
Not just you.
No, MarkW, it isn’t just you. I have been considering letting Anthony know, but I guess he is aware now.
Well done on including toilet paper on the list of items to stock up. It always gets overlooked when discussing self quarantine
Lesson learned the hard way…
Do you get the Washington Post?
AKA “the Wapoo.”
There’s interesting speculation floating around that sounds very plausible, but remains uncertain in my mind because of 2 things I haven’t been able to verify.
Wuhan was the, or a major, rollout city for 5G in China, which was completed or switched on in Dec 2019, the same time that doctors started noticing strange illnesses in Wuhan. There’s no uncertainty about that.
People are claiming China is using 60 GHz as the carrier. That I can’t confirm, but 60 GHz does lie within the allotted 5G frequency spectrum.
Oxygen absorbs 98% of EMR energy at 60 GHz. There’s no uncertainty about that. In fact that property is actually a very attractive feature to network designers, because the high absorption eliminates interference from nearby nodes using the same frequency allowing for very focused beams in short haul networks, like you would find in a densely populated area like Wuhan.
https://scientists4wiredtech.com/wireless-at-60-ghz-has-unique-oxygen-absorption-properties/
It is claimed that 60 GHz causes oxygen molecules to vibrate. I haven’t verified that, but at 98% absorption it sounds plausible. It is also claimed that hemoglobin’s ability to bind with oxygen is impaired when oxygen is in that state. I have not been able to verify that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if true.
So the peculation is that the unusual morbidity seen in Wuhan is due to 60 GHz radiation impairing people’s ability to breathe. I think that’s possible, but would qualify that by saying it’s possibly only a co-factor that finds expression in people with impaired lung function due to things I’ve mentioned before (i.e., smoking, drinking).
re: “It is claimed that 60 GHz causes oxygen molecules to vibrate.”
You’re look at ‘molecular spectroscopy’ for O2 for the answer to that; should be a plot of the spectrum available for inspection …
60 GHz is in the microwave range, well away from the wavelengths required to cause vibration of molecular bonds, which is in the UV.
re: “60 GHz is in the microwave range”
You’re late to the party. That’s in the millimeter range (60 GigaHertz).
Wiki:
The Millimeter waves are electromagnetic (radio) waves typically defined to lie within the frequency range of 30–300 GHz.
The microwave band is just below the millimeter-wave band and is typically defined to cover the 3–30-GHz range.
Also, O2 has resonance there. See the article discussing this and why it has ‘tactical’ value.
Here, I’ll put the link here too and you can read it: https://scientists4wiredtech.com/wireless-at-60-ghz-has-unique-oxygen-absorption-properties/
“Wireless at 60 GHz Has Unique Oxygen Absorption Properties”
“The Spectrum of Molecular Oxygen”
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3253101?journalCode=jpr
re: “So the peculation is that the unusual morbidity seen in Wuhan is due to 60 GHz radiation impairing people’s ability to breathe.”
By effectively “ringing” (like pinging a bell that resonates at a specific frequency) all the O2 molecules in the air? You do know that WV has similar responses, as does CO2? And SOME of that absorption is to *sunlight* (remember your ‘global warming’ training now) in the IR range …
Say, THAT would affect us in this hemisphere too!
But hemoglobin doesn’t bind to water vapor or CO2, so it doesn’t matter if they vibrate or not. The hypothesis is that oxygen’s unnatural vibrational state impairs to some degree hemoglobin’s ability to absorb it in the lungs.
re: “The hypothesis is that oxygen’s unnatural vibrational state”
Uhhh … this will represent a little additional warmth, right? Have you ever sat next to a fire, walked outside to breath +95 F air? ALL these gas molecules move, vibrate, oscillate etc, along certain axis due to collisions – gas collisions, collisions with other gas molecules (and solids) – I assume you’re familiar with all that?
Plus, see my other post on the proposed use for 60 GHz from the article; it’s isn’t for terrestrial, wide-spaced ‘broadcast’ but for point to point – you realize that now?
Full disclosure: former cellular RF engineer from when we used REALLY ‘powerful’ cell sites with 100 W ERPs …
Not talking about molecular collisions, but orbital resonance of O2’s shared electrons, which in their natural state form a weak bond with hemoglobin in the lungs. Does absorbed 60 GHz energy change those orbital patterns enough to disrupt that normally weak bond?
re: ” but orbital resonance”
Hmmmm … don’t know that a simple planar EM wave is going to excite in this manner. You have to consider the Lambda (wavelength) of 60 GHz planar wave in relation to molecule size. Suggest you look into, as I previously wrote, molecular spectroscopy, and study the various vibration etc modes possible for a free molecule.
Anyway, gas molecule collisions will in short order reduce the amplitude of any stretch, vibration, arching or spin a molecule has had imparted to it.
If they did, then everything else that warmed oxygen molecules would have the same affect.
You do know that “hypothesis” is not equal to “fact”, don’t you.
Even if O2 was able to absorb a photon at 60GHz, it would almost immediately transfer that energy to another molecule via collisions.
You do know that all molecules vibrate, where did you get the notion that a small increase in such vibrations would interfere with the purely chemical reaction involved in O2 being absorbed into the blood?
I didn’t “get the notion”, I’m exploring possibilities. It’s my nature. That’s how unusual problems get solved; they certainly don’t solved via smug attitudes.
The chemical bond, called a coordinate or dative bond, is weaker than an ionic bond. It can be easily broken and formed again by adjusting conditions. What those conditions are, I don’t know, but it’s not unreasonable to wonder if unnatural electron movements may be included in that.
It’s not unusual to wonder.
It is unusual to not apply even a little common sense.
Any molecule that enters the body will quickly acquire the temperature of the body.
The tiny, tiny amount of extra heating that the radio wave MIGHT have given an O2 molecule will be completely swamped before the molecule gets half way down your throat.
If your theory had any basis in fact, people with fevers would be suffocating right and left.
It has nothing to do with temperature IMO, but possibly a change in O2’s electrons orbits that disrupt their dative bond with hemoglobin. And I qualified my wondering by saying that I think that, at most, it could only act as a co-factor in people whose lung health is already compromised, because as you say, most people are not visibly affected.
I never heard of that O2 absorption at 60 GHz but it’s true. This thesis discusses it and shows a spectra in fig. 1.2. http://arnaud.labouebe.free.fr/ericsson.htm
We should know shortly whether Wuhan presents unusual circumstances such as this.
re: “People are claiming China is using 60 GHz as the carrier. That I can’t confirm, but 60 GHz does lie within the allotted 5G frequency spectrum.”
Six or sixty – what’s the difference beside a factor of 10? The diff is, “60” GHz isn’t presently used for 5G … the article you cite discusses 60 Ghz point to point link from like a building to a fiber node backhaul point; that means NOT broad, general, ‘fat’ or wide rad (radiation) pattern, but focused, narrow beams, working line-of-sight, from end to end. AND the O2 absorption is a plus for what’s called “frequency planning” in the industry; it forms a roughly 16 dB/km ‘fence’ on top of the usual inverse square ‘path loss’ (according to the Friis equation.)
5G freqs; No 60 GHz presently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G#FR2_coverage
5G NR; no 60 GHz either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands
How do you know China isn’t using 60 GHz? I have read than the 5G network in Wuhan has 10,000 nodes. That’s a lot of congestion that might require 60 GHz to work.
re: “How do you know … China … 60 GHz ”
Check the footnotes for sources on the wikipedia links I posted?
Alternatively, check out the websites for equipment offerings by the various infrastructure manufacturers, such as Huawei. This is 2020 after all …
You do realize the geometries and critical sizes of elements (Rs, Ls and Cs etc) at 60 GHz (these aren’t called millimeter wavelengths just on account it “sounds nice”)? 0402 (small SMD components) won’t cut it; you’re now at the point where SOC (System on a Chip) are called for, and that means semi foundries and semiconductor FEs (front ends) doing the heavy lifting as far as circuit design and fabrication .
A good test of your theory will be the mortality rate in highly dense population areas vs rural areas with less 5g jamming the atmosphere.
5G is the new ChemTrails. Anthony, please ban 5G conspiracy posts?
What conspiracy analog would that be? 5G mind control substance? One you made up?
Saying that vaccines are more harmful and beneficial is “conspiracy”?
Saying that WHO changed the definition of pandemic is “conspiracy”?
Saying that WHO is under the influence of Big Pharma is “conspiracy”?
icisil
You might find this link on spurious correlations to be of interest:
http://tylervigen.com/old-version.html
That’s insulting. Really. I mentioned that I’m not convinced because of two, maybe 3 unverified, claims. If 60 GHz is not being used in Wuhan, then the whole thing falls apart. If it is being used, I would consider it scientific malfeasance to not further investigate.
re: “If 60 GHz is not being used in Wuhan …”
Nothing I’ve seen on the Huawei website shows anything, including recent trials of new frequency bands, above “C band” which is 4 to 6 GHz … 60 GHz is “Q band”.
The last dealing I had had with Q band was a Q band VCO fabricated on GaAs wafer using HEMT FETs (transistors); I was responsible for DC Test of the on-wafer structures before back side grind, etch (for vias to ground) and then application of the back side gold plating. This would have been at a TriQuint division before being acquired by TriQuint.
Most hypotheses are nonsense. But it’s good nonsense, because that’s how discoveries are made. Keep it up. Bring on your gedankenexperiments!
COULD it start like this? A pandemic I mean, with a faulty water supply?
“Houston, Texas under boil-water notice”
“Houston residents are asked to boil water for personal use from city taps for the next 24 hours, city officials announced Feb. 27.
The boil-water notice was issued in accordance with Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regulations because of low water pressure throughout much of Houston’s supply, Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a media briefing.”
https://communityimpact.com/houston/heights-river-oaks-montrose/environment/2020/02/27/houston-under-boil-water-notice-after-massive-water-line-break/
“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate”
15% of people diagnosed in Italy died and that’s “low mortality”???!!!!
A lot less than 0.01 % of those with measles die in any country with average decent health, and most of the ones who die were not a in good health to begin with, and that’s less for countries with an efficient modern medical system, and measles is a major danger for the US according to the VERY SAME BUFFOONS.
It’s too early to tell what the death rate in Italy is going to be, they are only testing the sickest patients to confirm the presence of CO-19. Testing of everybody who shows symptoms won’t be starting for awhile.
At the end, who cares what the “rate” is?
It’s a useless “metric”. It’s a number. It doesn’t tell anything, at least not alone. And with other numbers, it allows you to go back to the number of serious cases, so…
I have plenty of food for 30 days.
Actually probably enough for 60 days if I count what I have in my RV.
If I just want to eat rice and beans, probably 90 days.
It’s the beer supply that I’m worried about.
Stick a fork in it…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/
That chart is dominated by the Chinese figures. China had to shut down a significant portion of their economy to do that. Need to look at infection rate ex-China to get a sense about current spread in ROW. It’s still pretty close to exponential, but I can’t figure out how to include an image like you did above.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Not out of the woods yet David:
(same source as yours)
Oh… I agree. And, y’all “down under” need to be even more vigilant than we do. But, this is the textbook example of how to constrain an infection.
Quarantines can only last so long.
The textbook way to constrain an epidemic of a potentially lethal human-to-human transmissible pathogen is via herd immunity delivered though vaccination.
Anything else is living in the Dark Ages.
Vaccinations won’t work until next flu season, assuming this is seasonal.
That textbook way exists ONLY in textbooks.
Vaccines’ “herd immunity” is a scam.
(Vaccination targeted at small communities together with isolation may work.)
Need error bars, both high and low. Sorta like a hurricane ‘landfall’ projection plot …
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/485000-california-monitoring-8400-people-for-coronavirus-as-33-test-positive
Supposition: It’s been here for awhile.
Others have noted this too, so, I’m not breaking any new ground …
And, I’ve asked before – what is the false-positive rate on these ‘tests’?
You’re not likely to get an answer because people would then have to reveal the inordinate amount of faith they place in something they know little to nothing about.
I did some reading on PCR false positive. It can happen from human error. Essentially the lab tech contaminates the test by sloppiness by not cleaning up previous samples. The dna from previous test gets into the new patient test and produces false positive. I’m not sure of the rate or if there are any controls to detect this. I imagine if one lab is producing lots of positives then it would raise suspicion. My understanding is there would be no false positive if the RNA/DNA from the virus was not anywhere in the lab.
Good observations and thanks for the post.
As always, it looks like the ‘human element’ figures into this sort of thing …
The HIV tests were notorious for false positives because they cross reacted with many unrelated things, like TB, pregnancies, etc. It’s amazing how much faith people put in these tests without knowing what is really being measured.
One anti pesticide advocacy group in France (and Europe) orchestrated an hyper publicized operation “les pisseurs” to test glyphosate in urine of celebs. They were almost all positives.
Later farmers, the people who really use Roundup (or other brands) did serious tests and most had none (or below sensitivity which was low) glyphosate in urine.
The “pisseurs” probably used crappy tests that detect glyphosate, AMPA, and probably other stuff. (Which a group of farmers on Facebook had denounced early, but they had been condemned by righteous people critical of the “pisseurs”, because the “pisseurs” test was officially for glypho not AMPA. The farmers were right and the righteous people were wrong.)
It’s actually “Les pisseurs volontaires”
[like “les faucheurs volontaires”, the thugs that destroyed the advanced agriculture GMO research in France, with the help of the “justice” and with allies in the government – don’t dare you lecture on the so called “rule of law” in the EU, damn “european commission”!]
https://www.ecowatch.com/results-of-glyphosate-pee-test-are-in-and-its-not-good-news-1891129531.html
“”Nevertheless all investigated EU-parliament members were glyphosate contaminated. This will show glyphosate is also in the food chain of members of the EU-parliament,” the report states.”
That’s with “Elisa” garbage “tests”.
California should have been quarantined 20 years ago.
Steven, can you find out if they’re using 60 GHz for at least part of their 5G network in Wuhan?
FFS. Please ICISIL.
Put on your tinfoil hat, and go hide in a bunker.
Really, Joel, Are you really that obtuse and smug in your certainty? Same exact behavior displayed by climate alarmists.
Some people leave their minds so open, that their brains have fallen out.
Your “theory” is refuted simply by thinking about it.
See my response to you above.
I did see it and it’s not what I was considering at all. See my followup.
Yes provax and warmists use the EXACT SAME “scientific” tools.
Replacing real data with proxies.
Switching proxies.
“hide the decline” changes.
Modifying definition (like “polio” which got redefined when a vaccine was made available).
Trusting known fraudsters (even people that would be arrested if they set foot in the US).
Confusing science with math, reproduction with checking math.
Dismissing reproducibility as merely a distraction.
You can’t be a climate skeptic and vaxxer, not honestly. If you claim to be, it can only be that:
– either, you are brainwashed by climate skeptics (one can be brainwashed with anything, even that the Moon landings happened: brainwashing doesn’t imply false, just dumb);
– either, you are a Big Pharma and Big Medicine shill
(Also, you must be a CDC shill. The same “experts” that pretend to know about guns.)
re: “You can’t be a climate skeptic and vaxxer, not honestly. If you claim to be, it can only be that:”
Again ALL this from somebody who didn’t (maybe still doesn’t) know a DAMN thing about the polio epidemic in the 1950s.
You REALLY demonstrated your ignorance and impermeability to logic, reason and well-documented history THAT day “niceguy” …
As all vaxxers, you make up claims, insults, never reply, never show any sign of intelligence…
Can you make a definitive case for at least ONE vaccine, in the context of the American population, as a given time?
niceguy, the village idiot, wrote: ” As all vaxxers, you make up …”
No one wants to respond to you, moron.
“Yes provax and warmists use the EXACT SAME “scientific” tools.”
Well, not exactly.
Warmist “science” is dishonest and often plain fraud (in the strict sense, as would be easy to prove even in a courtroom, as long as the judge is mentally capable, which seems to be exception) but no peer reviewed warmist “science” has the name of a FBI MOST WANTED “scientist” on it.
Supporting vaccine “science” and medical “science” in general is like supporting the idea that the FBI is credible and has merely a few bad apples but doesn’t need to be either split or simply removed.
5G is the new Chemtrails. Don’t feed the troll.
And we know these radio waves are safe, because, “studies”? WHO?
Steven Mosher
February 27, 2020 at 5:49 pm
“In China and Korea contact testing is being done.
its called survellience, the first step in stopping a spread.
20000 have already been tested in Korea, we will hit 210,000 soon
On the flipside the US has a few cases. No testing, no cases. neat trick“
Up post, sneering Steven says ‘no testing’ in the US, “neat trick”. Down post and 28 minutes later, Steven tells us 8400 people in California are being monitored and 33 people have tested positive. Why would anyone trust comments from someone who talks out of both sides of his mouth? ‘Neat trick,’ indeed Steven!
“Up post, sneering Steven says ‘no testing’ in the US, “neat trick”. Down post and 28 minutes later, Steven tells us 8400 people in California are being monitored and 33 people have tested positive. Why would anyone trust comments from someone who talks out of both sides of his mouth? ‘Neat trick,’ indeed Steven!
the official testing number for the US is ~450 People.
I call that NO TESTING when compared to what UK is doing, Korea is doing,
China is doing
effectively NO TESTING..
445..
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/27/a-single-coronavirus-case-exposes-a-bigger-problem-the-scope-of-undetected-u-s-spread-is-unknown/
8000 Monitored is not the same as 8000 TESTED
Steve seems to think that there is something magical about testing people even when you have no evidence that they have been exposed.
Like most leftists, it’s not really that he believes testing is such a big thing, he’s laying down the ground work to blame Trump.
your funny and wrong.
you simply dont get it
oh BTW like I said
https://www.wsj.com/articles/confirmed-coronavirus-cases-outside-china-pass-10-000-11583228968
california
200 test kits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mt5nAgfMSE
basically no testing.
re:
Sample ‘lot’ testing; its done ALL the time in industry.
Valid statistical technique; work out the scheme to make it statistically valid, to sample your ‘lot’.
Another side of the coin: Has the question been answered on how many ‘false positives’ occur with this testing?
I don’t know if these are the same tests being used elsewhere, but from what I have read, there have been a lot of false negatives.
re: ” there have been a lot of false negatives.”
False negatives are a concern too; It does not appear anyone has any ‘reliability’ numbers for the accuracy of these tests, nor has anyone detailed what the procedure is ‘back at the lab’ where the results are observed, analyzed …
test kits
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/485426-hhs-investigating-defect-in-coronavirus-tests
Like Bernie Sanders trying to defending the absurdity of his calling the Cuban indoctrination system a ‘fine education’, Steven Mosher make statements based on no data, then minimal data from an article on The Hill, and then tries to defend his low data statements with his usual imperiousness “I call that NO TESTING”. Call it any thing you want… Most would call it bloviating alarmism based on little evidence, provided by someone who does not reside in the USA and references minimal data from dubious sources.
Why would anyone trust comments from someone who talks out of both sides of his mouth…. and then defends his foolishness with ‘It is what I SAY IT IS!’ ??? ‘Neat trick,’ indeed Steven!
Let’s get real, for a moment. Is the wuhan virus a problem? Yes. Will it cause problems in the USA, as it has in other countries? Yes. Will Steven Mosher’s flung-from-afar excretions change the eventual results one iota? No.
California has 200 kits. Source? The state government
The US has tested less than 500 people. The source? the CDC
WHY? you ask
https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test
dumbasses
Another flung from afar excretion from Steven Mosher. As expected….
‘California has a strong health care system and public health infrastructure.’
“Keeping Californians safe and healthy is our number one priority,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, Director of the California Department of Public Health and State Public Health Officer.’
I just have to ask–what reason is there that one should assume that the California Department of Public Health is different in its ability to evaluate health problems than the California Department of Water Resources was capable of evaluating dam spill-way problems?–or that the California Department of Forestry was capable of evaluating forest floor wildfire-fuel buildup?
If you have to, dig up the photos of the Oroville Dam spillways–both normal and overflow, both of which had been declared by the California Department of Water Resources as being just fine until they weren’t, and a photo of Paradise Burned ‘the day after’, to see why the question might be asked.
Is it rational, looking at recent history, to assume that any California government department is fully capable and competent?
(Please–I’m not restricting this analysis to California!–Good Dog, we’ve got ‘Nero’ Trudeau up here.)
There are a lot of conspiracy Theories floating here. Try this one. Trump is trying to get the Iranians to negotiate. So he releases a biogerm into China to cover an attack on the Iranian Government.
“Iranian Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar has become infected with the coronavirus, state news in Tehran reported Thursday, adding to the already mounting concern in the country as the virus continues to spread.
Ebtekhar, who advises President Hassan Rouhani on family and women’s matters, was placed under quarantine. Iran has struggled to contain the spread of the virus, which causes a disease called COVID-19, and also confirmed Thursday that 26 people in Iran have died from the virus. More than 400 are suspected of carrying it, and Iran has confirmed 245 cases.”