Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
OK, here are my questions. We had a perfect petri-dish coronavirus disease (COVID-19) experiment with the cruise ship “Diamond Princess”. That’s the cruise ship that ended up in quarantine for a number of weeks after a number of people tested positive for the coronavirus. I got to wondering what the outcome of the experiment was.
So I dug around and found an analysis of the situation, with the catchy title of Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship (PDF), so I could see what the outcomes were.
As you might imagine, before they knew it was a problem, the epidemic raged on the ship, with infected crew members cooking and cleaning for the guests, people all eating together, close living quarters, lots of social interaction, and a generally older population. Seems like a perfect situation for an overwhelming majority of the passengers to become infected.
And despite that, some 83% (82.7% – 83.9%) of the passengers never got the disease at all … why?
Let me start by looking at the age distribution of the Diamond Princess, along with the equivalent age distribution for the entire US.
Figure 1. Number of passengers by age group on the Diamond Princess (solid) and expected number of passengers given current US population percentages (hatched).
When as a young man I lived in a port town with cruise ships calling, we used to describe the passengers as “newlyweds and nearlydeads”. Hmmm … through some improbable series of misunderstandings and coincidences, I’m in the orange zone now … but I digress …
In any case, Figure 1 shows the preponderance of … mmm … I’ll call them “folks of a certain distinguished age” on the Diamond Princess. Folks you’d expect to be hit by diseases.
Next, here’s the breakdown of how many people didn’t get the virus, by age group:
Figure 2. Percentage of unaffected passengers on the Diamond Princess. “Whiskers” on the plot show the uncertainty of each percentage.
In addition to the low rate of disease incidence (83% didn’t get it), the curious part of Figure 2 for me is that there’s not a whole lot of difference between young and old passengers in terms of how many didn’t get coronavirus. For example, sixty to sixty-nine-year-old passengers stayed healthier than teenagers. And three-quarters of the oldest group, those over eighty, didn’t get the virus. Go figure. Buncha virus resistant old geezers, I guess …
Next, slightly less than half the passengers (48.6% ± 2.0%) who got the disease showed NO symptoms. If this disease is so dangerous, how come half the people who got it showed no symptoms at all? Here’s the breakdown by age:
Figure 3. Percentage of Diamond Princess passengers who had coronavirus but were symptom-free. There was only one illness among the youngest group, and they were symptom-free. As in Figure 2, the “whiskers” on each bar of the graph show the uncertainty.
Again, a curious distribution. Young and old were more likely to be symptom-free, while people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s were more likely to show symptoms. Who knew?
There were a total of 7 deaths among those on board. All of them were in people over seventy. So even though the generally young were more likely to show symptoms if they had it, it hits old people the hardest.
Finally, according to the study, the age-adjusted infection fatality rate was 1.2% (0.38%–2.7%). Note the wide uncertainty range, due to the small number of deaths.
For me, this is all good news. 83% of the people on the ship didn’t get it, despite perfect conditions for transmission. If you get it, you have about a 50/50 chance of showing no symptoms at all. And the fatality rate is lower than the earlier estimates of 2% or above.
It is particularly valuable to know that about half the cases are asymptomatic. It lets us adjust a mortality rate calculated from observations, since half of the cases are symptom-free and likely unobserved. It also gives a better idea of how many cases there are in a given population.
To close out, I took a look at the current state of play of total coronavirus deaths in a few selected countries. Figure 4 shows that result.
Figure 4. Deaths from coronavirus in four countries. Note that the scale is logarithmic, so an exponential growth rate plots as a straight line. Blue scale on right shows the deaths as a percentage of the total population.
At this point at least, it doesn’t appear that we are following the Italian trajectory. However … it’s still early days.
Finally, a plea for proportion. US coronavirus deaths are currently at 67, we’ll likely see ten times that number, 670 or so, might be a thousand or three … meanwhile, 3,100 people die in US traffic accidents … and that’s not 3,100 once in a decade, or 3,100 per year.
That’s 3,100 dead from auto accidents EACH AND EVERY MONTH … proportion …
My best to all on a day with both sun and rain here, what’s not to like?
w.
As Always: When you comment please quote the exact words you are referring to, so we can all understand who and what you are discussing.
Terminology: Yes, I know that the virus is now called 2019-nCoV, that it stands for 2019 novel CoronaVirus, and that the disease is called Covid-19, and that it stands for COronaVIrus Disease 2019 … so sue me. I write to be understood.
Data: For those interested in getting the data off the web using the computer language R, see the method I used here.
Other Data: A big hat tip to Stephen Mosher for alerting me to this site, where you can model epidemics to your heart’s content … Mosh splits his working time between Seoul and Beijing, he’s in the heart of the epidemic seeing it up close and personal, and he knows more about it than most.
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Willis
For the past two weeks I have been looking at the data from the WHO on CoronaVirus, their report on deaths by cause and country for 2016 and the estimates for past diseases and pandemics to try and get some perspective on the CoronaVirus.
One thing I noticed recently in the WHO numbers is that most of the cases (83.6% to March 15) and deaths (96.3%) in China have been in Hubei Province, population 59.2 million. This would be a death rate of 52 deaths per million people to date. Extrapolating to the U.S.A. this would be about 17,000 deaths compared to the 20,056 who died from Cirrhosis due to alcohol use in the U.S.A in 2016 or the 34,200 who the CDC estimates died as a result of the 2018-19 influenza.
S. Korea with a population of 51.3 has a CoronaVirus death rate to today of 1.5 deaths per million people and probably represents the best example of where a significant number of cases (8326 to date) have been effectively controlled by early testing, quarantine and social distancing.
While I think some of the measures being taken in Canada and the US are a bit over the top I believe most are warranted and will save a significant number of lives. Based on the data to date CoronaVirus is no where near as bad as some headlines have tried to portray it but if we did nothing it would likely lead to far more deaths than a severe flu year. It will also be a good test of whether our governments and people can handle the next edition of the Spanish (Kansas) Flu when it arrives.
I have been a fan of yours since you first started posting at WUWT and I think I have read most of your posts here and on your blog. I consider you to be a true scientist and one of the most articulate writers I have encountered. I hope to read many more of your posts and analyses.
I’ll post about symptoms here to avoid stepping on anybody else’s commentary. Original Post details non-symptomatic cruise ship passengers who contracted “Wuhan” corona-virus.
Start with the understanding that the virus uses a person’s ribosomes to manifest & that pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are driving symptoms experienced, are started up by cell mitochondria. It may be worth stating that viral ribosomal use in a cell & own cell’s ribosomal use go on at the same time.
Age is often when the number of ribosomes in a cell increase to high levels; which can cause the cell to contain a lot of proteins not necessarily being of practical use. A high level of ribosomes in a cell can create feedback that up-regulates (increases) what is called the mitochondrial termination factor; which down-regulates (decreases) the transcription of mitochondrial DNA, leading to reduced bio-genesis of mitochondria in the cell.
This high number of cellular ribosomes provoking less cellular power (ATP) generating mitochondria has the additional context where-in ribosomal activity is the single highest user of cellular ATP. In other words being old & readily tired is, in part, a function of excessive obsolete ribosomes hanging on in cells draining ATP, while at the same time the excessive ribosome count is holding back new ATP (energy) generating mitochondria forming (bio-genesis). In younger adults, unless there is some reason, there are not as great a number of ribosomes in a cell. As for children there are growth phases which require changes in ribosomal number to change accordingly & (since ribosomes can not be recycled, so to speak) growing cells need to transcribe lots of ribosomal RNA for making ribosomes – but senescent cells (common in elderly) that keep doing this complicate cellular ATP energetics (by limiting number of mitochondria).
Although viral use of ribosomes does not preclude own cells’ use of ribosomes (most cells have abundant ribosomes , & in a growing cell every minute there are thousands of the sub-units of ribosomes being formed) in a cell with excessive numbers of ribosomes the relatively meager number of mitochondria do get diverted into pro-inflammatory cytokine instigation (rather than ATP energy production) once viral RNA fragments get abundant. Which in turn has relevance for the degree to which a viral infected individual symptom cascade kicks in.
Since infection is not a steady state of linear occurrences, as the viral usage of cellular ribosomes increases this loads the cell interior with viral proteins. And this, coupled with the high ribosomal content cell’s original high protein content, apparently sees the viral usage of cell ribosomes become more, at the expense of the cell’s original rate of ribosome usage.
I’ve some chores pending so will break here, unedited.
A commentator mentioned the elderly on the cruise ship is unlikely to be representative of elderly in the general population; likewise not comparable to those in old age homes (& elderly with pre-existing conditions). My input regarding this my assumption the virus infected elderly cruise passengers who suffered little had essentially reasonable number of cellular ribosomes in infected cells.
Elderly with modest caloric intake & exercise have smaller nucleolar (distinct from cell nucleus) sizes, so possibly many of those on the cruise ship were active enough for their level of meal intake. Depending on how the so-called nucleolar remodeling complex is performing certain sub-units (ex: TTF1- interacting protein 5, abbreviated as TIP5) there will be lots of active rRNA transcribing (ex: when TIP5 very low), or only moderate activity transcribing rRNA (ex: when adequate TIP5 ).
What needs to be elucidated is that depending on the number of ribosomes/cell different messenger RNA is getting translated via ribosomes. When there are normal amounts of ribosomes in a cell then primacy is for short length messenger RNA; which is usually important for growing cells & functionality/maintenance vital for children & still relevant to adults.
However, when excessive ribosomes are in a cell lots of longer messenger RNA that otherwise has low translation begins to disproportionally use the ribosomes. Normally there is rRNA that is actively transcribing & rRNA that is not transcribing.
Which sets the context for the immunological feature I want to elucidate. This is not going into great depth, so I’ll put things in general terms.
Our bodies respond to viruses & yet they have to be able to keep responses within bounds that do no more than sustainable personal damage. Interferon (generally termed) is an important anti-viral we can produce.
Interferon binds to a ribosome in a way that interferes with viral use of that ribosome.
Interferon also instigates a cascade of relevant DNA up-regulation & gene down-regulation.
What is called the interferon promoter is usually in a cell due to normally being selected for ribosomal transcription. But the ribosomal promoter does not act to provoke interferon messenger RNA getting transcribed by ribosomes without cause, because the body will undergo undue immunological processes.
When a virus gets into a cell then the interferon promoter is supposed to instigate interferon making & likewise the cell will transcribe more interferon promoters for amplification of interferon levels. However, when there are excess ribosomes in that cell the messenger RNA for interferon (& interferon promoter) is not necessarily given priority by ribosomes which are taxed by the ideally low translation frequency messenger RNA.
My point is that slow interferon response gives the virus more opportunity to get established before being significantly challenged by subsequent defensive changes interferon occasions. This, I posit, is related to how sick the virus makes someone.
“US coronavirus deaths are currently at 67, we’ll likely see ten times that number, 670 or so, might be a thousand or three … ”
__________________
May have misunderstood, but applying the figures from the ship as quoted by Willis (17% infection rate of which 1.2% death rate) to the US population as a whole I get a much bigger number than “670 or so” or even “a thousand or three”.
US population as of 2020 is ~330.4 million (worldometers.info). 17% of 330.4 million is 56.2 million. If the death rate among the infected is 1.2% that equates to over 670,000 deaths – 1.2% of 56.2 million infected persons.
Where did I go wrong?
TheFinalNail March 16, 2020 at 10:33 pm
You left out the fact that the ship is a perfect situation for infection, while the world is not, and there was no social distancing, self-quarantining, or other control measures going on.
Korea has seen the deaths level off, they’re at 75, might get to 100. See Figure 4.
They have 51 million people. By your calculations, they should have 17% of 51 million times 1.2% = 104,000 dead …
The same is true in China. They’ve also leveled off, right now they have 3,232 dead. By your calculation, it should be 17% of 1.44 billion times 1.2% = 2.9 million dead …
I’m sure you can see the problem.
Best regards,
w.
Thanks for the clarification Willis.
Willis,
Sorry to labor the point, but in the case of China, as you report, a population of 1.44 billion people and a (hopefully) levelling-off death total of 3,232, assuming a death rate of 1.2%, suggests that the infection rate is very low. (That is, infected people ill to the extent that they require treatment and thus appear in the data.) In the case of China, it would suggest that ‘infection requiring treatment’ is lower than 0.02% of the population. That would also fit with your estimate of around 670 expected deaths in the US.
That’s fair enough, assuming we can trust the Chinese figures; but it doesn’t hold true for Italy, for instance. Italy has a population of 60.5 million. If ‘infection requiring treatment’ really is just ~0.02% of the population and the death rate is ~1.2%, then you would expect to see a death total in Italy of around 145 people. It’s already almost 15 times that (2,158 deaths reported to date). The Chinese and Italian figures seem to contradict one another with respect to rates of infection and death. I would be more inclined to trust the Italian figures, but that’s just me.
Thanks for another interesting post.
Are they Chinese or Italians. 30% Italians do not respond to ani biotics because of over use; working in cloth factories with high fibre content in air produces long term lung problems, working in doors does not develop lungs, elderly population, 5000 sweat shops with Chinsese living and working in poor conditions, high infection due to kisses used in greeting, bacteria problems in Italian hospitals , other winter deaths recorded due to Corona virus.
China and Italy are unlikely to be honest about all the factors influencing spread and morbidity.
Denmark was the only member country that objected to imprisonment of humans to study this virus.
All other ranking countries agreed including the USA, Canada and Australia (the origins of the bulk of WUWT readers and commenters) .
The Diamond Princess event shall (in a generation) be exposed as classical Nazi like human experimentation.
Too many people in top Gov & Med Worldwide know about this exercise for it not to be recognized as a heinous disgraceful scandal.
Say what? It was a ship run by an American company with people from around the world, in a Japanese port. What do you think they should have done? Let them leave? Cut them loose in Japan? Let them get on airplanes and go home?
Also, I can find nothing about Denmark “objecting” to the quarantine.
Finally, quarantines of infected people are done all the time for various diseases, and nobody screams “NAZI!!”.
w.
OK Willis . . . no symptom passengers were to be moved to on-shore quarantine.
That was ‘stopped’ and Denmark voted against it.
But you’re right Willis it’s a loony conspiracy.
[I look forward to your apology in due course].
Warren, I NEVER said it was a “loony conspiracy”. That’s all you. Stop trying to put words in my mouth. It angrifies my blood and I tend to strike back twice as hard.
Next, you still haven’t provided a link to the claims about Denmark … and as to them “voting” against it, when and where was the vote, and why would Denmark get a vote about a ship in Japan?
Next, half the passengers carrying the virus were without symptoms … I’d vote to keep them on the ship, and I’m sure the Japanese wanted the same.
As to an apology, you can osculate my fundamental orifice.
w.
I am also curious about this “vote”.
When?
Where?
Lot’s of people thought it was a bad idea. I did not hear anyone yelling loudly about Nazis at the time.
Let’s see where you voiced these concerns when it might have made a difference, eh Warren?
For the record, right here on these pages, i said several times I though it was an awful idea and they need to get those people off that ship before they are all infected.
A day after my most vocal comment on it, in which I listed the day by day running totals, the US sent planes to evacuate our people from the ship.
No one voted, no one was asked.
We went and got our people.
Personally, I was wondering by what authority those people were ordered confined to that ship until whoever was making the decisions told them they could leave?
Japan?
How?
If I was on that ship I would have been screaming loudly and continuously to get me off of there.
As far as I was able to gather at the time, the cruise line and the Japan government decided what would happen.
I got really irate myself when I read that the original 14 days was being extended/renewed for a fresh 14 days whenever anyone was found to be infected, for all of the people the newly infected passenger had been in contact with.
This made no sense, and it was then that it was obvious they had to be gotten off that ship.
With that plan, the people on the ship could be there for years as one and then another person contracted the disease and others had a fresh 14 days tacked on.
It was a bad idea from the start.
It was nothing like a quarantine.
I view my fundamental orifice more as an entrance rather than an exit.
Yesterday I said of the fatality rate: “Until there is a vaccine, times that infected number by 1%.”
Eschenbach: “you’ll have to flog your incessant attempts to gin up more hysteria on some other website. Here we do our best to deal with the truth and the science, and not fall for hype from folks like you.”
In response I quoted other sources giving similar numbers, including one from this paper https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031104v1 estimating it to be quite a bit higher at 1.6% (1.4-1.8%).
Today he writes: “according to the study, the age-adjusted infection fatality rate was 1.2% (0.38%–2.7%)”
Yep. Yesterday, we didn’t have much in the way of numbers that included symptom-free cases.
Today, we have the Princess Cruises numbers that finally include symptom-free cases, not the best, but better than nothing. Might be 0.4%. Might be 2.7%. Might be anything in between.
When the facts change, I change my mind? What do you do?
w.
PS—My objection was mostly to you trying to politicize the issue, viz:
While Trump was acting, Democrats were obsessed with impeachment and also with attacking Trump for his actions …
w.
The shortage of tests and their initial flaws were due to the Obama administration’s having mandated sole viral test kit responsibility to the CDC, which blew it. Trump was right to unleash the private sector, cut out by the previous regime.
He also caught flack for restricting flights from Asia and Europe, which actions now appear wise.
Only 71 new cases in US yesterday.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
How can we tell if they’re new cases, or existing cases discovered by increased testing?
That is what ‘new’ means in this context. Identified and reported.
“My objection was mostly to you trying to politicize the issue…”
False. Your spittle flecked, shouty little rant was a direct response to my quote above.
“I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this, but some folks just don’t seem to get the memo.
WE DO NOT KNOW THE MORTALITY RATE OF THE DISEASE YET!… blah, blah, and not fall for hype from folks like you.”
Then YOU proceed to politicize. What? you changed your mind on that? Well played.
Auto accidents? Wow. Lets see if you think this is all out of “proportion” in a few weeks time, when you’re confined against your will and people are dying in hospital carparks. All hype right?
(My objection, is your chronic inability to stick with the topic, anymore dishonest attacks like this will get snipped) SUNMOD
Well we know them better than for climate change which currently stands at 0.00000001%
Un Natural statistical effects of this virus.
Man made Virus.
Intelligent design.
Or a Bat did it.
Testing and Tent Hospitals Please
Willis,
so far so good. However, there are still 233 open cases from which 15 are in severe or critical condition. By now I assume the 218 will recover and hope the 15 will also end with recovery. Two days ago they has 32 in severe condition that recovered so odds are good. Just not over yet.
Yes, Rolf, it could get a bit worse. All I can do is analyze it with the numbers that I have.
w.
I guess the Italian are not using antivirals or chloroquine or they are facing another strain, way more deadly. Can the Italian people of Lombardy be so fragile if everything else is the same ? Hard to imagine.
They have a very high level of hospital infections. Even without being overloaded. I doubt that gets any better.
There also cultural differences which may be at play. I have only met a few italians here in southern France but they cannot breathe without talking unless in a chemically induced coma. Assuming they are are the same at home they must spend most of their waking lives facing each other at a distance suitable for transmitting Covid-19 virus .
Hi Willis,
My sister-in-law, from near San Jose, has now taken up residence at Travis AFB.
[Last we talked she said “navy” but she also said the food was better than the information they were getting. ]
She and friends from the retirement village traveled on the Grand Princess; they can now visit — with masks — out on the grounds of the base. The are individual in motel-like rooms. I’m sure data are being collected on all the guests and crew, so a new experiment.
Their independence day is next Tuesday, the 24th.
Interestingly, they were given the opportunity to be tested. They refused. A positive test would reset the day-count to zero. They prefer to self-quarantine in their own village.
Some data on Grand Princess: She sailed with some 2,000 passengers and a crew of about 1,500. When news came that some passengers on a previous cruise got infected with Covid-19, she sailed back from Hawaii to Oakland, where she is still quarantined. Everybody showing symptoms was tested. Results: 19 crew members – all now recovered – and 2 passengers infected.
The numbers are strikingly different from Italian numbers. I wonder if it is the same pathogen. She is now anchored with a skeleton crew of some 350 in the Bay.
I’ve said this before…no one is checking to see if people have antibodies to this disease. Just because we noticed it in 2019 doesn’t mean it’s the first time that it has spread. It might not have been as deadly and just passed under the radar as an unidentified type of FLU.
83% of the cruise ship not getting the disease for a highly contagious virus (they keep suggesting an R-Naught of 2 or greater) just begs for some blood testing for antibodies. I think a lot of people are completely or partially immune to this virus. Types of corona virus are known to cause common colds – we just never looked into it this closely.
I the cruise ship is an accurate example, then approximately 80% of the U.S. is vulnerable. The virus infection would just die-out with a low R-Naught. With a very high one, we should see a quick peaking and then a rabid leveling off – just like China is seeing.
This is just a hypothesis, but I keep seeing signs that this virus is acting contained (or bounded) by some unidentified factor which partial immunity would fit.
Yes, I too wonder whether the virus (or a version that gives at least partial immunity) has been circulating for longer than we think. If a majority of those infected are asymptomatic and those with symptoms present as flu, it would be difficult to spot. I suspect that it might have been circulating with a low R0 maybe since October or November.
The UK government said yesterday they are hoping to get a test for those who have had the infection should be available soon. That’s going to actually tell us what is going on.
“This is just a hypothesis, but I keep seeing signs that this virus is acting contained (or bounded) by some unidentified factor which partial immunity would fit.”
And what about the CPAC meeting, with thousands in attendance, where a person who tested positive for Wuhan virus was present but there has been no indication that the person infected anyone there, even though some of the attendees felt they should self-quarantine themselves. It’s been about a month since that meeting and no additional infections that I have shown themselves.
Tom
Same for the PDAC show, one of the largest mining shows in the world in Toronto. I was there March 1st and crowds were smaller than in the last few years. A couple weeks later all attendees got emails notifying them of a man from Sudbury who had the virus. He had mild case. No news since then.
I was in China 2017 for a longer stay. I had what I thought was a cold and got a cough that wouldn’t go away for several weeks. Ended up at a hospital in Shanghai, did a chest x-ray. At that time my lungs did show the same glass at the bottom as this virus result in today. That doctor told me then, he never saw anything alike before. He was a specialist on x-ray evaluation at a high profile hospital for foreigners.
So I guess there was something around before. Just not as lethal and not as epidemic. My wife didn’t get it at that time.
This virus is deadly only for Catholics (Italy) and Moslems (Iran).
The Moslems lick the shrine Gitter, get a lot of virus and die.
The Catholics dip their fingers into holy water as they enter the church. Then they go eat Pizza with these very fingers, get a lot of virus, and die.
All others are not really in danger.
Instead of writing crap about people and things (commonplace … in short) try to take advantage of the experience that the same people are doing (now) for you too (it may also be that you will need it) …
It is not “crap”. It is a fact. See the statistics.
One should add “corona-party” youngsters in Belgium.
These die as well.
The random factor cannot be discounted in this case and this group of people.
There may well have been one or several super spreaders who were infecting a large proportion of those they had contact with. Perhaps one or more servers who had a certain part of the ship or list of passngers they were responsible for, or something of that nature.
Maybe there was one part of the ship that was spreading contagion, like maybe a public bathroom, and some people use public bathrooms, and others never ever do.
And/or, perhaps there were many people who know/knew enough to be able to protect themselves and their kids or partners from infection, while others were blithely unconcerned or did not have the perspicacity, judgement, or wherewithal, to take adequate measures to avoid exposure to/ingestion of a sufficient number of virions to constitute a minimal infective dose.
It should not be assumed that everyone was exposed, or that everyone took equal steps to protect themselves, or that everyone had similar habits and routines that may have either protected them or exposed them.
And I just want to reiterate the randomness factor: Someone walking around spreading virus will surely and for certain encounter some people and not encounter others by shear random chance. Someone walks into a restroom and uses the far stall, and someone else the near one. Someone uses the left wash basin, someone else the center one.
Someone touches the cold water faucet, someone else the hot.
One person avoids touching any object in the room, lifting toilet seat with bottom edge of shoe, and someone else pays no attention to what they are touching and thinks they have washed their hands when they rinse with cold water for three seconds, then grabs the faucet and turns it off.
Then turns left instead of right and comes face to face with a spreader, while the other person turns the other way and never sees him. Some people are touchy feeling, or close talkers, shaking hands with people, standing and talking loud and close. Others are there to spend time alone, and not given to getting overly friendly with strangers.
I would like to see a map of who got it, a list of who cooked and served for which cabins, who ate in which dining rooms and when.
And then, once this is all over, see an antibody test from people who tested negative to see who may have been minimally exposed and had an early immunological response to a small exposure.
Nicholas, see my comment to Mosher above.
w.
Willis,
I should have made sure to say that I was not intending my remarks to be a criticism of your article and your analysis.
In fact and as per usual, you have done a fine job of presenting what is known and analyzing it using objective means.
I am not claiming any special knowledge here, just offering my own thoughts for what some may find a helpful or new perspective.
Thank you for the reply, and for your attention to this important issue!
The problem with many restrooms is that in spite of having hands free water supply and hand drying that with clean hands one has to use the door handle to get out of the restroom.
The best restrooms are the ones with a zig-zag entrance and no door.
One of the problems may be the fact that flushing a toilet sends an aerosol plume into the air which spreads widely, contains whatever was in the bowl, and lingers in the air for as much as hours later.
Given that, no door may not be such a great idea either.
And ICYMI, this virus is present in the feces of infected individuals in large quantity, and seems to cause a high incidence of “unconsolidated” solid waste, which greatly increases the quantity of contagion in the plume.
This article is concerning the phenomenon in a particular setting, but it is generally applicable to flushed toilets and in particular the high pressure ones that are common in public and commercial building restrooms…the kind with no toilet tank that use the pressure in the water supply pipes instead of a tank of water.
See here:
https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13756-018-0301-9?fbclid=IwAR3gMsUT2VdLv-OjIiktomiLbhQpqMzo2JnU_kNws-5SC-ACQpxzdeFhHZQ
Perhaps the squat toilet is not as bad, though disgusting, as aerosol generating ones.
Nicholas
You said,
It should not be assumed that everyone was exposed, or that everyone took equal steps to protect themselves, or that everyone had similar habits and routines that may have either protected them or exposed them.
Just like the general population.
“Finally, a plea for proportion. US coronavirus deaths are currently at 67”
This is a list of mass shootings in the United States that have occurred in 2020. This article only includes shootings with at least four total victims, including the shooter(s). As of February 29, there has been 55 shootings that fit this criteria, resulting in 74 deaths and 199 injuries, for a total of 273 victims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019
That list says it is for last year…2019.
Nicholas
if you scroll to the bottom there’s an update link for 2020.
Over 2000 abortions are done daily on average in the U.S., many are late term.
From the CDC:
“The majority of abortions in 2016 took place early in gestation: 91.0% of abortions were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation; a smaller number of abortions (7.7%) were performed at 14–20 weeks’ gestation, and even fewer (1.2%) were performed at ≥21 weeks’ gestation.”
re: “From the CDC: … and even fewer …”
Percentages; what does this mean in terms of absolute numbers (positive integers)?
10s? 100s? 1000s? Many …
This is fascinating stuff, thanks so much Willis.
Yay, Mosh-man!
If COVID-19 doesn’t get you your fellow American might .
Virus fears fuel spike in sales of guns and ammunition
Just as grocery stores have been stripped bare by Americans panicked by coronavirus, guns and ammo have been flying off the shelves too.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/virus-fears-fuel-spike-sales-guns-ammunition-69625881
There’s already millions of guns and billions of ammo around, if somebody was out to get you, they’d have done it already.
It might be nice if I could purchase a virus that would prevent another from giving me a virus that I don’t want.
@jamorpuss – This discussion is about the virus issue. Not guns. You seem to be all about guns. Guns, guns, guns. Are you sufficiently triggered now? Go find a thread somewhere about guns.
Thank you. I have been waiting for this.
I suspect the coronavirus lab test may be specific, but has a low sensitivity. It’s a new lab test, and there is no way it could have been checked. A sentinal case in Australia, a student, caught it from his mother. His mother tests negative. She got it from her doctor /employer.
if correct, it explains the low positive rate on the Diamond Princess.
Could the virus be carried on the surface of people who do not get affected but can pass it on to someone in close contact?
One bit of information that I have been unable to get is the residence time of the virus on various surfaces before it becomes inactive.
Is a detergent effective in killing the virus? IIRC I was told by a ministry vet during the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak that they could destroy the fat on the surface of the virus and render it ineffective.
Depending on the surface the virus can last for several days. Detergents are effective in killing the virus as are such things as Chlorox and hydrogen peroxide, on surfaces such as doorknobs, kitchen tables etc. wipe it on and let it dry for several minutes.
RT-PCR is not a new test, I’ve been teaching PCR to students in a lab setting for 15 years. The only new part of the test is the primer set which makes the test specific for the virus. The machines that run the test are about the size of a Keurig coffee machine but for this test need to be run in a sterile lab environment. Each machine can run multiple samples and the protocol takes about 45 mins, preparing and loading the samples will take a similar time.
A Bat Did it..
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
What we need to know are the race, sex, age, nationality, smoking or not, drinking or not, pot or not, prescription profile, supplement profile, disease history, weight, height, and over-the-counter profile for every passenger. This information should be made public so that hundreds of millions can analyze it.
Why is this information being withheld? It is stupid.
Because medical history is personal information, not public.
Monster
It is personal when it is associated with an identifiable individual. The aggregate statistical information should be made publicly available.
“What we need to know are the race, sex, age, nationality, smoking or not, drinking or not, pot or not, prescription profile, supplement profile, disease history, weight, height, and over-the-counter profile for every passenger. ”
Add to that: Vaper or not?
(A study has found that vaporized propylene (sp?) glycol protects mice from flu. https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19422701086 )
Excellent analysis Willis. The lack of increased hit on older group is very interesting.
In France over 3000 are killed on the roads every year. Over 4000 a year are KILLED by hospital infections in France every year. We are about to go into slave-style curfew in a few hours on the strength of 129 deaths over the last month !!!
Macron has just announced 300bn euro package ( about 12% of GDP ) to fight the virus, having spent all his time in power advancing “austerity” and cutting pensions.
There is far more to these govt responses than is warranted by the health issue. As they say : never waste a good crisis.
Currently the per-capita death rate due to COVID19-positive viral activity (including other additional complicating infections) in the US is 1 in 11.5 million.
For a solid perspective, per-capita natural death from old age is 1 in 122.
443 people in the US were killed by hammer blow in 2018… 1 in 738,600. So being too close to a hammer is ten times more lethal than the current “world shattering” plague…
“Finally, a plea for proportion. US coronavirus deaths are currently at 67, we’ll likely see ten times that number, 670 or so, might be a thousand or three”
Well, at least its a falsifiable prediction. Is it plausible?
The death rate is a function of the infections on average 18-20 days back and of treatment effectiveness. Most of the infections will not have been confirmed. The infection rate going forward is a function of social distance and transmissability in the existing conditions.
The 67 deaths suggest total infections of about 50k at present, mostly unconfirmed. This is the key variable. How many cases are there out there in the population, but untested, to lead to the number of observed deaths?
Then going forwards, if the death rate is around 2%, considering average treatment effectiveness as things progress, this should lead to a cumulative total of around 1,000 deaths in the US about three weeks from now, or about April 7.
There’s a lot of uncertainty, but this would be the number to watch to confirm or falsify theories. Willis’ prediction is for a cumulative total from the entire epidemic in the US of at most a couple of thousand. This prediction is for reaching close to his cumulative total estimate by April 7.
So then what would this predict going forwards? Depending on how effectively the new social distancing measures are, transmissability could vary. The important question is the doubling period in days of total infections. Suppose its a week, which is something like what the UK scientific advisors are estimating for that country. In that case by April 7 there should be a total of infections (again mostly not confirmed) of about 400k. By the end of April this should lead to a cumulative total of about 8,000 deaths.
Well, at least its falsifiable and the test and data are running continuously now in real time. We shall find out together in a matter of days. If we do real lockdowns, infections might stop. At that point, confirmed cases would continue to rise during the incubation period and with increased testing but real new cases would start to fall, and deaths would follow.
The test for lockdown is automobile traffic in cities. If it falls by 90% or so, and if the streets are deserted, and people are getting food by delivery left at the door, then its real lockdown. Otherwise its partial, and may or may not be effective, depending.
The key thing we don’t know yet is how many people there are with symptom free infection and recoveries. If this number is high, Willis could be right and the above kind of scenario will not happen, not even close. This could be one reason for apparent low transmission. If lockdown is effective, that too will dramatically reduce cumulative death rate, not least because it will allow better treatment of more intense cases.
People all over the country are turning up infected with no idea how they got infected or who passed it to them.
So as a matter of factual logical inference, there are a great number of infected people.
After all, is it likely that a few thousand people have spread an illness to hundreds of cities in 49 states across and area of 3.8 million square miles in a matter of weeks?
BTW…a city and a country full of people getting food via deliveries left at doors is not a lock-down, it is a different mechanism for transmittance.
Just like being trapped on a cruise whip being served meals three times a day by crew, some of whom were infected, was not a quarantine.
How many people will an asymptomatic delivery person infect?
Lookey here…an Amazon warehouse employee has tested positive.
I wonder how many other people there have the virus?
How many packages did he handle, cough or sneeze on, etc?
They have same day delivery there, and next day for lots of other places.
Also, I was just reading that there is a study showing that the crew of the cruise ship was infected and still serving people and handling everyone’s food.
It never made sense…why are passengers confined to their rooms, but crew are mingling with each other, in contact with every passenger many times a day, preparing and handling food…
Why would anyone think the crew should not have had the same restrictions as the passengers?
Like, what…only people who paid to be there get a virus?
Utterly idiotic.
Same with delivery, or everyone going to get food at a drive through.
One person delivering, or working the drive through, or prepping the food or the packages…is infecting people all day long!
I will take my chances in a huge Walmart, stay away from anyone, go in the middle of the night, do self checkout…and do scan and go at Sam’s Club. Touch nothing but items right out of the crate and scan them with my phone and be out of there.
michel March 17, 2020 at 1:04 am
“Finally, a plea for proportion. US coronavirus deaths are currently at 67, we’ll likely see ten times that number, 670 or so, might be a thousand or three”
Looking at the US data the number increases by a factor of ten in ~12 days so I would anticipate being over 1000 deaths by the end of the month.
Yes, the quoted phrase is from Willis’ article. As I say, at least its falsifiable, and I think it very likely to be. The problem is that the death rate in 2-3 weeks from now is a function of the number of cases in the population. Not the number of confirmed cases, the number of actual cases.
Nothing in the way of isolation and quarantine done in the next 2-3 weeks will have any effect on deaths during those 2-3 weeks. After that they may bring down the death rate by bringing down the number of infections.
We shall see.
michel March 18, 2020 at 2:04 am
Yes, the quoted phrase is from Willis’ article. As I say, at least its falsifiable, and I think it very likely to be. The problem is that the death rate in 2-3 weeks from now is a function of the number of cases in the population. Not the number of confirmed cases, the number of actual cases.
Yes, which is why I focus on the death stats. All the distortions to the testing regime make the confirmed case stats unreliable for analysis.
Consider the number of people in cities all over the globe who have been infected, then multiply by the proportion of infected people known to the total number, and consider that 16 weeks ago or so, in mid November, the total number of creatures with the virus who were in any way in contact with any humans on the planet, may have been and likely was a sum-total of one.
One animal in a cage in one random market in one random city in a place few outside of the region had ever heard of or been to.
And in that short span the virus is or has infected the bodies of many tens of thousands of human beings all across and entire planet.
So what happens in 16 more weeks?
Could it be that being a ship the Diamond Princess spends all her time on sea water.More often on the open ocean.Passengers are exposed ocean air.Lungs are being filled,with ozone for example.