By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The good news keeps coming. In the United States and Canada, the weekly-averaged daily compound growth rates of confirmed cases of infection are now about 8%, down from the benchmark values of 23% and 17% respectively that obtained in the three weeks to March 14, when Mr Trump declared the pandemic to be a national emergency.
Fig. 1. Mean compound daily growth rates in confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from March 28 to April 11, 2020. A link to the high-definition PowerPoint slides is at the end of this posting.
The daily case-growth rate for the world excluding China and occupied Tibet is down from the benchmark value of almost 20% in the three weeks to 14 March to just 6.1% for the week to 11 April.
The daily compound rate of growth in deaths is a lagging indicator, so it remains rather higher than the case-growth rate. For the world outside China and occupied Tibet, it is 8.1%. In the United States it is 13%, in Canada 16%. Though the overall trend in these death-growth rates is falling slowly, there will be many more deaths before the pandemic subsides.
Daily growth rates in deaths are falling rather more slowly on average than growth rates in total confirmed cases, but the overall trend is downward.
Fig. 2. Mean compound daily growth rates in reported COVID-19 deaths for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from April 4 to April 11, 2020.
The Spectator reports that in the town of Gangelt, one of the epicenters of the German outbreak, a random sample of 1000 residents taken by researchers at the University of Bonn found that, though only 2% of the sample showed symptoms, 15% had been infected and showed antibodies. Yet the confirmed cases reported by Germany as a whole to April 11 were just 125,452, or 0.15% of the population of 84 million.
In short, the confirmed cases, which tend to be the more serious ones, appear to undercount the true extent of infection by two orders of magnitude. This came as a surprise to many, but to those who have been following these daily updates it will have been no surprise, because, based on casting back deaths three weeks, I was able to discover that the number of cases of infection was being under-reported by somewhere between 1 and 3 orders of magnitude.
This is good news for two reasons. First, we are much further along the road to population-wide immunity than the confirmed-case counts had suggested. Secondly, the case fatality rate appears to be a great deal smaller than the ratio of deaths to reported cases had indicated. My original rough-and-ready calculations based on casting back deaths in the U.S. population suggested a case fatality rate of 0.34%. The German researchers concluded that it was 0.37%.
In global terms, these figures suggest that, assuming 90%, or 7 billion, of the world’s 7.8 billion population eventually became infected, total worldwide deaths would be about 26 million, making the disease about half as bad as the Spanish flu of 1918-19, which chiefly killed young people and accounted for an estimated 50 million deaths. In the United States there would be 1.1 million deaths. For comparison, in the 2019-20 flu season there are thought to have been 24,000 to 62,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
So the fatalities could still be significant, based on the German study. However, several promising avenues of research into prophylactics, palliatives and cures are being followed worldwide. The sooner some of these are shown to have a significant effect in randomized, prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials, the smaller the eventual death toll will be.
A happy Easter to everyone. And, by way of an Easter Funny, here is a picture of the personal protective equipment that the fashionable Peer of the Realm is wearing this season.
Willis was right the economy must be opened immediately this is not an abnormal flu virus
Eliza appears incapable of assessing evidence. This virus is considerably more infectious and considerably more fatal than flu, and, worse still, it requires more costly, more advanced, more skilled, more prolonged intensive-care intervention, with a considerably lesser chance of success, than any pre-existing viral pneumonia. The UK’s intensive-care authority has published a definitive report establishing that this is the case.
Eliza is out of her depth here.
Corona-chan is not as pathogenic as you think. She has lots of help from doctors who can’t think outside the box and only know how to follow protocols. How many people have died because doctors caused the ARDS they were trying to prevent? Thank goodness Boris wasn’t intubated.
Paradigm Shift in Pandemic (Vent) Protocols?
https://errorstatistics.com/2020/04/12/paradigm-shift-in-pandemic-vent-protocols/
Christopher M B.
My observation is you rarely argue a point, without resorting to insult and so on.
It is unnecessary to insult in general when debating or arguing a point. It is counterproductive.
Does anyone remember when Richard Gere ran around Hollywood chanting to free Tibet?
I wonder how the Chinese clamped down on Richards career since than?
The rest of the lock-down world is still waiting, and some hoping, that Sweden will go up in flames.
I find it interesting that the IHME projection has Sweden peaking in May. I was told by my “betters” that we need to flatten the curve. By doing so our hospitals would not be overwhelmed and cause more deaths, than the ones that were going to happen no matter what we do. If this is so, then shouldn’t Sweden be peaking now, sooner, since they didn’t institute any draconian social rules?
Link goes to IHME Sweden
https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden
The projections based on those models seem indeed to be complete BS.
Actual data :
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
today’s data are already outside the error bars of the healthdata models :
+332 cases and +12 deaths.
worldometer removed the growth factor graphs a few days back . I guess because since there end of February there was no growth..
joannenova.com.au/2020/04/finally-coronavirus-random-tests-show-only-1-infected-herd-immunity-is-tiny/
Lo Nova has a post about a similar study if not the same one but comes to the opposite conclusion about the “herd immunity” prospect.
Am I reading her post incorrectly?
In short, the confirmed cases, which tend to be the more serious ones, appear to undercount the true extent of infection by two orders of magnitude.
Thanks Lord Monkton for that. I’ve been bashing my head against the wall of belief in experts with simplistic models fed with shoddy data. Here in Canada, we are not testing enough people to know what the sex ratio is, let alone the real numbers for Wuhan flu.
Could we paraphrase an ancient wisdom? “Beware experts bearing models”
“making the disease about half as bad as the Spanish flu of 1918-19”
You predict half of the number of deaths, but the population back then was only about 2 billion, or about 1/4 the size, so the Spanish Flu would have been roughly 2 x 4 = 8 times worse on a per capita basis.
If this disease is seasonal, then expect the numbers to begin picking up in the Southern Hemisphere soon as they fall in the northern hemisphere.
I am actually surprised if the under-count is off by 2 orders of magnitude. I expected it would be low by 20 to 30 times, but 100 times or more? That would be surprising to me. I’ll wait for more data before believing it is that high – but it could be. By a factor of 20 times there will have been about 40 million infected by now. If its really 100 or more, then it becomes about 200 million or more – still LOTS of room for this disease to last months more. Herd immunity will take a long while to stop the disease – all we can hope for is for it to start slowing the disease spread down. With such a high R0, Herd Immunity will be higher than for typical Flu.
People held a street party where I lived yesterday with a DJ and a mobile disco drinking alcohol there were a lot of people taking part. I did not see any police trying to break it up and take our liberties away. If it is necessary to take such drastic action against this virus today why has it not been necessary for previous outbreaks such as the “Hong Kong flu” in 1968 which I survived and I am also surviving this outbreak. We are being led to believe that this outbreak is worse or will become worse than any thing that happened before , we will gain immunity to this virus and the death rate will fall rapidly
Seasonal flu evolved with humans for as long as there have been humans, evolved to coexist as in parasite and host. The parasite does not evolve to kill the host. Sars cov-2 is zoonotic. It is novel. Humans have not evolved with it. That is the difference.
The use of “population-wide immunity” in place of the equally correct but less delicate ‘herd immunity’ is duly noted.
An exponential (or any other function) rise in infections means the same function rise in immune count because nearly all survive.
I wonder how many thousands have died and will die because of the knee-jerk antagonism of the Trump-hating media to a suggested medication that appeared to be and has demonstrated to be effective. It is further noted that the earlier HCQ is used, the sooner the recovery from covid-19.
‘herd immunity’ is fine. They regard us livestock to be corralled and managed, bred and milked for profit. It was freudian slip but at least it let the sheeple know.
Using ‘herd immunity’ was not a ‘freudian slip’, regardless of your negative perspectives. Herd immunity is an accepted technical term, as evidenced by definitions available in a host of dictionaries. Here are a couple….
Medical Definition of herd immunity
: a reduction in the probability of infection that is held to apply to susceptible members of a population in which a significant proportion of the individuals are immune because the chance of coming in contact with an infected individual is less
https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/herd%20immunity
Def: herd im·mu·ni·ty
The resistance to invasion and spread of an infectious agent in a group or community, based on the resistance to infection of a high proportion of individual members of the group; resistance is a product of the number susceptible and the probability that susceptibles will come into contact with an infected person.
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/herd+immunity
Unfortunately the CDC Fauci USA is causing millions of unemployed and deaths in the USA Trump wake up get rid of these people PLEASE!!!
There seems to be a transcription error somewhere, it’s Dr Faux See.
These scientists seem to think their field is the only one which matters and they are entitled to lie and exaggerate in order to convince policy makers to do what they, the scientists want.
This is exactly what has been going on in climatology. Well meaning lefty enviro types think that is the only factor which matters and that it is there job to BS policy makers into giving their perspective overwhelming importance above all else.
They seem to think that because they have some expertise in a narrow field, that somehow makes them to superior that they are qualified to make policy decisions for the rest of society.
Sounds accurate!
Happy Easter to all
My thoughts about the German data are that it is very discouraging. To have only 15% positive on antibodies initially looks very grim as it would imply that the virus still has the vast majority of the population available for exponential growth and if accurate, there must be a very long and painful road ahead with second, third, and fourth waves coming. Again, if accurate, it implies that the vulnerable need to be much better isolated than they have been thus far, or we must expect multiples of the number of dead. Unless of course some treatments are effective and more broadly used.
However, we would be assuming a lot to accept these results at face value. It has been noted that it is difficult to get a covid-19 antibody test with sufficient specificity that it does not yield false positives from other coronaviruses. This implies to me that the test protocol may be tuned to accept a high number of false negatives in order to avoid false positives. Does anyone know if there are validation data showing the false negative rate on the German test?
Ultimately I would not want to see any decisions made in the US based on testing in Germany. So we are still in the dark, until good testing is done here. But this does not give me hope.
—Rich Davis April 12, 2020 at 2:05 pm
Happy Easter to all
My thoughts about the German data are that it is very discouraging. To have only 15% positive on antibodies initially looks very grim as it would imply that the virus still has the vast majority …–
“In response to an infection, such as COVID-19, the body develops an overall immune response to fight the infection. One component of the immune system’s response is development of antibodies that attach to the virus and help eliminate it. The body’s initial immune reaction produces general antibodies that attack many infections, called “IgM” antibodies.”
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical-devices/faqs-diagnostic-testing-sars-cov-2
And what is important further down:
“Over time, the body develops a second type of antibody in response to the infection that is more specific to the virus, called “IgG” antibodies. Most antibody tests detect IgG antibodies. On average, IgG antibodies take about 4 weeks to develop,…”
So, quite simply German can’t even know at this point in time, if did test now. If test now, it’s testing 4 weeks ago. And if German testing didn’t occur within the few days, it was 4 weeks before the time that the blood was drawn for the test. Though the 4 week period is uncertain:
“… but the time to development may vary substantially, and there is still a lot we do not know about SARS-COV-2. ”
Btw, I didn’t know this, but your post prompted me to find the answer.
So, whatever I said before about antibody tests- it now, changes my view about it.
Wastewater studies in MA, Sweden and the Netherlands show vast numbers of asymptomatic infections. The MA sewage survey found five to 256 times more unreported than recorded cases.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/sewage-analysis-suggests-england-metro-area-fewer-500/story?id=70068740
Yes, thanks, I saw that, and assuming that the actual cases are 100x the number of confirmed cases in US, it comes to about 17% of the population. At 256x, it would be 44%. Using Massachusetts to extrapolate to the entire US is a dicey idea, so it’s still just so much speculation, I’m afraid. Still waiting on real data.
The wastewater studies are data, but obviously testing everybody for antibodies would be better.
But say that the infection rate is only five times the reported case rate. It’s probably much more than that, but for the sake of argument, let’s specify only five times rather than 256 times. That means about three million cases rather than 600,000. Granted 10,000 deaths, the lethality rate would then be 0.33, or around three times the flu fatality rate, for which disease we have vaccines.
But more likely, the real infection rate is closer to the 15% found in the German study and other instances, in which WuFlu is indeed on a par with seasonal flu. The bodies piling up in NY, needing refrigerated trucks for storage, then result from the short time during which deaths have occurred, vs the six months of normal flu season.
And, sure enough, this US flu season has produced only 24,000 deaths so far, with it almost over, as against 61,000 in the terrible season of 2017-18. Shutdown has also reduced death in general, from traffic accidents and murders. Although the latter might pick up with domestic violence if house arrest lasts much longer.
Thanks, that’s helpful in the sense that 15% isn’t necessarily accurate. Unfortunately it just informs us that once again we don’t have anything definitive to go on yet.
The 15 pct, if true, will slow the new infection rate somewhat. Also consider that those 15 pct are likely to be more social in average than rest of population, which is why they got it earlier on average than others. This fact will also slow infection rate.
So with a slowed infection rate and some reasonable mitigation the new cases will not overload health system. Not to mention summer is coming which should also help dampen the spread rate.
The Gangelt Study has quickly come under fire.
Only preliminary results of 500 people were published and no data.
Furthermore, although people were randomly selected, all persons in the household were tested.This cannot be extrapolated to the total population because the probability of members of a household infecting each other is high and the number of positive persons is no longer representative for the total population.
Finally Christian Drosten criticized that the antibody tests can also show positive results for antibodies of normal corona (common cold) viruses and it is not clear whether additional tests were carried out to exclude such errors.
Absolutely correct.
Prof. Streeck was even unable to tell which exactly antibody test did he use!
How soon we forget. In 2018 15000 people died in one week of the flu in the UK with patients dying in corridors as there were not enough beds
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5305099/Aussie-flu-leads-highest-weekly-death-toll-3-years.html
Mind you, that wasn’t as bad as a week in 2015 when 17000 died
Tonyb
No ventilators back then?
Tonyb continues to make the same silly mistake over and over again: comparing a normal flu year with the results for the Chinese virus after widespread and quite strict lockdowns have been instituted. The whole purpose of such lockdowns is to make sure that a virus that is known to be more infectious, costlier to treat and more fatal than flu does not cause more deaths than flu. Even then, the latest figures from the European monitoring agency show significant excess mortality in recent weeks compared with a normal year.
More perverse logic from our resident nodding Homer.
If the figures tonyb cites for flu were not a reason to shut down the country, why were the much lesser figures BEFORE confinement sufficient reason?
Clearly the extreme figures shot out by Fauxci and Fergie where alarmist hype.
ie a normal year, not a high flu year like the ones tonyb referred to.
Greg
That was of course my point , as well as highlighting the extraordinary number of flu deaths we seem to take for granted .
Previously I have argued that if we take these extreme measures for CV then logically we should compulsorily vaccinate citizens for flu and ensure everyone socially isolates and wear masks. Similarly, with some 140,000 ‘avoidable’ deaths each year in the UK then logically we should do much more to avoid them.
I fear Chris is skimming through the replies rather than seeing their context and regrettably has initiated a high ration of insults to comments.
Except they weren’t flu deaths.
If you had bothered to read past the headlines you would have seen that it was Total Winter Mortality for that week.
Quote “The mortality level is 14 per cent higher than the average of 13,167 deaths in the corresponding week over the past five years.”
“The ONS figures deal with the raw numbers of deaths that have been registered and it will be months before there are clear official figures on the causes.”
Please use English so we can understand what you mean. Which one of the following is “two orders of magnitude”?
A. 2 times more (200%)
B. 4 times more (400%)
C. 20 times more (2,000%)
D. 100 times more (10,000%)
I know “two orders of magnitude” sounds sophisticated and erudite but it doesn’t convey useful information to the reader.
It is logarithmic, base 10:
One order of magnitude = 10
Two orders of magnitude = 100
maybe he is American, where the magnitudes don’t have an order: inches – feet – yards – miles
Joel
10 inches is an order of magnitude larger than 1 inch. The related units are unimportant.
Wait, you ask Christopher Monckton of Brenchley to use English ? You are not kidding ? Really ?
😀 😀 😀
YMMD 😀
No. Stinkerp wants the erudite and eloquent Lord to dumb down his language to the lowest common denominator, to simple English, such as is comprehensible to the average high school graduate.
Yes, if stinkerp doesn’t understand what orders of magnitude means, then s/he doesn’t really have the education to participate here.
Kind of like attending a concert of classical music and being so self-centered that you interrupt the event to demand that a rap song be performed.
Do you know how to use that Google thing, stinkerp? Amazing how much an autodidact could learn without disrupting others.
Yeah look it up and become one.
Not ashamed to have a vocabulary.
As being not natural English speaker I appreciate Lord Moncktons well formulated English articels.
D.
Lord Monckton assumes minimal mathematical and scientific literacy among readers here. Two orders of magnitude means on the order of 100 times. An order of magnitude is a power of ten. One order of magnitude is on the order of ten times; two OoM 100.
Logarithmic rounding occurs at 3.16 (square root of 10) rather than 5, so two orders of magnitude means from 31.6 to 316 times more, centered on 100x.
Naturally it means 2.71828 times more.
Groan
Cut stinkerp some slack.
There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.
Always, always ask if you don’t understand. In most cases you won’t be the only one.
Could have been more respectfully phrased of course 🙂
–In the United States there would be 1.1 million deaths. For comparison, in the 2019-20 flu season there are thought to have been 24,000 to 62,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
So the fatalities could still be significant, based on the German study. However, several promising avenues of research into prophylactics, palliatives and cures are being followed worldwide.–
So, without mitigation 1.1 million deaths in US sounds about right. But you always going to have mitigation or mitigation does not have to be some government action which make the public do things. Or can’t avoid mitigation unless one could have everyone “always in the dark, not knowing anything”. But the sneakiness and speed of the Chinese Flu is factor which reduces any mitigation. So I would not say there ever a chance of 1.1 million deaths directly from Chinese Flu but secondary effects from it, could cause mass confusion and stuff which could result more than 1.1 million deaths. For instance people could try “cures” which resulted in higher death rate. And of course the common Flu doesn’t have this kind of element, or you need a new flu to cause confusion and panic.
One could say mitigation which slows the the rate of inflection does not effect total death or number which get infected from Chinese flu, but a serious problem related to Chinese Flu is it spreads fast. And part of the fast spreading is an illusion because it’s sneaky- or you don’t see it because remains hidden and then “suddenly everyone is getting sick”.
For instance I believe that the virus to slowly spreading in various countries for various reason. Countries like India, countries of Africa, and South American, and one can say they have “natural migation efforts”- the environment is causing a mitigation effect. And there a problem in terms detection, or rather than
just sneaky flu, people getting sick/dying and it’s not made known that was from the Chinese Virus.
Anyways I think even if Chinese flu is caused by whatever means to transfer slowly is still has the death toll of the “United States there would be 1.1 million deaths” or the US population number gives the 1.1 million deaths, any group of nations adding up to 320 million people will have 1.1 million deaths.
So in simple terms the chance of getting the Chinese Flu is low and chance to die from it is a low chance. But “getting the Chinese Flu” means getting having effects which are greater than a mild case of common flu. Or one need to be tested to even know you had it.
Flatten curve is mostly about helping your healthcare system so it’s not overloaded and reducing the deaths of healthcare workers- or not getting sick and/or dying.
And other factor of flattening curve is buying time. And if bought time is being used to reduce death from Flu. Which includes simply having the medical supplies that the healthcare provider needs, that pretty significant in terms of lower deaths. In terms of Virus war, virus wins war, if it can wipeout the medical workers/soldiers. Or the 1.1 million deaths assumes one has some kind of functioning healthcare system.
The other aspect is the intensity of virus load that people are exposed to. I think this factor could explain why people can be standing on the street, and simply die, suddenly. And is factor adding toward to 1.1 million deaths.
Or if no one is in environment with high virus load, one has less total deaths.
So I mean, someone doesn’t have the virus and walks into environment with a high virus load. But it might also involve someone fighting the virus, and being in environment with a high virus load. And someone could have say a common flu and then going into an environment with high virus load of Chinese flu.
There also the factor of SARS-CoV-2 having or developing new strains, though there also broadly the “unknown unknown factors”.
Anyways other getting more treatment options, I think most important thing at the moment is restoring the economy.
And what will help a lot in this regard is finding out “the immunity” of various populations, particularly New York State in shortest time possible.
And global finding out the immunity in regions which have a lot international travel.
And I would say, US needs it’s Baseball.
Yes people themselves mitigate if they are aware of the risks. Both my parents and wife’s parents are in mid 70s and pretty paranoid. They have stopped leaving house except for groceries.
Baseball:
–April 7, 2020
“Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the desperation of no sports has led to some insane ideas being tossed around.
But this idea to start the 2020 Major League Baseball season might take the cake.
According to the Associated Press and ESPN, the league is possibly looking to quarantine all players and teams in Arizona in May. The idea, apparently, is to relocate all 30 teams to the Phoenix area and keep the players in “relative isolation” according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.–
https://news.yahoo.com/baseball-may-back-mlb-considers-160812565.html
Or I would say, any State {or States} which which allow them to play.
So, which States could good, in terms of conditions related to virus {not counting/considering the preferred baseball infrastructural which supports it best- which obviously Arizona has}. So what is Arizona like:
Yesterday:
Arizona 3,393 total cases +281 new cases and 3,265 active cases death per million: 16
Today:
Arizona 3,539 total cases +146 new cases and 3,384 active cases death per million: 17 and total test done in State: 42,109 and 6,062 per million, as per to national average of 8,557 per million.
California with same deaths per million has 5,196 test per million
And Florida with 22 deaths per million has 9,007 test per million
Yesterday, Texas:
+1,019 new cases +19 new deaths 10 deaths per million
Today:
13,640 total cases +435 new cases +11 new deaths, still 10 deaths per million
124,553 tests 4,467 test per per million
It seems Texas is pretty good, but Arizona, Florida, and California are all warm southern states which will be getting warmer, soonest. And I think +75 F {24 C} slows spread of virus. And/or lowers potential virus load.
{Oh, I wonder what air temperature is kept at in basketball arenas- but a packed basketball arena seems like it could have a high virus load regardless of temperature].
More on Baseball, re: Yahoo news {above}
“While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that social distancing is key to flattening the curve of COVID-19, anyone familiar with baseball understands that playing in accordance with the “6-feet” rule is basically impossible.”
Doesn’t matter if in quarantine- though could matter a bit, depending on what you mean by quarantine. So quarantine each team- if a team member get it, you are screwed. Really, that means your team loses the entire season. And each team you play become part of the team’s quarantine group.
So if want to play baseball, you got to be certain no team member is infected, and if team players have not “playing safe” before season starts, well, they are losers who will not be able to play, unless they don’t have virus or have immunity to virus.
Likewise with managers and everyone else involved with playing the game.
““Sitting in the empty stands 6 feet apart — the recommended social-distancing space — instead of in the dugout”
As above not dugout.
But it seems in open stadium, and if crowd wears mask they could be closer than 6 feet. The better the mask the closer it could be. So could space directly ahead and behind and from side to side, basically 1/2 full stadium. But probably not going to get that much audience or could start 1/4 stadium for couple weeks, and if proves to be a bad idea, then don’t have audience for a few weeks and/or you learn something new about virus or if entire audience has herd immunity/ vaccinated then don’t have a problem.
One thing one do that could look into, is giving team members plasma transfers from people’s blood who have immunity. I am sure fans would provide blood.
With testing, it could be determined whether each baseball player was positive for Wuhan virus or not before each game, and those who are not, could go out on the field and play without much fear of being infected. They would probably need to be tested every day.
This could work for some businesses, too.
If we get some kind of cure for the Wuhan virus, and there are dozens of medicines being tested right now, and some look good, then we can go back to work, testing everyone that needs testing and treating those who get the virus.
If the infection rate is as high as was claimed this morning, then there are probably a very large number of people who are already immune to the disease because they have already had it and don’t know it. All these people can go back to work and eat out and do whatever they want to do, and there may be millions of them right now. We just need to get our testing up to speed, and we can deal with the virus.
An interesting article:
“I started wearing disposable gloves and a mask in early March. Almost everyone was looking at me as if I was some kind of a freak. Today, I don’t wear a mask when I go out and people are looking at me as if I am an idiot.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/100-times-safer-now-early-204833052.html
Linked from:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/
I would say if younger than 40, this might be ok, but I am not younger than 40.
Or it’s always been a low risk and low risk to for the individual has never been the problem/issue. And by doing what he did, he did better than I did, to lower the risk to the public. And doing what he doing at moment is probably a low risk to public. Or if he gets infected, unlikely to die, and hospitals aren’t going to be over crowded when is possibly gets sick that he could need to go to hospital AND they know more about how to treat him.
And likely he will spread “herd immunity” if nothing- but shouldn’t interact with people who are at high risk {like me}. Or I am going to wear mask for at least more than a week- unless things change.
On a lighter note with regards to statistics and modelling. I was wondering if there has been a study relating the number of deaths with Covid-19 compared to those who have been bitten by a copperhead snake. I have been extremely cautious this past warm period of copperheads and ticks. If those dying with Covid-19 haven’t been bitten by a copperhead then maybe there’s a correlation! Anyway, I’m more concerned about the copperheads as my trusty dogs have passed so I’m on my own now.
So, statistically speaking, if no one that has ever been bitten by a copperhead has died with Covid-19 then an argument could be made that we should all be kissing copperheads.
Ha! True, that! A good snake dog is worth their weight in beef sirloin! If you plan to pick garden peppers in late summer Arkansas, send in the snake dog first!
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/9/21213472/coronavirus-sweden-herd-immunity-cases-death
Fallacious argument repeated across the anti-Sweden press, that is exactly what you would expect , the payoff comes later since the recovery comes sooner and faster. Come back 3 months and compare again.
And how many was that ? Stupid anecdotal comment. Most swedes I’ve spoken to (one) think it’s the right thing to do.
Remind me why I never bother reading Vox.
“And how many was that ? Stupid anecdotal comment. Most swedes I’ve spoken to (one) think it’s the right thing to do.”
most swedes. there’s some science.
The thing is even data from Sweden won’t resolve the question. Unless they have good data on how people actually behaved at a local level and unless you really understand the transmission routes.
Gerg
Yes, Sweden is playing the long game. We should be thankful that they are willing to voluntarily act as an experimental control to see which strategy results in the least loss of life and the least damage to the economy.
I think Sweden should have done more tests, at moment they say they have
5,416 per million, if they had 10,000 tests per million it would have been
better.
Germany has lower per death per million 36 compared to Sweden’s 89
Germany tests per million is 15,730
Generally any country which keeps the death to 100 per million is doing pretty good, and not sure Germany or Sweden will be 100 or less.
But at this point, Sweden should test for immunity and focus on doing a lot of them. Or what Sweden is doing is trying to get herd immunity and other limiting large crowds, their boat has already sailed in terms trying to “flatten the curve”. So they need to track their progress on getting herd immunity.
S Korea has 4 deaths per million, and unlikely most countries will match that. Also 514,621 total tests and 10,038 tests per million.
S Korea would be excellent place to test for immunity, and they should also do this- it’s possible since S Korea did so well, that they could have fewer herd immunity than Sweden {I mean at the moment, and since delayed 4 weeks, one could only know Sweden comparison to S korea in a few weeks from now].
Lockdown is a medicine
before you test whether lock downs work or not you need a controlled experiment.
Folk who look at national policies without looking at COMPLIANCE will never
understand the effect of lockdowns.
1. some governments impose lockdowns and people dont “take the medicine” failed trial.
do over.
2. some people take the medicine Regardless, they isolate when they are not ordered to.
failed trial. do over
“Top Swedish officials say that two-way trust is paying off. “It is a myth that life goes on as normal in Sweden. Many people stay at home and have stopped traveling,” Sweden’s Minister of Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren told me. “There is no full lockdown of Sweden, but many parts of the Swedish society have shut down.”
Hallengren offered some data points to make her case. Ridership on public transportation in Stockholm has dropped about 60 percent, she said. Nearly all domestic flights in Sweden have been canceled. All the major ski resorts in the country have closed voluntarily. And local media reports that 85 percent of people who’d planned to travel to Gotland, a popular Swedish vacation island, have canceled their trips ahead of Easter weekend.”
Now in Korea the government has a “lockdown light” basically guidance to the public.
And then they track mobility.
Mobility has dropped about 60% in Korea.
The most important thing was travel ban on China {and for US, then travel ban on Europe]
I don’t know where Sweden is in this regard, but it seems Russia reacted faster {I didn’t know that]:
All over the world, countries are imposing travel bans on visitors who’ve been to China
February 2, 2020
“On almost every continent, countries have taken the dramatic step of closing their borders to most, if not all, flights from China, or to foreign visitors who’ve been to China or certain parts of it. With more than 300 now dead from the Wuhan coronavirus, the US, Israel, and a handful of other nations have imposed stringent restrictions on air travel.”
Though it didn’t seem to help Italy and Sweden is not one countries on Feb 2.
Though stopping all air travel or being strict in quarantine of all air travelers
from China would been what is important. Which US did much later.
And the WHO quote:
“These bans run counter to the official advice from groups such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the group’s director-general, spoke out against bans of this sort: “The WHO doesn’t recommend and actually opposes any restrictions for travel and trade or other measures against China,” he said. “If anyone is thinking about taking measures, it’s going to be wrong.””
So, even thinking about it, was WRONG, and that is from WHO.
https://qz.com/1795615/coronavirus-travel-bans-on-china-imposed-by-growing-list-of-nations/
The US had no travel ban. They had a patchwork set of circumventable restrictions
1. Travel bans dont work UNLESS they are complete.
2. They work IF you use the time to prepare.
3. When you use WEAK travel RESTRICTIONS, then you get the worst
A) you get complacent
B) you waste the time.
There was no check at the USA whether you had been in china 14 days before landing
in The USA. How do I KNOW? Because I travelled from Beijing to Seoul to USA.
Zero questions asked by USA.
Anyone who departed Wuhan before Jan 23rd and travelled to HK could take a flight to
The USA and even the ban on “Wuhan travellers” would have been circumvented.
Today China has a travel ban on Foreigners landing in China. That’s a ban.
1 Flight per week of nationals only.
Yesterday ~100 nationals landed in China with the virus.
“There was no check at the USA whether you had been in china 14 days before landing
in The USA. How do I KNOW? Because I travelled from Beijing to Seoul to USA.”
Aren’t glad you didn’t need to be in quarantine for 14 days {or longer like some people had to be}
Doing as ban as quickly as possible even if not “effective” stops people from going to US to China {because they want return later}, and gives a heads up to Americans in China to leave and return to US.
There is a method to Trump’s decisions. If did he did way you wanted, it would causes lot of problems.
Lord Monckton-san:
Regarding your future global Wuhan flu death calculations, you don’t seem to factoring in herd immunity.
Once the 50~60% herd immunity threshold is reached, the virus naturally dies out.
The key is to get as many low-risk demographics naturally infected to reach this herd immunity threshold, and to keep the high-risk demographic (people over 70 with comorbidities) sheltered in place and uninflected.
Also, Wuhan flu deaths are very skewed as many countries (including the US) are counting anyone with Wuhan flu (or even assumed to be infected without testing) as dying from it, even if their actual death was caused by comorbidities: heart failure, cancer, liver/kidney failure, pneumonia, etc.
Eventually, I think the actual death rate of the Wuhan flu will be be close to the regular flu’s rate of 0.1%.
I also think the sudden drop in new infections rates is because the Wuhan flu is, thankfully, seasonal and the higher temperatures and humidity rise, the sooner new infections will drop to near zero until the next flu season starts in November.
We urgently need to restart the global economy or more people will die from a global economic collapse than from the Wuhan flu…
Stay safe.
My forecast has total cases reaching 10 million with a final fatality rate of 10.4% . Total infected will peak at 1.1 million in late may. By October 31 the total infected will be down to around 100,000
I am most grateful to the author for giving me so much opportunity to waste so much time on a matter concerning which definitive answers will not be available until total figures for deaths in Britain from all causes are issued for April.
Those figures are available up until 27 March from the British Office of National statistics and show 2020 up to that point to have been a very good one for the aged and vulnerable in comparison to the previous year and the five year average.
The conclusion to be drawn from that is simply that the lockdown could only have been justified by a model!
By the end of May, there will be no place to hide for the doomsayers within Britain. I look forward to the hilarity that will greet their claims to have saved the world, in similar fashion to that which greeted the last such claimant.
Following on from that, the United States Presidential election will no doubt replay this matter ad infinitum. Much more scope for comedy, hilarity.
So much to look forward to! Enjoy!
With so many infected in the US, SARS-Co-2 will kill until mass vaccination. This virus attacks T cells that are in the first line of defense of the body.
Coronavirus could attack immune system like HIV by targeting protective cells, warn scientists
Researchers in China and the US find that the virus that causes Covid-19 can destroy the T cells that are supposed to protect the body from harmful invaders
One doctor said concern is growing in medical circles that effect could be similar to HIV
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079443/coronavirus-could-target-immune-system-targeting-protective
Acquired immune function shows recognizable changes over time with organismal aging. These changes include T-cell dysfunction, which may underlie diminished resistance to infection and possibly various chronic age-associated diseases in the elderly. T-cell dysfunction may occur at distinct stages, from naive cells to the end stages of differentiation during immune responses. The thymus, which generates naive T cells, shows unusually early involution resulting in progressive reduction of T-cell output after adolescence, but peripheral T-cell numbers are maintained through antigen-independent homeostatic proliferation of naive T cells driven by the major histocompatibility complex associated with self-peptides and homeostatic cytokines, retaining the diverse repertoire. However, extensive homeostatic proliferation may lead to the emergence of dysfunctional CD4+ T cells with features resembling senescent cells, termed senescence-associated T (SA-T) cells, which increase and accumulate with age.
https://academic.oup.com/intimm/article/32/4/223/5713759
The virulence of SARS-Cov-2 is due to the fact that T-cells do not recognize the new virus in people over 65 years of age.
Or:
Analysis shows: Covid 19 victim curve corresponds to “normal” mortality
Already loving the humour to come; comedy gold……….
In the thymus gland, undifferentiated T lymphocytes are formed in young people, which can respond quickly to new viruses.
I wonder if the protective attire worn by lord Monckton is intended to protect him from us, or us from him?
S. Korea identifies 38 virus-neutralizing antibodies
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200413005800320
What bike do you ride, out of interest? I picture you on a vintage BMW boxer, or on the more patriotic side, a Triumph Thruxton.
Oops. I should have read all the comments first. A Ducati! Of course.
An absolute worth read:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mittellaendische.ch%2F2020%2F04%2F07%2Fcovid-19-eine-zwischenbilanz-oder-eine-analyse-der-moral-der-medizinischen-fakten-sowie-der-aktuellen-und-zuk%25C3%25BCnftigen-politischen-entscheidungen%2F
Maybe, it was posted here earlier, if not…..
England looks set to be one of the worst affected countries in Europe, possibly even the worst affected!
Covid 19 being designated a notifiable disease 05 March, but no longer designated a high consequence infectious disease on March 19, but a ‘lockdown worthy’ disease on 23 March, looked to have all bases covered.
But now:
‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,–This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.’
Possibly the worst performing country in Europe…….
‘Still,’ as Mole said to Ratty ‘Look on the bright side……not the first time….and that’s a fact, and no mistake!’