By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
As the mean daily compound growth rates both in total confirmed cases and in total deaths continue to drop in most countries in the direction of levels at which it might become safe to end the lockdowns (in those countries that have them), one question continues to be difficult to answer. What is the true case fatality rate? In other words, what fraction of those who become infected will die?
During the early stages of a pandemic, the least unreliable way to get a handle on the case fatality rate is to look at the closed cases – those who have been infected and have either recovered or died. However, innumerate governments, not realizing that for this reason counting those who have recovered is no less important than counting those who have died, have been negligent in keeping proper track of recoveries. Indeed, Britain has proven so incompetent at keep track of those who have been discharged from the centrally-managed hospitals in the Government’s care that yesterday it abandoned the publication of daily recovery counts altogether. In consequence of such mismanagement, ten days ago the ratio of deaths to closed cases in the world excluding China and occupied Tibet was 27%.
The World Health Organization, which has not covered itself in glory in handling this pandemic, originally estimated a case fatality rate of 2% and then revised it to 3.4%. But it had originally estimated that the SARS case fatality rate was 2%, and it came out at 10%.
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 13, 2020. A link to the high-definition PowerPoint slides is at the end of this posting.
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 13, 2020.
The study by Imperial College, London, that led Boris Johnson to decide that he could no longer safely heed the “herd immunity” crowd predicted that, in the absence of control measures, some 7 billion of the world’s 7.8 billion people would become infected this year, and that 40 million of these would die, an implicit case fatality rate of 0.6%.
By casting deaths backward by three weeks and calling them confirmed cases, cumulating those and then casting them forward at the case growth rate then prevailing, my own calculations suggest a case fatality rate of somewhere between 0.1% and 1%: one cannot narrow it beyond that at present because the data are inadequate, and different countries have different methods of counting cases, recoveries and deaths, and even change their methods from week to week.
The useless World Health Organization ought to have developed a standard reporting protocol by now, but if there is such a thing there seems to be little evidence that it is being followed.
However, if 7 billion become infected and the case fatality rate is 0.1%, 7 million people would die of the Chinese virus if no treatment or cure were found. If the case fatality rate is 1%, make that 70 million. These numbers are large enough to matter, so the random serological trials now being conducted are important. The first results should be available in a week.
For comparison, the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 killed 50-100 million (though the global population was less than a quarter of today’s). And HIV has killed 30-50 million, but has taken the best part of half a century to do so.
Ø High-quality .pptx images of the two graphs are linked here.
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There are already a number of studies on this including using antibody testing, most recently a Danish study also one from Colorado. This article should refer to those, not just feature more of the writer’s back of envelope calculations.
Bjorn Lomborg tweeted recently: ” A Danish study of 1,487 blood donors found the corona fatality rate to be 0.16%.” https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dr.dk%2Fnyheder%2Findland%2Fdoedelighed-skal-formentlig-taelles-i-promiller-danske-blodproever-kaster-nyt-lys (Google translate works reasonably!)
Well, Dread Lord Monckton, (My name is Allen Stoner II) since you seem to give a damn about my identity.
What ever the infection fatality ratio, shutting down and destroying tens of trillions of dollars of potential wealth creation to save lives seems to be the wrong way to save lives. It is a virus, slow it down today and it still gets you tomorrow. Net saved lives, 0. We will not have a vaccine for quite some time. Thus, you are not going to really prevent anyone from getting sick with it from the shut down. Swine flu ran through the population and is now just another number in the hundreds or thousands of strains that cause the flu. It kills primarily CHILDREN FOR GODS SAKE and no shut down. Every child that dies is equal to 10 to 20 elderly who die on a life year basis. No shut down.
In the United States for example, 2.2 trillion in shut down stimuless and about 5.6 trillion estimated economic damage an infection fatality ratio of 1% is 3.3 million. Anyone actually believe this is possible? Stimuless alone is still $666,666 per life, and we are not going to save them all! $2.3 million per life with economic losses combined. Who here thinks there is a risk of 3.3 million American lives after watching the first 4 months of the disease take out about 22,500? Any takers? NO? One would think not. Even at this ridiculously high death number the shut down is not worth doing.
Now, if it is 0.1% multiply those costs by 10. And remember, we are not saving all those lives. SO these numbers are extremely conservative.
What is more likely is that this is about as deadly overall as H1N1, around 0.02%. It just seems deadly as no one is immune to it. And instead of killing children it kills nearly dead old people. Saving months per life saved rather than decades. My guess is it comes in under 0.03% Infection Fatality Ratio once this is 3 years in the past and all the studies have real world numbers to look at. At 0.03% which comes in under 100,000 lives. $76 million per life. And guess what, we are probably going to actually see somewhere around 40,000 dead by summer, another 5,000 dead over the summer and another 30,000 dead next fall. So we are really saving 25,000 lives if we are saving any at all. Again, all near deaths door saving months per life rather than decades other causes of death cause. That comes out to $304,000,000 dollars per life saved.
In response to Mr Stoner, the words “my guess” occur in his posting. And that is just the point. From his armchair he can afford to guess and whinge and demand this, that or the other thing. Responsible governments, however, have to try to keep things running on the basis of information that, in the early stages of a pandemic, is always going to be deficient. But one thing that caused the governments on both sides of the Atlantic to take a less relaxed view than Mr Stoner was the daily compound case growth rate, which in the three weeks before Mr Trump declared a national emergency was above the global average of almost 20% both in the UK and in the US. They could not afford to take the risk of allowing that growth rate to continue, so they intervened.
Unfortunately, they intervened belatedly. It is advisable to be activist during the very early stages of a pandemic, since the earlier the intervention the less economically intrusive it needs to be. On both sides of the Atlantic, the passivists and do-little merchants prevailed for too long. South Korea, on the other hand, acted very promptly and avoided a nationwide lockdown altogether.
Now that the numbers are beginning to come under control – in Britain, the mean person-to-person contact rate has fallen by 85-95% as a result of the lockdown, greatly reducing the speed of transmission and saving the hospitals from meltdown – it will soon be possible to relax the restrictions that would not have been needed if governments had acted far, far sooner than they did.
If we look at the 15% as realistic right now, the fact that many if not most carriers have no symptoms, explain to me exactly what early measures would have prevented this disease from spreading widely and quickly through the populations? My guess, is nothing short of absolute and total lock down would work. Something that is not happening and has never happened, not even in China, who wisely saw the flaw in their response and reopened for business, and then went on a propaganda war against the world simultaneously deflecting blame from themselves and corrupting idiots and using useful idiots (not sure which one you are anymore) to cause the rest of the world to follow through on their mistake and destroy themselves.
That there is the crux. Your argument that early lock downs would have worked, but the facts do not bear that argument out in the least. In order for Sweden to fail in remaining open is if they have at least 6 times as many deaths per million population as we have. Because the models without social distancing indicate they should come in at 18,000 deaths. If they come in at around 2250, which I will put as my bet for the end of July, it tells me that they won the shut down versus open model and you and your activist cohorts are to blame for the tens of trillions in lost world economic output and the deaths that poverty and unemployment causes. My guess is that like all tyrants, you will not accept the deaths that are the result of your favored activist policy.
Only 19 people in the London Nightingale Hospital over the weekend.
Total death rate in Britain for 2020 only 1% or so above the five year average.
Mortality by age plumb normal.
We only went in to lockdown because ‘Le Banquier’ across the channel threatened to close France off if Britain did not follow France in locking down.
Sweden is a standing reproof to the rest of Europe’s spineless leaders, and an exemplar of certain reforms that we badly need in this country.
Tim
I decided to check your claim and you are absolutely right
https://www.hsj.co.uk/service-design/exclusive-nightingale-largely-empty-as-icus-handle-surge/7027398.article
It seems that other London trusts have some capacity
Tonyb
My daughter (ER Doctor) had told me on 4/8 that she was not very busy at work and knew of other doctors having shifts cancelled or hours reduced. Also because the stoppage of elective surgeries has freed up most beds in the hospitals there is not a shortage of beds or supplies. Unless the hospital is in a hot zone their employment is being hurt by the lock down like all other sectors.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/health-care-workers-fear-losing-jobs-coronavirus-pandemic/story?id=70087102
In SW London (my area, two large hospitals nearby) there is no critical shortage of hospital beds but there is critical shortage of medics to provide the essential coverage, even with the 12h long shifts. There is no point of taking an elderly patient from a care home bed to to be placed in a hospital bed, since there is no treatment and few available oxygen machines (again critical shortage) are taken up by normally physically stronger or younger patients. In another London hospital 50% of a CV ward is taken-up by the infected medics.
It is very easy to miss the point here.
The point is: mortality from all causes for 2020 is still lower than for 2018 for the same period. That may change in the next couple of weeks, but not materially; so the analysis (by so many experienced epidemiologists) of ‘2020 is just like a bad influenza year’ (albeit a different virus, more like the common cold(!))is, surprise, proving to be spot on.
The NHS suffered staff shortages in 2018, cancelled routine operations in 2018, for exactly the same reasons.
So:
A. Why was England not better prepared in 2020 after the experience of 2018?
B. Why did we think a lockdown would be a good idea this year, based on a completely ‘batty’ model?
In response to TonyB, let us hope that the emergency hospitals do not fill up with patients. The whole purpose of the lockdown was to make sure that they should not fill up. Therefore, to imply that the lockdown was unnecessary because the emergency hospitals are not yet full is bizarre. Applying Occam’s razor, it is more likely that the emergency hospitals are not yet full because the greatly reduced person-to-person contact rate achieved chiefly thanks to the lockdown has slowed the spread of the infection enough to allow the hospitals to cope. And a good thing too.
Tim B,
The many differences in population demographics between Stockholm and London have been discussed at length on previous posts from CoB.
How can you continue to pretend these differences don’t exist? Better yet, how can you be certain the disasters of Italy and Spain would not have prevailed in England, absent containment efforts?
You are correct. There are so many differences in so many Covid 19 numbers, lacking any international standards for such things (a task that the W.H.O. could usefully have performed) that considering them is almost completely pointless.
Except for one metric: mortality from all causes.
From the British Office of National Statistics, for the week ending 03 April, deaths from all causes were 16,387. That is 6,000 above the five year average for that particular week.
To put that in perspective, 15,000 died in week 2 of 2018 and 14,000 in week 2 of 2020
Added to which, 17 out of the last 18 weeks of 2019 had been above the five year average but, before the week ending 03 April 2020, all deaths for 2020 were cumulatively about 4,000 below the five year average.
The distribution of deaths by age groups appears to be pretty much plumb normal.
Deaths for 2020 now running at perhaps 1% or so above the five year average for the year so far.
That is excellent news. Now let’s just get back to work, as they are in sensible Sweden.
Oh, and in Britain, as they do in Sweden, let’s have an independent health authority, and education authority and so on and so forth……..
Most things, including this site, work better without politics.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/swedish-virus-deaths-top-1000-fueling-criticism-over-strategy/ar-BB12C1xU
Mr Bidie continues to make the elementary mistake of comparing the death rate during the early stages of a pandemic with the known annual mortality rates. Any such comparison will inevitably make the pandemic seem less serious than it is, but no responsible government would monkey with the statistics in that way. A lot more people will be killed by this virus before the pandemic is over. Only then would such comparisons yield useful and honest information.
As Badger, shaking his head, slowly, solemnly, announced to Mole
‘The jury is already in, and that’s a fact, and no mistake!’
Lord moctkton stay away from things you know nothing about coronaviruses or Sweden had 17 deaths of old people today with no lockdown compared with all european countries with lockdowns andmore deaths your are a pompous British old style git but you are wonderful with maths stick to that and AGW people may watch your stuff in the future
Eliza, who knows nothing about epidemiology, falsely imagines that I know nothing about it. However, governments in most countries have accepted advice from those of us who, with long experience of modeling and handling epidemics at government level, know the value of acting decisively and quickly to prevent a new and fatal pandemic from spreading too fast for the hospitals to handle it.
Now that the pandemic is coming under control, thanks to the lockdowns in those countries that needed them, it will soon be possible to relax the lockdowns and gradually return to normal life. Had governments acted more quickly, as South Korea did, lockdowns could have been avoided.
Eliza is out of her depth here, and would be better not being rude about those of us who have a considerably greater knowledge and experience in government than she. Responsible governments cannot afford to indulge petulance such as hers. Lives are at stake.
WUWT really has to rethink if The “lord” should be allowed post anything about viruses which he knows nothing about! let him post about AGW as much as he wants
Agreed, he recently promised he would only be posting twice a week now, but it seems more like twice a day.
Apart from acting as a coat peg for others to share other useful information, his posts serve little purpose. His headline graphs tell us next to nothing.
So far despite several requests on my part he has been unable to say exactly what these numbers mean quantitatively. After originally claiming they should go negative ( which he later had to retract when I pointed out that would never happen ) , he walked it back to “close to zero” which just means it’s all over, now it is “levels at which” : an expression so totally vague and imprecise that it is meaningless.
Time for him to admit he has no understanding and his supposedly world class graph for policymakers is a useless metric.
The eloquent Baron of BS falls flat on his skinny butt once again.
When is this going to be enough?
He is eloquent and dogged in the pursuit of his objective(s). These are the qualities needed to stalk the corridors of power and, by coincidence, to be a snake-oil salesman.
In response to Alex, I am not selling anything, and nobody pays me. And, like it or not, governments are overwhelmingly taking the advice of those of us who, from long experience, know that acting decisively in the early stages of a pandemic of unknown characteristics is, in the long run, not only the more humane option but economically the best option too.
I make allowances, when listening to some of the often venomous whining here, for the fact that the whingers are not being heeded in the corridors of power and are annoyed about that.
You are an educated man and know full well what I meant. Selling figuratively rather than literally with a quid pro quo outcome.
You have a classical education and have been a government adviser and I’m sure that you were honest and had the best interests of the government in mind. I say government rather than the people because you can’t please everybody. You would have generated proposals that would have had limited options of action. You can’t give politicians too many options because they vacillate and can’t make a decision. You had to be firm in your convictions or you wouldn’t be taken seriously. I get that.
Svante Arrhenius wrote a paper about the effects of CO2. It was based on experimental data of another person. Svante dismissed some of the data because it didn’t fit with some calculations. He does not hide this fact in the paper. I never finished reading the paper. How is it possible to take any conclusions of the paper seriously?
In a similar way, I can’t take your essays/papers about Covid19 seriously. I have doubts about your objectivity. You are very emotional with your rhetoric about Communist China, particularly the leadership. I can’t be certain whether the data you obtain is presented in an emotional or in an objective manner.
I don’t know whether the whingers and whiners, you refer to, are jealous of you or not. I, for one, have no interest in influencing politicians at the moment. A pointless exercise. I will be waiting for it all to blow over, which it will inevitably do. The sitting members will be dislocating their shoulders patting themselves on the back for a job well done. When it comes time for re-election I want them unseated.
Mere yah-boo from the poisonous Greg Goodman, who, as usual, has absolutely nothing constructive, useful or informative to offer. Let him gnash his dentures in the wilderness: it is those of us who have advocated determined action to prevent an unacceptable rate of growth in transmission who have been heeded by governments.
As for the graphs showing the daily case-growth and death-growth rates, they do show – as I had hoped they would show – that the lockdowns are working and the daily growth rates are declining.
And if Mr Goodman thinks these daily updates are too frequent, there is a simple solution to that. He need not read them. This is not a Communist country. There is no obligation to read what he does not like.
But perhaps he has nothing better to do with his life than to sit in his threadbare armchair and whine futilely. How very sad.
Outbreaks and Investigations
Remember—there are no medications or vaccines to protect us. Physical separation is the best way to stop this virus from spreading further.
Here’s what we are asking:
Stay at home.
Limit your physical interactions to the same people during this time. Less than five people total will help us stop the virus from spreading.
Keep at least 6 feet apart from others and avoid direct physical contact.
Limit the amount of time you spend making essential trips to the grocery store or to pick up medication.
Make essential trips no more than once a week.
And stay in touch over the phone with your family and friends as much as possible. We all need support through this time.
Wash your hands often with soap and water.
https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/outbreaks/index.htm
yep have to agree. It feels forced and weirdly government led.
I’m afraid I disagree. However poorly reasoned his Wuhan-virus posts are, they’re relatively harmless; few look to this site for information on that subject.
But this site is taken by many as representing the caliber of skeptical thought. By providing a platform for Lord Monckton’s embarrassingly innumerate climate theories, Mr. Watts has tended to bring climate us skeptics into disrepute.
I’d be happy to let Lord Monckton mindlessly pontificate as much as he wants about epidemiology so long as he refrained from doing any more damage to skeptics’ image.
The Born Liar reverts to type, yet again. Let him, too, whine futilely from his threadbare armchair, and tremblingly drool into his tea, while the rest of us get on with our lives. Having been caught out lying, he has been bitchy ever since.
More mere yah-boo from Eliza. The growing band of readers from round the world who find these posts informative would disagree with her. And, though I do not know which country she comes from, in the United States, where this column is hosted, there is freedom of speech, and I am exercising it. Get over it.
Lord Monckton, you are confounding Infectious Fatality Rate (“IFR”) and Case Fatality Rate (“CFR”); the latter is using known cases the former the is ONLY number that really matters. The IFR<<CFR. Even a cursory explanation of the literature explains the difference.
IFR is between 0.05% and 0.35% (as per Oxford and several more recent supporting studies) and is variable depending on where you live since the virus kills almost exclusively elderly people. A US IFR of 0.17% = Italy IFR of 0.30% since Italy has more old people than the US.
Its worth pointing out that in Europe 50% of the deaths to date are in seniors facilities that lockdowns do not have any effects on viral spread.
There are better studies coming out now which look at absolute risk of dying, for example here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1
I quote, “The COVID-19 death risk in people <65 years old during the period of fatalities from the epidemic was equivalent to the death risk from driving between 9 miles per day (Germany) and 415 miles per day (New York City). People <65 years old and not having any underlying predisposing conditions accounted for only 0.3%, 0.7%, and 1.8% of all COVID-19 deaths in Netherlands, Italy, and New York City.“
There are other recent studies reporting similar numbers. Time for the fear driven speculation to stop.
The HIV/AIDS estimate of 30 – 50 million dead is a garbage number. The deaths in Africa are the vast majority of that estimated number and there is no testing done in Africa for HIV. The tested number is best estimated at zero.
The HIV retrovirus is absolutely unique in how it kills. Unlike all other retrovirus in mortality. So unique, in fact,… well some world-class virologists like Peter Duesberg don’t think it is the cause of AIDS
Nor did Kary Mullis, the guy who invented PCR.
Eliza,
Do you really think Anthony is going to censor someone because you disagree with his position.
Maybe you should try holding your breath, followed by a hunger strike.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-diplomats-warned-about-safety-risks-in-wuhan-labs-studying-bats-two-years-before-coronavirus-outbreak/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/
Something weird that most of the Corona deaths have been in ten, 1st world countries out of 195 countries that have the virus.
Now I can’t put my finger on it but?
Age profile with associated health problems, obesity, high blood pressure , heart disease?
Hypertension (the highest risk category) is pretty prevalent in underdeveloped countries, but it’s typically not as well-controlled as it is in more developed countries; which means ACE inhibitor and ARB use is not as high, especially in E Asian countries where calcium channel blockers are used as the primary hypertensive treatment.
(Reuters) – U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 25,700 on Tuesday, the biggest single-day increase to date, according to a Reuters tally, as officials debated how to reopen the economy without reigniting the outbreak.
The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, passed a second milestone on Tuesday with over 600,000 reported cases, three times more than any other country.
U.S. deaths rose by a record 2,082 on Tuesday with a few states yet to report. The previous record was 2,069 new deaths in a day set on April 10.
Health experts had forecast deaths would peak this week and last week but there had been hopes the worst was behind the United States when new deaths reported on Sunday and Monday were about 1,500 per day, far below last week’s running tally of roughly 2,000 deaths every 24 hours, according to a Reuters tally.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-casualties/u-s-coronavirus-deaths-set-single-day-record-increase-fatalities-total-25700-reuters-tally-idUSKCN21W29D
“In the US, the authorities now also recommend that all test-positive deaths and even suspect cases without a positive test result be registered as „Covid deaths“. An American physician and state senator from Minnesota declared that this was tantamount to manipulation. Furthermore, there would be financial incentives for hospitals to declare patients as Covid19 “patients.
“U.S. deaths rose by a record 2,082 on Tuesday with a few states yet to report.”
Posted at 1:59 pm Tuesday. Quite a chutzpah.
Someone decided they wanted more deaths, so they raided the democrat’s voter rolls.
“However, if 7 billion become infected and the case fatality rate is 0.1%, 7 million people would die of the Chinese virus if no treatment or cure were found. If the case fatality rate is 1%, make that 70 million. These numbers are large enough to matter, so the random serological trials now being conducted are important. The first results should be available in a week.”
There is nothing more important than random serological trials.
I think in terms world population, you should disregard China’s 1.4 billion.
And can disregard Africa’s 1.4 billion and focus on India’s 1.4 billion.
Though I imagine Africa could have a low death, mainly because Africa is the hottest continent [continent with highest average air temperature}, but with South Africa going into winter, it’s something to watch, as is most southern region in South America.
I notice the entire world seems to be doing a lot of testing {though of course not serological testing} and such exponential growth in such global testing will reach even higher levels within a week.
It seems India in terms of global populations will provide best metric. India is very warm and has malaria, so might on low side.
And currently India has 0.3 deaths per million.
And one can easily expect more 1 per million within a year’s time period.
And I think general knowledge of danger of virus, combined with warm weather, and Malaria {not being rare} works like social distancing and “lockdowns”, or slows the spread- or see few other reasons that explain what is happening {or not happening in India}.
And it seems India {unlike Europe} is going to have a lot time, and will gaining all the knowledge of how to deal with virus. So India will be real death rate if not counting WHO’s massive screw up {or criminal behavior}.
Or you look at death from China virus and who WHO murdered.
the new world of Corona, take with a pinch of salt but the MSM wrote it-
https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/14/50-headlines-welcome-to-the-new-normal/
A WUWT Please get rid of this insufferable pompous British git who knows nothing about viruses and has been 100% wrong about anything concerning this virus re Sweden ect
If Eliza whined less and read more, she would have realized that throughout these postings I have drawn attention to the fact that Sweden’s numbers are falling even without a lockdown, and have discussed some of the reasons why this is the case.
Since this is a free country, if Eliza does not wish to read these posts she does not need to do so. Has she nothing better to do with her time than whine?
1. ” As the mean daily compound growth rates both in total confirmed cases and in total deaths continue to drop in most countries in the direction of levels at which it might become safe to end the lockdowns (in those countries that have them), … ”
Continue to drop? Really? Some source at hand?
2. ” … one question continues to be difficult to answer. What is the true case fatality rate? In other words, what fraction of those who become infected will die? ”
Nobody knows exactly, especially all those hyperspecialists who doubt about about all numbers everywhere, and – especially here – about both total confirmed cases and total deaths, regardless who communicates them.
*
I have collected some numbers for Germany, the US, France, Spain and Italy since a few weeks, published daily at
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries.
For the US, the total death / total case ratio (a temporary, per se fluctuating estimate of the mortality rate) was
– on March 23: 553 / 43734 = 1.26 %
– on April 13: 23640 / 586941 = 4.03 %
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tHlwt33kgfLzJBRRKjBQ66N9a1ITr9yw/view
The estimated mortality rate for SARS-COV-2 is, according to Worldometers, 2 %:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#comparison
to be compared with 0.1 % for the seasonal flu.
The current mortality rate estimates for Italy, Spain, UK and France – based on the total death / total case ratio as well – are way higher (resp. . 13, 10.5, 13 and 11 %).
Germany is here kinda outlier with a little 2.5 %. This is certainly due to
– a far less endangered population structure, and
– a much better prepared hospital environment (though medical staffs lacked face masks and protective clothes like everywhere else).
*
On 15.04.2020, 0.00 @ur momisugly GMT +2, the US reported 2215 new deaths (but this number is expected to still increase because daily shutdown manifestly is when California reaches 0.00 AM).
This is disturbing, because the last four new deaths reports for the US were 2035, 1830, 1528 and 1535, what had let me hope that this number would now seriously move down.
Nope.
*
Thus my guess is that it would not be unwise to await the bear’s death before selling its skin.
Rgds
J.-P. Dehottay
“This is disturbing, because the last four new deaths reports for the US were 2035, 1830, 1528 and 1535, what had let me hope that this number would now seriously move down.
Nope.”
You should not have assumed US would go down. But New York State has been decreasing, but you should not assume New York State to seriously move down within next few days. Meanwhile in less dense areas of US you should expect increases, which have been happening.
Or New York State is less far less than 1/10th of US population, and New York State considering it’s population density was quite late in getting to it’s Lock down measures. And one could imagine New York City as large explosion which went out beyond the borders of it’s State. Or New Jersey is still climbing {as are nearby States} and is probably not at it’s peak, yet.
If Bindidon were to read the head posting, or even just look at the pictures, he would find that the mean daily compound case-growth rates are indeed falling in most countries. Same for deaths.
Found it first in a French paper:
Sandworm Blood Could Help Coronavirus Victims
Two French hospitals are poised to start experimental treatment with sandworm blood of patients suffering of respiratory problems caused by the new coronavirus.
Just to throw a wrench into all of the counting, the city of New York has added 3,700 “presumed” cases to the death rolls, retroactive deaths.
Paywalled, but the headline says it all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html?auth=login-email&login=email&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
What a racket. Money must be involved. More cases = more money
They were already including presumptive deaths before this last boost.
Article linked to in above article
Death Count Expected To Soar As NYC Says It Will Begin Reporting Probable COVID Deaths In Addition To Confirmed Ones
https://gothamist.com/news/death-count-expected-soar-nyc-says-it-will-begin-reporting-suspected-covid-deaths-addition-confirmed-ones
How do politics affect COVID-19 death rate? The difference between Sweden and Denmark shows that the lockdown is effectively decreasing deaths. By now it is reduced with about 50%. And the difference will be greater as Sweden is lagging behind in flattening the curve. From the perspective of people density the Danish people should be more infected than those from Sweeden.
To the discussion of fatality rate. I think the German study is the most thorough, with an IFR of 0,37%. Perhaps as a zero hypothesis for a global average. Then different countries will have some variations around this value. I think measures that are taken have clear effects. Slowing down the outbreak, and flattening the curve, will reduce mortality. And it is OK to have questions about costs without those stupid arguments about old people who would not have survived the next months, nevertheless.
The lockdown has no impact on mortality rate, but possibly on infection rate relative to the population.
The only known data is the number of confirmed cases relative to the population (“tot cases / 1 M pop”, see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries) :
“tot cases / 1 M pop” :
Life goes on as usual : Sweden : 1,133
Lockdown : Danemark : 1,124, Norway : 1,222
If anything, this disprove the lockdown effectiveness.
There are two other countries that are very similar and adopted opposite strategies :
– Netherlands and Belgium.
Lockdown : Belgium : 2,685
Life as usual : Netherlands : 1,600
This further confirms that lockdown is completely useless (at best), and maybe an aggravating factor.
For instance, in France, due to lockdown, most symptomatic people stay at home and most cases are treated too late, when the respiratory distress is already huge.
In France, the number of days between the daily cases peak (April 3) and the daily deaths peak (April 7) is 4 days :
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
Conversely, when people is treated at the early stage of the disease, the death rate is much lower.
See for instance the death rate of the IHU Méditerranée Infections here :
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/covid-19/
The medical authorities of this hospital asked anyone with the COVID-19 symptoms to come as soon as possible and get tested and possibly treated.
This is not the policy globally adopted in France, where the authorities ask people to stay at home until their case is serious so that they have to be hospitalized.
“The lockdown has no impact on mortality rate”
Well lockdown can alter the intensity of the exposure to virus-
the virus load.
So if lockdown stops large gathering, shuts down subways and buses.
And don’t have crowded elevators, this reduces the virus load by a lot.
But other possible effects of virus load, it doesn’t appear to effect mortality rate, other than provide more time for medical industry to learn treatments of those who are sick.
Plus there would be panic and stress, which doesn’t help in lowering rate of death. More knowledge will lower such panic and stress.
what is the poker game fatality rate?
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-dying-together-coronavirus-20200414-atv34aun7fhf7atucntor63jee-story.html#rt=chartbeat-flt
this little bugger kinda sucks
It is higher when you hold aces and eights and have your back to the door.
It is not the death rate which is important, but the total deaths. Death rate has little meaning unless you also know the contagion rate, which is very high for COVID19, supposedly 5 times greater than the typical seasonal flu. That would mean, if COVID19 had the same death rate as seasonal flu A, then COVID 19 would kill 5 times more people than flu A.
Mob
A better model
https://bskiesresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/operational.pdf
Yes, that is interesting. Annan and Hargreaves have also published together in the field of climate! Thanks for the link, Steven.
They are saying that the R0 for the disease is around 3 in the UK, but the Rt since lockdown is about 0.49. Of course, that says nothing about how much of the decrease will have been (would have been?) due to forced lockdown, and how much to people simply going about their business more carefully. Sweden, and to a lesser extent the Netherlands, should give us some more data on this.
Their modelling technique does seem refreshingly simple, and produces hindcasts that have at least some resemblance to reality. But I wonder if they may not be a bit optimistic when their Figure 2(b) shows UK deaths going down from here on in? For most of the epidemic, the pattern of deaths in the UK seems to have lagged new cases by about 6-7 days. By my reckoning, new cases have not yet definitely peaked in the UK – the weekly average of new daily cases is still going up, whether or not you count the 3K or so delayed-report cases they added on April 10th. So I’d expect it to be at least another week or so before peak UK deaths. But then, who am I to contradict the modellers?
“So I’d expect it to be at least another week or so before peak UK deaths. But then, who am I to contradict the modellers?”
if they would release the following data it would be easier.
1. The age distribution of Confirmed cases
2. the age distribution of Hospitalizations.
3. the age distribution of ICU patients.
4. the age distribution of tubed patients
basically then you could do a simple markov chain.
For example: in NYC 80% of hospitalizations are rleased
20% go into ICU
80% of ICU die after being tubed.
The other issue is consistent definitions of various stages
and variable criteria of moving people into hospitals.
This thing is a nightmare to model as the variability of each case is pretty high. Not a very uniform picture. That means all model predictions will not survive the comparison with the medias tendency to look at short term development. No chance with disease courses of 1 up to 8 weeks. They need time to average things out. People don’t seem to be this patient.
That was actually a constructive contribution.
Much as I hate to admit it, Annan and Hargreaves do seem to have adopted a reasonable approach. (And, can’t say I’m surprised, but it turns out that I wasn’t the first to add poles to the standard SEIR model.)
“A WUWT Please get rid of this insufferable pompous British git who knows nothing about viruses and has been 100% wrong about anything concerning this virus re Sweden ect”
I see this as a little unfair. My Lord’s theses throughout has been that lockdowns are working in the interests of avoiding health services being overloaded. I have not seen him trying to establish that lockdowns are definitely the right action
I am not a Brit but maybe identify better than many here the very British role-play that originates in the classic debating halls of the likes of Cambridge and Oxford . The Lord is as much an entertainer as anything else. He plays this role very well, thank the Lord
His insinuation ( as I see it) is that lockdowns are the least worst action. While I disagree with him on this point I look forward to his post each day. He is doing the best he can with what data is available. That’s good enough for me. His is a legitimate interpretation IMO
I am most grateful to Mr Carter for his kind words. And I do indeed prefer the South Korean approach – act fast, test, contact-trace, isolate carriers, wear masks, avoid mass meetings – which prevents the need for lockdowns. However, those countries that failed to act as South Korea has acted have had to introduce lockdowns, particularly if their urban population densities are high.
In a corruption of what Voltaire reportedly wrote, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend with my life, your right to say it.”
Anything other than insults and ad hominem attacks should be encouraged, while the former should be deleted.
I too disagree with LM’s conclusions, but I think we all benefit from seeing his facts and why he has reached the conclusion(s) he has. Most of us are able to interpret the facts independently.
So, how many people have had the virus? In the world, no way to know. In a country, no way to know. In Chicago where I live, no way to know.
It does kill people, we know that. I had a thing in my throat last week, thought I was getting laryngitis, no pain, no coughing nor sneezing, just a catch in my voice for two days. Was it the virus? I feel fine, still working out.
Random testing for the anti-bodies to find out how many have had it, only way to find out the rate of fatalities. We do know that it kills old sick people much more than young healthy people.
Destroying a healthy vibrant economy and putting tens of millions of people into unemployment, and hundreds of thousands of businesses into bankruptcy, to save the lives of a few thousand 80-year-olds, why even the 80-year-olds do not think this is a good idea.
Have We Thought This Through?
In response to Mr Moon, yes, we have thought this through. Responsible governments cannot afford to allow their healthcare and hospital systems to collapse under the weight of intensive-care cases requiring more advanced and more prolonged treatment than for pre-existing pulmonary diseases.
One would have thought that the totalitarian disregard for human life in the 20th century would have taught us in the 21st not to speak airily of letting thousands of people that we don’t care about die in expensive and prolonged and unnecessary and preventable agony.
This self-inflicted recession will very likely kill far more than the virus. Already domestic violence and suicides have increased hugely. Here in the USA over 17 million new unemployment applications have come in the last three weeks. Businesses that fail in this recession, and there will be MANY, will not re-open when the virus and the lockdowns are gone. Peoples’ life savings are disappearing.
Cure looks Worse than the Disease, to me anyway.
And who said I do not care about them? I am one, 61, but feeling fine and continuing my work-outs. Really?