Pretty much all successful novel disease vectors evolve to get less deadly for their hosts over time. The impression I got was pretty much everything he said was basic fact, and he wasn't really breaking any new ground.

In a "natural" setting a new disease like this would spread through a population and potentially cause massive morbidity and mortality, before it and the hosts evolved over a much longer time period than 3 months into some sort of manageable co-existence. This is what is believed to happen with diseases like malaria, smallpox, measles, polio, flu etc.

Pre industrial revolution a disease like this that spread through and preferentially killed elderly (of whom there were virtually none) and wasn't particular deadly (<<1%) for the vast vast majority of people would have been a nothing burger I imagine.

Also there may be some genetic variety in humans that makes us more at risk. As more of those die than everybody else it makes the virus less deadly over time

Ya the key words here are over time. Of course that's true. Mutations are essentially random (no feedback mechanism). The "successful" (doesn't kill quick, highly transmissible) ones will survive. The "unsuccessful" ones (kills too quick to pass on, makes people too sick) die out...over time. But any singular mutation from this point on has as much likelihood of being more severe as less severe. The next major variation could be even more severe and aggressive than the previous one. We shouldn't give it that opportunity with a herd immunity strategy. We should try to get the reproduction rate below 1 and wait for it to die. It's probably too late for that, though.

Dude. I was a biology major. You aren’t teaching me anything. Knowledge of Bio 101 facts are built into what I am saying. You are getting too bent trying to find a gotcha because I am using imprecise shorthand conventions that I assume everyone gets.

Mutations are random, but generally less deadly ones are selected for over time.

Bad Sign?

Don't know if this is a trend, a "statistical anomaly" or a fluke, but I've been watching the Coronavirus numbers, (i.e. reported cases and deaths), being reported on CNN and MSNBC. (MSNBC cites John Hopkins / NBC News as the source for their numbers.)

Up until today, the death rate here in the U.S. had been running in the range of 1.25 to 1.5 percent. The [current] numbers are now 1,930 deaths out of 115,968 confirmed cases. That equates to a death rate of 1.66 percent so the death rate appears to be increasing. (The worldwide death rate is running around 4.72 percent.)

Because everybody has not been tested, it's impossible to know how many (what percentage) of the population has been infected; but less than 200,000 confirmed cases - out of a population of over 300 million - is not a [statistically] large number. Doing what the experts are recommending, (i.e. social distancing and isolating at home), is the surest way of keeping these numbers (and percentages) from growing.

Just read something very interesting.

I found a local article discussing how countries are counting their corona-casualties:

All countries on the list below of course count people who tested positive for corona and die in a hospital.

Italy: People who die in care centers & at home are also counted. If someone dies & was not yet tested, a post mortem test is done.
France: France at the moment ONLY reports people who died of corona in a hospital. People dying in care centers or at home are not included in the statistics at this stage.
Germany: Germany reports people who died of corona in a hospital, care center or at home. No post mortem tests are done if the patient died before being diagnosed.
Belgium: Same as Germany.
Netherlands: Same as Germany.
Spain: Some regions are the same as Italy, some regions are the same as Germany.

So taking this into account, the order of countries who are missing the most corona casualties, from missing most deaths to least deaths, should be:
France>Germany=Belgium=Netherlands>Spain>Italy

I feel like given the average age of the people dying (in Italy 51% of all deaths is >80 years old), countries could be missing a lot due to lack of post mortem testing.

It will be very interesting to see after everything normalizes, how much the death rate spiked, and whether the death rate actually decreases for a bit after everything normalizes (since a significant part of the people dying are very old).

Yes it's clear that how deaths are counted is making a big difference. That's partly a fundamentally real problem, partly incompetence and partly deliberate obfuscation. Those doing the epidemiological modeling will be putting a lot of effort into cleaning the data.

Eventually it will come to down to preferences about how to count some things.

Based on the studies I’ve run across the R0 (# of cases caused by 1 case) estimate is 2.0-2.5 and the serial interval (days from symptom onset in case 1 to symptom onset in directly caused cases) estimate is 3.5-6.0 days. So whiz*whirl^bang = a doubling range of 3-6 days.

I know but the fact is they are doubling at that rate. You can look at the data and see total deaths increasing 100(X) in 3 weeks or less in the US, UK, Germany, France and Spain. My guess is that the doubling rate of transmission somewhat mirrors what we’re seeing with deaths, at least based on these early numbers. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see a death rate slightly below 1% but then again it wouldn’t surprise me if they came back slightly above 2% either.

Can we make some kind of PDF doc or sticky for people who keep citing flu stats? I'm getting worn out.

I’m thinking even wearing a bandanna would reduce the risk of infecting others. No?

Has there been any discussion on how bad this virus actually is compared to what could have been? I guess, what I'm asking is how unlucky did we get? How often would we expect a virus similar to Covid-19 to happen?
Instead of CFR being 1-4%, could it have been 50%? I know there's been deadlier ones in recent times, but their characteristics made them easier to contain. What if we have another with the same spread and [slow] symptom onset characteristics but 10x deadlier?

If such virus appeared there would be more extreme response earlier with strict national lockdown and people actually obeying quarantine.
Would end up with even lower overall deaths than current virus probably.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/wildli...giFdcme3wKqqWY

Btw the French clinical data on treatment looks super promising:

https://www.mediterranee-infection.c...ID-IHU-2-1.pdf

"hydroxychloroquine/azithromycine"


Leads one to believe that the 2nd and 3rd waves of this could be less deadly if we can mass produce. Drugs are cheap too.

The video presentation, in French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4J8...1z6kxSC5CjC6Ow

Japan is interesting. While they have some cultural advantages when it comes to prevention, there is no widespread testing but now:

Contagion grows: Tokyo, Chiba report roughly 60 more COVID-19 cases apiece

So it's about to get serious there.

I remember cure Gregory Rigano proposed and Musk shared on twitter turned out to be fraud.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ity-claim.html

Your source, rafiki, does look credible though.

I'd say for sure. It certainly can't hurt. Anything covering the exit route of lung moisture which carries the virus is going to catch some % of it.

I’ve read plenty of your posts on this topic and truly appreciate your efforts to provide decent analysis.

I work as part of the hospital supply chain for Interior Health in BC Canada. I’m fairly concerned, and even if I was to end up alright, I don’t want to be a vector for further transmission.

I’m not inclined to think my chance of exposure is low, not only due to working in fairly close proximity to dozens of coworkers, some of whom travel to various hospitals and care facilities, but also due to my responsibility of unloading a supply truck at a main hospital where there are likely infected patients (for privacy reasons the only info I’m formally given is that there are currently 70 cases in Interior Health).

Regardless I’ve decided to wear an N95 mask, safety glasses, and gloves while I’m inside the hospital.

I did this last week and felt significantly out of place partly because no other hospital staff members were electing to wear PPE (I don’t know if that has changed since my last shift), but I think that’s largely irrelevant when it comes to what I should do or what seems reasonable at this point given that I agree with Wittgenheiny.

Anyways if anyone is willing to take a look, are there any opinions of how BC Canada may fare in the coming months?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...itish-columbia

Recent developments on the supply chain end is that many types of masks, sanitizers, wipes, and PPE are now restricted when it comes to who they will be supplied to, so if anything imo this suggest that there is at least significant anticipation of a potential spike in the number of cases.

Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to this discussion.

Lol I wasn't trying to get a gotcha, I was just talking. Take it easy.

I agree with you and I'm not sure what Weinstein was implying, if anything. I just do not see the point of him saying viruses trending towards less severe mutations over many many cycles when it looks like most people on earth are going to contract this in the next 6 months-year.

Yo he cites a Chinese study where they are very certain it's contagious 20 days from positive.

We're still using 14 days up here...

Ontario has a backlog of 10000 tests right now, because they ran out of reagent. I'm assuming the other provinces are similar. A lot of people are saying the curve is flattening in Canada but I think it's just a function of backlogged tests and test criteria. I don't see any reason at all why Canada would be any different from any other country. Mass transit largely destroys any inherent geographical advantage.

If you to to reddit there are lots of smug Canucks praising da Grorious begoateed Leader. I don't see it, but I hope I'm wrong. We better hope so, because we have 1/3 the ICU beds of the US.

You are right, but I was interested in an approximate number to calculate what the IFR might be. It does not matter if it 3 days or 6 days, IFR should be 4%+. See the calculations above.

Many of the people who are currently sick will succumb to the disease. So we cannot estimate CFR based on these data points. As time goes on, CFR will increase.


Good news for second and third waves, but the drug will be not available for everybody who needs it in the first wave in US/Canada.

India banned all exports. Hungary (also one o the biggest produces) also banned all exports.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020...-medicine.html

US/Canada imported the raw powder from China/ India and it will take 3-6 months to produce hydroxychloroquine on a mass scale.

Also, China and Korea have been using hydroxychloroquine for a while and patients are still dying.

Are you purposely being disingenuous or are you actually this dense? Your data is from the US.



I would love to know what the odds of catching Covid and being admitted to intensive care are for a normal, non-obese 20-40 year old who lives his life, washes his hands as usual, but takes no special precautions. I would guess he is way more likely to: be involved in an auto accident, be a victim of violent crime, be it robbery or just a traditional American mass shooting, or overdose on drugs, etc.

US numbers are grim. Country will have no choice but to go full lockdown and then 4+ weeks before peaking. I'm not even sure NY is below 1 from the anecdotes we're seeing of people still socializing.

Only way forward for the US unless they're ok with millions dead:

- Total lockdown for 4 weeks
- Get enough masks, thermometers, set up sanitizing and forced distancing at all shops and (still open) workplaces
- Get a huge testing surveillance network in place
- Obsessively contact trace

Since no one seems prepared to do communist-level public indoctrination and shaming to stop virus transmitting behavior (it's almost antithetical to the American spirit). and cops would rather sit on their ass then enforce, this is going to take a long time.

One the benefits of China and Taiwan and Korea is a high IQ social shaming society. The US is almost the opposite in many areas.

Lots of people are criticizing the design/results of the French study on
"hydroxychloroquine/azithromycine":

https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/com...l_effect_of_a/