Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

Reference is irrelevant, these are obvious points already discussed on forums. In any case I do not recall his name, its some professor or something who has been advising on pandemic defence for a decade, in an interview. Canadian I think. The only reason I mentioned it is that this is being discussed, is obvious, but many are still not aware. When the obvious is ignored then society has a problem.

 

While trying to keep track of what's going on in Florida, I found an account that is unfortunately behind a paywall with a hefty cost. (I've been spending a great deal on subscriptions this year.) It gave Governor DeSantis credit for instituting a policy that patients hospitalized for COVID-19 had to test negative twice before they could be returned to long-term care. Why was this so at odds with my memory, which is admittedly fallible? The problem turned out to be timing.

He didn't recognize that we had an epidemic until March 1. It took a while after that before he caught on that most of the deaths were due to long-term care. He instituted a new policy on May 5. Even then he was refusing to name facilities which had problems. Here's a contemporary account.

We've had a lot of closing the barn door after the horse is gone. I expect to see more.

 

France has hundreds of active outbreak clusters - and has tightened the rules on face coverings:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...as-mask-rules-tighten/ar-BB16XOfn?ocid=ASUDHP

 

There is one major difference: New Zealand (and Australia until recently) had very little community transmission, which means there is a very different demographic distribution as to who was infected.

We cannot and should not assume that testing is somehow a magnitude of order lower than it should be without actually doing epidemiological modelling based on who is infected and try to estimate the various risk factors.

The mortality patterns we are seeing in the UK and elsewhere reflect the demographics of who is infected. A high rate of community transmission among the high-risk population can skew the numbers in the way that we are seeing.

Indeed for this (up to July) dataset, roughly 36% of the ~250,000 COVID cases in the UK were been in the 65+ age group, whereas this is only 18% of the overall population. This skew increases as age increases, with 21% of positive cases over the age of 80, who unfortunately have a very high risk of mortality. (With my short search, I could not find more granular data on UK population demographics to do a deeper analysis)

The Geneva Switzerland study showed that the 65+ demographic had ~40 times greater likelihood of mortality than the 50-64 age group.

While it is certain that testing rates have been lower than they should be, given the demographics of who is infected and subsequent mortality rates, it is quite unlikely that true infection rates are ten times the official number.
Perhaps the true "undertest" factor is in the ballpark of 1.5-3 times and this number, like the case mortality rate, will also decrease over time.

Note that while Italy and Spain have similar case mortality rates to the UK, other countries with different demographics of cases have much lower rates.

 

Shouldn't try to respond to such a good analysis. If a very high proportion of UK cases were detected (by diagnostic test) then the % dying would presumably be much closer to that in Germany and other countries with developed health care systems. Suggests that we aren't testing enough people with symptoms; which also suggests we are not effectively quarantining people who are infectious and tracing and quarantining positive contacts.

 

Yes, I'd heard that excess deaths may be the best way to estimate the number of deaths due to coronavirus.

In Germany they identified that, after the controlled the initial outbreak, the majority(?) of new cases were occurring in the health care system and then focused resources on that. So the UK data seems pretty poor i.e. we don't have an indication whether those who are infected picked up the virus within the health care system.

 

Where are the world’s COVID-19 hotspots now? The countries with the most coronavirus deaths in the last week

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...aths-in-the-last-week/ar-BB173vkF?ocid=ASUDHP

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1285908087136804865


Surprise!

 

Interesting PoV

 

Seems the apologists are out in full force...

 

A bit of a follow-up to my previous post:

Some numbers from actual tests:

Source: Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset: Den storskaliga antikroppstestningen i Region Stockholm fortsätter i oförminskad styrka med över 223 000 tester gjorda sedan det öppnades för allmänheten i mitten på juni

Google Translate, English

Source: DN: Werlabs testade 80.000 i Stockholm: 14,5 procent har antikroppar

Google Translate, English

In related news, the Swedish Public Health Agency recently published new guidelines on immunity for local and regional governments.

 

That percentage from the Karolinska University Hospital study is almost exactly what antibody tests in Florida show. We managed to achieve the worst of both worlds, a shutdown and a run-away pandemic that still falls far short of any kind of "herd immunity".

Today we found out about another 10,249 new cases, and 173 deaths. Since 38 of those deaths were in Orange County, I intend to be even more reclusive than usual.

 

Assuming 0% false positives and 10% false negatives, this still means that the proportion of the population who has been infected must be between 4%-16.7%.
Each % of false positives on the test subtracts from the upper bound. Similarly, since people who are infected are more likely to be tested, this bias will reduce the true number from the upper estimate. The true proportion of prior infected individuals may well be be less than 10%.

 

There's a reason I used antibody tests above. People with symptoms or contact with an infected individual are typically given a nucleic acid test, so that test has a bias toward higher rates of infection. (It also has a delay of a week or more, particularly during a surge.) People getting the antibody test are concerned, but don't have strong medical reasons to be tested. At this point most people in Florida should be concerned.

The false negative rate for antibody tests could be 20%. There have been some efforts at random sampling, but they are too sporadic to estimate infection rates outside hot spots. I'll admit I don't know the positivity rate for the state of Florida, but I'm certain it is way too low to stop an epidemic.

 

Florida update: 12,199 new cases today, and 124 newly reported deaths. This is the real thing, and state half-measures continue.

 

Since we now understand that the virus is more airborne than previously thought, I'd think more attention would be paid to the quality and circulation of inside air in buildings. At the very least, HVAC systems should be set to bring in some outside air instead of just circulating all inside air. Maybe most business's HVACs are already set to do this, but it's a good thing to check. It would also help to have windows that open. I don't see as much emphasis on these issues as there should be.

 

But it could be a double take i.e. the - "UK has done more than any country to emphasise what not to do" --- I'd add more than "any country in Europe" and a "?" --- Sweden's maybe a challanger after all

 

IM's employer is now starting to "encourage" much of the work force back to work.

Apparently HR have stated that workers currently working from home can't be forced to come back in so they are being asked.

Difficult situation - some are fed up trying to work at home, some prefer it. However, a lot of them would prefer to be told they have to go back as they're worried if it might make a difference about the level of support they receive from the company i.e. they might be treated better if they came in because they were told they had to.

Some of them do quite specialized stuff where there are a handful of people who can perform certain mission critical jobs and nobody seems to be considering what would happen if all 4 or 5 of these people who hot desk in the same small area get sick at the same time. All it takes is one of them to become sick and because their shifts overlap....

If all of 'em were off for a week or two, there might not be a job to go back to.

Fun times. I'm sure lots of employees are facing the same situation around the world.