If there are actually 100K people in Ohio that have The Virus, the vast majority of them must be experiencing mild or no symptoms.
And of course, that’s exactly why it can spread so easily.
We’re not testing (at all, basically, in the US), but people that are truly sick feel sick, look sick, and act sick. They should stay at home and avoid spreading it to others. As usual.
Hopefully all of them are staying home, just like they should if they have a cold. Or the flu, mumps, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, etc. I’ve yet to see someone in a public place that actually looks like they’re sick.
Another comment on this plot. I wish it were normalized by showing the number of cases per 100,000, as we were talking about earlier.
There are a lot of people in China (1.4 billion), so of course the total numbers are large. There aren’t as many people in Hong Kong (7.2 million), so of course the total numbers are lower. But on a “per 100,000” population basis, things might be quite different-looking.
Even if done regionally rather than nationally, that would be easier to interpret.
And OK, still one more thing. Preparing for the future, as I hope we’ll start to do once again beginning next year, perhaps the MASH-type model really is an option. In truth, I would think that at best the UN would maintain the capacity for this sort of massive rapid MASH-type response to any medical transient, available to any country on Earth with urgent need, member or not, on a moment’s notice.
The problem is we are not even testing sick people. In addition with Covid-19 you can be easily infectious to others without showing any symptoms. That’s why it is so critical to test much, much, much more aggressive the different layers of known carriers including those who show no signs.
A friend sent me this article about COVID-19 last night. I’m not sure if English is the first language or not for the author as I thought some of the sentence struture was a bit odd at times and some of his explanations aren’t quite a clear as I think he thinks they were. Otherwise, the article has a number of charts, graphs and formulas that all the mathematically minded people on this thread might be interested in (Doc, I’m looking at you buddie )
That summary is very good and shows the importance of testing and social distancing which has to start now. Twitter is also very good as there is (not only about Covid-19) a Bio-Twitter “universe” where a lot of experts give good thoughts - LizSpecht (has a very good summary of what might happen to the US health care system), Andybiotech and EricTopol are good starting point but there are many more (and obviously much junk and misinformation)
The baseline starts with the 100th case, so the total population is irrelevant. Without effective measures to slow transmission, infections spread at about 33% a day. It doesn’t matter whether the hot spots where transmission is occurring are in a small country or a large one.
It’s always important to find out what somebody@anywhere.com has to say. You might also want to read his articles “How to Write a Funny Speech,” “What The Rise of Skywalker Can Teach about Storytelling,” and “What I Learned Building a Horoscope That Blew Up on Facebook.”
I agree. I was just saying that I hope all who do feel sick are staying home and that I haven’t seen any sick-looking people in public. But yes, asymptomatic people with the virus are out there, and that’s the biggest risk. For all we know, you and I have had it, never having felt or shown any symptoms. Absent widespread testing, how could we know?
Up to the 100th case the population is irrelevant on a chart like this. That’s just the threshold for marking the beginning of a local epidemic in a country or region with at least two orders of magnitude (let’s say) more people than that in their total population – like millions. After the threshold has been reached in these regions or countries, the total population does matter in terms of the total number of cases in that area. There are ultimately going to be a great many more cases in countries with large populations than in those with small populations, so just citing or plotting the total number in each country or region is misleading.
I don’t know but am guessing that the exponential part of each country’s curve on this plot would look pretty much the same if the data were normalized to cases per 100,000 people. Up to the point when damping was applied, which interrupts the exponential rise.
Infections aren’t distributed very evenly. Large countries have large areas with few or no infections. Factoring those into the numbers would mask the consistent ~33% daily growth rate among countries that haven’t taken effective measures to slow transmission.
Well, I’d still like to see the plot normalized per 100,000, but you have a point.
“Effective measures to slow transmission” is what I meant by “damping”; that is, measures taken to “flatten” the new-cases-per-day bell curve. The only damping mechanism implemented so far has been “social distancing”, because there aren’t any other damping mechanisms available.
They’re singing out the windows in Italy. They’re dancing in the quarantine camps in S. Korea. Activity is good for you.
There’s one thing we can all do that will help us individually and collectively, IMO. And that’s to try to keep a sense of humor, maintain a positive attitude, be optimistic, and smile at one another. I was at Sprouts a short time ago, and quite unlike the usual atmosphere, everyone was wearing a doomsday face.
I’m a person of the Old persuasion, the kind they would in effect toss out of a window into the street below in Italy right now if I had a severe case of the virus there. Like the Jewish grandfather in a wheelchair who was unable to stand up under orders by the SS, while dining with his family at home, in WWII.
Well, I’m being more cautious and I’m going through lots of soap, but I refuse to let this episode knock down my spirit, especially as an Old Fart.
Remember the motions “to the left” and “to the right” on arrival at the WWII concentration camps? Left: You die right away. Right: You can live for awhile.
And I’m going to continue to patronize our restaurants, especially Asian restaurants, howbeit at a slower pace than usual to help reduce the “social activity level” or “social movement” or whatever they’re calling it. But I’m not going to stop completely.
Absolutely Em. Here in Reno, we’ve seen some shortage of diners in non-Asian restaurants. But today made me crazed. I wanted to slap a few people. This is a restaurant/brewery and we’re regular lunchers there. Sit at the bar, have lunch, play video poker (oh, and lose). Today the bartender, the brewer (he was off today) and a number of diners were complaining about the cancellation of various sporting events. And how stupid and unnecessary. So that’s the other side. I’m still pissed.
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