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Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Thu May 21, 2020 8:21 pm
by Lance
Saw a news bite late last night claiming the R0 in Illinois dropped to 0.98 yesterday. Woo MOTHER FUCKING Hoo!

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Sat May 23, 2020 8:04 am
by Arneb
Meanwhile in Brexistan, Dominic "The Cum" Cummings has been caught going on a 300 mi. car trip to visit his parents, of all people, while suffering from an active, symptomatic case of Covid-19. Lesser people have had to resign their posts for less, but he is such an irreplaceable expert at arseholery he will certainly keep his.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Sat May 23, 2020 8:49 am
by Arneb
Another news flash from Brexistan: A representative poll was published in the medical journal "Psychological Medicine".

"SARS-CoV2 is an invention, to a degree" - 25% agree
"SARS-CoV2 is an attempt by powerful people to exert control" - 40% agree.
"The gouvernment isn't honest about the course of the epidemic" - 60 % agree.
"The virus is the result of a global conspiracy" - 22 % agree.
"The virus is an alien weapn to destroy humanity" - c. 20 % agree
"The lockdown was instigated by environmental activists in order to control the rest of the population" - c. 20% agree.
"UN and WHO created the virus to exert control" - c. 25 % agree.
"Coronavirus was created in order to prevent Brexit!" 22% agree.

Shit, they found us out.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Sat May 23, 2020 1:05 pm
by Blue Monster 65
Jeezus cripes ... I saw the same sort of numbers reported for Fox News viewers as well. F***kin’ A, but humanity is a disappointment... of course, some will argue it’s source, which may have some bearing on the results ...

https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-y ... 43610.html

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Sun May 24, 2020 10:29 pm
by Lianachan
Arneb wrote:Meanwhile in Brexistan, Dominic "The Cum" Cummings has been caught going on a 300 mi. car trip to visit his parents, of all people, while suffering from an active, symptomatic case of Covid-19. Lesser people have had to resign their posts for less, but he is such an irreplaceable expert at arseholery he will certainly keep his.


The Gaelic for “gaslighting” is gas-shoillseachadh.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 7:51 am
by Heid the Ba
He certainly has some hold over BoJo, but the Mail has turned against him. He may go yet.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 9:50 am
by Heid the Ba
He's also a really slow driver, he drove from London to Durham and it took the contagious.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 11:19 am
by Lianachan
:glp-rimshot:

A joke almost of the quality of this one:

Watch on youtube.com

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 12:51 pm
by Heid the Ba
Huzzah!

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 3:53 pm
by Lance

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 4:21 pm
by Мастер
There have been 32,876 identified cases here, with 28 deaths.

The US is approaching 100,000 deaths, which if occurring at the same rate, would mean 117 million people were infected. More than one third of the country.

Possible reasons for this.

a) Lots of testing here, with lots of false positives.

b) Quality of healthcare is vastly lower in the US, resulting in a much higher (and we really do mean "much" higher) death rate there.

c) More than one third of the people in the US are infected, suggesting Llance's earlier speculation, somewhere in this or another thread, was correct - many undetected cases.

d) Something else?

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 6:38 pm
by Heid the Ba
I suspect the US numbers are over quarter of a million but we won’t know until it is over.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 9:38 pm
by MM_Dandy
Inconsistency in reporting coronavirus deaths may play into it. Some localities are reporting it even if the deceased never tested positive but were deemed "likely" to have died from the illness. Sometimes, they'll report likely deaths in a separate toll, but in other localities, the numbers are combined. In other localities, coroners have no choice but to exclude likely COVID deaths, because the deceased was never tested or never tested positive. It is my understanding that many places are not testing the deceased.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 6:12 am
by Arneb
Мастер wrote:There have been 32,876 identified cases here, with 28 deaths.
The US is approaching 100,000 deaths, which if occurring at the same rate, would mean 117 million people were infected. More than one third of the country.
Possible reasons for this.
a) Lots of testing here, with lots of false positives.
b) Quality of healthcare is vastly lower in the US, resulting in a much higher (and we really do mean "much" higher) death rate there.
c) More than one third of the people in the US are infected, suggesting Llance's earlier speculation, somewhere in this or another thread, was correct - many undetected cases.
d) Something else?


As MM_Dandy said, the criteria for attribution of a fatality to SARS-CoV2 may differ from country to country.
I remember that Germany at the beginning of the pandemic had similarly low fatality rates, because the infection was brought into the country by fit, well-off skiers and partygoers. Singapore with its drastic measures may have been successful in preventing the virus from eating into the older demographics.
AFAIK, New Yorks health care system was at or beyond the breaking point a month or so ago, but I wouldn't generalize it to the U.S.. Also, the fatality rate of severly affected patients hasn't varied that much between countries. So, while singapore's health system may be superior to the US's, it simply cannot be vastly superior in the particular case of Covid-19, because for the most severe cases, there is simply not too much you can do.
Good access to tests is probably a factor, you pick up more cases with a light course. Extremely good idea if you want to get low mortality numbers.
OTOH, a high false positive rate is a real possibility. It was a shock to all of us at Med School that, because of the tyranny of Bayes' theroem, even a highly sensitive and specific test can become useless if the prevalence of the condition that is being tested for is low enough. "Pre-test probability" is what must always be on our mind when we order tests.
I still don't buy the "loads and loads of undetected infections" idea. No we will not wake up one day to find that, unbeknownst to us, Corona has quitly infected 80 % of us and is now just dying out, all of its lonesome. To me, that is That is wishful thinking.
Finally, I read the hypothesis that because Coronaviruses are more frequent in Eastern Asia, there may be a certain degree of immunity in people living there. The kind of immunit that doesn't prevent an infection but is enough to prevent a high percentage of severe courses.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 2:34 pm
by Мастер
Arneb wrote:Singapore with its drastic measures may have been successful in preventing the virus from eating into the older demographics.


I would say the measures have not been that drastic, nothing like China. I travelled quite freely into Malaysia until about mid-March. Even now, I can go out whenever I like, although you are supposed to wear a mask and have a specific reason.

But, by a huge margin, most of the cases are in the "foreign workers" dormitories. These are people, mostly form the subcontinent, who are working on construction projects. They come alone, no family, and live in temporary structures put up near the project they are working on. Close quarters, shared facilities, etc. - ideal for a contagious disease.

These people are not going to be elderly, but they may be heavy smokers, drinkers, etc.

Arneb wrote:So, while singapore's health system may be superior to the US's, it simply cannot be vastly superior in the particular case of Covid-19, because for the most severe cases, there is simply not too much you can do.


Well, that's the thing. If there were a 30% difference, maybe better healthcare could explain it. But a greater than 50-times factor? I don't think so.

Arneb wrote:because of the tyranny of Bayes' theroem


Alright, someone knows Bayes' theorem!

Arneb wrote:even a highly sensitive and specific test can become useless if the prevalence of the condition that is being tested for is low enough. "Pre-test probability" is what must always be on our mind when we order tests.


If nobody has the disease, then all the positive results will be false positives :)

Arneb wrote:Finally, I read the hypothesis that because Coronaviruses are more frequent in Eastern Asia, there may be a certain degree of immunity in people living there. The kind of immunit that doesn't prevent an infection but is enough to prevent a high percentage of severe courses.


Couldn't comment on that. Maybe.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 5:34 pm
by Enzo
I think I read that an early lunar mission included a copy of An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances. Something about establishing a Bayes on the Moon.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 6:42 pm
by Arneb
:glp-rimshot:

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 7:39 pm
by Arneb
Мастер wrote:
Arneb wrote:even a highly sensitive and specific test can become useless if the prevalence of the condition that is being tested for is low enough. "Pre-test probability" is what must always be on our mind when we order tests.

If nobody has the disease, then all the positive results will be false positives :)

Yes, that. I remember students in my class going nuts over this. "What does the quality of the test have to do with what people are sitting in my waiting room?". Science wasn't in in high regard with many of my co-students, and the lecturer wasn't very good at making it clear in an easy to understand sentence like yours.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2020 3:00 am
by tubeswell
Well we haven't had any new cases in 7 days and have only 1 active case left. Fingers-crossed

Just as well. The lockdown has had a devastating effect on the economy here. Goodbye virus - Hello Lockdown Generation

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2020 7:13 am
by Heid the Ba
We are managing to have plenty of new cases and an economy in tatters.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2020 9:14 am
by Lianachan
Heid the Ba wrote:We are managing to have plenty of new cases and an economy in tatters.


It's almost as if BoJo and his clown circus have no fucking idea what they're doing, isn't it.

Re: Coronavirus

PostPosted: Sat May 30, 2020 4:08 pm
by Arneb
Nice look to back to where it all started in Northern Europe. Don't worry about the German (and in a heavy Tyrolean accent to boot), it's all subtitled.
Watch on youtube.com