The COVID thread


Emmanuel Goldstein
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Guest Scott

Here are the current supposed stats of cases and deaths so far:

https://google.org/crisisresponse/covid19-map

Why are the death rates all over the place?  Some could be because of faulty reporting by governments; this is true.  Some of it is because of the age of the population in each country.  Some of it is beacuse of superior or inferior healthcare.   Still that can't explain the wildly differing death rates.

Why is the death rate in Italy, Spain, and France so high, while in Germany, Swizerland, Austria, Australia, and Brazil it is very low?  The differences in death rates aren't just a little different, but very different.

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10 minutes ago, Scott said:

Here are the current supposed stats of cases and deaths so far:

https://google.org/crisisresponse/covid19-map

Why are the death rates all over the place?  Some could be because of faulty reporting by governments; this is true.  Some of it is because of the age of the population in each country.  Some of it is beacuse of superior or inferior healthcare.   Still that can't explain the wildly differing death rates.

Why is the death rate in Italy, Spain, and France so high, while in Germany, Swizerland, Austria, Australia, and Brazil it is very low?  The differences in death rates aren't just a little different, but very different.

I wouldn't trust the numbers from China.

 

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17 minutes ago, Scott said:

Why is the death rate in Italy, Spain, and France so high, while in Germany, Swizerland, Austria, Australia, and Brazil it is very low?  The differences in death rates aren't just a little different, but very different.

Perhaps it has to do with accessibility to testing kits

Edited by Fether
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16 minutes ago, Scott said:

Here are the current supposed stats of cases and deaths so far:

https://google.org/crisisresponse/covid19-map

Why are the death rates all over the place?  Some could be because of faulty reporting by governments; this is true.  Some of it is because of the age of the population in each country.  Some of it is beacuse of superior or inferior healthcare.   Still that can't explain the wildly differing death rates.

Why is the death rate in Italy, Spain, and France so high, while in Germany, Swizerland, Austria, Australia, and Brazil it is very low?  The differences in death rates aren't just a little different, but very different.

Here are contributors to the varying numbers:

  • (as I've stated in the other thread) Differences in how deaths are attributed to coronavirus: dying with the disease (association) is not the same as dying form the disease (causation).
  • Selection bias can mean those with severe disease are being preferentially tested.
  • There may be delays between symptoms onset and deaths  which  can lead to underestimation of the Case Fatality Rate.
  • There may be factors that account for increased death rates such  as coinfection,  poorer healthcare, patient demographics (i.e., older patients might be more prevalent in certain countries - although this does not explain the wide difference between Italy and Germany who have the same median age).
  • There may be increased rates of smoking or comorbidities amongst the fatalities.
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1 hour ago, Scott said:

Here are the current supposed stats of cases and deaths so far:

https://google.org/crisisresponse/covid19-map

Why are the death rates all over the place?  Some could be because of faulty reporting by governments; this is true.  Some of it is because of the age of the population in each country.  Some of it is beacuse of superior or inferior healthcare.   Still that can't explain the wildly differing death rates.

Why is the death rate in Italy, Spain, and France so high, while in Germany, Swizerland, Austria, Australia, and Brazil it is very low?  The differences in death rates aren't just a little different, but very different.

I'm not sure.  It could be similar to the US.

As testing goes up the percentages of death to cases seems to go down to a certain point, until the medical system gets overrun, at which point it goes up again.

We can see this in the US where at first the mortality rate was around 5-6%.  Due to the Trump administration's fumbles regarding tests and availability, the numbers tested were only for the most confirmed and serious cases.  This meant that there were probably more deaths among those than a wider range of tests would indicate.

As New York and other places have taken it upon themselves to do their own tests with or without Trump's administration's blessings, the numbers tested have gone up, and the mortality to cases has gone down (I think around 1.2% or around that now). 

Some of it could also be due to lack of tests some places are not confirming whether the deaths are to the virus or not, thus their numbers are mysteriously low, because they aren't testing and don't know themselves.  The best way to find out in these cases is probably in a decade to go back and look at the data.  Where numbers are irregularly high, some guesses can be made.

However it probably still won't be perfect.  When I look up H1N1 and deaths they range from something like 190K to 500K+ from it.  There are guesses and reasonable educated guesses at that, but in the end without exact testing and controls it may be that we will never know the true tally of deaths in this event.

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Guest Scott
1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

I wouldn't trust the numbers from China.

 

Ditto.

The differing rates in Europe are what really stand out.  Several of those counties have fairly similar demographics and similar access to healthcare, yet the death rates aren't even remotely similar.

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1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

(as I've stated in the other thread) Differences in how deaths are attributed to coronavirus: dying with the disease (association) is not the same as dying form the disease (causation).

What does it mean to die from COVID-19? Does it mean that so many of the cells in your body were ruptured by the virus that your body couldn't live any more? Of course not. Most who die from the disease die because they can't breathe. They die like the asthmatic dies, drowning within their own lungs, unable to sufficiently oxygenate their own blood. It's like the AIDS patients in the 1980s who used to die of colds. (An apt comparison, really. AIDS patients die of incidental diseases that their non-functional immune system no longer takes care of. SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is a species that your body has never seen before and thus doesn't know how to take care of.)

So what if you have another condition, such as asthma, that already compromises your lungs' oxygen exchange? If such a person catches COVID-19 and dies, what killed him? The asthma? The COVID-19 infection? How do you draw a causality line between the death and exactly one of those two causes? If COVID-19 substantially contributes to the death, then it seems reasonable to count it as a COVID-19 fatality.

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

What does it mean to die from COVID-19? Does it mean that so many of the cells in your body were ruptured by the virus that your body couldn't live any more? Of course not. Most who die from the disease die because they can't breathe. They die like the asthmatic dies, drowning within their own lungs, unable to sufficiently oxygenate their own blood. It's like the AIDS patients in the 1980s who used to die of colds. (An apt comparison, really. AIDS patients die of incidental diseases that their non-functional immune system no longer takes care of. SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is a species that your body has never seen before and thus doesn't know how to take care of.)

So what if you have another condition, such as asthma, that already compromises your lungs' oxygen exchange? If such a person catches COVID-19 and dies, what killed him? The asthma? The COVID-19 infection? How do you draw a causality line between the death and exactly one of those two causes? If COVID-19 substantially contributes to the death, then it seems reasonable to count it as a COVID-19 fatality.

There's a science behind whether a symptomatic case is causal or associated.  It is a basic study.  This is how doctors determine "cause of death" on death certificates and medical reports and census statistics.

E.g. You have lung cancer.  You die of lung cancer but you are covid positive - did you die of lung cancer or covid?  Doctors know this.  Different countries have different reporting procedures.  Some countries like Italy will count you as a covid death.  Other countries like the Philippines will not include you on the covid statistics.

Edited by anatess2
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Kind of weird.  Our liberal Americas-first-openly-gay Governor just started his press conference by quoting the book of Ecclesiastes.  I've watched sufficient disaster/collapse movies to know that that sort of thing only happens in the movies. :)

[edit - and he just called on the govt to suspend anti-plastic bag laws, so Colorado shoppers can have the benefits of plastic bags!  Now I'm genuinely scared - what's next - he's going to stop trying to bring safe heroin injection sites into the state?]

Edited by NeuroTypical
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2 minutes ago, Godless said:
1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Well ok then. If you were going to watch someone live tweeting about what it’s like to get that virus, it might as well be Boris Johnson.

https://twitter.com/borisjohnson/status/1243496858095411200?s=12

I wonder how he got it. 🤔

https://twitter.com/cillianwalsh_/status/1243498544566239232?s=19

These two links absolutely have to to go hand in hand.  But they are out of order.  Watch Godless' quote first. 

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Guest MormonGator

I'm beginning to think that sanctimoniously lecturing people to stay home does more harm than good. I don't see that here, but I do see it on social media. 

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Guest LiterateParakeet
5 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

After this 23 minute video, I feel like I've gained a level in my quest to Understand What The Heck Is Happening.

Me too!  Thanks for posting this. 

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Some coronavirus Australian oddities that might interest or bemuse you:

Schools are still officially opened but State governments are begging parents to keep their kids at home. I think that attendance rates are down to about 10%.

A few days ago I received a text message, the two sentences of which say “Hi, your health is our number 1 priority. That’s why we made the tough call to close all our branches across the country.” This was from my health insurance provider.

Last Tuesday the government ordered that appointments with hair dressers and barbers cannot be for more than 30 minutes. Less than 48 hours later, they scrapped that limit but asked the cutters and clippers to continue with social distancing practices.  Yesterday, gatherings of more than two people, indoors and out, were banned, but the hairdressers and barbers can stay open.

 A fight is emerging between the federal government and several networks of private hospitals. The hospitals want to shut down and stand down their staff, the government wants them to stay open. It's not clear which way it will go yet. This is a result of the governments ban last week on all elective surgery, which is where the private hospitals get their money from.  

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