Virus supplies worldwide comparison

[Tom]

OK I just have to reply...

The WHO never said this was not contagious. I think people are listening to politicians and other so called experts and believing what those people say someone else says...

I looked it up. Technically you are right. The WHO didn't make this up as an original idea and tell people. They just publicly repeated to the world what the Chinese government told them, and gave it credibility.

FLASHBACK Jan. 14: WHO Tells Everyone Don’t Worry Because China Says Coronavirus Isn’t Contagious

On January 14, the World Health Organization (WHO) tried to cam fears of a pandemic by repeating China's claim that coronavirus was not contagious among humans.

dailycaller.com

 

[Markw84]

I'm glad you chimed in and your comments are always welcome. Maybe you can answer my question about these stats.

I get where 1.5% comes from. Number of known cases divided by number of deaths. But this number seems useless and pointless to me. We have no idea how many "cases" exist. Testing here and in some of the other countries has been laughable. What constitutes a "case"? Is this someone clearly and obviously showing the known symptoms? Only the people actually tested with a reliable test kit, and confirmed positive? What about the theoretical millions of people who have been exposed, yet did not become infected or show any symptoms? What about the people who only showed mild symptoms, but figured it was "just the flu" and never got tested? Shouldn't all these people be included in any "death rate" stats?

Given what we know about how long this thing survives in the environment and remains contagious for days, I don't see how everyone hasn't been exposed. We are all breathing the same air and jet setting around the world. Suppose I'm wrong and only half of America has been exposed. Shouldn't our death rate be re-calculated to reflect this reality? 350,000,000 Americans x .5 = 175,000,000. 1500/175,000,000 = .00000857 for 0.000857% death rate, if we can agree on how many have had exposure, and what constitutes a "case". If we are only testing the most severe people who are clearly infected and on their way out due to other health complications, people in severe respiratory distress, and only 1.5% of those people are dying, then 1.5% seems like a really really low number of deaths, relatively speaking. If we cannot know how many people have been exposed, and we are not testing all people who have been exposed, how can this death rate have any validity?

I understand the we have an infectious virus running its rampant course through the world. What I question is how bad is this thing, really, and are we over-reacting by literally shutting down society as we know it and stopping all income for a large percentage of the entire country? From where I am sitting, the damage from shutting everything down is going to be far worse than the damage from this virus. The ripples caused by our reaction to C19 are going to be far reaching and as difficult to quantify as the numbers of C19 cases and deaths.

Here's where we get into conjecture and not real data and numbers. The numbers come after the fact.

We do have a pretty good understanding of how new-viruses spread once we can categorize its transmission path and contagion level. It seems we do have a handle on that now. We know C19 started in wuhan, China. Probably mid November 2019, even though the first case of "unknown" origin was only reported on Dec 1. The goal is to contain the virus to that area. China did their best to lock down that province. The action strategy from that point is whenever a new case is discovered outside that area (since they now know what they were looking for) to isolate and very importantly track the route of possible infection - how that virus got to that new area. The quote you misquoted from WHO in January, in direct reference to this plan of action is that they were not yet positive that the virus was contagious while the infected person is asymptomatic. That would make it easier to track. We very soon learned it indeed was extremely contagious at the earliest stages.

We still can track the spread, just not be complete in isolating as it would indeed spread prior to symptoms. But the "big brotheresque" concern you voice is the catch 22. Knowing as much as possible about where an infected individual has been since any POSSIBLE contraction of the virus allows the best isolation of further spread. People of known contact need to be quarantined as well. We all saw the quarantine of cruise ships here on the west coast. Extensive interviewing and tracking is done at this stage to try to isolate. Although not certainly 100% effective, it does still give a pretty clear picture of how the spread progresses, especially reviewing the spread of cases after the fact. Then you KNOW where the virus has gone.

So getting to a more direct answer to your question, I think we can safely say it is extremely unlikely the virus was in the US before mid January. It was first found outside of China on Jan 13 in Thailand, and Jan 15 in Japan. Then Jan 21 in the US. All of these cases were people who had just returned from the Wuhan, China area. So I think we have a compelling timeline of the beginnings of the spread. It is social media rumor that only the severely ill and "on their way out anyway" are tested. The criteria initially and for the past 2 months is to test anyone showing symptoms AND have a positive link to a probable contamination source. Since the prevalent flu in the US late 2019 to now has almost identical symptoms, it was just not prudent to test on symptoms alone with limited testing available. Those severely ill with other complication also could get tested as it was important to know if it was C19 as it is so far resistant to any of the treatments / drugs we use to treat other flu or corona viruses. It is also important to realize the testing is not 100% accurate. It is quite good, but its not the false positives that are the biggest concern in trying to isolate. It is the false negatives. The last thing you want when trying to isolate spread is a person with a false negative out in the community. So better to vet testing to seriously ill and those with symptoms PLUS probable source of contact. With probable source of contact, you quarantine even with a negative. Is all this perfect? Absolutely not. But it is very possibly the best we can do with our current bandwidth.

Has 1/2 of American been exposed? NO way. That will very much probably be the case by end of year. And by then that will be enough to call in a herd immunity effect - that will be a huge difference. Not now. The first community spread cases were not found until the beginning of this month in the US. If you look at the trajectory curve of cases, we are still just at the very beginning of true community spread.

Also if you look at the curve / rate of spread of both cases and deaths, you see the trend at its very beginning and indeed the death rate calculation getting higher each day, Yet testing is becomes more widespread. The post I did of the graphs above to give the 1.5% rate has changed already. I see numbers as of today (2 days later) now at 135,500 cases and 2384 deaths in the US as of today. That's now a 1.76% death rate. I'm not saying the death rate will follow that trend forever. IT will get worse for a while until the number of cases that has had time for the illness run its course catches up with the number of newly infected. It will level off and then drop as more and more testing is available. Eventually we can then even apply numbers like I see often used in "regular" flu calculations, where with this type virus we would probably assume for every "known" illness case there is 2.6 asymptomatic cases.

Will this be as bad as the effects of our shelter in place? None of us have seen something like this in our lifetime. The closest thing we can look at is the "Spanish Flu" pandemic in 1918. That killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide. 675,000 people in the US died. With a population at that time of 104 million that is a 0.67% death rate on total population, not infected!

We must flatten the curve of how this is growing. The only practical way to do that is take away the "food" for the virus. That is new people who have never been exposed to this type virus.

 

[Tom]

And yet you don't name those sources.

I read news aggregator sites in english, spanish, and russian looking for stories that interest me and then look for primary material from there. Meaning if I read an article about a new law or regulation, or an academic paper, I'll usually read the actual text and not just stop at the headline or article.

And? So? Your are still reading stuffed penned or typed by a person, just as I'm typing this. Anyone can put any spin on it they want, even going so far as to lie, falsify, exaggerate, or omit inconvenient data.

You pick any subject you want and you can find 10 "sources" to support or dismiss any premise. People on each side will vehemently argue how the other side's statistics and methods are false and flawed. I could spend hours searching out whatever citations I want. You then, could spend hours searching out and citing sources to refute what my sources said. What's the point? Its nothing more than a time wasting pissing contest to test who spends more time and effort looking to discredit the other.

I'm having a conversation about MY opinions and what I see. If you want to have a conversation about the opinions and views your information sources are, well, that is a different conversation. My opinions and views are based on the information I see and read, and yours are based on yours. Where does that get us? Why don't you tell us what YOU think instead of always citing what other people think. I know... Its a novel concept. Doesn't seem to be in your wheelhouse based on past experience. You should give a try. Of course, someone just like you might come along with their citations and try to make you and your opinion look stupid. Its a risk to be sure.

You've never liked the way I do "business". You cut apart and try tear it down whenever the mood strikes you. Yet you contribute very little to the discussion, make few assertions yourself, and do little to help anyone with their tortoises here. You are a critic. You are not a producer of helpful info. You don't make the movies. You spend your time, effort, and considerable research skills telling everyone else what's wrong with the movies. You use your research skills to refute, but not to help.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

I prefer to not take things to heart.
My mother is in a nursing home in Albany Georgia. Wynfeild Park. She has very limited breathing and most days can only talk in whispers. If at all.
Albany Georgia is a small town in south western Georgia.
The primary hospital is Phoebe. Phoebe is absolutely overrun with COVID-19 cases and there is now 1 case in my mothers nursing home. The nursing home is next door to the hospital.
The situation is so critical that it made national news (on the Rachel Maddow show.)
So, know that while I'm trying to make jokes and keep things light, some of us ARE already in this. It's why I mentioned last week that I had a fever. I wasn't going to go any further.
I wasn't going to mention this. But I thought I'd point out that we are all reacting in our own way. And this is no where near over.
I chose to remain calm.
All of the facts aren't in yet. And some of the facts are not facts at all.
I want this post to reflect what the situation is in your part of the country. Or in your country.
There will be time to hurl insults afterwards.

 

[Tom]

Here's where we get into conjecture and not real data and numbers. The numbers come after the fact.

We do have a pretty good understanding of how new-viruses spread once we can categorize its transmission path and contagion level. It seems we do have a handle on that now. We know C19 started in wuhan, China. Probably mid November 2019, even though the first case of "unknown" origin was only reported on Dec 1. The goal is to contain the virus to that area. China did their best to lock down that province. The action strategy from that point is whenever a new case is discovered outside that area (since they now know what they were looking for) to isolate and very importantly track the route of possible infection - how that virus got to that new area. The quote you misquoted from WHO in January, in direct reference to this plan of action is that they were not yet positive that the virus was contagious while the infected person is asymptomatic. That would make it easier to track. We very soon learned it indeed was extremely contagious at the earliest stages.

We still can track the spread, just not be complete in isolating as it would indeed spread prior to symptoms. But the "big brotheresque" concern you voice is the catch 22. Knowing as much as possible about where an infected individual has been since any POSSIBLE contraction of the virus allows the best isolation of further spread. People of known contact need to be quarantined as well. We all saw the quarantine of cruise ships here on the west coast. Extensive interviewing and tracking is done at this stage to try to isolate. Although not certainly 100% effective, it does still give a pretty clear picture of how the spread progresses, especially reviewing the spread of cases after the fact. Then you KNOW where the virus has gone.

So getting to a more direct answer to your question, I think we can safely say it is extremely unlikely the virus was in the US before mid January. It was first found outside of China on Jan 13 in Thailand, and Jan 15 in Japan. Then Jan 21 in the US. All of these cases were people who had just returned from the Wuhan, China area. So I think we have a compelling timeline of the beginnings of the spread. It is social media rumor that only the severely ill and "on their way out anyway" are tested. The criteria initially and for the past 2 months is to test anyone showing symptoms AND have a positive link to a probable contamination source. Since the prevalent flu in the US late 2019 to now has almost identical symptoms, it was just not prudent to test on symptoms alone with limited testing available. Those severely ill with other complication also could get tested as it was important to know if it was C19 as it is so far resistant to any of the treatments / drugs we use to treat other flu or corona viruses. It is also important to realize the testing is not 100% accurate. It is quite good, but its not the false positives that are the biggest concern in trying to isolate. It is the false negatives. The last thing you want when trying to isolate spread is a person with a false negative out in the community. So better to vet testing to seriously ill and those with symptoms PLUS probable source of contact. With probable source of contact, you quarantine even with a negative. Is all this perfect? Absolutely not. But it is very possibly the best we can do with our current bandwidth.

Has 1/2 of American been exposed? NO way. That will very much probably be the case by end of year. And by then that will be enough to call in a herd immunity effect - that will be a huge difference. Not now. The first community spread cases were not found until the beginning of this month in the US. If you look at the trajectory curve of cases, we are still just at the very beginning of true community spread.

Also if you look at the curve / rate of spread of both cases and deaths, you see the trend at its very beginning and indeed the death rate calculation getting higher each day, Yet testing is becomes more widespread. The post I did of the graphs above to give the 1.5% rate has changed already. I see numbers as of today (2 days later) now at 135,500 cases and 2384 deaths in the US as of today. That's now a 1.76% death rate. I'm not saying the death rate will follow that trend forever. IT will get worse for a while until the number of cases that has had time for the illness run its course catches up with the number of newly infected. It will level off and then drop as more and more testing is available. Eventually we can then even apply numbers like I see often used in "regular" flu calculations, where with this type virus we would probably assume for every "known" illness case there is 2.6 asymptomatic cases.

Will this be as bad as the effects of our shelter in place? None of us have seen something like this in our lifetime. The closest thing we can look at is the "Spanish Flu" pandemic in 1918. That killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide. 675,000 people in the US died. With a population at that time of 104 million that is a 0.67% death rate on total population, not infected!

We must flatten the curve of how this is growing. The only practical way to do that is take away the "food" for the virus. That is new people who have never been exposed to this type virus.

I'm going to stew on the bulk of your post and re-read it a couple of times before responding, but I did not misquote The WHO. You can read their direct quote from mid January in the link I provided.

I'm going to the ranch to feed some tortoises! And maybe ride some dirt bikes too. Alone. Away from any other people.

 

[Tom]

I prefer to not take things to heart.
My mother is in a nursing home in Albany Georgia. Wynfeild Park. She has very limited breathing and most days can only talk in whispers. If at all.
Albany Georgia is a small town in south western Georgia.
The primary hospital is Phoebe. Phoebe is absolutely overrun with COVID-19 cases and there is now 1 case in my mothers nursing home. The nursing home is next door to the hospital.
The situation is so critical that it made national news (on the Rachel Maddow show.)
So, know that while I'm trying to make jokes and keep things light, some of us ARE already in this. It's why I mentioned last week that I had a fever. I wasn't going to go any further.
I wasn't going to mention this. But I thought I'd point out that we are all reacting in our own way. And this is no where near over.
I chose to remain calm.
All of the facts aren't in yet. And some of the facts are not facts at all.
I want this post to reflect what the situation is in your part of the country. Or in your country.
There will be time to hurl insults afterwards.

Point taken sir. I hear you. We've all got a dog in this fight. Well.. I think most of us do. A very close family friend was out here visiting and she flew home about three weeks ago. The CDC told her she picked up the virus on her flight home. She's a nurse. She shared her opinions with her colleagues and they refused to test her. They swabbed her for the flu twice and it was negative both times. They finally tested her for C19 and told her it would take 1-4 days for the result. Then the CDC called her and told her 9-14 days was a more realistic timeframe for test results, but that they were pretty sure she had it and pretty sure where she got it. She's already recovering and still doesn't have the results. We've been having daily FaceTime calls with her. She seems to be recovering just fine now.

I'd like to know if everyone on that flight got it, or not.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

The number of "known" cases is simply unknown. So the number of deaths per the number of infected is also unknown.
Places where there are known cases of the virus are just now able to even start testing.
So far, the information given to us by our leaders has been very optimistic this whole time and I believe little of it.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Point taken sir. I hear you. We've all got a dog in this fight. Well.. I think most of us do. A very close family friend was out here visiting and she flew home about three weeks ago. The CDC told her she picked up the virus on her flight home. She's a nurse. She shared her opinions with her colleagues and they refused to test her. They swabbed her for the flu twice and it was negative both times. They finally tested her for C19 and told her it would take 1-4 days for the result. Then the CDC called her and told her 9-14 days was a more realistic timeframe for test results, but that they were pretty sure she had it and pretty sure where she got it. She's already recovering and still doesn't have the results. We've been having daily FaceTime calls with her. She seems to be recovering just fine now.

I'd like to know if everyone on that flight got it, or not.

Yes.
But how the Hell would anyone ever know?

 

[mark1]

We know C19 started in wuhan, China. Probably mid November 2019, even though the first case of "unknown" origin was only reported on Dec 1. The goal is to contain the virus to that area. China did their best to lock down that province.

not sure china's best effort was actually their best effort ...……… on I believe January 18th they celebrated the lunar new year in Wuhan , 40,000 people gathered for a pot luck banquet ……., before they shut down the city on jan 23rd it is estimated 5 million people had come and went from the city …….

 

[ZEROPILOT]

not sure china's best effort was actually their best effort ...……… on I believe January 18th they celebrated the lunar new year in Wuhan , 40,000 people gathered for a pot luck banquet ……., before they shut down the city on jan 23rd it is estimated 5 million people had come and went from the city …….

I'm not sure that anyone would call CHINA the nation of responsible actions.
...And the fact that they can manipulate the reality of everything that they share with the world.

 

[Tom]

The formative years of my childhood were in the 80's and that is still the primary music that I listen to. I've had about a dozen friends send me this:

 

[Tom]

Yes.
But how the Hell would anyone ever know?

Know what? Where she got it, or if anyone else on the flight got it?

That has been the whole crux of my point on this thread. The CDC tracked her every movement and knew details of what she'd been doing the last few weeks that no one who wasn't there could know. She hadn't told anyone some of the details they knew. I'm sure they have the same intel on everyone on that flight. They knew when she had been at my house on the other side of the country and for how long. They weren't concerned about me and my family because they know where she picked it up, and it was after she left here.

Thanks to Pres. Bush for the Patriot Act!

 

[Maro2Bear]

not sure china's best effort was actually their best effort ...……… on I believe January 18th they celebrated the lunar new year in Wuhan , 40,000 people gathered for a pot luck banquet ……., before they shut down the city on jan 23rd it is estimated 5 million people had come and went from the city …….

Yikes!

 

[Tom]

not sure china's best effort was actually their best effort ...……… on I believe January 18th they celebrated the lunar new year in Wuhan , 40,000 people gathered for a pot luck banquet ……., before they shut down the city on jan 23rd it is estimated 5 million people had come and went from the city …….

I saw this too, and this is one of the many things that makes me wonder how many people all over the world have been exposed. Actually, a better question might be how many people world wide have NOT been exposed. Probably an easier number to count.

5 million people in and out of ground zero over 6 weeks after this bug is known to have been out and circulating around the population. I'm pretty certain that a large number of those people brought some hitchhikers home with them.

 

[Markw84]

not sure china's best effort was actually their best effort ...……… on I believe January 18th they celebrated the lunar new year in Wuhan , 40,000 people gathered for a pot luck banquet ……., before they shut down the city on jan 23rd it is estimated 5 million people had come and went from the city …….

We can also point to New Orleans on Feb 25th.

 

[Maro2Bear]

Know what? Where she got it, or if anyone else on the flight got it?

That has been the whole crux of my point on this thread. The CDC tracked her every movement and knew details of what she'd been doing the last few weeks that no one who wasn't there could know. She hadn't told anyone some of the details they knew. I'm sure they have the same intel on everyone on that flight. They knew when she had been at my house on the other side of the country and for how long. They weren't concerned about me and my family because they know where she picked it up, and it was after she left here.

Thanks to Pres. Bush for the Patriot Act!

It’s easy to track cell phone locations. No real trick. Metadata associated with your phone is easily tracked, processed and geolocated to the closest cell tower. No need for any interception of voice records.

 

[Fluffy]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1242834999683866624

Dr. Fauci debunks coronavirus misinformation on a video chat with Trevor Noah

Sorting fact from fiction.

mashable.com

 

[Blackdog1714]

Aluminum foil hat and popcorn time! I refuse to watch the “news”! The hyping is out off hand and it is the anonymous internet that is fueling it! There is 10 times of fake news to every real bit of news that comes out! I get a new COVID-19 update everyday from work and about the only changes are the numbers of the cases and deaths. Yes it is a nasty thing, but what about all the things we have already survived- SARS, MERSA, hell I know a homeless guy that has a medically resistant cellulitis that a doc published a paper on years ago! What about drunk drivers or drivers with there nose in their phone- they kill more every year and the cellphone thing will only get worse!

 

[Fluffy]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1243281598037913600

 

[mark1]

We can also point to New Orleans on Feb 25th.

I personally don't see the parallel , new orleans didn't infect the world with a virus no one ever seen before , they were the recipient .......... i believe the cdc tried to send people into china end of january beginning february , china didn't allow it ............... personally i doubt any information coming out of china ......