Corona virus data analysis. A fascinating read.

borolad259 said:
Sweden's lead epidemiologist is working on the basis that this will rip through the population at a rate of knots whatever you do. If you cocoon those most likely to die and let the rest of the population go ahead and get mildly sick, you might have just as good, if not better, outcome than trying to lock up the whole population, who are most likely already infectious.
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Isn't that exactly what Peter Hitchens has been banging on about on radio for weeks - and whilst I do not wish to cause any conspiracy alarm bells to go off I think Icke said the same thing? They are by no means alone though as there have been a few groups sprung up who want the lockdown removed and the vulnerable protected better rather than everyone affected as now.
 
Not disagreeing with the theory bl, but my point is, if Sweden was as densely populated as the UK, France, Spain, Italy or even Belgium, how would that impact on their deaths per million?
There is so much that we don't know about this virus and it's transmission vectors or how much worse the prognosis may be depending on the level of exposure that would come from being in a more densely populated environment.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that being exposed to one asymptomatic person gives you a certain amount of the virus (x). Now let's say that you are exposed to 10 asymptomatic people in a short space of time. How would that 10 times x exposure affect your ability to shake it off as a mild illness and not need intubation?
The science is no where near being able to answer such a hypothetical question, but from seeing the number of health care professionals who have died you can take a pretty reasonable guess that exposure to large quantities of the virus is not a good thing.
 
dooderooni said:
Not disagreeing with the theory bl, but my point is, if Sweden was as densely populated as the UK, France, Spain, Italy or even Belgium, how would that impact on their deaths per million?
There is so much that we don't know about this virus and it's transmission vectors or how much worse the prognosis may be depending on the level of exposure that would come from being in a more densely populated environment.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that being exposed to one asymptomatic person gives you a certain amount of the virus (x). Now let's say that you are exposed to 10 asymptomatic people in a short space of time. How would that 10 times x exposure affect your ability to shake it off as a mild illness and not need intubation?
The science is no where near being able to answer such a hypothetical question, but from seeing the number of health care professionals who have died you can take a pretty reasonable guess that exposure to large quantities of the virus is not a good thing.
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Indeed. Heavy viral load is never a good thing. Which is why the real scandal is not people sunbathing in Brockwell Park, it's the lack of adequate PPE, not just in hospitals but amongst health visitors are acare workers in "homes".
 
swordtrombonefish said:
Isn't that exactly what Peter Hitchens has been banging on about on radio for weeks - and whilst I do not wish to cause any conspiracy alarm bells to go off I think Icke said the same thing? They are by no means alone though as there have been a few groups sprung up who want the lockdown removed and the vulnerable protected better rather than everyone affected as now.
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The problem that Sweden has encountered is that it's nigh on impossible to cocoon the elderly without very high levels of testing and PPE.
 
Testing is the issue for most countries.
If there is a second wave before we get a vaccine then testing is the only way that you will be able to limit the casualties.
 
The other point is dood the lockdown is costing lives and will cost more lives than if we focused on targeted support of the elderly to the best of our ability.
Yet you put BBC news on and it's 'heres how online dating is dealing with the lockdown..' it's mind boggling.
 
Alvez_48 said:
The other point is dood the lockdown is costing lives and will cost more lives than if we focused on targeted support of the elderly to the best of our ability.
Yet you put BBC news on and it's 'heres how online dating is dealing with the lockdown..' it's mind boggling.
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As I said, you can't say that with any certainty Alvez. How could we target support of the vulnerable if we can't test those who would be caring for them, particularly if we had let the virus have free reign to infect large numbers of the public and increase the risk of infection to those carers outside of their work environment?
In a second wave, if we have have suitable testing and more understanding of the virus, then your theory may work better, but at this moment in time it is a high risk strategy, certainly not one that would guarantee fewer deaths.
Simple logic would dictate that a lockdown will cut down the chance of infection. Less infections mean less cases that could require intubation. Just because it is mild for a lot of people who have been confirmed as having it doesn't mean it would be mild for those that have not yet been infected. Just because people report that they've suffered Coronavirus-like symptoms doesn't mean a thing unless we can verify it through testing. It is essentially a lottery as to how the virus will affect people and we have no idea as to the particular set of circumstances that cause the most severe cases which result in death.
Call me alarmist, but when faced with a new virus with a largely unknown pathology then I think caution is more prudent than attempting to control it without the tools to do so.
 
borolad259 said:
I was looking at the mortality rate figures on the John Hopkins site and we are an outlier. We have far too many people not going to hospital on time. Also, over time, the percentage of fatalities will fall in relation to overall infections.
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But that's not true though. Our case mortality rate is 13.1%, Italy's is 13.0%, Spain's is 10.5% and France's is 15.2% (although that does include some care home deaths). Even Sweden's is 9.0%.

As Stanny has pointed out, the assumed mortality rate in this analysis is completely wrong. The case mortality rate in the world is currently 6.5%, meaning that as a minimum the author is wrong by a factor of 4.33. In countries such as the UK (and most of western Europe), the analysis is wrong by an even greater margin.

And don't even get me started on the concept of using a sample of the Icelandic population as a good proxy measure for the world population!
 
As with all modeling the devil is in the assumptions. So while I wouldn't argue with his conclusion that things really aren't as bad as the official data suggest, he makes assumptions that may mean he's making the data fit his model.

For example, social distancing. In Iceland, the reason the numbers don't look so bad for the elderly is that they are locked down. Over 65's represent 14% of the population overall. And if you remove social distancing from the model, then the death rates would escalate in most countries.

In Germany they tested an entire town for antibodies and found 15% of the population had been exposed to the virus. The mortality rate was 0.37%. This makes far more sense to me and aligns well even when incorporating social distancing into the equation.

The other factor to consider is that "herd immunity" can exist when as little as 60% of the population has been exposed to the virus. So up to 40% of people may never get the virus - even if it was left rampant, because the virus can only spread to those who are not already immune, and as the number of infected grows, by definition the people infected are mixing with others already infected, so the rate of progression slows to a crawl.
 
Billy Horner said:
The case mortality rate in the world is currently 6.5%
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With respect that misses the point of the article. What the author is saying is that if you examine the Icelandic numbers (and there are several other studies that align) the number infected is vastly greater than the case numbers described by almost all countries.

Only a handful of countries are doing full testing (e.g. Iceland and Germany), and from the German study it seems even they only test one third of the total number infected. The rest have such minor symptoms they don't realise they had the virus, and the virus spreads so quickly contact tracing is useless. (For example, I heard of a lady that caught the virus from plastic shopping bags - she'd been isolating for weeks, and the groceries were left on her step). You can catch the virus from dozens of "fomites" within the environment.

While the number of deaths may be accurate enough, the number of cases is way wide of the mark. All you can do is check the mortality per 1 million people to do comparisons. The case data is of no value except to manage hospital load. Hopefully Porton Down will publish its antibody testing research before too long and provide a more accurate view of the UK mortality rate.
 
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br14 said:
The other factor to consider is that "herd immunity" can exist when as little as 60% of the population has been exposed to the virus. So up to 40% of people may never get the virus - even if it was left rampant, because the virus can only spread to those who are not already immune, and as the number of infected grows, by definition the people infected are mixing with others already infected, so the rate of progression slows to a crawl.
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Except that, if the author is correct about how contagious the virus actually is, you would need a figure much greater than 60% to achieve herd immunity. Measles, for example, is highly contagious and requires 95% of the population to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity.


br14 said:
With respect that misses the point of the article. What the author is saying is that if you examine the Icelandic numbers (and there are several other studies that align) the number infected is vastly greater than the case numbers described by almost all countries.
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I understand what he’s saying about the infection rate within the general population, but he’s using the 0.06% mortality rate as a means of validating the data for his logistic curve. This shape of this curve is then used to conclude that the pandemic will last 75 days and, as a result, all lockdown measures were pointless. If his mortality rate is wrong, so is the validation of his curve and, by extension, his conclusions.
 
I'm not sure where he gets the figure of 96% as the amount of the population who will eventually get the disease. Most virologists and epidemiologists that I've seen quoted about this, estimate that if left unchecked, the virus would eventually infect at most, between 60 - 80% of people.

Here are just a few examples:

Coronavirus could infect 60% of world population

Up to 80% of UK population could get coronavirus

Spain warns 80% in Madrid will get infected

60% to 70% of the German population will be infected by the coronavirus, Merkel says
 
Billy Horner said:
Except that, if the author is correct about how contagious the virus actually is, you would need a figure much greater than 60% to achieve herd immunity. Measles, for example, is highly contagious and requires 95% of the population to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity.




I understand what he’s saying about the infection rate within the general population, but he’s using the 0.06% mortality rate as a means of validating the data for his logistic curve. This shape of this curve is then used to conclude that the pandemic will last 75 days and, as a result, all lockdown measures were pointless. If his mortality rate is wrong, so is the validation of his curve and, by extension, his conclusions.
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He doesn't say that lockdown is pointless, just that it has been imposed too late in some cases in order for it to have a significant effect. The revised mortality rate is 0.045%. But, that is of the whole population, so still means huge numbers of deaths. I'd like to know where he gets the overall death rate of 1.5%, as his model depends upon its accuracy. Looking at the John Hopkins numbers, some of the european numbers are high, but there are others, Japan for instance, which are notably lower. I might email him to ask.

I think the 75 day curve is probably too short, especially if the lockdown has slowed transmission to some degree. Also, he talks of 3 to 4 weeks of undetected spread, then 3 weeks of high mortality lagging behind, then the exponential drop off over 3 weeks ... which is closer to 90 days. I do still think it's interesting though and, even if his numbers aren't absolutely correct ... I think the conclusion that the infection happened early and rapidly is probably on the money. This being an airborne virus.
 
borolad259 said:
He doesn't say that lockdown is pointless, just that it has been imposed too late in some cases in order for it to have a significant effect. The revised mortality rate is 0.045%. But, that is of the whole population, so still means huge numbers of deaths. I'd like to know where he gets the overall death rate of 1.5%, as his model depends upon its accuracy. Looking at the John Hopkins numbers, some of the european numbers are high, but there are others, Japan for instance, which are notably lower. I might email him to ask.

I think the 75 day curve is probably too short, especially if the lockdown has slowed transmission to some degree. Also, he talks of 3 to 4 weeks of undetected spread, then 3 weeks of high mortality lagging behind, then the exponential drop off over 3 weeks ... which is closer to 90 days. I do still think it's interesting though and, even if his numbers aren't absolutely correct ... I think the conclusion that the infection happened early and rapidly is probably on the money. This being an airborne virus.
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Is it airborne? From the beginning they said it wasn't. It can transmit in droplets that will quickly fall to the ground, hence the 2m rule.
 
Whatever the theory, of Ferguson's interview today is anything to go by, we're going to try what countries like South Korea and Taiwan did from the beginning and Germany are doing now. The real key is going to be testing and having an army of people to follow up contact tracing. Having just missed target one on testing and the 100000 target looking very difficult and Germany's view that even this level of testing is to low, this could be a long lockdown.
Prof Neil Ferguson, whose modelling has guided Downing Street’s crisis strategy, this morning told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that when the UK lockdown does eventually end, social distancing measures are likely to remain in place “indefinitely” until a coronavirus vaccine can be rolled out.

Ferguson warned that it would not be possible to relax the lockdown until a significant infrastructure was in place.

He said the UK’s ability to come out of lockdown would “depend on how quickly case numbers go down”. But it would also require an emphasis on scaling up testing and contact tracing, because if measures were relaxed without a strong plan in place there was too much risk of a resurgence in cases.

Ferguson said there were some first signs that social distancing measure in the UK may be working, with trends such as the number of calls to 999, 111 and admissions to hospital beginning to flatten.

But he said more needed to be done to ensure the UK could leave lockdown safety. He called for a “command and control centre”, and suggested that any tracing provided by mobile phone apps would have to be supplemented by a “small army” of people-testing and tracing.

“I would like to see action accelerated, decisions need to be accelerated and real progress made,” he said.
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bear66 said:
Whatever the theory, of Ferguson's interview today is anything to go by, we're going to try what countries like South Korea and Taiwan did from the beginning and Germany are doing now. The real key is going to be testing and having an army of people to follow up contact tracing. Having just missed target one on testing and the 100000 target looking very difficult and Germany's view that even this level of testing is to low, this could be a long lockdown.
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Large scale community antibody testing would be most useful, in terms of getting life back to something approaching normal.
 
And it all depends on the tests being used... None of the tests currently available are particularly accurate.
We still now really don't know anything and in fairness dood I do take your point.
From my point of view I honestly believe the lockdown is doing more damage than good.
There will undoubtedly be an increase in death and suffering due to suicide, domestic violence, poverty and loneliness. That is before we even think about the depression.
I am fortunate I have a large garden and my girlfriend here but I'm thinking of other people, I would love to see mum again, play golf, have beers with friends and hit the gym (though I have a good home workout setup) so when I talk about ending this version of the lockdown whilst I'm thinking of myself I'm mainly thinking of others.
 
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