COVID-19

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Ego
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COVID-19

Post by Ego »

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20018549v1
We fitted a transmission model to reported case information up to 21 January to estimate key epidemiological measures, and to predict the possible course of the epidemic, as the potential impact of travel restrictions into and from Wuhan. We estimate the basic reproduction number of the infection (R_0) to be 3.8 (95% confidence interval, 3.6-4.0), indicating that 72-75% of transmissions must be prevented by control measures for infections to stop increasing
.

The typical R0 attack rate for the seasonal flu in most years is around an R0=1.28. The 2009 flu pandemic was R0=1.48. The 1918 Spanish Flu was 1.80.
Last edited by Ego on Wed Feb 12, 2020 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

jacob
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by jacob »

Just nitpicking but attack rate and reproduction rate are not quite the same. The attack rate (which is not a rate but more a likelihood of getting sick if you're not immune) refers to the fraction of people who get infected out of those who can get infected. For example, measles (a very effective(*) and efficient(**) disease) has an attack rate of 90%+. This means if you're not immune and come into contact with a measles carrier, you'll most likely be infected.

(*) How much "force" the disease has or how easy it is to get infected once you get in contact. Ebola has a lot of force for example. (Hence the extreme bio measures taken. The flu does not have a lot of force.
(**) How much "reach" the disease has, that is how long it lingers in the environment or how far away it spreads or whether it's airborne. Ebola has almost no reach. As long as the patient stays 10-15ft away out of sneezing distance, you're good. Measles are very efficient (as long as you're breathing the same air---IIRC the longest confirmed distance for a measles infection was ~200ft :shock: ). The flu is semi-efficient (touch a door handle followed by your nose).

The reproduction rate is about how many get infected out of ALL the people (including those who are immune, isolated, and susceptible). The reproduction rate will vary as these numbers change (e.g. people get well and become immune, people get vaccinated or isolated, or they die). If the reproduction rate remains >1 the epidemic has positive feedback and the number of cases increase. If the reproduction rate is <1, the feedback is negative and disease dies out eventually.

Another way to think of it is that vaccination reduces the reproduction rate (which has to get under 1 for the vaccination program to be effective) but it does not reduce the attack rate because the attack rate is inherent to the disease.

R0 refers to how fast it's spreading initially, that is, how inherently good the disease is at its job in a "fresh" population of humans. It's a basic parameter in the SIR-model. See http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Kermack-Mc ... Model.html

So the Wuhan virus is literally ~3 times better than other big flus. This means it will be that much harder to contain. I did read elsewhere that it's not as lethal as SARS.

PS: I find this stuff fascinating in the way that a recovering astrophysicist dealing in similar dynamic modelling might. I enjoyed creating the cancer/enzyme simulations I did some years ago. I'd even consider working in theoretical epidemiology if I knew of a way in. Unfortunately, I don't think it's like coding where they'll just hire people off the street based on skill.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by daylen »

jacob wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 9:12 am
PS: I find this stuff fascinating in the way that a recovering astrophysicist dealing in similar dynamic modelling might. I enjoyed creating the cancer/enzyme simulations I did some years ago. I'd even consider working in theoretical epidemiology if I knew of a way in. Unfortunately, I don't think it's like coding where they'll just hire people off the street based on skill.
Make your own way. Jupyter notebooks and Github make open-source collaboration easy now. You could help kick start and authenticate an amateur science movement. Not like you need the money anyway. :P

May even lead to a security clearance and consultation opportunities.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Seppia »

R0 has been revised down to 2.5

https://twitter.com/jonread15/status/12 ... 30721?s=21

Of course I’m traveling to HK tomorrow

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by jacob »

From what I could find:

Spanish/1918 flu fatality rate: 20%
SARS fatality rate: 11%
MERS fatality rate: 35%
Normal flu fatality rate: 0.13%
Wuhan: 3% (dynamic, so far, not including infected-but-not-dead-yet numbers which would increase this number)

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by jennypenny »

According to DD's friends (in a neighboring province to Wuhan), it's been bad for a while. Classes and New Years activities were (quietly) cancelled weeks ago. The State Dept started pulling DD's cohort out of (all of) China last week. On the flip side, transmission patterns are reportedly similar to SARS so those transmission numbers should come down. It's also hard to extrapolate what transmission rates will be in Europe or the US because of cultural differences (use of soap/handwashing not common in China). Also, Chinese are more likely to be smokers which would aggravate respiratory problems, as would poor air quality, so I would expect death rates to be higher there. Still ...

@seppia -- Schools in HK are closed and there is talk of shutting down the airport. Some travel in/out of HK has already been halted. You might not have to go.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by rube »

I was planning to go to China for work end of February, I'll keep a close eye on the developments.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Based on what I've read, it seems to be killing older people and those with weaker immune systems, unlike the Spanish Flu which took out more people in prime of life with strong immune systems.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by jennypenny »

The first wave of the 1918 Spanish flu was typical in that it mostly killed the elderly and infirm. The second wave several months later was much more deadly to younger people. There are lots of theories regarding what was different about the second wave, but nothing conclusive. Probably a confluence of factors. Influenza is much more virulent than coronavirus however, so I'd be surprised if this morphed into something as aggressive as the Spanish flu.

edit: I'm not trying to be argumentative. This might end up being China's spanish flu. I'm just not as worried about it spreading here (although we keep getting alerts from the State Dept and our pulmonologist :( ).

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Seppia
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Seppia »

jennypenny wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 12:26 pm
@seppia -- Schools in HK are closed and there is talk of shutting down the airport. Some travel in/out of HK has already been halted. You might not have to go.
Thanks JP
My team in HK confirms they are shutting down schools for an extra two weeks. Apparently everyone if wearing masks and today Macao was dead - nobody around.
Looks like Hong Kongers are playing it safe.

No news from Cathay on my flight (which is actually Monday, not tomorrow, my bad).

So far I would say there’s a much greater chance of being ran over by a cab than of suffering from this, but I’m keeping an eye on how it develops.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by jennypenny »

If I were you, I wouldn't be that concerned about travel to HK or getting the virus (assuming you don't have any health issues). I'd be more concerned that Italy wouldn't let you back into the country afterward, either because you showed symptoms or because Italy decides to refuse all travelers from that region as a precaution at some point.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by thrifty++ »

If it turned into a massive global pandemic that wouldn't be such a bad thing in some ways.

It would be sad to loose people close to you. However the human population is way too large. We are destroying the planet and all the other species. People keep reproducing too much. And people are being selfish and greedy and not changing their ways despite knowledge we are destroying everything. If it affects elderly a lot more its harsh but true that would be a good thing as they have the least to contribute to society, have lived a whole life, have been most responsible for damaging the planet and usually have the worst habits (baby boomers especially) and also are costing us a fortune.

If there were to be a significant pandemic that would help to allow the environment and other species to recover somewhat and allow others to live more easily. Especially if younger people were less affected, who can help rebuild things.

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Ego
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Ego »

Two interesting factoids from the Lancet article from last night: PDF https://t.co/8bGXc8n7oF?amp=1

-A majority of the deaths were people with no underlying health conditions.
-Person to person transmission is occurring before symptoms appear.

I bought a case of N95 surgical masks today at the swap meet for profiteering. :?

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by daylen »

Ego wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 6:43 pm
Person to person transmission is occurring before symptoms appear.
This is the primary principle to follow when playing 'Plague Inc'. Uh oh.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by daylen »

thrifty++ wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 4:21 pm
If there were to be a significant pandemic that would help to allow the environment and other species to recover somewhat and allow others to live more easily. Especially if younger people were less affected, who can help rebuild things.
This is the thesis of most antagonists in pop culture. :twisted:

Addition: Also represents the mother archetype in Jungian analytical psychology.
Last edited by daylen on Sat Jan 25, 2020 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Seppia
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Seppia »

jennypenny wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 4:03 pm
I'd be more concerned that Italy wouldn't let you back into the country afterward
Agreed, but that would not be a big deal luckily

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Dream of Freedom »

Dr. Ken Berry has a new video about the virus. I learned a lot. Apparently people show no symptoms for 2-5 days but can still spread it and it will live on surfaces for 5 days. Those 2 things make it easy to spread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA5AbqlCHuc&t=0s

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by C40 »

Word on the street (and internet) is this started from people eating bats.

I haven't and don't want to look into this more, but has anyone else heard this? Or heard that it's wrong?



------ [below is probably not relevant to this thread] ------

I looked up a list of animals sold - just in that wet market where the virus started, and uhhh, yeah it's a lot of animals that would seem odd to sell in a market in most countries. Ask someone who has heard about the odd things Chinese people eat and you'll get a list of extreme oddities. Tiger penis, shark fin, human penis, pangolins, civets, wolves, live baby mice, rhino horn, tonic of human fetus, bobcats, monkeys, foxes, black bear bile, and on and on... The people eating these strange animal parts (including bats) are NOT doing so to avoid going hungry. They are perceived delicacies and snake oil treatments and are extremely expensive. Most of these are eaten because of the absurd belief that one can absorb powers or specific traits by eating the flesh or parts of a creature (or human). For example - eating the tiger penis to get strong boners, eating owls to improve eyesight, etc.

It seems there are four main categories of motivation to eat these things:
- men wanting bigger/harder erections
- people wanting to improve some normal body function/appearance
- people trying to treat a specific ailment
- conspicuous luxury consumption

As an example, a list of supposed benefits from specific tiger parts:
Penis - aphrodisiac, bigger penis
Bones - treat arthritis, inflammation
Blood - build willpower

Surely there are some actual Chinese medicine practices that work... and, especially true for the ones that work - it is incredible stupid to poach them to extinction. But I wonder whether effective progress is being made to dispel the large list of made-up snake oil claims related to consumption of animal oddities.
Last edited by C40 on Sun Jan 26, 2020 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Ego
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Ego »

China was able to shut down SARS by quarantining those who showed symptoms of infection. Wuhan can infect others before symptoms appear in the carrier, making quarantining more difficult. During the SARS outbreak we crossed Shenzhen to Hong Kong and had to pass through a health check with IR cameras measuring temperature. Eventually that worked with SARS. I am not sure it will work with Wuhan.

China cancelled all outbound Chinese tourists today. They are not messing around.

Both SARS and MERS mutated to decrease the speed they killed, allowing hosts to live longer and infect more people. It will be interesting to see if this happens with Wuhan as well.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by ertyu »

C40 wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 9:06 pm

As an example, a list of supposed benefits from specific tiger parts:
Penis - aphrodisiac, bigger penis
Bones - treat arthritis, inflammation
Blood - build willpower
Idk about the bigger penis, but the calcium in the bones and the iron from the blood (anemia causes fatigue and general blah) make sense.

Other coronavirus news: Baidu maps has launched a feature that highlights a city's map according to the density of people, the idea being that staying away from densely peopled areas will reduce exposure to the virus. Another feature allows you to check the map for location and density of confirmed cases. Yet another feature shows location of clinics. "There was at least one confirmed case on the following trains/flights/busses, if you were on one of them please call NUMBER and report for examination" notices. As per cnn, US evacuating embassy officials + families and registered citizens on planes with medical personnel on board. #WuhanPneumonia seems to be the twitter tag for scary rumors, should you be interested in any.

https://themacrotourist.com/i-hope-i-am-wrong/ for a sample of screenshots.

Zombie apocalypse confirmed.

Also cnn says origin of disease was snakes. I personally would not be surprised if it was farm animals (some sort of offshoot of the pork thing earlier this year) but it's being spun as a wild animal thing to prevent panic.

Edit to add: according to someone I know who is in China but not in the quarantined area, there are temperature checks on toll booths when you enter highways and also in hotel lobbies, as you enter. Recovered/dead cases are about 50/50.

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