Coronavirus Impact
- Thread starter thefilmaddict
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Run&Gun
Veteran
And now...
Tiger tests positive for coronavirus at Bronx Zoo, first known case in the world
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/tiger-coronavirus-covid19-positive-test-bronx-zoo/
Tiger tests positive for coronavirus at Bronx Zoo, first known case in the world
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/tiger-coronavirus-covid19-positive-test-bronx-zoo/
Cary Knoop
Veteran
That's the case fatality rate, which depends mostly on the number of tests taken.
The infection fatality rate is now widely established to be below 1%.
A month ago we had tons of people completely downplaying the virus problem, now we seem to have the opposite, folks who want more doom and gloom!
I think our county is doing a great job, from hospital staff to our military together with the discipline of the citizens in taking social distancing seriously!
And there are early indications we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!
cpreston
Veteran
The fatality rate will peak later than the infection rate. It generally takes a couple of weeks for a patient to die after they've been admitted to a hospital and added to the number of recorded infections.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I'm not sure anything is well established.
That is the case fatality rate in Germany, but they are testing a lot of people through contact tracing, including those with no or few symptoms. So I choose to look at Germany for one of the most accurate sets of data we can look to.
I don't want doom and gloom - I want the rosy predictions to prove true. But I want people to take this seriously. And I also acknowledge that your case fatality rate skyrockets when too many people get sick at once. Another reason Germany is doing well is that they have a higher proportion of ICU beds per capita. So much so that they are taking in patients from other European countries.
Barry_Green
Moderator
That was probably my post, and the reasoning was: once you have mass testing implemented, the death rate can do nothing but go up. If the rate is #died / #infected, and the #infected doesn't materially change, then every death that happens serves to push the death RATE higher. Not just the death count, but also the percentage rate. And the deaths will keep occurring since it seems like it takes a week or two for the virus to run its course; during that time the rate will go up every time someone passes away from the virus.
When you have few tests (like we've had), and then implement widespread testing, then the # of cases (# infected) will skyrocket, and the death RATE (not # of deaths) will plunge, because it's just simple math. Every case that's discovered increases the infection rate, but for every one of those that doesn't result in a death, it causes the overall death rate to drop. And that's what we've been seeing, IMO, which is leading to people saying "see, it's not so bad!" But that dropping rate can only happen until widespread testing accurately samples the true rate of infection. After that point, the rate of infection presumably won't rise anymore (due to herd immunity) and then every death that occurs after that moment will cause the death rate to rise up to its true level. Which, I fear, is when people will have another OH **** moment, as the rate rises.
At this point any talk about the death rate is utter horsecrap. We cannot know the death rate until we know the true infection rate. Once the infection rate is known, you can then go about determining a death rate, but not before. And even then, the death rate is highly dependent on the condition of the medical system being discussed; for any given sampled population, the availability of ICU beds and ventilators and emergency staff will have a potentially huge influence on the actual final death rate (and the total number of deaths). It is entirely possible that the death rate of the coronavirus in Italy will end up being 10x higher than the death rate of the coronavirus in Singapore, once all is said and done. The difference will not be in the ultimate underlying lethality of the virus (which is the same in both cases) but instead will be directly attributable to each country's success in flattening the curve.
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Cary Knoop
Veteran
True.
I think not as huge as some people think, there is currently no cure and hardly any treatment, Chloroquine seems to have some benefit. We can put people on a ventilator but 4 out of 5 will die.
That may change soon, and hopefully, it will, but currently, people do not die in the USA of COVID-19 because there are no available beds or ventilators.
But I think the bottom line is there is currently not much we can do about this disease.
Talking about ventilators, there are reports that using pressure, as is currently the practice, destroys the lungs, and voices rise to change the protocol:
https://newsdio.com/ventilation-protocols-questioned-physicians-rights/85283/
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ahalpert
Major Contributor
I agree with most of you wrote EXCEPT that we ARE currently affected by a shortage of beds BECAUSE people are being told not to come into the hospital if their condition isn't serious.
IN GERMANY, as the NYT article notes, they are checking in on confirmed cases regularly and bringing them to the hospital and even intubating them BEFORE they need it, and it improves their prognosis.
In the UK, a woman called the paramedics one day and they told her she was doing well enough that she didn't need to go in. The next day she was dead.
I've read that hydroxychloroquine helps, but mostly if you take it early on - which we can't do because we can't get tested unless you're already critically ill!
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
So what you’re saying is the logical thing to do would be to send home all the critically ill who cannot be helped and only treat people who aren’t yet that sick and are in the early stages of the virus.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Lol the logical thing would be to have enough hospital capacity (as they do in Germany) to treat both critically ill and moderately patients. And then treating moderately ill patients prevents some from becoming critically ill.
Germany is doing everything better than us. Earlier and more widespread testing, better contact tracing, more hospital beds and healthcare personnel...
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
And let's not forget Arri.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I'd say those 2 things are related (high standards of science/engineering and medicine/policy).
Arri is the only company that reports honest DR numbers - that's part of the reason I trust the German Covid numbers.
groveChuck
U-matic Member
And that'sa what's called a Catch-22... :huh:
Just like the VW emissions scandal?
Is this a new SAT analogy question?
Also, The Who cancelled their upcoming tour (and I had 10th row tickets):crybaby:
Glad to hear it! And thanks for the other info, too. What bike do you ride?
Random thought #7:
Has anyone else noticed there's only like 10 people commenting on this topic???
Like, maybe if we get off our devices and walk outside, it's... post-Covid zombie apocalypse? :shocked:
And we have to repopulate the Earth and it's just... us 10 guys? (dammit, I always knew we needed more women on the forum!).
OK, so I watched too much Twilight Zone as a kid...
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Catch-22 - it wouldn't have to be if we had more damn tests!
VW - touche. Although the way they cheated was pretty sophisticated - it's not like they just reported the wrong numbers. Sort of the difference between lying to your parents about your report card versus tricking your teacher into giving you a better grade. (Although I'm sorta saying, "Still - where did the lighter fluid come from?")
Twilight Zone - I love that thought. Are you thinking of the episode where he falls asleep reading in the bank vault? "But there was time now..." I'm pretty sure everyone else just got fed up with our obsessiveness...probably wise. But dammit I hate situations where I have no control.
Perhaps the Nyquist-Shannon Theory could be applied to the tested rate of infection (digital) vs. the "true rate" of infection (acoustic)?
The N-S Theory, as far as it applies to audio, states that the digital sampling rate (44.1kHz for example) must be at least 2x higher than the highest frequency of the original acoustic source audio in order to have an accurate representation. Otherwise Aliasing occurs which means that the recorded sound has zero fidelity to the original audio.
Aliasing in video is similar. An HD recording of a brick wall at a certain distance will produce distracting rainbow-like aberrations that a 4K recording would not.
Applying the N-S Theory to the infection rate would imply that we would have to test people 2x faster than the "true rate" of infection. What is the "true rate" of infection?
Perhaps there is a back-of-the-napkin application of this theory that could produce a reasonable goal for an accurate testing rate.
cpreston
Veteran
An alternate hypothesis is that intubating patients early is going to end up killing more patients due to damage to the lungs and complications, but in the short term it will keep more people alive for a couple of weeks as they are artificially kept alive.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Perhaps, but the article suggests otherwise:
"“The reason why we in Germany have so few deaths at the moment compared to the number of infected can be largely explained by the fact that we are doing an extremely large number of lab diagnoses,” said Dr. Christian Drosten, chief virologist at Charité, whose team developed the first test.
By now, Germany is conducting around 350,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other European country. Early and widespread testing has allowed the authorities to slow the spread of the pandemic by isolating known cases while they are infectious. It has also enabled lifesaving treatment to be administered in a more timely way.
“When I have an early diagnosis and can treat patients early — for example put them on a ventilator before they deteriorate — the chance of survival is much higher,” Professor Kräusslich said."
Run&Gun
Veteran
An article I read and posted a link to here earlier said at that time that whatever diagnosed numbers we were being given, they needed to be multiplied by 1,024 to give you the probable real numbers of infected people.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Scott Gottlieb MD (former FDA chief) says that looking at the number of covid hospitalizations per state versus the reported number of cases suggests that there are about 2.5x as many covid cases as reported: https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1247132699057405952?s=09
If you multiply the number of US cases by 2.5 and divide our death toll by that number, you arrive at an infection fatality rate of 1.2%, very close to the 1.4% that Germany reports.
If you multiply the number of US cases by 2.5 and divide our death toll by that number, you arrive at an infection fatality rate of 1.2%, very close to the 1.4% that Germany reports.
Cary Knoop
Veteran
It is already established that the infection death rate is much lower.
I don't know why you consistently are trying to make things look worse than they really are!
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