Red alert

[Mega]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...gency-11922074

Where the Hell is Ej ??????

Mike

[Mega]

Re: Red alert

[Mega]

Re: Red alert

[Mega]

Re: Red alert

WE need someone like HARVEY on the job (everyone loves him, Hollywood can't be wrong)

[SamAdams]

Re: Red alert

From iTuliper Erik Townsend:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...943509504.html

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Red alert

Thanks SamAdams, great thread.
Nice to see you back around here.

[Woodsman]

Re: Red alert

From iTuliper Erik Townsend...

Neither Townsend nor his source Martenson are epidemiologists. They are entitled to their opinion, of course, but have no meaningful authority on the matter.

It might or might not be meaningful, but I seem to recall that EJ took some issue with Townsend. Something about using EJ's work as his own. I remember a long thread where EJ made the point of "showing his work," implying Townsend merely glommed off EJ's effort. If it happens I'm mistaken on the details, please do correct me. It was some time ago, but I distinctly remember the usually cool and reserved EJ being quite irritated on the matter. Again, I might be confusing events as old men sometimes do. Regardless, Townsend is entitled to his opinion but that is all it is. As for Chris Martenson, doomers do what doomers do. I personally don't give him much credibility regarding finance and markets. He has ZERO credibility when it comes to epidemiology and public health.

This notion that somehow "politics" are driving the WHO, China CDC and our own agencies to downplay this matter evidences a lack of understanding of how epidemiology and public health works in the real world. In fact, China was playing politics back in the time of the SARS outbreak and quickly learned that it was precisely the wrong tack if it intended to save face, inasmuch as it would inevitably lead to worse outcomes. After some diplomatic "encouragement" by CDC and WHO on the absolute necessity of timely, accurate, and complete reporting, the Chinese turned over a new leaf and remain committed to open and timely reporting. The behavior of the Chinese CDC has been professional and appropriate to the challenge they face.

Could they be holding back? Well, sure. But there is no incentive for them to do so, as the best tool to beat this thing is accurate and timely reporting. Without that, no effort at prophylaxis will be worth a damn and the disease with spread. Controlling outbreaks depends on open and timely reporting and dissemination of cases. Without that, the trajectory is dire. It's public health 101, folks. It's the culture of the domain from day one of training, up to the highest international levels of practice.

Respectfully, it's hard for me not to believe Townsend and Martenson are talking their book with this alarmist clickbait. Better to look to places like Hopkins or WHO for authoritative analysis.

[Mega]

Re: Red alert

Of 107 cases outside China:-
No Death
one (yes 1!) serious

Rest Stable, recovering .......or RECOVERED!

Looking at less than 1% Death rate (I guess 0.1% same as FLU)

Nothing to see!

[Mega]

Re: Red alert

[Mega]

Re: Red alert

If you wish to worry about something

[Mega]

Re: Red alert

[santafe2]

Re: Red alert

Looking at less than 1% Death rate (I guess 0.1% same as FLU)

Nothing to see!

The current mortality rate is ~2% but, as stated earlier, there's a lag so may be higher. We don't know. The mortality rate for SARS was 9-10% but while that gives us a benchmark it's not a predictive benchmark. The rate of infection has slowed in China over the last few days. If it continues to slow, the virus is manageable with proper intervention.

[shiny!]

Re: Red alert

Townsend says: "The widely publicized estimates of 2-3% were determined by dividing CURRENT death toll by CURRENT case count. That is badly flawed logic, and yields misleading results!"

Certainly this calculation could be yielding misleading results, but is he willing to entertain the opposite conclusion? The problem with the case count is it's only counting hospitalized cases. How many more people got this virus, went to bed for a week with a nasty respiratory infection, and got over it without going to the hospital? Just as for a flu outbreak, only the sickest, most fragile people go to the hospital and a percentage of of them die. But the vast majority of flu patients stay home until they get better and never even see a doctor. At this point, people like them aren't being counted in the statistics. If they were counted, the death rate would be lower than reported.

Conversely, if this is a really lethal virus like the Spanish flu, many people might have died at home and haven't been discovered. If that's the case, the death rate will be higher than currently reported.

The argument can go both ways. Without knowing TOTAL number of cases, isn't it a bit premature to be jumping to conclusions?

[santafe2]

Re: Red alert

The argument can go both ways. Without knowing TOTAL number of cases, isn't it a bit premature to be jumping to conclusions?

Yes, and the total cases reported have jumped 16% since I posted this afternoon so still moving up quickly.

[Woodsman]

Re: Red alert

It's inevitable that some will try to blow this out of proportion for their own purposes. So it goes. On the plus side, once this crisis passes and the eschaton fails to immanentize, it will make it all that easier for us to know who are worthy of attention and who are merely attention seekers.

As of now, all we can do is look to the responsible agencies and track the numbers. By all measures, China is working diligently to contain the virus and is acting professionally and responsibly. Thus far, there's no indication China is hiding anything. It cannot hide the death rate since others have the virus outside of China. And of the cases outside of China, so far they display the same death rate of less than 3%. While the infection rate is certainly greater than that of SARS, which infected less than 9,000 cases worldwide, the death rate still remains below 3%. More importantly, in my opinion, is the recovery rate. It has remained steady at two to three weeks, much like the garden variety flu.

There's just no logical reason for the fear mongering. The numbers don't add up to seeing this as a particularly remarkable event, outside of the novel characteristics of the pathogen. Consider that last year in the US, the CDC estimated some 16.5 million people visited the doctor complaining of flu. Of those, about 34,000 died. The proportion of outpatient visits for flu-like illness increased slightly to 1.7%, which is below the national baseline of 2.2%. Contrast that to the population of China, which is 1.386 billion. Assuming that 16.5 million people in China fall ill, that is still only 0.0012% of the population, of which some 2% would die. And even if the death rate were 10% - instead of the 3% it is - the loss to the population would still be 0.00012%.

This is hardly the apocalyptic plague some seem hell bent on portraying it. Besides, we've already been told how we'll go. Not by plague but by flood. Remember, we have only 12 years left before the temperatures and accompanying rise in sea levels sweep us all away in a new (secular) Gilgamesh!