So people in the West are getting sick, developing symptoms, going to see a doctor and the doctor hides the truth because they have been told to do so by 'somebody'.
For most people it will manifest just like the flu. There is no way to know if someone has the coronavirus without having proper testing done, and the tests are done specifically by the CDC. (Even then we are seeing false negatives all over the world).
Motivations for any concealment of information is further speculation, my point is that it is entirely possible. If there is a grand conspiracy going on, I would think that it's capacity to be maintained during an outbreak is limited and that leaks of information would become more and more frequent. But here is a challenge to the idea that a conspiracy to conceal information would be too difficult: perhaps leaks of information are already happening.
In dozens of countries and involving tens of thousands of doctors who all should be really against allowing a virus to spread freely?
That is a vast simplification I think. I don't think that is happening, and I don't think it could happen on a large scale. But a handful of gag orders and directives given down to top hospital administration? It seems possible.
To make it clear, I am not asserting that this is happening. My point isn't to put out any sort of specific theory, especially since I don't have any specific belief of such ideas.
If the whole thing is being covered up to prevent panic, to prevent mass infection, I am fine with the cover up. If the cover up is being used to prevent people from understanding how/why this happens, I am opposed to the cover up. I really have no idea how this shit works. If the entire world knows that downplaying it while doing everything they can to fix it is the best thing to do, go for it.
I cover up in Europe is crazy, Nobody is stupid enough to hide a virus, it would make more sick and Short term gain to avoid panic for even bigger panic later when virus is out of control. Also it presume that Europe would have one central deciding goverment body that can make decision cross border, Europe have many contries with own intrest and within each country parties and medie with own intrest. Do anybody really believe this??
On February 19 2020 05:03 Mohdoo wrote: If the whole thing is being covered up to prevent panic, to prevent mass infection, I am fine with the cover up. If the cover up is being used to prevent people from understanding how/why this happens, I am opposed to the cover up. I really have no idea how this shit works. If the entire world knows that downplaying it while doing everything they can to fix it is the best thing to do, go for it.
Thinking about what you would do in an hypothetical situation is useless. The question is not what the cover up is being used to, but is there a cover up. We know there is one in china, but don't you think the mass media would be particularly on the hunt (cuz it sells a lot when people are afraid) and it would be reported ? No offense, but your post is equivalent to "if there are alien out there, would they really probe my ass during the night while i'm in my bed ?" It's a funny question, but probably not the one you want to entertain out loud
Just want to remind everyone that the intended focus of this thread was not *only* to discuss the potential of a coverup. I know the suggestion of that is the most incendiary part of the OP, but this is also meant to be a thread for general discussion of the virus. Not that I have any problem with people debating the potential of a coverup.
On February 19 2020 05:20 Sapaio wrote: I cover up in Europe is crazy, Nobody is stupid enough to hide a virus, it would make more sick and Short term gain to avoid panic for even bigger panic later when virus is out of control. Also it presume that Europe would have one central deciding goverment body that can make decision cross border, Europe have many contries with own intrest and within each country parties and medie with own intrest. Do anybody really believe this??
You would think that but it's exactly what China did.
There is no cover up of anything. People who think there is a conspiracy have no idea how healthcare works.
Tbh even China seems to have opened up information. The increase in reported cases was because they dropped the lab test requirement and now it is enough with plausible infection and fitting symptoms. That is the opposite of keeping the lid on and it was done because doctors advised on it and there was a lack of test kits. If you wanted to not report cases keeping the old system and just not supplying the tests would have been the absolutely best way to do it because that way you do not have to involve a lot of medical personal at all.
However in the west we currently test everybody who have a runny nose and have looked at a map of China.
Also there is no benefit in trying to downplay this disease. It is bad because it spreads easily, not because it is severe. The only way it will get really serious is if you have such a vast spread that ICU space is overloaded because then you will lose some people. If people are a bit scared they will wash their hands properly and not go outside so much, exactly what you want to limit spread.
On February 19 2020 05:26 travis wrote: Just want to remind everyone that the intended focus of this thread was not *only* to discuss the potential of a coverup. I know the suggestion of that is the most incendiary part of the OP, but this is also meant to be a thread for general discussion of the virus. Not that I have any problem with people debating the potential of a coverup.
On February 19 2020 05:20 Sapaio wrote: I cover up in Europe is crazy, Nobody is stupid enough to hide a virus, it would make more sick and Short term gain to avoid panic for even bigger panic later when virus is out of control. Also it presume that Europe would have one central deciding goverment body that can make decision cross border, Europe have many contries with own intrest and within each country parties and medie with own intrest. Do anybody really believe this??
You would think that but it's exactly what China did.
You compare Europa to China. That doesn't make sense. As I said Europe has many contries with many political parties and free press. China is a one party communist/ dictatorship republic with control over press and communication
On February 19 2020 05:26 travis wrote: Just want to remind everyone that the intended focus of this thread was not *only* to discuss the potential of a coverup. I know the suggestion of that is the most incendiary part of the OP, but this is also meant to be a thread for general discussion of the virus. Not that I have any problem with people debating the potential of a coverup.
On February 19 2020 05:20 Sapaio wrote: I cover up in Europe is crazy, Nobody is stupid enough to hide a virus, it would make more sick and Short term gain to avoid panic for even bigger panic later when virus is out of control. Also it presume that Europe would have one central deciding goverment body that can make decision cross border, Europe have many contries with own intrest and within each country parties and medie with own intrest. Do anybody really believe this??
You would think that but it's exactly what China did.
You compare Europa to China. That doesn't make sense. As I said Europe has many contries with many political parties and free press. China is a one party communist/ dictatorship republic with control over press and communication
I wasn't comparing anything. You are correct, they are very different places. I didn't mean to seem like I was using China as an example to justify why it would be possible to have a coverup. I was using China as an example to show that the idea that:
Nobody is stupid enough to hide a virus, it would make more sick and Short term gain to avoid panic for even bigger panic later when virus is out of control.
did not hold true for china. It's my fault for not specifying that.
I feel like Europe is dealing with it quite well? I also feel like you're underestimating the health institutions: the virology labs, the epidemiologists, the practitioning doctors, etc. working on making this pass as fast as possible. Why would a health organization not have the best interest for its people? I could somehow understand governments - holding up your reputation or something , but health organizations, things that rely on having the info/knowledge/transparancy to function won't just blindly abide by "inconsistent and untransparant and lying" governments. You think the heaps of statisticians won't notice numbers being off if they're off? You think the only thing that's noticing "lying happening" is random people on reddit commenting about it?
I have been following the coronavirus outbreak closely, partly from a professional point of view (I am a mathematician and scientist, and while I don't usually work with epidemiology models, I do understand them) and partly from personal curiosity.
First, most people do not understand exponential growth, so lets focus on that. According to current research the doubling rate is about 1 week, meaning every week the total number of cases doubles. However, this number depends on a lot of factors, like population density, social customs (hand shaking), voluntary isolation, quarantine measures and the weather. But lets work with the current best estimate of 1 week. Suppose that on the 21st of January an infected person travelled from China to country X. That was exactly 4 weeks ago, so on average there would be 16 infected individuals now. That is not a lot. If things continue the same for another 4 weeks, that's 256. More, but still manageable. And in 8 weeks that would be about 4000.
These people then split into those with no or weak symptoms (like a cold), and those with serious symptoms (pneumonia). From the point of view of the health care system, you only ever see those with serious symptoms, lets say those are 10% of the cases (this 10% number is a reasonable guess, but it could be as high as 15% or as low 3%, depending on how many people are never diagnosed with this coronavirus). In any case we currently have flu season, so if today there are 1-2 additional cases of pneumonia (10% of 16), nobody will notice. In four weeks, the Middle of march, that's 26 additional cases. In developed countries I expect that at this point the epidemic gets noticed by the health care system. And in the middle of April there will be hundreds of serious cases, and the health care systems starts to get strained.
So not seeing any spread of the epidemic in country X is at this point in time completely normal, it doesn't mean anything. Could be that there are no cases, could be that the epidemic is starting to silently spread.
What about confirmed cases? With quarantine measures and contact tracing there is a good chance that these small outbreaks were successfully contained. It could also be the case that an infected contact slipped through the net and starts the epidemic, in which case the above scenario holds, but time shifted by a 2-4 weeks, so we will notice even later.
So how likely is it that China can contain the epidemic? Frankly, quite unlikely, but draconian quarantine measures are about the only thing which might work. However, I suspect that the economic impact of those is too much. Factories have to reopen, and there are too many cases all over china. It might work, but current data makes me pessimistic. If we look at
we see a downward slope for new cases in rest of china, but not in Wuhan and Hubei Province. Simply put, draconian methods for many weeks might do the trick, but once these are relaxed the infection will spread again.
Additionally, there are currently perhaps 8 new confirmed cases in Japan daily. That means that there is a high risk that the coronavirus is already spreading in Japan, with >100 infected. That would mean that we can expect 1000 confirmed cases in about 3 weeks. This is all ignoring the cruise ship, which is a special case.
So my conclusion. Most likely scenario: pandemic, with a peak in the summer or next winter. How bad is it going to be? Tricky to say. This thing seems to be highly infectious, more so than the regular flu. So probably some fraction of your country will eventually get infected, perhaps 1%, perhaps 50%, impossible to predict right now. How many people will die? The death rate is currently between 0.2% and 4%. Young healthy individuals seem to be fairly safe, while the elderly and those with co-morbidities have higher risk. This gives an average of 1% when the health care system is functioning, and 4% when high level care can no longer be provided. It could be that some treatment options like anti-virals work, studies are under way, we will hopefully know in a few weeks. I am more worried about the economic impact than the total death rate. Even a death rate of 2% is terrible, but the resulting depression and its consequences might kill just as many people.
If it stays contained, it will still take months to truly disappear. Right now we cannot say, except that the quarantine measures in China are slowing down the spread by a lot (but likely not enough).
What can you personally do? - Wash hands (soap and running water is ideal) - If you have cold-like symptoms avoid contact with elderly or other people at risk - keep healthy, don't stress (no point in checking the news every day) - get vaccinated (flu shot next fall, measles etc. now if you are not yet vaccinated) - stop smoking (there is weak evidence that smoking is a risk factor, and if you stop smoking your lungs will improve quite a bit within a few weeks) - have enough food and necessities for 1-2 weeks at home in case panic buying empties shelves. This is generally good advice in case of general emergencies
Edit: Added picture from wikipedia. Actually, picture is not working, don't know how to fix.
Sirius thanks for the post. I agree with everything you say, except I think the disease will likely spread a bit faster than that, which will likely have worse repercussions because it will be harder to contain and has higher potential to overload health care systems. The reason I feel it will spread faster is because of the long incubation period. Reports of incubation periods seem to be all over the place, but what we are seeing pretty clearly is that it can be longer than 3 weeks.
The long incubation period, with apparent reports of some cases of asymptomatic transmission, means that the base of undetected infected at any given time could be quite large.
First, I will say that it is surprising to me that there are not more (or any!) threads about this virus. Perhaps most people are not worried, and even more (especially outside of China) don't really know what is going on. If you do not know, I will educate you on some basic facts:
[...]
3) Reported numbers all around the world (in terms of confirmed cases) do not make much sense. It would be super fantastic if the numbers reported are at all accurate, but the numbers simply don't make sense. There are many many reasons right now to doubt official numbers. I think it may be in people's best interest to consider the possibility that authorities might view suppression of panic and maximization of economy as more important than transparency. It's really really naive to think that those with the most power and influence in the world are both competent enough and caring enough to look out for you through all of the world's dangers.
[...]
Let's open up a discussion. I am prepared to defend my position.
On February 19 2020 04:34 travis wrote:
That is a vast simplification I think. I don't think that is happening, and I don't think it could happen on a large scale. But a handful of gag orders and directives given down to top hospital administration? It seems possible.
To make it clear, I am not asserting that this is happening. My point isn't to put out any sort of specific theory, especially since I don't have any specific belief of such ideas.
Sorry, but what is your position?
There is a very open discussion in Germany. The returned German Wuhan inhabitants got isolated for 14 days. Interviews afterwards. Daily updates. 2 probable cases that got further isolated and are healed. No other confimed cases. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/corona-quarantaene-germersheim-101.html (German source).
I don't get the mentality. All individual governments lie in addition to all medics and national and international health authorities?
Before the open discussed jump in reported numbers and afterwards you see a slow down both in infections in death. No exponential increase. The death % is stable for 2 month now slightly above 2%.
The incubation period is typically 3-6 days, 14+ days is a rare exception. But a longer incubation period makes contact tracing and quarantine more tricky, but tends to slow down the spread. Essentially, sufficiently many virus particles in the host must be present for infection to be possible, which is only near the end of the incubation period. But anyway, the 1 week doubling time is based on current data, and I focused on that instead of R_0 because it is more robust to measurement problems and ignores problems like the incubation period.
It's an interesting case study for the CCP, if nothing else.
Their system of repression makes it much harder to contain at patient zero, because the doctor treating patient zero gets threatened with subversion if he raises the alarm. On the other hand, their regime is the only one in the world capable of implementing the kind of quarantine they have put in place. I am curious whether there will be any effective backlash.
So my conclusion. Most likely scenario: pandemic, with a peak in the summer or next winter. How bad is it going to be? Tricky to say. This thing seems to be highly infectious, more so than the regular flu. So probably some fraction of your country will eventually get infected, perhaps 1%, perhaps 50%, impossible to predict right now. How many people will die? The death rate is currently between 0.2% and 4%. Young healthy individuals seem to be fairly safe, while the elderly and those with co-morbidities have higher risk. This gives an average of 1% when the health care system is functioning, and 4% when high level care can no longer be provided. It could be that some treatment options like anti-virals work, studies are under way, we will hopefully know in a few weeks. I am more worried about the economic impact than the total death rate. Even a death rate of 2% is terrible, but the resulting depression and its consequences might kill just as many people.
If it stays contained, it will still take months to truly disappear. Right now we cannot say, except that the quarantine measures in China are slowing down the spread by a lot (but likely not enough).
As far as predictions go, this seems pretty reasonable. I think it will be manageable for developed countries if things continue as they have been. It really doesn't seem that dangerous outside of people at high risk, and quarantine and high standards of infection control seem to be handling it well. The big risk will be it breaking out in a developing country that can't do the things China is pulling.
First, I will say that it is surprising to me that there are not more (or any!) threads about this virus. Perhaps most people are not worried, and even more (especially outside of China) don't really know what is going on. If you do not know, I will educate you on some basic facts:
[...]
3) Reported numbers all around the world (in terms of confirmed cases) do not make much sense. It would be super fantastic if the numbers reported are at all accurate, but the numbers simply don't make sense. There are many many reasons right now to doubt official numbers. I think it may be in people's best interest to consider the possibility that authorities might view suppression of panic and maximization of economy as more important than transparency. It's really really naive to think that those with the most power and influence in the world are both competent enough and caring enough to look out for you through all of the world's dangers.
[...]
Let's open up a discussion. I am prepared to defend my position.
That is a vast simplification I think. I don't think that is happening, and I don't think it could happen on a large scale. But a handful of gag orders and directives given down to top hospital administration? It seems possible.
To make it clear, I am not asserting that this is happening. My point isn't to put out any sort of specific theory, especially since I don't have any specific belief of such ideas.
Sorry, but what is your position?
Well formed question. My position is that the current published figures of Coronavirus don't mesh well with my understanding of what they should be, and they don't mesh well with forecasted numbers that I have seen most models predict.
I am not saying that this means they are wrong(that authorities are hiding confirmed cases). I am saying that I think it's definitely a possibility, in my opinion.
It's like if a good player plays starcraft and is adapting to their opponents build. But they only got limited scouting info. Now they've narrowed it down to 2 or 3 builds, but if you ask them it's not like they can be confident about any of them. They end up either taking a risk or do their best to choose a strategy that works well for all of them.
There is a very open discussion in Germany. The returned German Wuhan inhabitants got isolated for 14 days. Interviews afterwards. Daily updates. 2 probable cases that got further isolated and are healed. No other confimed cases. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/corona-quarantaene-germersheim-101.html (German source).
I don't get the mentality. All individual governments lie in addition to all medics and national and international health authorities?
Before the open discussed jump in reported numbers and afterwards you see a slow down both in infections in death. No exponential increase. The death % is stable for 2 month now slightly above 2%.
Ignore it? No. But nobody does.
I don't need to convince anyone that the government is deceiving them. The reason for that is that I do not know if it is the case. But I will give people my best advice, and essentially that is that 1.) They should probably give some attention to this virus and 2.) If they have some level of capability, they should look out for themselves instead of purely putting faith in others to do it for them.
A piece of advice I would give people is that observing actions can be much more important than observing words. Watch how authorities act. Also watch how the media acts. Is the media having a substantially different reaction to the Coronavirus than they did to SARS/H1N1/MERS/etc?
On February 19 2020 06:42 Belisarius wrote: As far as predictions go, this seems pretty reasonable. I think it will be manageable for developed countries if things continue as they have been. It really doesn't seem that dangerous outside of people at high risk, and quarantine and high standards of infection control seem to be handling it well. The big risk will be it breaking out in a developing country that can't do the things China is pulling.
I agree somewhat, but even in developed countries hospitals will be overwhelmed by the high case load of pneumonia. There simply are not enough beds and machines to provide breathing support for all. There is also a difference between peak in summer or winter. Winter is flu season, and something like 0.2% (depends on strain) of all flu cases need hospitalisation as well. So that's another thing you can do: get vaccinated, I'll add that to my post.
On February 19 2020 06:40 Sirion wrote: The incubation period is typically 3-6 days, 14+ days is a rare exception. But a longer incubation period makes contact tracing and quarantine more tricky, but tends to slow down the spread. Essentially, sufficiently many virus particles in the host must be present for infection to be possible, which is only near the end of the incubation period. But anyway, the 1 week doubling time is based on current data, and I focused on that instead of R_0 because it is more robust to measurement problems and ignores problems like the incubation period.
Fair enough, that makes sense.
And so, you believe that a longer incubation slows down the spread since asymptomatic transmission is extremely unlikely the further back in time you go from the infected showing symptoms? So then basically most of the time they aren't spreading the disease?
If so, that makes sense if the underlying ideas hold true.
I think one other factor to weigh, though, might be it's ability to survive outside a host. Do you have much information on that?
Several doctors in the hospital just down the road from where I work have it, and it has spread to their families, including their school-aged son. Yesterday the school nurse printed information about sanitation and emergency phone numbers for all the staff and students.
The real difference is in tourism, where many areas of Japan including where I work have seen a drop of 30-50% in tourism. Chinese tourists are a huge part of regional economies, so it is a real crunch.
Also, when I went into Osaka a couple weeks ago, about 95% of people were wearing masks, as opposed to the normal 50%.
On February 19 2020 06:40 Sirion wrote: The incubation period is typically 3-6 days, 14+ days is a rare exception. But a longer incubation period makes contact tracing and quarantine more tricky, but tends to slow down the spread. Essentially, sufficiently many virus particles in the host must be present for infection to be possible, which is only near the end of the incubation period. But anyway, the 1 week doubling time is based on current data, and I focused on that instead of R_0 because it is more robust to measurement problems and ignores problems like the incubation period.
Fair enough, that makes sense.
And so, you believe that a longer incubation slows down the spread since asymptomatic transmission is extremely unlikely the further back in time you go from the infected showing symptoms? So then basically most of the time they aren't spreading the disease?
Yes, that is how it works. Depending on virus the infectious period starts a few days before or after symptoms appear.
On February 19 2020 06:51 travis wrote: I think one other factor to weigh, though, might be it's ability to survive outside a host. Do you have much information on that?
There is some information. The virus can survive outside the host in droplets for a few hours, perhaps even days, but number of viable viral particles is declining. To make an example: An infected person sneezes on a spoon. That spoon is highly infectious for a few hours, but it is unclear if still infectious the next day (there will be viable virus particles, but that does not guarantee an infection). If somebody simply coughs/sneezes in the air, droplets can stay air born for a bit, this depends a lot on humidity and temperature. So sneeze/cough in your elbow. Sunlight and fresh air tend to destroy viral particles, which is another reason why summer is better. It is very unclear how high the risk of lets say door handles is. Which leads to advice number 1: wash your hands.
Things like packages from china are very likely safe. Theoretically possible, but more like a 1 in a billion chance.
EPT![[image loading]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NCoV20200209_Hubei_China_ROW_cases.png#/media/File:NCoV20200209_Hubei_China_ROW_cases.png)
