Coronavirus 2: the Flattening

New thread for the only thing that's happening after the previous one closed.

Here's the latest graphs - https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest - from Jordan Burn-Murdoch

 

only subscribing and to end ı must say it didn't make 6000 posts yet .

 

There are not enough testing kits in both the United States and the United Kingdom. I expect the death rates will surge much faster during the upcoming weeks if President Trump isn't careful enough.

I'll post the Corona-virus case numbers first, see if I'm correct by the date it arrives -

 

Testing doesn't really matter in USA, UK etc. Just count the bodies.

 

With the numbers from the JHU, it seems only that Austria (and Iran) are on an actual downwards trend.
I also don't know how France managed to get ~25k new cases in a single day, whereas the daily max before was ~8k o_O.
Turkey seems like a humanitarian disaster in the making. I think that will end badly.

 

Lol I misread I guess

 

FiveThirtyEight: Coronavirus Case Counts Are Meaningless*

"Flattening" feels like a red herring to me. Flattening implies that the total area under the curve doesn't change, and that doesn't seem to be the actual policy goal of any jurisdiction. What governments appear to actually be trying to do is simply shut down life for the next couple years until a miracle/vaccine is available, without being honest about it.

 

I guess it would have something to do with the nursing home deaths, deaths that had happened over the last few weeks got all lumped into 2 days (or is it 3 now, with France topping 1000 for third day).
So previous cases that weren't yet reported (included in totals).

 

Then use a different term. The idea is to spread out the peak so that hospital resources can be shared in serial rather than in parallel. One ventilator can be used on two patients if they come in two weeks apart.

 

Yeah. I would interpret the usual "flattening" graph they show to be "everyone is going to get it, but if they get it over a few months rather than a few weeks then fewer will die". A best case outcome is going to be something like China. I am not sure what to believe about their figures, but if neither of A) most chinese have already had it or B) they still have exponential growth in case numbers are true (and both those seem very unlikely) then they have managed to control the spread much better than "everyone will get it". If the west can get somewhere close to that level of containment we will have done amazingly well.

 

Well, if it's flattening, that's better not. In Singapore, the rate of new cases is increasing and the latest figure is about 60% more than the previous high. All the praise from the WHO and Western media seem to have come way too early, and I wonder whether that had induced complacency among government officials, ultimately resulting in this deterioration in the situation.

The WHO seems to be behind the curve. The nickname for it here now is Wuhan Health Organisation. It might as well be, given how it's been kowtowing to China and ignoring Taiwan's success story. And the virus should definitely have remained the Wuhan or Chinese Coronavirus.

 

France: on April 3 the French Government reported 17,827 additional cases and 532 additional deaths from nursing homes that had not been reported previously. On April 2, it had reported 884 additional deaths.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

 

good point !

 

I'm... not sure if you're agreeing with me or not?

What you're describing is not the current policy of governments, and I'm doubtful that's it's even possible. Basically every containment scenario has either R>1 (which leads to overwhelmed healthcare systems) or R<1 (which has to be maintained until a vaccine is available, or it becomes R>1).

 

This is not consistent with what is seen in Wuhan. They appear to have reduced R0 to well below 1, maintained for long enough to get the infection rate really low, and then gradually reduced restrictions while maintaining monitoring. I see not reason why a similar strategy could not have a qualitatively similar effect in the west.

 

This is how you get it done:

 

I’ve been reading up on the Spanish Flu and I’m hoping that history doesn’t repeat itself and this pandemic experience a bad second wave.

 

China's authoritarian and different culture.
Americans/Anglo Saxons in general. "Can't tell me what to do F you I'ma going to the mooooon"!.

 

My worst case scenario is 3 waves, no vaccine and Covid is seasonal.

Combined with great depression 2.0.

Best case one wave, vaccine in 6 months to a year and Covid burns itself out in 3 or 4 months and a depression. Tourism sector is goneburger along with international travel until the vaccine is distributed en masse.