Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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You are saying that since basically nothing has happened with covid-19 in Australia in two months, that means it is time for them to take action.

What it means to me is that in Australia covid-19 has spread extremely slowly and really is not remotely dangerous there.

With 1,843 out of 25 million people contracting it in 54 days, the odds of Pepe catching it are higher than him getting hit by a bus while sitting in his living room.

And the odds of him dying from it are higher than him getting killed by a meteorite while in his basement.

I will chack out the stats for the US to see if it is progessing as exponentially as you say. Based on what has taken place since Day 1. Rather than predictive exponential math that will always yield huge numbers.

The Republicans have outflanked the Democrats on the left now. Pelosi is refusing to allow any income bill to pass unless it is means-tested, which of course would cause a huge delay in the disbursement of the money, because you must first prove you qualify for the bill and then must wait for the bureaucracy to agree. It's ridiculous what Pelosi is doing here:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/ ... s-pandemic

Other problems of means-testing is that those programs tend to lack broad-based support, since many Americans don't get any benefit out of them but still have to pay for them. In other developed countries, programs are much more likely to be [b]universal[/i] rather than means-tested, which means both rich and poor get something out of it, both of them have it there for them when they need it. The problem of means-testing is that it becomes a kind of "forced charity" that many people resent have to deal with, and if someone who is now well-off has a change in their situation to make them poor they don't get the benefit right away because they first have to prove that they should get it. And for whatever reasons, some people who DO qualify also fail to prove it, and they're left out in the cold.

I think Democrats' fixation on means-testing might be one reason why we don't have as good a social safety net as other developed countries.

The mall my work in is closed. The glass store inside my work is closed, fudge shop is closed. But my work will never close. I’ll probably get it and die, money is more important then lives it seems. Our competitors all closed, most the companies who product we sell have closed. I’m scared and I can’t take precautions as I’d be mocked and made fun of.

And even if I get it it I’ll have to keep working as I can’t get tested. I don’t habe enough sick time to stay home.

United States.

Day 58.
Total cases: 9,464
Mild cases: 99%
Serious/critical cases: 1%
Total deaths: 155.

In 58 days 155 people out of 330 million have died from covid-19.

In the United States about 7,700 people die each day.

That means by April 1st 92,400 people will have died in the US sans covid-19.

Last edited by EzraS on 19 Mar 2020, 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

Then, I can understand why Pepe is annoyed - panic in Australia seems far more dangerous than the disease itself there.

Public transportation still operating in NYC.

It’s needed for essential workers to get to their jobs.

I remember when I started reading Japanese, there was a story where a greedy local lord, eager to prove his superiority, challenged a wise man to come and play him in a game of shogi, with the promise that if the wise man won the lord would grant him his wish. The wise man won, to the lord's shock, and holding true to his promise the lord asked him what he wanted. The wise man said that on the first day he wanted just a single grain of rice, then on the next day he would get twice that much bringing it to 2, and then twice that much on the day after, and so on. He wanted this process to continue for 30 days in total. The lord was surprised by this request, and thought the wise man was a fool. He agreed to the wise man's request.

And so on the first day, the wise man got his single grain of rice, and the local lord thought this was easy peasy. Then the next day, he gave the wise man 2 grains of rice. On day 9, he got 256 grains of rice. On day 15, he got 16,384 grains of rice, and it was around this time that the lord's men started noticing that the bags they were giving to the wise man were getting a little heavy. On day 25, they had to give the wise man 16,777,216 grains of rice, and they were having to use several chariots to transport it. Then the day after that, it was 33,554,432 grains of rice. On day 27, it was 67,108,864 grains. On day 28, it was 134,217,728 grains of rice. On day 29, it was 268,435,456 grains of rice. And on the final day, it was 536,870,912 grains of rice. "I'm ruined!" the local lord cried out, and he was a lot poorer for the whole arrangement.

I think this story has a lesson for us in our current situation. Can you see the lesson, Ezra?

So far that definitely seems to be the case.

What a couple of people here are doing is taking the progression of the virus at its peak and then multiplying it by a factor of 2 each following day (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 etc.)

But that is not how covid-19 been operatating. Like H1N1 and H5N5 it starts decreasing after reaching its peak.

Also like H1N1 and H5N5 it has mutated into a less dangerous strain.

But I like the factor of 2 exponential spread prediction, because when by April 1st 646776446 people have not died from it, but rather a considerably lower number, maybe panic mode will start winding down.

I am sure no one hopes that I am wrong.

Last edited by EzraS on 19 Mar 2020, 5:27 am, edited 2 times in total.

Not seen a single health, government or who official say it’s mutated to less dangerous.

Something about Australia...

Exponential growth (on semi-logarithmic plot visible as linear growth) did not start with Patient 0. It started about the beginning of March.

The virus's doubling time is about 6 days, last I checked. So it would not double every day. And yes, once it reaches a certain point, it will begin to slow down.

However, due to problems with getting testing online, and problems with implementing widespread testing even now, the true number of people in this country infected with COVID-19 is likely far higher than current numbers. And given that it takes 3-6 weeks for the virus to actually kill someone, you should not rest easy expecting the virus to be some extremely minor affair that quickly goes away. We might get lucky now as the weather warms, but it will return in full force next winter and the vaccine is unlikely to be available then.

What people are concerned about is flattening the curve to prevent the health care system from getting overwhelmed. You can see what they mean here:

No because it has been going on over 100 days the number of cases and is not remotely close to the factor given in that parable. Therefore it does not apply.

I prefer to stick with what has actually transpaired rather than litterally going by fairytales.

This! Thank you.

I was thinking that perhaps Australia's much lower population density , ( 25 million over a surface area of 8.6km* which equals 3.3/km* and is the 236th densest in the world ), compared to Europe for example, ( which has a population of 741 million over just 10 million km*, a density of 34/km* , 10 times that of Australia ), could be a factor in slowing spread, as might be the relatively small cities compared to many European ones, but it seems, according to that graph that once spread did take off it began to spread pretty much as fast as elsewhere.

Last edited by ouinon2 on 19 Mar 2020, 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

1. It doesn't double every day, depending on country, it grows some 20-30% every day; which means it doubles every 3-4 days;
2. It won't grow exponentially infinitely, when the majority of a local population (e.g. family or town) gets exposed, it "saturates" locally and the growth stops there.

And that is pretty damn low
Particularly, when you consider it is upstairs.


Which is zero, since I don't have one.

Basements are more an American thing, btw.