Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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The majority of flu deaths occur within a relatively short span of time during the height of flu season.

Covid-19 started at the height of flu season. It is now getting towards the end of flu season.

Right now I am looking at serious vs mild cases of covid-19. In most countries, 2 months after covid-19 was introduced, there are 0 to 1% serious cases. Worldwide it is at least 95% mild.

The focus is on the number of cases and the number of deaths. The fact that at least 95% of covid-19 cases are mild seems to go completely ignored.

Last edited by EzraS on 20 Mar 2020, 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was under the impression the focus was primarily on the infected/death ratio.

And we are nowhere near the 660,000 deaths annually, from influenza.
A long way to go.
I doubt it will be reached or surpassed.
Call me optimistic.

The problem with exponential growth theory is that it assumes all the variables are frozen in a block of solid ice. There are hundreds of variable. They can be whether countries close off their borders, whether they implement a quarantine, the effect of humidity on infection rates. China is a good example of the weakness with this theory. Their infection rates were going through the roof. But at the present moment their infection rates are hovering a little above zero.

The question is what are these variables and what is the impact of each variable as a change agent.

You're off by a factor of 10, at least, when it comes to the percentage of cases that are serious.

You are talking to a real scientist and you keep forgetting about it. It's amazing how many times you have been wrong and I have been right, and you still have the chutzpah to argue with me.

It is exponential. Nicely exponential. The case of Australia was because of the weather. The true starting point was March 1st, when the number of cases was 26. The data set is here, anyone can download: https://covid.ourworldindata.org/data/ecdc/total_cases.csv. You download it, plot in Excel, set y axis to logarithmic scale and you will immediately see difference in behavior before and after around March 1st. It's a nice linear curve after March 1st, on a log-linear scale plot.

Here is the regression equation: N(x) = 20.07*exp(0.1674*x) = 20.07*(1.18222)^x, where x is the day-of-month in March. Carry it forward to day 19, you have N(19) = 20.07*(1.18222)^19 = 483 predicted, actual number of cases is 565, same ballpark in log scale.

It is almost perfectly exponential, with doubling period value of Ln(2)/0.1674 = 4.14 days.

What does it mean when the curve is so perfectly exponential? It means that in the last two weeks, the containment measures were meagerly implemented. No effect whatsoever to stop the natural propagation of the virus. What if Australia doesn't implement any containment measures? Australia has a population of 24.6 million people. That means for x = Ln(12.3e6/20.07)/0.1674 =79.6 ~ 80, or May 19th, half of Australia will be infected. That's 2 months from now, if Australia doesn't implement containment measures.

Here is the plot. See with your own eyes how beautiful an exponential curve it is.

Last edited by eikonabridge on 20 Mar 2020, 12:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

Precisely.

Also:
It started in China.
They have contained it.
It is a reason to be optimistic.



The irony is sad.
This type of thing happens all the time in this duffed up universe. ,sigh>

I don't think the gods like us anymore.

It is like borderline science fiction to me.

once upon a time was a goth person,,, just of a different age and time

When I was in school, an "exponential graph" looked like this:

Yours is in linear-linear scale. Mine is in log-linear scale. They are of the same shape. Just different presentation scales.

All that gobbledygook vs the simple fact that at least 95% and probably more like 98% of covid-19 cases are mild, and the fact that in the majority of pandemics that has pretty much also been the case.



Fallacious and hilarious.

Ahhh.

Why the different scale?

And similar to:

I see where you're making your error. You cannot use the total number of cases as the denominator here, because the vast majority of those cases were diagnosed in just the past few days and have yet to resolve. You need to do it as a percentage of the cases that have already resolved, that is, where the patient recovers or dies from the disease.

Current epidemiological data suggests about 16% of cases end up being serious:



https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... mmary.html

Of course, you probably won't listen to me, and will continue to misuse your intellect to engage in mental gymnastics, but I hope to be able to clear this up for others on the board.

Last edited by beneficii on 20 Mar 2020, 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

This no joking matter.

Exponential goth is a very serious matter that can lead to this level of epidemic:



Do you want to take a chance on that happening?