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Coronavirus what’s going on with “numbers” and the “modeling”? Do we need a closer look and a do over of the “model” and the “numbers”?

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Wally

Senior Member
Messages
1,167
What about that Imperial College of London Coronavirus Report that the U.S. and other countries relied upon to make drastic decisions to lockdown the majority of the population - was the correct model pushed out by the experts? What about those numbers originally used in that model - were they so grossly exaggerated, so sensational that it clouded most everyone’s common sense and balanced judgment?

Here is where some of those questions are being asked and discussed. Could it be time now and not months from now to start reviewing, analyzing and discussing some of those same questions? Here is a news show that aired on Thursday (3/26) asking those questions and presenting what may be some answers. Or perhaps it will just help to remind us of the importance of asking questions no matter how acclaimed an expert(s) or media source might be who is presenting us with facts, evidence, feelings, beliefs, conclusions, opinions or hypotheses.

1) Start at hour/minute marker 1:39:30 to the end of the video for discussion about possible shortcomings in the Imperial College of London Coronavirus Report and the lack of an economic model.
2) Start at hour/minute marker 59:30 to 1:39:25 for discussion on how and why many of the coronavirus numbers appear to have been reported using some fuzzy or skewed mathematical analytics.
 
ljimbo423

ljimbo423

Senior Member
Messages
4,705
Location
United States, New Hampshire
I only listened for about 12 minutes. Where he quoted experts from around the world. He makes a frighteningly powerful point, that might be found to be very true.

I've been following the numbers fairly closely and I can't help but feel something is just not right.... and is way off.

Thanks for posting this Wally. It's good to hear a very different point of view!
 
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pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,398
Location
Austria
In no case do panic buying. But do slowly build up during mayby weekly shopings most basics essentials. Which is food, water, some cash for at least 2-3 weeks, not toilet paper. So when money probably fails in the near future one isn't that hard hid and even able to help others out.
 
Judee

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
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4,500
Location
Great Lakes
For the US, I've been going to the CDC website almost daily. The numbers change but the percentages aren't as much. Up until today it's been about .015x100 = 1.5% deaths per cases. (If I'm doing the math correctly.) For instance today's numbers are: Total cases: 85,356; Total Deaths: Total deaths: 1246 so the math today is still about .015 or 1.5% when rounded up.

John's Hopkins numbers are a little different but the math comes out approximately the same for percentages of deaths per cases.

Edit: I'm trying to find the basic breakdowns on their site for influenza to make a comparison but they don't have it broken down so simply and my mind is a blob-by mess right now.
 
Iritu1021

Iritu1021

Breaking Through The Fog
Messages
586
The point is not that the mortality rate is intrinsically high. The rate in Hubei, China ranged from 1-12% depending on how overwhelmed the hospitals were in the area. As the number of hospitalizations goes up, we will see a sharp increase in mortality. The other reason the mortality rate is dragging behind the number is that a lot of intubated patients are still on the ventilator. Once someone is intubated they will often stay alive until the decision is made by the doctors and their families to take them off, which can be weeks or even months. We're still in the early stages of it.
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,872
It's always good to question the methods and conclusions of research, but I think if anyone has any doubts about the grim reality of COVID-19, you only have to turn on the TV news and see how hospitals already are not able to cope, with people dying because of lack of ventilators.

And this is just the beginning, because even with the lockdowns, things are going to get worse over the next few weeks, and lots more people are going to die because of a dire shortage of ventilators. It's going to be a while before industry can manufacture and supply more of these lifesaving machines.

People try to compare coronavirus to the seasonal flu, which kills around half a million people globally each year. But the seasonal flu never puts this kind of strain on the health services. And seasonal flu does not force doctors to make horrible life or death decisions regarding which patients get a ventilator to save their life, and which patients have to die because of the ventilator shortage.

It's important to note that the often-quoted SARS-CoV-2 death rate of around 1% is the figure you get when full ICU facilities are available for treating sick patients. If those ICU facilities are not available, then the death rate shoots up. This was seen in Italy.


We have a fairly accurate picture of the death rate from the Diamond Princess, the infected cruise ship on which nearly everyone was tested. Because on that ship we know exactly how many people were infected, and exactly how many died, we can accurately calculate the death rate, which turns out to be around 1%. But that ship had a higher proportion of older people, and so some adusted estimates based on the Diamond Princess data put the real world death rate at around 0.5%.

Coronavirus has been predicted to sweep through about 70% of the world's population, which means 5.5 billion people will get infected. And at a death rate of 0.5%, that means 28 million deaths. Those 28 million deaths may happen anyway (unless we can halt the pandemic long enough for a vaccine to be created).

But if there is a massive surge of sick people and ICU facilities are overloaded and ventilators not available, the death rate of 0.5% will substantially increase.

On the other hand, if the pandemic can be slowed down through lockdown so that hospitals can cope, then the deaths will be minimized. There's still going to be many millions of deaths, but not as many as there would be if we did not go into lockdown.
 
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W

Wally

Senior Member
Messages
1,167
3/26/2020 - U.S. Coronavirus Task Force Member Dr. Brix discusses the revisions to the Imperial College of London Report and the predictions of the models vs. the reality on the ground.

3/26/2020 U.S. Coronavirus Task Force Press Briefing
 
percyval577

percyval577

nucleus caudatus et al
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Ik waak up
andyguitar said:
Thanks for posting the info @Wally my own personal opinion is that the rate of infection is much higher than the media and official statistics suggest. Which would mean that the mortality rate has been very over estimated.
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I hope so too, but I have doubt as well.

In Germany there is probably the most testing done. The death rate is in comparison to other countries low (0.5, I think, and as compared to 0.1 in influenza), and given that the tests are only applied to these ones who are guessed to have it, it might be even lower.

But the problem will be - probably - that maybe 70% of the population will get infected quite soon (as opposed to Influenza, which - I guess - would be better controlled by the organisms), and this will likely mean a huge absolute number of deaths. One might say that a lot of these who will die would die in near future anyway, but I guess there will be many tragic cases as well. The most crucial point is that the hospitals will not be able to deal with the number.

In Germany it already has been decided that the decision of who will be tried to be rescued shall depend in first place on the illnesses the patient already has (cancer asf). This makes me wondering a bit about poor countries, where a lot of vulnerable people perhaps would not have stayed alive until now, or even would not have become to be vulnerable.

In general, there might be a chance that quite some percentage of the population already had become in contact with the virus, but only an antibody test will be able to estimate this. The PCR´s are estimated (they said that the number of testing is not known) to say that 10% of tested people are actual positive (and are currently acute infected). But because only people are tested who are guessed to have it, this actual percentage may be lower.
 
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pamojja

Senior Member
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Austria
andyguitar said:
Statistics from Germany are: 53,340 cases. Deaths 393.
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1585168811.png
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,872
andyguitar said:
Getting to the truth about all this is going to be vary difficult @Wally as its become a political and not scientific issue.
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Not among scientists. There are different scientific opinions and scientific analyses, but those are generally not politically motivated differences.



andyguitar said:
Statistics from Germany are: 53,340 cases. Deaths 393.
Click to expand...

That gives a death rate of 0.7% in Germany, which is close to the adjusted death rate on the Diamond Princess.


This article comments on the low death rate in Germany, and says:
Crucially, Germany started testing people even with milder symptoms relatively early on, meaning the total number of confirmed cases may give a more accurate picture of the virus’s spread than in other states.
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So it seems Germany's testing has been more comprehensive, and includes the milder cases, thereby lowering the calculated death rate percentage compared to countries which do not test all the cases.

The article also says:
One likely explanation for the discrepancy in figures, Addo suggested, was that while northern Italy’s hospitals are being overrun with new patients, Germany’s are not yet at full capacity and have had more time to clear beds, stock up on equipment and redistribute personnel.
Click to expand...

So this again shows the importance of trying to prevent an overload on hospital capacity, and thus supports the policy of the lockdowns.
 
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pattismith

pattismith

Senior Member
Messages
3,946
Iritu1021 said:
The point is not that the mortality rate is intrinsically high. The rate in Hubei, China ranged from 1-12% depending on how overwhelmed the hospitals were in the area. As the number of hospitalizations goes up, we will see a sharp increase in mortality. The other reason the mortality rate is dragging behind the number is that a lot of intubated patients are still on the ventilator. Once someone is intubated they will often stay alive until the decision is made by the doctors and their families to take them off, which can be weeks or even months. We're still in the early stages of it.
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In France and in Italy, death rates are underestimated: older people dying at home are not tested nor counted in the coronavirus statistics. This is the case in many senior homes where they die in numbers.
Some people over 80 years can reach an hospital if they have "chance", but doctors already do the choice not to put them under a respirator, because they know that 2 or 3 weeks under this regimen will make them too much weak, and that even if they would be able to survive during this time, they will fail to fully recover after that.
 
zzz

zzz

Senior Member
Messages
675
Location
Oregon
You can't compare current deaths to current cases, as that would imply that everyone dies on the day that are diagnosed. Instead, it typically takes anywhere from several days to a week or more after a positive test for someone to die. For this reason, it's necessary to compare current daily deaths to daily cases from at least several days ago. This gives a far higher mortality rate. This may not be completely accurate, but remember that a while ago, the WHO said that the mortality rate was 3.4%. On the other hand, a large number of cases have not been diagnosed, and this tends to bring the mortality rate down, as these cases are diagnosed only at the time of death. Realistically, the mortality rate seems to be somewhere between 1% and 3.4%, and it may take a while before we have a more accurate idea of this number.

Also, different countries and even different cities in the same country have different levels of preparedness in terms of number and quality of hospitals, as well as how well equipped and staffed the hospitals are. For areas in which these levels are low, mortality rates can be expected to be higher than in other areas. Even in areas where levels of preparedness are high, if the exponential growth of cases is not cut off before a critical point, health facilities will be overwhelmed and mortality rates will rise. This has already happened in Italy, and many countries are vulnerable to this same scenario in the future.
 
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