The Spanish flu of 1918 - 1919 killed between 50 and 100 million (2.5 to 5% of the world's population)
We can be pretty confident for now.
General / Off-Topic Some numbers and a shortage
- Thread starter Robin of Spiritwood
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We can be pretty confident for now.
But it only infected an estimated 500,000,000 or 27% of the global population (estimated @ 1.8B-1.9B), therefor the mortality rate was huge.
9.75% - 20.58% mortality.
Some bad news and some good news.
Bad news first: I've tried to calculate the R0 (R-nought) of the cruise ship. R0 is the number of people that an infected personcan infect infects until they have recovered to a point where they are no longer infectious. It's difficult to estimate R0 accurately given the data we have, so when I looked at the result I got, I thought I'd made a mistake. Also I haven't done any sensitivity analysis on my models yet. However, I then found this, not peer reviewed article, and it seems we have used basically the same method coming to basically the same results. (Nasty equations ahead):
www.medrxiv.org
TL/DR: The article mentions a R0 of 7.05 (95%CrI: 6.11–8.18). That's close to being as contagious as measles (R0 = ~12-18), and much higher than WHOs estimate of ~2. I also agree with the authors that even with the current lockdown of Wuhan and Hubei, R0 is still around 3. It does seem to have dropped to ~1.5 the last couple of days, but that is after the large number of "new" cases added at February 12th. All in all it seems that this virus is so contagious that it's going to be extremely hard to contain, and secondly that it will spread fast.
GOOD NEWS: The article also reaches the conclusion, that the CFR estimates at ~2% are too high. This is due to a large number of unreported cases in China. It seems to me, that most of the cases reported, and there are many, are more or less severe cases, whereas the milder cases are not being registered in the official numbers. WHO kind of insists on a lab test to include it in their numbers, even though they have started to mention clinical tests in their daily reports. Instead of CRF the authors calculate IFR, which is based on an estimate of infected people (~1 million), and they get a IFR of somewhere between 0.05%-0.30% depending on time compensation (time from infection to death). My model shows an IFR of 0.4%, but I have only estimated ~0.5 million infected, meaning that if I use 1 million instead I get 0.2%.
Summing up, it seems that the virus spreads faster than previously estimated, but that it's less deadly than we first feared. I still don't see a way out of a pandemic, and probably sooner than we think, but it will hopefully be less lethal than we thought.
I'm neither a doctor, nor an epidemiologist. I know how to model, and read as much as I could find about modelling an epidemic (SIR), so this is just sort of complicated back of the envelope calculations, and I might very well be wrong.
Bad news first: I've tried to calculate the R0 (R-nought) of the cruise ship. R0 is the number of people that an infected person
Early epidemiological assessment of the transmission potential and virulence of 2019 Novel Coronavirus in Wuhan City: China, 2019–2020
Background Since the first cluster of cases was identified in Wuhan City, China, in December, 2019, 2019–nCoV has rapidly spread across China as well as caused multiple introductions in 25 countries as of February, 2020. Despite the scarcity of publicly available data, scientists around the...
www.medrxiv.org
TL/DR: The article mentions a R0 of 7.05 (95%CrI: 6.11–8.18). That's close to being as contagious as measles (R0 = ~12-18), and much higher than WHOs estimate of ~2. I also agree with the authors that even with the current lockdown of Wuhan and Hubei, R0 is still around 3. It does seem to have dropped to ~1.5 the last couple of days, but that is after the large number of "new" cases added at February 12th. All in all it seems that this virus is so contagious that it's going to be extremely hard to contain, and secondly that it will spread fast.
GOOD NEWS: The article also reaches the conclusion, that the CFR estimates at ~2% are too high. This is due to a large number of unreported cases in China. It seems to me, that most of the cases reported, and there are many, are more or less severe cases, whereas the milder cases are not being registered in the official numbers. WHO kind of insists on a lab test to include it in their numbers, even though they have started to mention clinical tests in their daily reports. Instead of CRF the authors calculate IFR, which is based on an estimate of infected people (~1 million), and they get a IFR of somewhere between 0.05%-0.30% depending on time compensation (time from infection to death). My model shows an IFR of 0.4%, but I have only estimated ~0.5 million infected, meaning that if I use 1 million instead I get 0.2%.
Summing up, it seems that the virus spreads faster than previously estimated, but that it's less deadly than we first feared. I still don't see a way out of a pandemic, and probably sooner than we think, but it will hopefully be less lethal than we thought.
I'm neither a doctor, nor an epidemiologist. I know how to model, and read as much as I could find about modelling an epidemic (SIR), so this is just sort of complicated back of the envelope calculations, and I might very well be wrong.
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This morning we are approaching the 1900 dead.
And in Cambodia, the authorities are trying to find the tourists of the liner who have been authorized to disembark too quickly, because some have been in contact with an infected person
And in Cambodia, the authorities are trying to find the tourists of the liner who have been authorized to disembark too quickly, because some have been in contact with an infected person
Today, China has reached 2000 dead and 74,000 infected (minimum).
As I heard a very wise man (Dr Campbell) say the other day: This is NOT a weapon program gone wrong. If the Chinese (or anyone else) wanted to make a bioweapon, they could have done much "better" than this. This is a classic case of Mother Nature throwing something at us.
The fact that they could "do better" is a ridiculous argument against this being man-made. There's a bio-level 4 laboratory that studies (works with) infectious diseases located only a few miles away from the fish market where the outbreak began, and it would be really stretching coincidence to think there's no connection, not to mention the absurdity of ruling out human error.
Its just not deadly enough to be a weapon. Read up on anthrax for an example of something the military have actually shown an interest in. Its 90% fatal so we could indeed "do better".
Most of the people being painted as enemies of the peace and conspiracy theorists haven't said that it was released as a weapon. In fact, none of them have as far as I know. I'm aware of how deadly a genuine biological warfare agent can be, but assuming that's the only way a man-made contaminant could have been released, purposefully as a weapon, is remarkably short sighted.
Why make one far less deadly than some that naturally occur already, seems totally pointless to me. The dodgy exotic food market with substandard animal containment, welfare and hygiene sounds far more plausible as a source and were the suspected source of similar things in the past.
If we are going with incompetence rather than malice (always a good rule of thumb) then the scientists are less likely to get it wrong than the sort of people who sell, buy or eat illegally trapped and traded animals because of folk myths about their "medicinal" properties.
Crooks, idiots or scientists when it comes to disease containment isn't really a fair competition.
Weapon? Probably not
Man made? Likely so.
Many man made viruses based on existing blueprints are in these places.
Besides, it could very well be step 57 of 138 for creating a bio weapon.
Point is calling it "mother nature" just because it's not "deadly enough" is folly, and not scientific.
A man made virus that isn't a weapon but kills some people. I'm seriously unconvinced here, its just daft people eating unwashed bats from a dubious source.
We had pandemics a long time before we had biological weapons. There's nothing scientific at all to this conspiracy theory beyond some people really want it to be true.
Whatever, I don't fit into any pigeon-hole.
I'll always wait for proof that backs any scenario instead of accepting proclamations.
Human error it almost certainly was given the poor hygine in the Wuhan Market (zoonosis is exceptionally rare), however, your only "evidence" that nCov-19 is a bioweapon is that the lab was close by but by the same logic you can associate other institutions or individuals with the outbrake so such reasoning is insufficient.
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