https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
This study suggests R0 = 2.2 and case fatality rate below 1 %, rather akin to seasonal influenza.
Which would mean we should lift some of the most draconian measures soon.
kwlf wrote:
At the end of the day, all these models are imperfect.
Yes, but you can replicate any imperfection in parameters using real data as long as the mechanics are sound
So simpler even imperfect ones are better 
LeSving wrote:
You mean like aircraft?
I guess we all have a feeling that ‘engineering’ is not the the issue there… But good point, generalisations are always bad…
You can have a better guess by simply asking how many celebrities have SARS2 virus?
I’ve been wondering along the same lines, and discussing with my brother who is a virologist.
Let’s take the US Congress. ~600 people and 3 confirmed cases. You can suppose they get the gold-plated treatment so everyone gets tested.
Now take the cruise ship, all were exposed but 3/4 weren’t infected. So considering Congress, we can assume that at least 2% have been exposed.
My own small UK family is about 25 people. 5 of those have had the symptoms, some mildly and questionably, others unquestionably. That make an exposure rate of ~80%!
Incidentally I’m fairly sure I had it before it became fashionable, in mid-December following a flight HKG-Tokyo. I had an odd not-quite-cold, not-quite-flu, that left me very tired and mildly feverish for a couple of weeks.
All this mathematics and all these statistics. A past British Prime minister once said “I can prove anything with statistics, except the truth”.
Many of the mathematical models quoted here, in my mind, mirror opinion polls and they haven’t covered themselves with glory over recent years.
For me (being an average member of the public) I look at the number of deaths reported in each country, each day. If they are rising faster than the day before I worry, if they rise less quickly I see a ray of hope, if there are none I feel happy.
If the China experience is accurate it can be beaten but it takes draconian action.
But some say the Chinese are lying, others that the virus should just be allowed to spread and it will fizzle out. Do you know this for a fact? Do you know for a fact that once you have had it you are immune from getting it again in the immediate future? I remember back in the late sixties, travelling to various parts of the world and having to have a medical card listing all the vaccines you had, and if you didn’t have a necessary vaccine you’d either be refused entry or whisked off to the airport medical centre to be vaccinated and relieved of a great deal of money.At that time the treatment for malaria was quinine and many of us were persuaded to drink bottles of Schweppes Indian Tonic water to get it. Occasionally laced with a touch of gin to of course (we had many excuses for its medicinal qualities:) ) But I do remember being told that once you had Malaria you had it for life and it was likely to return every year like a very bad flu. It’s ironic that one of the possible cures for the Corona virus is an anti malaria pill.
I read people on here saying that the people dying would have died anyway. Would they? Where is your proof? Apart from a fact of life that everyone is going to die sometime:)
IMO at the moment we know little or nothing about how far or how fast Covid 19 can and will spread. I fear the mathematical models RO = whatever have no more insight than a crystal ball.
Apologies for rambling worried about parents in their 90’s
Cobalt wrote:
This is wrong, and quite obviously so. Since every infected individual will infect another one, infections are obviously still happening.
That assumes that once infected stays infectious. Or that the infection spread is much faster than the time an infected person stays infectious.
Hopefully, that is not true.
all were exposed but 3/4 weren’t infected
I don’t think we know they were all exposed.
It only takes somebody smart enough to know how this works and to avoid a direct infection, which leaves just the aircon ducts.
Also samples like the US Congress are not representative. They have lots of money so probably don’t use public transport, which removes a huge exposure.
I also think anything caught back in December, especially relating to airline flights, was prob99 just a common cold or flu. Almost nobody could have possibly had this virus back then. I’ve got “ill” after a fair % of airline trips, but not had a proper flu since 1999.
Almost everybody I know is going round now saying they had a mystery illness in Dec/Jan/Feb but only antibody testing will tell if they had it. Absent that, I reckon prob99 they just had the common stuff.
case fatality rate below 1 %, rather akin to seasonal influenza.
1% is 10x of influenza, no?
I read people on here saying that the people dying would have died anyway. Would they? Where is your proof?
Some data out yesterday’s papers suggesting 2/3 would have died within a year due to other causes. My guess is that this includes actuarial life expectancy e.g. based on something like this an 85 year old will die within 6 years, so roughly 16% of them will die within the next year anyway.
Sadly many doctors on the front line are saying that most “old” people who get to the stage of being intubated do die.
Rwy20 wrote:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
This study suggests R0 = 2.2 and case fatality rate below 1 %, rather akin to seasonal influenza.
Which would mean we should lift some of the most draconian measures soon.
I think that study is as close as to reality as it gets: now “5 times more deadly than flu but same transmission” and “will be like a flu in next years”
Dr Fauci had the hardest task of correcting Mr Trump without pissing everybody off, I don’t think many experts would have survived it
gallois wrote:
For me (being an average member of the public) I look at the number of deaths reported in each country, each day. If they are rising faster than the day before I worry, if they rise less quickly I see a ray of hope, if there are none I feel happy.
gallois wrote:
I read people on here saying that the people dying would have died anyway. Would they? Where is your proof? Apart from a fact of life that everyone is going to die sometime:)
I’m also an average member of the public, maybe even bellow average I have not been looking at models, most are over my head, only mentioning that not all models paint the same doomsday scenario.You are spot on about stats. I remember the quote about a politician using stats the same way a staggering drunk man uses a lamp post; more for support than for illumination. I tried looking only at public data on deaths and historic records of deaths.
If from the beginning, those numbers had been presented in three columns as:
a) people who died with respiratory illness,
b) % of those tested positive Covid19
c) average deaths in years past.
Do you think general attitudes might have been different?
These models are very helpful, but, I expect they will be impossible to refine until widespread testing becomes available, and, even then, enviromental and socio factors will alter the real world progression from season to season, assuming we do not develop long term immunity or a vaccine, which hopefully we will on both counts.
