Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Mar 2020 01:12

I have a problem with the general 'fudging numbers' language. It is related to the repeated stories of people interacting with large groups of others.

The nature of transmission in this case is that observability is quite far behind actual transmission rate, and carriers may often be asymptomatic, or be contagious much before symptoms present themselves. I've read that SARS was more manageable partly because patients were symptomatic *and* transmission happened (largely ?) from symptomatic patients. I remember the temperature scanners at HKG and SIN airports during that time.

Here, it's important that the populace in general understand that they can be asymptomatic carriers and be contagious, and that it's critical that they minimize social contact even if they're not sure / not tested / don't believe they're at risk / imagine they're Baahubali. When someone later tests positive, it becomes a tale of supposed gross negligence (which may or may not be true) partly because they lack of social distancing means they can't walk back and deal with everyone they were in touch with, so the default reaction is to try to conceal. This is human nature . It may be wrong or lacking ethics, but at a time of crisis one needs approaches adapted to what human nature is, rather than some ideal of what it should be.

The test-and-identify-all-prior contact only works if the distance from patient zero is not a lot. However, this is no longer the case anywhere, except in isolated places. Instead, it's important to repeatedly state the message that people who show NO signs at all, may still be contagious . Propagating stories where people who seemed fine, ended up transmitting the virus and one or more became very sick, enables this meme to spread better.

It's very important - even if they deserve some of it - to not put down the government's efforts to report data, but to understand that the real number is much larger, because of the nature of how this is transmitting. The onus needs to sit with the citizenry, who should not be made complacent by statements about transmittability in warm weather, or by just having some other party to blame i.e., 'govt data is unreliable so I'm not going to listen to them anyway'.

sooraj · Post by **sooraj** » 21 Mar 2020 01:16

Aviation ministry says its officials, who came in contact with an MP on Mar 18 in Parliament, have gone into self quarantine.

Chairing a high-level meeting at his official residence on Friday evening, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked officials to lodge a FIR against Bollywood singer Kanika Kapoor. FIR has been lodged against the Baby Doll singer for putting public at risk. FIR was filed in Sarojini Nagar police station under section 188, 269 and 270 of IPC.

After the b'fast meeting at @rashtrapatibhvn where @Dushyant was present, Prez Kovind has decided to reschedule all appointments, follow all medical examinations. Dushyant had come in contact with @TheKanikakapoor who tested #COVID19 +. Other MP's in self Quarantine Former Union Minister Rajyavardhan Rathod, Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, Hema Malini, Congress MP Kumari Selja, Rajya Sabha MP Mary Kom Trinamool MP Derek O'Brien, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, Congress leaders Deepinder Hooda, Jitin Prasada, BJP MP Varun Gandhi, Anupriya Patel, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Suresh Prabhu, and V Muraleedharan.

BJP MP Dushyant Singh, who attended Kanika Kapoor’s dinner party along with his mother Vasundhara Raje has been tested negative in his first sampling taken to test for coronavirus infection.

Three Kashmiri Ph.D “scholars” at Aligarh Muslim University, who had traveled to UAE in first week of March and were quarantined two days ago, are now absconding.

West Bengal: Woman, who recently returned from Spain to her hometown Siliguri, disregarded doctor's advice of home quarantine and went out to walk her dog triggering panic in the area, says local councilor.

Gyan · Post by **Gyan** » 21 Mar 2020 01:18

USA & Spain have started trials of Quinine as pre and post exposure prophylaxis

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lang ... 5/fulltext

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 01:54

Sigh..what to say. Crowed station of people leaving Bombay.

https://twitter.com/MumbaiMirror/status ... 9706548224

Social distancing is not an easy thing to achieve in our country. And given the poverty we have, we are in a bad position.

I think we are better off investing in way of stopping the virus and vaccine. We cannot prevent community spread. Just too difficult in large cities.

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 21 Mar 2020 02:01

nam wrote:Sigh..what to say. Crowed station of people leaving Bombay.

https://twitter.com/MumbaiMirror/status ... 9706548224

Social distancing is not an easy thing to achieve in our country. And given the poverty we have, we are in a bad position.

I think we are better off investing in way of stopping the virus and vaccine. We cannot prevent community spread. Just too difficult in large cities.

Yes. This is an impossible task. I'm not sure how India can manage this with the kind of population density that exists even in 3 tier cities. Modi is doing his bit. But God alone can save if community transmission becomes common. Only good thing is that the population of young people if high. But make no mistake if this goes sideways it will surely extract a toll on people below 40.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Mar 2020 02:03

Why blame them ? Posters right here were advocating people stay in their ancestral towns. I responded saying this, two days ago.

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 02:06

Deleted

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 02:16

The unfortunate part is, the rate of infection is so high, by the time any vaccine is even tested, it would have infected millions, if not the entire country.

Once it has run through the population, there is no point with the vaccine. The herd immunity people seems to have already understood this.

The UK scientific adviser knew this and wanted it to run through the population quickly, instead of prolonging it. One reason he insisted on keeping the school open..

Bart S · Post by **Bart S** » 21 Mar 2020 02:39

They guys catching the trains all look like BPL or lower middle class people, and one cannot blame them for heading home when Mumbai is shut down. With Mumbai shut down, a lot of these people have no income, and hence have no alternative. This is their survival plan (ironic as it is).

The fault lies with the government for a> running those trains and b> not assuring people of alternative income/subsidy or that their basic needs will be taken care of.

Meanwhile Friday prayers were allowed to take place in Mah, not just in Mosques but in the usual 'occupy the public space illegally' style, which is at least completely avoidable and could have been shut down, so even if these guys are stopped, there is plenty of other equally dangerous stuff going on.

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 02:42

The only way to control the virus, to some extend is to have a testing kit, which gives you instant result. A kit, which people can take anywhere, social place can have it to control access.

Otherwise, we will be sitting inside our house, until there is a vaccine. We should invest in the testing kit, until the vaccine comes.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Mar 2020 02:44

Want a meme to WhatsApp around ?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2020 02:52

sooraj wrote:Italy reports 5,986 new cases of coronavirus and 627 new deaths, raising total to 47,021 cases and 4,032 dead.

France reports 1,617 new cases of coronavirus and 78 new deaths, raising total to 12,612 cases and 450 dead.

UK reports 714 new cases of coronavirus and 33 new deaths, raising total to 3,983 cases and 177 dead.

Pakistan gets USD 588 million from World Bank and ADB.

We are looking at the data wrong way. Instead of mortality rate, we should look at the survival rates.

Italy (47021-4032)/47021= 91%
Rest are 96%

The mortality has been due to underlying factors like age (over 65years), smoking (male vs females and weaker lungs), health conditions like diabetes, BP, CHD.

So cheer up. No need for a morose outlook.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2020 03:00

arshyam wrote:In the meantime, our courts are as usual trying to interfere in things they should stay well out of. But, hey, who the heck has any rights to question their priorities? Why is this even subject to judicial review?

Delhi HC Agrees To Hear Plea Challenging India’s Travel Ban On Europe Over Coronavirus Pandemic - Swarajya

The Delhi High Court on Friday (20 March) agreed to hear a plea challenging the Indian government’s order to ban all travellers from the European Union, UK and Turkey effective 18 March over the coronavirus pandemic.

As per a Press Trust of India report, a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and I S Mehta agreed to place the matter for hearing. A separate bench will now hear the petition as Justice Mridul’s daughter is currently stranded in UK. The Justice while hearing the matter urged the centre to consider evacuating Indians stranded abroad.

The petition has been filed by the father of an Indian student in Scotland who is unable to return back to India.

As part of the ban, airlines has been instructed not to board any passenger from these countries at the relevant departure points.

Only Supreme Court has Justices others are judges.
Other exception is the Chief Justice of the state high courts.

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 03:01

The issue is it's infection rate. Even a common flu would be very deadly, if it has asymptomatic spreading capability.

This allows it to run through the population. Then it becomes a case of numbers..

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 03:07

One of the prime reason, I am so worried after seeing the pictures of people fleeing Mumbai.

Read this, exactly the same thing happened in Italy. People fled South, before the North was locked down.Thereby infecting their own family..
https://twitter.com/ValerioCapraro/stat ... 5793412096

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2020 03:27

Dr. G. Arun Kumar of NIV, Pune said COVID-19 is highly contagious but not as deadly as Nipah virus which was not so contagious but had high death rate.
So far his statement has been holding.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2020 03:33

What is it you want? Declare Emergency?
That's what Congress and seculars want.
Be clear of what you want!
No point in constant second-guessing the government.
The repeated calls b RaGa and his minions in Center for this and that India will face Million deaths are the same thing, Globalists are hoping in West to bring down governments.
Not happening for COVID-19 is not deadly like the plague or other pandemics.
And a cure has been found. Cholorquinine.
Cheap and plenty available.

A vaccine is on its way. Four different trials are being conducted.
India is one of the cure trials country.
Some of the best hakims are working on it.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2020 03:34

I have been following Coronavirus since late December when the first reports started dribbling.
And in constant touch with UB.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2020 03:47

Khatavanga Posted this on Twitter.
Do try to do more research. Example curve fit for the three countries and find the exponent.
Find out the demographics of the three countries.
Compare to India.
There is a lot of useful things one can do instead of scaring ourselves.

https://twitter.com/khatvaanga/status/1 ... 83680?s=20

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 21 Mar 2020 04:33

ramana wrote:Khatavanga Posted this on Twitter.
Do try to do more research. Example curve fit for the three countries and find the exponent.
Find out the demographics of the three countries.
Compare to India.
There is a lot of useful things one can do instead of scaring ourselves.

https://twitter.com/khatvaanga/status/1 ... 83680?s=20

Who is Khatavanga sir?

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 21 Mar 2020 04:39

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... Italy.html

Italy has over 0.3% medical staff infected. 13 doctors have died. 6 of them were intensivists.
Many could have been saved if they had proper PPE.
Interestingly Italians live in close knit family.
Young people work in big cities and they travel back to their family and grand parents in the evening .
That is how infection penetrated rural areas early.
Also North Italy has leather industry where 1000s of Chinese work, they brought infection from China in January before Wuhan lockdown.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Mar 2020 04:56

Cain Marko wrote:
ramana wrote:Khatavanga Posted this on Twitter.
Do try to do more research. Example curve fit for the three countries and find the exponent.
Find out the demographics of the three countries.
Compare to India.
There is a lot of useful things one can do instead of scaring ourselves.

https://twitter.com/khatvaanga/status/1 ... 83680?s=20
Who is Khatavanga sir?

BRF poster by same ID

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 21 Mar 2020 04:57

At the current rate Italy will lose about 12k to 15k people per month. Their entire healthcare system has been stretched to the absolute limits, so i won't be surprised if they try to help those below 60 yrs of age than above. Alarming rise in numbers is expected as test kits become more readily available, so 2 figures to watch is the fatality rate and the recovery rate. The next couple of weeks should give us a hint where this is headed.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Mar 2020 05:05

sudarshan wrote:Cumulative case count never comes down, so doubling time is always a finite (though variable) value with non-zero R0.

+1

R0, as long as it is > 0, is irrelevant. What is is the infection rate epsilon.

Recursively, it is

$R_n = R_{n-1} ( 1 + \epsilon)$

which turns out to be

$R_n = R_0 (1+\epsilon)^n$ (compound interest formula - literally)

If epsilon is positive, then we have exponential growth.
Social distancing decreases the value of positive epsilon while vaccine/cure takes it towards zero/negative.

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 21 Mar 2020 05:15

IndraD wrote:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... Italy.html

Italy has over 0.3% medical staff infected. 13 doctors have died. 6 of them were intensivists. .

Just to clarify is that 30% or 0.003 per 100?

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 21 Mar 2020 05:20

That is the tragedy when I posted three weeks ago that healthcare workers would be dying. ICU is not quantum mechanics but experience is lost when the pool shrinks. Some of us can fill in but results are even less certain.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 21 Mar 2020 05:22

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 9/fulltext
lancet has asked govt to take care of medical staff and provide them PPE and not use them as mere pawn in this war

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 21 Mar 2020 05:25

i posted here a few times and that observation seems to be correct
Virus is sparing women & children.
70% dead in Italy are men.
Men are also more likely to catch this infection.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Mar 2020 05:52

SriKumar wrote:^^^ So will these lamps (UV-C) be useful in disinfecting, say, Fedex or Amazon packages, or any 'dead' surfaces like plastic, steel etc. If this epidemic continues into Sept. some 'industiral' means other than manual hand-wiping chairs, offices, with tissue will need to be developed.

I see the immediate use is for sterilizing hospital staff and the suits and masks of those healthcare workers who are attending to the COVID 19 patients.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Mar 2020 05:54

IndraD wrote: 70% dead in Italy are men.
Men are also more likely to catch this infection.

Men smoke more than women. Children can't smoke since they cannot buy tobacco products. Possible?

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Mar 2020 05:56

ricky_v wrote:

Nice. Thanks.

sudarshan · Post by **sudarshan** » 21 Mar 2020 06:02

Vayutuvan wrote:
sudarshan wrote:Cumulative case count never comes down, so doubling time is always a finite (though variable) value with non-zero R0.
+1

R0, as long as it is > 0, is irrelevant. What is is the infection rate epsilon.

Recursively, it is

$R_n = R_{n-1} ( 1 + \epsilon)$

which turns out to be

$R_n = R_0 (1+\epsilon)^n$ (compound interest formula - literally)

If epsilon is positive, then we have exponential growth.
Social distancing decreases the value of positive epsilon while vaccine/cure takes it towards zero/negative.

No no, I think you interpreted "R0" wrong. I think you're interpreting it as the initial infection count, and applying the compounding formula based on that.

R0 that Disha and I were talking about is actually the "Basic Reproduction Number" -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

I.e., what is the number of secondary infections that an infection eventually causes. I think the time frame over which these secondary infections occur determines the doubling rate (as does R0 itself).

So I think we can say - when R0 goes to 0.5 or below, doubling time becomes infinite, since the sum of the infinite series:

1 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.125 + .... (to infinite terms) = 2

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 21 Mar 2020 06:05

ramana wrote:Khatavanga Posted this on Twitter.
Do try to do more research. Example curve fit for the three countries and find the exponent.
Find out the demographics of the three countries.
Compare to India.
There is a lot of useful things one can do instead of scaring ourselves.
https://twitter.com/khatvaanga/status/1 ... 83680?s=20

Plotted this data on google docs. Cannot post picture 'cose no easy way to cut-paste.

X-axis is day no. (1 through 25). Y axis is the infected no. for Italy and Germany and US. India has only 1 datum point, so no need to plot.

EXponential fit of the form y=Ae^kx was used; where exponent k = 0.183 for Italy, 0.256 for Germany and 0.317 for USA. Visually speaking, the upward trajectory for USA is much steeper than Italy (this is for # of infected) . I hope there is no error in my data sheet- I typed all the numbers by hand from the twitter screen shot, so there could be but I checked.

Day 1 for USA is much later than Italy (March 6th vs Feb. 24) but trajectory seems to take off faster than even Italy. It must be NY city. It is up to 7200 cases now. THe cleaning of all metro trains every 72 hours last 2 weeks did not seem to help. NY City has a comparable population density to all Indian metro cities & Bangalore and Hyd. I did not do a demography component since it was difficult to use an average pop. density and that may not be correct either. (Metros like NYC, BAy area and Seattle will see the spread faster than in TX or Wyoming).

Just checked US coronavirus cases- it is now about 19,400 ie 600 more than khatvaanga's number. Amber G. had posted last week, when the US cases was still around 2000, that it could reach 10,000 this week

Where's Amber G. by the way. No vidyut-laghu sandesh (electronic posts) lately.

sudarshan · Post by **sudarshan** » 21 Mar 2020 06:19

SriKumar wrote:...

EXponential fit of the form y=Ae^kx was used; where exponent k = 0.183 for Italy, 0.256 for Germany and 0.317 for USA. Sure enough, the upward trajectory for USA is much steeper than Italy (this is for # of infected) . I hope there is no error in my data sheet- I typed all the numbers by hand from the twitter screen shot.

Why are you doing Ae^kx? The compounding is expected to go as A(1+r)^x, and this also more closely matches the physical mechanism of one infection infecting another r guys? The worldometer site plots a somewhat different metric, which is, rate of growth of daily infections (i.e., delta_N_x/delta_N_x-1), and this number has been consistently above 1 for all these countries (actually, for all countries right now, except China, South Korea). For Italy, right now it seems to be decreasing, down from about 113% a couple of days ago. If this number (roughly equivalent to the R0 mentioned above, I think) comes below 1, that means the infection will peter out. The USA seems to have a value of 1.7 for this number currently!! South Korea went through this phase a couple of weeks ago. And then the value rapidly came down, now it seems to be somewhat increasing again.

For a more hopeful metric, see the number of tests performed, versus the number of positives found. For most countries, this is in the 10% range. For South Korea, it is like 2% to 3%. For countries which performed even more testing (relative to their populations) than South Korea - for example, Kuwait, UAE (Kuwait seems to have tested nearly a third of their population!) - the fraction seems like 0.1%, or less. Don't know if they tested too soon or what. South Korea, on the other hand, tracked down and tested the most vulnerable sections, and I think it is highly encouraging that only 2% of those turned out to be positives. There is of course a difference between the number of tests performed, vs. the number of individuals tested, since an individual may be tested multiple times. The USA reports individuals tested (the CDC reports tests performed though). Not sure what South Korea was reporting, feel free to multiply their positive fraction by 2 or 3, it is still only like 6%.

Italy has a much higher fraction like 18%. France is over 50% (I don't think their testing is comprehensive, and it is so far minimal compared to their population).

But right now, only about 10% or less of tested individuals (I presume, these are the ones showing actual symptoms) are turning out to be positive in most countries.

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 21 Mar 2020 06:33

^^^ Well, I agree with you that Ae^kx may not be the perfect equation to curve-fit, but the curves do show an exponential form to them, so I used it. And also that the compouding form does match the spread mechanism better but I did not use it 'cose it was not an option in XL spreadsheet I was using

. It had linear/polynomial/exponential fits. I tried polynomial, the trend was similar. But whatever mathematical form you use, *for that data by khatvaange*, all point to the same conclusion that current spread in the US is on a steeper trajectory than ~~other countries~~ ITaly and Germany at the same point in time, i.e day 15 after crossing 200 infections . If you look at the raw numbers within the US, last 3 days is a completely different story than the 14 days prior to that. It went from 9K to 13K to 18K. I also agree that the daily new infections is a good metric to track, but that wont change what's coming the next few days, unfortunately. (OT but all this reminds me of your substantial posts on 'axiomatic basis for dharma' and 'viral karma' where you postulated that viruses have consciousness/soul, albeit limited

).

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 21 Mar 2020 06:38

What a 3rd world country.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Mar 2020 06:43

Suraj wrote:Why blame them ? Posters right here were advocating people stay in their ancestral towns. I responded saying this, two days ago.

Did you travel in Mumbai locals in 'cattle class' ever?

ricky_v · Post by **ricky_v** » 21 Mar 2020 06:50

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 21 Mar 2020 06:54

sudarshan wrote:R0 that Disha and I were talking about is actually the "Basic Reproduction Number" -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

OK. Thanks for the link. I will go over that.

disha · Post by **disha** » 21 Mar 2020 06:54

SriKumar wrote: If you look at the raw numbers within the US, last 3 days is a completely different story than the 14 days prior. It went from 9K to 13K to 18K. ....

US (and India) are large and xtra-xtra-large countries. What goes for Italy and Germany does not apply to US and India.

The only option is for us to track the number of known cases and go from there. Hopefully, we will get a handle at @4000/5000 cases in India by mid-April (not accounting for the literal idiots like Kanika Kapoor and other elite arrogant SOD/SOB/DOD/DOBs)