4 ms·

2% (maybe more actually) is the mortality rate of those infected. But so far infection rate was 0.001% ; it would need to be 3 full orders of magnitude worse to

2% (maybe more actually) is the mortality rate of those infected. But so far infection rate was 0.001% ; it would need to be 3 full orders of magnitude worse to even approach an infection rate of 2%....

travisjungroth 7y ago
How long did it take Italy to go up three orders of magnitude in infection rate?
- Udik 7y ago
  A bit less than 10x, an order of magnitude, every week. It's been really is very easy to see the future up until now. There's 9000 cases in Italy now; by the 16th of March, factoring in the containment measures, they could be 60-80k. About 10% need intensive care; there's probably 3000 IC beds available now. Very simple.
  - travisjungroth 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm not sure why I was downvoted. It was a leading question to point out that "3 orders of magnitude" isn't far away at all.
    - FabHK 7y ago
      From the statistics I’ve seen, unless there’s effective quarantine and countermeasures in effect, you can expect an order of magnitude (while most of the population is not yet infected, obviously) about every 2 to 3 weeks. Yay for exponential growth.
    - virgilp 7y ago
      So how many weeks for 10 orders of magnitude? Because it feels like you extrapolate linearly...
  - baq 7y ago
    good news (sort of), Italian government did the math and shut down all of Italy.
saystupidthings 7y ago
Growth in cases has been exponential, as it should be. It just depends on when it turns logistical.
eCa 7y ago
According to Wikipedia[0], which in turn sources material from January (mostly China), each infected person infected 2.2-3.9 others on average. So in three generations you go from 1 to 27. Three generations more, from 27 to 729 (if my math is correct). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number
badfrog 7y ago
For reference, there have been 3,000 deaths out of 11,000,000 people in Wuhan. That's 0.03% of the population dead and the number of new deaths per day is declining. If the rest of the world comes even close to being as good at quarantine as Wuhan, we'll be way under 2%. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_ou...
- notJim 7y ago
  Meanwhile in the US, the CDC appears to be resisting testing people, and as far as I can tell, quarantines are barely even being considered. Washington state is in the top 3 of cases in the country, but 30k people attended a soccer game on Saturday. I hate to contribute to the panic and tinfoil-hat conspiracies, but I'm really concerned about the US response so far.
  - btilly 7y ago
    Meanwhile in the US, the CDC appears to be resisting testing people... They know something that you don't. Which is that the test has both a high false negative and a high false positive rate. Which means that its effectiveness as a decision making tool is limited. That said, the longer you wait to start quarantine, the longer you have to keep quarantine measures in place. But on the flip side, if extreme responses are too good, then you increase the risk that on the next serious threat, people will yawn and fail to comply. Public health has a wicked problem here. The more effective it is, the less that people feel it is needed.
- tdfx 7y ago
  Based on the US and Iranian responses, it seems a substantial portion of the world will not come remotely close to being as effective at quarantining as Wuhan. Wuhan appears to be the maximum effectiveness, not the average.
  - jay_kyburz 7y ago
    Yeah, there is no way Police will drag people off the street or weld people into their homes in the US or here in Australia. I think a lot of people would rather just let the virus spread.
wahern 7y ago
2% is the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), not mortality rate. Case Fatality Rate is deaths/confirmed, and confirmed is not the same as number of infected. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate In most outbreaks, "confirmed" usually means those sick enough to seek medical attention and get a diagnosis. If asymptomatic testing goes up then CFR declines, but then CFR ceases to be a useful metric for comparing and contrasting outbreaks. Arguably it already has diminished utility in this particular outbreak because of inconsistent testing criteria around the world. I think what most people want to know (and what they believe CFR means) is the percentage of deaths among the infected. But AFAICT this sort of number isn't very common in the literature as ascertaining the total number of infected for most outbreaks[1] is very difficult, and presumably something that can only be deduced post hoc with modeling. [1] Ebola being one possible exception, given the extremely high lethality and distinctive symptoms.

travisjungroth 7y ago

How long did it take Italy to go up three orders of magnitude in infection rate?

Udik 7y ago
A bit less than 10x, an order of magnitude, every week. It's been really is very easy to see the future up until now. There's 9000 cases in Italy now; by the 16th of March, factoring in the containment measures, they could be 60-80k. About 10% need intensive care; there's probably 3000 IC beds available now. Very simple.
- travisjungroth 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm not sure why I was downvoted. It was a leading question to point out that "3 orders of magnitude" isn't far away at all.
  - FabHK 7y ago
    From the statistics I’ve seen, unless there’s effective quarantine and countermeasures in effect, you can expect an order of magnitude (while most of the population is not yet infected, obviously) about every 2 to 3 weeks. Yay for exponential growth.
  - virgilp 7y ago
    So how many weeks for 10 orders of magnitude? Because it feels like you extrapolate linearly...
- baq 7y ago
  good news (sort of), Italian government did the math and shut down all of Italy.

saystupidthings 7y ago

Growth in cases has been exponential, as it should be. It just depends on when it turns logistical.

eCa 7y ago

According to Wikipedia[0], which in turn sources material from January (mostly China), each infected person infected 2.2-3.9 others on average. So in three generations you go from 1 to 27. Three generations more, from 27 to 729 (if my math is correct). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

badfrog 7y ago

For reference, there have been 3,000 deaths out of 11,000,000 people in Wuhan. That's 0.03% of the population dead and the number of new deaths per day is declining. If the rest of the world comes even close to being as good at quarantine as Wuhan, we'll be way under 2%. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_ou...

notJim 7y ago
Meanwhile in the US, the CDC appears to be resisting testing people, and as far as I can tell, quarantines are barely even being considered. Washington state is in the top 3 of cases in the country, but 30k people attended a soccer game on Saturday. I hate to contribute to the panic and tinfoil-hat conspiracies, but I'm really concerned about the US response so far.
- btilly 7y ago
  Meanwhile in the US, the CDC appears to be resisting testing people... They know something that you don't. Which is that the test has both a high false negative and a high false positive rate. Which means that its effectiveness as a decision making tool is limited. That said, the longer you wait to start quarantine, the longer you have to keep quarantine measures in place. But on the flip side, if extreme responses are too good, then you increase the risk that on the next serious threat, people will yawn and fail to comply. Public health has a wicked problem here. The more effective it is, the less that people feel it is needed.
tdfx 7y ago
Based on the US and Iranian responses, it seems a substantial portion of the world will not come remotely close to being as effective at quarantining as Wuhan. Wuhan appears to be the maximum effectiveness, not the average.
- jay_kyburz 7y ago
  Yeah, there is no way Police will drag people off the street or weld people into their homes in the US or here in Australia. I think a lot of people would rather just let the virus spread.

wahern 7y ago

2% is the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), not mortality rate. Case Fatality Rate is deaths/confirmed, and confirmed is not the same as number of infected. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate In most outbreaks, "confirmed" usually means those sick enough to seek medical attention and get a diagnosis. If asymptomatic testing goes up then CFR declines, but then CFR ceases to be a useful metric for comparing and contrasting outbreaks. Arguably it already has diminished utility in this particular outbreak because of inconsistent testing criteria around the world. I think what most people want to know (and what they believe CFR means) is the percentage of deaths among the infected. But AFAICT this sort of number isn't very common in the literature as ascertaining the total number of infected for most outbreaks[1] is very difficult, and presumably something that can only be deduced post hoc with modeling. [1] Ebola being one possible exception, given the extremely high lethality and distinctive symptoms.