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A lockdown has worked in only one place: China. And it worked because the measures were extreme: not allowing people to leave their homes (except once a week to

by mrb 7y ago

A lockdown has worked in only one place: China. And it worked because the measures were extreme: not allowing people to leave their homes (except once a week to go shopping), banning cars on the roads, closing workplaces, etc. No country is implementing measures nearly as extreme as China, so they won't be as successful in slowing down the epidemic. Before someone mentions South Korea: Korean CDC explained their epidemic curve is bending because they are finishing testing the 200,000 sect members at the center of the epidemic. So fewer tests = fewer detected infections: "in Daegu and Gyeongbuk region, the transmission seems a bit slow down as testing Shincheonji members is almost finished" Source: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030&act=view&list_no=366496&tag=&nPage=1 https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=00... In other words this is NOT a sign Korea is succeeding at containing it. I have seen zero epidemiologists correctly report on this. They all fail to read what KCDC is saying.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
svara 7y ago
The crucial thing is that the daily growth rate in South Korea averaged over the last 7 days is 1.05 and sinking, a far cry from the stable ~1.33 average in European countries with significant outbreaks. It's outrageous to me that you are still commenting on this after so many people here debunked you (and were thoroughly proven right by now) when you were claiming apocalyptic CFR numbers.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  >It's outrageous to me that you are still commenting on this after so many people here debunked you (and were thoroughly proven right by now) when you were claiming apocalyptic CFR numbers. There seems to be some missing context here. What are you talking about?
- mrb 7y ago
  The growth rate in South Korea is low (1.05) because they are doing fewer tests, as they are finishing testing the sect members, as KCDC explained. IOW it does not reflect the true growth of the outbreak, but is an artifact of testing slowing down. "so many people here debunked you" I was criticized, but the criticism was invalid. My estimates turned out correct according to published studies (note that the high CFR >9% is not the same as the IFR which takes into account underascertainment and is lower around 0.5-1.6%): A CFR of 18% was estimated by https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-2019-nCoV-severity-10-02-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... A CFR of 33% was estimated by https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV-public/analyses/first_adjusted_mortality_estimates_and_risk_assessment/2019-nCoV-preliminary_age_and_time_adjusted_mortality_rates_and_pandemic_risk_assessment.html https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV-public/an... A CFR of 5.3 or 8.4% (depending on two scenarios) was estimated by https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 (These reports have been quoted by the WHO in situation report 30 (references 10, 11 and 12) and report 31: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200219-sitrep-30-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3346b04f_2 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... and https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200220-sitrep-31-covid-19.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... ) For reference I have always claimed a WIDE range for the CFR: between 9% and 56% (see https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/) So two of the three studies support me, and the third one is slightly outside my range (with one scenario where they calculated 8.4% being close to my lower bound of 9%.) Note that these are NOT "apocalyptic estimates", as these three published estimates and my estimate only claim to be valid for one particular case: the CFR (1) for China, (2) as of January/early February, (3) not accounting for underreporting of cases. The CFR does change significantly over time, depending on countries, and depending on the ascertainment rate. The biggest factor is underascertainment, and if we correct for this in China, we calculate a much lower fatality closer to 0.5-1.6%, we call this the Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR). See the last section in my blog post "Updates & Validation": https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates--validation https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates--... Perhaps you thought or assumed I was calculating the IFR, not CFR.
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
It's true that it's only really worked in China so far, at least only that we know of positively. But there is also some research coming out suggesting that some of the measures China took were more effective than other ones. In any case, I said there is a reason for hope, not a reason for certainty. We will see how effective Italy's measures are.
witrak 7y ago
The really good analysis: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

by mrb 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

svara 7y ago

The crucial thing is that the daily growth rate in South Korea averaged over the last 7 days is 1.05 and sinking, a far cry from the stable ~1.33 average in European countries with significant outbreaks. It's outrageous to me that you are still commenting on this after so many people here debunked you (and were thoroughly proven right by now) when you were claiming apocalyptic CFR numbers.

0xffff2 7y ago
>It's outrageous to me that you are still commenting on this after so many people here debunked you (and were thoroughly proven right by now) when you were claiming apocalyptic CFR numbers. There seems to be some missing context here. What are you talking about?
mrb 7y ago
The growth rate in South Korea is low (1.05) because they are doing fewer tests, as they are finishing testing the sect members, as KCDC explained. IOW it does not reflect the true growth of the outbreak, but is an artifact of testing slowing down. "so many people here debunked you" I was criticized, but the criticism was invalid. My estimates turned out correct according to published studies (note that the high CFR >9% is not the same as the IFR which takes into account underascertainment and is lower around 0.5-1.6%): A CFR of 18% was estimated by https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-2019-nCoV-severity-10-02-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... A CFR of 33% was estimated by https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV-public/analyses/first_adjusted_mortality_estimates_and_risk_assessment/2019-nCoV-preliminary_age_and_time_adjusted_mortality_rates_and_pandemic_risk_assessment.html https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV-public/an... A CFR of 5.3 or 8.4% (depending on two scenarios) was estimated by https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 (These reports have been quoted by the WHO in situation report 30 (references 10, 11 and 12) and report 31: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200219-sitrep-30-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3346b04f_2 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... and https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200220-sitrep-31-covid-19.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... ) For reference I have always claimed a WIDE range for the CFR: between 9% and 56% (see https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/) So two of the three studies support me, and the third one is slightly outside my range (with one scenario where they calculated 8.4% being close to my lower bound of 9%.) Note that these are NOT "apocalyptic estimates", as these three published estimates and my estimate only claim to be valid for one particular case: the CFR (1) for China, (2) as of January/early February, (3) not accounting for underreporting of cases. The CFR does change significantly over time, depending on countries, and depending on the ascertainment rate. The biggest factor is underascertainment, and if we correct for this in China, we calculate a much lower fatality closer to 0.5-1.6%, we call this the Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR). See the last section in my blog post "Updates & Validation": https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates--validation https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates--... Perhaps you thought or assumed I was calculating the IFR, not CFR.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

It's true that it's only really worked in China so far, at least only that we know of positively. But there is also some research coming out suggesting that some of the measures China took were more effective than other ones. In any case, I said there is a reason for hope, not a reason for certainty. We will see how effective Italy's measures are.

witrak 7y ago

The really good analysis: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...