4 ms·

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

by 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.

svara 7y ago
I'm well aware of the difference between IFR and CFR. CFR is nowhere in the range you quoted. Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about. Re South Korea: You are presenting a hypothesis as fact. For lots of reasons the hypothesis appears unlikely. Time will tell, but I'm confident you'll be proven wrong again, if I see another comment by you then I'll gladly point it out. Why are you doing this? I think that's a question for yourself...
- mrb 7y ago
  "Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about.” So ALL(!) the studies referenced in WHO situation reports are "incorrect"? The WHO couldn't/didn't find any other studies that were "correct"? Don't you think it is a little improbable that 4 entities (WHO + 3 teams behind the 3 studies) are all wrong? You say the CFR is nowhere in the range but that's because you, like all media, look at the so-called naïve CFR (deaths/cases) which is known to severely underestimate the true CFR in the initial rapid growth phase of an epidemic, because deaths lag cases. The naïve CFR gives accurate results only when calculated across a cohort of patients who all either recovered or died, with none left hospitalized. Epidemiologists are very aware of this bias; my post at https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ covers this topic and presents various links including 4-5 peer-reviewed papers documenting it. This bias is why none of the proper CFR estimates employ the naïve CFR calculation. Also you need to be aware that CFR evolves over time. Initially the most severe cases are the ones that are detected first, so CFR among these initial cohorts is higher. In fact the high CFR is confirmed by observations of these cohorts. For example 11 of the first 99 patients died[1]. That's a CFR of 11% right there. And some of these patients were still hospitalized at the time of publication, some additional ones may have died since then. My CFR estimate and the 3 studies referenced by the WHO were all based on such early data when the detected cases were more severe. If we were to redo the estimate today with current data from China, we would find a lower CFR because today they can run many more lab tests on larger swath of population so they detect a larger proportion of mild cases. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

by mrb 7y ago

svara 7y ago

I'm well aware of the difference between IFR and CFR. CFR is nowhere in the range you quoted. Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about. Re South Korea: You are presenting a hypothesis as fact. For lots of reasons the hypothesis appears unlikely. Time will tell, but I'm confident you'll be proven wrong again, if I see another comment by you then I'll gladly point it out. Why are you doing this? I think that's a question for yourself...

mrb 7y ago
"Being consistent with incorrect studies is nothing to brag about.” So ALL(!) the studies referenced in WHO situation reports are "incorrect"? The WHO couldn't/didn't find any other studies that were "correct"? Don't you think it is a little improbable that 4 entities (WHO + 3 teams behind the 3 studies) are all wrong? You say the CFR is nowhere in the range but that's because you, like all media, look at the so-called naïve CFR (deaths/cases) which is known to severely underestimate the true CFR in the initial rapid growth phase of an epidemic, because deaths lag cases. The naïve CFR gives accurate results only when calculated across a cohort of patients who all either recovered or died, with none left hospitalized. Epidemiologists are very aware of this bias; my post at https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/ covers this topic and presents various links including 4-5 peer-reviewed papers documenting it. This bias is why none of the proper CFR estimates employ the naïve CFR calculation. Also you need to be aware that CFR evolves over time. Initially the most severe cases are the ones that are detected first, so CFR among these initial cohorts is higher. In fact the high CFR is confirmed by observations of these cohorts. For example 11 of the first 99 patients died[1]. That's a CFR of 11% right there. And some of these patients were still hospitalized at the time of publication, some additional ones may have died since then. My CFR estimate and the 3 studies referenced by the WHO were all based on such early data when the detected cases were more severe. If we were to redo the estimate today with current data from China, we would find a lower CFR because today they can run many more lab tests on larger swath of population so they detect a larger proportion of mild cases. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...