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I don't understand how we get to Newsom's claim that 25 million Californians will get infected in 8 weeks. The math doesn't check out. The best data we have at

I don't understand how we get to Newsom's claim that 25 million Californians will get infected in 8 weeks. The math doesn't check out. The best data we have at this point is from China. They have 81,000 confirmed cases to date, most of them happened over an 8 week period. Obviously not all cases of the virus were confirmed but people were hospitalized and tested aggressively. Even if only 10% of the cases in China were confirmed (and 10% is a low guess at the percentage that might need to go to the hospital with serious symptoms, and thus be confirmed), that means under a million cases in a population of 1.4 billion. California's population is 35x smaller than China's but Newsom is predicting California will have over 25x more cases. Sure you can argue that China is lying about their cases (WHO disagrees). Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. Or whatever. But this discrepancy is just too big to make sense. I don't think CA will have 25 million cases in 8 weeks. I think he is trying to scare people into staying home. Staying home is still a good idea, because the health care system will collapse at a lot fewer than 25M cases in 8 weeks. But I think it's fearmongering.

hkmurakami 7y ago
China's response in Wuhan in February was indeed superhuman, wrt quarantine, travel bans, medical personnel influx, infrastructure build outs, etc. They built 2000 isolation hospital bed capacity in something like 6 days.
klipt 7y ago
I assume the 25 million number is assuming we don't stay at home and go about business as normal. 81k is what China got after instituting lockdown as soon as they saw 400 new cases in one day.
- Vomzor 7y ago
  81k is what they reported. The CCP isn’t trustworthy.
  - admax88q 7y ago
    Do you think they're likely to have _over_ reported the number of cases they had?
    - generatorguy 7y ago
      No, they probably under reported the numbers. Do you think they locked down wuhan with only 600 confirmed cases or were they way further along the curve? The world was shocked when they started to build the new hospitals that the numbers didn’t seem to justify. Maybe the numbers were right and they understood what they were in for, which would be a real feather in their hat for their country’s model.
      - outlace 7y ago
        A lot of CCP members are trained in STEM fields. Possibly a much higher proportion of people in China’s government understood and foresaw exponential growth.
      - pinkfoot 7y ago
        > The world was shocked when they started to build the new hospitals that the numbers didn’t seem to justify. Only those parts of the world who don't understand exponential growth. You should brush up.
        generatorguy 7y ago
        I understand exponential growth thanks. If China was able to take the measures they did on January 23 with only 500 cases in wuhan, nothing amiss in the rest of the world, based on their understanding of exponential growth of the disease that is impressive. Every other government had China as a warning and all of them except three have waited to react.
        klipt 7y ago
        The governments that have acted effectively have all had prior experience with SARS.
keithnz 7y ago
why are you comparing California to the total population of china? China is regional too.
MiroF 7y ago
> Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. I think that you discount this option too quickly. Have you been to China before?
- apatters 7y ago
  Yes many times. I first visited a decade ago. I remember seeing shit smeared on the walls and ceilings of outhouses. A kid taking a shit on the steps of city hall. Today, they have come a long way in some parts of the country in terms of hygiene. In other parts there has been less progress. I have been to the wet markets in two Chinese provinces, and in other Asian countries as well. How about you?
  - MiroF 7y ago
    I have also been to the wet markets in two Chinese provinces (Yunnan & Shanghai [not a province, I guess]). At least in the most dense regions of China that I observed, the state definitely at least seemed to have the ability to enforce some form of effective mandatory social isolation. Even in rural areas, the government seemed to be able to project authority using tech. Sure, their squat toilets are a mess but I don’t think that really reflects the technological capabilities of the state.
arbuge 7y ago
> I don't understand how we get to Newsom's claim that 25 million Californians will get infected in 8 weeks. The math doesn't check out. The best data we have at this point is from China. They have 81,000 confirmed cases to date, most of them happened over an 8 week period. I believe he was making a point over what would happen without any mitigation. China put in place very aggressive mitigation efforts to keep its numbers from exploding out of control.
- chatmasta 7y ago
  Everybody keeps saying this, but is China really “under control” right now? The virus is still here. Can’t it still infect everyone in China?
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    China is doing 14-day quarantines for all arrivals -- and this is actual guarded quarantine, not pinky-promise self-quarantine. There's also a lot of monitoring and risk mitigation in place, so they should be able to catch inevitable slipups (eg medical staff treating remaining patients) pretty early.
    - chatmasta 7y ago
      So are we just supposed to accept this as the permanent state of affairs until a vaccine is developed? At worst, complete lockdown... and at best, quarantine any time you cross an international border?
      - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
        What alternatives do you propose?
        chatmasta 7y ago
        I mean, I don’t know. But I hope people maintain awareness of civil liberties throughout this ordeal. I’m not saying there’s anything nefarious afoot, but as citizens we should remain vigilant.
jlmorton 7y ago
Note that China implemented a draconian lockdown in Wuhan beginning on Jan 22nd, with 571 confirmed cases. By Jan 25th, China declared a Level 1 Health Emergency in 30 out of 31 provinces, and began locking down other provinces. On Jan 26th, China cancelled all inter-province bus service. On Jan 30th, China closed the highways between provinces. Also, all of this nicely coincided with the lunar new year holiday, when the vast majority of the country is already on holiday for 2 weeks, and not going to work, or school. It's not really comparable.
- blueboo 7y ago
  To further illustrate your point: The UK and South Korea reported their first cases on the first day; SK has slowed new cases to a trickle and the UK is facing mass infection.
- meheleventyone 7y ago
  Yeah I watched a documentary on RUV (Icelandic state TV) last night that basically cobbled together the story in Wuhan from people’s cellphone footage. People were literally dragged away by police/medical personnel in door to door temperature testing. Like physically picked up kicking and screaming and bundled into waiting vans. And at the time hospitals were so overloaded sick people were sat in corridors with the dead on the floor beside them covered by sheets. I think most people are pretty oblivious to what draconian means. I know I was! The documentary was Danish and called De advarede om corona-krisen - og forsvandt for those interested. The other thing to note is that a bunch of the people that recorded the footage are now missing which is terrifying in itself.
  - sizzle 7y ago
    Thank you for sharing the documentary and shining a light on the insane measures taken out. I can't imagine the fear and uncertainty of getting sick and avoiding detection in China right now to say the least.
  - frandroid 7y ago
    Please post to this site if English subtitles become available.
anonuser123456 7y ago
The best model I have seen so far is: Take deaths, multiply by 400 and that's how many cases you have. This comes from the assumption of 1% mortality and 3 weeks to die. So CA has ~8000. A doubling time is ~5 days. 8 weeks ~= 11 doublings. So 8000 * 2048 = 16M. Not too far off for a ballpark. Obviously, the exponential starts to breakdown somewhere... but where? I don't think it's fear mongering. It's getting the public to understand the back of the envelope worst case... which is really bad. People NEED to panic... to get them to hunker down and take this seriously. The sooner than happens, the sooner we get it under control. I had to yell at my inlaws to stop taking the train to work and going to the gym. They are 70 and have pre-existing conditions. This action will force them to take it seriously.
- benjaminjackman 7y ago
  I think doubling time is a bit faster than 5 days from what I have seen elsewhere, and that might change the math to the 25.5M in that time frame.
  - ralfn 7y ago
    Yeah the doubling time confuses me too. All the numbers from China, Italy and the Netherlands (where I am at) show the number of deaths doubling every 2 days upto the limit. But even our dutch government is claiming it's 4 days standing in front of a chart where it's obviously 2 days. After you reach the limit it's hard to count because people stop going to the hospital that can't take them in anyway. At that point you should just consider any increase in deaths compared to the normal the result of Corona. Wether it's a cancer treatment that got postponed because of Corona or Corona itself.
  - chatmasta 7y ago
    It seems like it’s difficult to get an accurate sense of the doubling rate right now, because of the confounding variable of increased testing.
    - djcapelis 7y ago
chaostheory 7y ago
1. I think nearly everyone besides WHO has the consensus that China’s released numbers is too low, especially when you compare it to the numbers from Italy and South Korea. Whether that’s due to corruption or the swamped hospitals and a lack of test kits in the beginning is debatable. 2. This white paper may explain Newsom’s numbers. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... The growth is exponential and not linear which throws off most people. Surprisingly, even though the paper’s R0 is on the conservative side (2.2-2.4) and so is their case fatality rate. However, their simulations still predict 2.2 million deaths in the US if there’s no gov intervention for social distancing
- knzhou 7y ago
  China's case fatality rate is half Italy's -- if anything, that tells us the Italian numbers are too low.
  - michaelchisari 7y ago
    In China, 9% of people are 65 or older. In Italy, 22% are. Since this is a disease with the highest mortality for the older age groups, Italy was always going to have a higher mortality rate.
    - gpderetta 7y ago
      Apparently in Italy even flu is deadlier than the rest of Europe [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121...
      - orwin 7y ago
        northern italy is extremely humid, this is a factor for the flue too.
- btilly 7y ago
adsljfl3 7y ago
The China case is no where close to applicable to the US. They specifically locked residents into their houses so they couldn't leave and locked down all transport in and out of the province. We are doing nothing of the sort, which means our spread will be much different.
lurquer 7y ago
This is no time for math or common-sense. Just stay inside, shut up, and be glad we aren’t being overrun by witches like back in Salem. Those were terrible days.. witches everywhere! Thankfully, Quick thinking politicians got rid of them.
richk449 7y ago
> Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. They literally welded doors shut on apartment buildings. They are not superhuman. They just have a different take when it comes to individual rights. There is no reason to assume the growth rate will taper off in country x like it did in China if country x does not take similar, or equivalent measures.
- war1025 7y ago
  Since the "welded doors shut" thing borders on fear mongering, I feel the need to clarify. Everything I have read states they closed off certain doors to ensure that you couldn't get in / out of the building without getting a health screen.
  - duckymcduckface 7y ago
    There were wide scale reports of authorities using chains and locks to seal individual dwellings on apartment buildings by chaining the metal gates closed. If you look at pictures from the field hospitals that they built you'll also note that there were metal grills on the windows as well. Although given what we are seeing here with people refusing to isolate and going out I don't necessarily blame them.
- robocat 7y ago
  > [China] just has a different take when it comes to individual rights. Yet next door mostly democratic Taiwan started acting on 31st December, and no one’s talking about them because they have prepared well and avoided an outbreak. Most other countries haven’t done so well...
  - jobigoud 7y ago
    The other reason no one is talking about them is that the WHO continues to list Taiwan as a province of China...
knzhou 7y ago
How is anybody still making this argument? "It stopped in China, so we don't need to do anything." It stopped in China precisely because they did something. Diseases don't magically stop themselves. This is on the level of thinking your dirty dishes wash themselves, because your roommate grudgingly does them.
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  " Diseases don't magically stop themselves." No, but they usually stop, when the immune system is done fighting them, either successfully or not. And pandemies usually stop, when enough people build up immunity, or failed doing so. Or when the disease is so deadly it kills quicker than it can spread. Which is here not at all the case. So even if nobody would be doing anything, this disease would eventually go away. It is "only" a question of how many casualties it will take. And we are discussing the cost/benefit of the measures to society as a whole. Shutting everything down has real costs, too.
  - omnimus 7y ago
    What if you don't build up immunity? I've read that there it's not certain we can build up enough immunity. Everybody takes this for granted but what if your immunity lasts for two weeks?
    - hutzlibu 7y ago
      Then I would die, if there is no lung ventilator for me around. Eventual all the people vulnerable would die too. And the overwhelming rest would live on.
      - sizzle 7y ago
        Right, until we either go extinct as a species or natural selection affords us the ability to fight it off and that new impervious population survives and thrives, thus passing on the immunity to new generations of humans.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
soperj 7y ago
USA had 5000 cases in the last 24 hours. It's growing exponentially. You're not starting at 1 like China did.
- surewhynat 7y ago
  USA wasn't even testing until very recently. Those numbers IRL are probably insanely higher than that.
- chasd00 7y ago
  don't forget, testing backlogs are being cleared. We're seeing a large number of confirmed tests show up in the numbers. Until the backlog is cleared the numbers are misleading.
  - soperj 7y ago
    How are they misleading? You still have at minimum 14000 active cases in the USA today. In 8 weeks you'd have significantly more.
  - soperj 7y ago
    This comment hasn't aged well...
tanilama 7y ago
China's response is nearly impossible for any other country to replicate. The lockdown is every word that true to its literal meaning during that period of time. People are not allowed to leave their own apartment. It is more like national level home arrest than volunteered quarantine. All policies are enforced through each individual district, roughly equals to each apartment complex, that entering or leaving the complex requires its own passes. Let alone make a mask a requirement for everyone, without which you would put arrested in public. I don't think any other countries can implement such a strict lockdown really. In California's case, I think the spread will no doubt slow down, but it is not going to be enough to burn out the virus. In the meantime, we need an effective treatment to be deploy to really battle this. Can't believe this timeline is getting so intense this quickly in 2020, this is history making by everyday...
- gpderetta 7y ago
  > China's response is nearly impossible for any other country to replicate. [...] > People are not allowed to leave their own apartment that's literally what's happening right now in Italy (and I think other European countries). It is not voluntary quarantine; although the level of enforcement is not at the level of China, you can get arrested if you are found outside without a good reason.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Plenty of Italians ARE leaving their apartments, to the point that the government has started issuing fines and criminal charges. And that's only sort-of working. The Chinese meanwhile crack the whip -- and people listen, mostly 'cuz they know the government will back up their words harshly.
    - sschueller 7y ago
      I heard on the radio that they pulled cell phone data in northern Italy (might be illegal) and determined that 40% are still going out.
djcapelis 7y ago
The statistical models I am running all consistently show that the exponential factor for the spread of the virus is 3 times higher outside of China than it ever was inside of China. Wuhan isn’t the worst case scenario. It is the lower more flat curve we would desperately like to put ourselves on. The estimate Newsom presented is credible.
a_c 7y ago
While 25million in 8 weeks might be exaggerated, the number reported by chinese is not credible neither. The US flu death in 2018-2019 is estimated to be 34k. [1] China's flu death in the same year is 144. [2] China's population is 4x to that of US. While the numbers cannot be compared directly, the difference in magnitude says at least something about its counting methodology, if not straight out lying If I am to extrapolate, the corona virus death in china is at least two magnitude under reported 1. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html 2. https://www.yearbookchina.com/downsoft-n3019102807.html https://www.yearbookchina.com/downsoft-n3019102807.html
- merpnderp 7y ago
  Everywhere in the world but China, flu caused pneumonia is posted as flu cause of death. But China would list it as pneumonia, so you have to guesstimate flu deaths by a fraction of pneumonia deaths.
- surewhynat 7y ago
  Okay, and how about Korea? Korea is also lying? Everyone is lying except the countries in the west? Have you considered that those countries just simply have had a better response to mobilize than the western countries?
thedudeabides5 7y ago
Tell me how a virus that started in China (a country with 1 billion humans and grew unchecked or for months), could really have less fatalities than Italy, a country with 25x less people... Unless the numbers are crap, then it makes total sense. But the WHO disagrees, ah well, then I guess we should stop using our thinking machines.
- spats1990 7y ago
  >grew unchecked or for months It really didn't "grow unchecked for months". >using our thinking machines. OK. You first, then.
  - thedudeabides5 7y ago
    Well, I'm lighting kharma on fire to educate you @spats1990, so at least I'm trying. Here's the timeline. Nov 17 - First known case of coronavirus https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.html https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.htm... January 3 - Whistleblower Dr Li thrown in jail "Li warned colleagues on social media in late December about a mysterious virus that would become the coronavirus epidemic and was detained by police in Wuhan on 3 January for “spreading false rumours”. He was forced to sign a police document to admit he had breached the law and had “seriously disrupted social order.” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-chinese-rage-death-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/c... Jan 18 - Annual Wuhan Lunar New Year banquet. Tens of thousands of people gathered for a potluck. (Hosted by the Mayor of Wuhan) Jan 23 - Wuhan put on lockdown https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coro... The research also found that if interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.page https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.pa... Looks like a couple months to me.
mrb 7y ago
Simple, check this log scale chart of COVID-19 cases excluding China: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETgWL8rU8AA3OML?format=png&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETgWL8rU8AA3OML?format=png&name=... They multiply by 10 every 14 days. So assuming governments did not take any action to change this trend, cases would multiply by 10^4 = 10,000 over 8 weeks. There are urrently around 675 cases in California according to the CDPH (https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Immunization/ncov2019.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Immunization...). So this trend would lead to 6 million cases in 8 weeks. The governor probably assumes there are 4 times more cases than detected. So 6M × 4 = 24 million.
thdrdt 7y ago
There is a huge difference between confirmed infections and total infections because it is estimated that around 18% of the people never notice that they are infected. But those that get sick get very very sick. And this will put much pressure on health care. The fear is real. Take a look at the footage of Chinese hospitals and doctors. Without lockdown the numbers will go up in 8 weeks.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Sure you can argue that Chinatown is lying about their cases (WHO disagrees). Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. The bigger difference is that California’s cases were more broadly diffused across the population than China’s at the same numbers (in part because it didn't originate from a single point in CA but had multiple points of introduction, and in part probably because of differences in lifestyle and social interaction patterns.)
frandroid 7y ago
It really doesn't matter whether it's 4 or 30 million in 8 weeks, because by the time you reach a million people contaminated, you'll have overwhelmed California's ICU and ventilator capacity. People with all kinds of critical conditions, on top of critical COVID-19 cases, will die from lack of care.

hkmurakami 7y ago

China's response in Wuhan in February was indeed superhuman, wrt quarantine, travel bans, medical personnel influx, infrastructure build outs, etc. They built 2000 isolation hospital bed capacity in something like 6 days.

klipt 7y ago

I assume the 25 million number is assuming we don't stay at home and go about business as normal. 81k is what China got after instituting lockdown as soon as they saw 400 new cases in one day.

Vomzor 7y ago
81k is what they reported. The CCP isn’t trustworthy.
- admax88q 7y ago
  Do you think they're likely to have _over_ reported the number of cases they had?
  - generatorguy 7y ago
    No, they probably under reported the numbers. Do you think they locked down wuhan with only 600 confirmed cases or were they way further along the curve? The world was shocked when they started to build the new hospitals that the numbers didn’t seem to justify. Maybe the numbers were right and they understood what they were in for, which would be a real feather in their hat for their country’s model.
    - outlace 7y ago
      A lot of CCP members are trained in STEM fields. Possibly a much higher proportion of people in China’s government understood and foresaw exponential growth.
    - pinkfoot 7y ago
      > The world was shocked when they started to build the new hospitals that the numbers didn’t seem to justify. Only those parts of the world who don't understand exponential growth. You should brush up.
      - generatorguy 7y ago
        I understand exponential growth thanks. If China was able to take the measures they did on January 23 with only 500 cases in wuhan, nothing amiss in the rest of the world, based on their understanding of exponential growth of the disease that is impressive. Every other government had China as a warning and all of them except three have waited to react.
        klipt 7y ago
        The governments that have acted effectively have all had prior experience with SARS.

keithnz 7y ago

why are you comparing California to the total population of china? China is regional too.

MiroF 7y ago

> Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. I think that you discount this option too quickly. Have you been to China before?

apatters 7y ago
Yes many times. I first visited a decade ago. I remember seeing shit smeared on the walls and ceilings of outhouses. A kid taking a shit on the steps of city hall. Today, they have come a long way in some parts of the country in terms of hygiene. In other parts there has been less progress. I have been to the wet markets in two Chinese provinces, and in other Asian countries as well. How about you?
- MiroF 7y ago
  I have also been to the wet markets in two Chinese provinces (Yunnan & Shanghai [not a province, I guess]). At least in the most dense regions of China that I observed, the state definitely at least seemed to have the ability to enforce some form of effective mandatory social isolation. Even in rural areas, the government seemed to be able to project authority using tech. Sure, their squat toilets are a mess but I don’t think that really reflects the technological capabilities of the state.

arbuge 7y ago

> I don't understand how we get to Newsom's claim that 25 million Californians will get infected in 8 weeks. The math doesn't check out. The best data we have at this point is from China. They have 81,000 confirmed cases to date, most of them happened over an 8 week period. I believe he was making a point over what would happen without any mitigation. China put in place very aggressive mitigation efforts to keep its numbers from exploding out of control.

chatmasta 7y ago
Everybody keeps saying this, but is China really “under control” right now? The virus is still here. Can’t it still infect everyone in China?
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  China is doing 14-day quarantines for all arrivals -- and this is actual guarded quarantine, not pinky-promise self-quarantine. There's also a lot of monitoring and risk mitigation in place, so they should be able to catch inevitable slipups (eg medical staff treating remaining patients) pretty early.
  - chatmasta 7y ago
    So are we just supposed to accept this as the permanent state of affairs until a vaccine is developed? At worst, complete lockdown... and at best, quarantine any time you cross an international border?
    - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
      What alternatives do you propose?
      - chatmasta 7y ago
        I mean, I don’t know. But I hope people maintain awareness of civil liberties throughout this ordeal. I’m not saying there’s anything nefarious afoot, but as citizens we should remain vigilant.

jlmorton 7y ago

Note that China implemented a draconian lockdown in Wuhan beginning on Jan 22nd, with 571 confirmed cases. By Jan 25th, China declared a Level 1 Health Emergency in 30 out of 31 provinces, and began locking down other provinces. On Jan 26th, China cancelled all inter-province bus service. On Jan 30th, China closed the highways between provinces. Also, all of this nicely coincided with the lunar new year holiday, when the vast majority of the country is already on holiday for 2 weeks, and not going to work, or school. It's not really comparable.

blueboo 7y ago
To further illustrate your point: The UK and South Korea reported their first cases on the first day; SK has slowed new cases to a trickle and the UK is facing mass infection.
meheleventyone 7y ago
Yeah I watched a documentary on RUV (Icelandic state TV) last night that basically cobbled together the story in Wuhan from people’s cellphone footage. People were literally dragged away by police/medical personnel in door to door temperature testing. Like physically picked up kicking and screaming and bundled into waiting vans. And at the time hospitals were so overloaded sick people were sat in corridors with the dead on the floor beside them covered by sheets. I think most people are pretty oblivious to what draconian means. I know I was! The documentary was Danish and called De advarede om corona-krisen - og forsvandt for those interested. The other thing to note is that a bunch of the people that recorded the footage are now missing which is terrifying in itself.
- sizzle 7y ago
  Thank you for sharing the documentary and shining a light on the insane measures taken out. I can't imagine the fear and uncertainty of getting sick and avoiding detection in China right now to say the least.
- frandroid 7y ago
  Please post to this site if English subtitles become available.

anonuser123456 7y ago

The best model I have seen so far is: Take deaths, multiply by 400 and that's how many cases you have. This comes from the assumption of 1% mortality and 3 weeks to die. So CA has ~8000. A doubling time is ~5 days. 8 weeks ~= 11 doublings. So 8000 * 2048 = 16M. Not too far off for a ballpark. Obviously, the exponential starts to breakdown somewhere... but where? I don't think it's fear mongering. It's getting the public to understand the back of the envelope worst case... which is really bad. People NEED to panic... to get them to hunker down and take this seriously. The sooner than happens, the sooner we get it under control. I had to yell at my inlaws to stop taking the train to work and going to the gym. They are 70 and have pre-existing conditions. This action will force them to take it seriously.

benjaminjackman 7y ago
I think doubling time is a bit faster than 5 days from what I have seen elsewhere, and that might change the math to the 25.5M in that time frame.
- ralfn 7y ago
  Yeah the doubling time confuses me too. All the numbers from China, Italy and the Netherlands (where I am at) show the number of deaths doubling every 2 days upto the limit. But even our dutch government is claiming it's 4 days standing in front of a chart where it's obviously 2 days. After you reach the limit it's hard to count because people stop going to the hospital that can't take them in anyway. At that point you should just consider any increase in deaths compared to the normal the result of Corona. Wether it's a cancer treatment that got postponed because of Corona or Corona itself.
- chatmasta 7y ago
  It seems like it’s difficult to get an accurate sense of the doubling rate right now, because of the confounding variable of increased testing.
  - djcapelis 7y ago

chaostheory 7y ago

1. I think nearly everyone besides WHO has the consensus that China’s released numbers is too low, especially when you compare it to the numbers from Italy and South Korea. Whether that’s due to corruption or the swamped hospitals and a lack of test kits in the beginning is debatable. 2. This white paper may explain Newsom’s numbers. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... The growth is exponential and not linear which throws off most people. Surprisingly, even though the paper’s R0 is on the conservative side (2.2-2.4) and so is their case fatality rate. However, their simulations still predict 2.2 million deaths in the US if there’s no gov intervention for social distancing

knzhou 7y ago
China's case fatality rate is half Italy's -- if anything, that tells us the Italian numbers are too low.
- michaelchisari 7y ago
  In China, 9% of people are 65 or older. In Italy, 22% are. Since this is a disease with the highest mortality for the older age groups, Italy was always going to have a higher mortality rate.
  - gpderetta 7y ago
    Apparently in Italy even flu is deadlier than the rest of Europe [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121...
    - orwin 7y ago
      northern italy is extremely humid, this is a factor for the flue too.
btilly 7y ago

adsljfl3 7y ago

The China case is no where close to applicable to the US. They specifically locked residents into their houses so they couldn't leave and locked down all transport in and out of the province. We are doing nothing of the sort, which means our spread will be much different.

lurquer 7y ago

This is no time for math or common-sense. Just stay inside, shut up, and be glad we aren’t being overrun by witches like back in Salem. Those were terrible days.. witches everywhere! Thankfully, Quick thinking politicians got rid of them.

richk449 7y ago

> Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. They literally welded doors shut on apartment buildings. They are not superhuman. They just have a different take when it comes to individual rights. There is no reason to assume the growth rate will taper off in country x like it did in China if country x does not take similar, or equivalent measures.

war1025 7y ago
Since the "welded doors shut" thing borders on fear mongering, I feel the need to clarify. Everything I have read states they closed off certain doors to ensure that you couldn't get in / out of the building without getting a health screen.
- duckymcduckface 7y ago
  There were wide scale reports of authorities using chains and locks to seal individual dwellings on apartment buildings by chaining the metal gates closed. If you look at pictures from the field hospitals that they built you'll also note that there were metal grills on the windows as well. Although given what we are seeing here with people refusing to isolate and going out I don't necessarily blame them.
robocat 7y ago
> [China] just has a different take when it comes to individual rights. Yet next door mostly democratic Taiwan started acting on 31st December, and no one’s talking about them because they have prepared well and avoided an outbreak. Most other countries haven’t done so well...
- jobigoud 7y ago
  The other reason no one is talking about them is that the WHO continues to list Taiwan as a province of China...

knzhou 7y ago

How is anybody still making this argument? "It stopped in China, so we don't need to do anything." It stopped in China precisely because they did something. Diseases don't magically stop themselves. This is on the level of thinking your dirty dishes wash themselves, because your roommate grudgingly does them.

hutzlibu 7y ago
" Diseases don't magically stop themselves." No, but they usually stop, when the immune system is done fighting them, either successfully or not. And pandemies usually stop, when enough people build up immunity, or failed doing so. Or when the disease is so deadly it kills quicker than it can spread. Which is here not at all the case. So even if nobody would be doing anything, this disease would eventually go away. It is "only" a question of how many casualties it will take. And we are discussing the cost/benefit of the measures to society as a whole. Shutting everything down has real costs, too.
- omnimus 7y ago
  What if you don't build up immunity? I've read that there it's not certain we can build up enough immunity. Everybody takes this for granted but what if your immunity lasts for two weeks?
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    Then I would die, if there is no lung ventilator for me around. Eventual all the people vulnerable would die too. And the overwhelming rest would live on.
    - sizzle 7y ago
      Right, until we either go extinct as a species or natural selection affords us the ability to fight it off and that new impervious population survives and thrives, thus passing on the immunity to new generations of humans.

deleted 7y ago

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soperj 7y ago

USA had 5000 cases in the last 24 hours. It's growing exponentially. You're not starting at 1 like China did.

surewhynat 7y ago
USA wasn't even testing until very recently. Those numbers IRL are probably insanely higher than that.
chasd00 7y ago
don't forget, testing backlogs are being cleared. We're seeing a large number of confirmed tests show up in the numbers. Until the backlog is cleared the numbers are misleading.
- soperj 7y ago
  How are they misleading? You still have at minimum 14000 active cases in the USA today. In 8 weeks you'd have significantly more.
- soperj 7y ago
  This comment hasn't aged well...

tanilama 7y ago

China's response is nearly impossible for any other country to replicate. The lockdown is every word that true to its literal meaning during that period of time. People are not allowed to leave their own apartment. It is more like national level home arrest than volunteered quarantine. All policies are enforced through each individual district, roughly equals to each apartment complex, that entering or leaving the complex requires its own passes. Let alone make a mask a requirement for everyone, without which you would put arrested in public. I don't think any other countries can implement such a strict lockdown really. In California's case, I think the spread will no doubt slow down, but it is not going to be enough to burn out the virus. In the meantime, we need an effective treatment to be deploy to really battle this. Can't believe this timeline is getting so intense this quickly in 2020, this is history making by everyday...

gpderetta 7y ago
> China's response is nearly impossible for any other country to replicate. [...] > People are not allowed to leave their own apartment that's literally what's happening right now in Italy (and I think other European countries). It is not voluntary quarantine; although the level of enforcement is not at the level of China, you can get arrested if you are found outside without a good reason.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Plenty of Italians ARE leaving their apartments, to the point that the government has started issuing fines and criminal charges. And that's only sort-of working. The Chinese meanwhile crack the whip -- and people listen, mostly 'cuz they know the government will back up their words harshly.
  - sschueller 7y ago
    I heard on the radio that they pulled cell phone data in northern Italy (might be illegal) and determined that 40% are still going out.

djcapelis 7y ago

The statistical models I am running all consistently show that the exponential factor for the spread of the virus is 3 times higher outside of China than it ever was inside of China. Wuhan isn’t the worst case scenario. It is the lower more flat curve we would desperately like to put ourselves on. The estimate Newsom presented is credible.

a_c 7y ago

While 25million in 8 weeks might be exaggerated, the number reported by chinese is not credible neither. The US flu death in 2018-2019 is estimated to be 34k. [1] China's flu death in the same year is 144. [2] China's population is 4x to that of US. While the numbers cannot be compared directly, the difference in magnitude says at least something about its counting methodology, if not straight out lying If I am to extrapolate, the corona virus death in china is at least two magnitude under reported 1. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html 2. https://www.yearbookchina.com/downsoft-n3019102807.html https://www.yearbookchina.com/downsoft-n3019102807.html

merpnderp 7y ago
Everywhere in the world but China, flu caused pneumonia is posted as flu cause of death. But China would list it as pneumonia, so you have to guesstimate flu deaths by a fraction of pneumonia deaths.
surewhynat 7y ago
Okay, and how about Korea? Korea is also lying? Everyone is lying except the countries in the west? Have you considered that those countries just simply have had a better response to mobilize than the western countries?

thedudeabides5 7y ago

Tell me how a virus that started in China (a country with 1 billion humans and grew unchecked or for months), could really have less fatalities than Italy, a country with 25x less people... Unless the numbers are crap, then it makes total sense. But the WHO disagrees, ah well, then I guess we should stop using our thinking machines.

spats1990 7y ago
>grew unchecked or for months It really didn't "grow unchecked for months". >using our thinking machines. OK. You first, then.
- thedudeabides5 7y ago
  Well, I'm lighting kharma on fire to educate you @spats1990, so at least I'm trying. Here's the timeline. Nov 17 - First known case of coronavirus https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.html https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.htm... January 3 - Whistleblower Dr Li thrown in jail "Li warned colleagues on social media in late December about a mysterious virus that would become the coronavirus epidemic and was detained by police in Wuhan on 3 January for “spreading false rumours”. He was forced to sign a police document to admit he had breached the law and had “seriously disrupted social order.” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-chinese-rage-death-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/c... Jan 18 - Annual Wuhan Lunar New Year banquet. Tens of thousands of people gathered for a potluck. (Hosted by the Mayor of Wuhan) Jan 23 - Wuhan put on lockdown https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coro... The research also found that if interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.page https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.pa... Looks like a couple months to me.

mrb 7y ago

Simple, check this log scale chart of COVID-19 cases excluding China: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETgWL8rU8AA3OML?format=png&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETgWL8rU8AA3OML?format=png&name=... They multiply by 10 every 14 days. So assuming governments did not take any action to change this trend, cases would multiply by 10^4 = 10,000 over 8 weeks. There are urrently around 675 cases in California according to the CDPH (https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Immunization/ncov2019.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Immunization...). So this trend would lead to 6 million cases in 8 weeks. The governor probably assumes there are 4 times more cases than detected. So 6M × 4 = 24 million.

thdrdt 7y ago

There is a huge difference between confirmed infections and total infections because it is estimated that around 18% of the people never notice that they are infected. But those that get sick get very very sick. And this will put much pressure on health care. The fear is real. Take a look at the footage of Chinese hospitals and doctors. Without lockdown the numbers will go up in 8 weeks.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Sure you can argue that Chinatown is lying about their cases (WHO disagrees). Or that they are authoritarian superhumans with a superior response. The bigger difference is that California’s cases were more broadly diffused across the population than China’s at the same numbers (in part because it didn't originate from a single point in CA but had multiple points of introduction, and in part probably because of differences in lifestyle and social interaction patterns.)

frandroid 7y ago

It really doesn't matter whether it's 4 or 30 million in 8 weeks, because by the time you reach a million people contaminated, you'll have overwhelmed California's ICU and ventilator capacity. People with all kinds of critical conditions, on top of critical COVID-19 cases, will die from lack of care.