Coronavirus Craziness

[gaffo]

Most recent Italian statistics:

Average age of those who have died fromt the virus 78.
72% are male.
''The latest Italian analysis reveals that around three in four of those who died suffered from two or more chronic diseases. Half had suffered from three or more chronic conditions.''

male to female is 66/33.

80 percent are over 60, but some young and healthy do die from it.

all about genetics - when they are otherwise healthy and young.

[gaffo]

Even the most dull witted and stupid person could work out that the greatest likelihood of a human virus mutating is going to happen inside a human host.

U ain't that bright R ya.

A virus within a host tends to mutate to a lesser 'infringement' on the capacity for the host species to continue to survive. A virus that jumps species however, well fuk me who nose what might happen ....for a VERY long time.

FFS.
Viral DNA is basically made from the same DNA as the host, since the way Viruses reproduce is to invade host cells. This is why zoonotic diseases are very rare, since DIFFERENT species tend to have DIFFERENT DNA - rather obviously.

most Viri are made of RNA.

[gaffo]

I guess in how it is used, as I thought that 'Poms' was basically a slur in Australia when first used and came generally with the word 'whinging', whereas over here 'Paki' generally came with the word 'fucking'. I also thought that 'Aussie' was a name given by Australians to themselves and not one assigned to them by others?

you are right about this - from "poms to pakis".

[commonsense]

...
And what about calling someone a Paki because they are from Pakistan!!? - All we are doing is shortening the word Pakistani!!!!!!

RIDICULOUS.

You should watch the new film The Gentlemen - there is a scene that sums this shit up very well.

You've obviously never been on the receiving end of the epithet "Paki".

Well it would be a bit odd owing to the fact that I am not from Pakistan.

I can understand someone being born in England being called a Paki taking some offense.

Let me contort to a different perspective. Let's say there is a land called Pomegranate. The people from this land have dark skin and a culture very different to the land they have moved to. The locals call them Poms because it is a shortening of Pomegrani.

Now, why is it not ok to call them Poms?

Because the intent of the term has been co-opted by those whose intent is to use the term as an epithet. It is subsequently a slur. It is intended to be said with a sneer and/or with other pejoratives.

[Sculptor]

Mice etc... are made pretty much from the same DNA as humans. We carry viruses all the time, that don't bother us - those ones rarely mutate within our own DNA to create an issue for us. It's the ones in our brother mammalians that manage to interface to our own that create the havoc - and yes - mutate from there.

DUh.
Zoonitic diseases are rare. There is a very good reason for that.
The flu virus has been in continual mutation for centuries. With each passing year the vaccine has had to keep catching up with at least a couple of versions each year. These are all the result of humangenic mutations.
The common cold which is akin to the Covid types of virus mutate too much to keep track of. That is why people can get several colds every year, since the virus is seldom like enough for the last set of antibodies to be effective.
This pandemic was waiting to happen, and the Covid virus did not need the help of any animal to achieve the current lucky mutation.
Bugs reproduce in astronomical numbers with massive potential for mutation. Most of these mutations fail; some offer a less virulent strain, but rarely the mutation causes a more virulent mutation.
This version has everything a virus could want, except that the fatality is higher than useful to the virus; but has asymptomatic infectivity and is very catching.

Hey everyone, don't listen to the experts the virologists\epidemiologists that the virus is most likely to have come from another species of animal - listen to Sculptor - he's all over this shit.
According to Sculptor swine flu didn't come from swine, it mutated within a policeman that lived just around the corner from him.

I'm not saying that.
A man can give a pig virus as much as a pig can give one to a man; rarely.
Cross species transmission has no particular relevance to mutation, since any novel mutations that are successful in a foreign species are not more likely to cross but LESS likely.
Every year the flu virus mutates in humans far more than any cross species transmissions.
It has very little to do with zoonosis that the vaccine is continually chasing new strains.
You could kill all the animals you like; we'd still get colds and flu, and the more we associate and pack ourselves into crowed trains, busses and planes the more we shall spread these viruses the world over.
Blame a pig if you want. But there is no solution here.
It's the human way of life that is principally to blame; mass travel and overcrowding in cities.

[Sculptor]

U ain't that bright R ya.

A virus within a host tends to mutate to a lesser 'infringement' on the capacity for the host species to continue to survive. A virus that jumps species however, well fuk me who nose what might happen ....for a VERY long time.

FFS.
Viral DNA is basically made from the same DNA as the host, since the way Viruses reproduce is to invade host cells. This is why zoonotic diseases are very rare, since DIFFERENT species tend to have DIFFERENT DNA - rather obviously.

most Viri are made of RNA.

RNA is a single strand of DNA. The distinction matters little for this argument, since viruses (note plural) have to match their host's DNA.

[attofishpi]

DUh.
Zoonitic diseases are rare. There is a very good reason for that.
The flu virus has been in continual mutation for centuries. With each passing year the vaccine has had to keep catching up with at least a couple of versions each year. These are all the result of humangenic mutations.
The common cold which is akin to the Covid types of virus mutate too much to keep track of. That is why people can get several colds every year, since the virus is seldom like enough for the last set of antibodies to be effective.
This pandemic was waiting to happen, and the Covid virus did not need the help of any animal to achieve the current lucky mutation.
Bugs reproduce in astronomical numbers with massive potential for mutation. Most of these mutations fail; some offer a less virulent strain, but rarely the mutation causes a more virulent mutation.
This version has everything a virus could want, except that the fatality is higher than useful to the virus; but has asymptomatic infectivity and is very catching.

Hey everyone, don't listen to the experts the virologists\epidemiologists that the virus is most likely to have come from another species of animal - listen to Sculptor - he's all over this shit.
According to Sculptor swine flu didn't come from swine, it mutated within a policeman that lived just around the corner from him.

I'm not saying that.
A man can give a pig virus as much as a pig can give one to a man; rarely.
Cross species transmission has no particular relevance to mutation, since any novel mutations that are successful in a foreign species are not more likely to cross but LESS likely.
Every year the flu virus mutates in humans far more than any cross species transmissions.
It has very little to do with zoonosis that the vaccine is continually chasing new strains.
You could kill all the animals you like; we'd still get colds and flu, and the more we associate and pack ourselves into crowed trains, busses and planes the more we shall spread these viruses the world over.
Blame a pig if you want. But there is no solution here.
It's the human way of life that is principally to blame; mass travel and overcrowding in cities.

Sure we can agree that viruses mutate within the host, but as far as I am aware, completely new viruses within a man - don't just ping into existence within a man - they come from other species.

Apparently the common cold is likely to have come from birds around 200 years ago:-
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 073115.htm

A virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to a new article published in the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Hey everyone, don't listen to the experts the virologists\epidemiologists that the virus is most likely to have come from another species of animal - listen to Sculptor - he's all over this shit.
According to Sculptor swine flu didn't come from swine, it mutated within a policeman that lived just around the corner from him.

I'm not saying that.
A man can give a pig virus as much as a pig can give one to a man; rarely.
Cross species transmission has no particular relevance to mutation, since any novel mutations that are successful in a foreign species are not more likely to cross but LESS likely.
Every year the flu virus mutates in humans far more than any cross species transmissions.
It has very little to do with zoonosis that the vaccine is continually chasing new strains.
You could kill all the animals you like; we'd still get colds and flu, and the more we associate and pack ourselves into crowed trains, busses and planes the more we shall spread these viruses the world over.
Blame a pig if you want. But there is no solution here.
It's the human way of life that is principally to blame; mass travel and overcrowding in cities.

Sure we can agree that viruses mutate within the host, but as far as I am aware, completely new viruses within a man - don't just ping into existence within a man - they come from other species.

Apparently the common cold is likely to have come from birds around 200 years ago:-
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 073115.htm

A virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to a new article published in the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.

He's just being a PC fuckwit know-it-all. You can't reason with the kind of fanatical loon who calls people the 'R' word simply for daring to mention where the virus originated. Perhaps he has a Chinese mail-order bride. Perhaps the isolation of lockdown has driven him around the bend (although he has been showing these symptoms for some time now). Who knows? Frankly, I don't give a shit what the reason is; those kind of areholes need to have the tabled turned on THEM for once. See how THEY like being silenced.

[henry quirk]

From George Avery, PhD. MPA


Dr. Avery has a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and has conducted significant research in the area of public health emergency preparedness, including five journal articles and two book chapters on the topic. He has served on several CDC advisory boards, including a panel on preparedness and emergency response centers, and consulted for the Defense Department on Medical Civic Action program doctrine. He has edited a special issue of the research journal Bioterrorism and Biodefense and served as a reviewer for the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management as well as Disaster Medicine and Public Health. He is a health services researcher with a medical analytics firm in the Midwest, and has formerly been a professor with the public health program at Purdue and worked from 1990-2000 with the Arkansas Department of Health’s Division of Public Health Laboratories.



We are seeing a panic reaction towards the newly emerged SARS-COVID-2 [Wuhan] epidemic, marked by panic buying of items including the much-joked about toilet paper, drastic action by political figures that often impinges on basic civil rights, and potentially devastating lasting economic impact. Much of this has been fueled by naïve and sensationalist reporting of fatality rates, such as a March 10, 2020 report by the Bloomberg news service that implies that 3.4-3.5% of infected individuals die (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rus-update ). This has caused comparisons to the 1919 Influenza A:H1N1 pandemic and its 2.5% case fatality rate, which would qualify as a level 5 event on the CDC’s Pandemic Severity Index (PSI) and has led to a panicked overreaction worldwide. This case fatality rate, however, to a trained epidemiologist is obviously a significant overestimation of the actual fatality rate from the disease.

Ascertainment bias is a systematic error in statistical estimation of a population parameter resulting from errors in measurement - usually, in undermeasurement of a parameter. In this case, we are underestimating the actual number of cases in the population, which is the denominator in the calculation of the estimated case fatality rate. We are accurately estimating deaths, but to get the case fatality rate, we divide deaths by our estimate of the number of cases. Because that it too low due to measurement error, the estimate of the case fatality rate is too high.

For example, for a hypothetical disease if we have three deaths and observed ten cases, then the case fatality rate is 30% (3/10=0.3 or 30%). If, however, there were actually 300 cases, and only 10 were observed and reported, ascertainment bias has led us to underestimate the cases and overestimate the case fatality rate, which is actually 1% (3/300=0.01 or 1%).

In this case, in the absence of population-based screening to more actually estimate the total number of cases, we are only counting cases who are sick enough to seek health care -- almost all disease reports are made by healthcare professionals. We are missing people who have no more than a cold or who are infected but show no symptoms, individuals who almost certainly make up the overwhelming majority of actual cases. Thus, as in my hypothetical example, we are overestimating the case fatality rate for the disease.

There is, however, data available on SARS-COVID-2 [Wuhan] that allows us to get a better grasp on the actual case fatality rates for the virus.

One case is that of the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which achieved some notoriety from the well-publicized outbreak among its 3711 passengers and crew in January and February of 2006. Held aboard in constricted quarters, the population was subject to 3068 polymerase chain reaction (pcr) tests, which identified 634 individuals (17%) as infected, with over half of these infections (328 ) producing no symptoms. Seven infected passengers died, all of them over the age of 70. Adjusting the data for age, researchers at the London Institute of Tropical Medicine have estimated a fatality rate per infection (IFR) for the epidemic in China of 0.5% (95% CI: 0.2-1.2%) during the same period. This is far below the earlier estimates of 3.4% or greater that were promoting panic over the epidemic. See Russell et al, Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, MedRXIV 2020 at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 2.full.pdf.

South Korea has also implemented far wider population-based screening than the US, expanding their screening past suspected cases to voluntary population screening in geographies frequented by identified cases. As of March 15, as Stanford University economist Richard Epstein has noted, they performed over 235,000 tests and identified 8, 162 infections with 75 deaths (CFR=0.91%). Again, only about 10% of the deaths were in the population under the age of 60. See https://www.hoover.org/research/coronav ... t-pandemic . While their population screening efforts were far better than that of the United States, this was still not a broad-based screening effort (such as was used on the Diamond Princess), being biased because while it looked at a broader population, it still was enriched with cases by looking only at a segment of the population with a higher risk. Still, the case fatality rate is significantly below the 3.4% rate that caused the public panic.

What we are likely seeing, in my estimation, is an epidemic with a real case fatality rate between 0.2 and 0.5%, which is similar to the 1957 Asian Influenza A:H2N2 or 1968 Hong Kong Influenza A:H3N2 pandemics, which were also essentially virgin field respiratory epidemics. These pandemics rate, not as PSI5 events, but as PSI2 events on the CDC scale. They are certainly atypical and more severe than a PSI1 event (such as a routine seasonal flu epidemic), but not a shattering event like the 1919 influenza A:H1N1 pandemic. These earlier pandemics essentially tripled the number of deaths due to influenza experienced annually, and were posed little long-term economic or other damage to the population despite being handled without the extreme measures that are currently being adopted or proposed by political figures. Like those pandemic events, SARS-COVID-2 [Wuhan] has its most significant impact on elderly or otherwise compromised individuals, with few fatalities observed in the population under the age of 60. From what we have observed, half of those infected show no symptoms, 40% show mild symptoms such as a cold, and only about 2% advance to serious or critical illness. What is needed now is for politicians and the population to pause, take a deep breath, and address the epidemic with rational measures, such as social distancing of the older population, ring screening around identified cases, quarantine of identified infected individuals, and adequate hospital triage systems to protect other patients and health care staff rom infection in order to preserve our ability to treat the most severe cases. This is a strategy identified by myself and colleagues at Purdue in 2007 to ensure adequate capacity to deal with another true influenza pandemic, and it applies to this one as well.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

From George Avery, PhD. MPA


Dr. Avery has a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and has conducted significant research in the area of public health emergency preparedness, including five journal articles and two book chapters on the topic. He has served on several CDC advisory boards, including a panel on preparedness and emergency response centers, and consulted for the Defense Department on Medical Civic Action program doctrine. He has edited a special issue of the research journal Bioterrorism and Biodefense and served as a reviewer for the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management as well as Disaster Medicine and Public Health. He is a health services researcher with a medical analytics firm in the Midwest, and has formerly been a professor with the public health program at Purdue and worked from 1990-2000 with the Arkansas Department of Health’s Division of Public Health Laboratories.



We are seeing a panic reaction towards the newly emerged SARS-COVID-2 [Wuhan] epidemic, marked by panic buying of items including the much-joked about toilet paper, drastic action by political figures that often impinges on basic civil rights, and potentially devastating lasting economic impact. Much of this has been fueled by naïve and sensationalist reporting of fatality rates, such as a March 10, 2020 report by the Bloomberg news service that implies that 3.4-3.5% of infected individuals die (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rus-update ). This has caused comparisons to the 1919 Influenza A:H1N1 pandemic and its 2.5% case fatality rate, which would qualify as a level 5 event on the CDC’s Pandemic Severity Index (PSI) and has led to a panicked overreaction worldwide. This case fatality rate, however, to a trained epidemiologist is obviously a significant overestimation of the actual fatality rate from the disease.

Ascertainment bias is a systematic error in statistical estimation of a population parameter resulting from errors in measurement - usually, in undermeasurement of a parameter. In this case, we are underestimating the actual number of cases in the population, which is the denominator in the calculation of the estimated case fatality rate. We are accurately estimating deaths, but to get the case fatality rate, we divide deaths by our estimate of the number of cases. Because that it too low due to measurement error, the estimate of the case fatality rate is too high.

For example, for a hypothetical disease if we have three deaths and observed ten cases, then the case fatality rate is 30% (3/10=0.3 or 30%). If, however, there were actually 300 cases, and only 10 were observed and reported, ascertainment bias has led us to underestimate the cases and overestimate the case fatality rate, which is actually 1% (3/300=0.01 or 1%).

In this case, in the absence of population-based screening to more actually estimate the total number of cases, we are only counting cases who are sick enough to seek health care -- almost all disease reports are made by healthcare professionals. We are missing people who have no more than a cold or who are infected but show no symptoms, individuals who almost certainly make up the overwhelming majority of actual cases. Thus, as in my hypothetical example, we are overestimating the case fatality rate for the disease.

There is, however, data available on SARS-COVID-2 [Wuhan] that allows us to get a better grasp on the actual case fatality rates for the virus.

One case is that of the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which achieved some notoriety from the well-publicized outbreak among its 3711 passengers and crew in January and February of 2006. Held aboard in constricted quarters, the population was subject to 3068 polymerase chain reaction (pcr) tests, which identified 634 individuals (17%) as infected, with over half of these infections (328 ) producing no symptoms. Seven infected passengers died, all of them over the age of 70. Adjusting the data for age, researchers at the London Institute of Tropical Medicine have estimated a fatality rate per infection (IFR) for the epidemic in China of 0.5% (95% CI: 0.2-1.2%) during the same period. This is far below the earlier estimates of 3.4% or greater that were promoting panic over the epidemic. See Russell et al, Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, MedRXIV 2020 at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 2.full.pdf.

South Korea has also implemented far wider population-based screening than the US, expanding their screening past suspected cases to voluntary population screening in geographies frequented by identified cases. As of March 15, as Stanford University economist Richard Epstein has noted, they performed over 235,000 tests and identified 8, 162 infections with 75 deaths (CFR=0.91%). Again, only about 10% of the deaths were in the population under the age of 60. See https://www.hoover.org/research/coronav ... t-pandemic . While their population screening efforts were far better than that of the United States, this was still not a broad-based screening effort (such as was used on the Diamond Princess), being biased because while it looked at a broader population, it still was enriched with cases by looking only at a segment of the population with a higher risk. Still, the case fatality rate is significantly below the 3.4% rate that caused the public panic.

What we are likely seeing, in my estimation, is an epidemic with a real case fatality rate between 0.2 and 0.5%, which is similar to the 1957 Asian Influenza A:H2N2 or 1968 Hong Kong Influenza A:H3N2 pandemics, which were also essentially virgin field respiratory epidemics. These pandemics rate, not as PSI5 events, but as PSI2 events on the CDC scale. They are certainly atypical and more severe than a PSI1 event (such as a routine seasonal flu epidemic), but not a shattering event like the 1919 influenza A:H1N1 pandemic. These earlier pandemics essentially tripled the number of deaths due to influenza experienced annually, and were posed little long-term economic or other damage to the population despite being handled without the extreme measures that are currently being adopted or proposed by political figures. Like those pandemic events, SARS-COVID-2 [Wuhan] has its most significant impact on elderly or otherwise compromised individuals, with few fatalities observed in the population under the age of 60. From what we have observed, half of those infected show no symptoms, 40% show mild symptoms such as a cold, and only about 2% advance to serious or critical illness. What is needed now is for politicians and the population to pause, take a deep breath, and address the epidemic with rational measures, such as social distancing of the older population, ring screening around identified cases, quarantine of identified infected individuals, and adequate hospital triage systems to protect other patients and health care staff rom infection in order to preserve our ability to treat the most severe cases. This is a strategy identified by myself and colleagues at Purdue in 2007 to ensure adequate capacity to deal with another true influenza pandemic, and it applies to this one as well.

I could understand if young people started revolting, asking why they should be sacrificing everything for old people. I can see now why such a huge fuss is made every time a younger person dies, and why very few details are released as to their background.

Reminds me of wartime, where it's always the young who are forced to sacrifice everything for the old, and treated like pariahs if they object. Same tactics used. Emotional blackmail 'Wah, you are selfish. You don't care about the VULNERABLE'. Well why the fuck should they?

[henry quirk]

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases as of 4-4-20

Total Confirmed: 1,196,553

Total Deaths: 64,549

Total Recovered: 246,152

-----

World population: 8 billion

Numbers: pay attention.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases as of 4-4-20

Total Confirmed: 1,196,553

Total Deaths: 64,549

Total Recovered: 246,152

-----

World population: 8 billion

Numbers: pay attention.

Looks like about 5%? That seems pretty high. Or am I missing something? But the very high Italian death rate is skewing the statistics. Here we've had one death from 950 cases with only one serious at the moment.

[henry quirk]

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases as of 4-4-20

Total Confirmed: 1,196,553

Total Deaths: 64,549

Total Recovered: 246,152

-----

World population: 8 billion

Numbers: pay attention.

Looks like about 5%? That seems pretty high. Or am I missing something?

How are you gettin' 5%?

Goin' solely with total deaths (ultimately, the only number that really matters), I get: .0008

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases as of 4-4-20

Total Confirmed: 1,196,553

Total Deaths: 64,549

Total Recovered: 246,152

-----

World population: 8 billion

Numbers: pay attention.

Looks like about 5%? That seems pretty high. Or am I missing something?

How are you gettin' 5%?

Goin' solely with total deaths (ultimately, the only number that really matters), I get: .0008

Take 2 million then. 10% would be 200K. 1% would be 20K. 3% would be 60K. So I suppose it would be about 3%, not 5.
I can't work it out exactly. Forgotten how

[henry quirk]

Looks like about 5%? That seems pretty high. Or am I missing something?

How are you gettin' 5%?

Goin' solely with total deaths (ultimately, the only number that really matters), I get: .0008

Take 2 million then. 10% would be 200K. 1% would be 20K. 3% would be 60K. So I suppose it would be about 3%, not 5.
I can't work it out exactly. Forgotten how

I used an on-line percentage calulator. I asked, what percentage of 8 billion is 64,549. The answer is .0008%.

Now, sure we can focus on various (sub)populations, like Italy, and you'll get 3 or 7 or 10%. But that percentage is misleading cuz dumb folks (not you, veg) think it applies across the board (which it doesn't).

In the end, the true global measure of this virus is total (or total current) deaths as a percentage of total population.