COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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Tricky_Trev said:
I don’t know what the projections are for this virus but with the exponential growth, would it not be millions infected in a matter of weeks? The reporter in the link above said it’s reached this number of infected people 4 times faster than SARS did. This will explode over the next few weeks.
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My theory at this stage is that there is a lot more travel around, and in & out of China since SARS and therefore it will have spread wider much more quickly and therefore appear more contagious. What I would say is it seems countries are much better organised as a result of SARS, Ebola, potential biological terrorism threats and sharing data and will hopefully contain it and find out how to cure it quickly.
 
SebastianBlue said:
That and a few other metrics like rate of incapacitation by qualitative severity and timeframe (which is also very impactful on society as an outbreak ramps up) would be very helpful to gaining a better understanding of how serious this novel coronavirus should be taken (beyond the base sensible amount, of course), but those usually take some time to develop in to a useful data point (as they by nature require a statistically significant universe to be determined meaningfully) and, even when they are determined, until an outbreak has been contained, they are usually guarded to prevent potential increased panic (in the case of the bad news).
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Yes, that's what I was meaning, just not with all the details. Statistics need careful handling and understanding, that's the bottom line.

Cancelling things like flights is as much a PR campaign to prevent mass panic than effectiveness.
 
TheRemainsOfTheDave said:
My theory at this stage is that there is a lot more travel around, and in & out of China since SARS and therefore it will have spread wider much more quickly and therefore appear more contagious. What I would say is it seems countries are much better organised as a result of SARS, Ebola, potential biological terrorism threats and sharing data and will hopefully contain it and find out how to cure it quickly.
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I am trying to remain optimistic, as well, which is difficult for a pessimistic **** of data scientist like me that spent some time with MSF seeing how things can turn quickly given the right conditions.

We are generally better prepared than with previous outbreaks. But I will say that although expanded travel can give the appearance of a faster transmission rate, it wouldn’t generally effect the R0, which is currently being estimated as ~2-3 (although there are a few research entities that put it higher), which is problematic with expanded travel systems, as it is means you have to fully isolate larger populations to stop cluster hoping.
 
SebastianBlue said:
That and a few other metrics like rate of incapacitation by qualitative severity and timeframe (which is also very impactful on society as an outbreak ramps up) would be very helpful to gaining a better understanding of how serious this novel coronavirus should be taken (beyond the base sensible amount, of course), but those usually take some time to develop in to a useful data point (as they by nature require a statistically significant universe to be determined meaningfully) and, even when they are determined, until an outbreak has been contained, they are usually guarded to prevent potential increased panic (in the case of the bad news).
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The way the scientific community are working together so rapidly on this (scientists are usually quite secretive/protective of their work) makes me think the experts are shitting it and don’t want to say how bad this is due to the increased panic it would cause. But then I’ve always been a worrier :)
 
Tricky_Trev said:
The way the scientific community are working together so rapidly on this (scientists are usually quite secretive/protective of their work) makes me think the experts are shitting it and don’t want to say how bad this is due to the increased panic it would cause. But then I’ve always been a worrier :)
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As I said, the trepidation in the reporter’s voice in the NPR update, especially when asked what the experts in HK were telling him, was not particularly encouraging.
 
SebastianBlue said:
I am trying to remain optimistic, as well, which is difficult for a pessimistic **** of data scientist like me that spent some time with MSF seeing how things can turn quickly given the right conditions.

We are generally better prepared than with previous outbreaks. But I will say that although expanded travel can give the appearance of a faster transmission rate, it wouldn’t generally effect the R0, which is currently being estimated as ~2-3 (although there are a few research entities that put it higher), which is problematic with expanded travel systems, as it is means you have to fully isolate larger populations to stop cluster hoping.
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Yes, certainly very early days. We'll know in the next 2 weeks I guess, if we start getting big numbers in the York area.
 
SebastianBlue said:
As I said, the trepidation in the reporter’s voice in the NPR update, especially when asked what the experts in HK were telling him, was not particularly encouraging.
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Yeah. Even the way China are building hospitals almost overnight seems quite unprecedented to me. Again, I am a perennial worrier, so I don’t want to shit people up but I was sat on the train home from work tonight looking at everyone and just wondering how they seem so oblivious to what is happening. I’m there wondering whether I should be the first to whip out the old face mask haha. I feel like most of this country feels we are safe from anything really bad happening to us, we’re in a bit of a bubble. And I wish I could live that way. If there’s something to overthink, I will overthink it. It’s been amplified further now that I have a 5 month old boy. The whole thing just shits me up I’m not going to lie. I don’t even laugh any more when people joke “well we’ll be dead soon anyway so don’t worry about it”. That’s our society’s approach to it in my experience today! I want to live like that, must be so good for your health. I can’t do it though. My bloody mind does my head in.
 
Tricky_Trev said:
Yeah. Even the way China are building hospitals almost overnight seems quite unprecedented to me. Again, I am a perennial worrier, so I don’t want to shit people up but I was sat on the train home from work tonight looking at everyone and just wondering how they seem so oblivious to what is happening. I’m there wondering whether I should be the first to whip out the old face mask haha. I feel like most of this country feels we are safe from anything really bad happening to us, we’re in a bit of a bubble. And I wish I could live that way. If there’s something to overthink, I will overthink it. It’s been amplified further now that I have a 5 month old boy. The whole thing just shits me up I’m not going to lie. I don’t even laugh any more when people joke “well we’ll be dead soon anyway so don’t worry about it”. That’s our society’s approach to it in my experience today! I want to live like that, must be so good for your health. I can’t do it though. My bloody mind does my head in.
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Kin hell mate, you need to chill ya beans, your more likely to die in a train crash that's taking you home than this flu :)
 
Tricky_Trev said:
Yeah. Even the way China are building hospitals almost overnight seems quite unprecedented to me. Again, I am a perennial worrier, so I don’t want to shit people up but I was sat on the train home from work tonight looking at everyone and just wondering how they seem so oblivious to what is happening. I’m there wondering whether I should be the first to whip out the old face mask haha. I feel like most of this country feels we are safe from anything really bad happening to us, we’re in a bit of a bubble. And I wish I could live that way. If there’s something to overthink, I will overthink it. It’s been amplified further now that I have a 5 month old boy. The whole thing just shits me up I’m not going to lie. I don’t even laugh any more when people joke “well we’ll be dead soon anyway so don’t worry about it”. That’s our society’s approach to it in my experience today! I want to live like that, must be so good for your health. I can’t do it though. My bloody mind does my head in.
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I am exactly the same way — the missus says I really should have been a crisis manager or public health analyst for the WHO or PHE with the way my mind works, constantly trying to assess risk and create plans for mitigating it (even when it’s really unnecessary; who needs a comprehensive risk mitigation plan for a day hike?). And recent developments with my own health have made it worse, much like the recent addition to your family (congratulations!). I think the missus is now even blocking my weekly predicted crises status report emails! ;-)

I wish I could live without worry... but I would just worry about the potential impacts of not worrying about anything.

Elbow beards said:
Kin hell mate, you need to chill ya beans, your more likely to die in a train crash that's taking you home than this flu :)
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We’re both (currently) more likely to die from a stress-induced disease than this novel coronavirus...

Which, ironically, we worry about quite often.
 
Tricky_Trev said:
Yeah. Even the way China are building hospitals almost overnight seems quite unprecedented to me. Again, I am a perennial worrier, so I don’t want to shit people up but I was sat on the train home from work tonight looking at everyone and just wondering how they seem so oblivious to what is happening. I’m there wondering whether I should be the first to whip out the old face mask haha. I feel like most of this country feels we are safe from anything really bad happening to us, we’re in a bit of a bubble. And I wish I could live that way. If there’s something to overthink, I will overthink it. It’s been amplified further now that I have a 5 month old boy. The whole thing just shits me up I’m not going to lie. I don’t even laugh any more when people joke “well we’ll be dead soon anyway so don’t worry about it”. That’s our society’s approach to it in my experience today! I want to live like that, must be so good for your health. I can’t do it though. My bloody mind does my head in.
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they built hospitals just as quickly for the SARS outbreak.
 
SebastianBlue said:
I am exactly the same way — the missus says I really should have been a crisis manager or public health analyst for the WHO or PHE with the way my mind works, constantly trying to assess risk and create plans for mitigating it (even when it’s really unnecessary; who needs a comprehensive risk mitigation plan for a day hike?). And recent developments with my own health have made it worse, much like the recent addition to your family (congratulations!). I think the missus is now even blocking my weekly predicted crises status report emails! ;-)

I wish I could live without worry... but I would just worry about the potential impacts of not worrying about anything.


We’re both (currently) more likely to die from a stress-induced disease than this novel coronavirus...

Which, ironically, we worry about quite often.
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Can you add me to the distribution list?
 
SebastianBlue said:
Qu'ils mangent des graines!
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images

or even seed cake !!
 
Bet Richard Branson and family of to there island for 6 months that’s the perks of being billionaire and owning an Island I suppose ;)
 
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