#epidemics
Mass Psychosis ~ A Killing of the Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M
This video explores the most dangerous of all #psychic #epidemics, the #mass #psychosis. It is an #epidemic of #madness and it occurs when a large portion of a #society loses touch with #reality and descends into #delusions. Such a phenomenon is not a thing of fiction. Two examples are the #American and #European witch hunts of the16th and 17th centuries and the rise of #totalitarianism in the 20th century.
What is it? How does is start? Has it happened before? Are we experiencing one right now? And if so, how can the stages be reversed?
#akillingofthemind #afterskool #cartoon #menticide #hannaharendt #carljung #vaclavhavel #thomaspaine #truth
Covid Proved the C.D.C. Is Broken. Can It Be Fixed?
#coronavirusreopenings #contacttracingpublichealth #diseaserates #electronichealthrecords #masks #coronavirus2019ncov #medicineandhealth #quarantines #epidemics #unitedstatespoliticsandgovernment #vaccinationandimmunization #foodcontaminationandpoisoning #centersfordiseasecontrolandprevention #friedenthomasr #walenskyrochelle #atlantaga #unitedstates #news
COVID-19: India is on track to hit 1m cases ~ July 15
Doubling rate is about 3 weeks. Give it 2.5 months to 10 million, another 2.5 months (roughly January) to 10 million.
US overtakes Italy & China to lead world in COVID-19 cases at 82,179
This occurred a few minutes ago according to Worldometers Coronavirus tracking, on Thursday, March 26, 2020, one day later than I'd forecast 5 days ago. And my three week old exponential projection of US confirmed cases remains largely accurate. New confirmed cases in the US are occurring at twice the daily rate of the next highest country, Spain -- nearly 14,000 at this moment, vs. 6,800.
In other news, global confirmed cases crossed the half-million mark and should surpass 1 million within the week.
US weekly growth remains about 10x. The country will cross the 100,000 confirmed-case mark within the next two days, and 1 million in another week, probably around April 4.
Given that testing seems to lag actual cases by about a factor of 80, based on multiple inference paths, and exponential growth should slow as both nearly half the population is already infected (new hosts are harder to find, possibly with natural resistance), and, I hope, public health containment efforts should start bending the curve downwards, the March 6 projection should be highly pessimistic (erring in overstating cases) beyond early April. Testing lag may continue to catch up with it for some time though. Uncharted waters for a nonexpert Space Alien Cat.
Wash your hands. Stay the fuck home. Flatten the curve.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
#covid19 #coronavirus #publicHealth #StayTheFuckHome #FlattenTheCurve #epidemics
How much is coronavirus spreading under the radar?
(Nature) 3-13-2020
...A telltale sign of covert transmission in communities is finding a few confirmed but unrelated cases, with no recent history of international travel. That means these cases are connected through a hidden web of infections. The ideal way to know how many people in a community have had coronavirus infections , [Jeremy] Farrar says, is to collect blood samples from people in every age group, looking for antibodies against the coronavirus, which show that someone has previously been infected. Data from such serology studies, as they are called, can then be used to accurately determine rates of fatality and transmission. But such studies take time. “We need to make policy decisions and clinical decisions now,” Farrar says. “You can’t say, ‘Let’s wait a month until we have the data.’”
Can scientists estimate the size of an outbreak without widespread testing?
Yes. Experts say that they compare various lines of evidence. One estimate begins with the number of deaths in an area. Farrar calls this a “guesstimate” because each of the variables researchers are using right now are subject to change, introducing uncertainty at each step in the calculation. However, it goes something like this: Data from China suggest that about three weeks passes between when a person feels sick and dies from COVID-19. And if you assume a case fatality rate of roughly 1%, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that each death represents about 100 cases in the first week. Right now, he adds, you can expect the epidemic to double each week if those cases aren’t identified and isolated — bringing the estimate to 400 at the time of death. Because the error bars on each of these variables are large, epidemiologists check their figures against further information....
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00760-8
#covid19 #coronavirus #monitoring #estimation #epidemics #publicHealth
COVID-19 A Laycat's US Outbreak Model
This is a non-expert's simple extrapolation of the past 11 days' COVID-19 experience within the US, projecting both further likely spread of the COVID-19 outbreak and the possible actual extent of infected individuals based on a presumed testing lag.
As with my earlier China extrapolation: The real message here is how quickly experience deviates below the projection here, suggesting containment efforts are effective. In the case of China, that began about two weeks after my initial post. I am a space alien cat on the Internet, not an expert.
I've probably fucked up all kinds of things. Cluebats welcomed.
How this model works
I'm using a simple exponential growth formula, and basing the expected number of cases (and deaths) from the 5 March 2020 case and death counts, based on what appears to be native community spread rates through the US from 20 February 2020 through 5 March (the period of visible community spread). This is a short window though one showing rapid growth.
It is overwhelmingly evident that the US does NOT have a solid handle on monitoring, and likely won't for at least another week, possible several. This both makes the data presented and model based on them more uncertain, and means that as monitoring improves, apparent case counts will likely increase rapidly. Again, this reflects experience in China.
Virus behaviour, population behaviour, public health measures, weather changes, sunspots, and timelords could all change things markedly.
Exponential growth function
The fomula for exponential growth is:
y(t) = a * e^(k * t)
See: https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/exponential-growth.html
Where:
- y(t): quantity at time t
- a: initial quantity
- e: the natural log constant, about 2.7183
- k: the grow rate per period.
- t: the number of periods.
"Period" here is "days".
We can solve for k:
k = ln(y(t)/a)/t
This gives us the growth rate given two measurements t periods apart.
We can solve for t:
t = ln(y(t)/a)/k
In particular, if we solve for y(t) = 2 and a = 1, we get the doubling time.
I've written a simple gawk script which computes for k and doubling rate, and also projects the weekly (7 day) and fortnightly (14 day) growth rates.
Detection lag
A huge problem within the US is that confirmed cases are lagging actual infection dates by a substantial amount. How long that is is ... not entirely clear, though I'm going to assume a 14 day (two week) lag based on:
- Initial infection is followed by a non-symptomatic period of about a week on average.
- Seeking medical assistance has seen a further lag of several days in getting an appointment / performing a test.
- Test results themselves take 4 days based on information I've seen.
The total lag is about 2 weeks.
I'd suggested that this could lead to as much as a 100-fold understatement of actual cases. Based on current data, that seems pessimistic: it's "only" about 47x greater than the published confirmed cases count -- a number that's moved around considerably, by the way, so don't put too much faith in that either. But it gives an indication.
We also get a doubling time of about 2.2 days, which means that however bad the situation is now, it's going to be twice as bad in a little over 48 hours. When you hear statements that the situation is "rapidly evolving" this is what is being referenced. Things are changing very quickly. Locations which may have low risk today may have a high risk in a day or two.
You should be finalising preparations and supplies runs about now, if not already.
Again: non-expert extrapolation based on early data, a simple model, and many uncertainties. I expect we'll likely see following trend, if not overshooting it, for a week or two, mostly as monitoring catches up to reality. I'm very much hoping we'll start to see a low-side numbers starting about two weeks out (18-22 March), as containment efforts begin to be effective. The caveat is that I don't see effective containment measures being enacted, certainly not on the scale that China performed starting ~22 January. In which case the projection here could well fit actual experience for longer.
As before, I'm posting this as a line in the sand of what my projection was. I hope and expect to be proved wrong on this within a couple of weeks. I'm dying to see how well this matches reality.
The professionals are apparently doing this as well
Dr. Messonier of the CDC mentioned 5 March in an NPR interview that there were numerous groups doing epidemic modelling to try to estimate the actual spread of SARS-CoV-2 within the US, though she pointedly refused to give any numbers herself. I have yet to find any published projections, but would be interested in seeing any.
The script
Hardcoded in (edit to modify) are the initial and current case counts. You'll need to supply days between these measures as well. Data are taken from Wikipedia's 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak in the United States article.
The script calcuates the growth rate, with an arbitrary high and low bound (basically assuming one day more or less error in the reported range -- it's kind of weak sauce but gives some idea of sensitivity), the doubling time, the weekly growth rate, and the 14-day growth rate.
It then produces two reports, one every day for 29 days, the other every seven days for 200 days. Both cut off if the infected population exceeds total US population, given as 330.4 million. Shown are projected deaths, cases, cases at a low or high growth rate, and as "w/ 14 day lag" the possible ground truth of total cases from which confirmed cases are drawn. I'll note that this presently exceeds 10,000 cases, and ... doubles ever 2.2 days or so. A rate which will hit 1,000,000 by 18 March.
By April 25, if present rates continue, the entire US is infected. At the WHO's 3.4% fatality rate, 11.2 million die, and given economic modelling, your retirement fund is trash.
(And then the disease may return in the fall....)
For Rest-of-world, you can substitute in values for that outbreak for a simiilar model. (I've got a separate script for this.) As values are hardcoded, it's a tad inflexible.
## Program Output
Minor reformatting aside, this is output as currently stands.
COVID-19 US Outbreak Model
Assumptions:
- init cases (2020-4-26): 14
- cases (2020-3-5): 175
- deaths (2020-3-5): 11
- daily growth rate: 1.316
- doubling time (days): 2.195
- 7 day growth: 6.83x
- 14 day growth/mon. lag: 46.59x
| day | date | deaths | cases | @ lo dbl | @ hi dbl | w/ 14d lag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mar 06, 2020 | 14 | 230 | 224 | 238 | 10,726 |
| 2 | Mar 07, 2020 | 19 | 302 | 287 | 324 | 14,113 |
| 3 | Mar 08, 2020 | 25 | 398 | 367 | 440 | 18,569 |
| 4 | Mar 09, 2020 | 32 | 524 | 470 | 600 | 24,431 |
| 5 | Mar 10, 2020 | 43 | 689 | 602 | 816 | 32,145 |
| 6 | Mar 11, 2020 | 57 | 907 | 771 | 1,111 | 42,294 |
| 7 | Mar 12, 2020 | 75 | 1,194 | 988 | 1,512 | 55,647 |
| 8 | Mar 13, 2020 | 98 | 1,571 | 1,266 | 2,057 | 73,216 |
| 9 | Mar 14, 2020 | 129 | 2,067 | 1,621 | 2,800 | 96,331 |
| 10 | Mar 15, 2020 | 171 | 2,720 | 2,076 | 3,811 | 126,744 |
| 11 | Mar 16, 2020 | 224 | 3,579 | 2,659 | 5,186 | 166,760 |
| 12 | Mar 17, 2020 | 296 | 4,709 | 3,405 | 7,057 | 219,409 |
| 13 | Mar 18, 2020 | 389 | 6,196 | 4,360 | 9,603 | 288,680 |
| 14 | Mar 19, 2020 | 512 | 8,152 | 5,584 | 13,068 | 379,821 |
| 15 | Mar 20, 2020 | 674 | 10,726 | 7,151 | 17,784 | 499,736 |
| 16 | Mar 21, 2020 | 887 | 14,113 | 9,159 | 24,201 | 657,511 |
| 17 | Mar 22, 2020 | 1,167 | 18,569 | 11,729 | 32,933 | 865,098 |
| 18 | Mar 23, 2020 | 1,535 | 24,431 | 15,021 | 44,816 | 1,138,224 |
| 19 | Mar 24, 2020 | 2,020 | 32,145 | 19,236 | 60,987 | 1,497,580 |
| 20 | Mar 25, 2020 | 2,658 | 42,294 | 24,635 | 82,992 | 1,970,390 |
| 21 | Mar 26, 2020 | 3,497 | 55,647 | 31,548 | 112,938 | 2,592,474 |
| 22 | Mar 27, 2020 | 4,602 | 73,216 | 40,402 | 153,688 | 3,410,959 |
| 23 | Mar 28, 2020 | 6,055 | 96,331 | 51,740 | 209,142 | 4,487,854 |
| 24 | Mar 29, 2020 | 7,966 | 126,744 | 66,261 | 284,604 | 5,904,742 |
| 25 | Mar 30, 2020 | 10,482 | 166,760 | 84,856 | 387,295 | 7,768,965 |
| 26 | Mar 31, 2020 | 13,791 | 219,409 | 108,670 | 527,038 | 10,221,752 |
| 27 | Apr 01, 2020 | 18,145 | 288,680 | 139,167 | 717,203 | 13,448,923 |
| 28 | Apr 02, 2020 | 23,874 | 379,821 | 178,222 | 975,983 | 17,694,965 |
| 29 | Apr 03, 2020 | 31,412 | 499,736 | 228,238 | 1,328,136 | 23,281,550 |
| day | date | deaths | cases | @ lo dbl | @ hi dbl | w/ 14d lag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mar 06, 2020 | 14 | 230 | 224 | 238 | 10,726 |
| 8 | Mar 13, 2020 | 98 | 1,571 | 1,266 | 2,057 | 73,216 |
| 15 | Mar 20, 2020 | 674 | 10,726 | 7,151 | 17,784 | 499,736 |
| 22 | Mar 27, 2020 | 4,602 | 73,216 | 40,402 | 153,688 | 3,410,959 |
| 29 | Apr 03, 2020 | 31,412 | 499,736 | 228,238 | 1,328,136 | 23,281,550 |
| 36 | Apr 10, 2020 | 214,403 | 3,410,959 | 1,289,346 | 11,477,413 | 158,908,518 |
| 43 | Apr 17, 2020 | 1,463,411 | 23,281,550 | 7,283,681 | 99,184,812 | 1,084,632,112 |
| 50 | Apr 24, 2020 | 9,988,535 | 158,908,518 | 41,146,424 | 857,129,291 | 7,403,170,243 |
Source Code
https://pastebin.com/raw/Sn2jrG5f
Please note any observed errors / corrections.
Earlier
- March 3: "COVID-19: A Laycat’s guide to what to consider / watch for" https://joindiaspora.com/posts/3abaa5e03fca0138fcb6002590d8e506
- February 28: "A Laycat’s COVID-19 / Coronavirus Updates – February 28, 2020" https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bc04cb503c840138f4b8002590d8e506
- ~ January 22: "The Wuhan 2019nCoV Coronavirus Epidemic is growing by a factor of ten a week" https://joindiaspora.com/posts/6eab7f50245f0138ba5f002590d8e506
#coronavirus #covid-19 #covid19 #ncov2019 #epidemiology #epidemics #exponentialGrowth #IHopeIAmWrong #awk
The COVID-19 Virus: How to stay safe: Practical advice from epidemic expert Laurie Garrett on how to remain safe.
Masks are all but useless, or worse, at prevention. Do wear if infection known or suspected. Wear gloves. Reusable, washable, are sufficient.
Pence Will Control All Coronavirus Messaging From Health Officials
The White House’s attempt to impose a more disciplined approach to communications about the virus was undermined by President Trump, who complained the news media was overstating the threat.
WASHINGTON — The White House moved on Thursday to tighten control of coronavirus messaging by government health officials and scientists, directing them to coordinate all statements and public appearances with the office of Vice President Mike Pence, according to several officials familiar with the new approach....
A month ago, we were criticising China for exerting political influence and prerogative over communications of a medical epidemic, silencing clinical voices in the process.
The United States is now repeating the same extreme errors.
#COVID19 #nCoV19 #coronavirus #UnitedStates #epidemics #politics
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronavirus-pence.html
Concerns over possible North Korean 2019-nCoV cases
The critical region to my mind in the 2019-2020 Coronavirus outbreak is North Korea, as previously mentioned.
It's adjacent to and has strong commercial and tourism ties with China. It is an authoritarian regime with poor internal communications, freedom of speech, or tolerance for views divergent with the administration. It has few resources and a poor history of dealing with epidemics. And its climate and current weather conditions are highly favourable to Coronavirus which thrives in cold and dry conditions.
And it's been claiming no cases of 2019-nCoV, which seems increasingly unlikely.
There are unofficial reports that there have been cases, though this is also problematic: dissidents inside and outside North Korea have a tendency to tell sources what they want to believe. Unfortunately this is a case of low-trust communications all around.
And now, via NPR, indications that my fears seem shared:
...North Korea's track record of fighting epidemics does not bode well for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, other experts warn. Other communicable diseases are widespread in the country, which has one of the world's highest rates of tuberculosis and an estimated 15% of the population is infected with Hepatitis B.
"Past epidemics that originated in China have always spread to North Korea, and vice versa," says Choi Jung-hoon, a North Korean neurologist who defected to South Korea in 2012. During the 2003 SARS epidemic and other disease outbreaks, he says, cases in North Korea often went unreported or under-reported....
Wuhan Coronavirus: Case classification standards change causing reported-cases spike
A key issue in any observation-based data is changes to the criteria for observation. That's coming to play in the 2019-nCoV outbreak numbers today, with Reuters and other sources reporting "Coronavirus death toll leaps in China's Hubei province":
[T]he 2,015 new confirmed cases reported in mainland China on Wednesday were dwarfed by the 14,840 new cases reported in Hubei alone on Thursday, after provincial officials started using computerized tomography (CT) scans to look for infections.
Hubei had previously only allowed infections to be confirmed by RNA tests, which can take days to process and delay treatment. RNA, or ribonucleic acid, carries genetic information allowing for identification of organisms like viruses.
The current reports stand at 60,330 confirmed cases and 1,369 official deaths, according to current data at Wikipedia. I'll note that fifteen days ago based on then-current trends, projection without epidemiological containment was for 200,000 cases, 10,000 deaths. Thankfully, even with a broader inclusion criteria, we're well below those values. Containment does largely appear to be working, and the epidemic may be further self limiting. (More below.) My existing projections are based on the earlier criteria and should not be applied to the broader clinical-diagnosis numbers.
Numbers reported depend on observational criteria. In general, my recommendation is to look to the case count as a trend indicator, across successive periods with consistent criteria, and for deaths as a far stronger magnitude indicator.
That is: we know that the cases were underreported. That's been widely criticised, and I suspect you'll see reports now of a sudden explosion in cases as Another Dire Sign. It's ... more complicated than that. Case reports to date have largely been a function of:
- Limited numbers of virus test kits sensitive to the 2019-nCoV specific RNA (viruses don't have DNA, so this is the equivalent).
- Testing of severe cases only. For non-severe cases (the majority), home isolation and care are largely sufficient.
- Accepting most cases as "suspected" rather than confirmed.
The new numbers should be compared against earlier "suspected" cases, not "confirmed" cases. What are now being included are clinically diagnosed cases, based not on a definitive RNA test, but on symptoms as presented at a clinic, largely CT scans of lungs, among other measurements. This is actually very common in medical practice, and many conditions are diagnosed based on symptoms rather than a definitive test, often because symtoms are far more accessible (a case of availability heuristic), faster, cheaper, and in virtually all cases, sufficient. It's nice to have a definitive diagnosis, but not necessary. My understanding is that test kits have often been reserved for medical personnel themselves, many of whom have been infected with 2019-nCoV.
As before, epidemiological and public health responses are most important. If you are in an outbreak area (China, generally), rather than rushing out to buy masks (of marginal use), make sure you have and are using cleaning supplies, and minimise hand-to-face transmission. Wash surfaces, door handles, light switches, bannisters, and other contacted surfaces. Disinfect (spray bleach) around bath and toilet facilities. Use alcohol-based hand-sanitisers. (Again, antibacterial treatments do not work for viruses, that's wasted money.) Wash your hands frequently. Avoid crowded public spaces. Wipe down shopping trolly handles and other surfaces if possible. Be aware of what you're touching (elevator controls, any public touch-screen devices, keyboards, etc.). If you are infected and must go out, wear a mask but primarily to protect others --- you're limiting spread of droplets from your mouth and nose. (It's possible that applying table salt to the masks may increase their anti-viral properties, possibly by spraying with a saline solution.)
Expect to see travel bans and restrictions in place both within and transiting China for another few weeks, possibly months.
The real risk with 2019-nCoV is that it escapes containment and becomes a recurring annual disease much as the current common cold and influenza, though with far greater impacts. Given its high mortality rates, this could have severe impacts worldwide (deaths in the 10s to 100s of millions), though it's likely that this would eventually moderate. That's the scenario people are hoping to avoid.
Risks remain high, the containment trends still look very positive. Coronavirus fares poorly at higher temperatures and humidities -- odds of it spreading especially within the subtropical and tropical regions, and particularly in summer months, are fairly low. This means that China and neighbouring countries (again, notably North Korea with limited public health and public information resources and practices), Europe, and North America are probably most at risk. Community transmission elsewhere has remained low (cruise ships being a notable exception), and deaths outside China are also extremely rare: 2 (Hong Kong and Japan) despite 9,525 cases outside of China.
Fingers crossed.
The other notable news is that the Chinese Communist Party chiefs of Wuhan City and Hubei Province have both been sacked for their mishandling and information suppression of the 2019-nCoV initial outbreak. Again, China and the world could have had an additional 4-6 weeks' prior notice of the disease had initial reports not been covered up, before the mass internal migration of Chinese New Year celebrations. That was extreme misgovernance, and I expect to see more heads fall, possibly higher up, as well as further political reforms toward free speech within China.
