Tracking the COVID-19-Virus in Germany, the USA, Italy and other hot spots in the world

Discussion in 'Coronavirus (COVID-19) News' started by Statistikhengst, Mar 14, 2020.

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  1. bx4

    bx4 Well-Known Member

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    Italy is having a tough time. Overloaded.

    Care to acknowledge that a national health care system is leading the world in response to the virus?
     
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  2. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    So, yesterday, 03/14/2020, it was 156,086 positive COVID-19 cases, among them, 5821 deaths (3.73% death rate), 74,460 recovered cases (47.70%)
    Today, 03/15/2020, 23 hours since I posted the figures for yesterday, here the current numbers:

    2020-03-015 COVID-19 001.png

    Now at 169,632 infections, that's 13,276 more infections than yesterday. You can see the deaths and the death rate from the graphic itself.

    Yesterday, I extrapolated that from the day I began tracking, with 82,411 cases, that that number would double either today or tomorrow. The number I extrapolated was: 164,822. At 169,632, this means that my calculations were indeed too conservative.

    In order to make this all easier to look at, I input all the data I had been collecting (and, until yesterday, stored at Twitter) and input it into an EXCEL table, which you can see online HERE.

    Here a screenshot of the table, from 02/27 to today:

    2020-03-015 COVID-19 003 - Tabelle form.png

    Two key things to notice: look at the death rate (by %) from 02/27 and then look at it from today. On 02/27, the death rate was 3.41%, today it is 3.84%. That is a very, very bad sign. Also, you can see that the raw growth in the number of deaths from this horrible virus have started to take off. On 02/28, deaths jumped "only" by +50 over 02/27. Today, the number of deaths reported make for a jump of +680 over yesterday. And if you re-read my extrapolation in the OP, it projects just shy of 170 million infected by Labor Day. But.... the total already more than doubled from 02/27, and practically a day early. I set up the extrapolation to account for a doubling every 17 days. If it happens every 15 days instead of every 17 days, then with 10 cycles represented as of today until Labor Day, that makes for 20 more days, or 1, perhaps 2 more doubling cyle at 15 days (or less) per cycle, so if this goes at this rate, then by Labor day, it's not 168,777,728, but rather, 675,110,912. Yes, you read that correctly: 700 MILLION infections. 3.8% of 700 MILLION = just under 27 million deaths.

    Those are truly scary numbers. And I or you could be one of them.

    -Stat
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2020
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  3. LoneStarGal

    LoneStarGal Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Dr. Brix said in today's Task Force update that we will be utilizing some of S. Korea's best practices going forward.
     
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  4. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    I indicated in the OP that IMO S. Korea did some very creative, out-of-the-box thinking. We need a lot of that now.
     
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  5. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    The numbers are what they are, and it is simple math. Thanks for your input.
     
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  6. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    Not every person who comes in contact with an infected person gets the Corona Virus. You did not factor that in. That being said, you may be more right than you think, because in too many corners of our world, people are not being tested and more concerning, too many people are staying very ill and not moving into a recovery phase, so surely, the real numbers, if we really knew all of them, may be the 10-fold of what we are seeing right now. In the end, when the dust is settled, we may end up having a certain number of dead, a certain number of truly healed case and a great number of people so damaged and maimed by internal organ damage from this horrible virus that they are closer to the grave than out of it, meaning, they will live but have no quality of life. This is an absolute horror scenario.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2020
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  7. MrTLegal

    MrTLegal Well-Known Member

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    One thing that needs to be considered in all of the data is that the numbers we see now are a lagging indicator of where things actually stand. Essentially, the deaths and infections that we see now started around two weeks ago.

    There are two predictions which result from that fact.

    1) As the numbers continue to accelerate, that means that the worst is very much yet to come.

    2) As we get a better control on the situation and the cases/deaths start to reach their peak, we will also not know whether that is truly the case until ~2 weeks after the fact.
     
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  8. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    That's the RO, number of new infections per each infected person
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2020
  9. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    I know, but it's a variable that is, at best, a wild guess.
     
  10. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    I didn't make it up.
    Health professionals did.
     
  11. LoneStarGal

    LoneStarGal Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think the analysis when aggregating is corrupted a bit because not every country has the same priorities on testing.

    If you divide the number of confirmed cases by tests conducted by country, then you end up with the following percent positive tests:

    China 25.0%
    Italy 28.8%
    U.S. 25.7%
    S. Korea 3.3%
    U.K. 4.7%

    So, if S. Korea and the U.K. are testing "everyone" to get a random sample of the population, they would have relatively low mortality rates because their data set of confirmed cases includes a lot more people with zero symptoms and mild symptoms and only a few sick people.

    The U.S. has limited testing to only people who have symptoms, and we've been telling people not to get tested but just stay home unless their doctor recommends a test, so we're starting with a group which is 100% sick with "something" and getting 1 out of 4 positives for the virus. Italy is so severely strained that they may be only testing people who are about to fall over critically ill, so their mortality would naturally be higher.

    Trying to forecast numbers by combining all these countries data when the countries are not conducting tests based on the same criteria will skew the outcomes of your forecast somewhat.

    This is the data I used. The numbers tested are not completely current compared with the current number of confirmed cases, but close enough hopefully to make my point.

    upload_2020-3-15_21-48-18.png

    https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

    I took the current confirmed cases data from the John Hopkins site and divided the confirmed cases by the number of tests performed by country (just for China, S. Korea, Italy, U.S. and U.K.) For instance, China has 80,000 confirmed cases at Johns Hopkins' site divided by 320,000 tests from the chart above = 25%.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2020
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  12. nobodyspecific

    nobodyspecific Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thanks for making the thread, and links to various tracking sites.

    I've been following the outbreak very actively for a couple months now (primarily using http://www.thewuhanvirus.com, but also John Hopkins more recently). While I haven't gone so far as to make excel sheets yet, my assumption based on the numbers on Friday was it looked like Monday we'd be up to ~170K infections. I am hoping we start to see some declines this week in Italy's infection rate due to the quarantine, and am hoping we start to see similar declines in Spain / France infection rates by ~1.5-2 weeks from now. Although the UK's plan of business as usual may counteract rate declines elsewhere.

    Since China and South Korea's growth rates are in decline, have you considered excluding them from your calculation about global growth rates? Or have you considered extrapolating growth rates for individual countries? If not, that's something I might consider doing tomorrow.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2020
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  13. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Well-Known Member

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    1- For an epidemic in its early stages, such as is the case in the US still, the profile of the initial carriers becomes significant. If the initial carrier is someone like "Patient 31" (super-spreader) in South Korea, you can see a quick spike in numbers totally different than any typical "RO" you might assign for once a disease has settled and is spreading in a more statistically definable manner. On the other hand, if the initial carriers are living a life similar to a hermit, or lived in less densely populated areas or were discovered in a more isolated community or setting, those initial carriers will have a very low RO.

    2- The RO for the flu is considered around 2. For the measles, on the other hand, which is a lot more infectious, the RO would be greater than 15. We do not know the RO for Covid-19, even if some have assumed an RO for Covid-19 similar to the flu or slightly above that (2.5). Regardless, however, for the reason I alluded to above in (#1), whatever RO you settle on based on the infectious qualities of Covid-19 itself, to be able to do real modeling would require that the idiosyncratic differences that are notable in the start of an epidemic to factor out over time as the sample size and profile of carriers expands and increases. Until then, if your initial carriers are people living in the lives of the "Unabomber" as opposed to "Patient 31" in South Korea, will make a huge difference.

    3- We don't really know nearly enough about Covid-19 to make to build any statistically reliable models around it at this point. In fact, given the situation from Iran, where health care workers (even healthy ones) constitute a significant number of people who end up showing severe reactions to the virus themselves (some of them dying), I have a hunch that there are either two different strains of Covid-19 or, alternatively, being exposed to multiple people with the virus is somehow more dangerous than being exposed to a few. In other words, in my opinion, the so-called "cytokine storm" from Covid-19 (where the body's immune system goes berserk, causing a 'virus-activated' immune response that can be deadly) will ultimately be shown to be either directly linked to how many times one has been exposed to Covid-19 or, alternatively, will end up being linked (contrary to what is now believed) to a sub-strain of Covid-19 itself.
     
  14. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Well-Known Member

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    Even if we assume there are millions of people who (for lack of testing) aren't within this sample of concluded cases, and further assume all those millions have recovered without a problem (don't know the basis for that assumption, except the supposed lack of dead bodies hanging around), still the aggregate numbers of seriously ill and dying in the US appear to be following the course in places like Italy (if not exceeding that pace). And that means ultimately that by next week, we are likely going to be talking about more shut-downs of public events and places, more economic dislocations from the virus, and thousands of people either dead or dying or in critical condition. Telling people not to worry isn't going to change any of it but make it all worse. The sooner you pay the price, the sooner you might end up containing the rise of the virus like in China or South Korea. Something that my own country, Iran, is not doing, incidentally and (like the US) relying mostly on 'self-policing" (the Rouhani administration has pushed back strongly against any attempts to take more draconian steps such as forcing closures of business or imposing even mild forms of quarantines, worried about losing authority to the military in Iran, and arguing that the country could not afford those measures for economic reasons).
     
  15. AKS

    AKS Banned

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    Indeed. But now, hopefully, it’s clear that electing leaders with principles and good judgement is important. No one can say that the red flags were not there for trump. I don’t doubt that he’s doing the best he can but I do question his motivations and judgement. Conspiracy theories have no place in a real emergency.
     
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  16. LoneStarGal

    LoneStarGal Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    29 out of 69 U.S. deaths are tied to one single nursing home in Washington state. I'm considering that an outlier because there is just something wrong with that situation. The feds are investigating. Meanwhile, the governor of Washington state just shut down bars, restaurants, entertainment venues across the entire state for an undetermined period.

    The Task Force announced to today that when we launch the automated testing capabilities at independent laboratories over the coming days that we will see a sharp spike in the number of cases. That was not a "maybe".

    No one really knows what will happen. It depends more on us humans than on any government to cut the rate of acceleration and not overload the available healthcare. The governments will need to help restore economies after the virus calms down.
     
  17. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Well-Known Member

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    In my opinion, even though a rise in the numbers due to more testing, will bring down the percentages for purposes of judging the mortality rate from the virus, the ultimate statistic that will define reactions to it is the one that will be about how many people (in aggregate, not percentage) end up seriously ill requiring hospitalization and how many of them die? As long as those numbers are going up significantly, you have a serious problem that won't go away by 'self-policing' and which will get worse. To be sure, measures already being taken (despite some voices more worried about the short-term economic consequences), such as cancelling public events, closing schools, etc, and some other such things, will help reduce the upward trend in those numbers. But if you just relied on 'self-policing', not only the number of people contracting the virus would approach 80% of the population eventually, but the aggregate numbers (in terms of dead or seriously ill) would be huge regardless of whether the percentage is lowered from 2% mortality to 00.2% or whatever you end up with.
     
  18. MrTLegal

    MrTLegal Well-Known Member

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    Think of deaths as a 2 week lagging indicator of what will happen. If there are 69 deaths and you assume a 1% mortality rate, that means that there were 6900 infections...two weeks ago. Now factor in R0 of ~2.2.

    The number of deaths next week is going to be 140, at least.
     
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  19. PeppermintTwist

    PeppermintTwist Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    He is inept, self-serving and a liar incapable of empathy with zero intellectual curiosity. What a recipe for disaster in a situation such as this. If Trump was the health minister in a dictatorship he would have been taken out back and dealt with weeks ago.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2020
  20. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately is an understatement given those numbers just leaped up again.

    We are in for a very rough ride and going by what @LoneStarGal was saying about the vulnerable members of society we are becoming the keeper's of our brother's immune systems. Friends of mine now leave groceries on the front porch of their 80 year old parent's house instead of visiting because they want to minimize exposing them. Given my own spouse's compromised immune system I now have to be extra careful not to expose myself.

    Never expected to have to deal with a global pandemic on my bucket list!
     
  21. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Utterly WRONG!

    Iran has the next highest infection and death rates and it is just a couple of days behind Italy.

    Furthermore FAILURE to TEST does NOT mean that Covid-19 infection rates are NOT occurring at the same EXPONENTIAL rate elsewhere in the world. Pretending something is not happening does not make it go away.

    Facing REALITY is NOT fearmongering.

    Instead it is a means of getting a handle on the deadly severity of the GLOBAL Pandemic and UNDERSTANDING how it works and what can be done to avoid becoming infected yourself and prevent infecting others if you do have it.
     
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  22. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Well-Known Member

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    The picture in Iran has consistently been a day or two behind Italy and we can expect Iran's numbers to follow the trend in Italy, except in one regard: Iran does have a much better overall rate of recovery/death from concluded cases. Iran's ratio of those who have died among the 'concluded' cases is 14% while Italy's ratio is around 42%.

    The main difference or reason for that seems to be the fact that Iran's population who have contracted the virus and are being treated for it aren't, on average, as old as those in Italy. While Iran has a greater number of young people die from the virus than in Italy, the fact that most of the Italians with the virus appear to be on average much older, also means that the overall mortality rate in concluded cases in Iran is substantially lower than is the case in Italy.

    Of course, the lowest mortality rate in the concluded cases category are those in China (5%) and South Korea (8%). The worse, albeit from a very small sample so far, is the US (49% based on the last figures I saw) and then Italy (42%).
     
  23. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    Indeed. Alone in Bonn, the numbers that are being sent into the Bundesgesundheitsministerium (National Health Department) are from tests that were conducted 10 days ago.

    However, the reports out of Lombardy, and now, out of Paris, is that people who start getting very sick are often dying within 4 days. Apparently, in some cases, it can go that fast. Now, whether or not they are people who were already weakened through any other kind of sickness (i.e., immunodeficiency), I do not know.

    What I do know is that every smart government in the world is telling it's people to do anything possible to flatten the curve.

    Where I live in NRW, we are not in lockdown mode quite yet, but we are just one step from it. I live just one block from one of the most travelled roads in this city and usually, the traffic noise from the street is so loud, I must close my east windows for most of the day. Today, it sounds like a Sunday at 2 in the morning out there. It is ......eerily still.
     
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  24. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    Good data, but actually, the aggregate is not corrupted. Precisely because it is an aggregate, it is probably closer to the "truth" than what is going on on the ground in any one country. Just as in polling data, there are bound to be some wild outliers, but the aggregate is usually pretty solid.

    One thing is for sure and undeniable: the upwards curve is currently exponential. We MUST flatten it.
     
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  25. Statistikhengst

    Statistikhengst Well-Known Member

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    The USA is going to go over 4,000 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases today. The USA got to this number far faster than Germany. That is also logical, as the USA has 327 million residents and Germany, only 82.5 million. But that also means that the talk that the USA is two weeks behind Europe may have to be revised.

    If we could isolate every person on the planet for 21 days, we could have a chance to kill this thing off quickly. But human society is just not made that way. We are gregarious and we are doubtless more interconnected that we all realize. Plus, a certain number of people must be out and about for the vital functions of such a society to function.
     

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