Thread: CoronaVirus ==> Empty Shelves

I have been watching the quick and apparently successful strategies of some countries including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore in tackling the coronavirus. Few would argue that they have quite competent governments and excellent health care facilities. [Let's not get side-tracked on civil liberties.]

The big risk, as highlighted in the video that BobL posted, is that a country will lessen its vigilence too soon. I have seen no reports that Japan has relaxed its regime, but their new cases of coronavirus have suddenly spiked.

This is a big worry. Was the spike caused by Japan, by the virus or just a random factor? Please note data is for Tokyo, as I cannot find uptodate stuff for Japan as a whole.

Japan Daily Cases.jpg

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

But the NRA does it every year.

exactly


I think you got my basic point -- comparing gun deaths in the US to Coronavirus deaths in New York City or Northern Italy is more akin to comparing cars with oranges.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

I have been watching the quick and apparently successful strategies of some countries including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore in tackling the coronavirus. Few would argue that they have quite competent governments and excellent health care facilities. [Let's not get side-tracked on civil liberties.]

The big risk, as highlighted in the video that BobL posted, is that a country will lessen its vigilence too soon. I have seen no reports that Japan has relaxed its regime, but their new cases of coronavirus have suddenly spiked.

This is a big worry. Was the spike caused by Japan, by the virus or just a random factor? Please note data is for Tokyo, as I cannot find uptodate stuff for Japan as a whole.

Japan Daily Cases.jpg

There has been speculation that the sudden spike in cases for Tokyo in particular has more to do with previous deliberate under reporting of Covid-19 cases than any other factor.
With last week's announcement by the IOC that the Games will be postponed till 2021, has now "permitted" the Japanese Government to be more open with the actual case numbers.

Best I can do is this

Japan

Total Cases 2,229

Total Deaths 66

recovered 424

Active Cases 1,739

Serious / critical 69

Cases / Mil 18

Deaths/ Mil 0.5

First case 14/01.2020

data extracted from Coronavirus Update (Live): 858,938 Cases and 42,322 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer at 0700 UTC on 1 April 2020

WRT somewhat pointless comparisons of C19 to flu, gunshot deaths, smoking deaths, child starvation etc:

• We do at least try to achieve something about child starvation, just nowhere near enough, even though it is simpler and cheaper to fix
• Smoking related illness, starvation and gunshot wounds are not super-contagious, in fact not even a little bit
• Smoking related illness and death is self inflicted (albeit with gobs of marketing and denial "help" from big tobacco). As some here know, I was a smoker until 4 years ago, so I know exactly how addictive it is and difficult to give up.
• A great many of the gunshot deaths in the USA are caused by poor/bad/shocking mental health of the perp, especially in mass shootings
• There are only a few countries that have gun related death stats like USA, Mexico, Brazil etc. C19 is worldwide.
• The world has locked down to try and limit this virulent C19 disease. If regular influenza was as contagious and deadly we'd probably have to do the same for that too.
• Which of the two (C19 or regular flu) is the most deadly is hardly the point - NOBODY has any immunity to C19 (yet) except perhaps those who have recovered. Perhaps it will transpire that some people have been found to be somewhat immune, somehow.
• C19 deaths are in addition to everything else. It's not like it replaces something.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

But the NRA does it every year.

And apparently everyone in the USA is preparing for having to do it a whole lot more in the near future. Can't buy a gun or a bullet in some/many shops.

Sometimes I just shake my head...

I think it might be helpful if I posted this chart
source Australian Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Australian Government Department of Health (page 11 of the word version. The easily accessible meta data indicates that the particular Version was last saved just after mid-night on 18 February 2020 and was created on 17 February 2020 at about 6 PM.)




still a fair bit of unknowns about this particular virus, but on this available data, the Government's initial response was too little.

Hindsight suggests that, the Australian Government should have acted like New Zealand did 3 (?) weeks ago.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

The big risk, as highlighted in the video that BobL posted, is that a country will lessen its vigilence too soon. I have seen no reports that Japan has relaxed its regime, but their new cases of coronavirus have suddenly spiked.

This is a big worry. Was the spike caused by Japan, by the virus or just a random factor? Please note data is for Tokyo, as I cannot find uptodate stuff for Japan as a whole.

Here is one for Japan from the Johns Hopkins site.
Its speculation but early Japanese data may have been repressed because they were trying to hang onto the Olympics.
It also looks like the only report sporadically to WHO = hence days without any reported cases.
Japan.jpg

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

WRT somewhat pointless comparisons of C19 to flu, gunshot deaths, smoking deaths, child starvation etc:

• We do at least try to achieve something about child starvation, just nowhere near enough, even though it is simpler and cheaper to fix
• Smoking related illness, starvation and gunshot wounds are not super-contagious, in fact not even a little bit
• Smoking related illness and death is self inflicted (albeit with gobs of marketing and denial "help" from big tobacco). As some here know, I was a smoker until 4 years ago, so I know exactly how addictive it is and difficult to give up.
• A great many of the gunshot deaths in the USA are caused by poor/bad/shocking mental health of the perp, especially in mass shootings
• There are only a few countries that have gun related death stats like USA, Mexico, Brazil etc. C19 is worldwide.
• The world has locked down to try and limit this virulent C19 disease. If regular influenza was as contagious and deadly we'd probably have to do the same for that too.
• Which of the two (C19 or regular flu) is the most deadly is hardly the point - NOBODY has any immunity to C19 (yet) except perhaps those who have recovered. Perhaps it will transpire that some people have been found to be somewhat immune, somehow.
• C19 deaths are in addition to everything else. It's not like it replaces something.

Brett

Good summary. (Actuallt, I have just thought that you could have added road deaths too: Another that is not comparable!) Too often we are tempted to compare disasters and tragedies, but other than they are a tragedy or a disaster the comparable aspect ends there.

Still for me the underlining concern is that both we and the so-called experts just don't know. It is not my intention to malign the experts in any way by that statement. When you are in uncharted territory you can only surmise. For example, how many mutations will this virus make before it plays out, will they significantly change the nature or level of contagion and will they become even more contagious?

I just looked up the difference between infectious and contagious. Covid-19 is probably both.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

• C19 deaths are in addition to everything else. It's not like it replaces something.

Nope - disagree, at least some of the people dying right now of COVID19 will be in people who were going to die this year anyway, especially those with underlying conditions and in nursing homes - even simple stats will indicate that.
The older and poorer in health they are the more likely they will die if they get COVID19.

Don't forget that about 8% of Aussie blokes in the 60 - 69 age range will die this year irrespective of COVID19.

Amongst the bigger specific death problems is the loss of small numbers of highly trained medical staff with 46 doctors dying and 2000 nurses in quarantine so far from just one major Italian hospital alone
One reason for this has been lack of PPE and the overwhelming viral loads inside these hospitals
These people are very hard to replace as it will take about a generation to do this and they will be badly needed especially when the second wave hits.

This is why flattening the curve is so important and we may have to be prepared to live under these restrictive conditions even up till when a vaccine is available.

Originally Posted by BobL

Its speculation but early Japanese data may have been repressed because they were trying to hang onto the Olympics.

Is that your speculation or wider spread? Maybe they are bit by bit adding in the earlier data to catch up, in the famous "face saving" way.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Is that your speculation or wider spread? Maybe they are bit by bit adding in the earlier data to catch up, in the famous "face saving" way.

That too, all of the countries are conducting "Data revision" as the numbers are just coming in too thick and fast.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Still for me the underlining concern is that both we and the so-called experts just don't know. It is not my intention to malign the experts in any way by that statement. When you are in uncharted territory you can only surml

Two experts interviewed on ABC Australian Story on Monday night (very good viewing BTW - Highly recommended)
Australian Story : ABC iview
said exactly this - it's a brand new virus are we just don't know enough about it, even treating the patients is still a guessing game.

One doctor (Prof Fraser) is automatically collecting patient data from 200 ICUs across 60 countries and feeding this into an Artificial Intelligence engine to see if they can come up with optimise treatment regime. Here's where a my health record for each patient would come in real handy.

They feed in everything they know about the patient, the treatments undertaken, including the outcomes. Its only enabled for ICUs that are fully computerised otherwise entering the data manually would be too slow.

Originally Posted by BobL

Nope - disagree, at least some of the people dying right now of COVID19 will be in people who were going to die this year anyway, especially those with underlying conditions and nursing homes - even simple stats will indicate that.
The older and poorer in health they are the more likely they will die if they get COVID19.

Don't forget that about 8% of Aussie blokes in the 60 - 69 age range will die this year irrespective of COVID19.

Bob

I can understand you saying that and you may be right, but how, at this stage do you know? I would think that until stats come in after six months and we can compare to the same period in previous years we can only guess. Actually you did say yourself that "some of the people dying right now of COVID19 will be people who were going to die this year anyway."

It is true that elderly people and people with underlying health conditions are more susceptible, but that is not to say that without becoming infected by Covid-19 they would not have carried on for another (say) ten years. I know people who were told thirty years ago they might not last another year. If it hastens their demise it has increased the death rate because ordinarily they were not going to die (at least not this year).

Shirt! 8% in the 60 - 69 age group are going to die. I need to urgently find another 12 men (what about the women? why aren't they dying? Can I substitute a woman if there are insufficient men?) so I am not that one!



Regards
Paul