The maths of it all and what it means to Ireland

ShineOn7 · 08-04-2020 3:32pm #1

Let’s round up the Republic’s population to 5 million, it’s only 100,000 shy of this number

The amount of people expected to get it (whether they show symptoms or not) is anything from 30% to 70%, depending on the source you read. Huge differences there but let’s say 50% because it’s somewhere in between

That’s 2.5 million who’ll get it (remember; not all will show symptoms)

Reported mortality rates on this have been 0.5 to 2%. It’s just too early to tell

Let’s be optimistic and say 1%

1% of 2.5 million is 25,000 Irish fatalities in the Republic

This is more than double how many the HSE worker doing the Ask Me Anything thinks in his Best Case Scenario. He mentioned 10,000 people in this instance

So hopefully he’s actually right in this case and it’s “only” 10,000

For this to happen;

- The amount of carriers of this will have to be much lower than 50%, and

- mortality rate would need to be closer to 0.5%

How does 10,000 compare to a normal 12 months in Ireland when you combine the pneumonia and flu fatalities?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the maths of it all and what it means to Ireland

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 4:31pm

My maths is nonexistent S, but my hunch is that when the numbers are finally in this virus will prove to have an overall mortality rate of 0.5% or maybe lower. Way worse than a seasonal flu, even a bad one, but not 2% and certainly not 10% or above as some commentators have suggested. I also suspect it will hit different demographics and populations differently, not just by age and underlying conditions, but by wealth status, geography(hotter countries less) and maybe even genetics, up to population level.

Overall it will most look like we temporarily lost the advantages of 21st century healthcare and technology. Say if you imagine if tomorrow all antibiotics stopped working. It would make Covid19 look like a picnic on a sunny day.

Beasty · 08-04-2020 4:41pm

29,000 total deaths in 2014

ShineOn7 · 08-04-2020 7:33pm

Beasty wrote: »

29,000 total deaths in 2014

Thanks for the link

So Covid - in the best case scenario laid out by the HSE worker doing the AMA - will cause about a third of what we get fatalities wise in a normal year?

Actually; we need to add the 10k to the average 30k for 40,000 dont we? So Covid - in this scenario - will account for 25% of all fatalities in Ireland this year

Heres Johnny · 08-04-2020 7:42pm

There's assumptions in every mathematical model and these assumptions could be way out, resulting in a vastly different death rate prediction from what happens in reality.
I don't believe we will have anything even in same ballpark as 25000 deaths, never mind even 10,000

But then again I'm using certain assumptions too that could be incorrect

ShineOn7 · 08-04-2020 7:55pm

Wibbs wrote: »

My maths is nonexistent S, but my hunch is that when the numbers are finally in this virus will prove to have an overall mortality rate of 0.5% or maybe lower. Way worse than a seasonal flu, even a bad one, but not 2% .

Thanks Wibbs, great insights as ever

Does anyone know: How many fatalities in Ireland - in an average year - does flu and pneumonia combined account for?

I've read anything from 500 people to 1,000, but that was just from comments on Boards threads. A link to a credible source on the above stats (specifically for flu and pneumonia) would be useful to compare

Beasty · 08-04-2020 8:00pm

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Does anyone know: How many fatalities in Ireland - in an average year - does flu and pneumonia combined account for?

97 reported in 2018/19

Harry Palmr · 08-04-2020 8:03pm

Given the current morbidity levels I've gone with a thumbnail of 3000.

30 dead x 100 days with the large assumption that there is no fresh upswing later in the year.

I see an American origin report which estimates 900 by August which seems very optimistic.

ShineOn7 · 08-04-2020 8:12pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Given the current morbidity levels I've gone with a thumbnail of 3000.

30 dead x 100 days with the large assumption that there is no fresh upswing later in the year.

I see an American origin report which estimates 900 by August which seems very optimistic.

The HSE worker doing the AMA said that 80% of the fatalities in Ireland will likely be in the second wave of it this Winter

I think the timeline could go:

Now till June - wave one
June till October - the calm before the second storm
October till ?? - wave two

But who the hell knows anymore. This thing will probably come and go in surges and drops till a vaccine comes along in mid 2021. And even then it'll still take some people out every year, but to a much lesser degree

paleoperson · 08-04-2020 8:39pm

Wibbs wrote: »

My maths is nonexistent S, but my hunch is that when the numbers are finally in this virus will prove to have an overall mortality rate of 0.5% or maybe lower. Way worse than a seasonal flu, even a bad one, but not 2% and certainly not 10% or above as some commentators have suggested. I also suspect it will hit different demographics and populations differently, not just by age and underlying conditions, but by wealth status, geography(hotter countries less) and maybe even genetics, up to population level.

Sorry Wibbs, we agreed on another thread but this is totally false.

There is zero reason to believe it will hit 0.5% of people when the numbers keep saying at least 2%, taking everything into account. I mean are you talking 0.5% of the entire population or of who get the virus? Of the entire population I could get on board with.

It's annoying how people keep making optimistic predictions right throughout this with no basis. If you want to keep holding onto hope that's fine, but assuming optimistic things without any basis for it is biased and will only end in disappointment.

And as for this part of your statement:

Wibbs wrote: »

Overall it will most look like we temporarily lost the advantages of 21st century healthcare and technology. Say if you imagine if tomorrow all antibiotics stopped working. It would make Covid19 look like a picnic on a sunny day.

Wow!

Humans survived very well for hundreds of thousands of years in the savanna in Africa. They did not get diseased only extremely rarely, they did not get viruses. Your idea that a large amount of the population would be dying if there was no antibiotics is absolute farce.

The other great apes living in Africa today only very rarely get sick. Your idea of them getting sick a lot of the time is totally erroneous. Without medical science? You must be joking. Medical science rarely helps, only a few times in your whole lifetime. Yeah there's blood pressure medication, but that's offset by the fact of what we're eating to begin with - totally unnatural foods.

Additionally, this virus is a remarkable example of something that has happened due to modern civilization. It starts off with the highly unnatural close contact between humans and animals in the wet markets. After that the entire spread of it - it would still have been confined to a small region China and died out there. At worst it would never have gotten past a place where it took more than two weeks to travel - eg. across a desert by boat from one island to another.

What's more - something that is often a worry with viruses like this is if it would mutate to a more virulent form. This was a huge concern with the bird flu type viruses including swine flu - apparently this isn't such a concern with this one (we hope). But if it was one, then it has 7.3 billion potential opportunities to mutate, as opposed to the original human population of 100,000 humans or so.

It's the modern world and globalization and people being so close to each other that caused all of this. Poorly calibrated immune systems and so on.

Really, I don't know how you came up with that howler.

Boggles · 08-04-2020 8:40pm

This is a "perfect" virus.

The mortality rate for them is between 1 and 2.5 %.

I think Germany with world class health care and spare capacity is running between 1 and 1.5%

So that is probably the figure.

Remove mitigation and the figure balloons.

Maybe a 75,000 - 200,000 dead in Ireland.

paleoperson · 08-04-2020 8:45pm

Boggles wrote: »

This is a "perfect" virus.

The mortality rate for them is between 1 and 2.5 %.

I think Germany with world class health care and spare capacity is running between 1 and 1.5%

So that is probably the figure.

Remove mitigation and the figure balloons.

Maybe a 75,000 - 200,000 dead in Ireland.

Authorities in the western world are already moving to try to underreport the numbers, in the same systematic way China is. They are desperate to re-open their economies. New York stated yesterday that the number of suspected coronavirus death was another 200 per day than is being recorded, in the UK it has been estimated as up to 24% higher according to the central statistics office.

There's going to be a lot more suspicious-sounding deaths that are handwaved away as not being coronavirus in the coming few weeks and months as they try to get the economy moving again.

Jurgen Klopp · 08-04-2020 8:47pm

Go to world meters and the percentage of deaths recorded as having C19 against confirmed cases is a death rate of 5.3% or thereabouts

Now however factor that the Italians have said whatever your confirmed cases are you need to assume there's 5x that due to lack of testing and asymptomatic carriers

That would give us a death rate of 1.17% however some places are saying it be 10x confirmed cases so that would be coming to what China thinks is a rate of circs 0.65%

However who knows at this stage there so many variables. How many are dying anyways and are infected, Italy health advisor has confirmed anyone that tested positive and died is labeled as dying from it

Italy has an older population and got caught on the hop, Japan has the oldest and have been doing better

Now to mention when you look at nations with the BCG vaccine they all seem to be doing better than those who didn't so there may be something in it

Some places are poorer, some are richer etc

The only thing I'm kinda confident on from both Iceland and the Diamond Princess is circa 50% are asymptomatic

paleoperson · 08-04-2020 8:56pm

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

.

There are many more people dying in Italy and especially in other places without ever having being tested from coronavirus - and hence that not on the death certificate - than are being put down as dying from coronavirus because they appeared to have it but may not have it.

Cuddlesworth · 08-04-2020 8:56pm

Say 50% of cases are asymptomatic, based on recent reports.

We are "managing" right now, during a lockdown.

Roughly 400 cases a day right now, maybe 800 including those not showing symptoms.

Let's say 12k infected so far. It's only going to take us 13 and a half years to get to 80% infected of the population.

We bump up ICU space rapidly, lets say 10 times the amount. We might be able to cut that down to over a year of varying stages of "lockdown" with a not insignificant amount of deaths along the way.

Pretty sure only options we really have are vaccines, effective drug treatments or large scale deaths over a short time frame.

Andrew00 · 08-04-2020 8:58pm

When people say oh thousands of people die in Ireland every year due to the flu

So how come we never hear of it? "oh did ya hear Tommy down the road died of flu"

Or you never see it on death notices

08-04-2020 8:59pm

Id be suprised if it tops 1,200 by october

They were estimating 800 to 1000 for ireland,which is horrendous enough.......unless they get overrun to state,where they cant treat any.cases

Pete_Cavan · 08-04-2020 9:02pm

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Thanks for the link

So Covid - in the best case scenario laid out by the HSE worker doing the AMA - will cause about a third of what we get fatalities wise in a normal year?

Actually; we need to add the 10k to the average 30k for 40,000 dont we? So Covid - in this scenario - will account for 25% of all fatalities in Ireland this year

The last part would assume that all those who die from C19 would not have otherwise died, which is certainly not the case given the demographic and medical status of many of those dying. It will be interesting to see the death rate for the next 12 months, it might not be significantly above other years if C19 takes a lot of people who didn't hbig life expectancy left anyway.

ShineOn7 · 08-04-2020 9:02pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

It's only going to take us 13 and a half years to get to 80% infected of the population.

Eh?

You think it'll be this strong a virus for over a decade?

No chance

Jizique · 08-04-2020 9:06pm

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The last part would assume that all those who die from C19 would not have otherwise died, which is certainly not the case given the demographic and medical status of many of those dying. It will be interesting to see the death rate for the next 12 months, it might not be significantly above other years if C19 takes a lot of people who didn't hbig life expectancy left anyway.

Might lead to a 2% increase in death rates for the year; it seems s bit overblown really

citysights · 08-04-2020 9:11pm

Andrew00 wrote: »

When people say oh thousands of people die in Ireland every year due to the flu

So how come we never hear of it? "oh did ya hear Tommy down the road died of flu"

Or you never see it on death notices

Yeah true we don’t hear of it but yes people do actually die of flu, it wasn’t something I was aware of either till a few years back and even stats bear it out.

As regards death notices I don’t think they ever ever state the cause of death. Isn’t that done at the post Mortuem stage if there is one. You do raise a good question though as to what is put on death certificate ( if there is such a thing) as regards cause of death. But don’t think regular flu can be dismissed as something that isn’t very serious especially to elderly.

s1ippy · 08-04-2020 9:14pm

Everyone in here, correct me if I'm wrong, is assuming that we will find a vaccine and there will be an end to this. If we don't we're looking a many more fatalities than even the worst-case scenario. With the RNA profile and mutations possible, combined with never having vaccinated against a coronavirus, I'm expecting that there will be no end to this, while obviously hoping there will be.

Jurgen Klopp · 08-04-2020 9:18pm

s1ippy wrote: »

Everyone in here, correct me if I'm wrong, is assuming that we will find a vaccine and there will be an end to this. If we don't we're looking a many more fatalities than even the worst-case scenario. With the RNA profile and mutations possible, combined with never having vaccinated against a coronavirus, I'm expecting that there will be no end to this, while obviously hoping there will be.

Oh for sure if no vaccine is found your looking at Corona season if you will each year. However you have consider it could likely well mutate into being something less deadlier like bird and swine flu, they never bothered with vaccinations for it as they got on top of it but they are still floating around

ShineOn7 · 08-04-2020 9:23pm

s1ippy wrote: »

Everyone in here, correct me if I'm wrong, is assuming that we will find a vaccine and there will be an end to this.

If that vaccine doesn't come in 18 months then we are indeed really up shít creek. But I'm confident we will

It's the next 18-24 months that will be tough (18 months for the vaccine and 6 months to distribute it worldwide)

Keep in mind too (although I'm sure you're aware), that a vaccine for anything doesn't give you 100% immunity against it. It just helps keep it at bay a lot more

threeball · 08-04-2020 9:35pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Given the current morbidity levels I've gone with a thumbnail of 3000.

30 dead x 100 days with the large assumption that there is no fresh upswing later in the year.

I see an American origin report which estimates 900 by August which seems very optimistic.

Why on earth would we have 100 days of 30 deaths when we only had one or two days with that so far and we're nearing the peak. That makes zero sense. Somewhere between 500 and 750 is more realistic.

Pete_Cavan · 08-04-2020 9:38pm

s1ippy wrote: »

Everyone in here, correct me if I'm wrong, is assuming that we will find a vaccine and there will be an end to this. If we don't we're looking a many more fatalities than even the worst-case scenario. With the RNA profile and mutations possible, combined with never having vaccinated against a coronavirus, I'm expecting that there will be no end to this, while obviously hoping there will be.

The longer it goes on, the more the fatality rate will drop. As the most vulnerable continue to die, the less vulnerable people there are to die later. I know it's not a nice way to put it but we may have to get used to a lower life expectancy.

As for mutations, what I have read is that virus mutations are generally to a less deadly form. It mutates to ensure its survival and killing all its hosts doesn't achieve that. Darwin was on to something.

threeball · 08-04-2020 9:42pm

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The longer it goes on, the more the fatality rate will drop. As the most vulnerable continue to die, the less vulnerable people there are to die later. I know it's not a nice way to put it but we may have to get used to a lower life expectancy.

As for mutations, what I have read is that virus mutations are generally to a less deadly form. It mutates to ensure its survival and killing all its hosts doesn't achieve that. Darwin was on to something.

Generally yes. The Spanish flu was the exception due to a swine flu carrier getting the original virus that was in europe earlier that year and mutated to become worse.

timsey tiger · 08-04-2020 10:09pm

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

As for mutations, what I have read is that virus mutations are generally to a less deadly form. It mutates to ensure its survival and killing all its hosts doesn't achieve that. Darwin was on to something.

Why do people believe this, the opposite is true, unless it is a virus that is passed form parent to offspring?

normanoffside · 08-04-2020 10:19pm

In Spain, officials think at least 15 out of every 16 cases have not been recorded. They estimate at least 40% of the population of Madrid have been infected.

https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-04-08/spain-to-test-30000-families-for-the-coronavirus.html

It'll be hard to get an accurate estimate of mortality until a functioning antibody test is developed IMO

Wibbs · 08-04-2020 10:34pm

paleoperson wrote: »

There is zero reason to believe it will hit 0.5% of people when the numbers keep saying at least 2%, taking everything into account. I mean are you talking 0.5% of the entire population or of who get the virus? Of the entire population I could get on board with.

I'm talking entire population, before it burns out through vaccines, effective contagion controls and better treatments.

It's annoying how people keep making optimistic predictions right throughout this with no basis. If you want to keep holding onto hope that's fine, but assuming optimistic things without any basis for it is biased and will only end in disappointment.

As will presuming the sky is falling down from the same massively incomplete numbers, or pessimistic predictions right throughout this with no basis.

Wow!

Humans survived very well for hundreds of thousands of years in the savanna in Africa. They did not get diseased only extremely rarely, they did not get viruses. Your idea that a large amount of the population would be dying if there was no antibiotics is absolute farce.

Clearly and in spite of your handle you've not that much info on palaeolithic(or later) human populations. While "stone age" man could make it to 60, or even above in some rarer cases, the average age of death was more like 50. If you made it to adulthood in the first place. Their child mortality rate was off the scale. Palaeolithic finds and later burials have a scary number of dead children. In earlier Neandertals we have slightly more children's bones than adults. Oh and there isn't one example of an adult Neandertal without some pathology or other. Modern humans show similar, though we started to live slightly longer, or more older people were buried and preserved, around 40,000 years ago. The once type specimen for Cro Magnon modern humans was covered in facial cysts and died in his early 40's. Walk around any older graveyard and look at the ages and then look at the all too usual additions of children. Hell, my maternal grandparents lost two kids in childhood, my paternal, one. And they had a few bob for the time.

The other great apes living in Africa today only very rarely get sick. Your idea of them getting sick a lot of the time is totally erroneous. Without medical science? You must be joking. Medical science rarely helps, only a few times in your whole lifetime.

I've never had an antibiotic. At 52. When I tell doctors that they're usually WTF? really? I'm a fairly rare example of that in the West. Never had a flu save for the swine variety and I brushed that off handily enough. No vaccinations other than for polio. Caught all the other childhood doses and a few funky ones on top. However, do a straw poll on Boards and you will find a remarkable number of people posting here, that would be dead long ago without modern medicine. That goes across the board. We've never lived longer on average in the history of the human species.

Yeah there's blood pressure medication, but that's offset by the fact of what we're eating to begin with - totally unnatural foods.

Here comes the so called "paleo" diet bro science.... 1) yes eating the modern paleo type diet is significantly better than the all too usual cakes and pasta and chinner dinners with oodles of salt and sugar of many. That goes without saying, but you can say that for every single other decent diet out there. Eat less and better, move more. Why, I can't believe I feel better!! No sh1t Sherlock. 2) Almost nothing you can buy in a modern shop today resembles the available foods in the palaeolithic. This goes quadruple for fruit and veg. Pick any you like and a palaeolithic bloke or blokess(they were usually getting the lion's share of grub calories in, particularly fruit and veg) and the majority of the time they'd ask you WTF are we looking at here?

Additionally, this virus is a remarkable example of something that has happened due to modern civilization. It starts off with the highly unnatural close contact between humans and animals in the wet markets. After that the entire spread of it - it would still have been confined to a small region China and died out there. At worst it would never have gotten past a place where it took more than two weeks to travel - eg. across a desert by boat from one island to another.

I hate to break it to you, but palaeolithic folks had way more up and closer contact with wild animals. Domestic animals mixed with wild are the issue. It also depends on what you consider modern civilisation. Plagues are among the very first things recorded when we invented writing.

What's more - something that is often a worry with viruses like this is if it would mutate to a more virulent form. This was a huge concern with the bird flu type viruses including swine flu - apparently this isn't such a concern with this one (we hope). But if it was one, then it has 7.3 billion potential opportunities to mutate, as opposed to the original human population of 100,000 humans or so.

Coronaviruses mutate at much slower rates than influenza viruses and tend to get milder with time. Flu is a bit of an outlier here, though only slightly as it seems it's down to dumb luck when a very nasty one comes along.

Really, I don't know how you came up with that howler.

by reading a lot.

Andrew00 wrote: »

When people say oh thousands of people die in Ireland every year due to the flu

So how come we never hear of it? "oh did ya hear Tommy down the road died of flu"

Or you never see it on death notices

True, though both my parents died of hospital acquired pneumonia and that wasn't on their death notices.

Hmmzis · 08-04-2020 10:48pm

timsey tiger wrote: »

Why do people believe this, the opposite is true, unless it is a virus that is passed form parent to offspring?

Natural selection. If the virus kills off the host, it can't replicate anymore and infect other hosts. Therefore a less deadly version has a higher chance to spread to more hosts.
Compare ebola to flu.

Even getting the host very sick is a disadvantage as a sick host won't move around as much as an asymtomatic or a mildly symptomatic host. Therfore reducing potential of infecting other hosts. Remember, any virus requires compatible living cells to replicate.

Also, viruses are different. SARS-cov-2 is quite stable, similar to its predecessor. Survivors of that one still have effective quantities of antibodies in their blood even today (after 17 years). Comparing it to the myriad of common cold viruses or the flu is a rather bad approach.

The flu is so 'succesfull' because of the way it creates new strains by combining genetic material of different strains in a single cell. Therefore avoiding the antibodies for the previous strains and its very low host mortality rate, so it's able to jump to more hosts.

SARS-cov-2 doesn't have that molecular machinery to do so, no coronavirus has that. Not sure if any RNA virus can do that (will read up on it). The 'strains' you might hear being talked about are not really much different from each other, the changes are miniscule and would not affect the virus's properties all too much (if at all). For all practical intents and purloses, it's the same nasty thing now as the one that appeared in China orignally.

theoneeyedman · 08-04-2020 10:55pm

On one of the big threads at the weekend, there was a twitter link to a lad that had compared the March death rate for 2020 to each March for the last several years.
He was using unofficial data, rip.ie mostly, as CSO data is not provided yet, and won't be for quite a while.
Was an interesting exercise I thought. If anyone has a link I'd appreciate it, impossible to find anything on those big, fast moving threads.

Pete_Cavan · 08-04-2020 11:08pm

normanoffside wrote: »

In Spain, officials think at least 15 out of every 16 cases have not been recorded. They estimate at least 40% of the population of Madrid have been infected.

https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-04-08/spain-to-test-30000-families-for-the-coronavirus.html

It'll be hard to get an accurate estimate of mortality until a functioning antibody test is developed IMO

The more infections the better. It means that fatality rates are actually lower and that a second wave is likely to be less severe.

snotboogie · 08-04-2020 11:16pm

ShineOn7 wrote: »

The HSE worker doing the AMA said that 80% of the fatalities in Ireland will likely be in the second wave of it this Winter

I think the timeline could go:
Now till June - wave one

June till October - the calm before the second storm

October till ?? - wave two

But who the hell knows anymore. This thing will probably come and go in surges and drops till a vaccine comes along in mid 2021. And even then it'll still take some people out every year, but to a much lesser degree

Why a second wave in October? Why 4 or 5 months of calm? Is there any evidence this virus is seasonal? Singapore just shut down again, cases in Brazil are surging, Florida would be hotter in April than we would be in July and its surging there too.

Jurgen Klopp · 08-04-2020 11:23pm

normanoffside wrote: »

In Spain, officials think at least 15 out of every 16 cases have not been recorded. They estimate at least 40% of the population of Madrid have been infected.

https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-04-08/spain-to-test-30000-families-for-the-coronavirus.html

It'll be hard to get an accurate estimate of mortality until a functioning antibody test is developed IMO

I'd take that over winning the fcukin euromillions if true Norman

normanoffside · 08-04-2020 11:44pm

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

I'd take that over winning the fcukin euromillions if true Norman

It's undoubted that the real infection rates are vastly under reported the world over, especially when so many (80%?) of carriers are asymptomatic.

Even in countries with a 'decent' amount of testing you have to pass a high threshold in order to get tested, therefore lots of people even with significant symptoms are missed out.

The country with the highest rate of testing per head of population-Iceland- has still only tested 5% of the population. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10884442-181/a-coronavirus-test-for-anyone?sba=AAS

They have found the highest rate of infection in the world per head of population (1,200 infected from a population of 300,0000) of those found to be infect only 6 have died. That's a mortality rate of 0.37% of those found to be infected.

When you factor in the fact that even in Iceland people showing symptoms were clearly more likely to have been tested then the mortality rate must be a lot lower again.

paleoperson · 09-04-2020 12:02am

Wibbs wrote: »

Clearly and in spite of your handle you've not that much info on palaeolithic(or later) human populations.

ah okay. If that's what you think you have no ****ing clue what you're talking about and not only that but you think you know stuff and that others don't. If that's your attitude forget it. There's having a different opinion and coming up with ****. You are living in a world of delusion and you don't deserve a reply. I assure you I know all about the paleolithic era and more than you will ever know.

I will not read the rest of your post which can only be ill-informed nonsense and toxic and will have you on ignore from now on.

Hmmzis · 09-04-2020 10:04am

normanoffside wrote: »

It's undoubted that the real infection rates are vastly under reported the world over, especially when so many (80%?) of carriers are asymptomatic.

Even in countries with a 'decent' amount of testing you have to pass a high threshold in order to get tested, therefore lots of people even with significant symptoms are missed out.

The country with the highest rate of testing per head of population-Iceland- has still only tested 5% of the population. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10884442-181/a-coronavirus-test-for-anyone?sba=AAS

They have found the highest rate of infection in the world per head of population (1,200 infected from a population of 300,0000) of those found to be infect only 6 have died. That's a mortality rate of 0.37% of those found to be infected.

When you factor in the fact that even in Iceland people showing symptoms were clearly more likely to have been tested then the mortality rate must be a lot lower again.

If that is indeed the case, then the R0 value must be a gross underestimation by an order of magnitude or thereabouts. That would still mean the lockdowns and all the other measures are well placed to prevent or at least dampen the onslaught to hospitals. With an R0 or 12 to 14 this would be in a league along with the measles (you can't be within 10m or in the same room with a measles patient without getting it yourself).

Are we indeed breathing that sh!t out when infected and asymptomatic? I haven't read any credible reports stating that. It can be viable in aerosols for up to 3h though. Then again, would not all of the care homes be completely infected by now if that's indeed the case?

iguana · 09-04-2020 10:29am

normanoffside wrote: »

It's undoubted that the real infection rates are vastly under reported the world over, especially when so many (80%?) of carriers are asymptomatic.

Even in countries with a 'decent' amount of testing you have to pass a high threshold in order to get tested, therefore lots of people even with significant symptoms are missed out.

In the town of Castiglione d'Adda in Lombardy as group of people claiming to have not had symptoms of CV-19 donated blood. 70% of the donations were found to have the antibody, showing they had been infected. That indicates an enormous infection rate with potentially a majority of people who believed they were well through the peak in Lombardy actually being infected. I suspect that it's possible some of those donors had been symptomatic and made the donation in the hope of finding out that they had the antibody. Having an illness with symptoms that match the global pandemic you are living through is absolutely head wrecking. So plenty of people could be so desperate for clarity about their own health that they'd find a way to justify donating even if they suspected they were infected. So it's not a true indication of asymptotic spread in the way that testing a randomly selected group would be. But it still implies the potential for a massive spread of the virus, far beyond what is currently assumed.

normanoffside · 09-04-2020 10:37am

iguana wrote: »

In the town of Castiglione d'Adda in Lombardy as group of people claiming to have not had symptoms of CV-19 donated blood. 70% of the donations were found to have the antibody, showing they had been infected. That indicates an enormous infection rate with potentially a majority of people who believed they were well through the peak in Lombardy actually being infected. I suspect that it's possible some of those donors had been symptomatic and made the donation in the hope of finding out that they had the antibody. Having an illness with symptoms that match the global pandemic you are living through is absolutely head wrecking. So plenty of people could be so desperate for clarity about their own health that they'd find a way to justify donating even if they suspected they were infected. So it's not a true indication of asymptotic spread in the way that testing a randomly selected group would be. But it still implies the potential for a massive spread of the virus, far beyond what is currently assumed.

The great thing however is that there is a strong possibility that blood donors who have the antibody could be very valuable.
Apparently their plasma can help people infected to recover.

Not at a Computer right now but I have read several articles where such blood was transfused into people in critical care and it aided their recovery.

jimmyrustle · 09-04-2020 10:44am

Something I was wondering, and it's something that our media should really have put out there.

How many frontline healthcare staff do we have in hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes?

i.e. how many doctors, nurses, care assistants, paramedics, porters and others who have close contact with the general public.

Just interested to see what percentage of these people have caught the virus.

tobefrank321 · 09-04-2020 10:48am

Here's my maths.

If 2.5 million get it, 90% or 2.25 million will get a mildish form which can be cured at home.

5% will get a more severe form - still probably able to cure it at home. So that's 125,000.

2.5% will require hospital treatment of some sort - 62,000

And another 2.5% may end up in ICU - 62,000

At the moment we've had 6000 confirmed cases and something like 250 in ICU. But we know the 6000 cases is conservative and there's very likely to be 12,000 cases in reality if not more. So about 1.25% of cases ended up in ICU.

There is certainly a value to randomised testing of the population on an ongoing basis to see how we could cope if most of the population were infected. Beyond the HSE and government to do that as unless a proposal like this comes from the WHO, they won't do it.

ShineOn7 · 09-04-2020 2:25pm

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Here's my maths.

If 2.5 million get it, 90% or 2.25 million will get a mildish form which can be cured at home.

Hi Frank

Where did you see that about 90% of the people getting it so far are getting the milder Treat At Home strain? Last I saw it was 80%. Obviously 90% is a much better number

Cheers

iguana · 09-04-2020 2:37pm

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Hi Frank

Where did you see that about 90% of the people getting it so far are getting the milder Treat At Home strain? Last I saw it was 80%. Obviously 90% is a much better number

Cheers

According to Worldometers the current amount of active cases are recorded at 96% Mild/ 4% Serious/Critical. And that's only confirmed cases. There are in all likelihood significant multiples more untested people currently having an active mild or asymptotic case right now.

ShineOn7 · 09-04-2020 2:49pm

iguana wrote: »

According to Worldometers the current amount of active cases are recorded at 96% Mild/ 4% Serious/Critical. And that's only confirmed cases. There are in all likelihood significant multiples more untested people currently having an active mild or asymptotic case right now.

Cheers for that Iguana

I understood it previously to be:

80% Mild. You'll get anything from barely noticing it, to feeling the worst flu of your life
20% needing hospital treatment
Of that 20% about 4% needing ICU treatment
And of that 4% only half come back out alive

That gives us a mortality rate of 2% though, when many are saying it's more around 1%

normanoffside · 09-04-2020 3:08pm

ShineOn7 wrote: »

That gives us a mortality rate of 2% though, when many are saying it's more around 1%

Iceland says it's 0.37% of those tested (not everyone has been tested but a lot more than anyone else)

I'd say the real rate is lower than that again.

Asymptomatic people are not being tested and they make up the majority of the infected.
In most countries even people with clear symptoms are not being tested if they are not in a vulnerable/critical condition.

tobefrank321 · 09-04-2020 3:13pm

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Hi Frank

Where did you see that about 90% of the people getting it so far are getting the milder Treat At Home strain? Last I saw it was 80%. Obviously 90% is a much better number

Cheers

I had a look at yesterdays figures and they seem to be inconsistent with the 80 - 14 - 6% model as usually reported by RTE.

By Monday night, 25% of all the 5981 confirmed cases had been hospitalised (1,472 patients) and 224 people (3.7%) had been admitted to ICU.

This would mean that 75% of cases were not hospitalised and while this could range from mild to severe, they weren't severe enough for hospitalisation (unless some died outside of hospital).

In testing in Iceland 50% of cases were found to be asymptomatic. In an area of Italy they found antibodies in something like 75% of local residents.

So you'd have to say our 6000 confirmed cases are a huge under reporting of real cases. Everyone will have an estimate. I'm going for 12,000 cases here in reality, of which about 1500 (12.5%) ended up in hospital and 250 (2%) in ICU.

So probably 85% are mild, 15% are severe. Slight correction there. All based on estimate of course. No-one can say exactly how many were infected with covid19 here.

ShineOn7 · 09-04-2020 3:32pm

tobefrank321 wrote: »

This would mean that 75% of cases were not hospitalised and while this could range from mild to severe, they weren't severe enough for hospitalisation (unless some died outside of hospital).

Cheers for the update

It's this bit that would definitely skew the numbers. It's hard to know if all of the Nursing Home fatalities are being reported for example

Bottom line is governments all over the world need to be far more transparent about figures and statistics

The Chinese government in particular have been fúcking appalling in reporting their cases

loyatemu · 09-04-2020 3:36pm

IHME (as reported in the IT on Monday) are predicting ~400 deaths in the first wave, but possibly up to 800 (their figures for ireland are a few days behind, I think we're actually doing slightly worse now):
https://covid19.healthdata.org/ireland

I'm assuming the actual infected population is at least 10x the number of confirmed cases

As mentioned above the overall death rate for the year may not be that much higher than usual (given the demographic of most of the casualties) but it will hopefully be a lot lower than the likes of Italy, Spain etc where they have let things get out of control.

Diarmuid · 09-04-2020 5:23pm

loyatemu wrote: »

As mentioned above the overall death rate for the year may not be that much higher than usual (given the demographic of most of the casualties) but it will hopefully be a lot lower than the likes of Italy, Spain etc where they have let things get out of control.

To add to this, we don't actually know what the mortality is in Italy and Spain because the testing is so limited. Pretty much like most countries.

jimmyrustle · 09-04-2020 7:24pm

jimmyrustle wrote: »

Something I was wondering, and it's something that our media should really have put out there.

How many frontline healthcare staff do we have in hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes?

i.e. how many doctors, nurses, care assistants, paramedics, porters and others who have close contact with the general public.

Just interested to see what percentage of these people have caught the virus.

Anyone?

The maths of it all and what it means to Ireland

Comments