Coronavirus

[petra_r]

So, today this happens.

[petra_r]

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Rene K wrote:

This thread and its graphs are the first thing I read in the morning. Or at the time of the day I call morning. Which has little to do with the day/night cycle.

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The first thing I do is swear at whatever cat wakes me up, then I make coffee numero uno, feed cats and make the charts. 

At 6 pm i watch the daily briefing and then update Italy's numbers. 

[reinierb]

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Rene K wrote:

This thread and its graphs are the first thing I read in the morning. Or at the time of the day I call morning. Which has little to do with the day/night cycle.

I can't say that I particularly enjoy looking at Petra's graphs, but I will be the first to admit that they are the clearest, most illuminating, and certainly the most sobering graphs about the pandemic on the entire internet. 

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[petra_r]

Thanks Reinier 🙂

I'd rather I didn't have to create them, but I have developed a real passion for visualising raw data because only that helps me make sense of what is going on. I could originally not find graphs that put every line on the same timeline, which is what I was and am personally most interested in. Assuming that other countries' curves follow the Italian curve more or less, (at least for cases), we can only guess at where we are and where everyone is going when setting others in a timeline context with the Italian curve.

This will become even more interesting when the lockdowns are being eased.

Yet still, I could make the picture look more alarming or appear more harmless, simply by stretching or narrowing the graph area... 

I have noticed how the media do that, to downplay what's happening or to stoke fear and panic. 

That's why I don't touch the plot area anymore because I want it to be neutral.

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[kbadeau]

Apr 13, 2020 01:54:05 AM Edited Apr 13, 2020 01:54:27 AM by Rene K
This thread and its graphs are the first thing I read in the morning. Or at the time of the day I call morning. Which has little to do with the day/night cycle.

Me too except it truly is my morning ... about 6 am.

[ravi_iitian]

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Petra R wrote:

Good morning all

This morning's graphs.

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Looks like an inflection point on the U.S. graph, and the second derivate is finally negative (though slightly).

[kbadeau]

I just read that one NY study indicates that obesity might be the single biggest driver of severity in the NYC area. South Korea is a relatively thin nation; is Germany as well?

And Massachussetts for example has a ton of cases but a lower death rate, like Germany. Where New Orleans is in the opposite boat.

I thought Utah was going to go off the rails initially but they seem to have really tamped it down there. And they are a thin, fit state.

[jmlaidlaw]

Mary wrote: "I read yesterday that NY is only counting deaths of those with confirmed coronavirus.  People who die at home or on the street are not counted.  However, that number of deaths is double what it was last year at this time..."

Petra quite intelligently and analytically wished to compare the number of new tests done with the number of new positives, in order to determine whether the actual PERCENTAGE/RATE of new COVID-positive test results in Italy is increasing, or whether it is, in fact, the RAW NUMBER of positive test results that is increasing, due to a larger number of tests (overall) being carried out as time goes on. (Petra described this better than I am doing.)

Similarly (see Mary's comment above), Mary underscores a problem with the data re (numbers of) deaths being reported out of NYC -- and we can infer similar problems with reporting in other large cities with significant homeless populations. We can also, perhaps, imagine situations other than deaths at home and deaths of the homeless that might lead to under-reporting of COVID-caused deaths. (Not sure what those situations might be, but perhaps others' imaginations are more fertile than mine.)

But here's another potentially confounding factor re data: There are reports within the U.S. data of inconsistencies and/or OVER-reporting of COVID-caused deaths. The confounding of the death data is this: In some regions (maybe all?), death certificates and new reporting systems seem to encourage (if not require?) coroners to report the death of anyone who has died WITH Coronavirus symptoms as if that person has died OF Coronavirus. Example: Someone who has a heart attack that would be fatal, and who also has a mild or asymptomatic case of Coronavirus, dies in a hospital, and a test for COVID is positive, and thus the heart-attack death is listed as "due to Coronavirus." It would be like reporting that a 92-year-old man who died of pneumonia died "of prostate cancer" because the man (like almost all elderly men) died WITH prostate cancer, although not OF prostate cancer.

Thus, the statistics that I would be interested in seeing/analyzing, re deaths, are these:  For any given region (example: New York City): What is the mode (typical) number of deaths for March, given the general conditions of weather, etc. that are currently being experienced by the city, ex Coronavirus? What is the number of deaths THIS March? Subtract, and the numerical difference can be reasonably assumed to be attributable to Coronavirus. (Of course, this math works only for regions where a death rate is fairly stable, and is known, over time, and for regions where the number of Coronavirus deaths is significant enough so that it is not lost in the general statistical "noise" of a normal delta.)

[petra_r]

Janean, what you are saying makes sense, although I watched an interview with that saint of a man (Dr Fauci) who explained that overreporting was unlikely to have any significant impact, and underreporting was more likely. If I understand it correctly, deaths by other means are only counted as CV deaths, if CV caused it was a clear contributing factor. People with a cough falling down the stairs and breaking their necks wouldn't be counted.

I am mostly interested in trends rather than pure numbers. I want the percentage of tested people who test positive to stay under 10 % and go down, I'd rather they test 100,000 people and find 6,000, then that they test 50,000 and find 4,000. Numbers and data are only worth whatever context they provide. I was contemplating doing the same graphs, but corrected to the population, so every country's line showing the progress of the lines per 100 Million people. 

Italy update 13. April: So, today, people who tested positive: 3153 (significantly down from yesterday, but likely there will have been less tests because of Easter. I'll know in the morning)

Deaths up from yesterday at 566 which isn't great but deaths will always be behind. New recoveries up, all overall going in the right direction in Italy on the eve of the first tentative steps towards loosening the lockdown a little.

Spain, if final, looking very good, Germany clearly not final yet, UK, if final, looking promising.

Graphs, as always, in the morning. When this is all over I'll read through the whole thread and see how we all got through this together in this sane little sanctuary on the Internet.

[jmlaidlaw]

"sane little sancuary on the Internet "

Interesting point of view! Heartening... I guess... 

[petra_r]

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Janean L wrote:

"sane little sancuary on the Internet "

Interesting point of view! Heartening... I guess... 

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Would have been but for the typo in sanctuary 

Next curve to watch: Turkey 😞

[versailles]

In France, if everything goes well, the lock-down should end on May 11th, said the president few minutes ago. Not all public spaces will reopen immediately, though.

EU outer borders stay closed.

[boshoffirene]

In SA....2,272 confirmed cases, 27 deaths as of today.

On a lighter note, Petra the chicken has now developed a fixation on the husband. She follows him around and begs to be petted. She's a strange bird, that one. 

[petra_r]

Good morning world! Today's graphs below.

I also checked the number of tests done in Italy. As expected, there was less testing over Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.

Sat: 56.61 k tests	4.694 k cases	8.29 %
Sun: 46.72 k tests	4.092 k cases	8.76 %
Mon: 36.72 k tests	3.15 k cases	8.66 %

[reinierb]

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Irene B wrote:

In SA....2,272 confirmed cases, 27 deaths as of today.

On a lighter note, Petra the chicken has now developed a fixation on the husband. She follows him around and begs to be petted. She's a strange bird, that one. 

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Our biggest problem is that we have no idea what is happening on the ground, which is compounded by reports that blather on about "SA Bucking the Trend", "SA's Ruthlessly Efficient Fight Against the Virus", SA's Curve is Unique", and other similar rubbish. 

The truth of the matter is that we need to do about 30 000 tests every day just to be able to map the spread of the virus, but we have done only about 80 000 tests since testing began more than a month ago. The other problem is that the disease is invisible- it's not like people are keeling over and dying in the streets, so many people in densely populated areas disregard the lockdown regulations, as is shown by the fact that more than 20 000 people have been arrested for breaking the rules.

One more problem is the fact that the local authorities keep on telling people that our lockdown measures are working to stem the tide of infections. This may be true or it may not be, but until we can ramp up our rate of testing to at least 10 000 - 15 000 per day (half of the required number), we just won't know what is working and what is not, and we will therefore continue to labour under the illusion that we will somehow escape the fate of other severely affected countries that are doing twice the number of tests in two days that we do in a month.   

[boshoffirene]

Renier, 

I totally agree with you. I am sure we could add a zero (or 2) behind the total infections here. But yeah...we won't know, will we? Feeding people is an issue, and as you know, certain people have already been accused of corruption with regards to the spreading of food in remote areas.... so yeah. Unfortunately, one cannot say what you really want to say on an open forum. 

[petra_r]

Italy's new cases are lower than they have been in a month and under 3000 for the first time since the 13th of March, when the graph looked like below..... (scrap that, I hadn't even started doing graphs back then!!!)

Unfortunately 600 people died from the virus in 24 hour.

Spain, if final, looking promising again. Germany clearly not the final numbers yet.

[versailles]

Coronavirus Pandemic Update 54: COVID-19 Antibody vs. PCR Testing; When to Relax Social Distancing?

[mwiggenhorn]

Meanwhile, New York City added 3,800 to the death toll today because they counted deaths that were certainly coronavirus but were undiagnosed as such.

[petra_r]

Today's graphs:

[ravi_iitian]

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Petra R wrote:

Today's graphs:

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Uh-oh! Is that another inflection point in the U.S. curve?

[ravi_iitian]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

[ravi_iitian]

“Sale of liquor, gutka, tobacco etc are strictly banned.”

We in India are having a really tough time.

Summer is around the corner, and we can’t get the pads for our water-based coolers.

The people who dish out the directives are living in full comfort.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/new-lockdown-guidelines-strict-ban-on-sale-of-liquor-gutka-t...

[versailles]

Coronavirus Pandemic Update 55: How COVID-19 Infection Attacks The Immune System & Differs From HIV

[petra_r]

Italian numbers. We really seem to be getting there finally. New cases down again at 2,667 and deaths, while still significant, also down a bit at 578.

Spain, and Britain, if final, also looking pretty good at their respective stage on the curve. Germany clearly not final.

Graphs in the morning as always.

[versailles]

Coronavirus Pandemic Update 56: What is “Forest Bathing” & Can It Boost Immunity Against Viruses?

[petra_r]

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Rene K wrote:

Coronavirus Pandemic Update 56: What is “Forest Bathing” & Can It Boost Immunity Against Viruses?

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I really like those and do watch them every day. 

There is such a thing as "too much information" and I have now limited the information I will access or else I'll go crazy.

Thank you for sharing good information 🙂

[petra_r]

Charts time 🙂

Today I thought it would be interesting to see numbers in relation to population, and look at cases, deaths and testing done. My theory is that the more tests are done, the less deaths there will ultimately be.

	Italy	UK	Germany	USA	Spain	France
Cases per Million	2732	1451	1608	1946	3864	2265
Deaths per Million	358	190	45	86	402	263
Tests per 100 k population	1848	587	2062	984	1391	511

[petra_r]

And now for the usual charts

It's worth noting that Italy increased testing again yesterday, but that the percentage of positive tests fell yet again to just 6.1 % (it peaked at over 30% twice)

[petra_r]

Italy numbers are out again. 3,786 new cases, which is significantly up from yesterday. Hopefully it's an anomaly rather than a trend. Or maybe yesterday was the anomaly. new deaths at +525 down from yesterday.

UK also looking like they're stabilizing but deaths still high.

Turkey may well break into the front-runners in the next 2 or three days, unfortunately.

[luce-neidert]

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Petra R wrote:

Italy numbers are out again. 3,786 new cases, which is significantly up from yesterday. Hopefully it's an anomaly rather than a trend. Or maybe yesterday was the anomaly. new deaths at +525 down from yesterday.

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This is roughly 5 days after Easter. I remember hearing on the radio about a village somewhere in Italy where a mass was celebrated for Easter, with 200 people attending. Could this be the result of Easter celebration here and there?

[resultsassoc]

Luce, anything is possible. This disease is complicated by issues of politics and money and the fact that a PhD from Google University qualifies one as an expert on any topic one wishes. Gatherings create opportunities for transmission. Larger gatherings create more opportunities. Social distancing standards may be horribly wrong if droplets from a sneeze can linger in the air for more than twenty seconds; initial research shows a time measured in double-digit minutes.We don't know what the right questions are, but we're getting better.

Italy has suffered horribly, as has Spain. The suffering in Europe will get worse, but change in nature. In the US we've found that several state Governors have made well-intentioned blunders that will reduce the food supply. That will not affect North America; it will cause hunger in other places. We don't yet know how deadly this virus is, but we know a great deal about the deadliness of poverty. Shutting down global commerce could kill far more people than COVID-19.

The problem is global, massive and unprecedented. It is also not understood completely by anyone, certainly including me. Today we learned that the US will next week have the ability to complete a million tests a week. That's six years to test everyone, and in six years poverty will have killed more people than any virus in history.

Sadly, there is no "Why don't you just..." solution.

[petra_r]

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Luce N wrote:

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Petra R wrote:

Italy numbers are out again. 3,786 new cases, which is significantly up from yesterday. Hopefully it's an anomaly rather than a trend. Or maybe yesterday was the anomaly. new deaths at +525 down from yesterday.

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This is roughly 5 days after Easter. I remember hearing on the radio about a village somewhere in Italy where a mass was celebrated for Easter, with 200 people attending. Could this be the result of Easter celebration here and there?

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No, I don't think that had a significant impact. The people out shopping before the shops were closed for 4 days probably would have had as much impact. They TESTED a record number of people yesterday, and obviously, the more people they test (in preparation of re-opening the country in phases) the more infected people they will find.

The day before they ran 43,000 tests and 6.1% were postive-

Yesterday they tested a record 60,099 and the percentage of positive tests was 6.3 %. So "about the same" give or take. It's been significantly below 10% (from a peak of 30% +) for a while now, which means we're going in the right direction. If it hadn't been a day when a record number of tests were done, I'd be more concerned with the rise in the number of daily new cases.

Graphs: 

[luce-neidert]

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Petra R wrote:

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No, I don't think that had a significant impact. The people out shopping before the shops were closed for 4 days probably would have had as much impact. They TESTED a record number of people yesterday, and obviously, the more people they test (in preparation of re-opening the country in phases) the more infected people they will find.

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All right. Thanks for your explanations. Have a nice day, Petra!

[luce-neidert]

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Bill H wrote:

Luce, anything is possible. This disease is complicated by issues of politics and money and the fact that a PhD from Google University qualifies one as an expert on any topic one wishes. Gatherings create opportunities for transmission. Larger gatherings create more opportunities. Social distancing standards may be horribly wrong if droplets from a sneeze can linger in the air for more than twenty seconds; initial research shows a time measured in double-digit minutes.We don't know what the right questions are, but we're getting better.

Italy has suffered horribly, as has Spain. The suffering in Europe will get worse, but change in nature. In the US we've found that several state Governors have made well-intentioned blunders that will reduce the food supply. That will not affect North America; it will cause hunger in other places. We don't yet know how deadly this virus is, but we know a great deal about the deadliness of poverty. Shutting down global commerce could kill far more people than COVID-19.

The problem is global, massive and unprecedented. It is also not understood completely by anyone, certainly including me. Today we learned that the US will next week have the ability to complete a million tests a week. That's six years to test everyone, and in six years poverty will have killed more people than any virus in history.

Sadly, there is no "Why don't you just..." solution.

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I know, Bill, anything is possible. It's a complex problem. Here are some hints I gathered here and there (not from Google, thank you very much) :

I have a Chinese friend who used to live in France, but now is in China, and she literally begs me to wear masks. Of course I don't expect her to be free to tell me exactly why, but I can guess there is a reason for it.

The second hint is this video I recently watched (in Portuguese, a language I happen to speak), were a letter from a Brazilian man living in China was read. The man had written a daughter to tell her about what was happening in China. He was telling her that AC systems in buildings were being stopped and windows were being used for ventilation. Another interesting and a bit less scary information was that he was back at work, but 3 days a week only. From what I know, Chinese people only work 6 days a week, this means that on workdays, only half of the workers only use public transportation and fill workplaces. 

Whatever happens, the whole world is going to suffer from this situation. Later we'll be able to analyse and try to say which was the best (and the worst) way to handle the situation. But already this is a terrible illustration of what I firmly believe in : it is better for a country to organise a health system available to everyone, as when the poor catch an infectious disease and cannot afford treatment, they transmit it to the rich.

[colettelewis]

France had a distressingly sharp increase in the number of cases yesterday. The highest since April 3. 

[m_terrazas]

Maybe it's because more tests have been done?
I suppose that when they do more tests in all the countries, we will see an increase in the cases, I think.

[colettelewis]

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Maria T wrote:

Maybe it's because more tests have been done?
I suppose that when they do more tests in all the countries, we will see an increase in the cases, I think.

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______________________________
You are probably right, but it is still a sharp rise. 

[versailles]

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Nichola L wrote:

France had a distressingly sharp increase in the number of cases yesterday. The highest since April 3. 

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I think its because they have included previously undisclosed counts. I may be wrong, but I think I read something about that yesterday. There was an issue with the data.

[petra_r]

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Rene K wrote:

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Nichola L wrote:

France had a distressingly sharp increase in the number of cases yesterday. The highest since April 3. 

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I think its because they have included previously undisclosed counts. I may be wrong, but I think I read something about that yesterday. There was an issue with the data.

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Yes, previously under-reported cases were now included. That made for an alarming jump!

The Italian mini spike (mild in comparison) was due to the huge jump in tests being done, which reassured me that we're not going backwards. The number of tests done the previous day is the first thing I look at before I start with the charts, especially as that number swings wildly from day to day (they did 26k tests on Tuesday and 61k yesterday) and the number of new cases found makes much better sense when seen alongside the number of tests done.

Luckily the Italians publish all the numbers quite reliably.