I hope that Ms. Sebelious is right about the likely seasonal characteristic of covid19. It may re-appear in the fall, as the flu season does, but meanwhile it will buy time for a vaccine to be developed and tested.
I read somewhere that the flu season occurs in the colder months because the air has less moisture in it, which, for some reason, allows respiratory viruses to set up camp in your lungs.
I also saw a map (can’t recall where) last week or the week before that showed countries where there were coronavirus cases, and at that time they were all in the north.
Michael Mina weighs in.
That scared me for a sec - those numbers are actually deaths per 100K in the population. So for example the last one works out to 0.0487%. From a different table, that represents 25K deaths that season.
They don’t list mortality rate, but after a little math: in those 65+, about 6% of people had flu symptoms that season, and 0.8% of those illnesses lead to death. Across all ages, 0.09% of illnesses lead to death.
Oops, yes, it’s 1/1000th of that.
| age | mortality rate |
|---|---|
| 0-4 yrs | 0.0013% |
| 5-17 yrs | 0.0004% |
| 18-49 yrs | 0.0018% |
| 50-64 yrs | 0.0090% |
| 65+ yrs | 0.0487% |
This math is giving me a headache. It’s easy for the numbers to confuse.
The number “N = 100,000” is just a conventional baseline population, completely independent of the actual population of any particular place. The really important thing is the fraction of the actual population or the percent of the actual population involved.
Let’s say we’re talking about Borrego Springs. The population there isn’t exactly 100,000. But you’ll still hear about the “rate per 100,000” and the “percent per 100,000” as it relates to Borrego Springs.
For any population, say Borrego Springs, suppose X people ages 25-35 stubbed their left big toe (SLT) in 2019. Let’s say the population ages 25-35 in Borrego Springs in 2019 was Y. Then the fraction of the actual population ages 25-35 that got SLT in Borrego Springs in 2019 would simply be Z = X/Y, and the percent of the actual population would be Z x 100.
But this simple and easy-to-understand figure might instead be reported as the “rate per 100,000”, R. Medical people like that way of expressing things. Alas. Well, so be it. The “rate per 100,000” is just R = Z x N. And the " percent per 100,000" is just (R/N)x100, “which brings us back to do”.
P.S. I’ve been asked to give an example. OK. Well, the actual population of Borrego Springs is 3600. Suppose 650 of them are in the 25-35 age group. And suppose exactly two (2) of those got SLT in 2019. Well, the fraction of people in that age group that got SLT in 2019 would be 2/650 = 0.003, and the percent in that age group that got SLT would be 0.3%. But the “rate per 100000” would be 0.003 x 100000 = 300. Gasp! OMG! That’s a lot of people ages 25-35 with stubbed left toes in that small community! Happily, that’s not the actual number (which was 2), and the percent per 100000 would still be 0.3%, in that age group.
Yes.
Jamaican my head hurt Doc…
For the brave of heart, Wuhan dry sesame noodles in Berkeley:
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/nash-cafe-berkeley-3?select=3fE1VLo9GJ-FxSQqyEeBsA
Looks delicious.
For closure, I’d just like to add a few remarks:
The likelihood of dying from The Virus after dining at any Asian restaurant in San Diego is less than that of getting struck by lightning.
To quote someone from long ago and far away that actually knew how to lead and maintain public calm and deliberateness during a frightening time, which I think applies right now:
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Which is to say, the main thing that will touch all of us all in the long term is the set of societal changes that will endure after this episode.
Our current leadership vacuum isn’t replicated world-wide. Look at the calm way in which Spain has handled things, for example. The collected way in which the reporter on Catalan News lays out the current, accurate facts about that region is in itself reassuring.
I was at the Balboa Museum of Photographic Arts last night for the opening of a Chinese photography exhibit. Wonderful photography, wine, and wonderful snacks (Asian-style crisp micro-tacos with raw tuna and wasabi), but the crowd was small and all but one of the Chinese photographers was able to be there. The event organizer, during the opening speech said all who were there for the opening were “heroes”.
That was a nice thing to say, but I think that the word “hero” is way overused these days. None of us who attended was a “hero”; we were all just people unfettered to go on with our lives.
Recently I’ve been eating at our Asian restaurants as frequently as possible. They need and deserve our support right now.
I agree that Asian restaurants shouldn’t be singled out but in general I think it might be a good time to eat less in restaurants and cook more at home as I would avoid crowded spaces on the moment - there is a reason why the largest biotech employer for example here in Boston pretty much closed down their site over the weekend and everybody is now working from home (and commercial organizations tend to normally not overreact and avoid changes which will cost them money in the short term)
Given the data so far, the disease is likely very survivable given the right medical care. I forget the exact rate, but I think the death rate for Ebola given expensive, intensive medical care is less than 1%.
Compared to the flu, the problem is that the disease is more transmissible and has a higher hospitalization and ICU rate. The main treatment right now is supportive care. The recovery time seems to be about 14 days so the turnover is low. Without this there’s already a shortage of doctors, nurses, and hospital beds. The United States has a fairly low per capita hospital bed rate.
In Italy, the hospital system is overwhelmed in the region. They announced they’re not admitting anyone over a certain age to the ICU, and even if you are young with a pre-existing condition they’re not helping you. They are so busy treating COVID-10 patients, if you have some other health problem such as a stroke or heart attack, they simply don’t have the capacity.
If you are 20-40 and healthy, you will most likely be fine. But those who are immunocompromised or older are at greater risk, and the only way we currently know to slow the the rate of infection to a point where the healthcare system will not be completely overwhelmed is through social distancing.
My personal opinion is that I think this likely could have been contained had we done actual testing in the US instead of ignoring the problem and isolated the infected, but now there’s community spread. I personally think it’s likely widespread and we just don’t know because of the lack fo testing. So unless we soon figure out some new treatments that reduce the hospitalization rate and/or time, I would not be surprised to see some social distancing measures here as well in maybe 10 days or so based on the potential exponential growth.
Not to belabor the point, but here’s a fact-based NYT article published today:
We don’t know how many people have The Virus in the US, but it’s probably a lot more than the 423 known/presumptive cases as of 3/8 (CDC). But we do know how many people have died from it in the US (19 to 3/8).
In South Korea you stick your head out of your car, they swab your tongue, and an hour later you know if you’ve got The Virus. Here in the US, the Pandemic Response Office that was created by Obama (after Ebola) was closed ASAP by the “orange goblin”, so we have no such capability and don’t have a clue as to how many infections there actually are. And BTW in South Korea, they’re watching that “exponential” and think that they’ve passed the peak, which should be followed by an exponential decay in new cases.
By the way, I’m an “old white man” (a horribly pejorative, derogatory, and age-discriminatory handle) and would, I guess, be left to die if I got a bad case of Covid-19 in Italy right now, based on what you said in your post.
There is much in your post that you state as fact, and I think it’s important to point out that there is much we don’t know about COVID-19 right now.
It would probably be helpful for all us to avoid using absolutes when discussing it.
The only numbers I myself “stated as fact” were based on data published by the CDC on coronavirus.gov today (3/9). I have no reason to believe that the data cited in the NYT are not factual. And my comment about reaching the peak of new cases in S. Korea came from their government (today), which, unlike ours, is credible.
@DoctorChow: My post is rather clearly marked as being a response to @joy, not to you specifically.
My apologies
Thanks for pointing this out. I did try to separate facts from my opinion when I originally posted, but I wrote it quickly and perhaps a little carelessly. My apologies. I edited the post.
Most of the hospitalizations in Italy are 65+. They are reverse triaging due to a severe lack of resources. I think the healthcare workers feel beyond horrible not being able to help. Italy is first world country with a decent healthcare system and I don’t know that there’s any healthcare system in the world with the capacity to handle such a surge.
I agree with the NY Times article but as stated in my previous post my concern is with the overwhelming the healthcare system, like what happened in Wuhan and northern Italy.
Anyhow, my Chinese parents currently refuse to eat at any Chinese restaurants, though they’re not going out much at all these days. Their Asian friends are pretty much doing the same. I tried to convince them that they’re probably safer eating at a Chinese restaurant compared to another restaurant because they’re uncrowded and the community is serious about taking precautions.