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Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

cassandracapital.net

11–20 of 46 posts

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#11

Sorry for not being upbeat! I am wondering why the world still does not seem to care about it. Why do we have to wait until every city gets infected? Why we can't stop travelling? Eventually, when it spreads to a city, the quarantine must be the only way... but why we aren't preventing that ourselves? The politicians does not really seem to care (in the bunkers)? Individual, consumer society with no interest and with…

I think it's pretty clear that many people do care about it very much. Imposing travel restrictions, cancelling flights to major trading partners, etc, has a very significant cost and isn't taken lightly. I've heard many people say things along the lines of "it's just the economy, our health is more important" lately, but peoples' livelihoods literally depend on the economy.

Say for example that your family operates a tiny tourism-related business in South East Asia. A prolonged shutdown of travel between China and your country could literally drive you into poverty, given how dependent some countries in the region have become on inbound tourism from China. Given your extremely remote chances of catching the virus, the risk of losing your entire family income is a much more significant risk to your health.

Because of this, it's important to be balanced in thought and decisions, and not just panic because of what could happen. Where there is evidence to support restrictions, keep them in place. Where there is not, remove them.

Outside of China this issue still remains far less serious than many other health-related risks. The "we need to do something" (anything!) mindset is actively harmful.

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#12

"[..] a study in the Lancet estimated back on January 25th that 75,000 people had already been infected and that the virus was doubling every 6.4 days — which would suggest that more than 300,000 people may now be infected with the virus." Doesn't this blatantly ignore the fact that the infection would have run its course in many of those people by now?

If they run out of people to infect the rate of new infections will go down. There are a lot of people in China though. Obviously the 6.4 days thing is rough estimate.

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#13
post #12

"[..] a study in the Lancet estimated back on January 25th that 75,000 people had already been infected and that the virus was doubling every 6.4 days — which would suggest that more than 300,000 people may now be infected with the virus." Doesn't this blatantly ignore the fact that the infection would have run its course in many of those people by now?

If they run out of people to infect the rate of new infections will go down. There are a lot of people in China though. Obviously the 6.4 days thing is rough estimate.

But the last part of the sentence talks about the number of people who "may now be infected with the virus", which seems to ignore the fact that some of the early new infections are no longer infected.

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#14

Sorry for not being upbeat! I am wondering why the world still does not seem to care about it. Why do we have to wait until every city gets infected? Why we can't stop travelling? Eventually, when it spreads to a city, the quarantine must be the only way... but why we aren't preventing that ourselves? The politicians does not really seem to care (in the bunkers)? Individual, consumer society with no interest and with…

I think it's pretty clear that many people do care about it very much. Imposing travel restrictions, cancelling flights to major trading partners, etc, has a very significant cost and isn't taken lightly. I've heard many people say things along the lines of "it's just the economy, our health is more important" lately, but peoples' livelihoods literally depend on the economy. Say for example that your family operates…

Even with the existing restrictions the virus spreads. Spread leads to quarantine as we've seen in many chinese cases. I don't see why should we hope for the better with less restrictions.

Not being a huge problem outside of China is a fact for NOW. Does not mean it won't happen in weeks. The question is: do we want to solve the problem now, or we want to postpone the solution for later. There won't be "deus ex machina" which just makes it disappear. Many people will die if we're going to ignore the existing facts and make fun of the situation with these stupid heat scans checks which do prevent nothing on the long term based on existing experiences.

What I see is because noone wants panic it prevents us calling the right moves. Because its "panicky".

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#15
post #8

From a reliable source, a Western journalist who was evacuated, this article's information seems accurate. It's difficult to tell what the current numbers are, or even what they will be because of censorship, but you can bet it's 2-5x what's reported. Also, it's compounded by the delay of information having to go to intermediaries before reaching international journalists. And, there are some isolated instances of bo…

> It's difficult to tell what the current numbers are, or even what they will be because of censorship, but you can bet it's 2-5x what's reported. Definitely. IIRC, to be counted in the official statistics, an infected person has to have significant contact with the medical system, but the medical system in Wuhan has been so overloaded that people have been turned away in large numbers so that diagnostic work is not…

If I were betting I'd bet over 5x https://www.ccn.com/billionaire-whistleblower-wuhan-coronavi...

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#16
> In the optimistic scenario, a month from now we can calculate, from data outside mainland china, that the CFR is perhaps .3% or below

What so absurd is it will take the world a month to know how serious this virus is. By that point it's likely too late to do anything to stop it.

It's beyond disgusting that China is putting the entire world's population at risk due to pride and ego.

Essentially "we'd rather screw over potentially millions of lives everywhere rather than admit how poorly we handled this".

...and they just keep digging.

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#17
My guess is this thing is bad - keeps spreading, high mortality and the best we can do is slow it until we have a vaccine. I'm kind of optimistic people may be able to speed the vaccine stuff when they see how bad the situation is.

Animal trials have started already

>Shanghai-based Tongji University School of Medicine and Stermirna Therapeutics Co., Ltd. The vaccine samples were injected into more than 100 mice Sunday, the report said.

and Imperial started animal trials yesterday.

vid of the Shanghai lot: https://youtu.be/BymUKDp-omQ

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty clear that many people do care about it very much. Imposing travel restrictions, cancelling flights to major trading partners, etc, has a very significant cost and isn't taken lightly. I've heard many people say things along the lines of "it's just the economy, our health is more important" lately, but peoples' livelihoods literally depend on the economy. Say for example that your family operates…

Even with the existing restrictions the virus spreads. Spread leads to quarantine as we've seen in many chinese cases. I don't see why should we hope for the better with less restrictions. Not being a huge problem outside of China is a fact for NOW. Does not mean it won't happen in weeks. The question is: do we want to solve the problem now, or we want to postpone the solution for later. There won't be "deus ex machi…

> Even with the existing restrictions the virus spreads. Spread leads to quarantine as we've seen in many chinese cases. I don't see why should we hope for the better with less restrictions.

If we can identify which restrictions are helping, and which are not, then we can remove the ones that are not. The point of my comment above is that the restrictions come with their own costs, in some cases severe.

> Not being a huge problem outside of China is a fact for NOW. Does not mean it won't happen in weeks.

It doesn't mean it will, either. We should be approaching this in a rational, evidence-based way, not just waving our hands and saying "many people will die" with no evidence.

> What I see is because noone wants panic it prevents us calling the right moves. Because its "panicky".

If you believe you have a better idea what the "right moves" are than experts who have spent their careers studying these events and preparing for them, then by all means step up. But you should expect to be asked for evidence for your claims. Panic is a significant cost on its own.

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with the existing restrictions the virus spreads. Spread leads to quarantine as we've seen in many chinese cases. I don't see why should we hope for the better with less restrictions. Not being a huge problem outside of China is a fact for NOW. Does not mean it won't happen in weeks. The question is: do we want to solve the problem now, or we want to postpone the solution for later. There won't be "deus ex machi…

> Even with the existing restrictions the virus spreads. Spread leads to quarantine as we've seen in many chinese cases. I don't see why should we hope for the better with less restrictions. If we can identify which restrictions are helping, and which are not, then we can remove the ones that are not. The point of my comment above is that the restrictions come with their own costs, in some cases severe. > Not being a…

"Evidence-based way"

At this point I am not sure what is evidence for you. Do you need a mathematical paper on it with the conclusion of irreversible damage?

The experience is that it is still spreading. Yesterdays numbers We can't afford that!

Re: Coronavirus – The Status of the Outbreak and 4 Possible Scenarios

#20
post #15
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's difficult to tell what the current numbers are, or even what they will be because of censorship, but you can bet it's 2-5x what's reported. Definitely. IIRC, to be counted in the official statistics, an infected person has to have significant contact with the medical system, but the medical system in Wuhan has been so overloaded that people have been turned away in large numbers so that diagnostic work is not…

If I were betting I'd bet over 5x https://www.ccn.com/billionaire-whistleblower-wuhan-coronavi...

I'm skeptical of the Chinese government's statistics, but I'm also skeptical of those sources:

https://www.ccn.com/about-us/:

> CCN.com, also known as CCN Markets, was founded in the summer of 2013 in Norway by serial entrepreneur Jonas Borchgrevink as “CryptoCoinsNews.com”.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/a-site-t...:

> A Site Tied To Steve Bannon Is Writing Fake News About The Coronavirus

> Founded by an exiled billionaire and critic of the Chinese government, G News claimed without proof that China was prepared to admit the disease originated in its labs.

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