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Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

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Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#271

Post by lostlogin »

bart_spoon wrote: post #97
sciinfo wrote: post #52

There seems to be many cases of young patients dying in Iran. Either because there are way more cases than being officially reported or (hopefully not) the virus has mutated to affect the young more, or both. The first hypothesis is likely based on the number of infections found in international travellers who went to Iran. We still cannot rule out the second hypothesis though. A 23-year-old woman soccer player: http…

Iran said it had no cases up until the moment it announced 4 people had died. Its safe to assume that the scope of the infection in Iran is either far greater than they have been able to track, or far greater than they are willing to admit. I think its less likely that the virus is killing more young people in Iran, and more likely that there are thousands if not tens of thousands of cases in Iran that simply haven't…

We saw the Iranian response to the airliner being shot down recently. It’ll be just as you say.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#272

Post by logjammin »

dpau wrote: post #158
mns wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do have one question and I'm asking this seriously, not to start an argument or to attack someone. I also saw this here in a lot of the posts about covid-19. We have numbers, but every time people tend to ignore them or say we should not trust the numbers, take them with a grain of salt, "I think this is way worse, it's going to get way worse" and so on. It's like there is this thirst for disaster or some global dr…

ever since the beginning of this crisis, countries have been either hiding or underreporting the numbers. lack of adequate testing means that clusters are discovered late, after the virus has had a chance to spread. it's not so much a thirst for disaster as it is a thirst for knowledge so that we can better prepare ourselves. even in the US, the CDC seems at odds with the president as to the severity of the virus and…

What evidence can you point to of this "hiding"?

Lack of adequate testing is a factor, I Grant you, and a big one -- but clusters are discovered late because it now appears that people can shed virus when they're not symptomatic.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#273

Post by chippy »

dannyw wrote: post #2

How much can we trust the data coming out of China?

The line within China is that they made a big mistake with the figures initially, but those responsible (e.g. Wuhan officials) have been dealt with and everything is now more truthful.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#274

Post by drcode »

learc83 wrote: post #230
scarmig wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the Diamond Princess, all infections, mild to severe, have been identified. Out of ~800 infected, 4 have died, which suggests that with the best case scenario the mortality rate is 0.5%. This also should be read with the context that cruise ship passengers tend to be older. Also, that number will climb a bit. The biggest risk isn't the bare mortality rate when properly treated, but the actual mortality…

As you said cruise ships skew much older than the general population, so this tells us very little about the actual mortality rate. All 4 people who died were in their 80s.

However, we're also talking about older people who were healthy enough to travel on a cruise, a large number of people over 80 wouldn't do this.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#275

Post by n0rbwah »

ghostpepper wrote: post #242
n0rbwah wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Spanish Flu was a hundred years ago, I highly doubt that what happened then in Iran has much relations to what's happening now. What's happening now has more to do with their theocratic regime that didn't take the threat seriously and doesn't care much about their people.

Wouldn't that require two unrelated explanations for higher viral-outbreak mortality rates? Isn't the explanation that doesn't require a coincidence more plausible?

> Wouldn't that require two unrelated explanations for higher viral-outbreak mortality rates?

That doesn't sound unreasonable at all when the two outbreaks are separated by a century. A lot has changed between 1920 and 2020.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#276

Post by gizmo686 »

learc83 wrote: post #230
scarmig wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the Diamond Princess, all infections, mild to severe, have been identified. Out of ~800 infected, 4 have died, which suggests that with the best case scenario the mortality rate is 0.5%. This also should be read with the context that cruise ship passengers tend to be older. Also, that number will climb a bit. The biggest risk isn't the bare mortality rate when properly treated, but the actual mortality…

As you said cruise ships skew much older than the general population, so this tells us very little about the actual mortality rate. All 4 people who died were in their 80s.

.5% is far lower then the commonly reported mortality rate. That it occured in an older (and therefore more at risk) strengthens the evidence that other estimates are overstating the mortality.

Of course, within the population of old people, I would expect cruise goers to be relativly healthy; so I would expect this population to be more vulnerable then the general public, but less vulnerable then their age based demographics.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#277

Post by FillardMillmore »

rebuilder wrote: post #239
scarmig wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reasoning for thinking this is worthy of panic: I recently moved to China. The PRC has good numbers (internally) and knows more about COVID-19's severity and risk profile than anyone else. And, on the ground, the PRC is putting the entire country on what amounts to wartime footing (in a way that's unimaginable to most HN readers), to the point that it's willing to sacrifice a quarter or more worth of economic prod…

My read on the Chinese reaction is the same in that they seem to be taking it very seriously indeed. But it might not be because the PRC are so worried about the disease per se. They may just be worried about the unrest and panic an insufficient response could cause. I.e. the PRC may be trying to prevent the infodemic more than the epidemic, to use current parlance.

Both probably play a role in the equation of how China and the PRC has acted thus far in the wake of the disease. I certainly don't think China is acting with some far greater knowledge of the virus than other affected states/countries. The virus genome has been mapped and the world is working on developing a vaccine (I believe I read a recent story that Hong Kong claims they developed one). Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), any kind of vaccine will need to go through phases of testing and validation to ensure its efficacy and this process will inevitably take time. That time will regrettably see more people fall victim to Covid-19.

Of course, China was also probably worried about the economic and political repercussions of appearing to the world as not being strong or proactive enough in its response. So much of the global supply chain relies on China that even having the resemblance of not being in control of the situation would have produced a far greater economic bloodbath than we've seen thus far.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#278

Post by treespace89 »

mns wrote: post #141
nik_s wrote: post #57

The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/(infected + dead)) is that you're assuming that the infected won't die. In a disease that is exponentially growing, a better approximation of evaluating your survival chances is to look at the death to recovery rate (dead / (recovered + dead)). Based on the available data [1], we are closer to 7.8% than 2% mortality, which is closer to the final mortality rate of…

I do have one question and I'm asking this seriously, not to start an argument or to attack someone. I also saw this here in a lot of the posts about covid-19. We have numbers, but every time people tend to ignore them or say we should not trust the numbers, take them with a grain of salt, "I think this is way worse, it's going to get way worse" and so on. It's like there is this thirst for disaster or some global dr…

To me I simply have never seen this before. I remember SARS, and H1N1. There was a big media blitz about both, but that was it.

With this I am seeing cities / countries on lockdown. I have friends that can't go home in Italy because of the lockdown. My own government (Canada) has asked us to prepare for pandemic, and we only have a handful of cases ?!?

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#279

Post by Alex3917 »

learc83 wrote: post #258
Alex3917 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would put the mortality rate at under 1%, which is close to the evidence we have from elsewhere (e.g. the Diamond Princess). Since it takes 3+ weeks to die from this illness, we're not going to know the fatality rate from the diamond princess for another month. And that's still going to be a lower bound since they'll all be getting medical care from often before they're even diagnosed.

>And that's still going to be a lower bound since they'll all be getting medical care from often before they're even diagnosed. It's not a lower bound because cruise ships skew much older than the general population. All 4 who have died so far have been in their 80s.

Good point. That you can at least try to correct for to match various populations though.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#280

Post by toron123 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #190
zebrafish wrote: post #78

i know it's passe to rail on the media, but i think the hyperconnectedness of everyone is causing the amount of panic i'm sensing out there to significantly outweigh the risks wrt covid-19.

I agree. The Chinese went hysterical when the outbreak was first noticed, and I heard a lot about it spontaneously when wishing people happy new year. Hysteria continued right up to the point where... everyone went back to work. I think the government got unlucky that the outbreak coincided with a major holiday. And while shutting things down was a good idea in many ways, it also meant that people were stuck at home…

There is another possibility that the situation is much, much worse and Chinese are just telling part of the truth. Look how spreading is much worse in Korea than what Chinese says happens in China.
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