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WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

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Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#41
You are all interpreting this wrong. In a population with no preexisting immunity to either virus, flu would spread faster than COVID.

But there is widespread immunity to flu (from both vaccines and exposure). There is ZERO immunity to COVID.

So IN PRACTICE, this new disease spreads MUCH faster than flu.

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#42
1. I would not trust anything coming out of WHO at this point. Even Germany called it a pandemic, yet they are not willing to call it such (perhaps due to political influence/pressure, or just incompetence). This looks more like a 'panic containment' type of statement than the truth.

2. The R0 of seasonal flu, is about 1.5, Covid-19 has a R0 between 2.6 and 3.5*. (yet to be determined), which is much more contagious than normal flu. This article has no mention of it, hence has no credibility. By any account of any data, Covid-19 looks to be 2x more efficient to spread as the normal flu.

3. The major cases from the Diamond Princess, the cult in South Korea, and the Eldery Care facility in Seatle, are an indication that the virus is very easily spread in close quarters. That's not a normal flu type of virality, it is much worse.

4. We have many cases where people still tested positive even after 14 days of quarantine, hence it is not going to be easy to contain. But we don't know yet if a person is still contagious after testing positive after 14 days. No mention to this as well.

TLDR: Don't panic, yet 3.4% of people are going to die, or 10-15% of your parents/grandparents will perish earlier due to this virus.

I am sorry, but that's war-zone like statistics.... and this should be treat as such. (it needs a true war like mobilization to be combated, and talks like this to minimize the impact are just irresponsible).

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#43
To me it seems WHO was downplaying it the whole time. First lie is China will be able to contain it and now they don't even call it a pandemic. Also R0 is much higher then for flu.

I really hope the new idea about transmissability is true but if it is I don't get why China treats it as they do. Wuhan is locked for 40+ days.

I can't trust WHO now related to Covid-19, especially after what happened to stock. Of course they have to lie more if that avoids "panic". Truth is underrated in our civilization at the moment.

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#44
post #36
post #6

This is important, because lots of internet commentators are just going with the most alarming possible statements: 28 day incubation periods, people can get infected twice, airborne transmission, asymptomatic transmission. These assertions are all based on outlier cases, sometimes even single cases, observed during the fog of war. Even if these accounts are correct, they aren't the typical case, which is what actual…

I don't share your optimism. The virus has been able to successfully evade e.g. testing people's temperatures in airports. It doesn't really matter if there are asymtomatic carriers or not, it doesn't matter whether people eventually get a high fever. What matters is whether people with non-specific/mild symptoms (a dry cough) can pass on the infection. And the answer is emphatically yes.

Bypassing airport temperature tests is an incredibly low bar because it rarely catches other diseases.

Anecdotally, I've travelled multiple times with people who have had fevers and entered countries with routine temperature screening and haven't been stopped.

Human body temperature is also so variable that a small fever is masked by the margin of error.

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#45
post #10

"To summarize, COVID-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick, it causes more severe illness than flu, there are not yet any vaccines or therapeutics, and it can be contained – which is why we must do everything we can to contain it. That’s why WHO recommends a comprehensive approach." Ah, so there aren't hordes of asymptomatic carriers out there, whic…

The confusing thing is that the Diamond Princess data points in the other direction: more asymptomatic cases, and a significantly lower case fatality rate, than the WHO numbers.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-r...

The WHO says they haven't found many asymptomatic cases (despite looking), but apparently lots of the cruise ship cases were. The WHO estimates a mortality rate over 3%, but much less 3% of the Diamond Princess infected died.

I don't know how to reconcile these other than to suppose the virus has mutated (possible) or the asymptomatic cases were false positives (maybe?) or some demographic factor on the cruise ship was different.

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the # for "Unreported". That may be huge. For example, in China, are there another 100,000 people who contracted it, and recovered, without ever knowing they had it? You're looking at this data through the fog of war (as a sibling comment mentions).

TFA addresses this: > Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days. They came up with this number by testing people who didn't have symptoms but were in some contact with someone who had the virus. The big question is how much the lockdown affected this, but there doesn't appear to be large swaths of asymptomatic people.

Thanks. I misinterpreted that to put emphasis on the "reported" part. Your explanation of how they arrived at it would definitely reduce the possible size of unsurveyed carriers.

The other replies to parent do a much better job explaining how "just looking at the data" is misleading.

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#47
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the # for "Unreported". That may be huge. For example, in China, are there another 100,000 people who contracted it, and recovered, without ever knowing they had it? You're looking at this data through the fog of war (as a sibling comment mentions).

TFA addresses this: > Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days. They came up with this number by testing people who didn't have symptoms but were in some contact with someone who had the virus. The big question is how much the lockdown affected this, but there doesn't appear to be large swaths of asymptomatic people.

They tested everyone on the Diamond Princess and seemed to find a lot of asymptomatic cases. I don't know how to reconcile this, but there it is. The mortality rate was worse than seasonal flu but not 3%, either.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-r...

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#48

They're trying to avoid a panic, so I'm just looking at the data from now on.... Numbers from https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus... As of March 4th. 6:22 pm eastern standard In China: Deaths: 2,981 recoveries : 49,856 Death/recovery : 5.98% Outside of China... Deaths: 272 Recoveries : 1205 Deaths/recoveries : 22.6%

Recovery takes more time compared to dying. So areas where it's been present for less time are going to show a different proportion even if it's evolving the same way.

Right. You can see that here: [1] The "Deaths" line and the "Recovered" line add up to maybe 60% of the "Confirmed" line. The difference is the people who are sick, but alive.

[1] https://hgis.uw.edu/virus/

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#49

To me it seems WHO was downplaying it the whole time. First lie is China will be able to contain it and now they don't even call it a pandemic. Also R0 is much higher then for flu. I really hope the new idea about transmissability is true but if it is I don't get why China treats it as they do. Wuhan is locked for 40+ days. I can't trust WHO now related to Covid-19, especially after what happened to stock. Of course…

Did they really say China would be able to contain it?

Re: WHO Director: "Covid-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza"

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> estimates from reputable sources ranged from 1 to 20%. What reputable sources have said anything close to 20%?

The highest estimated r0 in a non-peer reviewed paper that I've seen is 6.6. himinlomax may be referring to individual cases like the one involving a cult in South Korea where one lady was confirmed to have infected approximately 70 people

himinlomax was claiming that reputable sources reported a 20% lethality rate, which is absurd (about as high as SARS).
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