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How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

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Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#11

Post by raphlinus »

JamesBarney wrote: post #10
raphlinus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the graphs on "our world in data": https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#trajectories-since-th... Based on this, 3 days does indeed look like the doubling time. However, be careful when interpreting this data, as it conflates increases in testing coverage with actual viral spread. If you look at countries with excellent testing, such as South Korea, it was still in the 3 day range, though today they thankful…

Thanks for linking to that graph. That's a great resource! At 3 days that changes both how much we have to slow it down, and how quickly we need to start slowing it down. Not to mention that if it's 15 days from infection to diagnosis then that's 5 doubling times. So by the time we realize we didn't do enough it's way too late to avoid a complete catastrophe.

I don't think 15 days is a good number for infection to diagnosis, though obviously it depends on how rapidly we can accurately diagnose cases. (In the subsection of the population without access to healthcare, it's a divide by zero error). I'm not qualified enough to provide an estimate myself, but happy to link to an authoritative review: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/coronavirus-disease-2019-c... (see "Incubation period" for input on what you're looking for)

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#12

Post by tunesmith »

JamesBarney wrote: post #6

How do we know the doubling time? That seems like the biggest assumption that we're not sure about. I've seen 1 week, 5 days, and even recently 3 days.

The doubling time of deaths appears to be much slower than the doubling time of confirmed cases, and is probably a better comparison. It could be slightly faster than reports, if deaths are getting missed, or misattributed to other illnesses. But it still seems more accurate than judging the doubling time of confirmed cases, which is more just a measure of how quickly we are able to increase testing when there's a backlog of "actual cases".

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#13

Post by bonzini »

JamesBarney wrote: post #6

How do we know the doubling time? That seems like the biggest assumption that we're not sure about. I've seen 1 week, 5 days, and even recently 3 days.

2 to 3 days is what we've seen in most countries during the exponential phase. Some countries in Northern Europe have had values down to 2 days or less, but that was when they were ramping up their testing like crazy.

(3 days was also the number I used one week ago to state "at least two of France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland will be in lockdown and with hundreds of deaths one week from now"[1], and boy was I right).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22528433

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#14

Post by Alex3917 »

> 95% don’t need to go to the hospital

Including people who get at asymptomatically, maybe. Of people who get any symptoms, it's 15 - 20%.

And even if you're not in that 15 - 20%, you may still have permanent or long lasting lung and heart damage. Stay inside; your grandparents were asked to go to war for several years, you're just being asked to spend a couple months playing video games.

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#15

Post by searine »

Leary wrote: post #7
underbluewaters wrote: post #4

I'd like to see more information on what to do if you are sick. Even younger people have gotten serious respiratory complications and it would be great to have information on how to care for yourself or your family short of heading to the hospital and contributing to the overwhelming of their staff.

Be careful with NSAIDs as they may exacerbate symptoms. [1] [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat...

This isn't clear yet. It is a reasonable assumption based on the biology but not verified.

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#16

Post by JamesBarney »

raphlinus wrote: post #11
JamesBarney wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for linking to that graph. That's a great resource! At 3 days that changes both how much we have to slow it down, and how quickly we need to start slowing it down. Not to mention that if it's 15 days from infection to diagnosis then that's 5 doubling times. So by the time we realize we didn't do enough it's way too late to avoid a complete catastrophe.

I don't think 15 days is a good number for infection to diagnosis, though obviously it depends on how rapidly we can accurately diagnose cases. (In the subsection of the population without access to healthcare, it's a divide by zero error). I'm not qualified enough to provide an estimate myself, but happy to link to an authoritative review: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/coronavirus-disease-2019-c... (see "Incubat…

You're right I misread PDF.

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#17

Post by giglamesh »

majos wrote: post #2

Just to check the source, these are the same slides (same Drive doc) tweeted by the listed author on the slides [1], who is a neurobiology and bioengineering professor at Stanford. If you want an understandable, relatively short but info-dense writeup from a sober expert (there hasn’t been much of this on HN) this is nice. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/michaelzlin?lang=en

Is there a non Twitter source for this? Twitter is not working (for me) today.

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#18

Post by yread »

Leary wrote: post #7
underbluewaters wrote: post #4

I'd like to see more information on what to do if you are sick. Even younger people have gotten serious respiratory complications and it would be great to have information on how to care for yourself or your family short of heading to the hospital and contributing to the overwhelming of their staff.

Be careful with NSAIDs as they may exacerbate symptoms. [1] [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammat...

Especially ibuprofen as it can cause water retention exacerbating pneumonia

Re: How to fight the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, Covid-19 [pdf]

#19

Post by raphlinus »

tunesmith wrote: post #12
JamesBarney wrote: post #6

How do we know the doubling time? That seems like the biggest assumption that we're not sure about. I've seen 1 week, 5 days, and even recently 3 days.

The doubling time of deaths appears to be much slower than the doubling time of confirmed cases, and is probably a better comparison. It could be slightly faster than reports, if deaths are getting missed, or misattributed to other illnesses. But it still seems more accurate than judging the doubling time of confirmed cases, which is more just a measure of how quickly we are able to increase testing when there's a ba…

There's a much narrower range in reporting rate variation for deaths than for infection->test results, but (a) it lags considerably, and (b) there are many other things that conflate this data as well, including healthcare systems getting better at preventing Covid-19 deaths over time (learning from earlier cases, hopefully starting to see positive results from remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine). I am still comfortable with what I said elsethread, the best way to get your head around doubling time is to look at data from countries with very good test coverage, such as South Korea.
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