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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"

#11

Post by perl4ever »

fractal618 wrote: post #9

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.

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

#12

Post by function_seven »

fractal618 wrote: post #9

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%

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).

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

#13

Post by siglesias »

fractal618 wrote: post #9

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%

that's not how percentages work

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

#14

Post by himinlomax »

knzhou wrote: post #7
heyitsguay wrote: post #4

Interesting... i wonder what the data is to back up that assertion? Another interesting tidbit in there was that very few cases (1%) appear to be totally asymptomatic, and that most infections apparently start showing some symptoms after a couple days. So there are a few assertions in total that seem to depart from what was previously understood, at least through mass and social media.

> i wonder what the data is to back up that assertion? The data is the tens of thousands of cases the WHO has stats on. You can read any of their reports, they've been saying the same thing for months. The main sources contradicting them are random internet commentators.

They've not been saying that for months, that's completely absurd. The disease started spreading in November at the earliest. Just a month ago very little was known about its transmission rate and lethality; estimates from reputable sources ranged from 1 to 20%.

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

#15

Post by baddox »

ngngngng wrote: post #5
heyitsguay wrote: post #4

Interesting... i wonder what the data is to back up that assertion? Another interesting tidbit in there was that very few cases (1%) appear to be totally asymptomatic, and that most infections apparently start showing some symptoms after a couple days. So there are a few assertions in total that seem to depart from what was previously understood, at least through mass and social media.

I've never had such a steady stream of seemingly conflicting data before.

Are you actually receiving conflicting data, or just conflicting reports about data? It's not clear to me how data itself can "conflict." As a made-up example, if you keep seeing alternating cases where one person had symptoms and another person didn't, that's not "conflicting data." That's just data showing that 50% of people have symptoms.

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

#16

Post by knzhou »

fractal618 wrote: post #9

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%

There are a lot of things that make calculating a straightforward percentage hard:

- not all cases detected

- deaths are a laggy indicator

- recoveries are an extremely laggy indicator

- impact of demographics, healthcare quality

- sizes of effects of all 4 previous things depends on the country and the time

This has led to internet commentators coming up with wild numbers, ranging from 0.1% to 20%. At the risk of sounding like a spoilsport, I suggest we all defer to the expert numbers (2-3%), because the experts are perfectly aware of all 5 effects I mentioned, and more, and have already tried their best to correct for them, using better data than we have.

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

#17

Post by MilnerRoute »

I just want to highlight this quote from the WHO:

"With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19."

"Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days."

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

#18

Post by Trasmatta »

himinlomax wrote: post #14
knzhou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i wonder what the data is to back up that assertion? The data is the tens of thousands of cases the WHO has stats on. You can read any of their reports, they've been saying the same thing for months. The main sources contradicting them are random internet commentators.

They've not been saying that for months, that's completely absurd. The disease started spreading in November at the earliest. Just a month ago very little was known about its transmission rate and lethality; estimates from reputable sources ranged from 1 to 20%.

> estimates from reputable sources ranged from 1 to 20%.

What reputable sources have said anything close to 20%?

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

#19

Post by ceejayoz »

MilnerRoute wrote: post #17

I just want to highlight this quote from the WHO: "With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19." "Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days."

That's good news. Early-onset symptoms (in particular, a fever) was part of what made tackling SARS possible.

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

#20

Post by CyanLite2 »

fractal618 wrote: post #9

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%

All Countries except for South Korea are NOT counting the mild or asymptomatic cases. When you look at the SK numbers, 5,621 confirmed cases and 35 deaths. That puts the death rate at 0.6% (same as severe influenza season).

Everybody just needs to chill.

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