kold weather

Also this is far more deadly than the Swine flu of 2009, which at the top end of the estimate ended at around 0.08%. Even if the rate of fatality does eventually drop (through drugs, etc) I suspect it will still end up above that of Swine Flu, which ended up killing an estimated 280,000. As I've said before, IMO we are probably looking at something close to what we saw in the 60s with the Hong Kong influenza outbreak, unless things really go wrong.

Yes, and Trump probably doesn't want many more tests as it will "raise the numbers" and probably make him look the tool he is. In the end public pressure over there is probably going to force their hand, but probably going to be too late by that point for many, especially the elderly.

Yep seems highly probable they will join the 1000 club tomorrow, don't think the US will be that far behind now they are finally starting to ramp up testing to a decent level. I suspect UK will probably see a similar ramp up next week that we are now seeing in some of the larger EU countries, feels quite inevitable. Also, for the first time in a while, the active cases appear to be growing faster than the recovery rate (that was being driven by China's recovery) and the infection rate has taken quite a noteable uptick in the last few days.

At least Greta will be happy with this happening, our C02 emissions globally should be decently down compared to last year! Think Italy won't be the last country that will need to introduce such measures, suspect at least 4-5 European countries may well get there by months end, as will USA as they are so far behind the trend its nearly a joke.

Great book, lets hope nothing like the pandemic that hits them ever happens in real life though! Good ole Captain Trips!

Oh dear thats quite the uptick in cases, getting similar vibes to what we have seen from Italy now.

Well Italy adding 1200+ cases today has already made the 1st day forecast a monster bust, even when not taking into account the other countries in Europe, many adding at least 40-50 on their own as well...looks like that may end up being somewhat short, at this rate Italy alone may not be far from that number!

There was an update earlier, which took them up by 47, but I suspect they will do a 2nd update which will surge that past 100 new cases today, as had been the case recently.

Been out to the shops, some of the scenes are crazy. I can kind of understand the basic foods (rice, pasta, etc) being somewhat stockpiled, but huge amounts of toilet roll? Where has this idea came from? Seems to be a physical version of a moral panic!

Hopefully but sadly there have been several false alarms from different countries with regards to varying antibiotics viral drugs and each time it has amounted to nothing. Sadly my gut is this will be the same...hope I'm wrong!

I think for starters we've blown way past SARS in just about all terms except mortality rate, so they clearly aren't comparable anymore (at its peak we got to 8000 cases worldwide, and 800 odd deaths, already we are multiples past that and still ramping up) As for Swine Flu, that was really infectious (like 1 billion infected!), but even the lowest current mortality rate from South Korea is many times above that of swine flu, so I'm not sure that will be comparable either, though probably closer to the mark than SARS was. I think this virus now has enough of a track record to at least warrant being very careful, this clearly doesn't appear to be something to underestimated given what we know so far, even if the great majority will be ok from it. I could have agreed with this article this time last month, but given its gone worldwide and the trend is now swinging back up in terms of numbers of cases/deaths, it is a worry. If I had to guess, the 68-69 outbreak of influenza is my best guess of an outcome at the moment (1 million dead worldwide, about 0.5% death rate) though with perhaps a slightly higher death rate, and lower overall cases/deaths.

I am a teacher, what I've noticed is thus far there isn't too much worry about that, but if things were to escalate then I suspect some may start to think that way. I'm personally not that concerned yet, but I'm in the low risk bracket.

What is interesting is that the SK outcome is quite close to the 0.5% fatality rate that the 1968 Influenza outbreak had and led to an estimated 1 million deaths worldwide. I suspect once everything is done we may not be far short from that sort of figure, though if we get lucky summer will save us before it gets that bad as heat does seem to have some impact on it. Emax, its such a hard call to make, I think we may have to go really draconian at some point in the near future, but the goal has to be to limit that period of time because there are real world consequences. China did it and it seems to have really limited things.

Then that would also increase the likelyhood of teachers getting infected and a nice little feedback loop starts. I'd personally still take a wait and see stance for the moment, certainly a chance that the real ramp up of cases coincide closely with the easter holidays anyway and the govt just try to limp it through to that point and review it after then.

Once again though that is exactly against what WHO reported, and to be honest we don't know exactly how accurate that is but its the best data we have right at this moment, anything else is just pure guesswork. Anyway it is interesting to see how its hitting some populations real hard, and others far lighter. For example South Korea and Italy aren't that dissimilar (SK is probably 3-5 days ahead in terms of cases) yet SK has had 42 deaths, Italy now upto 197 (and with a rather worryingly high amount of intensive care numbers considering the case numbers). I think so far the UK government has straddled the line between complacency and panicking very well, and whilst there is a little bit of mixed messaging, overall I think its been quite well led by the experts (as opposed to the USA) and decisions seem to have been very well thought through. For example closing schools at this point seems to make little sense. Once we are getting 1000s cases a day, then maybe it would make more sense (and frnankly by that point, probably schools would be starting to struggle to staff the schools anyway.)

According to the WHO who did a case study on Wuhan's version of this, suggested that there was no evidence of widespread under-reporting. Not to say there aren't some cases, but it doesn't appear to be a large chunk of people.

As I said yesterday, will be at 1000 within a few days, France probably 1-2 days behind, and the the UK probably 7-8 days away IMO. Hoping this isn't a slow spring and we get a good early warm up to help reduce the efficiency of the viral spread across Europe.

Oh yes of course, I don't think we are going to end up at that sort of level unless things really go wrong (even for some reason we do go higher in absolute numbers, as a percentage of the worlds population I don't think its going to be anywhere near that.) Still I think this is clearly going to go down as a noteworthy pandemic (regardless if whether its 'offically' a pandemic or not...it clearly is)

Worth remembering the estimated mortality rate for the Spanish Flu was around 2.5%, which seems to be at least in the ballpark of where this is at the moment, though obviously way too early to make any real estimates of where that figure will end up. gives an idea of what the upper limit may end up being though,

Yep a decent amount, thankfully not a huge rise in terms of comparing with yesterdays numbers per day. Still that death total is really starting to rachet up in Italy. Just as a reminder, Swine Flu was estimated to kill about 284,000 by WHO over an 18ish month period. So that is our first possible target, blow past that and then we reach the 60/70s outbreaks (Hong Kong outbreak from the 60s I believe?) which I think was in the 1mil range...go past that and then we are getting into the real big leagues... However my gut is we don't get to those levels, maybe something approaching the Hong Kong outbreak but obviously hope it doesn't go near that level!

Serious he is such a buffoon, when USA jumps into the 1000s next week when proper tests finally happen he is going to look the fool.

I can't imagine having the virus exactly helped much. Sounds like to me they may have been struggling anyway but the COVID finished the job. Much like when people with AIDS often die from a respiratory issue such as a version of the flu, etc, even though clearly everything was wasting away anyway even before the finishing problem. However as you say we can really only speculate, I suspect alot of people who do die from this will be in a similar boat, with already weakened systems.

Not at this time of year, for example temperatures are roughly 12-15c at the moment, not that much different from the UK in a SW airflow for example.

I believe the figure I've heard is 56c. Of course once you get higher temperatures towards the 30s the theory is it should become less effective at being able to transfer and survive without having a host so to speak. It won't stop it totally but it will hopefully limit it. I think most flu like virus are similar in that respect, at least the corona group, but we clearly don't know 100% yet.

I believe the term that was used was severe or critical, my guess is what Italy is saying 10% would equate to those at the critical level that need intensive care, as opposed to the severe term which I believe roughly equates to hospitalization. It is of course quite possible that there are currently 2 strains of this going around, as the results from SK are nowhere near as severe as what is being seen currently in Europe in terms of numbers. I know some scientists have been already speculating this to be the case.