The true number of coronavirus cases in France today is likely to be between 24,000 and 140,000.
Let me repeat that: the number of true cases in France is likely to be between one and two orders or magnitude higher than it is officially reported.
Don’t believe me?
It’s excellent, pass it along.
I think we can forget about a national lockdown here. BC started phase 1 lockdowns to judge public response until they go full board next week.
Premier Ford closed all schools for two weeks after the spring break so children will be out of school for the next three weeks. This is a step in the right direction. I expect universities and colleges to close soon.
Blackface and his EU masters have already locked themselves down.
No foreign nationals or any other untested little people will be allowed within the security perimeters of the mighty gates and walls of western elites.
The rest of us can get back to work and keep paying them taxes while we still can.
I have a question about the panic. Where was this level of urgency and concern in 2009? Does anyone remember the swine flu epidemic? It infected 60 million Americans alone. 300+ thousand were hospitalised. Does anyone remember the massive travel bans, sports & entertainment events getting cancelled, school closures, locking down whole countries etc.? I don’t remember either. That is because it didn’t happen. The question is why was there no panic for the same scale (or perhaps larger epidemic)? While I fully recognise that COVID19 is a dangerous virus, it is the 19th of its kind. I fully support special common sense measures. Care for the most vulnerable (elderly and those with respiratory complications) . . . but destroying the world economy? Who does this benefit? Think about it. Some people just want to watch all of us burn.
Word around Alberta is that they refuse to test anyone who doesn’t at least live with someone who’s travelled in the last 14 days, regardless of symptoms or anything else. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if 1 to 2 orders of magnitude applies to us as well. Stay safe folks, wash your hands.
This virus arguably shouldn’t be tested for at this point, certainly not on a mass scale.
But first to your point, not testing unrelated cases or possibly panic-induced hypochondriacs makes sense (the former makes a first call and can be reasoned with, the latter makes repeated calls and becomes aggressive, often hysterical), since a lot of people will confuse the several distinct types of flu and even colds for Coronavirus – which itself is being given too much focus. The quarantines and redirected resources are arguably counterproductive and citizens should simply be allowed (and allow themselves) the continuance of daily life and normal operation; it would have been better if people simply treated this as the latest flu season.
As for “Alberta”, it sounds like they are “correct” insofar as current market conditions with respect to testing capacity; it is more economic and efficient to test for several strains of flu since such tests are in less demand (although they shouldn’t be) whereas the kits for Coroavirus are in shorter supply vs demand.
So you filter out people who logically don’t have Coronavirus; travel history, people who actually have an established flu, diagnoses which do not include a serious fever, etc, and often judgment calls of “severity” and “acuteness”. Not perfect due to imperfect knowledge, but this is about Reality and God; tradeoffs and problem-solving in a world of unknowable unknowns.
As for washing hands, it’s all about the amount of infectious agent and an unknowable game of numbers, rates, and circumstances against your immune system – generally speaking, just breathing in the aerosol droplets in close proximity for a duration is enough – this happens more easily in cold, dry weather and thus the “seasonal” flu – which is why masks are more useful in mitigating (but do not “prevent”) spread from the infected, rather than protecting the uninfected.
But again, this virus probably shouldn’t be “tested” in the first place – it takes resources and valuable time (from both the patient and the caregivers) away from treating higher risk patients of ALL other infectious diseases – people who are far worse off than your 30 year-old vision of health who somehow got the latest politically hyped virus, in a long history of politically hyped viruses* – and focuses unnecessarily on low-risk patients who are perfectly capable of doing without supervisory care and beds that are better used for other purposes. The vast majority of people with similar viral infections are perfectly capable of treating themselves (and/or have family and friends to maintain communication, supervision food and supply delivery, etc) like millions of Americans do every flu season.
And in the long run, the economic damage and quality of life alone will shorten lifespans on a scale and subtlty that will never be appreciated.
If you have a fever, strep throat, runny nose, etc, don’t drive to the hospital and wait for hours for a test expecting treatment.
Use common sense especially when you have access to even better treatment: call in sick, ask the wife to warm up the chicken soup, keep in contact with your neighbors, colleagues, and family about supervising you, and “self-quarantine”. (I know some people who are being DISGUSTINGLY smug, taking advantage of this hyped flu season).
If you don’t have anyone, and the symptoms are severe, you have a precondition, you’re short of food (or need peace of mind) then give a call to a local caregiver, a neighbor, anyone – just make contact and get help.
Again, just use common sense and don’t let the media spin you into a senseless dolt.
Reposting:
[One factor that correlates with the mortality rate for flu along with the secondary pulmonary/respiratory infections, is the fact that many people (elderly and otherwise) with their compromised immune systems and preconditions are socially isolated. This leads to situations where aid is administered too late or not at all.
In the extreme cases, people are found dead days or weeks afterwards when someone notices a putrid smell.
So while “Staying away from people” may seem common-sense, the truth is that social contact (interactions with friends, working with colleagues, family supervision) is a large part of why elderly live as long as they do these days. Telecommunications, healthcare, emergency services, etc only work for those who use it, and often the person making the call isn’t the patient, as often as it is a concerned family member or a neighbor.
And no, you don’t have to be a doctor to comment on medical matters, anymore than you have to be a rabbi to comment on Jewish matters.
Ultimately, there’s sometimes a fine line for being a hypochondriac from a doctor’s perspective. There are those who don’t communicate or make use of their available healthcare resources enough, and there are those who overuse the system to the point of harassment. In calm times, the latter are nuisance and part of the job. When panic sets in, they overwhelm the system.
But even in times of panic (which is where the Leftists are trying to drive America), an “overwhelmed system” isn’t the same as “collapse of the system”; the former won’t cause a mass-casualty event.
The latter will, of course. But in that instance, we’re talking war, revolution, civilizational breakdown. That’s when your waterworks and sewage-treatment stop service and engineers electrical technicians abandon the grid.
Again, the Bubonic Plague alone isn’t what caused the collapse of the European populace. The precondition to the spread of the Plague was Muslim depredation and the collapse of the European economy – lose a war, and the destruction of civilization, infrastructure, and services is what kills on a continental scale.
Again, you’ll note that the Muslims and their Jewish administrators didn’t suffer the Black Death despite capturing millions of Europeans and taking them to slave markets in Anatolia and North Africa.
Because they were winning the war.
Anyway, the only concern my doctor had with this bug was the uncertainty of the incubation period. That’s why it’s so important to find the origin of the bug, to be able to map out the point of infection and duration to symptoms. Now that it’s been confirmed as no different from a flu (~ 4 days), there’s no reason to fear this infecting an abnormal number of people which would increase the absolute lethality (as opposed to a rate basis); infect half a million Americans and it’s a regular flu season (most never report and just ride it out, so the infection numbers are probably closer to several million). But infect 50 million, now that’s a real problem, because no matter what the lethality, the infection rates are the real problem.
The other point he made to us (which I didn’t quite understand as much involving proteins and folding for distinctive infection or whatnot) involves a recurring and seasonal cycle along with the other strains of flu. By my understanding, it might be translated as “that is largely out of anyone’s control”.]
I’m actually a little honored that you would spend hours of your day writing a sprawling diatribe to rebut my extremely mundane and well-meaning comment. Cool.
So the fatality rate is much lower than we’re being told? Less than the ‘flu? Should I panic or not? Do governments want to keep you in line by scaring the shit out of you?
OK Lots of scarey exponential graphs. The problem seems to be not that this is inherently deadly to the point of paranoia, rather it is deadly to the health services that are trying to cater for a sudden rush of hospitalized cases. The latter, of course is serious, but it’s about the response, not the disease.
Question: If this disease were allowed to run its natural course, how many would get ill and how many would die?
We are being told its the elderly but also people with other conditions. The older you are the higher the risk. I haven’t yet read about what type of other conditions. Are they all lung? Asthmatics?
COPD
DIABETICS
Circulatory
Smokers and vapers
Yes, lung issues
Immune suppressed individuals
Rogan’s guest on a previous SDA post suggested obese people at risk
There are also much less common occurrences of healthy young adults succumbing, example the doctors in Wuhan who died. Suspicion was due to viral overload (?). Not that the Communists would ever tell ALL the truth of what happened, and how many were truly sick and died.
Witness the CCP’s new media strategy
It’s all TRUMP’s fault now, according to Xi. And they are threatening to withhold medicine from the US. Clear example of how untrustworthy the CCP is. Biden and the media are water carriers for the Chicoms!
If the number of cases is one to two orders of magnitude greater that reported, doesn’t it follow that the mortality rate is one to two orders of magnitude LOWER than we are being told?
It’s already too late to do anything but carry on. Good luck everyone.
I stopped reading halfway through. That’s some CO2-is-going-to-kill-us-all speculative math right there, and all the models are based on the garbage data from Iran and China (underestimated case rate and wildly inflated death rates). Italy, as it turns out, is in the mess it’s in because of the huge numbers of Chinese workers imported to work in the Northern factories. That makes Italy’s data an outlier as well.
I agree, the article was far more sensationalistic and extreme, than truly using mathematical models of accuracy and reasonable expectations. So as an exercise, I spent an hour last night, throwing existing stats from Worldometers.info, overall populations, current rates, taking an avg of some of the worst, doubling those avgs for shits and giggles, and then pro-rating across Canada, the US and other countries lesser affected so far.
Sorry, but these results say, “where’s the panic?” Even turning those rates exponential instead, does not warrant the fearmongering that these YT and web experts are trying to induce.
Contrary to the hype artists, we are not looking at millions dead, nor millions infected, especially not with the current measures now underway, travel restrictions, social distancing, large gatherings eliminated, awareness in general to be more diligent.
That is unless one thinks that EVERYBODY is lying, and this is just a giant Alex Jones conspiracy.
That said, We do know the Chinese are lying
Ah yes gotta love these silly health scare panics that take the world by storm every decade or so. Yes disease kills people. Yes people get sick and recover. Yes life goes on. The problem is never the disease. The problem is always the panic and the silly if not outright stupid decisions panicked people make. Reading accounts of people who have had the disease it is like a flu. You get the aches and the chills and the fever and stuffy nose and congested lungs and in a few days you are much better. Best course of action seems to be stay home and take a couple of Dristan or other cold/flu over the counter medication. Unless you are really sick (can’t breathe) don’t bother your doctor. Don’t phone healthlink. Stay home and recover.
I enjoyed that. I would pick at it just to say that he shouldn’t parse the data by country when the country is large. It’s apples and oranges. crossing the 1000 in USA not necessarily crossing the rubicon vs crossing 1000 cases in Washington state for example. China is really “Wuhan” by overwhelming data. There’s a lot more to China than Wuhan. USA should really be parsed by region generally around the international airports. Canada certainly should be split at least by west coast, Ontario and a few others.
That said Bravo! SDA for being ahead of the curve on spotting the probably nothing, advocating for prep when it was best to do it for least supply chain impact and now beating the drum for social distancing. It’s going to be a tough sell. My millennial friend just booked a super cheap group vacay to the big easy and my boomer friend keeps saying I’m just going to ignore the whole thing and my elderly asthmatic relative is extremely upset because her stock portfolio. Sigh.
PS Worlometer.org had mild cases at 90% and severe at 10% this is a big change from 80/20 earlier. Males are a percent or two more likely to die than females, Comorbidities for which there are calculated higher death probabilities in order of seriousness: Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory, Hypertension, Cancer. Age risk starts to increase @ 40.
Is this a best case prediction?
37000000 people with a 30% infection rate and .6 of one percentage fatality equaling 66,000 dead.
Or possibly 3% fatalities equaling 666,000 ?
Of course there is a plan – it is hoped it won’t happen here. If you don’t think you need to take whatever precautions you can , then cancel the fire insurance on your house. It isn’t likley to be in immediate danger of burning down!
There is a plan—by Beijing and the American Deep State to maximize the fatality rate of people likely to vote for Donald Trump. Most fatalities are men over 50. No prizes for guessing how they vote in the US.
In the States, a 30% infection rate and up to 3% fatality rate is already three million people or so. Depending on where they live, that could flip a lot of states blue.
Clusters are far more likely to happen in large population centres.
Seattle
LA
NY
Chicago
Not exactly Trump territory. Much more separation in flyover country that will hinder the spread.
37 million is Canada. Go times ten for the U.S.
A few tens of thousands of votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin spared us President Hillary Clinton. Still plenty of white people over 50 living in those states—and no significant efforts at to halt non-essential travel, least of all of young, asymptomatic non-whites.
Do you really think Governor Whitmer (D-Michigan) will lock down Dearbornistan? Never. The only people being locked down are the Orthodox Jews (and Trump supporters) Andy Cuomo accuses of poisoning wells in New Rochelle.
Four points:
1. Seems like this is just another Liberal Globalist plot to eliminate Conservative voters.
2. Sarah Palin death panels a coming.
3. With Canadian hospitals already overflowing before the crisis, the failure and incompetence of our federal and provincial politicians and leadership is glaringly obvious. Except to the Media.
4. As it’s clear they are coming after we old folk, Kate’s blog may suffer accordingly. Sell, sell, sell!
“The principle they settle upon is utilitarian. “Informed by the principle of maximizing benefits for the largest number,” they suggest that “the allocation criteria need to guarantee that those patients with the highest chance of therapeutic success will retain access to intensive care.”
The authors, who are medical doctors, then deduce a set of concrete recommendations for how to manage these impossible choices, including this: “It may become necessary to establish an age limit for access to intensive care.”
Those who are too old to have a high likelihood of recovery, or who have too low a number of “life-years” left even if they should survive, will be left to die. This sounds cruel, but the alternative, the document argues, is no better. “In case of a total saturation of resources, maintaining the criterion of ‘first come, first served’ would amount to a decision to exclude late-arriving patients from access to intensive care.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/
https://www.redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2020/03/12/the-chinese-knew-what-they-were-doing-in-spreading-the-wuhan-virus/
Back to reality, there is currently only 1 corona patient in hospital in Alberta, the remaining are at home recuperating, per Alberta Health numbers. More concerning to me is that of those taking the corona test, 0.05% have tested positive for corona. Meaning that 99.5% have the flu or a cold bad enough to get tested. That will scare the crap out of a population.
So which is it?
You didn’t read the article or you have reading comprehension deficits?
Canada=St.Louis.
The key is flattening the curve. With the vast awareness underway, broad cancellations of gatherings of all types and foreign travel restrictions, except for Trudles Chinese friends, we should be ok.
Italy set an example for all, to turn up the vigilance, to try and avoid the health system from overload, that’s what flattening thecurve is about.
Concerned, but not panicking, and not hoarding rice and pasta either!
If doctors and medical practitioners, start deciding who gets treatment based on age and/or likelihood of recovery, how long do you think it will take for disgruntled relatives to decide on which medical practitioners get to live or die? Just saying.
BTW, if I get sick, am refused treatment based on certain criteria, but recover on my own, does that mean I get to stop paying taxes?
So, what’s the consensus? Is this the horseman of pestilence? Was Hillary the horseman of war, what with her killing of Gaddafi and plunging the region into chaos…
The 2017-18 flu season killed 61,000 in the US. Estimated 45M infected. That would have been only those who went to the dr. Others who just stayed home cause they didn’t feel well would not be in that data. Didn’t hear much about that.
Yes, take precautions, but for crying out loud stop hoarding the toilet paper.
That said, Costco was veddy busy last night, unusually.
Empty shelves all over, for basics, also unusual.
Is there some quiet subtle hoarding underway? Oh yeah.
Lock down flights from both China and Iran! The last 10 new cases of the virus in British Columbia are linked to travel to those countries. Who are these idiots travelling to infected regions during these critical times? Their ignorance and disregard for the Canadian citizenry at large is really pissing me off.
Who should act now? Bureaucrats operating the health care system ? They have cushy jobs which have never required to take any responsibility. They will take as many sick days as possible and stay away from the front lines as far as they can run.
I’m hearing Canadian cities will soon be asking/forcing stores to limit numbers of shoppers at a time just like Italy and sheeple are going to have to keep their distance from one another.
Stay away from Costco. They’re a shit-show. But lots of people are losing their coconuts.
Word is Trump is about to declare a national emergency and invoke the Statford Act.
Paging PM socks…
by the way folks, time for a refresher on triage. m’kay? know what I’m getting at?
people can get nasty in dangerous stressful times.
Meanwhile:
1. Bernie Sanders says coronavirus “casualties” could rival those of a major war like WW2. Sure that make sense.
2. Joe Biden criticizes Trump travel ban, saying walls don’t stop viruses, like quarantined patients for instance. Really?
3. When he was VP things were different – yes they were with 12,000 deaths and one in five Americans infected.
4. It’s xenophobic to call the Wuhan virus the Wuhan virus except when you already called it the Wuhan virus.
5. As usual, the Democrats were too busy with their noses up their butts over impeachment to offer any solutions.
6. Statist politicians need to quarantine their naked attempts to retain or regain power at the expense of their own people.
7. Trump rises in popularity over because people understand action beats letting the perfect by the enemy of the good.
8. Therefore the latest DeMarxist power play will fail.
So this is how it ends: The death of a thousand charts.
Maybe Greta and UnMe will go suck some Crono-19, after all it’s Organic and natural.
Spoke with my daughter in Korea, and they are absolutely laughing at how we have lost it over here. Over there, everyone is at work, with minor disruptions, but everyone knows it will pass, and some will unfortunately die like every single flu season since time began. The hysteria is hilarious to watch, but saddens me when I think the very same people have a right to vote.
Thank you, Kate. Excellent piece.
Thanks for posting that, Kate! There are too many people who dismiss this information as scaremongering, but it is one of the best explanation of what the “numbers” mean. If the spread of Covid19 is not slowed ASAP, the treatment options for the most seriously ill will be overwhelmed. If that happens, we really will see people dying who could otherwise have been saved.