COVID-19 outbreak all just storm in a teacup? Perhaps, possibly, maybe? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15067420
COVID-19 outbreak all just storm in a teacup? Perhaps, possibly, maybe?


MiG123 (HWZ) wrote:https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat- ... t125188766

Last I heard u can't catch cancer on the train and roll over dead in a few weeks.

Talking abt the death rate, it's all fun and games while there's only a sprinkle of infected to worry about and hospital can focus all their resources on supporting/treating you. Wait till theres thousands or millions of cases and see if bodies don't start piling up in hospital walkways. There's why China is locking down cities, and death rate in Wuhan have shot up to 18%, that's exactly where we're headed if we treat this casually and without foresight


1500 deaths for China is just PEANUTS.

Normal life expectancy at birth now is 76 years. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP ... cations=CN
But most of China population is now old age cos few kids and probably smoked etc heavily so if I use life expectancy at 70years is not unreasonable.

1.3 billion people die over 70 years is at least 18.57 million people die in one year.

Pneumonia is super common as cause of death, even LKY died of pneumonia because old and weak and cannot cough out the germs fast enough (so his lungs rotted from inside so mati because cannot breath) , same for all heart failure, stroke, liver, cancer etc patients, bed bound etc.

So say at least 1/3 people, cause of death they write pneumonia cos old age and nobody will question even if just bring down from rural Chinese mountain almost dead and never see doctor before (relative says elderly person cough cough 1 week then now mati)...

That should be at least 6 million annual deaths from ordinary pneumonia alone.

On daily basis, will be 16,438+ people die daily from ordinary pneumonia alone.

Since day 1 the Wuhan virus only killed 1500+ people (45 days). https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east- ... ts-139-new

So average daily death rate of Wuhan virus being responsible for is 33.33 cases.

This is only 0.2% of the China normal pneumonia rate. Even if under estimate by 10x, it is responsible for up to 2% of normal pneumonia death rate.

Yes, we can race to find a vaccine, but will we be fast enough before the next mutation strikes or will be forever be chased and frightened by our own shadows?

Maybe more humans may be saved if we spent our tax monies on alleviation of poverty, environmentalism rather than wearing face masks and restricting our movements and polluting the whole world with medical waste and greenhouse gases from all the medical disposables used in this hysteria.

In the short term, yes we need the stats out like the mortality rate, but if the cause of death was the high prevalence of lifestyle disease like smoking, insufficient sleep and sedentary, high stress lifestyle, then we are probably just missing the woods for the trees by trying to stop the Wuhan virus (COVID-19) from spreading.


Storm in a tea cup, perhaps, possibly, maybe. We shouldn't end up missing the woods for the trees, but we shouldn't be complacent in the early days either.
#15067491
Two problems.

1. No one knows if the numbers are accurate. The Chinese government had actually changed their reported numbers. Besides, their response do NOT look like it's something small.

2. It's massively horrible to get ill. Even if one survives the body is severely damaged. Ebola has a much lower transmission rate but no less terrible. Think about individual fear of infection.
#15067531
blurfish20200209 (HWZ) wrote:https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat- ... t125189358

China death rate is more likely due overwhelmed by ICU requirements. You have people with severe pneumonia and requiring ventilators but the number far exceeds what the hospitals have. Don't be so cocky that our medical facilities can provide better than "sub-optimal" medical treatment when ICU requirements exceed our capacity.

The WHO plus London Imperial College already factored in what you said, which is why they have stated the range of 1-2%.

Even if we double the infections, that is still 1% mortality. And the flip-side when we allow double of infections, it means the virus R0 is 5-6? And how does that make it better? Current China figures ICU rates is 15-20%. You double the number of infected estimates, the rate for ICU is still 7.5-10%. Combined with the infectious rate, do you realise what that means? And doubt all the figures/statistics you want, Singapore's cases/ICUs are 8-16% so far. Are you accusing SG government of hiding data? Eg. purposely inflating the ICU numbers for SG covid19 patients??

Testing kits is not China's weakness alone. Japan already openly admitted they want to increase their max testing capacity of 300 daily. Singapore has not published the test capacity, but you can look the number pending testing announced daily by MOH and make your guess.

Don't waste time on fluff like AI, politics etc, look at our current situation as of today.

72 infected, 6 critical, 1,697 in quarantine/isolation. The exact number of "highly suspect" cases in that 1,697 is unknown, but whether they are symptomatic or not, suspected cases have to kept in isolated wards and monitored daily and also tested for the virus. The new NCID has only 300+ isolation wards, a good number for other medical emergencies, enough for the above covid19 issues?

You look at these numbers and ask yourself at what point the testing capacity and isolation wards cannot keep up with the increased numbers. You think how far we have before we have to follow Wuhan and ask the "lesser sick" to go home, where they infect their family members, get well or get worse.

I am not a doctor too, but it is really obvious the average Singapore home is no better than a Wuhan home in preventing the infection from moving to family members.

Telling people to look at statistics, don't panic and life goes on, when people already looked at statistics and telling you "look fire". All you are saying makes you an ideal auditor to count the dead and costs after this event is over, provided you are not one of the casualties.

:s11::s11:


Blurfish (nice name u choose),
Anyway, u self referred to serious shortage of test kits which is what is probably causing all the stress and hysteria about town.

As u yourself said, even in the whole of Japan, the maximum COVID-19 diagnostic test daily capacity for the WHOLE COUNTRY of population 127 million is just an absurdly miniscule 300/day. (probably is all used on the quarantine Diamond Princess 3700 passengers under lock down on board) .

Even in China, Hubei province 13 February data declaration to WHO, they diagnosed 4823 new cases that day, of which 3095 were clinical diagnosis, aka without any laboratory proof that COVID-19 genetic code was present (ostensibly because no test kits available for almost 2/3 of symptomatic patients):

Imagehttps://youtu.be/vE4pBkslqS4


This means that all your mortality, ICU rates are probably super duper gross overestimations since u have zero clue as to the true number of asymptomatic infections since tests kits are grossly insufficient at this juncture; which may well ultimately be lower than H1N1 or any similar respiratory virus equivalent.

Any new fangled virus (like hello kitty collectable , new movie blockbuster or iPhone release) is sure to Gardner high demand since everyone is naive to the new release, so just as movie blockbuster had high opening night attendance, many people will be infected in early days because nobody has natural antibodies from previous infection.

So whilst we should be considerate to weaker members of society like those with longstanding diabetes with many complications (stroke, heart failure), by improving on our personal hygiene measures, since they will probably be sacrificed first since ICU and even general wards are already full of patients that no further admissions to hospital are possible, we must not be held hostage by such hysterics and still be able to function and safeguard our own health, like attending religious gatherings, exercising, work, attending school etc, rather than go into total lock down to prevent the inevitable and perhaps become patients ourselves.
Last edited by BicCherry on 16 Feb 2020 10:56, edited 1 time in total.
#15067537
Back in the 90s there was a movement to improve crisis health care.

That was when we got the FEMA fenced areas that made the crazies froth at the mouth.

But that was just about all we did. We needed to add surge capacity, and we just didn't.

First time we get hit by something nasty, we're gonna pay for that in a big way. How bad is it? Most hospitals are going to lock their doors. Even then, they will run out of nearly everything, and have to start re-using needles and other unhygienic practises, not to mention running out of drugs.

Sure, we're a lot better off than China, but common sense preparedness that some countries have we just don't have.
#15067545
dytakeshi (HWZ)  wrote:https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat- ... t125199850

Blurfish has some very valid points. 15-20% of the infected will develop severe pneumonia which will involve life support systems which only ICU or high dependency wards can support. 15-20% is a proven FACT as observed from the numbers in China, Singapore and endorsed by WHO. And do you know how many of such ICU or high dependency beds we have in Singapore? Well, the total inpatient beds our restructured hospitals have altogether is only between 11000 to 12000 beds and the ICU/High Dependency Ward beds only makes up 10% of these, which means at best, we only have at best 1200 of such beds with life support systems in the hospitals which can support these 15-20% patients. Including 330 beds from NCID, Singapore has maximum only 1500 of such beds. Not forgetting we are already running at 90% or more for the restructured hospitals for the use of such beds, hence on paper, there is only a maximum of 500 beds available if you minus 1000 from what is being used now, which means, once these 500 beds are used up, the critically ill from COVID is no better off than dead because they no longer have these life support systems to support as they are all used up already. Is it possible for us to have 50000 such beds or life support systems to support a 400000 infected number? Unfortunately the answer is no. No country will have such resources to do this, so that is why the correct way to read the statistics are, for infections below 5000 patients, the fatality rate is likely to be only 2% while for infections above 5000, we expect the fatality rate to be more than 15% and this is still on the low side. Unless this virus can be stopped by our weather, which I highly doubt so looking at the number of H1N1 infected in 2009, then we are probably in for one of the most devastating health pandemics since independence. God bless Singapore.

Haha, not enough hospital beds, especially ICU/HD ward beds.

Mostly are taken up by chronic sick from lifestyle disease like Khaw Boon Wan and his unhealthy lifestyle, so he suffers from osteoporosis and also previously needed a ($8) heart Bypass.

All his followers of unhealthy lifestyle also fill up all the 12,000 restructured hospital beds and get themselves admitted multiple times.

Even by present health minister account, they made the wrong public health policies, wrong healthcare investments so now the chronic disease burden in Singapore is sky high (world #2 in high income countries diabetes rate, World #1 in limb amputations rate) . No wonder Singaporeans are scared stiff by COVID-19 because they are in the high mortality risk group right from the start, at least the 25% with diabetes or pre-diabetes certainly are.

Again, with your reference to mortality, ICU rates, how confident are u of ANY of these figures are not exaggerated by the false data of zero asymptomatic infected cases, because even Hubei (China) as at 13.2.2020 is still doing just clinical diagnosis on almost 2/3 of all its cases when the gold standard is genetic diagnosis and by Blurfish account, Japan with a population of 127 million is able to do just 300 virus diagnostic test/day? :

Spoiler: show
Ref:
Even in China, Hubei province 13 February data declaration to WHO, they diagnosed 4823 new cases that day, of which 3095 were clinical diagnosis, i.e. without any laboratory proof that COVID-19 genetic code was present (ostensibly because no test kits available for almost 2/3 of symptomatic patients):
Imagehttps://youtu.be/vE4pBkslqS4


=================
“If you look around, our investments in health promotion and diseases prevention, I think... it is actually significantly lower than the amount of money we spend on treating diseases,” he (Minister Gan Kim Yong) said.
: Due to a lack of "holistic approach towards health promotion, taking into account how can we empower consumers so that they make the right choice" Empower consumers with holistic approach to healthcare: Gan Kim Yong To address the challenges of non-communicable diseases, Singapore needs to move upstream and find ways to keep the population healthy, said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong at the Ministerial Meeting on Universal Health Coverage ; TODAY (11 Feb 2015).http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/empower-consumers-holistic-approach-healthcare-gan-kim-yong

-----------
Singapore 'has 2nd-highest proportion of diabetics'
Imagehttps://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/singapore-has-2nd-highest-proportion-of-diabetics
-------------------

More people are suffering multiple chronic diseases and consequently getting disabled at an earlier age nowadays than 8 years prior:
Imagehttps://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/proportion-of-older-adults-with-multiple-chronic-diseases-surges
Last edited by BicCherry on 16 Feb 2020 20:54, edited 1 time in total.
#15067550
blurfish20200209[HWZ] wrote:https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat- ... t125199693



The rates for mortality, ICU that I used all adjusted for the post-revision. Even using the figures Feb 15 (which include the broad base clinical diagnosis:

As of Feb 16:
Cases: 57416
Severe (ICU): 11272 (19.6%) this is higher than the 16+% a few days ago but still within range of the 15-20% previous ranges.
Deaths: 1665 (2.9%) which is also higher than the 2.47% a few days ago.

Where is the super duper gross overestimations?

SG cases: previous 50 with 8 critical (16%), now 72 with 6 critical (8.3%) I even used 8% for calculations.

Where is the super duper gross overestimations?

From the WHO? From me? If you say the WHO is grossly overestimating, on what basis? Your imagination? Hope? Faith?

If you are suggesting that there are huge numbers of infected still not reported, you do realise you are suggesting that the covid19 has a R0 that is insanely high. Which is also not backed by what we are observing in Singapore, which is about doubling every week. Are you implying that the SG govt is lying about the number of infected cases, or there are double/triple the number of infected covid19 cases in SG right now? Eg 216?

Let me humor you with a ICU rate of 4%, which is a super duper gross underestimate.

Going by H1N1 infection rates of 415,000, we are looking at ICU numbers of 16,600. With each requiring 5-20+ days. And mind the 415k was together with 420k of people vaccinated for it.

So instead of trying to suggest hysteria, maybe you wish to point out specifically which data is wrong, with your own examples or sources?

Your last paragraph, I don't even want to dignify it with a response. I just pray (even if I am not religious) you and your families are not the inevitable statistics.

Image


No need to keep cherry picking numbers to throw at my face.

I already said, even in China(Hubei province), they don't have enough COVID-19 tests kits/ capacity to test almost 2/3 of symptomatic cases:

Spoiler: show
Even in China, Hubei province 13 February data declaration to WHO, they diagnosed 4823 new cases that day, of which 3095 were clinical diagnosis, i.e. without any laboratory proof that COVID-19 genetic code was present (ostensibly because no test kits available for almost 2/3 of symptomatic patients):
Imagehttps://youtu.be/vE4pBkslqS4


This means that the asymptomatic infected cases are most likely totally unaccounted for, which probably/possibly is like the 90% other bottom part of the iceberg which u have willfully omitted accounting for (the 90% problem weak population personal immune stytem health to be able to self overcome all respiratory virus infections and other chronic disease vz better nutrition and other lifestyle measures as well as better COVID-19 testing (efficacy, accuracy, reliability, accessibility etc) so we can be reasonably cautious about the new COVID-19 as compared to other pressing issues like global warming, wealth/ social inequality etc etc.)

That being the case, we must certainly also be cautious that all the fear mongering is not just the hysteria stemming from the emperor's new clothes phenomenon.



[Youtube]EvFpS3DrFk8[/youtube]
Last edited by BicCherry on 16 Feb 2020 21:08, edited 1 time in total.
#15067554
late wrote:Sure, we're a lot better off than China, but common sense preparedness that some countries have we just don't have.


IMHO any apparent hysteria felt in the United States is probably the result of the Chinese community there being hysterical.

Apparently even Trump supporters on PoFo are not very afraid of this epidemic.
#15067557
Patrickov wrote:Apparently even Trump supporters on PoFo are not very afraid of this epidemic.



Well, that isn’t so. Actually, I find this disease to be very frightening. The next 12 months is going to be a very bad time for a lot of people. But what would panicking achieve? It only makes things worse. Better to get what knowledge is to be had and hope there is something in that knowledge that will mitigate the disease.

Just because one is frightened doesn’t mean one has to panic.
#15067560
foxdemon wrote:Well, that isn’t so. Actually, I find this disease to be very frightening. The next 12 months is going to be a very bad time for a lot of people. But what would panicking achieve? It only makes things worse. Better to get what knowledge is to be had and hope there is something in that knowledge that will mitigate the disease.

Just because one is frightened doesn’t mean one has to panic.


What I mean is the Chinese tend to stockpile on whatever they think important (e.g. facemasks, alcohol cleaning equipment, etc.) that others quickly find such material lacking, which induced (further) hysteria. Their number in United States is not so small to be ignored, so they probably induced some panic among their surroundings, and this is probably what people would perceive as a "lack of common sense preparedness".
#15067690


The Diamond Princess cruise ship is the biggest epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak outside China. Over 300 people on board, including 20 Americans, are infected with the virus, which is 10% of passengers and crews. The US government has just evacuated around 300 Americans from the ship docked in Yokohama with two chartered flights to America. They will have to spend another two weeks in isolation at military detention facilities in Texas and California.
#15067704
All of Hubei province now in lock down.

SCHP wrote:
Coronavirus: China’s Hubei province orders everybody to stay home

About 200,000 rural communities with 24 million people go into lockdown as other parts of the country start to ease restrictions on movement
Bans on playing mahjong and cards, and road traffic limited to police vans, ambulances and other official vehicles



Neil Ferguson on spread of the disease and testing. Could help explain why distribution of new cases is so skewed and almost only confined to Hubei. Testing has changed from DNA testing to CT scan in Hubei recently, causing a spike in new cases a few days ago, but not the rest of the country as far as I know.



Overall, there's plenty to be worried about because there's so much uncertainty, although we should know more by March, as by then we'll have more information from the rest of the world.

Edit: Should add that quality control of the tests used is a challenge. The NYT reports today that after all passengers were released as not infected from a cruise ship in Cambodia, a woman tested positive for the virus twice. Her husband, on the other hand, tested negative both times, yet he has pneumonia, i.e. this could be false negatives.
#15067785
blurfish20200209(HWZ)  wrote:https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat- ... t125207746


In other words, you basically have nothing to support your assumptions. So when China takes all the clinical diagnosis with CT scans of pneumonia cases and counts as covid19 cases (even when they can be influenza, TB), all already now counted in as covid19 cases, you still want to argue its only 10% or 33% of all covid19 cases. The expanded cases which still contain the high ICU rates, high mortality rates.

Like I said, you make a perfect auditor for the dead and the costs after the thing is over. People who need to work with the problem now, or live with the problem now, have no use for your fluffy imaginations.


As mentioned, since u don't even have the tests kits available, u r a blind man groping in the dark like 6 blind men and elephant, arguing like a smartypants and denying his own blindness.

Since u have zero available test kits to test anybody outside hospital, u can only factually make very limited statements like as hospital admin, make statements like '10% of my admitted patients have died' (hospital mortality rate of 10%) but u have no scientific right to use terms like general mortality rate outside of your institution since u have no clue whatsoever what the infected but asymptomatic on the streets is, the fact being that even within China hospitals, a very significant proportion of 30-66% are diagnosed WITHOUT the use of genetic based lab test due to shortage of test kits, unreliable test kits or their lack of sensitivity etc.
So just admit that it's like 50-50 guess work and not be the boy who cries wolf and make exaggerated and hyperbolic claims that 10% of all infected will die when actually that is just the rate of death of those who admitted themselves to your particular regional hospital.

Yes, the number of admissions may be alarming but this might also be red herring, especially when there are probably many old people clinging onto a thin thread of life because they are already riddled with chronic disease and any possible stressor, let alone the weather will tip them into the point of decompensation to morbidity or ICU care (influenza season will take between 30,000 to 60,000 lives in America every single year).

Politicians also should be much more transparent and admit to a shortage of mask if misused by well people and reveal the case fatalities in much more detail, e.g. presence of chronic disease and last health screening result, BMI, IPPT fitness scores: there are tons of middle age persons with multiple chronic disease documented to have no past medical condition only for the simple reason that none were ever tested for and fitness wise, their basal level is the INABILITY to climb staircase or even chase after the bus, are grossly obese and snore like a jackhammer at night. That these middle aged patients were healthy adults from the start cannot be further from the truth.

Those without chronic disease and who deem their own fitness to be sufficient will then have the confidence NOT to horde masks ar home, making them affordable for those sick and travelling to see a doctor to purchase and use.

The reason why there are so many extremes in opinion is because the politicians have censored the data or released selectively or placed whatever spin when we know that such data cannot possibly be accurate nor true, like overall mortality rates when even by official admission, test kits are hard to come by and even hospitalised patients need to be priority cases to be tested themselves.

Any official report out of China about the general infection mortality rate is thus exaggerated or concocted from Falsehood.

Officials shouldn't be thrifty about revealing data and shouldn't be over zealous to present only the selected/ exaggerated snippets of data that sute their own commercial narratives or own political convenience.
#15068014
I did some maths and if Wuhan as a population of 11,000,000 people and over 1,800 have died, mostly in Wuhan, that means the Coronavirus has killed 0.017% of Wuhan's population. Totally worth quarantining 700 million people. They are either bored or it really was a bio-weapon with "HIV inserts" (I have no idea what that means really) and they're afraid something else could go wrong.

or maybe they want to show their authority after the hong kong thing
#15068315
Patrickov wrote:What I mean is the Chinese tend to stockpile on whatever they think important (e.g. facemasks, alcohol cleaning equipment, etc.) that others quickly find such material lacking, which induced (further) hysteria. Their number in United States is not so small to be ignored, so they probably induced some panic among their surroundings, and this is probably what people would perceive as a "lack of common sense preparedness".



Well, true. But bare in mind that any population that has had to live under an authoritarian government ends up being biased toward self preservation habits, rather than social cooperative habits. Makes sense when you think about it. Even the Czechs culture was negatively impacted by commie rule, especially after the 1968 crackdown. Chinese people from other places don’t seem to be crazy the way mainlanders are.
#15068326
foxdemon wrote:Well, true. But bare in mind that any population that has had to live under an authoritarian government ends up being biased toward self preservation habits, rather than social cooperative habits.


Of course I know that, because my family and I also practise that. However, there are also extensive social cooperative habits, mainly among anti-Communists in Hong Kong.

In fact, it should be said that "anti-Communists in Hong Kong display extensive social cooperative habit with the objective of self-preservation of their society as a whole"
Last edited by Patrickov on 19 Feb 2020 11:46, edited 1 time in total.

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