Originally posted by BigMackCam My Dad and I have both had what seemed like the start of a common cold, with sniffles - and, in my case, two days of a very mild, dry cough that wasn't by any means "persistant". No other symptoms, normal temperature, felt absolutely fine throughout - so I'm convinced it was just the weakest of common colds or a similar minor bug. Still, on the morning I woke up with the slight dry cough, I was unusually apprehensive...
I take hydroxychloroquine as a disease modifier for rheumatoid arthritis. Given recent mention of it as a potential COVID-19 treatment, I wonder if I'm less likely to get the virus?
Two thoughts here:
First, we are now much more sensitive to regognising a cough which we otherwise wouldn't waste a thought for.
Second: It is still possible that you got it and are lucky to have only mild symptoms. It can spread in the underground due to the lead time of two weeks (and in rare cases up to 27 days).
Originally posted by photoptimist You can't just divide 114/20,875 to get the death rate because you are assuming that none of the most recently found cases will die. Those 114 deaths reflect that true case load (not the "tested case count') of about 2-3 weeks ago because that's the delay between getting infected and dying. The only way that the death rate can be just 1% and have 114 deaths right now is if 114,000 had this virus 2-3 weeks ago.
It's not fair to compare the end-of-the-season numbers for flu with the beginning-of-the-season numbers for COVID-19. And if you do compare beginning-of-the-season numbers for both diseases that's where you'll see that COVID-19 spreads faster, generates more hospitalizations, and kills more people that does the flu.
Worse, if you then extrapolate those numbers, you get a scenario where hospitalizations vastly exceeds hospital capacity and then you get a 3-8X increased death rate because the sick don't get the treatment they need (see Italy for what that looks like).
I wonder how the death rate is calculated correctly. I am not a statistics nerd and I would think like this: Those who get infected either survive or not. It is the number of deceased in relation to all. The formula for this would be:
Number of deceased people divided by deceased+survived.
But this would show a death rate of 6820 / (6820 + 8326) = 45%
Perhaps anyone here knows how to calculate it correctly.
Originally posted by mkgd1 I have those for my county: population density 1 person per 40 acres, tested positive 1 person, she was out of state and was fully recovered by the time she came home, deaths etc. obviously zero. Yet still the schools are shut down. Very frustrating for everyone. Kids have extra time off school, but they are not allowed to go out. Old farts with motorhomes (like me) have diesel down to $2.08 a gallon, but most camp grounds are closed down and we are being told to stay at home.
Don't be fooled by some early low numbers. Highly likely it will sweep through our county as well. Perhaps it is there already. It takes two weeks to show symptoms. The last thing you should do is go out.
Originally posted by Digitalis IF you are symptomatic, and this virus has a rather long latent period where the infection is able to spread without the host being aware.
That's what many underestimate.
What happened around here (a town in the German countryside) where the 8-year old of my girlfriend goes to school.
Two weeks ago, school was closed.
12 days after closing, all parents were notified that all school children are ordered to be under quarantine because 1 child from that school showed symptoms shortly after closing and was tested positive.
Duration of quarantine: 2 days from the day of notificaion (calucation: last possible infection was the last day of school 12 days ago + 2 = 14 days)
So ALL the school children (approx. 300) were not under quarantine although they should have been due to lagging symptoms and test results.
How long has that child been infected already? How many did infect themselves from that one child? How many of them did pass it on in that time? Nobody knows.
I have been homeschooling her son since the school was closed. He doesn't show any symptoms but children often don't show any so he could have easily infected me. Either way, I know that I have not infected anyone else (at least since school closure) because I did not go out since then. Staying away from others is the only effective measure until vaccination or treatment is available.
Originally posted by photoptimist Indeed!
...
People who watch the death toll numbers and think "it's not so bad" don't understand that the death toll tells you how bad it was 2-3 weeks ago because that's the lag between being exposed and dying. For something that can double in magnitude every 2-3 days, that means the current death toll under-estimates the problem by a factor of between 30X and 1000X.
Yup, it will come from the past. Take care now to be safe later.
Additionaly: From the news today I learned that the statistics in Germany lag behind because there isn't enough staff to aggregate all the numbers of newly infected and deceased cases. Also, from France I heard that the number of deceased is probably higher because they only count the cases in hospitals but not those else where like old-peoples-homes.