Posted on 02/11/2020 10:50:10 PM PST by Freedom56v2
The number of confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus have continued to surge inside China, sickening tens of thousands, with a death toll of more than 1,000. But outside the Asian giant the numbers remain a fraction of that, a trend Harvard’s Marc Lipsitch views with suspicion. Lipsitch thinks it is just a matter of time before the virus spreads widely internationally, which means nations so far only lightly hit should prepare for its eventual arrival in force and what may seem like the worst flu season in modern times. Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and head of the School’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, talked to the Gazette about recent developments in the outbreak and provided a look ahead.
Q&A Marc Lipsitch
GAZETTE: We spoke about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak about a week and a half ago. What do we know now that we didn’t know then?
LIPSITCH: We know that the spread is even greater than it was then. It was likely then that it would spread more widely, but there was still hope for containment. I think now that it’s in more countries — even Singapore, which is really good at tracing cases, has found some cases that aren’t linked to previous known cases — it’s clear that there are probably many cases in countries where we haven’t yet found them. This is really a global problem that’s not going to go away in a week or two.
GAZETTE: You indicated that the rapid increase in cases was largely due to existing cases that hadn’t been diagnosed rather than new infections. Is that still your sense, or is some of the daily increase in cases due to new transmission?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.harvard.edu ...
Seems like the guy might know about which he speaks...Much more on the site for those Freepers who read articles...
Really? What kind of statistically illiterate would write that sentence? The number of confirmed cases will always grow until the virus is completely eradicated. The news is that the number of new cases has been falling for a week, and is now but a fraction of the recent levels. But to be clear to those who DIDN'T follow the link... Lipsitch didn't write that nonsense; his interviewer did.
Ping
Lipsitch says that this is an uncontainable virus and is likely to be widespread in the US. He also said that it might be a year before there is a vaccine.
Given the source of this article, I am inclined to believe the opposite of its assertion.
Although, I’d have to wait for Dick Morris to agree with the article before I could be certain.
Thank you for this article. It is a quick, easy read. His observations reflect what we’ve been watching here on FR in the daily threads.
Did you read beyond the first sentence?
I think the expert has some good points.
He also stated they didn’t know if the rate decrease was due to controls or if their ability to test was saturated.
ping
Seriously, though, great article. A couple of things stood out to me:
Vaccine efforts are very much needed, but I think we should be clear that they won’t necessarily succeed. There’s a lot of effort being put into them, but not every disease has a vaccine.
Specifically, RNA viruses with highly mutable sections that present themselves to the immune system with variable markers are exquisitely difficult to pin down based on those markers. It's like going after a suspect based on the mask he's wearing when he changes it out constantly. It's the reason we don't have HIV vaccines yet.
There’s likely to be a period of widespread transmission in the U.S., and I hope we will avert the kind of chaos that some other places are seeing. That’s likely if we continue to be prepared, but I think it’s going to be a new virus that we have to deal with. That won’t be because the United States government has failed to contain it, it will mean that this is an uncontainable virus. If we’re dealing with it, it’s because everybody’s going to be dealing with it. I think that’s a likely scenario.
Or because the virus has mutated into a more manageable form over time. This is apparently what happened to the original Spanish Flu virus, but a less manageable form is quite possible. As the Professor points out, the "quarantine" efforts in China aren't really quarantine, they're cordon sanitaire, inside of which contagion from infected to uninfected is very difficult to address. It's like those poor souls trapped on the cruise ship with infected passengers - they're not going anywhere and they will be exposed. Medical personnel are in that position as well, and prayers up for the lot of them because they'll need them.
these numbers are not the real ones. they are grossly low.
Seriously? You are waiting for Dick Morris? I am guessing there should be a sarc tag...
Don’t trust this guy?
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/marc-lipsitch/
Marc Lipsitch
Professor of Epidemiology
Department of Epidemiology
Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases
I am Professor of Epidemiology with primary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and a joint appointment in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, where my wet lab is located. I direct the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, a center of excellence funded by the MIDAS program of NIH/NIGMS. I am also the Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Infectious Disease Epidemiology.
Heard similar account on Alex Jones Tues radio program from Tues...Go to the 1:46 mark and listen.
BTW, one of my kids is actually doing grad work in infectious disease/infection control...What university would you suggest is acceptable source...
Lipsitch says that this is an uncontainable virus and is likely to be widespread in the US. He also said that it might be a year before there is a vaccine.
Read articles?!? This is BLASPHEMY, sir, and I assure you the highest authorities will be notified.
Good find, thanks.
Corona Virus - Declared Cases - Statistics
Cases Declared as of This Date
. New Cases This Day
. . Percent Increase of Declared Cases Over the Previous Day
. . . Fatalities Declared as of This Date
. . . . New Fatalities Declared This Day
. . . . . Percent Increase of Declared Fatalities Over the Previous Day
. . . . . . Individuals Who Have Been Declared Recovered From the Illness
. . . . . . . Number of People Declared to have Recovered on This Date
. . . . . . . . Percentage Increase of Declared Recovered over the Previous Day
. . . . . . . . . Numbers of Still Active Cases (cases - fatalities - recovered)
Date Time Day . . . . . . . . . . Mortality Rate (fatalities / sum of fatalities + recovered)
01/27/20 20:30 MON 4,474 107 63 4,304 62.94%
01/28/20 23:00 TUE 6,057 1,583 35.38% 132 25 23.36% 110 47 74.60% 5,815 54.55%
01/29/20 21:00 WED 7,783 1,726 28.50% 170 38 28.79% 133 23 20.91% 7,480 56.11%
01/30/20 21:30 THU 9,776 1,993 25.61% 213 43 25.29% 187 54 40.60% 9,376 53.25%
01/31/20 19:00 FRI 11,374 1,598 16.35% 259 46 21.60% 252 65 34.76% 10,863 50.68%
02/01/20 23:00 SAT 14,568 3,194 28.08% 305 46 17.76% 340 88 34.92% 13,923 47.29%
02/02/20 23:30 SUN 17,392 2,824 19.38% 362 57 18.69% 487 147 43.24% 16,543 42.64%
02/03/20 21:45 MON 20,613 3,221 18.52% 427 65 17.96% 663 176 36.14% 19,523 39.17%
02/04/20 21:13 TUE 24,516 3,903 18.93% 493 66 15.46% 906 243 36.65% 23,117 35.24%
02/05/20 21:23 WED 28,280 3,764 15.35% 565 72 14.60% 1,198 292 32.23% 26,517 32.05%
02/06/20 21:33 THU 31,472 3,192 11.29% 638 73 12.92% 1,588 390 32.55% 29,246 28.66%
02/07/20 21:33 FRI 34,888 3,416 10.85% 724 86 13.48% 2,123 535 33.69% 32,041 25.43%
02/08/20 21:43 SAT 37,549 2,661 7.63% 813 89 12.29% 2,718 595 28.03% 34,018 23.02%
02/09/20 22:03 SUN 40,540 2,991 7.97% 910 97 11.93% 3,383 665 24.47% 36,247 21.20%
02/10/20 23:03 MON 43,111 2,571 6.34% 1,018 108 11.87% 4,098 715 21.14% 37,995 19.90%
02/11/20 23:13 TUE 45,188 2,077 4.82% 1,116 98 9.63% 4,856 758 18.50% 39,216 18.69%
Data collected over time at the Johns Hopkins University Web Site LINK
A terrified population is a compliant population. We already died from swine flu, bird flu and annual flu.
This guy needs to instill fear and if he is like the ezpert scientists that plainly published the melting of the Himalayas by 2020... well you can trust his data.
Billthedrill beat me to the comment I was going to make—that your advice runs contrary to the rules of the forum.
I recall one person commenting that he almost read an article, but that he then remembered his new year’s resolution. I responded, I believe via PM, and it turned out to be the only resolution that he has managed to keep.
In defence of a practice that I believe everyone adopts sometimes, and some people adopt every time, often some (only some) of the comments have more information than the articles and some (sometimes most) of the comments are better written and more entertaining than the articles
I doubt that this article will be entertaining, but I think I will read it after having read the thread because it may be informative.
That said, I’m dubious, because I do not think we have enough information out yet to draw firm conclusions, even though experts nearly always feel compelled to draw firm conclusions whatever stage of development things are at. My first degree is in Economics, where the field is built on SWAG—Scientific Wild-Ass Guesses. These due serve a valuable purpose, but must be recognized for what they are.
Two things that should be kept in the discussion - China changed the definition of ‘confirmed’ and they have periodically run out of test kits.
A case is now only considered confirmed if the patient displays symptoms and as a result of the test kit shortages there will be oscillations in the number of confirmed cases that do not reflect the real rate of increase.
Of course, if you have shown symptoms but they can’t test you due to lack of a test kit, they don’t count you as a confirmed case, either. All this together simply masks the problem, but I’d guess that the Chinese trying to save face is going to make it all moot since we don’t really know the accurate statistics.
And while they don’t say in the article that this is the flu, they do compare it to the flu and that is misleading in itself. It has some distinct differences (they do, to their credit, point some of those out) that make it much more dangerous.
The epidemiologist that is interviewed, Lipsitch, offers an opinion that there will be a 9% mortality rate overall and that this thing is here to stay and can not be contained. I think the 9% figure is optimistic and the question of containability is still open, but he’s the expert.
The thinking was that it would moderate as time passed but its tough to tell if that is happening or the opposite is true. And it could mutate either way at any given time.
Its very likely that the virus will not be contained. Even the rather draconian measures that China is using is only partially successful and some of the tactics such as the use of foggers is unsettling
We will find out soon enough.
A likely scenario could be a situation reminiscent of the Spanish Flu epidemic a century ago where there is an initial spread of the disease , followed by a lull, and then a more wide spread transmission of a more virulent strain
Doubtful this one is going away any time soon
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