Spencer and I recorded another coronavirus episode of The Insight. It should be live in a day or so. Therefore, I thought it was good to take stock and make some comments (my Twitter autodeletes).
– A few weeks ago I had been optimistic and suggested that the USA would have 40,000 deaths. That seems unlikely. I will remain optimistic and suggest 85,000 deaths by August 31st.
– I think most of the country will “open up” between May 15th and June 15th.
– Heterogeneity in trajectory persists. Some of this is through clear policy (e.g., Taiwan). But some of it is through demographics (USA is 40% obese, Japan is 3% obese). And, some of it is probably genetics.
– Many commentators make the correct observation that “no evidence of X” is not good evidence. E.g., “we have no evidence of human-to-human transmission…”
– The term “conspiracy theory” is totally debased. Just like the word racist or squish.
– High levels of uncertainty on everything. For example, many preprints which find confusing associations between weather and COVID-19 somehow transform in the media to titles of the form “COVID-19 won’t disappear in the summer!”
Words being by nature shorthand categorizing tools…How then is one to describe, say, Q-Anon?
On 14 January, WHO said “From the information that we have it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission,” which is rather stronger than “no evidence”!
That’s also from January 14th, only a couple weeks after the cause of death had even been sorted out, and only a couple hundred cases had even been diagnosed. They were putting out a different message within a few days.
Did you have a point, other than an effort to bolster a political argument to deflect blame from the people in this country who didn’t take this seriously through February and much of March?
Is it possible we’re overcounting COVID deaths? Seems a risk when CDC is assuming people to have died of it without confirmation.
“no evidence of X” is not good evidence
It has been noted that there is insufficient evidence, by commonly-accepted standards of evidence-based medicine, to conclude that parachutes are effective in preventing gravitation-based trauma. It is likely to remain so since a randomized controlled trial would necessarily involve a control group jumping from airplanes with placebo parachutes.
“I will remain optimistic and suggest 85,000 deaths by August 31st.”
IHME projects 68,841 cumulative deaths in the US at 4 Aug 2020. At that point their curve is flat.
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
I am not endorsing their work. But, they know a lot more than I do about epidemiology. A whole lot.
The diagnostic problem of sorting the difference between dying from COVID19 and dying with COVID-19 is hard:
“COVID-19 Autopsies, Oklahoma, USA” by Barton et. al.
American Journal of Clinical Pathology
Published: 10 April 2020
https://academic.oup.com/ajcp/article/doi/10.1093/ajcp/aqaa062/5818922
“to our knowledge this manuscript represents the first published report of pathologic findings based on complete autopsies in COVID-19 decedents in the English literature. Our observations add to the sparse worldwide pathology literature on this entity. The older of the two decedents had multiple comorbidities and died of DAD [diffuse alveolar damage], which is an expected pathologic finding in fatal viral infection. The other decedent had progressive myotonic muscular dystrophy and died of acute bacterial bronchopneumonia likely caused by aspiration. Therefore, this patient likely died with COVID-19, not from COVID-19. These cases illustrate the challenges that pathologists and the medical community at large will face in determining the cause of death in decedents who test positive for SARS-CoV-2. Some findings will represent true virus-related pathology, while others will reflect superimposed processes or unrelated illnesses. Separating bona fide virus-related pathology from potential confounders and red herrings in these complex scenarios will benefit from the experience and expertise of forensic pathologists and pulmonary pathologists.”
It must be noted that the autopsies were performed in a “Examinations were performed in a state-of-the-art facility completed in 2018 with a negative-pressure autopsy suite and a separate negative-pressure isolation room. The examination tables used for autopsies were equipped with a reverse-flow air handling system … The examiners were clad in PPE …”
They acknowledge that: “We are fortunate to have capabilities to perform full body postmortem radiography prior to autopsy and perform the autopsies in a safe facility with appropriate PPE. However, we recognize that most hospital autopsy suites and medical examiner facilities are not equipped to handle a highly infectious disease.”
I imagine that distinguish death from Covid and death with Covid could be very ambiguous, not only in practice but even in theory – suppose someone who are in intensive care because of covid-19, is intubated and dies because of lesions created by the intubation; this count as a death from covid or only as a death with covid?
85,000 deaths by end of summer seems like a reasonable guess, but possibly a little low.
The IHME has a big problem in that it is designed to be symmetrical, and completely overshoots the recovery phase. New York Gov. Cuomo said today that Ro=0.9, which is consistent with the numbers we see in Italy and Spain. That means the descent is far more gradual than the ascent, which was at Ro~3.
With current US deaths at 35K, if we were at the peak today and the descent was as rapid as the ascent, then we would hit 70K. I think we will see a plateau phase and a slow descent (with possible regional increases if controls are relaxed), so I think we will be lucky to stay below 100K by Labor Day.
“many preprints which find confusing associations between weather and COVID-19”
This may be too much of an amateur hot take, but I’d expect less confusing associations if the effect of hot weather/high humidity was overwhelming. The confusion suggests the effect is modest. The fact that covid spreads in tropical countries suggests R0>1 there at least, absent physical distancing.
OTOH, the disaster I’ve expected to see in these poorer countries doesn’t seem totally disastrous yet. Bolsonaro and AMLO are doing their best to create catastrophes, though, so we may find out.
@Douglas Knight
Blaming the WHO for the US response failure is one of the lamest propaganda operations I have seen in a while. The best part is the WHO even had another tweet on January 19 explaining that limited and sustained human to human transmission are different things. https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1218741294291308545
China confirmed widespread human to human transmission on January 20. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-01/20/c_138721762.htm
And obviously the WHO stopped talking about no sustained human to human transmission after the 20th.
But of course everyone focuses on one tweet from the WHO written before January 20 and ignore everything else.
As for stuff like not recommending travel restrictions, the WHO has been consistent in not recommending travel restrictions since they really do believe it is useless. They didn’t recommend it for H1N1 and they didn’t recommend it for ebola. So it isn’t some nefarious Chinese/WHO plot carried out through weaponised political correctness unless if you think there was a nefarious American/WHO plot to spread H1N1 as well.
I thought the Trump right hates globalisation anyways. When did the WHO suddenly become the agency in charge of handling the US viral outbreak response?
I have come to agree with Mr. Khan’s characterisation that the USG is acting like the late Qing dynasty. I don’t know how else to characterise this WHO episode apart from calling it a tantrum.
http://www.china.org.cn/china/Off_the_Wire/2020-04/17/content_75943843.htm
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Wuhan as of the end of April 16 was revised up by 325 to 50,333, and the number of fatalities up by 1,290 to 3,869.
Who is the Insight podcast for?
While I always appreciate hearing Razib and Spencer swap insights, there is, to me, a frustrating assumption of listener naivete. Thus too often veering toward a cloying lowered tone. Why not assume your audience is very well informed highly intelligent avid followers, and just let yourselves much more readily riff into your best sincerely felt reals? Perhaps that would be best most fun and informative use of everyone’s time.
Signed,
A Fan.
@name change
If the WHO thinks that travel restrictions are worthless for managing all communicable disease, then they are idiots.
The WHO also put out a statement that essentially said that people shouldn’t wear masks, as they may do more harm than good.
Again, gross incompetence.
We could also discuss their early statements saying that “xenophobia and fear are worse than the virus”.
Tell that to the dead and the surviviors with scarred lungs.
They are a political organization who has displayed gross incompetence. Just because orange man correctly calls them out doesn’t make it any less true.
. Why not assume your audience is very well informed highly intelligent avid followers, and just let yourselves much more readily riff into your best sincerely felt reals?
already lots of complaints it’s too hard to follow. so probably not optimal to ‘let it rip’
Watching the virus up close, everyday in a hospital receiving veterans from the worst outbreak in a Veterans Home in the US I’ll make this observation.
Over 5 weeks – 55 out of 250 residents are now dead. Total infected around 75%. Did they die from COVID or with COVID? Categorizing death is an age old problem. Spin around. If they didn’t have COVID they would be alive. Like they were 5 weeks ago.
Covid related deaths now higher than total daily cancer or cardiac deaths.
UK estimates undercount by 15%. How? They have a much better data management system so already know total deaths in March. There is a marked increase in “respiratory” deaths.
IMHE model flawed in many respects. As stated above it fades to Re .3 which is a steep decline, not Re.9 which is a slow decline.
IMHO the absolute most frustrating part about all of this is we have enough data sources now to know what a successful disease management of COVID-19 is. It’s not giving up and “letting it rip” to save the economy – which for some reason around 10%-15% of the country (a faction of the right wing and sociopaths) has come to embrace. It’s also almost certainly not just keeping the country locked down until a vaccine is available (which is untenable without a total transformation into a command economy). It’s the South Korean – “test and trace” model, which seems able to keep new cases to a minimum and only does limited damage to the economy. Yet despite everyone understanding that this is the way to go, there’s seemingly been little work done yet to get there except for some vague plans. The government hasn’t even decided on a single course of action yet! We’re not going to be able to half-ass our way through this in two weeks – it has to be ready as soon as social distancing is eased.
Which brings me to the other part of this – it seems like everyone – from Trump to governors of both parties to the media – is being profoundly dishonest now with the American public. The initial public statements about how absent a vaccine 70%+ of us will eventually get it seems to have been forgotten by everyone. All of a sudden it’s a debate about whether we’re opening up on May 1st or some time in June? Is it just that everyone is so locked into short-term thinking that they cannot think past the current “curve” to the next one? Or do authority figures believe that this “noble lie” helps them in some way?
There’s some good evidence that EcSOD, produced by the body from exercise, prevents the worst complications from covid. It adds another layer of complication.
@Ryan2
Travel restrictions may work in delaying the virus for what, two days? I personally have no problem with countries carrying them out but to blame the WHO for failed US response because WHO did not recommend travel restrictions is beyond stupid. I don’t think you quite understand how travel restrictions work: you cannot ban your own citizens from entering your country. The huge SK cult cluster was due to Korean cultists in Wuhan who then spread it in Korea, not due to Chinese tourists. Travel restrictions only work if you follow up by mass testing and centralised quarantine of your own citizens who enter your country. Trump’s travel ban was completely useless. Not to mention he implemented the Europe travel ban too late anyways.
The mask thing is indeed the biggest mistake the WHO made in my opinion. However, how do you know it wasn’t the US that wanted them to make the announcement? Discouraging mask usage isn’t uncommon when your country lacks masks. Contrary to what western media says, Singapore did not have mass mask usage until April. In fact, Singapore discouraged mask usage at first because they did not have enough masks.
Tell that to the dead and the surviviors with scarred lungs.
The WHO isn’t in charge of the US response. The US response failure is completely Trump’s fault and the dead and survivors with scarred lungs would be better off blaming Trump than buying into the blame WHO gaslighting Trump is trying to pull for reelection.
Last week, when Trump said that he had “absolute authority” to decide what to do about lockdowns, etc., respectable opinion informed me that actually the states had the authority.
That statement would be a simplistic, partisan response. But the statement “The US response failure is completely Trump’s fault” is similarly simplistic and partisan. There is plenty of blame to go around.
And, to be charitable, given the lack of good data, it would be miraculous if anyone got it right early. Hell, I’m sure no one is getting it completely right now.
@name change
You seem very focused on Trump. For what its worth, his initial response was terrible. As was the initial response by most governments around the world.
Of course travel restrictions work. That’s why so many countries used them. That’s why China blocked their own citizens in Wuhan from traveling to other parts of China (but they were free to travel to the rest of the world, that’s nice.) Of course, as part of travel restrictions, you use quarantines.
A blanket policy by a “World Health Organization” against travel restrictions in the midst of a pandemic is ludicrous.
You agree that the WHO statement against masks was a mistake (I would argue they border on criminal negligence), but speculate that it was as a result of political pressure from the United States. I have seen zero evidence of that, but if it that was indeed the case, then the WHO is political organization who can’t be trusted to provide the global public with actual expertise in a crisis.
Your optimism is wrong; there’s clearly going to be more than ~200K excess deaths. America will have more COVID deaths than China had cases. Meanwhile, South Korea (whose relatively pro-China incumbent party just won in a landslide) is going to have fewer deaths than a year’s worth of school shootings in the U.S.
“The US response failure is completely Trump’s fault and the dead and survivors with scarred lungs would be better off blaming Trump than buying into the blame WHO gaslighting Trump is trying to pull for reelection.”
Bingo. The fact Democrats aren’t advocating the expropriation of Donald Trump’s wealth to use it to compensate the families of those killed by COVID is the firmest possible proof that
1. Despite what they say, Democrats are vehemently pro-Trump (no party but the uniparty, etc.)
2. Democrats really are “capitalists to the bone”.
@Roger Sweeny
There is plenty of blame to go around.
I certainly agree with this. I still remember Wilbur Ross talking about taking a victory lap in January because companies are going to take manufacturing out of China due to the outbreak. Kudlow on February 25 was saying that the virus was contained in the US. Recode was writing diss articles about how weird Silicon Valley’s no handshake rule was. JUST THE FLU etc. etc.
And, to be charitable, given the lack of good data, it would be miraculous if anyone got it right early. Hell, I’m sure no one is getting it completely right now.
China, HK, SK, Taiwan, Vietnam, Israel, etc. all ended up containing the virus. And no, I don’t need you to give me a bunch of US propaganda about how everything out of China is fake. All you need to do is look at imported cases in HK and compare China’s CFR with HK, Taiwan, and SK’s CFR. And since people in China started dying first, their CFR came out earlier than others. Unless China has mastered time travel they can’t fake that. No, don’t tell me about urns, tests not working, cell phone subscriptions (this is by far the dumbest) etc. It’s all US propaganda nonsense.
@Ryan2
You seem very focused on Trump.
I’m not focused on Trump. In my first comment I wrote the “Trump right”, which refers to the right wing of the GOP and MAGA people who support Trump, not Trump himself. In my second comment, how exactly do you expect me to not talk about Trump in a discussion about travel restrictions when Trump is constantly bragging about how great his travel restrictions were? I can call it the US’s travel restrictions instead of Trump’s travel restrictions if that makes you feel better. Finally, you seemed to suggest that the dead and those with scarred lungs should blame the WHO, and I instead pointed out that they should blame Trump since he is obviously more responsible for their plight than the WHO is.
Of course travel restrictions work. That’s why so many countries used them. That’s why China blocked their own citizens in Wuhan from traveling to other parts of China (but they were free to travel to the rest of the world, that’s nice.) Of course, as part of travel restrictions, you use quarantines.
And of course the US’s travel restriction doesn’t work because it had zero follow up policies after slapping some travel restrictions on China. It would have made things even worse if it gave a false sense of security. As I said, I have no problem with travel restrictions as long as it is part of a broader policy, which clearly didn’t happen in the US.
but they were free to travel to the rest of the world, that’s nice
No, they weren’t.
the WHO is political organization who can’t be trusted to provide the global public with actual expertise in a crisis.
The WHO has no power and the WHO doesn’t run global pandemic control response. Why do you speak as if the WHO has any say in dictating how any country responds to a viral outbreak? They can recommend stuff but it is up to each sovereign nation itself to decide if it wants to listen or not. I fail to see how the WHO has anything to do with US botching its response. The US placed travel restrictions on China despite WHO recommending against them, did it not?
@E. Harding
The Democrats are completely useless. They should have saved impeachment for Trump botching the virus response instead of wasting it on the Russiagate nonsense. At the very least they could have used impeachment to force Trump to act earlier on the virus. Trump is actually playing domestic politics quite well right now. He plans to put Democrats into a position where they will look pro-WHO and pro-China if they criticize Trump for mishandling of the virus. I’d be impressed if Trump wins reelection from a “don’t hate the player, hate the game” standpoint. But on the other hand, if he reopens the economy too early and more people die then he’s done.
just take a minute to go to Roosh’s twitter feed or RamzPaul and you’ll see some conspiracy theories. There’s a sizeable portion of the right that either doesn’t believe covid is real or thinks the Chinese did this on purpose to take Trump down. QAnon is everywhere. I saw a tweet that was downplaying covid and then finished by saying that whomever ordered lockdowns deserved the death penalty.
There’s no hiding our mistakes for passively embracing the reactionary Right: they are completely insane. Republicans have intentionally dismantled the gov’t over the last 40 years and we’re seeing the results. Trump even fired a team of outbreak specialists who were in China for this exact purpose 2 years ago.
I’m willing to own my error of judgment. Thank god for liberals cuz without them right now Alex Jones would be right, we really would all be dead!
Alex Jones at the helm:
https://twitter.com/GundamIsHere/status/1247458566228885504
i laughed pretty hard at that
And no, I don’t need you to give me a bunch of US propaganda about how everything out of China is fake.
Can you point to anywhere I said that? (Spoiler: you can’t, because I never did–nor did I say anything about urns or test or, hell, I didn’t even mention PR China.) Please do not imply I said something I didn’t.
@Roger Sweeny
I assumed you were going to talk about how China not giving people good data slowed down world response. It’s all I see on twitter these days. I had this argument with multiple people across multiple platforms multiple times already and assumed that’s where the discussion was going again. My apologies if that’s not what you had in mind.
@name change
I love the goal post shifting and mindreading. You were the one defending the WHO, I guess you gave that up. Now you say you are ok with travel restrictions, after earlier claiming they only delay the virus by two days.
As for China allowing travel from Wuhan to the rest of the world, but not within China:
“China moved quickly to shut down travel domestically from Wuhan to the rest of China, but did not stop international flights from Wuhan.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources
But I’m sure your cognitive filter will reduce your dissonance by discounting this because its “Fox News”.
@Ryan2
You were the one defending the WHO, I guess you gave that up.
Huh? I’m still defending the WHO. The attack against it from the US is baseless. The WHO doesn’t run US viral outbreak policy.
Now you say you are ok with travel restrictions, after earlier claiming they only delay the virus by two days.
Sigh, from my second comment: “Travel restrictions may work in delaying the virus for what, two days? I personally have no problem with countries carrying them out but to blame the WHO for failed US response because WHO did not recommend travel restrictions is beyond stupid. … Travel restrictions only work if you follow up by mass testing and centralised quarantine of your own citizens who enter your country.”
Reading is hard, I know. I love the lack of reading comprehension skills.
“China moved quickly to shut down travel domestically from Wuhan to the rest of China, but did not stop international flights from Wuhan.”
Sigh. How do you know the international flights were not for … people who weren’t Chinese citizens? Surely to do so would require international flights? Other countries were sending planes to Wuhan for the sole purpose of flying their citizens back home after Wuhan’s lockdown. And the sentence immediately preceding it:
“There were doctors and journalists who were “disappeared” warning of the spread of the virus and its contagious nature and human to human transmission.”
Is factually false. No doctors and journalists disappeared for warning about human to human transmission. What happened was some doctors were reprimanded for “spreading rumours” about the virus being SARS, which sounds bad but that’s because the virus wasn’t sequenced yet when they were giving that info out. Contrary to what Americans believe, doctors weren’t disappeared or jailed.
@Ryan2
As for the coronavirus from Wuhan lab part of the Fox news report:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/covid-19-origin-lab-general-mark-milley
The Pentagon’s top general has said that US intelligence has looked into the possibility that the coronavirus outbreak could have started in a Chinese laboratory, but that the “weight of evidence” so far pointed towards “natural” origins. … “There’s a lot of rumour and speculation in a wide variety of media, blog sites, etc,” Milley told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. “It should be no surprise to you that we’ve taken a keen interest in that, and we’ve had a lot of intelligence look at that. And I would just say at this point, it’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. But we don’t know for certain.”
https://www.france24.com/en/20200418-france-says-no-evidence-covid-19-linked-to-wuhan-research-lab-set-up-with-french-help
“We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating recent reports in the US press linking the origins of Covid-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China,” an official at President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
etc. etc.
@namechange
Thanks for the entertainment.
“The attack against it [the WHO] from the US is baseless.”
I listed multiple reasons why the WHO was grossly incompetent. Their incompetence has nothing to do with an “attack” by Trump or anyone else. Their incompetence belongs to them, alone.
“The WHO doesn’t run US viral outbreak policy.”
Gee, thanks for telling me.
I’m glad you don’t deny your earlier statement that “Travel restrictions may work in delaying the virus for what, two days?” because that would be awkward.
If travel restrictions were so impotent, i.e. “delay by two days”, I wonder why almost all countries use them, especially China. Gee, maybe your claim is total bullshit?
By the way, as far as mindreading goes: “but to blame the WHO for failed US response because WHO did not recommend travel restrictions is beyond stupid.”
I don’t blame the WHO for the failed US response. I blame the WHO for the failed WHO response. There’s your reading comprehension lesson.
“Sigh. How do you know the international flights were not for … people who weren’t Chinese citizens?”
Like your earlier statement that maybe the WHO said that people shouldn’t wear masks because the US told them to say that, this statement falls into the “basket of random speculative bullshit with zero evidence.”
Oh wait, we have more for that basket…
“No doctors and journalists disappeared for warning about human to human transmission. What happened was some doctors were reprimanded for “spreading rumours”.
I’m glad you know all the facts of who the CCP disappears and who they don’t, and that you believe the CCP narrative on its face. I feel much better now.
“We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating recent reports in the US press linking the origins of Covid-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China,” an official at President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.”
That’s great to know, Macron, given that your government was directly responsible for setting up the lab, lol.
“The French government helped the Chinese set up the Wuhan lab.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources
As far as coronavirus whistleblowers within China who have disappeared or been arrested:
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-coronavirus-whistleblowers-speak-out-vanish-2020-2?amp&__twitter_impression=true
As far as sources *within China* claiming that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the likely source of Covid-19, the must-read paper from Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus
I listed multiple reasons why the WHO was grossly incompetent.
Grossly incompetent in doing what? What exactly do you think the WHO’s role is? They make recommendations.
Gee, thanks for telling me.
Something which you clearly don’t understand.
If travel restrictions were so impotent, i.e. “delay by two days”, I wonder why almost all countries use them, especially China. Gee, maybe your claim is total bullshit?
Travel restrictions would delay for like two days if there is no follow up policies. I don’t understand why this is so hard to understand. China did not simply slap travel restrictions on Wuhan to the rest of China and call it a day. That wouldn’t have done shit. I’m seriously suspecting that you have reading comprehension problems.
Anyways, here’s a WHO systematic review: https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/12/14-135590/en/
“With pandemic influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 in Mongolia, the estimated delay of the pandemic peak varied between 1.0 and 1.5 weeks when 50% road and rail travel restrictions over 2–4 weeks were simulated.26 The corresponding impact on the attack rate was minimal – e.g. 95% travel restrictions led to a reduction of just 0.1%.26 A study set in the USA revealed similar findings – e.g. a delay in spread of 2–3 weeks if travel restrictions were 99% effective and implemented in conjunction with border restrictions that prevented the entry of infected travellers.28 Travel restrictions alone could delay spread by 1 week but only if implemented within 2 weeks of the first case.28 In one simulation, border controls preventing 99.9% of cases entering any given country delayed epidemic spread by up to 35 days.24 Another study in the USA presented analogous results – e.g. a 90% restriction on long-distance flights led to delays in the epidemic peak that ranged between a few days and a few weeks.27 Effectiveness of travel restrictions decreased as the transmissibility of the strain increased; travel restrictions reduced the incidence of new cases by less than 3%.27 According to a time-series analysis in the USA, a 50% restriction in air travel during the 2001–2002 influenza season would have delayed the peak mortality associated with novel strains of seasonal influenza by 16 days – i.e. compared with the timing of the peak in previous years.30”
I blame the WHO for the failed WHO response. There’s your reading comprehension lesson.
And what exactly do you think a non failed WHO response would be?
Like your earlier statement that maybe the WHO said that people shouldn’t wear masks because the US told them to say that, this statement falls into the “basket of random speculative bullshit with zero evidence.” Oh wait, we have more for that basket…
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/wuhan-virus-coronavirus-second-scoot-flight-hubei-china-12412404
Singapore sending flights to Wuhan to retrieve citizens after lockdown.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/29/national/science-health/japan-flies-first-citizens-china-virus-epicenter/
Japan evacuating citizens from Wuhan after lockdown.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51292590
UK flying citizens back to UK after Wuhan lockdown.
etc. etc. These are all international flights no?
I’m glad you know all the facts of who the CCP disappears and who they don’t, and that you believe the CCP narrative on its face. I feel much better now.
We know this because the most famous reprimanded doctor, Li Wenliang (the guy Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley named a bill after), who later died of the virus, gave an interview when he was hospitalised.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/qa-whistleblower-doctor-who-died-fighting-coronavirus-only-wanted-people-to-know-the
Sigh, arguing with low information people is so tiresome. I’m basically helping you do research that you yourself should be doing.
That’s great to know, Macron, given that your government was directly responsible for setting up the lab, lol.
Are you seriously implying France is helping China cover up lmao. Getting serious Freedom Fries vibes here.
As far as coronavirus whistleblowers within China who have disappeared or been arrested
Except they weren’t whistleblowing about human to human transmission. None of them were doctors either except for Li Wenliang, and the article itself says Li had to sign a letter, was not detained, and returned to work the next day. Everyone else on the list was arrested after the January 23 lockdown and had nothing to do with “whistleblowing” human to human transmission.
So again, the Fox news statement that “There were doctors and journalists who were “disappeared” warning of the spread of the virus and its contagious nature and human to human transmission” is factually false.
As far as sources *within China* claiming that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the likely source of Covid-19, the must-read paper from Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao:
Lmao did you yourself even read the paper? There’s literally no proof or evidence in the paper. It is pure speculation.
Mr. Khan, I have another longer comment responding to Ryan2 but it isn’t showing up. Please check, thanks.
@name change
You should thank me for the ten cents the CCP pays you per post. For your sake, I hope that they have increased that amount. Hazard pay is a real thing, amrite?
You are welcome.
“Are you seriously implying France is helping China cover up lmao. Getting serious Freedom Fries vibes here.”
Maybe the French don’t want to be held responsible for their actions? Golly gee.
As far as the piece from legitimate heroes Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, people can judge for themselves.
You should thank me for the ten cents the CCP pays you per post. For your sake, I hope that they have increased that amount. Hazard pay is a real thing, amrite?
The actual term is wumao, which stands for 50 cents not ten. CCP will never care to try to influence opinion on a blog like this. Grow up.
Maybe the French don’t want to be held responsible for their actions? Golly gee.
Maybe the US should rename French fries to Freedom fries to show those sneaky French who’s the boss.
As far as the piece from legitimate heroes Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, people can judge for themselves.
Indeed. I wonder what Mr. Khan thinks of it.
One of my comments haven’t showed up yet but I will repost part of the argument here.
“Like your earlier statement that maybe the WHO said that people shouldn’t wear masks because the US told them to say that, this statement falls into the “basket of random speculative bullshit with zero evidence.” Oh wait, we have more for that basket…”
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/scoot-sends-plane-to-bring-back-sporeans-crew-from-hangzhou
Singapore sending flights to China after Wuhan lockdown to bring citizens back to Singapore.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/02/national/science-health/japan-fourth-wuhan-evacuation-flight-coronavirus/
Japan sending flights to Wuhan after the lockdown to evacuate citizens.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/05/us/coronavirus-wuhan-last-chartered-flights/index.html
US evacuating citizens from Wuhan, after the lockdown.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51318691
UK evacuating citizens from Wuhan after the lockdown.
etc. etc.
Golly gee, I wonder why international flights weren’t stopped.
name change, thanks for the apology. I am becoming increasingly frustrated and annoyed by people on the web who assume that someone who disagrees with them on something is a bad person, a “them” who must hold various bad opinions and/or be associated with other bad people.
Oh, and yes, I do believe that the Chinese government slowed down world response by giving bad data, but even if it had been completely honest and transparent, we’d still be in a world of hurt.
Roger Sweeny had a nice post. In the spirit of Roger, I wish name change good health and a good day.
“Just like the word … squish.”
???
Apparently the Phillippines released a website tracking daily case updates + availability of hospital beds and ventilators. Not sure if other SE Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia have similar websites:
https://ncovtracker.doh.gov.ph/
Recent paper out this morning from the Pasteur Institute on estimated rates of exposure in France: https://hal-pasteur.archives-ouvertes.fr/pasteur-02548181
I’ve enjoyed the COVID episodes of The Insight. I think they’re basically at the right level, and don’t assume too much listener naivete.
Question: Spencer has repeatedly pointed out that number of cases is the metric of choice for comparing COVID severity across jurisdictions, because number of deaths is a lagging indicator.
I understand the point — but my thinking is that even if deaths are lagging, it is easier (given that testing quantity and quality are different everywhere) to accurately count and compare COVID deaths than it is to count and compare COVID cases.
Please explain why I’m wrong?
I agree – the Covid-19 episodes on The Insight have been very good, and in the latest one Spencer made a lot of very good points I hadn’t though of. (And I am pedantically delighted that he has corrected his pronunciation of “taro” on the East Asian Ancestry podcast, which I sucked up like the finest caviar – excellent podcast.)
@JoeQ – I get your point, but fatality rates are also varying a lot between different countries/jurisdictions (and some countries like the UK are not counting elderly care home deaths, which I don’t understand). It is difficult (well, currently actually impossible) to settle on a single metric that will give an accurate picture globally of the spread of the coronavirus. I agree deaths are probably a better indicator at this point than known infections, despite the lag.
@Riordan – You can get daily case updates for Hong Kong from here: https://www.coronavirus.gov.hk/eng/index.html If you scroll down to Latest local situation of COVID-19 and click on that, it gives a lot of patient details. The majority of cases in HK are marked as ‘HK resident’, but ‘Imported’, which means they are ordinarily HK residents (many but not all students) who became infected overseas, and have been found to be infected when quarantined and tested on return to HK. Cases of local transmission are now very close to zero. We had a big surge of infected HK returnees in March, but that has also now dropped to a fairly small trickle. Those are official government data from the Centre for Health Protection, which are fully kosher and you can place complete reliance on them.
@JoeQ – When I talk about fatality rates, I don’t mean the large uncertainties in the denominator due to testing; I am referring specifically to this paper:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1
where they talk about very large differences in pathogenicity between different strains found among only 11 patients that they looked at. A 270-fold difference in viral load is huge.
Li Lunjian, who is a very experienced epidemiologist and the senior author of that paper, speculated that New York might have got a much more severe strain of the coronavirus via Europe, while the west coast states might have got a much milder strain direct from China – it still causes deaths, but it would mean that, even allowing for lag times, using deaths as a metric to track the coronavirus could be misleading.
The simple explanation for obesity as risk factor for severe Covid infection, even among those relatively young:
Obesity/overeating is related to/causes acid reflux.
Acid reflux eats at throat lining (‘epithelial health’, per commenter “charlie”‘s repeated insistence), thus, in the obese, throat is very often lacking its usual youthful healthy sloughing-mucous protection.
Thus virus easily attaches to unprotected ‘raw’ throat tissue. And the viral load grows there dramatically compared to unburned throats.
No need for physiological explanations that ACE2 is more prevalent in obese people. Just this simple mechanical explanation of highly infectible throats.
Q.E.D.
@John Massey,
Thanks for that link to the HK govt’s website. I didn’t know you were still actively posting here. At the risk of going off topic, and since you’re a HK “old hand”, I can’t resist but to ask your assessment of those mass arrests in your city last week. Namely, the coterie of pro-democracy old guard activists that were rounded up and charged with violating the “law” (whatever that law is, I’m unsure). I’ve read “takes” saying those arrests show the Lam admin is now going full CCP in suppressing freedom of speech and assembly, to “takes” saying the arrests were justified because those activists were secretly fomenting and leading violent riots last year. I know this is a highly charged issue, but do wonder if there’s some facts laying underneath all the noise.
@Occam
GERD (acid reflux) affects the esophagus. The trachea (leading to the lungs) is a separate tube.
There is a form of acid reflux that affects the larynx etc. but it’s pretty distinct, and generates respiratory symptoms that are quite different from typical GERD.
@Riordan – I have nothing to say about that. People can make of it what they will, and I am late in getting started on my daily Flamenco guitar practice.