Discussion thread VI - COVID-19 (new coronavirus)

[longshots]

https://www.worldometers.info/about/

"About
Worldometer is run by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. It is published by a small and independent digital media company based in the United States. We have no political, governmental, or corporate affiliation. Furthermore, we have no investors, donors, grants, or backers of any type. We are completely independent and self-financed through automated programmatic advertising sold in real time on multiple ad exchanges."

does bug me a little bit about advertising... there is also a "contact us" link if you are really interested... https://www.worldometers.info/contact/

I will say their North Carolina numbers usually match exactly with NC Gov's page : https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/

[sharon sanders]

Hey Everyone!

I just wanted to remind everyone that all of the counts for COVID-19 are off. This disease is asymptomatic in large numbers of people. Only a fraction are counted as cases. And many natural deaths are not being counted as COVID-19 related either.

Additionally, as the economic consequences mount - every government has an incentive to provide lower numbers. As to the private counting groups, I do not know how reliable they will be going into the future. For instance, I can't find anything about who is behind worldometers. Private companies can have their own motivations.

Please use numbers as a trend indicator only.

[gsgs]

not to sound too pessimistic here -- there are some bad signs, but I still consider it likely
that the hospitalisations and deaths will be much lower (<50%) in this wave in
ITA,SPA,FRA,GBR,NLD,BEL .
It;s a mystery why they had so many deaths in wave 1 , not seen elsewhere in EU,AS,AF,OZ
except Sweden

Spain update by Jose Gefaell ("no 2nd wave in Spain") probably tomorrow

[gsgs]

Drosten in NDR-podcast still seems to think, that the deaths
in Europe are going to increase a lot
> but the virus must
> first join the older age cohorts
> redistribute. And that takes many weeks. And
> then they have to come to the hospital first
> and ultimately have a difficult course. Also
> that will take more weeks. D.

{also tlking about Africa, Kenia+S.Africa }

https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/coronaskript226.pdf

in German, can be translated with google, but not all in one chunk, afaik ?!?

[Gert van der Hoek]

OK, that's clear then, thanks. .

[sharon sanders]

Hey Gert! - Sure, please link to FluTrackers. It is easy to link to us by using the "Tweet" button on the left column. Anyone can link a FluTrackers post to Twitter if they have an account there.

[gsgs]

Spain,France are maybe just at the start of the wave, that they may get 50000 cases per day in 3 weeks,
similar to Israel,Czech, etc.
The cases-by-onset charts, which show a decline in the last weeks, are very incomplete.
The deaths are being corrected , 332,383,430 the last days for the deaths 8-14 days ago = date of death (not date of report).
So it's redoubling every 6 days, 1000 per weeks currently. could be 10000 in 3 weeks , worse as wave1
{I'm not sure yet, will compare with France)

The peaks in Aragon,Madrid were only temporary, it;s going up again.
Cataluna may avoid it with lockdown.

https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesional...9_COVID-19.pdf

------------------------
Ahh, Israel with 8461 cases yesterday, and lockdown. Population = 8.7M ,
so at that rate it would give >300000 cases in USA on a single day

[gsgs]

a higher deathrate is only seen in South-Africa.
But South Africa is also different, more European
Deaths are also low in Malaria-free countries like Kenya,Egypt
A high amount of travel may induce cases nd deaths ?!
(see the google+apple "mobility-charts)

Marocco,Libya,Tunesia only now get a wave, deaths may still rise
Namibia has a little more deaths
Distance from the equator seems to correlate with Malaria and with COVID-deaths in Africa

http://magictour.free.fr/mfafr.GIF

[Emily]

The censorship creates more polarization. Pretty soon everything other than what is acceptable to the corporate media ends up on a far right or far left site that has the funds to keep afloat. You get a lot of propaganda or at least agenda on those sites on top of what you are interested in. IMO it is counter-productive to censor.

[Emily]

Yes, there are some nice scientists, etc, with insight to share on Twitter. If you don't want to have an account, you can use twitter.com/search and browse a topic and find people you like. Then you should be able to follow their posts.

[Emily]

Sharon, I know you could be right about undercounting in Africa. You spotted this thing brewing in China first. I hope that there might be some real resistance in Africa. Might not be cholorquine since this article, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...020.01476/full, says it isn't being used much there now due to malaria resistance. They are still using artemisinin compounds and those sound safer that chloroquine and antibiotics. I know a cancer patient who used quite a bit for awhile. (Not effective for that in this case.)

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.01476/full

[Gert van der Hoek]

I completely respect your decision, Sally and Sharon. A lot of bad is going on at Twitter and Facebook. The open and silent wars there could even threathen our life and our democracy. The censorship is a real threat too.

For me Twitter was and still is a tremendous source of information. I learned a lot about many subjects. In my quiet little corner at Twitter nobody is bothering me directly. I know there is a lot going on and I try to deal with the misinformation. At the same time: everybody participating in social media could be subject to all kinds of unwanted things, incl. profiling you and targeting you.

I often link to posts at FT, what would you like me to do in the future? Continue or stop with linking to FT? I have no preference.

[gsgs]

you can block users or generally restrict, who can reply.
(I didn't try that, but I saw it)
To circumvent censorship, you can link to FT-threads, where you post the critical things

even if you don;t post at twitter, it's still useful to follow others who you appreciate

[sharon sanders]

I spoke to Sally and as directors we agreed to pull our support from twitter. I will make a post tomorrow that more fully describes our decision after 98.6k tweets since 2009.

[sharon sanders]

Twitter did not do anything to FluTrackers but the site has devolved into a Flame Wars site. FluTrackers has a history of not participating on these types of sites. In fact, we have never responded to any flame wars against us on any site. I will be talking to Sally about this in the next couple of days. Frankly, we don't need twitter and the constant vitriolic wordage is uncivilized and out of control. The Flame War environment on twitter serves to increase clicks which can be promoted to attract advertisers. This is an old trick of early forums. And now with the apparent widespread censorship...enough...more later......