WHO Roadmap Suggests 10,000 Cases By Oct. 9

[franzpick]

WHO's additional cases from their 9/7 data of 4366 to today's release of 9/13 data of 4963 cases declares an increase of 597 cases over the 6 days, which averages 100 new cases per day, and would DOUBLE the 4963 to 10,000 cases in 51 days, except that WHO has omitted the 4 days 9/10-11-12 and 13 of new cases from the fastest growing country Liberia, which means 457+/- Liberian cases should be added in to obtain a more indicative WHO 3 country 9/13 total of 5420 cases.

Cases for this 'normalized' 6 day period 9/7 to 9/13 will approximate 1054, divided by 6 days, giving a more realistic average daily new case number of 176 per day: WHO's understated 4963 cases would DOUBLE to almost 10,000 in 28 days (from 9/13) by Oct. 11, while the adjusted 5420 cases including Liberia would reach 10,000 in 26 days by Oct. 9th. These trends and doubling period continuing might suggest 20,000 cases within 49 days by Nov. 3rd., in line with the more rapid infection rate and the lower 15 day case-doubling period forecast recently by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research.

For some reason WHO's footnote from today's roadmap will not copy, where it states the omission of the 4 Liberian days 9/10-13 beneath TABLE 1, but the exact wording is as follows:

"Data for Liberia are based on reported cases up to the end of 9 September 2014. Data reported are based on official information reported by Ministries of Health."

Official Liberian MOH information for 2 of the WHO-omitted days 9/10-11 has been available since yesterday 9/15 at the MOHsw site, and what reason there is for WHO to not include at least the 2 official reports already released, totaling 179 new cases, while at the same time declaring the 3 country 6 day new case increase of only 597 cases, is beyond me:

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/who roadmapupdate16sept14.pdf

http://www.mohsw.gov.lr/documents/Liberia Ebola SitRep 118 Sept 10, 2014.pdf

http://www.mohsw.gov.lr/documents/Liberia Ebola SitRep 119 Sept 11, 2014.pdf

 

[kondor]

Re: WHO Roadmap Suggests 10,000 Cases By Oct. 9

Historically with outbreaks of zoonotic viruses you have to really take the data over a much longer period than 6 days. Since March has been obvious that this outbreak is doubling roughly every 25 days, and it has kept that rate up. If it starts taking 50 days that would be terrific news, but we will have to wait to see before proper conclusions can be drawn. We also of course have the problem that once the daily rate hits a certain amount the amount of relative testing declines. So the figures become less accurate but at the same time we do get some indication when it starts to decrease, usually by some announcement that it is being brought under control.

WHO almost always releases data sporadically, no matter what the outbreak, which can be frustrating but at least they are consistently inconsistent.

My tip for you if you wish to monitor and predict is look back at the numbers and see how long it has been taking to double, rather than the amount of infected per day averaging over a short span of time, then make a guess as to what figure you think it will be when that time span is next due, and be prepared to be wrong as a lot of factors come in to how these figures develop. You might notice some anomalies, such as the speed in a city on one country compared with a less populated are in another. You can then dig deeper and try to work out why this is happening, this is where the WHO reports come into their own as they often contain nuggets of "boots on the ground" information which might not seem relevant until you have found an anomaly that fits with what the observation is. You could well find something everyone is missing by doing this.

Keep up the observations posts, they are always interesting, but do not draw too many conclusions from those over a shorter time.

 

[franzpick]

Re: WHO Roadmap Suggests 10,000 Cases By Oct. 9

Thanks Kondor for your response, but your points conflict with my understanding of 1) those techniques which best reveal trend accelerations, or reversals, as well as 2) what WHO and others are doing both 'on the ground' and in the press.

Give me a chance tomorrow to respond specifically to your longer-term-views and other proposals, so that FT viewers can have an alternative view of what could be, from my viewpoint, an underreported and emerging pandemic hiding in plain sight.

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: WHO Roadmap Suggests 10,000 Cases By Oct. 9

The rate of Ebola infections in West Africa continues to accelerate and has been exponentially increasing since July as shown in the graph below. This is not a phenomenon of the rate of infections in the past few days. So far this outbreak is an epidemic concentrated in West Africa. It could become a pandemic if it spreads outside of Africa to other continents. If that happens it won't be a pandemic hiding in plain sight. The world will be acutely aware.