Corona Virus

[Mike J]

23 hours ago, GeoffH said:

It is my opinion that being 'tribal' is something that is so deeply a part of us that we will never ever get past it.

Sure in modern times these 'tribes' have different names, they're called schools, towns, cities, states, countries, the western democracies even 'the free world' but tribality still underlies and defines so much of what humanity does and how it interacts in groups.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all get along.

 

[Tommy T.]

9 hours ago, earthdome said:

people stopped using whale oil for their lamps which saved the whales from extinction and switched to kerosene

Very true. However you did not mention the Japanese taste for whale meat as they do their best to drive them into extinction maybe?

[Marvin Boggs]

18 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

I seriously believe that poor people having 8, 10, 12 kids or more is equally not responsible. However... what else will they do? Fijians view big families as their version of Social Security... 

Not just Fiji, practically every poor country this is the standard procedure.  The only path out of it (if we want to avoid forced sterilization and punishment), is through prosperity.  Prosperous people seem to naturally gravitate toward fewer children, that just seems to be human nature.  Prosperity requires education, education increases opportunity, etc.  

Its important to face facts and recognize the third world countries for what they are:  human capital for the rich elite.  We shudder to think of things in these terms, but I would argue it has been this way since the colonial days at least.  Probably throughout history as well.  

[Dave Hounddriver]

I have to call BS on the people who believe that the economy is linked to population growth.  My evidence is:

Quote

 

. . . the top five countries in terms of nominal GDP -- the U.S., China, Japan, Germany and India -- contribute a whopping 55% to the world’s GDP. . . 

Source: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-5-largest-economies-in-the-world-and-their-growth-in-2020-2020-01-22

 

Now if you could convince me that the populations of China and India are shrinking I may change my opinion.

[bastonjock]

14 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

Very true. However you did not mention the Japanese taste for whale meat as they do their best to drive them into extinction maybe?

It's not just the Japanese with a taste for whale meat, Norway also has a taste and dont forget the faroe islands who have organized round ups of pilot whales 

There are still what may be conceived barbaric customs of some people, the outer scottish isles has an annual sea bird egg grab ,barbaric to some but food to others 

Last century, the kerocine industry took out the lively hoods of the islanders of St Kilda, they used to farm a sea bird called a Fulmar and extract its oil for lamps ,they ate the meat 

St Kilda is no longer habitated, it's a beautiful place 

 

[GeoffH]

7 hours ago, bastonjock said:

St Kilda is no longer habitated, it's a beautiful place 

That's a bit ironic... the St Kilda in Melbourne named after the original St Kilda by British settlers is now a desirable place to live.

It's a small beach side suburb with a population of a bit over 20,000 (that has become trendy with high property values).

My aunt and uncle lived there (before it was trendy lol).

[GeoffH]

The disease now has a name (but not the actual virus).

 You'll have to read the linked article if you're interested, I'm not going to attempt to explain the convoluted logic behind that.

 

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/bit-chaotic-christening-new-coronavirus-and-its-disease-name-create-confusion

[Mike J]

20 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

I have to call BS on the people who believe that the economy is linked to population growth.  My evidence is:

Now if you could convince me that the populations of China and India are shrinking I may change my opinion.

But there is a difference in "population growth" and "shrinking or growing population".  Are they still growing - yes, as are all countries in the world.  Has the growth slowed - yes.  China has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.  The birth rate for India also continues to drop, but not to the degree of China.  The high birth rates tend to be in Africa and the middle east countries.  The correlation between economic growth or standard of living and population is tied to rate of birth rate rather than total population. 

https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

 

[Mike J]

Big jump in number of cases to almost 60,000 as they are now counting those diagnosed via CT scan as well as well as nucleic acid test.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/china-coronavirus-cases-surge-almost-012806434.html

(Bloomberg) -- Coronavirus cases in the Chinese province at the center of the outbreak surged by 45% to nearly 50,000, after authorities added a new group of patients diagnosed by a different method, raising questions over the true scale of a crisis that appeared in recent days to be coming under control.

The change will raise the number of those infected globally by a third to almost 60,000, dashing hope that the epidemic was showing signs of easing.

In a statement on Thursday morning, the Hubei national health commission said it would now start including cases confirmed by “clinical diagnosis,” which refers to using CT imaging scans to diagnose patients, alongside those confirmed by the previous method of nucleic acid testing kits.

Previously, many patients with pneumonia-like symptoms found via CT scans could not be diagnosed as positive without an additional nucleic acid test.

The abrupt spike reversed the declining growth trend of previous days. U.S. stock futures retreated along with the offshore yuan, and the yen gained.

“The capacity to do the laboratory testing is limited in some way, and we have heard anecdotally that they’ve had to use CT scans to diagnose probable or suspected cases without testing.” said Raina MacIntyre, professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales. “So I think it’s a more complete way of counting the cases.”

The change in method will renew concern over the adequacy and reliability of the tests currently used to identify stricken patients globally, and raise questions over the true scale of the outbreak that has now affected over 40,000 and killed over 1,000 people. The spike in number -- and the implication that thousands of cases had previously not been disclosed by Hubei province -- will likely intensify public anger against the government’s handling of the crisis.

Faulty Tests

The traditional nucleic acid test identifies the virus in a patient’s body through its specific genetic sequence, but reports of a severe lack of test kits and the unreliability of test results have circulated since the start of the crisis.

In Hubei province’s Wuhan city, where the outbreak originated, people with symptoms like fever and coughing wait for hours in line to get tested. But those who test negative were usually turned away from hospital, although tests were known to throw up false negatives.

China Virus Cases Surging 3,000% May Be Undercounting Infections

“A patient may be found as negative for the first or second test, and then found to be positive the third time,” said Jonathan Yu, a doctor at a university hospital in Wuhan, in an interview last month. “It is like fishing in a pond: You did not catch a fish once, but that does not mean the pond does not have fish.”

The issue has cropped up outside China as well. On Wednesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that test kits shipped to labs across the country and around the world last week have had problems detecting the virus.

Public Anger

In an update to its treatment guidelines on Feb. 5, China’s National Health Commission added the category of “clinically diagnosed cases” in recognition of a shortage of nucleic acid tests. But Hubei province did not include this category in its case count until Thursday, a week later.

A spokesman at the National Health Commission said it’s unknown why Hubei only started reporting the clinically diagnosed case number today, even though doctors should have started diagnosing patients using CT scan images shortly after the update was released on Feb. 5.

In its Thursday statement, Hubei said that the reason for the counting change is to ensure patients receive standard treatment early on. It is unclear if the 13,332 cases it added in the “clinically diagnosed” category were just from a single day of CT scans, or a longer time period.

In total, Hubei added 14,840 new cases on Thursday, of which 13,332 are from the new category of clinical diagnosis using CT scans. The death toll in the province rose by 242, of which 135 cases are from the new method of diagnosis, it said.

Both local and central government officials have been accused of delaying news of the new virus in the early days of the epidemic and eight local doctors who tried to ring the alarm were reprimanded by local authorities, only to be later vindicated by the country’s Supreme Court.

Earlier this week, Hubei province removed two top provincial health commission officials, Liu Yingzi and Zhang Jin, from their posts.

(Updated with quotes in 5th paragraph, clinical diagnosis definition and guideline updates in 7th and 8th paragraphs)

[GeoffH]

3 hours ago, Mike J said:

Big jump in number of cases to almost 60,000 as they are now counting those diagnosed via CT scan as well as well as nucleic acid test.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/china-coronavirus-cases-surge-almost-012806434.html

 

The graph below shows the increase in cases over time and the large increase of the last graph bar shows the change in diagnosis that Mike J is talking about.