The Maths of Coronavirus

[Carole]

I didn't get that off the internet, it was on BBC News with a scientist presenting it.

Carole

[Mac]

Heres an interesting quick read from the BBC.
Its a paper by a professor at cambridge university on the death toll.

in a nut shell,

every year there at 600'000 deaths in the uk.
How many more are due to this virus, not many according to their calculations and explanation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Mac

[Rick]

How many more are due to this virus, not many according to their calculations and explanation.

Perhaps the author should visit some of the hospitals being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. I think, if they did, they might just change their tune. I think they've missed something along the way...

[ApophisAstros]

My understanding is its fake news. At least two people have died from overdosing on cholorquine in Nigeria hoping to protect themselves. I used to take it when I worked in Papua New Guinea in the 1980s, nasty hallucinations if you took two doses in a day by mistake. Nasty but necessary in that part of the world. 16 different mossies and 21 malarias :}

Is it true that Mosquitoes have killed more humans than have died in ALL of the wars in human history?
Roger

[Rick]

Mosquitos never killed anyone. They do, however, play a part in quite a few diseases, and some of those have been killing people since before the human race was even human...

It's one of those "lies, damned lies, and statistics" quotes best taken with a pich of salt (or a stiff G&T, if that takes your fancy).

[ApophisAstros]

Mosquitos never killed anyone. They do, however, play a part in quite a few diseases, and some of those have been killing people since before the human race was even human...

It's one of those "lies, damned lies, and statistics" quotes best taken with a pich of salt (or a stiff G&T, if that takes your fancy).

Mosquitoes may have killed half the people who ever lived

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24332420-500-mosquitoes-may-have-killed-half-the-people-who-ever-lived/#ixzz6ID6QPiTl
Roger

[NoelC]

Roger; mosquitoes rule!  Interesting that they haven't been identified as a vector for diseases other than malaria (why not ebola or HIV?).

COVID-19
A semi interesting article from LSHTM on critical care bed availability and the relationship of under reporting to estimates of the growth in infection:
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2020/critical-care-beds-uk-and-differences-reporting-symptomatic-cases
It was based on this paper of the 22nd March, but it has been updated:-
https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/current-patterns-transmission/ICU-projections.html
The author puts our critical care bed capacity at 4,123 beds, at the commons the head of NHS committed to delivering 30,000 - not sure what the difference is there, suspect the head of the NHS was referring to all beds?
The article makes the point that data appears to be being delayed and under reported (system starting to break down?).
We can only hope the worst case projections are wrong!

No mention of Dr Julian Peto at LSHTM - suspect he has been fired or buried for daring to challenge the governments position on testing.

[The Thing]

Roger; mosquitoes rule!  Interesting that they haven't been identified as a vector for diseases other than malaria (why not ebola or HIV?).

Because malaria is a parasite caused disease not a virus or bacteria. Had it in Papua New Guinea when I was working there many many years ago.

[The Thing]

We're all guinea pigs in the laboratory of life. Better a cute guinea pig than a lab rat!

[Carole]

Malaria is spread by Mosquitoes, the mosquitoes themselves don't cause Malaria etc it's a parasite that some of them carry that causes the illness which gets into your blood when they bite you.

Carole

[MarkS]

Have you heard of the Global Health Security Index?  It's an index of the preparedness of countries around the world to the outbreak of some new pathogen: https://www.ghsindex.org/

It's really comforting(?) to know that the UK is second only to the US in terms of its readiness for a pandemic.  Not just on one measure but all six: Prevent, detect, respond, health, norms, risk.

I think someone, somewhere needs to be asking some very serious questions when this is all over ...

Mark

[Mac]

Another interesting site on covid, where they have been plotting & logging the spread as well as sequencing the RNA of the virus.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov?d=tree,map&p=grid

[MarkH]

It seems to me that the fatality influence has a genetic relationship.Let's see how stats progress from here.

[MarkS]

Another interesting site on covid, where they have been plotting & logging the spread as well as sequencing the RNA of the virus.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov?d=tree,map&p=grid

So it's mutating?  That throws another unwanted random element into the mix 

Mark

[ApophisAstros]

That map could be the flight paths of passenger aircraft before it started , i always thought they should have grounded all aircraft worldwide a lot sooner.Heard of a man who went home from GB to hunan , China recently and hes got it,
Roger