Virus
Hey! It’s been a while…
Have no fear for I’m still alive, and you probably are too. While I wasn’t necessarily planning on writing about this particular topic, it seems too big to ignore at this point, so I offer my two cents.
The hot buzz this month seems not to be on democratic primaries (the original plan for the long-awaited return post), but rather the collapse of civilization from COVID-19, a virus first from bat then to pangolin in Wuhan China, that has definitely become talk of the town (if your town happens to be any continent in the world.)
Let’s take a step back, and look at some data points.
I like to use www.worldometers.info. It gives visitors access to growth rates, a key factor on how infectious a particular organism (say a virus) is. The reason why one would expect a growth rate is because viruses thrive by their ability to multiply in different hosts. For example if patient zero, the first patient except patient zero sounds much more RAD, has the virus on day one. Then they sneeze and spread it to someone else so that two people are sick at day two. Then both sneeze and now four people are sick on day three. This example has a doubling rate, but people can get better or die, meaning they stop contributing to making more people sick, or become immune.
This gives COVID-19 an attack rate of about 1.4 to 2.5 (though this is from WHO on January 23). Other studies suggest it may be higher around 3.5. Naturally if the attack rate is less than 1 then that means the virus is failing to spread as fast. For reference, the common flu has an attack rate of 1.3, and SARS has a rate of 2.
So how is it growing?
Really it is probably more helpful if you look at the data including China, and without China. The growth factor is how many new cases are being introduced from the current day to the previous day. If there are more new cases today then yesterday, the disease is growing. If this growth rate is above 1 consistently, then exponential growth is probably happening, meaning there is no end to the spread of the disease yet.
1.00 rate on March 16
1.00 rate on March 16
Needless to say, the growth rate has begun to become more stable, but it is still increasing. It is increasing at a decreasing rate. It is clear though that there is some variability going on. Also these represent the new cases, not all cases. Those look more like...
If the logarithmic scale has data that looks like a line, then exponential growth is probably how the disease is spreading. Exponential growth would imply that the disease is still out in full force. Looking at both this and the growth factor is key in beginning to understand the nature of the disease. The data above is showing something quite reassuring (at least in my opinion) in that overall, cases appear to be more linear, much slower than exponential growth. However this includes people in China, which is the origin of the disease.
No more new cases in China!
The accumulation of new cases lasted about 42 days in China. The total cases in China have tapered off, pretty much maintaining a 95% recovery rate. Adding 42 days to when this was first spotted in the US, would say we would likely see the end of new cases in about two weeks (3/28) (this is conveniently when a lot of colleges are resuming normal operations).
Eyes now set on countries like Italy (who has the highest number of total cases per 1M people) and Iran (who has the highest number of new cases and deaths at the time of writing). Italy particularly has a lower recovery rate, and only 55% of resolved cases ended in recovery. Still, most ongoing cases from pretty much all countries are now in a “mild” condition. It appears the worst recovery rate could go to china (if the cases in serious condition don’t go well) and that would be a recovery rate of 90%. Italy can change that with its aging population, and (anecdotally) underpreparation.
Ugh, everything is closing!
Yes, no basketball tournaments. No E3 video game conference. No conferences in general. No entry into the US from Europe. Is this virus really a big deal? While I’m not a medical professional, my opinion is of Well yes, but actually no.
Viral diseases can’t really have a cure very fast because they mutate pretty darn fast. Influenza has a new vaccine every year more or less for this reason. This really means the way to tackle treatment of a lot of viral diseases is to treat the symptoms, and let your body become immune to it (like the chicken pox). Older people can’t do this as efficiently, and may need external medical help to do things like clearing out lungs from pneumonia or bronchitis. Most people can treat viruses at home, by drinking water and otherwise treating the symptoms that viral infections bring (fever and dry cough in this case). Things like difficulty breathing should probably not be left to pure at-home treatment. There needs to be a balance to be salient of your health and going to get specialized care. Pandemics (yes this is a pandemic, but then again so was the H1NI “Swine Flu”) have a sense of creating public panic and stigma.
Panic and Stigma: Grab that TP!
Preventative measures are naturally, quite popular to communicate in a pandemic. Nobody wants to be the asshole who got everyone in their work sick.
Places where people meet from different parts of the world are at greater risk of international contamination. Cruise liners, airports, Disneyland are all places where this may be likely to happen. Also, if someone exposed to one of these places then goes to school, a place with low geographic diversity, then all of the sudden the chance of a local outbreak is quite real. It’s quite hyperbolic, but these precautions may just be why the coronavirus is not infiltrating communities where it can do more damage. The general sensible advice is to try to stay hygienic, and if you become sick, stay at home.
Stigma is the part of pandemic that is a result of the part of the human mind that avoids sickness.
