Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Yeah, was just interested in how much of a team would help him do this. I imagine it is a big one in usual times. Noticed it also with Beth Rigby in what appears the Sky studio while other reporters are WFH. Boris, we know had those technology lessons already.

.

.

I knocked a wine glass off the worktop the other day and did a ninja reflex catch with my other wrist against the cupboard, shit myself with the potential consequences afterwards especially during this... I also revelled in the self pride of the catch.

Big jump in the numbers today, a lot more than I was expecting

The DHSC said that as of 9am on 1 April, a total of 152,979 people had been tested of whom 29,474 tested positive.

As of 5pm on 31 March, of those treated in hospital in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 2,352 had died.

This is an increase of 563 – or 31% – from the 1,789 deaths reported the day before.

Well, unfortunately we're still in the 'exponential growth' period for the death numbers at least, I don't see how the measures taken so far could already translate into an effect on deaths. With respect to the number of infected, it's difficult to interpret that anyway, as the UK is not doing a "test everybody everywhere as much as possible" type of approach.

probably a pea

Something I'm finding interesting to follow isn't the count of cases, but rather the day to dayincrease or decreases. In this article, (sorry, in Spanish), the second and third infographics show the rate (as a ratio) that the cases and deaths are growing relative to 3 days ago.

The Guardian, for example, call out that the no. of deaths yesterday was the highest yet, but for the last 3-4 days, almost every community in Spain has recorded decreasing ratios, so the curve is flattening.

I hope this gets maintained throughout.

https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

How are they testing in Spain though, and how much? I'd be very careful with getting any conclusions at all from the case numbers - I think, if anything the death numbers in the second table are more 'solid' in that sense. Also, they don't mention basing their calculation on some kind of running average (unless I missed it?), so while the decrease in speed is of course great to see, the numbers would be a lot more dependable if they weren't exposed to the types of random ups and downs (noise) in the daily data.

America seems to have separated from reality. It’s all propaganda now.

Larry Kudrow’s job seems to be professionally wrong 100% of the time and the President drip feeds talking points to the gullible. Fauci hasn’t slept for a week trying to dilute the nonsense.

There's a lag of up to a month in the death rates, though - there's a leading/lagging indicator problem with all the data here, and none of them tells us the real infection rate.

This is quite good on the problems with the numbers - https://unherd.com/2020/04/how-likely-are-you-to-die-of-coronavirus/

For sure, that's why I'm super curious to see the outcome of widespread antibody testing...

Yeah, and it looks like we might be just behind them, fingers crossed.

It is only important - in this case - that the data is collected consistently day to day. As long they stick to the same methodology while building that chart, it is an accurate representation.

It isn't the numbers, but the comparison between the numbers that matters.

Well not quite. For example, the number of tests run is pretty important too. We've seen it in other places before, a drop in the number of new infected one day, correlating with a drop in tests performed that day.

Also, that doesn't change anything about the fact that the data is pretty noisy, and basing anything on single-day numbers is a bit shaky. See the FT graph above, where they add up all new cases of the last week on each day, which makes for a much more convincing measure.

Which is exactly what I meant by "that the data is collected consistently day to day".

Ok, but that's not a given at all.

that graph is shit in, shit out.

We all know cases are pointless metric, and I am surprised the FT allowed such a graph.

Maybe, but I think there is some evidence that the Italian shut down is starting to have an effect on reducing new cases.

Have you tried the extra spicy ones?
Criminal!

I lost a fingernail to this once, never again!

Masturbation will not spread coronavirus

Kinda the opposite really as it boosts the immune system.

Not going to google a source for that as I'm on my work computer.