I’m assuming you mean the prisons in China? Sorry, I don’t trust officials from China to be honest about the number of prison deaths from anything, let alone COVID-19. Authoritarian governments don’t tend to be real transparent when it comes to prisoner well-being.
That said, there is an outbreak in Evin Prison in Iran, and one person is reported to have died so far. Of course, we don’t know how many people are infected and how many have been tested. But it isn’t a zero fatality rate.
At this point, we only have enough information to say that the vast majority of people aren’t going to die any time soon. I don’t see the point of us amateurs trying to make a more precise statement than this with the limited and somewhat questionable information we have available to us.
Well since some ARE and promulgating a narrative that the infection fatality rate is 1 or 2% (and thus end times are nigh), and ignoring the experts caveats that the current case fatality rates are likely overestimates by some amount, I very much see the point.
Data from China is where the sky is falling numbers originate. Seems pretty inconsistent to give them credence when they portend apocalyptic death rates with hospitals being overwhelmed, but to ignore the data and informed analysis that portends infection mortality rates similar to seasonal influenza, which would still be bad in terms of absolute death numbers.
Evin prison houses about 15,000. They’ve reportedly run out of even basic medicines, sanitary, and hygiene supplies. It is infamous for its wretchedness. Not exactly known for having good ventilation. Or keeping its prisoners healthy. Hmm. A highly contagious virus there. What sort of infection rate do you reasonably think would result? Given that over 25% of a luxury cruise ship’s passengers got infected in a fairly short period of time. Fewer than under luxury conditions or more? Let’s just go with the same. That’s 3750 infected give or take. One death, if accurate, would be 0.02% fatality rate. Sure a few more might die, but even then - this is two orders of magnitude less than what some are saying the infection fatality rate IS, stating it as fact. Numbers from Iran are not data to hang a hat on to but this is much more consistent with a CFR of seasonal influenza level or less than an order of magnitude higher or more than it.
@magiver, it has been 30 years since Tiananmen. Mao on a pogo stick, nearly half of China’s population was born after that event, the economy has doubled multiple times, third world nation to a middle class larger than the US population, the interwebs happened, etc. Whilst the Chinese government isn’t an model of impartial reporting, it is not any where near the backwater it was 3 decades ago. Chose a different and relevant yardstick if you must.
Now, if you go down to Active Cases and click Show Graph, what you see is that the number of Active Cases has been steadily dropping for two weeks. And if you look at the graph for Closed Cases, the daily death rate also seems to be steadily dropping.
Wouldn’t you expect these to be rising, if it’s really an epidemic/pandemic?
Maybe I’m missing something. Can anyone tell me what?
The number of new cases are showing up all over the place. Yesterday India wasn’t reporting any cases. Today they are reporting six. The numbers of cases are steadily climbing in Iran. Cases are popping up in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. There’s no reason to doubt that soon all countries will be reporting cases. So this thing is definitely spreading. What definition of “pandemic” are you using?
Also keep in mind that some countries have dynamic testing criteria. See Italy.
The dropping mortality rate makes complete sense as more diverse populations are exposed to the virus. The virus could also be losing some of its virulence. You may be aware of this, but just in case you aren’t: a disease can reach pandemic status while having a low kill rate.
Actually, I didn’t draw any conclusions. You seem to be imagining that. I only asked a question.
To try to have an intelligent discussion about this:
Obviously, the main reason the the active cases are dropping, is that they are dropping in China, which is worst affected. Now - assuming that the Chinese figures are accurate - that means it must be getting under control in China, rather than getting worse.
If you look at the growth factors (daily new cases / previous day’s new cases) on this page, you will see that they are hovering around 1, and even dipping below 1 the past couple of days. This is the case both for the overall growth factor, and also the growth factor excluding mainland China. A growth factor above 1 indicates an increase, and below 1 is a decline.
The daily graph of Newly Infected vs. Newly Recovered shows newly recovered consistently higher than newly affected for the past two weeks (including China).
Obviously drastic quarantine measures in the worst affected areas have helped (at a great economic cost), but overall doesn’t it appear to be rather contained than getting out of control?
If you disagree, I’d appreciate a logical argument with statistics.
The reduced growth factor could be due to multiple things.
China is quite dense compared to other countries. The higher the population density, the higher the infection rate. Duh. So it is a not a shock that the rate of new cases isn’t constant. I would expect it to go through lulls and I would it expect to go through surges, regardless of containment measures on the ground. Different densities, different demographics, and cultural practices can affect infection rate.
As I said upthread, testing criteria are ever shifting. Italy has decided to become more restrictive in who they test. And of course, the US seems to be shitting the bed on testing in an embarrassing way. The decreasing rate in new cases could very well be due to government redefining what a “case” is. Right now, South Korea and Singapore seem to be the only governments who are testing in a general and consistent fashion. Big ups to them.
It requires having a lot of faith in the reported numbers to make the leap you seem to be making. China has been grappling with this thing longer than everyone else. They have barricaded entire cities in a way no one else has done/is doing. What they are doing is not being replicated anywhere else. So I don’t know why you seem to be implying that containment there indicates something about containment everywhere else.
Apologies for I misinterpreting your tone. I find it confusing when someone makes an observation like “The number of new cases are dropping and so is the daily death rate” and then asks a question like “How is this an epidemic/pandemic?” You seemed to be making an annoying rhetorical point that I keep seeing on Reddit. One not need to be a hysterical nutjob to see this thing as a global pandemic. All that is required is widespread pravelence . The disease does need not to be growing exponentially with a high kill rate to meet that definition. Apologies if this was not the position you were taking.
Not at all, except for the fact that the store I cashier at sold 1,000 little bottles of hand sanitizer in one day and we still have people asking for it.
I’m tired of this nonsense. Get an immune system, folks.
Green Wyvern, just to add to what has been said, it appears multiple places around the world are at the beginning of what China is in the middle of.
Washington state seems the best example of this. It is said that genetic evidence of the virus suggests it has been spreading there for 6 weeks. I don’t think even 100 peoplehave been tested there, the ability to do so just isn’t ramped up. So, there are very likely many more cases than is or can be reported right now.
Apply that observation to the rest of the world, and add the fact that the outbreaks outside China are not yet “mature”, and it looks like there is a big increase in cases on the horizon.
OTOH, Washington state is not littered with corpses, so I think the virus is probably not 2% fatal like the (probably incomplete) data suggests.
Evidence within China shows that the CFR differs starkly depending on whether the healthcare system is overwhelmed or not and that uncontrolled spread can quickly overwhelm even the most well resourced healthcare systems. The CFR for Diamond Princess represents close to the best case scenario as all affected are receiving a high quality of care.
You would naturally expect to see the CFR be much higher if the virus spreads hot & fast.
Pretty sure the quoted sources in the article say the opposite of your claim. They are (implausibly) claiming that previous cases of “vape lung” may actually be coronavirus.