COVID- 19 - is a squashed sombrero at 1,000,000 infections per month ?
We have close to mass hysteria at the moment on number of cases & deaths that are tiny to where the implication are that this is heading.
Maybe my maths & thinking are all nonsense but are there not just two options. Both with exceptionally bad implications even if containment works.
Option 1 - Eradicate the virus.
* Lock down & containment, and coming to the world?
* If it’s a complete success the result is a massive drop in supply & demand globally from the lock downs.
* What if it doesn’t, continued lock downs, continually, until it's contained?
Or
* Acceptance it cant be contained & then we need to move to heard immunity.
Option 2 - Herd Immunity
* Lets say 70% of the UK to get it = 46,000,000
* So let's assume, somehow the sombrero is squashed & that’s 1,000,000 a month.
* That's 4 years of a sustained infection rate of 1 million per month.
* OK, 1m per month too much, so say 500k, 8 years…you get the thinking.
The point is these numbers are so hugely different to todays small numbers.
The key question is what is the ideal, or sustainable number of infections. 1m a month is 4 years of this process.
We already have near mass hysteria with Italy running at 3500 per day, to achieve 1m per month that’s 33,000 per day!
So for me, when we start to look at the numbers now compared with what they would need to be if the virus is not contained, we are miles away from reality.
The economic & social impact of the world running at 60% infection rate over many years is almost impossible to comprehend.
Alternatively the action required to contain the virus, ie weeks, and months of lock downs across the world is similarly hard to really grasp.
So, I remember a saying about being stuck in a traffic jam ‘what the hell is all this traffic, you are the traffic’. Maybe I am part of the hysteria.
I have a bear market plan, to scale in, which I have been doing a little of as we are down 30%, but this situation feels very different. The duration of the impact could be years & the impact huge, global and all happening at the same time, over years.
So in summary C19 was initially about supply chains, then the impact of containment. I think now the focus has to be on the years ahead and I cannot see any reason to go mostly into cash with most companies earnings being completely smashed.
Especially as the reality of what the numbers need to be, or will be, becomes understood.
I’m struggling to see a happier, more sunny outlook that doesn’t sit in the world of wishful thinking.
I am wondering when the media will start to discuss the actual numbers of the size of the sombrero, because isn't this the key question? Not least how you then manage to achieve it!
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26 comments
May help to reflect on this:
The Promising Math Behind ‘Flattening the Curve’
Infectious diseases spread exponentially, yes, but only in the beginning. Thank God.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-promising-math-behind-flattening-the-curve/
Here is an interesting but speculative study about the spread of corona virus by Oxford University, which has a very different and more hopeful view than the recent study by Imperial College:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/904584/new-oxford-study-suggests-millions-people-may-have-already-built-coronavirus-immunity
I have no opinion on which of these very different studies is closer to the truth.
If half the population has been infected why are the test results much lower then? I believe infection is much wider than figures indicate but not that high, recent tests have been around 13% but that is on mainly hospital admissions. They are looking at new tests which will be on antibodies in the blood which may give a better indication of how many have been infected. My opinion falls in between those 2 studies which I consider at the extremes. There seems little evidence in that study, if they had tested say a sample of 500 people at a University and found half had been infected that would carry much more weight. You only have to see what is happening in Italy and Spain to have some reservations about their theory.
I agree that it is hard to rationalise the idea that 50% of the population have been infected today.
Even on yesterdays test figures - 78% of those tested (ie mostly those that are showing serious symptoms) did not have the disease.
They would have to be pretty unlucky (and potentially medical freaks) to have contracted symptomless covid-19 and then go on to contract another serious respiratory disorder within a couple of months. (I discount the idea that symptomless covid-19 leaves one prone to other respiratory disorders as I have not heard any evidence that they has been a rise in other respiratory conditions - in fact I thought flu cases were relatively low this year)
Adam Kucharski puts the Oxford study into perspective:
https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1242569554171179008
Great answer from Vallance at today's press conference though when Boris Johnson asked about it: "We just don't know."
Re the low apparent mortality rate in Germany .
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this, but I just read that in Germany if a Covid-19 patient with an "underlying medical condition" dies they are recording the death as being due to the underlying condition rather than Covid-19.
If true then it is yet another imprecision in the public numbers.
I recall that many years ago (and again it may not be true) that a pathologist told me that many death certificates are technically incorrect as everyone actually dies of heart failure.
Very interesting about Germany. Figures its very difficult to get accurate and comparable ones. I’m sure many Coronavirus deaths have been missed, many countries don’t do autopsies, many don’t have testing kits or very few or only recently and don’t have the facilities to test. Some countries could have covered up the number of deaths. The numbers are only a very rough guide to what is going on. I would like to see how many deaths are purely from Coronavirus and the ages. Underlying health issues can be quite wide, need more details.
Some musings on today's reports.
1. China Serious / Critical cases.Now stand at 2,136 which is down sharply on the 3,226 reported three days ago. This figure has stayed stubbornly high in the three weeks or so since the number of new cases came under control. ( Was 7,365 on 1st March)
I'm not sure how rigorously "case conclusions" are being reported (by any country) but if that three week+ lag is representative then it is important when considering when countries can bring their case load within their actual capacity to effectively treat.
2. Spanish GoalsSpain's Foreign Affairs Minister Arancha González has said the government hopes to flatten the curve of infection "within two weeks".
Now, I do understand the idea of flattening the curve, but how do define having done it?
- Is it when the number of "active" cases starts to decline? (if so the above suggests there could be a significant time lag to get to this point)
- Is it when you bring the number of active cases within the capacity of the healthcare system (potentially an even longer lag).
3. Odd UK figuresToday's UK figures look very odd to me and I wonder if there has been a typo?
"62,993 were confirmed negative and 3,983 were confirmed positive."
Compared against yesterday's figures; this implies : 2,935 tests in the day (down from 8,360) and 754 new positives. That is 31% of tests positive on the day, which compares against c,. 7% of tests being positive over the last few days.
If there is not a fat finger typo there, then I am totally puzzled by those figures.
I won't apologise for the level of detail there as if you are reading this thread you are probably nearly as nerdy as me on the subject.
Stay Safe - and wash your hands!
Sorry Italy had 4 cases 1 month ago, mind you that is a short month, now it has over 5,300.
Now Italy has over 80,000 reported cases, their figures are up today after a 3 day decline.
The USA will almost certainly have the highest number of reported cases very soon, could even be today.
Hi Herbie & Gromly,
Let's assume 20 times the reported cases is the actual infection rate, that would make Italy at 41,000, have 820,000 in total.
And lets say the daily rate it of infection at yesterday at 5300 is actually 106,000 (20 times higher)
And let's say that was somehow a steady state.
Italy population = 60m
Infection total @ 70% = 42m
So at a rate of 106,000 infections a day it will still take a 396 days to work through Italy.
You can go up or down on any of these numbers but the reality is, based on the infection rates & estimates today, that Italys infection case numbers, give or take, are what we may well have to get used to on a daily basis the world over.
I do not think markets have priced this in yet at all bearing in mind the continual lock downs required to keep the infection rate constant.
The good part, grasping for optimism, is that there are a lot of people recovering, and assuming they have immunity,
can get back to work.
The problem with that is the rates are still going up everyday, it was 5,300 yesterday but it was only 3;500 2 days ago and nothing 1 month ago, until the rates level off its difficult to predict, should you not be predicting your figures based on the growth rate? Other countries managed to contain this virus, even Iran if figures are correct has levelled off. Italy was slow to react and so were the USA which had a large increase in cases yesterday. At the moment I’m on the fence about what will happen, will it behave like a flu virus, will it just fade away like many viruses or will it keep spreading until most people are infected?
Does anyone on here know why the death rate in Germany is so low compared to other countries such as France, Italy, Spain and the UK. They have 14,602 cases but only 44 deaths, France 11,000 cases 362 dead Spain 17,395 cases 803 dead Italy 41,035 cases 3,405 dead, UK 3,269 cases, 144 dead. mortality rate on reported cases is:
Germany 0.3%
France 3.29%
Spain 4.62%
Italy 8.3%
UK 4.4%
My German friends would no doubt tell me that it is "Germany efficiency".
In a sense I suspect it may well be, I understand Germany's testing regime has been very aggressive, so their number of confirmed cases is probably much closer to the number of actual cases that for other countries.
I cannot recall whether it was the UK CMO or CSA who earlier in the week suggested that the number of actual UK cases might be 10-20 times the reported number. If it were 20x that would put the UK mortality rate at 0.22%
This is one of the difficulties for a layman trying to assess the progress of the virus, the number of confirmed cases is only very loosely correlated to the number of actual cases. Even more difficult to understand the UK stats given that our testing regime has changed (at least) twice.
Fatalities may actually be a better measure of the spread of the true spread, however :
1. It is very much a trailing measure.
2. Real mortality rates are dependent on the level of care - so once a healthcare service goes beyond capacity mortalities rates will rise markedly.
The professional epidemiologists will have richer data and better models to understand what is happening, but there will still be some very wide margins of error in their work at this stage.
You maybe right about number of tests, I can't find any figures for Germany. Germany and France had a similar number of cases but the death rates have always been different, maybe France suffered from that British person who brought it back from Singapore and spread to several others at a ski resort? The UK has done over 40k test now, I see Boris is saying we will do up to 25,000 test a day now, so a change again. I know people with symptoms but can't get tested, just told to stay at home and take paracetamol.
Not convinced about fatalities being an accurate guide, think there are too many variables, I have read that 800x a fatality is a guide. I think there are quite a lot of fatalities that have not been recorded as Coronavirus deaths because they were never tested, some countries have only recently got testing kits and some are still very short of them. Even in the USA they have had problems. No cases in Myanmar and Laos, really, I said that about Turkey and Indonesia before.
The worrying thing is how quickly this multiplies, in Italy in one month it has gone from 3 cases to 41,000, in Spain 2 to nearly 18,000.
I think London will be a problem because of all the close contacts in confined spaces such as the Underground and on commuter trains, maybe that is different now with many working from home. I don't know have not been there for 4 weeks.
https://www.ft.com/content/c0755b30-69bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3
Widespread testing in Germany compared with other countries. Possibly due to a greater capacity to test.
Thanks for the link, as I'm not a subscriber I can't read it unfortunately. How many tests have they done?
This is the link too the report that has apparently changed Boris & Trumps mind. London's Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team report.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/0...
It clearly gives the two options of letting the virus run through the population at a great rate, or suppress it, but with the consequence of continually re-introducing lockdowns. They mention 18 months, either that or 3 months, 6 months, all untenable. Back to the question, how many infections per month after everyone has come to the conclusion they cant live in a locked down world?
There is also the possibility that a vaccine will be produced. Although I don't think there ever was for SARS but that just disappeared. Viruses don't tend to go on for years or if they do we have build up immunity to them.
70% seems very high to me considering only about 5% of the population get flu each year. Projecting numbers is difficult, in China and South Korea there was a peak after about 1 month and then a decline, they never did go above 100,000 if the figures are accurate. Over the last 3 days new case numbers have been fairly stable at around 10-11 thousand. There was a study by Southampton University which found if China had taken action 3 weeks earlier there would have been only 5% of the cases and if 2 weeks later there would have been over 7m infected. What we don't know is if this will disappear in warmer weather like flu does. The other thing which some experts believe is will it return to China when they go back to normal lifestyle? Looking at the cases in hot countries such as Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand these have all taken off in the last week, so that does not bode well and I suspect the numbers in some countries are well under reported due to lack of testing or testing kits.
Are we too late for lockdowns? Should have locked down China but it never was.
Hi all,
For people who understand numbers ( I prefer pictures, myself) here's a pretty detailed - and to my untutored eye - informative assessment of how we got here ...and where we're heading.....
Don't be put off by the somewhat 'click-baity' title ! It's garnered over 28m views... and poses uncomfortable questions for governments in the EU epicentre, the UK...and in due course the author's home turf, the US...
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
ATB
Interesting read, but there are many pretty sceptical comments particularly regarding the author's apparent lack of background in the field. Clearly a big problem is inferring the number of active cases at any time. Seems quite difficult to compare when countries show such wildly different testing regimes. UK I sense has largely given up on this - I gather many/most people calling 111 are now simply told to stay at home and don't go in for testing unless their symptoms are aggressive or they're in a high-exposure role. I've no idea if these are counted in UK's daily quota of cases.
Goes without saying that mathematical biology is a fairly advanced topic typically taught in year 3 of a maths first degree, eg http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/examples/C6b.pdf
Anyway, it may get interesting when the government eventually publishes the advice they say they received.
The growth in reality is nothing so far, like some of the projections, it does not keep on doubling every few days, lets take a case of one of the worst affected countries Iran, if the numbers are accurate, if you look here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/
You will see a large increase in cases initially but then a levelling off, cases today are similar to those 10 days ago. Even in Italy it is not going up anything like he projects.
Look at his projection for France, it is about 13,000 on 14/3, France has 5,400 cases on 16/3.
Four days ago the UK had 456 positive cases and yesterday 1,140.
This represents a 36% compound rate of growth.
At this growth rate, 50 million cases would occur in a little over a month.
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. (A.Einstein)
Hi Howard,
Yes, compound is growth the exact argument for going to lock down. If it works and they get control of it then fine, but how do you maintain the situation. Constant testing for years and if an outbreak we have lockdowns again?
If they don't contain it, then extend the lockdowns, more lockdowns? The cycle continues.
If it's then accepted that this virus is not practical to contain, then we are back to the scenario of what number of cases is acceptable & that has to be very very much higher than today. One million a month will still take 4 years to work through the population, again how do you manage a rough constant run rate, back to lock downs & if you don't, exponential growth.
The 'what next' aspect is completely being missed by the media, and not discussed by the politicians probably because the implications are just very depressing, to say the least.