[9nGQluzmnq3M]

This article is junk, and I don't understand why we're accepting medical analysis from a random trader. A few of the more obvious flaws:

* At this point in the epidemic you can't compute fatality rates simply by deaths/recoveries, because recoveries lag deaths by several weeks (once you're dead you're dead, but if you survive it takes a few weeks to recover and start testing negative).

* It is well known that China is undercounting cases, not because of some deep CCP conspiracy, but because Wuhan/Hubei's health system is so overloaded that only the sickest cases are hospitalized, much less tested.

* This also skews death rates very high, because mild cases are not detected and counted at all. This is also clear from the divergence in death rates in Hubei (2.x%) and outside Hubei (under 0.5%, and there's undercounting happening here too).

* The virus has been in the wild in a number of countries outside China (Singapore, Japan, Thailand, etc), yet to date local transmission has petered out and there's no sign of massive outbreaks happening. This argues for a much lower R0, and/or that there's something specific to Wuhan that favors the virus, with cold, dry winter air and heavy air pollution (and the accompanying chronic lung damage) cited as possible factors.

[makomk]

None of those objections seem right at all. The coronavirus deaths so far have been long, drawn-out affairs compared to the recoveries, so there's no particular reason to expact recoveries to lag deaths. We know China has been undercounting deaths as well as cases, and in any case thse estimates in this are based on non-Chinese numbers. Also, transmission outside of China hasn't just "petered" out - it was aggressively stamped out via contact tracing, which is why the non-Chinese numbers are likely to be a fairly accurate total count of infections. It's obviously pretty infectious judging from the clusters we've seen when someone from China who's infected does make it outside, and that level of contact tracing probably isn't going to be viable forever or in less developed countries.

[9nGQluzmnq3M]

> The coronavirus deaths so far have been long, drawn-out affairs compared to the recoveries

No, it took until several weeks into the epidemic until the number of recoveries exceeded the number of deaths.

> We know China has been undercounting deaths as well as cases

All deaths are counted, people don't just leave corpses lying around, although it is true that many coronavirus deaths were likely misclassified. By comparison, if someone gets a mild case (80%+ probability) and recovers at home, they'll never get recorded in any stats.

> it was aggressively stamped out via contact tracing

In some countries like Singapore, yes. But in countries like Thailand and Mexico, contact tracing was haphazard to nonexistent, and epidemics still failed to materialize.

[koheripbal]

> the number of recoveries exceeded the number of deaths.

China has said the fatality rate is about 2%, and most experts are agreeing it's probably roughly 2% - with all your points factored in. In Wuhan, for example, it's over 4% due to hospital overload.

> All deaths are counted... many coronavirus deaths were likely misclassified.

That's really the same as being not counted in the tally of Coronavirus deaths.

> in countries like Thailand and Mexico...

The common theme here is tropical climate that makes most Coronaviruses less virulent.

This obviously cannot happen in countries like North Korea, which is likely silently enduring a pandemic that they just won't talk about.

[GolDDranks]

It still makes a difference whether a death is counted as "death from COVID-19" or "death from pneumonia suspected to be COVID-19 (unverified via tests)" or "death from pneumonia (undiagnosed)" or "death from unknown cause". They changed the counting method once before, counting now more.

[ljw1001]

> The virus has been in the wild in a number of countries outside China (Singapore, Japan, Thailand, etc), yet to date local transmission has petered out and there's no sign of massive outbreaks happening. This argues for a much lower R0...

While I agree with your other points, the idea that transmission in Japan is petering out is wildly optimistic and not what epidemiologists in Japan are saying. Unfortunately, you can couple that with the possibility of transmission in states where the medical infrastructure is especially weak (in Africa, for example, where millions of Chinese people work).

[lbeltrame]

> While I agree with your other points, the idea that transmission in Japan is petering out is wildly optimistic

Does that take the Diamond Princess cases into account, or just the others (66 last time I checked, and IMO the most important ones are the cases reported outside the group of people who were repatriated and quarantined)? IMO it is clear that keeping all those people in close quarters in the cruise ship wasn't the best idea after all (because interactions keep on occurring, and thus infections keep on spreading).

I also don't find the story of the health officer infected for "10 minutes contact" (or so the NHK says) very credible, or at best, it is a stochastic event.

A real problem is instead that, for outside infections, people kept on working and having contact with others despite being sick.

I don't want to downplay the issue at all, but as far as I can see the Japanese press (I can't say much about the actual people living there) going absolutely hysterical over this (but it was the same with H1N1 back in the days). The government then follows suit.

[prepend]

> You can't compute fatality rates simply by deaths/recoveries, because recoveries lag deaths by several weeks (once you're dead you're dead, but if you survive it takes a few weeks to recover and start testing negative).

There are limitations with this method, but I think it’s the best possible at the time. What method do you think is better?

[9nGQluzmnq3M]

Count deaths & recoveries a few weeks in for cohorts that showed first symptoms on the same days. But data collection for this is hard and it takes a while too.

[prepend]

This is mentioned in the article and is more accurate, but isn’t possible throughout an outbreak for the reason you state.

[joosters]

You could count the number of deaths by date 'n', compared to the number of recoveries by date 'n+14', say, picking a date related to the average recovery time?

[prepend]

The recovery date isn’t fixed so there’s not a single “+14” that is as useful as picking the dead / known outcome.

I think this is because it’s hard to know date of infection, but it’s definite to know whether the case resulted in death or has been determined “recovered.”

[ethbro]

https://www.cassandracapital.net/blog

Oh, but the author's other content inspires so much faith!

[b0sk]

I have seen a lot of FUD, bordering on cheerleading, from especially crypto guys. My cynical mind says that anything that weakens the present investment options is an opportunity for crypto to enter the fray (and the guys to make as much money in the interim)

[jacknews]

i agree, complete garbage.

what is worrying is that the percentage of 'serious/critical' cases seems to be stable at 20%. Regardless of fatality rate, if this holds, and the virus becomes pandemic it will impose a significant burden on health systems.

[lbeltrame]

IIRC, the vast majority of earlier cases were people with a previous health condition. Does anyone know if there are data sources where one could look at these figures?

[mrpopo]

> I don't understand why we're accepting medical analysis from a random trader.

This CoVid19 outbreak in the age of social media has caused too many wanna-be epidemiologists to post their unfiltered, unscientific opinions and present them as facts. How can we ever get reliable information from that?