This is not what an exponential growth rate looks like.
Posted on 02/06/2020 6:00:40 AM PST by dangus
This is not how epidemics are supposed to spread. For a week in late January, more than half of newly reported Coronavirus infections were outside of Hubei (Wuhan's state). Now, fewer than one in five new cases are from Outside Hubei.
China took extremely drastic and apparently amazingly successful efforts to contain Coronavirus. So why do Chinese leaders act in apology and shame, like those dogs in YouTube videos? You can almost hear the scoldy housewife berating, "Did you do this Xi Jinping?" as his tail withers behind his legs, he circles around his doggy bed, and lifts his lip in a smile to show his teeth.
Several days ago, I noted on Free Republic that the rate of the spread of new infections was in decline; it was no longer exponential. The percentage growth in new cases had been between 30 and 69 per day, and it had dropped into a the low 20s. Yesterday, there were FEWER over cases than the day before, but I wouldn't read too much into a single day's data.
More interestingly is the spread outside Hubei: There were fewer new cases outside Hubei than there were a week ago. And then there's this: while in Hubei, the death rate is staggeringly high (over 3%), outside Hubei, only 14 people have died of it. (About 15,000 people have died of the flu this year in the U.S. alone.)
How could this be? This was hailed as the most contagious disease ever reported? And it emerged at the crossroads of the most populous empire ever, at the heat of a region containing most of the world's population, at the peak of the travel season. And yet, outside Hubei, there have been very few human-to-human transmissions at all. Remember that world-reknowned researcher who claimed he caught it in his eye?
So to recap the clues:
The Chinese have taken quick, and drastic measures to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus.
The spread of Coronavirus has impossibly slowed outside of Hubei, with a week of data confirming the trend.
Despite these efforts, the Chinese have been acting as if their poor response is an existential threat to their control.
The virus, outside of Hubei, seems not so insanely contagious or deadly as inside Hubei.
The solution: The Chinese have been open about Coronavirus, since it began to spread out from Hubei. But it was far worse within Hubei than they were willing to admit, so they took absolutely drastic measures to bury their mistakes. They had failed to recognize that Coronavirus wasn't a mere flu until thousands were sick. Within Hubei, they admitted only the worst cases were Coronavirus, allowing the resultant misleading statistics to make the virus look so deadly, and so easily spread.
So the good news: We're not all going to die of Coronavirus.
The bad news: China just learned it could respond to a biological attack in a way that America never could.
My guess is that they are reporting less cases. People now are dying from heart attacks, bee stings, falling rocks and car accidents but not the flu.
The really bad news is that your analysis of the data is faulty.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Please look at the new cases chart. Yesterday, Japan was at 21 cases. Today, 45. The chart had a minor dip one day, but the rest have been steady up.
The only chart on that page shows total (cumulative) cases. It’s impossible for that to ever decline. Look at total NEW cases. That has declined. Or look at the very left of the chart on the JH page, and you’ll notice the upward slope flattening.
Perhaps you were so itchy to show that picture that you missed the word, “apparently” and proceeded to ignore the entire rest of the article, wherein I described the apparent cover-up of Hubei and how the virus never was as dangerous as China was making it look.
If I wanted to let me fears run wild (and just because they’re wild doesn’t mean they’re false), I might suppose this was a test of their ability to isolate an outbreak.
Brad Parscale, the head of the Trump campaign.
He’s really tall. Has a cool hair cut.
>> Currently on a logarithmic scale the plane of increases across all provinces appears to be faint consistent. <<
Your numbers, then, are flat out wrong.
The total rate of new cases has plummeted to 15% per day (if we are to trust China’s data at all), from rates popping above 60%. And that’s a week-long trend. The number of new cases outside Hubei is already in decline.
>> Finally, the status of the virus outside of China is about 6 weeks behind Wuhan. <<
Yes, and again: it’s already in decline.
>> The problem with your position is that you missed a big thing in Hubei: they just opened 1,000 new beds. <<
You report that as if it’s huge. There are a quarter of a million people under quarantine (I believe reflective of the true extent of the outbreak in Hubei), and more than 30,000 ill.
If this does turn out to be a lab leak, I would bet on it being an unplanned lab leak. I don’t think the chinese commies are stupid enough to do this on purpose. They are cruel and totalitarian enough to do it, but not stupid enough to do it.
In my opinion.
Here is an excellent twitter feed that is keeping track of new infections real time.
https://twitter.com/CoronavirusNews
>> they can only test so many people a day, there is a limit. <<
I certainly would read VERY little into the number of suspected cases, EXCEPT to test the theory that there is a backlog of testing available, since that’s exactly what a suspected case: an untested, potential case.
The number of suspected cases has fallen behind the number of confirmed cases. It had been nearly twice as high. Again, though... I wouldn’t read into that any evidence of overall decline except to disprove the theory that they simply can’t keep up with testing; there’s no telling how the Chinese may “evolve” their definition of suspected cases.
... but it’s also interesting that the number of quarantined patients is also leveling off (at an incredibly high number of 186,000!)
Frankly, Wikipedia is collecting all the data excellently, providing me with daily summaries of all statistics. Yeah, its politics can be outrageous, but in this case, they’re merely passing on data.
Maybe artificially engineered viruses aren’t as powerful as the ones mother nature creates...
Or maybe the Chinese are lying...
I’m guessing we’ll know within the next 30 days.
Understood. I’m not criticizing what you’re posting here... I was just speculating.
This is not what an exponential growth rate looks like.
That is encouraging information.
It’s a semi-log graph. Exponential growth will be a straight line.
That’s right; the growth rate has seriously decayed.
Remdesivir
Starts talking about Remdesivir at about 3 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfGpdFNHoqQ
That flattening happens every day about this time.
China hasn’t reported new cases for the day for the entire country, but the ‘daycounter’ has advanced on the graph.
Come back and look again about 10pm tonight.
Sorry, I don’t agree with your premises...
I don’t believe they have been transparent. Wish they had been...
I don’t see it withering away...wish it was.
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