Vanity - Ebola model projects future case based on Daily Transmission Rate

Self | September 15, 2014 | Scouter

[scouter]

I’m not sure when you go out beyond 3 months that it’s still a valid model.

I do see a similar flex point in the graphs of other models at that same point. I agree that any error in my model will become greater as the model projects further into the future. But that's going to be a limitation of most models, I think.

Try this. Try to express it as a simple day to day formula formula without exponents. Day1 = Day0*whatever+/-whatelse. If you can do that, we can test to see if the exponent formula is correct.

I'm kind of a literal person... what do you mean by "whatever+/-whatelse"? My exponent?

[DannyTN]

Well just like an interest formula, you have a single period formula of:
FV = PV*(1+i)
Which over multiple periods becomes
FV = PV* (1+i)^n, where n=number of periods.
I know what your multiple period formula looks like. What does a single period formula look like?

[DannyTN]

Basically what I was asking is what does the formula look like if DaysOut is 1.

Cases ^ (((DTR-1) * DaysOut) + 1).
Cases^(((DTR-1)* 1)+1)
Cases^((DTR-1)+1)
Cases^DTR

I was hoping to get rid of the exponent completely, but an exponent is inherent to your formula.

So Day1 = Day0Cases^1.004.

If Day0 = 100 then Day1 = 1.018
Day2 = 103.8
Day3 = 105.7

[greeneyes]

In the past, IIRC the outbreaks were in small rather isolated villages, and it was easier to quarantine and contain the disease. Since there were less patients, the medical system wasn’t overwhelmed either.

[greeneyes]

I'll add another problem, based on my observations over a 6 year period with each year including several months in the hospital with relatives.

Our hospitals may have good written procedures to stop contagious and infectious diseases, but the staff routinely breaks protocol. Not just during flu outbreaks, but also dealing with things like VRE where strict isolation protocol is supposed to be followed.

A recent article here quoted the CDC as saying that any hospital could isolate an Ebola patient in a regular private hospital room. However, if you saw the area where Dr. Brantly was treated, that's not what they had.

First off the regular private rooms do not have negative air pressure, but Brantly’s room did. Also, Brantly’s room had an entry way room/area and his doorway had red tape outlining a rectangle in front of it.

The area outside the doorway and inside the tape was also considered part of the hot zone. Most of the private rooms as well as ICU rooms did not have that double entry. The team caring for him had the full PPE which is more than the usual isolation garb.

Even in the ICU which had negative air pressure, there was much less than what they used with Brantly. If all we have is a few cases that can be contained at places such as where he was, then the USA is likely able to handle it.

Let it get out of hand where regular hospitals are also needed to treat cases, I am sorry to say, that I am a skeptic.

[exDemMom]

My brother-in-law recently died from a short battle with cancer at home. While he was dying he was kissed and hugged repeatedly by his wife, kids and grandkids. They knew he was dying and they were saying goodbye.

People aren't robots. When someone is dying at home of Ebola they're not going to gown up. They're not going to refrain from kissing and hugging them out of love and compassion. That's exactly what's happening there. That's part of the "culture" that we have over here.

First of all, cancer is not contagious--I have never heard that even cancers caused by viruses are contagious. Thus, there is a world of difference between hugging and kissing a dying cancer patient and someone dying of Ebola. I can't imagine too many people would want to physically comfort someone who is covered with vomit and feces--they'd be rushing that person to the hospital. And then that person would be isolated.

Not only do we take infection control seriously, we do not have the other customs that Africans have. We do not bathe the bodies of loved ones with our bare hands. We do not give corpses enemas with our bare hands. We do not stroke corpses during the funerals. Many people in Africa have acquired Ebola during funerals through these practices.

[greeneyes]

I'm afraid you are correct. Color me less than optimistic about regular hospitals being able to totally contain this.

[greeneyes]

I read it. I must say, that more than one article I’ve read over the last month has quoted virologists who have worked in Level 4 labs, or those who have treated patients to acknowledge that Ebola sdares the crap out of them.

Yet we have this group of people who claim that it could not possibly ever get out of hand here.

They may be right, but I’d feel better if they were worried, and explained to all of us dummies what we should do to prepare, if a worst case scenario breaks out even if they think such is not possible.

[DouglasKC]

First of all, cancer is not contagious--I have never heard that even cancers caused by viruses are contagious. Thus, there is a world of difference between hugging and kissing a dying cancer patient and someone dying of Ebola. I can't imagine too many people would want to physically comfort someone who is covered with vomit and feces--they'd be rushing that person to the hospital. And then that person would be isolated.

The point was that a dying loved one IS going to be hugged and kissed by loved ones. It's saying goodbye. And they're going to be cleaned up by those same loved ones. They're not going to know it's Ebola until it's too late.

[exDemMom]

The point was that a dying loved one IS going to be hugged and kissed by loved ones. It's saying goodbye. And they're going to be cleaned up by those same loved ones. They're not going to know it's Ebola until it's too late.

The point is that we do not do that when a loved one has a contagious disease. We've had too many pandemics in our past and we understand how disease is spread. My ancestors survived several pandemics that decimated the population of Europe, as well as the 1918 pandemic that is still a source of fear and horror.

Would you, personally, hug, hold, and kiss your loved one that you know is dying from a deadly contagious disease like Ebola? If the answer is no, then why would you assume that anyone else raised as an American, and steeped in American culture, would do that?

[DouglasKC]

Would you, personally, hug, hold, and kiss your loved one that you know is dying from a deadly contagious disease like Ebola? If the answer is no, then why would you assume that anyone else raised as an American, and steeped in American culture, would do that?

The point is that there are hundreds of thousands of low information people out there. When a loved one comes down with what looks like the flu do you seriously believe that nobody in the family is going to touch that person? That they're going to wear a hazmat suit whenever they're around them? They're not going to touch the soiled bedsheets and clothes? Seriously?

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Rich21IE:" That’s just appalling.
This country has been damned by the liberals and their immigration programs."

It's worse than that !!
Why are we so insistant about soverignty of Ukraine lands
Why are we so insistant about soverignty of Gaza
and yet our pres__dent leaves our Southern Border wide open and is in keeping with the U.N. policy of migrants and immigrants
and denies our own soverignty and borders ??

[21twelve]

“Honey - she only has the flu. If we take her to the hospital they’ll want to quarantine the house until they get the tests back. If I don’t make it to work for three days I’m going to lose my job, and we’ve got bills to pay. Let’s just see if it runs it’s course.”

And that level of thinking applies to all levels of people. Substitute “lose my job” to “seal that $2 million deal”.

[DouglasKC]

“Honey - she only has the flu. If we take her to the hospital they’ll want to quarantine the house until they get the tests back. If I don’t make it to work for three days I’m going to lose my job, and we’ve got bills to pay. Let’s just see if it runs it’s course.” And that level of thinking applies to all levels of people. Substitute “lose my job” to “seal that $2 million deal”.

Good points. The press is minimizing the Africa thing by calling these types of things "cultural" but we have the exact same cultural challenges just on a different level.

[Black Agnes]

If it comes here, the hotspots will be daycares.

[Squeako]

Ebola projection bookmark

[Vermont Lt]

I have had relatives with suppressed immune systems.

You hold their hand. With a glove on. With a mask on.

You make sure that you do not bring any ‘bugs’, ‘germs’ into the room.

Its that in reverse.

[mlo]

The particular details you put into this projection don't really matter, and it doesn't take any particular training. If you make any projection based on a simple growth rate like this it is eventually going to show the whole world consumed. This isn't meaningful. They will all end the same way. Change the DTR and it shows the whole world dead a week earlier. So what?

This isn't how real outbreaks progress. Things will change over time. Your DTR won't be constant. A real projection would have to model transmission rates as the disease moves into new territories and populations. But of course we won't really know how that's going to work until it happens.

[LucyT]

Over 2 billion people may be dead within a year.

Ebola model projects future case based on Daily Transmission Rate

"Check out article for following projections based on the Daily Transmission Rate (DTR) from June 1 through September 10, the last date for which I have data. The DTR has remained relatively stable over that period.

"To be conservative I assumed that the reported number of cases represent the true size of the epidemic. However, the WHO, CDC, Medicins Sans Frontieres, and Samaritan's Purse all agree that the number of reported cases represents only 25% to 50% of the true number of cases. I have decided to be conservative in the numbers published below, but the model allows you to adjust this percentage."

[Cicero]

Will there be anyone left to run the golf courses for Obama to play on?