Are You Totally Ignorant About Coronavirus?

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This might be a weird place to stick this comment, but I made another non-MC quiz about the pandemic. Please check it out!

I got average, 13

The numbers of this pandemic just don't add up. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. My county has 1,153,525 people of which 842 have tested positive for COVID. That's .0007% of the population. We have had 26 deaths. That's .00002% of the population. I'm certainly not claiming to be any sort of expert but wow, some of the shelter-in-place mandates seem a little harsh. And by the way, my understanding is that the CDC is reworking their initial numbers and potentially cutting the cases and deaths attributed to COVID-19 almost in half because people have been misdiagnosed or mislabeled.

First of all, your math is incorrect and 0.07% of your county’s population is infected if your numbers are correct, not 0.007%. The numbers in your county are relatively low compared to other places exactly because of California’s stay at home order. The only places in the world right now that seem to have successfully contained or drastically lowered the spread of the virus (China, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, etc.) all had either strict quarantines or very sophisticated testing and contact tracing. If you look at the data from countries that have had few restrictions imposed, their infection and death rates are much higher than in places with restrictions. Sweden, for example, has by far the highest per capita rate of cases and deaths among the Nordic countries and its actual numbers are likely a lot higher than reported due to a lack of testing. Another example is Brazil, where they have had very minimal restrictions and the outbreak there is now out of control.

This comment will be interesting to look back on in a year.

Really didn't want this comment thread to turn into every other virus thread on the internet, but you had to throw in the "all countries that aren't in strict quarantine are doing much worse off" canard. You're drawing a conclusion about the effectiveness of broad lockdowns that can't yet be made; it's a huge social experiment with massive side effects.

You say that Brazil is out of control, but it's really not. 212 million people, less than 100k active cases, less than 10k considered serious. 12k deaths total. QM gives good advice when he says to look at IFR and not CFR. Many millions of people have had this virus with no symptoms whatsoever, so the actual death rate is much lower than what we hear about in the news.

As for Sweden, their per capita deaths are more than the other Nordics, but 1/2 of Belgium's and it's lower than countries like Spain and the UK, which have broad lockdowns. Testing differences don't have any impact on total deaths.

Sorry, must note other item re: Sweden. They are the control country in this experiment, like taking a placebo in a clinical trial. The only government mandate of note was banning gatherings of more than 50 people; everything else was voluntary. We would expect their hospital and ICU capacities to be hitting the levels predicted in early April by the models that scared the bejeezus out of everyone. All of those models predicted that by early May, ICU capacity would be overrun (to the tune of 30-40x capacity). Actual ICU use: steady at around 550 patients, which is 30% capacity. See here for more: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-we-trust-covid-modelling-more-evidence-from-sweden

Testing is not the metric to care about and we have enough REAL data from Sweden's approach to know that the models are unreliable. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but too many are ignoring the data right in front of them because it doesn't fit with the "gotta be safe at all costs" mantra.

Joey, I think your argument re Sweden presumes that only a mandatory lockdown would keep people from interacting. It's possible the numbers have stayed low because many Swedes appreciate the threat of the virus and are taking appropriate precautions on their own. My office is reopening next week, but many of my colleagues will continue to work from home because they don't want to risk infection. And I suspect that because so many places have lockdowns in place, people elsewhere are taking this more seriously, even if their jurisdiction isn't in lockdown. So in Sweden, a highly-developed country with a very educated population, people probably understand they should be careful about what they do, even if the government isn't restricting them.

Jmeller, you are exactly correct. The Swedes took this issue seriously and voluntarily took precautions. But then again, they didn't have a leader who has diarrhea of the mouth, claiming it was a hoax, then nothing to worry about, then warm weather will kill it. And the Swedish people aren't a bunch of "me, me, me and the hell with everybody else."

@joey And now Brazil is the main country that is experiencing a surge in cases, with 550,000+ cases and 31,000+ deaths and climbing.

I would expect that the number of deaths to the virus are inaccurate for many reasons. In some cases, misdiagnosis could have falsely added to the number of deaths, but in some other cases, people could have died without being diagnosed with the virus and had their cause of death attributed to some other cause. I think it is safest not to get too focused on any of the statistics for these reasons, I don't trust any of the data very much - only as a pretty rough guide.

Another thing that may skew the stats somewhat is the fact that hospitals get more Medicare money for a covid-19 diagnosis or presumed diagnosis than for another diagnosis such as pneumonia. If a covid patient is on a ventilator, hospitals are reimbursed three times as much as a non-covid patient. Some states only report confirmed cases, but others also include presumed cases. One of my close family members works in a hospital and confirms that about anyone who comes in with any of a huge range of symptoms is likely to be listed as presumed covid. She says it isn't the doctors who are pushing this, but the administrators. On the other hand, she says with the ban on so many surgeries, the hospitals fear they may have to shut down for lack of funds, and they feel justified doing whatever they can to remain open to treat those in need.

Though it is a couple of weeks old, this says that most people who die from coronavirus are under 75. Even if it has shifted to over 50% since then, it seems too close for the answer to necessarily remain valid over time. Maybe "close to half" would be more accurate wording.

There's still "over 75" in the question.

I heard from early on that headache can be a symptom, and that loss of smell is fairly rare sympton. Just did a little googling and found this from April 22:

https://www.prevention.com/health/a32237180/coronavirus-symptom-headache/

I suggest changing from headache to something else, though it's a bit hard to come up with something that no one seems to be experiencing, there are so many things related to the virus. Maybe hair loss or blurred vision? Haven't heard that either has been identified as related.

"...look up the different between IFR and CFR."

Description of this quiz.

Maybe you should add the conspiracy theory that 5g causes Covid-19. I even got a YouTube add that supports that theory, but the same people think that nazis figured out how to make infinite energy using alien technology.

That's ridiculous. The Democrats caused Covid.

Yeah. Thanks Obama!

False again. Bill Gates created the virus to kill all us all, to make billions from vaccines, and to kill us all with toxic vaccines.

The so-called "OngKC law" states that no matter how ironic you make your comment, someone on the internet will still take it seriously.

13/15, not too bad

In Australia (NSW) .....The 'Ruby Princess' ship caused 20 deaths (so far) and hundreds of infections caused by allowing all the passengers (sick and well) to leave the ship and disperse into Australia, taking the virus to all parts of the nation.

14/15 didn't get New York City, I thought it was Miami, because yk Florida...

For question 4, three of the answers (SARS, Hepatitis and Ebola) describe the disease brought about by the virus(es) and not the virus(es) itself. SARS, for instance, stands for Severe acute respiratory syndrome; it does not directly describe the virus that causes it (which can be called SARS coronavirus/SARS-CoV/SARS-CoV-1).

As far as I'm informed, it's pretty much agreed on that the virus didn't travel from bats to humans directly but through another (unknown) animal. However, the Corona-virus family is very much abundant in bats although it doesn't affect them as much. (But they act as transmitter/incubators)

New Zealand is now down to a single case of Covid-19. If the final guy, an Aucklander in his 50's, gets well before another case appears, New Zealand will come in second behind Papua New Guinea (pop 8.6 mil) as the most populous country where Covid-19 has been eradicated. (Thanks Nichster for the PNG reference).

PNG now have 19 and NZ 27. Just because known cases have recovered does not mean it is gone; you need to wait for unknown cases to hopefully not spread it further and recover before it's definitely gone.

Another success story is Vietnam, with a population of 100 million, which has just 328 cases and no deaths so far. Its government's propaganda department produced a pop song with a message that would resonate in any country, which has had 40 million views so far. Here's the Vietnamese version with English subtitles and the English language version.

Seems to me that the IFR/CFR debate simply serves to downplay the severity of what's happening- sure, don't go throwing around 10% mortality rates and creating fear among the newly diagnosed and their loved ones, but the "yeah but heaps of asymptomatic people are getting it and recovering without being diagnosed" argument is being used to argue against lockdown type restrictions, when it should actually support them.

I realise 100,000+ dead is less alarming in a country of 300+ million than if it was a country of 50 million, but it's a bit like being thankful that an atomic bomb isn't a hydrogen bomb.

I support that opinion. Active cases are unknown, at best grossly under reported, and death tolls are over reported because the whole damned thing has turned into a racket. I'm all for people being responsible, and very much against the government controlling social action, assembly, worship,

forcing closed businesses, all for your sense of false security. If the death rate was accurately reported, we never would have had these lockdowns.

Actually I think we're on different sides of the argument here- which is fine, I'm not here to change your mind but I'm all for the lockdowns. I don't personally believe the number of deaths have been exaggerated or over reported, but even if they had, the unexaggerated number would be unacceptably high.

Best Covid-19-inspired videos? My nominations are the Lockdown Boogie, and Coronavirus Rhapsody where Raúl Irabién plays all eight parts.

I thought it was pangolins that passed on the disease, not bats

Anyone on here disputing statistics based on WHO or other stat, clinging to these numbers like they're absolute truth, - you're a fool. Does anyone really believed China, with multiple cities more populous and equally dense as NYC, went from outbreak to plateau in 3 weeks and that a place with over a billion people reported no new outbreaks for 2 weeks? Come on already, the numbers are garbage.

well i live in new york and it has been very hardly hit but it's getting better we're starting to open up

i don't think its opening up bc it's getting better, i think it is bc they need money

i made a new quiz about popular drinks

I only got the last one wrong...

Reckon I only got the cytokine storm one right because of Plague Inc.

Based on what I've read from several sources, Donald Trump has tested positive for coronavirus as of 10/02/2020, so question 6. now has two correct answers.

Yeah!!!!

Didn't Putin get COVID-19?

No.