
The coronavirus pandemic in five powerful charts - abbracadabbra
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00758-2
======
misja111
Is anybody able to explain why there are so few new Corona cases in China? I
mean, I know that the Wuhan area was locked down and that this way the
outbreak was contained there. But China is far greater than Wuhan alone, and
just like the virus was able to spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, it
must have spread to the rest of China as well. And during the recent month it
must even have been spreading back from over the border into China.

How come that there are nevertheless only between 40 and 50 new cases per day?

~~~
sorenn111
Not to be conspiratorial, but China has a vested interest in seeming as if
they've beaten the virus both to their own people and the world abroad. Their
lockdown clearly had a strong effect, but after its over the virus will spread
again. With that said, I don't see any reason why China would share their
numbers. They have a history of lying about this disease, I don't know why we
should assume we can trust their data now.

~~~
samename
Indeed. China's numbers aren't to be trusted.
[https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-03-23/despite-official-
fig...](https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-03-23/despite-official-figures-
wuhan-continues-to-find-new-asymptomatic-covid-19-cases-daily-101532880.html)

~~~
artursapek
No country's numbers of confirmed cases should really be treated as a
definitive and accurate view of total number of cases. UK was estimating
theirs was off by a factor of 10-20 not long ago. The lack of testing has
resulted in very incomplete data around the world, whether or not there's a
political motive behind that.

~~~
taborj
Agreed. I have some friends here who are fairly certain they had it, based on
symptoms. However, the hospital refused to test them because they were "young
and healthy" (i.e. no underlying medical conditions to complicate things). 2
of the 3 family members recovered with no outside assistance; the third
worsened, so they took her to the ER. Only then did they run a test on her.

The number of infected is way off, which will throw everything else off. You
can't figure out mortality rates, infection rates, etc if you don't have an
accurate number to start with. Garbage in, garbage out.

~~~
DanBC
> However, the hospital refused to test them because they were "young and
> healthy" (i.e. no underlying medical conditions to complicate things).

The tests have a high false negative rate, which is one reason some countries
are not testing everyone with mild symptoms. The test doesn't give you any
useful information in that situation: if it comes back positive you need to
self-isolate, but if it comes back negative and you have symptoms you still
need to self isolate.

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Mary-Jane
There two comparisons to other diseases appear to contradict each other.
First: COVID-19 is both less communicable and less fatal than SARS. Second: it
has spread faster and killed more people than SARS. I would like to understand
how both can be true.

~~~
slv77
SARS made people very sick very fast so it was easy to identify and quarantine
patients. With extensive contact tracking it was able to be contained.

With covid19 many patients are able to continue their lives and infect others
without being obviously sick themselves. This limited the ability to contain
outbreaks without extensive testing.

~~~
darkwater
So, silly question: why the basic reproduction number R0 doesn't take this
into account?

~~~
watwut
A lot depends on whether you mean:

* R0 when the disease appears first time and people dont know about it

* R0 when people learned about disease and changed behavior.

Assuming disease is new, one person sick with SARS will infect more people
then one person sick with COVID.

Due to stronger symptoms and shorter time to symptoms, we learn SARS is issue,
change our behavior and quickly close small area. SARS will spread less. In
covid, by the time we figure area is infected, a lot of people are infected
elsewhere. It takes us more time to react.

------
mmcconnell1618
The significant reduction in emissions worldwide is an opportunity to gather
some interesting data that would have been difficult to estimate at other
times. What other interesting science could be done now that might bring some
positive from the pandemic?

~~~
THE_PUN_STOPS
A tangent from science towards ethics, but if we’re lucky, this pandemic will
finally be the level of impetus needed to end the trade of live exotic animals
for consumption. Thousands of species spared to save our own.

As a group of scientists wrote in 2007 [1]:

“The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats,
together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a
time bomb. The possibility of the reemergence of SARS and other novel viruses
from animals or laboratories and therefore the need for preparedness should
not be ignored”

[1]:
[https://cmr.asm.org/content/cmr/20/4/660.full.pdf](https://cmr.asm.org/content/cmr/20/4/660.full.pdf)

~~~
lonelappde
How does exterminating bats as vermin instead of cultivating and eating them
spare them?

~~~
THE_PUN_STOPS
I don’t get your point. Just don’t exterminate them from their natural
habitat?

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abdullahkhalids
I would like a bit more clarity on this chart [1] comparing R_0 and case
fatality rate of COVID-19 with other similar diseases. I am trying to
understand why Ebola did not kill as many people as COVID-19 has.

My understanding is that R_0 just depends somehow only on the virus itself,
while there is another factor R = a R_0, which determines the actual
reproduction number "in practice", taking into account isolation measures and
such. So for Ebola R was much lower than R_0, so a lot fewer people died
compared to COVID-19. Is this correct?

[1] [https://media.nature.com/lw800/magazine-
assets/d41586-020-00...](https://media.nature.com/lw800/magazine-
assets/d41586-020-00758-2/d41586-020-00758-2_17810952.png)

~~~
lifeformed
I think Ebola killed people too fast, so it didn't have time to spread as far.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
I get that, I am trying to understand the math and model behind this.

Let me clarify the paradox: Say Ebola has a R_0=4. That means one person
infects 4 people under some circumstances. It doesn't matter if Ebola kills
someone in 3 weeks or in 5 seconds, under some circumstances one person must
be infecting 4. What are those circumstances, and how are they different from
the actual circumstances which led to the Ebola epidemic stopping.

~~~
watwut
Those circumstances are that we dont know Ebola is spreading. Actual
circumstances are quarantine, disinfection and other intentional measures to
stop the spread.

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themark
Looking at the timeline. From what I have read, it seems like human to human
transmission could have been confirmed much sooner.

~~~
lonelappde
"could have" with the benefit of hindsight and ignoring communication latency.
The fact is authorities don't treat every local outbreak of illness as a
contagious pandemic when it's almost always food poisoning.

~~~
pjc50
In some places food poisoning gets a surprisingly thorough response, with full
batch tracing of the affected food. Here's what the CDC was doing last year:
[https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-11-18/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-11-18/index.html)

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howmayiannoyyou
The R0 number they tout isn't supported by data from Italy or NY. R0 is
density dependent.

~~~
cjhopman
R0 is not a biological constant for a pathogen as it is also affected by other
factors such as environmental conditions and the behaviour of the infected
population.

R0 being different in different places is expected. It's especially expected
to change as measures are taken to control spread. Even in the absence of such
measures, different cultures, even at the same population density, will often
have different R0.

------
bArray
On that coronavirus timeline it would be good to see:

* Wuhan throw a party to celebrate the lunar year

* Almost the entirety of China goes on holiday for the lunar year

* New Year holiday

* Border lock downs of various Countries within that timeline

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newcrobuzon
Does anyone have a good source for spanish flu CFR? I found many estimates
ranging from 2%-10%...

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davvolun
I would be _VERY_ interested to see these charts updated, as this data is a
week old.

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netsharc
Such a clickbaity title.

Those charts don't look that powerful to me.

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nablaoperator
Why do people plot exponential curves on a non-logarithmic scale?

~~~
kevin1894
I think to non-scientists, or at least people who don't work with log scales,
the use of linear scales makes the graph easier to understand. While I
wouldn't expect to see this in Nature, this article reads like it is intended
for a general audience.

~~~
lonelappde
Easier to _mis_ understand, yes. If the motivation is to simplify, they should
plot 2 graphs, with a second graph being log plot or a zoom on the low scale
part to show its not linear

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ngcc_hk
I more worry about China get away with it. It have started SARS and now this.
Both by eating wild animal. I do not believe it is biological weapon but more
an accidental leak of virus during their research. But it is not that part
that is lethal. But the part that there are so many wild animal market those
virus can go and spread in stage 1. Then stage 2 punish everyone who said it
and let it spread. The saying that it is not known is NOT true in China. The
news were spread by doctors among themselves first in WuHan case and in SARS
case one doctor bring it to HK and kill 300. And whilst the guy dare to say
were punished, the systems (like wild market and no freedom of speech)
continue. These two factors should be remember! Otherwise we will end up like
twitter. They can use it to spread news (like American release the virus) even
though they cannot even use twitter in China. If we forget and let them run
WHO and PR war, ... good luck humanity.

