
Coronavirus Infections–More Than Just the Common Cold - fspeech
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2759815
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pier25
We don't really know how bad it is and without proper data it's difficult to
know basic numbers such as R0, mortality rate, etc.

I don't want to spread FUD, my point is simply that we should be skeptical
about official numbers. I seriously doubt the Chinese would quarantine 35
million people if the numbers were as low as they claim.

Official numbers claim about 1k infected people in Wuhan but there have been
numerous reports of Chinese doctors claiming there were more infected in their
cities than the official numbers portray. A video that went viral yesterday
from a nurse or doctor in Wuhan claimed 90k infected. Another video from a
nurse in a Wuhan hospital claimed they had confirmed more than 1k cases in
that hospital alone.

A paper I read yesterday estimated about 11k infected a couple of days ago.

> _We estimate that only 5.1% (95%CI, 4.8-5.5) of infections in Wuhan are
> identified, and by 21 January a total of 11,341 people (prediction interval,
> 9,217-14,245) had been infected in Wuhan since the start of the year. Should
> the epidemic continue unabated in Wuhan, we predict the epidemic in Wuhan
> will be substantially larger by 4 February (191,529 infections; prediction
> interval, 132,751-273,649), infection will be established in other Chinese
> cities, and importations to other countries will be more frequent._

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549v1)

That same paper initially claimed an R0 of 3.8 but yesterday the author
claimed 2.5:

> _With lots of uncertainty in both case data and model uncertainty, R0
> estimates will be changing rapidly. Important to update and monitor. We 've
> updated our estimates with case data through 22 Jan. New estimated R0 of 2.5
> 95% CI 2.4, 2.6. Paper to be updated asap._

[https://twitter.com/JonRead15/status/1220749021117140992?s=2...](https://twitter.com/JonRead15/status/1220749021117140992?s=20)

An epidemiologist from Hardvard claimed that 3.8 was 8 times higher than SARS
so I guess 2.5 is still very high:

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1220919589623803905.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1220919589623803905.html)

~~~
hu3
If this video of dead people on corridors of a Chinese hospital is true, it
supports the skepticism towards official data and the gravity of the
situation:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nC_VN2SgzU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nC_VN2SgzU)

~~~
DHPersonal
I have two sisters living in China now; it’s all hearsay, but affected number
suppression was something that they had heard about, too.

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LUmBULtERA
>During SARS, researchers moved from obtaining the genomic sequence of SARS-
CoV to a phase 1 clinical trial of a DNA vaccine in 20 months and have since
compressed that timeline to 3.25 months for other viral diseases. For
2019-nCoV, they hope to move even faster, using messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine
technology.

This is impressive! A big thank you to all the hardworking researchers.

------
refurb
This is a fantastic summary!

