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SvennoJ on 22 March 2020
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NightlyPoe said:
SvennoJ said:

It looks like this discussion is going nowhere, facts vs feelings is what this feels like to me.

No.  Absolutely not.  You don't get to play that game.  I've been arguing facts this whole time.  If anyone's been arguing feelings, it's been you.

Anyway sure, China bad, us good.

No.  China bad can exist on its own.  You are the one bringing up others in order to justify it.  That's the emotionalism here.

I'm still in the dark where you are going with this.

I'm not going anywhere.  I made a simple statement that China's numbers are probably bogus.

Yes, China downplayed the numbers in the beginning

And now you're even agreeing with me.  So where are you going with this?

If they're downplaying the numbers at one point in time, why are their numbers three weeks later beyond scrutiny?

I don't see it spreading very differently here than in China, there's nothing in the data that backs that up. Actually the other way around, everything suggests it has a better chance of spreading faster here once it's loose in the general population.

The main variable we are speaking of is time.  We've already established that it was present to the point of detection at a much earlier point than anywhere else.

Well one more thing, this was based on early data from China
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316

The key factors being a mean incubation time of 5.2 days and an R0 of 2.2, that translates to a daily growth factor of 1.16
The average global growth factor is between 1.17 and 1.18 in the past week. Europe ranges from 1.03 to 1.26.

So no, I don't think China's numbers are bogus.

Taking the growth factor from that article into account and given a daily amount of new cases of 3884 on Februari 4th, it would have taken 102 days of steady 1.16x growth to get to that number bringing us back to October 25th 2019.

I don't know what else to say, the math simply fits.

(Btw even the highest observed growth rate in Europe atm 1.26, still puts patient zero back to the end of November for China)

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 22 March 2020