Hi Roger,
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) dataData on the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is currently available directly from these sources.Please note that the GHO APIs do not currently provide COVID-19 data. A data extract from the WHO Situation dashboard is available from UNOCHA's Humanitarian Data Exchange <https://data.humdata.org/dataset/coronavirus-covid-19-cases-data-for-china-and-the-rest-of-the-world> (HDX ) platform. This content is provided as set of regularly updated CSV files.
https://www.who.int/data/ghoHealth NSW - publishes daily stats https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/diseases/Pages/covid-19-latest.aspx#statistics
WHO has daily situation reports https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/
and information here: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen
Smokers and COVID-19 https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-on-smoking-and-covid-19
Mythbusters has a clip on how the common cold is spread - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wPKBpk7wUY
UNSW has a useful article explaining what we are facing in Australia going into winter (as opposed to the Northern Hemisphere coming out of winter). https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/dreaded-duo-australia-will-likely-hit-peak-coronavirus-cases-around-flu-season
The reason we need to flatten the curve is so that we don't all get sick (flu, gastro, car accident, COVID-19...) and the health services can't cope. AIHW has some data from past years... https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/primary-health-care/mhc-potentially-preventable-hospitalisations/contents/overview
As there is no vaccination against catching the disease - medical treatment to enhance the bodies immune system. Where the bodies immune system is compromised the medical services have to work harder and may not be able to support us for long enough for our immune system to fight the disease.
"Can you boost your immune system against the coronavirus (COVID-19)? You might feel a little powerless, but there are a few things you can do to help strengthen your immune system <https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/immune-system> and help protect yourself from many types of viruses <https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/bacterial-vs-viral-infection>. And none of them involve a hazmat suit"...https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/blog/can-you-boost-your-immune-system-against-the-coronavirus-covid-19
Marghanita On 3/4/20 11:49 am, Roger Clarke wrote:
On 3/4/20 10:41 am, jw...@internode.on.net wrote:Here's a Fact Check article that also explores how the data is presented and compared.League tables are always misleading or at least can easily be misinterpreted.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/fact-file-are-we-turning-coronavirus-corner-flatten-the-curv/12113410Thanks Jan. But unfortunately the article's very muddy on deaths and death-rates (in the section that starts 40% of the way down the page).The graph's use of colour, and the inclusion of a legend that has an unclear relationship with the lines, makes it almost unreadable.And this buys into one of the most silly aspects of the entire pseudo-statistical mess: >There is a second type of death rate. This is sometimes referred to as the "case fatality rate". >This tells us the number of people who are dying as a proportion of confirmed cases.Let's leave aside the issue of uncertain and probably variable test-reliability (as measured by false-positive and false-negative proportions).Countries have adopted very different approaches to testing, and have changed their approach over time and space, sometimes frequently.In most cases, the sample of the population that is being tested at any given time is intentionally not random, but targeted.But the basis of the targeting (the sampling frame, and the manner in which the sample is selected from the sampling frame) is highly variable, and the execution if it is challenging and highly error-prone.One result is that within-country counts aren't comparable over even short periods, let alone the whole 4-8 weeks to date.A second result is that inter-country comparisons are completely meaningless, because the confounding variables dominate the data.The article's right to say that "the case fatality rate is not the same as an actual mortality rate", and "countries with limited levels of testing might appear to have higher mortality rates — particularly if that limited testing is being restricted to those patients with more severe symptoms".But it fails to say what matters, which is that "the case fatality rate is pseudo-data, shouldn't be reported, should certainly not be compared between countries, and is useless as a basis for any kind of decision-making".What's needed is clarity about causes-of-death, and about what that tells us can be done for those in danger.Availability of breathing support? Probably above all, availability of quality medical and nursing staff in appropriate hospital facilities.But maybe also a severe hosing-down of the alarmism projected by politicians, some health policy people, and the media.----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Clarke" To:"link" Cc: Sent:Fri, 3 Apr 2020 10:01:35 +1100 Subject:[LINK] OT: The Quality of Reporting on "COVID-19-Linked" Deaths Ruminations on a Friday morning ... The sports results and tables have been replaced by coronavirus (CV) infection-counts and death-counts. And the media declares raw numbers, without providing any context to them. This morning's ABC News says that yesterday's 'CV{-linked}' death-toll was: Italy 760 UK 559 Spain 800 To get some perspective, that needs moderation by two key variables: the countries' poulations and their normal death-rates. Death-rates are quoted as number per thousand of population p.a. So Normal Deaths per Day = (Population/1000 * Death-Rate p.a.) / 365 I haven't been able to quickly locate indicators of the degree of variability of deaths per day around the averages shown above, but there could be wide variability. In particular, winter in some countries is likely to have higher rates than less-cold times of year. It's not possible with current information to relate CV-caused deaths to normal death-rates. As a proxy measure, I've shown below the ratio of deaths yesterday compared with average daily deaths, as a percentage: Country Population Death-Rate Deaths per Day CV Deaths Y'day %age Spain 46m 91 1146 800 69 Italy 60m 10.4 1709 760 44 UK 67m 9.4 1725 559 32 A number of potentially important factors muddy the water: 1. Generally, reports fail to distinguish: a. deaths where CV appears to be the only significant factor b. deaths where CV was a significant factor, although not the only one c. deaths where CV may have been a factor (e.g. diagnosed with the virus, but nature of death not consistent with CV-caused deaths) d. deaths where CV was present but unlikely to have been a factor The term 'excess deaths' or 'excess mortality' indicates a+b. In German, the word is 'Ueberstirblichkeit', as per: https://swprs.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/mortalitc3a4t-schweiz.png This suggests that Switzerland is experiencing a 'normal' late-winter-flu peak in deaths among over-65s. It may be that there is a great deal of over-reporting due to the inclusion of c. and d. in the numbers appearing in the media. Quoting https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/, "[It may be that] all test-positive deaths are assumed to be additional deaths". 2. It may be that a 'fear-of-the-virus' anxiety factor has exacerbated death rates, and even resulted in deaths of individuals who are not infected. For example, populations in countries that are less prone to hysteria, such as Germanic northern Europe, evidence very low rates in comparison with warm-blooded, Mediterranean countries. 3. A variety of reports suggest a very large proportion of deaths has been, throughout, among those over 70 (90%), and a large proportion had prior conditions that were life-threatening or could readily become life-threatening (80%). But, apart from a number of specific instances (Wuhan, Iran?, the upper-mid Po Valley, parts of Spain, UK, US), it appears that even deaths among the over-70s may be within the normal statistical range. 4. It appears that in both Italy and Spain, many hospitals and aged-care facilities lost a large proportion of their staff, in many cases early in the epidemic. That's because staff from Eastern European countries were terrified by panic-ridden reporting and fled home, and large numbers of local staff tested positive and were isolated at home. This may have resulted in many saveable patients going untreated and becoming casualties of the epidemic. -- Roger Clarke mailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law University of N.S.W. Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
-- Marghanita da Cruz Telephone: 0414-869202 Email: marghan...@ramin.com.au Website: http://ramin.com.au _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link