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To: sense who wrote (3028)1/28/2020 6:18:26 AM
From: sense  Respond to of 3350
 
Worth noting from the two graphs in the article... linked at the end of mine...

First, we are still early in the outbreak... so a lot of the discontinuities being seen in the data might easily be a function of reporting systems suddenly ending suppression of the news and "catching up" in reporting cases, rather than the bigger numbers reflecting sudden leaps in the numbers of infections... as it might appear only because of the, even unintentionally, intermittent methodology in reporting. The same thing happened, repeatedly, in the last west African Ebola crisis... requiring that the data have to be smoothed to fit curves while accounting for the accuracy (or not), completeness (or not), and timeliness (or not) of the reporting...

We should find out convincingly within the next three or four days whether the numbers out today represent a real and solid data point describing the pace in expansion... or instead demonstrate the lumpy nature of numbers often seen in the case reporting.

Second, when looking at the graphs... you always have to keep the lag factors in mind...

So, when you see the charts are showing we're now up to 106 deaths reported... you have to correlate those deaths back in time to consider how they relate to PRIOR case reports...

The lag time between a new infection occurring and a new source of transmission emerging... is around five days to two weeks... with newly contagious persons perhaps not yet showing symptoms for another 5 days...

The lag time between a new infection occurring... and a newly infected person showing symptoms... would thus be around ten days to three weeks...

Thus far, you assume that a new case is going to be reported only when an infected person becomes symptomatic and shows up at the hospital looking for treatment... and then, there's a delay inherent in gathering and reporting the statistics... which might also add in a lag factor of another few days. As caregivers gain experience, as the systems adjust to addressing the crisis, and as the technology required finds its way into the field... you might start seeing infections reported earlier in the process... as PCR based tests can identify the virus even before a patient becomes infectious, and before symptoms emerge. As those shifts occur... you have to correct for the changing lag factors in order to properly correlate one set of numbers with another...

What the second chart shows... is 106 deaths charted directly below 4295 cases... but, we know mortality lags new cases reported by at least 5 days... so you look back 5 days on the upper line and see the 106 deaths reported on 27 January correlate to the numbers (five days or more earlier) with just over 500 total cases reported on 22 January. That would suggest a mortality rate of close to 20% of cases reported. That's probably not right in relation to total cases... because a lot of cases were probably still not being reported 5 days ago... but, we also know that, at the same time, many deaths were being not reported... as they were being "hidden" while listed as "pneumonia" deaths, not cornona virus related deaths.

Expect the numbers in this report might consist of a bit of effort in trying "catch up" and "correct errors" from prior reporting... which might skew the value of these numbers as a data point when trying to use them to plot and correlate curves tracking the infection and mortality rates...

Over time, the correlations in the numbers become useful to use as check sums... the numbers of new cases reported today... represent the number of new infections that occurred two or three weeks ago... so how many new cases were being reported in that time period two to three weeks prior ? How does that plot out as a growth rate if you back correlate cases then to cases now using different time segments ? Same with the mortality statistics... which have to track with the case numbers from five (or more) days prior. As you chart it... is a sudden spike in mortality due to accounting foibles... or a sudden change in virulence from a mutation ? Is a sudden wobble in the mortality rate... due to better care concepts keeping a few people alive for a day or two longer... or due to something else ?

China Virus Cases Almost Double Overnight, Deaths Top 100 As North Korea Closes Border



To: sense who wrote (3028)1/28/2020 4:24:59 PM
From: sense  Respond to of 3350
 
Naturally... it was not just Canada enabling Chinese espionage and thefts of biological research materials...
Harvard Chemistry Chair & Two Chinese Nationals Arrested For Lying About China Ties, Smuggling "Biological Material"
Guess the FBI was far too busy with other things, at the time... from 2012 to 2017...



To: sense who wrote (3028)1/30/2020 6:17:11 PM
From: sense  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3350
 
More inputs:

Following up a bit on the "sourcing" issues... which has me still assuming the virus infecting the world now has particular features that it does because they were engineered into it on purpose... making it a weaponized form of coronavirus that was intended to be murderous. Header links back to the series on this subject.

First worth noting... I've not seen any additional information recently focused on addressing the analysis of the origins of the virus that is out there in the world now... nothing new focused on analysis of the features of the bug(s) and their likely origin(s). Perhaps there just hasn't been enough time yet, for those doing the analysis, to comment ? Worth watching that carefully to see if, for whatever reason, given we know the labs are doing the work... it become a case of the "dog that didn't bark"... where the lack of information is the information and its proof.

Worth noting... China (correctly... apparently only due to President Xi's specific direction) recently provided information to the rest of the world on "what they know" of the genetics of the bug. I assume and expect... that the information provided might be... incomplete... or limited in its accuracy. In any case... rather than only assuming good faith... comparisons will need to be made that address that potential... including not only variability apparent in those viri that have exfiltrated China versus those at the origin... but also, as much as is possible, between the virus that is ravaging Wuhan now, and those that were closest to the time and point of origin of the outbreak... meaning not only the assumed to be "initial" cases from the market... but also those others temporally proximate.

The point is both determining origins (and the nature of the origin)... and getting a bead on the mutability...

[More questions not asked: If the virus escaped the Wuhan lab... and the origin were in the bat research program... how long ago might the event in origin have occurred... if infected bats were propagating the weaponized virus in the regional bat population... for a long enough time to find their way into bats sold in the food market ? The recent effort debunking the bat origin in food markets... may be pure misdirection. Is anyone testing the wild bat population for the incidence and extent of a now "native" reservoir of virus ? Bats might well prove a secondary source of spread... while everyone is focused on the faster path in direct transmission. ]



IF this were bio-warfare related... meaning not (as I expect is true) an accidental release by China's labs of stolen material with bio-warfare potential (the lack of adequate controls on the bat research appearing a clear "most probable" point of failure)... or some material modified by China for that purpose that escaped accidentally... the point of origin in China, and the impact it is having there now, might not be as linear or meaningful as assumed. It is well within the capacity of (knowledgeable) technologists, now, to engineer weapons that are genetically specific... and were that the case... the weaponization effort might be paired with delivery methods intended to foster spread, first... more than intended to impact the target directly.

In that scenario China might be an initial target only because of an expectation that its systemic weaknesses make it a useful petri dish... which, at least, is being proven in the case of Wuhan's initial responses.

The evidence apparent thus far... IMO... doesn't support any case other than an internally driven and "accidental" origin. But, caution requires study to try to ensure the alternative case is not correct. Otherwise, if there is encoded some genetic/social/cultural variability in the impact from this virus... we won't know that unless and until that impact is proven in the wild... so evidence of engineering in origin has meaning in addressing multiple potential risks... that also meaning there are potentially many interests involved in wanting to ensure that any evidence of engineering in the origins will not be investigated at that fine level of detail. That might well be true even without any larger interest in suppressing any meta-level nefarious intent, of course...

On origins, my prior quick look at this met a dead end in not finding any obvious linkages (which doesn't mean the lack of news is a lack of fact... the counter-intuitive logic to the dog that didn't bark... is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence... ) between the North Carolina labs coronavirus viral "innovations"... and the apparent hubs of transference of stolen biological weapons related biomaterials from labs in North America... thus far known to be Harvard University and Canadian biohazard level 4 lab in Winnipeg.

I assume that Chinese espionage and their ongoing efforts obtain access to information, and to directly obtain biowarfare materials... were probably not limited to those two "successes"... but, as far as investigative journalism with that focus... or officialdom commenting... <queue crickets chirping>.

What was the presence of Chinese nationals in the program at North Carolina ? Such an easy and obvious question... <qcc>

Don't recall the source presenting it now... but did note it in passing:

There was news out there... claiming that there was in fact coronavirus known to be inside the facility in Winnipeg... and that its primary point of origin was from the Netherlands... that same source clearly implying that was Winnipeg was the origin of that material in Wuhan... which, if true, should be fairly easily determined by the geneticists ?