I am not a biologist or a doctor so my opinion on this is probably pretty worthless, but surely there are so many variables on this that it is impossible to do that sort of extrapolation.
Possible further mutations/additional understanding of the virus/quarantined and control methods/possible latent immunity in some individuals etc etc etc.
It’s been a good few months since the media had a novel new disease to shriek about. Of course any new disease is potentially the “big one” but I don’t think I’ll start to be concerned until we see it establish itself firmly.
It is a very simple infection model with the key assumptions stated in the top right corner. These will be modified as more data comes in.
Its value is not primarily in prediction. I'm fairly sure it won't be anything like as bad as that. The value of the model is in providing a framework for the data as it comes in, to see if it is tracking worse or better than the current assumptions, and to inform decisions and preparations.
In a 10-minute gap between meetings yesterday, I did some back-of-an-envelope calculations and I came up with 243 million deaths worldwide and 1.6 million deaths in the UK.
Time for a little perspective, the world's population has already increased by 6 million this year and approaching 100,000 today.
Massive variables in all this - can we presume healthier stronger populations will see lower mortality rates then those with poorer health? Would the death rate in Uganda be the same as in the UK? Who knows?
The worry for me is the extent to which we can rely on the figures coming out of China - the Chinese State has a history of providing some interesting statistics. I saw a report where a nurse claimed 90,000 had been infected which is far in advance of the numbers being reported.
That was around the estimate of an epidemiologist at Imperial, too. It's likely not deliberate underreporting; there's no way they'd have been able to test and confirm that many cases in so short a time. And don't forget the incubation period is up to two weeks, so many of the infected will not yet have developed full symptoms (or died).
No doubt there is also some number of unreported deaths... so the true mortality rate is mostly guesswork at this point.
My guess (FWIW) is that it's considerably less than 3%, but no doubt we'll know a great deal more within a couple of weeks.
I was quoting an index you didn't like the make up of - you described the stats as "lies" - lets look at the OECD index you cite in two key devolved areas - education and health:
Health: 4.9/10 - 12th out of 12 regions in the UK. Want to tell your lies about infant mortality again?
Education: 7.9/10 - 4th out of 12 regions in UK. Lets see how this evolves - PISA is heading in the wrong direction unfortunately.
Other areas are strong - eg Access to Services (3/12) - but then with a subsidy from rUK tax payers I should hope so, other areas are worse - such as housing - (10/12 in UK), and Safety (9/12) - the success of Police Scotland just keeps going.....
It's a mixed bag - as are all regions in the UK - but to claim that Health (devolved) is a success is, how should we put it? "A lie"
More lies about fantasy subsidies, we pay through the nose for our pocket money
Take it up with the government of Scotland - they compile the GERS statistics, no one else.
LOL, the unionist stock answer, UK provide the only numbers available, they are fixed of course , so what else can Scottish Government use. Lies lies and damn statistics the unionist mantra
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https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2020-01-28/swiss-manufacturer-stadler-wins-contract-to-build-new-362m-metro-fleet/
Started my first job in Newcastle a month after the first section of Metro opened in 1980.
Its value is not primarily in prediction. I'm fairly sure it won't be anything like as bad as that. The value of the model is in providing a framework for the data as it comes in, to see if it is tracking worse or better than the current assumptions, and to inform decisions and preparations.
It's likely not deliberate underreporting; there's no way they'd have been able to test and confirm that many cases in so short a time.
And don't forget the incubation period is up to two weeks, so many of the infected will not yet have developed full symptoms (or died).
No doubt there is also some number of unreported deaths... so the true mortality rate is mostly guesswork at this point.
My guess (FWIW) is that it's considerably less than 3%, but no doubt we'll know a great deal more within a couple of weeks.