COVID-19 Megathread 3: Third time's a charm

[Meclazine for Israel]

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
H.P. Lovecraft

OK, looking at new countries entering the fray this morning for Corona-virus infection rates, we start to see the virus spreading into West Africa and South America:

Leading Growth in New Cases (cases above 40 to qualify)

1   192%   Ivory Coast
2   163%   Kyrgyzstan
3   96%   Ghana
4   85%   Afghanistan
5   74%   Montenegro
6   52%   New Zealand
7   38%   Romania
8   38%   South Africa
9   36%   Saudi Arabia
10   36%   Colombia

197 countries now affected. South Africa is a concern as the average infection rate of HIV in that country is 21%.

For some reason, be it testing, social isolation, preparedness etc etc, the following countries have remarkably low mortality rates:

Lowest Mortality Rates in the World (cases above 100 to qualify)

1   0.2%   Israel
2   0.2%   Czechia
3   0.2%   Chile
4   0.3%   Iceland
5   0.4%   Singapore
6   0.4%   Australia
7   0.4%   Norway
8   0.5%   Germany
9   0.5%   Thailand
10   0.5%   Ireland

Norway and Germany have an unusually low mortality rate given their infection rates.

The StoreBought Affluenza Index reveals more countries on the wealthy end are suffering higher infection rates than poor countries.



Stats from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/


 

[Meclazine for Israel]

A post-Corona-virus future looks like a pretty bright light at the end of all of this.

Here is one of the first videos of an Australian man, Tim McLean, reporting via video from the streets of Wuhan as he goes outside shopping for food after a long isolation period having been quarantined for over 60 days.

In January, Tim helped report some of the feeling on the streets at the start of the pandemic, and subsequently missed out on his evacuation flight to Australia by a matter of hours, and was stuck inside the hot zone near one of the major hospitals in Wuhan.

ABC News

Tim McLean in Wuhan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6cjTWKlGNo

Tim's advice - Relax. Prepare. Stay positive.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Here is a video from life in and around Milan compiled by a top Australian journalist.

ABC Foreign Correspondent

Emma Albirici Report on Milan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faro2mDRklg

19 Italian doctors have so far died and a total of 4,000 healthcare workers in Italy have contracted Corona-virus.
 

[Meclazine for Israel]

More un-clear bouncing around in #s of cases from the East Asian seeming success stories South Korea is creeping back up again, but Singapore and Hong Kong went down slightly:

South Korea:

Mar 25: 100
Mar 24: 76
Mar 23: 64
Mar 22: 98
Mar 21: 147
Mar 20: 87
Mar 19: 152
Mar 18: 93
Mar 17: 84
Mar 16: 74
Mar 15: 76

Just look at "Active Cases" in context of the overall behavioural pattern of the pandemic in each Country to make a more effective interpretation.


https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/

Net loss of "Active Cases" today in South Korea was another 130-150 cases downhill, so things are decaying as one would expect beyond the edge of this graph.

The mathematical parameters which control the height and spread of the bell curve are still in place:

• Zoonotic cases
• Transmission rate
• Reservoir of people available to infect
• Unreported rate

If those parameters do not change, then you are shooting for the stars on the downhill slide to success.

PQG quite rightly mentioned parameters like Government action (social distancing, quarantine, travel restriction) which can all be included in transmission rate.

With a mortality rate of 1.38%, South Korea is managing the transmission rate really well. They were way down the list with both infection rate and mortality rate.

Infection rate for South Korea is 0.018%.
Infection rate for USA is 0.017%.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Here is one of the first videos of an Australian man, Tim McLean, reporting via video from the streets of Wuhan as he goes outside shopping for food after a long isolation period having been quarantined for over 60 days.

Is not Wuhan, Wuhan is close

No, that is Wuhan. Literally ground zero.

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/6666548/coronavirus-lockdown-south-coast-man-says-hes-safer-in-wuhan-than-australia/

[Meclazine for Israel]

Revelation 6:1-2

“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”



Donald Trump has removed all educational funding for lambs learning English to avoid them opening any more of the seals. Now that is leadership.

Daily New Cases



46,000 new cases globally. Highest reported positive tests in one day.

Increase was due to more cases reported than normal in Spain, Germany and France.

USA has had growth in new cases levelling out at ~11,000 per day.

Active Cases



38,000 new active cases globally. Yesterday, 35,000 new active cases. For the Active case to be interpretable, one would need accurate determination of the recoveries to see how long this curve will go before it slows.

Keep in mind that most European countries are not reporting recoveries, so Active Cases are higher than otherwise would be reported.

Countries not reporting daily recoveries include:

• USA
• Switzerland
• The Netherlands
• Austria
• Norway
• Sweden
• Denmark
• Poland (reported “-12” recoveries yesterday )

As such, we need to keep an eye on the the Active Case graph with this in mind.

Given the under-reporting of the virus due to lack of testing and its asymptomatic nature, Active case graphs are best interpreted on a country by country basis with their testing and reporting regime in mind.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Kurzgesagt

The Corona Virus Explained

https://youtu.be/BtN-goy9VOY

A great video for understanding the basics of viral infection and pandemics.

[Meclazine for Israel]

New Antibody test available in Australia tomorrow.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/uk-coronavirus-mass-home-testing-to-be-made-available-within-days

"The test detects the presence of IGM, an antibody that arises very early on in the infection, and IGG, which is increased in the body’s response to the virus. The results of some of the tests on order can be read by anyone, but others would need to be interpreted by healthcare professionals."

This is my limited understanding:

IGG tells you if you have suffered an infection from the Corona-virus.

IGM tells you if you have been exposed briefly before developing antibodies.

[Meclazine for Israel]

New Antibody test available in Australia tomorrow.

Why not the U.S. too?

Ask PQG. It's probably just around the corner.

Although you guys probably have to pay a lot more for it.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Highest Daily Growth in Corona-Virus Total Cases by Country.

1   94.1%   Ghana
2   49.2%   Turkey
3   37.0%   Kazakhstan
4   35.2%   Ukraine
5   33.2%   Estonia
6   31.2%   Azerbaijan
7   30.7%   South Africa
8   27.7%   Russia
9   26.3%   Belgium
10   24.5%   Dominican Republic

(https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

These are countries entering the upward 'curve'.

Russia, and surrounding states starting to gather cases. South Africa is a real concern given the health situation of the populations in southern Africa. Testing in Africa will be very diminished due to the lack of medical professionals and resources.

Meanwhile, Asian countries with prolonged exposure such as China and South Korea are enjoying a consistent decrease in cases. Japan has remarkably low infection rate and an extremely low number of Active cases (<1,000).

South Korea appears to be on top of the pandemic and is at the 3/4 mark of the curve.



South Korea has had an 11 day successive decrease in active cases.

Now decreasing to around half the number of cases at its peak on March 11 2020. Singapore and Hong Kong looking good as well in terms of managing the case spread.



Italy has nearly peaked in growth rate (21 March 2020 was the highest recorded growth), and will hopefully decrease in growth of Active Cases as it approaches the top of the curve.

A rough prediction of peak number of Active cases in Italy based on mathematical curve fitting analysis would say 90,000-100,000 cases in mid-April. This all depend on a decrease in the growth rate at a consistent rate.

When plotted on the same scale as Italy, the USA has a much higher growth rate in Active Cases.



United States. The bell curve of Active cases in the USA is going to be very steep based on a predictable and continuing increase in the growth rate.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

"Slowing the Spread".

We need, at the very least, an analysis of where the spread is growing and receding.

Each country has a different style of growth of the virus. The blue lines below represents the growth rate in 'Active Cases' per country. The axis are kept at the same scale for comparative purposes.

Germany has started reporting "recovered cases" in the last week, so the comparison between countries is now better using 'Active Cases'.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/



United Kingdom - Started late, but is now showing an uptick in growth. Keep in mind that with an incubation time of 5-7 days plus testing, todays case growth depends on social behaviour 7-14 days ago.



France - Fairly linear increase in growth rate over time, with the genuine appearance of a slightly 'flattened' curve compared to other European countries.



Germany - Despite a low mortality rate, Germany has experienced the 2nd strongest growth in "Active Cases" globally during the last two days. This may be due to increased testing.



Spain - Based on recent data, Spain will take over Italy in terms of 'Active Case' numbers shortly if that level of growth is maintained.

Based on the trendlines (smoothed dotted lines above) of 7 countries, including the four above plus Italy, South Korea and USA, there is a degree of predictability of the number of 'Active Cases' of the Corona-virus within each population.

For example, the decline in growth in South Korea today was exactly in line with the predicted growth (or decay) rate based on these curves.

The smoothed trendline predicted a drop in 'Active Cases' of 315 in South Korea. The actual drop was 301.

Tomorrow, I will:

• Compare growth rates in all of these countries including Italy and the USA;
• Run a fresh calculation on the Storebought Affluenza Index.

There would appear to be a strong correlation between Corona-virus clusters and wealthy suburbs developing in Australia:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-27/coronavirus-sydney-eastern-suburbs-sees-concentration-of-cases/12096790

Melbourne is exactly the same. My advice is not to travel in the Business or First Class section on major International Airlines.

[Meclazine for Israel]

A projection meter for COVID-19 in the US.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections.

Predicted peak ventilator requirements: 20,000.

Start of June looks promising for an end to this thing. I am still thinking mid June to see cases drop to 10% of their peak in the USA. South Korea is currently dropping past 50% of their peak.

Do they have active cases anywhere, or just deaths?

[Meclazine for Israel]

Forgive me for circling back, but I'm a bit confused about the projection model on this site posted earlier: https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections.

If my math is right, with total American deaths coming in at around 81,000, a death rate of 1% means we will only see ~8 million Americans get infected with this virus. How is that possible in a country as populous as the United States? Either the death rate is wrong and there is a ridiculous proportion of asymptomatic cases, or the virus will come back with just as much force as before... right?

81,000 deaths is a model prediction. I find it ghastly to predict any death to be frank.

But I am predicting a decrease of active cases of between 90-95% of the number of "peak Active cases" (top of the curve) by early to mid-June based purely by modelling the curves from China and South Korea.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=355847.msg7257352#msg7257352

Can further back that up when I find the quarter point of the curve. That is the point of maximum rate of change on the way up the slope of Active Cases.



That will not predict the top, but it will predict the time this thing lasts. As yet, the USA numbers have failed to stop accelerating. I will present some data tomorrow that shows that, in the USA, the foot on the accelerator is still firmly pressed to the floor.

Under those circumstances with no drop in growth, it is impossible to predict anything except that the end point is going to be further out in date than first expected. Maybe July-August 2020 for example.

USA has good and bad curve attributes. The good being an accelerated sharp entry may mean a sharp decay and an early finish. The bad being the effect on the healthcare system. The main episode of the Spanish Flu in the USA in 1918 was all over within 45-60 days in October-November of that year.

Be very skeptical of the data being presented by the media as fact.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Forgive me for circling back, but I'm a bit confused about the projection model on this site posted earlier: https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections.

If my math is right, with total American deaths coming in at around 81,000, a death rate of 1% means we will only see ~8 million Americans get infected with this virus. How is that possible in a country as populous as the United States? Either the death rate is wrong and there is a ridiculous proportion of asymptomatic cases, or the virus will come back with just as much force as before... right?

81,000 deaths is a model prediction. I find it ghastly to predict any death to be frank.

But I am predicting a decrease of active cases of between 90-95% of the number of "peak Active cases" (top of the curve) by early to mid-June based purely by modelling the curves from China and South Korea.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=355847.msg7257352#msg7257352

Can further back that up when I find the quarter point of the curve. That is the point of maximum rate of change on the way up the slope of Active Cases.



That will not predict the top, but it will predict the time this thing lasts. As yet, the USA numbers have failed to stop accelerating. I will present some data tomorrow that shows that, in the USA, the foot on the accelerator is still firmly pressed to the floor.

Under those circumstances with no drop in growth, it is impossible to predict anything except that the end point is going to be further out in date than first expected. Maybe July-August 2020 for example.

USA has good and bad curve attributes. The good being an accelerated sharp entry may mean a sharp decay and an early finish. The bad being the effect on the healthcare system. The main episode of the Spanish Flu in the USA in 1918 was all over within 45-60 days in October-November of that year.

Be very skeptical of the data being presented by the media as fact.

The reason they go with deaths and not 'raw cases' is that deaths are more accurate, particularly in Iran where they obey strict burial procedures.

The Iran death curve for example:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/

looks more consistent than the 'raw cases' data.

That is, they may not trust the data on 'Active Cases' to make predictions. Reverse-engineering everything from the resulting death rate is possible if you know what you are doing.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Forgive me for circling back, but I'm a bit confused about the projection model on this site posted earlier: https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections.

If my math is right, with total American deaths coming in at around 81,000, a death rate of 1% means we will only see ~8 million Americans get infected with this virus. How is that possible in a country as populous as the United States? Either the death rate is wrong and there is a ridiculous proportion of asymptomatic cases, or the virus will come back with just as much force as before... right?

The death rate is not that wrong (but likely lower than 1%). I think that the key is herd immunity.

Here is an example with fictional numbers:
Among 90% of healthiest ones it is 0,1%.
The rest it's 10%.

The tricky part is to isolate the rest until healthy ones get immunity. It is a difficult task when no one is immune and you have an exponential growth with doubling rate of 2 days...

Herd immunity is a term used more commonly to describe a biological situation where a large portion of a population has already gained immunity through previous infection or vaccination.

Thus protecting the remainder of the population from the virus by removing any effective pathway or access to the more vulnerable.

It is how vaccinating chidren from Measles works.

But given the experience of The Netherlands, it is not effective against Corona-virus.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Update on stats from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Looking at the case graphs over the last week, the USA started later in the race, then really put the foot on the accelerator resulting in an unprecedented spread of the virus.

In terms of growth measured purely from "Active Cases" we have:



Whilst no European country has reached the top of the 'Active Case' curve (or in my interpretation, a real drop in growth commensurate with a drop in growth near the top of the curve), there are a couple of countries including Italy (21 March) and Spain (26 March) which have come down slightly from a maximum rate of growth.

The USA has been a standout in growth with a rapid ascent up the 'Active Case' curve due to accelerated growth as highlighted:



Countries will not appear at the top of the 'Active Case' curve (green bars above) until those growth lines (solid blue) go down through zero. China, South Korea have already passed that point.

Looking at the Storebought Affluenza Index, we see an increase in infection rates in wealthier countries as the pandemic continues.


Graph of Corona Virus Infection Rate against Wealth (per person)

Looking at a smaller scale in Australia.

Australia now has the highest testing rate on the planet (higher than South Korea) with an average positive return rate of 1.7%. As such, the statistics are showing an elevated infection rate in the wealthier suburbs of our capital cities. In particular, NSW and VIC most prestigious suburbs are suffering the highest rates of COVID-19 infection.

In NSW, the harbour-side suburbs are showing the highest infection rates.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-27/coronavirus-sydney-eastern-suburbs-sees-concentration-of-cases/12096790

In Victoria, the area of Stonnington is by far the wealthiest part of Melbourne.

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6zBkG/1/?abcnewsembedheight=680

Wealthy travellers have returned from overseas, gone to the local Doctor, and that location becomes a point of infection.

Also, a lot of transmission in these suburbs through weddings, birthday parties and other large scale gatherings of people who don't see social isolation procedures and protocols as necessary.

[Meclazine for Israel]

-snipped for space-

Is the US even keeping track of recoveries at all?

Yes.

But you are essentially looking at 7-14 days before seeing those Recovery numbers react to the new diagnosed active cases.

[Meclazine for Israel]

How many deaths do you think we are going to actually see? 500,000? A million? Two million? Or more?

I can't speak for anyone else, but assuming a 20% infection rate and 1% deaths among the infected (neither of those assumptions being particularly pessimistic) gets to around 600,000 deaths in America. I'm not necessarily predicting it will go that high, but it's definitely plausible, especially when lots of areas still aren't taking this seriously.

Which is why I'm ending it tonight.

Are you being serious?

Yeah, I really hope he's joking (it's not funny though). Especially with what I know about his past.

Millions are going to die, that's apparent. My parents are both in the high risk population and my brother is a cleaner at a medical research facility.

No, I am not joking.

Brah, message me your phone number. We are men of science, we fear no worldly terror.

The Australian Corona-virus rate is 1.7% of tested cases as coming back as positive.

And our 'Active Case' curve is like Singapore, South Korea and Japan. We are actually dropping in case growth already.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Not sure what DeSantis is doing.


https://twitter.com/adamplayford/status/1244048209896448000

DeSantis' poor response to this pandemic has been astounding, and has lowered my opinion of him-aside from his obstructionism of Florida's Amendment 4, as has been noted here. This is one of the weaknesses of our federal system-that the state-level responses to crises really do depend on the competency of the governors. Some governors (i.e. DeWine, Cuomo, Newsom, Baker, Hogan, Pritzker, Inslee, Beshear) have done a good or even an excellent job at responding to this pandemic, while others (i.e. Lee, Abbott, Ivey, Reeves, DeSantis) have done terribly.

More extreme restrictions does not equal doing better.

That is very true. Singapore and South Korea rely on intelligent patient tracing as a more effective tool than social distancing.

[Meclazine for Israel]

The US federal government resonse is completely idiotic and chaotic and resembles the EU's incompetence together with Australia's response on this crisis.

FTFY. Our politicians let 168 Corona-virus positive cases from a Cruise Chip straight into downtown Sydney, increasing the number of cases in the country by >5% in one foul swoop.

The Corona-virus response of all Governments highlights their general lackadaisical attitude towards life is not suitable in these situations.

We should just change to a medical/engineering response team.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Australia now has the highest testing rate on the planet (higher than South Korea) with an average positive return rate of 1.7%.

for wikipedia Australia is 8th in testing rate, after
Iceland
Bahrain
Norway
UAE
Switzerland
Slovenia
Malta

The Prime Minister was saying that Australia has the highest testing rate (per capita) of major countries. Maybe he meant above 20M people.

Note to self: don't quote the Prime Minister of Australia's comments as proven scientific data.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Starting with new countries entering the curve based on growth rates in Active Cases for areas with >100 cases, we have:

1   66.7%   Ivory Coast
2   60.0%   Cameroon
3   42.1%   Uzbekistan
4   35.7%   Philippines
5   35.0%   Ukraine
6   30.2%   Romania
7   28.4%   Peru
8   27.1%   Kazakhstan
9   25.3%   Turkey
10   25.1%   UAE

For countries with Active Cases < 100, it looks like this:

1 Congo
2 Saint Lucia
3 Libya
4 Guinea
5 Haiti
6 Eritrea
7 Syria
8 Niger
9 French Guiana
10 Angola

Even though below a normal level of trustworthiness to make calculations, those countries will most likely appear shortly in the first list.

Now for countries who have nearly completed a full cycle of growth and decline in Active Cases, I have compiled a dataset for South Korea.



Notice the peak in ‘Growth of Active Cases’ occurs about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way up the ‘Active Case’ curve. So once we see that declining consistently, then the peak is not far away.

Once it returns to zero in growth, then we have our 2nd key date. A time period can then be predicted for the total infection period before returning to zero Active Cases.

I know people find it difficult that Active Cases will go to zero. If the virus has no path to re-infect due to immunity built from recovered cases, then it will have no chance to infect the naive population (herd immunity). This can occur when between 75-95% of the population has been infected (and developed immunity) or has been vaccinated. This is why Measles vaccination levels of children need to be only 90-95%.

Looking now at the Growth of Active Cases curves for several countries, we can see Italy and Spain are most likely past their peak growth.



Once the curves hit zero, then the peak number of Active cases for that country will be reached. As seen in South Korea, once that point is reached, the virus appears to have no further path for infection as it has no access (through immunity and reduction in the reservoir of the naive population) to spread much further.

This type of broad mathematical analysis is more effective when dealing with inconsistencies in testing rates, reporting rates and various social isolation protocols specific to each country.

One thing is clear is that the wealthy Asian countries (South Korea, Singapore, Japan) are better prepared for a global apocalyptic survival scenario.

The numbers from Japan are incredible.

[Meclazine for Israel]

For what it's worth, the number of new U.S. cases on Worldometer dropped today, and is less than what it was even 2 days ago.

Even using a 2-day rolling total, it's dropped for the first time since at least March 3, maybe earlier.

Less testing today.

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1244388003780235264

The Corona-virus testing regime is usually only in response to patients presenting with the basic symptoms of the virus. Random COVID-19 spot testing is rare and has been conducted in Iceland and Norway.

The UK and Australia have now introduced antibody testing.

What will be interesting from this testing will be the number of people who:

(a) Develop immunity through normal infection; (visibly sick through to recovered)
(b) Develop immunity through normal infection without displaying symptoms; (asymptomatic)
(c) Develop immunity through coming into contact with Corona-virus but not becoming infected.

The ratio of (b) to (a) is thought to be about 6:1 from modelling in China.

The ratio of people in the (c) category to the other categories is impossible to determine as they will never test positive to the virus.

An anti-body test may highlight that groups of people (maybe children) are developing immunity without getting infected at all.

Complete unknown at the moment, but I am looking for numbers on this topic from previous pandemics.

China are also taking plasma from healed patients and injecting the plasma into sick patients to measure pre-existing antibody response.

This is a known form of treatment that was used by the US Military in the Korean War in the 1950's to fight viral infections in soldiers.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Forgive me for circling back, but I'm a bit confused about the projection model on this site posted earlier: https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections.

If my math is right, with total American deaths coming in at around 81,000, a death rate of 1% means we will only see ~8 million Americans get infected with this virus. How is that possible in a country as populous as the United States? Either the death rate is wrong and there is a ridiculous proportion of asymptomatic cases, or the virus will come back with just as much force as before... right?

You're corrrect.

Any model showing less than 250,000 deaths need to explain why the following isn't true:

- AT LEAST 0.5% of infected Americans will die (probably more)
- AT LEAST 25% of all Americans will eventually get COVID-19 (probably more)
- If herd immunity doesn't materialize, simply containing the virus is a stopgap

All three are true... no?

Punch in the US population on a calculator, multiplied by 0.25 infected, multiplied by 0.005 death rate, and keep in mind I'm using conservative numbers here. I'd be glad to be wrong about this, but nobody has shown me why I'm wrong as of yet. I'm open-minded to changing my mind here.

Just to get some clarity on using scientific data-sets with modeling and making a useful interpretation. You are making final statements on numbers with limited information and no presented technique for getting to those numbers.

First things first. You are applying a linear model to a non-linear system. So any predicted numbers based on the parameters presented are simply a guess. Only when the pandemic is finished will those numbers be available. But during the pandemic, the system is changing in a non-linear fashion.

When presented with a large volume of data, the only thing to keep in mind is setting up the correct mathematical modeling regime for the scientific situation. Predictability of future events in time or space or readings of a physical parameter are made available through the study of physical, chemical and and biological systems.

My main work is involved in modelling physical and chemical systems. And these same mathematical modelling techniques lend themselves nicely to biological ones.

So what are we actually dealing with here?

We need to change our paradigm to the mathemetical system that is currently in play.

Here is a simulation using mathematical analysis to give you a clue about the actual non-linearity of this pandemic.

3Blue1Brown

SIR Modelling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs

This video clearly illustrates why Japan and Singapore are so effective at containing the virus. Social distancing is not the only parameter to consider.

Contact tracing and isolation of specifically identified infected patients early with strong isolation procedures is far more effective.

Having an asymptomatic category of people makes this virus particularly hard to contain.

[Meclazine for Israel]

There is no argument, and hence no flaw.

I am just explaining one methodology of non-linear system analysis that scientists employ when dealing with large active time-dependent datasets that are involved with pandemic analysis.

There are different modeling approaches which can be employed for this pandemic, and one may work better than another. It's not as simple as saying this modeling approach is the best.

But one thing is clear, using a linear modeling technique of a non-linear system will lead to flawed results, and hence, flawed conclusions.

With scientific analysis of a pandemic, the secret is to model what matters and discover the parameters that can be controlled to bring down the infection rate and control its spread.

Clearly, Japan, South Korea and Singapore employed a strategy that used this data modeling from their SARS epidemic experience to minimise the spread of the infection and maximise containment. In that process, they appear to have discovered some important parameters that need to be controlled to minimise the spread.

That is, contact tracing leading to strict citizen isolation protocols appropriate to the unfolding circumstances.