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Today was an interesting day. After the having the end of the world as we know it on my mind for much of the week, and feeling like I had to personally bid modernity goodbye, I did wake rather positively this morning. I can't remember the exact hopes I had for the world but things seemed more in control. Then there was news of the inevitable sixth case, a traveller from America, showing it wasn't just Italians and Iranians "seeding" foreign countries with the virus. (Trump literally pointed the finger at Europe for seeding the virus in the States!) But then the blockbuster news rolled in: New Zealand will require all arrivals to self-isolate for 14 days. The implications of it took time to parse. All the international sporting competitions suddenly hit a very hard wall. An overseas based Kiwi friends quick visit home was nixxed. I had thoughts of my students who were due to land after midnight Sunday but who will now not be able to start class; thoughts of our potential students who were due to depart but now might be left in the lurch. But the really unconsciously from behind the fluster of thoughts, there was relief. There needed to be some change to the status quo that left the country in a brace position. And it was good to see the Prime Minister speak in the language of flattening the curve.

To be clear it's a policy that will be reviewed in 16 days. Even though this is going to be a pain for our company short term, I can see some good things even commercially. Currently we are the only English speaking major country without wild community spread. For all schools of New Zealand, we could be the safest haven from this scourge.

16 days is a long time. Just a little peek back to 27 February, 16 days ago, Italy had but 12 deaths. Now it has 1266 deaths. In fact even in those quaint days when it seemed so bad, it was just 53 people dead outside greater China. Now we're perched in the low 2000's. The world might have changed a lot at the end of this tunnel. Switzerland and the UK are on 11 fatalities - will they replicate Italy's carnage and be near 1200. The US has just crept into the 50's. Will it play its outbreak like a microcosm of the world and also be in the 2000's.

We also aren't out of the woods. Because the door was essentially open to a huge number of outbreak countries with unfettered entry into New Zealand until tomorrow night, there could be further cases. There's been an astonishing absence of cases after the bans on Italy, Iran and South Korea stifled the rise. It's very plausible though that we'll have a few other American or European originating cases. Closer to home, with 8 deaths from a certainly inaccurate 64 cases, the Philippines could also have potentially given us a case. Australia also with its 199 confirmed cases represents a potential risk. More likely, and I'm thankful that it hasn't happened yet, there must be some virus in the community. It might be bouncing around a few healthy people, knocking them down for a moment, before they get well; but not before infecting another one or two. It's possible that we might have even had an unnoticed death, because it could have been the final nail in a lost cause, or two. When there is only testing with strong cases, as we're doing now, it's hard to know whether there is some community transmission or not.

16 days is a long time. If we do have some more challenging cases to contract trace and quarantine, it'll make for coronavirus's first real battlecries in NZ. There is no way NZ can keep itself 100% Corona-Free. In fact, it will need to let it in one step at a time almost in a controlled way to really "flatten the curve". The worst case scenario would be that we don't get it because our vulnerability will remain - the populace would have no immunity. Ideally we have pockets of people gain immunity so that for each outbreak the chances of the non-immune encountering an infected person are reduced. The more we get into that territory the less chance there is to everyone.

Covid-19 does present a rather unique global threat. I'm proud our country has so far been unscathed and also proud of the bravery to make the move today. Let the 30 March 2020 be an important milestone for the world and New Zealand. 16 days will reveal a lot.

Loomin' Gloomin'

In language teaching there is such a term as "activating schemata", which essentially means processes to help students consider the ideas, experiences and vocabulary of a topic, before they need to read or listen to that topic in their second language. For the non-teacher non-learner this might seem like a superfluous step, but language learners should know one of two feelings. One is when native speakers are discussing something and you cannot understand anything till you realise the topic, and then suddenly, like flicking a switch, you suddenly understand everything. Another situation is when you try to read a piece of unfamiliar writing in your second language, but then you figure out its purpose or the context, and then suddenly you can relate it to your previous knowledge. The latter situation is funny with novels. The first few pages take some time for a learner to get through before things become easier to follow. Schemata is your mental structure of knowledge and experience for a topic.

When I first heard the news about this novel coronavirus in Cantonese on my walks to the swimming pool in early January, it wasn't very intelligible. Even though I knew it was talking about Wuhan, deaths and numbers, it took a second and third take. Once I had the topic, I could use my knowledge of Mandarin to recognise familiar words. But more importantly, because of previous reading and news about contagious diseases, I could anticipate the topic or what usual content would be in a news item so, as previously mentioned, my comprehension of those native speed news items went from 5% to 66%.

I do not know whether the activation of schemata is a terminology in other fields but I can imagine it does in psychology. When you enter a special situation, you access memories of your previous knowledge and experience of things different to it. If you have never been in that situation, you probably access what you have read or the films you've seen. And thus it is with pandemics. We've all vicariously enjoyed the thrill of outbreaks elsewhere but almost no-one has lived through a pandemic. So all we have are the world of fiction to bring the images and themes of what could happen, and they tend to apocalyptic. The empty streets of Milan and probably still the streets of Wuhan will evoke 24 Days Later. The sight of people in dehumanising PPE (the "hazmat" suits) brings back visions of Contagion.

Perhaps it was with these schemata that I've been perceiving our non-fictional world. Perhaps irrationally, I feel a bit dream-like: that the honking cars and bustling people are a bubble that is bursting; that this virus could be enough to make a pivotal moment in history.

At its worst possible extent, at least on the first wave of this disease, the death rate can't be much higher than 5% of those infected, and not all people will be infected. Perfect medical care would keep the death rate under 1% but it won't be. Quoting myself from 30 January: "The logistics of an epidemic are apparent immediately. There is simply no place for a surge in any one kind of sickness realistically. They would not have the redundant space and expertise to deal with even a quadrupling of cases, let alone a septdectupling (don't check the dictionary for this word); no place on Earth can really cope when the inevitable Black Swan outbreak strikes. I was reading a story about families queuing for quarantine and being denied it because hospitals have expected standards for quarantine and can only accept a maximum. "Come back tomorrow to check if there's space." Hubei will be a bloodbath." Iran and Italy are repeating this. Spain and France are about to be repeating this. And when it does, it doesn't even matter if it is Covid-19 that people are dying from, sufferers of all conditions will perish because of a lack of healthcare. And now the economic carnage and paralysis are apparent too. When the globe goes into recession and then into depression, there would be a wave of starvation and civil unrest. Those thoughts of post-apocalyptic disorder remind me of the Stephen King book The Stand, which I only ever read half-way.

Yes, my feelings are steeped in the apocalypse. Another historical scene my mind conjures up is England before the Blitz in the Second World War. Here in New Zealand we aren't impacted, yet it feels like it cannot be stopped. A great darkness beyond the horizon. The government, if I were there, would require 14 day quarantines on everyone (except for well quarantined countries), but not on trade; put strict rules of no fevers or coughs in public spaces, etc. I'd be a tyrant. But for the lack of a tyrant goes Italy. It would be nice to have New Zealand use its isolation to keep a basic civil society healthy.

Last Friday I had some fun with the predictions. It's amazing how fast things change. My prediction for Italy lasted three days. It shows that with this virus 7 days makes a big difference. The quote doubling rate for cases is meant to be 4 days, but for deaths it is some other sort of metric. Italy's death toll increased five and a half times what it was a week ago; Spain and France have shot off in the same direction as Italy, although still behind the 8-ball. I actually thought I was being liberal in my estimates but not a single one was over. When I was wrong, I was outstandingly wrong.

	Actual	Predicted	Actual
	6-Mar	13-Mar	13-Mar
S. Korea	43	60	67
Italy	148	300	1016
Iran	107	400	429
Japan	12	15	19
France	7	12	61
USA	14	32	41
Spain	3	6	86
UK	1	7	10
Switzerland	1	2	7
Australia	2	3	3
Thailand	1	1	1
Iraq	2	12	8

Anyway, there is good news coming out. There are huge moves in cancellation of events. I was fully prepared to deride the authorities for allow Pasifika to go ahead, but now it's off. I'm following the cricket, where there is no live crowd. The key understanding if this is out and about is to "flatten the curve". If all people were to keep their active social lives, the probability of healthy people encountering unhealthy people is lower on average, the average infection rate is lower, the smaller the spike on the healthcare system, the lower the demand for ICU's, the lower the harm to the healthcare practitioners.

I had the privilege/burden of being the Local Pandemic Manager for the our city campus. I have thrown myself into it because if you have read anything I've blogged in the last two months, I really care about this issue. At least on my small scale, I feel I'm doing something useful. My motto is "Don't be a hero", to stop those chronic people who can't bear to take a sick day, and our company has a flexible work-from-home policy, which is being used. We are rehearsing the use of our web-based teaching in case we need to switch off in-class teaching and switch on online.

Chicken Licken Good

Last, last blog for my weekend, I swear. I've found someone who reckons the numbers in the same way as I do. This is the analysis of the complacency in the US and a reasonable prediction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3etuaYTDwFI
The catch-cry is "Case, case, case, cluster, cluster, boom". Pretty much all of his recent videos are pretty scary in the North American and European contexts.

For New Zealand, I believe containment is still possible but requires a good dose of luck, and need to drop any pretence that blocking people of particular passports will prevent an outbreak. There will need to be a more realistic policy. Even though there were loons recommending the closing of borders even at the early stage when I was abroad, it's getting closer to actually weighing up the economic and political pros and cons of extreme methods. Some of the Pacific Islands are being very rational in essentially killing of tourism because they know that even a small outbreak would paralyse their minimal health systems. New Zealand has relatively larger resources but it still wouldn't take too much to bring it down. The one likely case in North Shore hospital has put a whole swathe of staff into 14 day isolation.

It is quite possible we are in a similar situation to the US, where there might already be background spread of covid-19 with mild cases and extreme cases which haven't yet been considered to be coronavirus due to the patients not having had travel histories. Fingers crossed our actual diagnosed cases and the recent suspected cases are the only examples of infection in NZ...

Complacency

Elbump.

I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher, an HBO current affairs / comedy show filmed in California. The host, who is usually quite an observant, funny commentator, said he thought the reaction to the Covid-19 was too much, and laughed at the statistic that it's only people in their 80s who were really at risk, "If I was 80, and I still had 6 to 1 odds to live through this thing, it's not the worst."

Comedy-show or not, there is a rather common sentiment in the not-yet-ravaged world that Covid-19 isn't something bad. Apparently old people don't count while the rest of the people just have a "mild flu". But it could be argued that this impression is not the case. Children clearly aren't that affected by this virus, but in Wuhan it was definitely all age groups that were affected, with the elderly much more exposed. I am guessing that it's the same for Italians. It is because it's a novel pathogen that our bodies aren't equipped to fight. And when it infects easily in bulk it overloads the systems there to deal with it.

I'm guessing the maths really goes something like that 90% have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic, and these are the dangerous ones for they may still go to work, or go about their lives; 10% have a pretty bad time of it and may require care, especially if they have some underlying conditions; 5% of which absolutely require care in a timely way; 1% of which will have difficulty making it through unless they have excellent care. If the number is manageable and care is available, all but the unfortunate 0.5-1.0% will survive; but anything less than ready, available care will be too much for some of those 5%; and if conditions are really poor, even the rest of those 10% are at peril. I imagine that in the peak time caused by this coronavirus the health system temporarily doesn't have much time or beds for anything else, so don't have a heart attack, car crash or stroke during it. You'll be out of luck, even if your cause of death is nothing to do with covid-19.

And if there is anything to say about the complacent mindset it's this: The figures that people are using to base their suppositions of an overreaction are dominated by Chinese and Korean figures. Factored into these figures is the positive effects of the most extraordinary efforts, sacrifices and extreme techniques to keep them low. If you think that those figures represent the threat of this virus on an unsuspecting, unprepared population, you need only cast your eyes over to Italy and Iran.

'Nuff said for this afterthought. Elbump. Night.

Conspiracy theory

"Comments are disabled." I'm not sure how many people feel frustrated when they read this message on a video or article. The content of the item should be the most important thing, yet I feel my eyes drawn to the bottom to gauge the response, or a preview of a key point. And sometimes there's that pang of annoyance that there is no village square. In western media articles tend not to have comments but in China pretty much everything is up for everyone from Einstein to Rainman, to the village idiot to opine. Just as in YouTube videos, comments to videos can seem at time dominated by trolls, "bots" or China's own innovation, "the Five Mao party" (those employed en masse by the government to comment a particular way to media, Mao being a unity of currency, half a yuan, that they would be paid per comment).   

I like the comments section and in China I felt that it was a good resource for learning crude expressions, Chinese memes and general language. It wasn't long into the outbreak that the nationalistic comments came out that Covid-19 was "definitely" a biological weapon from the United States. I interpreted this as a reaction from the perceived shame of a disease of this magnitude, again, coming from China. The racism against China in the wake of the outbreak has been widely reported, and China historically still has a rather large chip on its shoulder. The patriotic response is to say that the virus was the doing of outside forces. There was a touch of this in the pointing to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic with faulty numbers and to the US 2019-2020 flu season (which was heavier than normal), something which became an obsession for some, probably because they were house-bound and had nothing better to do. I even had a discussion with a trusted friend where it was clear he had both in mind that the US had done nothing to stop it (2009 outbreak, killed millions but with a low mortality rate), and it was killing lots of people (not much more than 0.1% of those infected but still had a death toll higher than the covid-19 deaths). The kind of discussion where apple and orange distinctions might be nuanced and interesting if it weren't for the baby watermelon growing nearby.

Then Zhong Nanshan, China's most reputed epidemiologist suggested at a press conference that covid-19 did not necessarily originate in China. He's appointed by the Chinese government but a very trusted figure. It could be that he was intending for the animal-to-animal transmission might be complicated considering there are all sorts of bat->pangolin->human routes that could have arisen anywhere before Wuhan became the world-famous Wuhan. In another article interpreting the comment it focussed on this reading that understanding the source of the virus helps consider the cures and treatments. 

But the other reading meshed with the others, that the virus was not Chinese (Zhong's word "necessarily" was dropped); America has been suffering a bad flu season, which has been actually covid-19 without any testing. And America now are finding patients with no contact with people from China, Italy or Iran. Thus it's not a Chinese shame but an American hoax, that China has defeated while Americans mock and ostracise Chinese. 

The conspiracy theory doesn't hold much water though. Firstly, there haven't been any hospitals (yet) in America with throngs of sick people. There were in Wuhan because it went into the human population there. If the 2019-2020 flu season was actually covid-19, at least a million US citizens would have already died. (Despite the facts that flu strain testing is fairly simple these days. And the US system is not one cohesive department so covering up an outbreak is more difficult.) And finally almost all covid-19 cases in China have Wuhan-traced origins. If it were Americans who were spreading it, you'd presume that Shanghai and Beijing would get the first cases, or at least a barrage. Almost all initial foreign covid-19 cases can be traced by chains to China, and now even now, the new cases in New Zealand, for example, are traceable to outbreaks in another country that comes from China. 

The origination of the covid-19, or any virus, should mean nothing to your sense of national dignity. If the theorists truly resent the racism upon China, they shouldn't show the same statist thinking or racist thoughts that breed the racism. One nice thing that I saw on the media sources for covid-19 information in China is that they regularly had announcements to "eliminate rumours". Though "rumours" can be code-word in China for truths that the government doesn't want out, these announcements generally did what they should: address foolish ideas people get and share. Like re-using face masks, gargling with bleach, whole village died from covid-19 etc. But there was no elimination of the conspiracy theory, despite its wide usage. Probably because it suits the state's needs.

Anyway, less than 12 hours since my predictions in my last blog, Italy will make a fool of me for the wrong reasons. In a single day reporting 49 deaths (essentially raising their total by a third) and 778 new cases (up by 20%) doesn't make any sense. Deaths should only rise more than new cases toward the end of an outbreak. But the rise in new cases doesn't match an outbreak slowing down. The approximate daily rises in confirmed cases there since Monday is: 300 new cases, 500 new cases, 500 new cases, 700 new cases, 700 new cases. The only real understanding of this is a lack of testing kits or the delay in getting results. Or, they are retrospectively counting previous fatalities now as covid-19. It's grim for sure. Also as an ominous post script: France's cases increased by 53% (deaths from 7 to 9).

  

Drowning in Corona

Covid-19 might be an above-average pathogen at this stage for the human species, but the disease is not just one of the body; it's also an economic plague. It was a unique sight to see the Chinese economy screech to a halt. The skies were blue; the roads clear; workers were all home. The flow-on from that is a lag in deliveries out of the world's factory. There is the irony of the production site of many medical equipment and apparel being Hubei grew sharp and grey when almost every country realised that local outbreaks would consume reserves within weeks. New Zealand had plenty of crayfish and beef with no place to send them to. The crays were sent back to the sea. The welcoming gates of our ports slamming shut to Chinese, tourist operators were all at sea, too. And for those education providers, students who were to come after Chinese New Year were blocked from coming. And that's where the pain begins in my small world. But that story has barely begun.

Last Friday was when New Zealand discovered it's long awaited first case in Aotearoa. It was an astonishing run. We should have had a huge exposure to it but strangely nothing happened. On that day, 67 people in the world were known to have perished to the epidemic. Seven days on it's 342. And New Zealand's personal tally arrived at 4 confirmed cases (no deaths). While these 300-400% increase are, well, hmmm, let's not talk about it, at least... well, at least it's still nothing in terms the world population? It's good to sometimes know at this early phase, we can minimise it. 

I should have mentioned in an early blog, that I have that mindset that takes a secret joy in watching the world burn. There is a thrill in numbers rocketing, carnage expanding; and along with that is a certain dissatisfaction when order has been restored. (I believe I'm not alone in this regard; please don't challenge this belief.) Hubei, the once darkest hole in the Coronaverse, had its darkness shrunk down to a single point surrounded by glorious light: There were 126 new cases in Hubei province, of which all 126 were in Wuhan. All other Hubeinese cities enjoyed their first day of unanimous viral pacification. If they weren't still homebound, they should be celebrating without fear in the streets. It is quite possible that these days, the greying darkness of Wuhan has been eclipsed by the abysses of Qom and Daegu.

 

In my previous blog, I related my not-so-novel thoughts on the inverse relationship of early testing and fast action with the death rate, and in the blog before that the thought that the "wonkier" the numbers the more it indicated a lack of testing. China is only solidifying around the 3.4% fatality rate after all the grim accounting through the eventual expiry of the critically ill. There are still lots of people still hanging on in China, but with few cases to fill the beds of the recovered, the statistical certainty is becoming etched in there. Interestingly, the WHO said that 3.4% is the global fatality rate for this disease, and that should be not at the beginning of the outbreak but at the end after the dust has settled. Ergo, no country should really have a rate of 3% or higher before the outbreak is over. If it is, they have either: (a) not tested sufficiently so the total number of cases aren't apparent but the number of deaths are more certain; (b) their health system was overrun so that normally survivable cases died (e.g. Wuhan); (c) their numbers are bogus. I like tables so as of today the official numbers are below:

	Diagnosed cases	Deaths	Fatality rate
S. Korea	6284	43	1%
Italy	3858	148	4%
Iran	3513	107	3%
Japan	1056	12	1%
France	423	7	2%
USA	232	14	6%
Spain	208	3	1%
England	116	1	1%
Switzerland	111	1	1%
Australia	60	2	3%
Thailand	47	1	2%
Iraq	38	2	5%

Italy already has a worse death rate than China and majority of cases have not recovered yet. I'm guessing it is a mixture of (a) and (b). Iran is probably a mixture of (a), (b) and (c). Both of these are clearly out of control. Italy's population is of comparable size to Hubei, which with considerable effort has as of today 67,592 cases and 2931 deaths (4.3%). It could be interesting to see where they end up. 

The funny one in the mix is the USA. They are still early days but clearly have a big case of (a) and possibly a bit of (c), because the political pride of their president has been woven into a mask. The health system isn't close to being overrun, so even if you assume that the 14 deaths are a 2% fatality rate of the actual number of cases, they should have at least 700 cases, which means that 400-500 cases are in the community without knowing that they're spreading a highly contagious virus. 14 could though be an anomaly - majority come from a single rest home. But all countries with significant infections have elderly. Japan, home to the oldest population, has managed to keep their death rate to 1%. 

Iraq's 2 deaths from 28 diagnoses is a bit spooky. With two deaths very early in its reporting, there must have been a significant time between the arrival of the virus and the initial testing. Australia's numbers are too low to worry so far. One of the two deaths was off the Diamond Princess.

I'd like to have a bit of fun with this, if you don't mind the darkness of it, and predict next Friday's rate:

	6-Mar-20
	Diagnosed cases	Deaths	Fatality rate	Diagnosed cases	Deaths	Fatality rate
S. Korea	6284	43	1%	8000	60	1%
Italy	3858	148	4%	7000	300	4%
Iran	3513	107	3%	8000	400	5%
Japan	1056	12	1%	1100	15	1%
France	423	7	2%	600	12	2%
USA	232	14	6%	1500	32	2%
Spain	208	3	1%	400	6	2%
England	116	1	1%	300	7	2%
Switzerland	111	1	1%	200	2	1%
Australia	60	2	3%	100	3	3%
Thailand	47	1	2%	55	1	2%
Iraq	38	2	5%	300	12	4%

Matter over mind

May I introduce JC. Not that JC, another one. I won't say how I know him just that I don't know him well-well. I've had to interact with him in my life to know him by his deeds. But in the glory of social media his beliefs are more apparent. He's probably a hippie of old. Identifies as an anarchist. Generally a genial guy and despite the despotic role I sometimes find myself in his life, he hasn't shown his anarchic side in a professional setting. Older anarchists need something to retire on. 

Outside of work, on social media, he is big on climate change conspiracies and protesting 5G. Climate change denial is big among people, who are suspicious of government control; it so fits well into the suspicions that make anarchy appealing, even though I've heard of such a thing as enviro-anarchists as well. For him, and others I've met, there is a belief that people in the government have a driving conviction to control population size because of the science of the 1970s, which suggested that we'd run out of resources if there was continued population growth, and thus the governments of the world, led by the UN, were currently fabricating or deludedly interpreting current science, and restricting the freedom of people. That is a convoluted sentence, and I'd say it reveals much about the sense in the belief thereof. Or, they see climate science as a cynical tool for the governments to control the lives of the people to suit their economic interests. Either way, you can see the kneejerk belief of an anarchist to control from an authority. 

It's with case studies like him that you see how beliefs colour perceptions. And so while I was in self-isolation, I saw onn social media him proclaiming he didn't believe in coronavirus being a threat. Now, I can understand some disbelief in epidemics because so often infectious health crises, hyped up in the media for consumption, have often fizzled. (Or apparently fizzled: Ebola never arrived right, but still zapped off only 11,000 souls due to the efforts of the global community; Swine flu eventually killed in the hundreds of thousands, though it spread so widely without the death rate to really cause people to head for the hills.) I can understand the kind of reaction that repeated tsunami warnings without a Fukushima evokes. But this did not seem to be his reason.

It seemed that he thought that governments would embrace the coronavirus, or any incipient pandemic, as an excuse to increase their own control over people's lives. Control of the populace is the government's raison d'etre, according to an anarchist, and not as some beneficial function to order society. I'd say this is a fair lens to skeptically evaluate the actions of authorities. But it's also backwards: a theory of the world does not define objective reality. Objective reality informs our theories. And there is plenty of evidence to dispel the theory that covid-19 is a hoax by those in power. 

Firstly, taking China as an example, the state is harming itself to fight this, seemingly in order to save as many people as possible. People can have their views on the corruption of the authoritarian governance but, the "cure" has been a massive blow to their economy. When the dust settles, this will be a historic bad year in China's resurgence as a global power. And it was having a difficult recent year to start off with. To be clear, China has crippled itself with economic "own goals" in the past: the Cultural Revolution was such a case where it put China backwards, but that did have clear political ends so you can understand the ends that ridiculously led to the means. (It was to eliminate Mao's enemies within the Party.) In China today, President Xi has no contenders for power. Hubei didn't have any real political weight. There is no detectable utility in the state keeping the populace at home, not working and stifling consumption. Economic faltering is probably the only genuine risk to Xi's power and he has made absolute eradication of the virus primary and economic activity secondary. Probably because not handling the virus would have had a bigger economic impact, and would have been an even bigger shake to his power and that of the Party.

Never trust the Chinese numbers, they say. But if you don't trust these numbers then they can only be even worse as there is no benefit to exaggerating the mortality rate. Iran has nothing to gain either from transparency of numbers but they now easily have the second most Corona brand body bags for a country, even if it is a profitless understatement.

I didn't respond to him on social media. I just let it go. But a few days after I was released from my quarantine I was with him and others and the topic came up at the lunchroom table when another Iranian minister fell ill. (We have an Iranian on our team.) Someone asked my views on the outbreak and I said that I thanked goodness that some countries had penned it up and wish others did so, too; that it was in the league of the Spanish Flu. JC murmured that it is nothing like the Spanish Flu, but I'm not sure if he was reacting from His Theory or any real checking of facts. 

With basic Wikipedia checking: Spanish Flu, without modern medicine or a clear understanding of how diseases travelled or how to effectively sanitise and quarantine, killed 40-50 million people. Currently there is no comparison but it's early days and we're in the land of the hypothetical. Spanish Flu's kill rate is estimated between 2-3%. If it had occurred in our present medical landscape it may have had a different outcome. Spanish Flu coming out of nowhere would have presented bigger difficulties than coronavirus. There was no testing possible. But even with the tests, isolation, centralised health systems, rapid communication, Hubei and Wuhan have 4.2% and 4.5% respectively. My only conclusion would be that if this bug had been the one that all the WWI soldiers took back to their countries, it might have sent things back to the nineteenth century. China, exerting its full Hobbesian Leviathan state power, with sacrifice and a daring gamble, still currently has had 3.67% of the confirmed cases as eventual fatalities (3,000 deaths/80,000 cases). The force of the response means now there are only 15 cases outside of Hubei, i.e. just over 1 case per 100,000,000 people in the rest of China. Almost all provinces in China had the advantage of an "early start" and on average have a death rate in 0.8% but with smothering restriction on movement. 

Stating the obvious, the speed of response and then the strength of the measures to control seem to be what determines the fatality rate between 0.5-4%. Iran, Italy and possibly even the United States have all given themselves "slow starts" by not noticing the extent of the infection and essentially having deaths from the community infection before really mobilising. The early start approach isn't difficult if a country is primed to expect there is infection. They basically track every case, find the chain of transmission and isolate, and give the populace in particular cities and towns a boring month at home, maybe two months. The reward? A fatality rate less than 1%, an intact medical profession and you get to keep your grandparents. Internationally, Japan and South Korea are a good example of a reasonably early start, despite Japan being dicks about the people on the cruise ship, and Korea having a leftfield cult ruin its numbers.

After his disagreement with me, I didn't challenge him further. For his sake, and his age group, I pray he's (a) right and/or (b) New Zealand's glorious solitude and responsible attitudes hold us in good stead. Because otherwise a power-hungry government is almost the least of his worries. 

Sneeze

It's kind of a contradiction to be observing the beginnings of a pandemic in the middle of a long, hot summer. When I started having cold symptoms (again) two days ago it was also a contradiction. In went the thermometer and out popped another normal 36 degree temperature. It was the same when I came back from China. Cold symptoms, mild concern and normal 36 degree temperatures. To most people in my circle it wouldn't be a contradiction for me to be the one with coronavirus, yet even that didn't happen. Sneeze.

Back on Saturday I mentioned the growing worry that it wasn't China that would be the risk to New Zealand. And how things change in 6 days: South Korea went from 200-odd cases to 2000 cases. The world outside of China went from 11 deaths to 67 deaths. Back merely 6 days ago Italy wasn't even listed among the top affected countries with a few traceable infections. Now it's 653 infections and 17 deaths put it at number 3 outside of China. And just 8 days ago, Iran burst onto the scene with a leftfield "two cases/two fatalities" report. Now Iran's death count are second to Hubei's, if listed alike. Italy's and Iran's numbers are wonky though: The fatalities are far above what they should be for the number of cases found. There are only a couple of possibilities:

- The strain of the virus is more lethal there. (Unlikely)

- They are not reporting all cases. (I'm guessing not.)

- The virus is more pervasive than their testing is showing. (Very likely)

Iran's now 27 deaths from 260 cases, for example, presuming an initially unburdened medical system and a similar mortality rate must have at least 1000 extra cases that are undiagnosed, and potentially on the loose. This pervasiveness has led to the astonishing news that the health minister (and the Vice President of the Womens and Family Affairs), officials who you wouldn't expect as first victims of an outbreak, are now famously ill and quarantined. New Zealand may have its first case now courtesy of a traveller who has been through Iran. And you can feel for Iran, it's been sanctioned heavily (and I would say unjustly) so may lack the resources to handle the outbreak. Without external support it may go the way of Hubei. Yesterday the president of Iran has said they are not quarantining cities yet. It worries me that they haven't learned China's lesson.

Italy's 17 deaths already from 653 cases also appears off, especially this early in the piece. For comparison, Henan province has 20 deaths but that has been on the back of 1272 cases and time for the critical cases to slowly but surely be tallied in the deaths column, or into the recovery column. In China, though the case numbers skyrocketed in the initial days it took a long time for those provinces to have reported deaths. (Again, I'm guessing that the reports of deaths are accurate - I have no reason to doubt them outside of Hubei.) 

67 deaths in the world outside of China. Perhaps another count to be aware of. In China outside of Hubei, which had direct impacts from Hubei travellers before the sealing of cities, which has 1.2 billion vulnerable people, have suffered 109 deaths. Yesterday there were 44 deaths in China due to the disease, with 3 outside Hubei. Between noon yesterday and 6pm tonight the rest of the world racked up 14.

Sneeze.

The burden of freedom

In a fatigued blink of an eye, three days of work nicely announced my resumption of normal, unquarantined life. It contained logistics of moving campus, a case of student-on-student sexual harassment, de-escalating a feud over inaccurate book-keeping, gaining approval for a new programme and also lots of hugs to welcome us back, usually accompanied by my fake coughing. It's good to be back. Back into hyperdrive.

The world churned just as quickly when this happened, but the preoccupation with the million and one interruptions meant that it seemed like the world was again rather simple.

The Covid-19 outbreak in China is now in clear decline with cases dropping. Time is still doing its grim stocktake as the bad cases in each province turn into fatalities, but the majority are recovering. Hubei is still racking up 100 deaths or more a day but with cases falling, this will inevitably fall. And for our business's sake we hope that the travel ban for Chinese to New Zealand will be lifted this week. I would if I were in charge. In perspective of a country of 1.4 billion people, the risk of sick tourists is low and majority of the population are from provinces without any recent cases. Hubei still deserves to be a customs pariah for some time yet though.

And should they be smart enough to lift the ban on non-Hubei Chinese, they should slap a temporary travel ban on South Korea and Japan where the virus is now loose and, worse, the authorities do not know how some of the cases caught the virus. There would have been some anomalous cases in China, presumably, but majority could be traced back to Wuhan, Hubei or another infected person. Both Japan and Korea are the only countries with more than 100 known, reported cases. Singapore has the fourth most cases and anecdotally, people don't seem to be taking the same degree of precautions, even though it is probably also got some local spreading. (There was the amazing story of the British businessman who caught coronavirus at a conference in Singapore, flew to France for a holiday and infected a bunch of British in the chateau, accounting for a large number of the French cases.) There is also the odd case of Iran, where 18 cases have been reported including 4 fatalities, the country with the most fatalities outside of China.

This could be alarming. The chance to decimate the virus's presence in the human species might have gone and we might just have gained a new thing to catch and watch out for. There is the argument of diminishing potency for lethal viruses. Viruses that are too lethal or too quick to be noticed tend to kill the host or incapacitate them too quickly to spread to too many people. The strains that spread fast but more mildly have the advantage in getting out to the world and may be far less likely to kill lots of people. (Thank you, Hubei, and sorry as you may have borne the brunt for the benefit of others.) Or not. Generally speaking I think it'd be good to do some shopping for potential similar restrictions to what happened in China just in case. Freshen up the good ol' civil defence supplies, with Vitamin C.

New Zealand has been hugely lucky not to have any cases at all. If there should be a case, it'd be imperative to be able to track where those people have gone and me and put them self-isolation and observation. I hope our country has learned the Chinese lesson.

The blessings of isolation

It's now day twelve of this intermission in my life. It's all gone rather quickly but with a bit of a flow: I wake up about 6:30am and do some of my hip mobility and strengthening exercises, make myself a Chinese tea or coffee, attend to some personal e-mailing or reading, before announcing my arrival in "the office" at about 7:20.

I've very rarely had to work from home previously as my main daily work. I've only ever brought work home on evenings, weekends or holidays. It took some adjustment to organise myself but as time has gone on I would say my productivity level is higher than in the office. In the morning, I mainly work on my reports and projects because that is the time of least work related distractions. Work gets me to 11:45am when the first non-work distractions and tasks arise. 

11:45am is when the Hubei numbers are duly announced. Hubei is usually one of the first and it's the main attraction. Since the new confirmation standard, numbers are a lot higher. For the last few days it's been Hubei 130-odd fatalities, vs. 5-10 fatalities elsewhere in China and the world. It's been noticeable that, if the numbers are correct and not prone to the same sort of reevaluation as in Hubei, the situation outside of Hubei is stabilising with some provinces occasionally reporting "no new cases". Guangdong is not close to that but the rises are smaller. And the above is what happens when 11:45am arrives. My mind dives into a lot of reading and checking of articles. Lunch follows. I'll do the dishes. We go out for a driving lesson.

By the time 2pm arrives I'm back into work, usually doing none of the projects. It's the flow of the day that means this period even at a distance I'm peppered with fielding requests, calls and confirmations. 5:30pm rolls around and dinner and a walk is had. By 7:30pm I'm usually back at work trying to get a few formulas on spreadsheet to work more obediently before we watch something on Netflix.

It's turned out to be a packed life. My reading has dwindled down to the point that I have to do it on the weekend. In fact, I've resorted to doing my projects on weekend days to ensure I have no disruptions from colleagues, even as remote as I am!

If there were some other distinctions from my previous commuting life, it'd be that in this phase I've done more on WeChat to practice my Cantonese, watched broadcast TV news and tried to read the New Zealand Herald. (I got myself a five week trial!). It's impossible to read the Herald, to be honest. There's too much in it, especially when I'm hooked into so many other media sources. But I've done the crosswords relentlessly!

As for those grim numbers. Wuhan has recorded 1233 deaths, China's national toll just rolled over the year of the Great Fire of London. They've got people back to work now but delaying schools going back to March. For most of China going back to work makes sense. At my brother-in-law's factory they give out face masks. Interesting my sister-in-law, a civil servant, had to go back earlier and doesn't get any on account of them not wanting to sacrifice masks that could be sent to those who need them. Qingyuan fortunately hasn't had any further cases so we can breath easier.

Blessed Isolation - this blogcast extra

I thought I would add to my previous post with a quick update after the media collectively failed with fact checking, with news items such as Coronavirus deaths hit highest daily toll when it almost certainly didn't. Below are the two counts of cases in China 12 hours apart on my phone, the first at 7:37am this morning and the second at 7:51pm this evening. The red numbers shows the number of confirmed cases, the yellow are the suspected cases, the black is the fatalities and the green are the recoveries. The news people can read numbers and they have indeed risen dramatically in the reported total number of reported cases and deaths. But in this case, it's probably not the case that the cases dramatically shot up at all. 

When I received the Hubei numbers, there was a lengthy preamble before the numbers, which is different to all the other reports through the Chinese media. Even though I'm fluent enough with my reading, I'm also quite impatient so to see this textual obstruction annoyed me so I flicked down and the numbers seemed from another planet, enough to send me back to the preamble.

Hubei has changed its way of counting cases. It has been shown that the antigen test they use for the virus is unreliable and having both it and the CT scan as the necessary two-step confirmation has been flawed. So they have brought in a clinical approach focussing on symptoms and thus they reclassified a whole bunch of people, and is it turns out, a whole bunch of deaths. To be honest, I'd believe that there is probably a lot of death accounting yet to go in Hubei. Allow me to be crude: I presume they're not bringing corpses from the countryside and putting them through a CT scanner. The initial torrent of fatalities were probably incinerated in fear and due to a lack of space before there was a credible way to test. A clinical determination might have back counted the likely cases. 

So don't be alarmed. The TVNZ news was funny in that it both claimed yesterday to be a deadly day, yet also recognised that they had changed the way they were counting them. I haven't heard of other provinces re-evaluating their cases, but if others follow suit there might be another bump up in numbers, without it corresponding to a worsening of the situation. 

The funny thing is that there will be items about how officials may be messing with the numbers. They may be fake, but if you're going to take the numbers seriously, it's important to know what they mean.

Under the official news radar, there is still a lot of disturbing news and videos out there. I'll try and cover it in my next blog.