We don't really know how bad it is and without proper data it's difficult to know basic numbers such as R0, mortality rate, etc.
I don't want to spread FUD, my point is simply that we should be skeptical about official numbers. I seriously doubt the Chinese would quarantine 35 million people if the numbers were as low as they claim.
Official numbers claim about 1k infected people in Wuhan but there have been numerous reports of Chinese doctors claiming there were more infected in their cities than the official numbers portray. A video that went viral yesterday from a nurse or doctor in Wuhan claimed 90k infected. Another video from a nurse in a Wuhan hospital claimed they had confirmed more than 1k cases in that hospital alone.
A paper I read yesterday estimated about 11k infected a couple of days ago.
> We estimate that only 5.1% (95%CI, 4.8-5.5) of infections in Wuhan are identified, and by 21 January a total of 11,341 people (prediction interval, 9,217-14,245) had been infected in Wuhan since the start of the year. Should the epidemic continue unabated in Wuhan, we predict the epidemic in Wuhan will be substantially larger by 4 February (191,529 infections; prediction interval, 132,751-273,649), infection will be established in other Chinese cities, and importations to other countries will be more frequent.
That same paper initially claimed an R0 of 3.8 but yesterday the author claimed 2.5:
> With lots of uncertainty in both case data and model uncertainty, R0 estimates will be changing rapidly. Important to update and monitor. We've updated our estimates with case data through 22 Jan. New estimated R0 of 2.5 95% CI 2.4, 2.6. Paper to be updated asap.
If this video of dead people on corridors of a Chinese hospital is true, it supports the skepticism towards official data and the gravity of the situation:
>During SARS, researchers moved from obtaining the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV to a phase 1 clinical trial of a DNA vaccine in 20 months and have since compressed that timeline to 3.25 months for other viral diseases. For 2019-nCoV, they hope to move even faster, using messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology.
This is impressive! A big thank you to all the hardworking researchers.
I don't want to spread FUD, my point is simply that we should be skeptical about official numbers. I seriously doubt the Chinese would quarantine 35 million people if the numbers were as low as they claim.
Official numbers claim about 1k infected people in Wuhan but there have been numerous reports of Chinese doctors claiming there were more infected in their cities than the official numbers portray. A video that went viral yesterday from a nurse or doctor in Wuhan claimed 90k infected. Another video from a nurse in a Wuhan hospital claimed they had confirmed more than 1k cases in that hospital alone.
A paper I read yesterday estimated about 11k infected a couple of days ago.
> We estimate that only 5.1% (95%CI, 4.8-5.5) of infections in Wuhan are identified, and by 21 January a total of 11,341 people (prediction interval, 9,217-14,245) had been infected in Wuhan since the start of the year. Should the epidemic continue unabated in Wuhan, we predict the epidemic in Wuhan will be substantially larger by 4 February (191,529 infections; prediction interval, 132,751-273,649), infection will be established in other Chinese cities, and importations to other countries will be more frequent.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549v...
That same paper initially claimed an R0 of 3.8 but yesterday the author claimed 2.5:
> With lots of uncertainty in both case data and model uncertainty, R0 estimates will be changing rapidly. Important to update and monitor. We've updated our estimates with case data through 22 Jan. New estimated R0 of 2.5 95% CI 2.4, 2.6. Paper to be updated asap.
https://twitter.com/JonRead15/status/1220749021117140992?s=2...
An epidemiologist from Hardvard claimed that 3.8 was 8 times higher than SARS so I guess 2.5 is still very high:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1220919589623803905.html
https://www.healthline.com/health/r-nought-reproduction-numb...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nC_VN2SgzU
This is impressive! A big thank you to all the hardworking researchers.