nkg

The giant cheque reminds me of this "news story":

On 6/1/2020 at 4:25 AM, smedly said:

been saying it for months now - the Thai baht is being manipulated because it floats and is basically free to roam 

 

They are right in their assessment that the strength doesn't match the economic climate especially with a 2 trillion bailout loan on the cards which they will never be able to pay

 

I suggest people do some research on 1997 crash - the similarities are obvious

Thailand have $200 billion of foreign exchange in the bank, approximately 6 trillion baht. So they might not find it as hard as you think to pay off a 2 trillion baht loan.

What a surprise. Who could have predicted that?

22 hours ago, 7by7 said:

As I said in another topic: will those who were vociferous in their condemnation of Sturgeon's support for Dr Catherine Calderwood be equally vociferous here?

 

As most of them are prominent government and Brexit supporters, somehow I doubt it!

I thought that you'd enjoy this news story ????

Perhaps now they will finally reverse Brexit?

8 hours ago, DUNROAMIN said:

Its not over yet. Its just winding up for the next wave.

Let's give it 3 months and see who was right.

I'm guessing that neither Japan nor Singapore will end up with more than 20 deaths per million - probably far less.

33 minutes ago, DUNROAMIN said:

That exactly what Japan and Singapore did, and look what happened.

Japan - 2 deaths per million

Singapore - 2 deaths per million

"look what happened" - whatever it was, it didn't result in many deaths. Italy have 391 deaths per million.

1 hour ago, DrTuner said:

And that is indeed interesting. I haven't looked yet, but would be interested in the percentage of asymptomatics who have tested positive. I've seen estimates as high as 80%.

 

Countries that test would catch those and the IFR (Infection Fatality Ratio) plummets. I read today that the positive test rate in NYC was as high as 55%. 

https://medium.com/the-atlantic/a-new-statistic-reveals-why-americas-covid-19-numbers-are-flat-82e9b600551f

 

That's good news, of course, since it too indicates a lot of people would not get any noticeable symptoms.

 

EDIT: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/up-to-70-of-those-infected-may-show-no-symptoms-making-virus-tough-to-tackle

 

I admit that I haven't been keeping track of infection rates so much as the death rates.

Countries that do more tests are guaranteed to have a higher infections statistic, but since we don't have reliable information on how many tests each country is performing, it is very hard to compare different countries with each other.

That's isn't to say that there aren't many interesting things that we can extrapolate from infection rates. But I still regard death rates as the most reliable statistic, at least in the countries who have the resources to test all hospital deaths.

It would indeed be good news if such a large percentage of people were asymptomatic ????

10 minutes ago, JCP108 said:

One can claim that.

One can. Are Singapore and Australia fixing their statistics too? The 2 countries only have 82 deaths between them.

6 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Name a hot country that is regarded as 1st world (hint: Singapore). Then check their testing numbers and capabilities and results (Should be easy as they are in the headlines today), after that compare to the 3rd world ones. 

 

You got to test to get results.

 

https://www.nber.org/digest/jun01/w8119.html

 

Singapore is a good example. So is Australia. Both countries have done extensive testing and have excellent healthcare systems. Those countries have real numbers that we can rely on.

Let's check the death rate for each country:

Singapore 11 deaths (2 deaths per million population)

Australia 71 deaths (3 deaths per million population)

Covid doesn't seem very deadly in the two hot countries that we have good numbers for.

8 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Indonesia: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-indonesia-funerals/exclusive-jump-in-jakarta-funerals-raises-fears-of-unreported-coronavirus-deaths-idUSKBN21L2XU

 

The vital data that could show something similar in Thailand is not available to the public, it seems to be behind an intranet login at MoPH.

The article says that burials have gone up from 3100 in March 2019 to 4400 in March 2020. That's not a huge increase even if every extra death was covid-related.

Indonesia have reported 2 deaths per million, lower than every European country. Even if it was 10 times that, it would still be low compared to Europe.

You can't claim "every hot country is fixing their numbers".

48 minutes ago, mrfill said:

Its hot in Brazil and Ecuador too but they seem to be having severe problems.

Brazil have 12 deaths per million population.

Ecuador have 27 deaths per million population.

In comparison, Spain have 446 deaths per million, the US have 123 dpm, the UK have 237 dpm.

5 hours ago, Canuck1966 said:

Singaporean health officials this afternoon reported a huge surge in newly detected coronavirus infections. 1,426 newly reported cases.

 

The debunks the heat theory!

How many deaths in Singapore? 11. Somewhat different to the tens of thousands of deaths in several other countries.

If you want to debunk the heat theory, tell us which hot countries have had large numbers of deaths?

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

35 minutes ago, JCP108 said:

Could be that heat/humidity place a role. I agree with Dr. Turner that your breakdown generally (other than Australia) also sorts countries generally into those with and without more robust and valid testing and reporting mechanisms. We need better data from the hot list. 

It's true that most hotter countries don't tend to be wealthy democracies with excellent healthcare systems. And so their statistics may not seems as credible as those from Italy or Spain.

But we can't discount the 2 deaths per million statistic from Australia. Malaysia also reports 2 deaths per million. Singapore has 1 death per million.

In comparison, Spain has 316 deaths per million, Italy has 292 deaths per million, and France has 167 deaths per million.

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

29 minutes ago, Blumpie said:

 

I look at the numbers and wonder too.  

The way the news is going around and armchair medical personnel, it's incredible.  

Yes, Peru is never hot.  Other than the Latinos there, it's a cold bleak country.  

I'm not sure if you are sceptical about the numbers or just interested ????

They can all be found at:

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

This website reports the daily statistics reported by each country, and the numbers seem to match up with wikipedia and other sources. Lots of interesting data. Sorting the data by "Deaths/1M population" shows which countries have been the hardest hit.

1 hour ago, Blumpie said:

Interesting numbers.  

Just so you are aware, Peru isn't hot.  

I can confirm to you too that scientists remain unconvinced so far that heat has anything to do with transmission rates.  That's so far.  

Yes, Peru was a marginal one - I included it because it showed average temperatures of over 20C for Jan, Feb and Mar. If I had increased the cutoff to 25C or higher, there would be even fewer "hot country deaths".

I don't have any theory as to why temperature (and/or humidity) would affect death rates so much, but the numbers are startling.

I hope that heat/humidity does have some effect on COVID - it could help to put a brake on the virus heading into the summer months. We certainly shouldn't be relying on this though.

3 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Just for fun, why don't you do the number of tests done in the hot countries vs the cold countries next? And please do tell me once you get reliable data from the 3rd world countries that tend to be the majority in the tropics.

I have no point to prove, I just find the numbers interesting ????

Looking at Australia, who have conducted a large number of tests and have excellent healthcare:

310,000 tests

6,013 total cases

49 deaths

That's 2 deaths per million population, lower than any European country. I'd regard their data as reliable.

I was bored, so I thought I'd see how the death rate of COVID-19 in hot countries compares to COVID-19 in colder countries.

If you don't want to read to the end, approximately 2.6% of all COVID-19 deaths happened in hot countries.

All numbers taken from today:

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

08/04/20 COVID-19 deaths per hot country (temps averaging over 20 degrees C between Jan-Mar)

Brazil        686
Indonesia    221
Philippines    177
India        160
Mexico        125
Peru        107
Dominican Rep    98
Malaysia    63
Argentina    60
Pakistan    57
Panama        55
Australia    49
Thailand    27
Honduras    22

Other countries (fewer than 20 deaths) 250 approx

total hot deaths    2157    2.6%

total other deaths    81,488    97.4%

total all deaths    83,645

6 hours ago, LivinginKata said:

 

This TVF contributor is allowing all out long stay guests free rent April month.

 

Are the 5 nominated hotels offering free accommodation .... answer required. 

Well played, LIK.

On 3/10/2020 at 11:23 PM, nkg said:

 

Not getting ready would be ridiculous. The death toll in Italy is extremely worrying.

 

Australia is an example of a hot country with excellent medicine and strong links to China. They currently stand at 3 deaths and 116 infected. Let's see if those numbers increase exponentially in the coming weeks.

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

We are now at 28 deaths and 5314 confirmed cases, 24 days after my original post. Whilst all deaths are tragic, the increase in deaths has not been exponential in Australia.

Could it be that, for whatever reason, COVID-19 is less deadly in hot countries?

Well, the numbers show about 60 deaths in hot countries, compared to 8850 deaths in the rest of the world. India with 1.3 billion people has only had 3 deaths.

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

15 hours ago, rosst said:

I am sitting in a rural area of the Philippines and given the poor hygiene in the poorer areas, I believe it will explode when it gets here and it will overwhelm any small capability we have in this area.   Given the rapidity of the spread, it stands to reason that it will subside equally rapidly but the proportion of fatalities will be much higher due to the absence of ANY ICU FACILITIES within fifty Kilometers and very few capabilities of Oxygen masks.  As a reasonably healthy 73 year old, I am concerned and I rate my survival as 70% at best unless a suitable vaccine can be brought to market in sufficient quantities.

I have even considered returning to Australia due to the availability of acute care beds albeit these will also be in high demand.

I think there will eventually be 100% exposure unless a vaccine is available as I dont believe it is possible to eliminate every carrier, a very scary thought but that is the way I see it at the moment.

The Philippines has been relatively unaffected so far with only 52 cases and 2 deaths.

One theory is that COVID-19 is less infectious/deadly in hotter countries - India have had zero deaths despite their 1.3 billion population.

There's an interesting scientific paper published a few days ago that supports this theory:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308

I'm not saying that we should be complacent - far from it - but it would be a huge relief if countries like Thailand and the Philippines were spared the worst of it.

20 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Correct and this study support your theory.

 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308

That's an interesting study, thanks. Only published 2 days ago.

1 hour ago, Tayaout said:

A lot of these countries don't test a lot or don't have access to test kit. You could also have said nobody died in most countries. I remember when people said it only affects Wuhan. Funny how the goal post keep moving. Let's do like most countries and not get ready. What could go wrong? 

Not getting ready would be ridiculous. The death toll in Italy is extremely worrying.

Australia is an example of a hot country with excellent medicine and strong links to China. They currently stand at 3 deaths and 116 infected. Let's see if those numbers increase exponentially in the coming weeks.