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Medicine

Global Coronavirus Cases Hit 20 Million (reuters.com) 170

Global coronavirus cases pushed past 20 million on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, with the United States, Brazil and India accounting for more than half of all known infections. From a report: The respiratory disease has infected at least four times the average number of people struck down with severe influenza illnesses annually, according to the World Health Organization. The death toll from COVID-19, meanwhile, at more than 728,000 has outpaced the upper range of annual deaths from the flu. The Reuters tally, which is based on government reports, shows the disease is accelerating. It took almost six months to reach 10 million cases after the first infection was reported in Wuhan, China, in early January. It took just 43 days to double that tally to 20 million. Experts believe the official data likely undercounts both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity. The United States is responsible for around 5 million cases, Brazil 3 million and India 2 million. Russia and South Africa round out the top ten.
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Global Coronavirus Cases Hit 20 Million

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  • Confirmed cases (Score:5, Insightful)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Monday August 10, 2020 @01:38PM (#60386453)

    Global Coronavirus Confirmed Cases Hit 20 Million.

    FTFY.

    The number of reported cases hits 20 Million, but actual cases are probably an order of magnitude larger, as observed in the Spanish seroprevalence study [thelancet.com], for example.

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      Spanish numbers are an edge case, because the government systematically under-reports the numbers. A couple of recent studies showed differences up to one order of magnitude between the numbers reported to the government (e.g. from local districts and regions) and those published by the government.

    • Some antibody tests in India indicates that 40 to 60% already had the illness. So that alone adds half a billion or so to the numbers.
      • Re:Confirmed cases (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Monday August 10, 2020 @07:14PM (#60387685)
        Nope. If 60% of people had had it, you would be at herd immunity and hardly anyone would be getting it. You can't have exponential growth in the number of cases while at the same time having most people having already had it.
        • 60% does not give you heard immunity.
          97% does.
          Perhaps - with a hand waving gesture - 87% does.

          On top of that it depends on how infectious the disease is.

          If you would infect statistically 10 ppl before you are no longer sick, you would not even have a reasonable heard immunity with 97% immune ppl.

          Seriously: it is just MATH. How stupid are ppl here?

          • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Not stupid, just lame, paid to push corporate propaganda. Why the fuck are they no giving everyone the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. They know it works against corona virus and to prove it all they had to do was compare the symptoms of those who had it against the symptoms of those who have not, done and finished and OHH NOO, more testing required, more delays many more months of delays, enough testing so they can push a useless multibillion vaccine, as people die waiting for it, the sheer unadulterate

  • Remember that movie? It's an old classic now but it's solid Science Fiction, too, not just 'science fantasy'.
    If you're not familiar, the 'disease' (which was literally extraterrestrial in origin) wasn't even DNA-based, it was a silicon-based life-form, and in it's original form, as it fell to Earth on a downed satellite (micrometeorite hit it, knocked it out of orbit) it was incredibly and spectacularly deadly -- but after a little while it mutated into a non-lethal form.
    Now, didn't someone somewhere say
    • by Zocalo ( 252965 )

      Now, didn't someone somewhere say this coronavirus was already mutating? What are the chances it'll mutate into a less-lethal version of itself?

      Mutations are more or less random, but tend to favour Darwinism in the long term. "Survival of the fittest" in the case of a virus would mean more it would become more virulent (e.g. spread more) and resilient, rather than more lethal to humans (which curtails its ability to spread), but a *lot* more infected humans as a proportion would likely translate into mor

      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        virulent - i don't think that word means what you think it means.

        • by Zocalo ( 252965 )
          Really?

          Virulence is a pathogen's or microbe's ability to infect or damage a host. In the context of gene for gene systems, often in plants, virulence refers to a pathogen's ability to infect a resistant host.

          "Infect or damage", but not specifically to kill. In otherwords, becoming more infectious which, in turn, means more spread of the virus.

          • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            Yes but when something become more virulent it generally means it is more damaging or lethal not less.

            Virulent diseases tend to spread less because people can tell others are sick and keep their distance and hosts die quickly before they spread disease. Less virulent illnesses spread more easily. Which is what you were saying - just inverted the severity

        • I would have said 'prolific', but I get his meaning so it's not particularly relevant.
    • There is no evolutionary pressure for the virus to kill fewer people thanks to the asymptomatic period. Besides, such mutations happen over centuries and more. Ebola is what, 40 years old by now, yet still as deadly as ever. Smallpox was tens of thousands of years old yet it killed a third of the infected on average.

      • It's a +ssRNA virus. They mutate quite quickly (not as insanely fast as -ssRNA viruses, of which Ebola would be a member, but not much slower). Within the 9 months since its discovery, we already have 7 distinct strains of the virus. And I'd be really surprised if that's all. Smallpox is a dsDNA virus, they mutate much, much slower (in general, exceptions do apply).

        Not all viruses are equal.

        • Corvid, is a corona virus.
          We have 10,000 of strains since the virus is existing.

          Claiming that corvid19 now has "7 stains" is completely idiotic.

          • If you excuse the rather crude parallel, Corona viruses is the felidae family, with SARS-CoV2 being the housecat and the various breeds thereof being the strains. In other words, yes, there's plenty of corona viruses but they are by no means the same virus.

    • What are the chances it'll mutate into a less-lethal version of itself?
      The mutations do not make the original version magically go away.
      And mutations go both ways. Or myriads of ways. Easily you get in
      som ppl a more deadly one. Ooops ...

  • by Tom ( 822 ) on Monday August 10, 2020 @02:02PM (#60386563) Homepage Journal

    Our main problem still is too many people.

    Everyone who died in this pandemic has already been replaced. In fact, the current population growth replaced all those deaths that happened in over half a year in three days.

    As a species, the pandemic is a non-event. Even if death rates would be 10x or 20x what they are, we'd simply out-breed it.

    No country, including the USA, has suffered losses that matter much when you look at the whole picture.

    • birth rates in every country are down. 1st world nations are nearly all below sustainability. Even India for all the jokes made by the Simpsons has half the birth rate it did 50 years ago.

      People with options and educations don't just spit out kid after kid after kid. Rather than over population we're going to face the opposite, under population.

      As for the virus, the reason we haven't suffered those losses is we're taken steps to contain the virus and so has everybody else. In Brazil where their pres
      • Underpopulation? I'll believe that when I find affordable real estate within 100 miles of the capital again.

    • People aren't replaceable in that way
      • by Tom ( 822 )

        Yes, they are.

        Remember the point-of-view. From a personal or family perspective, those people are all individuals and unique and all. But from a global, species view, they are just as replaceable as all the other people who died in human history.

    • Our main problem still is too many people.

      "What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint) is our teeming population. Our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly support us... In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race."

      Tertullian, Second century CE [wikipedia.org]

      To say the the problem is "too many people" limits you to solutions that involve reducing the human population.

      When you focus on the actual problems such

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        To say the the problem is "too many people" limits you to solutions that involve reducing the human population.

        Tertullian was speaking about the known world, and ancient agriculture. We've found ways to increase yields dramatically, and we have expanded to cover all of the world.

        The problem isn't agriculture. It is resources. Oil is going to be over one day - yes, the past estimates were wrong as more oil has consistently been found, be it IS a limited resource. Ores and rare earths are likewise. As is the environment we are destroying.

        What you see as the "actual problems" isn't the root cause, it's just the effects

    • by Trogre ( 513942 )

      Found the misanthrope.

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        Guilty as charged.

        My rational brain does understand, though, that you need a couple hundred idiots and assholes to breed one kind, smart and good person. It's only my emotional part that has trouble with the idea.

  • Today another milestone was reached. Common Cold Infections broke the 2,000 Trillion (as in real Trillion, not American trillions, but rather real Trillions where a Trillion is a Billion Billion and a Billion is a Million Million) mark. It is estimated that the average Human on Planet Earth has been infected with the "Common Cold" at least 3 times each year of their life, and that Human's have lived on Planet Earth for more than a Billion years.

    Despite record infections, there have been very few recorded

  • I find it very hard to believe that they were able to control a new, unknown disease so quickly with so few deaths.

      But itâ(TM)s China, so who knows whatâ(TM)s really going on?

  • 1 out of every 2,000 Americans alive at the start of the pandemic has now died from COVID19

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341]

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