When we figure out if restrictive measures work in the fight of the Coronavirus

How much time will it take to see if restrictions function? A study that has collected more than 24 million long, detailed observations can give us some knowledge of the epidemic's progress.

China Helps Us Understand

The analysis in question was compiled by Thomas Pueyo, 33 years old: MBA at Stanford University, deputy head of growth at “Course Hero”, an internet educational platform valued at $1.1 billion today, and is titled: “Why do you have to act now” It analyzes data and different trends of COVIDD-19 worldwide, focusing on mistakes and strategies that need to be adopted, and obviously starting with what happened in China, which is very indicatorally: not only because China is the most affected country so far, but also because from a time-view it was affected earlier than anyone else. And in a way, it's already out of the emergency situation. Hence, it is an example that can be better studied because it has more complete data.

Real Cases, Known Cases

The detailed graph published by Thomas Pueyo on the media website. The following - viewed com shows trends (in China in the province of Hubei, the most affected) of the number of cases confirmed every single day. Blue columns point to the daily real cases of the Coronavirus. The Chinese CDC (Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) provided this information, asking patients who are treated when their symptoms began. The orange columns show what the authorities and those in the gray - line vault show what was really going on: real cases are not immediately known, they can only be discovered by looking back on time.

Twelve-day difference

What Thomas Pueyo tells us is that between January 23rd and January 24th (the closure of Wuhan and the closure of 15 cities in Hubei) cases had a peak and then began to fall two days later. Rather, orange (an official) cases increased exponentially for another 12 days. But it wasn't. The research states that the research was given by people who, with stronger symptoms, went to the doctor and improved the discovery systems of the virus”. Moreover, noncompliance is given by a timely delay between the beginning of symptoms (between the five days after infection) and the arrival of the buffer results.

Underestimated at the beginning of an epidemic

The other important fact that is highlighted is that real cases may be, at the beginning of an epidemic, far more than appreciated ones: when in Wuhan thought they had 444 cases, they were actually 27 times more. The opposite is true when the climbing curve decreases: there are still many official cases, but the real ones are shrinking.

The Special of Italy

And we come to Italy: I The SS (Instituto Superior di Sanità) also releases a bulletin containing a similar graph: blue the start date of symptoms and painted the diagnosed cases up to March 14th. The problem with the Italian situation is that it is still too early to build precise curves. The ISS specifys in a note: “The latest data (grey detail) should be considered temporary, both for the delay in reporting the latest cases and because cases still undiagnosed will partly report the date of the initial symptoms in the days of the grey box”.

And further down in the methodological annex: “should be stressed that the data collected is in a phase of continued consolidation and, as in emergencies, some information is incomplete. Particularly, it is reported that the possibility of delay for several days between the moment of the execution of the buffer for diagnosis and reporting on the dedicated platform, especially in the Rajons where a stable local transmission of the virus is taking place. The decline noted in epidemic cures in the past two days should be interpreted as delay in reporting, not as a description of the epidemic's progress”.

tampon policies and symptoms

Not only that. Each country adopts different policies to decide the tampons of positive cases, which, among other things, change over time: In Italy now the tampons are made only for people with visible and serious symptoms and who are suspected of having come into contact with positive people. The survey on the beginning of the symptoms in the country (the blue columns) speaks of data from “collected from regional reference labs”, so it is not clear how much the population with some mild symptoms represent and who “is treated” at home. How were the investigations in China conducted, and how were they made in Italy?

What do we know?

What we can say, certainly, from the trend of a curve in the safe “” is that when the cities “close “the cases immediately stop and sit down, but “is named”, by 12 days apart.

Good news?

Seeing the trend of Lombardy cases, which is the region where there has been a longer - term closure, we note, not a decrease, but at least a slight slowdown in several provinceal curves. It's early to say, but we hope that what we see is worse than real data, although it's hard to say for sure.

When will we reach the peak?

Theoretically we now see the effects of behavior a week ago, and in a week we will see the effect of closing “total”. Always “roughly”. And in terms of peak: “it's hard to make predictions, there are different models that circulate, but all models have assumptions, that's some predetermined events, but we're in a new situation and we're looking at our data, and at the moment I'm not able to make predictions”, said Istituto Superior di Sanità, Silvio Bruaferro, at a press conference.

What we know for certain is that it is now largely up to us: we have to respect the isolation and social distance indicators to the end because, as China and Codogno tell us, the results will come. / Corriere della Sera ʹworld.al