ScottishFox

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Um, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I'm trying to understand the desire to continuously post detailed stats as to what the total deaths are, which country's having the worst day, whose curve is climbing or flattening, etc. It's almost like watching the score in a competition to see who's screwed the worst. Does this give you some comfort, or fulfill a sense of responsibility? I can understand wanting to be aware of general trends, but personally this level of detail feels a little morbid, and pretty depressing.

 

But maybe this serves a purpose I'm not recognizing yet. Like I say, I'm just trying to understand.

For me, some of it is probably job-role related.  I aggregate and analyze data for a living so it's natural to want to keep clarifying the picture further as new data rolls in.

Data-driven decisions beat reactionary ones over time so the better information you have before deciding to do things - the better.

Two out of three people in my home are high-risk for this crud and we have multiple parents still alive in their 70s and 80s who are at extreme risk.

Some of these numbers could have influence on very real decisions coming up in our near future.  Does this hydroxychloroquine / z-pac combo work or not?  How often?  How often with side effects?  How many people die from it vs. the disease.

I'd like the best numbers possible because it's a very real possibility that one or both of us will be asking our doctor for the treatment or passing on it based on whatever numbers we have at the time.

Per country deaths and infection rates, curves, etc., help tell us how this thing is going and give some limited insight towards what we can expect in our own immediate futures.

Shelter-in-place until April 30 vs. August 30 has very real financial meaning for most of us and certainly for my family.  My company is cutting us back to 50% hours and I'm pretty happy to have survived the chopping block this long.  Still, with 1/2 an income we're making some hard cuts as a family just in case this crap-fest extends out for awhile.

This whole situation is depressing.

And for an unbelievable social-distancing fail:

Washington Post Article:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-families-should-be-sweeping-graves-now-but-thousands-still-havent-buried-their-dead/2020/04/03/5a6daa50-7234-11ea-ad9b-254ec99993bc_story.html

Using photos posted online, social media sleuths have estimated that Wuhan funeral homes have returned 3,500 urns a day since March 23. That would imply a death toll in Wuhan of about 42,000 — or 16 times the official number. Another widely shared calculation, based on Wuhan’s 84 furnaces running nonstop and each cremation taking an hour, puts the death toll at 46,800.

The Chinese numbers aren't shaved a bit.  They are massively under reported.

2 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

What I meant was the Risposte as written in example, are you required to successfully Block for the trigger to set off?

Yes, successful block was required to activate the trigger (which instantly resets).

Some positive looking data from the last two days:

Yesterday's numbers for New York compared to today's (not yet complete) numbers for New York.

New cases are up 7.1%, but new deaths is only about 30% of what it was yesterday despite having more active cases.

Not a long enough time span to be solid, but I'm hoping this means the new drug trials are having an impact.

22 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I’m at work but isn’t the Risposte based on a successful block maneuver? Not just using Block maneuver? That makes a difference too. 

The player I had with this setup maxed their OCV, had martial block and could reliably block two or three attacks per phase.  That's a lot of damage output while taking 0 in return.

7 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

So this is #2.  There will be more.  I limited my thinking to bombings;  that was unwise, perhaps, but not that many people can try to do something like this.

With the impending financial impact and pain caused by loss of loved ones this won't be the last person who succumbs to murderous despair. 

On a crazier note.

My step-daughter calls yesterday and asks if she has Coronoavirus because she has a bad sore throat.  It's seasonal allergy time so its hard to say.  Beyond the obvious ask your doctor advice I point out that if you don't have a fever it's probably just allergies.  Probably.

Then she asks if she can come over and visit my immuno-compromised wife and I.

????!!!

!@#$ no you can't come over and visit after asking that.  Shelter-in-place can only slow this disease down.  The stupid cannot be contained.

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

OK, I am looking for the skeptics and those with expertise to refute my hypothesis.

 

I am now looking at Worldometer with the theory that the extent of testing in a country can be gauged by the ratio of critical cases to active cases.  The greater the ratio, the less the testing.

 

REASONING:  The less testing, the more it is limited to the worst cases.  They are getting tested.  The milder cases are not.

 

EVIDENCE:  My understanding is that the three countries with the highest testing are the UAE (745 active cases; 2 critical), South Korea (3,979 active cases; 55 critical) and Canada (7,866 active cases; 120 critical - less certain this is #3 in testing as the intel came from sources in our gov't, so objectivity is lower).

 

World is 703,547 active cases; 36,205 critical, so just over 5% critical.  The big testers are 1.3 - 1.5% (I'm calling UAE an outlier because their numbers are smaller, so more likely to skew from a statistical norm).  My recollection is the fatality rate is about 2%.  The big testers are probably lower, sadly, because active cases last to the earlier of full recovery or death, and critical cases are the most likely to end early.

 

US is 13% critical.  Italy is 5%.  Spain is 8.3%.UK, oddly, is 0.55%.  That contrasts with almost 8% deaths as a proportion to total cases.

 

THOUGHTS?

I think you're on to something.  Germany has a VERY low mortality rate.  It's jumped a little recently, but it was at 0.54% earlier and that was due to their testing of a lot of people (not just the ones needing critical care).

While a reasonably small sample size I think the Diamond Princess gave us a reasonable number to expect.  Mortality rate 1.5% among a moderately old, but healthy enough to travel group.

I speculate that the countries with the abnormally high mortality rates are either not testing enough people to give accurate numbers, are over-whelmed preventing top-tier care for their critically ill, or both.

Otherwise you can't easily explain countries having mortality rates north of 10% while others have mortality rates in the 1-2% range.

32 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

As of this moment at worldometers....and it's evening in Europe, reporting tends to slow more...

Italy + Spain:  212,000+ total cases

USA:  211,000.

 

We'll almost certainly blow past them before the reporting day is over...

And we're supposed to believe that China stamped this thing out weeks ago.

Meanwhile there are undercover reports of thousands upon thousands of people waiting in lines at cremation sites to get their relatives remains.

I've been watching some NTD News and the coverage felt pretty biased.  So I headed over to MediaBiasFactCheck and it turns out they're pretty solid overall, but are very anti-current-Chinese-regime as they were founded by Falun Gong members.

That being said - They have a lot of video coverage and interviews with people in China and I'm pretty  convinced the current Chinese numbers are not even 10% of the real numbers.

Also, I hope all of the help being sent to New York pays off.   They are going to be at serious risk of hospital overload which will send the mortality rate through the roof.

It seems like the mortality rate is 1.5 - 2.0% if advanced care is available and MUCH higher when its not. 

3 hours ago, Grailknight said:

If all you want is Knockback, then the best power for that is Blast with the Double Knockback advantage and whatever Limitation you decide for "Does no STUN & BODY"(-2 IMO).

 

 You don't need Armor Piercing or Penetrating, those only affect damage done. 

 

The Movement UAA powers options will give you more control over where your target ends up however.

 

 

This is how I've done it in my Fantasy HERO campaigns.  Most recently for a Witcher-type Aard blast.

I like using Blast for this effect as it makes the distance of the knockback less predictable.

The introvert / extrovert split on this shelter-in-home stuff is so weird.

I work remotely while my daughter works on her art projects or plays on her iPad.  Every few hours she'll pop out to tell me she loves me and maybe we'll kung fu fight for a couple minutes. 

Then she goes back to her room.

Meanwhile my wife, the extrovert, is tromping around the house having run out of any possible chores to do going, "I'M F*CKING BORED!!" like a broken record.

Strange times.

7 hours ago, Hermit said:

CDC Director is hinting at 24 months?

I don't see how we can sustain this for 24 months.

On 3/4/2020 at 2:27 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Also, I have uploaded a file of The Greatest Guns Who Never Were

First, thank you for pumping out all of this great content.

Second, your write-up of Brisco Country Jr. does not give him any levels at all with his weapons and he was doing crazy stuff like shooting down the barrel of an opponents gun.

In my Fantasy HERO campaign I limited the Riposte-style instant counter-attacks to once per phase.

Even then it is very powerful.  You get to Block AND Attack at the same time.

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

Well, if the WHO says so....

 

The World Health Organization wants you to play video games

OMG make up your minds!  First video games are a horrible international disease and now we're supposed to play them?

Fine, if I must.... 

8 hours ago, unclevlad said:

What bites, to me, is the need IMO to be this anal with regard to confirmation.  So thanks for your patience and diligence finding it.

I've been using Newsguard for a bit now. 

It's not perfect, but it generally identifies the sites that can't be trusted at all and points out the key flaws of the ones that get a passing grade.

Trust is not earned much these days.  Most times that I fail to get 2 or 3 confirming sources I end up regretting it.

20 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Registered there, read the full article you linked.  I don't see any evidence that the use was sanctioned, tho.  Unless there are more stories from that site?  They talked about a test in progress, for HCQ alone...not HCQ+AZ.  And that's far less than a full sanction for use, even in the trial-approval sense granted today by the FDA.

From page 3 on the article references it:

However, just a week ago, access to this drug (and others with market approval that have been on the market for several years) was blocked in hospital central pharmacies, while we are the medical specialists with the authorization! It was unacceptable.  It was sorted out 48 hours ago: hydroxychloroquine is now available in the hospital, and to my knowledge, we no longer have a problem obtaining it.

Found a reference to it on International Business News (Newsguard rating 82.5) as well:  https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-treatment-france-officially-sanctions-drug-after-975-patients-recovered-2949364

1 hour ago, Matt the Bruins said:

I don't have links handy with the actual info, but I saw promising results the other day written up about the effectiveness of that experimental combination of malaria and lupus treatment drugs. Particularly that it was cutting hospitalization times to less than half of the standard in other patients, which has good ramifications for the effective capacity of hospitals to treat more patients as well as for the recovery of the individuals being treated.

 

Here's hoping the combo doesn't turn out to be highly carcinogenic or have some other medium to long term effect that would dampen its usefulness as a treatment.

I couldn't find a website with a strong Newsguard rating yesterday, but I was able to verify it on Medscape today (you have to register - which is annoying) and they clock in at 92.5/100.  French24 is also highly rated by Newsguard.

Anyway - Looks like France did indeed sanction the use of hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin.

The article (link below) does show some of the controversy on the study of 80 patients by Didier Raoult, MD.  Mostly in the area of not having tight controls on the study.

On page 3 of the article they mention that they got cleared to have the medication available 48 hours ago.

The author goes on to rag on the study a bit, but states they also believe that hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin is going to be effective.

Other studies are discussed.  It is a site for medical professionals so be ready for a jargon rich environment.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927758#vp_1

PS:  It was Dr. Didier Raoult's study which showed 78 out of 80 patients recovered on the treatment and were recovering in 5 days instead of the average 14.

35 minutes ago, Badger said:

Now from the Cylon Empire

 

The Imperious Leader reports ZERO cases of the coronavirus within the borders of our empire.  Sucks to be organic.

 

 

 

I had to go there.

 

 

So you're saying the Cylons took over China at the end of February...

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

 

EDIT:  Mortality rates by country.  Same data source.

	Cases	Deaths	Rate
World	746178	35347	4.74%
USA	145131	2608	1.80%
Italy	97689	10779	11.03%
Spain	85195	7340	8.62%
China	81470	3304	4.06%
Germany	63929	560	0.88%
Iran	41495	2757	6.64%
France	40174	2606	6.49%
UK	22141	1408	6.36%
Switzerland	15526	333	2.14%
Belgium	11899	513	4.31%
Netherlands	11750	864	7.35%
S. Korea	9661	158	1.64%
Austria	9520	108	1.13%
Turkey	9217	131	1.42%
Canada	6671	67	1.00%
Portugal	6408	140	2.18%

 

I was looking at that this morning and I thought:  Germany must be doing some bleeding-edge treatment to have such a low rate.  Turns out they were testing more aggressively than most other countries.

If their medical treatments have any advantage at all its that they're identifying sick people earlier.

It just feels insane that Italy has a mortality rate more than 10x higher than that of Germany.

5 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

If you ever get happy with it, I'd love a copy. It looks great!

Here's what I have so far, but full credit to Tasha.  I've just slightly modified her work.

ScottishFox.hde

8 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

What export are you using for those sheets?

I'm using a variation of Tasha's Ultimate that I hand edited to take care of something.  It's an evolving work that I'm basing on player feedback.

My current version removes STAT base and cost columns and only shows current value.  I'm trying to trim the sheet down to minimum required to play to stop the numbers overload my math-adverse table suffers from.

You said you watched the video for like 15 minutes and it's a 3 minute video.  I must be doing something wrong.

Ok, this might be a better youtube link.

Although they say Chloroquine and not hydroxychloroquine which is what shows up in the twitter feed so... ?