South Korea Coronavirus WARNING - R0 4.6 Outbreak Infection Rate!

Politics / Pandemic Feb 29, 2020 - 09:00 AM GMT

Coronavirus pandemic news has South Korea effectively declaring a national emergency as the nations Coronavirus cases continue to rocket ever higher, now totaling 2931 infected and 17 deaths, this despite deploying immense resources towards containment. Meanwhile the basket case north of the border with far greater cross border travel with China apparently has zero cases, whilst reports continue of mass cremations taking place.

Therefore given the reliability of South Korea's monitoring and systems, then the outbreak in this nation is likely more accurately reflects what to expect in terms of outbreaks in the West than China's statistics that everyone now agrees have grossly under reported the true number of infections AND deaths by several magnitudes. In fact China's statistics are modeled on an outbreak starting Mid January rather than early December! And thus my recent in-depth analysis concluded that Chinese reported cases are under reported by at least X7, and deaths by X2.

South Korea Coronavirus WARNING to the World of Explosive Community Infection Spread!

Reliable South Korean data warns of literally exponential spread of the virus in the early days of outbreaks, where R0 rather than being 2 to 2.6 as being the consensus view instead South Korean data calculates R0 to 4.6! Literally explosive growth in the number of infections before a nations healthcare system is able to respond, this explosive early growth is likely as a consequence that those infected can be asymptomatic for between 3 and 7 days and a few super spreads for as many as 14 days! Who unbeknown are literally infecting dozens of people per day who themselves go onto infect several each..

South Korean data shows an initial explosive growth starting on the 19th of February that saw 20 new cases (new outbreak) testing positive, next day that number more than doubled to 53 as the authorities desperately attempted to track down contacts, doubling again on the 21st to 100, again on the 22nd, and only slowing by day 5 as huge deployment of resources including shutting down a whole city succeeded in halting the doubling of numbers every 24 hours! But by then it tends to become too late to halt ever expanding numbers of infected as the 27th and 28th of Feb illustrate.

Thus South Korea is the model for the expected pattern of spread. Explosive growth that only slows when extreme actions are taken to shut down the movement of people within in infected areas.

So folks don't be lulled into any false sense of complacency because the initial outbreaks are EXPLOSIVE! The number of infected can literally go from zero to 1000 in days! And that is WITH an effective response to outbreaks to contain the rate of expansion of infected numbers. Another example of which we are already witnessing take place is in Italy which is experiencing a similar pattern of explosive growth soon following the detection of Coronavirus in a few small towns in Northern Italy.

If developed nations such as Italy and South Korea can barely manage to control outbreaks, then imagine what is likely to take place in nations without robust healthcare and emergency response systems and / or their political systems unable to respond to outbreaks in a timely manner, the case in point being IRAN!

IRAN both lacks the infrastructure and the systems to respond to Coronavirus outbreaks hence the disaster we are witnessing unfold where likely several thousands are infected, and many hundreds have died, all whilst the totalitarian state reports just 245 infected and 26 deaths, which if accurate would result in a case fatality rate of 10%!

And Iran is far from being considered the worst able to respond to the virus, to that we turn to Africa that likely already has uncontrolled outbreaks underway that will only make the light of day when the body bags start piling up in their hundreds.

Coronavirus Pandemic Outside China Update - 28th Feb 2020

Whilst China's infection numbers cannot be trusted, meanwhile the developed worlds numbers should prove more accurate, at least in the early stages of the pandemic. Though we still have two gaping holes on the world Map i.e. Africa and Central & South America, to imagine that there is just 1 infection in Egypt and 1 in Brazil is delusional, given the comings and goings of upwards of 1 million chinese workers across the continents, instead the infected number in Africa and South America already likely runs into the several thousands that as of yet remain unrecorded, so expect a sharp spike in numbers at some point when the degree of infection is acknowledged.

Despite lack of recording of African and the America's numbers, the number of infections is literally going Parabolic, soaring by over 1000 overnight to 5359 to well above my trend forecast that total 129,250 infections by the end of March 2020.

Coronavirus Including China - Day 82, 28th Feb 2020 Update

My forecast for the total number of infections and deaths by 28th of Feb 2020 vs reported and estimated:

An updated forecast for March and April will follow in the next few days.

UK Coronavirus Trend Forecast Day 32 - 28th Feb 2020 Update

The total number of infections recorded in the UK has started to increase on a daily basis, and now includes the first case of a person being infected who cannot be linked to one of the growing outbreak hot spots across the world.

However, the fact that the UK only has 20 cases does not alter the fact that the UK is still in the calm before the coronavirus storm stage as my forecast of 14th Feb 2020 concluded in the infected to trend to 5000 by the end of March resulting in 90 deaths. Analysis of what is happening in South Korea illustrates that outbreaks tend to be explosive, soon jumping from 1 to 1000 infected in a matter of days, which is likely the pattern to expect in the UK, that I am sure will prompt emergency, even panic response such as cancellation of virtually all public events, schools, universities and colleges being closed, and infected hot spots being quarantined, all likely to start taking place by Mid March, as I first warned to expect to happen over 2 weeks ago. Where Britain's school could remain closed until September!

The bottom line is that most western nations are still in the calm before the coronavirus storm change where outbreaks could spread a nearer to r5.0 rather than oft mentioned r2.6, at least for the first few days of an outbreak, which means the UK having just 20 managed cases is nothing to get complacent about for there WILL be outbreaks in the UK that will be just as bad as in South Korea and closer still Italy, it is only a matter of time that should not be wasted but rather utilised to prepare for, especially given the fact that the NHS has only spare capacity for 400 cortically ill patients, that could number 1000 by the end of March alone, let alone be able to cope with that which will follow in April and May.

Stock Market Trend Implications

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Nadeem Walayat

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Nadeem Walayat has over 30 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.

Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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