1504 replies to this topic

[Mind]

Evidence that Covid-19 was in Europe earlier than suspected from the BBC -
 
France's first known case 'was in December'
 
Expect to see more of this as information continues to unfold.

 

Props to you. You were the first one to call BS on the theory that it didn't move to the rest of the world until February.

[albedo]

A highly recommended read (take you 30-45 mins): enjoyable and playable with many scenarios possible. Much worth the time for understanding.

 

What Happens Next?

COVID-19 Futures, Explained With Playable Simulations

https://ncase.me/covid-19/

 

I was intrigued playing these simulations (of this basic version) by the various possible scenarios (last months, next months, next years, the now again) and various points such as:

 

Scenario 1: Flatten The Curve / Herd Immunity

...

Scenario 2: Months-Long Lockdown

...

A lockdown isn't a cure, it's just a restart.

So, what, do we just lockdown again & again?

 

Scenario 3: Intermittent Lockdown

....

Financial Health: "What about the economy" sounds like you care more about dollars than lives, but "the economy" isn't just stocks: it's people's ability to provide food & shelter for their loved ones, to invest in their kids' futures, and enjoy arts, foods, videogames – the stuff that makes life worth living.

....

Scenario 4: Test, Trace, Isolate

"Sure, we *could've* done what Taiwan & South Korea did at the start, but it's too late now. We missed the start."

But that's exactly it! “A lockdown isn't a cure, it's just a restart”... and a fresh start is what we need.

To understand how Taiwan & South Korea contained COVID-19, we need to understand the exact timeline of a typical COVID-19 infection

....

Scenario 4+: Masks For All, Summer, Circuit Breakers

....

The only thing to fear is the idea that the only thing to fear is fear itself.

....

 

I think the various scenarios reflect partially the various approaches taken by different countries. To me it is illusory today to claim one (sort-of-super) government had the best approach when considering the multitude of factors to be taken into account, not even Sweden ... (I have relatives). Yet, I am grateful to the Swiss government and how it is facing the crisis till now. Let's be prepared for others to come! I am just downloading the app to test/trace/isolate as semi lock-down might become necessary again (the Swiss had only a semi-lockdown a bit as Sweden insofar the appeal to responsibility of population is concerned). Also, Germany seems envisioning a new wave to come and prepare...

 

 

Edited by albedo, 06 May 2020 - 04:31 PM.

[gamesguru]

How the heck does an "extremely contagious and lethal virus NOT escape around the world

And this is further backed-up by several studies of active infections (Boston, Navy ships, Prisons, etc..) showing large majorities have no or mild symptoms.

 

In New York they added 3,700 "presumptive cases" in one day!

Yes, it was in many countries before January.  But no it does not have an R0 value of 15, or a serial latency of 1 day.  I suspect we're more like R0 = 3, with a serial latency of 7 days.

 

No outbreak in history has infected half the world in under a year.  Even measles and smallpox—R0 values probably above 10—don't spread that fast.

 

Do those people really have "no" symptoms, or do most of the people on the prisons actually have mild symptoms at the least.

Those 3700 people in New York was probably accurate within 20%.  They added many suspicious deaths from the preceding week(s).  There are literally thousands of people dying that they don't have time to test.

 

What is the specificity and sensitivity rate of the active coronavirus test? The false positive/negative rate?

The active test?  You mean the RT-PCR test for virus mRNA?  It has about 95% sensitivity (depending state of infection, how well the swab is done).  It is about 100% specific, because the test for mRNA is very specific, and false positives are also thought to be impossible <0.0000001%.

 

Sensitivity = % false negatives

Specificity = % false positives

 

I honestly can't promise, but I've been really disappointed with the analyses and the eager press releases.  I would bet most, if not all, antibody tests out there are 80-90% specific and probably 95% sensitive.

 

If you're asking whether error(positivity rate) = 100% - specificity %, no it's not that simple.  You might think 20±2%, but it could really be more like 10±8%.  There are some second-year statistics crunching behind the scenes.  You can check out the demo in my previous post, it's pretty visual.  I'm gonna stab an explanation below, too.

 

This certainly backs up why so many antibody studies show widespread infection in their areas

This is how I would explain it in words.  Let's assume it's not that widespread (<40%); the antibody test is 90% specific, and 100% sensitive.  Say you have 1000 random people, 50 are positive (we could do 400, but let's just keep it simple).

 

We test them all, the 50 positives return positive tests because of 100% sensitivity, but of the 950 remainders the test returns 10% false positives.. so we end with 50 + 95 = 145 total positives.

 

In this example, the total positives went from 50 to nearly 150, almost a 300% increase.  It's almost like the original figure doesn't matter.  We would get ~100 false positives as long as the infection rate is actually low.  Furthermore, selection bias and other sources of error further compound the measurement, and it explains why you can test for the virus in two totally different places and get roughly similar incidence.  And in one place, maybe no one has even died yet, where the other place they are close to 0.1% dead.

Edited by gamesguru, 06 May 2020 - 04:36 PM.

[Mind]

The active test?  You mean the RT-PCR test for virus mRNA?  It has about 95% sensitivity (depending state of infection, how well the swab is done).  It is about 100% specific, because the test for mRNA is very specific, and false positives are also thought to be impossible <0.0000001%.

 

 

About those tests: https://www.aljazeer...3174100809.html If you believe the Tanzanian president, some of the tests (or the labs) are faulty. But then, there have been reports of faulty tests in a few other parts of the world as well. Not sure how widespread. I would tend to think that most countries have accurate tests.

[Florin]

I am calling BS on the death statistics as well. Health authorities in multiple countries are counting "presumptive cases" in with positive-tested cases. In New York they added 3,700 "presumptive cases" in one day! It is obvious to me that the death rate among the elderly is inflated, particularly in Italy, where after the first week, the elderly were denied normal health care or hospital access. Depressed frail lonely seniors with minimal care that might have died later this year, are dying now and adding to the inflated death statistics/CFR.

 

I don't see how you could argue with the excess death stats. If you think they're just a side effect of the lockdowns, just look at Sweden (mild lockdown, more death) and California (full lockdown, less death). And if you compare the excess death stats with reported deaths due COVID-19, they seem to match up fairly well, at least for the US. Ditto for the state of New York (27k excess deaths, 25k COVID-19 deaths).

 

https://www.euromomo...graphs-and-maps

https://www.cdc.gov/...s.htm#dashboard

https://www.longecit...ndpost&p=891050

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Edited by Florin, 06 May 2020 - 06:07 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Props to you. You were the first one to call BS on the theory that it didn't move to the rest of the world until February.

 

It wasn't a hard prediction. I'm an odd person that is interested in science, technology, and history. One of the intersections of those is that I've studied many historical pandemics. 

 

What I saw was a consistent pattern of misunderstanding the start of a pandemic in the early stages.  A new infectious disease would burst onto the scene, a lot of people would get sick and die, and people naturally assumed that the new pathogen had entered the world right before they noticed that people were getting sick.  Subsequent analysis always showed that the new pathogen had been around longer than expected, from many months to in some cases many decades (e.g. HIV). In quite a number of cases some external condition had changed that caused a latent pathogen that was languishing around some backwater of humanity to break out.  In the case of HIV it was probably a period of colonialism followed by the sexual revolution in the 1960s.

 

I would go so far as to say, unless your new pathogen escaped from some lab and you know the date on which it happened, it almost certainly arose earlier than you think if you're in the early stages of the pandemic.  

 

I'll say that unless covid-19 escaped from that Wuhan lab (possible but I have no idea one way or the other), it had probably been lurking around longer than suspected.  If this was a natural jump from another species into man, it probably happened at least a number of months earlier than the patient 0 that China has discussed who is alleged to have had an onset of symptoms around 10 December.  Possibly even years. It may have picked up a mutation that made it easier to transmit from human to human or some condition in the population changed that facilitated it's transmission.

[Mind]

I don't see how you could argue with the excess death stats. If you think they're just a side effect of the lockdowns, just look at Sweden (mild lockdown, more death) and California (full lockdown, less death). And if you compare the excess death stats with reported deaths due COVID-19, they seem to match up fairly well, at least for the US. Ditto for the state of New York (27k excess deaths, 25k COVID-19 deaths).

 

https://www.euromomo...graphs-and-maps

https://www.cdc.gov/...s.htm#dashboard

https://www.longecit...ndpost&p=891050

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

 

I am not arguing that there are not excess deaths. Sorry if I gave that impression. There are excess deaths almost everywhere the coronavirus moves.

 

What I am saying is that the excess deaths are probably not as high as being reported due to poor reporting standards and the precarious health of the elderly populations of the U.S. and western Europe. As mentioned in this other thread, the number of obese people, those in ill-health, and frail elderly has been climbing in recent years and this more deadly virus has struck a larger vulnerable population than existed in previous decades (sedentary, overweight, etc...).

 

Isolating frail seniors - and in some instances - denying them care, is probably "pulling forward" a lot of deaths that would have occurred later in the year.

 

What I am calling BS on is the extreme over-reaction that continues in some corners of society, "lockdowns must continue indefinitely", "no returning to normal", etc... Taking a reasonable approach (protecting the vulnerable) is shouted-down as akin to murder (by some).

[Florin]

I am not arguing that there are not excess deaths. Sorry if I gave that impression. There are excess deaths almost everywhere the coronavirus moves.
 
What I am saying is that the excess deaths are probably not as high as being reported due to poor reporting standards and the precarious health of the elderly populations of the U.S. and western Europe. As mentioned in this other thread, the number of obese people, those in ill-health, and frail elderly has been climbing in recent years and this more deadly virus has struck a larger vulnerable population than existed in previous decades (sedentary, overweight, etc...).

It seems you're confusing excess deaths with deaths caused by COVID-19. Excess deaths are simply deaths due to any cause above the normal death rate, COVID-19 or otherwise. So, you can't say that excess death stats are too high to be accurate; they're just a fact, not a classification error.
 

Isolating frail seniors - and in some instances - denying them care, is probably "pulling forward" a lot of deaths that would have occurred later in the year.

What about Sweden vs California? And you seem to think that the flu (or whatever) would kill as many later in the year as coronavirus does now. According to the excess death stats, that's not the case.
 

What I am calling BS on is the extreme over-reaction that continues in some corners of society, "lockdowns must continue indefinitely", "no returning to normal", etc... Taking a reasonable approach (protecting the vulnerable) is shouted-down as akin to murder (by some).

How do you propose to protect the vulnerable?

Edited by Florin, 06 May 2020 - 10:04 PM.

[gamesguru]

About those tests: https://www.aljazeer...3174100809.html If you believe the Tanzanian president, some of the tests (or the labs) are faulty. But then, there have been reports of faulty tests in a few other parts of the world as well. Not sure how widespread. I would tend to think that most countries have accurate tests.

 

Ah, yes, it's a faulty reagent with the test for the virus itself.  It's been happening a lot.

 

I was talking about how the antibody tests, how the 20% error ends up magnified potentially orders of magnitude and how I feel it's too soon to draw conclusions based on them.

 

 

So, you can't say that excess death stats are too high to be accurate; they're just a fact, not a classification error.

 

Agree that excess deaths could easily be zero.  People aren't dying of the flu, or car accidents in many locked-down regions.  That alone has some reduction.

[Hebbeh]

https://www.military...g-the-military/

 

Coronavirus survivors banned from joining the military

 

A past COVID-19 diagnosis is a no-go for processing, according to a recently released MEPCOM memo circulating on Twitter.

 

“During the medical history interview or examination, a history of COVID-19, confirmed by either a laboratory test or a clinician diagnosis, is permanently disqualifying ...” the memo reads.

 

 

[gamesguru]

Lmao.  They're gonna change that when the vaccine drags on and this becomes the next chicken pox that you can catch every 6 years

[gamesguru]

The new Roche antibody test is purportedly 100% sensitive and 99.8% specific.  FDA approved May 3rd.

 

That may sound perfect, but take it to a place like Greenland where practically no one has the infection, and you will still see 0.2% seroprevalance.  Even with 99.8% specificity, the test is only meaningful in places that already had much more than 0.1% incidence confirmed by RT-PCR, let's say ~1%.  If you already have 1% incidence, then inflating that to 1.2% isn't as big of a numerical error, and the antibodies can give you a true estimate within 20%.

Edited by gamesguru, 07 May 2020 - 03:14 PM.

[Mind]

It seems you're confusing excess deaths with deaths caused by COVID-19. Excess deaths are simply deaths due to any cause above the normal death rate, COVID-19 or otherwise. So, you can't say that excess death stats are too high to be accurate; they're just a fact, not a classification error.
 

What about Sweden vs California? And you seem to think that the flu (or whatever) would kill as many later in the year as coronavirus does now. According to the excess death stats, that's not the case.
 

How do you propose to protect the vulnerable?

 

At this point I can only tell you how NOT to protect the vulnerable. Don't follow the lead of the grossly incompetent people who run New York. 

[gamesguru]

remain skeptical of the antibody studies my friends

 

Sweden: surprised by high death toll
Rest of world: convinced it'll get worse

[Florin]

At this point I can only tell you how NOT to protect the vulnerable. Don't follow the lead of the grossly incompetent people who run New York. 

 

Everyone has the potential to be stupid to some extent. That's why there's a PPE shortage. And why lockdowns are appealing I suppose. "You can't fix stupid, so lock 'em down!" "No plan? Lock 'em down!"

 

But don't worry; I have The Ultimate Plan to Save the World from COVID-19. There's only one little problem: everybody's stupid.

Edited by Florin, 07 May 2020 - 06:35 PM.

[gamesguru]

That's why there's a PPE shortage.

 

Don't try to argue with a Trump supporter.  They'll just drag you down to their level, and then blame it on the democrats

[gamesguru]

I would suspect the lock-down can be largely lifted for the simple fact that it is now Summer, and influenza and coronaviruses typically do best in the Winter.

 

Highly seasonal

A key finding of the study was that common human coronaviruses seem to be highly seasonal.

When the study started surveilling participants all year round, the researchers found that only 2.5% of human coronavirus respiratory infections occurred in the months between June and September.

Furthermore, the four human coronaviruses the team studied were also highly similar in the pattern of when they occurred: increasing in December, peaking in either January or February, then reducing in March.

Another clear finding was that young children had the highest incidence of human coronavirus-related infection. After the age of 5 years, incidence remained flat and did not seem to vary with age.

Most cases of respiratory infection (59%) were mild, 31% were moderate, and 10% were severe. Children under the age of 5 years and adults over the age of 50 years were more likely to experience severe illness.

Although this information is valuable for helping scientists better understand human coronaviruses, it is not yet clear what bearing it will have on the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic — if any.

For Prof. Arnold Monto, the Thomas Francis Jr. Collegiate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health:

 

The Reason for the Season: why flu strikes in winter

“Did you get your flu shot?” If your friends are anything like mine, you heard this question at least a dozen times before Thanksgiving. You probably got your fair share of disdainful looks too, if you answered “No.” But why are we worried about getting the flu shot now and not in May? Why is there a flu season at all? After all, what does a virus living in a host who provides a dependable, cozy incubation chamber of 98°F, care whether it is freezing and snowy outside or warm and sunny? This question has bothered people for a long time, but only recently have we begun to understand the answer.

What is the Flu?

In order to discuss why we have a flu season, we must first understand what the flu is. The flu, also called influenza, is a viral respiratory illness. A virus is a microscopic infectious agent that invades the cells of your body and makes you sick. The flu is often confused with another virus, the common cold, because of the similarity in symptoms, which can include a cough, sore throat, and stuffy nose. However, flu symptoms also include fever, cold sweats, aches throughout the body, headache, exhaustion, and even some gastro-intestinal symptoms, such as vomiting and diarrhea (1).
 

The flu is highly contagious. Adults are able to spread the virus one day prior to the appearance of symptoms and up to seven days after symptoms begin. Influenza is typically spread via the coughs and sneezes of an infected person (1). Around 200,000 people in the United States are hospitalized each year because of the flu, and of these people, about 36,000 die.  The flu is most serious for the elderly, the very young, or people who have a weakened immune system (1).

The Flu Season

The flu season in the U.S. can begin as early as October, but usually does not get into full swing until December. The season generally reaches its peak in February and ends in March (2). In the southern hemisphere, however, where winter comes during our summer months, the flu season falls between June and September. In other words, wherever there is winter, there is flu (3). In fact, even its name, “influenza” may be a reference to its original Italian name, influenza di freddo, meaning “influence of the cold” (4).
 

A common misconception is that the flu is caused by cold temperatures. However, the influenza virus is necessary to have the flu, so cold temperatures can only be a contributing factor. In fact, some people have argued that it is not cold temperatures that make the flu more common in the winter. Rather, they attest that the lack of sunlight or the different lifestyles people lead in winter months are the primary contributing factors. Here are the most popular theories about why the flu strikes in winter:
 

  1) During the winter, people spend more time indoors with the windows sealed, so they are more likely to breathe the same air as someone who has the flu and thus contract the virus (3).

  2) Days are shorter during the winter, and lack of sunlight leads to  low levels of vitamin D and melatonin, both of which require sunlight for their generation. This compromises our immune systems, which in turn decreases ability to fight the virus (3).

  3) The influenza virus may survive better in colder, drier climates, and therefore be able to infect more people (3).

 The Flu Likes Cold, Dry Weather

For many years, it was impossible to test these hypotheses, since most lab animals do not catch the flu like humans do, and using humans as test subjects for this sort of thing is generally frowned upon. Around 2007, however, a researcher named Dr. Peter Palese found a peculiar comment in an old paper published after the 1918 flu pandemic: the author of the 1919 paper stated that upon the arrival of the flu virus to Camp Cody in New Mexico, the guinea pigs in the lab began to get sick and die (4). Palese tried infecting a few guinea pigs with influenza, and sure enough, the guinea pigs got sick. Importantly, not only did the guinea pigs exhibit flu symptoms when they were inoculated by Palese, but the virus was transmitted from one guinea pig to another (4).
 

Now that Palese had a model organism, he was able to begin experiments to get to the bottom of the flu season. He decided to first test whether or not the flu is transmitted better in a cold, dry climate than a warm, humid one. To test this, Palese infected batches of guinea pigs and placed them in cages adjacent to uninfected guinea pigs to allow the virus to spread from one cage to the other. The pairs of guinea pig cages were kept at varying temperatures (41°F, 68°F, and 86°F) and humidity (20%-80%). Palese found that the virus was transmitted better at low temperatures and low humidity than at high temperatures and high humidity (see Figure 1).
 

Figure 1 ~ Experimental Setup. Guinea pigs were housed in adjacent cages. Guinea pigs in cage 1 were infected by Palese with influenza. Palese observed how many guinea pigs in cage 2 became infected from the guinea pigs in cage 1 at different temperatures and levels of humidity. B, C) Transmission rates were 100% at low humidity, regardless of temperature. At high humidity, transmission occurred only at the lower temperature. 

 

However, Palese’s initial experiment did not explain why the virus was transmitted best at cooler temperatures and low humidity. Palese tested the immune systems of the animals to find out if the immune system functions poorly at low temperatures and low humidity, but he found no difference in innate immunity among the guinea pigs (5). A paper from the 1960s may provide an alternate explanation. The study tested the survival time of different viruses (i.e. the amount of time the virus remains viable and capable of causing disease) at contrasting temperatures and levels of humidity. The results from the study suggest that influenza actually survives longer at low humidity and low temperatures. At 43°F with very low humidity, most of the virus was able to survive more than 23 hours, whereas at high humidity and a temperature of 90°F, survival was diminished at even one hour into incubation (3).
 

The data from these studies are supported by a third study that reports higher numbers of flu infections the month after a very dry period (6). In case you’re wondering, this is only the case in places that experience winter. In warmer climates, oddly enough, flu infection rates are correlated most closely with high humidity and lots of rain (6). Unfortunately, not much research has been done to explain these contradictory results, so it’s unclear why the flu behaves so differently in disparate environments. This emphasizes the need for continued influenza research. Therefore, we can conclude that, at least in regions that have a winter season, the influenza virus survives longer in cold, dry air, so it has a greater chance of infecting another person.
 

Although other factors probably contribute as well, the main reason we have a flu season may simply be that the influenza virus is happier in cold, dry weather and thus better able to invade our bodies. So, as the temperature and humidity keep dropping, your best bet for warding off this nasty bug is to get your flu shot ASAP, stay warm, and invest in a humidifier.

[gamesguru]

Seems HIV mimicking effects sometimes reported from China are still being looked into.

 

I'm not sure what to do about this.  Either tone down the innate immune response, or turn it up?  Opposite directions

 

Reduction and Functional Exhaustion of T Cells in Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

BACKGROUND
The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has posed great threat to human health, which has been declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) by the WHO. T cells play a critical role in antiviral immunity but their numbers and functional state in COVID-19 patients remain largely unclear.
METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed the counts of total T cells, CD4+, CD8+ T cell subsets, and serum cytokine concentration from inpatient data of 522 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, admitted into two hospitals in Wuhan from December 2019 to January 2020, and 40 healthy controls, who came to the hospitals for routine physical examination. In addition, the expression of T cell exhaustion markers PD-1 and Tim-3 were measured by flow cytometry in the peripheral blood of 14 COVID-19 cases.
RESULTS
The number of total T cells, CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were dramatically reduced in COVID-19 patients, especially among elderly patients (≥60 years of age) and in patients requiring Intensive Care Unit (ICU) care. Counts of total T cells, CD8+T cells or CD4+T cells lower than 800/μL, 300/μL, or 400/μL, respectively, are negatively correlated with patient survival. Statistical analysis demonstrated that T cell numbers are negatively correlated to serum IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α concentration, with patients in decline period showing reduced IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α concentrations and restored T cell counts. Finally, T cells from COVID-19 patients have significantly higher levels of the exhausted marker PD-1 as compared to health controls. Moreover, increasing PD-1 and Tim-3 expression on T cells could be seen as patients progressed from prodromal to overtly symptomatic stages, further indicative of T cell exhaustion.
CONCLUSIONS
T cell counts are reduced significantly in COVID-19 patients, and the surviving T cells appear functionally exhausted. Non-ICU patients, with total T cells, CD8+T cells CD4+T cells counts lower than 800/μL, 300/μL, and 400/μL, respectively, may still require aggressive intervention even in the immediate absence of more severe symptoms due to a high risk for further deterioration in condition.

 

 

Elevated exhaustion levels and reduced functional diversity of T cells in peripheral blood may predict severe progression in COVID-19 patients

The novel contagious primary atypical pneumonia epidemic, which broke out in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, is now formally called Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), with the causative virus named as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).^1,2 Recent studies have shown that in addition to dyspnea, hypoxemia, and acute respiratory distress, lymphopenia, and cytokine release syndrome are also important clinical features in patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection.³ This suggests that homeostasis of the immune system plays an important role in the development of COVID-19 pneumonia.

To provide direct evidence on leukocyte homeostasis, we studied the immunological characteristics of peripheral blood leukocytes from 16 patients admitted to the Yunnan Provincial Hospital of Infectious Diseases, Kunming, China. Among them, 10 were mild cases, 6 were severe cases; 7 were ≥50 years old, 11 were younger; and 6 had baseline diabetes, hypertension, or coronary atherosclerosis (Supplementary Table S1). Similar to the healthy group (n = 6), the absolute numbers of cells of major leukocyte subsets in peripheral blood remained at a normal level in both mild and severe patients. Different from that reported by Chen et al.,⁴ we did not observe increased neutrophils or decreased lymphocytes. Instead, we found that the severe group had a significant reduction in granulocytes compared to the mild group (Fig. 1a). It has been reported that elevated inflammatory mediators play a crucial role in fatal pneumonia caused by pathogenic human coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome).⁵ We therefore examined whether inflammatory mediators can impact progression in COVID-19 patients. However, no statistical differences in interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) plasma concentrations were found among the three groups. Although patients had higher sCD14 levels than healthy people, there were no significant differences between the severe and mild groups (Fig. 1b).

 

 

The immune response to original 2003 SARS is overwhelming and scary to say the least.

Attached Files

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Edited by gamesguru, 07 May 2020 - 07:40 PM.

[Florin]

I would suspect the lock-down can be largely lifted for the simple fact that it is now Summer, and influenza and coronaviruses typically do best in the Winter.

 

Highly seasonal

 

Although this information is valuable for helping scientists better understand human coronaviruses, it is not yet clear what bearing it will have on the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic — if any.

 

In other words, don't bet on it.

[gamesguru]

In other words, don't bet on it.

 

We're probably barely even close to 5% immunity in New York City.  If the weather hadn't changed and we opened states—as you're seeing in several parts of the country—I'd expect a massive influx of cases.  We're not seeing it.  We will in the Fall.

 

Australia was not hit hard yet, less than 100 deaths.  They are just getting into the season for their respiratory tract illnesses.  It's possible places like Florida and Australia won't get hit hard at all.

 

The seasonal effect isn't just limited to old coronaviruses.  Influenza also has a seasonal aspect, and I would bet sars-cov-2 does too.  You can see it's pretty dramatic in the US with influenza A/B.

 

 

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if sars-cov-2 became less severe in the Northern Hemisphere in the coming months, that we all stopped taking the threat as seriously, learned absolutely nothing from it, and got walloped twice as hard in the Fall.

Edited by gamesguru, 08 May 2020 - 03:10 AM.

[Mind]

Yet another study out of Germany indicating an IFR of 0.36%. The professor who led the study thinks the actual IFR is probably under 0.30% - if more widespread testing could be accomplished. And no, this was not an antibody study. https://www.uni-bonn.de/news/111-2020

 

This again lends credibility to all of the other studies from various states, cities, countries and universities (antibody testing, PCR testing, etc...) - many posted in this thread, that the true mortality rate (or IFR), is NOT an order of magnitude higher than the flu, or 2%, or 5%, or 10% that has been bandied about here and elsewhere. It is more likely in the range of 2 to 4 times worse mortality rate than the seasonal flu - which is plenty bad, but does not justify complete lockdown of the entire world, IMO.

[Turnbuckle]

Yet another study out of Germany indicating an IFR of 0.36%. The professor who led the study thinks the actual IFR is probably under 0.30% - if more widespread testing could be accomplished. And no, this was not an antibody study. https://www.uni-bonn.de/news/111-2020

 

This again lends credibility to all of the other studies from various states, cities, countries and universities (antibody testing, PCR testing, etc...) - many posted in this thread, that the true mortality rate (or IFR), is NOT an order of magnitude higher than the flu, or 2%, or 5%, or 10% that has been bandied about here and elsewhere. It is more likely in the range of 2 to 4 times worse mortality rate than the seasonal flu - which is plenty bad, but does not justify complete lockdown of the entire world, IMO.

 

 

Are you suggesting that flu mortality is calculated in a different fashion than for this covid virus?

[gamesguru]

Yet another study out of Germany indicating an IFR of 0.36%. The professor who led the study thinks the actual IFR is probably under 0.30% - if more widespread testing could be accomplished. And no, this was not an antibody study. https://www.uni-bonn.de/news/111-2020

 

This again lends credibility to all of the other studies from various states, cities, countries and universities (antibody testing, PCR testing, etc...) - many posted in this thread, that the true mortality rate (or IFR), is NOT an order of magnitude higher than the flu, or 2%, or 5%, or 10% that has been bandied about here and elsewhere. It is more likely in the range of 2 to 4 times worse mortality rate than the seasonal flu - which is plenty bad, but does not justify complete lockdown of the entire world, IMO.

 

The flu has a range for the IFR of 0.03 - 0.15%.  It's quite possible COVID-19 will have a range too, maybe 0.3-1.5%.  Which is exactly 10x

 

I tend to worry about selection bias, only 405 out of 600 households opted in for testing.

 

Also, it is a composite study.  Antibody tests were involved, and not the new 99.8% specific ones from Roche, just one with a "one to two percent false positive rate".

A total of 600 randomly selected households in Gangelt were written to and asked to participate in the study. 919 study participants from 405 households were interviewed and tested between March 30th and April 6th, six weeks after the outbreak of the infection. Researchers took throat swabs and performed blood tests. In the acute phase of the infection in the first one or two weeks, the PCR test, which captures the genetic thumbprint of SARS-CoV-2, is very reliable. Two or three weeks after the infection takes place, the immune system builds antibody responses against the virus, which can be detected by ELISA.

 

“By combining PCR and ELSIA tests we are able to detect acute as well as elapsed infections,” says Prof. Hartmann. Preliminary studies showed that the ELISA test is false positive in about one percent of the cases. “However, with such high frequency of infections in Gangelt, a one percent false positive rate is not critical,” Hartmann explains. For studies planned to take place across Germany with an estimated infection rate of approximately one to two percent a one percent false positive rate pose rather a problem.

 

Also, he says with a high frequency of infection in Gangelt the 2% false positive rate is not critical.

 

Let's assume 2% of people have it, that means 98% don't.  So 20 have it, and 980 don't.  Then when we go to do our tests, 2% come back false positive, that's actually 19.6 people.  So we have 20 + 20 = 40, we literally doubled the value in this case, just based on 2% false positive rate.

[Florin]

We're probably barely even close to 5% immunity in New York City.  If the weather hadn't changed and we opened states—as you're seeing in several parts of the country—I'd expect a massive influx of cases.  We're not seeing it.  We will in the Fall.

Nah, it's probably too early to tell. The lockdowns started to get lifted only recently and mostly in states that weren't hit so hard. The death rate (assuming recent data is fairly accurate) started to decline around mid-April before any of the lockdowns started to get lifted. There's also a mix of factors that can muddy the water even further like continued mask wearing and social distancing even in the absence of full lockdowns. 
 

https://en.wikipedia...VID-19_pandemic

https://www.cdc.gov/...s/vsrr/covid19/

[ymc]

Hong Kong research team found that a cocktail of three drugs (ribarivin, interferon beta-1b, Kaletra)

can reduce hospitalization days by 5 days compare to Kaletra alone. Not sure about its

effect on death rate because there were no deaths among the last 900 cases there out of 1045 cases.

 

https://www.thelance...1042-4/fulltext

 

If this combo can reduce death rate, then we might not need to sacrifice economy for lives anymore.

[albedo]

A snapshot in May of (normalized) 10-days averaged daily cases (from JHU data) in different countries, reflecting different contexts and policies:

 May C-19 approaches.jpg   179.59KB   0 downloads

[ymc]

How Hong Kong controlled the second wave of COVID outbreak with a semi-lockdown from Lancet Public Health:

 

https://www.thelance...(20)30090-6.pdf

 

 

 

Edited by ymc, 12 May 2020 - 03:05 AM.

[Kalliste]

Are you suggesting that flu mortality is calculated in a different fashion than for this covid virus?

 

The flu moratlity numbers are total bogus. 

 

 

He goes on to note that the CDC estimates of annual flu deaths are based on highly dubious (to say the least) algorithms that overstate the actual number of deaths by six times. The CDC applies multipliers of between 2.1 and 5.2 (depending on age group) to reported flu-related hospitalizations, further extrapolates estimated flu deaths based on these multipliers, then adds in an estimate of at-home flu deaths for good measure—all regardless of the stated cause of death on the death certificate. In so doing, it classifies not only many patients who were never tested for influenza as flu-related fatalities, including patients who tested negative.

The result has been a statistic that flies in the face not only of the clinical experience of Faust and other doctors but of the everyday experience of the average person. How many people do you know who’ve died of the flu? (In my case the answer is two in 60 years: a young girl when I was a child, and Federalist writer Bre Payton in 2018. But the very shock of Payton’s tragic death at 26 emphasizes what a statistical outlier it was.)

https://amgreatness....-about-the-flu/

[gamesguru]

The flu moratlity numbers are total bogus. 

Bre Payton in 2018. But the very shock of Payton’s tragic death at 26 emphasizes what a statistical outlier it was.

 

Holy shit though, meningitis?  That means H1N1 attacked her brain.  Makes you wonder why her.

 

I agree flu mortality is potentially inflated.  If you're going to "just" multiply reported flu fatalities by 3, may as well multiple reported COVID fatalities by 3 too.

 

I prefer to provide a range for mortality.  It depends on the age of the group, previous immunity, and variation in the virus (e.g. H1N1 vs. milder seasonal flu).

 

For the flu I often see the range of 0.03 - 0.15%.  I think 0.03% is for the regular flu when it doesn't hit nursing homes hard, but 0.15% is more likely the swine H1N1, when it also is hitting some older people.