Coronavirus

[EVNow]

Here's what they said on March 26th:
"Therefore, to estimate the IFR, we used the estimate from Germany’s current data 22nd March (93 deaths 23129) cases); CFR 0.51% (95% CI, 0.44% to 0.59%) and halved this for the IFR of 0.26% (95% CI, 0.22% to 0.28%) based on the assumption that half the cases go undetected by testing and none of this group dies. Our assumptions, however, do not account for some exceptional cases, as in Italy, where the population is older, smoking rates are higher, comorbidities may be higher, and antibiotic resistance is the highest in Europe, which all can act to increase the CFR and the subsequent IFR."

Why do they keep changing their method of calculating IFR?
Global Covid-19 Case Fatality Rates - CEBM

So, if they use the same methodology using today's German data, we get nCFR of 2.5% and thus IFR of 1.25%.

BTW, NY has 552 deaths / 1M population or 0.05%.

 

[defc0n]

My single experience is completely inadequate to make a prediction of IFR like that.

sorry I didn’t mean based upon your visit there. Just based upon the the numbers being thrown out there in various studies and data available to us everywhere.

I firmly don’t believe it is near 2% like some I’ve read.

 

[RandomJohnny]

Their data has been wrong the vast majority of the time though. Just look at how many times things they say with 95% confidence turn out not to be true. I don't see how anyone can trust a source that is wrong so often.

You must trust them. They have "experts" and make "calculations". The holy grail of trustworthiness.

 

[DanCar]

No, We should get back to work, ....

I wonder if a gray area will work better. Continue to encourage isolation, but don't enforce it. Since there are lawsuits pending about worker safety, employers will need to state that going back to work is dangerous, voluntary, and perhaps pay extra hazard duty.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Anything else about the New York hospital study? Otherwise we're just wasting time going in circles (again) on IFR.

One sixth of the population infected a couple weeks ago is consistent with an IFR of close to 0.5%.
6 * 7900/8.4M = 0.56%
You've got to correct for a few factors of course.
Accuracy of PCR tests? The big issue is the quality of the sample collection. Is that better or worse in a hospital?
How representative was the sample? Are pregnant women more or less likely to be infected? Are they making many trips outside the home? Pregnancy affects the immune system, could that be a factor? Are they more likely to be living with someone else thereby increasing their risk?
I think the vast majority of cases a couple weeks ago would still test positive on a PCR test. The fraction of people who have totally cleared the disease was small a couple weeks ago.
Lots of questions!
Another thing we don't know when calculating IFR from this data is whether or not the most vulnerable groups have been exposed more or less than average. Seem likely that the people most likely to be exposed right now are out and about doing essential jobs, that group is probably less likely to die form COVID-19.

 

[Daniel in SD]

So, if they use the same methodology using today's German data, we get nCFR of 2.5% and thus IFR of 1.25%.

BTW, NY has 552 deaths / 1M population or 0.05%.

Yeah, that's way outside their 95% confidence interval, odd...

 

[dfwatt]

Sorry if already posted, no time to check back pages, but here’s a study conducted that was halted due to deaths.

General public reading:
Study of High-Dose Chloroquine For COVID-19 Stopped Early Due to Patient Deaths

Pre-print of study in Medrxiv:
Chloroquine diphosphate in two different dosages as adjunctive therapy of hospitalized patients with severe respiratory syndrome in the context of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection: Preliminary safety results of a randomized, double-blinded, phase IIb clinical trial (CloroCovid-19 Study)

Holyshit Batman! Does this mean that our stable genius was wrong? OMG!!

 

[Norbert]

So, if they use the same methodology using today's German data, we get nCFR of 2.5% and thus IFR of 1.25%.

BTW, NY has 552 deaths / 1M population or 0.05%.

The "Oxford" paper also makes several very outdated references even in their latest update, in part because some of it is a messy collection of data and conclusions from other sources:

6 deaths for the Diamond Princess, instead of 12.
2 deaths for Iceland, instead of 8.

About China the report includes the following line:

In China, the CFR was higher in the early stages of the outbreak (17% for cases from 1 to 10 January) and reduced to 0.7% for patients with symptom onset after 1 February.

Although I don't know how exactly they define "patients with symptom onset", that sentence certainly isn't correct about what I would expect it to mean: If I use the total cases after Feb 1 and the deaths after Feb 1, I get an unadjusted CFR of 4.5%. Not 0.7%.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

4/14: 2154 and counting. A new peak.

Yep, not a surprise at all. What will be interesting is what happens the rest of the week. I expect it to continue to trend upwards for a little while (perhaps not relative to today, but continuing the trend up from last week), maybe for another week. But hopefully it won't. Positive today is it looks like the case count really is starting to drop (particularly in New York).

 

[SMAlset]

Trump just announced halting funding for WHO. Proverbial scapegoat I guess. Seeing more sources picking it up.

Trump announces 'halt' in US funding to World Health Organization amid coronavirus pandemic

 

[Daniel in SD]

Trump just announced halting funding for WHO. Proverbial scapegoat I guess. Seeing more sources picking it up.

Trump announces 'halt' in US funding to World Health Organization amid coronavirus pandemic

 

[SageBrush]

The US NIH is collecting volunteers for a 10k large seroprevalence study of presumed uninfected people.

NIH Begins Study to Quantify Undetected Cases of Coronavirus Infection | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

View attachment 532436
View attachment 532437

But he wanted to keep the numbers where they were, and they were working so hard at that!

What's amazing about this tweet is at that point (March 9th) it was well known that there were at a minimum hundreds of unidentified cases in Washington State, and that had been known with certainty for over a week.

 

[dqd88]

I wonder if a gray area will work better. Continue to encourage isolation, but don't enforce it. Since there are lawsuits pending about worker safety, employers will need to state that going back to work is dangerous, voluntary, and perhaps pay extra hazard duty.

yeah def voluntary. If you don't want to work then stay home.
But hazard pay? Then wouldn't the same have to apply to every airborne infectious disease? Slippery slope

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Then wouldn't the same have to apply to every airborne infectious disease?

Ummm...I think you could just scale the hazard pay based on the hazard. Or just not worry about it below a threshold.

It's not like we're talking about a flu or a cold here.

 

[dqd88]

Ummm...I think you could just scale the hazard pay based on the hazard. Or just not worry about it below a threshold.

It's not like we're talking about a flu or a cold here.

Actually for 99% of people it is like cold or flu.

It's sad what we're doing. We're making society weaker. I'm sure you've heard that kids who are exposed to more germs get sick less often as adults. It is being exposed to things that creates a robust human. If we are a society that aims to be isolated that only makes us weak. Weakness kills entire societies. Look at the Aztecs. The Spaniards came and the Aztecs did not have any natural immunity simply because they had not been exposed. So they all get smallpox, etc and die. The Spaniards had already become acclimated to many viruses. You can't hide from every risky thing. Every day we make risk / benefit decisions.

It has gotten so rediculous that hospitals across the country are cutting salaries and furloughing staff. Ironically, they need people to be sick in order to have a viable business. Some doctors are waking up to the sheer absurdity of the situation.

 

[deonb]

As if all the attributes of all the highly at risk population (that have already died) can be applied to the remaining population? That's a strange leap.

I'm not saying open the floodgates today universally, but in a case like NYC where 10% exposue is the absolute bare minimum estimate, it's not crazy to start letting tiers of 0-59 year olds go back to a version of normal activities. Masks, moderate distancing where possible, washing hands, at risk stay home.

There's no rational reason to keep NYC schools closed beyond April when we're already fairly certain half have had it and we know it's not deadly to typical school aged humans.

10% is not the absolute bare minimum estimate. The absolute bare minimum is the measured number, which is 1%. 10% is an already calculated SWAG.

If you state an already deduced SWAG as a "bare minimum", some dope will inevitably come along and multiply yet another fudge factor on top of that. And that's how you get to let's say 40%.

The measured value is 1%. Work from there. Explain how you think 39 out of 40 cases go undetected. World-wide. Across various containment strategies. With a margin of error small enough to hide measurable fatalities.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Look at the Aztecs.

The Aztec civilization was wiped out by a novel virus! In your analogy we are the Aztecs, not the Spaniards...

 

[NikolaACDC]

Actually for 99% of people it is like cold or flu.
...
It has gotten so rediculous that hospitals across the country are cutting salaries and furloughing staff. Ironically, they need people to be sick in order to have a viable business. Some doctors are waking up to the sheer absurdity of the situation.

Yep, that's what you get with for-profit healthcare.
US for-profit healthcare sector cuts thousands of jobs as pandemic rages

Similar to privatizing the prison industry. They have no interest in reducing the recidivism rate. Quite the opposite.

 

[MXLRplus]

Trump just announced halting funding for WHO. Proverbial scapegoat I guess. Seeing more sources picking it up.

Trump announces 'halt' in US funding to World Health Organization amid coronavirus pandemic

China was being very naughty. It was not just WHO they bribed, literally and figuratively. A lot of corruption in Beijing, Wall Street, and Wash DC is about to come to light. It is even possible Michael Bloomberg will be indicted. Perhaps not for treason, but for financial crimes involving the Chinese government.

The timing is very suspicious, but it is an election year.