New Covid-19 Thread

[bpr]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Contemptible Worm might be spreading fake news. There are no reports on any of the major news sites indicating the Stanford study has been retracted. Rather, it's been corroborated by a USC study.

Seems to be a pretty lively debate over possible sample bias that I haven't seen raised by the USC study. Apparently the wife of one of the Stanford authors invited her friends to partake t get free Covid testing, and they recruited volunteers via Facebook ads. Not exactly a random sample.

In looking into it I found this excellent April 13 piece on junk science as a result of a rush to publish/cash in. Worth sharing:
https://medium.com/@jamesheathers/hu...h-e1aee626e733

The financial incentives to show even a modicum of benefit are ridiculous at this point, as can be seen by the stock price of GILD, so I think it's only wise to take every pill with a strong dose of skepticism. Unless the media gets out of the way (they won't) and lets the scientists do the science (they won't) we're going to have a lot of snake oil cures and vaccines before a successful vaccine is developed, IMHO.

To wit: a running tally of retracted coronavirus papers:
https://retractionwatch.com/retracte...vid-19-papers/

I think it will be a long time before we have solid data on this event. It will likely take longer than a vaccine.

[bpr]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Could you help me with their math please? I'm looking at point #1:


They're discussing rate of death, e.g. 0.01 percent in one instance, which they translate into 11 out of 100,000. Rate of death is the numerator. It's a percentage of a denominator. The all-important question is how do they come up with the denominator? Is it 100,000 actually tested? Or 100,000 confirmed cases? Or ... ?

It's my understanding that without a firm understanding of the what the denominator is and where they got it from, the numerator is useless. I actually hope they're right, but I want to understand how they got to their conclusion.

Because among other things, our Governor just extended the Stay at Home order until May 15th. *sigh.*

It's the mortality rate: Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 people aged 18-45 in NYC (just people in that age group, not tested, not positive, just people), based on NYC data. Seems to have ticked up to 14 per 100,000 since publication.

Here's the Source: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/....page#download

Hyperlinked from the Hill editorial: https://thehill.com/opinion/healthca...otal-isolation

[shiny!]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Could you help me with their math please? I'm looking at point #1:

The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.

In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 11 per 100,000 in the population. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000.

They're discussing rate of death, e.g. 0.01 percent in one instance, which they translate into 11 out of 100,000. Rate of death is the numerator. It's a percentage of a denominator. The all-important question is how do they come up with the denominator? Is it 100,000 actually tested? Or 100,000 confirmed cases? Or ... ?

It's my understanding that without a firm understanding of the what the denominator is and where they got it from, the numerator is useless. I actually hope they're right, but I want to understand how they got to their conclusion.

Because among other things, our Governor just extended the Stay at Home order until May 15th. *sigh.*

[Woodsman]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

Contemptible Worm might be spreading fake news. There are no reports on any of the major news sites indicating the Stanford study has been retracted. Rather, it's been corroborated by a USC study.

To date, these are the largest such studies conducted in the US and offer the best view we have based on actual serological tests to answer some important questions about the pandemic. Those who oppose its findings are doing it because they don't like them. And that's largely because of politics, not science. They're one more chink in the armor of these worthless shutdowns; one more count to indict those parties who will in time be held responsible for bringing us a greater depression.

And clearly these oh-so-serious political scientists are entirely blind to the reality that they are the last people on Earth who have any standing to criticize anyone else's methodology, considering pretty much every projection model they have relied upon to put us in this mess have been wildly incorrect. And the esteemed medical-scientific-political leadership being defended by the media and the lockdown faction are pretty much total failures to a man. From the WHO stating that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" and delaying declaring a pandemic so as to keep pandemic bond holders solvent to Nancy Pelosi and New York Mayor de Blasio telling people as late as the second week in March to "come to Chinatown" and "go on about their lives" without concern about the virus, every authority got it wrong from the starting gate.

Lockdowns work! But, then again, they might not. Hydroxychloroquine is a successful treatment, except not in the United States. Remdesivir was supposed to be the successful treatment. Now maybe not so much. Ventilators save lives. Now they probably kill more than they save. The hospitals are going to be overloaded! Until they weren’t. Smokers were all going to die! Wait, no, nicotine offers protection. Contemptible Worm doesn't know what the f*ck this means, which is okay since nobody else in authority seems to either.

A few weeks ago, estimate of 240,000 deaths were shown to be so absurd that they revised it down to 60,000. But not to worry, by counting all deaths with COVID as by COVID, they'll soon revise it higher again. Because the one thing we know for certain about this pandemic is that the response - at least here in the US - is driven almost entirely by politics. Which leaves us knowing almost nothing for certain about this pandemic.

And what else do we know? Well, within a span of a couple weeks the travel, hospitality, entertainment, restaurant, and brick and mortar retail industries have practically been annihilated. Just in the United States, 26 million people have lost their jobs in a little more than a month; an unemployment rate that rivals The Great Depression (which, not surprisingly, is also being undercounted). The consensus is that we are certainly entering into a recession with whisperings of the D-word…Depression. The International Monetary Fund has said that we are potentially entering a global depression that will rival the 1930s in its depth and scope.

So maybe we might open our eyes a little? It's no accident that support and opposition to things like the Stanford study and Hydroxychloroquine are lining up pro or con based on politics and class. Because the same swells who are clamoring to lock down tighter and extend them to infinity are the same ones who deny any study or drug that might offer us some hope if it also happens that the Bad Orange Man latches on to it. And what do they care? Its not they who are looking at unemployment and starvation. No, they get to "work" in their homes using Zoom, collect a paycheck, and make Tic Tock videos. For them, the lockdown is a goddamn paid vacation.

But the working class deplorables get to eat dust bunnies or take their chances queuing up in miles-long food lines. Well what sort of motherloving American way of life is that, they ask? So naturally they have begun protesting and demanding economic relief because for them this lockdown “cure" is worse than the virus itself. And what do they get for it? What they always get. Indifference. Smears. Called Nazis and racists and white nationalists and whatever other slur happens to be on the minds of folks like Contemptible Worm. And then, same as with the opiate epidemic or deindustrialization before that, they get to become paupers, suffer, and then die. My sense is that the lockdown faction are perfectly content with the working class feeling some pain. A lot of it. Serves them right for supporting Bad Orange Man. If they starve, if they end up on the street, COVID or no, serves them right. Let them feel the hard hand of the left.

But other than that, the science and medical community in partnership with the Democratic politicians don’t seem to know much of damn thing. Nobody does. Least of all Contemptible Worm. So stop it, already.

Update:

Oh for f*ck's sake!

WHO lauds lockdown-ignoring Sweden as a ‘model’ for countries going forward

By Jackie Salo

April 29, 2020 | 3:24pm

The World Health Organization lauded Sweden as a “model” for battling the coronavirus as countries lift lockdowns — after the nation controversially refused restrictions. Dr. Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, said Wednesday there are “lessons to be learned” from the Scandinavian nation, which has largely relied on citizens to self-regulate...

https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-la...irus-lockdown/

[Mega]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

WE finding more information as time goes by, but we still no there yet

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

The Stanford stats are certainly encouraging, but how reliable are their conclusions about death rates when the denominator of total infected is missing?

The Stanford study was retracted.

[shiny!]

Re: New Covid-19 Thread

The Stanford stats are certainly encouraging, but how reliable are their conclusions about death rates when the denominator of total infected is missing?

[shiny!]

Since some people are receiving virus/trojan warnings (maybe javascript related) on the original Covid-19 thread, I went ahead and created a new thread here. I copied the last post in the old thread into plain text, then pasted it here as plain text. It's a good post. I didn't want it to get lost if FRED closes down the old thread.

originally posted by jk this morning:

someone sent me the missive below. i haven't checked the numbers but i'll assume they're accurate. my only disagreement is with so-called "fact" #3, which is not a fact, but pure speculation. the degree of immunity conferred by a viral infection can vary widely and we have no data on covid-19 conferring immunity. to the contrary, we have reports of people being infected a second time, and having worse illness the second time around. but the plural of anecdote is not data, so bottom line we don't know about immunity. the rest of his argument seems reasonable, provided we as a society accept the low but non-zero death rates even among the young and middle-aged.



BY DR. SCOTT W. ATLAS - A David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.

"The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.


Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.

The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.

In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 11 per 100,000 in the population. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000.

Of all fatal cases in New York state, two-thirds were in patients over 70 years of age; more than 95 percent were over 50 years of age; and about 90 percent of all fatal cases had an underlying illness. Of 6,570 confirmed COVID-19 deaths fully investigated for underlying conditions to date, 6,520, or 99.2 percent, had an underlying illness. If you do not already have an underlying chronic condition, your chances of dying are small, regardless of age. And young adults and children in normal health have almost no risk of any serious illness from COVID-19.


Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.

We can learn about hospital utilization from data from New York City, the hotbed of COVID-19 with more than 34,600 hospitalizations to date. For those under 18 years of age, hospitalization from the virus is 0.01 percent per 100,000 people; for those 18 to 44 years old, hospitalization is 0.1 percent per 100,000. Even for people ages 65 to 74, only 1.7 percent were hospitalized. Of 4,103 confirmed COVID-19 patients with symptoms bad enough to seek medical care, Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Medical Center concluded "age is far and away the strongest risk factor for hospitalization." Even early WHO reports noted that 80 percent of all cases were mild, and more recent studies show a far more widespread rate of infection and lower rate of serious illness. Half of all people testing positive for infection have no symptoms at all. The vast majority of younger, otherwise healthy people do not need significant medical care if they catch this infection.


Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.

We know from decades of medical science that infection itself allows people to generate an immune response — antibodies — so that the infection is controlled throughout the population by “herd immunity.” Indeed, that is the main purpose of widespread immunization in other viral diseases — to assist with population immunity. In this virus, we know that medical care is not even necessary for the vast majority of people who are infected. It is so mild that half of infected people are asymptomatic, shown in early data from the Diamond Princess ship, and then in Iceland and Italy. That has been falsely portrayed as a problem requiring mass isolation. In fact, infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity. By transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat. Extending whole-population isolation would directly prevent that widespread immunity from developing.


Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.

Critical health care for millions of Americans is being ignored and people are dying to accommodate “potential” COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease. Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped “nonessential” procedures and surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms. Treatments, including emergency care, for the most serious illnesses were also missed. Cancer patients deferred chemotherapy. An estimated 80 percent of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some dying and many now facing permanent disability.


Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.

The overwhelming evidence all over the world consistently shows that a clearly defined group — older people and others with underlying conditions — is more likely to have a serious illness requiring hospitalization and more likely to die from COVID-19. Knowing that, it is a commonsense, achievable goal to target isolation policy to that group, including strictly monitoring those who interact with them. Nursing home residents, the highest risk, should be the most straightforward to systematically protect from infected people, given that they already live in confined places with highly restricted entry.

The appropriate policy, based on fundamental biology and the evidence already in hand, is to institute a more focused strategy like some outlined in the first place: Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick and open most workplaces and small businesses with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation. Let’s stop underemphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter."

Last edited by jk; Today at 10:13 AM.