Coronavirus - Excellent Data-Based Analysis

[Nick]

I hear what you say.
biggest error I believe is not having a mandatory 2 week quarantine for anyone arriving into the UK, irrespective of from where they came. RIGHT FROM DAY 1

The NZ and Ausi group seem to have got it bratty well sorted!

i hear what you say about masks, but have they been shown hot to fit them properly. Wife works NHS pathology labs and Mortuary, including suicides where they ingest fuming chemicals and the suits work if worn correctly.

Daughter and boyfriend both Met, police officers both been off sick, daughter appears to have recovered quickly with little effect, boyfriend it is making his heart race and blood pressure go sky high, and their Sergent on the same shout breaking up drugged up nutters is in ICU on a ventilator and has come out the coma so seems to be on the improve. In these times taser them first sounds fair to me!

ian

Ian,

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but spot on about the mandatory 2 week quarantine, and how the hell did they think it was OK to let a champions league football match between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid go ahead, with 52000 fans 3000 of which were Spanish on 11th March, Plus the Cheltenham Festival run from 10-13th March.

Glad to hear your family members have all come out of it ok, the sergeant needs to buy a lottery ticket, the odds of surviving in ICU are around 50 / 50 whilst on a ventilator even lower. Being a tree hugging liberal I have to say your idea of taser them first sounds……. fair enough to me .

There have been lighter moments to all this. Son got called out to an 80-year-old yesterday who had fallen and hurt themselves, arrive in the street and all the neighbours down the whole street are in their 80 -90’s as they have all lived there for years, but all very merry. Seems they were celebrating Bert’s 90th birthday a bit to enthusiastically. Patients daughter turns up and gives him a right telling of because she had told him to take it easy on the whisky. Normally my son would be annoyed at having to deal with self-inflicted injuries caused by drunkenness, but it turned out he had only had a couple, and it wasn’t Bert’s 90th every day.

Take care all the best

Nick

 

[Jared V]

“For the first time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has given a realistic estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, which in its most likely scenario is 0.26 %. They estimate a 0.4 % fatality rate among the symptomatic cases. If you consider their projection that 35% of all infected cases remain asymptomatic, the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) drops to just 0.26 %. This is almost exactly what the Stanford researchers had projected in April 2020.
John P.A. Ioannidis, a professor in medicine, epidemiology and population health, biomedical data science, and statistics at Stanford University had earlier calculated the reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population to be in the range of 0.05% to 1%.”

 

[Allan]

I'm not disagreeing, my concern is that a test for antibodies that has only a 50% accuracy is being utilized. It shows false positives for covid-19 antibodies and those numbers are being used to calculate how many people have been infected. If the infection rate numbers are inaccurate then everything else is off. Once we actually have reliable testing we'll know more.
Here's another study done in NY:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

 

[Trevor]

I've continued to follow this closely and was interested to see CDC's latest estimate. As discussed previously, the MR is one of the hardest metrics to pin down especially while we are still in the middle of the pandemic. Since my last post, I had come to the conclusion that the MR in the US is likely currently falling between 0.5% and 1%, so think their value of 0.4% is probably a bit too low.
The reason for this discrepancy is due to how a potential death from covid-19 is being recorded. I know this has become a politicized issue, but epidemiologists will take these facts into account once they are all in. CDC's own website partially addresses this issue on their excess death page: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
This page provides a detailed description of the methodology and using their dashboard, a summary of the data is available. By clicking on the button: Number of Excess Deaths; and viewing the 2 options to the right of the plot, excess deaths, including and excluding covid, are presented. The data appears to have been collected from Feb 1 until week ending May 9th, as indicated by the information from the other graphs. The excess deaths due to all causes, excluding covid-19 is between 22k and 43k.
I first became aware of the extent of this issue at the beginning of May when I started to notice a significant divergence between modelling results from the Canada and the US models. There were certainly some issues that could partially explain some of the differences; e.g. the LTC home problem has been handled very poorly in Canada, but even accounting for this, the differences were just too large.
I then started to look into excess deaths and discovered that Canada had counted most of the deaths occurring in LTC homes and that excess deaths up until the end of March were in fact negative as described in the link below. The reporting system in Canada is very slow so an update is overdue.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/excess-death-january-to-march-statistics-canada-1.5568040

This may seem counter-intuitive, but the reduction in traffic fatalities, heart attacks in the gym, shootings, etc during stay-at-home orders plus any other season flu spread was disrupted by the same isolation measures apparently lead to an overall reduction in mortalities over that period.
If the median of excess deaths (33k) from Feb 1 to May 9th are included into the model, the US MR is about 0.7% and the Canadian MR is about 0.9%.
Ultimately, there is still a long way to go before this pandemic ends one way or the other. I am hoping that all the early good news re vaccine development will translate into one being available within the next 12 months.

 

[Jared V]

Why the Accuracy of SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Tests Varies So Much

The FDA cracks down on test makers as independent evaluations of their products' performance show a need for improvement.

www.the-scientist.com

I am going for my antibody test in 30 minutes. I think 50% accuracy is a very broad assessment. It seems it really depends on the type of test.

 

[Ian Anderson]

Global Deaths Due to Various Causes and COVID-19

A Flourish data visualisation by Tony Nickonchuk

public.flourish.studio

Rather soberingM

 

[Larry L.]

I am going for my antibody test in 30 minutes. I think 50% accuracy is a very broad assessment. It seems it really depends on the type of test.

'Had an anti-body test 2-3 weeks ago (no idea which brand of test). 'Got results 3-4 days later. 'Came up negative. So, I presume what I had in February was my 2nd bought with viral pneumonia (1st was about 15[?] years ago).

'Went thru the list of symptoms over the phone with my MD before going in to have the test...both he and his 'practitioner' figured I was at about '50/50' or better odds-wise. But, like I said - the test came out negative.

Sooooo, the blood bank got no plasma from ME!

 

[Jared V]

Global Deaths Due to Various Causes and COVID-19

A Flourish data visualisation by Tony Nickonchuk

public.flourish.studio

Rather soberingM

And to add some perspective. Almost 18,000,000 dies of cardiovascular disease worldwide annually.

 

[Jared V]

Global Deaths Due to Various Causes and COVID-19

A Flourish data visualisation by Tony Nickonchuk

public.flourish.studio

Rather soberingM

And even more sobering..."Each year almost 700,000 children die from pneumonia. Every minute, 2 children die from pneumonia. 80 percent of deaths are in children under 2 years. Almost all deaths occur in low and middle-income countries."

It is important to me to have some perspective on the data and the deliberately dramatized visual aids

 

[Jared V]

'Had an anti-body test 2-3 weeks ago (no idea which brand of test). 'Got results 3-4 days later. 'Came up negative. So, I presume what I had in February was my 2nd bought with viral pneumonia (1st was about 15[?] years ago).

'Went thru the list of symptoms over the phone with my MD before going in to have the test...both he and his 'practitioner' figured I was at about '50/50' or better odds-wise. But, like I said - the test came out negative.

Sooooo, the blood bank got no plasma from ME!

Larry my wife and I tested negative for COVID antibodies as well. I was sick at the end of February and fairly certain it was COVID in hindsight. Possibly it was too long ago? I had read that mild cases may not build enough antibodies to be detected. Maybe someday we will have more answers according to the test I am still considered "susceptible".

 

[Larry L.]

Larry my wife and I tested negative for COVID antibodies as well. I was sick at the end of February and fairly certain it was COVID in hindsight. Possibly it was too long ago? I had read that mild cases may not build enough antibodies to be detected. Maybe someday we will have more answers according to the test I am still considered "susceptible".

'Darned if I know, Jared. As you're undoubtedly aware (judging from your comment), no one yet knows how long C-19 anti-bodies may remain present - or remain an effective defense. It's not even known if those who've had the virus can get it again!

I had every symptom BUT the high fever and one other that I can't recall right now....and we now know a high fever isn't always present in folks who have the virus...so...

 

[Allan]

The data from this site has been correct over time. Current studies show something as simple as universal masks could decrease the death rate in the next 3 months by 35,000. The damage is already done by the politics and "against my rights" movement, but we still have a chance to make a difference.

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

Explore forecasts of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospital resource use.

covid19.healthdata.org

 

[Jared V]

The data from this site has been correct over time. Current studies show something as simple as universal masks could decrease the death rate in the next 3 months by 35,000. The damage is already done by the politics and "against my rights" movement, but we still have a chance to make a difference.

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

Explore forecasts of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospital resource use.

covid19.healthdata.org

I could not find the research or statistics that they were basing their model on. I see they are trying to display a statistical difference in wearing masks vs not wearing masks. Where does it refer to the research that supports the model? I may have not looked close enough. I like to refer to the research that supports their model.

 

[Jared V]

I could not find the research or statistics that they were basing their model on. I see they are trying to display a statistical difference in wearing masks vs not wearing masks. Where does it refer to the research that supports the model? I may have not looked close enough. I like to refer to the research that supports their model.

I was able to find this one on the site.

"Mapping male circumcision for HIV prevention efforts in sub-Saharan Africa"

 

[Allan]

Whether you can locate how they do their research is irrelevant since their research and projections have been highly accurate. Let's stop the uneducated debate and just save some lives by wearing a mask...

 

[Jared V]

Uneducated debate? Their "highly accurate" predictions have revised multiple times.

Whether you can locate how they do their research is irrelevant since their research and projections have been highly accurate. Let's stop the uneducated debate and just save some lives by wearing a mask...

Uneducated debate? The "highly accurate" IHME models have been revised multiple times. Let's keep the educated debate going.

 

[Allan]

I was referring to the debate over the use of masks. In states or countries that require masks, the numbers have decreased drastically. It's time to stop debating whether to wear a mask and just do it for others. Why take the chance of killing someone else or missing the chance to save a life.
So debating the use of masks is a sign of either being uneducated on the effectiveness of masks or just not caring about anyone else.

 

[Karl Wood]

Yep, the message needs to be turned around that it is not about "you" being healthy by wearing a mask, but you need to do it for others. Are you comfortable with putting high risk people at risk of death by not wearing a simple mask. If the messaging pushes people to do it for themselves, there is always way too many conspiracy theorists! If it is for others, I think it might resonate a little more.... One can hope! Stay safe everyone!

 

[Randy V]

Uneducated debate? Their "highly accurate" predictions have revised multiple times.

Uneducated debate? The "highly accurate" IHME models have been revised multiple times. Let's keep the educated debate going.

Sort of like trying to beat the ETA on your GPS system... ((hint - you can’t as it is continually updated as you get closer))

 

[Neil]

As I see it, there is a basic problem with requiring people to wear a mask. What type of mask? No one ever defines what type of mask is effective (or how effective it actually is). A home made cloth mask seems to satisfy the "authorities" but does it provide any level of protection at all? A Corona virus is in the range of 50 to 100 nm (NANO meters) in diameter so I doubt that most masks do anything at all besides make the wearer feel that he is "doing their part" to limit transmission. An M-95 mask is recommended by many but as many of those are made in China how confident can we be that they are as effective as ones made by 3M?

Some people simply wear bandanas pulled up over their nose and mouth as protection . Unfortunately that is more appropriate to robbing a stagecoach than providing any protection from a virus.