Covid-19 News

Quote from seven_of_twenty

By the way, James Randi's million dollar prize was offered to any homeopath who could differentiate a homeopathic solution from the pure solvent it was made with by any means whatever. I don't know if the prize still exists but it went unclaimed at least three decades. Randi also drank on stage, at the start of lecture, two entire bottles of a homeopathic preparation supposed to induce sleep. At the end, he was not a bit sleepy.

By reposting some fools theatre snap shots you put your self in the fools corner.

You obviously have no clue what homeopathy is and how it works. Your information is entirely based on the outlandish pharma mafia propaganda.

Fact is homeopathy is individual medicine. You can not do any double blind study with this type of treatment. Only idiots try to communicate the opposite.

Of course there are far to may people that miss use homeopathy by selling nonsense: But what is the difference with doctors selling viox, Contergan, or statins ??

May be if doctors believe in nonsense it's a difference...

Quote from Shane D.

The World Health Organisation initially suggested that the case-fatality rate – the proportion of people diagnosed with the disease who die – would be 3.4 per cent. This is a very high number which would have caused a huge number of deaths. But as we have had gradually more and more data coming in, those percentages have been falling. In many examples, more complete data are now suggesting case-fatality rates of 0.4 per cent. My guess is that it will end up between 0.5 and 0.1 per cent, and probably nearer to the lower end of that. So if the disease isn’t as virulent as was originally thought, the number of deaths will be correspondingly lower.

Precisely. This was a bungle of at least an order of magnitude by the WHO. The disease is horrific, but the potential effects of shutdown in terms of addiction, suicide, job loss, child abuse, and other problems is not to be ignored. It's not being talked about much in the media as these studies trickle in showing this vastly lower fatality rate. Community surveys show the disease has spread much more widely than thought (though not nearly enough to have herd immunity). So, the CFR bungle leads to another bungle with calculating the spread rate, which must be MUCH greater than thought (like upwards of measles / norovirus). What do you get when you have an extremely high spread rate and a fatality rate up to 6 times the flu? (Overwhelmed hospitals and horrific scenes). Which means we still need/needed some strong measures to mitigate, but the situation seems very different than the one we were initially presented (by an order of magnitude).

https://www.businessinsider.co…sitives-than-tests-2020-4

Quote from oldguy

US, Italy strain more virulent than one in India: Top Indian microbiologists

The wuhan (L) strain is more deadly but does not spread a fast as the other.

Quote from andrea.s

Iceland tested 12% of their population so they cannot be underestimating the positive cases that much. Their death rate is 0.5% over the tested positive. Same rate for UAE who tested 8% of the population. Let us say that they are underestimating cases by a factor 5: you end up with 0.1% mortality.

All depends on the underestimation of the real infection rate. I can only recommend to test in the large among unaffected people to get the true picture.

If the California picture is true then the mortality of the group age <65 including the ones with preconditions will be less than 0.01%. (This is based on the Swiss south mortality a region that is stronger affected than the North)

"Unluckily" the virus kills the main foundation of big phrama, the folks with age >65 (+ some younger with precondition). 90% of all big phrama income is generated within this group. But as I reported from Swiss care homes (age >86 in average) 50% was immune too = did have the virus with no symptoms. Would like to see the preconditions here. Finally it all boils down to a huge damage for big pharma as 98% of all deaths are within the group of age >65.

But please be not fooled by the death statistics. It's just showing that 98% have a predated death of about 3months to 3 years in average. The total loss of live span is at least 15x less than what the death % does make you claim. Just the opposite happens in cancer treatment and there we accept it!

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Those who want to open up the US now and are protesting in the streets for it are fond of rationalization like reaching herd immunity and supposedly much lower than quoted real death rate. That's about mortality. The medical profession also considers another important parameter and that is "serious morbidity" which is just a trade term for nasty sickness. Coronavirus, in addition to killing, cripples and maims and permanently damages internal organs leading to disability and horrific death. Far as I know, the statistics on serious complications are not available. Yet that issue has to be considered when making policy.

Some parts of the USA are in deep shit. But corona is not the cause it's just revealing it in all brutality. The 70 Million poor working slaves with no medication, (now) no income, no education (below third world country status!) are really in danger. Luckily Swiss mens are not obese at all, the woman with 1/3 of the risk a bit more. So many places in the world really should stop the lockdown. But the USA has to make local decisions as the country is as diverse as the rest of the world.

"Far as I know, the statistics on serious complications are not available". This is one key point and there are two different situations. Damage due to an untreated illness. Damage due to wrong treatment e.g. to early intubation, not giving the appropriate medication, delayed medication etc.. This will be known with reasonable precision earliest in 3-6 months. Most doctors simply do not have the time to collect & compile data and to pour it into a paper.

Quote from Dr Richard

Note added in proof - just compare the stats of Russia with Indonesia - both have 2 deaths per million population (a measure of similar virus exposure) but the rise in Russian deaths is exponential whilst Indonesian deaths have nearly peaked. The anti virus treatment seems to be effective......but wait for India & Germany data.

I just looked up Indonesia. Its first case was March 2nd. Even so, it now has more cases than the rest of the (v well controlled) region. I think it is too early in its evolution do say when it will plateau. Make tgis argument in 2 months and if the figures bear this out I'll agree.

But, even if it does plateau, what does this mean? All countries plateau if locked down. So you need to compare lockdown time with case rate then. And small differences in effectiveness of lockdown can make big difference in result. So this does not look like evidence to me.

Quote from Dr Richard

There was no lock down in Russia until the end of March and all the stats show a smooth exponential rise without any linear phase as in US, UK stats, and gradual plateau in Italy. So the effect of social distancing is having the desired effect. If we relax the lock down JR is right we'll just go to back to exponential increase in cases and deaths. Wait and see what happens next in Germany with Avigen mass distribution and India with same for hydroxychloroquine. This has already been trialled in Indonesia with a rising number of cases but a plateauing in the number of deaths suggesting the treatment is working since end of March maybe. This population already had mefloquine on tap for malaria which I believe may account for the low 2 deaths per million population reported (compared to 228 here UK).

Germany and Avigen. Germany is certainly better than other European countries. Everynone says this is because they do much more testing (which is certainly true). Remember they have Merkel in charge, a decent scientist in her own right and somone who takes sorting out this crisis very very seriously. And they have the infrastructure needed, to together with a much better funded health system.

Quote from Ahlfors

... "The gamble is on the real mortality figures [post lock-down in Italy - quality matters]"

Always a pleasure to read from my multilayered mathematician friend. Yes quality and discipline matter. And preparedness. In Italy we may use the third parameter as our excuse

Quote from Jack Cole

Precisely. This was a bungle of at least an order of magnitude by the WHO. The disease is horrific, but the potential effects of shutdown in terms of addiction, suicide, job loss, child abuse, and other problems is not to be ignored. It's not being talked about much in the media as these studies trickle in showing this vastly lower fatality rate. Community surveys show the disease has spread much more widely than thought (though not nearly enough to have herd immunity). So, the CFR bungle leads to another bungle with calculating the spread rate, which must be MUCH greater than thought (like upwards of measles / norovirus). What do you get when you have an extremely high spread rate and a fatality rate up to 6 times the flu? (Overwhelmed hospitals and horrific scenes). Which means we still need/needed some strong measures to mitigate, but the situation seems very different than the one we were initially presented (by an order of magnitude).

https://www.businessinsider.co…sitives-than-tests-2020-4

Jack, have you talked to any of the scientists about what CFR means?

All the serious comment on this says that for every epidemic estimates of CFR start high and trend downwards as we get better at identifying cases. In addition, all the scientists say that Infection Fatality Rate (what you are talking about) is not the same as Case Fatality Rate, and likely lower. Estimates of the "real" IFR have been around from the start and were never as high as the official CFR.

IFR is very uncertain, whereas CFR can be determined quite well early on from available data, so CFR gets quoted.

It annoys me no end when an organisation like the WHO gets criticised on basis of a misunderstanding of the science. I'm sure there are other reasons to criticise them. They were very slow to call a major global alarm at the start. To be fair, it was a difficult call, and the last time round they called it too fast, and it did not eventuate. Also, as a semi-political organisation, they make uneasy trade-offs. No-one is happy with censoring Taiwan as the price to have China on board. But all other international organisations have the same issue with Taiwan and China.

the CFR bungle leads to another bungle with calculating the spread rate, which must be MUCH greater than thought (like upwards of measles / norovirus)

The WHO has to my knowledge never been able to calculate the spread, just like country governments have not, and still can't. There are guesses. The last I heard (published as preprint 1 month ago) was 0.66% but that came with large error bars. We will soon have accurate data from serology testing - this Santa Clara data is pretty unhelpful for that. You think I'm wrong. I challenge you to comment again looking at BETTER serology estimates in 2 weeks. I hope you are right, but doubt it.

Suppose you link these bad WHO predictions (with datestamps) so we can compare them with best scientific guesses at the time?

Your only link, the California study, hinting at a very low IFR, is scientifically pretty well "wait and see, probably wrong" due to:

(a) Low case rate => very high noise

(b) Statistical issue which I posted above

The conclusion everyone draws, that number of infections is higher than number of cases everywhere - is not surprising and indicated by the difference between estimated CFR and estimated IFR everywhere.

Please substantiate your statements or admit they are bias/propaganda/guess. On that basis you have no place rubbishing the ONLY INTERNATIONAL organisation that can at the moment coordinate and international response to the crisis, as is needed.

PS - I'm not arguing WHO is great, or gets everything right, or does not need reform. I'm arguing it is the best we have (because there is nothing else) and that most of the mud thrown at it is bias and propaganda.

Now is the wrong time to make political reforms to the WHO, however much that would be desirable. Anyway you can't reform it when the leader of the first (or maybe second) most powerful nation does not think international bodies are worth having.

Indonesia has the largest population in the region 275 million, nearly ten times Malaysia and 4-5 times Thailand. It's the total number of deaths curve which seems to be saturating. But yes, let's see how it goes and hope for the best.

Quote from Jack Cole

Precisely. This was a bungle of at least an order of magnitude by the WHO. The disease is horrific, but the potential effects of shutdown in terms of addiction, suicide, job loss, child abuse, and other problems is not to be ignored. It's not being talked about much in the media as these studies trickle in showing this vastly lower fatality rate. Community surveys show the disease has spread much more widely than thought

Some governments, e.g. US, UK, much of Europe, ignored WHO pleas this was serious, and advice to test, test, test, and did not know what was their community spread.

That seems to me to contradict your point that is is evidence of WHO incompetence? No? Or at least point out that national governments were even more incompetent.

Quote from Wyttenbach

The wuhan (L) strain is more deadly but does not spread a fast as the other.

Top Indian microbiologists as claimed in media are not always reliable. Have you notice that?

Read this link - a comprehensive, detailed, but accessible discussion.

Extract:

For example, Dr. James Todaro tweeted “The mild [S-strain] is becoming more prevalent compared to January. This makes sense. The strain that dominates/spreads is the one that allows people to remain social and travel—not the one that kills.” He concludes the milder S-Strain will propagate, resulting in more humans surviving the virus and developing immunity against both types.

Dr. Nicole Saphier similarly told Fox News “The ‘L’ strain tends to be the more lethal or severe strain, while the ‘S’ strain seems to have more mild symptoms… So what we are seeing is actually more of the mild strain of the virus because it doesn't actually want to kill the host.”

However, Dr. Jones told Newsweek that misinterprets “aggressive” to mean the L-Strain is more likely to kill, whereas Xiaolu was actually describing an increased rate of transmission.

“What they mean is that the virus transmits more easily, not that it causes worse disease,” he said.

Then answer the pop quiz:

(1) What is the difference between "aggressive" and "lethal"

Thus far I can't see any evidence of different lethality between different strains. I think were there a BIG difference it would have been noticed by now. But equally, we don't yet have much info.

The WHO have done a good job overall given the circumstances (of China concealing the gravity of the pandemic, governments reacting only in knee-jerk responses without any foresight, absence in strategic plans, ignoring WHO advice and attacking them in turn for their own mistakes, passing the buck) Without mentioning soecifics, they need all the support they can get to deal with this pandemic and future ones to come. Just hope they will advise Mass Fever Treatment once the best combo of Z-pak Anti Bat (iV). (H) has been verified. A quick fix before a vaccine can be found to save lives especially as seems likely Trump will have his own way and open up the US to exponential pandemic growth.

https://www.nationalheraldindi…op-indian-microbiologists

Those top indian microbiologists.

They are commenting on sequencing differences, which everyone agrees exists and many have mapped.

They are then confusing the data from Wuhan and different aggressivity of L and S strains - thinking it correlates to lethality.

Finally they are guessing that the differences in apparent lelathality between India and Europe are due to strain.

It is not their area of expertise. They are ignoring population age differences:

26.8 : median age in India

45.4 : median age in Italy

Given the exponential dependence of CFR on age this difference alone accounts for a very large change in mortality - quite apart from anything else, not yet analysed.

Why oh why do scientists let themselves be quoted sounding like idiots in the popular press?

Quote from Alan Smith

THHuxleynew , Jack Cole

The UK 'Sunday Times' which is to all intents and purposes a right-leaning serious newspaper is full of tales of government bungling, missed opportunities and indifference. Not very much criticism of the WHO there.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art…d-into-disaster-hq3b9tlgh

Yes, well the Uk is a special case where (a) the government really was not suited to the challenge, having been filtered as those willing and capable to carry out Brexit without challenging decisions of their leader, who did not (as is customary) chair most of the critical COBRA meetings, being absent from them, and (b) there is no politicisation (either way) of the WHO.

What an unfortunate mess.

Obviously the WHO issue has become highly politicised in the US. I have not heard of other countries heaping blame on the WHO. I think most are just grateful now that they exist!

Quote from Dr Richard

[...] seems likely Trump will have his own way and open up the US to exponential pandemic growth.

it seems to me that his spin doctors advised him to let the governors do as they deem right (because the right thing is painful) and rather bark and protest, as the laymen do. It will gain him a lot of credit.

Here is a great uptodate (17 April) summary of what is and is not known about COVID IFR and CFR. It gets updated as new evidence emerges.

Required reading before you get worked up by popular snippets.

Note also the section on IFR:

The current COVID outbreak seems to be following previous pandemics: initial CFRs start high and trend downwards. For example, In Wuhan, the CFR has gone down from 17% in the initial phase to near 1% in the late stage. It is increasingly clear that current testing strategies are not capturing everybody. In South Korea, considerable numbers who tested positive were also asymptomatics- likely driving the rapid worldwide spread.

CFR rates are subject to selection bias as more severe cases are tested – generally those in the hospital settings or those with more severe symptoms. The number of currently infected asymptomatics is uncertain: estimates put it at least a half are asymptomatic; the proportion not coming forward for testing is also highly doubtful (i.e. you are symptomatic, but you do not present for testing). Therefore we can assume the IFR is significantly lower than the CFR.

Emerging evidence suggests many more people are infected. than tested. In Vo Italy, at the time the first symptomatic case was diagnosed, about 3%, had already been infected – most were completely asymptomatic.

We could make a simple estimation of the IFR as 0.36%, based on halving the lowest boundary of the CFR prediction interval. However, the considerable uncertainty over how many people have the disease, the proportion asymptomatic (and the demographics of those affected) means this IFR is likely an overestimate.

In Swine flu, the IFR ended up as 0.02%, fivefold less than the lowest estimate during the outbreak (the lowest estimate was 0.1% in the 1st ten weeks of the outbreak). In Iceland, where the most testing per capita has occurred, the IFR lies somewhere between 0.01% and 0.19%.

Taking account of historical experience, trends in the data, increased number of infections in the population at largest, and potential impact of misclassification of deaths gives a presumed estimate for the COVID-19 IFR somewhere between 0.1% and 0.36%.*

Data from COVID deaths in Gangelt, Germany, suggests an IFR of 0.37%. A random sample of 1,000 residents of  Gangelt found that 14% were carrying antibodies (2% were detected cases), which led to the lowering of the IFR estimates

Encouraging hints that real IFR could well be at lower end of what is likely (e.g. 0.1% - 0.2%).

Remember that the extreme age dependence means this must be skewed according to country age profile.

It cannot be over-estimated how much this matters for lockdown. With an IFR of 0.1%:

• Developing countries like India and most of Africa can just ride it out. Some horrible deaths, but those exist for other reasons.
• The UK can unlock fairly soon and actually win with a "herd immunity" approach. Many more people will have died than had we dealt with the epidemic well at the start, and skewed deaths much later when better treatment exists.
• The US can unlock relatively soon if it is OK with a few 100,000 deaths. Maybe less, because some parts will perhaps be low enough population density for little spreading?

We just don't yet know, but will soon.

Coincidences [2015]

Virologica Sinica - Serological Evidence of Bat SARS-Related Coronavirus Infection in Humans, China

"These results indicate that some SARSr-CoVs may have high potential to infect human cells, without the necessity for an intermediate host. However, to date, no evidence of direct transmission of SARSr-CoVs from bats to people has been reported.

In this study, we performed serological surveillance on people who live in close proximity to caves where bats that carry diverse SARSr-CoVs roost. In October 2015, wecollected serum samples from 218 residents in four villages in Jinning County, Yunnan province, China, located 1.1–6.0 km from two caves (Yanzi and Shitou). We have been conducting longitudinal molecular surveillance of bats for CoVs in these caves since 2011 and have found that they are inhabited by large numbers of bats including Rhinolophus spp., a major reservoir of SARSr-CoVs."

Homeland Security - cleared for public release 3_18 ... 4_14 plus DHS docs clearing notes

Quote from Wyttenbach

So, this is what must happen if we end the lockdown:

April 18, 32,000 new cases

April 21, 64,000 cases

This only works if the reservoir is large enough.

The reservoir is large enough. In the U.S. there have been 2,200 cases per million officially recorded. Assume that is an order of magnitude too low. That is still only 2% of the population. In New York City it may be higher, but in most places it is lower still, because so many cases are in New York.

In other words, so far ~2% of the population has been infected and 39,000 people have died. Herd immunity takes roughly 60% of the population. That's 30 times more infections. There is no reason to think the mortality rate will be much lower for the next 58% of the population, so that would be roughly 30 * 39,000 = 1,170,000 best case. That is assuming the infections come slowly and the hospitals are not overwhelmed.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Why do they not run a small city without a lock down just watch what happens?? Is is that difficult to get the truth ??

Because that would be mass murder.

You can get the truth more readily with proper testing and monitoring. Trying to figure out what is happening during a chaotic epidemic when the hospitals are overwhelmed is difficult. That is why the Chinese are now increasing their estimate of the dead in Wuhan by many thousands, and why Georgia has no clear idea how many people have died in nursing homes. The public health department thought no one had died in one facility when in fact 14 people had died. They cannot even keep track of fatalities, never mind cases. "Opening up" the economy in Georgia in these conditions, with this level of gross incompetence in government, and 45th lowest level of testing, would be suicidal.

The healthdata.org projection was updated on April 17. It is actually positive. It is good news. The data for the whole of the U.S. is less detailed than the data for individual states. I suppose because states are less heterogeneous. Anyway, look at the data for Georgia. It shows fatalities dropping to zero at the end of May:

https://covid19.healthdata.org…states-of-america/georgia

Note, however, this will only happen if certain conditions are met. These are spelled out at the top of the page:

"Current social distancing assumed until infections minimized and containment implemented"

"After June 15, 2020, relaxing social distancing may be possible with containment strategies that include testing, contact tracing, isolation, and limiting gathering size."