COVID-19 Map worldwide, with statistics

[Mark W]

Toby that's an honorable thing to do, especially since there truly is no actual data of how many people have died from covid19 alone. Nothing has been documented or tallied concerning the preexisting medical conditions to separate the wheat from the chaff.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[Brians356]

Still, I could have lost the bet (happily) if the U.S. had responded appropriately. We didn't, and by the looks of it, we never will.

I previously asked what you (a life scientist) felt could have been done differently early on, and you replied. Now you suggest we could pivot today and change the trajectory (medically and economically?) if only we could (or would) act appropriately. What did you have in mind?
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[Brians356]

Toby that's an honorable thing to do, especially since there truly is no actual data of how many people have died from covid19 alone. Nothing has been documented or tallied concerning the preexisting medical conditions to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I commend your magnanimity, but it's not entirely fair. It seemed obvious to me that the wager would rely upon what CDC publishes as "Covid-19 deaths".
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[Bc'z]

Hold on that's a $15 word for me I'll have to look that 1 up.
Yup got it!

 

[JimT]

I previously asked what you (a life scientist) felt could have been done differently early on, and you replied. Now you suggest we could pivot today and change the trajectory (medically and economically?) if only we could (or would) act appropriately. What did you have in mind?
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This article sheds a little light on why other countries actions were/are not possible here.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/why-theres-no-national-lockdown/609127/

I suppose if we let Andrew and Billy write the rules everyone would follow them? Wait, aren’t they the guys who run New York????

 

[Dgd6mm]

My thoughts exactly!

Mine also.

 

[JohnKielly]

Peter Doshi, Associate Editor, wrote in the British Medical Journal on 17 Sep. 2020:

In late 2009, months after the World Health Organization declared the H1N1 “swine flu” virus to be a global pandemic, Alessandro Sette was part of a team working to explain why the so called “novel” virus did not seem to be causing more severe infections than seasonal flu. Their answer was pre-existing immunological responses in the adult population: B cells and, in particular, T cells, which “are known to blunt disease severity.” Other studies came to the same conclusion: people with pre-existing reactive T cells had less severe H1N1 disease. In addition, a study carried out during the 2009 outbreak by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 33% of people over 60 years old had cross reactive antibodies to the 2009 H1N1 virus, leading the CDC to conclude that “some degree of pre-existing immunity” to the new H1N1 strains existed, especially among adults over age 60. The data forced a change in views at WHO and CDC, from an assumption before 2009 that most people “will have no immunity to the pandemic virus” to one that acknowledged that “the vulnerability of a population to a pandemic virus is related in part to the level of pre-existing immunity to the virus.” But by 2020 it seems that lesson had been forgotten.

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563
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The difference is in the statistics.

Nearly 61 Million Americans caught swine flu & just over 12,000 died.

To date, 7,242,967 Americans have been recorded with Coronavirus & 208,440 have died.​

The lesson doesn't seem to be the same one.

 

[Toby Bradshaw]

Toby that's an honorable thing to do, especially since there truly is no actual data of how many people have died from covid19 alone. Nothing has been documented or tallied concerning the preexisting medical conditions to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The phrase in bold above is false. The CDC has published comorbidity data all along, virtually in real time.

Roughly 3/4 of Americans (including you, right?) have one or more of the comorbidities that contribute to increased risk of death from COVID-19. They're common conditions (e.g., hypertension, obesity, diabetes).

You might want to bone up on the CDC guidelines for recording the cause of death on death certificates. The meme that only 6% of recorded COVID-19 deaths were caused directly by SARS-CoV-2 infection is a misapprehension.

 

[Bc'z]

The phrase in bold above is false. The CDC has published comorbidity data all along, virtually in real time.

Roughly 3/4 of Americans (including you, right?) have one or more of the comorbidities that contribute to increased risk of death from COVID-19. They're common conditions (e.g., hypertension, obesity, diabetes).

You might want to bone up on the CDC guidelines for recording the cause of death on death certificates. The meme that only 6% of recorded COVID-19 deaths were caused directly by SARS-CoV-2 infection is a misapprehension.

Yes I have more than 1 preexisting condition that would / should kill me, doubting that it will.
But what killed these folks
Covid 19 or whatever ailments they had to begin with.
Lumping it all together really dosen't make it an actual number or a fact.
Comorbidity numbers is another way of scaring the populace as far as I'm concerned.
Sorry about my non believing in what the CDC has to say.

 

[Brians356]

The difference is in the statistics.

Nearly 61 Million Americans caught swine flu & just over 12,000 died.

To date, 7,242,967 Americans have been recorded with Coronavirus & 208,440 have died.​

The lesson doesn't seem to be the same one.

You missed the point of the article completely, which was not to compare the two viruses head-to-head and decide which is most "tragic".
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[JohnKielly]

You missed the point of the article completely, which was not to compare the two viruses head-to-head and decide which is most "tragic".
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No, I read it to suggest that swine flu had proved that there was already a "herd immunity" to the effects of it. Coronavirus shows there isn't one for it.

 

[Brians356]

There was no suggestion in the article for a pre-existing herd immunity to Covid-19. There was only a refutation of the initial notion that the population would have no immunity to the virus. That's largely why a prominent early model predicted deaths in the millions in the US alone. Many times more people show evidence of exposure than have antibodies. This suggests that effective herd immunity can be achieved with a fraction of the number of exposures previously assumed to be required.
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[Toby Bradshaw]

I previously asked what you (a life scientist) felt could have been done differently early on, and you replied. Now you suggest we could pivot today and change the trajectory (medically and economically?) if only we could (or would) act appropriately. What did you have in mind?
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Until a safe and effective vaccine has been developed and delivered to anyone who wants it, I know of only one strategy that can protect the vulnerable from COVID-19 and keep the economy running while not necessitating a level of government intervention that would likely be unacceptable (or even unconstitutional) in the U.S. This strategy requires being able to test anyone, anytime, with instant results, at very low cost, for active SARS-CoV-2 infection. A negative test is your passport to a restaurant, sporting event, classroom, airline, church service, or workplace. [NB: A rapid test doesn't completely eliminate the need for social distancing, limiting contacts with other people, mask wearing, or hand washing, but it provides some assurance that the contagious are isolated from the susceptible in situations where the coronavirus is known to spread most readily.]

At least one such "instant" test exists -- the e25Bio paper-based assay, which costs about $1 and gives a result in 15 minutes. Testing every American every week would cost $1.4 billion a month. That's not chump change, but it's a lot cheaper than paying $600/week to the 30 million unemployed ($72 billion per month).

Why isn't the federal government pursuing such a high-risk high-reward strategy that could save lives and livelihoods at the same time? Beats me.

I'd also be in favor of offering to pay every American $50 per month to allow their COVID-19 test data to be used (anonymously) to record their proximity to others via the Exposure Notification app on smartphones. The people most likely to want the $50, and least likely to care about privacy issues, are also the people most likely to spread the coronavirus -- the young. If 25% of Americans claimed the $50/month it would cost about $50 billion per year. Chalk it up to the cost of providing an early warning system to monitor a deadly pandemic so that any "lockdowns" deemed necessary to protect public health are precisely targeted in time and space to limit damage to the economy. The $50B is small potatoes compared to the economic harm we have endured by flying blind due to lack of data.

 

[Brians356]

Why isn't the federal government pursuing such a high-risk high-reward strategy that could save lives and livelihoods at the same time? Beats me.

I think maybe you meant "low-risk high-reward"?

Anyway, thanks. Testing every American every week has a few more hurdles to clear than just the $1.4B / month (your estimate) price tag. And relying on a nationwide network of smart phone apps (see the rundown of app problems I posted recently)? Both in the vast, geographically- and socially-diverse federal republic USA (not S. Korea or Germany)? With all due respect (and I concede plenty) I think you forgot the preamble "The best ideas I can come up with are ...".
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[Toby Bradshaw]

I think maybe you meant "low-risk high-reward"?

No, it's high risk. Producing tests and administering testing at the required scale have never been done. It would require a highly funded, highly focused effort. We seem to be able to do the former but not the latter.

It's also not guaranteed that the strategy itself would work, although models show that even a relatively inaccurate (but fast and frequent) test can drive R0 below 1, preventing exponential growth of infections.

 

[Brians356]

No, it's high risk. Producing tests and administering testing at the required scale have never been done. It would require a highly funded, highly focused effort. We seem to be able to do the former but not the latter.

It's also not guaranteed that the strategy itself would work, although models show that even a relatively inaccurate (but fast and frequent) test can drive R0 below 1, preventing exponential growth of infections.

Fair enough. It occurs to me that testing every citizen every week also forces a lot of mobility and mixing which is antithetical to the mantra "stay home and isolate" unless all testing would be done at home, with test kits presumably mailed to everyone.

Bottom line: Aren't you just endeavoring to further "flatten the curve"? That was the original justification for lock-downs, to avoid overwhelming the critical care system, not to reduce the area under the curve, which we were told by "the science" was unrealistic. How flat is flat enough, even ignoring economics?
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[Toby Bradshaw]

Fair enough. It occurs to me that testing every citizen every week also forces a lot of mobility and mixing which is antithetical to the mantra "stay home and isolate" unless all testing would be done at home, with test kits presumably mailed to everyone.

The e25 test can be done anywhere, including at home. Spit in a tube, dip the test paper, wait a few minutes for results.

Bottom line: Aren't you just endeavoring to further "flatten the curve"? That was the original justification for lock-downs, to avoid overwhelming the critical care system, not to reduce the area under the curve, which we were told by "the science" was unrealistic. How flat is flat enough, even ignoring economics?
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The longer the curve stays flat(ter), the fewer people who die of COVID-19 before a vaccine is available. Is there a strategy (other than a vaccine) that limits viral spread without lockdowns? The only way I can see to do this is to know -- in real time -- who is contagious and who isn't.

 

[Brians356]

Is there a strategy (other than a vaccine) that limits viral spread without lockdowns? The only way I can see to do this is to know -- in real time -- who is contagious and who isn't.

Does a positive e25 test prove you're contageous?
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[Toby Bradshaw]

Does a positive e25 test prove you're contageous?
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Proof is for mathematicians. In science we just have hypotheses and evidence that supports or refutes them.

The e25 test uses antibodies (attached to the paper strip) to detect the coronavirus spike protein, the hallmark of intact, infectious virus. There is evidence that viral load is correlated with contagiousness. So, for practical purposes, a positive e25 test does indicate that the person is currently shedding viral particles.

The RT-PCR test that is the current standard detects viral genomes, or fragments thereof. It is more sensitive than an antibody-based test, but also gives positive results even after the person is no longer contagious, by detecting viral RNA fragments that have not been cleared.

 

[Brians356]

Proof is for mathematicians. In science we just have hypotheses and evidence that supports or refutes them.

The e25 test uses antibodies (attached to the paper strip) to detect the coronavirus spike protein, the hallmark of intact, infectious virus. There is evidence that viral load is correlated with contagiousness. So, for practical purposes, a positive e25 test does indicate that the person is currently shedding viral particles.

The RT-PCR test that is the current standard detects viral genomes, or fragments thereof. It is more sensitive than an antibody-based test, but also gives positive results even after the person is no longer contagious, by detecting viral RNA fragments that have not been cleared.

Sure, but shedding enough viral particles to be contagious and infectious? There's also the "infectious does" which is required for an exposure to take hold in the body as a viable infection.
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