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SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
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I can’t imagine Boris likes this one bit. If it’s effective and the numbers shrink in Wales, there will be huge question marks over why they refuse to do it in England.
He will only not like because his normal tactics of lying or discrediting any criticism would not be effective against this comparison.
The data shows that men are roughly twice as likely to die from Covid-19 compared to women.
If an effective vaccine is not actually found, and if the virus spread eventually infects everyone, then the number of men on this planet will reduce by around 78 million compared to women .... or more if some people are re-infected over and over again.
This is based on on the current global mortality rate of nearly 3% and a global population of over 7.8b ... so if everyone eventually gets infected it means at least 234 million deaths, of which 156m will be men and 78m women.
If an effective vaccine is not actually found, and if the virus spread eventually infects everyone, then the number of men on this planet will reduce by around 78 million compared to women .... or more if some people are re-infected over and over again.
This is based on on the current global mortality rate of nearly 3% and a global population of over 7.8b ... so if everyone eventually gets infected it means at least 234 million deaths, of which 156m will be men and 78m women.
^ these numbers are completely incorrect and borderline irresponsible at this point.
Real IFR is 0.3% right now and constantly falling as therapeutics and treatment continue to improve.
This was from start of October and the antibody cocktail has already reduced the 70+ number by 20-30% as seen with Trump and co.
The CDC has changed the IFR values of Covid-19 into age-specific estimates, which are now very low at 0.003% for 0–19 years, 0.02% for 20–49 years, 0.5% for 50–69 years, and 5.4% for 70+ years.
Real IFR is 0.3% right now and constantly falling as therapeutics and treatment continue to improve.
This was from start of October and the antibody cocktail has already reduced the 70+ number by 20-30% as seen with Trump and co.
The CDC has changed the IFR values of Covid-19 into age-specific estimates, which are now very low at 0.003% for 0–19 years, 0.02% for 20–49 years, 0.5% for 50–69 years, and 5.4% for 70+ years.
@SinNombre
You originally said, before changing your post:
"^ these numbers are completely incorrect and borderline irresponsible at this point.
Real CFR [my emphasis] is 0.3% right now and constantly falling as therapeutics and treatment continue to improve."
The WHO say (as of today): "there have been 39,196,259 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,101,298 deaths, reported to WHO."
Dividing the the 2nd number by the 1st number does not = 0.3%. The CFR figure you gave (0.3%) is wrong - an under-estimate - by a factor of roughly 10.
However, I acknowledge that - as the WHO themselves say - the real 'CFR' is going to be lower than that indicated by the WHO figures, because some people who get infected are not reported as cases.
You originally said, before changing your post:
"^ these numbers are completely incorrect and borderline irresponsible at this point.
Real CFR [my emphasis] is 0.3% right now and constantly falling as therapeutics and treatment continue to improve."
The WHO say (as of today): "there have been 39,196,259 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,101,298 deaths, reported to WHO."
Dividing the the 2nd number by the 1st number does not = 0.3%. The CFR figure you gave (0.3%) is wrong - an under-estimate - by a factor of roughly 10.
However, I acknowledge that - as the WHO themselves say - the real 'CFR' is going to be lower than that indicated by the WHO figures, because some people who get infected are not reported as cases.
Isn’t IFR basically the great unknown?
Very hard to estimate during a pandemic for a variety of reasons
https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/estimating-mortality-from-covid-19
One thing is for sure is that if medical facilities are overwhelmed the rate will rise, probably sharply.
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Looking at death rates from March and April is grossly inaccurate is the point.
Over the past 30 days, the US is averaging around ~650 deaths on 50k confirmed new infections daily which is a CFR of 1.3% is still a lot lower than the 3% we were seeing at the start of pandemic.
Claiming 200million deaths if we do not have a vaccine is fear-mongering (though on the vaccine note, I am happy to bet that we will see a vaccine with an efficacy of at least 50% being widely distributed by end of next March).
I pasted the CDC's estimates for IFR which is very close to the German study.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.04.20090076v2
the estimated IFR was 0.36% [0.29%; 0.45%].
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5352
The overall noninstitutionalized IFR was 0.26%
https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf
Across 51 locations, the median COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%):
Over the past 30 days, the US is averaging around ~650 deaths on 50k confirmed new infections daily which is a CFR of 1.3% is still a lot lower than the 3% we were seeing at the start of pandemic.
Claiming 200million deaths if we do not have a vaccine is fear-mongering (though on the vaccine note, I am happy to bet that we will see a vaccine with an efficacy of at least 50% being widely distributed by end of next March).
I pasted the CDC's estimates for IFR which is very close to the German study.
Lots of very good studies have been done on this topic including what led to the CDC numbers, and they are all coming around to a similar number.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.04.20090076v2
the estimated IFR was 0.36% [0.29%; 0.45%].
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5352
The overall noninstitutionalized IFR was 0.26%
https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf
Across 51 locations, the median COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%):
Looks like temperature matters but not as much as we feared, which could be good news. However, as behavior based on temperature is often a large part of why winter seems to make viral transmission worse I wonder if this will necessarily be true in Europe? These figures were in China where things were locked down hard and likely a million miles from the scenes we saw in Liverpool and other places recently.
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Great post, and one which was much needed in this thread. It’s scary, it’s sobering and we all need to work together to protect each other, but we have to be responsible in what we put out there, especially when so many are afraid and vulnerable.
Out of curiosity, are people allowed to travel across countries for leisure in Europe now? Is there a mandatory quarantine for these people? How many people are actually travelling? I know different countries have different policies, but I would like to know about the general picture.
Yeah, I understand that. But I also understand that it is, as your post says, an estimate... aka “unknown”.
Has there been a pandemic that we actually know the exact IFR for?
The point is that those two numbers do not reflect a representative sample of the population, so simply dividing 1m by 40m will not provide a good estimate on how many people it would kill if it infected the general population. That's really not in question at this stage. 156m men is way, way off.
And it's not like you need to understand convoluted scientific logic to see why it isn't a representative sample of the population. We know in the UK, along with many other countries, the people who were tested in the early months were the ones who were very sick. People like myself who had symptoms but were not severe enough to be hospitalised were explicitly told not to get a test by the NHS. That was primarily because we had testing shortages. So what the number represented then was the proportion of very sick people that would die.
We consciously knew that we were not counting the cases of people who contracted the virus but had minor symptoms, while at the same time we had no idea the degree of asymptomatic cases was as high as we now know. Since we've moved to mass testing you can get a much more accurate single figure, and as you point out in the opposite direction, there's a magnitude of difference. But using a single figure isn't necessary at this stage in the pandemic, when we've got a lot of data, and we know where differences exist.
You pointed out how men are twice as many men will die as women to start this whole thing off, after all. It doesn't make sense to account for the gender differences but not the age differences, given there is a much wider disparity among age than gender. People my age, who were disproportately likely to get mild symptoms, were therefore particularly likely to be underrepresented in the initial phase of testing. 0.02% for 0-40 year olds and 0.5% for 50-69 year olds is not a small difference, so if you accounted for just one factor alone, your estimate of 156m men would fall off a cliff.
If you're going to scale up the death numbers to the global population based on everyone getting the virus, it does matter that you use the right baseline figure. The real numbers are bad enough as it is, if you for whatever reason you want to imagine that weird doomsday scenario.
I watched the South Park covid special last night.
I don't watch South Park much but
How did Disney not sue them?
I don't watch South Park much but
How did Disney not sue them?
It varies. Mostly the borders to the big countries are open but you have to quarantine or take a test if you have been there. Getting harder to find places where you can go freely.
Flights are cut to about 50% of normal so some people are still travelling.
Most of that stems from the fact that the government have been undermined from day one. Now everything is questioned and debated as a matter of course. It should never have been allowed to happen that way.
I watched the South Park covid special last night.
I don't watch South Park much but
How did Disney not sue them?
Randy has been my favourite character for over a decade and this reminded me why.
The government has gone full dystopian. Some Orwell 1984 shit here:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/indoor-sex-ban-tier-2-couples-living-apart-a4571925.html
How on earth do people still believe these crazy rules are to protect anybody, I do not know. Your civil rights are being taken away little by little and some folks are not paying attention.
I doubt very much this is enforceable, and I hope neighbours don't start snitching like we're living under the Stasi or Nazi regimes.
The government is supposed to handle a public health issue, not get personal like this.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/indoor-sex-ban-tier-2-couples-living-apart-a4571925.html
How on earth do people still believe these crazy rules are to protect anybody, I do not know. Your civil rights are being taken away little by little and some folks are not paying attention.
I doubt very much this is enforceable, and I hope neighbours don't start snitching like we're living under the Stasi or Nazi regimes.
The government is supposed to handle a public health issue, not get personal like this.
It’s difficult for Boris to do it now because, first, he’d have to admit they were wrong, and he doesn’t like that and, second, Keir Starmer said he should do it - and admitting that Labour were right is even worse. Of course, it’s different in Wales because the Welsh Government is Labour run.
Yeah, I think a lot of people would disagree with the cause or the appropriate response to it. It's not really a no brainer when the political party in power has repeatedly emphasised the importance of economic and social freedom, and their undying commitment to upholding it, in contrast to a tyrannical opposition.
They aren't getting personal, that's just the headline spin. They're limiting spread of a highly contagious and dangerous virus by keeping households apart. If you live with your other half then you can have endless sex for all they care. If you don't live in the same household, there were three choices you had in the summer. Move in together, accept that you may be kept apart again in the future, or break the rules. People were kept apart during lockdown and they knew a second wave was coming so not planning for this eventuality is a bit silly.
Limiting household to household transmission is a cornerstone of dealing with a pandemic. That's what public health officials say, not politicians. And every country that is losing control of the pandemic has been forced to stop people going to others' houses, regardless of their position on the ideological spectrum.
It would be 1984 if this was going to be extended beyond the specific crisis we're jn right now. Everyone knows they won't.
Mate I'm sad for you and all of us. It's already 1984 like if you care to step back and take a look at everything.
And no, I am not listening to those fools from Imperial College - their modelling led by that Ferguson guy has consistently been proven wrong on other past issues. You can do your own research and look it up. It's all out there. The mystery to me is why on earth the government enlisted them to tackle this issue when their track record has shown how incompetent they are. Do you even seek out other opinions from eminent scientist from Harvard, Stanford, Oxford etc? Or are you doing the group think bit and just listening to this crazy government and their cronies?
At least try and consider other points of views. You can research it.
Whilst you're at it, go and read the Coronavirus Act carefully. See if you still feel we're not entering some crazy dystopian shit.
Is there any doubt it will be effective? If you stop people moving around then infection rates will surely drop. The question is what you do during that time so that when the lockdown (or whatever you want to call it) is lifted, you don't just go back to square one. It just buys time, and in the meantime, causes damage to businesses already struggling.
Yes living through a pandemic is a bit dystopian. Helped by the fact it's been a part of dystopian fiction for a long time.
I do seek out opinions from other academics, yeah. There's quite a wide range of opinions on many policies, but quite a strong consensus among those who specialise in epidemiology that limiting household transmission is essential to control the R rate. Like I said it isn't the UK that have done this exclusively, based on Imperial College. It's happened in many countries with their own experts.
This particularly policy is pretty mild as it goes. I happen to think destroying the economy is a bit more drastic than preventing couples living apart from fecking, given it affects a wider group of people for a much longer period of time and has much more severe consequences. But I can see the argument even in favour of that, given the alternative.
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At least in 1984 they got some decent social housing and didn't need to use food banks. No chance under this Tory government.
Just got a "Possible covid 19 exposure" notification from the UK NHS Test and trace app and apparently I need to wait for a second notification on whether I'm good or I need to self isolate. Anyone had it before and know how long it takes?
We watched it the other day, it was very funny. They've done some awful stuff about Disney, but then, Disney deserve it.I watched the South Park covid special last night.
I don't watch South Park much but
How did Disney not sue them?
Oh we at least agree on the economy. It's completely fecked. We are in deep trouble. Let's be honest, it's like 97 or more percent of people recover from this virus. The statistics are out there in various places (too lazy to go find them now),. My problem is in light of that recovery rate, aren't the measures disproportionate when we consider the low percentage of deaths? The deaths are horrible, but unfortunately, apart from protecting the vulnerable as much as you can, the rest of us have to get on (with precautions), but we have to live.There are people out there with cancer snd other diseases who will most certainly die because they can't get treatment. I consider cancer to be far more deadly than this virus (as bad as it gets for a small percentage). I've been reading about suicides and mental health issues, and folks losing their livelihood on account of this lockdown. It's doing more harm than good. We need to have a balance. I suspect though the government is loving having such autonomy over our lives, not to mention awarding lucrative contracts to their cronies to supply equipment and handle track and trace, which is a bloody disaster.
It is a mess.
I've had loads. Unless it says you need to isolate you're good.
What a surprise.
University staff angry that Covid teaching advice was 'ignored'
Following Sage’s guidance on online education would have prevented campus outbreaks, say unions
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...angry-that-covid-teaching-advice-was-ignored?
University staff angry that Covid teaching advice was 'ignored'
Following Sage’s guidance on online education would have prevented campus outbreaks, say unions
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...angry-that-covid-teaching-advice-was-ignored?
Well worth posting. The FT have done a great job presenting statistics right from the start, and I applaud their decision to make them free to view on-line as well.
Come on vaccines!
Good read. Thanks for sharing.
It also stops hospitals reaching maximum capacity, so reduces deaths.
But you are right, the government should have prepared better during the last lockdown.
Thanks mate
I think we're all asking the question "are the measures proportionate?" over and over again, as often as our brain allows us too without making us insane. It's a constant backdrop even when we're not actively mulling over it. I think it's important to bear in mind that applies to everyone, including the decision makers. Unless you can think of a particularly persuasive conspiracy theory for why so many governments simultaneously want to destroy their own economies, then you have to acknowledge the fact they feel forced to do this. It doesn't follow a particular political ideology, it doesn't depend on the experts consulted, it doesn't even relate much to the size of the economy before or duing the pandemic. The restrictions you're complaining about are largely ubiquitous in countries in similar situations.
Public health officials repeatedly stress that not having these restrictions would not be a solution to cancer treatment and other things. It's a false dichotomy. If we let the virus spread without controlling it, we simply don't have enough doctors and enough time in the day to deal with all of them while also providing care to non-covid patients. And because of the way we need to control the spreads in hospitals, which have frequently acted as hotspots, the space needs to be used up much more inefficiently for non-covid patients too. Because while "only" a small proportion of people die, far too many end in hospitals for us to have the resources to cope.
We saw what that was like in parts of Northern Italy, we got close to that in parts of the UK, and that was while these countries were in lockdown. They could only just about manage the surge that came before lockdown, if they allowed the cases to keep building exponentially at the same time, they wouldn't have coped. That can't just be brushed off as a theoretical scenario at this stage. Since then, there have been local regions pushed to the brink in many countries, relying on neighbouring regions to deal with covid and non-covid overflows. You had @Sarni recently mentioning that ambulances are over-occupied and can't respond to some heart attacks. That's not because of the restrictions that's because of the virus. Urgent care in those scenarios can be life and death, and it is directly affected by the spread of the virus.
You can't simultaneously say you worry about how people are dying from things besides covid, while also proposing strategies that create more non-covid deaths. And aside from having poorer care for non-covid patients, overwhelmed hospitals would be much worse at dealing with covid patients, and that "low" death rate would get higher.
And that's all if you just focus on one aspect - the death rate - and one strategy - accepting the deaths and letting it run its course. There are plenty of reports that people who don't die from covid have a terrible time of things, well into recovery. That's not something to just brush off as a non-consequence. And even in places that have taken a more relaxed approach are watching their economies take huge hits. It sucks but the reality is the problems you point out with this strategy apply to almost all strategies. The fact we're in a pandemic is what's causing this pain, not political choices. That doesn't mean there aren't things we should do differently, but it's plainly clear that these problems underpin almost every choice in this situation.
The most obvious example for a country who just wanted to open up and put the economy first is the US. While Sweden have been proposed as the best economic model, the UK has just never been in a comparable position. They have been in a similar position to the US. Trump made it clear that he wouldn't let "the cure be worse than the disease", he derided public health measures, he encouraged stakes to ignore federal health policy, etc. Yet here we are, months on, the economy is still in tatters and people are as fearful now as they were almost 6 months ago. It didn't matter that he wanted to put the economy first, the reality of the pandemic is you can't just flip that switch. You have to deal with the health crisis to deal with the economic crisis too.
The UK government are striving for balance. That's why they're rejecting the public health measures suggested by SAGE, because they don't think it strikes that right balance. But they might be wrong again, and they might have to cause even more severe economic consequences because the virus keeps spreading.
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Understand Italy has had its highest number of daily cases and no longer confined to particular regions. Unless we accept draconian lockdown measures as per China model Europe is well and truly fecked.
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More testing is going on in a day than back then in a week. The number of deaths is still on dozens per day, while in April it went to almost a thousand.
Of course it is bad and it is going to get worse before it gets better, but I do not think it is gonna be as bad as in spring (talking about the number of deaths and people in ICU, not the number of official infections).
I do not get your point.
Almost everything in science is an estimate with a confidence interval.
As the confidence intervals gets tighter, the more good your estimate is. Estimates are not "unknown".