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Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

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Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#81

Post by zucker42 »

guscost wrote: post #7

While this is great information, a few facts will still confound attempts to speculate based on this number: - The production of IgG antibodies is mostly delayed until after an infection is cleared. - This is a random sample of people who were outside, it's not representative of the total population. - Non-trivial numbers of people may never develop detectable antibodies for SARS-CoV-2: https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…

I'm sorry, I don't know much about medicine so maybe you could clear up what those studies found. If I understand correctly, they both looked at COVID-19 patients and the first one found 83% had detectable antibodies and the second one found 163 / 173 had detectable antibodies? Or maybe I just completely don't understand it.

Also it looks like they chose people with symptoms (i.e. "COVID-19 patients"). Would we expect the amount of detectable antibodies to be less, more, or the same among asymptomatic/mildly symptomatic people, or do we not know?

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#82

Post by vkou »

DeonPenny wrote: post #73
vkou wrote: post #24

If this study is accurate, and is not just working on garbage data, and if these antibodies actually mean long-term immunity, this means one of two things: 1. If the lockdown is lifted, we will see another ~60,000 to 100,000 deaths in NYC, before it will hit herd immunity. 2. Or, the lockdown will continue. The accuracy of antibody studies has been called into doubt, and as far as I know, nobody has ever followed up…

We'd also need to make the decsision to continue a lockdown over a virus with a 99.5% survival rate or not. Seeing at the flu has a 99.9% survival rate does it make sense to destroy the economy over that.

First of all, it's not 99.5%. A naive interpretation of these numbers is a 1% death rate, not 0.5%. 15,000 dead, out of an estimated ~1,680,000 with antibodies.

Second of all, deaths lag infections, and the actual death rate is closer to double the current death rate.

Third of all, you have no idea that if someone has antibodies, they are immune. As far as I know, nobody has tried infecting antibody-positive people... Or released studies that followed up on them, compared to an antibody-negative control group.

Fourth of all, World War II 'only' killed 3% of the world's population.

And lastly, if you lift the lockdown, and everyone gets sick all at once, the infection rate will spike dramatically. Because when hospitals are overloaded, people who can be saved are left to die. Not to mention that you'll be killing thousands of doctors, due to the high viral load they are exposed to.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#83

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

tunesmith wrote: post #77
DeonPenny wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'd also need to make the decsision to continue a lockdown over a virus with a 99.5% survival rate or not. Seeing at the flu has a 99.9% survival rate does it make sense to destroy the economy over that.

Hospitalization rates per infection are greater for covid than for flu. What matters is hospital capacity, to protect against greater non-covid death rates.

I agree, but this is not universally believed. Many people argue that hospital capacity is not what matters, and we must continue lockdowns even if hospitals won't be overloaded to eradicate the disease.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#84

Post by zucker42 »

glofish wrote: post #39

Well, it looks like in the end that much-criticized imperial model might be right on transmission rates but way off on the fatality rate and with that predicted deaths. It pretty much looks like none of the epidemiological models are reasonably accurate on both, case numbers and fatally rates

Which model and what fatality rates did they predict?

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#85

Post by jdm2212 »

daxfohl wrote: post #72

I find myself reconsidering the original proposition by England to isolate the most vulnerable for a couple months and let the virus work its course through the less vulnerable population. If death rate is substantially lower among the under 50 crowd, this could work its way through with a fairly low death toll, and result in a herd immunity within a couple months. This slow burn approach we're doing however seems po…

The outcomes aren't just death and recovery. There's also the possibility of long-term heart, lung, and kidney damage. And the blood thinners used to prevent coronavirus blood clots can cause brain bleeding. Those happen in younger people, too.

And realistically there's no way to isolate those over 50. They generally live with, work with, or are cared for by younger people.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#86

Post by cm2187 »

tunesmith wrote: post #75
ccleve wrote: post #17

This study doesn't appear to suffer from the same methodology problems as the Stanford study of a few days ago. In that study, they recruited people through Facebook, and reported an infection rate that was low enough that it could have been caused by false positives. Here, it's closer to a random sample, but more importantly it shows really high rates. Those rates overwhelm any error due to false positives. Also, it…

Sorry, can someone spell out how this might be good news? 21% is still a long way from herd immunity, and NYC's hospital system has been severely strained getting to this point. On top of that, the hospitalization rate still seems disproportionate to someone getting the flu - maybe it's five times as fatal, but it's > 5x the flu hospitalization rate. It's not like the virus has become less dangerous, we're just reali…

I don't know if the hospitalisation rate is so out of whack vs the flu. It should be higher. But does 20% of the population catches the flu in a matter of weeks?

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#87

Post by djrogers »

I'm starting to wonder if there aren't 2 (or more) transmission methods for this virus with differing symptoms. Aerosol transmission with 'I got a cold' type symptoms, and droplet transmission with 'I got the worst cold I've ever had' type symptoms.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#88

Post by taeric »

jdm2212 wrote: post #74
glofish wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it doesn't contradic Ioannidis at all. He might be right in the end, and that would be an incredibly bitter pill to many. We are getting closer and closer to the flu fatality rate. from 5% to 3%, then 1% now 0.5% - smart money (and common sense) would bet that the rate will continue to drop, I would expect that people living in healthier environment than NYC will fare even better. No way NYC IFR is the upper bound fo…

NYC is a younger, healthier city than the national average. NYC also has one of the best medical systems not just in America, but in the world. Roughly 0.2% of everyone in NYC has already died of COVID-19. So 0.2% is pretty close to a hard lower bound on the IFR for COVID-19. And I don't think anyone serious suggests every NYC resident has had COVID. I don't think anyone seriously suggests even half of NYC has had CO…

That it's a lower bound for IFR in NYC. With how widely that changes based on age alone, it could also vary based on location. Such that NYC could conceivably have the highest value for that in the US.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#89

Post by slashdev »

daxfohl wrote: post #72

I find myself reconsidering the original proposition by England to isolate the most vulnerable for a couple months and let the virus work its course through the less vulnerable population. If death rate is substantially lower among the under 50 crowd, this could work its way through with a fairly low death toll, and result in a herd immunity within a couple months. This slow burn approach we're doing however seems po…

All things equal, it would be better to get it out of the way sooner. However, what it doesn't account for is:

1) can we flatten the curve enough that some people never get it because we get a vaccine?

2) can we flatten it until we find an effective treatment protocol, saving lives?

3) if we did nothing would the hospitals be overwhelmed leading to additional loss of life and a higher death rate?

The first two are speculative, but the last one is pretty much certain looking at Italy and NYC. Without lockdown it could have been so much worse.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#90

Post by grandmczeb »

djrogers wrote: post #87

I'm starting to wonder if there aren't 2 (or more) transmission methods for this virus with differing symptoms. Aerosol transmission with 'I got a cold' type symptoms, and droplet transmission with 'I got the worst cold I've ever had' type symptoms.

Why would different transmission methods result in different symptoms?
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