Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

6sqft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 679 posts

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

#151

Post by alteria »

godelski wrote: post #145
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…

Why does recruiting through Facebook invalidate the results? If it is a representative sample it is a representative sample regardless of how people were recruited.

One critique was that the segment of the population who would respond to the ad and actually test may be more likely to have experienced COVID-like symptoms.

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

#152

Post by luckylion »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #133
luckylion wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we prolong it a lot with all the associated cost and 1 and 2 never happen, we've lost not just a large part of the economy, but also lives without anything to show for it.

I don't think you quite understand what happens to the fatality rate once hospitals become overwhelmed. That 1% IFR will quickly become 3-5% IFR.

That's a different argument. I'm saying that "lockdown until we have a vaccine or great treatment" might mean "lockdown until 2030". We already see heavy economic damages, civil unrest and riots after 4-8 weeks. Make that 40, 80 or 200 weeks and the world will be very different.

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

#153

Post by grandmczeb »

taeric wrote: post #95
grandmczeb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would different transmission methods result in different symptoms?

Viral load, is what this typically refers to. Akin to an allergic person seeing one cat versus a room full of them. And, of course, for some people with allergies, contact where a cat has been is enough. ;) So... Complicated. Edit: was corrected down thread that this is infection dose, not viral load.

There’s a very weak association between viral load and symptoms once you’re infected.

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

#154

Post by bob33212 »

dwaltrip wrote: post #48
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…

I agree with everything you are saying. This does look like good news. However, we should remember that this is probably a mild overestimate, as the study population was assembled from those who were out and about (shopping at the grocery store, etc). People who are more strictly staying home -- and thus less likely to have been infected -- wouldn't be included in the survey.

Another way to look at it is that 20% of people most likely to contribute to a high transmission rate already have had it, in turn flattening the curve by a considerable amount

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

#155

Post by cryoshon »

taeric wrote: post #91
jdm2212 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This feels like fear talking. As more data comes in, we are seeing more people with no affects. Not just mild, but nigh non existent. It is agreed that something gives people severe cases. Severe includes death and recovered with damage. We don't seem to have data letting you know who or what would land there.

we have absolutely no clue regarding the long-term impacts of exposure to this virus for asymptomatic people or otherwise.

we cannot gamble with our future so carelessly on the basis of preliminary data. here is a vignette to explain why.

once someone is infected with HIV, most people experience flu-like symptoms for a week or two which then resolve either with or without treatment. in some people, the virus is cleared so effectively after the initial infection that they will test negative for HIV. then, over the span of months and years, their immune system is silently and entirely asymptomatically destroyed, leaving them none the wiser until they progress to AIDS and get extremely sick.

COVID hasn't given us any indication of similar activity. but we know so very little that we can't take the risk, especially not with millions and millions of people. i will also note that we are unlikely to rule out these kinds of hypothetical risks anytime soon. so caution is our only defense against disaster.

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

#156

Post by rocha »

chasd00 wrote: post #58
brandmeyer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was astonished by your 1/1000 figure and had to look it up... If anything, its too low . 15k deaths (proven+probable) in 8M people is almost 2/1000. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

that's crazy to me, what are the demographics of NYC? Is the population more susceptible to dying of Covid19 somehow? I still can't get my head around why NY has suffered so disproportionately.

In my opinion it is more likely that the main cause is that the infection got here very early, and that the mitigation and containment measures started very late in comparison with cities of similar size and density (Seoul for example).

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

#157

Post by zucker42 »

guscost wrote: post #108
zucker42 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expec…

I'm not a professional and some of this interpretation may be wrong: In the first report, 83% of people who tested positive for viral RNA (an active infection) had immune T cells that seem able to neutralize the virus, possibly without antibodies. I don't see any information on whether these patients were also tested for antibodies later, but in theory some of them could have cleared the infection without developing…

Cool, great information, thanks!

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

#158

Post by ferzul »

cjhopman wrote: post #55
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…

Sure, but a person who goes to the store 7 times a week is ~7 times as likely to have been sampled compared to someone who goes only once a week. They are also ~7 times as likely to have contracted covid-19 at the grocery store. It's likely that they are also, in general, isolating less than the other. This sampling would have a (possibly slight, but still unknown) bias towards people who are isolating less (who you…

otoh, it gives about the same ifr as the recent study in geneva. at the end of the day, it looks like the first wave will have an ifr of about 0.6% - more than ten times greater than the flu, but not the bubonic plague

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

#159

Post by saalweachter »

kayoone wrote: post #149
saalweachter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most likely answer is that NYC was just a good place for it to spread which had plenty of travelers to get things started fast, but that that the death rates aren't particularly high -- everywhere that has fewer deaths has just had less of their population infected ... so far.

Germany has about as many cases in total as NY, yet less than 1/2 of the deaths. The death rate seems high in NY, maybe because hospitals could not cope?

Germany has about as many diagnosed coronavirus cases; the difference could be wholly explained by Germany testing more people. (Germany has administered 2 million tests, New York State [I didn't see a figure for the city], about 700 thousand.)

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

#160

Post by djrogers »

cryoshon wrote: post #155
taeric wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like fear talking. As more data comes in, we are seeing more people with no affects. Not just mild, but nigh non existent. It is agreed that something gives people severe cases. Severe includes death and recovered with damage. We don't seem to have data letting you know who or what would land there.

we have absolutely no clue regarding the long-term impacts of exposure to this virus for asymptomatic people or otherwise. we cannot gamble with our future so carelessly on the basis of preliminary data. here is a vignette to explain why. once someone is infected with HIV, most people experience flu-like symptoms for a week or two which then resolve either with or without treatment. in some people, the virus is clear…

> COVID hasn't given us any indication of similar activity. but we know so very little that we can't take the risk

We take that risk with other viruses and bacteria literally all the time. If hypothetical but unlikely risks become thejustification for destroying people's livelihoods and the world ecomony, we're all dead anyway.

Post reply on HN