Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by empath75 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

DeonPenny wrote: post #214

mrb wrote: post #183

If this study is accurate, then 1.8 million NYC resident are infected. So 15 411 deaths (as of today, including 5 121 probable deaths) suggests COVID-19 has a fatality rate of MINIMUM 0.9% which is in line with previous estimates (between 0.5 and 1.6%) and this is MINIMUM 9 times more fatal than the flu (0.1%). Edited to add "MINIMUM", as there is a lag between case detection and death (I should have known better to…

It's also lower than the 3% that was predicted that people used to justify the shutdown and closer inline with the swine flu or rotovirus.

Nobody ever seriously suggested it was 3%. The estimates were always around 1%

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

#232

Post by lbeltrame » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #89

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 sp…

Option 2 can be the most realistic, depending on the outcome of the currently-going clinical trials. There quite a bunch closing by June (although most of these are on repurposed drugs, and with not too large sample sizes).

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

#233

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #162

op00to wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do non-severe cases cause lung damage too? Is the lung damage heal able?

That is the point of my question. There has been no evidence of damage in non severe cases. Indeed, we are having to get complicated testing to find out many people had it at all.

There have been a number of reports of folks who were diagnosed with otherwise asymptomatic COVID when they had a CT for an unrelated reason that showed their lungs with GGO. And in some cases they have shown no signs of recovery even weeks later.

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

#234

Post by formercoder » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #204

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…

I've been making many posts arguing against the efficacy of lockdowns (and been getting shat on by points I find mostly naive). I think something like this is probably the best approach because it minimizes economic harm while also trying to minimize hospitalization rates among the elderly. But even if we pretend we could implement a perfect bubble for everyone over 50, they're not especially safe when the lockdown i…

Any time I try and make counterpoints to lockdowns or even logical evaluations of them online the downvotes and hate start flowing. There is a huge bias among those in our circles towards locking down as long as possible, because all of us can work from home and aren’t worried about feeding our families.

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

#235

Post by glofish » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #86

tunesmith wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

it is more like would the 20% population go to the hospital if they suspected they had the flu

if they did the hospitalizations would rise as well

one reason the hospitalizations are falling has less to do with the numbers of cases and more with doctors ability to better tell who might need it.

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

#236

Post by rechristened » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

izend wrote: post #198

mrb wrote: post #183

If this study is accurate, then 1.8 million NYC resident are infected. So 15 411 deaths (as of today, including 5 121 probable deaths) suggests COVID-19 has a fatality rate of MINIMUM 0.9% which is in line with previous estimates (between 0.5 and 1.6%) and this is MINIMUM 9 times more fatal than the flu (0.1%). Edited to add "MINIMUM", as there is a lag between case detection and death (I should have known better to…

Making it the worse pandemic in decades but no where near the Spanish Flu.

Or as bad as the 1957-8 "Asian Flu" that most people haven't even heard of.

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

#237

Post by lbeltrame » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 8:02 PM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #93

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…

The purpose of the lockdown isn't to hide until the virus magically disappears, it's to flatten the curve and allow the virus to spread slowly enough that it doesn't overwhelm the healthcare system in any given place. Maintaining a lockdown will not lower the number of people who get the virus, it will merely extend how long it takes to get there.

At least if you heard the statements of my government (Italy) from a couple weeks ago, they were hoping (or so the press said) to "reduce infections to zero".

Since then, quite obviously, they backtracked from those statements.

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

#238

Post by grandmczeb » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #213

grandmczeb wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I read the original comment as saying there were significantly different symptoms based on the transmission method. Even assuming that the transmission method results in a significantly different viral load, that's not enough to explain differing symptoms since there's not a whole lot of observable difference between cases with different severities[1,2]. There are some studies that show a relationship, but not…

Fair. My entry to this thread should have begun with a question mark. I thought the point of different transmission methods, as frames, was referring to potential differences in viral load.

Rereading your first comment, I think you might be thinking of infection dose. Viral load is the amount of virus present in a patient. Infection dose is the amount you're exposed to.

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

#239

Post by joe_maley » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #195

TechBro8615 wrote: post #96

So, at what point can we declare the lockdown to be a harmful overreaction and start opening countries up? Will we hold anyone accountable for models which proved to be pessimistic by orders of magnitude, causing implosion of economies around the world?

This data might suggest that the lockdowns suppressed the infection rate down to 20% at this moment in time. Without a lockdown, a month more of infections would have likely bumped NYC to achieving herd immunity, or 60-ish percent, since 20% to 60% does not take long with exponential growth. This means two things. One, it would mean that we would have almost certainly overwhelmed the hospitals with triple the rate of…

>It would also have meant that the curve would be flattened for good.

I have yet to see any evidence that covid antibodies provide long-term immunity. We can't say with any certainty that the curve would be permanently flattened. It may just be flattened for a few weeks, a few months, or a few years.

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

#240

Post by asah » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

vikramkr wrote: post #207

mrb wrote: post #183

If this study is accurate, then 1.8 million NYC resident are infected. So 15 411 deaths (as of today, including 5 121 probable deaths) suggests COVID-19 has a fatality rate of MINIMUM 0.9% which is in line with previous estimates (between 0.5 and 1.6%) and this is MINIMUM 9 times more fatal than the flu (0.1%). Edited to add "MINIMUM", as there is a lag between case detection and death (I should have known better to…

Cuomo made the caveat during the press conference that these samples were collected in grocery stores etc, so might be higher than people at home etc edit: and also potentially lower than in the essential worker populations. So some caveats to keep in mind

omg yes - tons of people switched to grocery delivery esp since NYC has so many terrific options and virtually every grocery, market & specialty store already delivered, even before COVID.