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

#371

Post by usaar333 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #323

cdash wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you know, around 3 million people die in the US every year, many of the million people you expect to die would have ended up being counted in that 3 million background statistic. More importantly, herd immunity is the ONLY solution on the table right now, the lockdown is not about stopping the virus in its tracks. It is about spreading it out over a period of time.

>the lockdown is not about stopping the virus in its tracks. It is about spreading it out over a period of time. It's unclear what the lockdown is about at all since the government messaging has been incoherent. Many countries have (so far) succesfully contained the virus without herd immunity through contact tracing, and the US government has been making vague comments about pursuing something along those lines desp…

Depends where you are. The Bay Area is contact tracing every case and as a result is at a really low new case count (Santa Clara County is at 11 per million/day over the last week, significantly lower than successful country's peaks (NZ/SK), while still having tighter restrictions.

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

#372

Post by tunesmith » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #367

kgwgk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mortality is much less than previously suspected Mortality remains pretty much as suspected already two months ago: “Based on these available analyses, current IFR estimates10,11,12 range from 0.3% to 1%. Without population-based serologic studies, it is not yet possible to know what proportion of the population has been infected with COVID-19.” https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...

Two weeks after that the WHO released a widely cited report claiming a fatality rate of 3.4%. “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.” https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-...

CFR will be higher than IFR due to undercounting infections.

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

#373

Post by CubsFan1060 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

shironineja wrote: post #346

aazaa wrote: post #317

> In his press conference today, Governor Cuomo revealed the preliminary results of a first-phase antibody test that surveyed 3,000 New Yorkers over two days in 19 counties at 40 locations that included grocery and big-box stores. The sample suggests that 13.9% of New York State residents have the antibodies, meaning they had the virus at one point and recovered. Of the regions tested–Long Island, NYC, Westchester/Ro…

So if 100% of the USA gets it at 330 M people that amounts to: 1,650,000 deaths. It is unlikely 100% will catch it from a single wave however.

Which is about 1/2 of what die in a normal year. The real question is how much do those circles overlap.

Are we saving lives, or are people now dying in June that would have died in November anyway?

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

#374

Post by jnbiche » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

TheBlight wrote: post #348

aazaa wrote: post #317

> In his press conference today, Governor Cuomo revealed the preliminary results of a first-phase antibody test that surveyed 3,000 New Yorkers over two days in 19 counties at 40 locations that included grocery and big-box stores. The sample suggests that 13.9% of New York State residents have the antibodies, meaning they had the virus at one point and recovered. Of the regions tested–Long Island, NYC, Westchester/Ro…

Sure all of these studies are potentially flawed but they're all generally pointing in the same direction. There are many more infections than we know about and the CFR is not anywhere close to the actual IFR. NYC is an outlier with a 21% infection estimate but for the rest of NY (outside NYC metro/Westchester/LI) the estimate is 3.6%. Santa Clara estimate was 3%. LA County estimate was 4%. Seems like a trend is deve…

The CFR will be much higher than the IFR. For example, approximate flu IFR is 0.05%.

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

#375

Post by hcknwscommenter » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #357

ferzul wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0.6% this is the estimated ifr. comparing it to the cfr of flu is not right, which is about ten times less than the flu ifr - or about 60 times less than this figure. your conclusion is upheld, but even moreso

According to the CDC, the estimated prevalence of symptomatic flu last year was 45 million illnesses and 61,000 deaths. For NY, assuming it’s evenly distributed, that would translate into 13.8% of 20 million = 2.8m symptomatic flu cases and 3,753 deaths. COVID appears to be significantly more prevalent (roughly twice as prevalent in just 3 months as flu gets all year despite incredible efforts), and roughly 2-3x as f…

I think you need to rethink essentially all of your assumptions/math. COVID is not more prevalent than the flu and certainly more than slightly more fatal.

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

#376

Post by hcknwscommenter » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #362

credit_guy wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link. It's a good read. That said, science is enamored with significance levels, p-values, etc. Most people just do that because that's what they've learned, and think that's how it should be done. They don't think it comes from Bayesian inference, where you put a very low prior probability of a drug being useful (because the very vast majority of chemicals we could put in our bodies are either harmful…

> the Bayesian prior is that common colds in general become less prevalent during the Summer, and Covid19 is caused by a coronavirus, which is related to viruses causing the common cold MERS is also a coronavirus and does just fine in the warm climate of the middle east. I hope that warmer temps slow the spread, but it's far from certain.

It's not just far from certain. It is simply unlikely. The "hypotheses" for explaining seasonal variations in transmissibility are nothing but a wild-guess/hope.

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

#377

Post by rallison » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

longtimegoogler wrote: post #309

cma wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At various points in interviews and articles he used Diamond Princess, South Korea, Germany, Iceland as strong evidence of miniscule fatality rates, in every single case selectively ignoring that deaths lag symptoms which was already well known at the time. All of them had their death rates double or more after he used them, and it was easily predictable based on recent exponential growth and death lag. In his stat a…

His data from the Diamond Princess is completely outdated. He cited 7 deaths. We are now up to 13 with 7 more on critical condition. He has been completely wrong in each of his predictions. I would respect him more if he just argued from am economic perspective that the economic damage is greater but his wild hypotheses about Covid being comparable to the common cold or flu have been completely refuted by all data.

> We are now up to 13 with 7 more on critical condition.

Minor note, but it appears we are up to 14 now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_on_D...

> Another Japanese man in his 70s died on 14 April, making him the fourteenth fatality.

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

#378

Post by nicoburns » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #288

cmurf wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those cities see more widespread use of masks generally. And specifically once COVID-19 was common knowledge, so was the use of masks. Widespread mask usage doesn't happen in NYC, same as the rest of the U.S. It's very recent this is practiced in the U.S., whether voluntarily or by order of a handful of local governments. And in my local area where it's not mandatory I only see about 3 in 4 using masks.

And Japan has a culture of talking quietly which greatly reduces droplet transmission even beyond the practice of wearing masks. NYC has a culture of yelling.

Do you get yelling on the subway in NYC? Passengers in London famously don't even make eye contact.

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

#379

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

CubsFan1060 wrote: post #373

shironineja wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if 100% of the USA gets it at 330 M people that amounts to: 1,650,000 deaths. It is unlikely 100% will catch it from a single wave however.

Which is about 1/2 of what die in a normal year. The real question is how much do those circles overlap. Are we saving lives, or are people now dying in June that would have died in November anyway?

[deleted]

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

#380

Post by edmundsauto » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #316

robocat wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being summer, the virus will not be that contagious. I think that is still scientifically debatable, good overview: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2239380-will-the-spread... Certainly it is still transmissible in hot countries.

Thanks for the link. It's a good read. That said, science is enamored with significance levels, p-values, etc. Most people just do that because that's what they've learned, and think that's how it should be done. They don't think it comes from Bayesian inference, where you put a very low prior probability of a drug being useful (because the very vast majority of chemicals we could put in our bodies are either harmful…

Which infectiousness rate are you talking about? How could your prediction account for the impact of increased immunity and other interventions?

My point is that the infectiousness will decrease in the summer because of these factors. There isn't much reason to think there is anything special about it being Summer.

Finally, it's a very tenuous link between common cold prevalence and coronavirus.