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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

#521

Post by jonahbenton »

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…

Death counts in NYC, combined with a 1% CFR, indicate that the number of infected was ~1.5M 3 weeks ago; probably 2.2M now. That's about 25%.

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

#522

Post by greedo »

taeric wrote: post #226
cryoshon wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a former immunologist, i can assure you that with common viruses and bacteria, we have years and years of knowledge about how they perform, thereby making the risks of exposure calculable. it is this body of knowledge which allows our society to normally function even during a typical flu season. we understand the upper and lower boundaries of the consequences, and we can make an informed judgment about what we sh…

I didn't realize this thread was about throwing open the gates. That said, I think there is an argument for more directed isolation measures for at risk groups. Fearing that there may be other unknowns doesn't seem to allow for any progress.

"isolation measures for at risk groups" sound so easy. First, isolate the obese. Hmm, 30% in America so 98M. Next isolate diabetics. Roughly 35M. After this, isolate those with heart disease and hypertension. 30% in the US, 98M. Old people? 32M. Naturally there's some overlapping in these groups. We'll be generous and say that 98M is the lower bound.

How on earth are you going to isolate 30% of the population?

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

#523

Post by baconforce »

zyxzevn wrote: post #512

Good news. Herd-immunity is growing. Also, this means that the death-rate is far lower than reported. And this is nice too. Maybe we can save people by starting the society again. In other news, we see that hydroxychloroquine is actually working according to doctors. But there was a very bad study that claimed that it caused 2x as many deaths. It should have said instead that it was mainly used on patients that were…

This video states that a randomized controlled study needs to be conducted, otherwise nobody can claim that hydroxychloroquine works or does not work.

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

#524

Post by greedo »

Reedx wrote: post #118
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…

Sweden didn't lockdown and might have herd immunity in weeks, according to their chief epidemiologist. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the long run. “In major parts of Sweden, around Stockholm, we have reached a plateau (in new cases) and we’re already seeing the effect of herd immunity and in a few weeks’ time we’ll see even more of the effects of that. And in the rest of the country, the situation…

Sweden hasn't done a government mandated lockdown, but has a lot of social distancing occurring. Also, I wouldn't use Sweden as an example of herd immunity since antibody tests are only coming on line, and many are unreliable. Besides look at Sweden's CFR. Not something I'd like to see in a modern country.

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

#525

Post by leereeves »

CydeWeys wrote: post #514
varenc wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the overwhelming majority of people are visiting grocery stores to buy food. (Or have someone in their household doing it) If the studied presume this then it makes more sense.

You can't assume that. I know plenty of people who haven't left their apartments in a month plus, because they're having groceries ordered in. And you completely missed the point that people who are going outside a lot more often are both (a) more likely to have been exposed to COVID-19, and (b) more likely to be encountered by your survey. If there are e.g. 700 daily shoppers and 700 weekly shoppers going to a given…

Are you describing the actual study or the study as you're imagining it? Because I imagine the statisticians have thought of these concerns and attempted to correct for them.

I find it interesting that this study corresponds to an IFR around 0.5%, similar to the IFR arrived at by other studies using very different methods. Perhaps the statisticians who conduct these studies actually know what they're doing better than Hacker News commenters.

And perhaps it's time to accept the politically inconvenient scientific truth these studies are revealing.

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

#526

Post by DeonPenny »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #270
DeonPenny wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Regardless of initial estimates, how is 0.6% - 1% "closer inline" to 0.026%[1]? Even based upon the low range that's 30X more fatal. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8406723.stm

zso your saying its closer inline with the seasonal flu. With a 0.1% death rate.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-deadly-is-the-cor...

The point still stands is that enough to warrant the current strategy compared with countries like Korean or TW.

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

#527

Post by newacct583 »

usaar333 wrote: post #382
newacct583 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Really this study is just confirming (with higher error bars than we'd like) what we already strongly suspected. Note that as others are pointing out, that 0.5% isn't really extrapolated correctly. The tested case deaths are looking like they're only 70% of the total or so. Also using a current death count with contemporary infection counts is a mismatch, because it forgets that ~35% of the people currently in…

Except this data is also lagging by three weeks, depending on what antibodies are being checked. Some deaths today have come from infections in April, so the net effect could be a wash. And where are you getting a 35% death rate for "ever hospitalized"? It's realistically somewhere around 15%-20%, though with major age skew. ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... )

Per https://covidtracking.com/data#state-ny there have been 57103 hospitalizations in the state (not city, so not quite the same population), of which 15021 are still hospitalized. So that's 42082 cases that have left the hospital, of which 15740 died, or 37%.

Obviously there's some apples/oranges here, both due to the population being different from the city and the fact that some of those deaths were outside of hospitals. But it's close.

It's been covered in the past that NYC's total fatality rate has been good but its ICU survival rate has been anomalously bad.

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

#528

Post by greedo »

lukasm wrote: post #76
cm2187 wrote: post #2

Another datapoint suggesting the death rate of this virus is within 0.5%.

Yes, but the age is a 10x factor, os CFR would be much different in Nigeria (average age is about 19) and Italy (average age 45). We have two good petri dishes: USS Theodore Roosevelt - 600 cases out of 4800. 5 sick, one dead (41 years old). which means hospitalisation is at 0.83% and CFR is 0.016% (1% dead or in hospital). Not idea what is the average age, probably around 30-35. Diamond Princess: 700 of 3711. CFR 1.…

You can't measure CFR or IFR this quickly in an isolated environment like the Roosevelt due to mortality lag.

Also, the CFR for Diamond Princess is now up to 1.83%.

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

#529

Post by newacct583 »

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?

This is like the third or fourth spot I've seen on this very site where people are postulating that covid deaths would have really died in "months" anyway. Why is this so weirdly consistent?

To be clear: there is absolutely no evidence for a number like that, none at all. Typical at-risk patients with comorbidity like advanced age or obesity are routinely expected to live for decades. Actual conditions with a death-in-months prognosis are extremely rare, and tend to require hospital care already. Think advanced heart failure or stage 5 cancer.

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

#530

Post by greedo »

DeonPenny wrote: post #132
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But if that held then we'd eradicate flu and the common cold two. Quarantines don't eradicate disease they slow the spread but the area under the curve is constant. I doubt will change the number of infected is a constant regardless of the rate.

The flu mutates. The common cold isn't a single virus, but one of hundreds lumped together, that also mutate. So there's no long term herd immunity for either.
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