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

601–610 of 679 posts

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

#601

Post by wtvanhest »

varenc wrote: post #459
CydeWeys wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study is dramatically over-sampling exactly the people who have the most potential exposure to COVID-19, and dramatically over-sampling the people who don't. This could easily be way off. It's not testing the people who aren't home at all, and it has a low chance of only testing the people who leave home rarely, only when strictly necessary. It's mainly finding the people who leave home a lot.

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.

I’m starting to believe that the difference in opinions on whether these studies are legitimate or not hinges heavily on personal behavior.

For my wife and I and kid, we live in SF and order food when we can from grocery. When we can’t, I put on an N99 mask and gloves and buy 2 weeks worth of groceries. Then go through a ritual to be as safe as possible entering the home and bringing groceries in.

If someone asks me at the grocery store to take the covid test, no way. How would I even do that safely???

I live in San Francisco though and am worried about the fact that the grocery is 70% instacart workers.

Everyone I know in the city (nyc, sf, Boston, Chicago etc.) is trying to use 3rd parties to get their groceries.

Everyone I know in the suburbs is going to the store.

I believe the reason people read this study differently is that their experience is different. The whole foods in downtown sf would be scary to be in without a mask. And I view it as the riskiest place I have to go.

It’s full of gig workers who are taking way more risk than the average person.

We will know more when we see the results of the study, but I think we need a more random sample before thinking this NYC study is even remotely close to showing that 20% of NYCers previously had it

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

#602

Post by camgunz »

arcticbull wrote: post #482
camgunz wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, and I know people read this stuff and their quack heuristics start firing, the reason people are so afraid about Covid's impact on young people is because the mainstream media has intentionally promulgated a narrative that "young people are at risk too" because they fear that otherwise young people wouldn't submit to glorified house arrest for months straight. They've reported that because young peop…

Young people are also drastically less likely to get severe disease, and drastically less likely to be hospitalized, see FIGURE 1. [1] I find it very suspicious that young people who don't go to the hospital with severe disease would require oxygen or end up with life-long lung injuries. > Everyone needs to stay practice social distancing and shelter, because everyone can carry and spread. Sweden has demonstrated at…

> I find it very suspicious that young people who don't go to the hospital with severe disease would require oxygen or end up with life-long lung injuries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/09/my-near-d...

Or I don't know, Google ventilator effects. Lung scarring. Young people get this, and it hurts them, maybe forever. It's not common, but it's absolutely not never, and you can still spread the virus if you're asymptomatic. Seems like people should try and avoid getting it!

> Sweden has demonstrated at national scale that's not the case.

Sweden is so unlike the US in so many ways, this is a worthless anecdote. Imagine the differences in demographics, density, culture, literally everything.

> The reality is about 60% of us are going to get it one way or the other, so let's control which 60%, and in what order, and on what timeline before everyone stops listening and just walks out.

It's by no means certain 60% of us will get it. Especially if we do what we should do and build a competent testing and tracing system. The attitude that this is inevitable is lazy and puts thousands of lives in jeopardy.

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

#603

Post by TheCowboy »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #341
TheCowboy wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguing it's a matter of bias sidesteps the reasoning for lockdowns. This is like when someone dismisses someone for possessing a political bias---that's not an argument. And framing it as lockdown vs. being able to feed your family is a false dichotomy. It seems like a waste to even get into the finer details if this is where you're coming from, but keep calling it hate while ignoring the criticism.

No, it's a very real dichotomy. People won't literally starve in the US, but waiting in a bread line for hours is very different than feeding your family through your own money and effort.

No, this is a very fake dichotomy.

The array of options available to society is not "starve" vs. "waiting in a bread line for hours" vs. "feeding your family" as can be seen by countries that have approached this problem differently.

And lemon zest isn't spicy.

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

#604

Post by twomoretime »

leereeves wrote: post #525
CydeWeys wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

>similar to the IFR arrived at by other studies using very different methods

With the wild range of IFR from so many studies, you could trivially cherry pick supporting studies for a bunch of different numbers, especially if you throw in am error range.

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

#605

Post by missedthecue »

wh1t3n01s3 wrote: post #388
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.

Herd immunity will cap the total %! The second wave will be less contagious where current infection rate is higher.

Currently almost 100% of Americans have not caught and recovered from covid-19. Herd immunity is a long ways off.

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

#606

Post by qqqwerty »

timr wrote: post #579
qqqwerty wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone worth arguing with acknowledges the limitations of the PCR testing. You are essentially suggesting that we ignore the limitations and biases of these serological surveys. If a handful of internet denizens can quickly point out methodological flaws, maybe the researches should try to address or account for those. I fully understand the urgency of the matter, and that urgency can lead to mistakes. But these stud…

"You are essentially suggesting that we ignore the limitations and biases of these serological surveys." I am not. I am suggesting that you are preferring a rate based on an even more biased method, because the method yields a bigger number. "If a handful of internet denizens can quickly point out methodological flaws, maybe the researches should try to address or account for those." If a handful of internet denizens…

> I am suggesting that you are preferring a rate based on an even more biased method, because the method yields a bigger number.

What method? I merely stated that PCR has limitations, I never said I was using it to calculate IFR.

For the record, my assumptions are that IFR is around 1%. That is largely based on the Diamond Princess data. The original paper suggested it was 0.5%[1], but at the time there were only 7 fatalities. The current number is 13. The raw IFR is now up to 1.8%. Crudely adjusting for demographics based on the ratio in the paper puts the IFR around 1%. This is the only population that was both comprehensively tested and occurred long enough ago for most of the cases to resolve (although some cases are still active/critical[2]). And I fully acknowledge that this approach has limitations. It is a small population, it happened earlier in the crisis when we knew less about treatment, etc... But I sill think it is the best data point we have.

> If a handful of internet denizens can quickly point out "methodological flaws", it usually means that the "methodological flaws" they have discovered are well-known and accounted for.

Except the Santa Clara study did not do that. They acknowledged potential bias, but did nothing to adjust for it. From the source:

"Other biases, such as bias favoring individuals in good health capable of attending our testing sites, or bias favoring those with prior COVID-like illnesses seeking antibody confirmation are also possible. The overall effect of such biases is hard to ascertain."

The LA and NY papers have not been published yet.

[1] https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/diamond_cruise_cfr_es... [2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

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

#607

Post by luckylion »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #460
luckylion wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting the riots in the banlieus in France are done by "astroturf protestors"? And "flattening the curve" to buy time until we get a vaccine or a very successful treatment was literally in the comment I replied to. Not as in "we must lockdown until then", but as a goal we may reach if we continue with strict measures. It's fine to want that, we just have to be aware that it might not happen (or might not…

There are different mitigation options other than just heavy suppression via lockdown. Flattening the curve doesn't imply lockdown, for instance.

Like "wear masks in public to lower transmission probability"? Anything that will let us carry on in a way that's close to normal is fine.

"Flattening the curve" was, at least here, generally translated into "stay at home if possible, keep 2m distance in public, close non-essential stores and offices". And those aren't sustainable, and they come at a price.

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

#608

Post by not_a_moth »

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…

Except your hypothetical "never leave house" population is probably <5% of the population - every single person I know is still going out to public places at some time during the week.

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

#610

Post by Mikeb85 »

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…

I literally made the same comment a few days ago but here goes: every thread about a study such as this one is has criticisms concerning the scientific accuracy even though all these studies point to the same conclusion and not one of them provide evidence to the contrary.

This isn't exact science, we're in the middle of a pandemic. But all these antibody studies are pointing towards the same conclusion.

Post reply on HN