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Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

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Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#21
Dr. Flaxman of IHME reviews the paper as unsalvageable.

https://rapidreviewscovid19.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/p6tto8hl/re...

Dr. Ioannidis makes some of the same statistical mistakes he made in his Santa Clara seroprevalance estimate paper in April.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-not-to-do-an-...

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#22
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) A COVID-19 infection can have long-term effects even in young people. (2) We all have seen the images of hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, not having enough breathers, etc. For some reason this doesn't happen with the typical annual influenza ... If you reduce everything to statistics about mortality rates, you are missing very important parts of the picture.

(1) Is generic and not entirely true. Long term effects are indeed present but only in those genetically predisposed. Doesn't apply to the majority. (2) Actually we didn't. My wife works in a small city hospital. They only have 4 beds with respirators and almost never had more than 2-3 people at a time there. The city is being locked down the second time because we have 5 infected in 20k. We also had in the region of…

> (2) Actually we didn't. My wife works in a small city hospital.

"It didn't happen to me so it must not be happening anywhere else"

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#23
post #5

Some people will misinterpret the conclusion. It varies significantly by age brackets not considered in the paper. A 40 year old would be mistaken to assume their fatality chance is 0.31%.

Right, according to https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v... (table 3) its probably just a bit over 0.06% for 40 year olds.

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#24

So, can someone tell me again what fatality rate defines a pandemic?

As far as I know a pandemic is defined by the spread rate not by fatality rates. Doesn't include flu and the sorts.

You can have a virus that doesn't qualify as pandemic but can reach 100% kill rate or one that can hit 100% of planet with 0 dead.

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#25
We could reduce the IFR worldwide with a coordinated effort to test vitamin D levels, give supplements to those who need them, and administer a bolus to those in the early stage of the disease. While it's not a cure or substitute for other pandemic control measures, multiple peer-reviewed studies have now shown that vitamin D can significantly reduce risk. This is a cheap and effective intervention that could be applied almost everywhere. The WHO should be making that happen.

https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#26
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) A COVID-19 infection can have long-term effects even in young people. (2) We all have seen the images of hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, not having enough breathers, etc. For some reason this doesn't happen with the typical annual influenza ... If you reduce everything to statistics about mortality rates, you are missing very important parts of the picture.

(1) Need sources. This is extremely extremely extremely rare if so, and very speculative and unproven with no hard science. (2) This is also extremely extremely rare in under 70 population. Horrible things happen ALL THE TIME but there's a statistically miniscule chance of it happening to you. Everything in life is dangerous if you look at life the way you're championing. I think you might just be scared of LIFE in g…

1) long covid is still being studied, obviously, but there are many cases of it - https://bgr.com/2020/08/21/coronavirus-symptoms-long-covid-s...

It’s a disease that attacks your organs, there’s going to be damage.

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#27

As others say, this is way too much to say "meh", but I do think it needs a rethink of the lockdown strategies. Lockdowns kill people; people with cancer, people who need surgeries, people who lose income to support themselves. Clearly, so does Covid, and we need to balance it. Can we do better, as societies, if we aggressively protecting old and vulnerable people, and let fitter people continue with their lives? Thi…

Depends on the social security network, doesn't it?

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#28

As others say, this is way too much to say "meh", but I do think it needs a rethink of the lockdown strategies. Lockdowns kill people; people with cancer, people who need surgeries, people who lose income to support themselves. Clearly, so does Covid, and we need to balance it. Can we do better, as societies, if we aggressively protecting old and vulnerable people, and let fitter people continue with their lives? Thi…

> Lockdowns kill people Agreed. But what causes lockdowns? An uncontrolled pandemic. What does uncontrolled pandemic also cause? Collapse of healthcare infrastructure, which is a civil emergency that also results in countless deaths. Lockdowns, as implemented in places like the US, are a reactive measure because of a system-wide failure to adopt and maintain proactive measures needed to control things. You don’t arri…

I'm not demonizing lockdowns. They have a use, for sure, and they save lives. I just mean, they have their own downsides too, and we should use new data to evaluate how we implement them.

It is now clear societies cannot really afford full, long-term, unconditional lockdowns. We have to pick and choose what we do, stratifying by age/health conditions seems a good way about it to me.

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#29
post #4

For comparison, from what I've read the typical annual influenza fatality rate is around 0.1% (don't know what the under-70 rate would be). So, this puts covid-19 solidly in the uncanny valley of viral mortality rates; not low enough to be "just like a flu", not high enough to justify shutting down the world. No wonder opinions on it are so divided.

(1) A COVID-19 infection can have long-term effects even in young people. (2) We all have seen the images of hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, not having enough breathers, etc. For some reason this doesn't happen with the typical annual influenza ... If you reduce everything to statistics about mortality rates, you are missing very important parts of the picture.

> We all have seen the images of hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, not having enough breathers, etc. For some reason this doesn't happen with the typical annual influenza

Are you sure about that? it's probably not the same extent as what has happened with covid-19, but some hospitals do get overwhelmed during flu season.

A quick google search pre-2019 returns a lot of results, for instance:

https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie...

Re: Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf]

#30

As others say, this is way too much to say "meh", but I do think it needs a rethink of the lockdown strategies. Lockdowns kill people; people with cancer, people who need surgeries, people who lose income to support themselves. Clearly, so does Covid, and we need to balance it. Can we do better, as societies, if we aggressively protecting old and vulnerable people, and let fitter people continue with their lives? Thi…

Depends on the social security network, doesn't it?

It does. This is part of what I mean: if say 70% of the country can go about its business as normal, this frees a lot of resources for the state to help the remaining 30%. Stable-ish economies can foot the bill for this as well.

Simply caching away the unfit is not what I meant.

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