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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]

#41

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…

This is more or less what Texas has decided to do. I’m in California, but my entire family is there, and many of my younger family members are going about their lives relatively normally.

At least one of my cousins caught it and their whole young family (parents 30’s, kids Everybody hated on Texas because of the Lt. Governor’s over the top declaration of sacrificing grandparents for the economy, but there are definitely aspects of their approach that I prefer to what’s happened in California.

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

#42
post #33

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…

There's plenty of evidence of long-term damage even in young and barely symptomatic cases - it's not a binary "dead/not dead" outcome. What if the virus causes substantial disease burden years to decades down the road? We can't know, and should take every precaution to prevent its spread.

While I agree, we must always consider the impact of lockdown. This is what is missing to me in the current strategies. For example, how do the rare, and very significant, long-term health issues compare to the fairly prevalent mental health issues caused by lockdown, unemployment etc?

I'm in no position to make that call, maybe lockdown is still the right answer. But we absolutely must do this analysis seriously, publicise the results and debate it widely.

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

#43
post #38

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…

The sad reality is that broad, indiscriminate lockdowns are the only real tool available to some "world powers". We know we can manage the covid pandemic with ubiquitous testing and targeted temporary lockdowns. But there is no testing capacity. Which means ... it's not really possible to rethink the lockdown strategies. Given a choice between a thing that directly kills people, and something that more people die fro…

It's not even clear that lockdowns prevent deaths. A recent peer-reviewed study found lockdowns aren't associated with a statistically significant decrease in the number of deaths; what matters is social distancing: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp...

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

#44
post #38

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…

The sad reality is that broad, indiscriminate lockdowns are the only real tool available to some "world powers". We know we can manage the covid pandemic with ubiquitous testing and targeted temporary lockdowns. But there is no testing capacity. Which means ... it's not really possible to rethink the lockdown strategies. Given a choice between a thing that directly kills people, and something that more people die fro…

It feels to me in some cases there is a bit of a point of principle here: "look, we're inflicting so much pain on everyone, just to make sure you're safe".

If an evil alien race came and threatened to kill everyone unless we isolate everyone over 45, I'm sure humanity could do it.

If we can't be smart about fighting the pandemic, that's a super sad statement about humanity's ingenuity.

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

#45

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-...

Also: https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1316511734115385344

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

#46

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…

This same comment posted 3 or 4 months ago would have been downvoted into oblivion. Now it's the top comment on this article. It's good to see peoples' perspective is becoming more reasonable on this issue.

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

#47
post #38

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…

The sad reality is that broad, indiscriminate lockdowns are the only real tool available to some "world powers". We know we can manage the covid pandemic with ubiquitous testing and targeted temporary lockdowns. But there is no testing capacity. Which means ... it's not really possible to rethink the lockdown strategies. Given a choice between a thing that directly kills people, and something that more people die fro…

We could do age-based lockdowns. Stores near me have ~2 hour periods in the day where you can only shop if you're 65+, I don't see why they can't make that the only time 65+ people are allowed to enter.

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

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nowhere outside of places New Zealand and Taiwan has had long-term, unconditional lockdowns, and nowhere in the US has reached anywhere near this level of restrictions. I live in a state that ostensibly had “extreme” lockdowns and whole cities and communities decided themselves exempt from the orders with zero consequences. It’s also impossible to stratify people on the basis of health in the US because not everyone…

UK put everyone who cannot work due to Covid on 80% of their salary (sort of). So surely it could do that to a smaller cohort too.

That US cannot do it is no reason to not consider it.

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

#49

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…

Only two states have continued preventing elective surgeries, one state (Texas) that was overwhelmed stopped but has since re-allowed them.

Around 60,000 cancer patients will be under-treated due to corona virus. The current estimates are that 10,000 people will die due to missed treatment. Just for the "fun" of it, lets assume all of them died due to under-treatment, that is still 1/4th the death toll of the virus itself.

If the goal is fewer deaths, why don't we encourage more treatment AND continue practicing social distancing? We can have both in this case.

I am 100% sure that the number of people who have died due to the lock down is a tiny fraction of those that have died of covid...

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

#50
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of evidence of long-term damage even in young and barely symptomatic cases - it's not a binary "dead/not dead" outcome. What if the virus causes substantial disease burden years to decades down the road? We can't know, and should take every precaution to prevent its spread.

For example? I haven't seen a single paper showing such long-term consequences in healthy people are significantly more likely than from other viral infections. We'd especially expect to be seeing a large number of such cases in Sweden, should it be common, given they had no lockdown and a large number of infections.

Of course you haven't seen papers describing long-term effects, simply because the virus hasn't been around long enough for any long-term conclusions.

Therefore there are no studies saying there are NO long term effects either.

There are clues that long term effects/permanent effects even in mild cases may exist. E.g. some six scuba divers with mild symptoms/asymptomatic progression were checked afterwards (Innsbruck, Austria) and had what looked like permanent lung damage. Then again, the sample size here is far too small and the cohort far to "exotic" to draw any conclusions yet.

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