Infection fatality rate of Covid-19 inferred from seroprevalence data [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by White_Wolf » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #22

White_Wolf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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"

If I were to use the "It didn't happen to me so it must not be happening anywhere else" logic I would say something sily like: - "We tested positive(including at blood tests for the exact strain) and none of us had any simptoms so nobody is dead or even sick. It's all a lie."

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

#122

Post by robocat » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

bearjaws wrote: post #49

rich_sasha wrote: post #14

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 i…

> that is still 1/4th the death toll of the virus itself.

That is the wrong comparison. We all die.

One better comparison could be expected years of life. The number I read was that Covid causes an expected decrease of 10 years in lifetime. What was the expected decrease in lifetime for those cancer patients because they missed out on treatment? I know you are only calculating a ballpark figure, but I suspect your ballpark is too inaccurate to be useful.

A sibling comment mentions quality-of-life-adjusted years.

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

#123

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

qwerty1234599 wrote: post #93

rossdavidh wrote: post #2

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.

Daily reminder: new respitory diseases come and go, nobody usually cares. What makes Covid different and what caused the shutdowns was when Lombardy alone had 450 deaths a day. No regular influenza could do that. It's not as if we decided out of thin air the virus was dangerous.

[deleted]

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

#124

Post by bleepblorp » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

moralsupply wrote: post #104

hef19898 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stories like this are the reason for all the social disrancing measures and work from home. Not everybody can follow this of course. But those jobs that can be done from home should be done from home. And social distancing should be followed as much as possible. Sadly, people have to be forced to do so it seems.

The only really sad thing is that so many people believe others should be forced (through the use of the monopoly of force the state holds) to do whatever they believe is "right"

It's generally illegal, outside of narrow circumstances, to fire guns in populated areas largely because stray bullets will kill people.

Stray respiratory droplets exhaled by people infected with SARS-CoV-2 will also kill people.

Presumably you're OK with rules that prevent people from firing guns in public. Why are you not OK with rules that are intended to reduce the risk of people unnecessarily spreading fatal infectious droplets in public?

Your right to shoot firearms ends at my body. Why should your right to spread a fatal disease extend into my lungs?

And, before you say that I should take some 'personal responsibility' to protect myself against infection, should that premise extend to wearing type IV body armor in public just so others can shoot guns in populated areas?

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

#125

Post by notahacker » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #69

lima wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies on long-term consequences of a virus that has been around for <1 year?

People are claiming "long covid" for a virus that's been around for <1 year, so presumably the prevalence of this "long covid" could be studied?

Studies and reviews are taking place. The NIHR one suggests prevalence of symptoms lasting over a month in the 10-20% range.[1]

As with any other early stage research relying heavily on self reported symptoms, the prevalence figures are not well established and the mechanisms causing it not yet understood, but they don't look like flu.

[1]https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3981, https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Livin...

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

#126

Post by danenania » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #96

sschueller wrote: post #83

What percentage of people who get the flu are asymptomatic? I think the biggest issue with covid is people spreading it who don't even know they have it. A friend of mine just happened to get a test and was found positive. The only symptom they had was a headache. Who can take a day of work because of a headache?

Stories like this are the reason for all the social disrancing measures and work from home. Not everybody can follow this of course. But those jobs that can be done from home should be done from home. And social distancing should be followed as much as possible. Sadly, people have to be forced to do so it seems.

It doesn't seem remotely possible to enforce measures like these--even in an authoritarian state with martial law, strict curfews, etc., the ratio of police to population is way too low to enable such microscopic control of individual behavior. Some percentage of people are going to do as they wish without regard to law or the interests of anyone else.

Not even in brutal military occupations can anything approaching this level of control be achieved, and even if it were possible, the totalitarian infrastructure required would have far worse consequences than a disease.

The best bet seems to be unified messaging and economic safety net programs that allow everyone who might be willing to comply under the right circumstances to do so. The US response has been a spectacular failure in both of these areas.

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

#127

Post by ianlevesque » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #103

rndgermandude wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This isn't good news, really, not for middle-aged-adults anyway. Or for anybody who knows middle aged and older people, especially if you spend time with them. I am honestly more concerned about killing my parents than dying myself of covid-19. This is why I skipped my mom's birthday for example, because I had pretty mild cold-like symptoms... or maybe mild covid-19.

That was always a risk even before COVID-19. Regular seasonal influenza can be deadly, especially to the elderly. Patients can transmit it to others when they are asymptomatic or presymptomatic. COVID-19 has a longer incubation period and a significantly higher fatality rate but the same fundamentals still apply. Any of us could have inadvertently killed someone by giving them the flu without even realizing it.

Thankfully the flu has an effective enough vaccine.

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

#128

Post by nradov » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #90

nradov wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on what you mean by "little immunity". Many people appear to have some immunity based on prior exposure to similar coronaviruses. That won't prevent infection but tends to reduce disease severity. https://www.jci.org/articles/view/143380

That "some immunity" is clearly insufficient, because people who actually got infected with Covid itself and then again with Covid, in many if not most cases have more severe symptoms. In fact, the scarce evidence suggests Covid might be a subject to Antibody Enhancement; that would mean that every next infection will get worse and worse. In any case, Coronaviruses have long be known to cause very short term immunity…

That is unscientific fear mongering. As with any virus there will be some outliers. But in general there is no evidence of widespread antibody enhancement. Reinfections are rare, and most reinfected cases have minor symptoms.

https://www.jimmunol.org/content/early/2020/09/03/jimmunol.2...

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

#129

Post by noja » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

nate_meurer wrote: post #117

noja wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple and oranges. That flu fatality rate is without social distancing.

No, IFR is the infection fatality rate. It's the number of fatalities divided by the number of infections. If you reduce the infection rate, the proportion of those infections that results in death will not change. This of course doesn't apply if healthcare systems are overwhelmed, but that's not what we're talking about here.

We don't test for who has flu.

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

#130

Post by nradov » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

lima wrote: post #80

logicchains wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't even have to be worse than post-viral syndrome caused by other severe viral infections for it to be a problem. There's little immunity to COVID-19 and it's highly contagious. But it does make it highly inconsistent to adopt policies so extremely destructive to economic and mental health when the same wasn't done for other viruses with similar long-term effects.

We have a chance at eradicating COVID-19, unlike other viruses that have been endemic for decades.

How would we eradicate a virus that has animal hosts? If the prevailing origin hypothesis is correct then the virus is presumably still circulating among horseshoe bats.