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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]

#311
post #308
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take that bet. Easily. 1/ 1000? Ha! Anytime. If it means my kids can go to school, economy doesn't have to crash hard and I don't have to waste a year or more of my life, it's an obvious choice. 1 year is ~1.25% of my life that I will not get back no matter what. Now, anyone is free to stay in their pod and eat bugs, if they're scared.

Make a list of 20 ~40 year olds you know. Are you ok with there being a 2% chance that at least one of them dies of COVID?

When exactly did our societies became so cuddly, childish, weak and pathetic to even ask these questions?

How would this society fight any large scale war? Or make any large scale sacrifice like people fixing up consequences of Chernobyl disaster did?

People used to rather die for honor, than live in shame. Had duels, took risky lifestyles, discovering new things and so on. Fought and died for their ideas.

And now what? Wrap yourself in a blanket and lie scared on the bed?

What's the point of living, if we're too afraid to die to actually live?

I am pessimistic on changes of survival of western civilization.

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a "causal nexus" is not accepted in any law system (natural or positive). The fact something can happen due to your actions can't be used as an ethical argument to limit your freedom of action. From the perspective of individual freedoms the ban of guns is unacceptable under the pretense they might end up harming others by chance; if that's the case, the police and the military themselves shouldn't have g…

"Also under the perspective of individual freedoms, the enforcement of masks is not justifiable. If you feel unsafe due to a potential virus outbreak, take your precautions but don't force others to do whatever they want to do. Otherwise, we'd fall into authoritarianism" How about a slight rewrite: "Also under the perspective of individual freedoms, the enforcement of restrictions on release of toxic or radioactive s…

Except that the release of toxic or radioactive substances cause definite harm, as opposed to walking around without a mask, which doesn't cause harm (unless you assume all people are sick and/or everyone carries viruses and are vectors to transmit them). Also, masks are proven to not be effective to protect the spread of viruses, according to the CDC.

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herd immunity has never happened without a vaccine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity > Herd immunity was first recognized as a naturally occurring phenomenon in the 1930s when A. W. Hedrich published research on the epidemiology of measles in Baltimore, and took notice that after many children had become immune to measles, the number of new infections temporarily decreased, including among susceptible children. (To be clear, though, I don't think the herd i…

I guess I should have said 'Successful herd immunity'. The sentence after what you quoted is:

"Mass vaccination to induce herd immunity has since become common and proved successful in preventing the spread of many infectious diseases."

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

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a debunked claim that arose from conflating IFR vs CFR. Please source your claim. In terms of overall IFR Influenza and COVID-19 appear to be comparable. Influenza kills at least an order of magnitude more children, and for those in between roughly 35-55 they both kill about the same, and for the very elderly COVID-19 is multiple times more deadly. The overall IFRs are very comprable except COVID-19 preferent…

This is trivially disproven by the excess mortality figures from earlier in the year. By the start of the Summer the UK had around 60,000 excess deaths above the five year median - which included at least one fairly severe flu season. Later in the Summer when lockdown was still in place and/or infection rates were still very controlled, the number of excess deaths dipped slightly below the median - as you would expec…

You're not taking into account the denominator - the number of people getting infected.

This new virus spread far and fast, while seasonal flu is significantly more blocked off by how many people have immunity or vaccines. Number of deaths is lower for seasonal flu because the number who get infected by those known viruses is also much lower. That's why the IFR is close yet for this year more people are dying.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of your analysis falls apart at one crucial point: all of the data we have are for Covid19 IFR given the massive lockdowns and dedicated hospital infrastructure . If you look at regions that were ineffective in handling the spread and had their hospital capacity overwhelmed, mortality jumps through the roof - I think it was higher than 10% in Lombardia before the lockdowns. And remember that hospitals can't work…

I am genuinely baffled by the number of people who are slipping around this point. We don’t regularly have hospital ITUs stuffed full of people with influenza, threatening to overwhelm capacity. We don’t generally have city-, region- and country-wide lockdowns where transmission is massively curtailed. Even a very casual look at what happened in different countries makes it clear that this disease has an obviously di…

When it comes to hospitalizations and fatality rates, people are talking past each other by only looking at part of the picture. The two main camps I see are:

1) Covid19 is far more deadly, look at all these excess deaths!

2) The IFR is low, about the same as the seasonal flu, so we really didn't need the lockdowns.

Both are half true.

Basically, we have decent herd immunity for existing viruses. Even with an identical IFR, the viruses are acting differently because we lack(ed) any real herd immunity for the new virus - so everyone was getting infected at once, which means everyone getting sick at once and risking overwhelming hospitals (this is the part people in camp 2 miss). On the flip side, because we do have decent herd immunity with existing viruses, either due to prior exposure or vaccine, seasonal flu doesn't spread nearly as far (this is the part people in camp 1 miss). A lot less people getting infected means a lot less people getting sick or dying, which explains the excess death despite the same IFR.

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

#316
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested, but it seems like you'll need more than buzzfeed news as a source if you're claiming that Stanford scientists are unreliable.

Curiously, Stanford excels at poor research methodology these days, with MIT a close second. It turns out that faculty positions are competitive enough at the elites that few make it in without cheating. There has been a steady decline in research integrity (with a parallel incline in research impact) as competition went up. I'm not sure what to do about it. I know MIT better than Stanford, and fixing the culture wou…

> In CS, it's a lot harder to bake data.

You've never read a machine learning paper, I take it. Those results are by far the easiest to bake.

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

#317
post #311
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make a list of 20 ~40 year olds you know. Are you ok with there being a 2% chance that at least one of them dies of COVID?

When exactly did our societies became so cuddly, childish, weak and pathetic to even ask these questions? How would this society fight any large scale war? Or make any large scale sacrifice like people fixing up consequences of Chernobyl disaster did? People used to rather die for honor, than live in shame. Had duels, took risky lifestyles, discovering new things and so on. Fought and died for their ideas. And now wh…

I dunno, my take on it is how can we fight a large scale war if we can't even stay in our homes for a couple months instead of going out to bars / concerts / sports events. On the scale of sacrifices that is pretty small compared to going to war or fixing a nuclear meltdown, and we can't even manage that.

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the point. There are rules now, so not following them would indeed make it your fault if someone gets sick because of your actions that were not in accordance with the rules.

Because if I go out into the world and get infected with a disease, that’s one of the risks of living life, and we have always understood that. That’s why if you catch the flu nobody blames the man next to you at the grocery store. For COVID we throw this out the window. When you take the approach to its logical conclusion you end up in a very scary place.

One of the risks of sex is venereal disease. I probably shouldn’t bother with condoms though, it’s just one of the risks of living life. Is this the same logic you are using, or am I misunderstanding you?

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

#319
post #16

Here's another recent meta-study (preprint) on the same topic: Assessing the Age Specificity of Infection Fatality Rates for COVID-19: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Public Policy Implications https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v... Abstract: This paper assesses the age specificity of the infection fatality rate (IFR) for COVID-19 using results from 29 seroprevalence studies as well as…

Your linked study is much better than Ionnadis' one! This one actually followed the proper protocol for a meta-analysis for one. The results here are better stratified, the data more solid (because they did their meta-analysis properly), and the justifications better. For those not familiar with biostatistics and meta-analysis. There is a standard and well defined pathway for doing a meta-analysis. It exists for a re…

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like we need to restructure our social safety nets in America to prevent hunger + starvation and make sure people get the health care they need regardless of their ability to pay.

That's what you got from this? An opportunity to inject a political talking point? People are afraid to go into a hospital. From March until September (for some states), people were being turned away because their routine screenings and exams were not seen as essential. Screenings and exams that can catch lumps, polyps, etc. Routine medical care is down across the board. Dental health is suffering. For food, global s…

Are there accessible data on this? From where I'm standing now in the US, coverage about the pandemic has basically halted.
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