Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

news.psu.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 210 posts

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#141

Post by Simon_says »

ageitgey wrote: post #47
ManlyBread wrote: post #12

I became numb to news like this because it doesn't seem to have any reflection in the reality around me. The numbers are supposed to be huge yet hospitals are nearly empty and no one I asked knows anyone who was infected. The 80x number looks like science fiction to me.

People want this thing to be over, so there's a desire to find reasons to believe that we are further along than we thought. Combined with this being a novel disease that no one fully understands, there's a lot of room for those theories to develop. The current best science answer to how many people remain susceptible to infection is "nobody really knows but our best guess is not to assume the best case without bette…

How many deaths in terms of Libraries of Congress?

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#142

Post by ageitgey »

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #134
LandR wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country the breakdown for excess deaths is: 15 - 44 = 27 45 - 64 = 589 75 - 84 = 1356 85 + = 1761 If you are under 40 your risk of dying seems to be very very low.

> If you are under 40 your risk of dying seems to be very very low. Based on the figures you provided I make that close to 0.7%. It is low but I wouldn't describe it as very very low :-)

You did the math incorrectly. You can't add up the total deaths and then divide by one of them to get your chance of dying in that age group.

The populations of those are ranges are different sizes. There are many fewer people alive who are in the 85+ group than there are in the 15-44 group. So if you work that out based on the relative population sizes, you'll get a much lower death rate for the under 40 group.

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#143

Post by AmericanChopper »

chimprich wrote: post #119
AmericanChopper wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/new-york-cit... > The soaring death toll has been fueled by the adding of 3,778 people who were not tested for Covid-19 but are presumed to have died from it. Singapore’s organised approach is clearly going to produce much more reliable statistics than NYs presumption based approach.

"Presumed to have died from it" is quite a long way from "anybody who could have potentially been infected". Doctor friends tell me it's usually pretty clear when they have a COVID patient.

The criteria is whatever a doctor chooses to put on the death certificate, for what ever reason they choose.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-york-start-reportin...

> Asked about the numbers Wednesday, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, commissioner of the city Health Department, said the "unfortunate reality is there have been people who have died either directly because of COVID or indirectly because of COVID."

> Barbot said only time would tell what that number really meant. Some deaths, for example, could have been registered as having been caused by heart attacks because people had not yet developed coronavirus symptoms, when they should have been counted as probable COVID-19 victims, she said.

So NY officials state that their recorded death toll should reflect both direct and indirect fatalities, whatever an indirect fatality is supposed to mean, and that a person who dies without Covid symptoms, and who has not tested positive, should be counted as a fatality. So unless they have proof Covid wasn’t a contributing factor in any way, it’s counted, which does actually sound a lot like “ anybody who could have potentially been infected”...

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#144

Post by LandR »

ageitgey wrote: post #142
chosenbreed37 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are under 40 your risk of dying seems to be very very low. Based on the figures you provided I make that close to 0.7%. It is low but I wouldn't describe it as very very low :-)

You did the math incorrectly. You can't add up the total deaths and then divide by one of them to get your chance of dying in that age group. The populations of those are ranges are different sizes. There are many fewer people alive who are in the 85+ group than there are in the 15-44 group. So if you work that out based on the relative population sizes, you'll get a much lower death rate for the under 40 group.

Exactly, for example for cases under 40 y/o:

South Korea: 5539, deaths = 5 = 0.09%

Switzerland: 8874, deaths = 5 = 0.05%

Italy: 37139, deaths = 84 = 0.22%

Netherlands: 8207, deaths = 14 = 0.17%

This is from wikipedia for the respective countries, some countries figures are more up to date than others.

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#145

Post by gizmo »

baxtr wrote: post #140
gizmo wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because the "flatten the curve" crowd believed that the virus was in early stages; the lockdown was to prevent uncontrolled spreading. The virus looks super lethal when deaths are starting to pile up when only a tiny percentage of the country was believed to have been exposed. But in reality the virus had almost peaked by the time people started to panic, which made all those lockdown or flatten the curve measure…

Got it thanks. This assumption is of course undermined by the fact that seroprevalence of antibodies is not that high even in countries like Sweden. At the same time I know a person who had minor symptoms, was then tested positive in PCR but negative in a later AB test. Combine this with studies on SARS1 and MERS where only half of all asymptomatic patients developed ABs and the assumption you presented seems suddenl…

Your immune system protects against millions of diseases, but does it continuously produce antibodies for all of them? Of course not. This means that testing positive for covid19 antibodies is strong evidence that person has been infected with covid19, but the inverse is not true. That's why we don't do antibody tests for the seasonal flu: there's just no point.

Depends on what you mean by "over". Covid19 is trending down in the northern hemisphere and it will continue to trend down even after all countries stop with their ineffective lockdown measures, but the virus won't disappear completely. But life can go back to normal, except people should be a little more careful about washing their hands and not visit the elderly if they feel sick. But handwashing and consideration for the health of the vulnerable should be the default anyway, and we should do that regardless of covid.

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#146

Post by the-rc »

christkv wrote: post #9
gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #3

How does this reconcile with the actual data we have on total infection rate in e.g. Spain where a representative poll was done?

We now know a significant amount of people have no symptoms or very light symptoms and no antibody response. An anecdote. My friend and his wife got tested when giving birth. She was positive for antibodies he was not. It is quite possible that for ever person who had antibodies there is some unknown x of people who got it and never developed antibodies.

Another anecdote from NY. I had mild symptoms in mid March that didn't exactly match what was being described in the press. Spending hours at the hospital trying to get tested seemed riskier, so I was never diagnosed. In late April I got tested at Mount Sinai hospital for antibodies as part of their study and I was positive, with a high titer. A friend of mine was, too, with a low titer. In a second test two weeks ago I still had the same titer, while she was negative. As an additional anecdote, without mention of other variables, the nurse taking the second sample told me that males had a higher titer on average. I think we also have higher mortality rates, though.

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#147

Post by gizmo »

ageitgey wrote: post #139
gizmo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current best science answer to how many people remain susceptible to infection is "nobody really knows but our best guess is not to assume the best case without better evidence so act like the worst case". Absolutely not. The scientific approach is to look at the new disease and see how it compares to other similar RTIs. For instance, covid19 was discovered around October at the start of the seasonal flu season…

> Absolutely not. The scientific approach is to look at the new disease and see how it compares to other similar RTIs. I think the the scientific approach is to use the best data you have at a given time and update your understanding as you get new data. You make a lot of big claims that contradict multiple specific studies with published results. It's clear you hope that the epidemic is over (as we all do). But hope…

Scientific consensus takes years to form, so any claim I make will be contradicted by some scientific findings and affirmed by others. What I outlined in the part you quoted is the null hypothesis: that this new coronavirus behaves like the other coronaviruses we are familiar with. That may of course turn out to be false, but it's indisputably the correct starting point for any serious analysis.

My objection was that many early predictions disregarded this null hypothesis and only looked at preliminary data thereby discarding everything we've learned about RTIs in the past 200 years. That's how you end up with predictions that are off by 1000x or more. That is a huge blunder, and really inexcusable.

You say we don't have a lot of actual evidence yet, but I think we do. For instance we see that Sweden that didn't lock down has practically indistinguishable All Cause Deaths outcomes as the neighboring Nordics[1]. Many predicted that Sweden would have catastrophically worse outcomes but it hasn't. How is that possible when clearly the virus is spreading freely in Sweden but the outcome isn't any worse? Locking down a country 5 months into the Flu season is completely pointless because by that point too large a percentage of the population is infected already, so you wouldn't expect that to make any kind of meaningful difference. And that's consistent with the data. In the VS abnormal deaths were at a 6-year high in November[2]! The notion that Covid19 was contained for --months-- in China is an absurdity, given how much we travel by air. Antibodies were also found in sewage from December all over Europe, which proves beyond a doubt that virus spread without us even realizing it for months! If I had more time I could give you countless more sources, but the evidence clearly points in one direction: New coronavirus just like other known coronaviruses.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZlnYQCU0AA0jkv?format=png&name=...

[2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZNQ9arUEAAS9W9?format=png&name=...

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#148

Post by vertex-four »

fastball wrote: post #127
vertex-four wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Has there ever been one? Or is the fear a natural human response to an invisible, omnipresent killer?

Well, I guess I should say you can have a pandemic without a fear-mongering news media that significantly exacerbates it. I personally am not "fearful" of COVID-19, as are many (most) people I know, so it is clearly possible for the general human.

If you're not fearful and nor are most people you know, who are you claiming is fearful?

Personally, my behaviour patterns have changed. I'm more aware of when someone I don't know is near me. When I hear about the vulnerable people in my close community who suddenly have to navigate the world with significantly increased risk, I feel worried for them.

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#149

Post by mcv »

ageitgey wrote: post #131
mcv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I heard, about half the deaths are people under 55 (edit: I can't find that source anymore and all figures suggest it's wrong). The individual risk is still higher the older you are, but plenty of young people have died from this (610 in the US, for example). But even if you don't know anyone who died from it, you can still know people who are ill. My ex-brother-in-law has been in and out of the hospital 4…

> From what I heard, about half the deaths are people under 55. The individual risk is still higher the older you are, but plenty of young people have died from this. You are incorrect. COVID is largely a disease that affects the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. Here are the actual numbers from England (England only, not to be confused with the overall UK): - All COVID deaths, age 0-59: 2,210 - All COV…

Note that the person I was responding to was talking about 10s of people, you're already pointing out it's hundreds or thousands.

My point is merely: don't think you're immune just because you're young. More young people have died from this than most people think.

Re: Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported

#150

Post by addicted »

leereeves wrote: post #82
SifJar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One further thing to bear in mind here is that some causes of death can be expected to be decreased on account of lockdowns e.g. accidents - less people out and about, less people driving etc. will naturally lead to less accidents. Of course on the flip side, more people stuck at home & using the time to do renovation work etc. could lead to an increase in e.g. power tool related accidents. Other causes of death such…

Contrariwise, people are avoiding treatment for other illnesses for fear of catching COVID in a hospital. Many people are depressed or even suicidal. And people are less active, which aggravates other health problems. All of these factors could increase the number of deaths.

3 months of lower activity is not killing people in those 3 months.

Any effects will be felt on a much longer timeframe.

Most office workers have very sedentary lives anyways, that didn’t become significantly more sedentary when they replaced their drive with a walk to another room and working in an office with working in that room.

Throw in the fact that they are likely cooking more because restaurants and all were shut and not just having lunch delivered to their office, they may even be getting more activity in.

Post reply on HN