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My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

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Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#181

Post by kalipsosu »

eganist wrote: post #119
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A CT has a pretty high radiation dose. As far as I understand, for every 2000 people given a chest CT we expect 1 person to get a fatal form of cancer due to the CT. Compared to the natural incidence of getting a fatal cancer in your lifetime (about 400 in 2000), this is a very low. And for serious conditions, a CT can literally be a life saver. But if you apply chest CTs to screen for a disease with (let's say) a 0.…

From what we can tell, SARS-CoV-2 has a 2% mortality rate among those diagnosed. That seems like a pretty decent trade in odds if it accelerates early stage treatment.

2% within confirmed cases. There is a part of the iceberg which we cannot see because mild cases will not seek care. Actual mortality rate is far lower than that. You should check mortality rate for outside wuhan population. It is 0.08%

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#182

Post by mlyle »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #147
mlyle wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical statisticians are not tards, and the math used to estimate CFRs is reasonable. Yes, there's uncertainty, because when something is massively growing, it's not meaningful to test the population at large and ordinary surveillance mechanisms are not effective yet. We also don't really have serological testing (allegedly Singapore has a good serological assay?) which doesn't help. It's worth noting that the real…

>Medical statisticians are not tards This paper has 4000 citations: https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/1990/01000/No_Adjus...

So? It has a point. I disagree with a lot of it, but...

* The fundamental point: A study with 100 comparisons will erroneously reject the null hypothesis at pIn effect, we've unfairly penalized the study with multiple comparisons vs. the same findings showing up from studies with individual comparisons.

* Studies with multiple comparisons are great engines of hypothesis generation. Setting too high a bar for rejecting associations means that we'll possibly discard too much.

* Most of our tests for multiple comparisons assume a degree of statistical independence which just isn't present.

The abstract is particularly horribly written, but those three points are reasonable points. (At the same time, there's circumstances where obviously we need to adjust appropriately or get absolutely stupid, irreproducible results-- e.g. fMRI data.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#183

Post by vanusa »

prostheticvamp wrote: post #89
partiallypro wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently some kits were recalled because they were flawed and there is a shortage as a result. So it is somewhat understandable that the CDC doesn't want to test just anyone with flu like symptoms.

During flu season. That line is always left out of this: the CDC doesn’t want to test just anyone with cold and flu symptoms ... during flu season. The false positives are basically guaranteed to absolutely swamp the true positives at this time, and demolish any attempt to target the sick.

the CDC doesn’t want to test just anyone with cold and flu symptoms ... during flu season.

This wasn't just "anyone" though. But someone who tested negative for the usual suspects -- and just came back from a high-risk country.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#184

Post by vanusa »

prostheticvamp wrote: post #92
vanusa wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masks are considered useless unless you are infected. That's not what the guidelines said. They guidelines were referring only to "hygienic masks" a.k.a. generic surgical masks: The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) does not recommend that people who are well wear hygienic masks (surgical masks). If you are in good health, they do not protect you effectively against an infection with respiratory viruses (i.e. se…

They provide no /self/ protection. As I have said in multiple threads on this topic: we wear astm3 masks to protect /patients/ from /us/. A lot of hospital PPE is oriented towards /patient/ protection. And N95s are heavy and uncomfortable. No one can wear them for long. But if anyone wants to, they’re welcome to it.

Can you please clarify:

(1) Which category of mask are you saying provides "no" self protection -- ASTM 3 and N95? (I've read over your post multiple times, and not entirely clear).

(2) So to be clear - are you saying that N95s provide "no" self protection? Not just that they can be misused; or that protecting against surface droplets is more important; but literally "no" self protection?

(3) And if the answer to (2) is yes, can you provide a source or two we can use for further illumination on this topic?

I'm not trying to waste your time, here. I'd actually really appreciate your input.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#185

Post by medymed »

jonas21 wrote: post #148
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ~29000 deaths / 70M CT scans per year. That's 414 micromorts, which is almost exactly as risky as skydiving once on average. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort Source: US NCI 2007

The wikipedia article says skydiving is 8 micromorts per jump. So more like skydiving 50 times?

I don’t think biologic math always works combinatorially like multiple sky dives.

This sometime troubles me with radiation dosing comparisons. Another is time distribution, when a radiologic imaging study is equated with exposure from X amount of time in an airplane at high altitude. The time frames are different—- drinking 1 liter of water in an hour is usually safe, and drinking 50 liters of water is fine spaced out over a longer time period—-but not 50 liters over an hour. Radiation doses are often quite time dense.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#186

Post by themagician »

mlyle wrote: post #171
themagician wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the flu is really bad. But it’s not unusual.

I don't remember a recent flu year that's prompted governments to weld people inside their dwellings.

Yeah, because it didn’t fit a narrative. It didn’t have a scary name. In 2018, 80,000 people died from the flu in the United States alone. 80,000. The bulk of those deaths happened in a four month window. Sometimes hundreds or thousands of people died PER DAY. Think about that for a moment. Let that sink in. There was a weekend in 2018 that likely saw more deaths from the flu in the US alone than during this entire saga globally, which started back in November.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#187

Post by vanusa »

Barrin92 wrote: post #103
allovernow wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They need to prevent panic as much as possible, prevent economic collapse, etc. The response to events like this can be worse than the initial problem. If this event is half as bad as all the literature out of China is suggesting, panic is the least of our worries. What a responsible government should do is initiate some sort of recommendation for gradual stockpiling of goods - perhaps a lottery just to encourage th…

>If this event is half as bad as all the literature out of China is suggesting, panic is the least of our worries No. The risk of dying from this disease is negligible for most American adults. The real issue with the corona virus is economic disruption and overburdening of the healthcare system. All of which is significantly exarbarated by panic.

No. The risk of dying from this disease is negligible for most American adults.

Can you tell us please:

(1) What your numeric definition of "negligible" is

(2) And on what math this is estimate based?

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#188

Post by prostheticvamp »

vanusa wrote: post #184
prostheticvamp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They provide no /self/ protection. As I have said in multiple threads on this topic: we wear astm3 masks to protect /patients/ from /us/. A lot of hospital PPE is oriented towards /patient/ protection. And N95s are heavy and uncomfortable. No one can wear them for long. But if anyone wants to, they’re welcome to it.

Can you please clarify: (1) Which category of mask are you saying provides "no" self protection -- ASTM 3 and N95? (I've read over your post multiple times, and not entirely clear). (2) So to be clear - are you saying that N95s provide "no" self protection? Not just that they can be misused; or that protecting against surface droplets is more important; but literally "no" self protection? (3) And if the answer to (2)…

Sorry if I was unclear. ASTM3s do not provide self protection. They are estimated to reduce ambient virion uptake by about 2/3 - which just isn’t enough to make a meaningful difference most of the time, as 1/3 of the usual droplet output is already more than is needed to cause infection.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#189

Post by prostheticvamp »

petertodd wrote: post #163
prostheticvamp wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you worn an N95 for any particular amount of time? Honest question. Because Uou refer to a few grams as “not uncomfortable.” I find N95 face masks insufferably hot and muggy, with their “few grams” hanging off my nose and ears eventually very annoying. I don’t know if any hc workers that find N95s tolerable for very long.

I've spent a summer in +30°C heat doing demolition and foam insulation in a house that had been through a fire. I had to wear a heavy half face cartridge respirator the whole time due to both the toxins from the fire, and the toxins from the foam insulation. I wouldn't say that was fun. But it was tolerable. A N95 mask is fine by comparison - not much worse than a surgical mask.

That’s funny, because I wear the cartridge respirator outside of work for some hobbyist reno stuff I do, and find it much more tolerable than the N95. To each their own, I suppose.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#190

Post by mlyle »

themagician wrote: post #186
mlyle wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember a recent flu year that's prompted governments to weld people inside their dwellings.

Yeah, because it didn’t fit a narrative. It didn’t have a scary name. In 2018, 80,000 people died from the flu in the United States alone. 80,000. The bulk of those deaths happened in a four month window. Sometimes hundreds or thousands of people died PER DAY. Think about that for a moment. Let that sink in. There was a weekend in 2018 that likely saw more deaths from the flu in the US alone than during this entire s…

I don't think the Chinese government is unduly worried by narratives and scary names, but is instead inclined to be ruthlessly pragmatic.

Diseases spread. Yes, in their early phases of spread, the total devastation isn't that high.

Your statements would hold just as true for the early phases of the 1918 pandemic-- lots of people die from flu every year; still fewer have died than happened last year; etc. They're statements that are true until they're not.

There's no guarantee of catastrophe, but the potential for it is there.

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