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

news.psu.edu

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

#31

Post by azinman2 »

adamhearn wrote: post #25
crooked-v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that obviously depends on where 'around you' is. Compare to New York City, where there have been an estimated 17,000 deaths (and even that's probably undercounted, going by some studies of excess deaths compared to previous years), and at the peak there were hundreds of unclaimed bodies per week being buried in mass graves.

This is completely anecdotal, but my good friend’s brother is an ER doctor. He said the hospital required them to label the cause of death for all patients in the hospital as covid if there was as much as one symptom. I don’t want to downplay the sadness of the deaths, but I think it is a bit foolish for us to base our number of deaths of off untested patients...

Except you can see the excess total deaths compared to previous years and how well it correlates and is otherwise unexplained [1].

A lot of the labeling occurred because people couldn’t get tested yet presented symptoms that indicated covid. In that situation, you can’t say 100% without a test, yet it’s the reasonable conclusion in a pandemic.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

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

#32

Post by draw_down »

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.

Yeah, nobody around here (my house) has it.

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

#33

Post by pjc50 »

adamhearn wrote: post #25
crooked-v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that obviously depends on where 'around you' is. Compare to New York City, where there have been an estimated 17,000 deaths (and even that's probably undercounted, going by some studies of excess deaths compared to previous years), and at the peak there were hundreds of unclaimed bodies per week being buried in mass graves.

This is completely anecdotal, but my good friend’s brother is an ER doctor. He said the hospital required them to label the cause of death for all patients in the hospital as covid if there was as much as one symptom. I don’t want to downplay the sadness of the deaths, but I think it is a bit foolish for us to base our number of deaths of off untested patients...

The most reliable number is "excess deaths", since that's hard to fake even if it's not specific.

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

#34

Post by WildParser »

goatinaboat wrote: post #5

At this point every scientist in the world is throwing any random theory out there in the hope one sticks and they will be showered in new funding. The track record of Neil Ferguson‘s Group at Imperial is representative of this industry, however. https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/176

And they are ignoring scientists that have already found models that actually work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aHrx68IT7o

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157283645163015

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

#35

Post by xlii »

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.

Isn't this the exactly case, though?

It's not about how infectious it is, but how severe. Early reports said that 90% or more [1] people develop symptoms and that the average death rate is 3.5% (with some outlets even suggesting 10%...).

If we divide those estimates by 10 we're getting 9% of symptoms and 0.35% lethality. While I won't argue for 80 as being the number that's almost 2 degrees of magnitude. That would mean that 0.9% people have symptoms and 0.035% has severe case. This is on par of 2009 Flu pandemic and 3 times more than regular seasonal flu.

Now, I have no idea how reputable source is or how trustworthy this exact article is but that's one of the perspectives that were present since almost the beginning of pandemics.

Note: Since I don't really gather articles those might be low quality republishes

[1]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/covid-19-symptoms-t... [2]: https://www.theblaze.com/news/german-study-shows-coronavirus...

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

#36

Post by unlikelymordant »

adamhearn wrote: post #25
crooked-v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that obviously depends on where 'around you' is. Compare to New York City, where there have been an estimated 17,000 deaths (and even that's probably undercounted, going by some studies of excess deaths compared to previous years), and at the peak there were hundreds of unclaimed bodies per week being buried in mass graves.

This is completely anecdotal, but my good friend’s brother is an ER doctor. He said the hospital required them to label the cause of death for all patients in the hospital as covid if there was as much as one symptom. I don’t want to downplay the sadness of the deaths, but I think it is a bit foolish for us to base our number of deaths of off untested patients...

You can just look at the all cause excess deaths and see that the number of people that have died so far this year is much higher than previous years in New York. So whether you agree that person A died from covid or not, there were many more deaths due to something.

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

#37

Post by jakeogh »

martin_bech wrote: post #16
qeternity wrote: post #10

History books will not be kind to our past and present handling of covid-19. Incurring incredible economic and social damage without fully understanding the threat. It’s been very clear for some time that covid is not nearly as lethal as once feared AND even more clear that we over quarantined. In the UK we have hospitals built specifically for covid that are completely unused. This isn’t flattening the curve, it’s c…

You are aware that despite the world very best efforts, almost 500.000 people have already died, and in many parts of the world, its actually not slowing down, but speeding up?

These numbers would be much more useful if they were in pairs; (#people, #avg_years_lost).

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/swine-flu-h1n1-pandemic-deaths...

"Though the virus was deadly, the swine flu pandemic is still considered to have been a fairly mild one. The CDC calculates that up to 575,000 people may have died from H1N1 in 2009. The WHO estimates that the seasonal flu kills up to 500,000 people each year. Both pale in comparison to the flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide."

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

#38

Post by zaroth »

martin_bech wrote: post #16
qeternity wrote: post #10

History books will not be kind to our past and present handling of covid-19. Incurring incredible economic and social damage without fully understanding the threat. It’s been very clear for some time that covid is not nearly as lethal as once feared AND even more clear that we over quarantined. In the UK we have hospitals built specifically for covid that are completely unused. This isn’t flattening the curve, it’s c…

You are aware that despite the world very best efforts, almost 500.000 people have already died, and in many parts of the world, its actually not slowing down, but speeding up?

What is speeding up, exactly? Our ability to detect marginal cases, certainly. Not the death rate.

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

#39

Post by deathgrips »

crooked-v wrote: post #30
arrrg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? I think we have pretty ok lethality estimates somewhere in the ballpark of 0.2 to 0.5 percent.

The lethality rate without care is much higher than the lethality rate with care, and said care often needs to be exhaustive and for an extended period, which can easily fill the entire capacity of hospitals if enough people get infected at once.

Weren't doctors beginning to question whether intubation had any effect on recovery?

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

#40

Post by Isinlor »

adamhearn wrote: post #25
crooked-v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that obviously depends on where 'around you' is. Compare to New York City, where there have been an estimated 17,000 deaths (and even that's probably undercounted, going by some studies of excess deaths compared to previous years), and at the peak there were hundreds of unclaimed bodies per week being buried in mass graves.

This is completely anecdotal, but my good friend’s brother is an ER doctor. He said the hospital required them to label the cause of death for all patients in the hospital as covid if there was as much as one symptom. I don’t want to downplay the sadness of the deaths, but I think it is a bit foolish for us to base our number of deaths of off untested patients...

Based on excess deaths - the difference between how many deaths from all causes would you exec and how many were reported - USA is very likely under counting deaths. Also all case mortality coincide very well with reports of COVID-19 cases.

USA is very likely to significantly under count deaths from COVID-19.

See: Preliminary Estimate of Excess Mortality During the COVID-19 Outbreak — New York City, March 11–May 2, 2020

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e5.htm

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