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Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

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Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#441

Post by __blockcipher__ »

scythe wrote: post #438
jnbiche wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CFR will be much higher than the IFR. For example, approximate flu IFR is 0.05%.

In comparing the COVID-19 IFR to the flu IFR, it is important to remember that flu vaccines are widely available and limit the spread of influenza. For example, CDC retrospectives for 2018-9 estimate that 35M Americans[1] got influenza over the flu season, or less than 12%. By contrast, the current COVID-19 infection rate in New York (from these data) is already higher than 12%. So COVID-19 has the potential to infec…

That point is entirely true but doesn't really change the policy implications unless you believe that we can actually contain this thing indefinitely (i.e. that a given individual can avoid being exposed to it indefinitely)

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#442

Post by rallison »

lukasm wrote: post #76
cm2187 wrote: post #2

Another datapoint suggesting the death rate of this virus is within 0.5%.

Yes, but the age is a 10x factor, os CFR would be much different in Nigeria (average age is about 19) and Italy (average age 45). We have two good petri dishes: USS Theodore Roosevelt - 600 cases out of 4800. 5 sick, one dead (41 years old). which means hospitalisation is at 0.83% and CFR is 0.016% (1% dead or in hospital). Not idea what is the average age, probably around 30-35. Diamond Princess: 700 of 3711. CFR 1.…

> which means hospitalisation is at 0.83% and CFR is 0.016% (1% dead or in hospital).

0.16%, not 0.016%.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#443

Post by TheBlight »

CydeWeys wrote: post #433
TheBlight wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have perfect studies and perfect data but calling these tests "bad" seems slightly unfair. They give us an imperfect but useful snapshot of what's going on. But thanks for the condescension. I'd expect nothing less on HN.

The study is dramatically over-sampling exactly the people who have the most potential exposure to COVID-19, and dramatically over-sampling the people who don't. This could easily be way off. It's not testing the people who aren't home at all, and it has a low chance of only testing the people who leave home rarely, only when strictly necessary. It's mainly finding the people who leave home a lot.

How do you know how often these people are leaving their homes? Everyone has to leave their home to go to the grocery store eventually or someone in their family does. Yes there are delivery services but the vast majority of people aren't using those.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#444

Post by __blockcipher__ »

badfrog wrote: post #385
CubsFan1060 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this a binary outcome. Getting closer to herd immunity also makes things better. Take NYC. Now 1 out of 5 people you see can't infect you (assuming having antibodies means immunity). The closer we get, the better it is. Having 21% "immune" leads to far different outcomes than .1%.

> The closer we get, the better it is. Having 21% "immune" leads to far different outcomes than .1%. It depends on how long the immunity lasts. If it's permanent, this is indeed great. If it lasts only a few months, this 21% won't make any difference for another wave of infections this fall.

We use the term "immunity" but we should remember that there is a difference between the presence of active antibodies and the presence of immune "memory cells". The latter hang around long-term, even if the former disappear. So at a minimum if one does develop infection they will recover far sooner and with better outcomes. And likely will reach a far lower peak viral load which might bring down transmission.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#445

Post by mhandley »

t2riRXawYxLGGYb wrote: post #326
aazaa wrote: post #317

> In his press conference today, Governor Cuomo revealed the preliminary results of a first-phase antibody test that surveyed 3,000 New Yorkers over two days in 19 counties at 40 locations that included grocery and big-box stores. The sample suggests that 13.9% of New York State residents have the antibodies, meaning they had the virus at one point and recovered. Of the regions tested–Long Island, NYC, Westchester/Ro…

This was my thought exactly. Some of my friends in the Bay area got COVID-19 (confirmed positive tests) after quarantining for over two weeks at home and taking all of the precautions. The only place they had been was the grocery store, so they suspect that they got it there.

The incubation period runs out to around 27 days, though above 2 weeks is uncommon. It seems possible one of them already had it before quarantine, and just happened to be one of those who had a long incubation period.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-incuba...

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#446

Post by __blockcipher__ »

dktoao wrote: post #408
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point people advocating the position you’re advocating for are in a state of denial (this is my opinion, not a matter of fact, obviously). Your assumption is that we can effectively prevent the majority of the nation from exposure via lockdown. Not only does evidence seem to point against that, but when you do the math on mortality due to suicide and overdose it’s not clear that containment would even save mo…

Thanks for this comment, puts into words what I have been casually thinking. Also, this is the strategy in Sweden, seems to be working out fine for them.

Thanks, I've been trying to find the words as well, which is really difficult when expressing a position that runs counter to "we need to lock down for the next 18 months" is basically characterized as wanting to kill granny.

I generally have to spend more time prefacing the ideas with "I'm not a trump supporter and I think covid is real and I think it's more deadly than the flu and..." than talking about the actual ideas themselves. Especially on Reddit...

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#447

Post by slg »

mlyle wrote: post #429
slg wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed through that so please point it out if I missed it, but the numbers don't seem to account for comorbidities. The question was whether COVID-19 is more dangerous than the flu to healthy young people not all young people.

Just because you've not heard about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Seemingly healthy young people die from the flu each year. Since Feb 1, 204 people from 15-34 have been confirmed to have died from COVID-19 in the US. 162 people from age 15-34 have been confirmed to have died from influenza in the same period. I don't think you'll find either statistic broken down by comorbidities.

You mind sharing the source on those numbers because the total deaths is somewhat meaningless without the number of infections which I imagine is much higher for the flu? Even those absolute numbers show total deaths being just over 25% higher for COVID-19 than the flu.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#448

Post by __blockcipher__ »

slg wrote: post #405
TheBlight wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html Search for "Table 1: Estimated influenza disease burden, by age group — United States, 2018-2019 influenza season"

I skimmed through that so please point it out if I missed it, but the numbers don't seem to account for comorbidities. The question was whether COVID-19 is more dangerous than the flu to healthy young people not all young people.

Well even with your qualifier of "no comorbidities", the evidence is pretty unanimous that Covid and Influenza are not even the same ballpark. Worrying about a healthy young person dying of Covid is more akin to worrying about a healthy young person dying of cancer than it is to bacterial meningitis or something.

As I've said elsewhere, Influenza is defined by being deadly to the very young and very old, and so-so to those in the middle. Meaning that healthy young people do regularly die of the flu (it's still rare in absolute numbers, but it happens WAY more than covid).

Unfortunately, and I know people read this stuff and their quack heuristics start firing, the reason people are so afraid about Covid's impact on young people is because the mainstream media has intentionally promulgated a narrative that "young people are at risk too" because they fear that otherwise young people wouldn't submit to glorified house arrest for months straight.

Yes, young people get _infected_ by sars-cov-2, but they do not develop deadly cases of covid in any appreciable numbers. You really should be worrying far more about the flu as it pertains to a college-aged demographic.

EDIT: I do need to find some sources for you though. I saw some NY data broken down by comorbidites but am having trouble finding it.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#449

Post by Retric »

zaroth wrote: post #416
vannevar wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the CDC web site, those numbers are 35.5M flu cases and 34,200 deaths ( https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html ), giving an IFR of more like 0.1%. Which would put COVID-19 at more like 5-6x more fatal than the flu. Combine that with the virtually complete lack of natural and vaccinated resistance compared to the flu, and it's clear that the potential fatality totals for COVID-19, absent dras…

It seems the CDC has different data depending on where you look. The 45 million / 61,000 numbers are here, for the 2017-2018 season, see Figure 2: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html And on the page specifically for 2017-2018 season, they have different numbers still; "CDC early estimates indicate that more than 900,000 people were hospitalized and more than 80,000 people died from flu last season." https…

That 45 million in your first link is Symptomatic Illnesses which represent ~2/3 of total cases as Approximately 33% of people with influenza are asymptomatic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza So, total infections would be closer to 67.5 million.

But, it’s important to keep things in context, another year lists 9.3 million symptomatic infections and 12,000 deaths. The average year is well below peak years.

Re: Preliminary test results suggest 21% of NYC residents have Covid antibodies

#450

Post by kgwgk »

TheBlight wrote: post #443
CydeWeys wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study is dramatically over-sampling exactly the people who have the most potential exposure to COVID-19, and dramatically over-sampling the people who don't. This could easily be way off. It's not testing the people who aren't home at all, and it has a low chance of only testing the people who leave home rarely, only when strictly necessary. It's mainly finding the people who leave home a lot.

How do you know how often these people are leaving their homes? Everyone has to leave their home to go to the grocery store eventually or someone in their family does. Yes there are delivery services but the vast majority of people aren't using those.

The more often they go, the more likely you encounter them.
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