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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

#581

Post by [deleted] »

CydeWeys wrote: post #514
varenc wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the overwhelming majority of people are visiting grocery stores to buy food. (Or have someone in their household doing it) If the studied presume this then it makes more sense.

You can't assume that. I know plenty of people who haven't left their apartments in a month plus, because they're having groceries ordered in. And you completely missed the point that people who are going outside a lot more often are both (a) more likely to have been exposed to COVID-19, and (b) more likely to be encountered by your survey. If there are e.g. 700 daily shoppers and 700 weekly shoppers going to a given…

[deleted]

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

#582

Post by taeric »

greedo wrote: post #522
taeric wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize this thread was about throwing open the gates. That said, I think there is an argument for more directed isolation measures for at risk groups. Fearing that there may be other unknowns doesn't seem to allow for any progress.

"isolation measures for at risk groups" sound so easy. First, isolate the obese. Hmm, 30% in America so 98M. Next isolate diabetics. Roughly 35M. After this, isolate those with heart disease and hypertension. 30% in the US, 98M. Old people? 32M. Naturally there's some overlapping in these groups. We'll be generous and say that 98M is the lower bound. How on earth are you going to isolate 30% of the population?

This is making a lot of assumptions on what the at risk crowd is.

Now, I confess I am also making assumptions there. Data would be nice.

My assumptions are we could have saved a sizeable portion by tighter lockdowns on nursing homes. I also suspect we could have done things pre-infection to strengthen lungs of people with pre-existing lung conditions.

More pointedly, I think all of the havoc we have caused by closing schools is likely not amounting to a lot of saved lives. As a risk group, children are basically not at risk of severe cases.

Now, I hasten to add that no policy should be set by some random internet poster. I am hoping we are collecting data and running simulations to give us better data for the future.

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

#583

Post by taeric »

eloff wrote: post #305
taeric wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you are missing mine. Agreed there could be long term things. Yes, we should study that and watch for it. If that is the extent of your point, then my response is "yes, and?" Your framing, though, begs the question that mild cases have long term damage. We have zero evidence of that. Literally none.

You're still missing my point. I'm saying all sickness comes with a long term cost. It gives you a shove toward the grave. Covid19 falls into that category, regardless of how much or little we know about it. Now you could argue that sickness and aging don't work that way. I don't think you'd be right, but you can make that argument. Your argument about the long term effects of covid19 is not relevant to the point I m…

Your point feels vacuous, then. Yes, getting sick can have long term impact. Do you have evidence that that is relevant to our current scenario? More so than it would be for any other sickness that is running rampant?

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

#584

Post by taeric »

proto-n wrote: post #322
taeric wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ability to navigate Reddit is embarrassing. Never found the comment with the translation. Saw some of the discussion, though. Sounds like a promising lead to go down. I think my other criticisms are still unaddressed. Scarring damage is tough to place in age. Is plausible that they had some pre existing damage already. Funny to see the comments talk if walking pneumonia. I had that a decade ago. Was cake compared…

I think the fact that they used to dive but now can't kind of places most of the damage as recent. My link should be a direct link to the comment. The bottom of the comment is hidden by default, but half of it is visible (and you can unhide the rest using the big blue button). I hate the new reddit design.

I agree it is a strong signal. That said, I suspect there is a lot more to it.

I confess false confidence in CT scans from stories such as back pains paints me a skeptic here. :(

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

#585

Post by taeric »

sbohacek wrote: post #278
taeric wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the point of my question. There has been no evidence of damage in non severe cases. Indeed, we are having to get complicated testing to find out many people had it at all.

While this is anecdotal, it indicates that people with no symptoms can have lung damage (pneumonia), but not necessarily long-term damage: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testi...

Having pneumonia is not having no symptoms. That would be on the low end of severe in the case category. Right?

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

#586

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#587

Post by taeric »

yibg wrote: post #502
taeric wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I was not claiming it would be lower. Apologies if the framing said it that way. I was just pointing out that we really don't have bounds on this anywhere else.

I'm not sure how that matters. We have a lower bound for an optimistic demographic representation of the country. If NYC is younger and healthier than average and is at 0.2%, why would the lower bound for the country as a whole be lower?

I am actually having a hard time squaring the claim that they are younger than the average. The number of people over 70 that have died in NYC is above the number of people over 40 in many cities across the nation.

That all said, my point is that we don't know the bounds. Period. It could be higher. It could be lower. That is why I said it is conceivable. Probably it is about that value in most places. I am interested in where the data falls.

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

#588

Post by mlyle »

unishark wrote: post #538
mlyle wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure why you added the lower limit at 15. The two high risk age groups from influenza are 65+ and under 5. If I recall correctly, pediatric flu deaths are the only ones tracked by the CDC (for other age groups they just use statistical estimates). There is data on comorbities with the flu from prior years. This article says half of deaths had no preexisting medical conditions. https://pediatrics.aappublications.o…

I picked 15-34 because it corresponds with the data table I cited from the CDC, which lists confirmed deaths from each for the time period. It's already cited and linked, but here's it again: table 2, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

Note that a few of the deaths are -both- COVID-19 and influenza.

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

#589

Post by cryptonector »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #414
cryptonector wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that's dumb. If 1/5th of the population has been exposed, then you know the total strain on the healthcare system is extremely unlikely to top an additional 4x what it has been, but not only it has 1/5th the population being exposed not in fact been enough to overwhelm the healthcare system, as more of the population is exposed you begin to get herd immunity, so in fact the total strain on the healthcare s…

We don't know that actually 21% have been exposed - hence the use of "preliminary" and "suggest". We need actual positive results that aren't based upon hiding behind the repeated use of "extremely unlikely". It seems like a bad idea to gamble based upon an initial suggestion. The only actual good indicator we have is the rate of change of deaths and hospitalizations.

Weeks ago there was a report that 13.7% of pregnant women admitted during labor in NYC tested positive for covid-19. That was using a PCR test, not an antibody test, IIRC. That surely implies that weeks ago the rate of infection in the city was at least 13.7% minus false positives plus what would have been antibody test positive patients who were not producing the virus any longer. To go from ~13% to 21% in a few weeks seems perfectly reasonable. Moreover, "suggest" is a bit of a weasel word: there's no proof, only statistical approximation. So, yes, I suspect the city really is at 21% exposed.

> The only actual good indicator we have is the rate of change of deaths and hospitalizations.

Nonsense. The right thing to do is to perform randomized antibody testing of the population. The sample has to be random. The city (and other cities, and States) should pick an appropriate number of household addresses randomly, send techs and police to each one, pick a random person at each address, and test them. Given a sufficiently random and representative sample, you don't need to test so very many people to determine with a very high degree of certainty just how much of the population has been exposed.

Only then can hospitalizations and deaths be put in perspective. If SARS-cov2 spreads through enough of the population to reach "herd immunity" and its ultimate impact is, as I expect, much less than a bad normal-flu season, then the shutdown was not necessary and should stop (not necessarily other protective measures).

On the flip side, if very little of the population has been exposed to covid-19, and we were to stop the shutdown due to declining death and hospitalization rates, then the risk would be very high of a second wave.

Randomized antibody testing is absolutely essential here. We need to know how it progresses through the population, and we need to know ASAP.

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

#590

Post by taeric »

cma wrote: post #425
taeric wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could. If the agitating factor to severe cases is car exhaust, as an example. There are usually tipping points to that kind of thing. Look, I agree that I don't know. Just trying to get that uncertainty in the counter claims, as well.

I’m talking about having more number of nursing homes because they have “more of everything”, not making an argument about density and pollution or anything like that.

Ah, yes, I misstook your argument. That said, I do suspect having more nursing homes means they have more people over 60 than most places. Which will skew them to have more deaths, period.

Consider, from all that we have seen, elementary schools could get 100% infection rate on the same population size that NYC nursing homes have and not see the number of deaths they have had. It is not controversial that the IFR is dependent on how many people over 60 you have in your population.

To drive that home some, here in WA, fully 92% of the deaths have been in people over the age of 60. It is quite ridiculous how deadly this is if you are older.

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