Live data from Hacker News

Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

science.sciencemag.org

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid-19 is killing healthy young people with no known pre-existing conditions at very high rates. It just happens to be killing the elderly and those with comorbidites (which includes normal ailments like diabetes and obesity) at even higher rates. It isn’t just some new common cold that we don’t have herd immunity for. Different viruses have different lethality; common cold corona viruses are far milder than SARS-N…

Is it corona virus, or ventilators, killing them? When you have a mortality rate of 66% to 90% for something tha isn't a hemorrhagic fever, it's the ventilator.

While there is speculation that ventilators might be worsening the situation, it's ridiculous to suggest that 66-90% of people with ARDS might die, with or without a ventilator. There are other ways to die from a viral lung infection than just hemorrhagic fever.

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#62
post #3

"To avoid this, prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022." Wow -- seems very unlikely to happen though.

Intermittent seems quite possible. Every time the death rate spikes, we'll have to lock down again. Chances are, some region will decide against doing that, and their outcome will provide a clear incentive for everyone else to be more rigorous about it.

I'm starting to doubt this.

What about Sweden vs Norway -- sure, the data is 4X worse for Sweden, but we are only talking thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths. Maybe this can't scale to bigger countries though.

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#63
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's happening right now with Sweden and it's sure to be a pretty interesting case study. Their health system hasn't yet been overwhelmed, but they've had a lot of cases (and a lot of deaths), especially on a per capita basis for a smaller country: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/sweden-coronav... Of course, some right-wing media outlets have still been touting this as a success and a model for a less…

Funny world we’ve come to when right-wingers are pointing to Sweden as an example of how they want to handle an issue.

But in Sweden vs Norway, we are talking about 4x the case numbers adjusted for population, and a few hundred dead.

The data might turn much worse, but right now I don't think it's bad for Sweden.

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah no this is not happening, the young people will revolt before that. You can suspend civil liberties for a few months, that's fine, but not intermittently over several years. No way that governments in western countries will get away with that. I expect this to be an event that will remove most baby-boomers from power and bring in the millennial generation, they expect us to support ~5 old people through most of…

Lmfao you are far too optimistic about the revolutionary potential of westernized young people. They will not revolt. They won't take power. They don't even vote today.

I take the "Ok boomer" to be the canary in the coal mine, or atleast I hope so, because without the young people revolting this planet is royaly screwed.

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#65
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid-19 is killing healthy young people with no known pre-existing conditions at very high rates. It just happens to be killing the elderly and those with comorbidites (which includes normal ailments like diabetes and obesity) at even higher rates. It isn’t just some new common cold that we don’t have herd immunity for. Different viruses have different lethality; common cold corona viruses are far milder than SARS-N…

Is it corona virus, or ventilators, killing them? When you have a mortality rate of 66% to 90% for something tha isn't a hemorrhagic fever, it's the ventilator.

People dying in care and nursing homes are not on ventilators. This may be a significant number of covid-19 deaths.

https://ltccovid.org/2020/04/12/mortality-associated-with-co...

> Key findings:

> Official data on the numbers of people affected by COVID-19 is not available in many countries

> Due to differences in testing availabilities and policies, and to different approaches to recording deaths, international comparisons are difficult

> Data from 3 epidemiological studies in the United States show that as many as half of people with COVID-19 infections in care homes were asymptomatic (or pre-symptomatic) at the time of testing

> Data from 5 European countries suggest that care home residents have so far accounted for between 42% and 57% of all deaths related to COVID-19.

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#66
post #33
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also a similar study in Germany with similar results [1]. The result is of course to mechanically reduce the fatality rate to a number close to that of the flu (the problem for hospitals being not so much the fatality rate than the high number of infections), and well within the 0.1-1% range that US health authorities have been advertising for a while. Regarding models, it seems 0.15% is the new basis [2]. Even o…

The people who were treating that hypothesis as an absurd conspiracy theory last month probably won’t own up to it, but I do hope they are reading.

That's not really what those people were saying.

It doesn't matter if the number is 5% with a low infection rate, or 0.5% with a very high infection rate: both will lead to very large numbers of dead people unless we take severe action early on.

And so far they've been right. Covid-19 is causing huge amounts of excess mortality, even when compared to a really bad flu year.

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#67
post #3

"To avoid this, prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022." Wow -- seems very unlikely to happen though.

Intermittent seems quite possible. Every time the death rate spikes, we'll have to lock down again. Chances are, some region will decide against doing that, and their outcome will provide a clear incentive for everyone else to be more rigorous about it.

> Every time the death rate spikes, we'll have to lock down again.

this will likely cause more business failures than a prolonged shut down. Starting up and shutting down a business is not free. There are legal costs and you need to source materials for operations. In the case of restaurants in particular, there will be loss due to spoilage

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#68
post #66
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who were treating that hypothesis as an absurd conspiracy theory last month probably won’t own up to it, but I do hope they are reading.

That's not really what those people were saying. It doesn't matter if the number is 5% with a low infection rate, or 0.5% with a very high infection rate: both will lead to very large numbers of dead people unless we take severe action early on. And so far they've been right. Covid-19 is causing huge amounts of excess mortality, even when compared to a really bad flu year.

Source? Europe shows excess mortality spiking to a similar level as the 2017-2018 flu season: https://www.euromomo.eu/

And that’s with elective procedures being cancelled and everyone scared to go to the hospital for any reason. Here’s some new data indicating that half of the excess mortality in England might not be caused by COVID-19 itself: https://archive.is/2eKCW

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#69
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I’ve been asking about this for a while with no good answers. Why aren’t we looking into whether it would be helpful to enable every healthy person to get the Coronavirus common cold to help boost herd immunity?

Normally modern medicine doesn't make people sick deliberately, because some percentage will always have some time of reaction. And the US is also a litigious society. However, I'm in favor of ending lockdown and letting corona virus run its course, just like the flu every year. That's the fastest way to get herd immunity.

Yeah, but letting it run its course kills off at least 1% of the population and causes potentially long term lung damage for a sizable portion of the rest of the population.

Re: Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through postpandemic period

#70
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it corona virus, or ventilators, killing them? When you have a mortality rate of 66% to 90% for something tha isn't a hemorrhagic fever, it's the ventilator.

While there is speculation that ventilators might be worsening the situation, it's ridiculous to suggest that 66-90% of people with ARDS might die, with or without a ventilator. There are other ways to die from a viral lung infection than just hemorrhagic fever.

* meant to say "might not", not "might".
Post reply on HN