Re: The Coronavirus Thread - Part 3

by Art Morte Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:38 pm

Apparently they have either caught the virus again (no immunity developed) or they still had small, undetectable amounts of the virus and they've relapsed. (Or those two negative tests have both been faulty). Between the lack of testing, lack of cure, lack of knowledge about immunity, it feels very frustrating trying to fight this thing right now.

by Jay29 Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:42 pm

This has yet to be peer-reviewed, but thought the findings were interesting enough to share.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v1

A survey of the Italian municipality of Vo, where the first recorded death of pneumonia caused by SARSCov-2 was, found that about 43% of confirmed cases were asymptomatic, and that all of them displayed no symptoms throughout the initial 14 day period of the lockdown.

Then there's this part:

"We found no statistically significant difference in the viral load (as measured by genome equivalents inferred from cycle threshold data) of symptomatic versus asymptomatic infections (p-values 0.6 and 0.2 for E and RdRp genes, respectively, Exact Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test)"

If I'm interpreting that correctly, everyone who tested positive got a similar dose of the virus, yet some had no symptoms while others did. Which suggests there has to be some factor, besides just plain randomness, behind why some develop symptoms and why some don't.

I mean, is it blood type, diet, Vitamin D levels, or some other aspect?

by Art Morte Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:58 pm

Jay29 wrote:
I mean, is it blood type, diet, Vitamin D levels, or some other aspect?

This John Campbell guy seems convinced that vitamin D is crucial:

Darker skin develops vitamin D from sunlight slower and he thinks that could explain why blacks and other minorities seem to be suffering more from the virus. I also remember an article from the UK saying that their first 10 healthcare worker deaths were minorities with darker skin tones.

Your weight ratio seems to be another important factor; thin people do much better against the illness than overweight people. And there's the gender disparity of men dying more often than women.

I wonder are there any other diseases where so many people develop no symptoms at all while some go knocking on death's door and beyond? To a layman it seems quite odd that the same illness would do nothing to some folks while killing others.

by Jay29 Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:04 pm

Speaking of Dr. Campbell, he just referenced a study of a Boston homeless shelter, where 397 people were tested and 145 of them turned out to be positive asymptomatic. Only one required hospital treatment. hmm

Obviously more data is needed, but there seems to be way more asymptomatic cases than first believed... which is simultaneously good and dangerous.

by Art Morte Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:15 pm

Having loads of asymptomatic cases would sort of be great in lockdown conditions (where especially the risk groups are sort of safe) if they developed immunity - unfortunately no one seems to know for sure do people develop immunity and what percentage do and for how long.

by Nishankly Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:18 pm

FFS we are fighting a racist virus

by Jay29 Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Art Morte wrote:Having loads of asymptomatic cases would sort of be great in lockdown conditions (where especially the risk groups are sort of safe) if they developed immunity - unfortunately no one seems to know for sure do people develop immunity and what percentage do and for how long.

At the very least, it does support the idea we should all be wearing masks in crowded spaces regardless of whether we're displaying symptoms or not. The chances of coming into contact with an asymptomatic carrier seems a lot higher now.

by zigra Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:43 pm

Nishankly wrote:
Art Morte wrote:
Speaking in Geneva, the WHO's Dr Maria van Kerkhove said there was "no evidence" that having had the virus would guarantee immunity.

She said initial evidence did not suggest large numbers of people were developing antibodies after having the virus, meaning the chances of creating "herd immunity" were not high.

Depressing if there's no immunity for people who've had it. Would that make vaccine development more difficult, too?

NEW: More than 160 'recovered' patients in South Korea have tested positive a second time for coronavirus.

All of them were twice tested negative, before being 'cleared' of the virus.
— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) April 18, 2020

Drosten (leading virologist in Germany) talked about this quite a few times in the past and just recently this week. The issue is that in SK (among other countries) you are officially recovered once you've been tested negative twice (as is also mentioned in the tweet). However being tested negative twice doesn't automatically mean you are cured. He referenced a study of 9 infected in Munich in which they saw that some of the patients actually tested negative for a few days in a row during the latter stages of the illness and then the result switched back to positive.

The swab test just isn't perfect. In the latter stages of the illness the amount of virus decreases which means it's more likely you'll get a false negative result twice.

by zigra Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:00 pm

sportsczy wrote:https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/santa-clara-coronavirus-infections-study/index.html

Far more people may have been infected with Covid-19 than have been confirmed by health officials in Santa Clara County, California, according to a study released Friday in preprint.

The study used an antibody blood test to estimate how many people had been infected with Covid-19 in the past. Other tests, like those performed with nasal swabs or saliva, test for the virus' genetic material, which does not persist long after recovery, as antibodies do.

"We found that there are many, many unidentified cases of people having Covid infection that were never identified with it with a virus test," said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and one of the paper's authors. "It's consistent with findings from around the world that this disease, this epidemic is further along than we thought."

The study estimated that 2.49% to 4.16% of people in Santa Clara Country had been infected with Covid-19 by April 1. This represents between 48,000 and 81,000 people, which is 50 to 85 times what county officials recorded by that date: 956 confirmed cases.

A preprint study is a draft version of a study released to the public that hasn't been peer-reviewed for publication in a journal. CNN has reached out to the Santa Clara County Public Health Department for comment.

Similar efforts to estimate local antibody prevalence have launched in places like Miami-Dade County, Florida; San Miguel County, Colorado; and Los Angeles, California. The National Institutes of Health has a similar effort underway as well.

Bhattacharya said information from these studies will not only give researchers a better idea on antibody prevalence, but they will also vastly improve projections and disease modeling. Experts have said it's clear there have been more people infected than we've tested for, but it's unclear how much higher that number could be.

"All of the projection models have this as an input: how many people have been infected today," Bhattacharya said.

"It just helps us plan better," he added. "Before, we were making policy in the dark."

The research may also give a more realistic sense of how deadly the virus really is.

"If I get the infection, how likely is it I'm going to die? That number depends on knowing how many people have had the infection -- not just actively have it now, but have had it and recovered from it," Bhattacharya said.

If 50 times more people have had the infection, the death rate could drop by that same factor, putting it "somewhere between 'little worse than the flu' to 'twice as bad as the flu' in terms of case fatality rate," Bhattacharya said.

But he cautioned that the flu and coronavirus are still quite different. For one, we don't yet have a vaccine for Covid-19.

Doctors suspect, though, and are still trying to prove beyond a doubt, that antibodies to Covid-19 mean one is immune down the line.

The study in Santa Clara County recruited participants largely using Facebook ads targeted by zip code to sample various parts of the community. The study tested 3,330 adults and children.

"They had about five different tents set up and you just kind of drove through and they pricked your finger, took a blood sample and took down your information," one of those participants, Tony Huston, told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his podcast, "Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction."

"I think it's human nature to want to know if you've had it or if you have the antibodies," Huston said.

Well apparently there are a quite few issues with the study: https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-1f6382258c25

I think we all know the number of actually infected is a lot higher than the number of confirmed cases but imo factor 50 or even 100 is too high. It would be great news of course - I just don't think it's the case.

Hapless_Hans wrote:
So in Germany, some experts (including the leading virologist tasked with advising the government) have actually said they expect the "dark figure" of people really infected beyond the ones officially measured as merely 5-10 times the official figure, not 50 times, or 100 times.

To be fair if the amount of undetected cases is 5-10 times the amount of confirmed cases in Germany it might be close to 40-50 times the amount in some countries like France (they have almost the same amount of confirmed cases but as of now the death rate is more than 4 times higher in France).

by BarrileteCosmico Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:15 pm

Art Morte wrote:Having loads of asymptomatic cases would sort of be great in lockdown conditions (where especially the risk groups are sort of safe) if they developed immunity - unfortunately no one seems to know for sure do people develop immunity and what percentage do and for how long.

Have a friend who didn't have it but his sister did. They both got tested for antibodies, my friend has them and his sister (who beat the virus) does not .

by Myesyats Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:40 pm

Nishankly wrote:FFS we are fighting a racist virus

So Sepp was indeed correct with his jamaican study, caucasians are less susceptible to the disease hmm

Waiting for his response

by El Gunner Sun Apr 19, 2020 2:06 am

how can caucasians be less at risk when the virus is feasting in Europe and America lol

by FennecFox7 Sun Apr 19, 2020 2:51 am

Sepp never said caucasians lol.. Mediterranean’s/Arabs are Caucasian as well so not exactly the correct wording there

by sportsczy Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:18 am

As a FYI, this is the big reason that NYC numbers are so inflated. There's 350k of these folks in the city:

https://www.jta.org/2020/04/02/united-states/brooklyns-orthodox-neighborhoods-have-especially-high-rates-of-coronavirus

by Nishankly Sun Apr 19, 2020 4:06 pm

Religion

by Myesyats Sun Apr 19, 2020 4:33 pm

FennecFox7 wrote:Sepp never said caucasians lol.. Mediterranean’s/Arabs are Caucasian as well so not exactly the correct wording there

Well, maybe I'm wrong but I thought he basically said the whiter the skin, the lesser the risk.

by Warrior Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:26 pm

sportsczy wrote:As a FYI, this is the big reason that NYC numbers are so inflated. There's 350k of these folks in the city:

https://www.jta.org/2020/04/02/united-states/brooklyns-orthodox-neighborhoods-have-especially-high-rates-of-coronavirus

Same in Montreal we have a huge community. They were the last ones to follow the rules, and the first ones to cry about discrimination. Unsurprising Rolling Eyes

by CBarca Mon Apr 20, 2020 4:52 am

sportsczy wrote:As a FYI, this is the big reason that NYC numbers are so inflated. There's 350k of these folks in the city:

https://www.jta.org/2020/04/02/united-states/brooklyns-orthodox-neighborhoods-have-especially-high-rates-of-coronavirus

The big reason that NYC numbers are so large ("inflated"...??) is because you can't walk outside without being blasted in the face with 100's of people, combined with public transit being cramped and important to the lives of millions of people.

The Jewish communities are not THE reason for NYC's numbers...lol

If you'd like to reframe this to "yeah religion definitely isn't helping the fight against Coronavirus, check this out from NYC" then sure.

by sportsczy Mon Apr 20, 2020 5:05 am

CBarca wrote:
sportsczy wrote:As a FYI, this is the big reason that NYC numbers are so inflated. There's 350k of these folks in the city:

https://www.jta.org/2020/04/02/united-states/brooklyns-orthodox-neighborhoods-have-especially-high-rates-of-coronavirus

The big reason that NYC numbers are so large ("inflated"...??) is because you can't walk outside without being blasted in the face with 100's of people, combined with public transit being cramped and important to the lives of millions of people.

The Jewish communities are not THE reason for NYC's numbers...lol

If you'd like to reframe this to "yeah religion definitely isn't helping the fight against Coronavirus, check this out from NYC" then sure.

Not Jewish. Hasidics, who are Jewish fundamentalists. Very different. Similar to what the Talibans are to the Muslims without the violence.

They are 60% infected (most got tested because they were the big hot spots). The figures are 50% of 350k population tested with a 60% infection rate. They represent 100k of the 250k positives currently in NY.

The rest other 150k are due to NYC being NYC.

by Art Morte Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:36 am

So here's what I'm thinking today... What if a working vaccine cannot be develop for covid-19, what's the endgame then?

It's clearly a complicated illness and all these news / studies lately about how it's unclear if you get immunity, if you get antibodies, news about people relapsing or contracting it a second time... What if making a vaccine turns out to be impossible or too difficult in the next few years?

by Jay29 Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:09 am

I guess which approach you take depends on the death and hospitalisation rates.

Focus would have to turn to therapeutics and reducing the severity of the disease to reduce hospitalisations and the need for critical care.

Meanwhile, life would probably go on with measures in place to reduce spread as much as possible. Masks mandatory in public spaces, working from home encouraged as much as possible, self-isolation for anyone displaying symptoms, mass testing and contact tracing everywhere, etc.

That's all you can do. Tbf, it wouldn't be that different to what we should be doing when we lift the lockdowns. It seems a lot of countries want to transition into a controlled spread strategy, where the majority of the population get infected but the vulnerable are shielded. But this is banking on the majority of people developing enough antibodies to be immune for a decent period of time.

The other alternative is to lockdown for so long the virus can no longer spread. Basically strangle the life out of it. But you'd be looking at a long, long lockdown in that case.

by CBarca Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:07 pm

sportsczy wrote:
CBarca wrote:
sportsczy wrote:As a FYI, this is the big reason that NYC numbers are so inflated. There's 350k of these folks in the city:

https://www.jta.org/2020/04/02/united-states/brooklyns-orthodox-neighborhoods-have-especially-high-rates-of-coronavirus

The big reason that NYC numbers are so large ("inflated"...??) is because you can't walk outside without being blasted in the face with 100's of people, combined with public transit being cramped and important to the lives of millions of people.

The Jewish communities are not THE reason for NYC's numbers...lol

If you'd like to reframe this to "yeah religion definitely isn't helping the fight against Coronavirus, check this out from NYC" then sure.

Not Jewish. Hasidics, who are Jewish fundamentalists. Very different. Similar to what the Talibans are to the Muslims without the violence.

They are 60% infected (most got tested because they were the big hot spots). The figures are 50% of 350k population tested with a 60% infection rate. They represent 100k of the 250k positives currently in NY.

The rest other 150k are due to NYC being NYC.

If we're going to go by some back of the envelope math, then...

If NY currently has 18,298 deaths (before the report today), and we assume the vast majority of those deaths to be NYC, a back of the envelope calculation assuming a 1% CFR (it's almost certainly lower) puts NYC at around 1,829,000 cases.

There aren't 250,000 cases in NY/NYC.

by sportsczy Mon Apr 20, 2020 3:16 pm

Not back of the envelope. These are stats published by the NY department of health. They publish stats for each Burrough and the neighborhoods within those Burroughs. That's how the article derived its numbers.

by CBarca Mon Apr 20, 2020 3:51 pm

Alright, that doesn't really change my point though

by sportsczy Mon Apr 20, 2020 4:31 pm

My point stands as well... of the current stats, the Hasidic represent a significant portion of all the categories given that they're the ones getting tested the most (they're a hotspot), the ones getting hospitalized the most... and the ones with the most fatalities.

In terms of actual cases, you are likely right that they won't be a large portion. However, unless a whole bunch of other people require hospitalization and eventually die, they'll still dominate those two categories... in a way, I hope they do. You don't want new people to need hospitalization and die.

A researcher friend of mine who is doing a study similar to Stanford's (he's with Columbia University) says they see the mortality rate of Coronavirus sitting between 0.2% and 0.4% when it's all said and done. They're combining studies like Stanford's (+ other similar ones) with the stats coming from cruise ships. Really concentrating on quality and completeness of data... so they're staying away from government-provided stats.

So similar to the flu (2-4x morality rate as flu is 0.1%). The difference with flu is the rate of contagion... a lot more people get sick a lot more quickly if left unchecked with c19. But in terms of weighing cost/benefit of shutdowns, the new data is going to be significant.

For NYC, he estimates 1.5-2million infected with 16k death currently (just the city, not state)... so that sounds about right. He's the one that mentioned that a significant portion of death is in Hasidic neighborhoods... Brooklyn is the hardest hit by far, not Manhattan or Queens.

by CBarca Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:22 pm

Alright, yeah, now that you've framed it that way I can get behind what you're saying. Perhaps this was all very useless discussion on semantics, but I didn't care for your previous phrasing. It wasn't accurate to me. This has the right semantics and the right context, and I agree with you

by Sponsored content