Random Testing Predictions

We're supposed to see the results of some widespread population testing this week. Not just people who have it, but antibody tests to see who's had it. So, make your prediction. Just how widespread is this thing in the entire country (don't just pick one area).

I predict that by Friday we'll have good evidence it's less than 5% of the country.


Also, I have a feeling when CDC finally got the testing going in March, they held back some and did some random tests of their own. It wouldn't take many tests either. The test they had wouldn't have told them if someone had gotten it and recovered, but it would have told them who currently had it.

If I know an outbreak is going on in the Seattle area and I test 100 random people in the Seattle area, and 2 come back positive, I can probably conclude there's some spread going on, but not a lot yet. And I didn't have to use that many tests, either. This seems like it would be one of the first things CDC would do. I bet they have a good idea how widespread this is and that's a reason why we're shut down until May: not a lot of people have this.

 

Depends whether the test can false positive on the common cold virus(es) or not. If (hopefully!) not, Im going with around 10%.

If it does, it'll obviously be damn near everyone...

 

Nationwide, I vote for the 5% category. That would mean about 10-20 million who have had it, but never got tested, or at least 10- fold the official count. In NYC, it is probably more than 20%. Maybe I am overly optimistic here.

That's why testing is so important to figure out these data. It would be much easier to open up if 20% had it already, compared to 2%. But, Trump fans are still telling us that testing doesn't matter and doesn't save any lives.

 

The Diamond Princess is an interesting case. 13 of the 712 have died, suggesting a mortality rate of just under 2%. However, that's a small sample size, and cruise ship passengers probably aren't representative of the population. I would imagine people who go on Princess cruises in winter are older and wealthier than the average person.

 

They did a smaller scale study in Santa Clara California, and it came back as somewhere around 2.5% to 4.2% of the population have had it which was a 50 to 85 fold increase over the number of reported cases. If you apply that 50 to 85 fold increase in prevalence to the denominator in calculating the death rate, it then brings the death rate to being extremely close to that of the flu.

In your poll you are making 5% seem like a very small number, but in reality, if it is indeed 5%, that would be considered a major sea change and a very high number. Dont get me wrong, it can definitely be higher than 5%, but even 5% would be considered a ignificiant change in how this virus is viewed.

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-antibodies-widespread-in-santa-clara.html

 

Santa Clara county was one of the earlier outbreaks. If they're right, and 2-4% of the population had had it in early April, that's a very small percent of the population.

Yeah, a 5% infection rate would mean 15 million Americans have had/have it, which is a huge number. But if we're talking about things like herd immunity, a 5% infection rate is pretty low.

There's reporting that in Chelsea in NYC, they tested 200 random people and about 1/3 of them had antibodies.

 

But.. We KNOW it's worse than flu. It has to be, right? If cv19 were equally as lethal as flu then we would have seen similar day to day death rates during peak flu season. When was the last time you've heard of a dr or nurse dying by contracting influenza?
So if you start with that undeniable fact you can deduce that we're far less than 5%.

 

At this exact point in time, in regards to death rate, we do NOT know that it is worse than the flu. We will not know the death rate until we see just how many people have actually had Covid19. It is probably more lethal than the flu, but according to early indications from the Santa Clara study, it looks like it will be slightly more lethal as opposed to something like 50 times more lethal which is what many were initially implying.

Using logic such as "we would have seen similar day to day death rates", or "when was the last time that you heard a healthcare worker dying of the flu" do not really address the numbers involved specifically with the death rate when someone does catch Covid-19. You have to remember that we are projected to have as many covid deaths as you might see in a given year due to the flu. In regards to day to day deaths, the difference in that sense would be that all of the covid deaths up until now are packed into 6 weeks while the flu season spans a period of 6 months. The speed involved in that many deaths may very well be a function that it spreads far more easily than the flu rather than it being more lethal when you do get it which is the number that the death rate is trying to establish. Do not get me wrong, if the numbers bear out that it is far more contagious than the flu is in and of itself a HUGE problem. I am not necessarily minimizing Covid 19 when I muse that it may not have a higher death rate than the flu.

As far as when was the last time I heard of a healthcare worker dying from the flu, to be perfectly honest, in my entire life, I have never heard of ANYONE that I know dying of the flu. That doesn't mean that people do not die of the flu, it only means that we do not necessarily hear of the cause of most people's deaths to that level of granularity. I have heard of several people that I know dying of pneumonia, and perhaps that pneumonia initially began with the flu, but I have never heard anyone tracing that pneumonia back and attributing the death to the flu. It may have started with the flu, but they went to the hospital for the pneumonia. In truth, people that die from Covid19 actually die from pneumonia that was caused by Covid 19. There is something in hospitals called H.A.P., which stands for hospital-acquired pneumonia, and it is rampant and a major source of deaths across all hospitals. By definition, a healthcare worker dying of pneumonia that was caused by Covid 19, would technically be a hospital acquired pneumonia. While I am not routinely made aware of healthcare workers dying for any reason, I would not be surprised at all that some healthcare workers die from hospital acquired infections, especially with some of the antibiotic-resistant superbugs that are in existence. A scant few extra healthcare workers dying from Covid do not necessarily drastically change the number of healthcare workers that die from a hospital-acquired infection. The difference now may very well be that those rare deaths are now being brought to your attention whereas before they were not.

 

If they are the same, how can you explain the current deaths/per day?

 

If the death rate were to bear out to be the same or even close, deaths per day would then be attributable to it being more rapidly spread due to a high level of contagiousness.

 

What is the practical distinction between a much high r0 and same death rate or similar r0 and higher death rate?

 

The practical distinction is that it drastically changes projections. I believe that the spreading factor is a number that was mostly known early on (although not the impact of social distancing), while the death rate is not. If you were to project that by virtue of the spreading factor, 15 million Americans will get this disease, the difference between the subsequent death rate being 3% or .01% is that from those 15 million, you will either have 450k deaths or 15k deaths. That difference may very well make the difference as to whether you should have shut down the economy or kept it open, or perhaps keep it shut down versus open it up. The lower the death rate, the more persuasive is the argument to open up the economy.

In truth, we always knew that the real death rate was WAY lower than was being claimed.

 

You miss the point. What matters is total dead. What matters little is if it's big r0 with lower flu mortality rates or lower r0 and much higher mortality rates or worse higher r0 with higher mortality rate (most likely). FFS, it's one of those and I don't see how it matters which is the case.
In truth, we know no such thing about death rates. You made that up because it's what your masters told you to think.

 

I am not missing the point. You asked a direct question, and I gave you a direct answer to that question.

When you are now saying that the only thing that matters is the total dead, YOU are missing the point. When it is all said and done, and 5 years from now when we look back, it will be the total dead that actually matters and not the death rate. When we are in the middle of it however, and we are trying to forecast total dead and that number is very much in doubt, when making decisions as to what should be our next move, the death rate is HIGHLY relevant.

Let me give an example by using simple numbers. If we currently have 1000 cases, and 100 deaths, the death rate would be 10%. Using your logic, the only thing that matters is the 100 deaths. If however you were to find out that what you thought was 1000 cases was actually 100,000 cases, we would still have the same 100 deaths, but yet the death rate would be .01%. While both scenarios would have identical deaths, the difference in policy decisions going forward would be PROFOUNDLY different.

Why you may ask?.....well, if we know that the disease has a spreading factor of 2.1, epidemiologists can take that number and project that without any intervention, they would expect that a disease with a spreading factor of 2.1 would afflict 15 million Americans in a given season. If the death rate is 10%, that would mean that the projection would then be for 1.5 million American deaths. If the death rate were .01%, the projected deaths would then be 15,000. The government response for a potential 1.5 million deaths is FAR different than the response that would be in play for a projected 15,000 deaths.


PS....I have been respectful towards you, and not one thing in my responses have been condescending, bombastic, or even particularly political. I have not actually expressed an opinion on what I think should be or should have been done. I have merely given very straight forward answers to your straight forward questions. For you to end your reply with "In truth, we know no such thing about death rates. You made that up because it's what your masters told you to think"....

-Obviously we do not at this moment precisely know the death rate. Clearly that is what they are trying to ascertain, and some well known early studies seem to be indicating that the death rate is much lower than initially implied and that the number of cases are much higher than initially believed. If those numbers do not bear themselves out, then we can derive different opinions. At this moment, we are discussing the notion that the death rate is much lower than initially thought as evidenced by the early/preliminary studies on the subject.

-What my masters told me to think? Huh? Well lets assume that your bogus statement is correct. Then obviously my masters are far more intelligent and informed than are YOUR masters, because you clearly do not have even an elementary understanding of the issue being discussed, while my words inarguably demonstrate that I do understand the ramifications of a vastly differing death rate.

 

Where you're getting tripped up as that we know neither r0 nor the death rate. A high r0 with .1% mortality is not materially different then a lower r0 with a high mortality rate - they are DIRECTLY proportional to deaths. It really is simple mathematics. And yes, in the final analysis what matters is the number dead.

 

Yeesh....have others noted in your life that you do not pay attention well? I have addressed this already... in GREAT DETAIL. I am NOT going to do so again simply because you fail to grasp what was explained very clearly. This is still a one page thread so you can easily scan up and simply read again until you realize that I have already addressed this latest reply from you. My point has been made. Whether you understand that is of no consequence.

 

You hit the nail right on the head. If it were an 0.1-0.5% type of thing, then most people would shrug and go about their daily lives. There might be new practices and the end of old ones like hand shaking and stuff like that.(Or everyone will carry hand sanitzer and it'll be some must have item for some time to come until Herd Immunity is achieved.) but generally, we'd go on.

Whereas a 10-15-20% or more would require a different response, especially with a high infection rate. The issue is, from the beginning we had gotten false info from the Chinese, from the WHO, from data models, etc. And we acted based on faulty intel.

Now through the fog, we're starting to get real intel. And it started from Oxford saying "Wait a minute, what about the people who got it?"

And as far as testing? We've tested more than any other country on earth. And to put that into prospective, China where it originated has 1 billion people. We have 330 million.

 

There is no doubt that the death rate is enormously important. I find it strange that there are so many people that appear to be actively rooting against the prospect of it being low. While we do not yet know the death rate for sure, you would think that everyone would be united in the desire for it to be as low as possible. It makes one question specific people's motives when they are confronted with data that tends to point to it being far lower than earlier implied, and instead of expressing hope, they opt to pivot and argue that the death rate does not matter. Of course it matters in regards to projecting future deaths, and we should all be hoping for it to be as low as possible.

 

the f*** you have. # of deaths is a function (and directly related) to both r0 and fatality rate. a virus with an r0 > 20 but a mortality rate of only .1% would be DEVASTATING! A disease with a mortality rate of 10% but r0 < .01 would be nothing to worry about. Again, SIMPLE math. Go back to school kid, you clearly have no ****** clue what you're talking about.

 

A mortality rate of .1% (flu) would still be a lot of deaths. In a typical flu season, 10% of the population gets it. With this thing, since there's no immunity and no vaccine, you can figure at least half the country would get it, so that would be around 150,000 deaths. We wouldn't shut the country down over that.

But if it's .5%, that's a lot of dead people. Over half a million. I think S. Korea's right: it kills about 1-2%. That's also right around the percent that died on that cruise ship that first got hit (Diamond Princess). If the mortality rate is around 1%, we probably would shut the country down over that.

 

I still don't think it's a smart idea over the long run(we've seen drug abuses, etc). It's like avoiding death, to end up with deaths of other causes. I will say outright that there is no perfect solution to this problem, but the goal is to find a feasible solution, on the intern.

One might be having different waves of "workers"/people in society at a time, to catch the virus and then isolate that group and use a new, non-infected group.

 

Yes, the economic damage is severe. If it meant a 6 month shutdown to prevent half a million deaths, I don't think most Americans would go along with that.

 

I think what's needed, but is especially hard in these times is forgiveness for each other. We're in an unprecedented, uncharted situation with an asymptomatic virus that's especially contagious and lethal, that is novel. Yet at the same time, our economic system is derided from financial activity in the marketplace for our collective well being.

No one is being inherently malicious or evil(stupid, maybe, arguably) but not malicious or evil. We're all just doing our best with the limited info we've got.

 

Scan up. Read. Reflect. Understand. Learn.

I think it is kind of cute how you are trying to start a strawman regarding a hypothetical disease with a high mortality and extremely low spreading factor and it not being dangerous, and there can also exist a situation where a very low mortality and extremely high spreading factor could constitute a devastating disease. Of course I have said nothing that would contradict the potential of both of those scenarios being wholly in the realm of possibility, yet somehow you are now pretending like the existence of those two scenarios somehow refutes anything that I have said. It is the very definition of a strawman argument, because you are arguing against a point that was never made. If you think that it somehow does refute what I have said, then you only further my argument that you need to read, reflect, understand, and learn. It is obvious that what I said went completely over your head.

 

New York has just released some antibody testing of random people across the state: 14% have/had it in NY state.

ETA. This is not good news. New York has lost 20,000 already and they're only 1/15 of the country. They're not even close to "herd immunity". They can't go through this again.