Corona Virus

[schmalz]

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/antibody- ... d=70206121

Some good news.

Also, it seems like fishing opener is June 1st for Owens Valley, which indicates the Sierra backcountry should be open. I’ll be cherishing the mountains more than usual this summer.

[Wandering Daisy]

A lot of doctors not directly involved in COVID-19 work, are in the same boat as other small businesses and are NOT avoiding the "angst". Unless you work directly for a hospital or HMO (like Kaiser), most doctors are part of a private practice (small business). Here is the dirty little secret; medi-care and medi-caid reimbursements do not even cover the basic cost of an office visit let alone a procedure. In order to stay afloat, they raise prices on non-essential, elective, procedures. My daughter's OB-GYN practice had to lay off five people and are not sure they can avoid going under since they have had to quit doing elective GYN surgery or fertility. Her husband works for the hospital, but being an orthopedic surgeon, much of his work is elective and he is now on call with reduced pay. Their family is taking a huge cut in pay. Neither are trained ICU pulmonary doctors so cannot fill in there but, if things get really bad, they may have to regardless. And when the dust settles, they would likely be sued, as would the hospital for using unqualified doctors.

So get off your high horse and realize that EVERYONE is being impacted, one way or another. Believe me, the doctors would love to get back to doing their regular work but even if lock-down were lifted, they cannot until ICU rooms are available in case needed.

Agree that we retired people who have saved wisely and have our homes paid off (no rent due) have it easier in this crisis than working people, regardless of their occupation.

[SSSdave]

There is another possibility as to why there are supposed asymptomatic cases, why some people only get a mild case, and why many people may have antibodies yet have never been sick with COVID-19. I tersely mentioned all the following a month ago.

There are several viruses in the corona virus family including SARS, MERS and types that cause the common cold. Note the common cold is caused by over 100 different species of rhinovirus plus members of a few other virus families including the corona family. Until our recently 2 decades given the rise of genetic science, people that had the common cold or even other respiratory illnesses like influenza rarely had that verified. Thus one might have caught a corona virus cold years ago and possibly gained at least partial immunity to any corona virus species. Antibody immunity is about ligand molecular keys having the correct shape and form. Thus some antibody keys from an early corona virus cold may fit well enough that people only become slightly sick. Decades ago I recall being sick with some rather strong colds that were going around that lasted over a week with strong lower respiratory cough infections. Definitely were not influenza because only a low temperature fever.

I've had doubts on supposed asymptomatic infections that I'll suggest may be due to the many people with respiratory issues like hay fever allergies, rhinitus, smoking, alcohol/drug use, etc that mask early symptoms enough that they are not noticed. Additionally some people that come down with the virus and are then interviewed by doctors or authorities, may be afraid and embarrassed to admit they were out in public, especially work places while they had symptoms that could be contagious to others. Consider how many people in our culture during this era will go into work sick with colds or flu.

Once general testing is available for a broad swath of the public, all this hearsay will become known. In the mean time there is soft advice from experts being foolishly interpreted by the media and ordinary people rigidly.

[balzaccom]

I'd like to see restaurants open again. Patrons take the risk. Think about the supply chain behind a restaurant.. No food purchased to provide for patrons. It'll get nasty and our current administration will just tax everyone to make up for the "pandemic recession."

82%ish will survive. Go with it. Mother earth has been doing this for eons.

I think the problem with that plan is that you don't know what the risk is. If you are working at a pork processing plant in South Dakota, it turns out your risk is much higher, because you are surrounded by infected co-workers. And that's the real issue here. You don't know who is infected, and therefore you cannot intelligently make a good decision about risk.

IF we can successfully test large percentages of the population, that picture changes. And efforts are being made in that direction.

[schmalz]

I'd like to see restaurants open again. Patrons take the risk. Think about the supply chain behind a restaurant.. No food purchased to provide for patrons. It'll get nasty and our current administration will just tax everyone to make up for the "pandemic recession."

82%ish will survive. Go with it. Mother earth has been doing this for eons.

I think the problem with that plan is that you don't know what the risk is. If you are working at a pork processing plant in South Dakota, it turns out your risk is much higher, because you are surrounded by infected co-workers. And that's the real issue here. You don't know who is infected, and therefore you cannot intelligently make a good decision about risk.

IF we can successfully test large percentages of the population, that picture changes. And efforts are being made in that direction.

Doesn’t the picture change if the fatality rate is 30 times less then what has been reported? Possibly even lower than that? That’s what the data in the above article points to.

[TurboHike]

The study described in the above article suffers from selection bias. People in Santa Clara County who volunteered were likely to be the ones who had symptoms but were not allowed to be tested due to a shortage of covid tests. These people were curious, so they volunteered for the antibody test. The selection bias increases the number of people who are estimated to have had the virus and decreases the estimated death rate. On top of this, the antibody test that was used was not approved by the FDA. We have no idea the rate of false positives. In the end the study gives us one more data point, but it's not really that useful. Even if we take the study's results at face value, 95% of the population have not yet been exposed to the virus.

[franklin411]

The study described in the above article suffers from selection bias. People in Santa Clara County who volunteered were likely to be the ones who had symptoms but were not allowed to be tested due to a shortage of covid tests. These people were curious, so they volunteered for the antibody test. The selection bias increases the number of people who are estimated to have had the virus and decreases the estimated death rate. On top of this, the antibody test that was used was not approved by the FDA. We have no idea the rate of false positives. In the end the study gives us one more data point, but it's not really that useful. Even if we take the study's results at face value, 95% of the population have not yet been exposed to the virus.

It's Stanford, so I think they've heard of selection bias and adjusted for it.

[franklin411]

Once general testing is available for a broad swath of the public, all this hearsay will become known.

We can look at the world right now. Coronavirus has been circulating for six months now. If the virus was anywhere near as communicable or deadly as feared, then tens of millions of people ought to be dead. You can't say the lockdown is preventing an absolute bloodbath, because there are plenty of places (Sweden, India, most countries in Southeast Asia or Africa) where lockdowns either aren't being practiced, or are simply functionally impossible.

And we're just not seeing it. We're not seeing the massive tidal wave of dead and dying and horribly sick people that one would expect. All we're seeing is a carbon copy of a typical seasonal flu season.

[TurboHike]

[/quote]

It's Stanford, so I think they've heard of selection bias and adjusted for it.
[/quote]

And yet on page 7 of their study, I find this:

"Other biases, such as bias favoring individuals in good health capable of attending our testing sites, or bias favoring those with prior COVID-like illnesses seeking antibody confirmation are also possible. The overall effect of such biases is hard to ascertain."

So no, they did not adjust for it.

[Lumbergh21]

The preliminary results are in for the Stanford study. Coronavirus has likely been spreading for months, and the number of actual infections is between 50 and 80 times higher than the reported number. So the number of confirmed cases in the county was 1200. The actual number was probably 50,000 - 80,000.

The number of deaths in the county stands at 69. That's a death rate of 0.14%. Approximately in line with the common flu.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20062463v1

There are at least 2 problems with that study. First the statistical problem. The 95% confidence interval for that test is 1.7%. Only 1.5% of the participants tested positive, less than the uncertainty in the test. They can not say with 95% confidence that even one of those 50 positives was actually positive. They may have all been false positives (a greater than 5% chance of that).
Second, the participants were recruited through Facebook. These were not randomly selected individuals. People with no symptoms are less likely to have answered the Facebook ad to take the test than those who had Covid-19 symptoms, raising the chances of infected people signing up for the test. Further those who thought they had Covid-19 would also be likely to recruit other people they had contact with.
This study provides no useful information.