"Coronavirus and the US" or "We are all going to die!!!!"

[DBT]

Deaths for the week ending April 17 are in: 22,351 in all of England and Wales, up from 18,516 the week before. The average of the corresponding week over the last 5 years is 10,497.

In London, there were 3275 deaths, up from 2,832. A typical value for the season is in the 900s.

The extra deaths are attributed to Covid19?

You can download an excel sheet at my link. It says in the week leading up to April 17, 8000-some deaths are attributed to COVID-19 as per the death certificate. That figure includes out-of-hospital deaths of people who may never have gotten tested where the physician writing the death certificate nonetheless felt confident to attribute the death to COVID-19 based on symptoms, so this figure is already significantly higher than the daily figures published by the Department of Health and Social Care, which only registers hospital deaths with a positive test. Even so, this leaves over 3000 deaths unexplained.

Given that the lockdown can be safely assumed to lead to a net reduction of deaths by other causes (fewer traffic accidents, less street crime, fewer heart attacks due to at-risk patients not exerting themselves as much in sports, fewer people infecting themselves with multi-resistant bugs during non-essential hospital stays, fewer deaths due to other contagious diseases), we have to conclude that at least those 3000-odd and more likely around 5000 or more of those deaths that don't mention COVID-19 are in fact undetected COVID-19 cases.

If that's the case, it's worse than I thought.

 

[Jokodo]

What else? Daleks?

I don't know. I don't like to make assumptions. Not enough information, there may be other factors involved.

Probably those folks are all in on the conspiracy and opted to die of the funnies while a pandemic is raging, in order to make the disease look more threatening than it really is and give governments around the world an excuse to crash their economies and erode their tax base - because that's what governments want most.

 

[Jokodo]

You can download an excel sheet at my link. It says in the week leading up to April 17, 8000-some deaths are attributed to COVID-19 as per the death certificate. That figure includes out-of-hospital deaths of people who may never have gotten tested where the physician writing the death certificate nonetheless felt confident to attribute the death to COVID-19 based on symptoms, so this figure is already significantly higher than the daily figures published by the Department of Health and Social Care, which only registers hospital deaths with a positive test. Even so, this leaves over 3000 deaths unexplained.

Given that the lockdown can be safely assumed to lead to a net reduction of deaths by other causes (fewer traffic accidents, less street crime, fewer heart attacks due to at-risk patients not exerting themselves as much in sports, fewer people infecting themselves with multi-resistant bugs during non-essential hospital stays, fewer deaths due to other contagious diseases), we have to conclude that at least those 3000-odd and more likely around 5000 or more of those deaths that don't mention COVID-19 are in fact undetected COVID-19 cases.

If that's the case, it's worse than I thought.

Indeed, it would seem so.

The Financial Times, based on the ONS figures, conclude that the daily figures only reflect about half of COVID-19's true death toll in Britain. They calculate a ratio of reported cases/probable cases based on death data, and project this into the present, and thus come up with a likely real death toll of 45k and counting. (if you can't access the article, googling its title may help).

 

[DBT]

What else? Daleks?

I don't know. I don't like to make assumptions. Not enough information, there may be other factors involved.

Probably those folks are all in on the conspiracy and opted to die of the funnies while a pandemic is raging, in order to make the disease look more threatening than it really is and give governments around the world an excuse to crash their economies and erode their tax base - because that's what governments want most.

It's not that the risk is not there but the question of an over reaction by Governments to the threat. Sweden had a different response to other countries, for instance, without dire consequences.

Australian state governments implemented different levels of lock down, yet the difference in transmission and death rates between to the most strict and least strict states appears marginal.

 

[Jokodo]

Probably those folks are all in on the conspiracy and opted to die of the funnies while a pandemic is raging, in order to make the disease look more threatening than it really is and give governments around the world an excuse to crash their economies and erode their tax base - because that's what governments want most.

It's not that the risk is not there but the question of an over reaction by Governments to the threat. Sweden had a different response to other countries, for instance, without dire consequences.

Australian state governments implemented different levels of lock down, yet the difference in transmission and death rates between to the most strict and least strict states appears marginal.

Sweden has, as of the time of writing, 233 confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

That's lower than Belgium, Spain, UK, Italy, France, but very much higher than any of its neighbours - Norway and Estonia have 38, Finland 36, Denmark 75. And unlike Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, there is no clear downward trend in Sweden's daily new deaths: Here's the 7-day moving average of new deaths. While it does look like it peaked a few days ago, do keep in mind that registration may be incomplete for the last few days. The other countries mentioned all peaked two weeks ago or more. https://platz.se/coronavirus/#jump-to-new-deaths-7-days-average

Stockholm's all-cause deaths have consistently been more than double the average of recent years for weeks 14 through 16 - and in some suburbs more then three times the average: https://www.thelocal.se/20200427/sw...eekly-mortality-since-the-turn-of-the-century

 

[DBT]

Probably those folks are all in on the conspiracy and opted to die of the funnies while a pandemic is raging, in order to make the disease look more threatening than it really is and give governments around the world an excuse to crash their economies and erode their tax base - because that's what governments want most.

It's not that the risk is not there but the question of an over reaction by Governments to the threat. Sweden had a different response to other countries, for instance, without dire consequences.

Australian state governments implemented different levels of lock down, yet the difference in transmission and death rates between to the most strict and least strict states appears marginal.

Sweden has, as of the time of writing, 233 confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

That's lower than Belgium, Spain, UK, Italy, France, but very much higher than any of its neighbours - Norway and Estonia have 38, Finland 36, Denmark 75. And unlike Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, there is no clear downward trend in Sweden's daily new deaths: Here's the 7-day moving average of new deaths. While it does look like it peaked a few days ago, do keep in mind that registration may be incomplete for the last few days. The other countries mentioned all peaked two weeks ago or more. https://platz.se/coronavirus/#jump-to-new-deaths-7-days-average

Stockholm's all-cause deaths have consistently been more than double the average of recent years for weeks 14 through 16 - and in some suburbs more then three times the average: https://www.thelocal.se/20200427/sw...eekly-mortality-since-the-turn-of-the-century

Fair enough. I'm not arguing for any position.

 

[barbos]

Probably those folks are all in on the conspiracy and opted to die of the funnies while a pandemic is raging, in order to make the disease look more threatening than it really is and give governments around the world an excuse to crash their economies and erode their tax base - because that's what governments want most.

It's not that the risk is not there but the question of an over reaction by Governments to the threat. Sweden had a different response to other countries, for instance, without dire consequences.

Well, death rates:
Norway 38/mil
Finland 36/mil
Sweden 233/mil
That's 6.3 times higher in Sweden than in Finland/Norway

Australian state governments implemented different levels of lock down, yet the difference in transmission and death rates between to the most strict and least strict states appears marginal.

That's highly unlikely
Different states most certainly have different population density and starting conditions.
You need to look at dynamics, it's possible that the states which were hit hard and early implemented strict rules and the ones which were not hit did not and now they all look similar.

 

[DBT]

Well, death rates:
Norway 38/mil
Finland 36/mil
Sweden 233/mil
That's 6.3 times higher in Sweden than in Finland/Norway

Australian state governments implemented different levels of lock down, yet the difference in transmission and death rates between to the most strict and least strict states appears marginal.

That's highly unlikely
Different states most certainly have different population density and starting conditions.
You need to look at dynamics, it's possible that the states which were hit hard and early implemented strict rules and the ones which were not hit did not and now they all look similar.

Victoria has the toughest lockdown, banning fishing, golf, etc, for no apparent benefit. The absurdity is that you are allowed to exercise by walking along the river bank but not allowed to fish even with nobody in the vicinity.

Inconsistencies that frustrate people that have no apparent benefit in terms of preventing infection.

Other states allow fishing, golf and similar pastimes using social distancing with no apparent consequences.

 

[barbos]

Well, death rates:
Norway 38/mil
Finland 36/mil
Sweden 233/mil
That's 6.3 times higher in Sweden than in Finland/Norway

Australian state governments implemented different levels of lock down, yet the difference in transmission and death rates between to the most strict and least strict states appears marginal.

That's highly unlikely
Different states most certainly have different population density and starting conditions.
You need to look at dynamics, it's possible that the states which were hit hard and early implemented strict rules and the ones which were not hit did not and now they all look similar.

Victoria has the toughest lockdown, banning fishing, golf, etc, for no apparent benefit. The absurdity is that you are allowed to exercise by walking along the river bank but not allowed to fish even with nobody in the vicinity.

Inconsistencies that frustrate people that have no apparent benefit in terms of preventing infection.

Other states allow fishing, golf and similar pastimes using social distancing with no apparent consequences.

absurd part made it ineffective

 

[George S]

I think it is too early to tell. Let us suppose that 60% with antibodies represents herd immunity. It may take more, let's be conservative. Shall we suppose that the unconfirmed cases are 100x the confirmed? It could well be smaller, let's be conservative. So 60% of the world population = 4.68 billion. Divide by 100 to get the reported cases: 46,800,000.Today's report 3,000,000. Seems early to me.

 

[repoman]

The protection is weak and short lived for this type of virus, right?

 

[barbos]

I read some towns in Italy have 70% infection rates. Makes you wonder if drop in new cases and deaths is a result of herd immunity.

 

[blastula]

The protection is weak and short lived for this type of virus, right?

It is short in the common cold ones, but immunity against sars1 lasts about 2 years.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So, Lancet published a study on Remsidivir, and the stock market loved it!

Long story short....

In this study of adult patients admitted to hospital for severe COVID-19, remdesivir was not associated with statistically significant clinical benefits. However, the numerical reduction in time to clinical improvement in those treated earlier requires confirmation in larger studies.

You might need to read that a couple of times to let that one sink in. Wall Street is parading right now with the results of this study.

It might have had something to do with the disturbing spin from the NIH.

Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21. The trial (known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, or ACTT), sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the first clinical trial launched in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.

An independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) overseeing the trial met on April 27 to review data and shared their interim analysis with the study team. Based upon their review of the data, they noted that remdesivir was better than placebo from the perspective of the primary endpoint, time to recovery, a metric often used in influenza trials. Recovery in this study was defined as being well enough for hospital discharge or returning to normal activity level.

Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo (p<0.001). Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo. Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I read some towns in Italy have 70% infection rates. Makes you wonder if drop in new cases and deaths is a result of herd immunity.

In the hardest hit areas of Italy that's the case. I'm not aware of anywhere else with infection rates like that.

 

[ronburgundy]

So isn't the normal flu's fatality rate also extremely over-estimated based upon the highly biased sample of those who get diagnosed with it? As best I can tell, the CDC's attempts to estimate undiagnosed flu cases is based upon self report surveys that would exclude not only asymptomatic cases, but mildly symptomatic cases that the person assumes was merely allergies or a cold. Ignoring such cases would inflate the fatality rate of the flu.

And I would predict that that the false negative self reports of the flu are much higher than COVID since the flu isn't generally on people's mind unless the have strong symptoms, so it comes and goes without them even considering that it was the flu.

But then it is almost impossible to come up with reasonable estimates for influenza cases (or even the deaths) because they are not reliably reported even by doctors or hospitals. Flu has been with us for so long that it is pretty much taken for granted as part of the way life is. OTOH, covid 19 is new so it scares the shit out of people.

The loose estimates by the CDC of influenza cases this season in the U.S. is:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
39,000,000 to 56,000,000 infections
18,000,000 to 26,000,000 medical visits
410,000 to 740,000 hospitalizations
24,000 to 62,000 deaths

The broad spread of estimates should make it evident that people are not concerned enough to report cases but we seem to know Covid hospitalizations and deaths to the individual number.

Clearly we don't know the exact death rate numbers for either, b/c the total infections is so unknown. But we do have data that shows that COVID is far more deadly than the flu. The actual numbers of COVID deaths is fairly reliable. The reason flu deaths have such a huge range is that isn't based on recorded deaths, but on assumption-laden models. The most probable value would be the middle of the range, or 43,000 deaths during the entire 6 month flu season of which all but 3 weeks there was no lockdown. Flu season is from Oct to start of April with the spike over by March. Covid has killed 50% more people in 1/4th the time, most of those under extreme lockdown that likely cut the deaths by 90%. So, COVID definitely many times more deadly than the flu, and probably somewhere between 10 to 50 times more deadly (with 50 being very plausible).

Some other relevant comparisons that don't rely upon estimates of infections are that the flu kills between 300 and 500 Americans per day during the height of flu season. Covid has had a full month of 3-8 times that many daily deaths. Also, the flu isn't the #1 killer in a given day, even on it's worst days, but COVID has been for most days in the past month. Other more localized stats are also telling, such as 30 NYC cops dying of COVID in 3 weeks. And again, those much higher per day or per week deaths for COVID are under lockdown and would be many times higher without a lockdown.

 

[ronburgundy]

Deaths for the week ending April 17 are in: 22,351 in all of England and Wales, up from 18,516 the week before. The average of the corresponding week over the last 5 years is 10,497.

In London, there were 3275 deaths, up from 2,832. A typical value for the season is in the 900s.

The extra deaths are attributed to Covid19?

Not just the extra deaths over normal, but a % of the typical/normal level of deaths is also COVID. That's b/c most other causes of death are lowered by the lockdown. Lethal accidents, violent crime, death from other contagions including the flu, and even heart attacks and strokes brought on by physical exertion are all down. IOW, the difference between deaths now to the same weeks in prior years underestimates COVID deaths, b/c without COVID deaths, the lockdown would result in lower than typical/normal deaths.

 

[repoman]

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1266758/tests-in-recovered-patients-in-s-korea-found-false-positives-not-reinfections-experts-say

So is PCR so strong that it has people freaked out over dead viruses?

 

[blastula]

PCR detects the RNA sequence only, whether it's from an active or inactive virus. Need to do a cell culture to check for active, replicating virus.

This does come up a lot in how they look at studies that find the virus by PCR only.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So isn't the normal flu's fatality rate also extremely over-estimated based upon the highly biased sample of those who get diagnosed with it? As best I can tell, the CDC's attempts to estimate undiagnosed flu cases is based upon self report surveys that would exclude not only asymptomatic cases, but mildly symptomatic cases that the person assumes was merely allergies or a cold. Ignoring such cases would inflate the fatality rate of the flu.

And I would predict that that the false negative self reports of the flu are much higher than COVID since the flu isn't generally on people's mind unless the have strong symptoms, so it comes and goes without them even considering that it was the flu.

But then it is almost impossible to come up with reasonable estimates for influenza cases (or even the deaths) because they are not reliably reported even by doctors or hospitals. Flu has been with us for so long that it is pretty much taken for granted as part of the way life is. OTOH, covid 19 is new so it scares the shit out of people.

The loose estimates by the CDC of influenza cases this season in the U.S. is:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
39,000,000 to 56,000,000 infections
18,000,000 to 26,000,000 medical visits
410,000 to 740,000 hospitalizations
24,000 to 62,000 deaths

The broad spread of estimates should make it evident that people are not concerned enough to report cases but we seem to know Covid hospitalizations and deaths to the individual number.

We don't know the covid numbers to anything close to the individual number. It's just a typical case of spurious accuracy.

When worldometers declare 12,132 deaths one day and 11,921 the next, it's reasonable to infer that there were about 12,000 deaths each day, and that the number is fairly steady. It's probably more reasonable to say that between 10,000 and 15,000 died on both days.

The idea that the correct number can be known to five significant digits is absurd - but people do love to pretend that statistics are precise.

Very true about statistics. Statistics are very good for indicating averages and trends. Individual measurements such as daily deaths are not giving you the precise value for that point in time. There are simply too many sources of variation happening in the process.