Coronavirus

[Investor20]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11369033/people-europe-already-immune-coronavirus-antibodies/

"with 15% carrying antibodies"

Looking for more studies in next month to see how it ranges in different places.

And we think that herd immunity might kick in once we get to 40%-60% carrying antibodies?  That is very interesting news, indeed, and much faster than I would have expected.

SJ

The German Heinsberg district became a significant hot spot (linked to carnival celebrations at the end of February) so the virus had the 'opportunity' to spread. Despite this, the antibody response rate is fairly low and in no way can be extrapolated to other parts of the country, some of which haven't even 'seen' the virus yet.

 

Bingo. 15% in one of the hardest hit regions is not an encouraging outcome as far as whether herd immunity is feasible. And this pretty much invalidates the “widespread for months” thesis.

 

More detail here:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/09/999015/blood-tests-show-15-of-people-are-now-immune-to-covid-19-in-one-town-in-germany/

 

This is high from what I expected because Diamond Princess where mostly old people were stuck together in small rooms had 18% infection rate.

 

Also the fatality rate is much less with these antibody numbers at 0.37 compared to official 2%.

 

The Diamond Princess indicates there are certain percentage who doesnt get it even in such closed conditions in close proximity.

 

And then masks, hand washing, safe distance also slows down virus transmission.

 

So combined all these with 15% already potentially immune, means it may be possible to loosen lockdown as given in the article.

 

From article:

 

"The presence of previously infected people in the community, Streeck and colleagues believe, will reduce the speed at which the virus can move in the area. They also outline a process by which social distancing can be slowly unwound, especially given hygienic measures, like handwashing, and isolating and tracking the sick. They think if people avoid getting big doses of the virus—which can happen in hospitals or via close contact with someone infected—fewer people will become severely ill, “while at the same time developing immunity” that can help finally end the outbreak."

 

 

 

[LC]

https://supchina.com/2020/04/09/more-than-240000-chinese-companies-declare-bankruptcy-in-the-first-two-months-of-2020/

 

More Than 240,000 Chinese Companies Declare Bankruptcy In The First Two Months Of 2020

[Liberty]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11369033/people-europe-already-immune-coronavirus-antibodies/

 

"with 15% carrying antibodies"

 

Looking for more studies in next month to see how it ranges in different places.

 

 

 

And we think that herd immunity might kick in once we get to 40%-60% carrying antibodies?  That is very interesting news, indeed, and much faster than I would have expected.

 

 

SJ

 

The 15% number is in a district that was heavily hit but Sars-COV-2 in Germany. Places that haven't been that hard hit are probably much much lower. What matters is the average over larger populations.

[StubbleJumper]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11369033/people-europe-already-immune-coronavirus-antibodies/

 

"with 15% carrying antibodies"

 

Looking for more studies in next month to see how it ranges in different places.

 

 

 

And we think that herd immunity might kick in once we get to 40%-60% carrying antibodies?  That is very interesting news, indeed, and much faster than I would have expected.

 

 

SJ

 

The 15% number is in a district that was heavily hit but Sars-COV-2 in Germany. Places that haven't been that hard hit are probably much much lower. What matters is the average over larger populations.

 

 

Sure, the larger population immunity is what matters more.  But, this result is a bit interesting in that it is supportive of the notion of locking down the elderly and vulnerable, and then reducing restrictions for the younger, healthy population in one geographic area at a time.  You might not want to do it all at once nationwide, but it does suggest that you could make major strides to smaller population immunity pretty quickly, without a terrible mortality rate.

[Spekulatius]

Austria did a random study using PCR tests ( somit would capture those that overcome the infection already) and they have a 0.33% infection rate estimate for their population:

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/oesterreich-corona-101.html

[mcliu]

The mainstream media here should be all over this story but it’s too busy hating on Trump. Huge disservice to the people.

 

Yes, the mainstream media should be all over a silly spat between China and an Australia newspaper. That should distract us from the mass graves being dug in NYC:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-giant-trench-getting-built-nyc-s-hart-island-n1181056

 

Don’t mean that specifically but the role China and WHO played in all this.

Should be investigative reporting on the cover up.

And WHO/Tedros/China connection. And censorship of Taiwan.

Also, the misinformation campaigns being waged against Taiwan and world right now.

If world and media doesn’t investigate this, it’ll just repeat again. Just like coverup of SARS I in 2003.

[RichardGibbons]

thanks for that, but to be clear, my point is that the doctors/epidemiologists making these huge policy recommendations regarding mitigation have a misguided (dangerous) mindset that was borne out of their experience with HIV.  of course, HIV and covid are not comparable along many dimensions, but the recommendation of social distancing is equivalent to safe sex in prevention objective, with one important difference....safe sex wont shut down the nation while social distancing will and has.  all the more reason why this was such a bad recommendation that covid is far less dangerous than HIV, even though more easily transmitted

 

Yeah, I think that epidemiologists who have spent decades of their lives studying diseases are a bit more sophisticated than just copying the HIV strategy. I think they've probably spent a fair amount of time analysing about how our reaction to a disease should be impacted by the way that disease is spread.

 

Like, maybe you're thought about this stuff for three hours a day for the past two months. If that's the case, many of them have probably spent well over 100 times that much time thinking about the issues, and they actually been educated on this topic specifically. At some point, you might want to consider whether the Dunning-Kruger effect might be relevant in this situation.

[Dalal.Holdings]

Austria did a random study using PCR tests ( somit would capture those that overcome the infection already) and they have a 0.33% infection rate estimate for their population:

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/oesterreich-corona-101.html

 

This is almost exactly equal to what Iceland's random testing showed.

 

It should be remembered though that PCR will be negative in someone who has recovered (no more viral RNA) and is immune. Antibody tests will tell you overall how many have been infected and that "German Wuhan" region showing 15% is not reassuring for herd immunity crowd.

 

And none of these numbers are at all consistent with "this has been widespread for months" hypothesis.

[Liberty]

thanks for that, but to be clear, my point is that the doctors/epidemiologists making these huge policy recommendations regarding mitigation have a misguided (dangerous) mindset that was borne out of their experience with HIV.  of course, HIV and covid are not comparable along many dimensions, but the recommendation of social distancing is equivalent to safe sex in prevention objective, with one important difference....safe sex wont shut down the nation while social distancing will and has.  all the more reason why this was such a bad recommendation that covid is far less dangerous than HIV, even though more easily transmitted

 

Yeah, I think that epidemiologists who have spent decades of their lives studying diseases are a bit more sophisticated than just copying the HIV strategy. I think they've probably spent a fair amount of time analysing about how our reaction to a disease should be impacted by the way that disease is spread.

 

Like, maybe you're thought about this stuff for three hours a day for the past two months. If that's the case, many of them have probably spent well over 100 times that much time thinking about the issues, and they actually been educated on this topic specifically. At some point, you might want to consider whether the Dunning-Kruger effect might be relevant in this situation.

 

People who wake up one morning and think they've thought of stuff that people who think about this for a living haven't thought about say more about themselves than the epidemiologists.

 

This 2017 book might help them get up to speed on what epidemiologists actually think about:

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Deadliest-Enemy-Against-Killer-Germs/dp/0316343692/

[Dalal.Holdings]

thanks for that, but to be clear, my point is that the doctors/epidemiologists making these huge policy recommendations regarding mitigation have a misguided (dangerous) mindset that was borne out of their experience with HIV.  of course, HIV and covid are not comparable along many dimensions, but the recommendation of social distancing is equivalent to safe sex in prevention objective, with one important difference....safe sex wont shut down the nation while social distancing will and has.  all the more reason why this was such a bad recommendation that covid is far less dangerous than HIV, even though more easily transmitted

 

Yeah, I think that epidemiologists who have spent decades of their lives studying diseases are a bit more sophisticated than just copying the HIV strategy. I think they've probably spent a fair amount of time analysing about how our reaction to a disease should be impacted by the way that disease is spread.

 

Like, maybe you're thought about this stuff for three hours a day for the past two months. If that's the case, many of them have probably spent well over 100 times that much time thinking about the issues, and they actually been educated on this topic specifically. At some point, you might want to consider whether the Dunning-Kruger effect might be relevant in this situation.

 

People who wake up one morning and think they've thought of stuff that people who think about this for a living haven't thought about say more about themselves than the epidemiologists.

 

This 2017 book might help them get up to speed on what epidemiologists actually think about:

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Deadliest-Enemy-Against-Killer-Germs/dp/0316343692/

 

Just wait for them to find that one epidemiologist/MD/PhD who agrees with what they are saying.

 

It's like finding that one "scientist" PhD who doesn't believe in climate change and using that to bolster their arguments when the consensus is clearly oriented the opposite way.

[Liberty]

Just wait for them to find that one epidemiologist/MD/PhD who agrees with what they are saying.

 

It's like finding that one "scientist" PhD who doesn't believe in climate change and using that to bolster their arguments when the consensus is clearly oriented the opposite way.

 

Yeah, and that one's person claims always has way more weight to these people than the 250,000 others who disagree with detailed explanations why the thing doesn't make sense, for some reason.

[Jurgis]

This 2017 book might help them get up to speed on what epidemiologists actually think about:

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Deadliest-Enemy-Against-Killer-Germs/dp/0316343692/

 

OT. I just love the price history of this book:

 

https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/0316343692?context=search

 

(mark 3rd Party New and 3rd Party Used for additional fun).

[Dalal.Holdings]

https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/virus-appears-strike-men-overweight-people-harder-doc-1qi7wt1

 

In the emergency rooms of virus hotspots around the world, medical staff are seeing a greater number of men than women suffering severe symptoms of COVID-19, with obesity emerging as another potentially aggravating factor. But experts are still unsure why.

 

Also, Peter Attia thread on the hypoxia/hemoglobinopathy theory:

 

 

The hemoglobin binding notion is very unlikely IMO. For one, Covid does not infect RBCs (where hemoglobin is). And for another, there is a very easy explanation for hypoxia in these patients: ARDS. Occam's razor is useful here.

 

And let's not forget that the vast majority of "in silico" computational binding studies are very low utility and certainly not predictive, even weaker than in vitro studies (which is itself inferior to in vivo and then in situ).

[Spekulatius]

https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/virus-appears-strike-men-overweight-people-harder-doc-1qi7wt1

 

In the emergency rooms of virus hotspots around the world, medical staff are seeing a greater number of men than women suffering severe symptoms of COVID-19, with obesity emerging as another potentially aggravating factor. But experts are still unsure why.

 

Also, Peter Attia thread on the hypoxia/hemoglobinopathy theory:

 

 

The hemoglobin binding notion is very unlikely IMO. For one, Covid does not infect RBCs (where hemoglobin is). And for another, there is a very easy explanation for hypoxia in these patients: ARDS. Occam's razor is useful here.

 

And let's not forget that the vast majority of "in silico" computational binding studies are very low utility and certainly not predictive, even weaker than in vitro studies (which is itself inferior to in vivo and then in situ).

 

Bill Gates in the video posted by Liberty doesn’t believe it works either. He mentioned it looks good in the lab, so they surely have looked into this.

 

Personally, if I get COVID-19, I would ask my doc to give it a try. It’s not like there are many other options and I don’t have or existing conditions the would make it dangerous for me to use. More upside than downside I think.

[Dalal.Holdings]

https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/virus-appears-strike-men-overweight-people-harder-doc-1qi7wt1

 

In the emergency rooms of virus hotspots around the world, medical staff are seeing a greater number of men than women suffering severe symptoms of COVID-19, with obesity emerging as another potentially aggravating factor. But experts are still unsure why.

 

Also, Peter Attia thread on the hypoxia/hemoglobinopathy theory:

 

 

The hemoglobin binding notion is very unlikely IMO. For one, Covid does not infect RBCs (where hemoglobin is). And for another, there is a very easy explanation for hypoxia in these patients: ARDS. Occam's razor is useful here.

 

And let's not forget that the vast majority of "in silico" computational binding studies are very low utility and certainly not predictive, even weaker than in vitro studies (which is itself inferior to in vivo and then in situ).

 

Bill Gates in the video posted by Liberty doesn’t believe it works either. He mentioned it looks good in the lab, so they surely have looked into this.

 

Personally, if I get COVID-19, I would ask my doc to give it a try. It’s not like there are many other options and I don’t have or existing conditions the would make it dangerous for me to use. More upside than downside I think.

 

I forgot to add--Red Blood Cells have no nucleus, no DNA, and no RNA. So a virus cannot hijack RBC machinery to replicate (and form its proteins) like it can in other cell types. Hence very unlikely the virus infects RBCs. Again a major hole in the hemoglobin binding hypothesis.

 

Also, AFAIK there is no effective treatment even if the hemoglobin theory is true. Furthermore, covid patients respond to oxygen treatment which is another hole in the theory.

 

Edit: Wikipedia to the rescue:

Because of the lack of nuclei and organelles, mature red blood cells do not contain DNA and cannot synthesize any RNA, and consequently cannot divide and have limited repair capabilities. The inability to carry out protein synthesis means that no virus can evolve to target mammalian red blood cells.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_blood_cell

[zippy1]

The mainstream media here should be all over this story but it’s too busy hating on Trump. Huge disservice to the people.

 

Yes, the mainstream media should be all over a silly spat between China and an Australia newspaper. That should distract us from the mass graves being dug in NYC:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-giant-trench-getting-built-nyc-s-hart-island-n1181056

 

Don’t mean that specifically but the role China and WHO played in all this.

Should be investigative reporting on the cover up.

And WHO/Tedros/China connection. And censorship of Taiwan.

Also, the misinformation campaigns being waged against Taiwan and world right now.

If world and media doesn’t investigate this, it’ll just repeat again. Just like coverup of SARS I in 2003.

Taiwan warned WHO  at the end of last December about human-to-human transmission.  Yet, nobody in the mainstream media wonders why WHO never passed this information?  Even worse, on January 14th, WHO even published a note saying that there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

 

Even after January 23rd, when China shut down traffic between Hubei and rest of the China, WHO on one hand praised China's response and at the same time said that other countries should not follow suits to restrict traffic to China.

 

Trump may not be perfect. But I think WHO fails miserably.

Being in Taiwan, compared to the SARS outbreak, we look at the way how WHO acted this time and think that it is just a mouthpiece of Chinese government.

https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68

Taiwan said its doctors had heard from mainland colleagues that medical staff were getting ill — a sign of human-to-human transmission. Taipei officials said they reported this to both International Health Regulations (IHR), a WHO framework for exchange of epidemic prevention and response data between 196 countries, and Chinese health authorities on December 31.

 

Taiwanese government officials told the Financial Times the warning was not shared with other countries.

[Gregmal]

As long as people's agendas dictate what stories get told, nothing will change. WHO is a bs organization, funded by handouts and run by bureaucrats. They probably mean well, but also fail on the same levels most other similarly run and structured organizations do.

[RichardGibbons]

As long as people's agendas dictate what stories get told, nothing will change. WHO is a bs organization, funded by handouts and run by bureaucrats. They probably mean well, but also fail on the same levels most other similarly run and structured organizations do.

 

Yeah, it's clear that they were giving out inaccurate information.  The real question I wonder about is whether they were doing that because they're corrupt or because they knew that if they gave out accurate information, China would screw them, potentially making their response even worse. Did they choose the lesser of two evils, or are they just bad?

 

Across all of this, the one definitive lesson to be learned is that the CCP is a big problem and big western nations ought to distance themselves from China, even if it costs money. It's a shame that America isn't in position right now to step up and take international leadership in doing that.

[Liberty]

Important thread to understand what the antibodies tests actually mean:

 

 

Antibody tests are coming online. Never before have humans needed to understand Bayes rule more. Let's talk about why it's critical NOT to assume you are immune to covid-19 when you have a positive antibody test. Seriously, people need to understand this to prevent many deaths.

 

Several companies have tests of varying quality, but Cellex makes a FDA-approved antibody test. The goal is to test for immunity due to prior exposure rather than an active infection. Cellex's test has a "sensitivity" of 93.8% and a "specificity" of 95.6%. Lets interpret this

 

The Cellex test appears to have higher rates than others. Sensitivity: Probability person tests positive if they are infected. Specificity: Probability person tests negative given that they are negative. 93.8% and 95.6% sound good, they mean that only 6.2% of + people test -, and

 

only 4.4% of - people test +. But what does it mean when you test positive? Since the sensitivity is high, you'd assume that you're positive and immune to covid-19. But sensitivity measures prob testing + given that you are +. We want prob of BEING + GIVEN that you TEST +

 

The conditionality is reversed. Probability you are + given that you test positive can be written as Pr(are+|test+). Let's just derive Bayes theorem real quick in this context so you don't have to just trust me. Pr(are+|test+) equals the sensitivity Pr(test+|are+) multiplied by..

 

 

the probability you are+ irrespective of how you test, which is the same as the proportion of positives in the population. Let's assume that in the USA this is ~1% or ~3.3 million people are really infected. The final term in the denominator is the probability you test positive.

 

The probability you test positive must be decomposed into the people who test positive and are positive plus the people who test positive and aren't. We have all the necessary numbers for this probability expression and get a denominator of 0.053. Plugging it all in to Bayes rule

 

 

f we plug in sensitivity, Pr(test+|are+), the probability a random person is positive, and the probability a random person tests positive, then a randomly tested person who TESTS positive, only has a 17.7% chance of actually BEING positive. More that 82% of people will be wrong!

 

 

If you get a positive antibody test result and think you're immune and quit socially distancing, you are far more likely than not to make a big mistake. When millions of people make the same mistake rather that appreciate conditional probability and Bayes rule, many people die.

 

But it gets worse. If you never had symptoms but test positive and conclude you're one of the lucky people who had an asymptomatic infection, you're even more likely to make a big mistake. Of course, as a higher proportion of  population becomes infected, this mistake diminishes.

 

The take home is that a high sensitivity, Pr(test+|are+)=0.938, does NOT mean that Pr(are+|test+) is  high. 82 of 100 people who get a positive test will still be susceptible to the virus. Once 10% of population has been infected, this drops to 30%, but that is a LOT of people!

 

etc etc

[Liberty]

Apple and Google partnering on contact tracing tech:

 

https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/apple-and-google-partner-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology

[Spekulatius]

As long as people's agendas dictate what stories get told, nothing will change. WHO is a bs organization, funded by handouts and run by bureaucrats. They probably mean well, but also fail on the same levels most other similarly run and structured organizations do.

 

Yeah, it's clear that they were giving out inaccurate information.  The real question I wonder about is whether they were doing that because they're corrupt or because they knew that if they gave out accurate information, China would screw them, potentially making their response even worse. Did they choose the lesser of two evils, or are they just bad?

 

Across all of this, the one definitive lesson to be learned is that the CCP is a big problem and big western nations ought to distance themselves from China, even if it costs money. It's a shame that America isn't in position right now to step up and take international leadership in doing that.

 

The simplest explanation is the best imo and they are just bad and kept regurgating what China told them. WHOhas good People and probably incompetent ones. Let’s also remember Dr Carlo Urbani, a WHO Doctor who probably prevented a SARS epidemic in 2003 and paid for it with his life.

 

Also, let’s face it a nation like the USA doesn’t rely on the WHO. The US has its own boots on the ground and knew about the virus early January if not earlier. They sure have people and informants their as well Aswath ing social media

[Dalal.Holdings]

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007016

 

Of the 61 patients who received at least one dose of remdesivir, data from 8 could not be analyzed (including 7 patients with no post-treatment data and 1 with a dosing error). Of the 53 patients whose data were analyzed, 22 were in the United States, 22 in Europe or Canada, and 9 in Japan. At baseline, 30 patients (57%) were receiving mechanical ventilation and 4 (8%) were receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. During a median follow-up of 18 days, 36 patients (68%) had an improvement in oxygen-support class, including 17 of 30 patients (57%) receiving mechanical ventilation who were extubated. A total of 25 patients (47%) were discharged, and 7 patients (13%) died; mortality was 18% (6 of 34) among patients receiving invasive ventilation and 5% (1 of 19) among those not receiving invasive ventilation.

 

Looks like it has some efficacy. More data to come this month.

[Spekulatius]

Forest Trump talking medicine:

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1248698754556923904?s=21

 

I am sorry if it sounds reasonable to you.

[LongHaul]

I had read an article that the Italian Health Minister said that they had brought the RO down from 3 to 1 with the lockdown.

 

What that means is that Italy hasn't been able to kill the virus. 

 

I still see people in my neighborhood too close to each other etc.  Which means many are not being careful.

 

At this point I don't see how this virus goes away unless there is herd immunity and Covid is here to stay for awhile.  A "cure" or solution could be found.

 

It might be 2 years for normal life to return.  A least it better than the black death!

[arcube]

Forest Trump talking medicine:

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1248698754556923904?s=21

 

I am sorry if it sounds reasonable to you.

 

Now tomorrow he will mad that he was called out for it. I am sure someone must have told him that antibiotics don't necessarily work on viruses but he thought that was a deep state conspiracy. ::) This is becoming a shit show.