Coronavirus

[patience_and_focus]

Covid-19 Is Creating a Wave of Heart Disease

Emerging data show that some of the coronavirus’s most potent damage is inflicted on the heart.

 

By Haider Warraich

Dr. Warraich is a cardiologist.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/opinion/covid-19-heart-disease.html

 

"Eduardo Rodriguez was poised to start as the No. 1 pitcher for the Boston Red Sox this season. But in July the 27-year-old tested positive for Covid-19. Feeling “100 years old,” he told reporters: “I’ve never been that sick in my life, and I don’t want to get that sick again.” His symptoms abated, but a few weeks later he felt so tired after throwing about 20 pitches during practice that his team told him to stop and rest.

 

Further investigation revealed that he had a condition many are still struggling to understand: Covid-19-associated myocarditis. Mr. Rodriguez won’t be playing baseball this season."

[Guest cherzeca]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

[Read the Footnotes]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State.

 

This particular brand of false equivalency has been brought up before in this thread and seems to be a typical tactic for those who aren't really searching for the truth, but are pushing a political agenda. So we all might want to be on the look out for it before posting in the future, unless it is to point out misleading presentation of data.

 

Stockholm and in fact all of Scandanavia are likely on average more homogeneous, and better educated than the USA. Plus they as a region have done very well at remaining cohesive by fighting disinformation and fake news, in fact I suspect these tweets would find a less receptive audience there than in the USA.

 

Here is at least one relevant article regarding Finland, but there are many I could have chosen instead including more academic articles relevant to Sweden:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-fiction-finlands-new-lessons-in-combating-fake-news

 

The real secret to Stockholm is likely education level, cohesiveness, and a pro-social culture. With a conscientious population, there is less need to threaten or cajole, especially if they see it as personal interests aligning with self-interest, which should be the case all around the world. Evidence that they acted individually without national mandate can be seen in the data indicating a decline in mobility in Sweden which indicates they achieved similar or better social distancing without dictates. As I have been saying since February, it's a "complex, adaptive system". Human beings have agency and that complicates policy decisions and analysis.

 

Stockholm syndrome could be useful to study for anyone who feels they are repeatedly fall prey to bad information:

 

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

[Dalal.Holdings]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

The twitter posts reference compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State.

 

This particular brand of false equivalency has been brought up before in this thread and seems to be a typical tactic for those who aren't really searching for the truth, but are pushing a political agenda. So you might want to be on the look out for it before.

 

Stockholm and in fact all of Scandanavia are likely on average more homogeneous, and better educated than the USA. Plus they as a region have done very well at remaining cohesive by fighting disinformation and fake news, in fact I suspect these tweets would find a less receptive audience there than in the USA.

 

Here is at least one relevant article regarding Finland, but there are many I could have chosen instead including more academic articles relevant to Sweden:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-fiction-finlands-new-lessons-in-combating-fake-news

 

The real secret to Stockholm is likely education level, cohesiveness, and a pro-social culture. With a conscientious population, there is less need to threaten or cajole, especially if they see it as personal interests aligning with self-interest, which should be the case all around the world. Evidence that they acted individually without national mandate can be seen in the data indicating a decline in mobility in Sweden which indicates they achieved similar or better social distancing without dictates. As I have been saying since February, it's a "complex, adaptive system". Human beings have agency and that complicates policy decisions and analysis.

 

Stockholm syndrome could be useful to study for anyone who feels they are repeatedly fall prey to bad information:

 

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

 

LOL, call em out!

[5xEBITDA]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State.

 

 

I am confused. Over 70% of NYS cases are in NYC, so this seems like a fair comparison to make?

[Guest cherzeca]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State.

 

 

I am confused. Over 70% of NYS cases are in NYC, so this seems like a fair comparison to make?

 

RTF likes to reread self even more than footnotes. Not an accurate reading of thread

[Guest cherzeca]

NYC comparison tweet...part of the tread that RTF did not deign to read.

 

 

Dalal is even worse, but we all knew that...

[StubbleJumper]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State.

 

This particular brand of false equivalency has been brought up before in this thread and seems to be a typical tactic for those who aren't really searching for the truth, but are pushing a political agenda. So we all might want to be on the look out for it before posting in the future, unless it is to point out misleading presentation of data.

 

Stockholm and in fact all of Scandanavia are likely on average more homogeneous, and better educated than the USA. Plus they as a region have done very well at remaining cohesive by fighting disinformation and fake news, in fact I suspect these tweets would find a less receptive audience there than in the USA.

 

Here is at least one relevant article regarding Finland, but there are many I could have chosen instead including more academic articles relevant to Sweden:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-fiction-finlands-new-lessons-in-combating-fake-news

 

The real secret to Stockholm is likely education level, cohesiveness, and a pro-social culture. With a conscientious population, there is less need to threaten or cajole, especially if they see it as personal interests aligning with self-interest, which should be the case all around the world. Evidence that they acted individually without national mandate can be seen in the data indicating a decline in mobility in Sweden which indicates they achieved similar or better social distancing without dictates. As I have been saying since February, it's a "complex, adaptive system". Human beings have agency and that complicates policy decisions and analysis.

 

Stockholm syndrome could be useful to study for anyone who feels they are repeatedly fall prey to bad information:

 

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

 

 

Actually, I found that twitter thread to be fascinating.  The participants seemed to be fixated on the difference between the population density of NYC vs Stockholm, and they dedicated virtually zero attention to the argument that the fellow was actually making, which was that it is possible that the Covid begins to peter out when a population hits 15%-20% presence of antibodies.  I don't doubt that comparing the density of NYS to Stockholm is analytically weak, but that particular element was not crucial to his central hypothesis.

 

Does anybody have any comment about his assertion that Covid peters out at 15%-20%?  Looking at the United States at the national level, the daily new cases seems to be trending down.  Official confirmed cases are 5.4m, and most seroprevalence studies show that there are 10x to 15x people with antibodies compared to the official number of cases.  So, where is the US currently at from the perspective of prevalence of antibodies?  It would not come as a surprise to me that the US might be in that 15%-20% range right now.  As I noted, the daily new cases seem to be trending down, so as I asked last week, have we hit peak-virus in the US?  The twitter guy's hypothesis would be yes.

 

Or like the participants of the twitter thread, we could ignore the guy's core hypothesis and focus in on a peripheral analytical weakness.

 

 

SJ

[Read the Footnotes]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State.

 

 

I am confused. Over 70% of NYS cases are in NYC, so this seems like a fair comparison to make?

That's a fair point, and you could argue that it makes the point even more strongly that you are mixing in the data from less populated regions, but let's look at the final conclusion:

This is typically when people bring up population density,  so let's remind ourselves that Stockholm has twice the population density of New York State but far fewer deaths. And Stockholm never locked down.

 

There are two problems with the final comment:

First, it would be more accurate to compare New York City to Stockholm, so that you get an apples to apples comparison. In that case, NYC has well over twice the population density of Stockholm.

Second, what really matters is how the populations behavior changed, rather than whether it changed through edict or common sense. There is a valuable lesson from Stockholm, but it's not that herd immunity is easily achievable and right around the corner.

 

Oddly, I do think that an outcome very similar to herd immunity is very achievable much sooner and much more easily than most people realize and it involves wearing face masks and rapid, cheap testing.

[Read the Footnotes]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State.

 

This particular brand of false equivalency has been brought up before in this thread and seems to be a typical tactic for those who aren't really searching for the truth, but are pushing a political agenda. So we all might want to be on the look out for it before posting in the future, unless it is to point out misleading presentation of data.

 

Stockholm and in fact all of Scandanavia are likely on average more homogeneous, and better educated than the USA. Plus they as a region have done very well at remaining cohesive by fighting disinformation and fake news, in fact I suspect these tweets would find a less receptive audience there than in the USA.

 

Here is at least one relevant article regarding Finland, but there are many I could have chosen instead including more academic articles relevant to Sweden:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-fiction-finlands-new-lessons-in-combating-fake-news

 

The real secret to Stockholm is likely education level, cohesiveness, and a pro-social culture. With a conscientious population, there is less need to threaten or cajole, especially if they see it as personal interests aligning with self-interest, which should be the case all around the world. Evidence that they acted individually without national mandate can be seen in the data indicating a decline in mobility in Sweden which indicates they achieved similar or better social distancing without dictates. As I have been saying since February, it's a "complex, adaptive system". Human beings have agency and that complicates policy decisions and analysis.

 

Stockholm syndrome could be useful to study for anyone who feels they are repeatedly fall prey to bad information:

 

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

 

 

Actually, I found that twitter thread to be fascinating.  The participants seemed to be fixated on the difference between the population density of NYC vs Stockholm, and they dedicated virtually zero attention to the argument that the fellow was actually making, which was that it is possible that the Covid begins to peter out when a population hits 15%-20% presence of antibodies.  I don't doubt that comparing the density of NYS to Stockholm is analytically weak, but that particular element was not crucial to his central hypothesis.

 

Does anybody have any comment about his assertion that Covid peters out at 15%-20%?  Looking at the United States at the national level, the daily new cases seems to be trending down.  Official confirmed cases are 5.4m, and most seroprevalence studies show that there are 10x to 15x people with antibodies compared to the official number of cases.  So, where is the US currently at from the perspective of prevalence of antibodies?  It would not come as a surprise to me that the US might be in that 15%-20% range right now.  As I noted, the daily new cases seem to be trending down, so as I asked last week, have we hit peak-virus in the US?  The twitter guy's hypothesis would be yes.

 

Or like the participants of the twitter thread, we could ignore the guy's core hypothesis and focus in on a peripheral analytical weakness.

 

 

SJ

One thing that most people don't realize yet is that the antibody tests suck. The data that they companies used to represent the quality of tests is very questionable, and may not be applicable to the real world, therefore, the prevalence is likely underestimated by testing and adjustments should really be made, but currently the tests are assumed to be a much better indicator than they likely are.

 

The problem with trying to assign all of the impact to herd immunity is there are so many confounding variables. Mask wearing and other human behaviors that mimic herd immunity are on the rise at the same time.

 

If you listen to top virologists, they don't think herd immunity is going to be achieved at 20%, but many are questioning the tests.

 

 

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

You think that’s bad? I heard Chicago has more crime than a desert in Iraq.

[Guest cherzeca]

Once again RTF doesn’t get it. Comparison is made to various populations and they all have similar “wild” antibody %s at point where mortality trends to zero...except prisons and cruise ships where thesis is still confirmed if you agree that excessive viral loading can overcome natural resistance.

 

The point of course for those willing to read and think is that we/you wherever need not approach a vaccine antibody % to achieve herd immunity. And if true this is a big value add to the discussion. At least for those not living in an echo chamber.

[Guest cherzeca]

Oh I see RTF finally read the thesis. And response is that “antibody tests suck”. Thanks RTF. We will keep that in mind.

 

As for Dalal since he is on ignore I will continue to happily ignore

[Spekulatius]

The counter argument to the 15-20% immunity is that high infection rates of 80% have been seen in some settings ( prisons and a Korean psych ward if I remember correctly)

 

Anyways the herd immunity threshold depends on the R0 from a pure mathematically perspective, which is a highly volatile and setting dependent number.

[Dalal.Holdings]

As for Dalal since he is on ignore I will continue to happily ignore

 

[muscleman]

NYC comparison tweet...part of the tread that RTF did not deign to read.

 

 

Dalal is even worse, but we all knew that...

 

I agree with you on here immunity. I think GA’s school reopening will be key to watch. If it continues to trend down in the end of August, that reenforces the hypothesis about herd immunity.

 

 

[KCLarkin]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

 

This thread is b.s. Toronto has a similar death chart to NYC and Stockholm. But only 1.5% of Torontonians have antibodies. So "herd immunity" is an unlikely explanation. The author mentions prisons (where attack rates are much higher than 20%) but dismisses them as "unnatural". San Quentin had 66% positive last I checked. That's a range of 1.5 - 66%

 

But this scam is also based on the false assumption that there were no regulatory or behavioural changes in Sweden.

 

 

[Guest cherzeca]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

 

This thread is b.s. Toronto has a similar death chart to NYC and Stockholm. But only 1.5% of Torontonians have antibodies. So "herd immunity" is an unlikely explanation. The author mentions prisons (where attack rates are much higher than 20%) but dismisses them as "unnatural". San Quentin had 66% positive last I checked. That's a range of 1.5 - 66%

 

But this scam is also based on the false assumption that there were no regulatory or behavioural changes in Sweden.

 

Can you please provide link on Toronto antibody %?

[Liberty]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/science/coronavirus-bayes-statistics-math.html

[LC]

The problem with using bayesian statistics to model viral outbreak is that how to select priors and how to define your likelihood distribution are both prone to bias, particularly the latter.

[Cigarbutt]

-On the many definitions of herd immunity

International comparison is fair game but there are limitations.

The Twitter thread seems to base its analysis on a binary definition of lockdown: no lockdown versus full lockdown. There is indeed a wide gap in perception about the actual impact of government measures but even if many (reasonably comparable otherwise) countries have been defined as adopting widely different approaches, in reality, the differences are much less significant than some suggest (ie Sweden versus Michigan) and, on the ground, individuals use rules and guidelines, to a significant degree, to fine-tune behaviors that they were already ready to implement.

Also, assuming natural immunity has been reached suffers from a major flaw in the sense that it is a dynamic number (concept) and that the functioning of society is still far from normal (whatever your individual beliefs or ideologies).

 

-On herd immunity in Georgia

This (below link) is an interesting example showing how dynamic the concept of herd immunity is. When social measures are modified (government, individuals or anywhere in between), suddenly you find out that the level of immunity required becomes different (both a the individual and collective levels):

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/08/16/third-high-school-in-one-metro-atlanta-county-is-closing-after-coronavirus-outbreak/#5e4a1d041809

BTW, this is not submitted to suggest that a major resurgence of hospitalizations and deaths are about to occur in Georgia. For a variety of reasons (both knowns and unknowns), the trajectory of the virus is clearly down (at least for this wave). It just seems that Georgia will "succeed" in maximizing (under given circumstances) the area of the curve (size and time) describing mortality and morbidity for a given population.

 

-On the 'real' excess mortality from Covid

https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938

https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c

Both links offer good quality data concerning international comparisons and the relative marginal differences in timing and extent of "government stringency measures".

Although there are factors that point to under-reporting of deaths. Evidence suggests that, at least so far, on a net basis, excess mortality from Covid has been somewhat under-reported.

 

Covid-19 Is Creating a Wave of Heart Disease

Emerging data show that some of the coronavirus’s most potent damage is inflicted on the heart.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/opinion/covid-19-heart-disease.html

"Eduardo Rodriguez was poised to start as the No. 1 pitcher for the Boston Red Sox this season. But in July the 27-year-old tested positive for Covid-19. Feeling “100 years old,” he told reporters: “I’ve never been that sick in my life, and I don’t want to get that sick again.” His symptoms abated, but a few weeks later he felt so tired after throwing about 20 pitches during practice that his team told him to stop and rest.

Further investigation revealed that he had a condition many are still struggling to understand: Covid-19-associated myocarditis. Mr. Rodriguez won’t be playing baseball this season."

This is worth following as virus-induced inflammation (direct or indirect) is for real but there is an awful lot of attention given now to anything related to Covid. The interest here is similar to what happened at some point with the growing concerns about Kawasaki-like presentations in children. Time will tell i guess.

 

Can you please provide link on Toronto antibody %?

I'll provide the link in exchange for more insights from KCLarkin and you..

https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/2020/07/covid-19-epi-seroprevalence-in-ontario.pdf?la=en

 

 

 

[RichardGibbons]

Twitter thread on why “wild” herd immunity is achieved at much lower % than vaccination

 

 

I found this argument interesting--thanks Cherzeca.

 

Though obviously nothing is proven, on the face of it, the hypothesis seems reasonable to me because humans aren't homogeneous objects randomly bouncing around in a closed world. It seems reasonable to me that there are people with varying degrees of susceptibility to the virus (we already know this because there's dramatically different outcomes for people who are infected). Plus, the degree to which people spread it varies as well--super-spreaders are super-spreaders partly because they have a lot of exposure to a lot of people, so you'd expect them to get it early as well.

 

What is the R0 for a population if you assume that 70% of super-spreaders and the 10% of people who are particularly susceptible to infection by that particular disease are immune because they've already had it? I think the R0 (and the level of infection to achieve herd immunity) would be lower than what you'd get from models where humans are assumed to be homogeneous.

 

So, I don't think we should dismiss this theory out of hand.

[Read the Footnotes]

Once again RTF doesn’t get it. Comparison is made to various populations and they all have similar “wild” antibody %s at point where mortality trends to zero...except prisons and cruise ships where thesis is still confirmed if you agree that excessive viral loading can overcome natural resistance.

 

The point of course for those willing to read and think is that we/you wherever need not approach a vaccine antibody % to achieve herd immunity. And if true this is a big value add to the discussion. At least for those not living in an echo chamber.

 

Are you OK Cherzeca? I truly meant no offense to you or even to the original author, although I think his methods are atrocious. I am surprised by the nastiness of your response. Since you have generally been a respectful contributor allow me to apologize and assume the best of you.

 

I actually agree that what he is talking about may be more likely than most people realize though not necessarily for the reasons he enumerates, and that the probability of decline from a number of factors in combination is  underestimated, in fact I think I might be more educated on the subject than he is, but that doesn't change the fact that his argument is a giant mess. I actually shared the argument to a PhD who in the past was invited to teach research methods to medical students, but took a different position at the same graduate school instead. Assuming you've never taught research methods to medical professionals as part of their graduate school, I'm guessing we are less qualified to comment on the subject. Their response was that they just didn't even know where to start in attacking the argument because it was such a mess with so many different places you could start.

 

These are stressful times for all of us, and if I need work to become a more thoughtful contributor, I will. In the meantime, I will reflect on the following inspirational post and hope that my contributions will be as constructive as possible in the future.

 

I have noticed an increase in emotion and contentiousness, to which I have contributed and for which I apologize.  I have also noticed a decrease in posts (threads really, or posts back and forth among a few posters that examine an issue from pretty much all sides) that I find truly insightful.  the economic effect of the corona shutdown when coupled with the advent of a potus election cycle make this a rather disconcerting time.  I have reacted by posting too much on matters that I know much too little about, when compared to the single topic that I believe I know a good deal about.  this may be called venting, which does not benefit the board.

[Read the Footnotes]

Oh I see RTF finally read the thesis. And response is that “antibody tests suck”. Thanks RTF. We will keep that in mind.

 

As for Dalal since he is on ignore I will continue to happily ignore

The antibody tests sucking would actually support the idea that we are closer to herd immunity than most people realize. Most people are skeptical about the quality of the antigen tests, but most people including professionals believed the initial manufacturers claims regarding sensitivity. The more false negatives, the more we might underestimate the degree of immunity already present in the community.

 

The accuracy of the estimates of the cruise ship is likely much higher than the accuracy of the estimates of other populations because the timing of antibody tests is so important to their accuracy.

 

I would say we have more experience taking in to account the shortcomings of our antigen testing and making adjustments to the models as a result of those issue than we do with the antibody tests which many are just now starting to grapple with in the last few weeks.

[Guest cherzeca]

@RTF. I’m just fine. Thanks for asking.

 

@cigar. Report dated 6/30. Twitter thread more recent data.