[Godstud]

@Sivad From your article:
There may be delays between symptoms onset and deaths which can lead to underestimation of the CFR;

Of course, none of what you posted is disputing the facts put out by the CDC and WHO, so what are you getting at, exactly?

[Sivad]

Since like half of these old people have multiple comorbidities, in upwards of 80% of cases it's not clear if the virus is actually the cause of death:

Recording the numbers of those who die with(association) Coronavirus will inflate the CFR as opposed to those that died from(causation) Coronavirus, which will reduce the CFR.

17th March 2020: Report from the Italian National Institute of Health: analysed 355 fatalities and found only three patients (0.8%) had no prior medical conditions. See Table 1 in the paper; (99% who died had one pre-existing health condition):

49% had three or more health conditions
26% had two other ‘pathologies’,
25% had one.
The most common problems in the 355 who died were:

76% high blood pressure.
36% diabetes,
33% ischemic heart disease.

Coronavirus: Is Covid-19 really the cause of all the fatalities in Italy?

In Italy, all those who die in hospitals with Coronavirus will be included in the death numbers. In the article, Professor Walter Ricciardi, Scientific Adviser to, Italy’s Minister of Health, reports, “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three.”

But Prof Ricciardi added that Italy's death rate may appear higher because of how doctors record fatalities.

"The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health ... s-in-italy


Italy

In Italy, there are several reasons why CFR might be higher: the age structure of the Italian population (2nd oldest population in the world); highest rates of antibiotic resistance deaths in Europe which might contribute to increased pneumonia deaths (Italy tops the EU for antibiotic-resistance deaths with nearly 1/3rd of the deaths in the EU). Smoking also seems to be a factor associated with poor survival – in Italy, 24% smoke, 28% men. In the UK, for instance, 15% are current smokers.

But there are other factors that may have contributed to Italy's fatality rates, experts say, including a high rate of smoking and pollution – the majority of deaths have been in the northern Lombardy region, which is notorious for dirty air.
https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19-ca ... ity-rates/

[Godstud]

A lot of something called "Speculation".

Find me a person over 60 who does not have a pre-existing condition, of some sort. Also, that doesn't mean it's a significant factor, or if it even is a factor.

Bob had acne. That's a pre-existing condition. Pre-existing conditions don't mean that they were going to die of those, as I am certain you are hoping.

You are cherry-picking what you want to see out of that.

[Rancid]

Stress kills

People will definitely die. Stress kills and nothing stresses people out more than losing their jobs and facing destitution.....

Fair enough, people will die, and their life spans will likely be shortened if they are not killed immediately.

That said, I'm going to pose a question that I think @Donna would appreciate.

Could we not say that the stresses of modern life are a direct result of capitalism itself?

I don't consider myself a communist, but the system we have created (mostly capitalistic) puts a lot of people in very stressful/unhealthy situations on a daily basis.

[Rancid]

Donna is a commie, but should we call her a ‘dirty commie’. She actually seems to have a heart, so that makes her one of those commies that historically got an ice pick through the back of the head.

When I labeled @Donna as a dirty commie. I meant that in a playful almost endearing manner.

I don't hate commies, generally.

[late]

While all the bloviating is going on, people in Italy are dying, alone, lying on the floor, in rooms and hallways.

We're going to get hit worse than Italy.

The Cult has no idea (in general and in particular).

[Pants-of-dog]

Well setting aside the fact that you're dishonestly ignoring the studies I posted saying that economic crises do indeed kill lots of people, the idea that the [timely] deaths of a few million old sick people is like the greatest tragedy imaginable and must be averted at all costs, is just idiotic.

As far as I can tell, the number of deaths caused by the isolation, as per your studies, would still be significantly less than the number of deaths caused by the virus if we did not take these precautions.

You are also ignoring the number of lives saved by the drop in economic activity. A city the size of Toronto has approximately 600 deaths annually from air pollution. With the dramatically reduced levels of air pollution, in the last two weeks, this has probably resulted in hundreds of people worldwide not dying when they otherwise would have due to the pollution.

There are far worse tragedies that come from economic collapse. How many women in the developing world will be forced into prostitution? How many children will be forced into prostitution? How many birth defects from severe malnutrition? Your morality is as superficial and bankrupt as your politics.

As soon as you present some evidence, we can look at that more objectively.

[Donna]

Fair enough, people will die, and their life spans will likely be shortened if they are not killed immediately.

That said, I'm going to pose a question that I think @Donna would appreciate.

Could we not say that the stresses of modern are a direct result of capitalism itself?

I don't consider myself a communist, but the system we have created (mostly capitalistic) puts a lot of people in very stressful/unhealthy situations on a daily basis.

Great video by Yanis Varoufakis on capitalism and the pandemic

[Rich]

While all the bloviating is going on, people in Italy are dying, alone, lying on the floor, in rooms and hallways.

What like 5000 of them. probably about 50000 will already have died this year in Italy from other causes. So far San Marino and Italy are the only places where more than 1% of 1% have died from Chinavirus.

[B0ycey]

Great video by Yanis Varoufakis on capitalism and the pandemic

Great video. With allocated borrowing set to be going through the roof and global interest rates basically 0%, who is set to lend governments money by buying glits but themselves? And how are they going to balance the books? With austerity? Tax rises? Cutting the budget? The public will love that. Or is it going to be more borrowing? The neverending circle.

Interest rates have never reached pre 2008 levels and negative fiscal responsibility meant most nations were running off a deficit. These deficits are set to increase, China is going into recession and everyone else is following behind. Add in high unemployment and low production and we have ourselves a time bomb. Time to drop Capitalism and see what else floats I guess.

[Rancid]

Great video. With allocated borrowing set to be going through the roof and global interest rates basically 0%, who is set to lend governments money by buying glits but themselves? And how are they going to balance the books? With austerity? Tax rises? Cutting the budget? The public will love that. Or is it going to be more borrowing? The neverending circle.

Print baby, print!!!

That is effectively a tax on everyone without actually raising taxes.

I still need to try and watch the video.

[B0ycey]

Print baby, print!!!

That is effectively a tax on everyone without actually raising taxes.

Someone always buys Dollar bonds no matter how many times they are "printed". Usually China. Although perhaps inflation due to monetary devaluing isn't the end of the world when you return that back to the populous in relief payments. Nonetheless my worry isnt infaltion but keeping production going with rising living costs and the effect on the service sector in the economy. Times like this you regret the big Thatcher sell off and sending your wealth to the Far East and running an economy primarily on banking and services.

[Donna]

There's a good chance that this will only result in a short recession followed by a quick recovery, but the underlying contradictions outlined by @B0ycey will still persist. Effectively the proverbial can will be kicked down the proverbial road, again.

[Sivad]

Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?
Current estimates about the Covid-19 fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude.



By Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya
professors of medicine at Stanford University

March 24, 2020 6:21 pm ET

If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.

Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate—2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others. So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, two million to four million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases.


The latter rate is misleading because of selection bias in testing. The degree of bias is uncertain because available data are limited. But it could make the difference between an epidemic that kills 20,000 and one that kills two million. If the number of actual infections is much larger than the number of cases—orders of magnitude larger—then the true fatality rate is much lower as well. That’s not only plausible but likely based on what we know so far.


Population samples from China, Italy, Iceland and the U.S. provide relevant evidence. On or around Jan. 31, countries sent planes to evacuate citizens from Wuhan, China. When those planes landed, the passengers were tested for Covid-19 and quarantined. After 14 days, the percentage who tested positive was 0.9%. If this was the prevalence in the greater Wuhan area on Jan. 31, then, with a population of about 20 million, greater Wuhan had 178,000 infections, about 30-fold more than the number of reported cases. The fatality rate, then, would be at least 10-fold lower than estimates based on reported cases.

Next, the northeastern Italian town of Vò, near the provincial capital of Padua. On March 6, all 3,300 people of Vò were tested, and 90 were positive, a prevalence of 2.7%. Applying that prevalence to the whole province (population 955,000), which had 198 reported cases, suggests there were actually 26,000 infections at that time. That’s more than 130-fold the number of actual reported cases. Since Italy’s case fatality rate of 8% is estimated using the confirmed cases, the real fatality rate could in fact be closer to 0.06%.

In Iceland, deCode Genetics is working with the government to perform widespread testing. In a sample of nearly 2,000 entirely asymptomatic people, researchers estimated disease prevalence of just over 1%. Iceland’s first case was reported on Feb. 28, weeks behind the U.S. It’s plausible that the proportion of the U.S. population that has been infected is double, triple or even 10 times as high as the estimates from Iceland. That also implies a dramatically lower fatality rate.

The best (albeit very weak) evidence in the U.S. comes from the National Basketball Association. Between March 11 and 19, a substantial number of NBA players and teams received testing. By March 19, 10 out of 450 rostered players were positive. Since not everyone was tested, that represents a lower bound on the prevalence of 2.2%. The NBA isn’t a representative population, and contact among players might have facilitated transmission. But if we extend that lower-bound assumption to cities with NBA teams (population 45 million), we get at least 990,000 infections in the U.S. The number of cases reported on March 19 in the U.S. was 13,677, more than 72-fold lower. These numbers imply a fatality rate from Covid-19 orders of magnitude smaller than it appears.

How can we reconcile these estimates with the epidemiological models? First, the test used to identify cases doesn’t catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections. Epidemiological modelers haven’t adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors.

The epidemic started in China sometime in November or December. The first confirmed U.S. cases included a person who traveled from Wuhan on Jan. 15, and it is likely that the virus entered before that: Tens of thousands of people traveled from Wuhan to the U.S. in December. Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism.

This does not make Covid-19 a nonissue. The daily reports from Italy and across the U.S. show real struggles and overwhelmed health systems. But a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million. Given the enormous consequences of decisions around Covid-19 response, getting clear data to guide decisions now is critical. We don’t know the true infection rate in the U.S. Antibody testing of representative samples to measure disease prevalence (including the recovered) is crucial. Nearly every day a new lab gets approval for antibody testing, so population testing using this technology is now feasible.

If we’re right about the limited scale of the epidemic, then measures focused on older populations and hospitals are sensible. Elective procedures will need to be rescheduled. Hospital resources will need to be reallocated to care for critically ill patients. Triage will need to improve. And policy makers will need to focus on reducing risks for older adults and people with underlying medical conditions.

A universal quarantine may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community and individual mental and physical health. We should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns.

Dr. Bendavid and Dr. Bhattacharya are professors of medicine at Stanford.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-the-cor ... Gdo9sg67Pp

[QatzelOk]

As far as I can tell, the number of deaths caused by the isolation, as per your studies, would still be significantly less than the number of deaths caused by the virus if we did not take these precautions.

The same could be said of every flu season. If we shut down our economy for two months each year, fewer people will die of flu. In Canada, about 3,500 people die EVERY SINGLE YEAR of flu. And isoloation would probably bring down this number.

You are also ignoring the number of lives saved by the drop in economic activity. A city the size of Toronto has approximately 600 deaths annually from air pollution.

So think how many people in China's biggest cities die of air pollution each year. Whereas, 3,500 people there died of this virus.

With the dramatically reduced levels of air pollution, in the last two weeks, this has probably resulted in hundreds of people worldwide not dying when they otherwise would have due to the pollution.

Here, I'm with you. See, I have major dust allergies, and usually suffer a lot in the month of March. But this year, with so little car traffic, the air is much cleaner with both less dust and less other chemical pollution from burning hydrocarbons. If we really want to make a difference, we can eliminate a million collision deaths, a million pollution deaths, and several hundreds of thousands of obesity-inactivity deaths by banning all private cars right now.

Who's with me? Almost no one?

What if mass media scared you into doing this?

[Godstud]

@QatzelOk NO. You are ignorant of the disease, or any disease for that matter.

21,180 died in China, not 3,500.

3,500 people will STILL die of the flu this year. COVID will kill far more if we stand around like idiots, which is what morons are suggesting.

I cna tell you are still in denial of science and reason. Go stick your head back in the sand.

[QatzelOk]

21,180 died in China, not 3,500.

No, that number is worldwide. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Meanwhile, the flu kills over 600,000 worldwide every year.

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main ... key=208914

Sometimes, cold, rational people are the most reassuring.

[Pants-of-dog]

The same could be said of every flu season. If we shut down our economy for two months each year, fewer people will die of flu. In Canada, about 3,500 people die EVERY SINGLE YEAR of flu. And isoloation would probably bring down this number.

Nice! We should shut the global economy every flu season.

So think how many people in China's biggest cities die of air pollution each year. Whereas, 3,500 people there died of this virus.

And by shutting everything down, we could avoid deaths from disease, and from air pollution.

Here, I'm with you. See, I have major dust allergies, and usually suffer a lot in the month of March. But this year, with so little car traffic, the air is much cleaner with both less dust and less other chemical pollution from burning hydrocarbons. If we really want to make a difference, we can eliminate a million collision deaths, a million pollution deaths, and several hundreds of thousands of obesity-inactivity deaths by banning all private cars right now.

Who's with me?

Me!

[Godstud]

@QatzelOk The flu will STILL kill that many people. This has the potential to kill far more, because the death rate far exceeds that of the flu.

You're being willfully ignorant, and IGNORING the science.

[Sivad]

Godstud is the hero of this thread.