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Stanford epidemiologist take on COVID stats

C

chicago

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I was talking to my psychiatrist yesterday about anxiety due to COVID. Much of it is media-induced so I've been trying to avoid the "news" since then. He pointed me in the direction of Stanford's epidemiologist, Jay Bhattacharya.

Thought this piece was interesting and may temper some of the panic going around. That's not to say that I believe the actions we're taking (masks, social distancing) are not important/helpful (gotta say that because if you don't have the same level of panic as everyone else, they think you're out to kill folk or something), but some people are behaving kinda wild, letting their emotions take over just with the panic buying, shaming, blaming, stigma, etc.

Anyway, I found the article helpful in a way and maybe you will too

Stanford Health Policy's Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya write in this Wall Street Journal editorial that current estimates about the COVID-19 fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude.

"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, 2 million to 4 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 2 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."
Click to expand...

https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/coronavirus-deadly-they-say

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-the-coronavirus-as-deadly-as-they-say-11585088464
 
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I'm starting to think the same thing. My intuition says that many more people are infected than we think, but most are infected with a strain that shows little to no symptoms. Natural selection would favor this, because a virus that shows no symptoms is unlikely to be detected. No detection means no measures will be taken to counter it, which means that strain is likely to survive.

I saw one video where the presenter talks about how the Netherlands (where he's currently living) has taken much less drastic measures than the countries next door, yet its infection rates are about the same. Meanwhile, we in the US are risking an economic depression by keeping everything shut down. I don't want to see people get sick (nor do I want to get sick), but at the same time, I was laid off in January and I'm having trouble finding work because many companies have stopped all interviews until the lockdowns are lifted.

In other words, things really suck right now. :)
 
You make some good points.

Really sorry about your work and I hope you find something soon
 
The author lays out a strong case, and at this point, I'm learning to not take any one source as gospel for data. I'm pretty sure my County's Health Department is underplaying the actual count, while the one next to us seems to be inflating their numbers.
 
Wolf said:
The author lays out a strong case, and at this point, I'm learning to not take any one source as gospel for data. I'm pretty sure my County's Health Department is underplaying the actual count, while the one next to us seems to be inflating their numbers.
Click to expand...

I have heard that from a few different people. I feel like there won't be any numbers even close to accurate until we're able to test tons more people, including those who don't have it at all.
 
The biggest problem I see is the panic buying.

When I've been shopping, I saw one person this week who probably had hundreds of bottles of water. To me that is not needed and not thinking of others. What happens to others who need water, and they go to markets, etc and the shelves are bare. I've experienced this already, especially with paper goods.

The virus is definitely deadly. Look at the sheer number of people worldwide that have gotten sick, and died.

The other side is, however, is that at some point, I think that certain measures will have to be taken even gradually or slowly, to reopen the economy.

It should not be "Okay, everything is open and everyone is out and about." Maybe certain things like reopening sit down restaurants or stores with a limited amount of people allowed into places at a time, and social distancing to promote protection.

I do not think it right to "Suddenly go back to normal" even when they do reopen the economy. However, for the good of people's health, the work force, and the economy, hopefully steps can be taken to reopen gradually, to begin resuming normalcy in some fashion, while still realizing this is a very dangerous situation, and taking precautions.
 
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Some of the stats are definitely misleading. At least one local county counts "resident" deaths from corona as someone living in that county, despite them not actually living there currently. If the place they actually died counts them, they would have been counted twice overall.
 
shark said:
Some of the stats are definitely misleading. At least one local county counts "resident" deaths from corona as someone living in that county, despite them not actually living there currently. If the place they actually died counts them, they would have been counted twice overall.
Click to expand...

:facepalm2::facepalm2::facepalm2:

wow....
 
An nhs gp mentioned the same thing when this whole thing started in the uk.
She referred to another virus called Mediana, the mainstream media scaring people. She said that she had seen a fair few people now all in good health, telling her that they were ill. Funnily enough some with covid symptons.
When she asked them what they had been doing they said watching the news all day. Her prescription? Stop watching the mainstream news, however she did increase the dosage of someones anti-depressants because they asked for it. Why did they ask for it? Once again Mediana!
She suggested that if you have to watch the mainstream news, limit yourself to once a day.
 
Stanford's kickin' it lately -

http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-ne...e-develops-antibody-test-for-coronavirus.html

Also, a deeper dive into the earlier theory, from testing done this month: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1

(It's not been peer-reviewed yet, and there's some dissent regarding the sample group and methodology, but it's interesting, at any rate)

So, Bad News - COVID-19 may have infected far more people than anticipated;
Good News - that may translate into the mortality rate being significantly lower than anticipated.
 
I read an article in the NY Daily News this morning that basically said.

"The summer that will not be"

According to this article, it would seem like any gathering.

Beaches, movies, concerts, casinos, sporting events, etc etc will not happen this summer.

I know that public safety is most important.

The question is.

With the virus supposed to spike again in the Fall.

When exactly is the right time to begin gradual reopening?

I saw another article theorizing about sit down eating places in NYC reopening

With high glass or plastic separations between tables, to promote social distancing.

As to when this would happen, is anyone's guess.
 
Wesker28 said:
An nhs gp mentioned the same thing when this whole thing started in the uk.
She referred to another virus called Mediana, the mainstream media scaring people. She said that she had seen a fair few people now all in good health, telling her that they were ill. Funnily enough some with covid symptons.
When she asked them what they had been doing they said watching the news all day. Her prescription? Stop watching the mainstream news, however she did increase the dosage of someones anti-depressants because they asked for it. Why did they ask for it? Once again Mediana!
She suggested that if you have to watch the mainstream news, limit yourself to once a day.
Click to expand...

lol

that's good advice

Wolf said:
Stanford's kickin' it lately -

http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-ne...e-develops-antibody-test-for-coronavirus.html

Also, a deeper dive into the earlier theory, from testing done this month: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1

(It's not been peer-reviewed yet, and there's some dissent regarding the sample group and methodology, but it's interesting, at any rate)

So, Bad News - COVID-19 may have infected far more people than anticipated;
Good News - that may translate into the mortality rate being significantly lower than anticipated.
Click to expand...

I saw that too! Something a little bit heartening maybe.

Mitchell said:
I read an article in the NY Daily News this morning that basically said.

"The summer that will not be"

According to this article, it would seem like any gathering.

Beaches, movies, concerts, casinos, sporting events, etc etc will not happen this summer.

I know that public safety is most important.

The question is.

With the virus supposed to spike again in the Fall.

When exactly is the right time to begin gradual reopening?

I saw another article theorizing about sit down eating places in NYC reopening

With high glass or plastic separations between tables, to promote social distancing.

As to when this would happen, is anyone's guess.
Click to expand...

Um, ok, anything about the numbers / stats / science / OP?
 
I posted something in this thread and it seems to have disappeared. Does anyone have any insight as to what happened?
 
chicago said:
Yeah I had wanted to respond to it too. I don't get it...
Click to expand...

Weird. Normally if the mods delete a post, they send the poster a PM explaining why the post was deleted. I received no such PM, and I'm pretty sure I didn't violate any rules of the forum. Maybe the facts I presented were deemed inconvenient by someone. :shrug:
 
Thank you for sharing this. Will be sure to give the full article a read.
 
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