March 12, 2020 (aka COVID-19 thread)

[Atomic]

"It's the Flu."

TL;DR:

1. < 45 yo (no problem)
2. > 45 yo (problem)

[Warrl]

The fatality rate among teenagers is so low, and teen suicide enough of a problem, that we'd probably see more teenagers die by keeping the schools shut down than by going back to a normal school schedule.

Catch is... those teenagers have parents (and sometimes grandparents) at home. And then there are the teachers and all the school staff, and their spouses and siblings and older relatives. Very few of whom are teenagers.

(There is NEVER only one thing happening.)

[Typeminer]

There's also the unquantified risk (because there are not enough data yet) of permanent lung scarring in younger patients who have apparently recovered. Emphysema is no fun. And treating a generation of people forced into early disability is going to be hellaciously expensive down the road. Unless, of course, we just kick them out and let them die in the gutters like roadkilled animals, which looks more and more like the default plan.

[Dave]

There's also the unquantified risk (because there are not enough data yet) of permanent lung scarring in younger patients who have apparently recovered. Emphysema is no fun.

There's also a significant concern about heart damage from myocarditis, triggered by the virus's tendency to induce inflammation in the tissues it infects. Apparently myocarditis can be detected even in patients who show few or no obvious symptoms of infection - it's a hidden effect. And, it appears that it's not an age-related risk in the same way that "dying of acute COVID-19" is - it's seen in children, and in athletes in the prime of their career.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -symptoms/ summarizes the issues.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaca ... le/2768916 reports a study of concern. Quoting that SciAm article: "A German study found that 78 percent of recovered COVID-19 patients, the majority of whom had only mild to moderate symptoms, demonstrated cardiac involvement more than two months after their initial diagnoses. Six in 10 were found to have persistent myocardial inflammation."

The possibility that widespread COVID-19 infection is setting up the world for a big upsurge in disability, and eventual death a decade or three down the road from heart failures... well, it's not a comforting prospect.

So, saying "< 45 years old, no problem" is just false. Saying "low risk of dying immediately if you''re under 45" is probably accurate, but this doesn't consider the (possibly very significant) risk of long-term health damage, leading to early death some years later.

Be careful out there, people, no matter what your age. This virus could cut years off of your life, even if you're young.

[jwhouk]

Those who have contracted the virus have found complications that are rather long-lasting. One of the most common ones is breathing issues. Don't be surprised if the number of asthmatics in the US increase tenfold within the next several years.

[Atomic]

A Failed Experiment

TL;DR:

What experimental drug would ever be approved if there were so much conflicting evidence of its efficacy and so much solid evidence of its harmful side effects?

[Atomic]

Results from Sweden

TL;DR: Sweden took an approach without masks or lockdowns, and it seems to have worked.

[Atomic]

The Great Barrington Declaration

TL;DR: "Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal." Protect the elderly.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Last week, Sky News found dozens of fake names on the list of medical signatories, including Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename, and Dr. Johnny Bananas

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/13 ... irus-covid

An open letter that made headlines calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including “Dr Johnny Bananas” and “Professor Cominic Dummings”.

The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners around the world, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names, as well as those of several homeopaths.

Others listed include a resident at the “University of Your Mum” and another supposed specialist whose name was the first verse of the Macarena.

Sky News discovered 18 self-declared homeopaths in the list of expert names and more than 100 therapists whose expertise included massage, hypnotherapy and Mongolian khoomii singing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... anas-covid

Nobody knows yet whether COVID is a one-and-done, like chicken pox, or an oh-god-here-it-comes-again disease that can mutate from one year to the next like influenza, so that any immunity gained from having had it may not protect you the next time around {there are already a bunch of documented cases of people who got it a second time}.

AND they're not sure how long any immunity would last.

[lake_wrangler]

An open letter that made headlines calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including “Dr Johnny Bananas” and “Professor Cominic Dummings”.

The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners around the world, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names, as well as those of several homeopaths.

Others listed include a resident at the “University of Your Mum” and another supposed specialist whose name was the first verse of the Macarena.

Sky News discovered 18 self-declared homeopaths in the list of expert names and more than 100 therapists whose expertise included massage, hypnotherapy and Mongolian khoomii singing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... anas-covid

Interestingly, the text that immediately follows your quote may shed light on what may have happened there:

Individual academics from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Sussex and York were among experts from around the world who signed the declaration. However, the declaration’s website allows anyone to add their name to the list if they provide an email address, home city, postcode and name.

Signatories also tell the site whether they are medical and public health scientists, medical practitioners or members of the general public – of whom almost 160,000 claim to have signed.

It is not clear how many of the names in the declaration’s list of experts are fake, or when they appeared. However, many scientists have already criticised the letter’s conclusions.

(Emphasis mine)

I don't even doubt that the original signatories were indeed credible and honest, and that many who followed were, as well. However, I would also not be surprised that many people deliberately signed fake names to discredit the effort, once those names were discovered.

Nobody knows yet whether COVID is a one-and-done, like chicken pox, or an oh-god-here-it-comes-again disease that can mutate from one year to the next like influenza, so that any immunity gained from having had it may not protect you the next time around {there are already a bunch of documented cases of people who got it a second time}.

AND they're not sure how long any immunity would last.

You do bring up a good point. There are many things which are not known, about this virus. But does this justify living in fear, hunking down and ruining people's livelihoods by closing everything down? I think a more balanced approach is needed, rather than this seeming power grab that is going on right now. I mean, seriously? $1500 fines (or more) for breaking social distancing? One guy in Canada was charged with breaking the federal quarantine act, something which carried penalties of up to One Million dollar and a year in jail! (I kid you not!) He is the leader of a movement that encourages people to not wear masks, and to rebel against the draconian laws and application thereof that have been going on in Ontario. Still... One million dollars... How sick (or power-hungry) can you get, to pass a law that carries such penalties???

Needless to say, he will be fighting this in court...

[lake_wrangler]

Also, on the effectiveness of masks (or lack thereof):

https://thehighwire.com/videos/mask-whi ... -tell-all/




And on the idea that this is all a concerted power grab:

https://humansarefree.com/2020/09/proof ... order.html

(I'm not too sure about some of them, such as, for instance, the one about the 2012 Olympics, but the article is still interesting and raises many questions.)

[Atomic]

Note please that jerks signing false names to an open document does not diminish the reasoning and authority of the original document and those who created and signed it, nor the further signers who are legitimate experts in the field.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Multiple Health Organizations Unite To Condemn COVID-19 Herd Immunity Strategy

The groups took aim at those endorsing herd immunity, calling that approach a “wrong-headed” plan “masquerading as science

A bevy of health organizations has come together to issue a statement speaking out against herd immunity as a means of limiting the spread of COVID-19.

The statement, published on Wednesday on the American Public Health Association (APHA) website, was authored by 17 groups, including the Trust for America’s Health and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

It is a direct response to an open letter known as The Great Barrington Declaration, which was released on Oct. 4 and penned by professors at the Harvard Medical School, Stanford University’s Medical School and Oxford University.

The Great Barrington Declaration has been embraced by senior White House officials. It argues that herd immunity - the idea that a population will eventually develop natural antibodies to a disease over time as enough of its members are exposed to it - is the only way to prevent the “devastating effects on short and long-term public health” caused by lockdown measures.

In order to achieve herd immunity, the declaration espouses allowing “those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.”

This recommendation, according to the statement on APHA website, ignores reliable science, would take far too long and would result in needless death.

“There is no evidence that we are even remotely close to herd immunity,” the statement reads. “To the contrary, experts believe that 85-90% of the U.S. population is still at risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19). Herd immunity is achieved when the virus stops circulating because a large segment of the population has already been infected. Letting Americans get sick, rather than focusing on proven methods to prevent infections, could lead to hundreds of thousands of preventable illnesses and deaths. It would also add greater risk in communities of color, which have already experienced disproportionate impacts of the pandemic.”

The statement highlights Sweden, which attempted a herd immunity response to COVID-19 and has been criticized for a laissez-faire attitude that has resulted in the highest mortality rate of any Nordic country, according to analysis by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.* {emphasis added}

“COVID-19 carries a much higher risk of severe disease and death than other infections where herd immunity was attempted before a vaccine was available,” the statement says. Critiquing the idea of allowing the coronavirus to spread among younger people, it continues, “This notion is dangerous because it puts the entire population, particularly the most vulnerable, at risk. Young people are not all healthy, and they don’t live in vacuums. They interact with family members, co-workers and neighbors. Inviting increased rates of COVID-19 in young people will lead to increased infection rates among all Americans.”

MORE - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american ... e76fbb5449
====================================
* About ten times higher, from what i've seen.

[Typeminer]

Note please that jerks signing false names to an open document does not diminish the reasoning and authority of the original document and those who created and signed it, nor the further signers who are legitimate experts in the field.

Yes, it does. Because serious arguments among bioscience researchers are not advanced through internet petitions and chain letters.

[Atomic]

To whom, then, is such a proclamation delivered? Has no one ever written a open letter to be published in the newspapers?

Leaving it open for additional signatories without careful filtering to remove the goofballs is an error. But, as Ronald Reagan said when he was endorsed by the KKK, "I didn't choose to associate with them. They chose to associate with me."


Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

The Graphic Truth: Two different pandemics - EU vs US

Note the 3rd graph, which is scaled per population. The first two are bulk numbers.

[lake_wrangler]

Note please that jerks signing false names to an open document does not diminish the reasoning and authority of the original document and those who created and signed it, nor the further signers who are legitimate experts in the field.

Yes, it does. Because serious arguments among bioscience researchers are not advanced through internet petitions and chain letters.

To whom, then, is such a proclamation delivered? Has no one ever written a open letter to be published in the newspapers?

Leaving it open for additional signatories without careful filtering to remove the goofballs is an error. But, as Ronald Reagan said when he was endorsed by the KKK, "I didn't choose to associate with them. They chose to associate with me."

Not only that, but if we were to believe the mainstream media, the science is already "settled" on the subject, meaning that dissenting opinions will have difficulty making their voices heard. Taking to the internet with an open letter may just be the only option, in such cases.

That's the same thing that happens with scientists who disagree on the degree of "man-madedness" of climate change, people who voice opinions that encouraging transgenderism in younger and younger children is bad for the child, and so on. Same thing with politics... I mean, just look at all these "mostly peaceful" protesters (said the news reporter, as unironically as he could, while there was a blaze going on behind him as businesses were being looted and burned to the ground) the mainstream media talked about, this summer... I mean, surely, if most news outlets say so, it must be so, right?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

The Graphic Truth: Two different pandemics - EU vs US

Note the 3rd graph, which is scaled per population. The first two are bulk numbers.

I'd like to see a graph that would not only includes "cases", but hospitalization, critical care hospitalization, and deaths. But I know that won't happen.

Yes, I happen to believe that the cure is worse than the disease.

[lake_wrangler]

And on the idea that this is all a concerted power grab:

https://humansarefree.com/2020/09/proof ... order.html

(I'm not too sure about some of them, such as, for instance, the one about the 2012 Olympics, but the article is still interesting and raises many questions.)

Just to be clear: I am not endorsing this article. I have actually not finished reading it through, I only read it cursorily, so far. And I agree that some of the arguments are definitely far-fetched, and some are coincidental, at best. But It seemed interesting enough to warrant reading (even if only to get a good laugh), and perhaps raise some comments and opinions.

[Atomic]

Indeed. The whole situation is suffering a bad case of GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. A lack of actual journalism (who what where why when, etc) is affecting the whole debate.

For example, after the lock down period expired in places, the hospitals filled up. "Oh Dear!" screamed headlines. Not mentioned was that those hospitals were filling up with people who delayed surgeries and other procedures due to the lockdown. Piss poor reporting there, folks.

Another issue is the "Cases Reported" this day/week/etc. The reports often come out in weekly or bi-weekly bulk numbers, so Umpty Thousand Cases Today - eek! may have been two weeks worth. Neither do they break it down into positive tests, symptoms, or hospitilizations, as lake_wrangler points out.

Finally, where are the comparisons? What's the running total for (various names/types) of flu seasons/pandemics and their curves for cases per million or whatever so people have a sense of scale? Again, piss poor reporting.

At one point, Italy was Death Central, then it was somebody else, and now look at the numbers for USA! Rabbit! Meanwhile, China apparently isn't reporting squat, but nobody journalistic cares, or bothers to make comparisons.

I'm sure you get the point. Large grains of salt are required, but how the hell is anyone supposed to make valid decisions out of this dogs lunch?

[Dave]

Indeed. The whole situation is suffering a bad case of GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. A lack of actual journalism (who what where why when, etc) is affecting the whole debate.

For example, after the lock down period expired in places, the hospitals filled up. "Oh Dear!" screamed headlines. Not mentioned was that those hospitals were filling up with people who delayed surgeries and other procedures due to the lockdown. Piss poor reporting there, folks.

Another issue is the "Cases Reported" this day/week/etc. The reports often come out in weekly or bi-weekly bulk numbers, so Umpty Thousand Cases Today - eek! may have been two weeks worth. Neither do they break it down into positive tests, symptoms, or hospitilizations, as lake_wrangler points out.

True... but, in the absence of a World Government which can mandate and enforce uniform testing and reporting and treatment standards, this sort of irregularity is something we're all going to have to deal with. (I'm not saying that such a world government would be a Good Thing, and since there ain't gonna be one any time soon that really doesn't matter.)

The current fog-of-poor-information-value has multiple reasons for being as it is:

• We don't have a uniform world government, or uniform world standards for reporting this sort of thing. We don't even have uniform national standards, or uniform state standards, or (in many states) even uniform reporting standards from one county to the next. And, since most of the health facilities are privately owned (in this country) we can't even count on uniform reporting practices within any given county.
• Some of the organizations which are in the best positions to collect, collate, and publish accurate data, are among the ones which are being actively denigrated and/or interfered with by certain current political leaders.
• Media outlets report things as they always have (in this country at least) - in accordance with their own editorial practices. Give any ten media chains the exact same collection of well-researched facts, and you'll probably end up seeing at least thirty different views of that data being reported by their affiliates. That's free enterprise and free speech... good in many ways but they have their disadvantages.
• Use of media space tends to be driven by stories that media owners believe will "grab" the attention of that media's demographic... thus capturing eyeballs for that media outlet and increasing the value of the advertising that the media outlet is selling. The "free market" in advertising space/time doesn't necessarily optimize the "delivered stories" for truthfulness or accuracy or usefulness in any sense... it optimizes for making money for the companies that advertise and the companies that print/broadcast the ads.
• Media stories are frequently slanted to favor the editorial/political bias of the company's owners. This happens on all sides of the political spectrum.

That's all unfortunate, but that's the way the world is. We're going to have to make the best of it.

Finally, where are the comparisons? What's the running total for (various names/types) of flu seasons/pandemics and their curves for cases per million or whatever so people have a sense of scale? Again, piss poor reporting.

At one point, Italy was Death Central, then it was somebody else, and now look at the numbers for USA! Rabbit! Meanwhile, China apparently isn't reporting squat, but nobody journalistic cares, or bothers to make comparisons.

Sure, the attention changed from Italy to elsewhere to the US (and now back to Italy), because the facts on the street are changing over time. Italy got hit very hard, early, and had a terrible time of it. Things then got better there (after some period of lock-down and some improvement in care protocols) while things started getting worse elsewhere, so naturally people started paying attention to the new trouble spots. Italy has been back in the news lately with a "things are getting bad again" (ditto France and Germany), because the situations are changing. This is all happening in real time... pandemics are not, and never have been a stationary sort of thing.

Don't depend on the (limited, simplified, pared-down) summaries that are being published in the popular media. Go back to original data sources and look for yourself (not just you, but political leaders in general).

Just as one example - you're concerned about the "daily data flailing" alarm which can occur because data isn't being reported every day. Fine - that's a real issue. So, go look at the data through a more reliable lens... for example, the commonly-used "7-day sliding average". This cuts out most of the day-to-day and weekend-related dither, while still showing trends on a fairly fine time-scale. There are still some glitches but they're pretty easy to see on the curve and thus "filter out by eye".

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/ is a good place to start looking. You can see case-number reports, 7-day-smoothed trend curves for cases and deaths (both a national curve, and individual curves for individual states), and a lot more. You can download the data and run your own analysis on it. They don't show cases-per-100,000 numbers, but the population counts for the states can be found on the Net and you can do the calculations yourself if you wish.

Take a look at the curve for California, and then the ones for Michigan and Wisconsin.

I'm sure you get the point. Large grains of salt are required, but how the hell is anyone supposed to make valid decisions out of this dogs lunch?

Don't depend on the filtered summaries you see in the popular media. Don't depend on either the scare stories, or the "oh, it's nothing, it's all going away" stories. Rather, go do your research, dig out the best data-reporting sources you can find, and do your best to correct for the inevitable errors, omissions, and biases in the data.

Then, listen to the people who actually do this kind of stuff for a living. When you're facing pandemic diseases, listen to the people who have spent their careers trying to prepare us to deal with pandemics. You may not like what they have to tell you, about what it will take to contain and beat this pandemic, but it has a much better chance of being correct than if you listen to J. Random Politician (or Pundit, or Preacher).

(Disclaimer: one of my nephews is a Fellow in the Infectious Diseases department of NIH. He spends a chunk of his time in a bio-containment lab, wearing a bunny suit and a full respirator setup, working with disease organisms I wouldn't want to have to get within a block of. His med-school specialties were in infectious diseases, critical care, and "emergent diseases"... a rather prescient choice of career options, as he put it in a recent Zoom call. I tend to take his word on things like the current situation).

[Dave]

I'd like to see a graph that would not only includes "cases", but hospitalization, critical care hospitalization, and deaths. But I know that won't happen.

You may not see a fully-fleshed-out graph for whole countries or even states/provinces, because not everybody reports complete data like this, and not every location which reports data does so in the same way. So, a "lumped" data display might not be at all meaningful.

However, these sorts of numbers/graphs are available for some areas, which you might (or might not) be willing to accept as reasonable exemplars. That is to say, if a certain region has X number of cases, Y hospitalizations, and Z ICU patients, and Q deaths (all for COVID-19 of course) you could calculate the percentages and relationships. Look at a dozen sets of data from around the country, compute and average-out the percentages, and that's probably a good set of numbers to use for the purpose of extrapolating to country-wide numbers.

I'll get you started with one such - my own county.

https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pa ... board.aspx

This page has links to a lot of graphs, including the number of new admissions per day, number of patients hospitalized (total, ICU, and non-ICU), and so forth. I think it provides just the sort of detail you're asking for.

The raw data which underlies these charts can be downloaded from https://data.sccgov.org/browse?category=COVID-19

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that similar data is probably available from a bunch of other local jurisdictions in the United States, and probably Canada as well.

So, if you want answers... the data is out there. It won't be perfect or entirely complete, but it should be good enough for study and reasoned discussion.