Bingo. I think that's exactly right. We had no way of knowing back then, and asymptomatic people were definitely not being tested, as we conserved tests for symptomatic people. Most of the cases right now in TX, CA, and FL that people are absurdly panicking about are asymptomatic cases that are not really cause for concern. Elderly/vulnerable need to be kept safe, but everyone else should resume living. Deaths are down 90% since April... this disease is dying out... the media is doing society a huge disservice right now... but will catch up to the story at some point.
This is bad science. Best I can understand, this person took what has been estimated to be the covid IFR and then worked that backwards to saying we have had 45 million cases. To calculate IFR well, you need to know the total number of cases and divide that by the total number of deaths as this is the "infection fatality rate." The IFR for covid has been a moving target because of the problems with testing, detection, cause of death reporting, etc. So, if this person's graph is meant to show the "true" infection rate and that we are not reporting cases accurately...he then shouldn't use a statistic based off the reported cases that he is then saying is wrong. That graph would then mean if you did antibody testing of a population, you would see roughly 13% of the population of the US having antibodies (45 million / 328 million). NYC was the hardest hit place in the country and had an antibody rate between 20-30%. In places like LA, this has been estimated between 5 and 7%. Other samples have been lower in the range of 2% when surveillance groups were done for antibody testing. Now, none of these may be accurate but it's probably not good math to say that 45 million people have had covid trying to extrapolate from the current deaths.
Asthma thankfully is no longer in the high risk category like diabetes and high blood pressure. They have done extensive tests and having asthma has been found to not create much of a problem amping people with COVID.
What an incredibly ignorant take. More testing is not reason for more cases moron. https://time.com/5854572/covid-19-testing-florida-texas-arizona/ https://khn.org/news/trumps-take-on-covid-testing-misses-public-health-realities/ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...g-rise-covid-cases-data-points-other-n1232684 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...esting-doesnt-explain-rise-covid-19-cases-us/
Not only that, they are endangering the medical staff too. To think it is nothing more than like the flu is totally wrong. Even if you don't need medical care, you still will have some permanent damage that will have an affect on your future health. Nobody gets away from having this virus free of any damage now or later.
Yes it is. It's simple. Illustrative numbers below: On April 21st: 800,000 total cases in society; 100,000 tests revealed 26,000 cases, but missed 774,000 undiagnosed cases On July 5th: 200,000 total cases in society; 500,000 tests revealed 44,000 cases, but missed 156,000 undiagnosed cases Positive tests does not necessarily mean the disease is spreading. It simply means you are finding more infected people. With the dramatic ramp up in testing, we may be finding more today, but it's because we were finding so few back in April. See numbers above.
What? The disease is definitely spreading and spreading fast. You need to pay attention to the positive rate of tests. It’s going up and up especially in places like TX, AZ and Florida.
False. Known cases are going up. Total cases in society is going way down, as evidenced by deaths being down 90% since April. As we test more, of course we'll find more cases out there... because the number of undiagnosed cases is shrinking. Refer to posts #36 and #53 for illustrations of this.
The nation wide numbers suggest an even lower figure .... which may not take into account asymptomatics. 2,916,84 total cases in 330million people works out to 0.88 per hundred population or less than 1% of the total population so far. Obviously .... Are NBA players somehow more susceptible to covid than the average American ? If not ... 450 players / .88 cases per hundred = 3.96 cases is what you'd expect from the entire NBA.
Ughh... I really didn't want to respond to this, but I really can't shut up when a statement is this terribly wrong. Yes, there is more testing now than there was back in March. Yes, there are more positives than there was back in March. However, it is a half-truth and overly simplistic take to suggest that the correlation equals causation. Your suggestion that decreasing death rates suggests that the disease is dying ignores about a thousand other confounding variables, such as: Treatments- less deaths is due in part to progress in treatments. The paradigm for when and how we are intubating our patients has completely shifted in the last several months, as well as numerous other palliative care options have been developed in the last few months. Early Detection- access to tests have allowed many of our patients to detect infection far earlier than before, so that they could begin preliminary measures, such as purchasing of pulse oximeters to monitor oxygen saturation levels. Patient Population shifts- Compared to March, the elderly have been doing a better job mitigating exposure risk, due to numerous factors such as access to information, better safety protocols in place at retirement/nursing/senior centers, cultural shifts etc. The average age of infected has shifted drastically to people in their 50s and under. Yes, these individuals are low risk compared to those with pre-existing conditions and 65+, but it's a dangerous assumption for you to state that healthy, young people are at "almost ZERO risk of negative health consequences." I've had numerous patients that are young and without pre-existing conditions die from covid - in fact, last week I had my youngest at 18. We don't think she's going to make it. And not to mention - there's still so much unknown about the lasting effects of the disease in asymptomatic carriers and children, especially. A death count is not the measure of the macro-status of covid. That's like reducing the measure of defense in basketball to counting steals per game. Currently, Houston hospitals are battling and barely keeping up with the intake of patients. How do I know this? My wife and I both work at two different hospitals in the med center and have spent 300+ hours between us in our respective covid units. My hospital has expanded our covid unit... maybe 4 or 5 times? I've lost track. My wife's hospital, I think 3 times. Sure doesn't seem like this disease is "dying out fast." And FYI, these covid units aren't a place for people with mild symptoms. The patients we get are in tragic shape - mostly comatose, face down, intubated. When my nurses roll a lot of these patients over onto their backs, they immediately start coding - flatlining, to the lay person. They are at an extremely fragile state. Try imagining what will happen if we run out of nurses and doctors that we are currently pulling from other intensive care units that have the necessary training to care for these patients - regular HCPs won't do - specialization is essential. Imagine what will happen if we run out of ventilators, beds, PPE. Sometimes I think we're one more bad administrative decision from all the nurses just upping and quitting. TLDR; The disease isn't dying. Death count doesn't mean much. Don't make silly assumptions. Listen to the the experts. PS - Sorry to bring this rant into the GARM. I just hate misinformation, especially when it is at my colleagues' and career's expense. I hate coming on CF and reading about crap I have to deal with at work. I come to cf to escape and read about bball when I take long dumps. Hopefully we can get back to that
The only surprising part is it hadn’t leaked before now. I don’t think it’s a big deal. Please let us know the results when you get them .
