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Some heartening news and commentary in an attempt to show how serious the COVID-19 pandemic is, but also to present some perspective.
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The Coronasphere Lounge Episode 002: A New Hope
Some heartening news and commentary in an attempt to show how serious the COVID-19 pandemic is, but also to present some perspective.
8 replies on “The Coronasphere Lounge Episode 002: A New Hope”
In my view, Germany isn’t being honest with itself in its methods of counting deaths related to this virus. I’m of the mind that if someone is very ill, but still hanging in there, then catches the virus, then they have died because of the virus…period. If the patient was likely to have lived a week, a month, six months longer, then getting the virus killed them. Germany’s numbers, therefore, aren’t truthful.
Random sampling to build a statistical analysis of the projected spread of the virus my be helpful.
Indeed, the current test only detects currently active infections. It cannot detect infections that have occurred and the person has recovered. There are antibody tests that can detect whether a person has ever been infected, or been exposed enough to develop antibodies. That is the test used for sampling and is usually performed after the fact to to come up with statistics and analysis. It may be that this virus has been here longer than currently presumed and since its symptoms in 85% of the cases are non-existent or mild, could have been mistaken for influenza A. Testing on suspected influenza patients is done only for severe cases or those admitted to a hospital. It is estimated 12k-13k have already died in the US from influenza this season so far. The data we have now is basically rubbish, especially the mortality rates.
Bill, a note on your link for source information: There are some vehement objections to the data that was presented.
https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1241547580867104768
Thanks for the link. But I could hardly follow that argument.
Twitter encourages — nay rewards — the “stream of consciousness word vomit” rebuttal.
To your knowledge has Carl Bergstrom distilled his counter-points into a systematic and civil rebuttal like a clear-eyed professional scientist and adult or must I enlist the help of my 3-year old daughter as a “twitter-rage” translator?
No, he hasn’t. You will need the 3-year old. I agreed with some of his critique, but I also disagreed with a lot of it. It was muddled. Mainly I think he objected to the fact the original writer was not a medical person, but associated with a politician.
Really interesting point about the German mortality figures. As always, a sound and solid view of this thing. Much needed perspective.
Bill, there is one thing to note: the current testing that is being used tests only for active corona virus infection. It cannot detect the case where a person has had the virus and recovered. There are tests that can be run which do detect whether a person has had the infection and developed antibodies and immunity to it. We won’t be able to determine how many actual infections have occurred until we do large sample testing for it.
The fatality numbers also in serious question. The very high numbers in Spain and Italy can partially be explained by the fact that in those two countries if you die and have the corona virus at the same time, the death is attributed to corona. In 80% of the cases in Italy those who died has one or multiple other per-existing condition and were already ill in that respect. The addition of the corona virus may have accelerated the death, but was not actually the cause. Germany, which has that very low mortality rate, takes into account other conditions and does not arbitrarily assign those deaths to the virus.