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I'd say it's a bit disingenuous comparing Italy with California demographically - we're talking about one of the largest population per capita of elderly who ar

I'd say it's a bit disingenuous comparing Italy with California demographically - we're talking about one of the largest population per capita of elderly who are well-known for living with multiple generations on the same property if not the same household AND who have traditional body language mannerisms that involve lots of hand-to-face and lips-to-face contact. Bit less of all that in Cali.

cameldrv 7y ago
They've done sampled serological tests in at least one town in Italy. If you compare that against excess deaths in March, you get an Infection Fatality Rate of 2%. Perhaps it will be better in the U.S. due to age structure, but perhaps it will be worse due to the high prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Either way, California won't have reached herd immunity until approximately 600,000 people are dead, barring some therapeutic breakthrough.
- altcognito 7y ago
  How can you use excess deaths to influence the IFR when excess deaths is across the entire population but the actual infection only reaches a small percentage?
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    Deaths in that town were about 10x normal for the month of March. I estimate the IFR by looking at the serological results showing 70% were infected, and observe that 1.4% of the population of the town died in March. 1.4%/70%=2% of those infected died. Now it could be that there was some other cause for the death rate in the town to be 10x normal, but I think that's pretty unlikely. That said, I'm sure there are excess deaths from other causes, like heart attacks that didn't go to the hospital because they were overloaded, etc, but you could consider those deaths to be indirectly from COVID as well.
sharken 7y ago
Indeed, if anything you should be comparing Italy with New York. The data for Corona virus points to elderly in poor health and people with pre-existing illnesses being at risk. If you don’t agree please explain how Monaco with a very old but rather healthy population has seen one death so far and how come Bangladesh and Pakistan with a population of 300M+ have seen a total of 80 deaths.
- kyuudou 7y ago
  Monaco has half the population of Walnut Creek, CA, a lot of them very affluent and not there much of the year. Then there's the issue of 1. how was the testing done (IF AT ALL) 2. how accurate that test was (read up on PCR if you don't agree) 3. how the cause of death was determined. I show you a CDC explanation for how to determine official cause of death from[1]: ""When reporting cause of death...use any information available, such as medical history, medical records, laboratory tests, an autopsy report, or other sources....best clinical judgement..." In all cases variations of the flu are much worse and not worth crippling the US and global economy over. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask someone like Dr. Burry who is much more qualified than I, at least, to answer such questions. [1] https://t.co/sr5CuouckM?amp=1 https://t.co/sr5CuouckM?amp=1
  - __s 7y ago
    The ordinary flu would be much worse if we didn't vaccinate for it
    - sharken 7y ago
      Agreed, in 2018 Denmark followed the WHO recommendation and produced a flu vaccine for three types of the flu. Unfortunately a fourth type was the dominant type that year and that was not included in the vaccine. The vaccine for this year will be for four type of the flu, 2 for type A and 2 for type B.
  - sharken 7y ago
    I fully agree that test accuracy is a problem and that cause of death when Corona virus is involved varies a lot between countries. Excess mortality could be one way of getting more information, though I don’t know when those data are available.

cameldrv 7y ago

They've done sampled serological tests in at least one town in Italy. If you compare that against excess deaths in March, you get an Infection Fatality Rate of 2%. Perhaps it will be better in the U.S. due to age structure, but perhaps it will be worse due to the high prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Either way, California won't have reached herd immunity until approximately 600,000 people are dead, barring some therapeutic breakthrough.

altcognito 7y ago
How can you use excess deaths to influence the IFR when excess deaths is across the entire population but the actual infection only reaches a small percentage?
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Deaths in that town were about 10x normal for the month of March. I estimate the IFR by looking at the serological results showing 70% were infected, and observe that 1.4% of the population of the town died in March. 1.4%/70%=2% of those infected died. Now it could be that there was some other cause for the death rate in the town to be 10x normal, but I think that's pretty unlikely. That said, I'm sure there are excess deaths from other causes, like heart attacks that didn't go to the hospital because they were overloaded, etc, but you could consider those deaths to be indirectly from COVID as well.

sharken 7y ago

Indeed, if anything you should be comparing Italy with New York. The data for Corona virus points to elderly in poor health and people with pre-existing illnesses being at risk. If you don’t agree please explain how Monaco with a very old but rather healthy population has seen one death so far and how come Bangladesh and Pakistan with a population of 300M+ have seen a total of 80 deaths.

kyuudou 7y ago
Monaco has half the population of Walnut Creek, CA, a lot of them very affluent and not there much of the year. Then there's the issue of 1. how was the testing done (IF AT ALL) 2. how accurate that test was (read up on PCR if you don't agree) 3. how the cause of death was determined. I show you a CDC explanation for how to determine official cause of death from[1]: ""When reporting cause of death...use any information available, such as medical history, medical records, laboratory tests, an autopsy report, or other sources....best clinical judgement..." In all cases variations of the flu are much worse and not worth crippling the US and global economy over. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask someone like Dr. Burry who is much more qualified than I, at least, to answer such questions. [1] https://t.co/sr5CuouckM?amp=1 https://t.co/sr5CuouckM?amp=1
- __s 7y ago
  The ordinary flu would be much worse if we didn't vaccinate for it
  - sharken 7y ago
    Agreed, in 2018 Denmark followed the WHO recommendation and produced a flu vaccine for three types of the flu. Unfortunately a fourth type was the dominant type that year and that was not included in the vaccine. The vaccine for this year will be for four type of the flu, 2 for type A and 2 for type B.
- sharken 7y ago
  I fully agree that test accuracy is a problem and that cause of death when Corona virus is involved varies a lot between countries. Excess mortality could be one way of getting more information, though I don’t know when those data are available.