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The most stunning testing result is the recent Stanford blood study in Santa Clara showing that potentially 50 times as many people have been infected with Covi

The most stunning testing result is the recent Stanford blood study in Santa Clara showing that potentially 50 times as many people have been infected with Covid as previously thought. We might already have 50 million Americans that have had Covid before another couple weeks is up. Of course the media won't cover this story widely, as it won't sell properly, there isn't enough sensationalism. It lowers panic (it would mean the Covid mortality rate is radically lower than previously feared, even versus common low estimates), rather than raising panic. It's crazy that the US isn't putting a lot of manufacturing and money behind doing widespread blood testing to see how common Covid actually is. This should have been done a month plus ago. Based on deaths, 10-15% of NYC probably has already had it at this point and if so, we need to know that asap. I've been talking about this for months now, it's not a premise requiring any kind of specialized knowledge to grasp (obvious question: how widespread is the virus), and I've yet to see any media interest in it despite how blatantly obvious it is. It's almost like there is some interest in ensuring we don't find out how far Covid has already spread. The first thing they should have figured out, is the last thing they're apparently going to figure out.

skybrian 7y ago
The Santa Clara study has gotten a fair bit of press and attention but it's not clear whether the results will hold up. The antibody test is new and they're assuming very few false positives, and it's a non-random study (recruitment via Facebook). Here's some more criticism: https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-1f6382258c25 https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody...
- sergiotapia 7y ago
  1. That's just one persons opinion. Don't treat it as fact. 2. Read the comments in that article for some counter-points. The point is, this can't go on and thank god we're opening up everything again.
- adventured 7y ago
  It's why we should be doing massively increased blood testing and test manufacturing to resolve that question. For the last few months it has been the single most important question and they're putting very few resources behind trying to answer it. We can't test blood properly? Of course we could. They are choosing not to, is the actual context. It's a large mistake. How many infections have you already had? How widespread is it really? No answer, no attempt to answer at scale. At its best, it's immense incompetence in action by the authorities in charge of dealing with this mess.
  - snowwrestler 7y ago
    > It's why we should be doing massively increased blood testing and test manufacturing to resolve that question. Yes, literally everybody agrees with this. > For the last few months it has been the single most important question and they're putting very few resources behind trying to answer it. This is not true, every available resource is being deployed to expand testing capability. Again, literally everyone wants to. > We can't test blood properly? Of course we could. They are choosing not to, is the actual context. It's a large mistake. No one is choosing against testing today. The large mistake was 3 months ago when the federal government should have started activating all of this. > How many infections have you already had? How widespread is it really? No answer, no attempt to answer at scale. At its best, it's immense incompetence in action by the authorities in charge of dealing with this mess. Totally agree on the incompetence, but again, the critical moment passed months ago. Everyone is desperately trying to catch up now.
  - hcknwscommenter 7y ago
    You seem to conflate antibody testing with viral rna testing. The former is somewhat difficult because you can't make the reagents necessary overnight, and the reagents are unique for the virus. Essentially, you have to clone the gene for an immunogenic portion of the virus (the spike protein most likely), express it in a recombinant host (which may require extensive optimization), purify it, and then validate that it properly detects blood of people who were confirmed positive for viral RNA and then recovered. That all takes time, and then you have to scale up manufacturing. In contrast, the the viral rna (RT_PCR) test takes about a day to design and the reagents are synthesized overnight and then you can run the test in the morning of the second day. Scaling that up to 1 million viral RNA tests a day should add at most a month, but our country already runs this number of tests a day if you count every academic, research, hospital, and CLIA lab, so the manufacturing capacity already exists.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  It's important to acknowledge, though, that most of the criticisms in this article apply even more strongly to the official reporting model. (For example, the study might have accidentally skewed towards people with symptoms, while the official numbers are intentionally and maximally skewed towards them.) So the criticisms don't argue that the real number is closer to the 1,870 on the county's website; they argue that we really have no idea how many people have been infected.
  - skybrian 7y ago
    Yes, we have little idea about non-symptomatic carriers. However, combining a prescreen with a test does significantly reduce the chance of false positives.
javagram 7y ago
> Of course the media won't cover this story widely, as it won't sell properly, there isn't enough sensationalism. It lowers panic Actually it is being covered in the media (e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/santa-clara-coronavirus-infections-study/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/santa-clara-coronaviru... ) and the reason it’s not being trumpeted everywhere is because there are very serious statistical issues with the study that make it irresponsible to draw the conclusion that 50-85x the number of people are infected as previously thought. https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/1251493794039705600?s=20 https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/1251493794039705600?s=2...
hcknwscommenter 7y ago
"50 times as many people have been infected with Covid as previously thought. That is a stunningly incorrect analysis. The results suggest (and I use suggest deliberately, because there are a lot of sample bias/ data analysis issues here), that potentially (again, deliberate as this is a ceiling, not a floor) 50 times as many people have had COVID as confirmed cases. Well. Duh. We've known that asymptomatic carriers exist since before it even hit the U.S. Moreover, please note that this "50 times" number equals 5% of the population. We have 95% more to go before it burns out. There is plenty of reason to panic. If we opened up again and went back to our regular lives, we'd have about a million dead in two months. Of course, everyone is desperate to figure out how far COVID has spread, but we just don't have enough testing capacity right now. Because the government has just fallen flat on its face. We can now begin to understand why. As Fauci said in the Friday press-conference, from the beginning they trusted private industry when they promised they would have millions of tests a day capacity within weeks. I have personally run over 5,000 samples of this kind of test (not covid specifically but viral RNA RT_PCR assays) in one day. It's no rocket science. It's trivial. The only reason we are STILL?! at this laughable number of 150k/day tests is because our country is currently run by the most incompetent administration in a century.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  # of deaths doesn't even matter really... what matters most to me - is what this would do to service workers, healthcare workers, transit workers and the ICU's. Even if this proves to be as fatal as the flu, it's the long ICU stays and the toxicity of higher viral load on those who are more in contact with people. You can't deny what's happening in NYC right now. They're under attack. This would be every city in America, we'd maybe lose 5-10% of our hospital staff across America. Schools are closed now, what about med schools? Will new doctors come out ready to work next year or the year after or will they be set back and there be a shortage? Lots of systemic damage beyond just the fatalities could happen as a result of negligence. We need to be extremely careful.
snowwrestler 7y ago
> Of course the media won't cover this story widely, as it won't sell properly, there isn't enough sensationalism. It lowers panic (it would mean the Covid mortality rate is radically lower than previously feared, even versus common low estimates), rather than raising panic. I think there is a common misunderstanding here, which is that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is an important factor in policymaking. It’s not. The actual number of illnesses and deaths is what is important. That’s what maps onto healthcare capacity, which is the limiting factor. And it is what people really care about. I might find it interesting that there are a large number of asymptomatic carriers, but what I really want to know is whether my friends and family are safe.
- guscost 7y ago
  You’re right about mortality rate, but the percent of the population that has been exposed is critical for policy, because it tells us how big any upcoming surge could be. And it’s looking more and more like we got that one badly wrong, so we’re going to end up with thousands of outdated ventilators, a boatload of new national debt, and an even more jaded culture that totally ignores policy folks. Could be worse.

skybrian 7y ago

The Santa Clara study has gotten a fair bit of press and attention but it's not clear whether the results will hold up. The antibody test is new and they're assuming very few false positives, and it's a non-random study (recruitment via Facebook). Here's some more criticism: https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-1f6382258c25 https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody...

sergiotapia 7y ago
1. That's just one persons opinion. Don't treat it as fact. 2. Read the comments in that article for some counter-points. The point is, this can't go on and thank god we're opening up everything again.
adventured 7y ago
It's why we should be doing massively increased blood testing and test manufacturing to resolve that question. For the last few months it has been the single most important question and they're putting very few resources behind trying to answer it. We can't test blood properly? Of course we could. They are choosing not to, is the actual context. It's a large mistake. How many infections have you already had? How widespread is it really? No answer, no attempt to answer at scale. At its best, it's immense incompetence in action by the authorities in charge of dealing with this mess.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  > It's why we should be doing massively increased blood testing and test manufacturing to resolve that question. Yes, literally everybody agrees with this. > For the last few months it has been the single most important question and they're putting very few resources behind trying to answer it. This is not true, every available resource is being deployed to expand testing capability. Again, literally everyone wants to. > We can't test blood properly? Of course we could. They are choosing not to, is the actual context. It's a large mistake. No one is choosing against testing today. The large mistake was 3 months ago when the federal government should have started activating all of this. > How many infections have you already had? How widespread is it really? No answer, no attempt to answer at scale. At its best, it's immense incompetence in action by the authorities in charge of dealing with this mess. Totally agree on the incompetence, but again, the critical moment passed months ago. Everyone is desperately trying to catch up now.
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  You seem to conflate antibody testing with viral rna testing. The former is somewhat difficult because you can't make the reagents necessary overnight, and the reagents are unique for the virus. Essentially, you have to clone the gene for an immunogenic portion of the virus (the spike protein most likely), express it in a recombinant host (which may require extensive optimization), purify it, and then validate that it properly detects blood of people who were confirmed positive for viral RNA and then recovered. That all takes time, and then you have to scale up manufacturing. In contrast, the the viral rna (RT_PCR) test takes about a day to design and the reagents are synthesized overnight and then you can run the test in the morning of the second day. Scaling that up to 1 million viral RNA tests a day should add at most a month, but our country already runs this number of tests a day if you count every academic, research, hospital, and CLIA lab, so the manufacturing capacity already exists.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
It's important to acknowledge, though, that most of the criticisms in this article apply even more strongly to the official reporting model. (For example, the study might have accidentally skewed towards people with symptoms, while the official numbers are intentionally and maximally skewed towards them.) So the criticisms don't argue that the real number is closer to the 1,870 on the county's website; they argue that we really have no idea how many people have been infected.
- skybrian 7y ago
  Yes, we have little idea about non-symptomatic carriers. However, combining a prescreen with a test does significantly reduce the chance of false positives.

javagram 7y ago

> Of course the media won't cover this story widely, as it won't sell properly, there isn't enough sensationalism. It lowers panic Actually it is being covered in the media (e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/santa-clara-coronavirus-infections-study/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/santa-clara-coronaviru... ) and the reason it’s not being trumpeted everywhere is because there are very serious statistical issues with the study that make it irresponsible to draw the conclusion that 50-85x the number of people are infected as previously thought. https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/1251493794039705600?s=20 https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/1251493794039705600?s=2...

hcknwscommenter 7y ago

"50 times as many people have been infected with Covid as previously thought. That is a stunningly incorrect analysis. The results suggest (and I use suggest deliberately, because there are a lot of sample bias/ data analysis issues here), that potentially (again, deliberate as this is a ceiling, not a floor) 50 times as many people have had COVID as confirmed cases. Well. Duh. We've known that asymptomatic carriers exist since before it even hit the U.S. Moreover, please note that this "50 times" number equals 5% of the population. We have 95% more to go before it burns out. There is plenty of reason to panic. If we opened up again and went back to our regular lives, we'd have about a million dead in two months. Of course, everyone is desperate to figure out how far COVID has spread, but we just don't have enough testing capacity right now. Because the government has just fallen flat on its face. We can now begin to understand why. As Fauci said in the Friday press-conference, from the beginning they trusted private industry when they promised they would have millions of tests a day capacity within weeks. I have personally run over 5,000 samples of this kind of test (not covid specifically but viral RNA RT_PCR assays) in one day. It's no rocket science. It's trivial. The only reason we are STILL?! at this laughable number of 150k/day tests is because our country is currently run by the most incompetent administration in a century.

gremlinsinc 7y ago
# of deaths doesn't even matter really... what matters most to me - is what this would do to service workers, healthcare workers, transit workers and the ICU's. Even if this proves to be as fatal as the flu, it's the long ICU stays and the toxicity of higher viral load on those who are more in contact with people. You can't deny what's happening in NYC right now. They're under attack. This would be every city in America, we'd maybe lose 5-10% of our hospital staff across America. Schools are closed now, what about med schools? Will new doctors come out ready to work next year or the year after or will they be set back and there be a shortage? Lots of systemic damage beyond just the fatalities could happen as a result of negligence. We need to be extremely careful.

snowwrestler 7y ago

> Of course the media won't cover this story widely, as it won't sell properly, there isn't enough sensationalism. It lowers panic (it would mean the Covid mortality rate is radically lower than previously feared, even versus common low estimates), rather than raising panic. I think there is a common misunderstanding here, which is that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is an important factor in policymaking. It’s not. The actual number of illnesses and deaths is what is important. That’s what maps onto healthcare capacity, which is the limiting factor. And it is what people really care about. I might find it interesting that there are a large number of asymptomatic carriers, but what I really want to know is whether my friends and family are safe.

guscost 7y ago
You’re right about mortality rate, but the percent of the population that has been exposed is critical for policy, because it tells us how big any upcoming surge could be. And it’s looking more and more like we got that one badly wrong, so we’re going to end up with thousands of outdated ventilators, a boatload of new national debt, and an even more jaded culture that totally ignores policy folks. Could be worse.