8 ms·

What's weird is that the Stanford study was suggested to have exaggerated the results, since those who suspected themselves as having the virus at one time were

What's weird is that the Stanford study was suggested to have exaggerated the results, since those who suspected themselves as having the virus at one time were more likely to volunteer (allegedly). However, those results were nowhere near as big as this (I think like 2%-3% versus the 20%!)

jdm2212 6y ago
Roughly 1/1000 New Yorkers have died of coronavirus. At a 1% IFR, that suggests at least 10% of the state has gotten the virus. Probably more, because deaths are undercounted and many people who will die of the virus already have it but haven't died yet. In the Bay Area, almost no one has died of coronavirus so the infection rate should be next to nil.
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  I was astonished by your 1/1000 figure and had to look it up... If anything, its too low. 15k deaths (proven+probable) in 8M people is almost 2/1000. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
  - jdm2212 6y ago
    I was referring to the state -- but, yeah, it's even worse in the city :( and 2/1000 people * 1% IFR => 20%
  - chasd00 6y ago
    that's crazy to me, what are the demographics of NYC? Is the population more susceptible to dying of Covid19 somehow? I still can't get my head around why NY has suffered so disproportionately.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
      It's a small state with a lot of people packed next to each other. Lots of people use public transit... subways are less than six feet apart.
      - nicoburns 6y ago
        If the NY subway is anything like London, people will be less than 6 inches apart at rush hour. I imagine that will have played a big part in the spread in both of those cities.
        credit_guy 6y ago
        Yes, the subway is the correct answer. That's how this virus spread like wildfire in NYC. Second reason could be the elevators in the tall buildings (there are plenty of those).
        rocha 6y ago
        A counter argument is that the same didn't happen (or hasn't happened yet) in cities that also have massive public transportation systems like Tokyo or Seoul. There is probably many confounding factors, such as mask use, no talking on the subway, etc, to make pointing to one particular factor very hard. EDIT: typo
        cmurf 6y ago
        Those cities see more widespread use of masks generally. And specifically once COVID-19 was common knowledge, so was the use of masks. Widespread mask usage doesn't happen in NYC, same as the rest of the U.S. It's very recent this is practiced in the U.S., whether voluntarily or by order of a handful of local governments. And in my local area where it's not mandatory I only see about 3 in 4 using masks.
        ummonk 6y ago
        And Japan has a culture of talking quietly which greatly reduces droplet transmission even beyond the practice of wearing masks. NYC has a culture of yelling.
    - joshfraser 6y ago
      population density. you have the density of Asia without the propensity to wear masks.
    - core-questions 6y ago
      There are many close-knit communities in NYC and the surrounding area where people live much more densely (i.e. large family in a single house) and congregate more often with one another than do West Coast types. Jewish communities in New York seem to be especially hit by this; not sure if this is because they did not follow social distancing guidelines, or if they're not possible to follow given unavoidable physical constraints.
      - ars 6y ago
        > Jewish communities in New York seem to be especially hit by this From my understanding they are not hit any harder than other groups, they are just way more visible.
      - myth_drannon 6y ago
        Yes, if you look at Israel and Montreal, Ultra-Orthodox communities were hit very hard. Based on infections numbers, not deaths(since it's mostly very young population). Lack of communication and distrust of local authorities (only praying to G-d will help...)
    - saalweachter 6y ago
      The most likely answer is that NYC was just a good place for it to spread which had plenty of travelers to get things started fast, but that that the death rates aren't particularly high -- everywhere that has fewer deaths has just had less of their population infected ... so far.
      - kayoone 6y ago
        Germany has about as many cases in total as NY, yet less than 1/2 of the deaths. The death rate seems high in NY, maybe because hospitals could not cope?
        saalweachter 6y ago
        Germany has about as many diagnosed coronavirus cases; the difference could be wholly explained by Germany testing more people. (Germany has administered 2 million tests, New York State [I didn't see a figure for the city], about 700 thousand.)
    - rocha 6y ago
      In my opinion it is more likely that the main cause is that the infection got here very early, and that the mitigation and containment measures started very late in comparison with cities of similar size and density (Seoul for example).
    - matwood 6y ago
      A dense, mega-city is the worst case scenario for an infection to spread.
    - badfrog 6y ago
      > I still can't get my head around why NY has suffered so disproportionately. Compared to California, NY locked down much later and did it in slow, incremental steps.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
rubidium 6y ago
But we already know the actual infection rate is higher in NYC than CA. The main point that the antibody tests help uncover is death rate.
bhouston 6y ago
NYC and standord are markably different scenarios. But in each case the percentage of baseline infection to deaths is similarish, even though the percent compared to total pop is quite different.
- zucker42 6y ago
  Nope, the Stanford study had a much lower prediction of the infections to deaths ratio, but that's because its analysis of the data was just wrong.
TheBlight 6y ago
What's interesting is if you look at the rest of NY numbers (-NYC,LI,Westchester). That has infection at 3.6%. Santa Clara was estimated to be 3% and LA county 4%. So it's in strong agreement with those areas.
- kgwgk 6y ago
  But the number of deaths does not agree.
  - TheBlight 6y ago
    Can you elaborate?
    - kgwgk 6y ago
      Percentage of people with antibodies is similar (if you take those studies at face value). Percentage of people dead is not.
  - toufka 6y ago
    There also appears to be a difference in the strains. The NYC strain seems to mostly come from the European branch, while the CA infection comes directly from China (and likely much earlier in 2020). There appears to be some difference in virulence between the strains. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20056929v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20056929v... and https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
    - kgwgk 6y ago
      I’ve never looked into that (I know of the hypothesis, though) but IFR in South Korea also seems to be around 1% (or higher), not 0.1%
cma 6y ago
Exaggerated in that the California study predicted a flu like IFR (Ioannidis, one of the authors, has been pushing that as his pet theory for over a month). This shows it is more likely several times that.
- glofish 6y ago
  it doesn't contradic Ioannidis at all. He might be right in the end, and that would be an incredibly bitter pill to many. We are getting closer and closer to the flu fatality rate. from 5% to 3%, then 1% now 0.5% - smart money (and common sense) would bet that the rate will continue to drop, I would expect that people living in healthier environment than NYC will fare even better. No way NYC IFR is the upper bound for the rest of the country. You could just as well expect it to be 10x higher than other places. the flu rate is 0.1%, thus we already hit the order of magnitude.
  - jdm2212 6y ago
    NYC is a younger, healthier city than the national average. NYC also has one of the best medical systems not just in America, but in the world. Roughly 0.2% of everyone in NYC has already died of COVID-19. So 0.2% is pretty close to a hard lower bound on the IFR for COVID-19. And I don't think anyone serious suggests every NYC resident has had COVID. I don't think anyone seriously suggests even half of NYC has had COVID.
    - glofish 6y ago
      All I am saying people there breath the NYC air every single day. Can't possibly be good for them, especially in the light of some chronic pulmonary inflammation induced deaths. The point on the lower bound of 0.2% is informative. I did not know that.
      - timr 6y ago
        That lower-bound argument is overly simplistic. There are huge error bars on that ratio, because "the population of NYC" is not something easily defined, and the death count (at this time) includes a lot of "excess deaths" that almost certainly have nothing to do with the virus (e.g. untreated cardiac arrest).

jdm2212 6y ago

Roughly 1/1000 New Yorkers have died of coronavirus. At a 1% IFR, that suggests at least 10% of the state has gotten the virus. Probably more, because deaths are undercounted and many people who will die of the virus already have it but haven't died yet. In the Bay Area, almost no one has died of coronavirus so the infection rate should be next to nil.

brandmeyer 6y ago
I was astonished by your 1/1000 figure and had to look it up... If anything, its too low. 15k deaths (proven+probable) in 8M people is almost 2/1000. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
- jdm2212 6y ago
  I was referring to the state -- but, yeah, it's even worse in the city :( and 2/1000 people * 1% IFR => 20%
- chasd00 6y ago
  that's crazy to me, what are the demographics of NYC? Is the population more susceptible to dying of Covid19 somehow? I still can't get my head around why NY has suffered so disproportionately.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    It's a small state with a lot of people packed next to each other. Lots of people use public transit... subways are less than six feet apart.
    - nicoburns 6y ago
      If the NY subway is anything like London, people will be less than 6 inches apart at rush hour. I imagine that will have played a big part in the spread in both of those cities.
      - credit_guy 6y ago
        Yes, the subway is the correct answer. That's how this virus spread like wildfire in NYC. Second reason could be the elevators in the tall buildings (there are plenty of those).
      - rocha 6y ago
        A counter argument is that the same didn't happen (or hasn't happened yet) in cities that also have massive public transportation systems like Tokyo or Seoul. There is probably many confounding factors, such as mask use, no talking on the subway, etc, to make pointing to one particular factor very hard. EDIT: typo
        cmurf 6y ago
        Those cities see more widespread use of masks generally. And specifically once COVID-19 was common knowledge, so was the use of masks. Widespread mask usage doesn't happen in NYC, same as the rest of the U.S. It's very recent this is practiced in the U.S., whether voluntarily or by order of a handful of local governments. And in my local area where it's not mandatory I only see about 3 in 4 using masks.
        ummonk 6y ago
        And Japan has a culture of talking quietly which greatly reduces droplet transmission even beyond the practice of wearing masks. NYC has a culture of yelling.
  - joshfraser 6y ago
    population density. you have the density of Asia without the propensity to wear masks.
  - core-questions 6y ago
    There are many close-knit communities in NYC and the surrounding area where people live much more densely (i.e. large family in a single house) and congregate more often with one another than do West Coast types. Jewish communities in New York seem to be especially hit by this; not sure if this is because they did not follow social distancing guidelines, or if they're not possible to follow given unavoidable physical constraints.
    - ars 6y ago
      > Jewish communities in New York seem to be especially hit by this From my understanding they are not hit any harder than other groups, they are just way more visible.
    - myth_drannon 6y ago
      Yes, if you look at Israel and Montreal, Ultra-Orthodox communities were hit very hard. Based on infections numbers, not deaths(since it's mostly very young population). Lack of communication and distrust of local authorities (only praying to G-d will help...)
  - saalweachter 6y ago
    The most likely answer is that NYC was just a good place for it to spread which had plenty of travelers to get things started fast, but that that the death rates aren't particularly high -- everywhere that has fewer deaths has just had less of their population infected ... so far.
    - kayoone 6y ago
      Germany has about as many cases in total as NY, yet less than 1/2 of the deaths. The death rate seems high in NY, maybe because hospitals could not cope?
      - saalweachter 6y ago
        Germany has about as many diagnosed coronavirus cases; the difference could be wholly explained by Germany testing more people. (Germany has administered 2 million tests, New York State [I didn't see a figure for the city], about 700 thousand.)
  - rocha 6y ago
    In my opinion it is more likely that the main cause is that the infection got here very early, and that the mitigation and containment measures started very late in comparison with cities of similar size and density (Seoul for example).
  - matwood 6y ago
    A dense, mega-city is the worst case scenario for an infection to spread.
  - badfrog 6y ago
    > I still can't get my head around why NY has suffered so disproportionately. Compared to California, NY locked down much later and did it in slow, incremental steps.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

rubidium 6y ago

But we already know the actual infection rate is higher in NYC than CA. The main point that the antibody tests help uncover is death rate.

bhouston 6y ago

NYC and standord are markably different scenarios. But in each case the percentage of baseline infection to deaths is similarish, even though the percent compared to total pop is quite different.

zucker42 6y ago
Nope, the Stanford study had a much lower prediction of the infections to deaths ratio, but that's because its analysis of the data was just wrong.

TheBlight 6y ago

What's interesting is if you look at the rest of NY numbers (-NYC,LI,Westchester). That has infection at 3.6%. Santa Clara was estimated to be 3% and LA county 4%. So it's in strong agreement with those areas.

kgwgk 6y ago
But the number of deaths does not agree.
- TheBlight 6y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - kgwgk 6y ago
    Percentage of people with antibodies is similar (if you take those studies at face value). Percentage of people dead is not.
- toufka 6y ago
  There also appears to be a difference in the strains. The NYC strain seems to mostly come from the European branch, while the CA infection comes directly from China (and likely much earlier in 2020). There appears to be some difference in virulence between the strains. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20056929v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20056929v... and https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
  - kgwgk 6y ago
    I’ve never looked into that (I know of the hypothesis, though) but IFR in South Korea also seems to be around 1% (or higher), not 0.1%

cma 6y ago

Exaggerated in that the California study predicted a flu like IFR (Ioannidis, one of the authors, has been pushing that as his pet theory for over a month). This shows it is more likely several times that.

glofish 6y ago
it doesn't contradic Ioannidis at all. He might be right in the end, and that would be an incredibly bitter pill to many. We are getting closer and closer to the flu fatality rate. from 5% to 3%, then 1% now 0.5% - smart money (and common sense) would bet that the rate will continue to drop, I would expect that people living in healthier environment than NYC will fare even better. No way NYC IFR is the upper bound for the rest of the country. You could just as well expect it to be 10x higher than other places. the flu rate is 0.1%, thus we already hit the order of magnitude.
- jdm2212 6y ago
  NYC is a younger, healthier city than the national average. NYC also has one of the best medical systems not just in America, but in the world. Roughly 0.2% of everyone in NYC has already died of COVID-19. So 0.2% is pretty close to a hard lower bound on the IFR for COVID-19. And I don't think anyone serious suggests every NYC resident has had COVID. I don't think anyone seriously suggests even half of NYC has had COVID.
  - glofish 6y ago
    All I am saying people there breath the NYC air every single day. Can't possibly be good for them, especially in the light of some chronic pulmonary inflammation induced deaths. The point on the lower bound of 0.2% is informative. I did not know that.
    - timr 6y ago
      That lower-bound argument is overly simplistic. There are huge error bars on that ratio, because "the population of NYC" is not something easily defined, and the death count (at this time) includes a lot of "excess deaths" that almost certainly have nothing to do with the virus (e.g. untreated cardiac arrest).