6 ms·

Email may have tainted Stanford coronavirus antibody study

46 points by MilnerRoute 7y ago

ouid 7y ago
The problem with the Stanford study, as I understand it, is that the 95% confidence interval on the false positive rate includes 1.5%, meaning that it is not more than 95% certain that anybody among the people tested was not a false positive.
Freak_NL 7y ago
> COVID-19 antibody testing - FREE How did that email manage to get through any spam filter?
- nednar 7y ago
  Sent by <name>@stanford.edu with host email server verifying the email came from there?
  - bluehatbrit 7y ago
    It sounds like it was sent from the researchers wife who did not work for stanford.
nednar 7y ago
Side question: The very first comparison of covid-19 and seasonal flu I read (before covid-19 was called covid-19) said that covid-19 would have a mortality rate of 1.5% and seasonal flu of 3%, therefore covid-19 would be less deadly. In recent months I often read the same statement turned around, which is already confusing. Now here we talk about a tenth of the same numbers turned around. I mean, either it's not standardized what "mortality rate" means or the numbers are all over the place and one can't really say which is more deadly. Could someone with more knowledge in this area summarize the current status and maybe where the confusions might come from?
- salty_biscuits 7y ago
  Maybe loose terminology so ending up getting case fatality rate confused with mortality rate?
- Gwypaas 7y ago
  It's the difference between IFR and CFR. The IFR is the infection fatality rate meaning everyone in the population who has been infected. The CFR is the case fatality rate, those who are sick enough to show up at a hospital, or well, get tested and confirmed positive. Which nowadays is essentially the same and a small fraction of total cases. We see here that flu seems to have an overall IFR rate of 0.002%. Many orders of magnitude smaller than COVID19. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm
  - aquadrop 7y ago
    Where do you get IFR for covid19?
    - Gwypaas 7y ago
      The IFR rate for covid-19 seems to be trending towards 0.1-0.5% based on the serological tests over entire population cohorts that are starting to be published.
      - rocha 7y ago
        I thought it was between 0.5% to 1.0%, at least according to the NYC study: https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793 https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793
    - vianneychevalie 7y ago
      By doing serologic studies you can estimate the global number of contaminated people: looking at the number of viral mutations, as well as different strands of the virus that can be identified as being generated in a specific region. It’s going to be very imprecise. For H1N1 the global infection rate could have varied from 11% to 21% of the global population, which is a +/- 350 million people estimation. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-puts-global-2009-h1n1-infection-rate-11-21 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-pu...
jwilk 7y ago
Yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658
anoncake 7y ago
> A 0.35% mortality rate is still nothing to sniff at, however, as it is three to four times deadlier than the seasonal flu (with a mortality rate of 0.1%) Which means a response three to four times as strong as the one to the seasonal flu would be appropriate. > and can be significantly higher for elderly residents and individuals with underlying conditions. Which doesn't make the pandemia any more dangerous because the risk is correspondingly lower for everyone else. In fact, it's a good thing because we could focus our efforts on protecting those who are in actual danger. We could use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts and to help them cope with the increased isolation, making sure they aren't part of the ~70% that will inevitably be infected. Could.
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  >We could use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts What economy? https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-claims-this-week-total-job-losses-april-23-2020-benefits-claims/ https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-... The US now looks worse than Greece did in 2008.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Because of the misguided response to Corona. So at least for the US, "could have" may be more correct.
- ergothus 7y ago
  > Which means a response three to four times as strong as the one to the seasonal flu would be appropriate. I'm not sure that's a meaningful statement. Our response to a seasonal flu - for which we spread a vaccine in advance and have a population with scattered levels of resistance due to similarities to previous iterations - cant be "done but 3 to 4 times more".
  - anoncake 7y ago
    No, but we can spend 3-4 times more/accept 3-4 times the inconvenience/etc. responding to the flu is worth to us.

46 points by MilnerRoute 7y ago

ouid 7y ago

The problem with the Stanford study, as I understand it, is that the 95% confidence interval on the false positive rate includes 1.5%, meaning that it is not more than 95% certain that anybody among the people tested was not a false positive.

Freak_NL 7y ago

> COVID-19 antibody testing - FREE How did that email manage to get through any spam filter?

nednar 7y ago
Sent by <name>@stanford.edu with host email server verifying the email came from there?
- bluehatbrit 7y ago
  It sounds like it was sent from the researchers wife who did not work for stanford.

nednar 7y ago

Side question: The very first comparison of covid-19 and seasonal flu I read (before covid-19 was called covid-19) said that covid-19 would have a mortality rate of 1.5% and seasonal flu of 3%, therefore covid-19 would be less deadly. In recent months I often read the same statement turned around, which is already confusing. Now here we talk about a tenth of the same numbers turned around. I mean, either it's not standardized what "mortality rate" means or the numbers are all over the place and one can't really say which is more deadly. Could someone with more knowledge in this area summarize the current status and maybe where the confusions might come from?

salty_biscuits 7y ago
Maybe loose terminology so ending up getting case fatality rate confused with mortality rate?
Gwypaas 7y ago
It's the difference between IFR and CFR. The IFR is the infection fatality rate meaning everyone in the population who has been infected. The CFR is the case fatality rate, those who are sick enough to show up at a hospital, or well, get tested and confirmed positive. Which nowadays is essentially the same and a small fraction of total cases. We see here that flu seems to have an overall IFR rate of 0.002%. Many orders of magnitude smaller than COVID19. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm
- aquadrop 7y ago
  Where do you get IFR for covid19?
  - Gwypaas 7y ago
    The IFR rate for covid-19 seems to be trending towards 0.1-0.5% based on the serological tests over entire population cohorts that are starting to be published.
    - rocha 7y ago
      I thought it was between 0.5% to 1.0%, at least according to the NYC study: https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793 https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793
  - vianneychevalie 7y ago
    By doing serologic studies you can estimate the global number of contaminated people: looking at the number of viral mutations, as well as different strands of the virus that can be identified as being generated in a specific region. It’s going to be very imprecise. For H1N1 the global infection rate could have varied from 11% to 21% of the global population, which is a +/- 350 million people estimation. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-puts-global-2009-h1n1-infection-rate-11-21 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-pu...

jwilk 7y ago

Yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658

anoncake 7y ago

> A 0.35% mortality rate is still nothing to sniff at, however, as it is three to four times deadlier than the seasonal flu (with a mortality rate of 0.1%) Which means a response three to four times as strong as the one to the seasonal flu would be appropriate. > and can be significantly higher for elderly residents and individuals with underlying conditions. Which doesn't make the pandemia any more dangerous because the risk is correspondingly lower for everyone else. In fact, it's a good thing because we could focus our efforts on protecting those who are in actual danger. We could use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts and to help them cope with the increased isolation, making sure they aren't part of the ~70% that will inevitably be infected. Could.

buzzkillington 7y ago
>We could use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts What economy? https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-claims-this-week-total-job-losses-april-23-2020-benefits-claims/ https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-... The US now looks worse than Greece did in 2008.
- anoncake 7y ago
  Because of the misguided response to Corona. So at least for the US, "could have" may be more correct.
ergothus 7y ago
> Which means a response three to four times as strong as the one to the seasonal flu would be appropriate. I'm not sure that's a meaningful statement. Our response to a seasonal flu - for which we spread a vaccine in advance and have a population with scattered levels of resistance due to similarities to previous iterations - cant be "done but 3 to 4 times more".
- anoncake 7y ago
  No, but we can spend 3-4 times more/accept 3-4 times the inconvenience/etc. responding to the flu is worth to us.