7 ms·

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in healthy blood donors during Covid-19 Milan outbreak

58 points by panta 6y ago

panta 6y ago
This study [1] published by Policlinico di Milano found that 4.6% of blood donors had anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgG antibodies at the start of the pandemic (February 24th). See also these articles (in Italian): - https://www.policlinico.mi.it/news/2020-05-20/1660/covid-19-anticorpi-in-1-milanese-su-20-gia-settimane-prima-della-pandemia-la-conferma-in-uno-studio-del-policlinico-di-milano https://www.policlinico.mi.it/news/2020-05-20/1660/covid-19-... - https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2020/05/20/news/il-coronavirus-gia-diffuso-a-milano-alcune-settimane-prima-dell-epidemia-1.38868265 https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2020/05/20/news/il-coronavir... [1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20098442v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20098442v...
- paganel 6y ago
  > 4.6% of blood donors had anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgG antibodies at the start of the pandemic Which would make sense. Inter Milano's player Romelu Lukaku was saying about a month ago that the vast majority of his teammates (23 out of 25) had already gotten the virus in January, and that for the Inter - Cagliari match (which was played on January 26th) one of his teammates had to be substituted off after only 25 minutes because he couldn't run anymore. For whatever reasons Inter's officials didn't like his comments and reprimanded him, but it seems like Lukaku was closer to the truth than many would have liked to admit a month ago.
  - pmachinery 6y ago
    > For whatever reasons Perhaps because he was making baseless claims about his teammates and tainting the reputation of the club. He should at least know that players being taken down by cold or flu is not unusual in football. 2014 Seven players are struck by 'flu symptoms': https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/germany/10943357/Germany-hit-by-health-scare-as-seven-players-are-struck-by-flu-symptoms-ahead-of-World-Cup-quarter-final.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/germany/109... 2017 Wenger fighting to contain outbreak: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4296828/Now-Arsenal-players-hit-FLU.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4296828/N... Feb 2019 'Man flu'[0] sweeps through League Two club: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47239534 https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47239534 March 2019 'epidemic' with eight players: https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8709002/poland-flu-epidemic-milik-piatek-bednarek/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8709002/poland-flu-e... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_flu
    - paganel 6y ago
      > He should at least know that players being taken down by cold or flu is not unusual in football. One could think so, of course, but then how does one explain the fact that when testing really started in Italy (end of February - actually early March for footballers, after the Juve - Inter match played on March 9th) not one football player from Inter tested positive, even though they were in what was even by then the center of the pandemic in Italy, Milano? By contrast two Juve players (Dybala and Matuidi) tested positive immediately after March 9th, plus some other players from Firenze and Genoa. One of the only reasonable explanations would be that most (if not all) Internazionale players had already gotten the virus by then and had managed to get rid of it. And I've heard of that "tainted" argument and for the life of me I couldn't understand it, being sick (or having been sick) doesn't taint anyone. It somehow reminds me of the infamous #milanononsiferma hashtag used by Milano's mayor (among others) at the end of February, people who were thinking that ignoring actual real stuff for fear of not "tainting" the city (in the mayor's case) would somehow make things better.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Did the players test positive for Cov2 antibodies?
flatfilefan 6y ago
So the question is what has caused increased deaths if there actually was an unusual increase compared to previous years at all? Was it something else, like a multiresistent hospital infection in nursing homes?
- panta 6y ago
  Well, probably there were no previous years for SARS-CoV-2. If you are referring to the increased deaths compared to other regions in Italy, there are many factors, the most prominent probably being (a) Lombardy's terrible healthcare handling and corruption; (b) being affected much earlier than other regions they were later on the lockdown; (c) deliberate/criminal mishandling of retirement homes; (d) fewer tests performed and containment (for example Veneto has been much more proactive on this front).
  - lbeltrame 6y ago
    I don't think it has anything to do with corruption and terrible healthcare (mistakes were made, but as a resident there, I think the system works pretty well nevertheless, or at least used to be pre-crisis). I think it has more to do with the route of entry of the virus in the territory, which hit hospitals first (not closing down Alzano Lombardo was a grave mistake), then retirement homes (an error shared with Lazio and elsewhere). This meant that the newly-infected population was largely skewed towards the most vulnerable, and coupled with imperfect knowledge about treatment, the net result was a lot of deaths.
    - giovan-ni 6y ago
      As another resident (Milano), I think corruption is endemic in the regional health system. This is, of course, not to deny Lombardy healthcare compares well relative to that of most other Italian and European regions. Still, it was clearly overwhelmed and mismanaged. In my opinion, this and the timing of the first response account for the many deaths. And those in charge of both need to be held accountable. That said, I do think the numbers of the Policlinico study might well be representative, at least regarding Milano. It is just anecdotal, but I know a lot of people there that got sick, but where unable to get tested, or waited weeks before receiving any treatment.
ggm 6y ago
Start is bad. February is two months after back computed patient zero is deemed to have existed in China. This is "infection demonstrated to exist in Italy before prior dates we believe"
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  Having the antibodies in such a large percentage of the population suggests it was around for quite a long time beforehand. It takes months to reach those levels. In addition there's the unusually large number of pneumonia deaths in oct/nov throughout the country https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-timing/italian-scientists-investigate-possible-earlier-emergence-of-coronavirus-idUSKBN21D2IG https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-...
  - ggm 6y ago
    We should expect to get serological data from excess Chinese mortality before December then. Assuming they agree to good back sampling. They have biopsies like any public health system.
    - makomk 6y ago
      The Chinese government has been pushing the narrative that their reported case counts exactly describe reality and there were no widespread undetected infections. I wouldn't rely on any evidence that contradicts that ever officially seeing the light of day, given the heavy central control over coronavirus-related research and the sensitivity of the subject. Supposedly there were antibody testing results from Wuhan leaked that showed a 5% infection rate there but I don't think anyone has been able to confirm this.
- vkou 6y ago
  > This is "infection demonstrated to exist in Italy before prior dates we believe" That is an unlikely hypothesis, given that we didn't see an exponential explosion in deaths, and people going to the hospital until February. Either: 1. The virus was for some reason less lethal before February. 2. Only people who don't show symptoms were catching it. 3. The serological studies are mostly finding false positives. My money's on #3.
onetimemanytime 6y ago
So it started before they thought it did.
based2 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games#Cont...
lbeltrame 6y ago
FTR, as the study was conducted on blood donors, it may not be representative of the whole population of the city. This suggests more than ever the need of extensive serological testing.
jansan 6y ago
The whole antibody testing looks totally unreliable to me. My wife was tested COVID-19 positive about 4 weeks ago. So was her boss at a different test location, so I assume the test was correct. Also she was ill with the typical symptoms. Meanwhile she has recovered and three days ago she had and antibody test and the result was negative, not even close to the threshold.
- krona 6y ago
  You concluded that on a sample size of one?
  - jansan 6y ago
    It's anecdotal, but if you follow https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19positive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19positive/ there are tons of similar anecdotes. In a large enough number anecdotes make a statistic. Also, I claim that there was not even time to test the reliability of the serological tests an actual patients. So, anecdotes may be all data we have.
- noodlesUK 6y ago
  Do you happen to know which antibody test Was used? There are a number of different ones with very different specifications.
  - jansan 6y ago
    I was a test against IgG antibodies. The report does not mention the manufacturer of the test.
blackrock 6y ago
The evidence is starting to stack up. Maybe the virus didn’t come from China. China was just the first to discover it. If this is true, then all the Western countries took a collective dump on China, and accused them of spreading the virus. Some theories and timelines so far: 1) July 2019, a lot of strange pneumonia cases were reported in Virginia. The symptoms sounds suspiciously like Covid19. Two people die. [1] 2) Three months later, on October 18, 2019, French athletes that attended the Military World Games in Wuhan reported testing positive for the Covid19 antibodies. They are muzzled, and told to not talk with reporters. [2] 3) December 16, 2019, The first documented hospital admission in China. 4) China investigates, and determines this is a new virus. They report it to the W.H.O. on December 31, 2019. 5) China checks past records, and determines an earlier infection was on November 17, 2019. [3] About a month before their previous first known case. 6) A New Jersey mayor tests positive for the antibodies, and claims he got sick in November 2019, a month before China detected their first known case. [4] 7) December 27, 2019, A woman in Seattle [5], with no travel history to China, who tested positive for the antibodies, claims she got sick two days after Christmas. This is 4 days before China reports the virus to the W.H.O. And three weeks before Seattle’s first official case. 8) Jan 26, 2020, The Lancet theorizes that the virus did not originate from the seafood market. [6] Daniel Lucey asserts, “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace.” Thus, this was not from Chinese people eating bats. Conclusion: We don’t know anything for sure, but the W.H.O. needs to investigate those Virginia nursing home residents that got sick in July 2019, and test them for the coronavirus antibodies. If, and this is a very big if, the virus did not originate from China, then, the western nations are going to have a very big egg on their faces. Especially after all their racist attacks against the Chinese people, for eating bats, and what not. And especially for demanding reparations of trillions of dollars in damages from China. Are they going to pay up instead? The mystery continues. ===== [1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/respiratory-outbreak-investigated-retirement-community-54-residents-fall/story?id=64275865 https://abcnews.go.com/US/respiratory-outbreak-investigated-... [2] https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/athletes-at-world-military-games-may-have-brought-coronavirus-to-europe/ https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/athletes-at-world-military-gam... [3] https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.html https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.htm... [4] https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/new-jersey-mayor-believes-he-had-coronavirus-in-november/ https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/new-jersey-mayor-believes-he-h... [5] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/antibody-test-results-of-2-snohomish-county-residents-throw-into-question-timeline-of-coronaviruss-u-s-arrival/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/antibody-test-resu... [6] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market...

58 points by panta 6y ago

This study [1] published by Policlinico di Milano found that 4.6% of blood donors had anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgG antibodies at the start of the pandemic (February 24th). See also these articles (in Italian): - https://www.policlinico.mi.it/news/2020-05-20/1660/covid-19-anticorpi-in-1-milanese-su-20-gia-settimane-prima-della-pandemia-la-conferma-in-uno-studio-del-policlinico-di-milano https://www.policlinico.mi.it/news/2020-05-20/1660/covid-19-... - https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2020/05/20/news/il-coronavirus-gia-diffuso-a-milano-alcune-settimane-prima-dell-epidemia-1.38868265 https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2020/05/20/news/il-coronavir... [1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20098442v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20098442v...

paganel 6y ago
> 4.6% of blood donors had anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgG antibodies at the start of the pandemic Which would make sense. Inter Milano's player Romelu Lukaku was saying about a month ago that the vast majority of his teammates (23 out of 25) had already gotten the virus in January, and that for the Inter - Cagliari match (which was played on January 26th) one of his teammates had to be substituted off after only 25 minutes because he couldn't run anymore. For whatever reasons Inter's officials didn't like his comments and reprimanded him, but it seems like Lukaku was closer to the truth than many would have liked to admit a month ago.
- pmachinery 6y ago
  > For whatever reasons Perhaps because he was making baseless claims about his teammates and tainting the reputation of the club. He should at least know that players being taken down by cold or flu is not unusual in football. 2014 Seven players are struck by 'flu symptoms': https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/germany/10943357/Germany-hit-by-health-scare-as-seven-players-are-struck-by-flu-symptoms-ahead-of-World-Cup-quarter-final.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/germany/109... 2017 Wenger fighting to contain outbreak: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4296828/Now-Arsenal-players-hit-FLU.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4296828/N... Feb 2019 'Man flu'[0] sweeps through League Two club: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47239534 https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47239534 March 2019 'epidemic' with eight players: https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8709002/poland-flu-epidemic-milik-piatek-bednarek/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8709002/poland-flu-e... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_flu
  - paganel 6y ago
    > He should at least know that players being taken down by cold or flu is not unusual in football. One could think so, of course, but then how does one explain the fact that when testing really started in Italy (end of February - actually early March for footballers, after the Juve - Inter match played on March 9th) not one football player from Inter tested positive, even though they were in what was even by then the center of the pandemic in Italy, Milano? By contrast two Juve players (Dybala and Matuidi) tested positive immediately after March 9th, plus some other players from Firenze and Genoa. One of the only reasonable explanations would be that most (if not all) Internazionale players had already gotten the virus by then and had managed to get rid of it. And I've heard of that "tainted" argument and for the life of me I couldn't understand it, being sick (or having been sick) doesn't taint anyone. It somehow reminds me of the infamous #milanononsiferma hashtag used by Milano's mayor (among others) at the end of February, people who were thinking that ignoring actual real stuff for fear of not "tainting" the city (in the mayor's case) would somehow make things better.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Did the players test positive for Cov2 antibodies?

flatfilefan 6y ago

So the question is what has caused increased deaths if there actually was an unusual increase compared to previous years at all? Was it something else, like a multiresistent hospital infection in nursing homes?

panta 6y ago
Well, probably there were no previous years for SARS-CoV-2. If you are referring to the increased deaths compared to other regions in Italy, there are many factors, the most prominent probably being (a) Lombardy's terrible healthcare handling and corruption; (b) being affected much earlier than other regions they were later on the lockdown; (c) deliberate/criminal mishandling of retirement homes; (d) fewer tests performed and containment (for example Veneto has been much more proactive on this front).
- lbeltrame 6y ago
  I don't think it has anything to do with corruption and terrible healthcare (mistakes were made, but as a resident there, I think the system works pretty well nevertheless, or at least used to be pre-crisis). I think it has more to do with the route of entry of the virus in the territory, which hit hospitals first (not closing down Alzano Lombardo was a grave mistake), then retirement homes (an error shared with Lazio and elsewhere). This meant that the newly-infected population was largely skewed towards the most vulnerable, and coupled with imperfect knowledge about treatment, the net result was a lot of deaths.
  - giovan-ni 6y ago
    As another resident (Milano), I think corruption is endemic in the regional health system. This is, of course, not to deny Lombardy healthcare compares well relative to that of most other Italian and European regions. Still, it was clearly overwhelmed and mismanaged. In my opinion, this and the timing of the first response account for the many deaths. And those in charge of both need to be held accountable. That said, I do think the numbers of the Policlinico study might well be representative, at least regarding Milano. It is just anecdotal, but I know a lot of people there that got sick, but where unable to get tested, or waited weeks before receiving any treatment.

ggm 6y ago

Start is bad. February is two months after back computed patient zero is deemed to have existed in China. This is "infection demonstrated to exist in Italy before prior dates we believe"

DarthGhandi 6y ago
Having the antibodies in such a large percentage of the population suggests it was around for quite a long time beforehand. It takes months to reach those levels. In addition there's the unusually large number of pneumonia deaths in oct/nov throughout the country https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-timing/italian-scientists-investigate-possible-earlier-emergence-of-coronavirus-idUSKBN21D2IG https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-...
- ggm 6y ago
  We should expect to get serological data from excess Chinese mortality before December then. Assuming they agree to good back sampling. They have biopsies like any public health system.
  - makomk 6y ago
    The Chinese government has been pushing the narrative that their reported case counts exactly describe reality and there were no widespread undetected infections. I wouldn't rely on any evidence that contradicts that ever officially seeing the light of day, given the heavy central control over coronavirus-related research and the sensitivity of the subject. Supposedly there were antibody testing results from Wuhan leaked that showed a 5% infection rate there but I don't think anyone has been able to confirm this.
vkou 6y ago
> This is "infection demonstrated to exist in Italy before prior dates we believe" That is an unlikely hypothesis, given that we didn't see an exponential explosion in deaths, and people going to the hospital until February. Either: 1. The virus was for some reason less lethal before February. 2. Only people who don't show symptoms were catching it. 3. The serological studies are mostly finding false positives. My money's on #3.

onetimemanytime 6y ago

So it started before they thought it did.

based2 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games#Cont...

lbeltrame 6y ago

FTR, as the study was conducted on blood donors, it may not be representative of the whole population of the city. This suggests more than ever the need of extensive serological testing.

jansan 6y ago

The whole antibody testing looks totally unreliable to me. My wife was tested COVID-19 positive about 4 weeks ago. So was her boss at a different test location, so I assume the test was correct. Also she was ill with the typical symptoms. Meanwhile she has recovered and three days ago she had and antibody test and the result was negative, not even close to the threshold.

krona 6y ago
You concluded that on a sample size of one?
- jansan 6y ago
  It's anecdotal, but if you follow https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19positive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19positive/ there are tons of similar anecdotes. In a large enough number anecdotes make a statistic. Also, I claim that there was not even time to test the reliability of the serological tests an actual patients. So, anecdotes may be all data we have.
noodlesUK 6y ago
Do you happen to know which antibody test Was used? There are a number of different ones with very different specifications.
- jansan 6y ago
  I was a test against IgG antibodies. The report does not mention the manufacturer of the test.

blackrock 6y ago

The evidence is starting to stack up. Maybe the virus didn’t come from China. China was just the first to discover it. If this is true, then all the Western countries took a collective dump on China, and accused them of spreading the virus. Some theories and timelines so far: 1) July 2019, a lot of strange pneumonia cases were reported in Virginia. The symptoms sounds suspiciously like Covid19. Two people die. [1] 2) Three months later, on October 18, 2019, French athletes that attended the Military World Games in Wuhan reported testing positive for the Covid19 antibodies. They are muzzled, and told to not talk with reporters. [2] 3) December 16, 2019, The first documented hospital admission in China. 4) China investigates, and determines this is a new virus. They report it to the W.H.O. on December 31, 2019. 5) China checks past records, and determines an earlier infection was on November 17, 2019. [3] About a month before their previous first known case. 6) A New Jersey mayor tests positive for the antibodies, and claims he got sick in November 2019, a month before China detected their first known case. [4] 7) December 27, 2019, A woman in Seattle [5], with no travel history to China, who tested positive for the antibodies, claims she got sick two days after Christmas. This is 4 days before China reports the virus to the W.H.O. And three weeks before Seattle’s first official case. 8) Jan 26, 2020, The Lancet theorizes that the virus did not originate from the seafood market. [6] Daniel Lucey asserts, “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace.” Thus, this was not from Chinese people eating bats. Conclusion: We don’t know anything for sure, but the W.H.O. needs to investigate those Virginia nursing home residents that got sick in July 2019, and test them for the coronavirus antibodies. If, and this is a very big if, the virus did not originate from China, then, the western nations are going to have a very big egg on their faces. Especially after all their racist attacks against the Chinese people, for eating bats, and what not. And especially for demanding reparations of trillions of dollars in damages from China. Are they going to pay up instead? The mystery continues. ===== [1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/respiratory-outbreak-investigated-retirement-community-54-residents-fall/story?id=64275865 https://abcnews.go.com/US/respiratory-outbreak-investigated-... [2] https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/athletes-at-world-military-games-may-have-brought-coronavirus-to-europe/ https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/athletes-at-world-military-gam... [3] https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.html https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.htm... [4] https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/new-jersey-mayor-believes-he-had-coronavirus-in-november/ https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/new-jersey-mayor-believes-he-h... [5] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/antibody-test-results-of-2-snohomish-county-residents-throw-into-question-timeline-of-coronaviruss-u-s-arrival/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/antibody-test-resu... [6] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market...