9 ms·

> Now 1 in 6 Londoners have had the disease. Please do not spread misinformation. England has had 132k reported cases. London has a population of 8.9M.

by radley 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sandworm101 6y ago
"The top stories on Thursday: UK government data suggests around one in six people in London and one in 20 elsewhere in England have had coronavirus" "With further statistical adjustments, they found about 17% of London adults had been infected; this compares to only 4.3% in the north-east of England." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52749186 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52749186 That's the _BBC_, perhaps the most respected news organization on the planet, and unarguably an expert on all things London. They are citing information released by the UK government: 1 in 6 Londoners. Misinformation my a--.
- andybak 6y ago
  The BBC has a fairly dire reputation for it's scientific reporting
- seunosewa 6y ago
  One of the things we have learned during this pandemic is that reputable sources are capable of publishing false information. So we can’t just take their assertions as facts. We have to ask them to explain how they arrived at them. The claim that one in 6 Londoners have had the virus is particularly suspicious because Sweden made similar claims about infections in Stockholm based on rough estimates and they turned out to be wrong when actual studies were carried out.
- iso947 6y ago
  It was the government figures, and it raised far more questions - London has an IFR of half that of the rest of the UK, does that mean it’s spread more widely amongst healthy people? Does the antibody year require a higher viral load (which you’d get spending a long time on the tube compared with driving to work in north east). Need larger antibody tests and data broken down by demographic, globally, but we’ll have them by summer.
- thu2111 6y ago
  The BBC an expert in all things London? Maybe if you define away all the people in the city who aren't like BBC employees! Your view of the BBC is quite out of date. Most of the British population say now in polls they don't trust it. It's an open question for how long it'll stick around.
- radley 6y ago
  Thank you for the source. I only checked Google data and wasn't aware of the report.
Reason077 6y ago
> "England has had 132k reported cases. London has a population of 8.9M." I personally know about a dozen people in London who have had probable Covid-19, including myself. None of those cases were ever actually confirmed by testing or "reported" to anyone.
- esotericn 6y ago
  Same here, and that's ignoring the asymptomatic cases, so you can at least triple/quadruple that number.
  - bennyelv 6y ago
    Can you? Citation needed, not heresay.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Helpful neighboring comments from hours before yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23287505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23287505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23288767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23288767 Unless you want a source that many cases are asymptomatic, in which case you can easily google that yourself.
- nostrademons 6y ago
  Until you actually have an antibody test result, be careful to equate "probably COVID-19" with "COVID-19". I have a friend who lives in the NYC metro area who was sure he had COVID-19 in March. All the symptoms matched, felt like he was dying for 6 weeks. Never tested, because tests were in short supply then, but his doctor said it was very likely COVID. He just took an antibody test and got the results yesterday. Negative for COVID-19. Swine flu was going around this winter, which also will knock you out for a month. If you didn't specifically get a coronavirus PCR test positive, there's about a 10:1 chance that what you actually had was the flu. Outside of major hotspots like NYC and Chelsea MA, I believe the serological studies that suggest about 2-4% of the population has had coronavirus.
fooker 6y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)
NikolaNovak 6y ago
Reported vs actual are very different numbers. In Toronto Canada: - Number of tests available are limited still (and were severely so until recently) - People who are showing symptoms but aren't high risk have been turned away after pre-screening - People who are showing symptoms but aren't front line workers have been turned away after pre-screening - People who have had severe exposure but aren't showing symptoms have been turned away after pre-screening (Heck, understanding it's an anecdote, but my neighbour showed all the symptoms, after waiting hours and talking to all the pre-screeners, they told him, literally "Yup, you have it; we don't need to bother testing". ) Anecdata notwithstanding, it is crucial for people to understand that the number of tested positive cases is by definition, always, under all circumstances, always going to be some subset of people actually sick. And sometimes significantly so... sometimes by order(s) of magnitude.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I am always rolling my eyes at breathless news reports along the lines of "the actual number of deaths may be higher than the official count!" Of course they are going to be higher. Even the official counts can be fuzzy. For example, people dying of cancer are often carried off by pneumonia due to their weakened state. Was the cause of death the cancer or the pneumonia?
  - iso947 6y ago
    Root cause analysis is a tricky thing Died of a heart attack Caused by blood loss From being impaled on a fence After a car crash While not wearing a seatbelt And driving too fast On an icy road
DonaldFisk 6y ago
The data (and you have to scroll down to find the details) is based on antibody tests carried out on a sample of 1000 people living in London and elsewhere and extrapolated from that, and not on people who have tested positive for the virus. The selection criteria are not mentioned, but a random sample of 1000 would have an error margin of 3%. False positive rate for the test is 0.2%: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52656808 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52656808

> Now 1 in 6 Londoners have had the disease. Please do not spread misinformation. England has had 132k reported cases. London has a population of 8.9M.

by radley 6y ago

> Now 1 in 6 Londoners have had the disease. Please do not spread misinformation. England has had 132k reported cases. London has a population of 8.9M.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sandworm101 6y ago

"The top stories on Thursday: UK government data suggests around one in six people in London and one in 20 elsewhere in England have had coronavirus" "With further statistical adjustments, they found about 17% of London adults had been infected; this compares to only 4.3% in the north-east of England." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52749186 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52749186 That's the _BBC_, perhaps the most respected news organization on the planet, and unarguably an expert on all things London. They are citing information released by the UK government: 1 in 6 Londoners. Misinformation my a--.

andybak 6y ago
The BBC has a fairly dire reputation for it's scientific reporting
seunosewa 6y ago
One of the things we have learned during this pandemic is that reputable sources are capable of publishing false information. So we can’t just take their assertions as facts. We have to ask them to explain how they arrived at them. The claim that one in 6 Londoners have had the virus is particularly suspicious because Sweden made similar claims about infections in Stockholm based on rough estimates and they turned out to be wrong when actual studies were carried out.
iso947 6y ago
It was the government figures, and it raised far more questions - London has an IFR of half that of the rest of the UK, does that mean it’s spread more widely amongst healthy people? Does the antibody year require a higher viral load (which you’d get spending a long time on the tube compared with driving to work in north east). Need larger antibody tests and data broken down by demographic, globally, but we’ll have them by summer.
thu2111 6y ago
The BBC an expert in all things London? Maybe if you define away all the people in the city who aren't like BBC employees! Your view of the BBC is quite out of date. Most of the British population say now in polls they don't trust it. It's an open question for how long it'll stick around.
radley 6y ago
Thank you for the source. I only checked Google data and wasn't aware of the report.

Reason077 6y ago

> "England has had 132k reported cases. London has a population of 8.9M." I personally know about a dozen people in London who have had probable Covid-19, including myself. None of those cases were ever actually confirmed by testing or "reported" to anyone.

esotericn 6y ago
Same here, and that's ignoring the asymptomatic cases, so you can at least triple/quadruple that number.
- bennyelv 6y ago
  Can you? Citation needed, not heresay.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Helpful neighboring comments from hours before yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23287505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23287505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23288767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23288767 Unless you want a source that many cases are asymptomatic, in which case you can easily google that yourself.
nostrademons 6y ago
Until you actually have an antibody test result, be careful to equate "probably COVID-19" with "COVID-19". I have a friend who lives in the NYC metro area who was sure he had COVID-19 in March. All the symptoms matched, felt like he was dying for 6 weeks. Never tested, because tests were in short supply then, but his doctor said it was very likely COVID. He just took an antibody test and got the results yesterday. Negative for COVID-19. Swine flu was going around this winter, which also will knock you out for a month. If you didn't specifically get a coronavirus PCR test positive, there's about a 10:1 chance that what you actually had was the flu. Outside of major hotspots like NYC and Chelsea MA, I believe the serological studies that suggest about 2-4% of the population has had coronavirus.

fooker 6y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)

NikolaNovak 6y ago

Reported vs actual are very different numbers. In Toronto Canada: - Number of tests available are limited still (and were severely so until recently) - People who are showing symptoms but aren't high risk have been turned away after pre-screening - People who are showing symptoms but aren't front line workers have been turned away after pre-screening - People who have had severe exposure but aren't showing symptoms have been turned away after pre-screening (Heck, understanding it's an anecdote, but my neighbour showed all the symptoms, after waiting hours and talking to all the pre-screeners, they told him, literally "Yup, you have it; we don't need to bother testing". ) Anecdata notwithstanding, it is crucial for people to understand that the number of tested positive cases is by definition, always, under all circumstances, always going to be some subset of people actually sick. And sometimes significantly so... sometimes by order(s) of magnitude.

WalterBright 6y ago
I am always rolling my eyes at breathless news reports along the lines of "the actual number of deaths may be higher than the official count!" Of course they are going to be higher. Even the official counts can be fuzzy. For example, people dying of cancer are often carried off by pneumonia due to their weakened state. Was the cause of death the cancer or the pneumonia?
- iso947 6y ago
  Root cause analysis is a tricky thing Died of a heart attack Caused by blood loss From being impaled on a fence After a car crash While not wearing a seatbelt And driving too fast On an icy road

DonaldFisk 6y ago

The data (and you have to scroll down to find the details) is based on antibody tests carried out on a sample of 1000 people living in London and elsewhere and extrapolated from that, and not on people who have tested positive for the virus. The selection criteria are not mentioned, but a random sample of 1000 would have an error margin of 3%. False positive rate for the test is 0.2%: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52656808 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52656808