6 ms·

Nearly 100,000 people have died of COVID19 and there’s good evidence that this is a substantial undercount. All this in a context where we shut down transmissio

by entee 6y ago

Nearly 100,000 people have died of COVID19 and there’s good evidence that this is a substantial undercount. All this in a context where we shut down transmission vectors (being indoors, with lots of people). Most estimates I’ve seen suggest we’ll hit 150k-200k deaths by end of year. 2017-2018 flu season killed about 80,000 with no mitigation efforts. Just on the face of it, this virus is far more than 2x deadlier than the flu.

marcell 6y ago
Sure, but 2x deadlier than the flu just means 2 flu seasons. It's not great, but we don't do half-lockdowns fur 1 flu season. Why do a full lockdown for the equivalent of two flu seasons?
- xigency 6y ago
  What would the numbers look like without mitigations? There are certainly some flu seasons that are 2x worse than average. I imagine that the cutoff between no action and hard mitigation would be a 10x flu event. It seems plausible to me that this would have been 10x the flu with business as usual. That still doesn’t do accounting for the negative effects of mitigation. The truth is that this is an open-ended ethical question and it’s not fun to participate in.
  - username90 6y ago
    > What would the numbers look like without mitigations? Look at Sweden, you'll find that their very light measures are not worse than the very late but much stronger measures of harder hit areas.
    - samvher 6y ago
      If you compare Sweden to the other Scandinavian countries (which is the most suitable comparison considering population distribution and habits) the light measures actually seem to have resulted in a much higher prevalence. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-coronavirus-response-less-economic-damage-more-disease https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-co...
      - username90 6y ago
        Yes, but not catastrophic prevalence. The question was whether not locking down things like schools would result in much higher deaths than we currently see in for example England or New York. The answer is no, not necessarily.
        exdsq 6y ago
        In Sweden a lot of people were self-isolating and being cautious without the need of a formal lockdown. They still have the most deaths per capita in Europe.
        username90 6y ago
        Schools were open. A million kids went to crowded classrooms every day for the past two months and death rate is still not even close to England, Belgium, Italy or New York.
        exdsq 6y ago
        The number of deaths per capita is higher than England, Belgium, and Italy however the total number is lower (they have a smaller population). They also have a low population density, a lot of single households, and as a population have less issues with diabetes, obesity, and chronic heart conditions compared to other countries. It is not black and white :)
        orwin 6y ago
        Targeted lockdown was a good idea in the context (not that much different clusters). Sweden was since the beginning at the place where France will be next week, but Sweden did not have the Mulhouse cluster that crippled multiple hospitals in eastern France. Many thanks to Switzerland and Germany for helping us saving a dozen patients by the way.
      - nickthemagicman 6y ago
        If you compare Sweden to other countries with full and absolute total lockdowns like Belgium the UK and Spain and Italy....they actually have lower incidences of infections fatalities and higher incidences of recoveries. Sweden is the control group in all of this for how effective lockdowns are and it's showing that they're potentially not as effective as we think they are.
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> there’s good evidence that this is a substantial undercount. I don’t know about the US, but most European countries count anyone who died with corona as a covid death. No matter how clearly you died to something else.
- watwut 6y ago
  The overall flu mortality estimation counts people we guess might have flu, but never seeked doctor. As deaths, they estimate how may other deaths are fly and add them (like % of pneumonia). There is also fuzziness about who counts as death from flu too. For covid, there is no added estimation afaik, if you die without test you dont count. It is not like one number was super clean and other dirty. Both are dirty and estimations.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  If only people with symptoms are being tested, and 80% of people are asymptomatic, how are we not drastically overestimating fatality rate?
  - wbronitsky 6y ago
    Where do you see the data that 80% of people are asymptomatic? You complain elsewhere in this thread of being dismissed even when you have data, yet provide none. We understand that you think that the lockdowns are bunk and that this is a big non-issue cooked up by the world to ruin our lives; sure, maybe, but where is the data?
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Here is a medical journal sufficient? This is more study than was given to full lockdowns. This was posted to Hacker News a few weeks ago as well. https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/27/thoraxjnl-2020-215091.full https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/27/thoraxjnl-20... "We understand that you think that the lockdowns are bunk " Correction...lockdowns ARE bunk. WHERES THE SECOND WAVE? Why hasn't Sweden followed the model of exponential explosion that was used to justify the lockdowns. The flat curver movement was unscientific and wrong and you would do well to fight unscientific attacks on your civil freedoms with all of your vigour going forward because this isn't the last time this will be attempted.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
People are finding it impossible to discuss this rationally. If you try to disagree with the seriousness of this and even insinuate that the response is incorrect you are demonized even if you back it up with data. The data from Sweden and regions opening up their economies are starting to show that there are is no exponential explosion of coronavirus cases like predicted, no hospitals are being overwhelmed. The data is starting to show and will continue to show as time marches... that quarantine was potentially ineffective, the fatality rate was extremely inflated, and flattening the curve was potentially a mistaken theory.

by entee 6y ago

marcell 6y ago

Sure, but 2x deadlier than the flu just means 2 flu seasons. It's not great, but we don't do half-lockdowns fur 1 flu season. Why do a full lockdown for the equivalent of two flu seasons?

xigency 6y ago
What would the numbers look like without mitigations? There are certainly some flu seasons that are 2x worse than average. I imagine that the cutoff between no action and hard mitigation would be a 10x flu event. It seems plausible to me that this would have been 10x the flu with business as usual. That still doesn’t do accounting for the negative effects of mitigation. The truth is that this is an open-ended ethical question and it’s not fun to participate in.
- username90 6y ago
  > What would the numbers look like without mitigations? Look at Sweden, you'll find that their very light measures are not worse than the very late but much stronger measures of harder hit areas.
  - samvher 6y ago
    If you compare Sweden to the other Scandinavian countries (which is the most suitable comparison considering population distribution and habits) the light measures actually seem to have resulted in a much higher prevalence. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-coronavirus-response-less-economic-damage-more-disease https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-co...
    - username90 6y ago
      Yes, but not catastrophic prevalence. The question was whether not locking down things like schools would result in much higher deaths than we currently see in for example England or New York. The answer is no, not necessarily.
      - exdsq 6y ago
        In Sweden a lot of people were self-isolating and being cautious without the need of a formal lockdown. They still have the most deaths per capita in Europe.
        username90 6y ago
        Schools were open. A million kids went to crowded classrooms every day for the past two months and death rate is still not even close to England, Belgium, Italy or New York.
        exdsq 6y ago
        The number of deaths per capita is higher than England, Belgium, and Italy however the total number is lower (they have a smaller population). They also have a low population density, a lot of single households, and as a population have less issues with diabetes, obesity, and chronic heart conditions compared to other countries. It is not black and white :)
      - orwin 6y ago
        Targeted lockdown was a good idea in the context (not that much different clusters). Sweden was since the beginning at the place where France will be next week, but Sweden did not have the Mulhouse cluster that crippled multiple hospitals in eastern France. Many thanks to Switzerland and Germany for helping us saving a dozen patients by the way.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      If you compare Sweden to other countries with full and absolute total lockdowns like Belgium the UK and Spain and Italy....they actually have lower incidences of infections fatalities and higher incidences of recoveries. Sweden is the control group in all of this for how effective lockdowns are and it's showing that they're potentially not as effective as we think they are.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

> there’s good evidence that this is a substantial undercount. I don’t know about the US, but most European countries count anyone who died with corona as a covid death. No matter how clearly you died to something else.

watwut 6y ago
The overall flu mortality estimation counts people we guess might have flu, but never seeked doctor. As deaths, they estimate how may other deaths are fly and add them (like % of pneumonia). There is also fuzziness about who counts as death from flu too. For covid, there is no added estimation afaik, if you die without test you dont count. It is not like one number was super clean and other dirty. Both are dirty and estimations.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
If only people with symptoms are being tested, and 80% of people are asymptomatic, how are we not drastically overestimating fatality rate?
- wbronitsky 6y ago
  Where do you see the data that 80% of people are asymptomatic? You complain elsewhere in this thread of being dismissed even when you have data, yet provide none. We understand that you think that the lockdowns are bunk and that this is a big non-issue cooked up by the world to ruin our lives; sure, maybe, but where is the data?
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Here is a medical journal sufficient? This is more study than was given to full lockdowns. This was posted to Hacker News a few weeks ago as well. https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/27/thoraxjnl-2020-215091.full https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/27/thoraxjnl-20... "We understand that you think that the lockdowns are bunk " Correction...lockdowns ARE bunk. WHERES THE SECOND WAVE? Why hasn't Sweden followed the model of exponential explosion that was used to justify the lockdowns. The flat curver movement was unscientific and wrong and you would do well to fight unscientific attacks on your civil freedoms with all of your vigour going forward because this isn't the last time this will be attempted.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

People are finding it impossible to discuss this rationally. If you try to disagree with the seriousness of this and even insinuate that the response is incorrect you are demonized even if you back it up with data. The data from Sweden and regions opening up their economies are starting to show that there are is no exponential explosion of coronavirus cases like predicted, no hospitals are being overwhelmed. The data is starting to show and will continue to show as time marches... that quarantine was potentially ineffective, the fatality rate was extremely inflated, and flattening the curve was potentially a mistaken theory.