5 ms·

From the statistics I've been seeing, of the people who get it, the mortality rate is closer to 10%. And the virus is so damned contagious that with no counter

From the statistics I've been seeing, of the people who get it, the mortality rate is closer to 10%. And the virus is so damned contagious that with no counter measures taken everyone would get it with say 18 months. And that would literally decimate the population. Not to mention all the devastating follow on covid-19 side effects some of which, it appears, never go away.

dvirsky 6y ago
It's nowhere near that. It's estimated that most cases aren't detected, and even of the ones who are, it varies between 15% and less than 1%. The actual fatality rate is estimated to be between 0.3% and 1% - varying wildly by age of course. That's still many many people and would be a huge tragedy which we should definitely avoid, but no one is considering numbers in that order or magnitude. If the IFR was 10%, everybody would have been hiding in their homes and no one would be complaining about wearing masks.
HenryKissinger 6y ago
A breakdown of mortality by age group and prior health conditions shows that not everyone is equally at risk.
- ggm 6y ago
  Do you have good insight into the effect on the economy of randomly killing a high percentage of type-2 diabetes? I know we like to ideate the poor into this state, but have you considered the effect on the economy, if the supersize-me generation at large in the economy at all levels suddenly took a king-hit?
  - logicchains 6y ago
    We can roughly estimate this from the effects of the 1918 flu, which killed way more people, and killed healthy, working age people. The overall effect on GDP was tiny compared to the effect we're seeing from the lockdowns.
    - loopz 6y ago
      Two totally different economies. People will self-lockdown much more extensively today. Economies were much more local 100 years ago. GDP is also a meaningless metric when measured in currency, and is anyway antithesis of lockdown/war times. Sweden didn't lockdown but is still hit hard economically, and is more isolated today than surrounding countries.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    No, but I have insight into a failure to test and trace. It means we get to herd immunity whether you like it or not.
- hedora 6y ago
  Rule of thumb: Catching COVID doubles your chance of dying this year. This rule lines up with age group and preexisting condition groups surprisingly well. It underestimates the death rate of older people, but is within a factor of two. It drastically over-estimates the death rate for children. Corollary 1: If we do nothing, then hospitals and morgues will have to absorb a year worth of cases in about 2 months. Obviously, that’s a big problem. Corollary 2: COVID will reduce life expectancies by much less than 6 months (actually, less than one month). I suspect we could increase life expectancies in the US by much more than 6 months if we spent $3T on something other than the shutdown.
  - nkurz 6y ago
    I think your rule of thumb is correct, but I don't see how this implies your corollaries. I think Corollary 1 assumes 100% infection at T_0, which is clearly not true. It's debatable what the correct curve would look like, but even in the worst do-nothing case I don't think it could possibly be this steep. I don't understand the logic for Corollary 2. Even if we assume Corollary 1 (which I'd argue we shouldn't) why would uniformly doubling the average death rate reduce life expectancy by less than 1 month? I can't say for sure that it wouldn't, but I don't think the math is obvious. Could you flesh this out? Your final sentence seems possible, depending on what "much more" means, but I'd like to see more proof. Adding $3T would be equivalent to doubling current US health care spending.
hedora 6y ago
10% sounds like a case fatality rate somewhere. That’s the percentage of people that see a doctor for it that die, and it is all over the place depending on which city, etc. The WHO estimate is 0.5% mortality among people that get it. The CDC reports something strange, but if you multiply it out, they’re estimating 0.3% in the US.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > The CDC reports something strange, but if you multiply it out, they’re estimating 0.3% in the US. This is being repeated a lot. I think people have misunderstood what CDC are saying. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... > CDC and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Responseexternal icon (ASPR) have developed five COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios that are designed to help inform decisions by public health officials who use mathematical modeling and by mathematical modelers throughout the federal government. Models developed using the data provided in the planning scenario tables can help evaluate the potential effects of different community mitigation strategies (e.g., social distancing). The planning scenarios may also be useful to hospital administrators in assessing resource needs and can be used in conjunction with the COVID-19Surge Tool. They have five scenarios. These cover a range of cases. The CDC says this about the parameters in the scenarios: > The parameters in the scenarios: > Are estimates intended to support public health preparedness and planning. > Are not predictions of the expected effects of COVID-19. > Do not reflect the impact of any behavioral changes, social distancing, or other interventions. They say this about the scenario that people are quoting: > Scenario 5 represents a current best estimate about viral transmission and disease severity in the United States, with the same caveat: that the parameter values will change as more data become available.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    How does anything you said contradict the claim that "[The CDC are]... estimating 0.3% [actually 0.26%] in the US"? The commentator never claimed that it was an ironclad truth that could never change, just an estimate, which you confirm ("Scenario 5 represents a current best estimate...").

dvirsky 6y ago

It's nowhere near that. It's estimated that most cases aren't detected, and even of the ones who are, it varies between 15% and less than 1%. The actual fatality rate is estimated to be between 0.3% and 1% - varying wildly by age of course. That's still many many people and would be a huge tragedy which we should definitely avoid, but no one is considering numbers in that order or magnitude. If the IFR was 10%, everybody would have been hiding in their homes and no one would be complaining about wearing masks.

HenryKissinger 6y ago

A breakdown of mortality by age group and prior health conditions shows that not everyone is equally at risk.

ggm 6y ago
Do you have good insight into the effect on the economy of randomly killing a high percentage of type-2 diabetes? I know we like to ideate the poor into this state, but have you considered the effect on the economy, if the supersize-me generation at large in the economy at all levels suddenly took a king-hit?
- logicchains 6y ago
  We can roughly estimate this from the effects of the 1918 flu, which killed way more people, and killed healthy, working age people. The overall effect on GDP was tiny compared to the effect we're seeing from the lockdowns.
  - loopz 6y ago
    Two totally different economies. People will self-lockdown much more extensively today. Economies were much more local 100 years ago. GDP is also a meaningless metric when measured in currency, and is anyway antithesis of lockdown/war times. Sweden didn't lockdown but is still hit hard economically, and is more isolated today than surrounding countries.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  No, but I have insight into a failure to test and trace. It means we get to herd immunity whether you like it or not.
hedora 6y ago
Rule of thumb: Catching COVID doubles your chance of dying this year. This rule lines up with age group and preexisting condition groups surprisingly well. It underestimates the death rate of older people, but is within a factor of two. It drastically over-estimates the death rate for children. Corollary 1: If we do nothing, then hospitals and morgues will have to absorb a year worth of cases in about 2 months. Obviously, that’s a big problem. Corollary 2: COVID will reduce life expectancies by much less than 6 months (actually, less than one month). I suspect we could increase life expectancies in the US by much more than 6 months if we spent $3T on something other than the shutdown.
- nkurz 6y ago
  I think your rule of thumb is correct, but I don't see how this implies your corollaries. I think Corollary 1 assumes 100% infection at T_0, which is clearly not true. It's debatable what the correct curve would look like, but even in the worst do-nothing case I don't think it could possibly be this steep. I don't understand the logic for Corollary 2. Even if we assume Corollary 1 (which I'd argue we shouldn't) why would uniformly doubling the average death rate reduce life expectancy by less than 1 month? I can't say for sure that it wouldn't, but I don't think the math is obvious. Could you flesh this out? Your final sentence seems possible, depending on what "much more" means, but I'd like to see more proof. Adding $3T would be equivalent to doubling current US health care spending.

hedora 6y ago

10% sounds like a case fatality rate somewhere. That’s the percentage of people that see a doctor for it that die, and it is all over the place depending on which city, etc. The WHO estimate is 0.5% mortality among people that get it. The CDC reports something strange, but if you multiply it out, they’re estimating 0.3% in the US.

DanBC 6y ago
> The CDC reports something strange, but if you multiply it out, they’re estimating 0.3% in the US. This is being repeated a lot. I think people have misunderstood what CDC are saying. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... > CDC and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Responseexternal icon (ASPR) have developed five COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios that are designed to help inform decisions by public health officials who use mathematical modeling and by mathematical modelers throughout the federal government. Models developed using the data provided in the planning scenario tables can help evaluate the potential effects of different community mitigation strategies (e.g., social distancing). The planning scenarios may also be useful to hospital administrators in assessing resource needs and can be used in conjunction with the COVID-19Surge Tool. They have five scenarios. These cover a range of cases. The CDC says this about the parameters in the scenarios: > The parameters in the scenarios: > Are estimates intended to support public health preparedness and planning. > Are not predictions of the expected effects of COVID-19. > Do not reflect the impact of any behavioral changes, social distancing, or other interventions. They say this about the scenario that people are quoting: > Scenario 5 represents a current best estimate about viral transmission and disease severity in the United States, with the same caveat: that the parameter values will change as more data become available.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  How does anything you said contradict the claim that "[The CDC are]... estimating 0.3% [actually 0.26%] in the US"? The commentator never claimed that it was an ironclad truth that could never change, just an estimate, which you confirm ("Scenario 5 represents a current best estimate...").