6 ms·

Can someone help me understand something? Back in March, we had ~40k new cases per day, and were seeing ~3k deaths per day. Today, we have ~140k new cases per

Can someone help me understand something? Back in March, we had ~40k new cases per day, and were seeing ~3k deaths per day. Today, we have ~140k new cases per day, but our deaths seem to be ~1k per day, and haven't risen much with rise in cases since September. What explains this? Were we not testing as much in March, and really our cases were ~200k per day? Or were the populations that got sick in March somehow different than today?

echelon 6y ago
Detection and treatment have gotten better. The populations exposed are also shifting. Schools are back, more elderly and at risk are taking proper precautions.
decebalus1 6y ago
We don't know for sure. But several hypotheses are being thrown around: - when the virus hit the first time, the age group of those affected was higher, hence the high initial mortality. - hospitals have better protocols now to deal with the disease. They learned a lot over the past months wrt to treatment. For example not putting people on ventilators that fast. - through natural selection, a milder strain has managed to be more contagious but less lethal overall. - some of the mask ordinances were effective in reducing the viral load
- SnowProblem 6y ago
  Regarding the last point, I'd never thought of a virus like a poison before. Very interesting, thank you. If I get a higher dose of virus does that mean I will be sicker? Yes – work on two other coronaviruses: severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) has shown this. https://www.sccm.org/getattachment/05471bbb-2f6d-40f4-aa0e-c402c70c69b6/What-is-viral-load-and-why-are-so-many-health-work https://www.sccm.org/getattachment/05471bbb-2f6d-40f4-aa0e-c...
brilee 6y ago
A few answers: - the infected population tends to be younger this time around (the nursing homes already got cleaned out). - test availability in March was low, so only the severe cases got tested - better treatment awareness (e.g. proning).
randcraw 6y ago
A much lower fraction of the new cases today are old folk, who have a much greater likelihood of dying from it. We've also learned not to do stupid things like send infected old folk back to group homes. We've also learned how to treat severe cases better. We have a few therapies now that we didn't then like remdesivir and antibody serum, and know when & when not to use them. But mostly we know what doesn't work well, like hydroxychloroquine and early aggressive use of ventilators.
dublinben 6y ago
We certainly weren't doing enough testing in the Spring to know the true case numbers. There's a number of reasons that explain the lower death rate now.[0] The population getting infected now is younger, and less likely to die. We've also gotten much better at treating patients once they're sick enough to wind up in the hospital. [0] https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/11/fewer-in-nj-are-dying-of-covid-19-as-the-second-wave-continues-why.html https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/11/fewer-in-nj-are-dying...
dennisgorelik 6y ago
> but our deaths seem to be ~1k per day 1) Most mild and asympthomatic Covid-19 cases were mostly ignored back in March 2020. Now more Covid cases are, actually, tested. That is why "new cases" are significantly higher. 2) Big share of the population already has immunity against Covid-19 (because they were exposed to Covid earlier this year). That is why deaths from Covid are much lower.
djsumdog 6y ago
More testing and the PCR iterations are off the scale (over 40). They're basically picking up tons of false positives. With that type of PCR testing, it's like picking up background radiation with a Geiger counter and saying you've been exposed to deadly radiation.

echelon 6y ago

Detection and treatment have gotten better. The populations exposed are also shifting. Schools are back, more elderly and at risk are taking proper precautions.

decebalus1 6y ago

We don't know for sure. But several hypotheses are being thrown around: - when the virus hit the first time, the age group of those affected was higher, hence the high initial mortality. - hospitals have better protocols now to deal with the disease. They learned a lot over the past months wrt to treatment. For example not putting people on ventilators that fast. - through natural selection, a milder strain has managed to be more contagious but less lethal overall. - some of the mask ordinances were effective in reducing the viral load

SnowProblem 6y ago
Regarding the last point, I'd never thought of a virus like a poison before. Very interesting, thank you. If I get a higher dose of virus does that mean I will be sicker? Yes – work on two other coronaviruses: severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) has shown this. https://www.sccm.org/getattachment/05471bbb-2f6d-40f4-aa0e-c402c70c69b6/What-is-viral-load-and-why-are-so-many-health-work https://www.sccm.org/getattachment/05471bbb-2f6d-40f4-aa0e-c...

brilee 6y ago

A few answers: - the infected population tends to be younger this time around (the nursing homes already got cleaned out). - test availability in March was low, so only the severe cases got tested - better treatment awareness (e.g. proning).

randcraw 6y ago

A much lower fraction of the new cases today are old folk, who have a much greater likelihood of dying from it. We've also learned not to do stupid things like send infected old folk back to group homes. We've also learned how to treat severe cases better. We have a few therapies now that we didn't then like remdesivir and antibody serum, and know when & when not to use them. But mostly we know what doesn't work well, like hydroxychloroquine and early aggressive use of ventilators.

dublinben 6y ago

We certainly weren't doing enough testing in the Spring to know the true case numbers. There's a number of reasons that explain the lower death rate now.[0] The population getting infected now is younger, and less likely to die. We've also gotten much better at treating patients once they're sick enough to wind up in the hospital. [0] https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/11/fewer-in-nj-are-dying-of-covid-19-as-the-second-wave-continues-why.html https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/11/fewer-in-nj-are-dying...

dennisgorelik 6y ago

> but our deaths seem to be ~1k per day 1) Most mild and asympthomatic Covid-19 cases were mostly ignored back in March 2020. Now more Covid cases are, actually, tested. That is why "new cases" are significantly higher. 2) Big share of the population already has immunity against Covid-19 (because they were exposed to Covid earlier this year). That is why deaths from Covid are much lower.

djsumdog 6y ago

More testing and the PCR iterations are off the scale (over 40). They're basically picking up tons of false positives. With that type of PCR testing, it's like picking up background radiation with a Geiger counter and saying you've been exposed to deadly radiation.