4 ms·

Given the article say 5% have had it what can we infer about total deaths in the do nothing/herd immunity strategy?

iamthemonster 6y ago
If you can wait for two months then just visit https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ and you will find the results.
rsfern 6y ago
They are estimating infection rates by combining mortality stats specifically for the younger part of the population and seroprevalence studies. So if you accept the known biases in the seroprevalence studies, and make the (strong, IMO) assumption that an individual’s risk of severe disease is not correlated to behavior that reduced their odds of infection before September (the cutoff in this study), and account for the age distribution in the as yet uninfected population, maybe you could get reasonable ish bounds. I’m skeptical because a change in behavior probably changes relative risk of infection, and I think people with known risk factors are probably more careful on average. Anyways, the first thing to do would be to check such an estimate against data for October and November
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  I see what you mean here, it makes sense that those at risk didn’t go to illegal raves or BLM protests. Therefore the infection rate could be higher than 5%. My guesstimate from the small sample of people I knew is 10-15% of people lost their smell in late February to early April and some had horrendous symptoms and a few had those symptoms last for months! I wouldn’t say many people I know have been affected by the second wave so who knows.
throwaway2245 6y ago
From that stat alone, not very much. - Your best estimate on a do nothing strategy would be that total deaths would be 20x what it currently is, (I'd assume everyone catches covid before herd immunity becomes relevant: here, aiming for herd immunity is a different strategy than 'do nothing') - plus likely a whole bunch more due to overwhelmed health services, likely a large proportion of people needing intensive care would also have died, - plus likely a whole bunch more people would have had a high viral load initial exposure and more likely to have consequential symptoms, - plus likely a whole bunch more, reflecting a likely relatively safe age and risk distribution of people who have caught covid to date.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  > I'd assume everyone catches covid before herd immunity becomes relevant... That's just not how it works. As the number of immune people (whether through survival, natural immunity or vaccine) in a population increases, the chances of anybody who is contagious spreading the disease begins to decrease. Herd immunity is going to be reached before everybody catches it, no matter what.
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    Yes I read 60-70% is enough for herd immunity.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    It takes weeks before people stop being contagious. That's plenty of time to pass it around to everybody in a "do nothing" scenario. (Of course, that is in a naive model with homogeneous population. If we've learned anything from this pandemic is that the population is heterogeneous enough for breaking those.)
    - nradov 6y ago
      That is not correct. The vast majority of patients stop being contagious within 10 days of infection. https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_... Patients may continue have positive PCR test results for weeks, but that doesn't mean they are contagious.
      - throwaway2245 6y ago
        >The vast majority of patients stop being contagious within 10 days of infection. Nonetheless, if growth starts out exponential then a majority of people would have been recently enough infected.
        jtbayly 6y ago

If you can wait for two months then just visit https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ and you will find the results.

rsfern 6y ago

They are estimating infection rates by combining mortality stats specifically for the younger part of the population and seroprevalence studies. So if you accept the known biases in the seroprevalence studies, and make the (strong, IMO) assumption that an individual’s risk of severe disease is not correlated to behavior that reduced their odds of infection before September (the cutoff in this study), and account for the age distribution in the as yet uninfected population, maybe you could get reasonable ish bounds. I’m skeptical because a change in behavior probably changes relative risk of infection, and I think people with known risk factors are probably more careful on average. Anyways, the first thing to do would be to check such an estimate against data for October and November

andy_ppp 6y ago
I see what you mean here, it makes sense that those at risk didn’t go to illegal raves or BLM protests. Therefore the infection rate could be higher than 5%. My guesstimate from the small sample of people I knew is 10-15% of people lost their smell in late February to early April and some had horrendous symptoms and a few had those symptoms last for months! I wouldn’t say many people I know have been affected by the second wave so who knows.

throwaway2245 6y ago

From that stat alone, not very much. - Your best estimate on a do nothing strategy would be that total deaths would be 20x what it currently is, (I'd assume everyone catches covid before herd immunity becomes relevant: here, aiming for herd immunity is a different strategy than 'do nothing') - plus likely a whole bunch more due to overwhelmed health services, likely a large proportion of people needing intensive care would also have died, - plus likely a whole bunch more people would have had a high viral load initial exposure and more likely to have consequential symptoms, - plus likely a whole bunch more, reflecting a likely relatively safe age and risk distribution of people who have caught covid to date.

jtbayly 6y ago
> I'd assume everyone catches covid before herd immunity becomes relevant... That's just not how it works. As the number of immune people (whether through survival, natural immunity or vaccine) in a population increases, the chances of anybody who is contagious spreading the disease begins to decrease. Herd immunity is going to be reached before everybody catches it, no matter what.
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  Yes I read 60-70% is enough for herd immunity.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  It takes weeks before people stop being contagious. That's plenty of time to pass it around to everybody in a "do nothing" scenario. (Of course, that is in a naive model with homogeneous population. If we've learned anything from this pandemic is that the population is heterogeneous enough for breaking those.)
  - nradov 6y ago
    That is not correct. The vast majority of patients stop being contagious within 10 days of infection. https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_... Patients may continue have positive PCR test results for weeks, but that doesn't mean they are contagious.
    - throwaway2245 6y ago
      >The vast majority of patients stop being contagious within 10 days of infection. Nonetheless, if growth starts out exponential then a majority of people would have been recently enough infected.
      - jtbayly 6y ago