7 ms·

It's good that the vast majority of people make full recoveries but 2% of the US is still over 6 million people. I personally know two people who have long 're

It's good that the vast majority of people make full recoveries but 2% of the US is still over 6 million people. I personally know two people who have long 'recovered' from Covid but still have no smell, or a reduced sense of smell. Not life threatening or really holding them back from anything, but they say it effects their quality of life more than they expected.

mdorazio 6y ago
Note that's 2% of people who become infected, not 2% of the entire population (unless you're assuming everyone will get infected?). We're trending toward 10-12% of the US population getting infected before vaccines roll out more widely, so that would be somewhere in the realm of 0.25% of the total population potentially suffering long-term effects.
- runako 6y ago
  CDC is estimating that ~25% of Americans were infected by the end of 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... And obviously a number of people have been infected since. But just using the 83 million number from the CDC, 2% of that would be 1.6 million people.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    Based on seroprevalence which the 98% was not based on so using it now would be misleading
    - runako 6y ago
      They updated that page in late January (2021). I'm not knowledgeable enough to be in a position to argue with their estimates or methodology.
- jMyles 6y ago
  > We're trending toward 10-12% of the US population getting infected How can you possibly believe this, given the seroprevelance data? Every indication is that more than twice this number (some surveys suggesting substantially more even than that) were already infected a few months ago.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    The 98% is not based on seroprevelance data so using it now would be misleading - their stated number should still hold regardless of seroprevelance
    - jMyles 6y ago
      Yeah, fair. 2% seems like a (very generous) upper-bound in this sense.
  - vkou 6y ago
    The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. Given that effectively nobody was dying from COVID prior to March, and the three giant waves of exponential growth that followed, I have severe doubts about the accuracy of these tests. I have a feeling that if those same tests were ran back in 2018, they would have said the same thing.
    - jMyles 6y ago
      > The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. That's not quite true. The surveys in that time frame were mostly < 10%. The > 10% surveys came months later. However, it's certainly possible that these are false positives (particularly the wastewater studies). However I'm not sure that this particular observation is a good basis for that conclusion. It takes a substantial mass of cases to produce excess population-level mortality, which is what gets our attention. Since we weren't testing for cases prior to March 2020, we really don't know how many people died while infected with the virus. Now of course we count nearly every such case meticulously.
pbreit 6y ago
I think the point is that the long covid situation has been vastly over-stated.
- jb1991 6y ago
  2% or %5 -- these are hardly small numbers. Anything with stats like that, when applied to a whole group of people, is definitely not an overstatement.
- galangalalgol 6y ago
  Maybe. Maybe not. Post covid usually takes 6 months to develop and peak covid was less than a month ago in most parts of the US. Incidentally 6 months is a pretty standard time from trigger to autoimmune disease for things like givimg birth -> hashimotos or ???virus -> type 1 diabetes.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  We're at 30 million confirmed cases in the US! Over 115M worldwide! If "only" 2% of them develop something like long Covid, that's 600,000 Americans and over 2.3M people with long-term illness from this -- and those are only the confirmed cases which probably understate the prevalence by 2x-3x. How are people still so blasé about this pandemic?
  - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
    And by "case" you mean detected matter with PCR cycle counts undocumented at aggregate levels. But don't let science get in the way of emotional appeals.
    - mikeyouse 6y ago
      Bizarre PCR truther claims aside, assign an IFR to the disease and work backwards from the 500k deaths we have.. then multiply that by 2% to understand how many people will have "Long Covid" and why it's crazy to play it down as overblown.
mancerayder 6y ago
I know someone who recovered his sense of smell after 11 months. He said it (the covid-induced loss) was useful for changing diapers. Luckily a long haul isn't always a forever haul, we can hope.
- nullserver 6y ago
  Was nice not smelling the litter box for a month.
  - dmix 6y ago
    Also nice we all have heavy duty masks for cleaning them too!
  - smichel17 6y ago
    The biggest improvement you can make is to stop feeling your cat dry food. They're often a large % fibrous plant matter, which ferments, causing much of the smell. If you're up for making homemade cat food, rather than canned, that makes their poop smell even less. The other thing you can do is make a litterbox like this: - 30 gallon plastic bin (look for one with flat sides, not a "heavy duty" model with ridges along the side -- if your cat is a side-pee-er, this will be difficult to clean). - Cut a hole in the side with a utility (aka x-acto) knife, 9 inches from the bottom. - Fill with 3.5-4 inches of unscented, clumping litter. I've tried Dr Elsey's and World's Best, and prefer the former, which I found clumps better; I believe other clay-based litters are equivalent to it. - Buy a litter-lifter, it's the best scoop, hands down. After I tried it the first time, I actually placed a bulk order (25 scoops) so that I have a guaranteed lifetime supply (and for gifts), because I never want to use another scoop. - Clean the litter box at least once per day. I know this sounds like a lot, but it's actually not -- with the scoop above, it takes me ~10 seconds per "item" (pee ball or poop cluster) you scoop out (unless your cat is a side-pee-er), plus maybe 30s moving the litter around to find the items and even out the litter at the end. (I've timed this; in total it's around 1 minute if I scoop once per day). Info is sourced from https://catinfo.org https://catinfo.org (specifically https://catinfo.org/the-litter-box-from-your-cats-point-of-view/#Types_of_Litter_Boxes,_Size,_Number_and_Location https://catinfo.org/the-litter-box-from-your-cats-point-of-v... and https://catinfo.org/making-cat-food/#Constipation https://catinfo.org/making-cat-food/#Constipation ) and verified by personal experience.
TheButlerian 6y ago
Dumbo, that is 95% of the hospitalized patients...do you think that every single American will be hospitalized because of Covid?

mdorazio 6y ago

Note that's 2% of people who become infected, not 2% of the entire population (unless you're assuming everyone will get infected?). We're trending toward 10-12% of the US population getting infected before vaccines roll out more widely, so that would be somewhere in the realm of 0.25% of the total population potentially suffering long-term effects.

runako 6y ago
CDC is estimating that ~25% of Americans were infected by the end of 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... And obviously a number of people have been infected since. But just using the 83 million number from the CDC, 2% of that would be 1.6 million people.
- jjcon 6y ago
  Based on seroprevalence which the 98% was not based on so using it now would be misleading
  - runako 6y ago
    They updated that page in late January (2021). I'm not knowledgeable enough to be in a position to argue with their estimates or methodology.
jMyles 6y ago
> We're trending toward 10-12% of the US population getting infected How can you possibly believe this, given the seroprevelance data? Every indication is that more than twice this number (some surveys suggesting substantially more even than that) were already infected a few months ago.
- jjcon 6y ago
  The 98% is not based on seroprevelance data so using it now would be misleading - their stated number should still hold regardless of seroprevelance
  - jMyles 6y ago
    Yeah, fair. 2% seems like a (very generous) upper-bound in this sense.
- vkou 6y ago
  The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. Given that effectively nobody was dying from COVID prior to March, and the three giant waves of exponential growth that followed, I have severe doubts about the accuracy of these tests. I have a feeling that if those same tests were ran back in 2018, they would have said the same thing.
  - jMyles 6y ago
    > The seroprevelance data claimed that ~10-20% of the population was already infected, back in March of 2020. That's not quite true. The surveys in that time frame were mostly < 10%. The > 10% surveys came months later. However, it's certainly possible that these are false positives (particularly the wastewater studies). However I'm not sure that this particular observation is a good basis for that conclusion. It takes a substantial mass of cases to produce excess population-level mortality, which is what gets our attention. Since we weren't testing for cases prior to March 2020, we really don't know how many people died while infected with the virus. Now of course we count nearly every such case meticulously.

pbreit 6y ago

I think the point is that the long covid situation has been vastly over-stated.

jb1991 6y ago
2% or %5 -- these are hardly small numbers. Anything with stats like that, when applied to a whole group of people, is definitely not an overstatement.
galangalalgol 6y ago
Maybe. Maybe not. Post covid usually takes 6 months to develop and peak covid was less than a month ago in most parts of the US. Incidentally 6 months is a pretty standard time from trigger to autoimmune disease for things like givimg birth -> hashimotos or ???virus -> type 1 diabetes.
mikeyouse 6y ago
We're at 30 million confirmed cases in the US! Over 115M worldwide! If "only" 2% of them develop something like long Covid, that's 600,000 Americans and over 2.3M people with long-term illness from this -- and those are only the confirmed cases which probably understate the prevalence by 2x-3x. How are people still so blasé about this pandemic?
- readflaggedcomm 6y ago
  And by "case" you mean detected matter with PCR cycle counts undocumented at aggregate levels. But don't let science get in the way of emotional appeals.
  - mikeyouse 6y ago
    Bizarre PCR truther claims aside, assign an IFR to the disease and work backwards from the 500k deaths we have.. then multiply that by 2% to understand how many people will have "Long Covid" and why it's crazy to play it down as overblown.

mancerayder 6y ago

I know someone who recovered his sense of smell after 11 months. He said it (the covid-induced loss) was useful for changing diapers. Luckily a long haul isn't always a forever haul, we can hope.

nullserver 6y ago
Was nice not smelling the litter box for a month.
- dmix 6y ago
  Also nice we all have heavy duty masks for cleaning them too!
- smichel17 6y ago
  The biggest improvement you can make is to stop feeling your cat dry food. They're often a large % fibrous plant matter, which ferments, causing much of the smell. If you're up for making homemade cat food, rather than canned, that makes their poop smell even less. The other thing you can do is make a litterbox like this: - 30 gallon plastic bin (look for one with flat sides, not a "heavy duty" model with ridges along the side -- if your cat is a side-pee-er, this will be difficult to clean). - Cut a hole in the side with a utility (aka x-acto) knife, 9 inches from the bottom. - Fill with 3.5-4 inches of unscented, clumping litter. I've tried Dr Elsey's and World's Best, and prefer the former, which I found clumps better; I believe other clay-based litters are equivalent to it. - Buy a litter-lifter, it's the best scoop, hands down. After I tried it the first time, I actually placed a bulk order (25 scoops) so that I have a guaranteed lifetime supply (and for gifts), because I never want to use another scoop. - Clean the litter box at least once per day. I know this sounds like a lot, but it's actually not -- with the scoop above, it takes me ~10 seconds per "item" (pee ball or poop cluster) you scoop out (unless your cat is a side-pee-er), plus maybe 30s moving the litter around to find the items and even out the litter at the end. (I've timed this; in total it's around 1 minute if I scoop once per day). Info is sourced from https://catinfo.org https://catinfo.org (specifically https://catinfo.org/the-litter-box-from-your-cats-point-of-view/#Types_of_Litter_Boxes,_Size,_Number_and_Location https://catinfo.org/the-litter-box-from-your-cats-point-of-v... and https://catinfo.org/making-cat-food/#Constipation https://catinfo.org/making-cat-food/#Constipation ) and verified by personal experience.

TheButlerian 6y ago

Dumbo, that is 95% of the hospitalized patients...do you think that every single American will be hospitalized because of Covid?