5 ms·

I am stunned so few governments publish such "in the wild" data. The only way to judge the effectiveness of measures is to see how many people have actually be

I am stunned so few governments publish such "in the wild" data. The only way to judge the effectiveness of measures is to see how many people have actually been infected, not to count "confirmed" cases. For instance, it seems only 8.8% is confirmed (or 88k out of 1 million) [1] . Add that to the 69% vaccinated with at least one dose [2], and you get 77.8% accounted for, which is less than the 95% quoted. [1] - https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... [2] - https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=People+vaccinated+%28by+dose%29&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

makapuf 5y ago
Remember this includes vaccinated persons
- danuker 5y ago
  Yep, just realized and edited.
- FabHK 5y ago
  Assuming the vaccination was successful in triggering the production of antibodies. It is unclear to me in what percentage of cases that is the case. Hong Kong requires 2 weeks quarantine even for vaccinated people entering, unless they have proof not only of vaccination, but of antibody count.
  - standardUser 5y ago
    The immune response from vaccines is generally far less variable than the immune response from fighting off an infection naturally.
Animats 5y ago
The CDC publishes that data.[1][2] It runs 6 weeks behind, though. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/about-serology-surveillance.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/abou... [2] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab
- cjlars 5y ago
  Are these numbers comparable to OP? It's hard to reconcile that FL is at 24%, or NY at 13% w/ antibodies vs the headline.
  - carbocation 5y ago
    Your implication is correct that the CDC chart is mostly incomparable to the OP. The chart tries to combine incomparable data, which annoyingly requires interpretation of the legend to understand correctly. The circles indicate nucleocapsid (i.e., infection only) while the squares indicate spike (i.e., infection or vaccination). So, Puerto Rico is 70% infected and/or vaccinated (a square). Whereas NY is 13% infected (a circle).
  - gpm 5y ago
    Note that the recent numbers in the CDC chart all seem to be measuring antibodies that only appear from infection, not vaccination (indicated by a circle instead of a square in the chart), while the numbers from the article appear to be measuring antibodies that appear from either infection or vaccination, so they are not directly comparable.
    - Animats 5y ago
      Yes. Which is annoying. Both can be measured, but apparently the commercial lab data only runs one of the two antibody tests. There's also a blood bank antibody test. That's useful as a crosscheck. People who have blood drawn for medical purposes are in general sicker than average, and those who donate blood are healthier than average. So those set bounds on the measured values.
criticaltinker 5y ago
> The only way to judge the effectiveness of measures is to see how many people have actually been infected Can anyone provide links to recent peer-reviewed primary sources that estimate the number of individuals who have been infected in the U.S.? If ~70% of people are asymptomatic, and we assume just about everyone has been exposed to and infected by the virus - haven't we already achieved herd immunity in the U.S.? EDIT: Answered in solid source provided by animats - the seroprevalance estimate for the U.S. is 21.6% (95% CI - 21.2% to 22.22%). I also found a couple recent primary sources regarding the asymptomatic rate, see thread below.
- bagels 5y ago
  This assumes infection leads to immunity. It doesn't seem to be clear that this is true.
  - jampekka 5y ago
    It's the default assumption given practically every other known virus, and is the core assumption of all epidemiological modeling. Somehow all what is known from epidemiology and virology has been thrown out of the window during COVID. If SARS-CoV-2 is somehow involved the sky is falling on us on any moment unless otherwise proven. Bizarre. Don't know if they have a part in this, but at least it's extremely profitable for pharma to assume there's no immunity but what they provide.
  - criticaltinker 5y ago
    Here are some primary sources which support the fact that infection leads to robust and durable immunity. [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf [2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...
    - galangalalgol 5y ago
logifail 5y ago
> I am stunned so few governments publish such "in the wild" data [warning: tinfoil hat...] Can you think of an incentive for governments to be honest with such "in the wild" data? If you were a senior politician trying to assist your government in driving up the vaccination rate, then publishing hard data that 94% of your population already have the antibiodies is hardly going to help, is it?

makapuf 5y ago

Remember this includes vaccinated persons

danuker 5y ago
Yep, just realized and edited.
FabHK 5y ago
Assuming the vaccination was successful in triggering the production of antibodies. It is unclear to me in what percentage of cases that is the case. Hong Kong requires 2 weeks quarantine even for vaccinated people entering, unless they have proof not only of vaccination, but of antibody count.
- standardUser 5y ago
  The immune response from vaccines is generally far less variable than the immune response from fighting off an infection naturally.

Animats 5y ago

The CDC publishes that data.[1][2] It runs 6 weeks behind, though. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/about-serology-surveillance.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/abou... [2] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab

cjlars 5y ago
Are these numbers comparable to OP? It's hard to reconcile that FL is at 24%, or NY at 13% w/ antibodies vs the headline.
- carbocation 5y ago
  Your implication is correct that the CDC chart is mostly incomparable to the OP. The chart tries to combine incomparable data, which annoyingly requires interpretation of the legend to understand correctly. The circles indicate nucleocapsid (i.e., infection only) while the squares indicate spike (i.e., infection or vaccination). So, Puerto Rico is 70% infected and/or vaccinated (a square). Whereas NY is 13% infected (a circle).
- gpm 5y ago
  Note that the recent numbers in the CDC chart all seem to be measuring antibodies that only appear from infection, not vaccination (indicated by a circle instead of a square in the chart), while the numbers from the article appear to be measuring antibodies that appear from either infection or vaccination, so they are not directly comparable.
  - Animats 5y ago
    Yes. Which is annoying. Both can be measured, but apparently the commercial lab data only runs one of the two antibody tests. There's also a blood bank antibody test. That's useful as a crosscheck. People who have blood drawn for medical purposes are in general sicker than average, and those who donate blood are healthier than average. So those set bounds on the measured values.

criticaltinker 5y ago

> The only way to judge the effectiveness of measures is to see how many people have actually been infected Can anyone provide links to recent peer-reviewed primary sources that estimate the number of individuals who have been infected in the U.S.? If ~70% of people are asymptomatic, and we assume just about everyone has been exposed to and infected by the virus - haven't we already achieved herd immunity in the U.S.? EDIT: Answered in solid source provided by animats - the seroprevalance estimate for the U.S. is 21.6% (95% CI - 21.2% to 22.22%). I also found a couple recent primary sources regarding the asymptomatic rate, see thread below.

bagels 5y ago
This assumes infection leads to immunity. It doesn't seem to be clear that this is true.
- jampekka 5y ago
  It's the default assumption given practically every other known virus, and is the core assumption of all epidemiological modeling. Somehow all what is known from epidemiology and virology has been thrown out of the window during COVID. If SARS-CoV-2 is somehow involved the sky is falling on us on any moment unless otherwise proven. Bizarre. Don't know if they have a part in this, but at least it's extremely profitable for pharma to assume there's no immunity but what they provide.
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  Here are some primary sources which support the fact that infection leads to robust and durable immunity. [1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf [2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...
  - galangalalgol 5y ago

logifail 5y ago

> I am stunned so few governments publish such "in the wild" data [warning: tinfoil hat...] Can you think of an incentive for governments to be honest with such "in the wild" data? If you were a senior politician trying to assist your government in driving up the vaccination rate, then publishing hard data that 94% of your population already have the antibiodies is hardly going to help, is it?