Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[beorhthelm]

Where did you get 10% from ? Sky have been reporting 41% from today's ONS figures.

im going by the ONS death registered data. figure 6a, to 10th April, 10335 total deaths, 1043 in care homes.

this is the yellow line in the graph you posted. the higher red line is all deaths. this is showing there is more deaths registered in the days after the daily report, which we know is a thing and why (time for registration and collation).

 

[Swansman]

New antibodies test in Stockholm area of Sweden - 11% are showing antibodies, but real % of infected will be higher.

They say the tests are 70-80% sensitive and therefore there will be some false negatives, but no false positives, thus 11% is almost certainly an underestimation of the numbers infected.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/11-procent-av-stockholmarna-har-antikroppar-mot-covid-19

Further down in the article, is the following;



Worth noting also that this was a test on blood donors, all of whom believed themselves to be completely healthy, and had shown no symptoms of COVID-19.

Yup.. delighted. We're going to have a very normal summer here, except for festivals and other type of large gatherings which is obviously a no-no.

 

[Mellotron]

Further antibodies test in Stockholm - this time in care homes.

Estimated a third have been infected, from 2,000 tests. Also suggests over half are asymptomatic - surprisingly high given demographic.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/har-testar-man-om-vardpersonalen-ar-immun

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

New antibodies test in Stockholm area of Sweden - 11% are showing antibodies, but real % of infected will be higher.

They say the tests are 70-80% sensitive and therefore there will be some false negatives, but no false positives, thus 11% is almost certainly an underestimation of the numbers infected.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/11-procent-av-stockholmarna-har-antikroppar-mot-covid-19

Further down in the article, is the following;



Worth noting also that this was a test on blood donors, all of whom believed themselves to be completely healthy, and had shown no symptoms of COVID-19.

It’s really too early to tell

But have Sweden got it right?

People were always going to die (not down playing death) but they seem to be stopping the increase as well.

 

[Mellotron]

It’s really too early to tell

But have Sweden got it right?

People were always going to die (not down playing death) but they seem to be stopping the increase as well.

I guess if you have a country of such size that you feel you can risk going for herd immunity without overwhelming ICU capacities, perhaps they have?

Doesn’t mean we could’ve done the same. However, it hopefully points towards a higher number already infected/recovered here than previously thought.

 

[WATFORD zero]

On the Beeb:

View attachment 122565

im going by the ONS death registered data. figure 6a, to 10th April, 10335 total deaths, 1043 in care homes.

this is the yellow line in the graph you posted. the higher red line is all deaths. this is showing there is more deaths registered in the days after the daily report, which we know is a thing and why (time for registration and collation).

Thanks, but that figure of 10,335 total registered deaths up to April 10th is still less than the red line showing (what I now believe to be) 13,121 deaths in total that occurred up to April 10th, both figures apparently from the ONS.

I have just seen that the figure of 13,121 is the number of deaths that occurred by date up to 10th April, but registered up until 18th April (I assume the cut-off for the ONS figures). The BBC chart says 'Registered deaths to 10th April'. This is the 2,800 difference and I suspect a large percentage of these won't be hospital deaths.

This would also explain the 10% - 40% difference being reported in Care Home deaths as you would always expect a bigger lag in Care Home deaths reporting over Hospital ones.

 

[Mellotron]

Preprint paper regarding efficacy of Ivermectin - usually a worming tablet for dogs/anti-parasite tablet. Seems more promising than the trials we’ve seen for Hydroxychloroquine so far;

Usefulness of Ivermectin in COVID-19 Illness
12 Pages

Posted:
Amit Patel
Date Written: April 19, 2020

Abstract

Importance: There is no established anti-viral therapy for treating COVID-19 illness.

Objective: To study the usefulness of Ivermectin, an antimicrobial therapy, in COVID-19 outcomes.

Design: An international, multicenter, observational propensity-score matched case-controlled study using prospectively collected data on patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January 1, 2020 and March 31, 2020.

Setting: An international multi- institutional deidentified healthcare outcomes database.

Participants: Hospitalized patients diagnosed with COVID-19 determined by presence of a positive laboratory finding confirming SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Exposure: Ivermectin (150mcg/Kg) administered once compared with COVID-19 patients receiving medical therapy without ivermectin.

Main Outcome: The principal outcome was to assess the association of ivermectin administration with survival in COVID-19.
Results: The cohort (including 704 ivermectin treated and 704 controls) was derived from 169 hospitals across 3 continents with COVID-19 illness.

The patients were matched for age, sex, race or ethnicity, comorbidities and a illness severity score (qSOFA). Of those requiring mechanical ventilation fewer patients died in the ivermectin group (7.3% versus 21.3%) and overall death rates were lower with ivermectin (1.4% versus 8.5%; HR 0.20 CI 95% 0.11-0.37, p<0.0001).

Conclusions and Relevance: The administration of ivermectin during COVID-19 illness in hospitalized patients is associated with a lower mortality and hospital length of stay. These findings require confirmation in randomized controlled trials

 

[RossyG]

It’s really too early to tell

But have Sweden got it right?

People were always going to die (not down playing death) but they seem to be stopping the increase as well.

It’s beginning to look like they have got it right,

 

[Machiavelli]

I guess if you have a country of such size that you feel you can risk going for herd immunity without overwhelming ICU capacities, perhaps they have?

Doesn’t mean we could’ve done the same. However, it hopefully points towards a higher number already infected/recovered here than previously thought.

It's not only size, it's also a country that has a broad level of intelligence, because they've still retained some egalitarian policies from their prolonged social democratic period, including big investment in education. All I'm saying with this, is that you wouldn't be able to replicate it in too many other countries, and get the same results.
I've been speaking to a colleague in Sweden a fair bit, and she indicates that the situation there is markedly different to how it has been reported in the international media. Much of it is to do with the fact that they're less centralised, and enable different agencies (local governments, schools, etc) to take the initiative.

 

[Machiavelli]

PS [MENTION=12101]Mellotron[/MENTION], I posted this earlier on the Number of Deaths thread. Do let me know if you think I'm stalking you!

From: https://www.theguardian.com/society/...thout-symptoms


Only a tiny proportion of the global population – maybe as few as 2% or 3% – appear to have antibodies in the blood showing they have been infected with Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization, a finding that bodes ill for hopes that herd immunity will ease the exit from lockdown.

“Easing restrictions is not the end of the epidemic in any country,” said WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a media briefing in Geneva on Monday. “So-called lockdowns can help to take the heat out of a country’s epidemic.”

But serological testing to find out how large a proportion of the population have had the infection and developed antibodies to it – which it is hoped will mean they have some level of immunity – suggests that the numbers are low.

“Early data suggests that a relatively small percentage of the populations may have been infected,” Tedros said. “Not more than 2%-3%.”


Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, an American infectious diseases expert who is the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said they had thought the number of people infected would be higher, but she stressed it was still too early to be sure. “Initially, we see a lower proportion of people with antibodies than we were expecting,” she said. “A lower number of people are infected.”

On Friday, a study carried out in Santa Clara, California by Stanford University and released as a “pre-print” without peer review, found that 50 to 85 times more people had been infected with the virus than official figures showed.

Santa Clara county had 1,094 confirmed cases of Covid-19 at the time the study was carried out, but antibody tests suggest that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected by early April, most of whom did not develop symptoms.

But even those high figures mean that within the whole population of the county, only 3% have been infected and have antibodies to the virus. A study in the Netherlands of 7,000 blood donors also found that just 3% had antibodies.
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Van Kerkhove said they needed to look carefully at the way the studies were being carried out. “A number of studies we are aware of in pre-print have suggested that small proportions of the population [have antibodies],” she said. These were “in single digits, up to 14% in Germany and France”. “It is really important to understand how the studies were done.”

That would include asking how they found the people to test. Was it at random or were they blood donors, who tend to be healthy adults? They would also need to look at how well the blood tests were performed.

“We are working with a number of countries carrying out these serology studies,” she added. The WHO-supported studies would use robust methods and the tests would be validated for accuracy.

The hope will be that people who have had Covid-19 will be able to resume their lives. But Van Kerkhove last week said that even if tests showed a person had antibodies, it did not prove that they were immune.

“There are a lot of countries that are suggesting using rapid diagnostic serological tests to be able to capture what they think will be a measure of immunity,” she said. “Right now, we have no evidence that the use of a serological test can show that an individual has immunity or is protected from reinfection.”

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Preprint paper regarding efficacy of Ivermectin - usually a worming tablet for dogs/anti-parasite tablet. Seems more promising than the trials we’ve seen for Hydroxychloroquine so far;

I'd love to have been in on the original decision to try that drug.

'How about trying a dog worming treatment? Nothing else seems to be working?'

 

[The Wizard]

 

[oldboyroy]

Still well on course for 100000 tests a day then!! Only 9 days to go!!

 

[The Wizard]

Still well on course for 100000 tests a day then!! Only 9 days to go!!

You can’t magic up people to test can you? Testing capacity is now over 50k per day.

 

[oldboyroy]

Start testing general population if not positive start reopening some businesses

 

[dazzer6666]

This sounds plain daft....surely open spaces/a walk would be better than filling a supermarket with a load of kids............

https://english.elpais.com/society/...xaWYEJTpYYK94eD6ky8BfBE6jA#Echobox=1587474025

 

[WATFORD zero]

You can’t magic up people to test can you? Testing capacity is now over 50k per day.

You believe we currently have a capacity of over 50K, but are only testing 18K, because we can't find anyone to test ?

How about, for starters

1.5 Million NHS workers
Care Home Staff
Home Carers
Emergency services
1.5 Million at high risk
5.4 Million aged 75 and over

Let me know when we've got through those and I'll think of some more

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

You believe we currently have a capacity of over 50K, but are only testing 18K, because we can't find anyone to test ?

How about, for starters

1.5 Million NHS workers
Care Home Staff
Home Carers
Emergency services
1.5 Million at high risk
5.4 Million aged 75 and over

Let me know when we've got through those and I'll think of some more

You could set up out side a bloody supermarket and test randoms.

 

[oldboyroy]

You believe we currently have a capacity of over 50K, but are only testing 18K, because we can't find anyone to test ?

How about, for starters

1.5 Million NHS workers
Care Home Staff
Home Carers
Emergency services
1.5 Million at high risk
5.4 Million aged 75 and over

Let me know when we've got through those and I'll think of some more

Exactly

 

[Mellotron]

Apparently we’ve just had delivery of over 20,000 ventilators, from Shanghai. - BBC News

That sounds too many? Really?