Oops. They mistakenly gave some people half-strength vaccine, and got better results from that group.
EXCERPT
Oops. They mistakenly gave some people half-strength vaccine, and got better results from that group.
EXCERPT
^ That whole debacle sounds like a hot mess of mistakes. Yikes.
That’s because Covid was supposed to be rare at the beginning and early symptoms/mild cases can be confused with colds and the flu. If 1 in 10 had the Flu and 1 in 1000 have Covid, if the odds are independent then still only 1 in 1000 Flu cases also have Covid and the other 999 only Flu, you may have very bad luck but wasting limited tests on a 1/1000 chance was overkill. The odds are not really independent because they are transmitted the same way but for low rates it doesn’t matter much, when the rate of Covid increases it becomes a different matter.
OTOH infections may indeed interfere with each other, the most basic way is that once an infection is detected the inmune system will become more active but there are more sophisticated mechanism that I don’t really understand.
Unfortunately, that is just going to add fuel to the conspiracy believers.
FYI
Johns Hopkins reports a study on COVID19 deaths in their News Letter. Johns Hopkins COVID19 deaths report
Excerpt:
“The study found that “This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years.” In fact, “the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19.”
Then the study is removed with the comment:
Excerpt:
“Though making clear the need for further research, the article was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic. We regret that this article may have contributed to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19.”
— JHU News-Letter (@JHUNewsLetter)
and
Merry Christmas
The reason that report was pulled from the student newspaper website at Johns Hopkins (yes, it was posted by the student newspaper, not by the medical center) is that the conclusions provided by the economist who wrote the report are based on very limited data and speculations that are dubious at best. For example, the report suggests that the data show that the percentages of various age groups who have died during the pandemic have remained relatively stable compared to previous years - and then goes on to assert that data prove that the virus hasn’t killed many people. However, that conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow from the data cited. The normal death rates among various age groups might have remained relatively constant during the pandemic, contrary to initial expectations that older people would disproportionately die in greater numbers than young people, because a lot of young and middle-aged people have died from the virus, as well as older people. Whatever the explanation for the data, and again, the very limited data cited in the report at issue, it does not prove that few people have actually died of Covid-19.
Moreover, the other major dubious assertion made in the report, and I suspect another major reason for the report being removed from the website, is the assertion in the report that Covid-19 must have killed far fewer people than previously thought, because reported death numbers from other causes have decreased compared to previous years. The report suggests this is evidence that deaths attributed to Covid-19 were, in fact, due to other causes. Again, that conclusion is based on an assumption that the numbers of reported and actual deaths due to non-virus causes are the same - an assumption with no evidence to support it. In addition, the report also assumes that the fact that deaths from non-virus causes went down in 2020 compared to previous years proves that many deaths attributed to Covid-19 were in fact caused by other conditions. The report provides no evidence to support that assumption, either. Another obvious possible reason for non-virus deaths declining would be that the virus killed a lot of people with co-morbid conditions, therefore ending many peoples’ lives before the other conditions could kill them. But the report doesn’t entertain that possibility at all, for some unknown reason.
Then, there are the independent analyses of the excess deaths in the USA during 2020, which have uniformly come up with a figure roughly approximating the number of Covid-19 deaths cited by the major sources of data, like the CDC, and have also concluded that the official figures almost certainly undercount the true number of deaths caused by Covid-19. You can’t just assume those analyses away, especially since they’re based on a larger data set.
Happy holidays to all.
Government scientists estimate that the true number of coronavirus infections is eight times the reported number of 12.5 million, meaning "most of the country remains at risk," the team reports.
Government Model Suggests U.S. COVID-19 Cases Could Be Approaching 100 Million
November 26, 20204:17 PM ET
The model, created by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calculated that the true number of infections is about eight times the reported number, which includes only the cases confirmed by a laboratory test.
Preliminary estimates using the model found that by the end of September, 52.9 million people had been infected, while the number of laboratory-confirmed infections was just 6.9 million, the team reported in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
“This indicates that approximately 84% of the U.S. population has not yet been infected and thus most of the country remains at risk,” the authors wrote.
As someone observed years ago, if you laid all of the economists out in a row head to toe, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.
Federal health officials could reduce the quarantine from the currently recommended 14 days to as few as seven for people who test negative for the virus.
EXCERPT
Current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations call for two weeks of isolation from the last contact with a person known to have COVID-19. However, Adm. Brett Giroir, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said Tuesday that health officials were rethinking that recommendation, citing “a preponderance of evidence that a shorter quarantine complemented by a test might be able to shorten that quarantine period.”
“We are actively working on that type of guidance right now, reviewing the evidence, but we want to make absolutely sure,” he said, adding that “these kind of recommendations aren’t willy-nilly.”
The exact language of the new guidelines and when they might be announced remains unclear, but according to a federal official who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the issue, the recommended quarantine time is likely to be just seven to 10 days for people who then test negative for the virus.
Apparently someone infected can buid up enough virus toreliably be detected in just 7 to 10 days, rather than needing to wait the full 14 days before the test will detect the virus.
Hat tip to Soylent News:
Covid Transmission Strongly Influenced by Relative Humidity |
| from the here-we-go-again dept. |
| posted by Fnord666 on Saturday November 28, @09:08 (Science) |
| Covid Transmission Strongly Influenced by Relative Humidity - SoylentNews |
———————————————————————————————————————————————[0]oumuamua writes:
[1]Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spreads more indoors at low humidity.
The airborne transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 via aerosol particles in indoor environment seems to be strongly influenced by relative humidity. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig and the CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi from the analysis of 10 most relevant international studies on the subject. Therefore, they recommend controlling the indoor air in addition to the usual measures such as social distancing and masks. A relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent could reduce the spread of the viruses and their absorption through the nasal mucous membrane. To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, it is therefore extremely important to implement standards for indoor air humidity in rooms with many people, such as hospitals, open-plan offices or public transport, writes the research team in the scientific journal Aerosol and Air Quality ResearchAnd other findings dispute that: [2]Temperature and Humidity Do Not Play a Major Role in Coronavirus Spread:
Research headed by The University of Texas at Austin is providing a little clarity on the role of weather in COVID-19 infection. The new study found that humidity and temperature do not play a major role in the spread of coronavirus.
A doctor’s opinion: [3]This winter, fight covid-19 with humidity:
Discuss this story at:
SoylentNews Comments | Covid Transmission Strongly Influenced by Relative HumidityLinks:
0. oumuamua - SoylentNews User
“Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome”: COVID “long-haulers” suffering symptoms months after initial diag…”
[video: "Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome": COVID "long-haulers" suffering symptoms months after initial diag… - YouTube width:500 height:300]
No, it doesn’t affect only the elder and the “non-healthy”…
Stay safe folks! Really!
From 60 Minutes video:
> “Have any of your patients made a full recovery?”
>> “Not full…”
As many of us have been saying, a 99.5% chance of survival is NOT a 99.5% chance of it just being a flu that you get over.
… At the peak of the spring wave in April, about 31,000 new cases were announced each day, though that was a vast undercount because testing capacity was extremely limited. Still, the toll of the virus was an abstraction for many Americans because deaths were concentrated in a handful of states like New York, New Jersey and Louisiana.
Now the deaths are scattered widely across the entire nation, and there is hardly a community that has not been affected. On Wednesday, when 2,300 deaths were reported nationwide — the highest toll since May — only three counties reported a toll of more than 20. …
…
“We are at risk of repeating what happened in April,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s coronavirus task force, said of the death toll.“Once you go over the case cliff, where you have so many cases that you overwhelm the system, basically at that point when you fall off that case cliff, you’re going to see mortality rates go up substantially,” he said. “I shudder to imagine what things might be like in two weeks.”
On April 15, more Americans were reported dead of Covid-19 than on any other day of the pandemic. The daily toll is growing close once more.
Regarding excess deaths I have heard the argument from many that somehow this isn’t real. Do not understand how that could be a reasonable assumption given the appearance of temporary morgues and mass graves all over the world. Probably spent too much time looking into this but FWIW, here is an overview of a variety of studies on the topic.
This report describes the estimated excess deaths reported in the United States from late January through October 3, 2020, with 66% excess deaths attributed to COVID-19.
Two new reports in JAMA provide updated estimates regarding the mortality associated with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the US. In a research letter by Woolf and colleagues, the authors update their analysis of the number of...
President Trump and other conspiracy fantasists touted the fake claim that COVID death counts are exaggerated. But three kinds of evidence point to more than 350,000 deaths*
https://jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jama.2020.20717
States that reopened sooner, such as Texas, Arizona and Florida, experienced summer surges, report says. For every two deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S., a third American dies as a result of the pandemic, according to new data publishing...
Covid-19 excess deaths refer to increases in mortality over what would normally have been expected in the absence of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this study, we take advantage of spatial variation in Covid-19 mortality across US counties to estimate its...
Denial is a coping mechanism. Feeding it is big business.
Denial is a coping mechanism. Feeding it is big business.
Well said
Nevermind, what I originally posted here turns out to be arguable but not appropriate to think about here.
EXCERPT
America’s top infectious-disease expert sounded the alarm Sunday, warning of a “surge superimposed upon” a surge of coronavirus cases over the coming weeks due to Thanksgiving travel and celebrations.
Anthony S. Fauci and other experts urged Americans to take aggressive action as the December holidays loom to mitigate the surge overwhelming hospitals across the country. As the number of coronavirus-related deaths per day rose to its highest point since April, Fauci and others highlighted the importance of complying with mask mandates and physical distancing.
“It’s going to get worse over the next several weeks, but the actions that we take in the next several days will determine how bad it is or whether or not we continue to flatten our curve,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on Fox News on Sunday.
A list of ways the coronavirus is worse than influenza:
Shared knowledge and experiences regarding COVID-19
Upgrade your mask:
New research shows adding a filter and improving the fit makes a cloth mask work even better.