Finally: a study on the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a specific county whether people had symptoms or not

By Robert Willmann

Posted on the Internet yesterday is a study dated 11 April 2020 that finally addresses a type of investigation avoided by the energetic creators of hype and fear on television and elsewhere about an illness resulting from a virus called SARS-CoV-2.  Using a sample from Santa Clara County, California, home of Stanford University, the study tested the blood of 3,330 people, using a new testing technique to look for antibodies that are expected to exist if the virus has been inside a person, whether they had any symptoms or not. 

In this case, by using the math of statistics, the attempt is made to extend the observed results to the population of a specific area, to try to figure out how many people in the area had the virus in them at some point, even if they have shown no symptoms.  Then -- using the population of the area, the statistical number of persons who had been exposed, the number who are thought to have the virus by other testing and clinical observation, and the number whose death was caused by the virus (a difficult determination) -- better opinions can be developed.  This use of statistical sampling can try to describe reality in a more correct way than the so-called "mathematical models" promoted in the media that whipped up hysteria about the virus, and those models could politely be called wild speculation.  The models were used to justify draconian and illegal orders by governors and mayors that destroyed incomes, closed businesses, and did not accurately and constructively address the problems that may be caused by the virus.

When you have an idea about how many people have developed antibodies and are still alive, whether having had symptoms or not, you can begin to see the status and effect of the virus.  Furthermore, people who have naturally developed antibodies have usually become immune.  You can also calculate the fatality rate of the virus in a better way. 

One of the authors of the study is John P.A. Ioannidis, who is a professor at the Stanford University Medical School [1].  He kicked up some controversy in an article in March when the hype about the virus was escalating by saying, "The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable" [2]. 

Santa Clara County, California, is said to have a population of about 1,943,411.  The study estimated that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected there.  And, "The reported number of confirmed positive cases in the county on April 1 was 956, 50-85-fold lower than the number of infections predicted by this study".  Using the results from the sample, an estimate was made about a fatality rate (page 7)--

"If our estimates of 48,000-81,000 infections represent the cumulative total on April 1, and we project deaths to April 22 (a 3 week lag from time of infection to death [reference note 22]), we estimate about 100 deaths in the county. A hundred deaths out of 48,000-81,000 infections corresponds to an infection fatality rate of 0.12-0.2%. If antibodies take longer than 3 days to appear, if the average duration from case identification to death is less than 3 weeks, or if the epidemic wave has peaked and growth in deaths is less than 6% daily, then the infection fatality rate would be lower. These straightforward estimations of infection fatality rate fail to account for age structure and changing treatment approaches to COVID-19. Nevertheless, our prevalence estimates can be used to update existing fatality rates given the large upwards revision of under-ascertainment".  

Dr. Ioannidis has said that the death/fatality rate for seasonal influenza is about 0.10 percent.  Thus, if this study presents the situation realistically, the fatality rate for COVID-19 is similar to a flu season, at least in that part of California.

The text of the study is eight pages long, before the references and graphics.  It has detail like a study of its type should.  As in all statistical studies, there are side issues, such as how complete and representative the sample of persons is, how valid the testing method and statistics used are, etc.  In this one a new testing technique was used that has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the article describes how the test kit was tested for the study.  Even though it contains some statistical terminology, the study is worth reading--

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf

A respected scientist in Germany became so frustrated with the lack of scientific discussion about the virus and the restrictions imposed in the country, that he wrote an open letter to the Chancellor of Germany and discussed it in a video on 29 March.  Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi states that he is a microbiologist and infectious disease epidemiologist who for 22 years was chairman of the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at Mainz University, where he researched the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and therapy of infectious diseases.  He presents five questions.  Dr. Bhakti speaks in German, but if you click on the "cc" button at the bottom of the video display area, it will show some subtitles in English--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsExPrHCHbw

In his video, Dr. Bhakdi says that two years ago there were 20,000 flu deaths in Germany (a very large number for that country), and no stringent preventive measures were implemented at all. Germany's population is around 80 million. The U.S. population is estimated to be around 330 million.

Around the second week of March, the situation here about the virus changed into one of bureaucratic, media, political, and financial interests. The presentation in mass media has shifted into a version of agitating propaganda (agitprop). Politicians and bureaucracies do not want to admit they made a mistake or did something wrong.  Because mayors and governors jumped to conclusions and issued unnecessary and destructive orders, they are now stuck, and do not want to cancel their decisions that destroyed incomes and harmed the well-being of people.  I tried to figure out unemployment insurance claim numbers, but charts by the federal Department of Labor are unclear and numbers in similar categories do not match.  And of course unemployment insurance claims are less than the number of people who have lost income, business, and work. 

 

[1]  https://profiles.stanford.edu/john-ioannidis

[2]  Article on the statnews.com website by John Ioannidis, 17 March 2020.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

 

Comments

[Deap]

Israeli scientist observes a definite corona pattern in various countries, regardless of mitigation protocols: peaks at 40 days, disappears after 70 days: https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/04/18/israeli-professor-compares-rates-of-infection-in-ten-countries-and-makes-a-stunning-discovery/

[Brian]

What happened to all the other seasonal virii that afflict humans this time of the year? Did they all go into self isolation?

[Deap]

Now that we have new vocabulary terms like "panic porn", this author provides a thoughtful analysis of "What is really fueling the Wuhan virus hysteria": https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/17/what-is-really-fueling-wuhan-virus-hysteria/

[JerseyJeffersonian]

Talk about bureaucracies fumbling the ball when things were at Game Speed:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html

A real confidence builder, eh? Aargh. Hope they run their Level 4 labs a bit better.

[Chicot]

So probably an ifr more or less the same as the seasonal flu, as many people suspected. Here in the UK, the government is stuck in a trap of it's own making. Aided and abetted by an irresponsible and sensationalist media, they have whipped the general public into a frenzy of panic and hysteria. Even young, healthy people who generally have little to fear from this virus, are now terrified of normal, everyday interactions. As a result, it's going to be quite difficult for the government to coax people out of their homes to start the process of getting back to something like normality.

[Marc b.]

So if you accept the conclusion of this report and add the following what do you get?

“Le coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 responsable de la pandémie de Covid-19 qui a déjà fait plus de 120 000 morts dans le monde serait un virus manipulé, sorti accidentellement d'un laboratoire chinois à la recherche d'un vaccin contre le SIDA. C'est l'incroyable révélation que le professeur Luc Montagnier, prix Nobel de médecine en 2008 pour la "découverte" du VIH, fait aujourd'hui à Pourquoi Docteur au micro du Dr Jean-François Lemoine.”

What’s the agenda?

[Barbara Ann]

Robert

An excellent post which goes to the heart of this matter.

The media's obsession with reporting the number of "confirmed positive cases" as a proxy for the progress of the epidemic has always frustrated me. Even worse is estimates of mortality rate using this figure, a methodology with makes the breathtakingly unscientific assumption that only those who we test have the virus. I see this as analogous to the Rand Corp's body count measure in VN as a proxy for progress in the war: If you can't count what is important, count what you can.

This study counts what is important. It applies the correct approach of estimating the likely true infected population via extrapolation from a random population sample. Lo and behold we find that an estimated 50-85x more people in Santa Clara Co. have probably been infected than have actually tested positive. A far lower real mortality rate follows logically.

Your final paragraph highlights the real problem now. Face and careers must be saved, even if that means perpetuating the pseudo-science underlying the decisions to lock us all up. One must hope that a few decision-makers will have the guts to admit they were wrong and if necessary fall on their swords, so we can shake ourselves free from the mass hysteria.

[Mark Logan]

His statistical analysis may not be accurate. If they are, to what should we attribute need for temporary morgues in Spain Italy and NYC?

[turcopolier]

All

"if this study presents the situation realistically, the fatality rate for COVID-19 is similar to a flu season." think about that pilgrims, think about it. Perhaps what is needed is a bonfire of the epidemiologists and politicians.

[Eric Newhill]

Mark Logan,
To hold the bodies of the people who die every day, just like they died every day last year, and the year before and the year before that and every year going back to the origin of humankind .

The bodies have to be held because funeral related operations are shut down; not because there are extra bodies above what would happen in a normal bad flu season. The difference is this year they are are taking extra precautions around bodies and services cannot be held, etc.

[egl]

This is tricky stuff: https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-1f6382258c25

[Eric Newhill]

Sir,
First it was the Russian collusion witch hunt, then it was the shampeachment and now this virus BS. Pitchforks and torches are definitely in order before they pull something this November. It getting old real fast watching them try one scam after another and knowing it's a scam from the day they introduce it.

[Fred]

" Politicians and bureaucracies do not want to admit they made a mistake or did something wrong. Because mayors and governors jumped to conclusions and issued unnecessary and destructive orders, they are now stuck, and do not want to cancel their decisions that destroyed incomes and harmed the well-being of people. "

That's the understatement of the year. They are also immune from the destrcution not having lost jobs or income. Given the level of agitation in some regions of the country I give the politicians and bureaucracies about three weeks before a bunch of James Hodgkinsons start taking individual action. I also find it very interesting that Antifa and other groups have been silent for months. Blanket orders to wear facemask will give them great cover when they swing into action again.

[Deap]

Eric, now we know why Nancy Pelosi wanted us to be talking about her ice cream freezer instead of the implosion of Democrat's corona-gate and Democrat's Russia-gate, occurring at the exact same time. Nancy knew what she was doing. Look, a squirrel over here! Grotesque.

[Bobo]

As usual you lay out the facts in the style of Joe Webb. Bravo Bravo.

It’s the flu and all we have done is maybe not overwhelm our medical capabilities at best. But then the cost is horrific in lost jobs, mental anguish and an economy that will take time to rebuild.

Time will flush out whether this was a bio weapon used by China or their intentionally running shoddy bio lab practices that allowed the virus to escape. Either way it will result in a highly diminished economy that their leadership will be held responsible for by the people of China.

[Alves]

The false positive issue makes this study all but useless, as pointed by several other scientists.

There are plenty of data around that are slightly better to stablish COVID-19 letality.

Meanwhile, the USA is pointing toward what Trump said would happen a few days ago (65K deaths), and that WITH quarantine and social distancing. Just be patient for a while longer. Your politicians, scientists and industry do have plans and the means to come out of the worse of this crisis stronger.

Unfortunately, not all other places in the world can say the same.

[Mark Logan]

Eric,

Perhaps that is a factor, but there are significantly more deaths than in a normal year in NYC.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html

I don't think you will find an ER employee in any of those three places who believes is just a another flu season. That this is just another flu.

[Brian]

I think this was a metaphysical Ides of March orchestrated to remove President Trump from office. Was it not the fifteenth of March that he decided to shut down the U.S. economy? If it turns out that this was basically a hoax(I'm not denying this is a legitimate health concern), then Mr. Trump may be finished.

[Barbara Ann]

egl

Good to see a peer review of this paper already, no doubt more will follow as well as more rigorous serosurveys in other places. It makes some valid points, not least one suggesting the sampling process being done via FB invite may have been flawed.

An embedded link to a tweet explains well what I was getting at in my comment above in rather unscientific language - i.e the often important distinction between case fatality rate (CFR) and infection fatality rate (IFR).

https://twitter.com/SRileyIDD/status/1220465337113640960

[turcopolier]

Brian

He would be finished because of a hoax perpetrated against him?

[Eric Newhill]

Mark Logan,
The ERs in NYC were overwhelmed by the 2017/2018 flu as well (which killed something like 69K Americans). I dispute there are "significantly" more deaths in NYC this year. I'm using the term "significant" not as small effect at p= 0.05. I'm using it as "a heck of a lot more". if there is some small effect it will will normalize by the end of the year; meaning 2019/2020 won't be more deadly than 2017/2018. Many of those who were killed by the flu/covid were on the way out anyhow

NYT huh? A source we can trust. Right then. I like how NYC added 3.700 deaths "presumed" to be covid. Well, there were emergency room visits back in Oct 2019 that the CDC says presented with covid like symptoms (see it on the CDC website). Lots of flues have the same symptoms. As someone else said, the politicians are trying to cover for their stupid overreaction and their tyranny.

[Terence Gore]

"Preliminary results from government lab experiments show that the coronavirus does not survive long in high temperatures and high humidity, and is quickly destroyed by sunlight, providing evidence from controlled tests of what scientists believed — but had not yet proved — to be true...

The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, which conducted the experiments, has traditionally kept a low profile because of its classified work on biological warfare defense and bioterrorism. Fineberg, in his letter to the White House, did not go into detail on the planned experiments, noting that the lab shares its findings with the interagency task force on the coronavirus."

https://news.yahoo.com/sunlight-destroys-coronavirus-very-quickly-new-government-tests-find-but-experts-say-pandemic-could-still-last-through-summer-200745675.html

I am going to hang my mask on a clothesline after use

[Deap]

Brian, Cities, counties and states shut themselves down, well before Trump made any federal decision. Particularly in the blue states like California who were the most eager to commit "panic porn", and egregious over-reach under the rubric "public health and safety".

Not sure how you get people beyond their own self-inflicted sense of peril. They were already primed to believe the worst was finally upon them, after three relentless years of Orange Man Bad. The final word howver may be the one's uttered by the dweeb in the TP line - I panicked because I saw other people panicking.

War babies had JFK shot. Boomers had John Lennon. Millennials had 9-11. Is this national corona shutdown GenX's moment of mortality? The day the snug world one grew up in, was irredeemably over. In the larger sense.

[Jack]

This interview of Dr. Bhattacharya from Stanford prior to the Santa Clara study is very interesting. His hypothesis has proven to be correct with the study of a representative sample of the Santa Clara population.

https://youtu.be/-UO3Wd5urg0

[steve]

Peer review of the Santa Clara article. Math heavy but not that hard to follow.

https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-1f6382258c25

Steve