A summary on COVID-19 from "Deap"

"From an alleged media research and review organization: Trust, but verify. COVID-19 - what we now know today Overview According to the latest immunological and serological studies, the overall lethality of Covid-19 (IFR) is about 0.1% and thus in the range of a strong seasonal influenza (flu). In countries like the US, the UK, and also Sweden (without a lockdown), overall mortality since the beginning of the year is in the range of a strong influenza season; in countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland, overall mortality is in the range of a mild influenza season. Even in global “hotspots”, the risk of death for the general population of school and working age is typically in the range of a daily car ride to work. The risk was initially overestimated because many people with only mild or no symptoms were not taken into account. Up to 80% of all test-positive persons remain symptom-free. Even among 70-79 year olds, about 60% remain symptom-free. Over 95% of all persons develop at most moderate symptoms. Up to 60% of all persons may already have a certain cellular background immunity to Covid19 due to contact with previous coronaviruses (i.e. common cold viruses). The median or average age of the deceased in most countries (including Italy) is over 80 years and only about 4% of the deceased had no serious preconditions. The age and risk profile of deaths thus essentially corresponds to normal mortality. In many countries, up to two thirds of all extra deaths occurred in nursing homes, which do not benefit from a general lockdown. Moreover, in many cases it is not clear whether these people really died from Covid19 or from weeks of extreme stress and isolation. Up to 30% of all additional deaths may have been caused not by Covid19, but by the effects of the lockdown, panic and fear. For example, the treatment of heart attacks and strokes decreased by up to 60% because many patients no longer dared to go to hospital. Even in so-called “Covid19 deaths” it is often not clear whether they died from or with coronavirus (i.e. from underlying diseases) or if they were counted as “presumed cases” and not tested at all. However, official figures usually do not reflect this distinction. Many media reports of young and healthy people dying from Covid19 turned out to be false: many of these young people either did not die from Covid19, they had already been seriously ill (e.g. from undiagnosed leukaemia), or they were in fact 109 instead of 9 years old. The claimed increase in Kawasaki disease in children also turned out to be false. Strong increases in regional mortality can occur if there is a collapse in the care of the elderly and sick as a result of infection or panic, or if there are additional risk factors such as severe air pollution. Questionable regulations for dealing with the deceased sometimes led to additional bottlenecks in funeral or cremation services. In countries such as Italy and Spain, and to some extent the UK and the US, hospital overloads due to strong flu waves are not unusual. Moreover, this year up to 15% of health care workers were put into quarantine, even if they developed no symptoms. The often shown exponential curves of “corona cases” are misleading, as the number of tests also increased exponentially. In most countries, the ratio of positive tests to tests overall (i.e. the positive rate) remained constant at 5% to 25% or increased only slightly. In many countries, the peak of the spread was already reached well before the lockdown. Countries without curfews and contact bans, such as Japan, South Korea, Belarus or Sweden, have not experienced a more negative course of events than other countries. Sweden was even praised by the WHO and now benefits from higher immunity compared to lockdown countries. The fear of a shortage of ventilators was unjustified. According to lung specialists, the invasive ventilation (intubation) of Covid19 patients, which is partly done out of fear of spreading the virus, is in fact often counterproductive and damaging to the lungs. Contrary to original assumptions, various studies have shown that there is no evidence of the virus spreading through aerosols (i.e. tiny particles floating in the air) or through smear infections (e.g. on door handles or smartphones). The main modes of transmission are direct contact and droplets produced when coughing or sneezing. There is also no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of face masks in healthy or asymptomatic individuals. On the contrary, experts warn that such masks interfere with normal breathing and may become “germ carriers”. Leading doctors called them a “media hype” and “ridiculous”. Many clinics in Europe and the US remained strongly underutilized or almost empty during the Covid19 peak and in some cases had to send staff home. Millions of surgeries and therapies were cancelled, including many cancer screenings and organ transplants. Several media were caught trying to dramatize the situation in hospitals, sometimes even with manipulative images and videos. In general, the unprofessional reporting of many media maximized fear and panic in the population. The virus test kits used internationally are prone to errors and can produce false positive and false negative results. Moreover, the official virus test was not clinically validated due to time pressure and may sometimes react positive to other coronaviruses. Numerous internationally renowned experts in the fields of virology, immunology and epidemiology consider the measures taken to be counterproductive and recommend rapid natural immunisation of the general population and protection of risk groups. At no time was there a medical reason for the closure of schools, as the risk of disease and transmission in children is extremely low. There is also no medical reason for small classes, masks or ‘social distancing’ rules in schools. The claim that only (severe) Covid-19 but not influenza may cause venous thrombosis and pulmonary (lung) embolism is not true, as it has been known for 50 years that severe influenza greatly increases the risk of thrombosis and embolism, too. Several medical experts described express coronavirus vaccines as unnecessary or even dangerous. Indeed, the vaccine against the so-called swine flu of 2009, for example, led to sometimes severe neurological damage and lawsuits in the millions. In the testing of new coronavirus vaccines, too, serious complications and failures have already occurred. A global influenza or corona pandemic can indeed extend over several seasons, but many studies of a “second wave” are based on very unrealistic assumptions, such as a constant risk of illness and death across all age groups. Several nurses, e.g. in New York City, described an oftentimes fatal medical mis­manage­ment of Covid patients due to questionable financial incentives or inappropriate medical protocols. The number of people suffering from unemployment, depressions and domestic violence as a result of the measures has reached historic record values. Several experts predict that the measures will claim far more lives than the virus itself. According to the UN 1.6 billion people around the world are at immediate risk of losing their livelihood. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warned that the “corona crisis” will be used for the permanent expansion of global surveillance. Renowned virologist Pablo Goldschmidt spoke of a “global media terror” and “totalitarian measures”. Leading British virologist Professor John Oxford spoke of a “media epidemic”. More than 600 scientists have warned of an “unprecedented surveillance of society” through problematic apps for “contact tracing”. In some countries, such “contact tracing” is already carried out directly by the secret service. In several parts of the world, the population is already being monitored by drones and facing serious police overreach. A 2019 WHO study on public health measures against pandemic influenza found that from a medical perspective, “contact tracing” is “not recommended in any circumstances”. Nevertheless, contact tracing apps have already become partially mandatory in several countries."  Deap

Comments

[turcopolier]

Deap

"an alleged media research and review organization" Who? I have been doing fatality % for Virginia and Alexandria on a daily basis, the number is consistently .02% on a developing cumulative basis. Hey, folks, suck it up! Move on!

[jerseycityjoan]

If this is "alleged" then why should I trust it? Anybody can write anything on the Internet and make it sound official.

This item sounds suspect, for example:

"Several medical experts described express coronavirus vaccines as unnecessary or even dangerous. Indeed, the vaccine against the so-called swine flu of 2009, for example, led to sometimes severe neurological damage and lawsuits in the millions. In the testing of new coronavirus vaccines, too, serious complications and failures have already occurred."

I thought we were eagerly awaiting a good vaccine. Just because developing and using a vaccine is not without risk and disappointment is no reason to jump to the conclusion that we should stop attempting to get an effective vaccine. If the swine flu vaccine of 2009 had been that prolematic the damage suits would have amounted in the multi-billions, not the millions.

[walrus]

Deap,

Professor John Oxford, whom you quote about a “media epidemic” certainly doesn’t agree with your position.

https://pandemic.internationalsos.com/2019-ncov/executive-summary

As for your post, it completely misses the main point, even if you are correct about the mildness of the infection; that is the logistical consequences of millions of sick people : (a) not turning up for work, and (b) swamping and breaking the medical infrastructure.

You need to understand that we have only 8.5 million cases and 400,000 deaths according to WHO. World population is over 5 billion. You fail to understand the potential scale of this thing.

To put it another way; we are dealing with a small grassfire at present. The forest is as yet unbutton and unprotected.

[Terence Gore]

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

contains links to the claims

[voislav]

There is a lot wrong with this article. A lot of vague, unsupported, and false statements, no links or anything. "Experts", "Leading doctors", etc., again, who are the people saying these things and what are their credentials? I won't go into all of it since that would be too long, but I'll address one thing.

Regarding mortality rate, the statement "latest immunological and serological studies, the overall lethality of Covid-19 (IFR) is about 0.1%" is utter nonsense. Immunological and serological studies are not used to determine lethality, they look at antibody formation and corresponding viral load.

0.1% number is just made up, current US death rate is 0.035% vs. overall population (so 120,000 deaths over 340 million people), Europe is slightly higher at 0.045%. For comparison, typical flu season is much less severe, it's 0.01% vs. overall population, bad flu season is 0.02%. So, this is already twice as bad as the worst flu seasons, and it still has ways to go.

And yes, there is a discussion to be had on how deaths are attributed (COVID-caused vs. COVID-incidental), but that cuts both ways. Many people likely died before they were tested, especially amongst the older population.

[Upstater]

There is considerable information presented, much of which I have not seen before. Key statements should have footnotes directing us to source material. Without references this is mostly hearsay.

[walrus]

The content of this article is a cut and paste from a disreputable “swiss policy research institute” that has no credentials. While the original article has links, they lead to more hearsay.

[Randy]

Article is a total load of crap, unfounded statements. I read some good stuff on SST but also some garbage which this article is, pure garbage.

[Jim]

What is different now: cause of death as COVID-19 are affixed to death certificates when there is no actual medical confirmation.

The CDC sent out a letter to the "medical community" months ago, to record deaths with COVID-19 when it might be, or could be, or someone feels it was, etc., along with when it is actually verified as the primary cause, and of course when it was present but not necessarily a cause of the cause of death.

It will take a while to sort this out, if it ever is sorted out. Until then, death rates are inaccurate for this disease, period.

The CDC's action/recommendation was and is very controversial, yet media hyenas rarely discuss it as their agenda is what it is.

-30-

[J]

Deap,

ALL phones (android and apple) have contact tracing software embedded in the phone's core software tied to the bluetooth.

[drb]

For those wo are interested, the IFR (the mortality rate for those who have antibodies) has been measured or calculated in 60+ papers. They are listed here below with links to the original papers

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zC3kW1sMu0sjnT_vP1sh4zL0tF6fIHbA6fcG5RQdqSc/edit#gid=0

a mortality of 0.3% is a very strong flu, like 1957 or 1968. However, we will never know the "true" mortality since so many states forced nursing homes to take in covid patients, creating artificially high mortality compared to other years.

Also please see Ref. 25 in the following link, a letter sent to Merkel by two german doctors. No one with good vitamin D dies.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/06/08/cnn-coronavirus-vitamin-d.aspx

[doug]

Deap,
Ioannidis, who has long been the most skeptical of Covid-19's seriousness, just published an analysis of IFR from a large number of countries.

However, it's already killed .16% of all the residents of New York State. So the IFR there is at least .16% and that would require all of NY had been infected. Serologic studies show less than 20% have been infected. Most in the City with much fewer in outlying areas.

IFR varies considerably between countries and regions. For instance it's lower in Calif (0.2% ish). than New York (> .6% ish). Ioannidis lists the median (not mean which is higher) IFR as .26%.

This is indeed evidence that something, aside from the well known age and co-morbidities, strongly affects the lethality of Covid-19. It may be vitamin D deficiency, or partial cross-immunity from corona virus that cause a portion of common colds. And that likely means places like NY have higher IFRs than most other places.

On the other hand lots of places like Fla. are opening up. Young people are crowding the bars and the positive test numbers are spiking to record levels. Since they are young they are very unlikely to die or even get seriously ill. And deaths are not increasing. At least for now. And I don't expect deaths in Fla. to be anywhere near NY.

[Yeah, Right]

And yet.. and yet.. and yet..

I keep having this nagging thought at the back of my mind, and it is elegent in its simplicity: those nations which insisted in taking this seriously from the very beginning have done very well, with few deaths, and are now resuming "normal services" while keeping the rest of the world at arms length.

While those countries that essentially shrugged their shoulders and took half-measures are still struggling with no end in sight.

How odd, hey?

Yet I read this article and it reads for all the world like Deap has concluded that the latter group erred by being too harsh, not in being too slack.

I live in a country with roughly 1/10th of the USA's population, and it has had less than 1/100th the number of deaths. And it is coming out of lockdown with nary an uptick in new infections.

There would be very, very few people here who would conclude that Deap has the faintest idea what he is talking about.

[Account Deleted]

"The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is the ratio between confirmed deaths and confirmed cases.
During an outbreak of a pandemic the CFR is a poor measure of the mortality risk of the disease. We explain this in detail at OurWorldInData.org/Coronavirus." *

Link to Chart: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coronavirus-cfr?country=ITA~KOR~OWID_WRL~DEU~ISL~USA

CFR for the US on June 22nd was 5.26%. The global CFR on June 22nd was 5.25%

*Case fatality rate of COVID-19 (%) (Only observations with ≥100 cases)
Variable time span Jan 19, 2020 – Jun 22, 2020
Data published by European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
Link https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/tree/master/public/data

Raw data on confirmed cases and deaths for all countries is sourced from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Our complete COVID-19 dataset is a collection of the COVID-19 data maintained by Our World in Data. It is updated daily and includes data on confirmed cases, deaths, and testing.

We have created a new description of all our data sources. You find it at our GitHub repository here. There you can download all of our data.

Rod

[Terence Gore]

https://swprs.org/studies-on-covid-19-lethality/

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.20083485v1

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.03.20089854v3

https://pressroom.usc.edu/preliminary-results-of-usc-la-county-covid-19-study-released/

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.04.20090076v2

just following random links

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30610-3

https://ltccovid.org/2020/04/12/mortality-associated-with-covid-19-outbreaks-in-care-homes-early-international-evidence/

Some of the information seems to be well sourced to me. Whether or not I can make heads or tails of it is a different story

[Deap]

The Mercury News: NB: non-peer reviewed study at time of publication

".....The risk study by Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, clinical assistant professor of primary care and population health at Stanford, and Dr. Jeffrey Klauser, adjunct professor of epidemiology at UCLA, looked at publicly available case incidence data for the week ending May 30 in the 100 largest U.S. counties as states began to reopen.

“The thing we are looking for is to start a discussion of risk,” Bhatia said. “We’re bombarded with data on death and cases.”

The study found a person in a typical medium to large U.S. county who has a single random contact with another person has, on average, a 1 in 3,836 chance of being infected without social distancing, hand-washing or mask-wearing.

If that sounds like a tolerable risk, consider the odds of being hospitalized. The study found a 50-to-64-year-old person who has a single random contact has, on average, a 1 in 852,000 chance of being hospitalized or a 1 in 19.1 million chance of dying based on rates as of the last week of May.

“We were surprised how low the relative risk was,” Klausner said....."

[Account Deleted]

There is an old saying I heard many years ago - I think it was from Bob Frodle, my first boss. Don't recall the actual context of the conversation. Here it is: "Figures don't lie but liars can figure". It is even more relevant today.

I was curious about the origin of this quotation. It's been around since at least 1854. I particularly enjoyed this one from a little later in an 1888 article on free trade from a Sacramento newspaper:

"It was a highly protective measure. The cry of free trade was a false one, and was maliciously put forth by “the uncrowned king” and other Republican leaders. Figures would not lie, but liars will figure, and were doing so in this campaign. She said that not a mill would shut down or a hammer stop from the passage of the Mills bill. Too much money was being made by them."

The Mills bill never became law, BTW.

[Account Deleted]

drb:

Mercola has been called a charlatan.

Wikipedia (I know it's easily manipulated) but you can verify this for yourself:

"Mercola's medical claims have been criticized by the medical, scientific, regulatory and business communities. A 2006 BusinessWeek editorial stated his marketing practices relied on "slick promotion, clever use of information, and scare tactics."[4] In 2005, 2006, and 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Mercola and his company that they were making illegal claims of their products' ability to detect, prevent, and treat disease.[8] The medical watchdog site Quackwatch has criticized Mercola for making "unsubstantiated claims [that] clash with those of leading medical and public health organizations and many unsubstantiated recommendations for dietary supplements."[9] Of Mercola's marketing techniques, oncology surgeon David Gorski says it "mixes the boring, sensible health advice with pseudoscientific advice in such a way that it’s hard for someone without a medical background to figure out which is which."[10]

Sorry.

[DC]

The article appears to be designed to get things back to normal so the stock market doesn’t crash and portfolios of debt assets don’t need to be written down from coming defaults.

I think it should be considered that we won’t get the economy back unless people feel safe.

For anyone who says it’s not real and you don’t need to wear a mask, I say; “you go first, I’ll hold your beer”!

[Eric Newhill]

Dear,
I agree with a lot of what the article says.

Regarding the increases in new cases in some states;
1. Primarily due to more testing. Most of the new cases are asymptomatic and are in people under 40 years old. Very little threat.
2. The increase in hospitalizations in some states is a small number and is due to people who are in the hospital for elective surgeries (big backlog after three months of no elective surgeries permitted) and for labor and delivery. They are tested now upon being admitted. Yes, they are in the hospital and, yes, they tested positive, but they are in the hospital for reasons unrelated to C-19 and are asymptomatic.

The people pushing this latter statistic as evidence of a "second wave" are real scum. IMO, they want to have the people too scared to go to the ballots so there can be vote tampering with mail-in ballots. I have no evidence for this particular claim. It's just my sense. Points 1 and 2 are from data.

[Eric Newhill]

"Dear" should = "DEAP".

I always forget that this computer has a hyperactive autocorrect

[mcohen]

I dunno man.i dunno.this whole thing is off.what if a second new virus,not covid 19,but uses covid 19 antibodies as a pathway to do serious damage.a 1-2 knockout blow
Weigh that up against over population.Yes,I do believe we are all living it right now.It has been spoken about and now 2020 it has started.
Just imagine.Todays teens living in a future world where all the whales are dead.Just bones left in a museum.Too many people.
The Chinese and Indians went hand to hand.That will become future combat.MAD is bad.unsustainable.Bring all the troops home,scrap the weapons.Change the rules of engagement.knives and hand to hand combat only

[English Outsider]

Deap - I also am disappointed in the way the pandemic's been handled by most Western countries. Walrus tells us that by late last year virologists knew something nasty was brewing. Yet as late as mid-February of this year the responsible authority in Europe was assuring us that there was "low risk" to the general population. I assume the Health Authorities were asleep at the wheel in the US as well, because apart from Trump's limited ban on China travel - and that decision, I believe, taken in defiance of the then general consensus - the US also seems to have been late responding.

The stats tell us little when it comes to national comparisons. Sweden's sometimes compared to other Scandinavian countries with lower death rates and this is instanced as showing failure of the Swedish approach. But this ignores the fact that Swedish care homes are larger than in the neighbouring countries and poorly run, so they were due for higher death rates in any case.

In the UK there seems to be a policy of reporting cause of death as Covid when, say, that patient was due to die of an unrelated comorbidity. I think this is correct reporting because if I were due to die of cancer in a couple of years it'd still be Covid that killed me today, but it means that countries that don't report deaths in the same way seem to be doing better when they're not.

Also in the UK we worsened the death rate by sending infected patients back to care homes. So UK comparisons don't help much in that respect either when it comes to looking at what the best policy is.

For what they're worth the stats so far show the US not doing too badly when it comes to deaths per million. You ought to be doing a lot worse, given the high level of international travel and given that the conditions in the inner cities are ideal conditions for transmission. Perhaps, therefore, there's worse to come. My uninformed guess is that there probably is. In any case the US national stats tell us very little when it comes to making comparisons between this or that national policy. One cannot lump an entire continent together like that.

But the stats are going to be argued about for ever. Away from all that there are two aspects I think are not sufficiently considered.

1. I don't accept the "let it rip because they're due to die anyway" approach. That goes against normal principles of public health, particularly so in this case because we still know little about the virus.

2. I don't think we've got our heads around the economic effects if no vaccine or effective treatment turns up.

Whatever governments do the vulnerable are going to isolate anyway. I met a young woman recently who has a condition that means if she gets Covid she dies, no question. Of course she's going to take what precautions she can, and does.

Millions of the vulnerable are in the same boat. The UK Prime Minister is in his fifties and nearly died of Covid. You can be quite sure that there are now plenty of the economically active of that age and older who saw that and who will now tend to keep away from gatherings where they might catch the disease too. The resultant changes in our patterns of consumption and our patterns of work will be profoundly disruptive to the already tottering economies of many Western countries.

For those two reasons I believe there's a strong argument for going all out to eradicate the disease or to severely limit its spread. I think your view is that the crude national or State-wide lockdowns aren't the best way to tackle the problem and that I agree with wholeheartedly. But we should still be looking to be doing much more than we are to tackle it and, if possible, to prevent the disease entirely

[Poul]

A feature of Sweden is that the politicians have very little to say in how a pandemic is handled.

According to Swedish constitutional tradition since ca 1632 political leaders cannot interfere with the decisions of government agencies.

So no matter what urges/fears a Swedish politician may have (in order to curry favour with the voters). It's a technocratic decision by experts on how the situation is to be handled.

Such a practice could very well lead to better decisions than what we have seen in many other European countries.

[JohnH]

The 122,000 deaths in the US so far is conclusive evidence that COVID-19 is no ordinary flu, which kills about 40,000 a year. And the toll will be much higher, since cases in many states are spiking.