OSUmetstud

Lol @ hamstering

I don't buy that most people are being selfish and unreasonable. If they were, the pandemic would be raging completely out of control with 1000s of deaths a day. The transmission rate doesn't suggest that most people are acting like that. They are just a very loud minority.

I think at this point, unless it gets crazy bad, targeted restrictions have shown to work (like closing bars and large, indoor events, and reducing restaurant capacity. I think you need to have regional-type lockdowns in your bag of tricks for the coming winter in case things go really sideways and hospitals are on the verge of getting overwhelmed.

Only about 10% of the US has been infected. And all the information for vaccine development has been quite favorable...we might be only months away from widespread implementation (early 2021). It will only infect everyone if the vaccine took a few more years to develop imo. If it's here in the Spring, herd immunity will not have to be achieved through natural infection. Besides, there are advantages to slowing down infection, like better treatments, and less overwhelmed hospitals. So restrictions do prevent covid deaths.

The CDC estimates a population level IFR of about 0.9 percent and about 10% infected so far. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/23/cdc-director-says-more-than-90percent-of-americans-remain-susceptible-to-the-coronavirus.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

Yeah, interesting technology for sure.

Agreed on the flu, it's more likely to be mild given what the southern hemisphere observed. Eh. Not sure about this. We missed a ton of infections in the very beginning of the pandemic, so much so that there were maybe like 500K infections per day at the peak in early April in the US. We are catching a way higher proportion of infections now, so the ratio of cases-hospitalizations-deaths appears much higher. Most people are being fairly careful, especially so when they see an outbreak in their community and then take further action, which can drive the Rt back to near or under 1.

They're scenarios. I think that's important to appreciate. But, when I saw the first best guess one they posted at 0.26 (I think it was April?), I was pretty skeptical. It seemed very low given the American experience thus far. They did a July update to 0.65, and then this one on September 10th to the banded age groups. It's actually quite close to the imo wrongly maligned University of College London study from March 16th which had an age banded 0.9% and projected the 2.2 million US deaths in an unmitigated pandemic. I don't think we've ever tried to make a coronavirus vaccine, at least to this great extent. We're throwing all the will and might of science and cash at the problem. They were getting close with SARS (and they are using some of that research/technology for this one), but then because it is only infectious when people are very sick, we were able to isolate everyone and the infection died out so we didn't need it. I think the most likely scenario is that the vaccine reduces severe disease but doesn't prevent infection and that SARS-Cov 2 becomes a fairly benign endemic seasonal coronavirus in the next several years much like the other ones.

This report provides preliminary evidence that younger adults contributed to community transmission of COVID-19 to older adults. Across the southern United States in June 2020, the increase in SARS-CoV-2 infection among younger adults preceded the increase among older adults by 4–15 days (or approximately one to three incubation periods). Similar observations have been reported by the World Health Organization.*** Further investigation of community transmission dynamics across age groups to identify factors that might be driving infection among younger adults and subsequent transmission to older adults is warranted. These findings have important clinical and public health implications. First, occupational and behavioral factors might put younger adults at higher risk for exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Younger adults make up a large proportion of workers in frontline occupations (e.g., retail stores, public transit, child care, and social services) and highly exposed industries (e.g., restaurants/bars, entertainment, and personal services) (4,5), where consistent implementation of prevention strategies might be difficult or not possible. In addition, younger adults might also be less likely to follow community mitigation strategies, such as social distancing and avoiding group gatherings (6,7). Second, younger adults, who are more likely to have mild or no symptoms,††† can unknowingly contribute to presymptomatic or asymptomatic transmission to others (2), including to persons at higher risk for severe illness. Finally, SARS-CoV-2 infection is not benign in younger adults, especially among those with underlying medical conditions,§§§ who are at risk for hospitalization, severe illness, and death (8). Increased prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among younger adults likely contributes to community transmission of COVID-19, including to persons at higher risk for severe illness, such as older adults. Emphasis should be placed on targeted mitigation strategies to reduce infection and transmission among younger adults, including age-appropriate prevention messages (7), restricting in-person gatherings and events,**** recommending mask use and social distancing in settings where persons socialize,†††† implementing safe practices at on-site eating and drinking venues (9), and enforcing protection measures for essential and service industry workers.§§§§ Given the role of asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission (2), all persons, including young adults, should take extra precautions to avoid transmission to family and community members who are older or who have underlying medical conditions. Strict adherence to community mitigation strategies and personal preventive behaviors by younger adults is needed to help reduce their risk for infection and minimize subsequent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to persons at higher risk for severe COVID-19. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6939e1.htm#F1_down

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/23/cdc-director-says-more-than-90percent-of-americans-remain-susceptible-to-the-coronavirus.html#:~:text=Health and Science-,CDC director says more than 90% of,remain susceptible to the coronavirus&text=“A majority of our nation,of Americans are still susceptible.” Per the national lab survey data from August 15th, it does appear that older Americans are doing a reasonable job in shielding themselves. Their seroprevalence is considerably lower than the younger cohorts. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab

Across countries, model estimates of IFR ranged from 0.5% (95% CrI 0.4%–0.6%) in Switzerland to 1.4% (95% CrI 1.1%–1.6%) in Lombardy, Italy. The patterns of age-specific IFR estimates were similar across locations (Fig 4B), despite differences in the surveillance-reported age distribution of cases The IFR increased with age; among those 80 years or older, estimates ranged from 20% in Switzerland to 34% in Spain.

True. Good catch. It will make a very small difference in the overall IFR since the 20-49 mortality component is very small there on the right. Why do I need to fix the 80+ number? It jives with the study that the CDC based those numbers on.

I mean we can debate policy. But debating this is ridiculous. Do the math yourself.

No. The 0.054 is for the 70-79 bracket. The estimates for persons ≥70 years old presented here do not include persons ≥80 years old as IFR estimates from Hauser et al., assumed that 100% of infections among persons ≥80 years old were reported. The consolidated age estimates were then averaged across the 6 European regions. The lower bound estimate is the lowest, non-zero point estimate across the six regions, while the upper bound is the highest point estimate across the six regions.

I already posted it above in that table. I didnt make it up. The CDC has done three updates since the beginning of the pandemic in its scenarios. The first was 0.26, the second was 0.65, this is the third one which is age banded.

This a nice chart of relative risk, I posted it in the OV thread.

0.09 over 80+ is a bit of an inference. But it seems reasonable based on the same study that the CDC bases it's numbers on. The CDC data says 70+ but if you read the print under the table, it doesn't include over 80 because the CDC and the study assumes that the 80+ CFR is the same as the IFR (there aren't missed cases).

I think you're looking at the incorrectly. We would only have direct evidence of the antibodies for that long because we've only been in the pandemic for that long. It's not evidence that there's no protection after that point.

Current Best Estimate, it's the same data I just posted. If you adjust for population, you get somewhere near 0.8 percent.

0-19 years: 0.00003 20-49 years: 0.0002 50-69 years: 0.005 70+ years: 0.054 **This doesn't include people 80+ The CFR is the thing you quoted there. The Infected Fatality Rate is derived from serology data since not every person infected gets a test. If you adjust for population percentage in those age bands, you get somewhere around 0.8 percent in the population as a whole. The 0.26% was from an early estimate in the pandemic planning scenarios on the CDC site that has since been updated twice.

This is a good thread on herd immunity.

Meh. It seems that most scientists are operating under the premise that herd immunity is a real thing with this infection and with hopefully vaccine(s) coming reasonably soon. Seasonal coronavirus infection from the other cornaviruses isn't evidence that herd immunity is unattainable. Hardly anyone gets severe disease from them and they spread in the winter and then go away again. This virus has been very stable despite some typical mutations and could easily become endemic like the other coronaviruses where it produces mild or asymptomatic disease every winter. It would be really unusual if the virus kept producing severe disease in people as a whole in subsequent infections.

Hospitalized per capita is 30 to 40 percent worse than the US now (~37k in the US)

The ifr is more like 0.5 to 1 percent. Its closer to 1 to 2 million if left unmitigated.

Unfortunately there's no wall between the young and the old. Some, especially the poor, live in multigenerational households and cannot distant much from their parents and their grandparents. The poor essential workers have really taken it on the chin, and the socio economics is why we see that black folks are dying at about double the rate to white.