Guest post by Jim Steele,
We must consider the unintended medical consequences of societal lockdowns hoping to prevent the spread of COVID 19. Unintended consequences are exemplified by past polio epidemics that left some of my classmates crippled. For the most severely afflicted, a polio infection required, not a ventilator, but an iron lung for children to breathe. The polio virus had likely been around for thousands of years, but in the 20th century severe epidemics began. Why?
In 1992 Dr Krause from the National Institute of Health published, “There are numerous examples of old viruses that have caused new epidemics as a consequence of changes in human practices and social behavior. Epidemic poliomyelitis emerged in the first half of this century when modern sanitation delayed exposure of the virus until adolescence or adulthood, at which time it produced infection in the central nervous system and severe paralysis. Before the introduction of modern sanitation, polio infection was acquired during infancy, at which time it seldom caused paralysis but provided lifelong immunity against subsequent polio infection and paralysis in later life. [emphasis mine] Thus, the sanitation and hygiene that helped prevent typhoid epidemics in an earlier era fostered the paralytic polio epidemic.”
Indeed, it was the more affluent people with higher standards of living that were most affected by polio epidemics, because their children were more likely isolated from milder strains.
As is the case for most rapidly mutating viruses, there will be various strains. Some will cause mild effects while others could be deadly. A strain’s virulence may depend on a person’s age and health. There are several strains of influenza virus, so vaccines are adjusted each year. There were 3 strains of poliovirus that were identified. Vaccinations eradicated two types and now groups like the Rotary are funding work to eradicate the remaining type. The observation that early exposure to polio viruses provided life-long immunity raises the question regards dealing with COVID 19. To what degree is sheltering in place preventing people from becoming naturally immune when infected with a mild strain?
The larger the population of naturally immune people, the greater the “fire-break” that prevents the spread of a more deadly strain. Just as social distancing minimizes the exponential growth of a deadly strain, it also prevents the exponential growth of naturally immune people. If so, perhaps a more targeted approach would be better. Our elderly population are the most vulnerable and are often confined to crowded facilities. People with compromised health conditions should self-isolate. We definitely need to minimize the spread to those vulnerable people. Perhaps designating one hospital to specialize on COVID and another for non-COVID medical care is a good strategy. Stopping medical care for a far greater number of people with other severe problems out of fear of spreading COVID 19 is not wise. And is it wise to quarantine everyone?
The fact that many people have tested positive for COVID 19 virus but had no symptoms suggest there are various mild strains that could naturally impart immunity. These mild reactions are primarily seen in people younger than 50 years old. However, once those younger cohorts gain immunity, they will be less vulnerable as they age.
Recently in the New England Journal of Medicine Dr Fauci wrote, ” If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”
Dr John Ioannidis is a Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School of Medicine, director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford
He wrote an opinion piece A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data suggesting we may be overreacting.
In contrast to Imperial College model suggesting over a million Americans could die, Ioannidis argued, “If we assume that case fatality rate among individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2 is 0.3% in the general population — a mid-range guess from my Diamond Princess analysis — and that 1% of the U.S. population gets infected (about 3.3 million people), this would translate to about 10,000 deaths. This sounds like a huge number, but it is buried within the noise of the estimate of deaths from “influenza-like illness.” If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to “influenza-like illness” would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average.” The Imperial College and Ioannidis’s model will be tested soon, as American COVID deaths stands at 2,871 as of March 30th.
Nonetheless, it will be difficult to determine how effective a societal lockdown was if COVID 19 behaves like influenza. Flu infections dramatically drop beginning around April. Relative to seasonal warming, a lockdown may have a minimal effect. Perhaps by inhibiting the spread of a natural immunity, we may be setting the stage for another big wave of COVID 19 next year. These are questions must be debated.
Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism
“and that 1% of the U.S. population gets infected (about 3.3 million people)”
This is a terrible assumption, IMHO. The correct model to use would be a flu model… and we have an average of 50 million cases per year in the U.S.. The current mortality rate, globally, is hovering around 4%. Nations with more thorough testing are closer to 1%.
That means 500,000 to 2,000,000 deaths per year in the U.S. without drastic measures. With the hospitals being overwhelmed without intervention we would edge to the high side of that range without a doubt… we are struggling already with just 165,000 cases – imagine what would happen if we had millions of cases at the same time?
Now, sure, we are in some ways only delaying the inevitable, but that means the hospitals will be able to better assist the people they have to assist and researchers will have more time to find effective treatments. Vulnerable populations will likely need to stay isolated until a vaccine is in widespread use or treatments or preventative medicines prove very effective. This means our overall mortality rate will drop even if the overall number of cases remains the same.
And, critically, let’s not forget that the more people who get infected the higher the probability of mutation. This is an RNA virus which can mutate very quickly… if we’re lucky we will find one mutant variety that causes minor to no illness and results in cross immunity. The SARS vaccine is being evaluated for possible cross-immunity – if we’re lucky that will prove true as that vaccine could be made available in just a few months.
Dear Loon,
According to the Worldometer there are 1,439,323,776 people in China. That’s 4.36 times the US population.
So using your model, China will experience 2.18 million to 8.72 million deaths per year “without drastic measures.”
Also according to the Worldometer, to date China has had 3,305 deaths from their virus. So they have a ways to go. It could be China is lying about their death rate. Or maybe Communist China really knows how to unleash “drastic measures.”
Or your model could be wrong.
China is lying about their death rate. Or
+====+!!!!!
All that is required to stop people from dying of C-19 is to stop testing for C-19.
If you don’t test, then they die of pneumonia. WHO labels you a success.
“China is lying”
Yeah, maybe. But we don’t have any clear evidence for it.
And don’t reference the images of urns; do you have any idea how many thousands they need every day in their provinces when everything is normal?
They need 220 urns per day on average, IIRC. Each location is seeing lines hundreds deep every day… We’re definitely talking about China having had tens of thousands dead and are covering it up.
You can use their crematory capacity and operational times to come to the same morbid conclusion.
Of course, I wouldn’t put it past the CCP to have simply killed everyone with symptoms. If the U.S. has, so far, nearly 200,000 cases despite the general cleanliness and comparative isolation of Americans, then China had WAY WAY more… and their lack of data sharing (first true data shared on January 30, IIRC) is why so many global cases occurred in the first place.
Please don’t tell me you even remotely trust China’s data.
We don’t even have flu data for China, so we would need a model of flu in China in order to see how this would spread naturally through their population. China also locked down their entire country almost overnight to stop the spread so using data from SARS-CoV-2 in China would be a useless comparison – even if the data was accurate.
>The current mortality rate, globally, is hovering around 4%. Nations with more thorough testing are >closer to 1%.
Pardon me for being pedantic, but I think this use of language is worth correcting.
We do not know the mortality/infection rate. Period.
4% is an ESTIMATE of the rate, based on known inadequate and faulty data.
1% is an ESTIMATE of the rate, based on known, but slightly less, inadequate and faulty data.
The only places I think have good data are South Korea and Singapore, but it’s not clear how useful their experience is to other places.
Iceland appears to have better data
“and that 1% of the U.S. population gets infected (about 3.3 million people)”.
This also seemed to me to be the weakest assumption (apparently it is Ionnin Ioannidis hypothesized scenario. The overall post is mixing various more optimistic scenarios and thoughts on policies of lighter lockdown. That is certainly important thinking but I think the idea of positing a low morbidity rate based on the idea of many asymptomatic or mild infections that aren’t tested at this point runs counter to the idea of a low infection rate!
The whole point is that there could be a very high infection rate but a very low morbidity rate and this squares with refrigerator truck morgues but the idea that the disease is not inherently more deadly than flu.
In any event, to validate these hypotheses you need random testing and we don’t even have testing for all folks who are mildly symptomatic nevermined randomized population testing.
Heads should have rolled over the testing screw up and Trump should have been straightforward about that screw up. It wasn’t his screwup, but he owns the coverup.
I respect his optimism and other contrarian voices on policy emerging but that should not insulate any from criticism.
There was no coverup of the CDC testing issue. I knew about it the day it happened – the CDC had already sent out new reagents by the time it hit the news. What wasn’t publicized is that it took a couple weeks for the labs to validate the tests afterwards and this testing is just the confirmatory testing and not the front line tests.
The delay only caused a delay in the official numbers, it changed no health prognosis or treatment. Doctors use symptoms to diagnose first and foremost – negative flu test and fly symptoms? Assume it’s COVID19, treat accordingly.
The delay diverted early track and trace approaches. We can’t rerun the counterfactual to see if the early IDs would have been effective. But it wasn’t just the delay, it was the bureaucratic field clearing that the CDC effected until finally having to get out of the way. The coverup is this idea that the federal government is doing a good job.
Show me the press conference where trump said the CDC is incompetent, i want academic and private labs bringing tests forward. Instead what he said on March 6th “if you want a test you can get a test” which is utter stupidity and politics. This could be Trump’s version of “If you want to keep your doctor you can keep your doctor”.
I like trump, i like his optimism, I like that he understand precaution can be overdone. But of course he should be called out when he is wrong. You can’t get a test 3 weeks later on that an if you ‘want’ one basis, nevermind testing resources for randomized sampling that would be the only valid way to check the varioius premises about this disease. To me testing is a complete and utter failure so far and he should acknowledge that and maybe focus resources on random sampling rather than checkups for every hypochondriac in the country. So when I saw coverup, I don’t mean that we didn’t learn realtively quickly of the failure of the CDC effort. But he didn’t dismiss the head of the CDC. He doesn’t appear to have taken control of and directed a positive outcome for testing. And his comments instead are along the lines of we’re doing fine on testing. That is a classic coverup. I’m no fan of politifact but I can’t see where they have got this one wrong.d
“https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/11/donald-trump/donald-trumps-wrong-claim-anybody-can-get-tested-c/
The CDC has a page for that:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/testing-in-us.html
You can see the timeline of testing – CDC labs were performing testing since January 17, the delay came well afterward, in February, when bringing on “public health labs” for the potential increase in workload. That delay happened in early February, so CDC labs were handling the entire workload. Still, certain labs developed their own tests and reported findings to the CDC which the CDC verified.
January 17 transcripts from CDC COVID19 teleconference:
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0117-coronavirus-screening.html
Note: China stated they only had 45 cases on that date… understanding the timeline is critical to understanding why people reacted they way they did and why resources weren’t allocated as aggressively early on. You can blame China for that – it took Hubei whistle blowers to let us know just how bad it was.
On January 30 the very first epidemiological study came out of China that examined, IIRC, the first 99 cases. This was the very first hint we had of human to human transmission and a potential for a significant contagion risk… but it was also only 99 cases. Trump issued the China travel ban and declared a public health emergency the next day. He was lambasted by Democrats, including Joe Biden, and called racist and xenophobic. Many even thought he was overreacting for declaring a public health emergency. Only now do we know he wasn’t.
At this point in time the nations outside of China had only very few cases… travelers who picked up the virus would need a week or two to show symptoms and most would just assume they had a somewhat bad case of the flu unless they got seriously ill. With 80% or more of cases being rather mild you needed to wait until you started having serious cases before we could get real data from uncensored nations… and 30% or so of cases being completely asymptomatic further complicated matters.
The virus has a long incubation period and getting information to hospitals and doctors about how to get testing performed isn’t always the easiest… and you need to have those protocols established. The CDC continually issued guidance on symptom based diagnosis, which is always the first means, and had a test available for other labs on February 3. That’s a very short turn around for something so complex.
Throughout February, however, the U.S. had hints that we had contained the virus within our borders… the numbers of daily new cases were declining. http://files.looncraz.net/sars2_cdc_feb_daily_new_cases.png
It wasn’t until March 11 that the WHO declared a pandemic – and Trump declared a national emergency. Using whatever data was available at the time is the only way to make policy decisions.
I take your point that some tracking from presumptive cases might have been appropriate and that the CDC was always testing from the 4th week in January, but of the first 500 tests sent to the CDC only 12 were positive. So I don’t imagine that we would anticipate the same level of effort per case to be expended on 500 cases that got tested that could be expended on 12 positives. There is just no question that the lack of a public health test was a significant set back, not only in the number of tests performed but the transit time to Atlanta for samples and now that the notion of widespread asymptomic infection is a theory, it has crippled the capacity for randomized testing that would validate the extent to which this is so.
And your response studiously avoids what you think of the president’s statement on March 6th: “if you want a test you can get a test”. That is not a wise thing to say in the midst of a testing fiasco if its not true.
I’m not big fan of the New Yorker but with some limited snide comments about the President which they are simply unable to avoid, I don’t think the rest of this article is fake news. Yes coverup might have been an exaggeration, what i mean is lack of leadership and transparency. When you have to read the New Yorker to find out how other tests got approved, the fact that CDC posted their test results is not transparency. The president should have been the source of the timeline in the New Yorker article and explained who got fired and who was elevated to clear the way for more widespread testing.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-went-wrong-with-coronavirus-testing-in-the-us
It was January 21st when the CDC perfected its in house test. it was 15 days after that on Feb. 5th that it shipped the reagents some of which could not be confirmed leading them to pull certification for the entire shipment. But by Feb 21st, a full month after they developed their test they still had no replacement reagent to disperse to public health labs for broader testing with quicker results. That’s 2 more weeks and a full month since they developed their test without widespread testing. The failed shipment was to have provided 50,000 tests that were to have been available from early February. Finally the President
On Feb. 24 the Association of Public Health Laboratories filed a for a regulatory waiver to create their own test. On Feb. 26th the FDA suggested the APHL use an obscure waiver request (EUA) to get its test approved. It also finally allowed the public labs that had been able to confirm the first set of reagants sent to use those to construct tests. That’s 3 weeks wasted. On Feb. 28th the State of New York, whose public health lab had not been able to confirm any of the reagents sent filed for an EUA for a test created in state at the Wadsworth Center. And finally on Feb. 29th the FDA said essentially any health lab certified in high complexity testing could run its own COVID tests (which means that these various tests that were being given EUA waivers did not have to be certified for use in each separate setting).
There are various indications, including the University of Washington conducting about 300 tests that could not be communicated to the clinical setting that the disease was not rampantly spreading beyond clusters in Washington during some of this delay. And some cases were being confirmed by the CDC. The evidence is less clear as to whether the lack of more widespread testing may have lead to failure to early apprehend the more widespread community transmission in New York.
It is simply an unknown counterfactual whether earlier public health response might have reduced the ultimate severity of effect or perhaps better timed it across the country so as not to shut everywhere at once. South Korea is a a telling example, although like talking about how great trains are in europe, it is simply a different culture so testing, while important, is also buttressed by more cooperation of citizens in isolating themselves when recommended such that the entire economy has not been shut down in Korea yet they have vastly limited the spread.
So the President adverts to the attention on Korea by saying on March 24th that we tested more people in 8 days than South Korea did in 8 weeks. Much fodder is made of this but the numbers are pretty close, but not quite what he says. 351,000 for South Korea in 8 weeks to 339,000 fothe US in 8 days. This demonstrates the advent of private testing finally by that latter half of march. But that still has not satisfied the earlier proclamation: “if you want a test you can get a test”.
Most importantly, even with the approval mid-march of March of various private lab tests that vastly ramp our capacity, this doesn’t address the utility if those results were available earlier and we still haven’t focused our capacity on randomized testing which is the only way to confirm the hypothesis that many optimists are developing that the disease is more widespread than understood and thus less less virulent in effect.
In a regime where limited tests have been reserved to symptomatic cases and high risk cohorts such as health care providers and where the president’s benchmark statement of early March that anyone who wants a test can get a test is still not true, and where that metric, in any event, is not the widespread randomized testing needed, noone can look at the management of the testing regime and say it was well handled and it wasn’t a failure of the administration on day 1 but it is a failure of the administration by day 70.
Failure of reagents is not an unknown problem and certainly not the President’s fault. But if he was going to walk softly and carry a big stick, he should have took checked that his stick wasn’t rotten. This is the guy who is laying waste to the regulatory quagmire, this would have been the place to start. Some might say that it is herculean that the FDA went as far as it did in the weeks following the reagent failure to consider waivers for tests from other than the CDC. But it did not invite those. Indeed were it not for the uninvited intiative of the APHL and the under the radar activities of the University of Washington we would have had no expansion of testing until private tests hit in mid March.
The FDA should not have taken 3 weeks to give authorization for the use of the portions of the initial shipment that were confirmed to be used. A bad test would not be helpful, but a decent test vs. next to no testing capacity is a reasonable tradeoff (just what bureaucracies can’t figure out). This was delayed by almost a month. If one had simply used the reagents that could be confirmed from the initial batch as a screen and sending positive samples (or particularly suspicious negative samples) to the CDC for final determination, this could have focused prevention and quarantine efforts when the numbers were still relatively small. And the lack of the administration engaging labs with alternative tests at best is poor engagement and at worst is poitics because those tests were developed in states that are not supportive of the president. I don’t think that had as much to do with slow walking new tests but you can’t even risk that appearance.
This history is simply unacceptable. It is not the President’s fault that things started in the wrong direction but it’s his responsbility that they didn’t correct course more quickly. If indeed there was a lack of responsiveness to his demand that testing be available to anyone who wants it, he needs to show how he cut through the bureaucratic clutter to make it happen.
But Trump insisted on March 6th, “if you want a test you can get one”. Your reminder of aspects that were working does not address this. He should not have said that if he could not deliver. Further, it is clear now that may have been a populist goal but it was not the right goal for reopening the economy which is of greater populist import in the long run. We should instead focus a serious portion of capacity on randomized testing as that is where the information to allow opening the economy will come from. But the administration has not said this.
Of course anyone who exhibits symptoms or who has had likely exposure or is at high risk of exposure should get a a test for clinical purposes and, apparently, can at this point. But skepticism of the President’s handling of testing (which is to say as the boss of the agencies that are supposed to handle it) increased during March due to anecdotal cases of patients whose presentation was thought to be marginal were refused tests and who turned out to be COVID some of whom actually died. It doesn’t mean they didn’t get appropriate care, although the question of monitoring contacts is up in the air and these are the perfect vessel for skepticism of the President–that folks who have the disease couldn’t get a test after he implied that virtually anybody could get the test.
He should put to rest the controversy about “if you want a test you can get a test”. As I said, that will otherwise be seen in the same light as “if you want to keep your doctor you can keep your doctor”. I respect some of his instincts and leadership here. I’m not a detractor of the President in any general sense, but he is doing himself and his relection no favors right now.
and I feel like I’m in good company. I find that Tom Cotton is more or less saying the same thing as I am:
“The CDC should not have acted like know-it-all bureaucrats who had the only medical and scientific expertise to develop tests. We have lots and lots of very capable labs all around the country,” Cotton says. “The FDA should not put all of its eggs in the CDC basket. . . . They were slow to use their emergency-use authorization.” In a January 26 appearance on Face the Nation, Cotton called on the FDA to expedite approval for testing to state and local governments.
“The bureaucracy just didn’t move as fast as it could have,” he says. “Dr. Fauci said it’s not the president’s fault. It would have happened to any other president. But it was a lost opportunity, given the time the president bought everyone with the travel [restriction].”
Does the president ultimately bear responsibility for the failures at the CDC and FDA? “He is the president, and it’s always the president’s job to push the bureaucracy when they’re moving too slowly,” Cotton says. “But sometimes you have to push very, very hard.”
and i feel somewhat vindicated that i find I am on the same page as Tom Cotton:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/the-senator-who-saw-the-coronavirus-coming/
“The CDC should not have acted like know-it-all bureaucrats who had the only medical and scientific expertise to develop tests. We have lots and lots of very capable labs all around the country,” Cotton says. “The FDA should not put all of its eggs in the CDC basket. . . . They were slow to use their emergency-use authorization.” In a January 26 appearance on Face the Nation, Cotton called on the FDA to expedite approval for testing to state and local governments.
“The bureaucracy just didn’t move as fast as it could have,” he says. “Dr. Fauci said it’s not the president’s fault. It would have happened to any other president. But it was a lost opportunity, given the time the president bought everyone with the travel [restriction].”
Does the president ultimately bear responsibility for the failures at the CDC and FDA? “He is the president, and it’s always the president’s job to push the bureaucracy when they’re moving too slowly,” Cotton says. “But sometimes you have to push very, very hard.”
and i feel somewhat vindicated that i find I am on the same page as Tom Cotton:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/the-senator-who-saw-the-coronavirus-coming/
“The CDC should not have acted like know-it-all bureaucrats who had the only medical and scientific expertise to develop tests. We have lots and lots of very capable labs all around the country,” Cotton says. “The FDA should not put all of its eggs in the CDC basket. . . . They were slow to use their emergency-use authorization.” In a January 26 appearance on Face the Nation, Cotton called on the FDA to expedite approval for testing to state and local governments.
“The bureaucracy just didn’t move as fast as it could have,” he says. “Dr. Fauci said it’s not the president’s fault. It would have happened to any other president. But it was a lost opportunity, given the time the president bought everyone with the travel [restriction].”
Does the president ultimately bear responsibility for the failures at the CDC and FDA? “He is the president, and it’s always the president’s job to push the bureaucracy when they’re moving too slowly,” Cotton says. “But sometimes you have to push very, very hard.”
And in most places, even with increased capacity you cannot get a test if you want a test. you can only get it with a prescription:
https://wwjnewsradio.radio.com/articles/news/detroiters-denied-coronavirus-testing-without-prescriptions
same is true in Rhode Island where i live.
…there seem to be strong correlation between severity of Covid-19 outbreaks in Europe and the adoption and duration of the Calmette vaccination (tuberculosis) program.
Germany and Austria kept on for a long time – and have the fewest problems now. Italy and Nederlands apparently never had the program. Neither did the US.
Most european contries stopped in the 80ths meaning people over 40 have protection. Spain is the odd one out here – bur was the program really effective under the Franco regime?
Another strange thing has been that the Covid outbreaks never really started in Africa and India as otherwise expected – but most of those contries still have a Calmette program going.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062527/
The US doesn’t have the BCG vaccine for a very good reason. Because BCG (1) frequently doesn’t provide protective immunity, and (2) produces a life long positive skin test for the tuberculin antigen used in the TBT test. This BCG vaccinated populations then makes monitoring for spread and containing TB outbreaks very much more difficult as the simple screening method TBT fails, and only more problematic xrays and biopsies can diagnose TB infections. It is very slow growing but nasty bacterial critter for still the most cases in the West respond to frontline antibiotics, although MDR and very deadly XDR TB strains are slowly spreading out of Africa.
…however I can see that doctors in Denmark have had the suspicion that the rise of asthma and allergy diagnosis among children might be explained by the cancellation of the Calmette program. Hence have started a research project – but probably not with results yet.
So the thought that the vaccine could strengthen the immune system against a variety of diseases not related to TB has been there before Covid.
Also TB is fairly rare in the US and Canada, IIRC.
The organism is around, but few get chronically infected with it here.
Those who get it here in the brought it back with them as they’ve almost always spent substantial time in some place like South Africa or South Asia.
Mods,
My comment #2951607 stuck in moderation because I used the “K” word in regards to vaccine and viruses.
Thanks.
Joel
I played outside every day as a child, worked outside every day, accidentally gulped (alcohol was involved) the fetid waters of the Fox river in Illinois.
I’m pretty sure I’ll survive Her latest attempt at my life.
From what I have read of the 1918 epidemic this flu killed a disproportionate number of younger people. Whether this was because of large groupings of the young as the demob after WW1 was happening is speculative. Another oddity was some deaths occurred very rapidly after the onset of symptoms, on occassion within 24 hours and manifested with an Ebola like bleed out. There has been speculation this was caused by overdosing on aspirin which had just been synthesised and there was little knowledge of appropriate doses.
have a look
http://www.healthdata.org/covid/updates
Thanks. How do we see the past predictions? Will those remain published as well?
“Nationwide, a total of 83,967 COVID-19 deaths (range of 36,614 to 152,582)”
The tell of poor modeling and statistical reasoning is precision like this. It’s absurd.
There are similarities which makes a review of polio worthwhile. Both are viruses, too small to see, both have incubation periods, and people without symptoms can spread the disease. And for both, there is a lot that we do not know. There are differences too. Polio was endemic for centuries before it became an epidemic. The consensus is that it had something to do with improved sanitation.
(quote from the WUWT post of Dr. Krause, 1992)
“Before the introduction of modern sanitation, polio infection was acquired during infancy, at which time it seldom caused paralysis but provided lifelong immunity against subsequent polio infection and paralysis in later life.”
This is expanded upon in more recent detailed article (Sophie Ochmann and Max Roser (2020) – “Polio”)
https://ourworldindata.org/polio
The only strong argument I can find to avoid infection is the prospect of improved treatment down the road. Otherwise we are doomed to remain in lockdown.
There is no good reason to lockdown families with everyone under the age of 40, once we are past the peak and hospitals have spare capacity. These families should form the basis of our herd immunity.
These young people could restart the economy and with money in their hands bars and restaurants would soon be back as people celebrate.
Once we have herd immunity, everyone else can come out of isolation. Perhaps by age group, 50, 60, 70+ to match hospital capacity.
It is the under 40 group that does a lot of the spending in the economy. And this would provide a lot of opportunity for on the job training.
They under 40 are our future and this is being taken away from them, the longer the lockdown continues. At some point they will wake up to this fact.
They have my permission.
We had lessons posted in the mail. It took about 1 hour to complete the day’s work after which we rushed outside to play with all the kids in the neighbourhood! We didn’t get polio.
I’m actually surprised that the government can legally quarantine healthy people. This would appear to be a violation of due process among other things. I’d be surprised if this survived a court challenge.
Quarantine laws were written to lock away sick people to protect the healthy. They were never intended to be used to lock away healthy people.
that’s why there is no lockdown in Germany but only a “group-gathering” prohibition. I saw about 100 people (in groups of one or two) walking in the park in one hour. Exactly 1 (one) had a mask on.
ferdberple
I agree with you that, strictly speaking, enforcing a quarantine is illegal for those who are not infectious. However, I think that most people can see the wisdom of minimizing their exposure and are going along with it for the time being. That is to say, there isn’t a strong incentive to challenge the legality when people think it is in their best interest to comply, and the government is attempting to compensate those who are unemployed. However, I don’t think that they can keep the lid on the pot for more than a couple of months before Americans start acting like Frenchmen.
Has anyone mentioned the test for antibodies which is mentioned in the newsmedia. I should like to have such a test as I think I had symptoms of this viral infection just about the time of Chinese New Year when tourists came in large numbers to New Zealand and were in shops and supermarkets . According to MedCram Dr Seheult a lot of infected but not sick people without symptoms.left China innocently before the borders of Wuhan were closed. The same may have been true of pilgrims and technicians setting up electronic equipment and services.especially in Northern Italy.
“Perhaps designating one hospital to specialize on COVID and another for non-COVID medical care is a good strategy.”
Good suggestion but this only addresses part of the needed response. I have the highest regard for the good work done in hospices caring for and helping to relieve the pain of those who are dying. Quickly setting up modified hospices for those dying of coronavirus could really help with large numbers for which hospitals are not designed. They would allow people to die sooner without briefly prolonging their suffering by costly interventions.
Full agreement.
Let the virus spread.
It wipes elderly and sick out of the population.
It would certainly compensate for the imbalance forced by one-child over there, selective-child here, and other wicked… dysfunctional choices. Still, despite our established [secular] religion, neither planned parenthood nor parent are favored by other than a minority of the People and our Posterity.
thanks ! I,ll take that personally,shall I. And you are a complete stranger too. Tut!
What is the official explanation for the strong decrease of polio (whatever that is) after WWI?
It seems to me you are not familiar with the situation. Polio was a still a scourge after WWI — vanished some years only to reappear as a plague in others, such as 1951. If it had not been a serious issue than how would you explain the private funding of multiple research groups working on different sorts of vaccines? If my mother was any indication, the approach of summer was a time of dread pre-Salk.
I’m familiar with the official data on the so called “polio”. I sank after WWI. Why?
The usual nonsense from the antivaxer troll, as Kevin points out polio was still a scourge after WWI, there was a major outbreak in 1916 and then multiple outbreaks in the summers following growing steadily until the worst case in 1955. FDR caught it in 1920, my father in 1919.
https://tinyurl.com/qwfeest
What the hell is “antivaxer”, NPC?
Do you admit that you can’t answer my simple question, NPC?
Why do you make up lies about FDR having polio, NPC?
You so funny!
niceguy March 31, 2020 at 9:08 pm
Do you admit that you can’t answer my simple question, NPC?
I answered it, it’s based on the false premise that there was a “strong decrease of polio (whatever that is) after WWI?”
As the data I posted showed there was no such decrease.
Why do you make up lies about FDR having polio, NPC?
What lie,in August 1921 he was permanently paralyzed from the waist down following a fever.
The pro vax propaganda graphics posted everywhere show a spike after WWI then a decrease.
Do you oppose pro vaxxism, NPC?
Do you deny the explosion of polio in India, NPC?
Do you deny the many recent cases in the US?
niceguy April 2, 2020 at 4:16 pm
The pro vax propaganda graphics posted everywhere show a spike after WWI then a decrease.
No the data shows a spike during WWI (1916) followed by a gradual growth through the 20s and 30s until the largest outbreak in 1955, not a decrease.
Do you oppose pro vaxxism, NPC?
Do you deny the explosion of polio in India, NPC?
Yes, there haven’t been any cases there in the last 5 years, not an explosion in my book! Used to be over 500 cases per day.
Do you deny the many recent cases in the US?
Define recent, last case in 1979.
OK NPC, show your graphics; all graphics published by vaxxer show a decline after the post war spike.
Regarding India, there was an explosion of paralysis cases, it was widely reported, denier.
“Define recent, last case in 1979.”
Tens of cases last year as reported by all medias.
Stop the denial, denier.
1) Nicholas, unless you developed a cure for “polio” (whatever that is), you don’t have the right to comment here. YOUR RULES.
2) Please provide the documentary evidence someone had polio.
Jim Steele’s point is welcome. Perhaps we are traveling a path that leads to terrible unintended consequences. It is worth debating anyway.
A couple of other observations:
A health care system does not work if it is overburdened, yet the health care system is not likely to work well if the economy falters. Man does not live by hospital beds and masks alone, after all. Right now I don’t see much debate in some circle, but rather just a cry to save lives whatever the cost.
This current pandemic shares so many things with flu epidemics of the 20th century; for example, the interaction between the flu and pneumonia producing bacteria seems to be a common feature, and one related to the highest of mortalities. What is the actual cause of death?
We have short memories — not many people recall the 1968 pandemic, though it was quite deadly in the U.S. and around the world. What seems new is the sense of entitlement that the world can be made safe for all with just the right mix of spending and government policy.
If one reads about these earlier pandemics what one soon realizes is that these spread around the world, albeit a bit more slowly, even before the age of globalization.
Numbers from China are likely worthless for all purposes other than CCP propaganda.
K says “the health care system is not likely to work well if the economy falters. ”
Indeed. After SARS in 2005 the California had started to stockpile ventilators and masks and had 4 portable hospitals, but economic woes encouraged the government to stop maintaining that stockpile when the economy faltered.
“to stop maintaining that stockpile when the economy faltered.”
Which reminds us to never put the country economy in the hands of the medical establishment.
My almost lethal case of Asian Flu apparently immunized me and many others against the Hong Kong Flu, which was less deadly than the Asian Flu pandemic worldwide, perhaps in part from the immunity imparted by the 1957 pandemic.
The H2N2 Asian Flu virus mutated by antigenic shift into H3N2 for the Hong Kong Flu, but seems to have retained had enough surface similarity for the antibodies to work.
95% of the US cases are asymptomatic, don’t require hospitalization or result in death.
That natural immunity is already there.
This lying, fact free, fake news MSM’s fake pandemic is as fake as fake dying polar bears, fake rising sea levels, fake melting ice caps, fake man caused climate change.
President Trump should bring the full weight of the Federal Government to bear, sue the fake news MSM for crying “Wolf,” for yelling “Fire!” in our crowded theater, make them pick up that 2.2 trillion dollar tab.
Or it may be that being exposed to a small amount of the virus at once allows the body to react properly, and usually have no serious issue.
But doctors, who were healthy and not specially old, but who have been exposed to many highly contagious hospitalized persons don’t had time to fight the virus, as in China (although air pollution was probably also an important factor), were often ill.
About 8000 people die on a normal day in the US per CDC numbers.
If this was a real crisis, authorities would be showing us excess deaths above the normal amount of deaths. They aren’t.
If this was a real crisis, would be able to distinguish between a flu death and a death from covid-19 –they can’t.
I encourage anyone reading this to do some research on how medical examiners determine cause of death and what things they never put on a death report. Perhaps we the people will understand the medical system is, in fact, a human farming system and very little else.
My impression was that our medical system was more like a whole lot of people who train and study for many years, and then are waiting and ready with all manner of potions and machinery, to save the lives of complete strangers, no questions asked, if and whenever those strangers drop in after being injured or become ill.
At least, that is how it has seemed to me personally several different time, such as when I was crushed like a grape in a car wreck, and had my life saved when I was moments from dying or internal injuries and severe internal bleeding from my smushed liver, fractured spleen, ruptured diaphragm, hemothorax, 13 broken ribs (and a elbow turned to sand and a leg splintered into shards), duodenal hematoma, and all the rest of it.
I do not recall seeing any crops being tended, just a lot of people who did not know me who somehow knew exactly how to cut me open and fix me up enough to allow me to struggle back to the land of the living.
Nicholas
Are you sure you are the same person you were before the accident and you aren’t just a collection of spare parts? 🙂
I have a secret reality check from something that happened when I was about 1 or 2 years old: Back then there was a device called a fountain pen, which had a very sharp stylus, and a method of ink delivery far different from what is seen in a ball point pen.
Anywho…I recall vivividly, one day, picking up one of those pens and writing on my wrist with it…it immediately cut through the skin and left a line of ink. A self tattoo, old school style.
Still got it…so…still me, same reality plane as Center City Philly in early 1960s, pre-Summer of Love…no matrix, red pill please.
My dad caught polio in Puerto Rico after the war, during which he flew Corsairs. There was an epidemic, but the government told no one.
He died aged 92 from post-polio syndrome.
Maybe all those vegetables my mom tried to get me to eat when I was a kid will kill me yet, eh?
Some of them were no doubt loaded with zinc.
Sorry about your dad.
How ironic we are all gonna die of the vaccine.
I have to dispute Mr. Steele here.
Looking at deaths per 10M – COVID-19 mortality is already clearly above normal flu season levels (1000 to 2000 per 10M) even if only 2% of the affected populations in Italy and Spain. This implies a 50x increased mortality – not at all clear this is a minor effect. Note that confirmed cases as a percent of population is far lower: 0.4% or so – the 2% number comes from extrapolating upwards from the mortality using what is believed about the nCOV epidemiological mix: 200 contract, 100 asymptomatic, 20 serious, 10 hospital, 5 critical of which 1/3 to 1/2 die.
The US is showing low numbers overall (109 per 10M), but New York mortality is already 797 per 10M and still increasing.
Lastly, I would note that part of the rationale for lockdowns (which I don’t actually think are the major factor) is to elongate the infection curve, giving time both for hospital capacity to not be exceeded and for a vaccine to be developed and tested.
c1ue,
Where did you get “1000 to 2000 deaths per 10 million?
According to Worldometer they now report 5.4 per million or just 54 per 10 million globally
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
I think he’s referring to Italy and Spain, although not made clear.
Hyper-politicization of climate science is now being matched by a similar reaction to this flu pandemic.
The 2009 Swine-Flu epidemic killed almost 13,000 Americans, but imposed no shut down of the country. Of that number, 10,000 had died before a vaccine became widely available. That epidemic weighed heavily on children…too young and innocent to realize the threat to them.
This Wuhan virus has a different epidemiological profile with a predilection for adults who are most aware and sensitive to the threat to their lives, and are obviously willing to do anything to protect themselves. This imbalance brings to mind Orwell’s Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Looking at just the USA for COVID (worldometer data) vs influenza deaths (CDC data https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm) using 327 million Americans
3,756 COVID deaths = 114 deaths per 10 million
24,000 – 62,000 flu deaths = 733 to 1896 per 10 million
Worldometer includes Puerto Rico and other island territories in its US data, so over 330 million population, not that it matters much. There are also probably tens of millions of illegal immigrants.
John, You are right he is only referring to Italy and Spain which are the outliers.
Unless you throw in tiny San Marino and Andorra!
But still outliers.
Deaths per million:
San Marino 732
Italy 206
Spain 181
Andorra 155
Belgium 61
Netherlands 61
France 54
Switzerland 50
Luxembourg 37
Iran 35
UK 26
St. Martin 26
Monaco 25
Sweden 18
Channel Islands 17
Portugal 16
Denmark 16
Cayman Islands 15
Austria 14
Ireland 14
USA 11
At present 79 deaths per million, NY State would lie between Andorra and Belgium. Without NY, US death rate is 7 per million, rather than close to 12 in latest figures.
Who knows how comparable different countries’ methods are?
And in USA, NY is an outlier.
Sweden has attributed 18 deaths per million to the WuFlu virus, vs. 206 in Italy and 181 Spain.
Yet its antiviral measures have been far less draconian than other European nations.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/sweden-coronavirus-approach-is-very-different-from-the-rest-of-europe.html
Reported deaths per million population:
San Marino 766
Italy 206
Spain 181
Andorra 155
Belgium 61
Netherlands 61
France 54
Switzerland 50
Luxembourg 37
Iran 35
UK 26
Iran’s number is not credible, and even in Europe different countries differ in death attribution methods.
US: 11
NY: 79
US, less NY: 7
CA: 4
FL: 3
TX: 1
What would be the effect of infecting someone with a single “live” virus envelope, as an alternative to a vaccine? Has this been investigates?
Would this allow the immune system enough time to develop immunity before the virus develops the critical mass to successfully incubate?
A single one, or even several thousand, would not likely do it.
There are many layers to our innate immune system that have to be penetrated for a virus to gain entry into cells, and there are only a few types of cells capable of capturing virions (or anything else), and performing the function called “antigen presentation” to another type of cell, which then must find from a near infinite multitude of possible antibody molecule configurations for one (or, more commonly, ones) that can effectively bind to, immobilize, and mark for destruction other virions as well as infected cells, which are displaying that same antigen that was used to select the antibody or antibodies.
There is a multistep and highly repeating process involved which is iterative, only generating an antibody response which is in some proportion to the size of the threat…IOW to the number of invading particles. There is then a process of amplification of the response (or dampening of it) and production of memory cells, which are what remains behind when circulating antibodies eventually wear out or become degraded.
Because the process which captures an invading microbe for the antigen presentation (A.P.) is only carried out by one small part of the overall innate immune system, most virions will be killed or digested or degraded before one of the few cell types that carry out antigen presentation can catch up with one.
Exactly what the proportions (of total virions killed to the ones captured for A.P.)are is very likely one of the highly variable parts of the immune system between different individuals, different conditions (dry mucous membranes vs moist and sticky ones, amount of antimicrobial enzymes in one’s mucous, etc), and various microbes.
Also, it takes some time for the antigen presenting cells to make their way to the site of an invasion of an infectious organism, which occurs in response to cytokines released by the first types of immune cells on the scene. And this too is proportion to the size of the threat.
I first raised these concerns and questions over a month ago, hoping maybe some researchers would see my posts on this issue both here and at other sites, and pick up the ball.
Here… I am reposting a paper which gives some info on infectious doses for typical respiratory viruses after some discussion of the subject. See table one, and note that the unit used is not virions, but what is called “tissue culture infective dose (TCID)sub50”.
This is a unit of virus inoculum sufficient to produce infection is 50% of tissue cultures so inoculated.
But no one really knows exactly how many virions are in one such unit. Estimates cited vary hugely, and they vary not just from one type of virus to another, but from one strain of a virus to another, often by several orders of mangitude.
And then often zero infections resulted, or infection but zero illnesses.
I encourage anyone who wishes to consider themselves informed on this subject to read this and other materials from start to finish, as the conclusions and summaries often contain insight one would not get from having a quick look:
The reason I mention this is that I had myself overlooked a passage near the end of this attached paper, that said this:
“In the case of norovirus and HAV, it is possible that a single virus particle is able to initiate in infection. It is, however, important to note that relatively few investigations reported the infective dose in the form of number of infective particles. A high percentage of morphologically identical viral particles in a sample, as determined by electron microscopy, will typically be non-infectious for any known cell system.”
Which directly contradicts my previous understanding of MID’s, though it is hardly conclusive that one virion can make anyone sick.
And for respiratory viruses like influenza, nothing like numbers that low was seen, with some infective does well into the millions still only making some percentage of people get infected.
Also very interesting was this comment:
“When patients acutely infected with influenza A sneeze or cough, their respiratory secretions containing high virus titer will be aerosolized. The viral titer measured in nasopharyngeal washes culminates on approximately day 2 or 3 after infection and can reach up to 107 TCID50/ml (Douglas 1975; Murphy et al. 1973). It is thought that between 103 and 107 virions fit into aerosolized influenza droplets with diameters between 1 and 10 μm (Weber and Stilianakis 2008). Considering that the airborne infectious dose of influenza is approximately 0.67 TCID50 for virus reaching the respiratory epithelium (Atkinson and Wein 2008), this shows that the influenza HID50 could easily fit into one aerosolized droplet (Weber and Stilianakis 2008).”
One aerosol droplet, between one and 10 microns in diameter, can easily contain enough virus to infect 50% of people…if it reaches the respiratory epithelium.
Reading through such literature, which contains extensive references to studies using human volunteers and live animals, wild virus types and cultures virus strains…there are no hard and fast rules.
What is true for one person and one virus is false for another person, or another virus.
Also note it is common to find people who become infected with a virus in volunteer trials of healthy adults, and yet do not become ill.
Sometimes a percentage do, and sometimes all do.
Also note, relevant to several comments here and on other threads, that it is commonly found in tests involving inoculating human volunteers, vaccinated and unvaccinated but tested to have serum antibodies, that some viruses will cause infection despite a person having circulating antibodies.
Sometimes it has been found that a far larger infective dose is required to cause infection when a person has antibodies, or the infection will cause only milder illness.
But with some other tests of other viruses, such as norovirus, there was no protective effect seen from having antibodies, or from previously being infected and clearing the same virus.
In some cases having antibodies was associated with more severe illness!
This one paper contains a large number of references to tests involving human volunteers, including some in which people were injected with blood from people with hepatitis A, and people who had 01 grams of virus infected stool delivered orally!
So there is no shortage of testing done over the years involving some brave and I would hope well compensated volunteers.
This is in direct contradiction to antivaxers here who have claimed no tests are ever done on vaccines and such.
Clinicaltrials.gov contains hundreds of thousands of records of trials, many thousands of them involving vaccines.
The paper I referenced above:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12560-011-9056-7#Tab1
And a recent article in New Scientist with a discussion of infective dose of SARS Co-V-2:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238819-does-a-high-viral-load-or-infectious-dose-make-covid-19-worse/
To rephrase, would a sub-clinical innoculum of wuflu confer immunity? That would explain asymptomatic infections. People that are infected by a very small viral load.
Why not test this on volunteers?
That is a very intelligent question and observation!