Reposted from The Savvy Street
By Vinay Kolhatkar
April 20, 2020
It’s plausible that somewhere between 100 million and 500 million people on earth have had, or are having, the coronavirus infection.
That is a staggering statement when, as at April 19, 2020, the confirmed cases numbered 2.35 million. And we are projecting that somewhere between 40 to 200 times that, is the real number, which is between 1.3% and 6.5% of the world population.
What’s the reasoning behind how we may have gotten there? And what’s the evidence?
Let’s go through the reasoning first.
The Presence of a Virus Is Not a Presence of Sickness
SARS-CoV-2, aka coronavirus, aka SARS-2, is not the same as COVID-19, aka C-19. The former is the virus, the latter is the disease that one may get from it.
Human beings have an immune system that resists or controls viruses that invade or reside in their bodies. Writing in The Scientist, Professor Eric Delwart, who investigates human and animal viromes, says [emphasis mine]:
Most viruses are neither consistently pathogenic nor always harmless, but rather can result in different outcomes depending on the health and immunological status of their hosts. The less pathogenic a virus is—the lower the percentage of infected people who become sick—the larger such case-control studies need to be to detect a difference between the groups.
Given the large number of viruses detected in healthy hosts, it is likely that some of the viruses initially found in sick hosts are simply harmless coincidental infections.
“Viral load” is the term virologists use to denote the strength of the virus—is it an army of thousands, or an army of millions? Higher the load, greater the chance the virus may win the battle. Then the immune system must bring in the artillery—for example, by increasing body temperature, so as not to lose the war (death).
Even a small viral load may be detected in a diagnostic test. But the host may never get sick.
On April 15, Boston25News said this of the tests carried out in a homeless shelter:
Of the 397 people tested, 146 people tested positive. Not a single one had any symptoms.
“It was like a double knockout punch. The number of positives was shocking, but the fact that 100 percent of the positives had no symptoms was equally shocking,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program.
Exponential Testing
The global “confirmed cases” daily number had been growing until April 11. On March 1, there were 1823 new cases confirmed, and on April 1, 74,407—40 times as many.
The media told us that this is an exponential growth in infection.
But that increase in detection (confirmed cases) from March, 2020 is positively correlated to the number of tests performed. See the plot of tests per confirmed case in Our World in Data—most countries were not testing much, if at all, before March 2020.
But detection is not the same as occurrence. When did the virus contagion begin? Not when tests began—that’s when the media started lecturing us 24/7 on the stats.
Not when tests began—that’s when the media started lecturing us 24/7 on the stats. The virus commenced its worldwide spread at least as far back as December (possibly November) 2019. But the late-2002 SARS-1 China was not the same as the late-2019 SARS-2 China, in terms of its booming middle class traveling overseas, the 50 million overseas Chinese citizens making home visits, and the ugly coincidence of the Lunar New Year celebrations in January 2020.
One recently published study asserts that SARS-2 (coronavirus) is contagious even when the host is largely or wholly asymptomatic.
Surely, SARS-2 must have spread like wildfire during those heady, wintry days when no one was practicing social distancing—we even had Christmas and football and concerts and parties before March 2020, and we also had packed subways, sweaty nightclubs, and smoky bars, all filled with bodies without face masks. This period—the three northern winter months, must have been when the exponential growth in infection actually occurred.
But the hospitals were not overwhelmed back then, except in Italy (refer our Coronavirus Special Edition for why Italy is an outlier). Could it be because a vast majority of cases had nil to mild symptoms? Perhaps the symptomatic thought they had the flu. Deaths may have been attributed to respiratory illness. Maybe a large majority never knew they had the SARS-2 virus.
But hosts produce antibodies after a few days of infection—some (IgM) suggest an infection is ongoing, while some of them (IgG) stay long after the infection is resolved. Such antibodies can be detected by serological tests—lab analyses of a blood sample.
Antibodies that stay long may lead to some level of immunity. Evidence suggests that the immunity to SARS-1 and MERS after an infection was around three years, although for SARS-1, the antibodies may persist for twelve years.
To date, reinfection cases of SARS-2 are so low that they could be attributed to false tests. What’s unknown is how long the SARS-2 term antibodies last, and to what extent they provide a defense against a new infection—do they make it impossible? Or highly unlikely?
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Ignorance is indeed easy to fix – 1957-58 Pandemic – most sources now say 70K dead (USA) over a six month span. Covid has killed 35,000 in 21 days. No period of 1957-1958 matched that.
Sweden does NOT have the same “death rate” as the USA.
It’s just – there are SO many smart people on this forum – even when I disagree with them – but I just can’t understand the giant demonstration of NOT SMART people “in the wild” right now. This isn’t bigfoot. Or Flat Earth. This isn’t even AGW. I don’t understand the reluctance – the failure to take a moment, do some reading, and learn something, before making newspaper headlines.
The population of the U.S. then would have been about half of today’s so, one would need to adjust for that, along with differences in demographics, etc. Hopefully, we’re about half through this episode, so perhaps the numbers will not be so different when normalized in the end.
THE ASIAN FLU; 1957-1958 (not to be confused with the “1957-1958 pandenmic”):
Approximately 1.1 million people died worldwide, according to the CDC; of those deaths, 116,000 were in the US. Most of the cases affected young children, the elderly and pregnant women. While deadly, the death rate in this pandemic was relatively contained because a vaccine was rapidly developed and made available. There were also antibiotics available to treat secondary infections.
THE HONG KONG FLU; 1968: According to the CDC, approximately 1 million people around the world died from this pandemic, and 100,000 of those deaths occurred in the United States.
Adjust for world population … ignorance may be easy to fix, but it generally is not (fixed).
This might well represent a few of those cardinal numbers no one talks about.
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nue3zmEc9-s
“Coronavirus Update with Kiran Krishnan, Virology and Molecular Medicine Scientist”
•Mar 31, 2020
”
“Join Dr. Tyna on the Pain-Free & Strong Podcast as she sits down with Kiran Krishnan, virology and “molecular medicine expert & CSO of Microbiome Labs, to discuss how this virus works, how it binds, the “ACE2 receptor, “and why those with chronic inflammation may be at higher risk.
“You don’t want to miss this one! You won’t hear this anywhere else, and it will truly blow your mind!
“Category
“Science & Technology”
Panic 2020
“The media told us that this is an exponential growth in infection.
But that increase in detection (confirmed cases) from March, 2020 is positively correlated to the number of tests performed.”
Our politicians, looking at the exponential growth (detection), focused on the worst of the scenarios produced by the models (simulations). With their future political campaigns guiding the choices – they panicked. See: Jay Inslee and Life Care Center of Kirkland.
Thus, we have all the problems of lockdown.
Examples: hospitals are going bankrupt;
folks are washing masks with Chlorine bleach, and
washing produce with hand sanitizer – then calling the poison hot line.
– – – And being arrested for common and benign behavior.
Panic 2020
Here we have a mortality rate number of 0.1% of all COVID-19 infections. According to Worldometer data, the mortality rate for working age men and women with no underlying health issues is 2%. So, the mortality rate for healthy working age men and women is only 2% of the .1% of the infected population that dies. That would equate to 2,000 healthy deaths per 1,000,000 infections. That is not even one work/commuting related fatality per country per day for the shutdown period. And that number is without advances in treatment. The actual mortality figure is probably around .02% to .05% of infections. Time will tell.
THAT IS NOT WORTH THE COST OF THE SHUTDOWN. It is far easier to quarantine those with health issues and the elderly. Simple hygienic protocols will work.
The idea that between 20 and 50 times as many people are infected does not appear to
be valid in countries like NZ and Australia. Both have small enough numbers of cases
that they can do contact tracing and establish how someone got the virus. In NZ’s case
out of about 1400 cases they can identify the transmission route in all but about 10 cases.
If the virus was widespread the new cases would be turning up around the country with
no links to other cases and that just isn’t happening. In addition the NZ government has
started doing random testing and have found zero additional cases. All of which suggest
that in NZ at least the virus is not widespread in the community with the majority of cases
being asymptomatic.
This is the official line Izaak;
There were 20-25 planes a day flying into NZ from China, each day, Dec-Feb; 20×300 = 6000/day=180,000visitors per month from China: Dec-Feb: and none were carrying corona? that so?
All they have done in NZ seemingly is PCR testing for ACUTE cases. No serology for antibodies.
There are many anecdotes seemingly of flu/pneumonia issues there in Jan/Feb; how could it not have arrived from Dec, given visitor numbers? Pop of NZ is seemingly about 5 million.
There are many in NZ who hold the same view as you Alan .After all , those are the facts of the mechanism available to move the virus to NZ.
And doctors were among those who experienced “symptoms” in December -January.
Colds and “flu” are not common at that time in NZ ; it’s the height of the summer sun, and we’re all at the beach getting our daily saline nasal irrigation while feeding on zinc-rich sea food.
To suggest that there was no virus here, is really pushing the limits of credibility.
Alan,
NZ stopped flights from China at about the start of February. At that stage there were
about 10000 reported cases in China out of a population of about 1 billion and so you
would expect about 2 cases of COVID 19 in the 180 000 visitors coming from China
each month (in fact less since the disease was increasing exponentially and so the number
of cases at the start of the month would be substantially less). So you can quite easily
argue that NZ got lucky and just by chance those 2 people who might have had COVID19 either decided not to travel or stuck in their own tourist groups and didn’t infect anyone else.
Of course if the virus was widespread and the number of cases was higher by a factor of
50 as the Stanford study suggests then it would be very surprising if there were more cases
in NZ and you would have expected that the first case would have shown up in January
or February and would have occurred as a result of travel to China rather than Europe as
was the case.
yes , NZ did stop flights from China but arrivals from other infected countries continued, and arrival of NZers from infected countries continues today.
Anyone currently arriving into NZ has to go into quarantine at a government approved
location for 2 weeks. Which should stop the virus from spreading within the wider
community.
But for eight weeks the border was wide open , no compulsory quarantine, and cruise ships landing passengers.
So by all means prevent new infections from abroad but one cannot rule out that it has been here and spreading in the community for some months . To rule that out would require the anti-body testing to show that only known detected positives have anti-bodies.
assuming our trace-back and trace -forward capability is good , as it appears to be.
farmerbraun,
If the virus was present and spreading in the community there would be
a lot more cases popping up that were unexplained. Yet the government is
confident that it knows the source of infection for the overwhelming majority
of cases.
Do not get me wrong. The best case scenario would be that the virus is widespread
in the community and so the lockdown measures can be eased quickly avoiding more
job losses etc. But in NZ at least that just doesn’t seem to fit the evidence in terms of
case numbers etc.
” there would be a lot more cases popping up that were unexplained.”.
Agreed. Myself for example , but I will not be tested for the presence of anti-bodies.
The government will not survey the population of NZers who have had a “flu” in the last three months. So there will be no evidence that could eliminate the possibility that the virus was here sooner, appeared as a mild cold in summertime, and did not come to the attention of the testers because there was no known contact.
My first possible contact arrived from Hong Kong early January. Then my neighbour arrived back from China unexpectedly just before Chinese New Year .
Doctor Daughter and kids had a cold in February and were already out of school before the closure. My other neighbour revealed , just before lock-down , that he was recovering from viral pneumonia.
In mid January I hosted a group from France, and the tour leader had a very bad coughing fit standing next to me. I jokingly enquired ” Coronavirus?”.
By early March I had a bout of illness which is nearly gone now, so a good 6-7 weeks but I continued working my usual 80 hours/week throughout.
It all makes sense to me 🙂
But without the anti-body testing we can’t do any science.
You must be working for the NZ Govt Izaak: the public relations department?
Don’t for goodness sake listen to what people are saying: ordinary people; who don’t get counted or listened to as house arrest is imposed by a so-called left-wing group;
you shall do vat we zay;
ordinary people are saying they have had corona; they know people have had it;
explain how a lady died in Westport; an isolated town; from corona contracted in early March; come on; it was all around NZ way back in Jan at least:
if you aren’t from the PR dept of the Govt, why do you struggle so hard at not listening?
From all accounts Izaak, this thing has been doing the rounds since December;
“there would be a lot more cases popping up that were unexplained”
…. that may suit the logic of your masters in the NZ Govt Izaak, but if you don’t really understand the spread of things, (and who does?) then you are just floundering; and blustering; trying to push the party line that house arrest should continue unchallenged.
Accounts we have had from various contacts and friends in NZ narrate numerous anecdotes about corona-like illnesses, in what was seemingly a very hot summer with much sun in NZ. Ordinary people describe these things Izaak. Far below your vaulted masters in government Izaak, ordinary folks struggle with unemployment and shattered businesses it seems.
This is why I recommend that each state tests small samples of the population for the coronavirus and antibodies to it, and continues doing that regularly.
This is an inexpensive way to get the true picture of COVID-19 spread, and to monitor it dynamically.
All, have you noticed how all of a sudden the massive need for ventalators and hospital beds have dropped.
The original treatment was to blame and has changed. Again from earlier posts see
https://www.evms.edu/covid-19/medical_information_resources/#covidcare
Read rational for treatment on page 9/10 of detailed protocol. Dated 20 Apr
This is the story no one is seeing
The mortality rate is not 0.1%. That conclusion is wrong. Whatever the rate is – it’s painful to watch.
The curves that are exponential – they weren’t based on tests (well, maybe at first) but on the pile of dead bodies. Italy’s dead-count was indeed exponential – right up until they couldn’t count them that fast. The curve stopped at that moment – but the dying did not. Models based on Italy’s curve aren’t really off base (in their assumptions). The data didn’t veer significantly away from the model until the lockdowns – or until any place hit their “dead count speed limit.”
Both Washington State and Italy produced hot-spots that should not be used in models.
In Washington State, a facility for elderly – Life Care Center of Kirkland – had a large Mardi Gras party the day before officials realized residents had been dying because of the virus. The activity included elderly residents, staff, family, and friends crowding into a big room and throughout the facility. Medical responders had been coming and going for weeks. Staff often worked in several different such places. The virus was not on anyone’s radar even though people were dying from it.
In Italy a Champions League soccer match (Atalanta and Valencia; Feb. 19th) was held in San Siro stadium in Milan. Many thousands gathered in Milan. You can look up the details, but two weeks after the match there was an explosion of cases. After returning to Spain, 35% of the Valencia traveling squad eventually tested positive. Beside the match happening, the Lombardy area had other issues.
These are both sad cases, but are not representative of what can be expected.
In the small population county where we live (100 miles east of Seattle) there have been just a few with symptoms (under 20) and Zero deaths.
Jo nova site pushing the coronavirus scam lockdown causing misery to millions of Australians for a nothing burger virus by Christ Ms NOVA you will be sued by millions of Australians for pushing shit which you nothing about look up Sweden and German epidiomologists who actually know something about corona and influenza viruses you know nothing you may be held responsible. Refer to Willis Essenbach on this site for actual virus verified data. You were totally incorrect just like your pompous way back pompous british git lord living in the past Mockton of long gone British idiocy (Nature publishes Michael Mann articles???). I will never ever look at anything you or the british pompous git publishes about climate or anything related/ Your site will suffer after after this is finished. Viva Bolsonaro Brasil, Viva Sweden who got it right Australia has become a first class Nanny state dictartorship Stupid country glad I rescinded my citizenship long time ago
Jo nova is probably an anti “antivax”.
Interesting tidbit from the study that argues that the world is not counting enough deaths towards Covid-19
“SWEDEN – 60 fewer deaths than official total
Sweden is an anomaly among the countries examined, because it actually reported more coronavirus deaths than it had excess deaths.
Between March 9 and April 12, the country logged 1,100 deaths above the seasonal average but reported 1,160 coronavirus deaths.”
Some other numbers that no-one (certainly here in the U.K.) are talking about.
7 U.S. states currently have a death rate (per million of population) that is above the national average. 6 of these states have a Democratic governor, plus D.C. is above the national average and has a Democrat mayor. I’m not sure what, if anything, this means, but large sections of the U.K. media love to criticize Trump for his handling of the outbreak, (including some T.V. news programs, especially Channel 4, despite the fact that broadcast media in the U.K. is not allowed to express an opinion). These numbers, plus the fact that the U.S. has a lower death rate than Italy, Spain, France, Britain, etc. who all have more centrist governments could well mean that criticizing Trump is not justified, maybe he handled this better than a lot of other Western governments.
Perhaps more importantly of the 7 states with high death rates 6 are in the north (the other one is Louisiana). This seems to suggest that coronavirus is similar to seasonal flu, in that rates of transmission are much lower in warmer weather. Supporting evidence comes from Australia and New Zealand, which have much lower death rates than a lot of European countries. Therefore it seems reasonable to assume that the number of new cases will decrease as we approach summer, although how this could be shown to be due to lower transmission in warm weather as opposed to lockdowns working is beyond me.
“Matt Dalby April 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm”
Don’t forget your hemispheres and seasons when comparing weather. When COVID-19 broke, Aus and NZ were in mid-summer, the EU mid-winter.
What intrigues me is how quickly a case appeared in Chad, slap bang in the middle of Africa.
It sounds like everyone that was a climate expert last Decemeber is now an expert virologist this year.
No, just a lot of smart people worried about there families health.
They have seen thru the world wide Harvard centric media spin network….
But you do not have to be an expert to spot pseudo-science ; you just need to know how science works.
It’s a process of elimination.
Are you an astrology expert?
Do you believe in astrology?
I’m sorry that flu death is such a bitch – but you can count on it happening every year. WuFlu just the latest.
Is it even a pandemic at that point?
This is a bit off-topic here, but I wish someone would do a quality analysis of Australia’s low numbers. They have done a lot of testing and found very few cases – single digits new cases per day. Why? We hear a lot of talk about Italy as an outlier. But how about Australia in the other direction?
I’ve heard glib comments about “social distancing”, but Australia had some cases really early, and started social distancing in the same time frame as US states. Something else was done differently. Or is it the air? The climate? The culture?
When cases were originally found in the US the CDC managed to trace most of them back to their sources. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6908e1.htm?s_cid=mm6908e1_w
However that quickly changed, when NYC blew up after fashion week flying in from Milan, all bets were off as far as tracing went. NY pretty much blew up the entire east coast and through travel managed to cause first known cases in many other states. . . my point is, we had it controlled until we did not have it controlled and it took no time at all to happen.
I too believe it has been on the west coast of the US longer than thought. It is rather silly to expect that at least one or two cases didnt sneak through before travel restrictions were put on China. We also did not know of asymptomatic transfer, why it didn’t spread like wildfire.. unknown.
Why is no one mentioning Dr Judy Mikovits? Here is one of here many interviews, discussing her latest book. Plague of Corruption.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP4io4EMQbc
Raises more questions than it answers.