Reposted from Dr. Judith Curry’s Climate Etc.
Posted on July 27, 2020 by niclewis
By Nic Lewis
I showed in my May 10th article Why herd immunity to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought that inhomogeneity within a population in the susceptibility and in the social-connectivity related infectivity of individuals would reduce, in my view probably very substantially, the herd immunity threshold (HIT), beyond which an epidemic goes into retreat. I opined, based on my modelling, that the HIT probably lay somewhere between 7% and 24%, and that evidence from Stockholm County suggested it was around 17% there, and had been reached. Mounting evidence supports my reasoning.[1]
I particularly want to highlight an important paper published on July 24th “Herd immunity thresholds estimated from unfolding epidemics” (Aguas et al.).[2] The author team is much the same as that of the earlier theoretical paper (Gomes et al.[3]) that prompted my May 10th article.
Aguas et al. used a SEIR compartmental epidemic model modified to allow for inhomogeneity, similar to the model I used although they also considered further variants. They fitted their models to scaled daily new cases data from four European countries for which disaggregated regional case data was also readily available. In all cases they found a better fit from their models incorporating heterogeneity to the standard homogeneous assumption SEIR model. They found that:
Homogeneous models systematically fail to fit the maintenance of low numbers of cases after the relaxation of social distancing measures in many countries and regions.
Aguas et al. estimate the HIT at between 6% and 21% for the countries in their analysis – very much in line with the range I suggested in May. They also found that their HIT estimates were robust to various changes in their model specification. By contrast, if the population were homogeneous or were vaccinated randomly, the estimated HIT would have been around 65% –80%, in line with the classical formula, {1 – 1/R0}, where R0 is the epidemic’s basic reproduction number.[4]
Aguas et al.’s Figure 3, reproduced below, shows how the HIT reduces with increasing variation either in susceptibility (given exposure) or in connectivity, which affects both an individual’s susceptibility (via altering exposure to infection) and infectivity. The coloured dots and vertical lines show the inferred position of each of the four countries they analysed in each of these (separately modelled) cases.
Aguas et al. Fig. 3 Herd immunity threshold with gamma-distributed susceptibility (top) or connectivity related exposure to infection (bottom). Curves generated with the SEIR model (Equation 1-4) assuming values of R0 estimated for the study countries assuming gamma-distributed: susceptibility [top]; connectivity (and hence exposure to infection) [bottom]. Herd immunity thresholds (solid curves) are calculated according to the formula 1 − (1/R0)1/(1 + CV^2) for heterogeneous susceptibility and 1 − (1/R0)1/(1 + 2 CV^2) for heterogeneous connectivity. Final sizes of the corresponding unmitigated epidemics are also shown (dashed).
As Aguas et al. say in their Abstract:
These findings have profound consequences for the governance of the current pandemic given that some populations may be close to achieving herd immunity despite being under more or less strict social distancing measures.
The underlying reason for the classical formula being inapplicable is, as they say:
More susceptible and more connected individuals have a higher propensity to be infected and thus are likely to become immune earlier. Due to this selective immunization by natural infection, heterogeneous populations require less infections to cross their herd immunity threshold than suggested by models that do not fully account for variation.
The Imperial College COVID-19 model (Ferguson et al.[5]) is a prime example of one that does not adequately account for variation in individual susceptibility and connectivity.
Aguas et al. point out that consideration of heterogeneity in the transmission of respiratory infections has traditionally focused on variation in exposure summarized into age-structured contact matrices. They showed that, besides this approach typically ignoring differences in susceptibility given virus exposure, the aggregation of individuals into age groups leads to much lower variability than that they found from fitting the data. The resulting models appeared to differ only moderately from homogeneous approximations.
A key reason for variability in susceptibility to COVID-19 given exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing is that the immune systems of a substantial proportion (35% to 80%) of unexposed individuals have T-cells, circulating antibodies or other components that are cross-reactive to SARS-CoV-2 and can be expected to provide substantial resistance to it.[6] [7] [8] [9] Such components likely arise from past exposure to common cold or other coronaviruses, or to influenza.[10] Not being specific to SARS-CoV-2, and typically not being antibodies, such immune system components are not normally detected in seroprevalence or other tests for immunity to SARS-CoV-2.
I will end with a follow up to my June 28th article focusing on Sweden. In it, I concluded that it was likely the HIT had been surpassed in the three largest Swedish regions, and in the country as a whole, by the end of April notwithstanding that COVID-19-specific antibodies had only been detected in 6.3% of the population.[11] I also projected, based on their declining trend, that total COVID-19 deaths would likely only be about 6,400. Subsequent developments support those conclusions. Swedish COVID-19 deaths have continued to decline, notwithstanding a return to more travel and less social distancing, and are now down to 10 to 15 a day. According to the latest Financial Times analysis,[12] excess mortality in Sweden over 2020 to date was 5,500, or 24%. That is only about half the excess mortality percentage for the UK (45%), Italy (44%) and Spain (56%), and is also lower than for France (31%), the Netherlands (27%) and Switzerland (26%), despite Sweden not having imposed a lockdown or shut primary schools. Moreover, total mortality in Sweden over the last 24 months is now lower than over the previous 24 months, despite an upward trend in the old age population.
Nicholas Lewis 27 July 2020
[1] One example, further supporting my superspreader-based evidence of variability in social connectivity, is Miller et al: Full genome viral sequences inform patterns of SARS-CoV-2 spread into and within Israel medRxiv 22 May 2020 https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.21.20104521 This paper shows that 1-10% of infected individuals caused 80% of infections. That points to variability in social connectivity related susceptibility and infectivity quite likely being higher than I modelled .
[2] Aguas, R. and co-authors: Herd immunity thresholds estimated from unfolding epidemics” medRxiv 24 July 2020 https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160762
[3] Gomes, M. G. M., et al.: Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold. medRxiv 2 May 2020. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.27.20081893v1
[4] The basic reproduction number of an epidemic, R0, measures how many people, on average, each infected individual infects at the start of the epidemic. If R0 exceeds one, the epidemic will grow, exponentially at first. But, assuming recovered individuals are immune, the pool of susceptible individuals shrinks over time and the current reproduction number falls. The proportion of the population that have been infected at the point where the current reproduction number falls to one is the ‘herd immunity threshold’ (HIT). Beyond that point the epidemic is under control, and shrinks.
[5] Neil M Ferguson et al.: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand. Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team Report 9, 16 March 2020, https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/handle/10044/1/77482
[6] Grifoni, A.et al.: Targets of T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in humans with COVID-19 disease and unexposed individuals. Cell 11420, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.05.015
[7] Braun, J., et al.: Presence of SARS-CoV-2 reactive T cells in COVID-19 patients and healthy donors. medRxiv 22 April 2020 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20061440v1.
[8] Le Bert, N. et al.: Different pattern of pre-existing SARS-COV-2 specific T cell immunity in SARS-recovered and uninfected individuals. bioRxiv 27 May 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832
[9] Nelde, A. et al.: SARS-CoV-2 T-cell epitopes define heterologous and COVID-19-induced T-cell recognition. ResearchSquare 16 June 2020. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-35331/v1
[10] Lee, C., Koohy, H., et al.: CD8+ T cell cross-reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 conferred by other coronavirus strains and influenza virus. bioRxiv 20 May 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.20.107292.
[11] Such seroprevalence is likely to significantly understate the proportion of the population who have had COVID-19, since asymptomatic or mild disease often results in undetectably low antibody levels (Long, Q. X. et al.: Clinical and immunological assessment of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. Nat Med. 18 June 2020 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0965-6 . Such patients will nevertheless be immune to reinfection (Sekine, K. et al.: Robust T cell immunity in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19. bioRxiv 29 June 2020 https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.29.174888).965-6
[12] https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441. Data updated to 13 July
Originally posted here, where a pdf copy is also available
Oh yes! Now why can’t we hear about this by Fauci et. al. ? Or from drug companies who are suggesting we may need to be re vaxxed every 3 months for ever. grrrr! Great article! Thank you!
Wonder what vaccine this was. A real confidence builder lol.
Four Ukrainian Soldiers Died After Having the American COVID-19 Vaccine Tested on Them
https://www.stalkerzone.org/four-ukrainian-soldiers-died-after-having-the-american-covid-19-vaccine-tested-on-them/
I actually laughed out loud!
Seriously though, I only get the major vaccine boosters (TB, and few other ones) and do not like getting them either.
But never got the FLU shot… and after this Covid 19 episode, I learned enough about how to protect myself with Quercetin and small amounts of Zn, plus a few other things, Vit D, etc., that I will never take a flu or RNA virus vaccine… unless something big changes.
Here’s an article on zinc I just found that you might like.
Zinc and respiratory tract infections: Perspectives for COVID‑19 (Review)
https://www.spandidos-publications.com/10.3892/ijmm.2020.4575
Thanks icisil,
I am well read up on all of this from numerous medical studies and this adds to the list!
The arguments against it are weak, very weak.
They must torture the crap out of the language, and devolve into ambiguity and slight of hand to hide what we know.
It’s sort of like saying: “Look at how much I know,” and then, try to convince someone that “unless you can prove gravity, you cannot predict the apple will fall, nor can you figure out the speed.”
We know, and doctors know, and some people just believe in what they want to confirm their bias.
The other most fat soluble vitamins are vitamin K and then vitamin A- vitamin K being the more important to the action of vitamin D then vitamin A. Actually, vitamin D is a steroid – it was believed to be vitamin initially after it was discovered to be important to your health. The form of vitamin D in your liver has a half life of 15 hours – so it’s depleted in roughly a day. If there’s excess of vitamin D in your liver, the liver converts to a form which can be stored in your body fat for a rainy day. It’s half life is 15 days – or about a month. If you’re taking vitamin D capsules with vitamin K capsule – I wouldn’t count on multivitamin for vitamin D or K since the potency and dose aren’t guaranteed in a multivitamin -and they should be taken with fat – like a fish oil capsule on an empty stomach. In fact, if believe you may be deficient in vitamin D, invest in a blood test to measure the level of vitamin D in your blood instead investing in a vaccination – it’s to important to guess.
My blood level of vit d 25-hydroxy is 62ng/ml. My K, which I do not supplement, is over the max of 2,500. I eat lots of juiced greens and fruit. I have been taking 6000 IU for a few years, and do not wear sunscreen, and get sun whenever I can. I live in Nor Cal… My measurements came in early June if I recall. So some of the D came from sunshine.
Get a good tan this summer and get a membership to a tanning salon with UVB bulbs in the winter, if the totalitarians allow you to patronage them.
Enjoy getting the flu do you?
Your body your choice, but please don’t sneer at those of us get a flu jab every year. I sing for a hobby. Five weeks of aching muscles and joints, headaches, high temperature, nasty cough and most seriously NO VOICE is something I prefer to avoid. I’ve had the flu enough times in my life that I have no desire to repeat the experience any more times than necessary.
So you probably work nights right? VID is endemic in Western Culture and especially bad among the entertainment industry that works evenings. You should probably just start using a tanning bed with UVB bulbs because there is no reason healthy adults should be getting influenza more than once every ~20 years unless you have an underlying immune condition.
No I do not get the flu every year. I get a mild cold every couple of years. Why would I take a flu shot? Typically I am on of the few people in the office who does not get the flu while everyone around me is sick. So you do what you want. I am not poo pooing you and I will not get the damned Covid poison injected into my body, but again you do what you want Deal?
PS – I work for a living, and live the rest of the time. So I hate getting sick.
” but please don’t sneer at those of us get a flu jab”
So who was sneering ?!
Can’t remember the last time I got flu or even a temperature. Several decades at least.
Ian & Mario,
You guys are wimps. I go out of my way to get the flu so I can fight it off and tell everyone how tough I am.
What kind of milk toast sissy’s are you that you can’t learn to enjoy a little flu.
LOL DonM. You forgot to use the Sarc tag. Again, I do not get the flu shot and almost never get the flu.
Haven’t ever had a flu shot. Haven’t had the flu in over 40 years.
“This was reported by the press officer of the People’s Militia of the LPR”. Perhaps so, but I would consider the source, a Russian military operative.
Bill Gates refers to that outcome as “super painful.” I wonder why this isn’t widely reported with details.
https://twitter.com/LegendaryEnergy/status/1287509508206391296
Why do you conclude that Gates was referring to the Ukrainian story?
Sorry. It was sarcasm.
I feel like most vaccine talk is just used to keep lockdowns going. The ever shifting goal posts of why we must “shelter in place” and “stay safe” in this quarantine the non infected experiment.
I agree with you, Mr. Turner. I do not like it either way.
Big news in Canada that the Health Canada has approved Remsdesvir for further testing for the Wuhoo Flu. It is heralded as a major breakthrough; unfortunately no word of Hydroxychlorquine, which doesn`t need safety tresting and is approved for many uses and costs pennies.
Fauci winds up for the pitch…
His stance is all wrong, that is why the ball goes where it goes. His body predicts where it will go.
Yes, his stance is all wrong.
His shoulder is clearly stiff, and he obviously didn’t practice at all.
Dr. Fauci just wanted to make sure no one caught anything….
Actually, Dr. Fauci’s totally inept pitch is the perfect metaphor for his utterly disastrous mishandling of the Wuhan Flu from start to finish.
How embarrassing…
ba dump dump …
That was a really good one 🙂
He throws to the left, what a coincidence.
Bob Uecker makes the call
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOVP.tpZLfRmko8plWcl2nJIh_gEsDh%26pid%3DApi&f=1
Because the virus is changing and that is why revax may be necessary, not because they want to enslave you with vaccination. Maybe Fauci and other experts havea better insight than, well, non-experts? Does that help? Grrrrr!
There are better options for most all people than a vax… and I for one know this. I do not trust people who have lied consistently. You should take the Vax, ever 3 months. I won’t. There, freedom. You do what’s best for you and I will do the same for me.
Most people don’t even see a doctor every year or every couple of years. The idea that they are going to get a vax every three months is ludicrous and nobody’s gonna force them.
Just if I may add, as a sharing a thought.
You freaking frack around with your immune system, for what ever reason;
It will literally kill you… the most fastest quick thing that it can ever do if ever given a half chance.
cheers
I think it has been well established that there are no “experts” in this game.
I know, right? Like when the experts told us to not eat eggs for decades – because of the cholesterol doncha know! Well, until a year ago, when it was quietly announced, “umm go ahead and eat eggs, eating cholesterol isn’t so bad after all… Those silly experts, always playing games like that!
Thank you Dr. Curry!
Oh yes! Now why can’t we hear about this by Fauci et. al. ? Or from drug companies who are suggesting we may need to be re vaxxed every 3 months for ever. grrrr! Great article! Thank you!
Wish my stupid lockdown government in Australia could get a proper briefing on this.
Why not an issue in Australia unless you are in Victoria.
Wow…..making herd immunity complicated…..Basically if the person to the left of you and the person to the right of you have both had it weeks ago, they can’t give it to you, so herd immunity occurs at around 2 out of 3. Lower numbers might as well be based on an (unfounded) assumption that the virus just gets weaker after a few months.
Epidemiology not your string point I see.
Andy,
So you think 17% is reasonable? Ummm….so if people go to the grocery store an extra day a week your coefficient of connectivity becomes exactly what ? Or go out wherever 17% more ? Or just meet 50% more people on your walk to work ? Fun with numbers, yes…connection to reality…chancy at best.
Yes because the virus doesn’t just rely on hosts, it relies on hosts with compromised immune systems. If a herd of deer move through an apple orchard, they will be able to eat about 17% of the fruit, does this make sense to you? Yeah, because they can only get the low hanging fruit.
Andy,
Just pointing out that a 7% to 24% HI is impractically low from a human interaction perspective. Nic’s connectivity graph is nice theoretically, but coming up with connectivity coefficients is very questionable when real people can easily interact with 50% more people daily depending on which way they decide to walk to work or what time they go grocery shopping….or go out more because they feel the peak has passed.
Yes it’s like all these sort of studies only useful until the human behaviour changes. Have a few sporting or concert events with 100000 people and see what happens. Even the anti lockdown pinup of Sweden has gathering limits of 50 people throughout.
DMac…,
You didn’t actually read the article, did you.
The theory that Herd Immunity requires 60-80% to be exposed and infected depends on the assumption that all people are equally susceptible to infection.
This assumption is falsified by:
– The rapid fall of infection rates well before that level of immunity (as measured by antibody tests) is achieved, regardless of lockdown stringency.
– The far lower peak infection rates experienced in supposedly ideal conditions for infectious spread – such as the cruise ship Diamond Princess.
– The observation stated in the article and supported by references, of the large proportion of the population with cross-immunity due to T-Cell reactions to previous infections by similar virus’.
When the observations do not fit the model, adults change their model.
“When the observations do not fit the model, adults change their model.”
Except in climate science.
Yes, I read the article. I think Nic’s work is generally great stuff. Just not this time.
DanMacKenxie
Did you read the article? Nic explains and shows evidence, you blather.
Passing somebody in the street is not an interaction. Walking past somebody in a supermarket is unlikely to be an interaction. Sitting next to somebody on a crowded bus/train is an interaction.
Applying common sense to how we relate to people — in any set of circumstances — is the only sane way forward!
No. The assumption is that as the most connected and susceptible in the population get immunity the lower goes the R0. No assumption made about the virulence of the virus.
Which why the early closing of schools, where children have a minuscule risk from COVID-19, was aptently the wrong way to ultimately control this virus. And keeping kids out of school now is even more disastrous policy from Democrats.
I totally agree.
From the start, I’ve espoused that the total number of Wuhan flu infections will be relatively fixed, and that the vast majority of infection responses (80%?) would be mild~imperceptible and that ONLY the elderly with comorbidities should be strictly and vigilantly protected.
I had no absolutely no idea the herd immunity threshold could be as low 7~24% and assumed it would be closer to 60%…
In the end, I think the actual death rate of the Wuhan Flu will be around 0.2%, which is the same as the flu pandemics of 1959 and 1968, which everyone has forgotten about and is never mentioned by the MSM or government authorities…
Historians will be be flabbergasted that world governments utterly destroyed their economies and immorally violated human rights for absolutely no reason whatsoever…
The evidence show the Swedish model is vindicated and is how the world should have addressed the Wuhan flu.
The typical government response to the Wuhan Flu was a power and money grab by feckless government hacks proving the tyrannical and cynical government adage, “Never let a good crisis go to waste….”
Sweden is looking better and better. Oman ought to knock them out of the top 30 countries in cases this week.
Sweden is actually #5 in mortality after Belgium, UK, Spain and Italy, but will probably be overtaken by Peru in the next few days.
Historians will only look back and be horrified if they aren’t socialist/communist governments.
The death rate for Florida is aprox 1.2% and going down. Amazing considering the large population of people over 60. Perhaps all of the older people who were most susceptible have already died and, unlike voting, cannot die again.
What really pisses me off is that the CDC still has not released nationwide Wuhan flu anti-body test results—testable since February 24th— which would allow the true number of infection to be known, which would enable accurate death rates to be calculated…
Based on limited non-government antibody tests, my guess is that close to 75,000,000 (about 20%) of all Americans have actually had the Wuhan flu with the vast majority being asymptomatic..
We live in insane and dangerous times…
Wuhan Flu? Oh, you mean the Ft Detrick Bioweapon?
It is clear that this all began in that 3rd world country just north of Mexico.
That you, Xi?
NYC, NJ, NY, MA, CA and PA have more Covid-19 deaths than the ENTIRE rest of the country.
NYC holds FOURTH place in GLOBAL deaths.
That takes some kid of special talent.
The top ten jurisdictions have over two-thirds of the country’s Covid-19 deaths.
Over 80% of the Covid-19 deaths are in those over 65 years of age. Over 92% when the 55+ are included.
Japan has the highest percentage of 65+ at 27% yet not even 1,000 Covid-19 deaths.
What do they know or do?
Must not be newsworthy.
Our state, Federal and global overlords would have us sheeple believe the MSM propaganda that Covid-19 is a global pandemic (What other kind is there?).
The data says otherwise.
It is classic misdirection.
Those overlords don’t want us sheeple to notice that the dozen or so jurisdictions with the most dangerous, contagious, lethal, poorly run elder care unhealthy systems are run by Democrats and socialists!
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/
Asians have been exposed to more corona viruses in the past, therefore they have more cross immunity.
NJ, NY, & CT have higher reported COVID-19 deaths/1M pop than the other states & DC (left three bars on linked file). Data is through June.
Virtue signalling by banning flights from other states IMO.
What a coincidence that those are the same jurisdictions that have for years forced people to live close together and have to use public transit, for ecological reasons. I said four months that Lower Manhattan Expressway is looking real good right now. Dummies.
The Japanese eat quite a bit of raw seafood. And by quite a bit, I mean relative to westerners, it only takes a few small servings a week to get enough vitamin D.
This is a really big deal. BIG.
And fits completely with the new Stanford paper using only excess deaths, projecting based on Europe that the pandemic ‘defined by excess deaths‘ will be over by August 25–thanks to this better understanding of herd immunity.
That would be HUGE!
All well and fine unless you the outliner who dies anyhow 🙂
You are so right, Ldb. No one must ever die. No one. Not never.
I certainly hope this proves true with the benefit of hindsight.
I’m a bad man, because I will really really enjoy seeing the TDS-afflicted heads explode.
Evidence HCQ is effective . . . or conspiracy theory?
While the quote is most often attributed to Joseph Stalin, this concept has been around for awhile:
“To sate the lust of power; more horrid still,
The foulest stain and scandal of our nature
Became its boast — One Murder made a Villain,
Millions a Hero. — Princes were privileg’d
To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime.
Ah! why will Kings forget that they are Men?”
— Death: A Poetical Essay, Beilby Porteus, 1759
“If you shoot one person you are a murderer. If you kill a couple persons you are a gangster. If you are a crazy statesman and send millions to their deaths you are a hero.” — Watertown Daily Times 1939
Stalin’s similar quote was dated ~1947
This will all be ignored by the media until November 4th.
And Henry. He wants a double blind study and wonders why it hasn’t happened 😉
Nic Lewis has done a great job bringing us closer to realistic analysis of “herd immunity”. I put herd immunity in italics because it is a complex concept that includes many contextual and genetic components, many of which are not related to specific immunity. As an infectious disease specialist I am not mathematically skilled enough to comment on the modelling math but I can speak from experience with new human respiratory infections and their typical epidemic profiles, and this is exactly what we should expect from a novel respiratory pathogen with relatively short incubation and infectious periods and a requirement for fairly close contact for transmission. Why don’t we hear this in the media or public health reports? My suspicion is that we are being informed by a large cadre of people who struggle to understand these more complex mechanics of respiratory epidemics. Still it puzzles me that they haven’t reflected on past experience enough to recognize the pattern. Perhaps, as well, there are rewards for being alarmist and stoking fear but, as in all things, those rewards for some are accompanied by significant costs to others.
Data from two shipboard outbreaks are exactly consistent with this post. On both the Diamond Princess (data published on WUWT: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/16/diamond-princess-mysteries/) and on the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-26/coronavirus-theodore-roosevelt-aircraft-carrier-outbreak), 17 percent of the people on the ships contracted the virus, and on both ships, half were asymptomatic. The Diamond Princess outbreak took place before the pandemic was recognized and nobody took precautions. It can be argued that the close quarters of shipboard life would be the ideal setting to spread the virus. Yet on both ships, 83 percent of onboard personnel tested negative and were apparently immune. Willis Eschenbach published the Diamond Princess analysis on March 16, and the Theodore Roosevelt data were published on April 26.
USS Theodore Roosevelt 1,273 tested positive out 4,800. That’s 26.5% but the point still stands as all those sailors lived in VERY close quarters.
Thanks, but do you have a reference for the 1273 positive number? The LA Times story says
More than 17% of the ship’s approximately 4,845 sailors have tested positive for the coronavirus — 856 sailors. A handful of results are still outstanding, the Navy said Friday.
and I have not seen another good summary of the Theodore Roosevelt outbreak. But I agree that 26% infection rate under ideal conditions for transmission still tells us that most people seem to be immune.
Bring me a bit of stool on a leaf’ and with her microscope prescribed the ritht antibiotic. A clear example of differential susseptibility.
It is clear that individual differences make modeling diseases complicated. I saw a recent video of the 1918-19 flu and one can see where the fear factor comes from. Draping the population in masks obviously did not work then. H1 N1 was much worse than this virus. As soon as it was clear that Covid 19 spared the young and healthy, all restrictions should have been lifted, and the old and sick protected to the extent that they could be.
Agree.
The lockdowns and school closing with what we have known since the end of April are anti-science.
Here’s the thing: most people of a certain age will not take chances, no matter what they are told about herd immunity. I am one. I didn’t visit the grocery store or other businesses until masks became mandatory. I won’t go to restaurants, theaters or airports. So, you can squawk all you want about herd immunity, I’m not changing my behavior. Furthermore, I’m guessing many/most people over the age of 50 would agree.
I haven’t changed a thing except vitamin supplementation, which I rarely did before. From everything I’ve seen, this illness doesn’t appear to be any worse than moderate to bad flu. What scares me are the establishment medical treatments, particularly mechanical ventilation (MV) which is being used on a scale never seen before, solely because of fear and, likely, financial incentives in certain places. IMO that’s where most of the death is coming from.
MV creates the disease it is meant to treat (worst case), and best case severely exacerbates it. Any honest, knowledgeable doctor will admit that the pathologies of sepsis are indistinguishable from the pathologies caused by MV that is used to treat sepsis. IMO covid is no different; basically, severe covid is sepsis.
I’ve found most hospitals (or anything medical) in the US are $$ driven, plain and simple. If they get reimbursed well by putting you on a ventilator they will do it. If they get reimbursed more if you are a CV-19 patient, you will be a CV-19 patient. If they can keep you in the hospital longer than you should be because they get reimbursed, you will stay there. It has nothing to do with your best medical interest.
What CMS should have said is we will give you a bonus for actually curing patients, not treating them. More people would have been cured.
I’m reading through Massachusetts General Hospital guidelines for covid treatments. When mechanical ventilators are available, covid patients with respiratory problems are to be intubated rather than given less dangerous high flow oxygen treatments (NIPPV or HFNC). But non-covid patients with respiratory problems are to be placed on high flow oxygen. That really tells you everything you need to know.
Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell (@cameronks) has been at the forefront of trying to change the model away from ARDS to anticoagulation and vascular endothelial stabilization, as the disease is NOT ARDS, but something completely different.
He’s been half successful. You don’t want to be in the hospitals where they still believe it’s ARDS. BTW: not the flu!
Dr. Kyle-Sidell deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, or some similar honor. He had to resign his assignment to form an ICU at Maimonides because he could not ethically agree to intubating patients who did not need it. Now he’s in the emergency department, where they apparently have more leeway to treat as they deem best.
The best way to implement anticoagulation and vascular endothelial stabilization is to not intubate. Ventilators cause barotrauma and biotrauma. The first destabilizes pulmonary endothelial cells causing permeability and inflammation: the second induces through mechanotransduction the endothelial release of inflammatory cytokines and the de novo synthesis of adhesion molecules in distal organs, which are the precursors of thrombosis.
Hysteria is a difficult foe, as it feeds on itself. The masks-for-all bandwagon is a perfect example of a hysteria-based Belief system.
It has been in America longer, before the mitigation efforts took place.
It arrived on American shores before mitigation efforts flattened the curve and delayed the spread.
Well articulated post Nic. Please tell the Australian government to wake up and consider that Sweden’s early response was right on the money for herd immunity! There are monkeys leading this country into oblivion! It seems to me an unrestricted country with support for the most vulnerable, allows herd immunity to kick in quicker and for the curve to peak earlier and the virus to have deeper penetration much earlier than would be the case with recurring lock downs.
And also a side note : The evidence that exposure to other Coronaviruses may play a role in individual and herd immunity may also be in the favour of countries that do not have a extinguish all illness or got to work no matter how sick you are mentality.
Keep up your insightful efforts!
They are really trying hard to bury this story in the MSM…
Wow.. they removed this one already….
https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/
Thanks Raymond Bélanger.
I watched all 3 hours and was particular fascinated over Dr./Pastor Stella Immanuel, her passion and and dedication.
What I learned from this long video was, that sub Sahara Africa had begun importing the virus a few days before the US, and that in possibly larger number of flight passenger from China. Still Africa has several orders of magnitude less casualties per million, compared to the US and other western industrialized nations.
No it is not likely it is because we contribute more CO2, but, as the video explains, because Africa is malaria prone and the people there take HCQ-Zink on a regular bases. Also visitors to most African states are strongly encouraged to take anti malaria drugs in advance.
Both vids now down in the UK. I wonder why …
Thanks for this article which confirms that we must look at the excess mortality on the population, its evolution in recent years and not only the “COVID19 deaths” to evaluate the global impact of the strain (virus AND political, sanitary reactions).
Excess mortality data reported on Euro Mortality Monitoring (EUROMOMO) clearly shows that Sweden had the best (or least damaging) global reaction among European countries and that the COVID-19 excess mortality in this country (which among the lowers as stated in the article) may be partly explained by the negative excess mortality in Sweden during the two last years.
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
As I assumed months ago, it’s the reaction that will cause most of the disaster and not the virus itself and the Swedish case, when compared to the others, confirms this assumption while the deaths game is not even over :
– the impact of not detected serious illness, cancers, the wave of suicides, alcoholism, violence, …, due to the social and economic disaster induced by the lockdowns, all those waves have not even reached their peak.
While all the MSM was pointing to the Sweden case speaking of “unorthodoxy”, the rest of the planet was going bonkers, actually destroying its population by applying devastating measures based on anti-science.
Thanks for the post Nic Lewis.
I am one of many irresponsible uncultivated 68 years old Danes living in Sweden for the last 15 years. When I first heard about the Wuhan-flu, the scare stories and The Diamond Princess, I got a bit scared.
However, after a good night’s sleep I thought to myself, why don’t I cool down, remembering Michael Crichton’s book State Of Fear, the many pandemics before it and my own very good health record, I turned to use layman’s common sense, behaving mostly as always, accepting that I am exposed to loads of germs and virus everywhere I go.
Growing up in the countryside, drinking milk directly from the cows, bathing in the ocean in winter in a hole in the ice, drinking from the same bottle of lemonade as the other kids, getting my seven pounds of dirt a year, we didn’t catch any unusual illness, we were all pretty healthy.
Later, in public school, I learned that a few classmates were ever so often sick. Those were the classmates who’s parents kept a near sterile environment at home. My parents explained to me, that these over protected kids had more difficulties maintaining a well working immune system, so these kids comming to school would overload their immune defense.
So to jump forward to 2020, why would this story be different today?
Why not use the same common sense we so successfully used more than fifty years ago?
Why would you over protect the healthy and under protect the sick?
Why would you compromise our industry, education, economy and freedom, which has been the backbone of the high quality of life we have achieved over the last century?
Shopping in Sweden these days:
When you go to supermarkets the are a few precautions taken, in particular at the registers.
When you go to the small shops, I could not tell the difference from last year.
Sweden’s usual Climate Alarmists:
My alarmist neighbor, a woman from UK who has lived in Sweden for forty years, told me how dreadful badly the Swedish government had handled this pandemic. She also referred to seven people she knew, who had died from COVID-19. I asked her if they had other illnesses. Her response didn’t surprise me: They were all terrible ill in one way or another. She got angry when I told her that they sadly died with SARS-CoV-2 infection, and that a common cold also could have triggered their death.
Yes, I was a bit rough, but let’s face it, we all risk getting ill and not getting over it.
Eternal life is not guaranteed, enjoy it to the full while you can and obey common sense rules.
+10 🙂
Afrikaans has the word “ipekonders” and the phrase “vol ipekonders” i.e. full of hypochondria.
Old people are most prone to this but it seems that politicians and the media have been infected by the hypochondria virus.
The whole paragraph is a misconception about what T-cells can and can’t do. If you look into the references the authors are not claiming that there “can be expected to provide substantial resistance” mediated by the T-cells. None of the paper states that.
Btw, isn’t Iran proving the assumptions of the herd immunity calculations above wrong?
Yes Nic is wrong
“A key reason for variability in susceptibility to COVID-19 given exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing is that the immune systems of a substantial proportion (35% to 80%)”
he is avoiding all the cases where attack rates are above 50% and avoiding the cases where seroprevalence reaches figures as high as 71%.
Speaking of avoiding all the cases, what’s up in Texas MoshManster? Haven’t heard from you on that front in a few days?
How come??
What was that you said?
“In about 20 days you will know more.. maybe 30 days since youngster last longer on vents.
some last 60 days..
any way, wait a month or so and see where deaths are.”
Opps. Where are we there dood? More Independence Day apocalypse massacre that didn’t happen?
https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83
Where are we?
Texas doubled the death toll from 3k to 6k within a month. Well, that’s an achievement.
So that’s about 100 per day for a month. Hmm. The People’s Republic of New York, with ten million fewer residents, had 6x as many deaths per day for six consecutive weeks!
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Herd immunity is a misplaced concept for a well informed, intelligent population.
Mobility in Swedish workplaces is down 62% from their pre-COVID level. Transit station mobility is down 30%. I suspect that is as much to do with people -self-isolating as summer vacation. Business failures in Sweden it at record level. Swedes generally are smart enough to recognise the risk and taking their own action but it cost about 6000 lives to spread the word. Most people in Sweden will know someone who has suffered through CV19.
Mobility in Australian workforces is down by 19% and mobility in transit stations down 43%. Most of Australia is back to business as usual. Melbourne suffered a sad confluence of events that spread the virus from returning travellers in quarantine to the islamic community just ahead of El al-Fitr family gatherings the day after the number permitted at family gatherings was eased. Melbourne is again in home quarantine but the case load appears to have peaked after 3 weeks of second quarantine. Business failures in Australia are much lower than usual level because the government funds are keeping it all propped up.
The word that needed to be spread was protect the old and infirm, quarantine the infected. Of course, our stupid governments panicked and decided it was a good strategy to quarantine the entire population; blithering idjits.
The thing that I have noticed is the endless panic laden reports of spikes (“Is this a 2nd wave, there’s gonna be a 2nd wave, is this the 2nd wave?” etc) but still a steady downwards movement of deaths by country. As deaths are are also a good indicator (I think) of what is happening with serious cases that suggests that the whole thing is tailing off as a serious disease.
Yes, even in Sweden, the case numbers over the last month have dropped by almost an order of magnitude. Looks like they got it more right than it appeared.
It is surprising how most countries have case numbers which fell so low and remained low despite deconfinment. That’s NOT what the models predicted. Once the population is circulating again it should flair up. Remember confinement was only supposed to spread out the case load , not reduce it.
US has been more like what “should” happen but really such a large spread out population with so many different sets of rules needs to be regarded as multiple infections not one.
Cuomo managed to kill off most of the vulnerable population in NYC so the chances of that kicking off again are low.
Southern states are getting their first real wave now having got off lighter earlier on.
For the US, as the Health system is Sate based, the rules on lockdown are state based, and the rules on masks etc are State based, for this epidemic, the US is 50 countries.
Yes, even in Sweden, the case numbers over the last month have dropped by almost an order of magnitude. Looks like they got it more right than it appeared.
It is surprising how most countries have case numbers which fell so low and remained low despite deconfinment. That’s NOT what the models predicted. Once the population is circulating again it should flair up. Remember confinement was only supposed to spread out the case load , not reduce it.
US has been more like what “should” happen but really such a large spread out population with so many different sets of rules needs to be regarded as multiple infections not one.
Cuomo managed to ki11 off most of the vulnerable population in NYC so the chances of that kicking off again are low.
Southern states are getting their first real wave now having got off lighter earlier on.
Yes essentially what happens is so called super spreaders get it earlier and then virus runs out of super spreaders.
There is no immunity to landmines.
There is no immunity to coronaviruses.
People survive landmines because a medic is right there.
People survive coronaviruses because their immune system is right there.
You cannot become “immune” to either. Coronaviruses are not alive, they cannot be detected without triggering them and they can infect our immune cells just as easily.
We can have a shot that lets other people’s bodies respond quicker to infected cells, but we cannot have a shot that lets people’s bodies respond to the virus. Due to the way the virus operates, becoming immune to it would also make us immune to important functions of staying alive.
Stop talking, writing and posting like uneducated morons.
Yeah, and then they are crippled for live. An aspiring option.
In reply to Prjindigo:
I am not aware of this, rather the contrary:
Immune responses to viruses | British Society for Immunology
https://www.immunology.org/public-information/bitesized-immunology/pathogens-and-disease/immune-responses-viruses
Please point us to the literature where is says: “There is no immunity to coronaviruses.”
If you come with such a resolut statement, it would be helpful if you gave us a reference to your source.
Another puzzle piece why men are more often severely affected than women and also young people can die w/o any preconditions:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768926?utm_source=silverchair&utm_campaign=jama_network&utm_content=covid_weekly_highlights&utm_medium=email
X-chromosomal-linked gene variants. If damaged in men they don’t have another copy to compensate for it where women have. Also linking to insufficient primary immune response which is the mode of action for the interferon beta drug trial from UK.
“why … young people can die w/o any preconditions”
I’m sure the reasons are multifactorial. For Nick Cordero (41 years old) it was being put on a ventilator that caused VAP, ventilator associated pneumonia, that lead to further complications and downward spiraling into death.
Nobody puts patients on a ventilator for fun. The blood oxygen level has to be so low that it is indicated to do so.
Yes, not for fun, but they definitely do so for fear of aerosolized virus. That is what makes treatment for this illness unique: they crossed the line from putting patient safety first to putting hospital workers presumed safety first, which is entirely unethical. Low oxygen levels don’t necessitate mechanical ventilation (See MassGen guidelines above where non-covid patients with respiratory distress are put on high flow oxygen), but fear of aerosolized virus from high flow oxygen therapies does.
It’s not. Usually care-workers have not sign up for contagious stuff like that especially if they lack protective equipment (what they did). Even firefighters are not supposed to go into the fire without being equipped appropriately.
Ask your government why there was no national stock of protective equipment for a potential pandemic. That happens in a lot of countries right now btw.
It’s not the only possible treatment, yes, but it is standard of care for a reason in many cases: Fluid in the lungs. You can better supply oxygen via pressure if there is fluid present.
There is less fluid in COVID-19 then there is in other pneumonias and the coagulation-driving properties of mechanical ventilation could be interpreted as a contraindication in the context of COVID-19’s coagulation pathology but that was not known beginning of April!
The whole picture crystallised not until mid of May and even then it was still controversial. I heard recently the statement from a researcher at Mount Sinai, NYC, who still totally disagreed that coagulation is a thing. So how should the average MD with 12 h shifts in the hospital keep up?
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…”
“It’s not. Usually care-workers have not sign up for contagious stuff like that especially if they lack protective equipment (what they did).”
Medical workers shouldn’t work in hospitals if they’re afraid of getting infected. That’s just dumb. It’s completely unethical to put patients in harm’s way so hospital workers can feel safe. And it’s not just me saying that:
https://archive.is/KX5IQ#selection-4609.23-4621.63
“but that was not known beginning of April!”
I wholehearted agree. I’m not finding fault to lay blame, but to illuminate so the abuse stops and this virus’ true pathology is clearly understood.
This is not a black and white decision. It was a compromise of protecting the medical staff and treating the patients with a standard of care procedure at a time where protective gear was scarce and medical staff as well. You want to keep your soldiers going when you think the war will last for a while.
It was not the right decision but a completely reasonable one at the time it was made.
Btw, I don’t think Cuomo’s decision to send people back from the hospital to nursing homes when they recovered sufficiently was responsible for the death toll there. We know now that those people are not contagious anymore at that stage.
It was most likely the (asymptomatic) staff w/o sufficient testing and protective gear who spread the virus in the facilities as it happened worldwide (Sweden, Belgium).
Could anyone please post a complete list of supplements that are suggested to help stay off Covid19?
Here is what I know:
Vitamin C 1000mg or more per day
Vitamin D 125 mcg (5000 IU) per day
Zinc. 25mg per day (is 50 mg’s okay?)
Quercetin 1000 mg per day.
What else? Thank you in advance
If you have lung issues, take 1gram or research to find dos that works for you, of NAC.
It’s important to be balance, so I highly recommend veggies and fruits, so I take a juiced veggy and juiced fruit power too. As such my K levels are very high, based on recent blood test.
If you do not get sun without sunscreen and live in high lattitudes, I would up the D to 6000 which is what I have been taken for several years. I get sun and my level is 62ng per ml, but everyone is different and you can go online to get a blood work test for various elements.
If you are worried about flu and corona viruses (RNA) do not be deficient in Zn… the quercetin will help get it into your cells, esp lung. So will EGCG.
Selenium is apparently required to release zinc from its serum transport molecules.
Vitamin K is required when taking vitamin D to make sure calcium gets deposited in the right places.
NAC (N-acetylcysteine) mentioned above increases glutathione levels, which are the lungs’ primary antioxidant. Nebulized NAC is standard treatment for respiratory illnesses in ICUs.
Liposomal vitamin C is better absorbed and produces higher serum levels than ascorbic acid or ascorbate, but apparently taking both together increases it more than either one alone. Ascorbate is easier on the digestive tract making it easier to consume more.
50 mg zinc is probably OK. Upper daily limit is 45mg; most recommendations I’ve seen call for 35 mg.
EGCG is another zinc ionophore, like quercetin, and better absorbed. Most forms of quercetin sold are not very absorbable.
I’d recommend magnesium and vitamin E, but probably taking a multivitamin for these things is sufficient.
Thank you icicil & Mario…. a lot!
You’re welcome. William Astley seems to be well versed in this subject of nutrients.
I can tell you since NAC and upping Quercetin, my sinuses and lungs have never been better. I am for the first time in my adult life, I no longer need 12 hour nasal spray, taken 4 times a day.
Vitamin D helps to fix calcium in your body, which is great for your bones. However, you do not want calcification elsewhere such as your blood vessels. So, if you’re taking vitamin D supplement then vitamin K2 helps to prevent arterial calcification.
I was concerned about that so took a blood test for K and others. I was off the charts and take no “K” supplements. It did not break down K1 or 2. I think it’s from my diet… and at 2,500 pg/ml. D was 62 ng/ml.
I read a study that showed areas rich in selenium intake had less mortality
“ … circulating antibodies or other components that are cross-reactive to SARS-CoV-2 and can be expected to provide substantial resistance to it. Such components likely arise from past exposure to common cold or other coronaviruses, or to influenza.”
Do these antibodies arise from the “standard” anti-flu vaccine? In other words, to take the anti-flu shot this autumn will help?
A Dept of Defense study was done not long ago that found people who received the flu jab had a 36% increased chance of coronavirus infection due to something called viral interference. If you can’t find the study let me know.
Oral hygiene and COVID-19
This study explored the complications of COVID-19 seen among those with poor oral health and periodontal disease. The oral microbiome or the microbial flora of the mouth was explored and its connection with the COVID-19 outcome was analyzed. The authors wrote, “We explore the connection between high bacterial load in the mouth and post-viral complications, and how improving oral health may reduce the risk of complications from COVID-19.”
The authors of the study wrote that during lung infection, there is a risk of aspirating the oral secretions into the lungs, which could cause infection. Some of the bacteria present in the mouth that could cause such infections include “Porphyromonas gingivalis, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Prevotella intermedia,” they wrote. They explained that periodontitis or infection of the gums is one of the most prevalent causes of harmful bacteria in the mouth. These bacteria lead to the formation of cytokines such as Interleukin 1 (IL1) and Tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which can be detected in the saliva and can reach the lungs leading to infection within them. Thus, the researchers wrote, “inadequate oral hygiene can increase the risk of inter-bacterial exchanges between the lungs and the mouth, increasing the risk of respiratory infections and potentially post-viral bacterial complications.”
Results of the study
The team wrote, “Good oral hygiene has been recognized as a means to prevent airway infections in patients, especially in those over the age of 70”. Those with periodontal disease are at a 25 percent raised risk of heart disease, thrice the risk of getting diabetes, and 20 percent raised risk of getting high blood pressure, the researchers wrote. These are all risk factors of severe COVID-19 they wrote.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200630/Oral-hygiene-and-severity-of-COVID-19-e28093-the-connection.aspx
How to create a pandemic
Imagine that you want to start a pandemic, what would you need.
1. Find some vague criteria for what constitutes the symptoms you want people to look for. Anything subjective that a lot of people can identify with is ideal. Let us take memory problems and/or confusion + a few common ones from the Covid list. Tiredness, aches nd pains are common and subjective enough. (For covid 19 the symptoms are: fever
dry cough
tiredness
Less common symptoms:
aches and pains
sore throat
diarrhoea
conjunctivitis
headache
loss of taste or smell
a rash on skin, or discolouration of fingers or toes)
It wold be a good idea to take something that was very common in old people so that we can use death from old age as proof of the lethality of the new virus.
2. Then we would need something biological to test. Any RNA sequence would do as long as it is not present in the whole population. If it were, someone might claim herd immunity very quickly. Actually it could be a RNA sequence that does not really exist in humans but something that could exist as contamination in labs, e.g. in dust or water. That would be enough for a RT qPCR test to pick up as a false positive. Many RT PCRs have false positive rates of 3-5 % and that would be plenty to create a scare. (When it comes to Covid, the sales positive rate is impossible to know for sure, since we don’t have a gold standard to check against, but for many other similar tests, the average sales positive rate is over 3%. And different labs are testing for different sequences. We can count on over stressed labs to be more prone to contamination than labs taking past in research knowing they will be checked for accuracy, the ones that gave over 3% false positives. Maybe the error rate for the average stressed lab is as high as 8%. BMJ counts 5% as a reasonable estimate. With 8% we would have all positive tests in the US explained by false positives)
3. Then we are all set to go. We just have to claim that we have discovered a new cluster of symptoms and that is related to a new RNA sequence. It starts with memory loss, and confusion. In other words this is a neurotoxic virus, and it leads to death in all the ways old people can die, by strokes, heart attacks, pneumonia, kidney failure, sepsis, organ failure, dehydration. It sortant matter of the patient was close to deaths door anyway because of existing problems. We can always claim that without our new virus, they would not have died. Who cold counter that?( just like Covid; People die from all kinds of disorders act they already had before the god the cover test)
4. By some miracle we have already discovered exactly the virus that is responsible among the millions of different viruses that exist in any cubic centimeter of air. So we already have a RT PCR test read to go. This makes us look like very competent researchers. O course we have bought stock in the major testing labs ahead of time. We’ve bought stocks in the biggest vaccine manufacturers also of course. That will be the biggest money maler finally, hopefully for years since it will be difficult to get antibodies to something that doesn’t really exist. We can see to that the ting to test for will at least be present in dirty labs so that we can get enough false positives)
5. So now we just have to spread the news that a new deadly pandemic is spreading all over the world, and every country has to start testing. We can count on the 5% hypochondriacs in the general population to come forth to be tested first. It will always take some time for each country to get started and ramp up their testing, so the graphs are guaranteed to look exponential in the beginning.
6. All you need now is for people to bring their old and confused elderly in for testing, ansd with 5% false positives, we will soon have most hospital beds filled with olds sick confused patients. We can count on doctors to treat them aggressively. Most of these old people will be on a coctail of drugs already so adding a few more drugs as “heroic treatment” will be sure to push them over the edge. Many will have pneumonia from the seasonal flu, so we can just prolongue this by putting them in ventilators. Then they will die a month later and we can say it wasn’t the flu since the flu season should have stopped a month earlier.
7. The graphs of numbers tested positive will be exponential in the beginning, but flatten off as the testers reach their max level. After some time the lab technicians will be exhausted and tend to become sloppy, the pressure for testing will be relentless and the labs will get dirtier and dirtier, and we will get higher and higher false positive rates. Usually the media will be satisfied with reporting just the number of positive teste, but in case anybody should think of checking proportion of positive tests compare to total number of tests, they would get hisgher number each week because of overworked error prone labs. Eventually, society will run out of hypochondriacs who will come for tests voluntarily, and many will have understood that should they test positive, they will be put together with really sick people unprotected, since they all have the same virus…So the curves will flatten and start going down.
8. If you want to destroy the economy during the pandemic, you will get some programmer to make a prediction of millions of deaths ( actually 70 million die every year anyway, so that is not really difficult) if we don’t lock down society. We just have to scare them to lock downright before the curve flattens (when we are running out of the 5% hypochondriacs) and all the politicians will think they saved their country.
9. Just for fun, to see how strangely we could make gullible people act, we could invent different strategies for protection. Social distancing can look really funny in a supermarket, and all the original ways of saluting is interesting , leg touching elbow touching (even if we cough in our elbows now). We could make a lot of money on masks, gloves and sanitisers too.
10. In order to make money on vaccines, we will start testing antibodies. Here the false positive error rate is even greater, so we may easily get 10% with antibodies just from false positives. But on retest, we will statistically get only one percent testing positive if we test the same people. That means that we will need may boosters of the vaccine. In order to maximise the profit, we may put something in the vaccine that make people sick and then we can cure them with a very expensive drug produced by a company we have already invested in. But to be sure maximum number of countries will pay almost any price for the vaccine, we have to wait until they re really desperate.
11. We can always count on several waves of the virus since the common flu and colds will come every year and kill hundreds of thousands like , and 3-10% of them will test false positive for our virus every time. So we have a fantastic money maker for years: Expensive tests, expensive drugs, and expensive vaccines for 7 billion people every year.
12. We can count on doctors being sure that they are right in all they do. They will counter each other in every turn, and since there is no real new disease to cure, the research will run into endless blind alleys. This will prime all doctors for accepting a vaccine. We just have to make sure there is no cheap effective drug for common ailments that can kill people. We can always pay some doctors to make up some numbers and pay journals to publish (like the fake negative HydroxyChloroquin research).
How does the PCR find something if there is nothing?
Your odds of dying from Covid19:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/f9IyNp8OAqKU/
And that’s just based on a pre-existing immunity from the “novel” coronavirus. Boost the immune system with D,K,C, and zinc, and that makes the odds of dying even less. Exercise, eat as healthy as possible, keep your weight down, and you reduce it to about the chance of being struck by lightning.
“Herd immunity” is important only to the extent that the underlying pathogen mutates very slowly, or not at all.
Just ask yourself why, after more than 100 years of the seasonal flu (at one time called the “Spanish flu”) circulating around the world in epidemic-pandemic fashion, humans have not yet developed her immunity to this terrible virus.
I would not at all be surprised if COVID-19 does not have similar capability to mutate faster than herd immunity can be established around the world.
As one example: in an article titled “Mutated COVID-19 Viral Strain in U.S. and Europe 10 Times More Contagious than Original Strain” reference is made to the original COVID-19 strain from China, dubbed D614, while the more deadly one found in the UK, Italy and North America in May is dubbed G614.
source — https://www.biospace.com/article/mutated-covid-19-viral-strain-in-us-and-europe-much-more-contagious/
As recent as May 7, 2020, medical science was proclaiming that there was only one strain of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 (see https://www.virology.ws/2020/05/07/there-is-one-and-only-one-strain-of-sars-cov-2/ ), but this has since changed. What do they know to any degree of accuracy?
Serious questions.
Immunity, or not, that is the question.
What sort of HIT do we get when no-one develops effective immunity and can be re-infected every few months or so?
If each time you are infected you get some permanent tissue damage (lungs, blood vessels, neuro cells, etc) how does no or limited immunity impact these models?
Finally, Sweden seems like some sort of example, however don’t forget that while lock down was not imposed, some significant portion of the population voluntarily locked down and that may be what you are seeing, plus of course the normal flow of people in and out of the country stopped as well.
Sweden seems to be well on the way to recovery:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/sweden-unveils-promising-covid-19-data-as-new-cases-plunge
“With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” he said.
He is for some unknown reason fanatically opposed to face masks.
And new cases aren’t “plunging”, they are decreasing slowly (250 new cases today). As would be expected since an exponential decrease goes slower and slower as time passes.
Nic,
I am definitively unsure of what is meant by HIT, or perhaps more precisely by what your computations are measuring.
I mean, that you compute what may be the % of people having been infected by the virus at the time the pandemic becomes very mild.
But why conclude that it may be due to a herd immunity effect ? It may be for any other reason.
Of course, in Europe, for climate/seasonal or any other reasons, the pandemic is slowing much (even if with higher testing, much more social contacts in the cities following lockdown end, and much more transportations, there are still relatively high numbers of new infected people registered) , but in other countries like the US, we see very different patterns between northern and southern states. And we see the development in Latin America.
Would be interesting to see whether your HIT computations would accommodate Southern US states and Latin American countries.
Daniel