Antibody Study

Another antibody study (in Los Angeles) has been released that suggests that actual COVID-19 infections might be as much as 55 times higher than the diagnosed cases. This agrees with the recent Stanford study in Santa Clara that put the multiplier at between 48x and 82x ... see: Herd Immunity.

Now, New York State is performing its own antibody tests this week and, if its results also agree with these asymptomatic multipliers, we might not only be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but, at least on the major East Coast and Midwest areas of the US, we might be achieving herd immunity ... meaning we are almost out of the tunnel.

Let’s look at where I live ... Massachusetts. As of today, diagnosed cases here total almost 40,000. Multiplying this by 55 suggests we might have as many as 2.2 million diagnosed and undiagnosed cases. The current population of the Bay State is 6.98 million ... meaning that the overall infection rate here might be 38% ... obviously much higher in and around Boston.

Again, the high end of herd immunity approximations is 90% ... which means that the number of cases in major East Coast and Midwest metropolitan areas might be rapidly approaching herd immunity ... and that mortality rates here might be almost the same as the seasonal flu (0.1%) ... much lower than previously thought. The major delta seems to be the much more rapid speed of COVID-19 infections in cities with higher personal proximity particularly in public transportation systems.

I suspect we will know better soon.

Epidemiology

Today, dear reader I am going to play an epidemiologist. Given how poorly they have performed to date, I don’t see how I could do any worse. I also realize that many of my assumptions here will be wrong ... but, hopefully, they will be offsetting errors.

Way back on February 5th, I published a blog that, using data from a Taiwan newspaper, I estimated that China’s coronavirus numbers were off by a factor of 10 for reported cases ... and by a factor of 100 for deaths ... see: Straight Skinny. (I am now backing off this 100x mortality factor and now estimate it was more like 50x.) Current “official statistics” have China cases at 81,907 and deaths at 3,336. We know that these are fudged numbers and that the real statistics should be more like 820,000 cases and 115,000 deaths. One more adjustment: a German investigation has shown that there are about three asymptomatic cases for every symptomatic one ... see: Reason.com Article. Ergo, China’s actual cases were likely more like 2,460,000. This would place China’s mortality rate at 4.5% ... close to what it allows in its “official” numbers.

Now let is look at things from a different angle:

Wuhan, China (an urban area of some 21 million people) now seems to achieved herd immunity since things have been reopened there completely.

Coronavirus might produce herd immunity at about a 33% penetration rate (a number developed during previous pandemics)

Meaning 7 million people in Wuhan might have been infected ...including asymptomatics

Assuming 66% were asymptomatic (German study) ... or 2.3 million exhibited symptoms

Assume  mortality rates for symptomatic coronavirus patients approximates 1% ... 10x seasonal flu rates

Meaning that there had been about 230,000 deaths in Wuhan

So one model says 115,000 actual deaths ... the other one comes up with 230,000 deaths ... exactly twice that number. Let’s split the difference ... guessing the actual number of Chinese deaths was 172,000! This is a little over 0.01% of the total Chinese population.

This would suggest that we might have that same mortality proportion here in the US ... with similar mitigation rules as China ... producing around 52,000 (+ or - 17,000) COVID-19 deaths ... or even more on the downside due to our better testing and therapeutics. We’ll see if I should take up this new profession ... or slink away in shame!

Afterward: Dt. Oz said on TV last night that herd immunity took 65-70% being infected. My numbers might still work out if one assumes that  9 or 10 million fled Wuhan before it was shut down.

Liar?

Trump haters have one consistent mantra, “He lies, then lies about his lies.” They even document and count up these falsehoods into the tens of thousands. Pathological maybe?

How come, given this tidal wave of mendacity, I can’t recall a single “you can keep your doctor” moment? In a recent presser, Trump claimed that the mortality rate of the seasonal flu was “point zero one percent” (0.01%). Actually, the number is 0.1%. Was that a lie? Obviously not even though I strongly suspect it is number 16,743 on the Washington Post tally, I’m also reasonably sure that Trump knows the real facts about seasonal flu mortality. He just misstated things.

When Trump addresses the American people, he elides the facts, he blusters, he quotes disputed data, he makes mistakes, he even zings his enemies  ... but I have yet to detect downright malicious lies by the Orangeman.

If you have, dear reader, please cull through Washington Post’s compendium of Trump falsehoods and relate back to us one of his super duper whoppers.

A Couple Things

- Woke up this AM picking my nose ... oops! I’m pretty sure that this is what VP Mike Pence means when he says, “don’t touch your face” ... along with rubbing you eyes (pink-eye is a symptom) and pulling a Dr. Evil by picking your teeth with your finger nail. Heard a NYC emergency room doctor on TV yesterday saying that “touching your face”was THE primary way of getting COVID-19. And this is very important! I believe him ... but how can my sleepy self also obey?

- I have speculated a few times before that the Wuhan virus mortality rates being reported by the Chinese authorities were at least ten times too low. Now comes some info that says that the funeral urns being picked up there by relatives of virus victims suggests my speculation might even be low ... see: Real Wuhan Deaths. This misreporting by the Chinese has been an important part of the lack of mitigating actions by the rest of the world ... costing us untold lives. For shame, Xi! Lack of candor is a major downside of authoritarian regimes ... even capitalistic ones. (Got that, Tom Friedman?)

COVID-19 Data

“Just the facts, ma’am.” — Sgt. Friday on the old Dragnet TV show

My latest hero is Dr. Debrorah Birx, the numbers person on VP Mike Pence’s Coronavirus Task Force. She is an avid believer that decisions should be based on data and not speculation. And so she is a data hound, disclosing many important statistics from around the world that are driving many of President Trump’s decisions in our current crisis.

Here are a few of her recent revelations that are my favorites:

- there has been only one COVID-19 virus death in the whole world for those under the age of 15 ... a 14-year old boy in China

- only 1% of all virus deaths have been for people 50-years old and younger

- the average age of all those who have died in Italy is 85 ... with three debilitating health risks

- the mortality rate among those catching the virus in the US is about 1.3%. This compares favorably with a mortality rate in China of over 3%. However, as more testing of those who are asymptomatic proceeds, this death rate should decline. Trump believes that it could go as low as 0.7 or 0.8% versus the rate for our seasonal virus of 0.1%. Dr. Birx doesn’t seem to object to this number (S. Korea’s rate) although she doesn’t endorse it overtly.


I continue to look forward to Dr. Birx’s revelations daily ... as, I assume, Trump does also. (And I wonder why this is not seen as the most important news coming out of these pressers.)

Straight Skinny?

Most everyone is suspicious of the coronavirus statistics being offered by Beijing. Now, an apparent slip by the Chinese Internet company, Tencent, has revealed what might be the terrifying truth ... see: Taiwan News Story.

This leak suggest the real number of cases in China as of late last week was  154 thousand ... and deaths, 25 thousand. This compares with the official Chinese numbers of cases at 14,551 thousand and deaths at 304. As one can clearly see, the real number of cases would be off by one order of magnitude (power of 10) ... and deaths, off by almost two orders of magnitude ... a little scary.

This also suggests that the mortality rate might not be between 2 and 3% as previously reported ... but more like 16% ... higher than what it was for the SARS virus which was 11% ... but not as high as the MERS virus which was over 34%.

If this reporting is accurate, then one can, to get to the truth, multiply the number of cases that China reports by 10 ... and the number of deaths by 100. No wonder whole cities have been quarantined!

Here are the latest “official” results.