California no longer under lockdown - people freak out

[Phoenixmgs]

My point is that you said we'd "stop it completely", which would mean eradication. My point is that eradication is an unlikely prospect; more likely we'll have to learn to live with greater precautionary measures. Just as we have for measles, tetanus, etc. That's why the incidence is low: ongoing precautionary attitudes.

When I say stop something completely or something along those lines, I don't mean there'll be literally no viral RNA of it left on this planet. I mean it's no longer a "thing" like measles. I wouldn't be concerned at all to be in a room with someone infected with measles for example. We don't take any precautionary measures for the measles (outside of vaccines), we take less precautionary measures now than we did the when disease was rampant, parents had measles and chicken pox parties. We purposefully infected people and the vaccines still ended up working when that caused more variants and strains.

So you're still mixing & not bothering with precautionary measures? And people wonder how this situation has kept staggering on for over a year, with us making progress and then losing it again.

And nobody from our group of 10-15 people has gotten infected from each other. Everyone that had it in the group has gotten it elsewhere. I almost certainly got it in March last year before any measures were put in place, it was the week that they started doing something that I got symptoms of it. I also know from playing board games with another group where one guy got symptoms the day after we played and tested positive later that I didn't transmit it to anyone because that was the week me and 5 other guys at work were all in the same room apping PCs for 8 hours everyday and none of them got sick. And, there was nothing I could do since like normal, you find out days or a week later (especially at that time) that you've been in contact with someone that had it. You can't just constantly call off work because you were with people. So, it's extremely likely that I did have it, you are immune from it at least 6 months afterward (aforementioned incident), and you most likely don't transmit it if you've had it (or vaccinated) just like what knowledge of other viruses has shown.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I'm not a fan of using numbers which are entirely speculative. But approximately a 1% IFR seems quite reasonable and has some supporting evidence.

You say estimating the infection rate at 5x official numbers is "conservative", but that's not at all conservative for your conclusions, is it? It's actually extremely helpful for the conclusion you're trying to draw. You're actually assuming the infection rate is spectacularly high so that the IFR will be lower. But all of these numbers are just being pulled out of your ass.

Again, if you just double the official infection count in the US (which is definitely less than the real infection count), you end up with an IFR below 1% already. Are you claiming that we've officially found the majority of actual covid infections? Because that is literally what it takes to get the IFR at 1% or higher. At the start, it was multiplying the infection by 10 as a rule of thumb based on anti-body surveys. Last I saw around fall time (I forget exactly where) it was at 8x, it may be lower now as testing is a lot better than it was at the start. I wouldn't be surprised if most symptomatic infections are officially found now with even a decent amount of asymptomatic ones just due to people getting tested because of being in contact with a sick person or suspected sick person. But still finding half the real infections today would be quite a feat.

Where on earth are you getting these likelihoods? Which doctors and where? You're just spouting opinion with really vague references to "tons of doctors" and "looking at past viruses". Which doctors? What virus data?

Just compare the viruses that we have been able to get rid of (not "100% completely eradicated off the face of the earth" rid of but rid of) vs the ones we've failed to get rid of. Just based on that, our odds are extremely good. What actual data do we have pointing to covid sticking around? All the data we do have points to the opposite, not saying it's guaranteed but we don't have anything pointing/trending to the fact that it'll be another flu. What doctor has stated that they don't think we'll accomplish herd immunity soon, whether this year or maybe a couple years. The timetable is really the only thing that isn't agreed on. What doctor has said they think it's more likely that the vaccines won't work? Mind you, a doctor saying something is a possibly vs what they think is likely to happen are 2 different things. Pretty much every article about covid is about some unlikely possibility being possible vs it being expected. Whether we're talking reinfections (en masse), variant vaccine "escape", getting infected from groceries, etc. All that stuff is possible but very unlikely.

Uh-huh. And despite all of that, it's continued to exist, and maintained it's massively high IFR. It hasn't magically lost its deadliness over time, as you seem to believe viruses do.

How is the IFR of this virus massively high? This is overall a really weak virus regardless of what IFRs you want to believe (low or high ends). The Spanish Flu was way worse. SARS was way worse. Ebola was way worse. Ebola's death rate is like 90%. If covid is a massively high death rate, than what the hell are you gonna call ebola's death rate? Why do you have to be so hyperbolic about everything? The fact is we got so fucking lucky with covid, it has a very low death rate, it spares the young (unlike the Spanish Flu). Covid is probably the least deadly pandemic (in death rate) there's ever been.

 

[Agema]

But anyway, like I said if you just double the current US cases (which would be extremely conservation number of infections that is definitely an underestimate), the IFR in that situation is at 0.86%. That's why I'm saying these 1% IFRs don't make sense.

The studies showing 1% or higher IFR from covid-19 have always made sense once you take into account population variabilities from one place to another, time of study (in the first few months there were no established efficacious ways of treating covid-19), that data for deaths and infections are necessarily estimates, and random fluctuation.

I wouldn't bother trying to guess how many have been infected off the number of recorded positive tests by multiplying up the figure some arbitrary amount. That's just asking for trouble. I'd use a large and well designed seroprevalence study.

 

[Silvanus]

When I say stop something completely or something along those lines, I don't mean there'll be literally no viral RNA of it left on this planet. I mean it's no longer a "thing" like measles. I wouldn't be concerned at all to be in a room with someone infected with measles for example. We don't take any precautionary measures for the measles (outside of vaccines), we take less precautionary measures now than we did the when disease was rampant, parents had measles and chicken pox parties. We purposefully infected people and the vaccines still ended up working when that caused more variants and strains.

....You realise "measles and chickenpox parties" are a precaution, right? These diseases are things. They exist, they kill people. And the death rate is kept low by precautionary measures.

I really fail to see what point you're trying to make, here. If you believe the virus will just fade away of its own accord, and you're using these other diseases as evidence-- ones which are still around, which still kill people, and which we still guard against-- then that's tremendously misdirected.

And nobody from our group of 10-15 people has gotten infected from each other. Everyone that had it in the group has gotten it elsewhere. I almost certainly got it in March last year before any measures were put in place, it was the week that they started doing something that I got symptoms of it. I also know from playing board games with another group where one guy got symptoms the day after we played and tested positive later that I didn't transmit it to anyone because that was the week me and 5 other guys at work were all in the same room apping PCs for 8 hours everyday and none of them got sick. And, there was nothing I could do since like normal, you find out days or a week later (especially at that time) that you've been in contact with someone that had it. You can't just constantly call off work because you were with people. So, it's extremely likely that I did have it, you are immune from it at least 6 months afterward (aforementioned incident), and you most likely don't transmit it if you've had it (or vaccinated) just like what knowledge of other viruses has shown.

Congratulations. I'm glad that not giving a toss has worked out for you.

 

[Silvanus]

Just compare the viruses that we have been able to get rid of (not "100% completely eradicated off the face of the earth" rid of but rid of) vs the ones we've failed to get rid of. Just based on that, our odds are extremely good. What actual data do we have pointing to covid sticking around? All the data we do have points to the opposite, not saying it's guaranteed but we don't have anything pointing/trending to the fact that it'll be another flu. What doctor has stated that they don't think we'll accomplish herd immunity soon, whether this year or maybe a couple years. The timetable is really the only thing that isn't agreed on. What doctor has said they think it's more likely that the vaccines won't work? Mind you, a doctor saying something is a possibly vs what they think is likely to happen are 2 different things. Pretty much every article about covid is about some unlikely possibility being possible vs it being expected. Whether we're talking reinfections (en masse), variant vaccine "escape", getting infected from groceries, etc. All that stuff is possible but very unlikely.

Well, let's have a look at what the experts are actually saying. Because so far, all you've provided is speculation and optimistic opinion, often based on a really shallow understanding of natural selection and epidemiology.

How the pandemic might play out in 2021 and beyond

This coronavirus is here for the long haul — here’s what scientists predict for the next months and years.

www.nature.com

Modeling the effects of intervention strategies on COVID-19 transmission dynamics

To model the effects of continuous, intermittent, and stepping-down social distancing (SD) strategies and personal protection measures on COVID-19 tra…

www.sciencedirect.com

The stepping-down strategy was the best long-term SD strategy to minimize the peak number of active COVID-19 cases and associated deaths. The stepping-down strategy also resulted in a reduction in total time required to SD over a two-year period by 6.5 % compared to an intermittent or constant SD strategy. An 80-day SD time-window was statistically more effective in maintaining control over the COVID-19 pandemic than a 40-day window. However, the results were dependent upon 50 % of people being cautious (engaging in personal protection measures).

What the coronavirus pandemic will look like in 2021—and beyond

Epidemiologists worldwide have been developing models to predict how the coronavirus pandemic will progress throughout the rest of this year and the foreseeable future. Here's what they're forecasting.

www.advisory.com

This will be a long, long haul unless virtually everybody—or a very, very high percentage of the population, including the young people—take very seriously the kind of prevention principles that we've been talking about.

Why the coronavirus may 'never go away'

As new coronavirus cases continue to climb in America, health experts say it's becoming clear that the virus is "never going away"—but that doesn't mean we'll be in a perpetual pandemic, either.

www.advisory.com

It's very unlikely we're going to be able to declare the kind of victory we did over SARS.

If the novel coronavirus follows a similar pattern to the coronavirus that causes SARS, for instance, antibodies a person develops against the new coronavirus could last at a high level for five months, and then slowly decline over two to three years.

I think this virus is with us to the future. But so is influenza with us, and for the most part, flu doesn't shut down our societies. We manage it.

Science | AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

Potential impact of seasonal forcing on a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic | Swiss Medical Weekly

smw.ch

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/13/10/07-0576_article (specifically on duration of vaccine immunity to SARS-COVID-1, showing that it tends to wear off after about 2 years. For two other human coronaviruses, immunity lasts only about 40 weeks).

 

[Phoenixmgs]

The studies showing 1% or higher IFR from covid-19 have always made sense once you take into account population variabilities from one place to another, time of study (in the first few months there were no established efficacious ways of treating covid-19), that data for deaths and infections are necessarily estimates, and random fluctuation.

I wouldn't bother trying to guess how many have been infected off the number of recorded positive tests by multiplying up the figure some arbitrary amount. That's just asking for trouble. I'd use a large and well designed seroprevalence study.

Here ya go, you don't have to guess (article from a couple days back). 120 million in the US have mostly likely been infected. Just doubling the official count has easily happened, I really don't get how you're arguing that point. I don't get how anyone would think we've officially found more than half of the total actual infections. If the wealthy western nations are under 1%, the average across the world is definitely under 1%.

Why The Pandemic Is 10 Times Worse Than You Think

Not everyone gets tested. A new model estimates how many infections are missed because of this and how many people are actively shedding the virus. The results lend urgency to the vaccine race.

www.npr.org

....You realise "measles and chickenpox parties" are a precaution, right? These diseases are things. They exist, they kill people. And the death rate is kept low by precautionary measures.

I really fail to see what point you're trying to make, here. If you believe the virus will just fade away of its own accord, and you're using these other diseases as evidence-- ones which are still around, which still kill people, and which we still guard against-- then that's tremendously misdirected.

Congratulations. I'm glad that not giving a toss has worked out for you.

Measles killed more kids than covid and that's OK? We are keeping kids out of school because of something that kills less than measles or the flu? How does that make any sense.

My point is our interventions into other viruses have a track record of working far more often than not. So why would you say covid is LIKELY to stick around like the flu (which is an anomaly)?

A doctor (Peter Hotez) who makes the vaccine said in March you can see close friends and family. In Japan, people see each other. Seeing only a bubble of friends and family isn't what causes mass spreading. I follow what MAKES SENSE. Our board gaming group had 3 pool parties in the summer at a retired detective's place that's in the high risk group because doing stuff outside is perfectly safe.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Well, let's have a look at what the experts are actually saying. Because so far, all you've provided is speculation and optimistic opinion, often based on a really shallow understanding of natural selection and epidemiology.

How the pandemic might play out in 2021 and beyond

This coronavirus is here for the long haul — here’s what scientists predict for the next months and years.

www.nature.com

Modeling the effects of intervention strategies on COVID-19 transmission dynamics

To model the effects of continuous, intermittent, and stepping-down social distancing (SD) strategies and personal protection measures on COVID-19 tra…

www.sciencedirect.com

What the coronavirus pandemic will look like in 2021—and beyond

Epidemiologists worldwide have been developing models to predict how the coronavirus pandemic will progress throughout the rest of this year and the foreseeable future. Here's what they're forecasting.

www.advisory.com

Why the coronavirus may 'never go away'

As new coronavirus cases continue to climb in America, health experts say it's becoming clear that the virus is "never going away"—but that doesn't mean we'll be in a perpetual pandemic, either.

www.advisory.com

Science | AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

Potential impact of seasonal forcing on a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic | Swiss Medical Weekly

smw.ch

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/13/10/07-0576_article (specifically on duration of vaccine immunity to SARS-COVID-1, showing that it tends to wear off after about 2 years. For two other human coronaviruses, immunity lasts only about 40 weeks).

From the Nature article:

"The pandemic’s course next year [2021] will depend greatly on the arrival of a vaccine, and on how long the immune system stays protective after vaccination or recovery from infection."

There's no signs pointing to immunity be short-lived from natural immunity or vaccine. It's not what will 100% for sure happen, it's about what's LIKELY to happen.

_

I don't get what the point of the ScienceDirect model is, it's just showing the best course for social distancing policies. It's not trying to be predictive of anything but spread associated with different strategies. I'm personally predicting no restrictions at summer and beyond based on how many infections we've already had plus vaccines rolling out. Saying there's going to be 2 years of covid isn't close to saying it's going to be a thing for years, decades, etc. The prediction is based on how fast you think we'll achieve herd immunity.

--

Fauci's quote has no specifics and is probably in response to people thinking it was over due to the summer numbers being so low. Remember when people thought it would be done in like a month or two? Saying it'll be a long haul could be mean a year or a couple years or decades.

Fauci says herd immunity possible by fall, ‘normality’ by end of 2021

Anthony Fauci offers a timeline for ending COVID-19 pandemic

Fauci predicted herd immunity by next fall and “normality” by 2021’s end, as long as enough people get vaccinated to bring the pandemic to an end.

news.harvard.edu

--

The ScienceMag article is from May, the early days of the pandemic. It also states in the abstract that "prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022". That doesn't sound like it's predicting it to be around for decades.

"The long-term dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 strongly depends on immune responses and immune cross-reactions between the coronaviruses."

Again, there's no data pointing to immunity is short-lived.

"If the virus induces short-term immunity — similar to two other human coronaviruses, OC43 and HKU1, for which immunity lasts about 40 weeks — then people can become reinfected and there could be annual outbreaks, the Harvard team suggests."

And SARS-COV-1, covid's closest relative, immunity lasts at least 17 years.

"Among 176 patients who had had severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), SARS-specific antibodies were maintained for an average of 2 years, and significant reduction of immunoglobulin G–positive percentage and titers occurred in the third year. Thus, SARS patients might be susceptible to reinfection >3 years after initial exposure."

We already know that SARS immunity lasts 17 years and counting. Antibodies is only one part of the immune system and antibodies naturally wane from any disease. Why would your body keeping making antibodies (or anything) that it doesn't need anymore? Do you think your body still has measles antibodies it in? You're still immune from measles.

 

[Agema]

Here ya go, you don't have to guess (article from a couple days back). 120 million in the US have mostly likely been infected.

That study, as reported there, is literally a guess, albeit one more informed than most. Did you not read what I wrote about seroprevalance studies?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

That study, as reported there, is literally a guess, albeit one more informed than most. Did you not read what I wrote about seroprevalance studies?

I did, but I don't trust the studies that just test for antibodies anymore because those wane over time so you'll miss tons of people that did get infected but no longer have antibodies. The early surveys we did are probably the most accurate because the antibodies would still be present for just about everyone that had gotten infected. The downside of those surveys is that they don't give an accurate picture for now obviously. Also, those early IFRs will probably be higher than what they are now because viral loads were higher (no masks or distancing) and there was no treatments (and treatments we found out were bad).

For example, the following link is probably a really good snapshot of NYC way back at the end of April with regards to how many infections they actually had. I do question their death calculation because they were adding more deaths all the way up to 23,430 and if you look at the official death numbers now, it's only 4,000 higher (over a 9 month period). I doubt their "actual" death calculation is accurate. Or if it is accurate, the vulnerable were extremely disproportionately affected in the 1st couple months, Cuomo did do a pretty bad job especially with regards to the vulnerable.

Coronavirus Death Rate (COVID-19) - Worldometer

Case Fatality Rate (CFR), Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), and Crude Mortality Rate (CMR) latest estimates for the COVID-19 disease from the SARS-CoV-2 virus originating from Wuhan, China

www.worldometers.info

To get to a 1% IFR, you literally have to say the US testing has detected over half of all the actual infections. That is just not possible, it has nothing to do with a guess.

 

[Agema]

I did, but I don't trust the studies that just test for antibodies anymore because those wane over time so you'll miss tons of people that did get infected but no longer have antibodies.

But just randomly multiplying the total number of positive tests by a number plucked out one's ass is better, is it? Quick answer: it certainly is not.

As the availability and take-up of testing has radically changed, the ratio of infections to positive tests will have shrunk over time. We therefore cannot just scale from early studies. However we want to look at it, in order to reasonably estimate how many infections we've missed, we'd need another means to measure how many people have been infected. Like, a seroprevalence study. Although of course a seroprevalence study on people who have already had an antibody test some time previously can tell us at what rate infected people lose the antibodies. One way or another, the benefit of trying to estimate infections based on positive tests is very limited in comparison.

To get to a 1% IFR, you literally have to say the US testing has detected over half of all the actual infections. That is just not possible, it has nothing to do with a guess.

You're not getting this: the IFR depends on demographics, circumstances and policy. You do not seem to understand how it applies to risk, and how it is risk that needs to inform policy.

At the simplest level, this means the more useful question is what is the IFR in a distinct (geographical) population, and some populations may very reasonably have IFRs over 1%. Like I said, the USA needs to know what the IFR is for the USA, not Ethiopia. Florida needs to know what it is for Florida, not Wisconsin.

An implicit assumption you're making is that covid infections are equally distributed across the population, and this is unlikely. For obvious reasons, the elderly probably have made much more stringent efforts to prevent infection than the young. And indeed, numerous seroprevalence studies suggest fewer elderly have been infected than working age adults. Let's illustrate this with a hypothetical. Imagine we locked all the over-70s in totally virus secure bunkers when a pandemic started. By the time half the under-70s were infected, the IFR was 0.01% and we concluded it's not very dangerous. So we let all the over-70s out of the bunkers, and 90% of them got infected and died (so the end IFR after the disease ran its course was 13%). Oops!

So it is entirely feasible that the IFR is modest because the most at risk are more successfully avoiding infection. However, we may certainly expect areas where it is considerably higher because the elderly have been infected heavily. Policy needs to reflect risk; a low IFR because the most at risk are protected is not necessarily an argument to relax policy, because it may be that policy protecting them.

I expect the IFR will end up in the region of 0.5% in most Western countries - pre-vaccine anyway. However, there may be some considerable variability: in some countries or areas within countries it will have been considerably worse. The variability will in large part be due to proportions of elderly in their populations and the success in infection control, particularly of the elderly. And in all likelihood in all those places it would have been significantly worse had we not instituted policy to control infection.

 

[Silvanus]

From the Nature article:

"The pandemic’s course next year [2021] will depend greatly on the arrival of a vaccine, and on how long the immune system stays protective after vaccination or recovery from infection."

There's no signs pointing to immunity be short-lived from natural immunity or vaccine. It's not what will 100% for sure happen, it's about what's LIKELY to happen.

Immunity to SARS lasts about 2 years; immunity to other human coronaviruses lasts about 40 weeks. There's also (tentative) evidence that the Oxford vaccine is significantly less effective against newer strains of Covid-19.

You don't base public policy on best-case scenarios and assumptions.

Fauci's quote has no specifics and is probably in response to people thinking it was over due to the summer numbers being so low. Remember when people thought it would be done in like a month or two? Saying it'll be a long haul could be mean a year or a couple years or decades.

Fauci says herd immunity possible by fall, ‘normality’ by end of 2021

Anthony Fauci offers a timeline for ending COVID-19 pandemic

Fauci predicted herd immunity by next fall and “normality” by 2021’s end, as long as enough people get vaccinated to bring the pandemic to an end.

news.harvard.edu

Yes, possible with 80%+ uptake of vaccines, and presuming newer strains aren't resistant (which we now know they very well may be).

In each and every case, you take the most optimistic interpretation possible, then take it as a given and ignore any mitigating or disadvantageous factors.

The ScienceMag article is from May, the early days of the pandemic. It also states in the abstract that "prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022". That doesn't sound like it's predicting it to be around for decades.

"The long-term dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 strongly depends on immune responses and immune cross-reactions between the coronaviruses."

Again, there's no data pointing to immunity is short-lived.

Yes there is; see above. There's no proof immunity is wildly longer-lasting than it is for other human coronaviruses, either, but you seem to be resting your approach on that assumption.

---

Are you basing this "17 years immunity" thing on the presence of SARS-reactive T-cells, which were found in individuals 17 years after exposure? Because it hasn't been demonstrated that those T-cells in their own right actually confer immunity to the individual. T-cells are able to target infected cells, but are much less effective at neutralising pathogens outside of cells. They're just a single part of a full immune response.

 

[dreng3]

Immunity to SARS lasts about 2 years; immunity to other human coronaviruses lasts about 40 weeks. There's also (tentative) evidence that the Oxford vaccine is significantly less effective against newer strains of Covid-19.

You don't base public policy on best-case scenarios and assumptions.

Of course not, we base policy on facts pulled straight from our rear ends and a massive willingness to sacrifice human lives just to keep business going. I swear, the amount of people arguing against something that might potentially save their lives at the cost of some inconvenience because it isn't a certainty is staggering.

 

[Avnger]

Of course not, we base policy on facts pulled straight from our rear ends and a massive willingness to sacrifice human lives just to keep business going. I swear, the amount of people arguing against something that might potentially save their lives at the cost of some inconvenience because it isn't a certainty is staggering.

 

[Agema]

I swear, the amount of people arguing against something that might potentially save their lives at the cost of some inconvenience because it isn't a certainty is staggering.

That's not quite the case, though.

The point is that nearly all the people arguing for reopening are doing so in the knowledge that they are at virtually no risk. I mean, that is the fucking core, isn't it? How many of these people telling us we need to re-open everything would still be doing so if they were the ones at 5-10% risk of death? To them, Covid-19 is literally just an inconvenience. If other people die so they can be spared their inconvenience, then as far as they're concerned we just need to start paying gravediggers more overtime.

 

[Avnger]

That's not quite the case, though.

The point is that nearly all the people arguing for reopening are doing so in the knowledge that they are at virtually no risk. I mean, that is the fucking core, isn't it? How many of these people telling us we need to re-open everything would still be doing so if they were the ones at 5-10% risk of death? To them, Covid-19 is literally just an inconvenience. If other people die so they can be spared their inconvenience, then as far as they're concerned we just need to start paying gravediggers more overtime.

I mean there was the Las Vegas mayor who called for re-opening way back in April then when asked if she'd visit a casino said no because "I have a family."

 

[Phoenixmgs]

But just randomly multiplying the total number of positive tests by a number plucked out one's ass is better, is it? Quick answer: it certainly is not.

As the availability and take-up of testing has radically changed, the ratio of infections to positive tests will have shrunk over time. We therefore cannot just scale from early studies. However we want to look at it, in order to reasonably estimate how many infections we've missed, we'd need another means to measure how many people have been infected. Like, a seroprevalence study. Although of course a seroprevalence study on people who have already had an antibody test some time previously can tell us at what rate infected people lose the antibodies. One way or another, the benefit of trying to estimate infections based on positive tests is very limited in comparison.



You're not getting this: the IFR depends on demographics, circumstances and policy. You do not seem to understand how it applies to risk, and how it is risk that needs to inform policy.

At the simplest level, this means the more useful question is what is the IFR in a distinct (geographical) population, and some populations may very reasonably have IFRs over 1%. Like I said, the USA needs to know what the IFR is for the USA, not Ethiopia. Florida needs to know what it is for Florida, not Wisconsin.

An implicit assumption you're making is that covid infections are equally distributed across the population, and this is unlikely. For obvious reasons, the elderly probably have made much more stringent efforts to prevent infection than the young. And indeed, numerous seroprevalence studies suggest fewer elderly have been infected than working age adults. Let's illustrate this with a hypothetical. Imagine we locked all the over-70s in totally virus secure bunkers when a pandemic started. By the time half the under-70s were infected, the IFR was 0.01% and we concluded it's not very dangerous. So we let all the over-70s out of the bunkers, and 90% of them got infected and died (so the end IFR after the disease ran its course was 13%). Oops!

So it is entirely feasible that the IFR is modest because the most at risk are more successfully avoiding infection. However, we may certainly expect areas where it is considerably higher because the elderly have been infected heavily. Policy needs to reflect risk; a low IFR because the most at risk are protected is not necessarily an argument to relax policy, because it may be that policy protecting them.

I expect the IFR will end up in the region of 0.5% in most Western countries - pre-vaccine anyway. However, there may be some considerable variability: in some countries or areas within countries it will have been considerably worse. The variability will in large part be due to proportions of elderly in their populations and the success in infection control, particularly of the elderly. And in all likelihood in all those places it would have been significantly worse had we not instituted policy to control infection.

It was never a random number. The multiply infections "by 10" early on was based on seroprevalence studies at the time. Now testing is a whole lot better in the US, so the "by 10" is no longer accurate (or at least "in the ballpark" accurate).

Your point about infection distribution is another reason why I like the early seroprevalence studies because most of those infections happened before anything was put in place, all those transmissions were in a time of "normalcy" (shows how shit/late the US response was, but it was good for data purposes). You can also argue that normalcy would also incur distribution issues as well, I'm sure there's groups that get infected disproportionately in a normal setting as well. Then, after normalcy ended, I'm sure the average viral load went down across every group, which alters the IFR. Treatments in the hospitals got better, which improves IFR. You're not going to get a perfect answer no matter what you do, and you don't need a perfect answer to adjust policy accordingly either. So what if it's 0.5% instead of 0.4%? Now if it's 0.5% or 5%, that's a difference you need to know.

I've stated every post that to get the US IFR over 1+%, you have to assume that the US has detected more than half the infections, which just isn't possible, it's not about pulling numbers out of anyone's ass. And if wealthy western nations are lower than 1% with higher elderly populations than average, the average in the world in less than 1% obviously.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Immunity to SARS lasts about 2 years; immunity to other human coronaviruses lasts about 40 weeks. There's also (tentative) evidence that the Oxford vaccine is significantly less effective against newer strains of Covid-19.

You don't base public policy on best-case scenarios and assumptions.




Yes, possible with 80%+ uptake of vaccines, and presuming newer strains aren't resistant (which we now know they very well may be).

In each and every case, you take the most optimistic interpretation possible, then take it as a given and ignore any mitigating or disadvantageous factors.



Yes there is; see above. There's no proof immunity is wildly longer-lasting than it is for other human coronaviruses, either, but you seem to be resting your approach on that assumption.

---

Are you basing this "17 years immunity" thing on the presence of SARS-reactive T-cells, which were found in individuals 17 years after exposure? Because it hasn't been demonstrated that those T-cells in their own right actually confer immunity to the individual. T-cells are able to target infected cells, but are much less effective at neutralising pathogens outside of cells. They're just a single part of a full immune response.

Significantly less effective is, again, some more hyperbole. We currently have goose eggs (aka zeroes) across the board for people who've gotten the vaccine and gotten severe enough covid to need to be hospitalized or have died. The vaccines will work well enough against the new strains. It's like the doctors in the video I posted getting mad at people that are like "well, the vaccines aren't 100% effective" and they're like "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?" There's never going to be 100% safety. The vaccines will make covid less deadly than the flu, you're OK with the risk from the flu, right?

You're basing public policy on worst case scenarios and maybes that have very small chances of actually happening. I'm not providing best case scenarios, I'm providing LIKELY case scenarios.

The newer strains won't be resistant, it's not the most optimistic, it's the norm. You think there isn't different strains of all the other viruses we have vaccines for? How'd we get all those viruses down to basically nil if new strains will usually be resistant to vaccines?


Antibodies aren't the the only thing that protects you against reinfection. There's quite a decent percentage of people that fight off covid and don't even produce antibodies and the acquire just as good T-cell memory response as those that had produce antibodies.

Science | AAAS

www.sciencemag.org

"More than 150 years ago, a natural experiment on a rocky, volcanic archipelago between Scandinavia and Iceland proved that an infection can trigger lifelong immunologic memory. Measles raced through residents of the Faroe Islands in 1781. The disease did not reappear on the isolated island group for 65 years, when a visitor brought it back. A thorough study found that no one alive during the first outbreak became ill again. Their elderly immune systems remembered and fought off the virus."

You think all those people still had measles antibodies? You think the version of measles that was reintroduced to the island was the same strain of measles 65 years later? If you needed antibodies present to fight infections, this kind of stuff wouldn't happen. If different strains couldn't be fought with past memory immunity, this kind of stuff wouldn't happen. The T-cells prompt the B-cells to produce more antibodies when there's a reinfection.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

That's not quite the case, though.

The point is that nearly all the people arguing for reopening are doing so in the knowledge that they are at virtually no risk. I mean, that is the fucking core, isn't it? How many of these people telling us we need to re-open everything would still be doing so if they were the ones at 5-10% risk of death? To them, Covid-19 is literally just an inconvenience. If other people die so they can be spared their inconvenience, then as far as they're concerned we just need to start paying gravediggers more overtime.

The problem with lockdowns has nothing to do with only those that think they are at no risk want to reopen, it's that prolonged lockdowns aren't feasible. You can use them for a month or so but you have to come up with a plan to keep the spread down that works during that month or so you are buying time. There's a reason why no country has stayed locked down the entire time because you just can't fucking do that, it's not sustainable (regardless of how great or shit your country's public welfare programs are). You just can't keep everyone home for a year.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

The problem with lockdowns has nothing to do with only those that think they are at no risk want to reopen, it's that prolonged lockdowns aren't feasible. You can use them for a month or so but you have to come up with a plan to keep the spread down that works during that month or so you are buying time. There's a reason why no country has stayed locked down the entire time because you just can't fucking do that, it's not sustainable (regardless of how great or shit your country's public welfare programs are). You just can't keep everyone home for a year.

A year? We didn't even do it for a month. Lotta places didn't even *try*. I'd absolutely *love* to try it for a month

 

[Agema]

I've stated every post that to get the US IFR over 1+%, you have to assume that the US has detected more than half the infections, which just isn't possible, it's not about pulling numbers out of anyone's ass. And if wealthy western nations are lower than 1% with higher elderly populations than average, the average in the world in less than 1% obviously.

Let me absolutely plain, seeing as the last few comments evidently haven't sunk in: I basically don't give a shit what the global IFR is. It's a stupid, empty statistic that is being abused to uphold claims it has no business upholding. Specifically, claims that covid-19 is kind of harmless, so let's open everything up.

The point is not how many people die, but how many people could die. There is evidence that in our age-heavy Western countries it could be over 1% if we did not take appropriate measures.

The problem with lockdowns has nothing to do with only those that think they are at no risk want to reopen, it's that prolonged lockdowns aren't feasible

No shit.

But what happens if you don't lockdown is stuff stops anyway, because workers have to pull out of work infected or sick or with care duties, people won't go out anyway because they are being responsible or are afraid. Thus the alternative to lockdown is places take a social and economic hit anyway, plus more people get infected and die, and probably the health system collapses. We have been passing around this myth of "lives or economy", but the reality is that we were going to take a beating either way. It was only really a matter of how many lives were spared.

Ironically, of course, what we've seen is countries that took stricter control measures have also been able to reopen more quickly and widely. All these most problematic, heavy, long lockdowns are the result of mass infection, caused because some leaders thought they could trade off economic damage by allowing more spread.