Two Doctors Present Local Data from California

by Sea Breeze 35 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Sea Breeze

  shepherdless,

  .5% is half of one percent, thank you for that correction. Given the numbers I was using, that's half the flu death rate. The oversight did not effect the conclusion.... just to be clear.

  And what about the other studies that support the doctors? Why didn't you mention those in your haste to hurl labels of "falsehoods" and "misinformation"?

  No one is fomenting falsehoods and misinformation with the possible exception of those stating that is what others are doing that don't tote the party line. People are trying to get a grip on the death rate and the number of people with antibodies is extremely important for that portrait, not the number of people currently suffering.

  In any event, you don’t calculate death rate by dividing the number of deaths by the number who currently have it,

  No one did that. They divided the number of deaths by the numerical number that corresponds to the percentage infected in the study.

  because that leaves out the people who currently have COVID-19 and will die. You calculate by dividing the number of deaths (currently 23k) by the number of recoveries.

  Looks like up to 50% are without symptoms... nothing to recover from. So, that doesn't make sense. Using the number of people with antibodies is far more accurate.

  Numbers are changing daily. By the time more deaths are factored in, far more infections have likely spread as well.... making it a wash.
  
  Too much information out there now to put up with the fear mongering by the liberal control freaks who detest Donald Trump and view this crisis as working in their political favor.
• 

  shepherdless

  Sea breeze, 0.5% is five times 0.1%, not half of 0.1%. By the way, I have seen others make the same or similar mathematical mistake both on this site and elsewhere.

  No one did that.

  You, in effect, did that. So did the doctors, by the way, at one point.

  Yes, the numbers keep changing.

  Perhaps there is a simple way to make the point. Look at the data for a country where most of the people have recovered, whether China (if you believe the data), Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand etc. Some of those countries (incl Australia) have tested very widely to prevent community transmission. Do any of them have a death rate of less than 1%?
• 

  shepherdless

  By the way, I didn’t respond to:

  Looks like up to 50% are without symptoms... nothing to recover from. So, that doesn't make sense. Using the number of people with antibodies is far more accurate.

  I never challenged you on that. That is another topic again. My primary points are:

  1. Your calc was out by a factor of 10; and

  2. Calculating a death rate using a denominator that includes people who have neither died nor recovered, is fundamentally flawed.

  In relation to your Trump and “fear mongering liberals” point, I will keep out of that political debate.
  
  
• 

  Sea Breeze

  Lets stick with decimals:

  Flu death rate equals .001

  German study (using people with covid-19 antibodies) suggests .0037 death rate for Covid 19. This is far lower than the 1 - 2 % being bandied around by the media. The two doctors found something similar. My look at the NY data is similar as well.
  

  When you consider that up to 40% (in New Jersey) of all Covid-19 deaths happen in Nursing Homes and Adult Care centers, the death rate for the common person drops even further.

  My fundamental problem with your post is this: What is wrong with comparing the number of deaths to the number of people with antibodies, since that is a far more accurate way of determining the number of people who have contracted the virus?
• 

  the girl next door

  Some data looks like the common flu. A lot of data doesn't. I don't think trying to make this a political issue works. The entire globe is suffering many of which at this moment are on the threshold of being horrific.

  I understand the angst. I want to get back to work too. But we all need to calm down and focus on what we can control instead of what we can not.

  Personally, I am moved by the world unity for the most part that for decades I was told would not be possible. Yes there are some outliers and that is ok too. They bring a balance to the force.

  If this is the best the cosmos can throw at us in a universe that is trying to kill us all, we should be thankful we are doing as well as we are.
• 

  shepherdless

  Okay. Agree flu death rate is 0.001.

  I think we have now established that even on most optimistic (in my view incorrect) interpretation of NY data, COVID-19 death rate is 0.005. That calc is based on your assumptions, not mine.

  The 2 doctors did not find anything. I will try to say it in another way. Around 30,000 people, ie 1% of California’s population who thought they were in need of testing, got a test and 12% were positive. That doesn’t say much about the other 99% who didn’t feel the need to get a test. To assume that the other 99% also would test positive at the same 12% rate is ridiculous.

  I haven’t seen the German study you refer to.

  My fundamental problem with your post is this: What is wrong with comparing the number of deaths to the number of people with antibodies, since that is a far more accurate way of determining the number of people who have contracted the virus?

  I don’t know how many times I can explain this. I will try again. By your own reasoning, 1.5 million (29.5 x 15%) New Yorkers have, or have had COVID-19. So far 23,000 of them have died. We don’t know how many more of them will die, but some of them definitely will. If every single one of them survives, then your calc is correct, and COVID-19 is only five times deadlier than the flu. However, overseas experience suggests that some more of this 1.5 million will die. Possibly 10s of thousands. That is “What is wrong with comparing the number of deaths to the number of people with antibodies”. It is not an accuracy issue.
• 

  Sea Breeze

  The studies are all listed on page one. You should take the time to read them.

  We don’t know how many more of them will die, but some of them definitely will. If every single one of them survives, then your calc is correct

  We are dealing with ratios here with a lag time of maybe 11 days. You can't isolate one of the variables

  and not the other. By the time you get more deaths (11 days later) that you previously compared to a fixed number of infected, you will also have more infections, keeping the ratio similar.
  

  By the time you remove the Nursing home deaths (22 - 40% of deaths) you start to get a picture of a virus around double the trouble of a common flu.

  And, this was just announced today:

  Pfizer May Have Emergency Use Vaccine by September

  Time to get back to work.
  
  
• 

  slimboyfat

  They used a self-selecting sample—people who suspected they had Covid19 and had an incentive to accept a free test find out. So it was in no way a representative sample of the general population. This is such a fundamental error that it is difficult to understand how any intelligent person could make it in good faith.

  So I think the video with the two doctors is completely wrong, but banning it is a terrible idea. If that’s the way YouTube is going then I hope it dies and is replaced by a platform that respects a variety of opinions, especially on important subjects. The reason different opinions should always be available is because no human or group of humans has either the temperament or the ability to definitively judge the truth of any matter. Aberrant voices should always be allowed to speak because we can just never tell when the prevailing opinion is wrong. If minority viewpoints are suppressed then it is inevitable that sometimes it will result in the truth being suppressed in favour of lie or misunderstanding.

  There is an interesting brief discussion (longer in previous podcast) of the problems with the study in this podcast.

  It also has a discussion of health impacts on asymptomatic cases.

  Plus a discussion of the possibility the novel coronavirus escaped from a laboratory, and other options than the original wet market theory. Most alarming, the idea that a malevolent individual or group developed the virus (apparently worryingly straightforward for a graduate student to do) and planted in Wuhan because it presented a plausible laboratory or wet market origin.

  https://youtu.be/FKtsx0fZzzQ
  
• 

  BoogerMan

  The doctors made this clear and emphatic statement regarding both Covid 19 and the 'flu -

  Covid 19 & 'flu viruses, in and of themselves, do not kill people. Comorbidity (https://bjgp.org/content/63/609/e274) is what causes fatalities in both cases.

  If the above statement is false, then millions should die when infected by either virus. Thankfully, this is not happening, and millions (including Tom Hanks & Boris) survive without any problems.
• 

  slimboyfat

  I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say Boris “survived without any problem” unless you consider days in intensive care that “could have gone either way”, according to the nurse, is not a problem. Plus there have been countless doctors and nurses in good health who have died in many countries.