[HN Gopher] SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in France in late D...
___________________________________________________________________
SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019
Author : tomtung
Score : 188 points
Date : 2020-05-04 20:36 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (doi.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (doi.org)
| acqq wrote:
| The most important information: Some old samples analyzed for
| SARS-CoV-2 in April, finding one positive who spent two nights in
| hospital from Dec 27, after admitted as emergency:
|
| "taken from a 42 years old. ... One of his child presented with
| ILI prior to the onset of his symptoms. His medical history
| consisted in asthma, type II diabetes mellitus. He presented to
| the emergency ward on _December 27 2019_ with hemoptysis, cough,
| headache and fever, evolving for 4 days " ... "evolution was
| favorable until _discharge on December 29,2019_. "
|
| ---
|
| ILI == Influenza-like illness
|
| Hemoptysis == coughing up of blood
| ImaCake wrote:
| Estimates for the most recent common ancestor point to mid
| January for France [0]. Of course these numbers could be wrong.
| But I suspect the level of surveillance of genomes allows for
| bioinformaticians to keep a close eye on what the virus is doing
| in a big picture evolution sense. They do note that while most
| samples are of `A2` strain virus (only meaningful at genotype
| level, not at phenotype) there were some samples from different
| genotype branches. Maybe their analysis finds the date for a
| later introduction of the virus which is different from the
| potential cryptic transmission occuring in late Dec?
|
| 0. http://virological.org/t/early-phylodynamics-analysis-of-
| the...
| makomk wrote:
| Note that their "slow molecular clock" estimate gives a most
| recent common ancestor around the end of December. They reject
| this because it "finds a root which seems very early given the
| data". It's also, of course, possible that this particular
| cluster died out entirely, got genetically bottlenecked, or
| only ended up causing a small proportion of cases just through
| random chance.
| hokkos wrote:
| They talk about potential false negative, but should have talked
| about potential false positive from sample cross contamination,
| because this isolated case seems in contradiction from everything
| we know about the french contamination history, a researcher that
| follow closely the phylogeny of the virus seems very dubious
| about that one. Now we need a sequence of the genome and
| serological test of the patient, the family and co-workers.
|
| Also this is not the first hospital to do that in France, IHU
| Mediterannee Infection, from Raoult and Chloroquine fame did that
| at the beginning of the epidemic in China, they tested 2500
| samples from several month ago and found absolutely nothing.
| vondur wrote:
| I'm sure this they case most everywhere where international
| travel is widespread. If the virus started spreading in China in
| November, then it most likely spread to most major international
| cities in December.
| makomk wrote:
| One obvious question: if this was already spreading in France by
| late December 2019, what about all the countries with even more
| travel to and from China, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,
| etc?
| IB885588 wrote:
| Are we sure this isn't a false positive?
| hokkos wrote:
| few chance of a false positive (another virus that match with
| the small sequence tested), but it could be cross contamination
| of samples.
| greendave wrote:
| > To avoid any false positive result we have taken all the
| usual precautions and we also confirmed it by two different,
| techniques and staff.
|
| Sure? No. But taking their statement at face value, it does
| seem unlikely.
| wirrbel wrote:
| Given the combination of a positive PCR test result, the
| symptoms and imaging I think there is strong evidence for an
| infection.
| elipsey wrote:
| This seems like an important result, but one that we might need
| to approach with measured confidence.
|
| Of 14 samples, from 124 patients in Dec/Jan, one tested positive
| for COV by PCR. How well can we bound our uncertainty about false
| positive in such circumstances?
| ImaCake wrote:
| I don't think we have any statistical tests that will give us
| any kind of certainty with a 1/14 result. At best you could
| assume it fits the expected value (maximum likelihood) of a
| binomial distribution[0], which gives us a 35% chance that the
| next sample of 14 such people would have no cases at all.
|
| 0.
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=binomial+distribution+...
| contravariant wrote:
| You're not quite thinking in the right direction. No matter
| the statistical model a 1/14 result, is _absolute_ evidence
| against there being no infections at all.
|
| The problem lies with the test itself, which might have an
| unknown false positive rate. Although in this case we're
| basically looking at what I understand to be the gold
| standard in RNA/DNA evidence, combined with matching
| symptoms.
|
| Also apparently they had 2 separate teams testing the samples
| using different methodology, so we've got at least a decent
| amount of confidence that something is going on with that
| sample, although it doesn't rule out systematic bias.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Yes. It's possible (I can't put a number on how likely)
| that the sample was mishandled and contamination
| introduced. Depending at what stage this occurred, this
| could affect all future tests of the sample. Ideally they
| are able to follow up with serological tests against the
| specific patient. While a positive carries no information
| (might have gotten COVID in the intervening time), a
| negative would point to some sort of sample contamination.
|
| This isn't a knock against their skill or their competence.
| Sometimes shit just happens. Certainly if this is true, I'd
| be very interested in how this changes the nature of our
| models of the virus.
| Johnjonjoan wrote:
| Dr Yves Cohen stated the sample was tested twice to make sure.
|
| Can't find the exact quote I read earlier but this link says
| basically the same.
|
| https://www.heart.co.uk/news/coronavirus/french-covid-case-d...
| bb2018 wrote:
| Does anyone know if there is currently a source, or if there
| would be a way to calculate in retrospect, outbreaks in nursing
| homes? There are hundreds of nursing homes where a sizable
| portion of the community died in a couple of weeks which is very
| abnormal.
|
| The only reason I'm confused about stories like the one above or
| the few about Covid-19 in California in January is that wouldn't
| we see such data inevitably?
|
| A lot of people have stories about getting the worst sickness of
| their life in February which I understand but am also skeptical
| of (with bias probably 10% of the population gets a self-
| described worst flu of their life every year and Bayesian
| thinking would suggest almost none of these were Covid). However,
| it seems like nursing home data would be concrete.
| bestnameever wrote:
| Not sure if this would be helpful for you but Los Angeles
| Public Health has a list of outbreaks at nursing homes in Los
| Angeles
|
| http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/locations...
| KerrickStaley wrote:
| I think you're missing a word or two in the second sentence.
| bb2018 wrote:
| Thank you. I was missing more than a few.
| bredren wrote:
| I have a private list of every nursing home / retirement center
| in the United States. I can not share this, but if someone can
| propose a way to mesh this with other data, looking for a
| specific finding I could try it.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Medicare publishes lots of data on 15,000 of them:
|
| https://data.medicare.gov/data/nursing-home-compare
| Jugurtha wrote:
| I was in Paris in November and saw nothing, but I was back in
| late January and I saw Asian people wearing masks in the airport
| and had the following thoughts:
|
| - Airborne
|
| - 8+ daily flights between Paris and Algiers on one company (8
| others)
|
| - It's a matter of days if it's not already in Algiers.
|
| Went back to Algiers. I canceled meetings in Paris for February.
| Algeria had its first confirmed case in 25 February 2020 - an
| Italian national coming back from Italy, and no airport measures
| whatsoever at the time -.
|
| We established work from home for some teammates who commuted a
| few days later while we learn more about this as the risk/reward
| of not doing it was high and we transitioned to exclusively
| remote for everyone when it hit 17 confirmed cases in the country
| 4 March.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Seems plausible. Wuhan is a very large city by any measure. Every
| large city of that scale must be exchanging people with all the
| other large cities, it's simply probability. You also have to
| figure that there's more virus than we can find, ie each patient
| found in Wuhan represents a fraction of infection cases. So
| chances are someone from Wuhan got it and spread it by flying to
| some other large city.
| CapriciousCptl wrote:
| I wouldn't put much weight on this. They looked at about 15
| stored samples (actually 80 depending how you count) and got one
| positive. As far as I can tell that forms the entire factual
| evidence. Contamination/false positive works out to be a large
| concern. Clearly they wanted the result as well.
| abtinf wrote:
| No, that's not the only evidence. The patient also presented
| with the relevant set of symptoms:
|
| " He presented to the emergency ward on December 27 2019 with
| hemoptysis, cough, headache and fever, evolving for 4 days.
| Initial examination was unremarkable and the performed CT scan
| revealed bilateral ground glass opacity in inferior lobes"
| lvspiff wrote:
| One of the standout locations of virus activity for me, and just
| due to sheer lack of it, is Vegas. It makes no sense how a global
| city like Vegas who had multiple large scale events during the
| January/February even into early March time frame, and tons of
| visitors especially for the Chinese new year...215 reported
| deaths so far. That number although sad is still remarkably low.
| In a region of 2.2 million with a not great reputation for health
| and hospitals to only have a death rate of .01% seems amazing
| with how NY, and countries like France, Spain and Italy have
| fared.
|
| Studies like this and I'm sure the many to come make me really
| wish we had better contact tracing from the get go and hopefully
| in years to come there can be some better implementations
| humaniania wrote:
| Any smart casino employee is very careful about not touching
| their faces and washing their hands thoroughly after each
| shift, with all the shared surfaces that they work with. I
| would guess that their immune systems are already primed from
| their average exposure levels. Maybe it's the dryness?
| tayo42 wrote:
| outside of the strip las vegas is pretty sprawled out with a
| suburban feel. I don't think the virus really is easily
| transmitted in that environment. indoors isn't that
| claustrophobic either outside of nightclubs. casinos have a
| pretty good amount of space. not like a nyc subway.
| S_A_P wrote:
| I was in Vegas end of January(actually heard about Kobe's
| helicopter crash there). I remember it was a blip on the radar
| at the time, but people were still thinking that it was
| localized to China. While they do keep casinos pretty clean,
| there is still just a lot of hand to machine contact and not to
| mention higher than average smoking(raising your dirty hand to
| your mouth). It is a pretty phenomenally low number. I wonder,
| though if its low because of the transient nature of people in
| Vegas. They could have gone to vegas and gotten sick long after
| returning home.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Do they really have a lot of events with many international
| visitors? I had the impression that it was mostly Americans
| that went to Las Vegas.
| not2b wrote:
| Yes, CES is the biggest consumer electronics trade show in
| the world, and it was held in early January. Lots of Asian
| companies presented there, or were there to make deals. It
| was Jan 7-10 this year, just before travel restrictions went
| into effect.
| u801e wrote:
| > It makes no sense how a global city like Vegas who had
| multiple large scale events during the January/February even
| into early March time frame, and tons of visitors especially
| for the Chinese new year...215 reported deaths so far. That
| number although sad is still remarkably low.
|
| Perhaps a lot of those visitors left the area before symptoms
| developed.
| eanzenberg wrote:
| Sunlight and heat maybe?
| topspin wrote:
| No. At least not if another anecdote is of any value. The
| Grand Rapids metro area of Michigan (still pretty cool) is
| about 2.2 million as well and there are less than 100 deaths.
| This is despite being only about 150 miles west of Detroit
| where infections rage.
| appcloud wrote:
| The low number of infections in Vegas could be due to the
| weather. Vegas has a pretty warm and dry climate. It's possible
| the virus does not transmit as easily in this type of weather.
| Would be interesting to know to know if anyone is studying the
| effects, if any, climate has on the transmission of the virus.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Most people stay in Vegas only for a short time, the casino
| floors are constantly being cleaned, slot machines are
| constantly cleaned and inspected, cards and dice are constantly
| discarded and rotated.
|
| Sure no masks and what may appear crowded is not really that,
| high ceilings, powerful HVAC heat exchange systems which bring
| air from the outside and overall low population density in the
| urban areas make Vegas seem actually a pretty safe place
| compared to say packed motels during Gra or Spring Break.
|
| P.S. on an anecdotal note about 6-7 years ago after BH USA I've
| personally witnessed a person that was all sweaty and coughing
| like they are about to die being escorted by security of the
| floor after about 15-20min of being around the tables.
|
| While I don't have any sources on to confirm this policy, it
| really wouldn't surprise me if casino security monitors people
| who seem to be ill if nothing else than to avoid the optics of
| having medics on the casino floor.
| Fr0styMatt88 wrote:
| I remember being delighted at how 'spacious' walking around
| Vegas felt the first time I went. Malls were wide and walking
| through shopping areas never felt cramped like it often does
| here in Australia. I was really surprised; it didn't feel at
| all like I was expecting it to.
| ipqk wrote:
| I was there in January for Lunar New Year. I came down with
| something mild there and was super worried it was Covid-19,
| even though it was barely on any american's radar back then.
|
| I play a lot of table games, and casino chips are pretty
| disgusting in the best of time. I Immediately washed my hands
| every time I left the table.
| memonkey wrote:
| A little tin-foily, but I went to Vegas with my family in late
| December. About 2 weeks after we got back, my dad had a severe
| case of the flu (so far as we know) and so did my cousin's
| girlfriend. They were both showing symptoms similar to
| Covid-19, but because testing was not available then, it's hard
| to say for sure. And it was flu season then.
| rkho wrote:
| Same, I also went to Vegas in late December and caught
| something; it was absolutely the worst flu I had ever
| experienced.
| ummonk wrote:
| It's possible that there wasn't much transmission from visitors
| to locals, but rather just visitors transmitting to each other.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There are locals working on every place that visitors go to.
| rogerkirkness wrote:
| Look at a map of NO pollution and overlay covid outcomes. It
| isn't nearly as bad if you have high vitamin D (Vegas) and low
| NO pollution (mountains only on one side = good).
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Is there a study that actually convincingly showed this? Both
| pollution and infectious disease spread are clearly
| correlated with population density, so the fact that you see
| more covid deaths in places with a lot of pollution doesn't
| mean much unless you statistically control for other effects.
| xenonite wrote:
| May I ask for the reason of taking a NO map instead of, say,
| a NOx map?
| chrischen wrote:
| Whoever goes to Vegas, doesn't stay in Vegas.
| ragona wrote:
| Calling Vegas a "global city" is a bit of a stretch. It's more
| like a weird theme park surrounded by a whole lot of suburban
| sprawl. NYC is something like 17x more dense.
| nostromo wrote:
| Of American cities it's third highest by international
| arrivals, at least by one measure.
|
| It's behind only New York and Miami in the US, and has more
| international arrivals than LA, Berlin, Moscow, or Athens.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_internationa.
| ..
| qeternity wrote:
| Maybe in terms of average density but that's not what
| matters. In Vegas, the vast majority of people are packed
| near the strip and density there is much higher than the
| average for the metro area.
| exabrial wrote:
| I like in KC, KS, USA. So back in early late November early
| December, I had something that was exactly like Covid19 symptoms:
| lasted 2.5 weeks, mild fever, fatigue, persistent cough, upper
| respiratory problems. The doctor said it was likely viral and
| they couldn't give me anything. Unfortunately, I don't know if
| there's a way to test how old my antibodies are IF this was in
| fact was Sars-Cov-2.
|
| I think the bigger question is, let's say it _did_ arrive much
| earlier that we think, does that mean the virus grows at a much
| smaller rate than current models?
| bwooceli wrote:
| I've run into a number of southern KC suburbanites who are all
| convinced they had it. One had attended a thing in Vegas in Jan
| and came back with bad con-crud. Two houses down the whole
| family is certain they all had it. I'm super skeptical, because
| the pattern we've seen in "real" hotspots like NY just don't
| play out the same. It is feasible that it's really only truly
| devastating to dense populations, but until we have any kind of
| reliable testing on the infection and recovered side, the only
| # we can use is the death rate over normal. And that view seems
| to point in the direction of people not actually having it
| until after Feb. But here we are, having exhausted 2 months of
| our collective patience and not demonstrably further along in
| our ability to measure this thing.
| AlexMuir wrote:
| > I think the bigger question is, let's say it did arrive much
| earlier that we think, does that mean the virus grows at a much
| smaller rate than current models?
|
| This absolutely makes sense to me and would explain a lot of
| weirdness in the statistics. Less infectious, with a longer
| incubation period and circulating among the population for
| longer.
| cblackthornekc wrote:
| My wife and I were just talking about this the other day. We
| both got really sick in January. We had a few of the symptoms
| that could be just a regular flu. My wife had one symptom that
| stood out the most was while she was sick, she lost her sense
| of taste. Not just lessened, but gone.
|
| Oh and also from KC.
| yters wrote:
| or much faster and less serious
| xbmcuser wrote:
| It could also be a different strain that was spreading before
| it mutated into the more deadly and viral version. The virus
| spread is weird we can get a super spreader that can spread
| to 60-70 people like the church in Korea. At the same time I
| know personally of a family of 8 where 1 person got it had it
| for almost a week before getting tested positive and then
| sent to quarantine none of the other family members was
| infected.
| dgritsko wrote:
| Given the correlation between cases and deaths, isn't one of
| the big arguments against the early community spread theory
| that we would have seen death rates increase earlier on than
| they actually did?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| If all countries had early community spread, then our
| knowledge of when death rates "should" measurably increase
| would be similarly delayed.
| aquadrop wrote:
| We're talking about all deaths here.
| https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps clearly shows when
| all deaths started to grow .
| elliekelly wrote:
| Are the spikes in prior year Q4 from the flu? And if so
| was this year's flu much more mild? It seems prior to
| coronavirus the number of excess deaths was quite low
| compared to past years.
| wirrbel wrote:
| Yes and no. At the start of an epidemic the excess mortality
| is not yet measurable, its within the variation of normal
| deaths, and the "official" numbers of corona deaths (people
| who die after having been tested positive) are not yet
| observed because there is no testing.
|
| CDC estimates the basic reproduction number to be 6, German
| Robert-Koch-Institut IIRC around 3. Maybe the presence of
| earlier, undetected cases have lead to an overestimation of
| R0.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| No, because the mortality rate is very, very low outside
| nursing homes. And cause of death in the early days won't be
| listed as corona, since it was an unknown disease.
|
| The Wuhan "first patient" was admitted Dec. 6, but nobody
| believes he was "patient zero". Since he likely contracted it
| Dec. 1, that means there were others with corona in Nov. or
| before. (Chinese people I've talked to invariably mention
| Oct. as when they started to hear chatter about corona.)
| taeric wrote:
| I have been beating this drum for a while. I feel like I'm
| shouting aliens. The CFR for sixty plus is staggering.
| Below sixty? Still crappy, but not shut down the world.
| Below twenty? We wouldn't even notice.
|
| The problem is not whether this is more or less scary than
| the flu (or anything else), it is both. With no solutions
| aimed at buffering nursing homes/elderly.
|
| Am I just insane? This narrative seems completely absent in
| all of the coverage.
| loblollyboy wrote:
| No, most people are just illogical.
|
| The numbers show that this is <1% fatal and probably
| <0.1% but all it takes is one story of some 30 year old
| dying on the news and everybody loses their minds.
|
| Granted, I was very scared myself before we had numbers,
| but I don't know how many people are willing to actually
| take a look at them now that this has become sort of
| political. It's like how a school shooting will get a lot
| of coverage, but nobody talks about how way more people
| are shooting themselves in the head. Emotions over facts.
| JshWright wrote:
| What narrative... that COVID-19 is most deadly for those
| over 60? That's literally the only fact that most people
| know about it. If you think that has been absent in all
| the coverage, I have no idea what coverage you have been
| paying attention to.
| taeric wrote:
| It is and it isn't. This thread is predicated on an IFR
| that is a flat 5 or so percent on the population.
|
| We all acknowledge that it is deadly. Because it is. And
| you are right that this is in all the data. But the
| narrative is still holistic. We are locking down everyone
| to try and kill the virus.
|
| Yes, it could work. But so could strict access to most
| nursing homes. Wouldn't be cheap, but could have even
| been more effective. Reasoning that we could reach herd
| immunity style buffer between the populations.
|
| (Note that I flat reject just letting people die. I am
| not saying to abandon the older at risk crowd. I'm saying
| take pointed measures to explicitly protect them.)
| philwelch wrote:
| This was more or less the original UK strategy: isolate
| the elderly and go full-bore for herd immunity. They
| scrapped that plan after they updated the model to
| account for ventilator shortages.
|
| There is lots of commentary on that strategy if you want
| to go back and read it. Even if you were gonna do this,
| you'd have to figure out how to isolate high-risk
| populations as thoroughly as possible, to the point of
| locking caretakers in with them and whatnot. If you lock
| everyone down, you have a lot more latitude to half-ass
| things as long as you keep R below 1. Isolating high-risk
| populations and deliberately pursuing herd immunity means
| operating consistently under the assumption that
| virtually everyone else will, as opposed to may, be
| contagious.
| user5994461 wrote:
| >>> They scrapped that plan after they updated the model
| to account for ventilator shortages.
|
| Then the use of ventilators was shown to be ineffective,
| so they can re update the models and bring back the
| original plan.
|
| (See recent articles. In summary none of the patients who
| are put on ventilators survive.)
| taeric wrote:
| That was reported as full on no shut down. Just crap
| reporting?
|
| Note that I am still proposing an expensive solution. But
| asking if the barrier between the populations could be
| setup stronger. Such that the death and hospitalization
| load would have been what we have had, minus most of the
| elder population.
|
| Edit: you edited on me. Yes, I am proposing that offering
| strict access to this crowd could have been done cheaper
| and more effective than what we have done.
| philwelch wrote:
| Sorry about the edit.
|
| The problem with isolating high risk populations is that
| you have to go round them all up and temporarily house
| them in quarantined facilities. And since the elderly are
| sometimes infamous for their unwillingness to be rounded
| up and forced to leave their homes, you have to either
| force them anyway or just abandon them to their fate. And
| that's without touching the massive logistics of such an
| effort. (Not rounding them up would be even harder.)
|
| Honestly, if you were gonna try and do that, I think
| geographical isolation would be a better option.
| Compartmentalize your state/region/country into separate
| zones, block all non-essential travel between zones,
| regularly test essential travelers, and change the
| lockdown status of each zone based on local conditions.
|
| What will end up happening is occasional breaches between
| zones where a zone might go from green to red. But it
| gets us in a position where most people are mostly
| unrestricted most of the time. It also makes it possible
| to eradicate the virus without actually infecting most of
| the population, which is nice. Logistically you'd, at
| most, just set up checkpoints on roadways and inside
| airports and train stations to enforce the travel
| restrictions.
|
| Over time you could even allow travel between green
| zones.
| taeric wrote:
| No worries on the edit. Meant that more to explain if I
| seemed to ignore party of your post.
|
| I think you could have gotten pretty good volunteer
| isolation. As simple as getting grocery stores to deliver
| to elderly. As expensive as renting the Ritz for a month.
| Still expensive, but cheap compared to what we have
| landed in.
| JshWright wrote:
| There are millions of people in high risk groups outside
| of nursing homes. How do you propose protecting them?
|
| There are also millions of people in low risk groups who
| care for people in nursing homes and other high risk
| populations. How do you propose keeping them from
| infecting those they are caring for?
|
| The thread is also predicated on a very high base
| reproduction number. A high R0 means a very large
| percentage of the population needs to be immunity before
| "herd immunity" is a thing (on the order of 80-90%). Even
| with a very low IFR, that is hundreds of thousands dead.
| taeric wrote:
| We haven't dodged that bullet in our current strategy.
| And the more data we get, the more it looks like we
| haven't protected them, honestly.
|
| I'll note some of the first cases in WA included a high
| school student that had not been traveling. I cannot
| square that, how contagious this is, and the idea that it
| wasn't widely in that school.
|
| I think herd immunity is silly at the holistic level. At
| a cohort level, though, it could work reasonable.
| Consider, at this point we could start rotations of
| health workers that have the antibodies.
|
| I have said it before, but I will stress again I am just
| a random internet poster. Much of why I am posting this
| is to get challenged on it.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > We are locking down everyone to try and kill the virus.
|
| What are you talking about?
|
| That was never the goal in the US.
| taeric wrote:
| That sentence is a shortened version of what we seem to
| be doing. Which is keep it under control while we
| reschedule to a vaccine. To kill it.
|
| Of course, the more data we get, the less control we see
| that it was ever in. Such that right now,I don't think we
| have a coherent plan.
| Jabbles wrote:
| You're not insane, but you need to take into account that
| the CFR would be higher if the healthcare system were
| overwhelmed with patients. Also reducing _death_ is not
| the only target, we are reasonably sure that many
| patients will have long-lasting damage to their lungs.
|
| There is of course some trade off between number of
| deaths avoided and amount of money we should be prepared
| to throw at the problem. Where on this spectrum are you?
| taeric wrote:
| I'm on a different angle, I think.
|
| My specific point is that people need to stop looking at
| a single IFR/CFR stat. It does no good. We look to be
| getting safer numbers there by simply increasing testing.
| (Of note, NYC has a strict lower bound on its numbers
| with how many in its population has died. But, do note
| they have more people over sixty than most cities do
| people. Such that most places will not be comparable.)
|
| And that is the problem. The virus has not gotten safer
| as we get more data. Our understanding is just not
| focusing on helping the elderly. We seem to be taking a
| crap shot that everyone can stay home and we can out sit
| the virus.
|
| I would wager we could have setup hotels and strict
| access controls on supplies into and out of at risk
| communities cheaper than what we have done. Certainly if
| you count on all of the job loss.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| No, you're correct.
|
| We know from the high rate of corona infection in SF with
| low mortality that corona stats are being improperly
| analyzed.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Can you elaborate? On what are you basing the high rate
| of corona infection?
| macintux wrote:
| I'm fairly confident the Stanford study will never die,
| no matter how many stakes are driven through its heart.
| JshWright wrote:
| That doesn't address the the question. We have seen a
| significant increase in deaths that correlates with our
| best understanding of when widespread community spread
| started. If it was "actually" circulating earlier than
| that, why did the deaths lag significantly?
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > why did the deaths lag significantly?
|
| Because nursing home patients don't travel, so they lag
| in catching it, then die.
| JshWright wrote:
| We have seen significant numbers of deaths in populations
| outside nursing homes. Why didn't those deaths show up
| when the disease started spreading?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > The Wuhan "first patient" was admitted Dec. 6, but nobody
| believes he was "patient zero". Since he likely contracted
| it Dec. 1, that means there were others with corona in Nov.
| or before. (Chinese people I've talked to invariably
| mention Oct. as when they started to hear chatter about
| corona.)
|
| I think you're confusing Covid with pneumonic plague:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/world/asia/plague-
| china-p.... There's apparently evidence based on mutation
| rates that COVID-19 can't be older than late October, and
| it wouldn't have been detected until mid-late November,
| which matches official timelines.
| lsllc wrote:
| In the US, Massachusetts, with 6.5M total population has
| been hit fairly hard (outside of NY/NJ). Today's MA DoH
| numbers [0] show that of the 4090 deaths to date, the
| average age of the dead is 82 and just about 60% of them
| were in long term care homes. If you look towards the end
| of the report, it lists LTC facility after LTC facility
| with >30% residents infected, it's quite tragic really.
|
| FWIW, in MA the average age of hospitalized C19 patients is
| 69, average age of positive tested is 53 -- Interestingly
| over the last 2 weeks the average ages for deaths and
| hospitalizations has been creeping up and the average age
| for a positive test creeping down. In all, 1% of the MA
| population has tested positive (out of 4.67% the total pop.
| tested).
|
| [0] https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-dashboard-
| may-4-2020/downl...
|
| [1] Graphs of today's MA numbers (courtesy of
| /u/oldgrimalkin on reddit)
| https://i.redd.it/bpb0884w7tw41.png
| redis_mlc wrote:
| As I've mentioned before, both Wuhan and Shanghai have busy
| international airports. So it's nice that France has a confirmed
| corona diagnosis in late Dec., but it looks like corona was
| widely circulating outside China by Dec. 10.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Source?
| TickleMeTrumpmo wrote:
| Common sense.
| seaghost wrote:
| I've also had flu like symptoms mid December for like a week. Was
| working from home though.
| lostmsu wrote:
| So, probably, flu?
| Traster wrote:
| On the one hand, I think quite a lot of people will have stories
| about Corona-like symptoms in late 2019, early 2020 before the
| real 'outbreak'. I wouldn't be surprised if a mild version of the
| virus had spread throught he world earlier than the current
| pandemic, but at the same time I think we should wait for more
| evidence. One case in France is just that - one case.
| jyrkesh wrote:
| I had such stories. I got the sickest I've been in years back
| in the first week of Feb. Fever, chills, dry cough...I was in
| bed for a week.
|
| Then again had some light respiratory stuff in early March. I
| live alone, isolation was already starting in some places, and
| I'm fortunate enough to work somewhere that WFH is easy.
|
| I had plenty of "I might have already had it!" type
| conversations.
|
| So I got my antibody test last week at my primary care
| physician. Negative. Was just a bad flu, I guess.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yeah there are three other flus going around. Folks forget
| that.
| saalweachter wrote:
| > So I got my antibody test last week at my primary care
| physician. Negative. Was just a bad flu, I guess.
|
| As someone who really hopes there will be a long-lasting
| immunity, I really, really hope you had a bad flu.
| un_montagnard wrote:
| I coughed like never before between late July to mid-December
| 2019.
| saalweachter wrote:
| From that one line alone that sounds like a textbook
| description of "the hundred day cough", also known as
| "whooping cough" or pertussis.
| makomk wrote:
| On the other hand, if I remember rightly some researchers
| tested a whole bunch of people who thought they had Corona-like
| symptoms in that time period using antibody tests, and didn't
| find a single case.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Yeah, there's been a couple of bad colds going around, and
| there's not much suggestion of excess death prior to the Jan-
| Feb-Mar spread of SARS-CoV-2.
| OrgNet wrote:
| Get the antibody test done everyone, as soon as possible
| SomeoneFromCA wrote:
| There is actually a plenty of "cousin" coronaviruses around,
| they are just not that dangerous. 15% of all common colds are
| caused by them. it might actually explain why some poorer
| countries appear to have lesser incidence of Covid - people
| catch cold there more often than in the first world. These
| "nicer" viruses might provide some immunity (not epidemiologist
| though).
| DownGoat wrote:
| Some virologists suggest that the common cold corona viruses
| that are endemic, might have been deadly when novel, and
| caused similar pandemics, but mutated to something less
| dangerous over time.
| cblum wrote:
| I posted my anecdote here the other day if anyone's interested:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22959688
| ahurmazda wrote:
| My anec-story is from ~Nov 1. BA resident. Sickest in my life.
| At the ER with 106F (did not know it even went there) fever and
| bad cough. Complete delirium. Flu result came back negative. No
| sepsis either. Released with anti-pneumonia antibiotics. Fever
| > 105F persisted for at least 6-7 days. Coughing that was bad
| enough to cause spasm. Took a second round of antibiotics (21
| days total) to get over the pneumonia. The doc remarked about
| my chest x-ray ("whoa what is that?!!") but could not give a
| good explanation.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| can you get tested for the antibodies, that's much earlier
| than other infections (Nov 1). Of course you could have
| gotten it in a later infection that wasn't so noteworthy.
| busterarm wrote:
| NYC resident. I had two back-to-back sinus/chest infections in
| Late December/Early Jan. Worst illnesses I've had in years.
| Spent almost a month at home. I was healthy for all of four or
| five days in between.
|
| Coincidentally, I got sick after several of my coworkers/close
| friends returned from trips to China.
| busyant wrote:
| I posted something (perhaps) related yesterday
| (https://fdafaers.blogspot.com/2020/05/adverse-events-
| cases-i...).
|
| I looked at putative drug-related adverse event case reports
| submitted to the US FDA. Interestingly, there are 61 case reports
| that mention drugs used to treat "corona virus infection." 52 of
| those cases were filed in 2020.
|
| Oddly, 6 cases involved drugs used to treat "corona virus
| infection" in 2019 (all submitted in the US). My speculation was
| that those 6 cases were unrelated to SARS-CoV-2, but you never
| know.
|
| Here is the most relevant chart:
| https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hrhtVnswxPI/Xq_7-HsE97I/AAAAAAABv...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-05-04 23:00 UTC)