Question. I was looking at the numbers today and while cases are going way up, the deaths seem to be much lower than they were before. Is there an obvious reason for this I'm missing?
This. And in most places testing is more widespread and people who are asymptomatic are able to access testing more easily, which I’m sure is contributing.
Question. I was looking at the numbers today and while cases are going way up, the deaths seem to be much lower than they were before. Is there an obvious reason for this I'm missing?
I believe it’s multifactorial. Younger people are being infected. In some areas previously 30-50% of cases were in care facilities/nursing home, thus higher risk population. Death rate might be lagging up to a month but hopefully won’t go as high as previous.
Also, we know how to treat it better medically speaking. This is just an anecdote as I haven’t read any scientific papers on this exactly to know the improvement in mortality., But in the beginning people were getting intubated a lot earlier based on numbers. Come to find out for some people even with low O2 sats if clinically otherwise looking ok don’t need to jump to intubate. Once you intubate someone risk of death goes up. Also other care is better understood now as well, hospitalized patients get anti-coagulation now. This is still a novel virus but 4 months ago had a lot more questions about treatment approaches.
Question. I was looking at the numbers today and while cases are going way up, the deaths seem to be much lower than they were before. Is there an obvious reason for this I'm missing?
I read an article yesterday, though now I can't find it, about how right now there is another strain which is more infectious but not as bad with regard to symptoms. Which seems to be more of what we're dealing with right now.
I don’t know about the southern states, but in our state it already hit the nursing homes and prisons very hard. So I don’t think it will necessarily reinfect them again, so it would be younger people getting it now.
The caveat being that those homes that haven’t already been hit are still at risk, and we don’t know exactly where and which ones although our health department probably does.
Question. I was looking at the numbers today and while cases are going way up, the deaths seem to be much lower than they were before. Is there an obvious reason for this I'm missing?
I read an article yesterday, though now I can't find it, about how right now there is another strain which is more infectious but not as bad with regard to symptoms. Which seems to be more of what we're dealing with right now.
In addition, there is usually at least a 2 week lag time between cases and deaths. I would expect death rates to start increasing again soon. Hopefully not at the same rate as cases given all the factors others have listed (younger population, better treatment, etc.).
Question. I was looking at the numbers today and while cases are going way up, the deaths seem to be much lower than they were before. Is there an obvious reason for this I'm missing?
Two reasons that I can track in FL:
1) A much younger population is getting infected, and those people tend to fare better on average
2) Deaths lag cases by a few weeks. If someone gets gravely ill, it usually happens 3-4 weeks or more into their illness. So we may have just not seen a rise in deaths yet.
A person at my church (we meet virtually) said there hasn’t been a single case of covid world wide in anyone under 20.
Uhhh. What?
When I argued that was inaccurate, and that there are many many cases under the age of 20. He said he’s heard of them, but doesn’t believe it’s true.
He also said we’d get to meet again the Sunday after the election, because Covid will go away as soon as Election Day is over.
In case it’s not obvious. He’s a trump supporter.
I have to ask... does he believe it's straight-up lies, or or that those people had something else, or what?
He thinks it’s all fake. That doctors are just saying people are positive, because they’re rigged by government. Nobody who has died has actually died from COVID. They’re just saying it’s COVID. When really they probably died from natural causes.
Thankfully our pastor told him that he could just not attend, and that we’re not risking people’s lives based on a bunch of conspiracy theories (we were talking about the possibility of socially distanced, outdoor, masked services).
A person at my church (we meet virtually) said there hasn’t been a single case of covid world wide in anyone under 20.
Uhhh. What?
When I argued that was inaccurate, and that there are many many cases under the age of 20. He said he’s heard of them, but doesn’t believe it’s true.
He also said we’d get to meet again the Sunday after the election, because Covid will go away as soon as Election Day is over.
In case it’s not obvious. He’s a trump supporter.
I've seen that sentiment on FB a lot, and it irks me even more than a lot of other totally incorrect information.
If this is all a hoax to influence the election, why is the rest of the world having cases and doing shutdowns?
Are we really that arrogant that we think the whole world is this heavily invested in our election?
Or do we just not pay any attention to what is happening outside of the US and have no idea that this isn't just a US phenomenon?
It is maddening. All this misinformation and "I have freedom not to wear a mask" stuff is seriously making me want to stay off the internet.
He thinks they’re all in on it because they want trump out of office. He said ‘Russia likes trump and they don’t have COVID like everyone else. The rest of the world hates the best president we’ve ever had’.
Our pastor thankfully told him we weren’t risking people’s lives based on conspiracy theories, and he could just stop attending if he had issues with that.
Wow. So was talking to a friend and her parent's church in a small time voted to split into two services...not so that they would be smaller services, but so the masked people could have one and the non masked could have another. Wow.
Wow. So was talking to a friend and her parent's church in a small time voted to split into two services...not so that they would be smaller services, but so the masked people could have one and the non masked could have another. Wow.
So....are they deep cleaning the entire sanctuary between services?
Wow. So was talking to a friend and her parent's church in a small time voted to split into two services...not so that they would be smaller services, but so the masked people could have one and the non masked could have another. Wow.
So....are they deep cleaning the entire sanctuary between services?
I've seen that sentiment on FB a lot, and it irks me even more than a lot of other totally incorrect information.
If this is all a hoax to influence the election, why is the rest of the world having cases and doing shutdowns?
Are we really that arrogant that we think the whole world is this heavily invested in our election?
Or do we just not pay any attention to what is happening outside of the US and have no idea that this isn't just a US phenomenon?
It is maddening. All this misinformation and "I have freedom not to wear a mask" stuff is seriously making me want to stay off the internet.
He thinks they’re all in on it because they want trump out of office. He said ‘Russia likes trump and they don’t have COVID like everyone else. The rest of the world hates the best president we’ve ever had’.
Our pastor thankfully told him we weren’t risking people’s lives based on conspiracy theories, and he could just stop attending if he had issues with that.
He thinks that the government ... which Trump is in charge of and has filled with his awful croanies ... is trying to stick it to Trump?
I have to ask... does he believe it's straight-up lies, or or that those people had something else, or what?
He thinks it’s all fake. That doctors are just saying people are positive, because they’re rigged by government. Nobody who has died has actually died from COVID. They’re just saying it’s COVID. When really they probably died from natural causes.
Thankfully our pastor told him that he could just not attend, and that we’re not risking people’s lives based on a bunch of conspiracy theories (we were talking about the possibility of socially distanced, outdoor, masked services).
These are the sort of people I kind of actively wish they'd get covid.
Post by wanderingback on Jul 4, 2020 1:05:37 GMT -5
Here’s some data from the cdc that took blood samples from people who had blood drawn for other reasons, and looked to see the seroprevalance if covid. Essentially confirming that a lot more people have likely been exposed and have antibodies. I think overall this is good news as I think the mortality rate is lower than once thought. Obviously I think there are still lots of questions about the morbidity that this virus causes that we haven’t seen before, but I hope that we sooner rather than later get to the point that we don’t have to worry as much about asymptomatic cases being the driver of morbidity and mortality.
Here’s some data from the cdc that took blood samples from people who had blood drawn for other reasons, and looked to see the seroprevalance if covid. Essentially confirming that a lot more people have likely been exposed and have antibodies. I think overall this is good news as I think the mortality rate is lower than once thought. Obviously I think there are still lots of questions about the morbidity that this virus causes that we haven’t seen before, but I hope that we sooner rather than later get to the point that we don’t have to worry as much about asymptomatic cases being the driver of morbidity and mortality.
I read a research paper (I’ll see if I can find it again) that basically said that the antibodies created by milder or asymptomatic cases fade much faster than in the more severe cases, and the body might not even produce antibodies at all. But the T cells were shown to have a response to Covid, so even if someone doesn’t show that they have antibodies it doesn’t mean they haven’t been exposed and fought it off. That means there could be many more people who have some type of immunity than even these blood samples would suggest, right?
Of course I’m just repeating things that sound good to me as my main anxiety coping skill has been combing through preprints I don’t fully understand. Lol.
Here’s some data from the cdc that took blood samples from people who had blood drawn for other reasons, and looked to see the seroprevalance if covid. Essentially confirming that a lot more people have likely been exposed and have antibodies. I think overall this is good news as I think the mortality rate is lower than once thought. Obviously I think there are still lots of questions about the morbidity that this virus causes that we haven’t seen before, but I hope that we sooner rather than later get to the point that we don’t have to worry as much about asymptomatic cases being the driver of morbidity and mortality.
I read a research paper (I’ll see if I can find it again) that basically said that the antibodies created by milder or asymptomatic cases fade much faster than in the more severe cases, and the body might not even produce antibodies at all. But the T cells were shown to have a response to Covid, so even if someone doesn’t show that they have antibodies it doesn’t mean they haven’t been exposed and fought it off. That means there could be many more people who have some type of immunity than even these blood samples would suggest, right?
Of course I’m just repeating things that sound good to me as my main anxiety coping skill has been combing through preprints I don’t fully understand. Lol.
Yes immunity is complicated.
The article I posted should also make your anxiety better because it shows that a lot more people have been exposed/infected than we know, thus the morbidity and mortality rate is lower than we likely realize. The vast majority of people do not get seriously ill or die from Covid.
I’m not going to speculate how long immunity lasts and obviously there are still lots of questions and I certainly won’t be participating in covid exposure parties! But I do think the mortality rate isn’t going to be as high as people once feared and hopefully we can figure out the unique features of this virus to prevent some of the longer team morbidity that does seem to affect a small percentage of people.
I just hope all this science will help us return to more normalcy (Wearing masks, universities open, all medical facilities open, outdoor activities, etc) sooner as we obviously can’t be fully locked down for 3 years because of the negative consequences of that.
wanderingback, thank you for being so generous with sharing your insight. Your calm and obviously experienced and educated posts are so appreciated. I’m sure some days the last thing you want to do is talk about COVID more when you are off of work! I feel like your calmness is shared by the other doctors I know and that helps, especially when I feel surrounded by people panicked and yelling, “the sky is falling! We’re all going to DIIIEEEEEE!”
Here’s some data from the cdc that took blood samples from people who had blood drawn for other reasons, and looked to see the seroprevalance if covid. Essentially confirming that a lot more people have likely been exposed and have antibodies. I think overall this is good news as I think the mortality rate is lower than once thought. Obviously I think there are still lots of questions about the morbidity that this virus causes that we haven’t seen before, but I hope that we sooner rather than later get to the point that we don’t have to worry as much about asymptomatic cases being the driver of morbidity and mortality.
If I'm reading this correctly, these numbers seem to actually track pretty closely to what the IHME model has been showing for quite a while on estimated actual infections compared with detected infections.
wanderingback, thank you for being so generous with sharing your insight. Your calm and obviously experienced and educated posts are so appreciated. I’m sure some days the last thing you want to do is talk about COVID more when you are off of work! I feel like your calmness is shared by the other doctors I know and that helps, especially when I feel surrounded by people panicked and yelling, “the sky is falling! We’re all going to DIIIEEEEEE!”
Aww you’re too kind. I’m off from work for 2 weeks so I’ve got nothing but time on my hands I’m certainly no expert and wasn’t really tracking the news when I was in the thick of things, so don’t take my word as gospel. Although the federal response has been horrible & inequities on care revealed again I’m still holding out hope that things can turn around and things aren’t as dire as once thought in regards to morbidity and mortality. It’s certainly a delicate balance between saving lives from covid and saving our mental and financial well-being.
What a shock. Pubs opened up on Saturday night and people weren't following the guidelines. (note, I'm not shocked) London is already above an R score of 1 - it's destined to go up shortly.
Drunk people are unable to properly socially distance, the chairman of the Police Federation has said as pubs reopened in England for the first time since lockdown.
John Apter said it was “crystal clear” revellers would not adhere to the one metre plus rule as restrictions were eased on Saturday.
Prof Chris Whitty said the pandemic “is a long way from gone” and urged the public to follow social-distancing rules as pubs and restaurants reopened.
But images from London’s Soho showed packed streets into the early hours of Sunday.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jul 5, 2020 8:23:49 GMT -5
Don’t people realize there is a large middle ground in terms of socialization between “don’t see anyone outside your household ever” and “hang out in large, drunken crowds”? I hate people.
Then the next day (July 3) 726 people tested positive and that's within the whole state! Over 64,000 tests on July 3! The 7 day weekly average is still 1% which is where it should be. People have been protesting for over a month straight at this point. Things at hospitals and health centers also seem to still be doing well.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jul 5, 2020 9:23:44 GMT -5
I mostly focus on rolling averages (because data dumps don’t always happen daily) and overall positivity rate. NY is still doing well on those metrics despite people acting stupid. But I’d be fooling myself if I though we were somehow immune from what’s going on in the rest of the country.
I am pretty sure there will be a bigger upswing in cases after this weekend than after the other holidays this summer. There were so many parties on my street and the parties started intermixing when they were shooting off fireworks in the street. There was a little less socializing among neighbors...no one who came out of their houses to see the spectacle joined the parties like they would have last year, but there were the same amount of guests and chaos.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jul 5, 2020 10:35:05 GMT -5
The seemingly random nature of upticks is fascinating. We all expected upticks after Memorial Day weekend, but that happened in some places and not others. Major upticks haven’t been tied to protests, which began that weekend. Meanwhile, even backyard parties, nowhere near the sizes of many protests, have been sources of outbreaks.
My best guess is that masks have been making a significant difference since most protestors were wearing masks and I’m assuming masks aren’t prevalent in outdoor gatherings between people who aren’t strangers. I know the two times we’ve had a small number guests over in the backyard, we didn’t keep our masks on the entire time but we stayed apart, but the larger the gathering the more likely people are inclined to get close to each other I guess?
My neighborhood has generally been good about distancing and mask wearing, but there was a huge crowd in our local park last night with no social distancing and no masks (we were out for a walk, masks on). Oregon’s numbers have been rising steadily and I’m sure this weekend will lead to a huge spike.