re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) ***W.H.O. DECLARES A GLOBAL PANDEMIC***

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Birx gave a stat that was eye opening... Not that coldn’t have figured it out, but

NYC 14/1000
New Orleans 3/1000
Most other cities 1/1000 or less

That is the infection rate... Seriously, that is it? As much that is going on, I would have guess it was at least 1-2/100 everywhere.

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The stats of positive cases are really only a drop in the bucket compared to the people who have/had it.


In NYC, for example, I personally know about 30 people who certainly have/had it (all symptoms + almost all with close exposure to someone testing positive).
Of all those people, only 1 of those 30 would show up in the stats for positive cases because he was hospitalized. All the others were told to stay at home and were never tested.


Which is a good thing since all these people were never sick enough to go to the hospital and hopefully are now immune to quick reinfection.

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Multiple studies (China, italy, Iceland) have shown that there are at least 15 people who have it for every positive test.

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Link to this data?

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Link to this data

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Studies are on nature and lancet.

Unsure who disgust me more

Her, Broome or that nasty Chicago mayor

She has done a hell of a job getting her face into national media. I wish she showed that kind of committment to other areas of the job.

Again, grain of salt, but:

I believe because you can clearly tell who has recently contracted the virus and then produced the necessary antibodies to fight it off. Good in the immediate term for those wanting to go back to work/working in the medical field for sure.

I’m sure someone else can explain how to then extrapolate the benefits into the population better than I could ever hope to.

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Forgive me if this has already been explained, but why is antibody testing so crucial here? Thanks in advance

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There are several reasons:

* It will tell us how many asymtomatic people there are compared to those who had symptoms. This is important for several reasons:

It will tell us a lot about how the virus spreads. If a lot of people without symptoms are getting infected and passing the virus on to others, then simply telling people with fevers to stay home isn't going to stop the spread of the virus.

We can also analyze why some people get the virus and their bodies fight it off without them even experiencing symptoms. Understanding how and why that happens could help us find an effective treatment for COVID-19. We need to find enough of these people to learn what makes them different.

Knowing just how many asymptomatic people there are would also help us deal with the unlikely theory that a good chunk of the population has already made antibodies to the virus. In other words, vast swaths of people got it and basically felt nothing, and only a tiny fraction of people got sick from the virus. If this were true (it isn't), then we might be well on our way to building herd immunity, where enough people have contracted the virus that it dies off on its own.

* Identifying people who've already had the virus and recovered means that we can often put them back to work sooner. A nurse who's recovered from COVID-19 doesn't need a N95 mask. A barber could safely cut hair, etc. Of course, there are civil liberties issues here, but there's also potential to get our economy open faster.

* One of the most promising therapies for COVID-19 is convalescent plasma. This is a technique that we already use to treat a number of other diseases, so there's a reasonable chance that it could also work for this one. Basically, people who have recovered donate blood plasma, and people who have just become infected get an IV of it. Since an infected person would normally take days to start making antibodies, this would give the body a jumpstart in its fight against the virus. Clinical trials are underway right now, and if they're successful, then antibody tests will be very important to help us find enough donors.

There were reports a month ago about a few people in Japan and a couple of other places that tested positive again after recovering. fricking sucks if true.