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

Not that I’ve seen

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for every 1% of the population infected a total population mortality rate of about 8 per 100,000

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That's a rather convoluted way of saying that the IFR is 0.8%. Pretty close to the estimate of 0.75% in the post before yours.

Too little, too late. We need a miracle.

With the widespread stated resistance to contact tracing and the crowds packing bars and restaurants as soon as yhey reopen, are you teconsidering your hypothesis?

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Sweden never closed restaurants, and their R value never got over 1.2, which I use as an upper bound on how high the R value would go before considering all the factors that I believe will bring it down to 0.5 or less by August.

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I think there are a number of social and cultural differences to consider. For example, the Swedes appear to be more compliant to government suggestions, have more individuals who live alone and fewer multigenerational families. In addition, despite a similar overall mortality rate, Sweden’s mortality rate for the flu is 30 to 35 percent lower. I suspect at least part of this is a result of those types of factors above that limit the spread.

Furthermore, it’s basically impossible for the peak R0 to be 1.2. In fact, I think it’s more likely that their average R0 has been around 1.5-1.6 since it’s estimated that about 6.3% of (643,000) Sweden has been infected, so with roughly 20.8 (assuming February 1st start) reproductive generations, that puts the R0 at about 1.525 of the first generation was 100 people starting February 1st.

So I think it would be a tall talk to maintain a reproductive rate below 1 like you argue.

I read your whole thread. Good stuff. I’m pretty much in agreement with everything you said. I’ve recently been of the belief that there are things about immunity and heterogeneity that you mention that we didn’t know initially. It’s my belief and hope that our original assumption that everyone is susceptible was wrong.

If that is true then “herd immunity” is closer than we think. And it’s not necessarily complete immunity, rather living with the virus such that we can live normally, there will be cases, but there won’t be huge spikes simply because the virus doesn’t have enough viable hosts to spread quickly enough.

Btw I like what you are doing with your students. That’s valuable work.

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You don’t address any of the issues of heterogeneity or cell immunity. There is a lot that we don’t know about this virus and you always assume the worst. It’s ok, I just consider whatever you say as the upper limit of possibilities.

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I’ve been wondering if he puts as much effort into checking the numbers of all the “bad news” models.

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He linked an article about 98% of inmates getting infected. Seems to me damn near all of us are susceptible. I assume he means we aren’t all equally susceptible which is true of all infections.

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I don’t trust that one bit. For one thing we never hear any follow up on those cases. They say like 90% are asymptomatic but that’s way off from other observed percentages of asymptomatic cases.

Not to mention the false negative rate. There would have to be no false negatives. You think 98% of prisoners are holding their head still voluntarily while someone sticks a qtip up to their brain when they aren’t even feeling sick? No way.

Also, why would every person be infected at the same time? You’re telling me there weren’t at least 10% that were on the tail end of the infection and had no viral shed?

Something is very sketchy about these prison numbers.

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Something is very sketchy about these prison numbers

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Well, if we’re being honest, we have to mention the unfortunate truth that most of the prison population in this state and country is made up by a group of people that had turned out to be highly susceptible to the disease.

But you are probably right concerning the being unwilling patients and the rate being extremely high.

I was wondering if, while they aren’t exactly like populations in regards to various demographic factors, could the prison numbers be compared with the nursing home/long term care facility data? Both should be mostly enclosed populations with little movement, when compared to the general population.