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CDC Current Best Estimate of Covid-19 Morbidity Rate is 0.4%

Jay59 said:
There is proof.
Florida, the 4th most populous state, with the highest population of persons over age 65, has 10 states with more deaths. Texas has 1/10th the deaths of less populous New York. Florida and Texas focused on protecting the vulnerable over immobilizing the whole population.
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You feel confident that you have isolated and excluded all of the other variables in this real world event?
The only meaningful differences among these states is this one factor you say is important?
 
MovingPictures said:
Oh, man. Do you ever not shove words into peoples mouths? Where did I say there were 150-200k hidden deaths in the stats? Tell me.

That's right. You pulled out of the air as a straw man, because that's all you have. I simply commented that just as there are asymptomatic people not in the stats, there are also people who have died of COVID that were never confirmed or counted for very reason; which, BTW, most analysts agree with me on that.

In the end, the stats even out, but you couldn't concede that because of your arrogance.
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No, I am assuming you can do math.

You are desperately clinging to the notion that there are far more deaths not being recorded so that you can believe the IFR of COVID-19 is 1% rater than 0.24% or lower.

If the disease is rampant in those red states that are doing better than blue states then can we assume that the spread is equal to this year's flu? 47 million people as a fatality rate of 1% means there are 470,000 dead... which would mean there are 370,000 dead people somewhere from COVID-19 that aren't being counted. :roll:

For our purposes I assumed you would consider the spread to be 25-30 million infected when you count all those "dumpster fire" Red States which would mean 250,000 to 300,000 dead.... and 150,000 to 200,000 unaccounted for.
 
trouble13 said:
Perhaps you see my problem but you are completely blind to your own.
The Morbidity rate is 4% of those Infected
Your math skills suck.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
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Unlike you I am using the figures presented in the post that I responded to. You are free to make a different calculation based on your numbers and I promise that I won't insult you for it like a spoiled child.
 
GhostlyJoe said:
As opposed to despotism?
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I haven't seen real despotism so far in the actions of the government but I have seen calls for anarchy from those opposed to it.
 
jmotivator said:
R0 is not a fixed number, it has as much to do with behavior as biology. The high estimate for H1N1 in 2019 was 2.8 while the high estimate for COVID-19 is 3.0
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You moved the goal posts. What does that have to do with my source being from January? And you'll need to cite your work for that (I assume) 2009 outbreak. I've seen R0 of about half that number - 1.5 or so.

The R0 of COVID-19 can't be as high as H1N1 in 1918, otherwise we would have at least 1/3rd of the US population infected.
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CDC disagree, and maybe the fact this pandemic didn't spread to 1/3 the population is the result of shutdowns that weren't needed, apparently, because we don't have 1/3 of the population infected.... or something. Honestly I can't keep the conflicting talking points straight.
 
jmotivator said:
No, I am assuming you can do math.

You are desperately clinging to the notion that there are far more deaths not being recorded so that you can believe the IFR of COVID-19 is 1% rater than 0.24% or lower.

If the disease is rampant in those red states that are doing better than blue states then can we assume that the spread is equal to this year's flu? 47 million people as a fatality rate of 1% means there are 470,000 dead... which would mean there are 370,000 dead people somewhere from COVID-19 that aren't being counted. :roll:

For our purposes I assumed you would consider the spread to be 25-30 million infected when you count all those "dumpster fire" Red States which would mean 250,000 to 300,000 dead.... and 150,000 to 200,000 unaccounted for.
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Are you even reading my posts? I never once gave an estimate of the mortality rate. You're pulling this idea that I claimed "150,000-200,000" deaths are unaccounted for out of thin air, because I never stated or even suggested such a thing.

There is no reason for me to interact with someone that's reading things others never typed.
 
maxparrish said:
In other words, this means "we can all agree this is" NOT necessarily "more serious than the flu" and most other infections now. Thank you for noticing.



If the CDC actually thinks that 75 percent of NYC has already been infected then it doesn't jive. However I doubt they believe that.

Notwithstanding the CDC, the likely infection rate of NYC is closer to 19 percent, which would mean they are approaching herd immunity on the upper end (its a range between 7 and 27 percent).

In the meantime, of equal interest is Worldometers whose recent analysis speaks to NYC in particular. They have used the data provided by New York City, the New York State antibody study, and the excess deaths analysis by the CDC to derive the most accurate estimate to date on the mortality rate for COVID-19.

In sum, their findings are:

Actual cases of COVID-19 is 1.7 million, which is 10 times the number of confirmed cases. The NYC antibody testing study of May 1st showed 19.9% of population had CV-19 antibodies in a population of 8.4 million. The number of confirmed cases reported as of May 1 by New York City was 166,883 , more than 10 times less.

Actual Deaths from CV-19 is 23,000, almost twice the number of confirmed deaths. As of May 1, New York City reported 13,156 confirmed deaths and 5,126 probable deaths (deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate but no laboratory test performed), for a total of 18,282 deaths [source]. On May 11th the CDC calculated 5,293 more "excess" deaths. After adjusting for May 1, WoM got 5,148 additional deaths, for a total of actual deaths of 13,156 confirmed + 5,126 probable + 5,148 additional excess deaths calculated by CDC which equals 23,430 actual COVID-19 deaths as of May 1, 2020 in New York City.

Some additional nuggets they provided:

Infection Fatality Rate (23k / 1.7M = 1.4% IFR). As of May 1, 1.4% of those infected have had a fatal outcome, while 98.6% recovered.

Mortality Rate for the NYC general population is (23k / 8.4M) which is 0.28%.

Mortality Rate for those over 65 NYC population is (17,242/1,184,223) which is 1.46% (Calculated by post author).

Mortality Rate for those under 65, with and without underlying conditions is .09% (see below).

Out of 15,230 confirmed deaths in New York City up to May 12, only 690 (4.5% of all deaths) occurred in patients under the age of 65 who did not have an underlying medical condition (or for which it is unknown whether they had or did not have an underlying condition). (And remember 85 percent of the NYC population is under 65).

So as of May 1 there was 6,188 deaths under the age of 65, with and without underlying conditions: 6188 / 7,214,525 (total population under 65) = 0.09% CMR. And at least 89% of the times, the person who died had one or more underlying medical conditions.

Takeaways: in NYC, the worst and most intense outbreak in the country (the city with the highest density), those NYC citizens over 65 were 16.222 times more likely catch and die from CV than those under 65 (which are 86 percent of the population). And of those 6,188 under 65 deaths only 690 were absent comorbidities.

In short, the chances of an under 65 healthy New Yorker, without comorbidities, dyeing from COVID is .009% which is effectively zero.

Whatever the implication of the CDC, CV-19 is not a substantive threat to those under 65 without comorbidities.
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When faced with a disease that impacts those of retirement age almost exclusively the state of New York made many able bodies, working age people unemployed through draconian lock downs while they forcefully cohabited sick patients with retirees....

They couldn't have done it more ineffectually if they had tried to screw it up on purpose.
 
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GhostlyJoe said:
The bolded: Exactly. That's why the government should not be invested with that power.
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You missed the point... The first part of that comment is necessary to evaluate the second part.

The reason NOT to shut down is presumably to save the economy. Well, COVID did that for the most part and the economy won't recover if there are lots of people getting sick and dying from COVID. No business was going to host a big convention in April, with or without government shutdowns. Plane travel was going to plummet. Any large gathering was going to be cancelled. Restaurant traffic a nose dive. Theater traffic to near zero, or zero, given the measures theater owners would have to implement to offer a safe experience. Etc....

If your argument is a "but my freedoms" one, that's fine. I don't care to debate that part of the issue.
 
JasperL said:
You missed the point... The first part of that comment is necessary to evaluate the second part.

The reason NOT to shut down is presumably to save the economy. Well, COVID did that for the most part and the economy won't recover if there are lots of people getting sick and dying from COVID. No business was going to host a big convention in April, with or without government shutdowns. Plane travel was going to plummet. Any large gathering was going to be cancelled. Restaurant traffic a nose dive. Theater traffic to near zero, or zero, given the measures theater owners would have to implement to offer a safe experience. Etc....

If your argument is a "but my freedoms" one, that's fine. I don't care to debate that part of the issue.
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There are many business owners who would have chosen to stay open and customers who would have chosen to risk it. The rules in many places prevented that. Those people have real beef. It's not the government's place to make these choices for people even when the data are sound, but especially not arbitrary choices for people based on bad information.
 
molten_dragon said:
You're not doing your math right. 0.4% is 0.004. You've already turned the percentage into a decimal so you don't need to multiply by 100. 100,572/0.004 = 25,143,000. Based on random antibody tests, that's a quite plausible number of infected nationwide.
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Hi! And congratulations! You took time to read and read critically. Please see posts 93 & 102 in this thread.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.
 
jmotivator said:
When faced with a disease that impacts those of retirement age almost exclusively the state of New York made many able bodies, working age people unemployed and forcefully cohabited sick patients with retirees....
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I have no idea what is behind the CDC study, it does not explain the actual calculations behind their "planning tool". That said, it is very clear that mortality and infection death rates vary by geography, density, demographics, quality of reporting, and perhaps strain.

Nor am I able to make sense out of the actual ratio of 'death' to 'recovered cases' as state data is nearly random (ranging from 2 to 91 percent if the stats are to be believed).

But yes, about 50 percent of all deaths have been in nursing care and assisted living...so states that were careless with this demographic likely killed far more.
 
JasperL said:
So, both states largely shut down, that worked, which is proof they weren't needed. If they'd failed and more died, that would be proof that shutdowns WERE needed. Makes sense. :confused: Only problem is the flood waters haven't receded. Many streets are still figuratively flooded although most houses are on dry land, but the cleanup can't start until the risk of more flooding passes. One little rain and the houses are under water again. Etc.....
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It's not proof that the shutdown was needed. It might prove the shutdown only harmed the economy. Both states also began reopening a month ago.

I am not sure where you are going with the cleanup comment. It started weeks ago. Figuratively, the rain has stopped falling and the river is back in its banks. More rain is possible, but the worst has been over for a while.

Simon W. Moon said:
You feel confident that you have isolated and excluded all of the other variables in this real world event?
The only meaningful differences among these states is this one factor you say is important?
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The big difference in New York metro area was forcing symptomatic patients into high risk facilities. Papers will be written, but at least the crisis is now past.
 
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JasperL said:
You moved the goal posts. What does that have to do with my source being from January? And you'll need to cite your work for that (I assume) 2009 outbreak. I've seen R0 of about half that number - 1.5 or so.
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Because, like H1N1, population behaviors change, which changes the R0. An R0 of 2.5 results in a doubling of infection about every 6 days. If we carried that R0 forward to May 26th, that would have been about 19 doublings in the US since February 1st. If we assume only 100 infected in the US on February 1st, and an R0 of 2.5, we would have 104,000,000 infected in the US today.

Do we? If we do then COVID-19 has a FAR lower IFR than 0.24%...

CDC disagree, and maybe the fact this pandemic didn't spread to 1/3 the population is the result of shutdowns that weren't needed, apparently, because we don't have 1/3 of the population infected.... or something. Honestly I can't keep the conflicting talking points straight.
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... you are so out of your element on this that you don't even realize that you are stomping on your own argument here. :roll:

If it hasn't spread to a third of the population it is because our behaviors lowered the R0.

But then, it is also looking like atrocious policies in the State of New York both exacerbated R0 in the short term AND raised the IFR to boot.
 
maxparrish said:
In other words, this means "we can all agree this is" NOT necessarily "more serious than the flu" and most other infections now. Thank you for noticing.
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COVID 19 is objectively far more serious than "the flu." As to the stats on heart disease and cancer, yes, they are deadly killers. We invest immense sums in preventing and treating both ailments. Has nothing to do with whether this pandemic is worthy of a public policy response. If I have cancer, I don't spread it by coughing or being close to you or anyone else.

Put another way, drunk driving only kills about 10,000 per year. Well, if cancer and heart disease kill 1.5 million or so per year, then why do we give a damn about drunk driving? Let the drunks drive, and if 10,000 or 20,000 or even 100,000 die per year from drunk drivers, who cares because CANCER KILLS 10X MORE PEOPLE!!

Well, we make drunk driving a crime. Do you think that's wrong?

If the CDC actually thinks that 75 percent of NYC has already been infected then it doesn't jive. However I doubt they believe that.
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It's how the math works given a 0.26% IFR, which is CDCs current best guess. Deaths/IFR = infected, divide by total population = 75%. What did I do wrong?

Notwithstanding the CDC, the likely infection rate of NYC is closer to 19 percent, which would mean they are approaching herd immunity on the upper end (its a range between 7 and 27 percent).
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Yes, I know someone somewhere did some calculations and now herd immunity as understood by experts has been upended without any actual data or evidence. Forgive me if I don't trust that number, or believe that the experts using actual past pandemics for which we do have good data have been wrong by orders of magnitude all these decades.

In the meantime, of equal interest is Worldometers whose recent analysis speaks to NYC in particular. They have used the data provided by New York City, the New York State antibody study, and the excess deaths analysis by the CDC to derive the most accurate estimate to date on the mortality rate for COVID-19.
.....
[Data omitted]

Infection Fatality Rate (23k / 1.7M = 1.4% IFR). As of May 1, 1.4% of those infected have had a fatal outcome, while 98.6% recovered.
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But the CDC estimate the IFR at 0.26%. Which number should I go with?

Mortality Rate for the NYC general population is (23k / 8.4M) which is 0.28%.
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That number doesn't mean anything, really. On day 1, that number was about 0.0001%. Who cares? As of this date it is approximately 0.28% but we're nowhere near the end of this pandemic. We'll see the actual 'mortality rate' for NYC in a year or so. THAT is when the number is meaningful. You're giving us the score of a game in the 1st quarter...

Mortality Rate for those over 65 NYC population is (17,242/1,184,223) which is 1.46% (Calculated by post author).

Mortality Rate for those under 65, with and without underlying conditions is .09% (see below).

Out of 15,230 confirmed deaths in New York City up to May 12, only 690 (4.5% of all deaths) occurred in patients under the age of 65 who did not have an underlying medical condition (or for which it is unknown whether they had or did not have an underlying condition). (And remember 85 percent of the NYC population is under 65).

So as of May 1 there was 6,188 deaths under the age of 65, with and without underlying conditions: 6188 / 7,214,525 (total population under 65) = 0.09% CMR. And at least 89% of the times, the person who died had one or more underlying medical conditions.

Takeaways: in NYC, the worst and most intense outbreak in the country (the city with the highest density), those NYC citizens over 65 were 16.222 times more likely catch and die from CV than those under 65 (which are 86 percent of the population). And of those 6,188 under 65 deaths only 690 were absent comorbidities.

In short, the chances of an under 65 healthy New Yorker, without comorbidities, dyeing from COVID is .009% which is effectively zero.

Whatever the implication of the CDC, CV-19 is not a substantive threat to those under 65 without comorbidities.
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Yeah, those conclusions are illogical because we're nowhere near the end of this pandemic.

Second, sure, exclude everyone at risk of dying (but ignore entirely those who might spend a week or two in the hospital, then ICU, and live, but have long term health damage) and the risk of dying to those not at risk is lower!!

How about you look at the population of the U.S. and tally up the at risk portion - the old, and those with comorbitities. Just eyeballing it, it appears roughly half or so of the adult population is at risk - either over 65 or with a pre-existing condition like heart disease, obesity, lung disease, cancer, and diabetes.
 
Captain Adverse said:
Yes folks, this from CNN 05/26/20:

CDC says 35% of coronavirus infections are asymptomatic - CNN

The source?

COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios | CDC

So wow, only 0.4%!!! NOT 4% or higher...just 0.4%.

Good news, right folks? (Not like I haven't been suggesting this in other threads well before).
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So it's less than half a percent of the two thirds who get it and have symptoms.

For the population in general, the death rate is much lower, since most people probably won't be infected.
 
MovingPictures said:
Are you even reading my posts? I never once gave an estimate of the mortality rate. You're pulling this idea that I claimed "150,000-200,000" deaths are unaccounted for out of thin air, because I never stated or even suggested such a thing.

There is no reason for me to interact with someone that's reading things others never typed.
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:roll: You can't be serious.

The discussion your jumped in the middle of was a discussion about mortality rates. You argued that there are more COVID-19 dead that are not being counted, so I played along with your argument to show why your argument is nonsense.

For the IFR to be as high as Lord Tammerlain claims, there would need to be at least 150,000 deaths in the US to COVID that have not been accounted for. To put that in perspective, for that to be true then EVERY DEATH in the US since at least 4 months would have had to be to COVID-19

I mean, I do realize that my argument with you up to this point has been giving you more credit than your arguments deserve, by putting numbers to your hand waving nonsense, but that was more charity than oversight on my part.
 
GhostlyJoe said:
There are many business owners who would have chosen to stay open and customers who would have chosen to risk it. The rules in many places prevented that. Those people have real beef. It's not the government's place to make these choices for people even when the data are sound, but especially not arbitrary choices for people based on bad information.
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The choices were not arbitrary, and were based on the information available at that time. It's fine to second guess them after the fact, but back in mid March, we couldn't wait in good data then decide, because it's too late to do anything when the data come in.
 
Captain Adverse said:
Yes folks, this from CNN 05/26/20:

CDC says 35% of coronavirus infections are asymptomatic - CNN

The source?

COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios | CDC

So wow, only 0.4%!!! NOT 4% or higher...just 0.4%.

Good news, right folks? (Not like I haven't been suggesting this in other threads well before).
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That is good news the bad news is it must be so much more infectious if it can still overwhelm hospitals and morgues so we still need to try and slow the infection rate
 
Bucky said:
I have always been problematic with how overblown the attention this virus has received. I have a friend for example that lives in the Philippines. His friend got the virus and was cured. There is a clinic in Manila, which provides an injection that has helped many people.

My point is, this COVID-19 is no cancer, no HIV. We have things contained.
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bucky stop being bucky this is serous
 
Wayne Jr said:
Sure, but not as serious as obesity, which claims 300,000 Americans every year and we do nothing about it.
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to be fair it very rare to catch fat from other people
 
JasperL said:
The choices were not arbitrary, and were based on the information available at that time. It's fine to second guess them after the fact, but back in mid March, we couldn't wait in good data then decide, because it's too late to do anything when the data come in.
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So, "do anything, even if it's wrong and be cause more problems than the disease"? That's your position. In March when we shut down there were a total of 700 deaths nation wide. Would you have done it earlier? Some guy in New York sneezes and the entire shuts down? Maybe earlier. a teenager in Wuhan has a tickle in his throat and the world retreats to their homes?
 
blarg said:
That is good news the bad news is it must be so much more infectious if it can still overwhelm hospitals and morgues so we still need to try and slow the infection rate
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Much more easily transmitted. Worse, they still have not figured out the method. Model after model has been shot full of holes. The good side of that is that it never overwhelmed the hospitals, not even in New York. So, we can be confident as we open up.
 
Jay59 said:
It's not proof that the shutdown was needed. It might prove the shutdown only harmed the economy. Both states also began reopening a month ago.
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But the shutdowns DID HAPPEN, even in Texas and Florida. SWSX was cancelled in Texas. What happens if that huge festival happens? Travel through Dallas from NYC and everywhere else slowed to a near stop. What happens if all those Texas conventions happen as planned at the peak? Who knows? Point is you're looking at results WITH shutdowns, and then concluding, well, they worked, so weren't needed.

I'm worried about the GSMNP. The park gets about 10 million visitors a year, a lot of them from up and down the eastern seaboard. That went to zero, and this area was largely spared. Do you think that happens if we get those visitors to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and Dollywood and Townsend from NY, NJ, etc., lots of them flying through our airport with local travelers? I don't, and I worry what happens this summer if tourism stays normal, then into the fall peak season.

We have been very isolated since March. Now we're not. What's NOT legitimate is to say, well, we isolated ourselves from all that travel, and don't have many cases (only 2 currently hospitalized) so therefore we didn't need to shut down Dollywood and Pigeon Forge, packed to the gills on weekends all Spring in a normal year.

I am not sure where you are going with the cleanup comment. It started weeks ago. Figuratively, the rain has stopped falling and the river is back in its banks. More rain is possible, but the worst has been over for a while.
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The point is an e.g. hurricane comes and does its damage, then it's over. So 1 day later, the risk has passed, and the recovery can begin. We're in the early stages of this 'natural disaster.' We don't know if the worst is passed, actually. In my state, only about 1% at most have been infected. So we're mostly all still vulnerable, and so remain at risk. The economy won't return to normal until it's not 99% still at risk from this disaster, but more like 20% or something.

The big difference in New York metro area was forcing symptomatic patients into high risk facilities. Papers will be written, but at least the crisis is now past.
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The big difference is they had a major, major outbreak, and it flooded the hospitals with patients, and in retrospect they should have commandeered a bunch of shuttered hotels or something to house those still infected but past the crisis, and didn't. Point is yes, people will write papers, but the problem for nursing homes, or jails, or ships or meat packing plants, or anywhere else that has people in close proximity is that if it's widespread in the community, the entry into those densely packed areas is nearly inevitable. Sweden famously took a hands off approach to COVID, and they had a lot of deaths in nursing homes. Well, should we really expect something different if a place lets the disease spread pretty widely in the population that those in the population who work in those nursing homes eventually bring it into those facilities?

Sure, now that we can test every worker (and they did recently at my mother in law's place, due to an infection there, and every resident), then test and test and test and test and trace can work, but that wasn't an option in early April.
 
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