Antibody Test Results Suggest COVID Death Rate Lower

[Louie7080]

"Highly anticipated antibody testing results out of Santa Clara County in California headed by a Stanford University professor were released on Friday, showing that the estimated number of positive novel coronavirus cases is likely 50-80 times higher than reported, thus significantly dropping the estimated fatality rate."

And a Dutch study
“This study shows that about 3% of Dutch people have developed antibodies against the coronavirus,” Van Dissel said. “You can calculate from that, it’s several hundred thousand people” in a country of 17 million.

There are 28,158 confirmed coronavirus cases in the Netherlands, but only the very ill and healthcare workers are currently being tested."

editing to add "As of Thursday night, Johns Hopkins University reported the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Netherlands was 29,383, with 3,327 deaths. That would result in an 11.3% case fatality rate. But the study reported that roughly 3% of the Dutch blood donors in the study had developed antibodies for the coronavirus. The Netherlands has a population of 17.28 million people. Thus if one extrapolates from the study, 3% of that number would equal roughly 518,400 people, meaning the case fatality rate would plunge in dizzying fashion all the way from 11.3% to 0.6%."

 

[Disney Ron]

"Highly anticipated antibody testing results out of Santa Clara County in California headed by a Stanford University professor were released on Friday, showing that the estimated number of positive novel coronavirus cases is likely 50-80 times higher than reported, thus significantly dropping the estimated fatality rate."

And a Dutch study
“This study shows that about 3% of Dutch people have developed antibodies against the coronavirus,” Van Dissel said. “You can calculate from that, it’s several hundred thousand people” in a country of 17 million.

There are 28,158 confirmed coronavirus cases in the Netherlands, but only the very ill and healthcare workers are currently being tested."

editing to add "As of Thursday night, Johns Hopkins University reported the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Netherlands was 29,383, with 3,327 deaths. That would result in an 11.3% case fatality rate. But the study reported that roughly 3% of the Dutch blood donors in the study had developed antibodies for the coronavirus. The Netherlands has a population of 17.28 million people. Thus if one extrapolates from the study, 3% of that number would equal roughly 518,400 people, meaning the case fatality rate would plunge in dizzying fashion all the way from 11.3% to 0.6%."

Louie can I ask for the website?

 

[Jennasis]

While I'm glad the "death rate" may be lower than we thought, 37,000 deaths (and growing) is still too many. Especially when you consider these occurred in such an incredibly short span of time.

 

[kdonnel]

https://www.disboards.com/threads/h...and-not-known-it.3799645/page-2#post-61791229
If the math works out Georgia would be at .04%. I believe the flu is generally thought to be around .01%. So still 4x deadlier, perhaps because of aggressive social distancing.

 

[Christine]

Didn't we always know that the death rate would be lower when we were able to account for most/all infections? The limited testing we have certainly doesn't give a true picture. But I do agree with @Jennasis that 37,000 is a lot for such a short period of time.

 

[kdonnel]

Didn't we always know that the death rate would be lower when we were able to account for most/all infections? The limited testing we have certainly doesn't give a true picture. But I do agree with @Jennasis that 37,000 is a lot for such a short period of time.

In the beginning the death rate was reported to be in multiple whole percentages, 2% - 10%. Those initial numbers had it being 50 to 2500 times more deadly then it will perhaps end up.

 

[Christine]

In the beginning the death rate was reported to be in multiple whole percentages, 2% - 10%. Those initial numbers had it being 50 to 2500 times more deadly then it will perhaps end up.

Agree, but those numbers were always caveated (at least what I was watching/reading) with the fact that limited numbers were being tested.

 

[mnrose]

The death rate will not be "known" for this virus for a long time to come, if ever. We NEED testing. Desperately. And, our federal government has effectively said "each state is on it's own. good luck." And, not every state is doing the same thing, or frankly has the resources to develop and implement testing. I'm lucky to live in a state which WILL, in short order, have the ability to tests 100,000's of thousands (10,000 tests per day each at two different facilities, meaning 20K per day...100,000-150,000 per week). When we have that, at least for our state, we will have an accurate picture. The thing that frightens me about this particular virus is it has killed 10s of thousands in the US in a VERY short period of time. In a "bad" flu season (which is 6 months long), we'll get maybe 60,000 deaths (and that's a BAD year). Here, we have close to 40K in a MONTH. So, obviously, 3-4 times deadlier than the flu...with no vaccines and no effective treatment. And, from the medical personnel I've talked to who actually treat these patients, the effect on them is much more devastating than they've seen with the flu (which explains why it takes so many ventilators and so many ICU beds). In the end, I do think the death rate will be lower than the "high end" estimates, but the fact remains that many people are dying who otherwise would not have and at a rate much higher than the flu and that's WITH some pretty extreme measures being implemented in most states. Can you imagine if we did this with the seasonal flu? We'd have a much lower death rate....which again, makes this virus SO MUCH worse. Why people refuse to see that is beyond me.

 

[Christine]

TThe thing that frightens me about this particular virus is it has killed 10s of thousands in the US in a VERY short period of time. In a "bad" flu season (which is 6 months long), we'll get maybe 60,000 deaths (and that's a BAD year). Here, we have close to 40K in a MONTH. So, obviously, 3-4 times deadlier than the flu...with no vaccines and no effective treatment.

Not to mention that we don't "social distance" during regular flu seasons. With this virus, we have.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

"They recruited with Facebook ads. They did reweight to make them *demographically and geographically representative*, but they openly admit people who thought they had it might be more likely to sign up. "

https://twitter.com/x/status/1251274564895739905

 

[HeatherC]

I don’t really care what the statistics say. Anybody dying from this thing is one too many.

 

[Louie7080]

Louie can I ask for the website?

The CA story seemed to be covered by a few different sites. I think both the CA and Netherlands stories were covered by the Daily Wire - I know I took that last quote from them.

 

[hellow]

Not to mention that we don't "social distance" during regular flu seasons. With this virus, we have.

But we do have a vaccine, that at least half of the country get every year...

 

[tarheelmjfan]

The death rate will not be "known" for this virus for a long time to come, if ever. We NEED testing. Desperately. And, our federal government has effectively said "each state is on it's own. good luck." And, not every state is doing the same thing, or frankly has the resources to develop and implement testing. I'm lucky to live in a state which WILL, in short order, have the ability to tests 100,000's of thousands (10,000 tests per day each at two different facilities, meaning 20K per day...100,000-150,000 per week). When we have that, at least for our state, we will have an accurate picture. The thing that frightens me about this particular virus is it has killed 10s of thousands in the US in a VERY short period of time. In a "bad" flu season (which is 6 months long), we'll get maybe 60,000 deaths (and that's a BAD year). Here, we have close to 40K in a MONTH. So, obviously, 3-4 times deadlier than the flu...with no vaccines and no effective treatment. And, from the medical personnel I've talked to who actually treat these patients, the effect on them is much more devastating than they've seen with the flu (which explains why it takes so many ventilators and so many ICU beds). In the end, I do think the death rate will be lower than the "high end" estimates, but the fact remains that many people are dying who otherwise would not have and at a rate much higher than the flu and that's WITH some pretty extreme measures being implemented in most states. Can you imagine if we did this with the seasonal flu? We'd have a much lower death rate....which again, makes this virus SO MUCH worse. Why people refuse to see that is beyond me.

It's not just the federal government . Our state government is basically saying, "each local government is on it's own". I really thought the US would do better in a situation like this. Obviously, I was wrong. It's scary knowing how unprepared we are for any situation out of the ordinary.

 

[godisney14]

Regarding the Stanford study, it was pretty well discussed already in another thread.

Here’s my study guide summary from the other thread:

• voluntary study participants (huge sampling bias)
• up to 2 adults and 1 child in the car were tested (confounding issue)
• unapproved test kits were used, and it was of the rapid test type (reliability of tests issue)

And you cannot take the numbers from this particular county and apply it elsewhere as the testing prevalence is not the same.

Lastly, if 2.5% to 4% in this inconclusive study was actually correct, then at least 96% of everyone who thought they had the infection actually was NOT sick with COVID-19. How’s that for a statistic?

 

[monarchsfan16]

Regarding the Stanford study, it was pretty well discussed already in another thread.

Here’s my study guide summary from the other thread:

• voluntary study participants (huge sampling bias)
• up to 2 adults and 1 child in the car were tested (confounding issue)
• unapproved test kits were used, and it was of the rapid test type (reliability of tests issue)

And you cannot take the numbers from this particular county and apply it elsewhere as the testing prevalence is not the same.

Lastly, if 2.5% to 4% in this inconclusive study was actually correct, then at least 96% of everyone who thought they had the infection actually was NOT sick with COVID-19. How’s that for a statistic?

Your last statistic actually gives weight to one of the statistics here in NH. Like most states, testing guidelines are STRICT for testing for the disease, not antibodies (not there yet). 90% of our test results have been negative almost the entire time. Interesting