Getting a bit outside of my core understanding but is this then why it does not seem to do well in warm areas? So people thought it was the disease not liking to live in heat but really it’s the lack of D that is allowing it to thrive in the body rather than the cold or lack of heat outside. Is that the idea?
Of much greater interest to me, what do you make several places now including California and the latest being New York showing antibodies in as many as 20% of the population? More and more studies in a variety of locations seem to be starting to show this. If true it means for sure the death ratio is far far lower than thought and far far far more have been infected with no symptoms. Of course the number dying is still more than many viruses but rather than a 1 or 2 % death rate it may be one tenth of one percent. Any thoughts?
The more this all goes on and the more we find out the clearer things start to get. Right or wrong things are also clearly starting to slowly re-open both over seas and in parts of the USA. If 1/5th are already immune with antibodies that won’t mean the infections will climb as much. By me many insisted that in person voting at an election now 18 days ago would cause a spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Now that enough time has passed, we see that never happened. Hospitalizations here have gone down for nearly two weeks now - just in time for the overflow hospital to open tomorrow - to no patients. Meanwhile the largest hospital laid off 7,000 staff today. This is amazing to watch. Anyhow now I’m rambling. Just wanted to see if I was following things accurately.
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
There's already one documented outbreak of 19 cases associated with voting (that was a couple of days ago, they've probably identified more cases and outbreaks now). It was a stupid idea.
The math: the surveillance data from New York supports my initial estimates of an overall death rate per infected person (not per identified case) of about 0.6%. Right now 21% of New York has been. If we calculate 30% of the US getting infected over the next year (a very reasonable, in fact conservative estimate given how quickly this has spread) and use this 0.6% fatality rate we get 600,000 deaths in the US. If we did NOTHING and let it spread to 70% of the population (the percentage needed to get herd immunity) you would have 1.4 million deaths.
And while we are on the subject - no, you should not inject or ingest disinfectants like bleach or rubbing alcohol into the body in any form - they will kill you. And there’s no mechanism for introducing UV light into the inside of the body - it would fry your innards (remember sunburns?). I’m waiting now for some poor sucker out there to die from attempting to act on these half baked ideas, like the fish tank cleaner couple.
Get a little sun and take your vitamin D. Get your medical advice from the doctors and scientists.
I’m just wondering if the statistics are being skewed by the tests themselves? Are the antibody tests you are referring to specifically testing COVID 19? Or all corona viruses? I’m asking because I’m a healthcare workers selected to take a test for NY and was told that it’s not specific to Covid 19. Do either of you know anything about the tests and what they are testing here. And Don is What your saying based on antibody tests specific to Covid 19 which might not even be what they are using in New York.
Im wondering what the reason is for me to take a test that will only tell me if I was exposed to corona but not specific to Covid 19. (Was told if we test positive for antibodies we are not allowed to give plasma) And I am assuming this is the test available to this area and they are basing those statistics on this test. We need to know the specific tests they are basing these statements off of no?
Juju - I don’t think the statistics on the surveillance testing are being significantly affected by the test itself - because the percentage positive is so high and varies appropriately from areas of high infection to areas of low infection.
That being said - there are a lot of problems with using the tests we have now clinically. Most tests on the market have not gone through FDA certification (they were allowed to be released without that testing because it was an emergency). We don’t have good data on the sensitivity and specificity of those tests, and some of the claims of the manufacturers are being challenged . (Like the Roche rapid test).
ANY test will have some errors - it will either lean towards picking up all positive cases but giving some false positive results, or towards being really sure a positive is positive, but giving some false negatives. Which way you want the test to lean depends on what your purpose is. In today’s environment it may also depend on what’s available to you.
Let’s say you are taking an antibody test that leans towards not missing people who have the infection, but has say a 3% chance of giving a false positive to somebody who didn’t have CoVID (maybe due to cross-reactivity from very high levels of antibodies to a related coronavirus ). You as an asymptomatic person take the test and come back positive. They can only tell you there’s a 97% chance that you had CoVID - good, but not perfect. That’s the reality of testing.
Are they giving you the test for epidemiological reasons? Then it’s plenty good enough. If you’re taking the test to confirm that CoVID- like illness you had a month ago was really CoVID - it’s pretty likely. If you’re taking it to decide whether you can work with CoVID patients without using PPE - well, there’s that 3% chance you’re not immune, it wouldn’t be good to use it that way.
Btw SARS and CoVID are closely related and the tests likely can’t distinguish between them, but luckily very few people have had SARS so it’s not important.
I have a question and I hope you don't think it is a stupid one. We had a woman in her sixties pass away last week from COVID-19 and the flu. How can you have both at the same time and then determine that she had both?
I've been reading and taking in all of your information and have been taking Vitamin D3 and drinking coffee each and every day. I hope others will follow the Vitamin D3 approach. So many don't realize that they are low on D3.
Keeping everyone in my thoughts and prayers. Please stay safe and well.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
19 cases is hardly an outbreak. Plus all it shows is 19 people who voted in person also tested positive for covid. It doesn’t mean they got it while voting. And how many tens of thousands voted that day? Pretty much everyone including our state officials have now conceded voting in person did nothing to move the needle. I hope you are still looking at things scientifically KML and not just in a way to prove your beliefs.
Juju while I have watched all of this very carefully and just by chance took on a new contract that has me rubbing elbows (figuratively) with some of my state’s greatest healthcare peeps, I’ve not delved deeply into the recent antibody testing reports. From what I’ve been able to find this is actual novel covid 19 antibodies they are testing for and showing near 1 in 5 have the antibody for covid 19 - not just the general Coronavirus. They still don’t know but most believe this strain has not yet mutated. So I would say if you get tested it will be for the actual novel covid 19 antibody.
The “greater New York area”, however that is defined, has had 52% of all USA covid deaths. So it’s clearly way way worse out there. Although thankfully still not as bad as feared. The NY governor asked for 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators. Trump and others told him he’d never need that many but of course they told trump he has no clue what he’s talking about. So the vents were provided, including mandating, was it GM? To build them. In the end vent use never topped 6,000 and they have now shipped the vents to,other places. Same with hospital beds. 140,000 was the number predicted to be needed. Instead it’s never topped 20,000. Off by a factor of 7. Again, 6,000 people on ventilators and 20K in the hospital is a serious deal - no two ways around it. But compared to my state with 350 patients in the hospital and less than 200 vents it’s just not comparable. NY is clearly way harder hit - so much so it’s really not comparable. You mentioned mass transit. I’ve heard that as a very likely carrier. Just the numbers of people one on top of the next... it’s hard not to transmit it. I was going to say hope you test negative but I guess it’s the opposite- hope you test positive for antibodies! You’d be safe and clear and never knew you had it!!!
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
I have a question and I hope you don't think it is a stupid one. We had a woman in her sixties pass away last week from COVID-19 and the flu. How can you have both at the same time and then determine that she had both?
I've been reading and taking in all of your information and have been taking Vitamin D3 and drinking coffee each and every day. I hope others will follow the Vitamin D3 approach. So many don't realize that they are low on D3.
Keeping everyone in my thoughts and prayers. Please stay safe and well.
Originally Posted by job
kml,
I have a question and I hope you don't think it is a stupid one. We had a woman in her sixties pass away last week from COVID-19 and the flu. How can you have both at the same time and then determine that she had both?
I've been reading and taking in all of your information and have been taking Vitamin D3 and drinking coffee each and every day. I hope others will follow the Vitamin D3 approach. So many don't realize that they are low on D3.
Keeping everyone in my thoughts and prayers. Please stay safe and well.
This is not a stupid question! Both are separate viruses and different assays from the swan. You do a respiratory panel which is one swan that tests for many respiratory viruses. And corona is a separate swab that tests for that.
I am so sorry for your loss. It’s just heartbreaking
