
Email may have tainted Stanford coronavirus antibody study - MilnerRoute
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Wife-s-email-may-have-tainted-Stanford-15225414.php
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nednar
Side question:

The very first comparison of covid-19 and seasonal flu I read (before covid-19
was called covid-19) said that covid-19 would have a mortality rate of 1.5%
and seasonal flu of 3%, therefore covid-19 would be less deadly. In recent
months I often read the same statement turned around, which is already
confusing. Now here we talk about a tenth of the same numbers turned around.

I mean, either it's not standardized what "mortality rate" means or the
numbers are all over the place and one can't really say which is more deadly.

Could someone with more knowledge in this area summarize the current status
and maybe where the confusions might come from?

~~~
Gwypaas
It's the difference between IFR and CFR. The IFR is the infection fatality
rate meaning everyone in the population who has been infected. The CFR is the
case fatality rate, those who are sick enough to show up at a hospital, or
well, get tested and confirmed positive. Which nowadays is essentially the
same and a small fraction of total cases.

We see here that flu seems to have an overall IFR rate of 0.002%. Many orders
of magnitude smaller than COVID19.

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm)

~~~
aquadrop
Where do you get IFR for covid19?

~~~
Gwypaas
The IFR rate for covid-19 seems to be trending towards 0.1-0.5% based on the
serological tests over entire population cohorts that are starting to be
published.

~~~
rocha
I thought it was between 0.5% to 1.0%, at least according to the NYC study:
[https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793](https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1253436656742305793)

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Freak_NL
> COVID-19 antibody testing - FREE

How did that email manage to get through any spam filter?

~~~
nednar
Sent by <name>@stanford.edu with host email server verifying the email came
from there?

~~~
bluehatbrit
It sounds like it was sent from the researchers wife who did not work for
stanford.

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ouid
The problem with the Stanford study, as I understand it, is that the 95%
confidence interval on the false positive rate includes 1.5%, meaning that it
is not more than 95% certain that _anybody_ among the people tested was not a
false positive.

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jwilk
Yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972658)

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anoncake
> A 0.35% mortality rate is still nothing to sniff at, however, as it is three
> to four times deadlier than the seasonal flu (with a mortality rate of 0.1%)

Which means a response three to four times as strong as the one to the
seasonal flu would be appropriate.

> and can be significantly higher for elderly residents and individuals with
> underlying conditions.

Which doesn't make the pandemia any more dangerous because the risk is
correspondingly lower for everyone else. In fact, it's a good thing because we
could focus our efforts on protecting those who are in actual danger. We could
use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts and to help
them cope with the increased isolation, making sure they aren't part of the
~70% that will inevitably be infected.

Could.

~~~
buzzkillington
>We could use our functioning economy so they can avoid unnecessary contacts

What economy?

[https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-
numbers-...](https://fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-
claims-this-week-total-job-losses-april-23-2020-benefits-claims/)

The US now looks worse than Greece did in 2008.

~~~
anoncake
Because of the misguided response to Corona. So at least for the US, "could
have" may be more correct.

