
Oxford Model: Coronavirus May Have Already Infected Half of U.K. Population - guscost
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/oxford-study-coronavirus-may-have-infected-half-of-u-k.html
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hhs
Please note that the nymag piece was published on March 24th. On March 26th, a
group of scientists criticised the figures because it was based on assumptions
that lacked empirical evidence; if interested, here’s their letter of
critique: [https://www.ft.com/content/ebab9fcc-6e8d-11ea-9bca-
bf503995c...](https://www.ft.com/content/ebab9fcc-6e8d-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f)

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dr_faustus
The theory that the virus has been spreading for months just makes no sense at
all. By all accounts, COVID has a pretty quick progression and serious cases
need to be hospitalized after about one week of symptoms or about two weeks
after contraction. How come that the virus has infected millions and millions
of people in the last months but none of them got seriously sick. And now all
of a sudden, 1000s are dying. Unfortunatly, it seems that even researchers
from reputable institutions are now just pulling numbers from their asses to
grab some headlines.

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HSO
Not so fast...

If the mortality rate really is much lower than generally presumed at the
moment, with no antibody tests to actually verify, then it is absolutely
possible that this has been creeping up on us for a month or two earlier in
the UK and Italy than currently presumed.

Esp. if you consider that 1) most of the fatal or critical cases are elderly
and/or with comorbidities and 2) the symptoms are easily confused with other
diseases.

It may well be that if we re-examined old case files and could test
retroactively we would find a bunch of cases that were misattributed to other
causes.

It's impossible to know for sure without antibody tests.

