
Initial Covid-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported - burlesona
https://news.psu.edu/story/623797/2020/06/22/research/initial-covid-19-infection-rate-may-be-80-times-greater-originally
======
ManlyBread
I became numb to news like this because it doesn't seem to have any reflection
in the reality around me. The numbers are supposed to be huge yet hospitals
are nearly empty and no one I asked knows anyone who was infected. The 80x
number looks like science fiction to me.

~~~
ageitgey
People want this thing to be over, so there's a desire to find reasons to
believe that we are further along than we thought. Combined with this being a
novel disease that no one fully understands, there's a lot of room for those
theories to develop. The current best science answer to how many people remain
susceptible to infection is "nobody really knows but our best guess is not to
assume the best case without better evidence so act like the worst case".

But one thing that is easy to explain is your point about not knowing anyone
who was infected:

\- At the peak of this epidemic in hard-hit places like the UK, something like
only 1 in 400 people are known to have been infected at a time.

\- Many younger people (as much as 70%) show absolutely no symptoms when they
are infected.

\- The disease is astronomically worse for elderly people. One study said that
for young person, getting COVID was as risky as going for a ~200 mile car
drive but as a 90 year old it was as risky as flying a WWII bomber mission.
Nearly everyone who is dying is 70+ and mostly 80+. Obviously some younger
people do die, but the numbers are much, much lower. We are talking 10s of
people total under 40 in most countries.

So unless you are hanging out with a social circle of 80-90 year olds, you
actually aren't very likely know anyone directly affected! But that doesn't
mean tons of people weren't dying. They just aren't the people you would know.
It's a different social circle.

~~~
chosenbreed37
> \- The disease is astronomically worse for elderly people. One study said
> that for young person, getting COVID was as risky as going for a ~200 mile
> car drive but as a 90 year old it was as risky as flying a WWII bomber
> mission

Interesting comparison. So here we're talking about the risk of dying from
Covid-19. What about the risk of becoming seriously ill? What I'm curious is
about is the percentage of people (younger or otherwise) who either develop no
symptoms or develop symptoms so mild as to not be attributed to the virus. Do
such people exist?

~~~
lol768
There's also not enough discussion about what happens _after_ recovery.

I was pretty ill in March (and, to a lesser extent, in April), which
necessitated some time off work. Testing availability in my country was
useless at the time, so I have no formal confirmation as to what it actually
was. The govt also intervened, preventing my order of a private sector
antibody test being fulfilled, so who knows.

The experience after recovery for me, though, was anything but straightforward
and I really struggled with lasting fatigue, breathlessness and just general
exhaustion. I was only able to work half-days for a decent chunk of time. I
still don't feel 100% now. My GP thinks it was likely Covid-19 and offered a
diagnosis of post-viral fatigue after some tests.

I'm 23. Statistically, this should have barely affected folks in my age group.

It's not an isolated case: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-
orkney-she...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-
shetland-53056785)

~~~
_bxg1
I've been reading lots of reports like this from young people. One person in
their 20s ended up with lasting asthma when they'd never had it before. A
couple have needed lung transplants.

This category of outcomes is honestly much scarier for me.

------
gvjddbnvdrbv
How does this reconcile with the actual data we have on total infection rate
in e.g. Spain where a representative poll was done?

~~~
christkv
We now know a significant amount of people have no symptoms or very light
symptoms and no antibody response. An anecdote. My friend and his wife got
tested when giving birth. She was positive for antibodies he was not. It is
quite possible that for ever person who had antibodies there is some unknown x
of people who got it and never developed antibodies.

~~~
peteretep
How would you end up without antibodies? The virus just failed to replicate in
your system and died out of its own accord? Or are we suggesting the people
with no symptoms are still asymptomic carriers?

~~~
carey
You will only get detectable antibodies if the virus activated the adaptive
immune system. This could be the case if the infection was successfully and
quickly controlled by the innate immune system.

------
Animats
This is not new data, but a re-interpretation of previously available data.
With lots of assumptions. Now, if they'd gone back and analyzed samples taken
in February and March with the newer tests, they'd have new data.

Anyway, all of this is about reconstructing the early days of the epidemic.
With good tests now available, it's not that useful at this point.

------
jakeogh
Whats the non-COVID-19 pneumonia# for 2019-2020?

CDC Influenza and pneumonia deaths by influenza season and age: United States,
2008–2015: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-
pn...](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pneumonia-
deaths-2008-2015.pdf)

~~~
charwalker
Even early on we had reports of some states seeing 10k+ more deaths due to
pneumonia or other seasonal illness compared to prior years. Maybe the figures
aren't accurate given current data, but it is worrisome:

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm)

------
baxtr
> _“The findings suggest an alternative way of thinking about the COVID-19
> pandemic.

Our results suggest that the overwhelming effects of COVID-19 may have less to
do with the virus’ lethality and more to do with how quickly it was able to
spread through communities initially,” Silverman explained. “A lower fatality
rate coupled with a higher prevalence of disease and rapid growth of regional
epidemics provides an alternative explanation to the large number of deaths
and overcrowding of hospitals we have seen in certain areas of the world.”_

Isn't this exactly what the "flatten the curve" crowd has been saying?

~~~
fsiefken
yes, but the flatten the curve crowd assumes a higher lethality

~~~
arrrg
Do they?

I think we have pretty ok lethality estimates somewhere in the ballpark of 0.2
to 0.5 percent.

~~~
crooked-v
The lethality rate without care is much higher than the lethality rate with
care, and said care often needs to be exhaustive and for an extended period,
which can easily fill the entire capacity of hospitals if enough people get
infected at once.

~~~
deathgrips
Weren't doctors beginning to question whether intubation had any effect on
recovery?

------
qeternity
History books will not be kind to our past and present handling of covid-19.

Incurring incredible economic and social damage without fully understanding
the threat. It’s been very clear for some time that covid is not nearly as
lethal as once feared AND even more clear that we over quarantined.

In the UK we have hospitals built specifically for covid that are completely
unused. This isn’t flattening the curve, it’s choking it. A vaccine isn’t
happening anytime soon and the only way forward is herd immunity. This means
we need new infections.

~~~
martin_bech
You are aware that despite the world very best efforts, almost 500.000 people
have already died, and in many parts of the world, its actually not slowing
down, but speeding up?

~~~
jakeogh
These numbers would be much more useful if they were in pairs; (#people,
#avg_years_lost).

[https://abcnews.go.com/Health/swine-flu-h1n1-pandemic-
deaths...](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/swine-flu-h1n1-pandemic-
deaths-15-times-higher/story?id=16646281)

"Though the virus was deadly, the swine flu pandemic is still considered to
have been a fairly mild one. The CDC calculates that up to 575,000 people may
have died from H1N1 in 2009. The WHO estimates that the seasonal flu kills up
to 500,000 people each year. Both pale in comparison to the flu pandemic of
1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide."

~~~
crooked-v
Sure... and then consider that, unlike swine flu or seasonal flu, COVID-19 has
already killed hundreds of thousands of people even with near-total lockdowns
to the point of dystopic absurdity in many countries†, has done so over the
course of only a few months, and due to lackluster government response in some
countries is still increasing exponentially in some places.

† See China's brief use of 'only specific designated people per apartment
building are allowed to leave the building for specific designated shopping
trips, under the threat of military force' policies at the worst of the peak
in its cities.

~~~
anoncake
You can't deduce the gravity of a threat from the state's response to it. Just
consider the ~0 killed by terrorism each year in western countries vs the
security theater at airports.

~~~
Touche
Terrorism isn't an infectious disease.

~~~
anoncake
Your point?

~~~
Touche
That your analogy doesn't hold. We do know that infectious diseases with a
median R0 of 5.7 will spread exponentially, as was the case with covid-19 in
the January-March timeframe.

[https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article)

~~~
anoncake
And that means that you can deduce something about the danger of something
from the reaction to it because...?

------
goatinaboat
At this point every scientist in the world is throwing any random theory out
there in the hope one sticks and they will be showered in new funding. The
track record of Neil Ferguson‘s Group at Imperial is representative of this
industry, however.

[https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/176](https://github.com/mrc-
ide/covid-sim/issues/176)

~~~
MattGaiser
Don’t models assume a lack of action?

Given that an alarming model is going to alter our behaviour, it seems
unrealistic to expect them to match what actually happens.

~~~
WildParser
From infection date ~29.February till May the growthrate in Germany is
behaving mathematically exact - following a Gompertz-Model.

It's not really clear if actions and visible behaviour changes did much - all
of them came way too late - and there is no sign of a trendbreak that
indicates any improvement.

