6 ms·

> But I have a 4.9% chance of being hospitalized You are not taking into account the asymptomatic rate, among other mistakes.

t-writescode 6y ago
Or the ‘just a little cough’ rate or the ‘I probably have it, but I’ll just stay away from people until it goes away’ rate, which is probably pretty high. My mom had had an upper respiratory problem for about a month and they still haven’t tested her. She was just given some antibiotics a week ago; but, even if she has a bacterial infection now, couldn’t it have started as a viral one to make her sick enough to get the bacterial one this bad? We’ll have to do statistics analysis in the coming months and years to get some real numbers on this. As of now, we’re still missing lots of data.
cycrutchfield 6y ago
Asymptomatic rate was measured to be around 50% on diamond princess, so at best they are off by a factor of 2.
- rumanator 6y ago
  Just to provide some info, asymptomatic might include people who are infected but the infection is just on the incubation period. Mild coughing might start after two weeks or so after the plausible date of infection, and a week after that might be when fever and difficulty breathing kicks in.
rumanator 6y ago
> You are not taking into account the asymptomatic rate, among other mistakes. Hospitalization is only required if you're having problems breathing, or experiencing ancillary health problems such as pneumonia.
ekidd 6y ago
> You are not taking into account the asymptomatic rate I'm using the Imperial College of London hospitalization numbers, from the table quoted in the article. These give a hospitalization rate that's about half that of earlier tables. So I'm guessing they probably include around 50% mostly asymptomatic cases, which is in line with heavily-tested populations like the Diamond Princess and South Korea.
- mathdev 6y ago
  The number comes from the column named "symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation"
  - ekidd 6y ago
    You're right, I was misreading the column header. If we assume 50% asymptomatic, then that would get me down to, say, a 2.5% chance of needing a hospital. Which means, in the absence of drastic curve flattening measures, a 2.5% chance of half-drowning in my own lungs in a hospital corridor full of cots. Still sounds pretty awful. The key number we're missing is how many people catch the virus, but who defeat it quickly enough that they never show up on an RNA test. We'll need antibody surveys to figure that out. The Diamond Princess had 712 positive out of 3,711, but some people were tested fairly late. So if we assume half the ship caught it, that could cut the numbers in half again.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - mathdev 6y ago
      > So if we assume half the ship caught it, that could cut the numbers in half again. Actually by a factor of four if we assume that the virus managed to reach everyone it was going to reach on the cruise ship and doesn't spread better on land. And if only those 712 caught it, that reduces your number by a factor of five. So we are already down from 4.9% to between 0.5% and 0.625-1.25%.
      - natrik 6y ago
        Agree with mathdev here. Looking at the data from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ It seems logical to state, at least within the US, the accuracy of deaths due to COVID-19 are more accurate than total cases of COVID-19. There are a lot of asymptomatic people out there. Even if someone has it with mild symptoms they are told to stay home and only reach the hospital if symptoms are severe. Deaths are more accurate as I assume a test can be performed posthumously for COVID-19. So, even with this exaggerated ratio, the US has 5 deaths/1M pop. One can reasonably argue this might've been worse if no quarantine measures were in place. However if the true rate is less than 1%, I think the economic effects will be more impactful. The above link also shows ~27k deaths worldwide due to COVID-19 at the moment. Italy had ~25k deaths due to the flu alone in 2016/2017.
luspr 6y ago
You are right. According to the Robert-Koch-Institut, even in Germany, where there is a lot of testing being done, the number of actual cases is probably a lot higher than the number of confirmed cases. We are talking about 10x or higher.
- cycrutchfield 6y ago
  Please cite your sources, preferably a paper pre-print
  - luspr 6y ago
    It was in a press conference with the German minister of health and the RKI. The British chief medical advisor estimated 20x in Britain. Of course nobody really knows at this point. In Germany, a large-scale study using antibody tests is starting next week to estimate the true numbers.

t-writescode 6y ago

Or the ‘just a little cough’ rate or the ‘I probably have it, but I’ll just stay away from people until it goes away’ rate, which is probably pretty high. My mom had had an upper respiratory problem for about a month and they still haven’t tested her. She was just given some antibiotics a week ago; but, even if she has a bacterial infection now, couldn’t it have started as a viral one to make her sick enough to get the bacterial one this bad? We’ll have to do statistics analysis in the coming months and years to get some real numbers on this. As of now, we’re still missing lots of data.

cycrutchfield 6y ago

Asymptomatic rate was measured to be around 50% on diamond princess, so at best they are off by a factor of 2.

rumanator 6y ago
Just to provide some info, asymptomatic might include people who are infected but the infection is just on the incubation period. Mild coughing might start after two weeks or so after the plausible date of infection, and a week after that might be when fever and difficulty breathing kicks in.

rumanator 6y ago

> You are not taking into account the asymptomatic rate, among other mistakes. Hospitalization is only required if you're having problems breathing, or experiencing ancillary health problems such as pneumonia.

ekidd 6y ago

> You are not taking into account the asymptomatic rate I'm using the Imperial College of London hospitalization numbers, from the table quoted in the article. These give a hospitalization rate that's about half that of earlier tables. So I'm guessing they probably include around 50% mostly asymptomatic cases, which is in line with heavily-tested populations like the Diamond Princess and South Korea.

mathdev 6y ago
The number comes from the column named "symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation"
- ekidd 6y ago
  You're right, I was misreading the column header. If we assume 50% asymptomatic, then that would get me down to, say, a 2.5% chance of needing a hospital. Which means, in the absence of drastic curve flattening measures, a 2.5% chance of half-drowning in my own lungs in a hospital corridor full of cots. Still sounds pretty awful. The key number we're missing is how many people catch the virus, but who defeat it quickly enough that they never show up on an RNA test. We'll need antibody surveys to figure that out. The Diamond Princess had 712 positive out of 3,711, but some people were tested fairly late. So if we assume half the ship caught it, that could cut the numbers in half again.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mathdev 6y ago
    > So if we assume half the ship caught it, that could cut the numbers in half again. Actually by a factor of four if we assume that the virus managed to reach everyone it was going to reach on the cruise ship and doesn't spread better on land. And if only those 712 caught it, that reduces your number by a factor of five. So we are already down from 4.9% to between 0.5% and 0.625-1.25%.
    - natrik 6y ago
      Agree with mathdev here. Looking at the data from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ It seems logical to state, at least within the US, the accuracy of deaths due to COVID-19 are more accurate than total cases of COVID-19. There are a lot of asymptomatic people out there. Even if someone has it with mild symptoms they are told to stay home and only reach the hospital if symptoms are severe. Deaths are more accurate as I assume a test can be performed posthumously for COVID-19. So, even with this exaggerated ratio, the US has 5 deaths/1M pop. One can reasonably argue this might've been worse if no quarantine measures were in place. However if the true rate is less than 1%, I think the economic effects will be more impactful. The above link also shows ~27k deaths worldwide due to COVID-19 at the moment. Italy had ~25k deaths due to the flu alone in 2016/2017.

luspr 6y ago

You are right. According to the Robert-Koch-Institut, even in Germany, where there is a lot of testing being done, the number of actual cases is probably a lot higher than the number of confirmed cases. We are talking about 10x or higher.

cycrutchfield 6y ago
Please cite your sources, preferably a paper pre-print
- luspr 6y ago
  It was in a press conference with the German minister of health and the RKI. The British chief medical advisor estimated 20x in Britain. Of course nobody really knows at this point. In Germany, a large-scale study using antibody tests is starting next week to estimate the true numbers.