COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...

[ArminRU]

Sorry, but that data does not suggest that to me as they have not changed much and yet the virus seems to have a similar wall as seen in many countries, states, etc. From their policies experts expected 40 times the spread, ICU's etc and although their numbers are higher than surrounding countries who have tighter restrictions, the dropoff the last two weeks suggests something much more positive might be in play.

FWIW, they reported 34 new cases out of 81000 tests yesterday for a positivity rate of about 0.04%!!!!!!!!

Don’t be fooled. They have rules and social distanced better than a lot of places. If you think they carried along with life as normal, you are mistaken. Their death rate was not as good as the surrounding countries, and their economy was still hit, so it’s debatable if their approach was successful or not.

 

[RU848789]

I only went through the NEJM paper from Moderna. Most of the data are in the supplements.

From what I see, the CD4 T cell response is very low (0.15-0.2% make cytokine). The CD8 T cell response is nonexistent. See Page 23 and 24 Fig. S10 and S11. They say otherwise in the text of the paper, but the data are the data. This is a very big concern.

Good catch. I had only read the paper, not the supplement. The paper has the following section, but I don't know enough to know what level of CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses to the virus are considered "good." Maybe you do? Also, I think they have a typo, since Fig S11 shows a low level response in the S-1P peptide pool, not S-2P.

SARS-COV-2 T-CELL RESPONSES
The 25-μg and 100-μg doses elicited CD4 T-cell responses (Figs. S9 and S10) that on stimulation by S-specific peptide pools were strongly biased toward expression of Th1 cytokines (tumor necrosis factor α > interleukin 2 > interferon γ), with minimal type 2 helper T-cell (Th2) cytokine expression (interleukin 4 and interleukin 13). CD8 T-cell responses to S-2P were detected at low levels after the second vaccination in the 100-μg dose group (Fig. S11).

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022483?query=featured_home

Also, as far as I could tell, the Pfizer preprint on their phase I trial didn't have any data on T-cells - not sure if they didn't do any evaluation of it or not. Seems odd. Since we know there are people who barely develop antibodies, post-infection and yet recover, many have been speculating this could be due to the T-cell response, so it would be good to have that from the phase I trials. That seems like baseline vaccine pharmacobiology data to obtain.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.30.20142570v1

I also wonder how they would separate out the T-cell response seen in these studies from any "natural" T-cell response some subject might have due to cross-reactivity (which has mostly been seen via CD4 and not CD8 cells. The excerpt below is from the recent Nature commentary on this...

Pre-existing CD4+ T cell memory could also influence vaccination outcomes, leading to a faster or better immune response, particularly the development of neutralizing antibodies, which generally depend on T cell help. At the same time, pre-existing T cell memory could also act as a confounding factor, especially in relatively small phase I vaccine trials. For example, if subjects with pre-existing reactivity were assorted unevenly in different vaccine dose groups, this might lead to erroneous conclusions. Obviously, this could be avoided by considering pre-existing immunity as a variable to be considered in trial design. Thus, we recommend measuring pre-existing immunity in all COVID-19 vaccine phase I clinical trials. Of note, such experiments would also offer an exciting opportunity to ascertain the potential biological significance of pre-existing SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0389-z

So, Derek Lowe has a really detailed analysis of the Moderna vaccine paper today and shares your concerns over the lukewarm T-cell response and the decline of the antibody levels at Day 57 vs. Day 43 (excerpted below). He also echoed my comments above about not really knowing exactly what kind of T-cell response we should be looking for - perhaps you have more insight? Will also be interesting to see if Moderna and Pfizer continue to monitor these phase I subjects for antibodies/T-cells over time or if they'll start focusing more on the ongoing phase II studies and rolling out phase III at the end of July. Also, for what it's worth, I asked my Pfizer buddy, who is very plugged into their efforts, about the lack of T-cell info in their paper and he said "there's nothing public I can report" which tells me that the data are hopefully coming. We'll see.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/15/modernas-phase-i-data

That said, antibody levels are not the only thing that determines immunity. T cells are a big part of this story, although we don’t know all the details – you’ll generally hear a lot more about antibody titers because they’re a lot easier to measure, and to be fair they are often a good proxy for overall immunity. But not always. As for the T-cell data here, CD4+ cell responses were noted, but there was much weaker CD8+ activity (and that only after the second dose in the 100 µg group). Those CD4+ cells can be further differentiated into Th1 and Th2 cells, which each produce a different suite of cytokines. In this case, the vaccine seemed to mostly elicit Th1. The balance between those two types is a complex subject indeed (they have different modes of action and can influence each other’s activity as well), and that also goes for the balance between the CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in general.

I’m not enough of an immunology geek to be able to tell you what profile we would be looking for, and I don’t think we even quite know yet. My impression is that CD8+ cells are more well-established as being important in clearing viral infections (especially respiratory viruses), but the CD4+ ones (and the ratio of the two) are real players as well. As for the Th1 and Th2 subsets of those CD4+ cells, there’s evidence that the Th1 type are more powerful against viral pathogens, at least for some viruses. The general belief, in fact, has been that Th1 cells are more important in fighting intracellular pathogens in general, with Th2 cells going after extracellular parasites and the like, but (like everything else in immunology) that framework has only become more complicated as we learn more about it.

In addition, he linked to this tweet below, which is a little more pessimistic about the lack of T-cell response in the Moderna vaccine. I guess we'll know a lot more in a few months, but hopefully we see data roll out along the way.

 

[wisr01]

Being such a new "phenomenon" in Sweden there doesn't seem to be much data on this. I did find the link below. They surmise that due to the much less stringent "lockdowns" and early death counts in Sweden the population has become vigilant, perhaps more vigilant than other EU countries, with social distancing and hygiene.

"Ironically, basic social distancing requirements in Sweden are now stricter than in many other countries. That’s because places like Denmark and Norway have rolled back the severe lockdowns they imposed early on to fight Covid-19. The stringency of Swedish requirements according to the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker shows the country now places greater restrictions on movement than Norway and Finland"



https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/swedish-covid-infections-drop-after-steady-distancing-patterns

That articles conclusions are pretty silly. Sweden has not changed their restrictions as shown in the graph in the article. It is true that those other countries are less stringent but it is because they relaxed restrictions. Sweden's approach has remained the same as shown in the graph and yet the cases suddenly dropped quite drastically.

In early June London starting relaxing restrictions and reopened schools:

 

[RU848789]

SIAP, but good to see the CDC head on board with masks in a bigger way than in the past. Late is better than never, I guess...

https://www.axios.com/cdc-director-masking-coronavirus-dba00f19-4167-43a0-b021-9a9e66974517.html

 

[wisr01]

Don’t be fooled. They have rules and social distanced better than a lot of places. If you think they carried along with life as normal, you are mistaken. Their death rate was not as good as the surrounding countries, and their economy was still hit, so it’s debatable if their approach was successful or not.

You missed the whole point. They have changed very little as shown in the graph in my previous post. This graph reflects the their social distancing patterns/rules which have not changed since early April. Those rules do not explain the sudden change and in fact strongly suggest something else is in play.

 

[RU848789]

That articles conclusions are pretty silly. Sweden has not changed their restrictions as shown in the graph in the article. It is true that those other countries are less stringent but it is because they relaxed restrictions. Sweden's approach has remained the same as shown in the graph and yet the cases suddenly dropped quite drastically.

In early June London starting relaxing restrictions and reopened schools:

Well, the article said exactly what you said above, that the government restrictions are now more severe in Sweden because the other Nordic countries relaxed their government restrictions, not that Sweden went more conservative. But it's also possible that, independent of the government restrictions, the people are simply practicing better, more consistent social distancing, but if that's the case, it would be good if someone could show that (which is what you've been asking for, i.e., some better data on why the decline and I agree - mobility data are often used as a surrogate for that, but I guess wouldn't tell you if someone is keeping 6 feet away).

The article did have this comment, which has no data, though, from their public health director, Carlson, who said that the decline in infection rates “is an effect of us keeping up the social distancing.” In addition, it's well known that the Swedes were very embarrassed when the other Nordic countries allowed travel among them, but not with Sweden. Perhaps that also spurred more distancing. FWIW, the other Nordic countries have even lower case rates, although they're all quite low.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52853556

 

[CommonSenseA]

Could be good news:

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-discovery-could-slash-corona-threat-to-that-of-the-common-cold/

With all the negativity regarding covid-19, I try to focus on real or potential positive developments. This, together with the Oxford link posted above, allows me to do this.

 

[RutgHoops]

Great story about one of my closest high school friends. 55 days on a ventilator at St. Barnabas. We all grew up as athletes together in Livingston High School in the early/mid 80's. Some of us, like Mike, going on to play ball in college. A great guy and a feel good story.

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020...t3cZDp0XIf0JZuq4TPa_GJWHLuJioGkGAPGUO4u_GOupw

 

[Wolv RU]

I love good news and Europeans being back in school is good news. But the only reason they are is because their current case and death rates are 10-20X lower than ours. Whether or not they had more deaths than we did back in March/April is irrelevant to their decisions on schools. Your original post of "Euros are already in school, even those with higher death rates than US" implies that they're back in school despite the higher death rates, which is misleading - it's all about the current rates. And because of that, I could see NY/NJ/CT etc who are all doing quite well now, reopening schools, with appropriate precautions, as in Europe, but not those states in the south and west with peaking cases and increasing deaths, unless they can control their outbreaks.

While I agree with the premise that data needs to be compared at the appropriate times, didn't many Europeans go back to school in May? If so, we should compare their May data to current data in various places in the U.S.

How does May data in Europe compare to current NJ data, for example, is a relevant question. A current to current comparison seems not much better than a full timeline comparison.

 

[UMRU]

I haven't seen much posted in this thread on the Oxford vaccine. I have zero expertise in this area and thank @RU848789 and @UMRU as well as others for their insightful contributions to the thread.

Below is an article from Bloomberg on the Oxfords vaccine. I believe The Economist and WSJ had recent stories on it as well.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...-organic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

I have no direct experience, but I really like the idea of nonreplicating viral vectors for inducing protection. China has one that is supposedly already going large scale into people.

The trick is that a known virus is used to produce the spike protein from Covid. The virus activates the immune system to produce a specific response to the Covid protein. Altimmune is using this approach. Lots of this virus can be made pretty easily and it is stable, whereas mRNA is not stable and making millions of pounds won't be easy.

 

[UMRU]

Good catch. I had only read the paper, not the supplement. The paper has the following section, but I don't know enough to know what level of CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses to the virus are considered "good." Maybe you do? Also, I think they have a typo, since Fig S11 shows a low level response in the S-1P peptide pool, not S-2P.

SARS-COV-2 T-CELL RESPONSES
The 25-μg and 100-μg doses elicited CD4 T-cell responses (Figs. S9 and S10) that on stimulation by S-specific peptide pools were strongly biased toward expression of Th1 cytokines (tumor necrosis factor α > interleukin 2 > interferon γ), with minimal type 2 helper T-cell (Th2) cytokine expression (interleukin 4 and interleukin 13). CD8 T-cell responses to S-2P were detected at low levels after the second vaccination in the 100-μg dose group (Fig. S11).

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022483?query=featured_home

Also, as far as I could tell, the Pfizer preprint on their phase I trial didn't have any data on T-cells - not sure if they didn't do any evaluation of it or not. Seems odd. Since we know there are people who barely develop antibodies, post-infection and yet recover, many have been speculating this could be due to the T-cell response, so it would be good to have that from the phase I trials. That seems like baseline vaccine pharmacobiology data to obtain.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.30.20142570v1

I also wonder how they would separate out the T-cell response seen in these studies from any "natural" T-cell response some subject might have due to cross-reactivity (which has mostly been seen via CD4 and not CD8 cells. The excerpt below is from the recent Nature commentary on this...

Pre-existing CD4+ T cell memory could also influence vaccination outcomes, leading to a faster or better immune response, particularly the development of neutralizing antibodies, which generally depend on T cell help. At the same time, pre-existing T cell memory could also act as a confounding factor, especially in relatively small phase I vaccine trials. For example, if subjects with pre-existing reactivity were assorted unevenly in different vaccine dose groups, this might lead to erroneous conclusions. Obviously, this could be avoided by considering pre-existing immunity as a variable to be considered in trial design. Thus, we recommend measuring pre-existing immunity in all COVID-19 vaccine phase I clinical trials. Of note, such experiments would also offer an exciting opportunity to ascertain the potential biological significance of pre-existing SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0389-z

What I really would have liked to have seen is residual immune responses to something we know works - like tetanus toxin vaccine - for comparison. But, as they say, too many controls are bad for stock prices.

 

[UMRU]

Everyone always focuses on the AB response, not the T Cell response. For people like me that don’t know anything, how important is the T Cell response?

1) To get antibodies, you have to first have a T cell response.
2) For pathogens that live inside cells (like viruses), antibodies don't help much - you need to have killer CD8+ T cells.
3) However, a great antibody response could protect you for decades, whereas a great T cell response will probably not last more than a year or so.

 

[RU848789]

Could be good news:

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-discovery-could-slash-corona-threat-to-that-of-the-common-cold/

With all the negativity regarding covid-19, I try to focus on real or potential positive developments. This, together with the Oxford link posted above, allows me to do this.

While it's great to see continued research on existing drugs, keep in mind that, so far, this work has only been done in cell cultures and hasn't been evaluated yet in animals or humans with COVID to see if there is any clinical benefit. Long way to go and I'm always a bit skeptical when I see fairly grandiose statements about a drug before there are even any clinical data, i.e., the author's comment that fenofibrate "could ‘downgrade’ Covid-19 threat level to that of a common cold."

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/study-fenofibrate-covid-19/

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3650499

 

[ArminRU]

Someone mentioned the Oxford Vaccine recently. Trial results incoming and it sounds like it’s good...

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-07-15...-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-writes-robert-peston

 

[RU848789]

I haven't seen much posted in this thread on the Oxford vaccine. I have zero expertise in this area and thank @RU848789 and @UMRU as well as others for their insightful contributions to the thread.

Below is an article from Bloomberg on the Oxfords vaccine. I believe The Economist and WSJ had recent stories on it as well.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...-organic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Really good article, thanks - loved the scale-up/manufacturing part at the end (it's what I did for over 30 years in Pharma, for small molecules, not vaccines, but tons of similarities and I did get involved in a couple of vaccine projects). It's been about two weeks since the Oxford-Astra Zeneca chimp adeonvirus "Trojan Horse" viral vector vaccine was discussed, as far as I can tell, so an update is good. Same approach is being used by CanSino (China), except they use a modified human adenovirus (which might have issues with some humans reacting to it).

Obviously, getting a first, effective vaccine out there will be huge, although for the first 6+ months, I assume any vaccine that works and is safe will find willing recipients as there simply won't be enough of any one vaccine for everyone for many months. Someday, this will all make for a great book/movie...

 

[RutgHoops]

....

....Someday, this will all make for a great book/movie...

A University President with whom I sit on a Board had a funny line the other day. "In 20 years history students are going to be asked 'which quarter of 2020 are you majoring in?'". I thought that was funny.

 

[ArminRU]

Great story about one of my closest high school friends. 55 days on a ventilator at St. Barnabas. We all grew up as athletes together in Livingston High School in the early/mid 80's. Some of us, like Mike, going on to play ball in college. A great guy and a feel good story.

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020...t3cZDp0XIf0JZuq4TPa_GJWHLuJioGkGAPGUO4u_GOupw

Wow, what a story. Convalescent plasma to the rescue. Guy was relatively young and looked healthy.....when this virus hits, it hits hard. Hope he doesn’t have too many long term effects.

 

[King of S]

Could be good news:

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-discovery-could-slash-corona-threat-to-that-of-the-common-cold/

With all the negativity regarding covid-19, I try to focus on real or potential positive developments. This, together with the Oxford link posted above, allows me to do this.

Always believed a treatment/cure would come ahead of a vaccine. This is excellent news.

 

[RU848789]

While I agree with the premise that data needs to be compared at the appropriate times, didn't many Europeans go back to school in May? If so, we should compare their May data to current data in various places in the U.S.

How does May data in Europe compare to current NJ data, for example, is a relevant question. A current to current comparison seems not much better than a full timeline comparison.

Good question. Posted the European case rates vs. US last night - European case rates were hugely down by May, but the US's were only down slightly overall, but were down a fair amount in NJ/NY - however, it took til June to be much lower here. It's a very good point that looking at "US" data is generally not very helpful, since the variability across the US has been and still is so huge.

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ventions-and-more.198855/page-40#post-4634918

 

[RU848789]

Great story about one of my closest high school friends. 55 days on a ventilator at St. Barnabas. We all grew up as athletes together in Livingston High School in the early/mid 80's. Some of us, like Mike, going on to play ball in college. A great guy and a feel good story.

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020...t3cZDp0XIf0JZuq4TPa_GJWHLuJioGkGAPGUO4u_GOupw

Great story! Wonder if it was the plasma that turned the tide - always hard to tell when multiple treatments are in play. Did folks notice who wrote it? Steve Politi. Probably worth its own thread, since that would kind of make it sports related, lol...

 

[ArminRU]

You missed the whole point. They have changed very little as shown in the graph in my previous post. This graph reflects the their social distancing patterns/rules which have not changed since early April. Those rules do not explain the sudden change and in fact strongly suggest something else is in play.

No, I get your point. Just don’t agree with what you’re trying to say.

 

[Wolv RU]

Good question. Posted the European case rates vs. US last night - European case rates were hugely down by May, but the US's were only down slightly overall, but were down a fair amount in NJ/NY - however, it took til June to be much lower here. It's a very good point that looking at "US" data is generally not very helpful, since the variability across the US has been and still is so huge.

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ventions-and-more.198855/page-40#post-4634918

If European case rates were down big by May, and, for example, State X case rates are down big now from State X's peak, then it seems reasonable that State X should return to school in the same manner that Europe did in May.

To me, a major difference is that Europe seems to have prioritized school openings in their reopening plans. In the U.S., schools are far down on the priority list. Schools seem to be treated as a lot less essential in the U.S., and I disagree with this prioritization.

 

[Salvi's Headband]

Genuinely curious on thoughts here....would a 3 week national lockdown, like a real Italy style lockdown, be our best bet right now? I know it will never happen but I can't help thinking that it should have a while ago.

 

[RU23]

Genuinely curious on thoughts here....would a 3 week national lockdown, like a real Italy style lockdown, be our best bet right now? I know it will never happen but I can't help thinking that it should have a while ago.

No, wouldn’t do anything at this point imo. We’re adding several hundreds thousand cases a day (not confirmed ones). Say we got it down to 50k cases a day (not happening) with an extremely tough 3 week lockdown (so roughly 5k confirmed cases a day rather than the current 50k+). My bet is we’d be right back up to hundreds of thousands cases a day within a month

 

[RutgHoops]

Genuinely curious on thoughts here....would a 3 week national lockdown, like a real Italy style lockdown, be our best bet right now? I know it will never happen but I can't help thinking that it should have a while ago.

I don't think there is any chance we see another national lockdown. This is now each State's issue to handle. I think you will significant rollbacks in reopenings and potentially even "shelter in place" orders in certain areas should hospitals in certain Counties/Cities/States reach capacity.

The American economy will be devastated. We ran almost a $1T deficit last month. There are major American business sectors that I don't see coming back in any meaningful way before a vaccine. I thought I was a pessimist when I said YE 2020 we would be at 90% GDP. That seems optimistic now.

It is truly a sad time. Stay healthy and stay safe.

 

[ArminRU]

No, wouldn’t do anything at this point imo. We’re adding several hundreds thousand cases a day (not confirmed ones). Say we got it down to 50k cases a day (not happening) with an extremely tough 3 week lockdown (so roughly 5k confirmed cases a day rather than the current 50k+). My bet is we’d be right back up to hundreds of thousands cases a day within a month

Should be interesting if Florida, Texas, Cali, etc. can get their numbers down while being “open”. We were able to do it, but we were locked down for most of it. We also had it much worse than those states.

 

[Joey Bags]

Genuinely curious on thoughts here....would a 3 week national lockdown, like a real Italy style lockdown, be our best bet right now? I know it will never happen but I can't help thinking that it should have a while ago.

An Italian-style lockdown nationwide wouldn't be feasible. You'd have to mobilize the entire US army and National Guard to enforce that, likely having to recall nearly all US troops abroad to do so. Not even going to get into what that would do to force projection and mission readiness.

Once you get over the national security issues, a three week national lockdown this late in the game would no doubt trigger a second great depression. You be looking at a sub 7k dow. Remember, the only things open during the italian lockdown were hospitals, pharmacies, and grocery stores. That was it.

Not to mention in this current political climate, a lockdown of that magnitude now (rather than when the virus kicked off in earnest in March) runs the very real risk of the breakup of the US Yugoslavia style. If you think people complaining about masks now is bad, how do you think people will react to full blown martial law and massive supply chain breakdown? What about regions like the Northeast that have the virus in check?

Keep in mind policy analysts believe Italy was only a couple weeks away from total societal breakdown which is what forced their hand in opening the south of the country, followed by the north.

It's also important to note the vast majority of new US cases are asymptomatic through the course of the infection which is markedly different from what was occurring in NY/NJ and Italy in the spring.

So with all that being said, no, I don't think it would be viable lol.

 

[Knight177lb]

I admit I purposefully left my post on Sweden vague. To your credit were the only person who saw that graph and understood the questions that should be asked. Kudos to you for the questions you asked because they were the same ones I asked myself.

Indoor bars and restaurants have been open all along with rules about >1meter spacing. They have made no real changes to practices and yet the cases began a steep decline on June 29th. Seems like some other explanation is needed and I too continue to wonder why the virus seems to burnout well below the expected 60% herd immunity. I guess we will see if something similar happens in FL, CA, TX, etc.

They reported 34 new cases yesterday out of 81000 tests for a rate of 0.04%. This sudden decline is something that needs to be better understood.

Is it possible that they actually are reaching herd immunity? I know they estimate that only 7% of the population has been infected, no where the 60% they need. However, they haven't tested the entire population and the 7% is only an estimate.

 

[m1ipabrams]

Is it possible that they actually are reaching herd immunity? I know they estimate that only 7% of the population has been infected, no where the 60% they need. However, they haven't tested the entire population and the 7% is only an estimate.

Tough to be THAT wrong on an estimate....

 

[RU848789]

Genuinely curious on thoughts here....would a 3 week national lockdown, like a real Italy style lockdown, be our best bet right now? I know it will never happen but I can't help thinking that it should have a while ago.

No, our best bet is universal masking wherever distancing can't be maintained (especially since we're doing at least decently on testing now - could be doing much better on tracing/isolating though) - that is the best, least painful way to quickly reduce transmission, but we have no national plan or policy to drive such behavior. Several countries have shown the virus can essentially be stopped with such approaches (without anywhere near full lockdowns) when executed very well.

 

[RU848789]

Is it possible that they actually are reaching herd immunity? I know they estimate that only 7% of the population has been infected, no where the 60% they need. However, they haven't tested the entire population and the 7% is only an estimate.

Not a chance. Antibody testing programs are done via some sort of representative sample from the population (usually) so that the data can be extrapolated to a whole city, state or country if done properly.

 

[wisr01]

No, I get your point. Just don’t agree with what you’re trying to say.

No you didn't get the point because your response was this:

"Don’t be fooled. They have rules and social distanced better than a lot of places. If you think they carried along with life as normal, you are mistaken. Their death rate was not as good as the surrounding countries, and their economy was still hit, so it’s debatable if their approach was successful or not."

Your response proves that you did not understand my point even slightly. How can you agree with what I am trying to say when you have no clue what it is?

 

[wisr01]

Is it possible that they actually are reaching herd immunity? I know they estimate that only 7% of the population has been infected, no where the 60% they need. However, they haven't tested the entire population and the 7% is only an estimate.

They had an antibody test of 50,000 people that suggested about 14% have been infected and that was at the end of May so some estimate it might be closer to 20% by now which coincides with my point that there appears to be a decline in cases when you get close to or above 20%.

This is kind of where Friston's point comes along when looking at the data. The effective R number is R0 * X where X is percentage of people susceptible. If we use an estimate of R0 of between 3 and 4 along with say only 50% are susceptible initially, we get this:

Re is between 1.5 and 2.0 which is what I have seen estimated for the Florida spike.

Once 25% percent has been infected, we only have 25% left (because 50% not susceptible from get go), so Re goes down to 0.75-1.0 and the disease spread slows drastically.

Just some hypothetical possibilities to consider.

 

[fischy5000]

Should be interesting if Florida, Texas, Cali, etc. can get their numbers down while being “open”. We were able to do it, but we were locked down for most of it. We also had it much worse than those states.

In theory though, if every US resident was locked down for a few weeks AND everyone of those people had access to take the test at the end of that (an Accurate one) we would be able to tell every positive case and plan/proceed to isolate (as in not even see family in household) those people whether at home or in a hospital, then continue lockdown for 2 more weeks or so from the ending of the first lockdown to allow for testing patients who recovered and you should now have much more control over the situation and make sure noone who can pass it on will have access to do that.
First off the above will never happen, plus it assumes that you wouldnt have anyone manning the hospitals to treat the patients which throws off the entire model anyway with having people out and moving around with high chance of catching something and seeing other people.

 

[dvb91]

Concerning Sweden, found this interesting article comparing Sweden vs NY.

https://fee.org/articles/why-sweden-succeeded-in-flattening-the-curve-and-new-york-failed/

 

[bac2therac]

10K new cases in California, I am old enough to remember when they told me that masks work

can anyone tackle California rise and the whys

 

[wisr01]

1-K new cases in California, I am old enough to remember when they told me that masks work

can anyone tackle California rise and the whys

Did you mean 10K?

 

[RU848789]

They had an antibody test of 50,000 people that suggested about 14% have been infected and that was at the end of May so some estimate it might be closer to 20% by now which coincides with my point that there appears to be a decline in cases when you get close to or above 20%.

Being cagey again? Direct is better, IMO. If you want to argue about "dark matter" and the potential that there's some hidden 20% cap to infections, have at it. But the fact that neighborhoods in NYC and Italy had 50-65% with antibodies and there have been smaller closed populations (prisons, meatpacking plants, etc.) with up to 80% infected, as measured by the viral PCR test, makes that 20% cap seem unlikely. If you want to argue the potential immunity in unexposed people due to T-cell cross-reactivity, that's a much more scientific possibility, but nobody knows yet if that response to COVID in cell cultures of people never exposed to COVID means they have little, some or complete immunity.

Anyway, that test of 50K people was done by a private company and was not randomly drawn from the population, so it was likely not representative of the country's population. In addition, the 14% result was for Stockholm, not for the country, which would be much lower, given the much lower density of the remaining 75% of Sweden's population and lower transmission rates outside of Stockholm.

https://www.thelocal.se/20200618/one-in-seven-stockholmers-had-coronavirus-antibody-in-private-tests

Better data on antibody levels in Sweden are from the blood donor studies, which are more representative than the private tests where people are motivated to get a result because they suspect infection. As of the end of May, 6.3% of Sweden was found to have antibodies and given the low infection rates since then, it's unlikely that more than 7-8% have been infected as of now.

Analysis of samples collected at Week 21 shows that antibodies to covid-19 are detected in 6.3 percent of the studied population. Antibodies continue to be lowest among older adults 65-95 years with 3.9 percent and higher among adults 20-64 years with 7.6 percent and among children 0-19 years with 7.5 percent.

Data at the regional level is presented only for Stockholm, Västra Götaland and Skåne as the number of samples collected for the other regions is less than 100 and therefore cannot give reliable results. In the Stockholm region, Week 21 had the highest proportion of antibody positives with 10.0 percent, followed by Skåne with 4.5 percent and Västra Götaland with 2.7 percent.

http://outbreaknewstoday.com/sweden...fection-antibody-tests-in-blood-donors-98648/

Edit: added link to NY/NYC antibody data...

https://www.6sqft.com/new-york-covid-antibody-test-preliminary-results/

 

[wisr01]

Being cagey again? Direct is better, IMO. If you want to argue about "dark matter" and the potential that there's some hidden 20% cap to infections, have at it. But the fact that neighborhoods in NYC and Italy had 50-65% with antibodies and there have been smaller closed populations (prisons, meatpacking plants, etc.) with up to 80% infected, as measured by the viral PCR test, makes that 20% cap seem unlikely. If you want to argue the potential immunity in unexposed people due to T-cell cross-reactivity, that's a much more scientific possibility, but nobody knows yet if that response to COVID in cell cultures of people never exposed to COVID means they have little, some or complete immunity.

Anyway, that test of 50K people was done by a private company and was not randomly drawn from the population, so it was likely not representative of the country's population. In addition, the 14% result was for Stockholm, not for the country, which would be much lower, given the much lower density of the remaining 75% of Sweden's population and lower transmission rates outside of Stockholm.

https://www.thelocal.se/20200618/one-in-seven-stockholmers-had-coronavirus-antibody-in-private-tests

Better data on antibody levels in Sweden are from the blood donor studies, which are more representative than the private tests where people are motivated to get a result because they suspect infection. As of the end of May, 6.3% of Sweden was found to have antibodies and given the low infection rates since then, it's unlikely that more than 7-8% have been infected as of now.

Analysis of samples collected at Week 21 shows that antibodies to covid-19 are detected in 6.3 percent of the studied population. Antibodies continue to be lowest among older adults 65-95 years with 3.9 percent and higher among adults 20-64 years with 7.6 percent and among children 0-19 years with 7.5 percent.

Data at the regional level is presented only for Stockholm, Västra Götaland and Skåne as the number of samples collected for the other regions is less than 100 and therefore cannot give reliable results. In the Stockholm region, Week 21 had the highest proportion of antibody positives with 10.0 percent, followed by Skåne with 4.5 percent and Västra Götaland with 2.7 percent.

http://outbreaknewstoday.com/sweden...fection-antibody-tests-in-blood-donors-98648/

https://theconversation.com/coronav...t-after-20-of-a-population-is-infected-141584

All data considered in this article and yet they wrote this:

"But it is unlikely that lockdowns alone can explain the fact that infections have fallen in many regions after 20% of a population has been infected – something that, after all, happened in Stockholm and on cruise ships."

 

[bac2therac]

Did you mean 10K?

yes misprint