Posted on 04/12/2020 1:26:02 PM PDT by grundle
Iceland has tested 10% of its population for COVID-19, by far the largest percentage of any country.
And it has discovered that the fatality rate is 0.004%.
That’s lower than the flu.
Should we start shutting everything down, every year, because of the flu?
Iceland has tested one-tenth of its population for coronavirus at random and found HALF of people have the disease without realising... 4/12/2020, 10:33:43 AM · by L.A.Justice · 67 replies Daily Mail ^ | April 11, 2020 | Ryan Fahey Iceland has tested one-tenth of its population for coronavirus at random and found that half of people have the disease without realising. They also discovered that 1,600 people have been infected with Covid-19 since the start of the outbreak. Of these cases, there were only seven deaths, indicating a fatality rate of just 0.004 per cent, which is significantly lower than other countries, including the UK. The findings were made during Iceland's rigorous testing campaign, conducted with the help of Reykjavik-based biopharmaceutical company deCODE genetics, which has seen 10 per cent of the 364,413 population swabbed. Cf. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/04/10/coronavirus-covid-19-small-nations-iceland-big-data/2959797001/
Out of all confirmed cases, 4% are considered serious or critical and the rest are considered mild. This disease would actually be a lot more scary if the case count were only serious cases, but it isn't. It's all cases. The statement "Iceland has tested one-tenth of its population for coronavirus at random and found that half of people have the disease without realizing" is completely false. When Iceland tested 10% of its population, it found "more than 1600" infections (current number is 1701)--which does not even come close to half of the tested people, much less half of the entire population. Why the death rate in Iceland is so low--8 deaths, or 0.47%--is unknown. Perhaps the people of Iceland have a variant of the major histocompatibility complex (an immune system component) that makes them less susceptible to the severe effects of the virus. Maybe their health care system is not overwhelmed, so that they can give each seriously ill patient full attention. Maybe they are overall more healthy than people in other countries where the death rate is higher. Probably a combination of all three.
Covid-19 did not show up in Germany until mid January.
According to the animation linked below, the first German case was infected on Jan 20 at a meeting with a Chinese woman from Wuhan. Unless your relative was at that meeting, the chance that he was exposed to Covid-19 is exceedingly low. And had he been at that meeting, I’m sure public health officials would have contacted him already.
This *is* cold and flu season. Not every respiratory illness is Covid-19. And who knows, with social distancing and so forth, the incidence of common colds and influenza could be unusually low this year.
What you say is perhaps true. The surprise is the two who have antibodies. False positives, both of them? Unexplainable early infection? Later asymptomatic infection? Are there other possibilities?
“with social distancing and so forth, the incidence of common colds and influenza could be unusually low this year.”
It has been recently; cf http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3834418/posts
Rather, This disease would actually be a lot more scary if the case count was based on a random testing as in Iceland, but it isn't. It's only usually those who have symptoms - who are most likely to have it:
In some places, only healthcare workers and the most seriously ill patients are getting tested for the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. - https://www.healthline.com/health-news/doctors-limit-who-gets-covid-tests
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/doctors-limit-who-gets-covid-tests
The Real Reason Veterinarians Gave a Tiger a Covid-19 Test ... www.wired.com › story › tiger-coronavirus-bronx-zoo 1 day ago - It's hard for humans in New York City to get a test for the coronavirus. So when a Bronx Zoo tiger tested positive for Covid-19, it invited some questions
US nurses who can't get tested fear they are spreading COVID www.reuters.com › article › us-health-coronavirus-usa-nurses › u-s-n... 5 days ago - In New York City, an intensive care nurse treated patients for three days after she started displaying symptoms of COVID-19 - but couldn't get a test ...
Why can’t I just get tested for the Coronavirus? There are many complex and moving parts when it comes to getting tested for COVID-19. ..Here’s the thing: You currently can’t just ask to be tested. According to the CDC, testing availability and criteria for eligibility (which determines if you can even get a test) differs state to state and then by locality...To get tested, you have to first call your state, local health department, or medical provider to see if you are eligible....Why is it so difficult to get tested? For one, Coronavirus testing in the United States had a rocky rollout, which led to widespread laboratory issues. This created a domino effect that led to chaotic and slower testing throughout the country...In some states, such as New York...they all have to be ordered by a healthcare provider.
This is why you can't get tested for COVID-19 - KOTA www.kotatv.com › content › news › This-is-why-you-cant-get-a-COV.. . 3 days ago - The criteria comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and it stipulates who can and who cannot get a COVID-19 test.
Suggested Commercial Laboratory Specimen Testing Priorities Ill individuals (residents or staff) in congregate living settings (long term care facilities, prisons/jails, homeless shelters, etc.) Ill dialysis patients Ill hospitalized patients Ill health care workers taking care of immunosuppressed patients Ill health care workers and their ill household contacts Ill patients 65 years of age and older Ill patients with underlying medical conditions Ill first responders Ill child care providers https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/hcp/eval.html
Current COVID-19 antibody tests aren't accurate enough for ... www.fiercebiotech.com › medtech › current-covid-19-antibody-tests- ... 5 days ago - Current COVID-19 antibody tests aren't accurate enough for mass screening, say Oxford researchers
When Iceland tested 10% of its population, it found "more than 1600" infections (current number is 1701)--which does not even come close to half of the tested people, much less half of the entire population.
Argue with what I read: Among the Nordic nation's findings: about half of its citizenry at any given time who have coronavirus but don't know it, will be asymptomatic...
Stefansson said Iceland's randomized tests revealed that between 0.3%-0.8% of Iceland's population is infected with the respiratory illness, that about 50% of those who test positive for the virus are asymptomatic when they are tested, - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/04/10/coronavirus-covid-19-small-nations-iceland-big-data/2959797001/
Why the death rate in Iceland is so low--8 deaths, or 0.47%--is unknown. Perhaps the people of Iceland have a variant of the major histocompatibility complex (an immune system component) that makes them less susceptible to the severe effects of the virus.
Why resort to this rather than basing the death rate on the likelihood that positive tests - regardless of symptoms - that result from random testing - with its many asymptomatic cases - rather than those who feel sick, are more likely to have less serious cases and thus are more likely to recover.
And thus it remains that the death rate among positive tests that result from random testing provide a more accurate account it is lethality.
Maybe their health care system is not overwhelmed, so that they can give each seriously ill patient full attention
"Maybe," but for that you need stats that show the % of those getting hospital care and that this results in more recoveries.
Maybe they are overall more healthy than people in other countries where the death rate is higher. Probably a combination of all three.
They are factors, but the more rational is that positive tests that result from random testing, which thus includes both asymptomatic cases and serious one, results in a lower % of positive cases that are serious, and thus less deaths among the total, which results in a more accurate fatality rate.
The thing about antibodies is that they usually have some degree of cross-reactivity. That means that they recognize the target and also other things that are similar to the target. An analogy would be reading lowercase L as the number 1. So, in this case, I suspect that the antibodies are reacting to coronavirus, not specifically Covid-19. Coronaviruses are fairly common.
President Trump said the other day that an antibody test is going through testing for FDA approval. That means that it will have to meet certain standards of specificity and sensitivity. Even then, I’d still be careful about interpretation of test results.
I think you are suggesting that the two people I mentioned who tested positive for antibodies have gotten a false positive. That may be. One of them works in a medical testing laboratory. Whether that makes your suggestion more or less likely is not something I can assess.
I have personally seen this “discretionary “ non-testing. This person was showing all the CDC signs plus, had recently returned from overseas from a high cases area. He and his immediate family were forced to 14 days of quarantine, and the powers that be would NOT test him, nor his symptomatic family members (2/5).
It appears to some that THEY didn’t want to know if he had the virus, as this would undermine the narrative.
After the end of the 14 day quarantine he returned to with with several hundred of us “essential personnel”.
Most who have worked with him have now traveled literally to the four winds, to work at other essential sites across the USA and beyond.
This kind of thing has been going on since early- mid December. If this was a pandemic that was going to kill all that are exposed, then the dead would be stacked like cord wood across the world.
A concern for High Risk Persons? Perhaps. Just like pneumonia and other HRP.
Take precautions to the level needed for you and yours. I do, and have every season, and in some locales all the time.
Still not a reason for what has happened. Ebola, SARS and H1N1 showed us that for most of the masses, this is a blip.
Personal experiences may be different however this is mine.
Exactly, if a rural county just n a few weeks could see thousands with herd immunity, that could be exponential in urban population.
My sense is that millions have been exposed, hundreds of thousands sickened, and somewhere well south of 1%have died. Kinda like a bad flu year.
Screening of sample population around the country could make for a model with real numbers on both ends, putting this whole crisis in real perspective
.
Yes, but the effects of the measures to combat it will not be. As I just briefly said in a post here . Hope you were not thinking of being able to retire like your parents did.
In some places, only healthcare workers and the most seriously ill patients are getting tested for the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. - https://www.healthline.com/health-news/doctors-limit-who-gets-covid-tests
The Real Reason Veterinarians Gave a Tiger a Covid-19 Test ... www.wired.com › story › tiger-coronavirus-bronx-zoo 1 day ago - It's hard for humans in New York City to get a test for the coronavirus. So when a Bronx Zoo tiger tested positive for Covid-19, it invited some questions
US nurses who can't get tested fear they are spreading COVID www.reuters.com › article › us-health-coronavirus-usa-nurses › u-s-n... 5 days ago - In New York City, an intensive care nurse treated patients for three days after she started displaying symptoms of COVID-19 - but couldn't get a test ...
Why can’t I just get tested for the Coronavirus? There are many complex and moving parts when it comes to getting tested for COVID-19. ..Here’s the thing: You currently can’t just ask to be tested. According to the CDC, testing availability and criteria for eligibility (which determines if you can even get a test) differs state to state and then by locality...To get tested, you have to first call your state, local health department, or medical provider to see if you are eligible....Why is it so difficult to get tested? For one, Coronavirus testing in the United States had a rocky rollout, which led to widespread laboratory issues. This created a domino effect that led to chaotic and slower testing throughout the country...In some states, such as New York...they all have to be ordered by a healthcare provider.
This is why you can't get tested for COVID-19 - KOTA www.kotatv.com › content › news › This-is-why-you-cant-get-a-COV.. . 3 days ago - The criteria comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and it stipulates who can and who cannot get a COVID-19 test.
Suggested Commercial Laboratory Specimen Testing Priorities Ill individuals (residents or staff) in congregate living settings (long term care facilities, prisons/jails, homeless shelters, etc.) Ill dialysis patients Ill hospitalized patients Ill health care workers taking care of immunosuppressed patients Ill health care workers and their ill household contacts Ill patients 65 years of age and older Ill patients with underlying medical conditions Ill first responders Ill child care providers https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/hcp/eval.html
Still not a reason for what has happened. Ebola, SARS and H1N1 showed us that for most of the masses, this is a blip
How did America endure (by the grace of God): Major modern influenza pandemics:
1957–58 Asian flu: 116,000 US dead, 1–4 million worldwide. ]
1968–69 Hong Kong flu: 100,000 US dead, 1–4 million worldwide.
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