Posted on 04/16/2020 5:39:12 AM PDT by Liberty7732
I will address just a couple of points that jumped out at me:
Denmark, Scotland and Germany have done thorough antibody testing in specific locals and found infection rates between 12 and 27 times higher than they thought and models had projected.
Antibody tests are still going through regulatory approval. That means that their manufacturers have to show a certain level of both specificity (is the antibody test picking up Covid-19 and not other related virus antibodies) and sensitivity (how much antibody can it pick up). The thing is, this is cold season and a lot of people tend to get colds in the winter. Since coronaviruses are responsible for many colds, how do we know that those researchers are not just detecting the number of people who have had common colds this winter?
Antibody test.
This picture is a typical antibody test that I performed in graduate school. On this test, I separated each of the proteins that the antibody grabbed. I had to put arrows to specify which proteins I was actually looking for, versus the ones the antibodies grabbed that I have no idea what they are. In an antibody test of the type used in disease diagnostics, the proteins are not separated out. So all of those black lines would be condensed into a single spot. How can you tell that the spot is specifically Covid-19 or something else, like a common cold virus?
Now, as for the infection rate. Modeling for a 12-27 fold higher rate of infection would mean that its R nought would be from 30 to 67.5--which is just not biologically plausible. As far as I know, measles is the most contagious disease known, and its R nought is between 12 and 18 (Covid-19 is somewhere from 2 to 7; I use 2.5 for my calculations). Measles is so contagious because it spreads through aerosols that remain in the air up to 2 hours; Covid-19 spreads through droplets, meaning that you have to be directly in the path of a cough or sneeze, or touch a surface contaminated with fresh droplets and touch your face to catch it.
Anyway, it is very time consuming to go through each non-fact in this article. The fact that these two items are so wrong is a pretty good indication of the validity of the entire article.
And we are supposed to believe Sweden is doing better than us?
During the 1916 flu, they didn't do tests either. They counted bodies, and figured they died from the flu. I think that was a pretty fair guess.
Saw a video of a Doctor discussing this term "asymptomatic" the other day. He points out that everyone is asymptomatic" until they develop symptoms, and that can be anywhere from 12 days up to 28 days.
Have these bums been without symptoms for 28 days?
My wife relays her grandmother's story of lying in a window seat recovering from the flu in 1916 and watching bodies being carried from the houses along the street. (Gave her nightmares for the rest of her life.)
“Out of the people from Pine Street Inn who were isolated after positive test results, O’Connell says, one ended up in the hospital and some developed mild cold symptoms.” - https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/15/boston-homeless-population-coronavirus-asymptomatic-universal-testing
That would have been a horrifying thing to have gone through. I’ve been noticing that many of us newer generations have simply not seen the horrors which the past generations have seen.
Here is one of the most significant statements in the article.
"The testing happened a week and a half ago at Pine Street Inn."
I've read that symptoms present at earliest a week after infection, but typically between 14 and 28 days.
If the bums are still going strong after a couple more weeks, then I think the previous assertion is decently supported. Right now I think it's too early to say for sure.
Either number is based on very imperfect, very as yet numbers, which mean not so much until an epidemic has run it’s course.
My guess is that since we have done more to shelter folks from joining herd immunity with mild cases this year, when a second wave arrives this fall it will be bigger here than it will be in places like Sweden, and by Spring of 2021 Sweden’s cumulative death rate will not be worse than the U.S.
I was going off a Fox25 news report. Still, encouraging.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.