Posted on 04/17/2020 11:02:46 AM PDT by a little elbow grease
If SARS-Cov-2 is already endemic in the population, there is nothing we can do to stop it — but no great reason to try to stop it, either
Another day, and yet more evidence has appeared that could indicate the number of people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, might be vastly higher than official figures suggest. This time a Californian study suggests the figure in one county could be more than 50 times the number who knew they had had the virus.
A team from Stanford University and other colleges recruited volunteers in Santa Clara County via Facebook adverts and produced a sample of 3,000 representatives of the county as a whole. They were then invited for blood tests to detect the presence of antibodies to the virus. The result was positive in 1.5 percent of cases. Adjusting for age, gender and ethnicity the results suggest that 2.8 percent of people in the county had already had the virus. That might not seem many, but at the time of the study — on April 4 and 5 — only 1,094 people in the county were recorded as having the virus. The study suggests the real figure is between 48,000 and 81,000.
Like many studies which have been pre-published in order to aid understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic, the paper produced by the Stanford-led team has not yet been peer-reviewed. Moreover, it took place in a part of the United States where very few people have so far tested positive with the virus. It would be interesting to see the experiment repeated in New York City, where recorded infections are far higher.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.us ...
That has been my contention for a month. "Flu" went through my county in February and early march. No one that I know of died from it. Some folks were quite sick for two weeks or so. Many people had symptoms but were not particularly sick. I had an uncharacteristic headache and that persistent dry cough for a day.Few people stayed home from work. At the shipyard where I am a security guard, many of the guys were similarly uncomfortable but no one seemed to be actually sick.
Now five weeks later at the shipyard everybody gets his temperature checked at the gate and a few wear masks. No one is sick. There are a few diagnosed cases in the county and two elderly people with other problems have died. The numbers are increasing by ones and twos, not exponentially. Lots of people are in the stores. One WalMart only lets people in ten at a time but the long lines outside are NOT "social distancing" and maybe a third have masks.
I suspect this is no more lethal than seasonal flu but it does seem to be more traumatic for those that get a full dose. With the CCCP flu there is tremendous publicity and hand wringing for each death. Seasonal flu succumbees die quietly with no press coverage.
Could there be something else circulating at a low threat level that would indicate the same as China virus? Something that may even account for natural immunity?
This is the preventative and cure for colds and seasonal flu and probably at least mitigates Red Chinese Flu. Sunshine is only good in the summer when people are outside in short sleeves and hatless and the sun is at a high angle. The rest of the year Vitamin D3 supplements have kept me virus free for 16 years.
“The scientific community is still clinging to the work of Bozo the Modeler.”
huh?
The same Austin Bernie pukes who attempted to have a Peoples’ SXSW after the official event canceled because of Corona are now upset that Abbott plans to reopen the state. And they are personally attacking his handicap as they do it.
“Why is CALI #’s less then NYC??? Herd immunity???”
I believe this to be correct. I also believe CA was one of the first states hit by the virus, probably December if I had to guess.
I hope you have the antibody test done when that becomes available. It would be interesting to find out if you really did have COVID-19 that early. I’d think the medical experts would be interested too, considering your problems were so well-documented.
Yup.
ExDemMom is squawking for the sake of squawking.
The Stanford researchers who did this are not idiots.
“There is not accurate antibody test as of yet”
Read the article.
Why is that not plausible as a bioengineered weapon that likely has had nanotechnology (and an HIV envelope) applied to it to make it all the more contagious?
>> What is the rate of false positives with this test?
>>And false negatives?
=============================================
"... We also adjust for test performance characteristics using 3 different estimates: (i) the test manufacturer’s data, (ii) a sample of 37 positive and 30 negative controls tested at Stanford, and (iii) a combination of both."
For more details, see the actual study here: COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf
I do not see in their methodology any controls for cross-reactivity to other coronaviruses. If I were reviewing the paper, I’d ask for those kinds of controls.
They will probably get it published due to the timeliness, but not sure it would be published otherwise.
“I do not see in their methodology any controls for cross-reactivity to other coronaviruses. If I were reviewing the paper, I’d ask for those kinds of controls.”
From post 45 (copied from the article).
In the below, where do you see cross reactivity with Non SARS-Cov-2 as an issue?
—
The test kit used in this study (Premier Biotech, Minneapolis, MN) was tested in a Stanford laboratory
prior to field deployment. Among 37 samples of known PCR-positive COVID-19 patients with positive
IgG or IgM detected on a locally-developed ELISA test, 25 were kit-positive. A sample of 30 pre-COVID
samples from hip surgery patients were also tested, and all 30 were negative. The manufacturer’s test
characteristics relied on samples from clinically confirmed COVID-19 patients as positive gold standard
and pre-COVID sera for negative gold standard. Among 75 samples of clinically confirmed COVID-19
patients with positive IgG, 75 were kit-positive, and among 85 samples with positive IgM, 78 were kitpositive. Among 371 pre-COVID samples, 369 were negative. Our estimates of sensitivity based on the
manufacturer’s and locally tested data were 91.8% (using the lower estimate based on IgM, 95 CI 83.8-
96.6%) and 67.6% (95 CI 50.2-82.0%), respectively. Similarly, our estimates of specificity are 99.5% (95
CI 98.1-99.9%) and 100% (95 CI 90.5-100%). A combination of both data sources provides us with a
combined sensitivity of 80.3% (95 CI 72.1-87.0%) and a specificity of 99.5% (95 CI 98.3-99.9%).
Thanks for the link.
“Okay ...........then open everything up! “
exactly ...
“the figure in one county could be more than 50 times the number who knew they had had the virus” means that the mortality rate could be 50 times lower than the various wild ass guesses being thrown around, particularly by the gaggle of “sky is falling” trolls that keep posting BS articles here with ridiculous mortality rates ...
also, that level of infection is good news for at least three other reason:
1. Herd immunity is well underway, so this thing will burn itself out sooner than the “experts” expected.
2. There’s no rational reason to keep economies shutdown in any fashion whatsoever, because the cat is already WAY, WAY, WAY out of the bag already.
3. “contact-tracing” is useless, again because the cat is WAY, WAY, WAY out of the bag already.
Yes, Liz Wheeler has been on this for a while now. The incident rate being a lot higher than reported.
How much Vitamin D do you take?
The fact that they didn’t test for it at all is an issue. Coronavirus infection is pretty common this time of year.
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