[L.A.Justice]

Random testing in America? Iceland is not a big country...

[CondorFlight]

You need herd immunity, and you don’t get that by having lockdowns.

[xp38]

estimated 2020 population 364,134

[polymuser]

Not clear if test was for active virus or immunity.

Seems an important distinction...

[pepsionice]

Totally different land, and prospective. If you arrived in some areas of Georgia and wanted 100,000 people to step up and take the voluntary test....some might do it....some won’t do it.

In the case of Iceland, they were able to get to the 10-percent level, but it left them with some uneasy ‘data’. 50-percent had a ‘positive’ but weren’t showing any symptoms. If two weeks pass, and they still don’t show symptoms....more questions will arise.

[Spktyr]

One question arises from reading the article so far - do they have the disease in the sense of asymptomatic carriers, or have they fought the disease and won, or do they simply have antibodies? It seems like the first, but I do not find the article to be completely clear.

[dangus]

Half of those tested, or half of those who tested positive? There’s an enormous difference!!!!!

[dangus]

Thought so: What a completely idiotic headline.

“An estimated 50 per cent of those infected with the virus, the company found, do not show any symptoms.”

We already knew that. Almost no children show any symptoms.

[RGSpincich]

I think they have a decimal point problem with that mortality percentage.

[dangus]

The idiocy continues to astound:

“Tourists with masks walk down Bankastraeti street in downtown Reykjavik, on 3 April. The case fatality rate in Iceland is just 0.004 per cent compared to the UK’s 0.12 per cent.”

No, the UK’s fatality rate is 12 percent, which equals 0.12 of a whole. Iceland’s is 0.4 percent, or .004 of a whole.

[Artcore]

I’ll wager a lot of people around the globe already have antibodies for this bug. Meaning, they had it, and got better. They now have an acquired immunity. I think this is why there are dramatically lower actual deaths from COVID-19, than the projected numbers that have been continually revised down.

[Paladin2]

"Iceland is not a big country..."

Sounds like the test was manufactured locally.

Shouldn't a larger country with more people and more medical test manufacturing capability be able to incorporate economies of scale to get an even larger fraction of their people tested?

[norcal joe]

Lots of math problems in the article. For example, if 10 per cent of the 364,413 population was tested, that means 36,000. If half of those have been infected, that’s 18,000. Where do they get “1,600 have been infected?” Also, if 1600 have been infected, resulting in 7 deaths, thats a fatality rate of 0.45 percent, not 0.004 percent as they state. (If the correct number is indeed 18,000, then the fatality rate is 0.04 percent, still not 0.004 percent.) Etc.

[Old Yeller]

Better test Antarctica.

[null and void]

Today, JHU CSSE changed their US reporting:

      Tested 2,688,766
   Confirmed   530,200
Hospitalized    82,809
   Recovered    32,314
      Deaths    20,614

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

The false positive rate was 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's or one old fart’s life, it's worth it.

[Leep]

“have the disease”

That sounds real bad. They have “the disease”

How many died from “the disease”?

[Leep]

“have the disease”

That sounds real bad. They have “the disease”

How many died from “the disease”?

[Leep]

How many died from “the disease”? /r

[prophetic]

This proves my point that some people are hardier stock than others!

[zeestephen]

Re: Pre-existing Immunity to COVID-19?

When you look at the infection rates and total number of COVID-19 deaths in California, Oregon, and Washington state, I think you have to reach the same conclusion...

In my opinion, millions of West Coast residents had robust immunity to COVID-19 before it officially arrived in the USA in January 2020.

My own theory is that the four strains of coronavirus that cause the common cold confer some level of immunity to COVID-19.

When I moved to the West Coast about 25 years ago, I caught two terrible colds that were unlike any respiratory infection I had ever had in the Southeast or Midwest USA.

In retrospect, the onset and the symptoms of those two colds were identical to COVID-19.

Bottom Line - the number of deaths from COVID-19 and seasonal influenza on the West Coast are almost identical.

That sort of medical outcome must have a clear empirical basis.

[House Atreides]

This article had either PISS POOR WRITING or was a DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO DECEIVE.

They should have CLEARLY written that OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO TESTED POSITIVE 50% FELT NO SYMPTOMS. The critical words being OF THE PEOPLE WHO TESTED POSITIVE FOR CARRYING THE VIRUS.