With new science reports coming out these past two weeks
that the prediction models were over-stated, I thought it might be useful to update
you guys on a few other things that you might want to keep in mind:
1.
The total number of COVID-19 cases is grossly
underestimated. This is because 80% or more of the cases have mild to moderate
disease or no symptoms at all and so they aren’t able to count them in the
total number of cases. Even Fauci supported this concept as published in the New England Journal of
Medicine from March 26th: “If one assumes that the number of
asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the
number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than
1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may
ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.”
2.
The data presented in the report from the
WHO–China Joint Mission on COVID-19, also states that 80% of the 55,924
patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in China to Feb 20, 2020, had
mild-to-moderate disease, including both non-pneumonia and pneumonia cases,
while 13.8% developed severe disease and 6.1% developed to a critical stage
requiring intensive care. When this fact is taken into consideration, the estimated overall infection fatality ratio for
China was 0.66%, with an increasing profile with age…LANCET
Infectious Disease, Verity et al, Published March 30th.
3.
All scientific reports I have read state that
the virus is highly contagious, has an incubation period of up to 3 weeks
before symptoms show up, and over 80% of the population have mild disease. The
first case in the U.S. was documented in early January. That was 4 months ago.
So then, it stands to reason that we are likely all exposed already and have
fought it off successfully with our own immune systems. This scientific data
should drive a proposal allowing release of all under the age of 65 who are at
low risk of death and continue to quarantine those over 65 who are at higher
risk of death.
4.
Every week I have
calculated the fatality rate in Texas. It has been between 1.2 and 1.5 percent,
even now when testing is not limited which means “deaths by COVID-19” are
fairly accurate. Today the fatality rate to COVID-19 in Texas is 1.9% (199
deaths out of 10,230 confirmed cases). This is off the Texas COVID-19 dashboard.
This number is likely to rise as these tracked cases succumb to the infection.
But keep in mind that the total number of cases is grossly underestimated because
80% of us had mild or symptom-free infection and never got tested. Which means
that the fatality rate has nowhere to go but DOWN, once they figure out how
many of us are already infected but were not hospitalized.
5.
Fatality rates of
flu in the U.S. are 0.1% (number of deaths to flu divided by number of cases of
flu) in the last decade because the development of vaccines to the flu have reduced
the number of severe cases. In 2009 when this strain of flu emerged and before
there were any vaccines, there were at least 12,469 deaths in the U.S. to
this virus. I say “at least” because we didn’t do as good of a job reporting
cause of death then as we do now. Even with vaccination, flu continues to cause
7.1% of all deaths in the U.S. This is from FluView at the CDC website.
6.
The CDC is now reporting two different graphs.
One is the cumulative report, which simply means that once you are counted as a
case on a particular day, you get counted as a case for every day after that,
even once you recover. This is the frightening graph, because that number
continues to rise. The second is the episode report, which means you are only
counted on the day that you are diagnosed. THIS IS THE ONE TO WATCH. We are
waiting to see NEW cases decrease which will tell us that the peak has been
reached. Here's the graph from yesterday.
7.
The CDC has also expanded the “gray box” I talked about on this graph
to 10 days now, rather than 4. This was done because the original testing
platform took up to 7 days to get the report back. The newer testing kits are
substantially faster, but there is still a considerable lag, for reasons I
don’t have time to figure out unless there is a lot of interest from you guys
for me to read up on that.
8.
Models are just models. The guys who came up
with the models for how many people will be infected, how many will die and
when the peaks will be are arguing about which models are most reliable. We
need to remember that these models rely on some data that is their “best
guess”. What happened with the Imperial study was that the team had estimated a
range of 2.2 million to 20,000 deaths in the U.S. That’s a big range, but decisions
were based on the higher number which is why we are all sitting at home through
the month of April right now. As more case data is gathered, the models will be
modified and the number will come down because these early models were not
accurate. Not by a long shot. There are two other models that have emerged now,
with different predictions, and I can’t keep up. The fact is, there are so many
variables to take into consideration for these models, there is no way that one
model fits all situations. That’s why decisions shouldn’t be made on models. Particularly
models trying to fit data that doesn’t exist. Like data on a new virus.
9.
In my post on March 22nd, I stated
that the peak looked like it was on March 9th. That was an error for
a few reasons. One, the number of tests were limited at that time, so there
were only a certain number of tests that could be done per day. This would
result in an artificial peak. Two, the time to get the results was at least 10
days in early March. This too would contribute to an artificial peak. Testing
is now unlimited for the most part, but the reported results are still showing
delay, probably related to the fact that too many people are getting tested who
actually don’t have it. In fact, 90% of those getting tested in the US are
negative. And we are only testing about 0.3% of the U.S. population. Meanwhile,
unemployment is at 13% of the US population and the peak of new cases has been
reached. Even in New York.
10. A note on
closing schools. CDC recommendations during Swine Flu in 2009: “School closure
is not advised for a suspected or confirmed case of novel influenza A (H1N1)
and, in general, is not advised unless there is a magnitude of faculty or
student absenteeism that interferes with the school’s ability to function.” CDC recommendations for COVID-19: “Available modeling data indicate that early,
short to medium closures do not impact the epi curve of COVID-19 or available
health care measures (e.g., hospitalizations). There may be some impact of much
longer closures (8 weeks, 20 weeks) further into community spread, but that
modelling also shows that other mitigation efforts (e.g., handwashing, home
isolation) have more impact on both spread of disease and health care measures.
In other countries, those places who closed school (e.g., Hong Kong) have not
had more success in reducing spread than those that did not (e.g., Singapore).”
Keep in mind that 60% of those infected with the H1N1 swine flu virus were
under the age of 18, but that less than 5% of those infected with COVID-19 are
under the age of 19, less than 1% of those were hospitalized, none of those
have been in the ICU and none have died. Thus, it is unlikely that closing
schools will impact the spread of COVID-19, according to The Lancet and The New
York Times. Also keep in mind that the incidence of hospitalization among those
under 18 is so small, even the clinical trials to treat COVID-19 won’t take
patients under 18. Keep in mind these numbers may change as the case numbers
increase, but are unlikely to change our basic understanding that those over 65
are at much higher risk of death than those under 65.
11. I
still can’t find the total number of ICU beds in the U.S. and how many of them
are currently occupied by COVID-19 cases. This is an important piece of data to
find, because we are being told that ICU beds are going to run short and the
media has a tendency to feed on panic and hysteria. Example. CBS in the Morning reported
that New York hospitals were overrun by COVID-19 cases. To substantiate that,
the backdrop to the journalist giving this report was a heavily crowded
hospital ward. Very grim. Turns out this backdrop was NOT a New York hospital!
It was an overrun hospital from Italy. Birx stated they still have
plenty of beds in New York (and ventillators), but I was hoping to get a more
objective data source on that.
12.
Hydrochloroquine (HCQ). FOUR clinical trials have started to test
this drug worldwide, ONE of which is in the US and sponsored by the National
Institutes of Health. Also, the FDA approved use of that to treat COVID-19, and
they are sticklers about that sort of thing. So now you have two massive
federal institutions in the US (NIH and FDA) backing its use. The World Health
Organization also has a trial of HCQ underway, so it’s not just us. That’s pretty
amazing, considering so many “experts” are telling us that it won’t work, and
yet they are still sanctioning these very expensive trials.
Thirty countries
are currently using HCQ to treat advanced cases of COVID-19. The “experts” say
the data is based on uncontrolled trials with small numbers of subjects. True.
But I’ll bet the 20 treated patients in the Gautret trial who walked out of the
hospital virus free because they got HCQ weren’t complaining. Oh, and the trials are excluding subjects
under 18 years old because there aren’t enough of them that are sick and
hospitalized to include in the study. Yes, it’s an old drug. Yes, it’s used to
treat malaria. Yes, there are fewer cases of COVID-19 in Africa probably
because this population is highly treated with HCQ to prevent malaria.
And before you ask, yes, the death rate is
higher in Africa for those who are positive because their health care system
sucks and their population will go to hospitals only as a last resort. How long
will it take to get the results? Probably July. The other NIH sponsored trial
is with Remdesivir, an antiviral drug.
13. Caution:
Continue to follow the CDC guidelines for how to operate. Wash your hands
because soap and water for 20 seconds kills the virus. Yes, there are other
ways to spread it including talking because the virus hides in your spit
(gross). But the main cause of spread is still by contact. So stay home when
you are sick so you don’t infect anyone else. Do not visit those at high risk
because you could be carrying the virus (but have fought it successfully with
your good immune system and you probably didn’t even know you had it!). Hug
those living with you often and watch for signs of depression. Americans do not
cope well with being told what they can do and where they can go and over 16
million of us are now without jobs.
14. One
aside. The Corporation of Public Broadcasting is a federal program that
provides support for radio and TV stations such as NPR and PBS. Given that
information, you would think they would air the daily coronavirus update from
the White House on NPR, their main radio station that is federally funded. They
do not. When you follow the NPR link to the daily coronavirus update from the
White House, what you get is a news article interpreting what was said during
the report rather than the report itself. Not even a separate link to the video
briefing. YouTube is hosting the daily reports in full so Americans can decide
for themselves what to take away from these briefings. Why is the federal
government funding an agency that refuses to air the president’s briefings?
Lancet Infectious Disease Article
New York Post article talking about how COVID-19 death rates
are lower than model predictions
Fauci’s article in NEJM:
Nice explanation of the grossly over-estimated death rates:
Dashboard to Texas cases:
School recommendations by CDC in response to COVID-19
NY Times article on school closings
Lancet article on lack of evidence that school closings are
useful to stop COVID spread
Clinical Trial summary on HCQ
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04332991?recrs=a&type=Intr&cond=COVID-19&fund=0&draw=2&rank=1
Report on misleading news by CBS in the Morning
