Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ian R

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

There is a test that China is using to find them. If nothing else, if they are immune then those people should not have to be quarantined. But just try to arrange that.

If a test costs US$100 (includes materials, lab costs, medical fees etc) then it's a bit of a stretch to test 100 million working people. If you could somehow reduce the price to US$1 then it survives costs/benefit analysis - you get back the costs in taxes because people are working & spending*.

*Although if the lockdowns are going to diminish the US taxation revenue by $10billion, they may as well pay the $100 per head and get on with it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zerberus_MatrixForum

Cost of testing is not a topic here, the slogan is "whatever it takes".

Nevertheless there is a change in testing strategy, especially in southern Germany (still not yet the whole country).

It's said, that the limited testing ressources are concentrated now on vulnerable groups, that means persons with symptoms and older than 65 or already chronical ill or medical workforce. It becomes harder from day to day to test area-wide. People should stay at home, when they have mild symptoms only.

South Korea seems to be no model anymore, because the situation is not comparable. There you had a managable group of infections caused by this crazy religious group, which you could contain and track down. Here, and of course in other european countries, you have a nationwide impact from travellers all over the country, coming back from winter holidays.

Another point is, that tests of people without any symptoms are not safe enough. The first 2 - 3 days after infection tests are often negative, so you have to test the same people 2 - 3 times.

Source for this information is Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ,that means a reputable nationwide paper (article has to be paid and is in german)

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/coronavirus-krise-wer-darf-sich-noch-testen-lassen-16688735.html?premium

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ORIGINAL: obvert


Yes, I see. Could be the same here. That early or mildly symptomatic cases are false results. This means that the antibodies test is then so much more important and I hope that gets going soon everywhere. To test whether people have had it. Both to have them donate plasma and to get more true numbers.

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ORIGINAL: Kull

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

More than 70% of Coronavirus deaths in Italy are men and scientists admit they are 'mystified' by the disparity between genders


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8135211/More-70-coronavirus-deaths-Italy-men.html


"At least 3,400 people in Italy have died of the devastating disease - it yesterday announced it had a higher death toll than China - but less than 1,000 of them have been women"

I use to joke that "they" would release a virus that would kill just men.

I'd guess this is more of a social gender difference with men covering more territory, spending more time out of the home, and seeing more people. There may also be the bravado/carelessness that they wouldn't be affected. In general when you hear or see of those now breaking curfew, the majority are men.

This is mostly old men, but men in general are more risk-taking than women.

There's more to it than that. Something surprisingly fundamental:

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The X chromosome and X-linked variants have largely been ignored in genome-wide and candidate association studies of infectious diseases due to the complexity of statistical analysis of the X chromosome. This exclusion is significant, since the X chromosome contains a high density of immune-related genes and regulatory elements that are extensively involved in both the innate and adaptive immune responses. Many diseases present with a clear sex bias, and apart from the influence of sex hormones and socioeconomic and behavioural factors, the X chromosome, X-linked genes and X chromosome inactivation mechanisms contribute to this difference.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

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ORIGINAL: alanschu
The last time there was changes of 10%+ was February 14th when global exposure was much, much less and death rates themselves much lower

That date tracks consistently with the first (China) spike on the WHO new cases bar graph. What is your source for saying death rates were lower than they are now? It has been consistently reported that the death rate in China is a higher percentage number than elsewhere.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

If a test costs US$100 (includes materials, lab costs, medical fees etc) then it's a bit of a stretch to test 100 million working people. If you could somehow reduce the price to US$1 then it survives costs/benefit analysis - you get back the costs in taxes because people are working & spending*.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

@MakeeLearn
Take it easy, in the long run we are all dead anyway. :-)
Scnr

quote:

ORIGINAL: alanschu



That date tracks consistently with the first (China) spike on the WHO new cases bar graph. What is your source for saying death rates were lower than they are now? It has been consistently reported that the death rate in China is a

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ORIGINAL: alanschu

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ian R


What is your source for saying death rates were lower than they are now?

Referring to the changes in *new* deaths, it was in the link. The amount of new deaths per day continues to accelerate.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ian R

If a test costs US$100 (includes materials, lab costs, medical fees etc) then it's a bit of a stretch to test 100 million working people. If you could somehow reduce the price to US$1 then it survives costs/benefit analysis - you get back the costs in taxes because people are working & spending*.

Here we have to disagree. 100,- €or £, $ per capita, even repeated severel times, would have been muuuuch cheaper than this ongoing desaster. Propably even 1000,- or 10000,-! :-))

On a sidenote, although there is no statistic about negative test results, Germany has the ability to perform some 20 000 tests per day in total, from which on averridge at least around 12 000 were used for Covid, sometimes more (and even this was not nearly enough for a population of 85 mil). The first generation of the test was developed as early as 10th January. For the first months nearly all cases could be contained and tracked down to the spreader, health officals literally went from door to door, until they get finally overwhelmed from the steady steam of infected holidaymakers coming back from the Alpine regions, which had developed into a huge germ breeding petricase at that time.
So in difference to other countries most cases are mild or asymptomatic younger sportsmen; last week some additional 100 000 people were in prophylactic quarantine, which in total explains the low fatalities so far. So far... Thx to this affords some 7-14 days could be "won", one of the most affected states had even free ICUs, which were filled now with french patients.
Sources mostly in German (and to busy atm for searching them, sry).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ian R

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ian R

If a test costs US$100 (includes materials, lab costs, medical fees etc) then it's a bit of a stretch to test 100 million working people. If you could somehow reduce the price to US$1 then it survives costs/benefit analysis - you get back the costs in taxes because people are working & spending*.

Here we have to disagree. 100,- €or £, $ per capita, even repeated severel times, would have been muuuuch cheaper than this ongoing desaster. Propably even 1000,- or 10000,-! :-))

On a sidenote, although there is no statistic about negative test results, Germany has the ability to perform some 20 000 tests per day in total, from which on averridge at least around 12 000 were used for Covid, sometimes more (and even this was not nearly enough for a population of 85 mil). The first generation of the test was developed as early as 10th January. For the first months nearly all cases could be contained and tracked down to the spreader, health officals literally went from door to door, until they get finally overwhelmed from the steady steam of infected holidaymakers coming back from the Alpine regions, which had developed into a huge germ breeding petricase at that time.
So in difference to other countries most cases are mild or asymptomatic younger sportsmen; last week some additional 100 000 people were in prophylactic quarantine, which in total explains the low fatalities so far. So far... Thx to this affords some 7-14 days could be "won", one of the most affected states had even free ICUs, which were filled now with french patients.
Sources mostly in German (and to busy atm for searching them, sry).

I agree with the emboldened bit.

The reaction has been a day late, many dollars short, and driven by political point scoring instead of science or even common sense.

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The World Health Organization (“WHO”) released a study on how China responded to COVID-19. Currently, this study is one of the most exhaustive pieces published on how the virus spreads.

The results of their research show that COVID-19 doesn’t spread as easily as we first thought or the media had us believe (remember people abandoned their dogs out of fear of getting infected). According to their report if you come in contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19 you have a 1–5% chance of catching it as well. The variability is large because the infection is based on the type of contact and how long.

The majority of viral infections come from prolonged exposures in confined spaces with other infected individuals. Person-to-person and surface contact is by far the most common cause. From the WHO report, “When a cluster of several infected people occurred in China, it was most often (78–85%) caused by an infection within the family by droplets and other carriers of infection in close contact with an infected person.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

The NYT said a day ago that the US had tested 25,000 while New South Wales, Australia had tested 33,000. Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere and experiencing Summer, where the virus has gone "poof", not there.

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ORIGINAL: Kull

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Hang on, the 'amount' is a fraction of infections - more deaths does not mean the rate of deaths has increased, if the spread of infection went up more.

Where is the overall calculation that includes both total known infections, and total known deaths?

The WHO site probably has one. We should look at that.