RuminatorDan

 "COVID-19 Infection Fatality Ratio is About 1.15%" - new ICL study Higher than 0.7% IFR in ICL's Oct '20 'fading antibodies' study. Higher than 0.9% UK IFR in the March report predicting ~500k deaths, used to justify lockdowns. Interpret with care... https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-fatality-ratio-is-about-one-point-15-percent IFR - its value & even its definition - is an issue open to some debate. Suggested values vary and comorbidities confuse matters. The WHO, for example, recently implied an IFR of ~0.13%; similar to the sort of value found by John Ioannidis. What actually matters though is not just the probability of succumbing to the virus if infected but also the probability of becoming infected in the first place. Population Fatality Rate (PFR) = probability of infection X IFR ...is a very useful concept for this. We have been modelling & making policy under the assumption that 100% of the population are susceptible ...

"Coronavirus: T-cell immunity exists six months after infection, study finds" - Sky https://news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-t-cell-immunity-exists-six-months-after-infection-study-finds-12121816 This must come as quite a shock. Who'd have thought there could be more to immunity than antibody levels? Of course that's not the whole article... The article goes on to say... "But the researchers, from Public Health England and the UK Coronavirus Immunity Consortium, warn that it's still not clear whether the T-cell levels were high enough to protect against re-infection." I suggest referring to known science as a starting point.  There used to be quite a lot of it around, although we seem to have mislaid it recently. To be cautious though I suggest (seriously) this: 1) Treat as true the commonly declared hypothesis that "only people with measurable levels of antibodies have immunity". 2) Work out what should happen if that is the case. 3) Test yo...

An estimated 750M, 10% of world’s population have been infected by Covid-19, says WHO's Dr M Ryan This implies far lower Infection Fatality Rate than previously claimed & potentially significant implications for many countries. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-world-in-for-a-hell-of-a-ride-in-coming-months-dr-mike-ryan-says-1.4370626?mode=amp While clearly this is only a "best guess" figure, we can still conduct a rough analysis, leading to an interesting conclusion: 10% of world population ~ 750M Covid-19 deaths to date ~ 1M Implied IFR = 1/750 = ~ 0.13% (IFR = Infection Fatality Rate) An IFR of ~0.13% is almost an order of magnitude lower than the ~1% values seen in much of the predictive modelling that has been used to guide policy, lockdown decisions etc. (E.g. ICL used 0.9% for UK in March - see 2 excerpts below). - Even for a rough estimate, this is a significant difference. An order of magnitude reduction in IFR implies a similar redu...

ANALYSIS OF SARS-CoV-2 GROWTH ILLUSTRATION PRESENTED AT VALLANCE-WHITTY DOWNING STREET BRIEFING ON 21 SEP 2020 [26 Sep 2020v1] Implied CFR appears to be >50% lower than IFR used by ICL in March, suggesting new cases in red area would lead to ~2,000 deaths (~5% of spring total). The red area would contain a total of ~500,000 new cases. How many deaths would be expected to occur as a result? PV commented that, by mid October, there might be 50,000 new cases per day & that this would be expected to lead, a month or so later, to 200 plus deaths per day.  This implies a Case Fatality Rate of approx: CFR = 200 / 50,000 = ~ 0.4%. Since not all infections are detected, the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) will be lower still. This ~0.4% CFR is, however, in itself 50%+ lower than the 0.9% IFR used in ICL’s March paper & modelling.  Total deaths resulting from the new cases that occurred during the red period would be: ~500,000 x 0.4% = ~2,000 deaths. This is equivalent to 5% of...

We are all capable of good and bad - dangerous to be creating so much fertile soil for the bad We look at the past and only ever picture ourselves as one of those rare individuals standing up against the 'baddies'; or at least as one of the 'goodies'. Nonsense. We're all capable of good & bad. Very dangerous, therefore, to be creating so much fertile soil for the bad. @RuminatorDan

False Positives mean R can never reach zero and will remain around 1 indefinitely If prevalence was low enough that most positives were false, cases would appear to stop falling & settle at a low level (+noise). R would rise from below 1 to around 1 & jump around at that level. Indefinitely. E.g. below. % of positive tests declines; then settles at a low but non zero level. If R is determined by the changes in this number (slope of graph) it would be <1 during decline, then rise & settle around 1 but with significant variation due to noise etc being larger at low levels. @RuminatorDan

SWEDEN & UNITED KINGDOM, SARS-CoV-2, 
AN ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION (v1.1): [originally published as a Twitter thread, 27 Aug 2020] Despite claims to the contrary the data are clear: The outcomes for both countries have been remarkably similar. This has happened in spite of the very different approaches taken. Several people suspected months ago (I began in March) that, although SARS-CoV-2 was serious, the overall damage was probably overestimated. This post from May forecasts similar outcomes to what we now see. from May 28,2020: Sample model fits to data for UK, Italy & Sweden attached. Modelling suggests that the population fatality rates at saturation are all similar. (Any errors my own.) Yet the narrative says Sweden has "failed". It is true that everyone made mistakes, e.g. care homes, & there have been differences between Sweden & other Scandinavian countries. However the overall outcome, as shown above, speaks for itself. Sweden & UK are very simila...