"Facts about COVID-19": Swiss Propaganda Research Article

[percyval577]

The case fatality ratio refers to the percentage of people with a given disease who die of that disease. In this instance, the disease is COVID-19, so you have to have the symptoms of COVID-19 in order to be a case.

But this is not how it is dealed with.

Both numbers of the relationship are reported higher:

As case counts everyone who has shown been to have the virus. At least in Germany this is the way they deal with it, and I doubt that other countries split their numbers (already).
Same with death, you die "from Covid-19" when you have the virus, regardless of other diseases.

Definition-wise the infectious fatality rate doesn´t shed a clear light on the case fatality rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate

The term infection fatality rate (IFR) also applies to infectious disease outbreaks, and is closely related to the CFR, but attempts to additionally account for all asymptomatic and undiagnosed infections.[7] The IFR differs from the CFR in that it aims to estimate the fatality rate in all those with infection: the detected disease (cases) and those with an undetected disease (asymptomatic and not tested group).[8] (Individuals who are infected, but always remain asymptomatic, are said to have "inapparent" — or silent, or subclinical, or occult — infections.) The IFR will always be lower than the CFR as long as all deaths are accurately attributed to either the infected or the non-infected class.

So it´s about detection and not about symptoms, might it be in this or that scenario reasonable or not to count
symptoms or positives, respectively, as case.

In other words, its up to you how you detect a case (by symptoms or even by a test), however, the infectious rate relates simply to the non-detected ones (because here may be NO symptoms and may have been NO tests).

 

[pamojja]

It's really amazing how there is a worldwide push against getting at the bottom of this with real data:

The head of the European Research Council ERC, Mauro Ferrari, has resigned - because of differences over the EU's crisis strategy, as he writes in a statement quoted by the Financial Times. He is "extremely disappointed with the European response" to the pandemic, Ferrari said.

He has repeatedly encountered institutional and political hurdles in trying to quickly put in place a research programme to combat the virus. "I have lost faith in the system as such," Ferrari adds to the information. Commission spokesman Johannes Bahrke confirms the report.

Ferrari had only been president of the European Research Council, an institution for funding basic research, since the beginning of the year.

 

[andyguitar]

Yhe response of the EU to covid has been pathetic. No sense of purpose, no unity, no coordination. Not much of a Union, just every man for themselves.

 

[percyval577]

I had a quick look at new deaths on the worldometer. There might be the tendency for a plateau, not already in the US though.

Also Japan might show an elevation, on a low level of numbers though.
Korea has low new corona deaths but quite constant ones.
China might be similar (apart from that it had been reported high deaths in feb.)
Most visible is a plateau in Iran since March 17th. New cases are declining since March 31th.
In Czechia a plateau might be seen since March 25th. New cases decline since say Mach 28th.


I think this - and especially Iran and Czechia, where new cases stopped to rise after new deaths - might not reflect a very dynamic situation.

One must but say that strategies have been implemented, on the other side the strategies are different, but the tendency might be the same.

 

[andyguitar]

I had a quick look at new deaths on the worldometer. There might be the tendency for a plateau, not already in the US though

Yes the possibility that cases/deaths might be leveling off has been a news story over here. It's also being said that this proves the lockdown is having an effect. It does'nt. What can happen in an epidemic is that those who are most at risk will die early on. So once this happens the virus has no more easy targets and the death rate goes down. Not heard this mentioned in the UK media.

 

[Hip]

What can happen in an epidemic is that those who are most at risk will die early on. So once this happens the virus has no more easy targets and the death rate goes down. Not heard this mentioned in the UK media.

Would you have a reference for that, because it does not seem plausible?

A virus cannot target more susceptible people earlier on, because a virus has no intelligence to seek out the more susceptible individuals.

The virus cannot see an elderly person walking in the crowd, and think to itself, "Ah, I'll go and infect him, because he's an easy and susceptible target".

 

[andyguitar]

A virus cannot target more susceptible people earlier on, because a virus has no intelligence to seek out more susceptible individuals.

It's not that a virus targets the susceptible people early on it's that they will die soonest. Take a care home for example. Elderly people with a high rate of underlying health conditions. If the infection gets in there it will kill the residents early on not months down the line.

 

[Hip]

It's not that a virus targets the susceptible people early on it's that they will die soonest. Take a care home for example. Elderly people with a high rate of underlying health conditions. If the infection gets in there it will kill the residents early on not months down the line.

That's not the case, because the duration of the coronavirus infection is roughly the same for everyone, young or old.

For healthy people, the symptoms may take about 7 days to clear. For those more vulnerable who die, once symptoms start, it takes about 12 days for death to occur, on average.

So either you catch the virus, or you don't and that's a purely random thing; there is no preference for infecting older or more vulnerable people, it is purely random who gets it.

Then the symptoms are over in a matter of 7 to 12 days, either ending in recovery or death.

 

[percyval577]

Would you have a reference for that, because it does not seem plausible?

The possibility can be seen e.g. in this graph. It might not turn out to be so, this is right, but so far it is still possible.

Weekly deaths in Switzerland in two age groups over the last years (from the site pamoija linked to).

The site says end of the graph is March 22nd, not 31th (as written).

 

[andyguitar]

That's not the case, because the duration of the coronavirus infection is roughly the same for everyone, young or old.

I am not saying that the infection lasts for months. The point I a making is that once the most susceptible have died the mortality rate will decline.

 

[Hip]

I am not saying that the infection lasts for months. The point I a making is that once the most susceptible have died the mortality rate will decline.

But in saying "once the most susceptible have died", you are implying that the more susceptible will be preferentially infected first. And that does not actually happen.

The virus does not preferentially ravage through the most susceptible population. It infects everyone equally. Let's say that at this point in time, 10% of the UK population has already caught the virus, and 90% are yet to catch it.

Then in that 90%, there will be millions more susceptible people that the virus has yet to hit.

 

[Wayne]

ABC News: US intelligence warned of China's spreading contagion in November

Introduction to Article:

Washington (CNN) US intelligence officials were warning as far back as late November that the novel coronavirus was spreading through China's Wuhan region and posing a threat to its people and daily life, according to ABC News. The US military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) compiled a November intelligence report in which "analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of the sources of the NCMI's report told ABC News.

The source told ABC News that the intelligence report was then briefed "multiple times" to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Staff and the White House. Repeated briefings were held through December across the US government, including the National Security Council, culminating in a detailed outline of the threat in the President's Daily Brief in early January, according to ABC News, whose report cited four sources briefed on the matter...

 

[JES]

I am not saying that the infection lasts for months. The point I a making is that once the most susceptible have died the mortality rate will decline.

You are definitely right that once the more susceptible have died the mortality rate declines, but that implies, as @Hip pointed out, that they would need to get infected first. How likely is it that some less mobile old person who rarely goes out, even less now during lockdown, gets infected with COVID-19?

I realized myself that in this age of Internet, video calls and distance working, I have essentially isolated myself 167 out of 168 hours a week to the point where the only risk of catching the virus for me is when I go out buying groceries. With face-to-face meeting of people minimized, there simply isn't a significant likelihood for transmission, which means "person X" is isolated from the virus' playground. The problem is, as soon as the lockdown is lessened, a person X like me becomes a bomb ticking to explode and the epidemic and death rates begin to climb again. I don't see how this cat and mouse play with us versus the virus would end until either enough masses gain immunity, a vaccine is invented or such an effective therapeutic is found that people would no longer need to be hooked to ventilators and fill the ICU's.

 

[Bergkamp]

Like in Italy, every death tested positive counts as a "corona death". If this is adequate has been thrown into doubt, of course.

Both numbers of the relationship are reported higher:

I see people in this thread pointing to overreporting of deaths, while it’s more likely that deaths are heavily underreported (by a factor of 2 or more) because many, especially elder, people die before ever being able to do a test.

See this article for example

 

[Bergkamp]

 

[Wayne]

or such an effective therapeutic is found that people would no longer need to be hooked to ventilators and fill the ICU's.

@JES -- From my own research, there appears to be a number of very effective therapies that would mostly negate the need for ventilators and ICU care. There's Vitamin C therapy, ozone therapy, and much more.

 

[Hip]

There has recently been a suggestion that the coronavirus death toll may be a lot higher in countries which do not universally vaccinate their population using the BCG vaccine. It's been theorized the BCG vaccine provides a strong protective effect against coronavirus, reducing the risk of death by 6-fold.

Italy, the Netherlands and the US are countries which do not universally vaccinate their population with BCG.

Whether BCG really is protective remains to be seen. But one clinical trial of BCG vaccination for coronavirus is already underway.

If it is protective, then you might expect death rates to vary between BCG vaccinated and non-BCG vaccinated countries.

A thread was started on this BCG topic.

 

[pamojja]

View attachment 36818

Though I can't verify, I read John Hopkins has such a high-security bio-weapons laboratory as also existing in Wuhan. Of course only for developing vaccines. Can anyone rectify?

The above graph seems to leave out all pneumonia deaths. And is in justaposition to this monitoring-system: https://healthweather.us/?mode=Trend

My own daily updated calculations from the accessible mortality data confirms both, in that until now in theUS from the first covid death till today (1 month and 7 days ago) hasn’t exceeded its usual influenzia and pneumonia deaths (including usual fluctuations) in this time period at all.

 

[pamojja]

because many, especially elder, people die before ever being able to do a test.

See this article for example

That article is in complete opposition what the Italian ministry of health announced: In Italy not only those deaths are counted caused by the virus, but also all with the virus dying of their comorbitities. Even worse, in the US not even a test is needed anymore, only the suspicion to be included into the covid mortality rate. Totally against any common sense.

 

[andyguitar]

How likely is it that some less mobile old person who rarely goes out, even less now during lockdown, gets infected with COVID-19?

Because in the UK many people like that live in care homes. Others who live in their own homes often have care assistants coming in every day to help them with personal care. As I say if the infection gets into a care home the vulnerable residents are at risk of death. Same with care assistants doing their rounds. If they are carriers then they can infect dozens whilst giving personal care.