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Comment by Gibbon1 | Hacker News Reader

The plan ignores that because people working on this are consistently finding infection rates of less than a few percent. Stanford tested 2888 samples that were negative for flu and other respiratory viruses and didn't find any positive for SAR-COV2 until Feb 21st and Feb23.

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14% of women giving birth in NYC test positive; 86% asymptomatic. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316

That's what a 15% infection rate looks like. New York City right now.

And you guys want to take it to 85%.

There could be some limitations in sampling. Multiplex respiratory panels at Stanford that come up negative for everything... what does that patient look like?

A source for what you are saying is the linked SF article [1] which indicates that of ~3k evidently sick people with flu symptoms, 0.1-1% were confirmed to have COVID-19. Though note this is not random population sampling, on an interesting scale, so ignores asymptomatic question. Worldwide analysis of death rates [2], indicates #infected-so-far = 700-1600 x #dead so far. And data from Iceland [3], the only country with widespread sampling of asymptomatic population, is aligned with these numbers. Based on the analysis and support from Iceland, Covid-19 testing to see if patients actively have the disease are likely inaccurate and also a policy of only permitting testing of severe symptom patients is depressing reported numbers of once infected.

[1] https://www.sfgate.com/coronavirus/article/Think-you-got-the...

[2] Analysis of #infected today from #dead today, using following assumptions:

1. death statistics are reliable, since cause of death tests can adequately collect fluid samples (a major source of inaccuracy in COVID-19 testing), source = talking to medical staff at Bay Area sites.

2. E[days between first infection and death] = 14 (lost the source at the moment), Therefore, number of dead today D => number of infected 14 days ago = 100 D

3. rate of death increase consistently trends around 25%/day or 15% with full lockdown, source CDC situation reports worldwide excluding regions with restricted access to journalists

4. therefore, #infected today = #infected 14 days ago growing at 25% daily = 22X, or 7X if your region was locked down for last 2 weeks

5. so #infected=2200D or 700D

[3] Last week, CDC reported 2 deaths today for Iceland, and admittedly-non-random sampling by DeCode indicated upto 1% of population have/had virus, upto 3600. Iceland has done strict quarantining of confirmed and suspected cases, and extensive testing since February, so despite no lockdown, I would put them at the 700X end of the estimate. They report ~1000 confirmed cases, so they would actually estimate 3600-1000 infected so far. My estimate would have indicated 2200-700 X D (= today's deaths, 2) = 4400 to 1400 cases.

San Miguel county in Colorado has found 0.5% of their population has confirmed antibodies after doing 1600+ tests (out of 8,000 people in the county).

As another data point, the theory of this thing being widespread in the population seems far fetched to me.

Well, Gangelt showed 15% had antibodies (subject to, potentially fair criticisms re: methodology) so I think it's fair to say it varies by locale.

While I understand that many folks from Wuhan travel all over the United States, the non-stop options from Wuhan to NYC and, if I recall correctly, SFO and LAX meant that more opportunities existed for early spread than the middle of Colorado. In fact, I can't actually pinpoint a city in San Miguel County, Colorado -- can you? (https://goo.gl/maps/F7CJ3yfDKaf1gQjDA) I guess there's a post office in Egnar... Telluride maybe?

Certainly the sparse population created natural social distancing precluding its spread.

San Miguel County is home to Telluride ski resort, an international destination with about half a million visits per year [1]

[1] https://www.telluridenews.com/news/article_1547199f-46bc-547...

True, population 2484.

The strain that is widespread in New York is the European strain: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavi...

Very cool! I wonder if that's true in the Bay Area too.

I like how a factual point that goes against HN wishful thinking gets downvoted.

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