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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

What we need now is antibody testing, not testing for Covid-19.

All the antibody studies in the US so far are showing that antibodies are present in at least an order of magnitude greater number of people than the official number of people with Covid-19.

This has huge implications for our response. Given this new data, LA is suggesting [1] that ~5% of the population of LA has already developed antibodies, which would mean the fatality rate may be as low as 0.10-0.20%. (For comparison, the seasonal flu is 0.05%-0.10%.)

Knowing if this is really the case for the entire nation would have huge implications for our response.

1. https://www.facebook.com/countyofla/videos/537241533852930/

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The existing antibody studies have come under scrutiny for a multitude of reasons. One, the samples were not randomized. Two, the tests are not very accurate. Three, we are still unsure what level of antibodies will confer immunity if at all.

Also, a raw fatality rate is useless in a vacuum. NYC has had a lot of deaths and if wasn't for the shelter in place, hospitals may have been completely overwhelmed. Fatality rate be damned.

Finally, comparing COVID-19 to the seasonal flu is simply incorrect in nearly all instances. For example, the seasonal flu fatality rate is likely much lower than listed because of how many cases never get counted. In order to even think about comparing the two, we would also need proper antibody studies done for the season flu in prior years and not just either presented cases or estimates.

Edit - added links to some information

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-covid-19-is-not-just-a-b...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/antibody-surveys-sug...

Number of deaths in NYC divided by total population is 15,000/8,000,000. This already puts the fatality rate at at least 0.2.

But the consequences are far from over and the number of deaths will keep climbing, so your "fatality rate may be as low as 0.10-0.20%" is completely off the mark.

edit: I am sorry if my tone was interpreted as confrontational. I otherwise agree with the parent's post that we need much more antibody testing.

Feel free to take it up with the Stanford researchers and the LA county health commissioner. I'm simply sharing their reports.

You are taking their preliminary, non-peer reviewed data and making poorly founded arguments on top of them.

I am simply trying to slow the spread of non-sensical numbers. The total population divided by number of deaths provide a factual lower bound and arguing against that is not sensible.

Flaws in the Stanford study has already been highlighted extensively, see for instance https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-flaw... and the insightful comments. The issue is not to take it up with the authors but whether the authors might listen and take back what they claimed on popular political TV shows. [1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NjCitwKJSQ

Those LA and Santa Clara studies have come under intense criticism. From other data it looks like the number is closer to .5% than .1%.

Which is still a far cry from the 4% mortality rate predicted in March.

As more data comes in the estimates will continue to be refined.

What prominent institutions or figures were claiming a 4% IFR in March? They may have been saying that for case fatality rates, but not infections.

> All the antibody studies in the US so far are showing that antibodies are present in at least an order of magnitude greater number of people than the official number of people with Covid-19.

These results may not be accurate either, though. At least some antibody tests give false positives for antibodies to other Coronavirus strains.

NY study shows fatality rate can be between 0.5% to 1%. I don't think 0.1% to 0.2% is likely.

Additionally, we need to find out how long antibodies confer immunity for.

We still dont know if the antibodies confer any sort of short / long term immunity at all. For all we know we could get the virus, fight it off and get it again. Rinse and repeat. While all data is useful there is still so much we don't know that hampers us from putting this data to use.

General lack of testing though is going to severely hamper our response to this. Overall unfortunately the federal government has failed to rise to the occasion.

We also know that mortality rates have jumped up well beyond what is being reported in official covid mortality, with no other reasonable explanation apart from Covid.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/910226/excess-mortality-data-...

Frankly, it's just wishful thinking to cherry pick the highest estimate for the number of people who have been infected, and the lowest estimate for the number of deaths.

Are we able to test for all 8 strains at once?

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