Stanford MDs: COVID-19 death toll estimates may be orders of magnitude too high

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[ WARNING: This may cause the libtard trolls' heads in here to explode ]


Stanford medical professors: COVID-19 death toll estimates may be 'orders of magnitude' too high
<article class="clearfix image-article sm-mb-1 quality-HD post-2645578174">Stanford medical professors: COVID-19 death toll estimates may be 'orders of magnitude' too hightanford medical professors: COVID-19 death toll estimates may be 'orders of magnitude' too high


They believe the projections are 'deeply flawed'
</article>

A pair of public health experts from Stanford, Drs. Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, warn Americans in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the current estimates about the coronavirus' fatality rate may be too high by "orders of magnitude."


According to Bendavid and Bhattacharya, both of whom are medical doctors, while they are supportive of social distancing guidelines and efforts to contain the disease, they fear that orders to shut down the entire economy may be based on shoddy research data.
Death toll projects may be 'orders of magnitude too high'

"If it's true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified," they wrote. "But," and what a big one it is, they add, "there's little evidence to confirm that premise — and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high."
The two submit that because the United States and other countries largely focus their testing on symptomatic patients, the number of people who are infected with COVID-19 is likely much larger than the number of confirmed cases being reported by public health agencies throughout the country, which means the virus' mortality rate is likely significantly lower.

"Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate — 2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others," wrote Bendavid and Bhattacharya. "So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, 2 million to 4 million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases."
How did they predict this?

The two professors argue that the best evidence of the coronavirus death rate being significantly lower than what is being reported may lie in the Italian town of Vò. On March 6, the town's 3,300 residents were tested. Of these, 90 tests came back positive, indicating a prevalence of 2.7% of the population having the virus.
If one were to apply this to the entire province where the town is located, which has a population of 955,000, it would mean there were actually 26,000 infections at the time, and not just the 198 that were officially confirmed. This would be 130 times greater than the number of reported cases. Since Italy's case fatality rate of 8% is estimated using the confirmed cases, Bendavid and Bhattacharya write, "the real fatality rate [of the virus] could in fact be closer to 0.06%."
A 'cause for optimism'?

The two Stanford Health Policy experts even said the virus' mortality rate might be on par with that of the seasonal flu:
Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that's a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism.​
A universal lockdown 'may not be worth the costs'

Bendavid and Bhattacharya say that if they are right about the lower lethality of the epidemic, public policy experts should focus their measures on protecting the elderly and expanding medical capacity.

"Hospital resources will need to be reallocated to care for the critically ill patients. Triage will need to improve. And policy makers will need to focus on reducing risks for older adults and people with underlying medical conditions."
The pair conclude that if their estimates are right, then the universal quarantine measures "may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community, and individual mental and physical health."
"We should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns," they added.



 

my clock is stuck on 420 time to hit this bong
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Sure feels like a gotcha moment . My wife flipped channels during commercial break to cnn and it’s almost comical if you just listen to the tone forget what there saying it’s just exhausting .
 

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It is amazing how disingenuous the media can be. So they sit there and crow about how there's been this spike in the amount of people that have contracted the disease. But they failed to mention that there were no kits available previously. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that there should be a spike if you had no way of measuring it before, and now you do. And yet we are told by the naysayers that this is irrational. And if there are more cases, then naturally the fatality rate would be lower. About the biggest DUH I've ever heard.
 
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It is amazing how disingenuous the media can be. So they sit there and crow about how there's been this spike in the amount of people that have contracted the disease. But they failed to mention that there were no kits available previously. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that there should be a spike if you had no way of measuring it before, and now you do. And yet we are told by the naysayers that this is irrational. And if there are more cases, then naturally the fatality rate would be lower. About the biggest DUH I've ever heard.

B I n g o
 

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Zit, what is your over/under for deaths? Or mean outcome, however you wanna phrase it.

If we don't even need the lockdowns, then how low will the numbers be since we actually have them?
 

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Zit, what is your over/under for deaths? Or mean outcome, however you wanna phrase it.

If we don't even need the lockdowns, then how low will the numbers be since we actually have them?

We need then for the elderly and those of us with pre-existing conditions. That's it.
 

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Sure feels like a gotcha moment . My wife flipped channels during commercial break to cnn and it’s almost comical if you just listen to the tone forget what there saying it’s just exhausting .

CNN is nothing - literally nothing compared to MSNBC - time it urself - "Trump" is mentioned every 6 seconds on there - he needs to think about droning their headquarters and just dealing with the fallout after
 

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Agree with article. Seems obvious the death count and number of cases are inversely related.
 

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Well, one way it ends is if we could get simple testing - if everyone knew their status - like a keto strip - u piss on it and u know if you're in ketosis - then if ur negative u can go out - if not, you isolate yourself and get help if you get symptoms
 

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Well, one way it ends is if we could get simple testing - if everyone knew their status - like a keto strip - u piss on it and u know if you're in ketosis - then if ur negative u can go out - if not, you isolate yourself and get help if you get symptoms

yup. if positive , IR for 14 days if not get to work . Catastrophic failure of healthcare at the top across N America , beauracracy. Healhcare practioaners should be open, we could be testing people whislt meeting day to day healthcare demands of the population. As it is now, we're closed . Just a clusterfuck.



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW
 

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yup. if positive , IR for 14 days if not get to work . Catastrophic failure of healthcare at the top across N America , beauracracy. Healhcare practioaners should be open, we could be testing people whislt meeting day to day healthcare demands of the population. As it is now, we're closed . Just a clusterfuck.



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW

Seriously good summation ^^^......though rueful to view it ten days later and have info seem almost "months" old

Meanwhile, the SheBar and I have procured revised passports and our long awaited Canadian encroachment (Vanc/BC late June....and TOR in mid Sept for Jays game + minimum 18holes on Tor's finest community links) now stalled but nonetheless a key entry in our traveling scorecard ASAP
 
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Zit, what is your over/under for deaths? Or mean outcome, however you wanna phrase it.

If we don't even need the lockdowns, then how low will the numbers be since we actually have them?

I have no idea.

I'm not saying we don't need lockdowns. I'm just presenting other experts' point of views. I'm not going to claim
what they say is true or right (who am I to say). What I am saying is that one need to be wise in order to sift through
the propaganda fed to us by the MSM.

The left and right clearly have their agendas to push in all of this. The truth is somewhere in the muddled mess.
 

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I have no idea.

I'm not saying we don't need lockdowns. I'm just presenting other experts' point of views. I'm not going to claim
what they say is true or right (who am I to say). What I am saying is that one need to be wise in order to sift through
the propaganda fed to us by the MSM.

The left and right clearly have their agendas to push in all of this. The truth is somewhere in the muddled mess.

Well said.
 

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The flu killed 49.000 in the US in 2018. What we have now is a very bad flu. Older people and those with underlying conditions are at high risk...just like the flu. Hopefully soon we will have better theraputics and, before next season, a vaccine...just like the flu. The disease is spreading over a condensed period. The mortality rate is lower to much lower than other countries. The media had to switch to total cases to make Trump look bad rather than deaths as, with more testing, the death rate went down. At least MSNBC doesn't tote themselves as unbiased. CNN is truly scum for selling Journalism when the ratings and the American public know they are only interested in their own perverted agenda.
 

Conservatives, Patriots & Huskies return to glory
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It is amazing how disingenuous the media can be. So they sit there and crow about how there's been this spike in the amount of people that have contracted the disease. But they failed to mention that there were no kits available previously. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that there should be a spike if you had no way of measuring it before, and now you do. And yet we are told by the naysayers that this is irrational. And if there are more cases, then naturally the fatality rate would be lower. About the biggest DUH I've ever heard.

said this exact same thing, just differently, in Barbanman's silly "fun facts" thread about the spread of the virus.
 

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I have no idea.

I'm not saying we don't need lockdowns. I'm just presenting other experts' point of views. I'm not going to claim
what they say is true or right (who am I to say). What I am saying is that one need to be wise in order to sift through
the propaganda fed to us by the MSM.

The left and right clearly have their agendas to push in all of this. The truth is somewhere in the muddled mess.

Well, we'll see how accurate the article is soon enough. A .01 death rate would mean only 33k people die if the ENTIRE country was infected. This would mean 30 million people have it right now.

In other words, I have no clue how that would be posted in a major news publication.
 

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