Antibody Tests with Covid - 15% Population Rate in Germany

[Rorschach]

If you look at the deaths per million in a population, throughout Europe.
Germany ought to be telling us how they managed to have four times less deaths than anyone else.
....... Or their national statistics are being generated by redeployed VW emissions engineers.

Or it's nowhere near as deadly as the media would have us believe.

Mortality rate in the UK is 13%, mortality rate in New Zealand is 0.3%.

 

[Flynnwood]

We have a gaggle of different vaccines here in the states including one local to me that's a patch of tiny needles made of some kind of sugar or protein that induces mice to produce antibodies that would kill covid-19 as it stands now. I'm waiting for the trial to open as I would like to be included as a mildly at risk person if they'll let me.

@D_W There is an ICU Doctor in New York whose genuine passion to find an answer, I truly, truly, admire. Much more interesting (to me at least) than listening to any Politician quacking out the rhetoric of the day. He's trying to reach out to fellows and researchers, while working very hard. Brilliant man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmRlvX3VrAQ

 

[lurker]

It was the media who told us VW emissions were fiddled as well :wink:

 

[RobinBHM]

If you look at the deaths per million in a population, throughout Europe.
Germany ought to be telling us how they managed to have four times less deaths than anyone else.
....... Or their national statistics are being generated by redeployed VW emissions engineers.

Or it's nowhere near as deadly as the media would have us believe.

Mortality rate in the UK is 13%, mortality rate in New Zealand is 0.3%.

unfortunately its impossible to know what the mortality rate actually is -because testing is restricted, so there is no way to know how many are infected.

deaths per million gives an indication of how well a country has dealt with controlling the rate of spread.

 

[Rorschach]

If you look at the deaths per million in a population, throughout Europe.
Germany ought to be telling us how they managed to have four times less deaths than anyone else.
....... Or their national statistics are being generated by redeployed VW emissions engineers.

Or it's nowhere near as deadly as the media would have us believe.

Mortality rate in the UK is 13%, mortality rate in New Zealand is 0.3%.

unfortunately its impossible to know what the mortality rate actually is -because testing is restricted, so there is no way to know how many are infected.

deaths per million gives an indication of how well a country has dealt with controlling the rate of spread.

True, but one thing we can know is that whatever the official mortality rate is, the actual mortality rate is lower than that. If New Zealand is 0.3%, and they are one of the countries that has been strictest with testing and tracking, then the real figure is lower than that.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There are a huge number of things we don't yet know, and it is clear that the daily press conferences from No 10 are becoming about managing expectations, not communicating what has happened.

The press is complicit in this smokescreen through asking ridiculous questions to which the answers aren't remotely clear. We don't know:

- the real mortality rate (although the govt may have reasonable estimates)
- if Germany are managing better or storing up problems for a second wave
- if a vaccine is possible - or is the govt wary of creating expectations
- when lockdown will be relaxed - but govt probably have a very good idea through modelling
- current deaths in care homes and at home
- the reality behind PPE shortages - is current demand 10% up or 10 times normal

It is much too early and pointless to find culprits, we should try and get answers to the basic questions first.

 

[StevieB]

We don't know:

- the real mortality rate (although the govt may have reasonable estimates)
- if Germany are managing better or storing up problems for a second wave
- if a vaccine is possible - or is the govt wary of creating expectations
- when lockdown will be relaxed - but govt probably have a very good idea through modelling
- current deaths in care homes and at home
- the reality behind PPE shortages - is current demand 10% up or 10 times normal

It is much too early and pointless to find culprits, we should try and get answers to the basic questions first.

Perhaps I can attempt to answer your questions as follows:

The 'real' mortality rate is an impossible figure to calculate, as everyone estimates it differently. To get a definitive answer you would infect a known number of people, monitor them, and then calculate the death %. We cannot do this as we do not know who is infected, we do not test everybody, we do not know who is asymptomatic and we do not know whether people are dying of covid-19 or with covid-19. We are also recording death statistics differently depending on which country you are in, and with significant delays in some instances. In the UK we take hospital data daily, care home data weekly and do not test corpses. Other countries have different methodologies. Death rates vary not only by country, but also by population characteristics. The current focus in BAME cohorts is largely due to a higher prevalence of underlying co-morbidities and a tendency to live in larger family groups, as well as social factors such as tending to be in lower paying jobs and needing to work rather than being able to afford to self isolate.

Germany have a massively increased testing rate compared to most other countries, as well as a population who are happy to follow rules and do as they are advised. As soon as you test someone as positive, they can be told to isolate (and will do so) such that spread of infection is minimised. This, more than anything else, reduces the death rate simply because fewer vulnerable elderly people are exposed to the virus. Social distancing is not designed to reduce individual risk, it is designed to stop spread and the prevent the critical care system being overwhelmed. The only risk for the future is mixing while the virus is still active - this will lead to repeated waves of infection needing the same distancing response as currently. Public appetite for repeated rounds of this will vary still (look at the US and protests already over lockdown) and infection rates will track the distancing efforts.

It is too early to say whether a vaccine will be effective or not. It largely depends on how fast the spike proteins on the coat of the virus mutate. Testing is much easier than vaccination. There is more than one way to create a vaccine, but only one way to test them all - you vaccinate then infect people and study the length and duration of any response. When you have no other treatment, you have to do this very carefully. You either vaccinate lots of people and then study that population and track those who become infected naturally, or you vaccinate a smaller cohort and then deliberately infect them. This is ethically challenging given the lack of alternative treatment options, and there is no point testing a vaccine on fit 25 year olds then rolling it out to the general population. You also need to follow people for a period of time after infection, and multiple rounds of infection, to determine how long a vaccine lasts. We are already dropping the need for animal testing and going to clinical trials, but that has risks of its own. Look up thalidomide if you want a recent example of what can go wrong when people don't think of the right questions to ask before a trial.

Depends what you mean by lockdown - being at home with all but essential things open is as much an economic/political decision as a health one. Social distancing on the other hand is possible for a prolonged period without full lockdown. There are a number of relaxation scenario's, with varying degrees of risk. Too far too soon and infection rates rise again and you are back to square one - repeated waves of lockdown. Large gatherings are unlikely to be soon (football matches, concerts etc) but you could see offices and workplaces being open sooner. It will largely depend on the infection, hospitalisation and death rates dropping significantly over the next 3 weeks as to whether a further 3 week lockdown is necessary. The data suggests the rates are dropping, but when the sweet point is to relax current restrictions is not a defined point.

Unless you test extensively, you will not know this. Testing is a 'point in time' determination and does not help much - the main advantage of testing is to get 'healthy' key workers back to work rather than self isolating for 14 days due to a cold. To get a handle on care home deaths you would need to test everyone regularly, particularly post mortem.

PPE is like any other commodity. Suppliers do not make more than they are expecting to sell, otherwise they have materials and stock they have to store. Similarly end point consumers do not buy more than they expect to need or they have to store it and tie up money that can be used for other things - there is not tons of spare cash in the NHS for this type of 'just in case' planning. Yes, it is worrying that there is a PPE shortage, but you cannot just phone up a supplier and gain an extra 10 million disposable gowns with 7 days notice - particularly in a worldwide shortage. Government cannot magic it up - it takes time for supply to meet demand. It would be helpful if some journalists took this on board rather than just writing 'disgusting lack of foresight' articles. On top of the NHS, we have tube drivers, bus drivers, police, firefighters, care homes and others all suggesting their staff should have access to PPE too - where they imagine it is currently sitting waiting to be distributed I am not sure. Perhaps one advantage of this situation is that we will move some of our manufacturing base back to the UK, or we will have a disaster/pandemic plan going forwards for the next unforseen situation - how far do you plan though and how much money do you invest in a 'what if' plan - PPE has a shelf life, so do drugs, ventilators and pretty much every other commodity currently in demand.

I am not an expert, but I am a scientist, I am involved in the covid-19 response and I do have an understanding of vaccines, virology and healthcare from my job. The above is simply my take on each of the questions you have posed - albeit brief answers.

Steve

 

[Lons]

True, but one thing we can know is that whatever the official mortality rate is, the actual mortality rate is lower than that. If New Zealand is 0.3%, and they are one of the countries that has been strictest with testing and tracking,

You can't directly compare new Zealand with the UK and mortality rates based just on population is misleading. Yes they were quicker and more stringent with the lockdown, tested more as a percentage and did a pretty good job of quarantine and tracking so the data will be more accurate presumably but the country has a population of only 5m with is little more than half that of London with the other 2 sizeable cities only around 0.5m each. There's precious little in between so it's relatively easy to implement isolation. Anyone who's visited NZ and travelled the country can confirm how long you can drive without seeing many other humans. Even Auckland with 1.7m inhabitants is not at all crowded, except for rush hour traffic over the bridge that is!
Even the cafe's and shops in the smaller towns close at 4pm FFS.
Keeping people apart in the heavily overpopulated UK is a very different matter altogether and it seems that it's distancing that works.

E.g. New Zealand has really only 3 international airports of any note with Auckland being the second largest in Australasia, it handles around 150,000 flights a year and roughly 14.5m passengers but compare that to Heathrow which is a hub is capped at 480,000 and handles 80m passengers and that excludes all the freight flights. Add to that all the other major UK airports with movements to and from all around the world then look again at NZ where you only ever fly to or from the country.

then the real figure is lower than that.

and you actually know that...how?

 

[Bodgers]

True, but one thing we can know is that whatever the official mortality rate is, the actual mortality rate is lower than that. If New Zealand is 0.3%, and they are one of the countries that has been strictest with testing and tracking,

You can't directly compare new Zealand with the UK and mortality rates based just on population is misleading. Yes they were quicker and more stringent with the lockdown, tested more as a percentage and did a pretty good job of quarantine and tracking so the data will be more accurate presumably but the country has a population of only 5m with is little more than half that of London with the other 2 sizeable cities only around 0.5m each. There's precious little in between so it's relatively easy to implement isolation. Anyone who's visited NZ and travelled the country can confirm how long you can drive without seeing many other humans. Even Auckland with 1.7m inhabitants is not at all crowded, except for rush hour traffic over the bridge that is!
Even the cafe's and shops in the smaller towns close at 4pm FFS.
Keeping people apart in the heavily overpopulated UK is a very different matter altogether and it seems that it's distancing that works.

E.g. New Zealand has really only 3 international airports of any note with Auckland being the second largest in Australasia, it handles around 150,000 flights a year and roughly 14.5m passengers but compare that to Heathrow which is a hub is capped at 480,000 and handles 80m passengers and that excludes all the freight flights. Add to that all the other major UK airports with movements to and from all around the world then look again at NZ where you only ever fly to or from the country.

then the real figure is lower than that.

and you actually know that...how?

Yes cases are lower in New Zealand due to measures taken and geographical things...but, the stat is case-fatility ratio. That is how many die as a percentage of infected cases. Which gives an indication of how a country's healthcare system is doing in its treatment of COVID-19.

If tested cases per 100k population was the same between the UK and New Zealand then the CFR would be comparible, despite the fact they have less cases. But obviously it isn't.

If we take European countries as a baseline, and say they all have an approx 3% case level (based on the Netherlands data) then a rough CFR comparison might be possible. But, then again, each county is it a different progression through the curve.

 

[Lons]

Bodgers wrote: Yes cases are lower in New Zealand due to measures taken and geographical things...but, the stat is case-fatility ratio. That is how many die as a percentage of infected cases. Which gives an indication of how a country's healthcare system is doing in its treatment of COVID-19
If tested cases per 100k population was the same between the UK and New Zealand then the CFR would be comparible, despite the fact they have less cases. But obviously it isn't.

If we take European countries as a baseline, and say they all have an approx 3% case level (based on the Netherlands data) then a rough CFR comparison might be possible. But, then again, each county is it a different progression through the curve.

An indication yes but there is no guarantee that stats between countries are compiled the same in which case they still can't be directly compared.
Die of the virus or with the virus? How many had underlying issues, how many did not? The UK only compiles deaths from hospitals daily, how many died at home or in care? I personally know 2 which weren't included.
It still looks like comparing apples and pears to me but then like most people I'm not an expert. :wink:

The post that made the most sense to me was that from StevieB

Just to add a note about NZ healthcare. My niece a GP in the UK spent nearly 2 years as a junior doctor in a hospital in Napier and she was very definite in her assessment that compared to the UK hospitals she worked in NZ was better equipped and had a far higher staff to patient ratio.

 

[Rorschach]

You are over complicating this.

Mortality rate is number of people infected vs number who die. New Zealand has probably the highest level of testing and a smaller population that makes that easier. Therefore their mortality rate is very accurate compared to other countries such as the UK which has a higher population and low levels of testing, artificially increasing our mortality rate.

Healthcare makes very little difference to it. NZ has similar levels of healthcare to the UK, maybe a little better but that's irrelevant if there is no treatment. All the doctors are doing is keeping patients stable. NZ doctors are not saving more people than UK doctors, you can't save someone from C19, you can just ventilate them, keep them stable and hope they recover.

Now that would be different is our hospitals were overun with patients, but at the moment they aren't, they are coping well and the nightingale hospitals are either empty or have a handful of people in them.

So unless NZ has some magic cure they aren't telling the world about, or are massively lying about their figures then we know that the mortality rate is around 0.3%, ironically what I said it would be almost a month ago in the other thread (that figure based on information from Chris Smith).

 

[Lons]

you can't save someone from C19, you can just ventilate them, keep them stable and hope they recover.

We don't know how many people died from the direct result of Corvid 19 the information we're given is the number of people who died from whatever cause and were infected at point of death i.e. C19 was mentioned along with whatever other issues they had and that's only the ones who were actually tested! So we don't have accurate data and as I said none of us know exactly how the other countries are recording theirs so only indications not fact.
I'm neither agreeing or disagreeing with your assessment btw, just as I posted previously, querying how you can state that you "KNOW", unless you are privy to confidential information that we don't have of course in which case please share otherwise you're only drawing conclusions like the rest of us.

Armchair experts with too much time on our hands!
We're all reading and watching an overload of information and picking out the bits that reinforce the arguments we prefer to believe, I'll continue taking my advice from what's offered by the scientists involved with the research rather than the politicians or members of forums like this.

As an afterthought even your statement that you can only ventilate can be questioned as there appears to be a school of thought that other methods of oxygenating could be more beneficial and going back to NZ and other countries they don't yet know how much of a part genetics plays so too many variables, far too early to draw conclusions.

 

[Garno]

We don't know:

- the real mortality rate (although the govt may have reasonable estimates)
- if Germany are managing better or storing up problems for a second wave
- if a vaccine is possible - or is the govt wary of creating expectations
- when lockdown will be relaxed - but govt probably have a very good idea through modelling
- current deaths in care homes and at home
- the reality behind PPE shortages - is current demand 10% up or 10 times normal

It is much too early and pointless to find culprits, we should try and get answers to the basic questions first.

Perhaps I can attempt to answer your questions as follows:

The 'real' mortality rate is an impossible figure to calculate, as everyone estimates it differently. To get a definitive answer you would infect a known number of people, monitor them, and then calculate the death %. We cannot do this as we do not know who is infected, we do not test everybody, we do not know who is asymptomatic and we do not know whether people are dying of covid-19 or with covid-19. We are also recording death statistics differently depending on which country you are in, and with significant delays in some instances. In the UK we take hospital data daily, care home data weekly and do not test corpses. Other countries have different methodologies. Death rates vary not only by country, but also by population characteristics. The current focus in BAME cohorts is largely due to a higher prevalence of underlying co-morbidities and a tendency to live in larger family groups, as well as social factors such as tending to be in lower paying jobs and needing to work rather than being able to afford to self isolate.

Germany have a massively increased testing rate compared to most other countries, as well as a population who are happy to follow rules and do as they are advised. As soon as you test someone as positive, they can be told to isolate (and will do so) such that spread of infection is minimised. This, more than anything else, reduces the death rate simply because fewer vulnerable elderly people are exposed to the virus. Social distancing is not designed to reduce individual risk, it is designed to stop spread and the prevent the critical care system being overwhelmed. The only risk for the future is mixing while the virus is still active - this will lead to repeated waves of infection needing the same distancing response as currently. Public appetite for repeated rounds of this will vary still (look at the US and protests already over lockdown) and infection rates will track the distancing efforts.

It is too early to say whether a vaccine will be effective or not. It largely depends on how fast the spike proteins on the coat of the virus mutate. Testing is much easier than vaccination. There is more than one way to create a vaccine, but only one way to test them all - you vaccinate then infect people and study the length and duration of any response. When you have no other treatment, you have to do this very carefully. You either vaccinate lots of people and then study that population and track those who become infected naturally, or you vaccinate a smaller cohort and then deliberately infect them. This is ethically challenging given the lack of alternative treatment options, and there is no point testing a vaccine on fit 25 year olds then rolling it out to the general population. You also need to follow people for a period of time after infection, and multiple rounds of infection, to determine how long a vaccine lasts. We are already dropping the need for animal testing and going to clinical trials, but that has risks of its own. Look up thalidomide if you want a recent example of what can go wrong when people don't think of the right questions to ask before a trial.

Depends what you mean by lockdown - being at home with all but essential things open is as much an economic/political decision as a health one. Social distancing on the other hand is possible for a prolonged period without full lockdown. There are a number of relaxation scenario's, with varying degrees of risk. Too far too soon and infection rates rise again and you are back to square one - repeated waves of lockdown. Large gatherings are unlikely to be soon (football matches, concerts etc) but you could see offices and workplaces being open sooner. It will largely depend on the infection, hospitalisation and death rates dropping significantly over the next 3 weeks as to whether a further 3 week lockdown is necessary. The data suggests the rates are dropping, but when the sweet point is to relax current restrictions is not a defined point.

Unless you test extensively, you will not know this. Testing is a 'point in time' determination and does not help much - the main advantage of testing is to get 'healthy' key workers back to work rather than self isolating for 14 days due to a cold. To get a handle on care home deaths you would need to test everyone regularly, particularly post mortem.

PPE is like any other commodity. Suppliers do not make more than they are expecting to sell, otherwise they have materials and stock they have to store. Similarly end point consumers do not buy more than they expect to need or they have to store it and tie up money that can be used for other things - there is not tons of spare cash in the NHS for this type of 'just in case' planning. Yes, it is worrying that there is a PPE shortage, but you cannot just phone up a supplier and gain an extra 10 million disposable gowns with 7 days notice - particularly in a worldwide shortage. Government cannot magic it up - it takes time for supply to meet demand. It would be helpful if some journalists took this on board rather than just writing 'disgusting lack of foresight' articles. On top of the NHS, we have tube drivers, bus drivers, police, firefighters, care homes and others all suggesting their staff should have access to PPE too - where they imagine it is currently sitting waiting to be distributed I am not sure. Perhaps one advantage of this situation is that we will move some of our manufacturing base back to the UK, or we will have a disaster/pandemic plan going forwards for the next unforseen situation - how far do you plan though and how much money do you invest in a 'what if' plan - PPE has a shelf life, so do drugs, ventilators and pretty much every other commodity currently in demand.

I am not an expert, but I am a scientist, I am involved in the covid-19 response and I do have an understanding of vaccines, virology and healthcare from my job. The above is simply my take on each of the questions you have posed - albeit brief answers.

Steve

Thank you for a wonderful post, it is one of the very few un-biased covid-19 things I have read. =D>

 

[Rorschach]

The "we know" part is based on the figures from NZ. This is my thinking, every country is testing in different ways and reporting in different ways. They are all testing for active infection though and they are all reporting deaths with active infection.

If NZ is doing the most testing and being the most careful then we can assume their figures are the most accurate, and if all countries are testing all deaths but have unknown population infection rates then it stands to reason that the lowest mortality rate reported is the nearest to the actual figure (assuming NZ haven't made a massive error somewhere).

Therefore we "know" that at worst the mortality is 0.3% (the NZ figure) and because NZ won't be perfect with their data, the actual figure is likely even lower than that.
The fact that every country is different will of course depend partly on that countries demographics, but for the most part the mortality rate is based on levels of testing within the population.

 

[Lons]

OK Rorschach so we don't actually "know" after all, we assume and speculate, as I said we're all just armchair wannabe experts and critics. :wink:

I'm no scientist or medic though there are plenty in my family heavily involved in the latter so I'm going to duck out of pointless argument that goes around in circles just like the previous thread and will continue to listen to those who have the qualifications and experience to give an informed opinion I can trust.

 

[RogerS]

An excellent article in the Telegraph comparing our inept and bungling response to Covd-19 with that in many Asian countries. It also shows how their strategies worked in minimising a full lockdown concomitant with minimising deaths and loading in heath services. What it does not do is address the key differences in culture between the UK ad those countries.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-heal ... s-britain/

 

[Rorschach]

Well I am more than happy to revisit this in a few months/year or so and will prepare the HP sauce if I need to eat my hat :lol:

 

[RobinBHM]

Steve wrote:

I am not an expert, but I am a scientist, I am involved in the covid-19 response and I do have an understanding of vaccines, virology and healthcare from my job. The above is simply my take on each of the questions you have posed - albeit brief answers.

Hi Steve, thank you very much for your excellent post, that focuses on the facts, I found it very informative.

It rather shows that woodworking as a hobby attracts a fantastic range of people from all walks of life.

the beauty of wood -thats what unites

 

[Bodgers]

An excellent article in the Telegraph comparing our inept and bungling response to Covd-19 with that in many Asian countries. It also shows how their strategies worked in minimising a full lockdown concomitant with minimising deaths and loading in heath services. What it does not do is address the key differences in culture between the UK ad those countries.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-heal ... s-britain/

There are some problems with this article.

The quote stating that the mutation rates in Coronaviruses and Influenza isn't correct. There's plenty of sources that disagree with that, and state that Influenza viruses mutate much faster.

I think this sort of article is appearing in a lot of places that basically seems to take the "our country bad, other country better" line and glosses over some of the facts.

 

[RogerS]

An excellent article in the Telegraph comparing our inept and bungling response to Covd-19 with that in many Asian countries. It also shows how their strategies worked in minimising a full lockdown concomitant with minimising deaths and loading in heath services. What it does not do is address the key differences in culture between the UK ad those countries.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-heal ... s-britain/

There are some problems with this article.

The quote stating that the mutation rates in Coronaviruses and Influenza isn't correct. There's plenty of sources that disagree with that, and state that Influenza viruses mutate much faster.

I think this sort of article is appearing in a lot of places that basically seems to take the "our country bad, other country better" line and glosses over some of the facts.

Oh... =D> ...for latching on to something that may or may not be correct and condemning the article on the basis of that.

And if you're going to make a statement such as The quote stating that the mutation rates in Coronaviruses and Influenza isn't correct. then you need to quote your source. Otherwise you sound like Jacob.

Perhaps you'd like to explain why fatalities in Germany are so much lower than here ?