Amerika

Virus

• Antibody tests suggest that coronavirus infections vastly exceed official counts

  An analysis of the blood of some 3,300 people living in Santa Clara county in early April found that one in every 66 people had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. On the basis of that finding, the researchers estimate that between 48,000 and 82,000 of the county’s roughly 2 million inhabitants were infected with the virus at that time — numbers that contrast sharply with the official case count of some 1,000 people reported in early April, according to the analysis posted today on medRxiv.

  News of the Santa Clara analysis follows preliminary results from a similar study in Germany, released on 9 April, that tested some 500 people in a village of more than 12,000 and found that one in seven had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. The German team also looked for active infections, using diagnostic tests based on the polymerase chain reaction, and when those figures were combined with those who had antibodies, estimate that the town’s overall infection rate was 15%.

  The Santa Clara team estimated an IFR for the county of 0.1–0.2%, which would equate to about 100 deaths in 48,000-82,000 infections. As of 10 April, the county’s official death count was 50 people. The study’s IFR is lower than the IFR used in models by researchers at Imperial College London, which estimated an IFR for Great Britain on the basis of data from China to be 0.9%. In another study, the same group estimated an IFR for China of 0.66%, and a study of deaths on the Diamond Princess cruise ship estimated an IFR of 0.5%.

  Basically, this is nasty like SARS, spreads quickly like a common cold, but is not as deadly as MERS and in fact, the numbers look closer to somewhere between the regular flu and swine flu.

• COVID-19 Outbreak Associated with Air Conditioning in Restaurant, Guangzhou, China, 2020

  The only known source of exposure for the affected persons in families B and C was patient A1 at the restaurant. We determined that virus had been transmitted to >1 member of family B and >1 member of family C at the restaurant and that further infections in families B and C resulted from within-family transmission.

  Restaurant X is an air-conditioned, 5-floor building without windows. The third floor dining area occupies 145 m2; each floor has its own air conditioner (Figure). The distance between each table is about 1 m. Families A and B were each seated for an overlapping period of 53 minutes and families A and C for an overlapping period of 73 minutes. The air outlet and the return air inlet for the central air conditioner were located above table C (Figure, panel B).

  On January 24, a total of 91 persons (83 customers, 8 staff members) were in the restaurant. Of these, a total of 83 had eaten lunch at 15 tables on the third floor. Among the 83 customers, 10 became ill with COVID-19; the other 73 were identified as close contacts and quarantined for 14 days.

• Functional fear predicts public health compliance in the COVID-19 pandemic

  In this study we recruited a large international community sample (N=324) to complete measures of self-perceived risk of contracting COVID-19, fear of the virus, moral foundations, political orientation, and behavior change in response to the pandemic. Consistently, the only predictor of positive behavior change (e.g., social distancing, improved hand hygiene) was fear of COVID-19, with no effect of politically-relevant variables.

• Racial toll of virus grows even starker as more data emerges

  On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first breakdown of COVID-19 case data by race, showing that 30% of patients whose race was known were black. The federal data was missing racial information for 75% of all cases, however, and did not include any demographic breakdown of deaths.

  Health conditions that exist at higher rates in the black community — obesity, diabetes and asthma — make African Americans more susceptible to the virus. They also are more likely to be uninsured, and often report that medical professionals take their ailments less seriously when they seek treatment.

  “It’s America’s unfinished business — we’re free, but not equal,” civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson told the AP.

• Coronavirus: Double warning over antibody tests

  There are no guarantees that if you have antibodies against the coronavirus that you are completely immune.

  And even if your antibodies do protect you from becoming sick, then you may be able to harbour the virus in your body and pass it to others.

• An overlooked, possibly fatal coronavirus crisis: a dire need for kidney dialysis

  Kidney specialists now estimate that 20 per cent to 40 per cent of ICU patients with the coronavirus suffered kidney failure and needed emergency dialysis, according to Dr Alan Kliger, a nephrologist at Yale University School of Medicine who is co-chairman of a Covid-19 response team for the American Society of Nephrology.

  The volume of patients needing dialysis is “orders of magnitude greater than the number of patients we would normally dialyze,” said Dr Barbara Murphy, chair of the department of medicine at Mount Sinai Health System. At her hospital alone, the number of patients requiring dialysis has risen threefold, she said.

• More Than 2.3 Million COVID Cases Around the World

  Coronavirus cases rose to 2.3 million around with world, with the U.S. seeing steady increases but several other countries reporting declining numbers.

  The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center says over 735,000 cases and nearly 40,000 deaths have been recorded in the United States, now the epicenter of the virus that first broke out in China late last year.

  Europe just hit 1 million infected / 100k RIP.

• One third of participants in Massachusetts study tested positive for antibodies linked to coronavirus

  The Mass. General study took samples from 200 residents on the street in Chelsea, MA. Participants remained anonymous and provided a drop of blood to researchers, who were able to produce a result in ten minutes with a rapid test.

  Sixty-four of the participants tested positive – a “sobering” result, according to Thomas Ambrosino, Chelsea’s city manager.

  Ambrosino called Chelsea the epicenter of the crisis in Massachusetts. Chelsea has the state’s highest rate of confirmed cases, with at least 712 confirmed cases and 39 deaths – an infection rate of around 2 percent.

• Sweden Says Controversial Covid-19 Strategy Is Proving Effective

  As of Sunday, Sweden had reported 1,540 deaths tied to Covid-19, an increase of 29 from Saturday. That’s considerably more than in the rest of Scandinavia, but much less than in Italy, Spain and the U.K., both in absolute and relative terms.

  Tegnell isn’t the only high-level official in Sweden to claim the country may be over the worst.

  “The trend we have seen in recent days, with a more flat curve — where we have many new cases, but not a daily increase — is stabilizing,” Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of the microbiology department at Sweden’s Public Health Authority, said on Friday. “We are seeing the same pattern for patients in intensive care.”

  Contrast to the experience in India.

• Dutch report lowest daily corona death rate in over 3 weeks

  The number of deaths caused by the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands has risen by 83, Dutch health authorities said on Sunday, which was the smallest reported daily increase since March 26.

  The total number of deaths among people known to have been infected with the coronavirus increased to 3,684, while the number of confirmed infections rose by 1,066 to 32,655.

  In other news, Denmark and Germany are coming slowly out of lockdown.

Tags: covid-19, linkpost, panicdemic