Amazing news if true: Oxford University researcher says Covid-19 may have already infected up to 50% of Britain

I started writing this (points 1 &2) before looking at the responses.

1) Then why do most people even in NY test NEGATIVE for currently having Corona? They think they're sick yet they've already had it. Doesn't make sense.

2) do cities like NY which are getting slammed have 100% infection rates? Not sure this makes sense to me.

3) A more likely scenario seems that NY which has the most international travel to China in the US and rest of world (Italy) and is most densely populate is having a huge outbreak. It has not reached close to 50% of population unless the vast vast majority are asymptomatic.

But it doesn't seem like hospitals would then suddenly be overwhelmed if it's been here running rampant for months unless you're trying to imply like 100% of people have been exposed here.

Actually, he gave her opponent a better chance at winning than basically anyone else and pretty much said she was one state away from losing it before the election. This post is quite disingenuous (as expected from this poster).

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

Nate Silver also predicted Hillary would win the election..

Couldn't find that quote - you wanna cite it? I mean... that statement isn't wrong from a popular vote perspective.

Giles Corey wrote:

Nate "I guarantee Hillary will beat Trump" Silver?

His "genius" is pure hype.

wejo wrote:

...

3) A more likely scenario seems that NY which has the most international travel to China in the US and rest of world (Italy) and is most densely populate is having a huge outbreak. It has not reached close to 50% of population unless the vast vast majority are asymptomatic.

But it doesn't seem like hospitals would then suddenly be overwhelmed if it's been here running rampant for months unless you're trying to imply like 100% of people have been exposed here.

More than half are asymptomatic

I would assume that less than 1% of the people that have symptoms actually go to the hospital.

Also, they don’t go to the hospital immediately when they start demonstrating the symptoms. I would assume that they go one or two weeks after starting to have the symptoms. So the people at the hospital now probably got infected in late Feb or early March. You are looking at lagging data.

There is no treatment of the disease, simply treatment for the symptoms. So I assume that if people don’t think that you need a ventilator anytime soon, they simply avoid going to the hospital.

Yes, the virus probably got to London earlier than NY.

And if you don't understand what this means, maybe don't weigh in on public health debates.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

Nate Silver also predicted Hillary would win the election..

So did Trump.

ulsterscot wrote:

If people develop immunity as a result of infection, at 50% already infected we would rapidly approach the point (within days) where "herd immunity" kicks in. That would end the health emergency right there. I think this 50% claim will be proven wrong quickly, unfortunately. Much as I would like it to be true.

Are you so sure? Look at the stats where it has already happened. The Chinese had more than 1000k/day detected case growth for a grand total of three weeks, January 27 to February 17. The Korean curve was above 200/day from February 21 to March 10, only 18 days.

The UK started accelerating when it hit 343 on March 12. 12 days later, it looks like it's already topping out around the 1.3 to 1.4k/day range, with even a two day decline within the past five. That's on exactly the same schedule to dip back down to near zero. See the curve here:

So reading the article, this seems based on some broad, unconfirmed assumptions - basically that the standard given as the percent susceptible to hospitalization (severe infection in the article) is on the order of a few percent, not the typically given 20% from various literature sources they reference. If you assume a 10% severe rate, you end up with only 5% of the population infected. Changing this number to 1%, you end up with nearly 70% of the population infected.

They don't give a reasoning why they chose such a low rate, and even seem to state in the first two sentences of their results section that they are aware this contradicts most previous literature. It's clear this paper hasn't been subject to peer review, as I'm assuming they would have to justify this assumption.

Regardless, I wouldn't read much into this work for now, as it a.) hasn't passed peer-review, and b.) even a cursory reading has a few giant red flags in which I'm not sure this model should be extrapolated to the real world.

There is NO steady decline in the UK, in fact there is a steady INCREASE ! Data for the past 5 days of new cases : 714 1035 665 967 1427

Expect the number to be around 2000 today if Italian/Spanish/French curves are anything to go by.

True, but certainly not exponential growth for a virus that has more than likely been here since January.

Its like a cold virus, nearly everyone has it.

You really started a thread with a wild rumor, lead with the word "Amazing" and posted a link of how it was highly doubtful, all in the original post?

wejo wrote:

I started writing this (points 1 &2) before looking at the responses. Now I've looked at responses and they agree wtih me.

1) why do most people even in NY test NEGATIVE for currently having Corona if 50% of people already have had it?

2) do cities like NY which are getting slammed have 100% infection rates? Not sure this makes sense to me that everyone has already been exposed but certain areas are still getting slammed.

NY most densely populated, with most travel to China and Europe has an implosion of Corona. Doesn't make much sense that a bunch of people have already had it.

Wejo, people will die because of your ignorance. They’re dying now.

People will die bc of your ignorance. Don’t think running journalists like Mario, Metzler, and Amby haven’t been notified of what you’re doing here

Silver's prediction on Hillary vs. Trump is irrelevant to this question. If 9% of suspected cases test positive, and the test is reliable, then it is highly, highly unlikely the proportion of cases is anywhere near 50%. It would stand to reason that it was a lot less than 9% x what other decreasing percentage (going back to January, the % would decrease a lot) had already gotten it and over it.

But going back to that prediction, Clinton won millions more votes and Trump won only through incredibly narrow and highly unlikely margins in six states, recalling that state polling is much less reliable than national polling, so it figures that pollsters are far more likely to be able to accurately predict popular vote than electoral college tallies.

"...according to modelling by researchers at the University of Oxford."

I think Oxford did the sea-ice model before the Titanic set sail. According to their model, the voyage was successful. Big sigh of relief.

Other folks have already pointed out the disclaimers in the paper itself. So I'll just copy/paste the title:

"Fundamental principles of epidemic spread highlight the immediate need for large-scale serological surveys to assess the stage of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic"

The title itself is saying "we need more information before we come to any conclusions". It then presents a model, wherein they assume really low susceptibility, and see very different projections than those previously proposed. And then outside the paper, the author is critical of just accepting the prevailing studies without studying susceptibility first.

Others have also pointed out the problem with 'left censoring', ie when testing misses people who have 'been here done that'. So hopefully people get that as well.

As for the Brothers Johnson clickbaiting forum messages ... isn't them acting dumb and doing dumb things part of LRF schtick?