South African Covid-19 News and Discussions 2

[Polymathic]

Full report attached




Meanwhile here is the latest Rt estimate for WC, courtesy the mediahack website:

View attachment 873023

Are they controlling for the fact that they are only testing over 55s in the WC?

 

[The Trutherizer]

Something about this article has been bothering me.

SA vaccine trial shocked by how many people already had Covid-19

‘We did not anticipate high number of asymptomatic people, which shows how extensive infection rate is’

www.timeslive.co.za

I mean at first I was glad to know that most people in SA seem to be asymptomatic, but just now it struck me. Deaths are certainly not under-reported nearly as much as the gap in testing. It would suggest that somewhere between 2.5 and 10 million people in our country already has[/d] the virus (maybe even more if the infection rate in the sample from their study was lower than the actual figue - which is also possible). If that is true then that would mean that the death rate for covid is somewhere between 0.1% to as low as 0.025%. Conservatively speaking.

I honestly don't know anymore. Has this all been a lie?

 

[Geoff.D]

Are they controlling for the fact that they are only testing over 55s in the WC?

There is an explanation on the mediahack website as to how the calculation has been done in the absence of direct access to sufficient data as well as how they compensate or allow for the incomplete nature of just about all the data available for SA.
I have posted that link before.
I have also validated their maths and it is pretty robust.
No one will ever be able to prove any of this stuff because we are unlikely ever to see the whole picture.
The next best source of Rt calculations is to look at the "official" NICD attempts but these run weeks behind reality making the calcs possibly more accurate but pretty useless from a forecasting point of view.
I have posted those links also before today.
In the end the precise value is much less important than the overall trends. The trends for WC is downwards. SA as a whole also trended downwards until the virus took off in EC and GP.
All this shows much as now happening in the USA, that ultimately nothing will stop this virus IF the population at large does not take responsibility for their own protection.
We know that virtually across the board, the SA population is just not bothered, some because they have no choice and others because they are just stupid and all sorts in between.

 

[Gordon_R]

Something about this article has been bothering me.

SA vaccine trial shocked by how many people already had Covid-19

‘We did not anticipate high number of asymptomatic people, which shows how extensive infection rate is’

www.timeslive.co.za

I mean at first I was glad to know that most people in SA seem to be asymptomatic, but just now it struck me. Deaths are certainly not under-reported nearly as much as the gap in testing. It would suggest that somewhere between 2.5 and 10 million people in our country already has[/d] the virus (maybe even more if the infection rate in the sample from their study was lower than the actual figue - which is also possible). If that is true then that would mean that the death rate for covid is somewhere between 0.1% to as low as 0.025%. Conservatively speaking.

I honestly don't know anymore. Has this all been a lie?

Its a combination of poor reporting, and (intentional rather than random) sample bias by the researchers. 'Screening' means selecting by observation those people whose symptoms match those of Covid-19 (fever) or are a high risk (contact with others, etc), and then testing them. It is not in any way surprising that these return a high percentage of positives. The spin put on this by the researchers and journalists is weird, disturbing, and misleading IMO.

 

[Grant]

State of disaster ends on wed, and still no announcement on extension

Quiet you moron.
They probably forgot

 

[Geoff.D]

For the group trying to undertake the trial of a vaccine however, it is very important that the selected rats' status before the trial is known, otherwise, all their triple double-blind BS becomes real BS.
Also, remember the lot doing the trial don't care squat for the rats involved only the outcome of their trial and their theories.
Sounds cynical but that is the reality of human trials of this nature especially when the process is rushed.

 

[FNfal]

Something about this article has been bothering me.

SA vaccine trial shocked by how many people already had Covid-19

‘We did not anticipate high number of asymptomatic people, which shows how extensive infection rate is’

www.timeslive.co.za

I mean at first I was glad to know that most people in SA seem to be asymptomatic, but just now it struck me. Deaths are certainly not under-reported nearly as much as the gap in testing. It would suggest that somewhere between 2.5 and 10 million people in our country already has[/d] the virus (maybe even more if the infection rate in the sample from their study was lower than the actual figue - which is also possible). If that is true then that would mean that the death rate for covid is somewhere between 0.1% to as low as 0.025%. Conservatively speaking.

I

I think the death rate is higher .2% to .3% still very low for locking a country down .
I have other links to studies .
No one knows for sure .


" “The majority of COVID-19 infections are going unnoticed,” Mahdi said, adding that only around 10% of all COVID-19 cases are officially reported. "

Vaccine trial reveals “surprising” information about COVID-19 in South Africa

The current COVID-19 vaccine trials in South Africa revealed that far more people are infected but asymptomatic than previously thought.

mybroadband.co.za

Global Covid-19 Case Fatality Rates - The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine

The total number of cases and the total number of deaths from COVID-19 outbreak data was drawn down (scraped) from Worldometers.

www.cebm.net

 

[MiW]

Something about this article has been bothering me.

SA vaccine trial shocked by how many people already had Covid-19

‘We did not anticipate high number of asymptomatic people, which shows how extensive infection rate is’

www.timeslive.co.za

I mean at first I was glad to know that most people in SA seem to be asymptomatic, but just now it struck me. Deaths are certainly not under-reported nearly as much as the gap in testing. It would suggest that somewhere between 2.5 and 10 million people in our country already has[/d] the virus (maybe even more if the infection rate in the sample from their study was lower than the actual figue - which is also possible). If that is true then that would mean that the death rate for covid is somewhere between 0.1% to as low as 0.025%. Conservatively speaking.

I honestly don't know anymore. Has this all been a lie?

View attachment 872905

 

[Paulsie]

How many covid deaths in GP since 20th June? Too lazy to search, but don't think it even equals to excess deaths on your graph. Does that mean covid deaths are underreported or are there other deaths related to lockdown (suicides, hunger, tb not treated) that adds to this excess?

 

[tetrasect]

How many covid deaths in GP since 20th June? Too lazy to search, but don't think it even equals to excess deaths on your graph. Does that mean covid deaths are underreported or are there other deaths related to lockdown (suicides, hunger, tb not treated) that adds to this excess?

Excess deaths are at an all time low due to the lockdown. To get a clearer picture of Covid deaths we will have to use this as a new baseline instead of comparing to the average of previous years.

 

[MiW]

How many covid deaths in GP since 20th June? Too lazy to search, but don't think it even equals to excess deaths on your graph. Does that mean covid deaths are underreported or are there other deaths related to lockdown (suicides, hunger, tb not treated) that adds to this excess?

I think there is a huge lag in reporting covid deaths in GP, probably weeks behind. Its known that some are confirmed days after the fact, waiting for a positive tests , lost in the backlogs.
Even this 1400 excess deaths are from 2 weeks ago.

 

[The Trutherizer]

Its a combination of poor reporting, and (intentional rather than random) sample bias by the researchers. 'Screening' means selecting by observation those people whose symptoms match those of Covid-19 (fever) or are a high risk (contact with others, etc), and then testing them. It is not in any way surprising that these return a high percentage of positives. The spin put on this by the researchers and journalists is weird, disturbing, and misleading IMO.

Isn't this study specifically looking for candidates who have not been infected yet? To test a vaccine?

 

[Paulsie]

Isn't this study specifically looking for candidates who have not been infected yet? To test a vaccine?

That was exactly my understanding - to test all candidates in order to eliminate those with prior exposure, hence finding 55-60% of all with previous exposure.

 

[The Trutherizer]

There is an explanation on the mediahack website as to how the calculation has been done in the absence of direct access to sufficient data as well as how they compensate or allow for the incomplete nature of just about all the data available for SA.
I have posted that link before.
I have also validated their maths and it is pretty robust.
No one will ever be able to prove any of this stuff because we are unlikely ever to see the whole picture.
The next best source of Rt calculations is to look at the "official" NICD attempts but these run weeks behind reality making the calcs possibly more accurate but pretty useless from a forecasting point of view.
I have posted those links also before today.
In the end the precise value is much less important than the overall trends. The trends for WC is downwards. SA as a whole also trended downwards until the virus took off in EC and GP.
All this shows much as now happening in the USA, that ultimately nothing will stop this virus IF the population at large does not take responsibility for their own protection.
We know that virtually across the board, the SA population is just not bothered, some because they have no choice and others because they are just stupid and all sorts in between.

Personally I've been doing the best I can with the info put in front of me. Even stated self-isolating a week or two before the hard lockdown.

I just hope governments are not sitting on relevant data just to save face, or chase after some or other agenda (as ours seem to be doing).

 

[Gordon_R]

Isn't this study specifically looking for candidates who have not been infected yet? To test a vaccine?

Testing for a vaccine needs to select candidates who are not yet infected, but who are at significant risk in the future. This is to ensure that the results are statistically significant. If only a tiny fraction of the sample test positive during the trial period, the study will be unable to prove any efficacy, and the whole process will be worthless. It is a tradeoff.

 

[/dev/null]

They should speed up the testing by injecting volunteers with the virus. Enough stats show that 20-somethings with no comorbidities sail through this with no difficulty, so they should inject them with covid and isolate them, then test the vaccine.

 

[pouroverguy]

They should speed up the testing by injecting volunteers with the virus. Enough stats show that 20-somethings with no comorbidities sail through this with no difficulty, so they should inject them with covid and isolate them, then test the vaccine.

Not sure if you understand the concept of ethics. You can't willfully give patients a virus that may potentially cause harm.

 

[Paulsie]

Not sure if you understand the concept of ethics. You can't willfully give patients a virus that may potentially cause harm.

I think his suggestion was a sarcastic one. Having said that, considering that those same people are exposed to yet unknown and untested vaccines (as the trials are to determine both the effectiveness AND the safety of the vaccines), your comment of potentially causing harm is kind of a mute one in this case

 

[/dev/null]

Not sure if you understand the concept of ethics. You can't willfully give patients a virus that may potentially cause harm.

I think I understand the ethics part, that's why I mentioned the bit about 20-somethings. All they have to do is make a proper data-driven argument to get ethical clearance. I think that you think that injecting people with a virus is something that must never be done for as long as humans exist. This is not correct, there are circumstances in which you can inject people with a virus in order to test a vaccine.

Right now all they are doing is giving people the vaccine and then hope that they get infected, and then crunch numbers after an extended trail period. Instead of hoping that they get infected, why not just inject them? The 20-somethings that is.

 

[Nerfherder]

Something about this article has been bothering me.

SA vaccine trial shocked by how many people already had Covid-19

‘We did not anticipate high number of asymptomatic people, which shows how extensive infection rate is’

www.timeslive.co.za

I mean at first I was glad to know that most people in SA seem to be asymptomatic, but just now it struck me. Deaths are certainly not under-reported nearly as much as the gap in testing. It would suggest that somewhere between 2.5 and 10 million people in our country already has[/d] the virus (maybe even more if the infection rate in the sample from their study was lower than the actual figue - which is also possible). If that is true then that would mean that the death rate for covid is somewhere between 0.1% to as low as 0.025%. Conservatively speaking.

I honestly don't know anymore. Has this all been a lie?

Na, deaths have definitely been under reported, especially in Gauteng. If the death rate was correct it would be the lowest in the world by half.

We know that there are many dying at home because they can't get to hospitals or don't want to die in hospitals.
So there are many more infections than reported because many people are asymptomatic and not everyone gets tested. So both the infections and deaths are under reported. I'm not sure where you think the lie is ? The hospitals are full, people are turned away. They said it would happen and it did. The numbers are just small pieces of the puzzle there is so much we don't yet know or understand yet.

Here is a nice one for you, not sure if its been posted yet: The Spanish study:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31483-5/fulltext

Interpretation
The majority of the Spanish population is seronegative to SARS-CoV-2 infection, even in hotspot areas. Most PCR-confirmed cases have detectable antibodies, but a substantial proportion of people with symptoms compatible with COVID-19 did not have a PCR test and at least a third of infections determined by serology were asymptomatic. These results emphasise the need for maintaining public health measures to avoid a new epidemic wave.

This is the new thing behind the fear of the second wave. Basically Spain was one of the hardest hit countries in Europe with a high death rate. When they tested both the infected and uninfected they fount that very few people actually had antibodies.

Its hard to dissect what the real implications are but at the moment what we believe is that it means they are almost certainly vulnerable to a second wave.