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Let’s stop with the “It’s just a bad flu” stuff. NYS serology data shows a 13.9% infection rate across NYS, 21% in NYC. That means ~20k deaths (15k confirmed) among 2.7M infected statewide for a 0.74% infected fatality risk (IFR) 1/
cnbc.com/2020/04/23/new…
The CDC says the number of symptomatic cases of flu in the US range from 10 to 45 million (avg 28.6M) but serology shows only ~25% of people infected with flu have symptoms so in typical year ~100M people get the flu 2/
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
The CDC estimates 12 to 61,000 people a year die of the flu (37,462 avg). On average only 0.03% of people infected with influenza end up dying of influenza. COVID-19 is more than 20 time more lethal. It’s way worse than just a bad flu 3/
cdc.gov/flu/about/burd…
These numbers are consistent with some other unfortunate “experiments” we have conducted. Among 712 passengers and crew infected on the Diamond Princess, 13 have died (IFR 1.8% in this elderly population) and 4 are still in serious condition 4/
Among 678 healthy young sailors on the Roosevelt, 1 is in the ICU and 1 has died (IFR 0.14% in healthy sailors). That still worse than the population average IFR for influenza 5/
navytimes.com/news/your-navy…
Bottom line, I don’t care how the Stanford statisticians try to massage their data, COVID-19 is a far more serious illness than seasonal influenza. But we all knew that, didn’t we 6/
BTW, not happy to see COVID19 go from science by preprint to science by press release. The New York State Department of Public Health has a long tradition of excellent work, I’m really hoping and expecting to see preprints and publications on their work soon
7/fin
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David States
@statesdj
“It’s mutating!” No, really, all viruses mutate, but the D614G variants in the spike protein is worth watching. Strains carrying the D614G variant have come to dominate in multiple regions and are associated with a higher viral load in the nasopharynx
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
All viruses mutate. The coronaviruses mutate relatively slowly, but they do accumulate variants. The D614G variant of the spike protein appears to increase transmissibility, and the higher viral burden in the nose is a reasonable explanation for its increased transmissibility
This adds to the case that people shedding high levels of virus are central to community spread. We need massive scale rapid turnaround testing to identify them quickly, even during their presymptomatic phase. Full disclosure, my company is working to create tests to do this
Read 3 tweets
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David States
@statesdj
Let’s talk testing, specifically the coronavirus test we really need and essentially no one is talking about. What we need is a fast, low cost field test for highly contagious people, and tests like this exist, in fact they’ve been around quite a while
1/
Full disclosure. I am an exec in a biotech company, and my company is developing tests for SARS-CoV-2. I try to keep my posts objective, but obviously I believe that this is an important issue and that the solutions we are pursuing have merit
2/
People are contagious for COVID-19 before they develop symptoms, and the number of virus shed varies dramatically from person to person and for any given person from day to day. This makes testing a challenge
3/
 nature.com/articles/s4159…
Read 16 tweets
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David States
@statesdj
That 1 in 5 New York City residents has already been infected with SARSCOV2 is a very dark cloud, but there may be a silver lining. It has to do with epidemics and social networks
1/
 cnbc.com/2020/04/23/new…
Epidemics spread through social contacts. The most connected people spread the virus most quickly, but they also tend to get infected earliest
2/
 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.10…
As we’ve all heard many times, the goal of social distancing is to “flatten the curve”. The reason we want to do that is to avoid overwhelming health care systems because when good nursing and medical care aren’t available, mortality rates shoot up
3/
Read 7 tweets

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