[NatureNS] Covid lock down

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From: Lois Codling <loiscodling@hfx.eastlink.ca>
Date: Fri, 1 May 2020 18:07:31 -0300
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A Canadian Epidemiologist from the U. of Ottawa writes concerning the 
video by Dr.Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who run a private medical 
clinic called Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, California.  He 
doesn't think much of their statistics, epidemiology or public health!  
As for "herd immunity", well . . . Check it out here:

http://blog.deonandan.com/wordpress/2020/04/covid19-lets-talk-about-the-bakersfield-duo.html

Lois Codling


On 5/1/2020 4:36 PM, Angus MacLean wrote:
> As I understand, two, perhaps three, of the early deaths in Cape 
> Breton were of persons moved  from Care Homes to the C.B. Regional.
> Angus
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca <naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca> 
> on behalf of David Webster <dwebster@glinx.com>
> *Sent:* May 1, 2020 9:12 AM
> *To:* naturens@chebucto.ns.ca <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
> *Subject:* Re: [NatureNS] Covid lock down
>
> Dear All,
>
>     Sorry to have to drag this on but Stephen seriously misquoted me 
> on naturens and I wish to set the record straight. So for 
> clarification I have copied and pasted what I actually said; in 
> quotation marks below.
>
> "Hi Rick and all.
>
>     On that point I agree with you if the extrapolation to population 
> from samples tested was based on targeted testing not random testing 
> (I assumed perhaps incorrectly that his samples were random), but I 
> was especially taken by his comments about adverse effects of social 
> isolation; events that will haunt some people for a lifetime."
>
>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>
>
>   Please note the IF.      It remains to be established whether or not 
> those samples were random. He is a researcher as well as an MD so, 
> unless you have proof, I think you should reserve judgment. The 
> figures I have seen elsewhere for Covid mortality were about 4% I 
> think BUT=====as he points out often those who get covid are already 
> compromised by other medical conditions.  I do not imply that MDs are 
> infallible but he likely knows more about this disease than either you 
> or I and strangely, I learn much from those more informed than I am.
>
> And once again I am especially concerned about the secondary and 
> unintended consequences of this lock down. Shutting down much of an 
> economy, here and across Canada, will have huge negative consequences. 
> If in good times there are many homeless, what will be the 
> consequences of turning the economy to idle ?
>
>     I notice that as of April 28, 21 of 27 deaths have been in one 
> Nursing Home in the Central region. Were the other 6 deaths also in 
> Nursing Homes ? As usual there are information gaps. The high 
> incidence of death in Nursing Homes may be age related but some 
> component may be attributable to concurrent medical problems. This may 
> in time come to light as estimates.
>
>     Or it may be that chronic under funding of Nursing Homes, which 
> lead to burn out and loss of many qualified staff by 2017 may have 
> worsened to the point of chaos.
>
> Dave Webster, Kentville
>
>
>
> On 4/30/2020 8:48 PM, Stephen Shaw wrote:
>> Hi Nancy,
>> Strange?— no.  You must have missed Rick Whitman’s reply to David, 
>> and David’s response acknowledging that Rick was correct in 
>> pinpointing the fatal flaw in the banned video talk.  The “analysis” 
>> the guy in the video gives is nonsense, but he sounds slick enough -- 
>> he presumably is deliberately intending to mislead the audience, us: 
>> that is, he has a hidden agenda to push.  The argument the guy gives 
>> may sound convincing but it is not, so perhaps numbers may help.
>>
>> Say that epidemiologists round up 100 people whom they have good 
>> reason think probably have (or have had) covid-19, test them and find 
>> that 99 actually do have covid.  On video logic, they'd want to say, 
>> extrapolating, that 99 percent of the larger population must have 
>> been infected, a huge number, 39 million folk in California. If a 
>> relatively low number of people in CA have died (~1200 they said) it 
>> sounds as if a only tiny fraction of those infected have died, so the 
>> death rate must be extremely low — heck, it’s no worse than flu. 
>>  This is a totally biased, bogus and wrong conclusion because it’s 
>> not based on random sampling.   It doesn’t matter if they calculate a 
>> 12% rate not 99%, it is just as phoney an analysis and wrong.
>>
>> If the surveyors instead round up 10,000 people randomly from the 
>> population (with no prior knowledge of whether they are or are not 
>> infected), test this larger number and find that the same 99 people 
>> are infected, they will estimate correctly that only about 1 percent 
>> of the larger population is actually infected, now very small 
>> proportion (99 out of 10,000 = 0.99% ≈ 1%).   Since this number is 
>> way lower than the bogus video estimate while the number of dead 
>> stays the same, 1200, the actual death rate must be much higher than 
>> the bogus video estimates claim.
>>
>> To know the true current infection rate would be really useful, but 
>> needs random sampling and is not going to happen widely in present 
>> circumstances, if at all.   As you saw from the local front-line 
>> doctor’s touching e-mail here recently, she and colleagues are 
>> working flat out already, and it is also clear from TV reports that 
>> medics are pushed to find test and PPE materials both here and in 
>> USA.  If you perform random tests on 10,000 people and find that most 
>> are not infected, those tests are not useful in the sense that they 
>> do not help diagnose those patients who actually are infected, and 
>> are actually harmful in taking time, money and supplies away from 
>> already overworked heath care personal.  Not going to happen in the 
>> current situation.
>>
>> It would be useful, though, to have non-bogus estimates to see what 
>> the current infection rate really is, to gauge whether countries are 
>> heading upwards towards 80% of the population infected as suggested 
>> by earlier UK modeling, should no lock-down precautions be taken.  Or 
>> are we now heading to an 80% overall infection anyway