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Index of Subjects --00000000000036faa005a4999fc1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable My 2c. worth, just because I enjoy discussing all manner of stuff ------- There are lies, damn lies and statistics (I can't remember where that phrase came from originally). When talking about risk in this situation, I feel there are 2 rather separate questions - 1). What is the risk of an individual person contracting Covid-19 or any other infectious disease for that matter, and 2). Having contracted the disease, what is the risk of that person dying of it? There are several potentially statistically valid ways to determine the true risk to an individual of Covid-19 in a given population, all of them fraught with difficulties and flaws. Probably the best would be to take a very large random selection of a total population, which would have to include pre-symptomatic, asymptomatic, and symptomatic people, test the entire sample for active infection ( e.g. with nasal swabs, although they apparently have a significant false negative rate) , and for evidence of cleared infection (e.g. by looking for antibodies in the blood, which is not yet proven to be accurate). And all the groups would have to be re-tested until the answers become clear-cut. At the present time, it seems there are not enough resources to carry this out. A second potential method is to compare current death rates in a total population with those of, e.g. 1 year ago, when weather, flu rates ec. were comparable, and assume that any significant difference is probably due to Covid-19. That is also fraught with the difficulty of making the huge and untested assumptions that the null hypothesis is true, and that retrospective death rates are accurate. There are probably other statistically valid methods, but I can't think of them. In terms of calculating the risk of dying if you have already contracted the disease, it seems at least reasonably well-established that there is increased risk of dying from Covid-19 in older people (but no definition of older), people with underlying immune deficiencies, underlying other chronic medical conditions, and some or all of the above. Other factors, e.g. genetic predisposition to viral infections, are unknown. Otherwise healthy "young" people can also die of this disease, and it is unknown how many people in the "high risk" groups are pre- or a-symptomatic,. At least in Canada at the present time, transmission statistics seem highly biased towards whether or not one is in a long-term care facility. So estimates of death rates are almost useless in determining population statistics regarding transmission, unless all the sub-groups can be teased out. Whether it is safe to decrease the current isolation, lockdown , re-opening etc., is a societal decision without having the above valid statistics. Which is the higher risk to society - 1).. staying isolated and locked down for an unknown period, with all the mental health and financial problems etc. that will bring? Or 2). opening things up without any valid statistics on transmission of a potentially (but we don't know how potentially) fatal disease, is something for society to decide. Some countries, e.g. New Zealand, have already tried option 1, evidently with some success so far, but others, notably USA, are in the process of trying option 2, and it will be interesting to see if that produces an outcome acceptable to their society. And for individual people, which is the better/ worse choice - enjoying your pre-lockdown activities but being a- or pre-symptomatic and risk infecting others or yourself; or giving up that enjoyment and feeling good about protecting others and yourself? Or a bit of each? That is something for the individual to subjectively decide. Finally, one cannot talk about risk without talking about benefit. Some people might argue that the benefit of the current pandemic is a return to more time with family, less environmental pollution as a result of less travel, more encroachment of nature into urban areas etc., etc. - people in the farming, travel or restaurant industry, or our future children who have grown up isolated or who have missed essential schooling might not feel that these are benefits. Again, that is something for society and individuals to decide. Richard On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 10:46 AM Phil Schappert <philjs@eastlink.ca> wrote: > On 2020-05-01 9:46 AM, N Robinson wrote: > > > I think the doctors' video was pulled from YouTube because it went > > viral - so perhaps considered too influential in the politicized > > atmosphere in the U.S. > > > Nancy, it was pulled because it's wrong. Period. Stephen called it > "nonsense" but perhaps "poppycock" would be better suited. Or, as > Sherman T. Potter would say, it's "Bullpucky!" > > Phil > > -- > > Phil Schappert, PhD > > 27 Clovis Ave. > Halifax, NS, B3P 1J3 > > philschappert.ca > imaginaturestudio.ca > > =E2=97=8E|||||||=E2=97=8E > > If it gets much better than this, > I may need some medication, to get me through the day > If it gets much better than this, > I may need some strong sedation, or I might just float away > > Tony Hawks, Nik Kershaw & Ash Alexander > (from 'Round Ireland With A Fridge, 2010) > > --=20 ################# Richard Stern, Port Williams, NS, Canada sternrichard@gmail.com ################### --00000000000036faa005a4999fc1 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <div dir=3D"ltr"><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-size:small">My = 2c. worth, just because I enjoy discussing all manner of stuff=C2=A0 ------= - There are lies, damn lies and statistics (I can't remember where that= phrase came from originally).=C2=A0</div><div class=3D"gmail_default" styl= e=3D"font-size:small"><br></div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-= size:small">When talking about risk in this situation, I feel there are 2 r= ather separate questions=C2=A0- 1). What is the risk of an individual perso= n contracting Covid-19 or any other infectious=C2=A0disease for that matter= , and 2). Having contracted the disease, what is the risk of that person dy= ing of=C2=A0it?</div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-size:small"= ><br></div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-size:small">There are= several potentially statistically valid ways to determine the true risk to= an individual of Covid-19 in a given population, all of them fraught with = difficulties and flaws. Probably the best would be to take a very large ran= dom selection of a total population, which would have to include pre-sympto= matic, asymptomatic, and symptomatic people, test the entire sample for act= ive infection ( e.g. with nasal swabs, although they apparent