Cyprus-Forum.com

[erolz66]

Or do the (still hugely speculative) numbers for Cyprus

Population 2018 - 1.17 million. Lets call it 1.2 million

IFR 0.37% , herd immunity 60% = 2664 deaths
IFR 0.7% , herd immunity 60% = 5040 deaths

To put that in perspective that is somewhere between 22 and 41 times more deaths than Helios Airways Flight 522 air disaster in 2005.

So far using measures to try and control spread RoC is recording 14 deaths from covid-19. So yeah lets just get it over and done with already, stop all this silly nonsense of closing down some sections of the economy for a couple of months, restricting peoples movements for a few months and just suck up the 2.5k to 5k deaths.

[repulsewarrior]

...on the bright side, a lot of time and effort will be taken to establish the cost/benefit analysis of these events. As such, given the Law of Manual Dexterity, the world should be a little better at making such choices rationally.

[Tim Drayton]

Or do the (still hugely speculative) numbers for Cyprus

Population 2018 - 1.17 million. Lets call it 1.2 million

IFR 0.37% , herd immunity 60% = 2664 deaths
IFR 0.7% , herd immunity 60% = 5040 deaths

To put that in perspective that is somewhere between 22 and 41 times more deaths than Helios Airways Flight 522 air disaster in 2005.

So far using measures to try and control spread RoC is recording 14 deaths from covid-19. So yeah lets just get it over and done with already, stop all this silly nonsense of closing down some sections of the economy for a couple of months, restricting peoples movements for a few months and just suck up the 2.5k to 5k deaths.

Thanks for your calculations.

I am puzzled about the 60% herd immunity because immunity comes after you have had the virus, but leaving that to on side, is your point about herd immunity that only 40% of the population will contract the virus. If so, 40% of 1.2 million is 480,000 and at an IFR of 0.7% (let's take your highest figure) 480,000 X 0.7 = 3,360 deaths. You seem to be taking the 60% you are assuming to have herd immunity, 720,000 and multiplying that by 0.7. OK, so how do the calculations look if you assume that healthy under-50's whose statistical change of being killed if they contract Covid is so minimal as to be close to zero are not kept under house arrest, but you do everything in your power to protect the groups that are at risk including isolating them if necessary. Can you run that calclulation please?

[erolz66]

Or do the (still hugely speculative) numbers for Cyprus

Population 2018 - 1.17 million. Lets call it 1.2 million

IFR 0.37% , herd immunity 60% = 2664 deaths
IFR 0.7% , herd immunity 60% = 5040 deaths

To put that in perspective that is somewhere between 22 and 41 times more deaths than Helios Airways Flight 522 air disaster in 2005.

So far using measures to try and control spread RoC is recording 14 deaths from covid-19. So yeah lets just get it over and done with already, stop all this silly nonsense of closing down some sections of the economy for a couple of months, restricting peoples movements for a few months and just suck up the 2.5k to 5k deaths.

Thanks for your calculations.

I am puzzled about the 60% herd immunity because immunity comes after you have had the virus, but leaving that to on side, is your point about herd immunity that only 40% of the population will contract the virus. If so, 40% of 1.2 million is 480,000 and at an IFR of 0.7% (let's take your highest figure) 480,000 X 0.7 = 3,360 deaths. You seem to be taking the 60% you are assuming to have herd immunity, 720,000 and multiplying that by 0.7. OK, so how do the calculations look if you assume that healthy under-50's whose statistical change of being killed if they contract Covid is so minimal as to be close to zero are not kept under house arrest, but you do everything in your power to protect the groups that are at risk including isolating them if necessary. Can you run that calclulation please?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

The 60% figure is another unknown but the concept would be once 60% of population is immune then the remaining 40% have protection by default because there are no longer enough vectors for the virus to pass to them. That is what herd immunity means as I understand it. So IF we are just going to go all out for 'herd immunity' rather than control the spread to buy time, as seems to be CG's position, then that would require 60% of a population to catch the virus. If 60% catch the virus and the IFR is 0.7% or 0.37% then you have your number for how many dead there will be before herd immunity is reached. If immunity only last 1 year then reaching herd immunity by infection and without a vaccine is pointless, it will not work in any case. It might work if immunity on infection lasts 2 years or longer but that is not known. Even assuming life long immunity the numbers remain the same. You need 60% of population to be infected for that to have a protecting effect on the remaining uninfected 40%. So you can do the numbers.

Option 1 - do not attempt to control spread or contain the virus. Assume that this can not be done in the medium or long term and calculated how many dead that will require in the short terms. In Cyprus that means 2.5 k - 5K dead.

Option 2 - attempt to control the virus and reduce spread. This is what the RoC has done to date. So far in 3 months it has resulted in 14 dead. So for a year say 60 dead. So it would take around 40 years at this death rate for it to reach the low IFR herd immunity number of 2.5k

Which option do you think is better ?

[erolz66]

OK, so how do the calculations look if you assume that healthy under-50's whose statistical change of being killed if they contract Covid is so minimal as to be close to zero are not kept under house arrest, but you do everything in your power to protect the groups that are at risk including isolating them if necessary. Can you run that calclulation please?

There is no concept of 'herd immunity' by age group. It could only work if there was total separation of age groups.A ridiculous notion. Herd immunity is about the 'herd' , all of it , hence the name 'herd' immunity. It just makes no sense to talk about 'herd immunity' by age group unless each age group is a separate 'herd'.

[erolz66]

And for the record I think it is preposterous to be having such speculative discussion based on numbers we can not yet know , like IFR and her immunity % and so BEFORE and WITHOUT having spent time and effort looking at and thinking about and discussing the FACT numbers that we ALREADY HAVE to date. To me that this is the only kind of discussion you seem to be interested in Tim, ones based on numbers that are NOT know , can only be guessed at currently and therefore invite and require endless 'my expert is better than yours' dead end discussion says something about how you approach analysis.

[Tim Drayton]

In a new study, John P.A. Ioannidis has calculated the IFR for Covid-19 based on available studies which evaluate seroprevalence, i.e. determine how many people in population samples have developed antibodies for the virus:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 1.full.pdf

I am sad that some may declare Ionannidis, Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Professor, by courtesy, of Statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, who is a widely respected authority in his field, to be “my” expert. Ionannidis is a person who has stuck his neck out and, without using inflammatory language, suggested the portrayal of the pandemic by big pharma and media outlets in its pocket is too alarmist, and given the power that big pharma now wields over academia including the power to destroy academic careers, we must accept that this is a bold move and one whose only motive I believe to be the desire to prevent people from becoming unnecessarily alarmed, and as such this man is everyone’s expert, not just “mine” or “yours”.

What Ionnidis has done in the paper is look for seroprevalence population studies with a sample size of at least 500 and published as peer-reviewed papers or preprints as of May 12, 2020, and twelve such studies were identified as having usable data.

He notes, “Seroprevalence estimates ranged from 0.113% to 25.9% and adjusted seroprevalence estimates ranged from 0.309% to 33%. Infection fatality rates ranged from 0.03% to 0.50% and corrected values ranged from 0.02% to 0.40%."

He sums up the various results, “Interestingly, despite their differences in design, execution, and analysis, most studies provide IFR point estimates that are within a relatively narrow range. Seven of the 12 inferred IFRs are in the range 0.07 to 0.20 (corrected IFR of 0.06 to 0.16) which are similar to IFR values of seasonal influenza. Three values are modestly higher (corrected IFR of 0.25-0.40 in Gangelt, Geneva, and Wuhan) and two are modestly lower than this range (corrected IFR of 0.02-0.03 in Kobe and Oise).”

It is important to note the methodology underlying Ioannides’ study, that of comparing all currently available studies which evaluate seroprevalence, which only started to become available recently. This does not mean that studies based on other methodologies lack value, or that differences between them show there is a lack of consensus in the scientific world. However, I would suggest that the kind of studies he is using, large-scale empirical studies applying rigorous scientific techniques to the study of data collected in the field, are more reliable than earlier studies which were based on far more speculative data.

[Tim Drayton]

OK, so how do the calculations look if you assume that healthy under-50's whose statistical change of being killed if they contract Covid is so minimal as to be close to zero are not kept under house arrest, but you do everything in your power to protect the groups that are at risk including isolating them if necessary. Can you run that calclulation please?

There is no concept of 'herd immunity' by age group. It could only work if there was total separation of age groups.A ridiculous notion. Herd immunity is about the 'herd' , all of it , hence the name 'herd' immunity. It just makes no sense to talk about 'herd immunity' by age group unless each age group is a separate 'herd'.

Of course I am no expert in the field, but my understanding is if you let the non-vulnerable majority go about their business and the virus rapidly spread among them, with close to zero risk and with the vast majority not experiencing any symptoms at all and those that do suffering something like a cold or the flu, you will rapidly attain the degree of immunity needed to prevent the virus from being able to spread and hence annihilating it. Then, you can bring the risk groups you have been protecting back into society with the virus now gone.

[Tim Drayton]

A write up of Ionannidis' recent study (and it is important to stress that the different results as compared to certain studies dating from a couple of months ago do not necessarily point to a lack of consensus in the scientific community but are due to the recent availability of the results of empirical scientific studies in the field) can be found here:

Stanford study suggests coronavirus might not be as deadly as flu

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sta ... dly-as-flu

[erolz66]

It is important to note the methodology underlying Ioannides’ study, that of comparing all currently available studies which evaluate seroprevalence, which only started to become available recently. This does not mean that studies based on other methodologies lack value, or that differences between them show there is a lack of consensus in the scientific world. However, I would suggest that the kind of studies he is using, large-scale empirical studies applying rigorous scientific techniques to the study of data collected in the field, are more reliable than earlier studies which were based on far more speculative data.

He is one expert amongst many. He has serially made predictions that were wrong. That is not unusual because all such predictions are usually wrong because they are predictions. He has claimed that covid-19 is comparable to flu yet the KNOWN numbers in the UK for total deaths ALL causes dispute this. For every Ioannides there are 3 equally qualified experts that come to different conclusions than he does. There is no point in presenting these because you will just find a reason to not like their prediction over his. If I present this https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20089854v2 you will just claim 'ahh but this is not using the most recent data'. Yet Ioannides has been claiming covid-19 is comparable to flu from the first time he came to anyone's attention, yours included and when there were next to NO numbers at all. He may end up being right but you can not know that he will. You like him over other experts not because of his experience, his methodologies or his clam manner (there are other experts with all these qualities that are still coming to difference conclusion to him). You like his work because it confirms the bais you started with and then you tell yourself its because of his qualifications, his methodologies and his manner. You are just fooling yourself imo.

Once more, if you really are not just seeking confirmation for the position you chose before there was any numbers and any data on which to base an informed decision, then START with what is KNOWN ass FACT.