Meanwhile, in Sweden...

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I've not seen that much about anger ... some, but surprisingly little (I'm in constant contact with a lot of Swedes and read the news) ... but they do seem to have hit upon similar issues to here: mainly on the PPE front in care homes. I have several friends in care homes and doing home visits here in the uk that are yet to have any PPE at all.
 
Very interesting. New this morning on SVT.

Johan Giesecke, former state epidemiologist, now adviser to WHO , visits morning study to talk about yesterday's news, that 11% of tested blood donors in Stockholm tested positive for antibodies against the corona virus , and thus can be shown to have had it.
- It is fantastic. It is not only the study that was presented yesterday, but Lisa Brouwers, who is an employee of the public health authority, has done a similar study and arrived at the same result with completely different origin data, says Johan Giesecke.

- It shows that the normal is that it is very contagious, but in most cases those who are infected do not notice that they have had it. Then some people get sick, some get seriously ill and some die. But if you look at everyone who is infected, it is a very small proportion.

- It becomes incredibly much easier when we can see if people have the disease or not and then probably are immune. But it will not happen from one day to the other that we release all restrictions because then it will come back. Without it, there will be a slow decline, how close we may be to each other, if we can greet our grandchildren. All that will take time. So it will probably take after the summer before it becomes anything like normal.

Johan Giesecke estimates that around 500,000-600,000 Stockholmers may have had the virus. The reason why he scores higher is partly the second study he refers to, and that there are several factors that make the 11 percent that Karolinska found with blood donors an undercount - the sample taken is only reliable to 70-80% with find positive cases (but should find 100% of all negatives). In addition, you have to be healthy for two weeks to visit a blood donor center.

- We see the light in the tunnel, says Johan Giesecke.
 
Why do these antibody testing developers test so few specimens? Two tests of 100 people each. They don't then give the results for each.
 
borolad259 said:
At yesterday afternoon's press conference they were optimistic that they were at the top of the curve. They want to see a continued plateau in admissions but they are hopefull.
Open in chrome for translation.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/...R8qeb_mmsxIIcrKnK3XHTJUSE9wKFlewXMVQZhwO9gx1U

My mate has just told me that he personally knows 11 people who had Covid 19. Only one of those eleven was sick enough to be tested for live virus, so only he figures in the country's data for confirmed infections). Only two tested for antibodies subsequently (Carl being one of them) both positive. Basically, any official figures on the number of cases are way off.
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How do the eleven know they had Covid19?
 
bear66 said:
They possibly had a cold as that seems to be a flaw of this type of test. If they really have covid-19 antibodies, it doesn't mean they have immunity.
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I think I said this before, the Giesecke quote above is a google translate from Swedish. He means resistance, not immunity. There's no distinction in the Swedish language. So he is saying that they probably have resistance.

Regarding the 11 people anecdote, they had the classic symptoms of fever and persistant dry cough for a few days, though, as you say, they may have just had a cold. I wish we had a test here because I had some regular cold symptoms (productive cough) but certain elements of this particular cold were very unusual .... acute pain in my lung being something I'd never felt before. It has gone now.

Regarding the sample of antibody tests, the 11 of 100 just means 11%. There isn't a mention of sample size for the two lots of testing. A large study is in progress at the moment. A new antibody test developed at the University of Umea ... I believe it will be randomised.

Edit: my mistake on sample sizes. Just re-read it.
 
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borolad259 said:
Very interesting. New this morning on SVT.

Johan Giesecke, former state epidemiologist, now adviser to WHO , visits morning study to talk about yesterday's news, that 11% of tested blood donors in Stockholm tested positive for antibodies against the corona virus , and thus can be shown to have had it.
- It is fantastic. It is not only the study that was presented yesterday, but Lisa Brouwers, who is an employee of the public health authority, has done a similar study and arrived at the same result with completely different origin data, says Johan Giesecke.

- It shows that the normal is that it is very contagious, but in most cases those who are infected do not notice that they have had it. Then some people get sick, some get seriously ill and some die. But if you look at everyone who is infected, it is a very small proportion.

- It becomes incredibly much easier when we can see if people have the disease or not and then probably are immune. But it will not happen from one day to the other that we release all restrictions because then it will come back. Without it, there will be a slow decline, how close we may be to each other, if we can greet our grandchildren. All that will take time. So it will probably take after the summer before it becomes anything like normal.

Johan Giesecke estimates that around 500,000-600,000 Stockholmers may have had the virus. The reason why he scores higher is partly the second study he refers to, and that there are several factors that make the 11 percent that Karolinska found with blood donors an undercount - the sample taken is only reliable to 70-80% with find positive cases (but should find 100% of all negatives). In addition, you have to be healthy for two weeks to visit a blood donor center.

- We see the light in the tunnel, says Johan Giesecke.
Click to expand...

I think that’s a very encouraging/exciting news.
I guess that it’s even possible that the blood donor figure is actually even higher than 11%, because I’m sure I’ve read a few times that it takes a few weeks for antibodies to be present sufficiently to show up in antibody tests? If that is the case, surely it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that some of those donors had the virus and simply weren’t yet displaying the antibodies?
 
borolad259 said:
I think I said this before, the Giesecke quote above is a google translate from Swedish. He means resistance, not immunity. There's no distinction in the Swedish language. So he is saying that they probably have resistance.

Regarding the 11 people anecdote, they had the classic symptoms of fever and persistant dry cough for a few days, though, as you say, they may have just had a cold. I wish we had a test here because I had some regular cold symptoms (productive cough) but certain elements of this particular cold were very unusual .... acute pain in my lung being something I'd never felt before. It has gone now.

Regarding the sample of antibody tests, the 11 of 100 just means 11%. There isn't a mention of sample size for the two lots of testing. A large study is in progress at the moment. A new antibody test developed at the University of Umea ... I believe it will be randomised.

Edit: my mistake on sample sizes. Just re-read it.
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Yes. Said two groups of 100. The Santa Clara results had even smaller.numbers from the test supplier. Also there was no blind testing for the trial; people volunteered themselves. This is such an important area, I struggle to see why such small sample numbers. Also, poor as they apparently were, the government should release the figures for the testing they did with the 1.3 million kits purchased. (That was virus not antibody testing).
 
FabioPorkpie said:
I think that’s a very encouraging/exciting news.
I guess that it’s even possible that the blood donor figure is actually even higher than 11%, because I’m sure I’ve read a few times that it takes a few weeks for antibodies to be present sufficiently to show up in antibody tests? If that is the case, surely it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that some of those donors had the virus and simply weren’t yet displaying the antibodies?
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What it also suggests is that those 11% were actually shedding live virus at least 2 weeks prior ... so, given the transmission rate and Stockholm's looser restrictions, would suggest that the numbers who have already had the disease would be significantly higher now ... hence the 500,000 to 600,000 estimate. Yet the fatality stats remain quite low.
 
bear66 said:
Yes. Said two groups of 100. The Santa Clara results had even smaller.numbers from the test supplier. Also there was no blind testing for the trial; people volunteered themselves. This is such an important area, I struggle to see why such small sample numbers. Also, poor as they apparently were, the government should release the figures for the testing they did with the 1.3 million kits purchased. (That was virus not antibody testing).
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There is a much larger test ongoing at the moment. I think it will show significant differences between the metropolitan south and the rural north.
 
borolad259 said:
There is a much larger test ongoing at the moment. I think it will show significant differences between the metropolitan south and the rural north.
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I'll look forward to the reports. Unless there is an acknowledgement of coronavirus cold antibodies contributing to some of the antibody results, they will be open to question.

If these results are indicative of much wider non symptomatic infections, it's care homes that are a real worry.
 
Indeed. As he said in the Q&A, the big difference between Sweden and Norway is the size of their care homes. Sweden's are generally quite large, which means once it has got in there, it's a huge problem ... and it's a failure that they readily acknowledge.

These figures though, even from a small sample with potentially large error, do broadly line up with Giesecke's predictions in the Q&A. Also with the theoretical modelling. I think it is cause for optimism. It would put the CFR somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3 (if my dodgy calculations are close).
 
borolad259 said:
Indeed. As he said in the Q&A, the big difference between Sweden and Norway is the size of their care homes. Sweden's are generally quite large, which means once it has got in there, it's a huge problem ... and it's a failure that they readily acknowledge.

These figures though, even from a small sample with potentially large error, do broadly line up with Giesecke's predictions in the Q&A. Also with the theoretical modelling. I think it is cause for optimism. It would put the CFR somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3 (if my dodgy calculations are close).
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The theoretical modelling came up with 30% in your link. Significantly higher again.
 
"My mate has just told me that he personally knows 11 people who had Covid 19. Only one of those eleven was sick enough to be tested for live virus, so only he figures in the country's data for confirmed infections). Only two tested for antibodies subsequently (Carl being one of them) both positive. "

So surely what you're saying is that three had it..... and eight may or may not have? I think quite a few people will think they've had it at the moment, who won't have.

That said, I have a mate who thought he'd had it (correct sequence of mild symptoms), along with a number of people at his company. The company wanted to get them back to work, and because of the nature of the business, they had some tests shipped over from Germany. Only one out of about ten tested positive, (the rest had all recovered by then), but none of them tested positive for antibodies. So... either they hadn't had it, or it was a faulty antibody test. My mate is hoping it's the latter, obviously!

The point being, that I think quite a lot of people will think they've had it, but won't have. Also, until there are [almost] 100% reliable tests, we're not going to know the full scale - interesting to see how that pans out.

Edit: Sorry - I just saw that you'd already replied to that first part.
 
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Yeah, hence my low estimate of 0.2 (though this doesn't take into account that the deaths per million of population will likely tail off ... I think he rather brutally put it that the vulnerable die early). Anyway, I'm happy to take a fairly optimistic view ... and hope that this means London should have very widespread resistance now. Especially having seen all those crammed tube trains just a couple of weeks ago.
 
borolad259 said:
Yeah, hence my low estimate of 0.2 (though this doesn't take into account that the deaths per million of population will likely tail off ... I think he rather brutally put it that the vulnerable die early). Anyway, I'm happy to take a fairly optimistic view ... and hope that this means London should have very widespread resistance now. Especially having seen all those crammed tube trains just a couple of weeks ago.
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On Newsnight last night they claimed London reached their peak deaths BEFORE the lockdown. And the UK on 9 April.
 
There is a lot of focused testing starting to take place in the US in places like prisons and other contained facilities and the infection rates are in the 40 and 50% rate in some places.
On the one hand that could be seen as a good indicator that a lot of people will get the virus without really bad outcomes, but on the other it shows that relaxing restrictions has to be done very carefully to avoid exposing people who won't be so lucky in avoiding serious illness.
In the US, where places like Georgia will be reopening massage parlours, hair and nail salons on Friday and restaurants and other businesses on Monday, this could be the ideal way to see a second wave. Of course, Georgia has a governor that didn't know that human to human transmission was a thing and was one of the last to put a stay at home order in place.
 
bear66 said:
On Newsnight last night they claimed London reached their peak deaths BEFORE the lockdown. And the UK on 9 April.
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Didn't see that. It seems likely though.

Btw, I am an idiot and my figure above is wildly wrong as I was using the population of Stockholm but the national death count. Just ignore any numbers I come up with (so much for my Pure Maths with Stats A level).
 
dooderooni said:
There is a lot of focused testing starting to take place in the US in places like prisons and other contained facilities and the infection rates are in the 40 and 50% rate in some places.
On the one hand that could be seen as a good indicator that a lot of people will get the virus without really bad outcomes, but on the other it shows that relaxing restrictions has to be done very carefully to avoid exposing people who won't be so lucky in avoiding serious illness.
In the US, where places like Georgia will be reopening massage parlours, hair and nail salons on Friday and restaurants and other businesses on Monday, this could be the ideal way to see a second wave. Of course, Georgia has a governor that didn't know that human to human transmission was a thing and was one of the last to put a stay at home order in place.
Click to expand...

Indeed. As the article above states, relaxing even Sweden's relaxed rules, has to be done gradually. The other day Giesecke gave August as a likely time for things to return to something near normal. I hope so, I want to visit my place in August FFS.
 
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