Update on Covid and Sweden

Prison populations are a great, or rather unfortunate, example of this.

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Or this fishing trip (85% infected) or the nursing home in our Boston-area study (85% of residents).

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An interesting news from the neighbor of Sweden (Finland): hospital personnels are wondering what has happened to the Covid virus. Covid patients ending to hospitals seem to have milder symptoms than earlier, very few need intensive care. Most intensive care units have not had any covid patients during the last days.

One possibility is that the virus circulating in this part of the world has changed a bit. There is no scientific proof of that (yet) but the milder symptoms would fit to that hypothesis.

What is the age distribution?

I don’t know any details. The news was based on a fresh interview of one of the leading medical experts. He said that the largest central hospital in Finland have had zero patients needing intensive care during the last month. Even the old covid patients have had relatively mild symptoms.

In Finland, the number of new covid cases is low, so the situation is not comparable to the situation in the large countries with high numbers of covid cases. Anyhow, I assume that somebody is going to make a detailed study soon.

The hypothesis of a turn towards a ‘milder’ virus is possible because the severe cases have been eliminated efficiently. Only the covid cases with no or mild symptoms have had a possibility to spread the disease in the population. In such a situation, evolution should favor the genotype having a better possibility to spread (higher fitness).

It’s not being seen anywhere else with significant demographics. Could be an ‘island’ effect for a small, isolated population. Hopefully it’s a ‘cow pox’; more virulent, much less deadly and confers immunity.

Yes, it could be an ‘island’ effect, ‘good luck’, a temporary bottom phase in the fluctuating number of serious covid cases, or something else. Time will show.

I hope the situation in Finland is showing what could/will happen in the future around the globe.
Whatever is causing this turn towards a less deadly disease, I’m thankful of it.

I just saw this article on insights into how Covid works garnered from analyzing genes from many samples on a super computer in Tennessee. I’ve been very curious to know what the thinking would be among those in relevant fields about thinking of it as primarily a disease of blood vessels and some of the treatment suggestions they make.

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Interesting article.

One simple takeaway is: continue to take that Vitamin D.

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That is what I was thinking.

The discussion about the lower mortality continues, at least in Finland. As there is no evidence (yet) of beneficial mutations in the covid virus, the prevailing hypothesis is still a combination of improved medical treatments, protection of old people, a higher proportion of young people among the patients and increased testing.

The drop in mortality rates seems to be a pan-European(?) phenomenon. For example, in France the daily number of new covid cases is as high as in spring but the mortality is about one tenth. The worst daily peaks in mortality have dropped from >1000 to <100, according to a newspaper article. In Sweden, the daily number of confirmed cases is almost as high as in April but the mortality rate has dropped radically.

In the large countries facing the first wave of the covid, mortality seems to be as high as in Europe during the last spring. The newspaper article claims that in USA, there is also an apparent drop in mortality rates, although the mortality rates have not dropped as steeply as in Europe. Don’t know if this is true or a false interpretation of the statistics collected by the John Hopkins university.

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This term seems to be thrown around a lot and misunderstood. I found this npr story to be helpful in explaining herd immunity, how it might be reached, and why the idea of trying to achieve herd immunity without a vaccine would be a problematic policy decision

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You may want to read more articles on the topic, as many contradict this.

Note this:
“Even in the U.S., at 60,000 cases per day, it would take at least until 2021 — and possibly years of filled hospitals and morgues — before the requisite hundreds of millions of Americans were infected.people”

The assumption that the tested, confirmed cases (60,000/day) is the actual number of new infections per day is contrary to the CDC’s report that actual cases exceed confirmed cases by a factor of 6 to 24.

Taking a point in the mid-range, we likely already have 80 million infections or past cases in the US.

Also, the article focuses on antibodies only for immunity. There is growing evidence that T-cells from other past infections may give 20-40% of the population immunity already.

Clearly, we don’t know enough about Covid-19 spread within communities to promote heard immunity as a public health policy. Such a policy would be dangerous due to our lack of a full picture of what is happening in the communities and and lack of understanding of immune responses occur if within individuals. We still cannot predict who will have mild versus serious infections, nor do we know the long term health effects on those who have recovered from infection

Even the article you just referenced says that herd immunity is not close to being reached

even hard-hit communities are not close to reaching a herd immunity threshold — where enough people are immune from the virus …to slow down its spread to the point that unprotected people have a natural buffer.

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What is the choice? We can’t have certainty in all things.

We are not certain about herd immunity.

We are not certain about a safe vaccine.

We are relatively certain that the shutdowns are very detrimental to society.

And we are relatively certain that the risk to young people from Covid-19 is very low.

Also, other articles do state some parts of New York City and some parts of densely packed Indian cities may have reached herd immunity.

The choice is to wait with caution.

Unfortunately that NYT article is behind a paywall so I cannot read it. I have not seen that claim elsewhere stated in a believable way. Would be happy to learn more, but with most people self isolating now, I don’t see how it would be possible to claim that herd immunity has been reached. When communities open up cases seem to rise, as well

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Hmm, I am sorry you can’t access it. I don’t know why I can and you can’t.

Do we have a clue how severe the suffering was in the Indian slums, and maybe still is, with the long term effects of the disease?

I think the choice is to do what we are doing in Massachusetts: open up with caution, while Instituting new cleaning protocols, social distancing and wearing face masks. Those measures will let businesses reopen and kids activities restart. I’m taking my kids to soccer and dance class now and they are restarting school, but all those activities look different than they used to

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