Heinsberg Study - preprint is out

[Prokupatuscrakedatus]

For those of you who know German

www.uni-bonn.de/neues/111-2020

Place marking

Haven't read the pdf yet. Does it discuss the possibility of a test that will show if someone has ever had it?

Marking my place as I would like to print this off.

And care homes, everyone in close proximity, lots of shared spaces and relatively prolonged quite close contact

Which doesn’t look good for schools.

"However, some of the individuals still may have been acutely infected at the end of the study acquisition period (April 6th) and thus may have succumbed to the infection later on.

In fact, in the 2-week follow-up period (until April 20th) one additional COVID-19 associated death was registered.
The inclusion of this additional death would bring up the IFR from 0.36% to an estimated 0.41%"

I hope this study is continued further, considering that just 1 additional death increased the IFR this much

We also don't know how applicable this study is to other countries

Public health official have said that the best way of assessing COVID deaths is looking for "excess deaths"
when comparing total deaths from all causes to the same period over the last few years

Germany has hardly any change in total deaths compared to the 5-year average of the same period,
whereas some other countries - e.g. the UK, Italy, France, Belgium - have a sharp jump of "excess deaths" as a % of expected total deaths

Are Germans generally in better health than us? They have an excellent well funded healthcare system.

It's unsurprising their death rate for Covid is low. They treat patients early when survival is much more likely.

I feel the advice here is only to seek hospital treatment when absolutely necessary. Had some of the people who do that sought help earlier, they’d have lived.

The advice was understandable at the peak but now we have empty nightingale hospitals, I don’t get it.

It’s all well and good the government boasting that they have spare nhs beds so it isn’t overwhelmed... but when people have died at home or care homes because of that, well it makes no sense.

It seems like figures and stats to show off in a press conference count more than lives.

So yes I think Germany treating earlier definitely helps their survival rate. Their meticulous tracing and testing too.

Ahem. Just choose EN at the top of the web page on the link.

Or
www.uni-bonn.de/news/111-2020?set_language=en

From what I’ve read about the nightingale hospitals, while they were great at throwing up wards with lots of beds - and associated life saving machines - they forgot that they needed qualified staff. Whilst having an army of St Johns Ambulance folk and cabin crew there to mop brows, hold hands and do menial tasks is great, they were expecting hospitals transferring patients to send at least a nurse with them and some doctors too if sending several patients - completely defeating the object of the place as it would mean the original hospital wouldn’t be able to use the space as no staff left...crazy.

wibdib

That’s crackers. While the hospitals were undoubtedly a great feat, they sound to have been poorly planned.

Although it shouldn’t be surprising when we were already short of nurses and doctors.

Hopefully they’re working on changing/improving that so we can use the nightingales for future waves.

Hopefully

That’s actually a much lower asymptomatic rate than I thought. :(

This is quite often mentioned i. e. "cramped offices" - are the space per per person rules" in the UK different from those in Germany?

The only time I worked in an office in Germany people were very well spaced out (although I am not sure for example that the secretaries were necessarily 2m apart in their shared space). But it was a much newer office than the one I worked in in the UK, too.

I have seen a gradual reduction of space in UK offices. In 1999 I worked open plan but the desks were large and I'd say we were at least 1.5m apart, probably more. But in later jobs with open plan offices the desks were more like benches and you were probably no more than 1m apart. There were dividers so you wouldn't be coughing in someone's face, but I think in this new world you'd have to be leaving every other desk free. Which might be fine if people are WFH.

As for hot desking, one of my last jobs involved hot desking and the desks were close together and there weren't enough for everyone. But again, if more people are WFH it might not matter.

The disease and treatment isn’t different in Germany, the noise is in the numbers. That’s what needs to be looked at, and what witty et all keep saying, they need to look at the reporting differences,

I’d assume that when they put everything under the same parameters the disease will be the same rhe world over, with the differences accounted for by the differences in population type Ie what proportion of the population disproportionately impacted is in a given country v how many in another will impact the fatality rate of those countries. Obese, elderly, etc.

However even if we assume the death rate is between 0.5 and 1 percent maximum which is the number originally thought, then we are still looking at only between 1.5 to 3 million people in the uk have had it. Which would validate this studies findings on infection rates Ie it’s not transmitted as originally thought and it’s not quite as contagious.

For me, it is similar to a new flu virus we simply don’t have a vaccine or treatment for. Flu is highly contagious and has a much higher death rate, hence why we vaccinate. I get the symptoms are different, but really that’s the kind of thing we are looking at at the core. It’s not like we have leprosy or Ebola running through our society.

I do wonder whether Germany’s hospitals are full of patients on ventilators or in critical care that will never recover but are currently holding down the death rate. We’ve seen that lockdown has very effectively brought down admissions in the NHS and we now have a glut of ICU beds, is this the case in Germany or are they keeping people going in the hope that they will recover.

Flu is highly contagious and has a much higher death rate

No, it isn't.
If you look at actual reported cases of flu, like covid is, covid is higher.
If you look at estimates of people who've had it and died, then covid is still higher.

blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

Flu has a much lower R than Covid.

That article is flawed, because it fails to take into account that we vaccinate against flu.

Anyway, I’m not saying it’s identical to flu, I’m saying it’s of a similar ilk.

That piece in Scientific American is excellent, @Lweji. Thanks for the link.

Thanks for the links on here 👍

I think it would NOT be the same in germany because
Early treatment
They are i expect using more than just oxygen and ventilation
They have 4x as many beds
Possibly they have different percentages of different ethnicities?
Mainly though they are tracing and that is why so many are dying here
They are reducing exposure to the virus in the environment if you go somewhere and there are 5 people with it in uk but only 1 in germany = more likely to be severely sick. That would also be the case due to our large overcrowded cities.

How many of our deaths are linked to Cheltenham and football matches?

What actually is carnival though?
How were people catching it? Im imagining open air crowds milling in which case you arent in close prolonged contact. Or is it stands of people?

In S korea or one of the churches werent people singing and that infected everyone? So similar to maybe football and horse racing with the cheering?

I agree with BCF in that that is the rate of deaths now but unless herd has been achieved that is not the death rate and more people could yet die.

What is special about the asymptomatic and ones who dont get it at all in a household?

If we keep the uk infections right down fewer people will die - not just because they arent getting it but because they arent being exposed to as big a dose. (Which is also in favour of masks they arent just completely stopping it they are reducing the dose around the place. )

News article said uk had done antibody research but wouldnt even share with scotland.

Germany are pretty much like us, nearly as high a rate of obesity too
However, rationing has never been part of the health system here
So any health condition will be treated early

Bluntness I live in Germany and the COVID treatment here is very different from the UK

Mainly it's treatment from the very earliest stages,
with just phone monitoring for mild cases,
but regular home visits for others - testing blood O2 levels, BP, heart etc
and early admission to hospital as soon as blood O2 gets low, not waiting for breathing problems