Spain - 5% of population infected

[wheresmymojo]

They have released the results of a serology study in Spain where they tested 70,000 people and found 5% have been infected to date.

Spain's latest death toll is 27,650.

They estimate c. 80% of the population would need to be immune to CV for herd immunity.

So by my crude reckoning...

If 5% infected = 27,650 deaths

Another 75% infected = 414,750 dead.

No reason to think the UK will have an infection rate much more or less than Spain.

Hence the need to be careful around lockdown (lots of posts on here basically just wanting to get back to normal ASAP)

And I guess it's worth saying it took only a few months and put immense strain on their health service to get to that 5% infected

Or you could argue it's not as contagious as we have been made to believe? Chris Witty is on record as saying that a significant amount of people won't even catch the virus.

Exactly, without any interventions it has an R rate around 3 or so.

Which would actually get through the remaining % much quicker than the initial 5% as that always starts off with a slow burn.

So many people are now breaking the rules on a regular basis (just take a look at the MN rule breaking thread), it's as though they've forgotten the potential impact this virus could still have.

500k dead represents a 1% fatality ratio.

20% of people get it bad enough to go into hospital. So if 500k = 1% another 19% would go into hospital = 9.5m needing hospital treatment by my crude maths.

@onedayinthefuture

It depends what Chris W meant as significant.

I've taken into account in the above that 1 in 5 people won't catch the virus which is definitely significant.

Also 'made to believe' - by who?

I get all my info from medical papers not the media.

Even as a layperson looking at Bergamo or Wuhan you can see how contagious it is.

bear in mind that the tests have been done with fast tests which have been proof to display plenty of false negatives so this is not the final % as the investigation continues

however, i keep wondering if the virus was in spain around dec or so (1st death was beginning of feb in valencia which means it must have been at least middle of january) where are all those infected people between dec - march when a plan was put in place in spain to stop spreading it? why weren't the hospitals more collapsed? and neither the death toll was higher than expected?

my doctor friends have said they saw a strange flu season in feb that now they think it was covid however, this doesn't seem that has affected that many as per the government results.

i can understand that as measures have been put in place in march to stop spreading as fast as before the results wouldn't be 60% have caught it, it just strange that it seems this 5% only happened during march - may and not much before and as someone has said sounds like it doesn't spread that easily.

i come from a spanish city which was one of the 1st that got locked so all my family and friends are there (i live in the uk) and only 1 person i know caught it. her and all her family are fine. i know a few more people from madrid (some of them elderlies in care homes) that have caught it as well and are fine and my doctor friends and their tests have came up as negative (one of them working in icu)

i follow someone on facebook (gp) that said that we won't need another 19 lockdowns like this one as we know how this virus works so it'd be better to track and isolate those affected than locking down a full country again and that we should leave the space in the hospitals for those affected. at the beginning in spain every single person that was positive even as mild would have to stay for 2 weeks in a hospital so that would take away beds for those that needed them most / other illnesses. so it's better nowadays that if mild and positive isolate and leave the beds that are more needed so the death toll shouldn't be as high.

"my doctor friends have said they saw a strange flu season in feb"

This winter there was a nasty Flu A strain, which many people may have thought was COVID

I understand they estimate 25% of people in New York have had the virus?

nypost.com/2020/04/27/cuomo-says-nearly-25-of-nyc-residents-may-have-had-coronavirus/

These figures are a little out of date by now, but my rough calculations using their death statistics show that indicates a fatality rate just north of 1% as well (it's very rough, because I don't have any way to get the death rate and the infection rate in sync with each other). It just reinforces how vital it is to keep this thing controlled.

@BigChocFrenzy yeah actually my son tested positive over xmas for flu A whilst we were visiting my parents in spain. my friend (the same one that is the only one that has caught covid from my hometown) also tested positive over xmas season for flu A.

"bear in mind that the tests have been done with fast tests which have been proof to display plenty of false negatives so this is not the final % as the investigation continues"

This is the first national study anywhere with actual blood tests
Any test inaccuracies matter much less over a large population than for an individual wanting to know if they had COVID

The studies that estimated much higher percentages in e.g. the UK have only used theory and have been criticised by many other scientists

NYC which is a world epicentre of infection, found 21% with antibodies

So it is quite likely that an entire country with about the same number of deaths as NYC, would have far lower % infected

Ah, I see NYC has now increased to 24% positive
However, still a v densely packed "world city" with the highest level of international links, compared to an entire country

I don't think a simple extrapolation like that is valid, we know that the death rate isn't uniform across a population, in crude scientific terms there are now fewer vulnerable people, lessons are being learnt every day on how to protect the elderly and vulnerable. A large number of deaths occurred before countries had a grip on things.

It's not perfect now by any means but I wouldn't expect deaths to stay at the same percentages going forward.

The Uni Bonn study of the German epicentre in Gangelt found 15% had been infected
and most scientists here estimate Germany's infection rate is probably around 4-5% atm

The paper claiming that the Uk had some much earlier cases also stated that Spain, France, Germany did too, even earlier

No, we can't say if the same number of people would die in a 2nd wave

• in fact v v unlikely as mass testing and some kind of social distancing will remain It won't be going back to square one.

What is unknown also:

• How long would any immunity last;
  looking at SARS, most scientists are saing maybe 2 years, but that needs to be investigated

• Do mild cases or those without symptoms actually gain immunity ?

• Are some people naturally immune, partially or fully ?
  Probably some are, but it could be just a tiny %, as with HIV, or a significant %

"This is the first national study anywhere with actual blood tests
Any test inaccuracies matter much less over a large population than for an individual wanting to know if they had COVID"

However, 70k people have been tested which is a 0.12% of the population, if there are many false negatives this will impact the results.

Spain has done 2 tests fast tests and serology, the results so far are from fast ones and are still awaiting for the serology results. so the results are still on going and are not final values.

I think it will spread slower in say nyc. 1/4 immune mean a gathering of 100 only 75% catch it.
I think london could be high.
Cities in spain were 10%.
With the more immune hand washing will make some difference still as those inmune can still touch stuff and move the germs.

I agree though op we are looking at 500k dying. And thats with staying in capacity. I diagree though about the hospitalization imo that is why uk is looking so bad because nobody was being looked after even from the start. More oxygen earlier would definitely have saved some people.

Tbh i think this is the plan for second wave to infect the youngest kids to increase immunity as they will have younger parents too. Because we all know even keeping kids apart the virus is speead in a room by coughing and hand washing will just slow the spread to fewer as will the bubble. To stop catching it at all you need masks...

5% is pretty disappointing.

Not that I’m advocating for herd immunity via exposure. But given there’s no other clear path right now, that small level of exposure suggests high lethality and a rather slow spread. This battle may take a very long time.

Yes, Boris was right, a lot of our loved ones are going to die
Those are pretty encouraging stats overall, including those of NY mentioned on her. The cities are building up good immunity now. Better protection of care homes and in hospitals to avoid cross infection will hopefully reduce future infections and therefore deaths amongst the most vulnerable.

This is why countries have tried to wipe it out. With proper lockdowns.
We desperately need to fortify food with vit d and pray that reduces death rates.

I think its possible they will try to relax some restrictions over the summer allowing younger families out and about.

We desperately need to fortify food with vit d and pray that reduces death rates

I think its possible they will try to relax some restrictions over the summer allowing younger families out and about

I have no idea how effective vitamin D or how possible fortifying food is but we don't need prayer, we have plenty of science and behavioural changes to keep the virus under control.

Other than going shopping younger families can go out and about now can't they? My children are older but relatives with small children are out and about with social distancing, obviously not all activities are possible but there's no need to stay inside (usual caveats apply)