Today we have a little more data that gives us insight into one element of the Wuhan virus that we did not know. How many people have been infected with the virus? And its overall mortality rate. Germany has developed an antibody test. A test that will show if you have antibodies in your body that protect you from the Wuhan virus. In general, the way you get antibodies is to be exposed to the disease and then recover from it. Another way is you are just naturally immune to the disease.
A group of researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany then randomly tested a group of 1,000 people in the town of Gangelt, one of the areas most heavily infected with the Wuhan virus. The study in Germany was carried out by virologist Hendrik Streeck and several others at the University Hospital in Bonn. They asked a random sample of people from Gangelt to give blood, have their throats swabbed, and fill out a survey.
The University of Bonn study found that 2% of the population currently had the virus, and 14% had antibodies. The team estimated that approximately 15% of the people had been infected with the virus. Please note, in New York our worse hit city has an approximate .8% of the population has confirmed cases of the virus.
Data from Wuhan coronavirus deaths in Gangelt suggests a mortality rate of 0.37 percent, significantly below the 0.9 percent, which United Kingdom Imperial College has used, or the 0.66 percent found in a revised study last week. It is also much lower than what’s shown on a dashboard maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
The seasonal flu has an approximate mortality rate of 0.1. If the numbers from Germany hold up, this means the COVID-19 virus is about four times as deadly as the seasonal flu. Note SARS has a mortality rate of 9.6% and MERS 34.4% according to Johns Hopkins, CDC and New England Journal of Medicine among others.
I believe this data is essential in part because it lines up with two other “studies” of the infection rate. This 15% from the Gangelt study is similar to the “accidental” experiment of the cruise ship, the Diamond Princess.
The Diamond Princess is critical because so much is known about its tiny population. The ship was quarantined for some time on 03FEB2020 after initial people were infected on 20JAN2020. All 3,711 of the passengers were tested for the Wuhan Virus. The test found that 634 or 17% were infected, many without any symptoms and that 1.2% of the people on that ship died. Please note that the Diamond Princess average age was much older than the general population.
The third study we must consider, but not wholly trust as it comes from China. The Communist Chinese Party (CCP) initially lied about the Wuhan virus while some of its citizens across the globe were buying up personal protection equipment (PPE) and shipping it to China. I suspect it is still not sharing accurate data about the current state of the Wuhan virus spread and death toll. Because many want the world to understand this pandemic was made worse by the actions of the CCP, they have taken to calling this the CCP Virus.
With that being said, in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, scientists allegedly tested everyone who shared a household with people who had been confirmed to have the Wuhan Virus. It turned out that 15% of this group had the Wuhan virus, many without any symptoms.
The Gangelt (15%), Diamond Princes (17%), nor Shenzhen (15%) data is not perfect, but in my opinion, they show a trend that should be considered in our planning. We will get more data soon. Hospital are testing healthcare professionals to see who has these antibodies to see who can more safely work with COVID-19 patients. If 5% of the nurses and doctors are infected who work with the sick on a daily basis, it would be unusual to have the in general population rate at 50%.
One way to use this new data, we would take our current case numbers in Kootenai county Idaho and times that by 7 (2 * 7 = 14). As of 10APR2020 current Kootenai county Wuhan coronavirus cases are 42. This Gangelt, Diamond Princes and Shenzhen data would suggest a true infection rate of 294 people in Kootenai County with zero deaths. Many of these additional infections are most likely without symptoms and are moving around the general population.
We now have more data, and thus are improving our understanding of what has happened. I do not fault President Trump nor Governor Little in attempting to save lives when there was little data on a new pandemic. However, as more data becomes available that strongly suggests that the mortality rate we use should be much lower than some have estimated, I believe there is a logical and moral case that supports changing our public policies.
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As we learn more about the nature of this virus, we can certainly make more informed decisions.
I have not agreed with draconian measures imposed by the officials .
In light of the revelation of much higher infection rates and less deaths per 100000 and the fact that SAR and swine flu were far more deadly, without this political ploy are fairly consistent with the marxist democrat misrepresentation of the facts, let's end this and get ouur country back to wirk.