The way Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer framed the study's results raises a question that policy makers across the country will confront as they consider when and how to loosen sweeping restrictions aimed at curtailing the COVID-19 epidemic.
The Los Angeles County study, conducted by University of Southern California researchers in collaboration with Ferrer's department, tested a representative sample of 863 adults for antibodies to the virus in early April.
About 4 percent of them tested positive, indicating that the number of adults in the county who had been infected by the virus was roughly 40 times the number of confirmed cases at the time.
Since the number of infections in Los Angeles County is much higher than the official numbers indicate, Ferrer told reporters, the risk of transmission is higher than expected, which reinforces the case for aggressive control measures, including broad business closure and stay-at-home orders.
One wonders what conceivable results from the antibody study might have caused Ferrer to reconsider the wisdom of that policy.
In contrast with the current crude case fatality rate of about 4.5 percent, Ferrer said, the study suggests that 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of people infected by the virus will die, which would make COVID-19 only somewhat more deadly than the seasonal flu.
Politicians who supported those restrictions were powerfully influenced by terrifying projections of COVID-19 deaths that assumed a fatality rate at least four times as high as the data from Los Angeles County and Santa Clara County suggest.
https://reason.com/2020/04/22/shouldnt-covid-19s-lethality-inform-the-response-to-it/
The Los Angeles County study, conducted by University of Southern California researchers in collaboration with Ferrer's department, tested a representative sample of 863 adults for antibodies to the virus in early April.
About 4 percent of them tested positive, indicating that the number of adults in the county who had been infected by the virus was roughly 40 times the number of confirmed cases at the time.
Since the number of infections in Los Angeles County is much higher than the official numbers indicate, Ferrer told reporters, the risk of transmission is higher than expected, which reinforces the case for aggressive control measures, including broad business closure and stay-at-home orders.
One wonders what conceivable results from the antibody study might have caused Ferrer to reconsider the wisdom of that policy.
In contrast with the current crude case fatality rate of about 4.5 percent, Ferrer said, the study suggests that 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of people infected by the virus will die, which would make COVID-19 only somewhat more deadly than the seasonal flu.
Politicians who supported those restrictions were powerfully influenced by terrifying projections of COVID-19 deaths that assumed a fatality rate at least four times as high as the data from Los Angeles County and Santa Clara County suggest.
https://reason.com/2020/04/22/shouldnt-covid-19s-lethality-inform-the-response-to-it/
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