Replies to post #279787 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[learningcurve2020]

Right. Everyone here made fun of my herd immunity comments early on.

[jammyjames]

“Well, Sweden predict that herd immunity will be largely achieved (as an anticipated by-product of not having a lockdown) in a month in their hotspot of Stockholm. This will be proven correct (or otherwise) by whether or not the Stockholm death rate goes into steady decline as we get to mid-May.
Though the infection will need much longer to ripple out through the rest of the more sparsely populated parts of the country, before the same occurs there.
In the meantime, they focus on trying to protect the vulnerable and elderly.
Eminently rational approach that also gives some protection to their economy, and that means jobs, livelihoods.”


Unfortunately for sweden they are basing their assumptions using epidemiology advice from this guy and his disciples...

He bases all that on an expected 0.1% mortality rate for covid-19 (like a severe flu). But it’s easy to refute this claim and show that it is an underestimate with data already available.

Let’s take what’s probably the worst affected place in the world ...New York City County. According to the NYtimes they’ve had about 11,000 deaths….with a 0.1% mortality rate that means that 11 million people were infected….anyone see the problem here??

The population of new york city county is only 8.4 million. It’s literally impossible for there to be a 0.1% mortality rate (at least in new york county). And this doesn’t take into account 3 things
1) that with no restrictions in place the maximum % of the population that this would infect before herd immunity kicks in would be 60% given the measured R0 of the virus.
2) It’s actually likely to be much less probably in the 20-40% range with all the social distancing.
3) People are still dying in New York county...we’re probably only about half way through

Even if we took a very conservative position and assumed 60% for herd immunity (no social distancing) and no one else dying in NYCounty then you already have a lower bound estimate mortality of >0.22% (11000/(8.4million*0.6)).

There’s a reason why Sweden already has 2-3x the death rate per capita compared to denmark, and about 6x norway and Finland. They've only got 2000 deaths so far but I’d estimate that Sweden will have >10,000 deaths by the time this has passed if they don’t adapt their strategy.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some swedish epidemiologists facing manslaughter charges by the time this thing is through.

“that's in marked contrast to the UK, which appears bent on doubling down on the lockdown policy, which will further decimate the economy (GDP down 35%?) and will probably actually cost additional lives from the virus anyway, when they eventually attempt to step out of lockdown, and will certainly cause many more long-term deaths related to the resulting unemployment and increased poverty. ”

Lock down is only temporary until the numbers are manageable for recursive contact tracing/isolation/testing. That’s the stage switch from mitigation to containment. I expect the economy to rebound rapidly as this is not a fundamental issue with the structure of the economy (except maybe a bit too much reliance on china for manufacturing) but a short term shock. Government obviously sees it this way as well which is why they are furloughing huge amount of the population and offering temporary debt relief.

“I might emigrate.”

I’d rather just contain the virus and then get back to normal being cautious until a vaccine is available.