This is very good news! 0.12% to 0.2% is only a little more than the flu, and it looks like we are well on our way to herd immunity.

This is consistent with the predictions of Dr. Knut Wittkowski. He is an epidemiologist who makes some persuasive arguments that COVID-19 behaves much like a seasonal flu. A fascinating interview with him here: Web Link

If anyone knows of a good refutation of Dr. W. or of the Stanford study please share it.

So disappointed in Stanford for contributing to the mass confusion. Those who wish to diminish the dangers of COVID-19 are going to latch on to this "study," which was not a random sample, but rather a self-selected group.

Already people are saying the nation has overreacted by using this study to suggest COVID19 is no more dangerous than the flu. Look at real data from NYC on the death rates last year and now, and it's clear this is not just a flu. Web Link Look at the overcrowded hospitals in hot zones. Look at those who lost someone. These flawed studies add to their injury and imperil all the wider community.

In response to Stanford should do better you said:

“So disappointed in Stanford for contributing to the mass confusion. Those who wish to diminish the dangers of COVID-19 are going to latch on to this "study," which was not a random sample, but rather a self-selected group.”

However, given the SEVERE shortage of testing equipment and agents, we are STUCK. IF the PRESIDENT would use his power under the act he claims to be using, there would be government mandated manufacturing of testing supplies, agents, and equipment. Surely by NOW we should have had at least 30,000,000 tests made and performed. So you are attacking the wrong problem. You said:

“Already people are saying the nation has overreacted by using this study to suggest COVID19 is no more dangerous than the flu. Look at real data from NYC on the death rates last year and now, and it's clear this is not just a flu. Web Link Look at the overcrowded hospitals in hot zones. Look at those who lost someone. These flawed studies add to their injury and imperil all the wider community.”

I cannot argue this. I am in TOTAL agreement.

@Stanford should do better

"So disappointed in Stanford for contributing to the mass confusion."

More honest data leads to less confusion, well, until the news media and politicians step in of course.

"Those who wish to diminish the dangers of COVID-19 are going to latch on to this "study,""

Of course, because the chicken-littles from day one were claiming the mortality rate of people once infected was between 4-10%. But that flawed data had no clue what the true infection rate was, so the "data" if you can call it that was simply a ratio of those self-selected as known to be sick or known to have had contact with the sick on one side of the calculation and those who died on the other side.

That's what was flawed and confusing.

Stanford is trying to do a wider testing and then make a closer to the truth calculation of the mortality rate for those infected.

That's what we need more of not less.

"which was not a random sample, but rather a self-selected group."

ALL prior data has been self-selected and misleading.

"Already people are saying the nation has overreacted by using this study to suggest COVID19 is no more dangerous than the flu."

Which is probably going to turn out to be close, once all the full data for:
people exposed,
people infected,
people with no symptoms,
people with minimal symptoms,
people needing minor medical intervention,
people needing extreme medical measures, and finally, the
people who actually died of the virus.

Right now, we only have so-so numbers on the number of dead and nothing remotely close to any idea of any of the other numbers we need to make a valid calculation of mortality rate. It's irrational to think this specific coronavirus has a 10x to 1000x greater mortality than any prior coronavirus has ever had and a 10,000x worse than the flu is beyond any rational science.


"Look at real data from NYC on the death rates last year and now,"

That is utterly meaningless in calculating the true mortality rate.
Those sorts of things make for great TV headlines to scare people, but serve zero scientific purpose.

"and it's clear this is not just a flu."

No, but the mortality rate is probably a lot closer than 10x to 10,000x as so many "experts" have claimed on TV.

"Look at the overcrowded hospitals in hot zones."

Irrelevant to the science and of no use in determining the mortality rate.

"Look at those who lost someone."

When you have to appeal to raw emotion, that only proves you don't have anything valid to say.

"These flawed studies add to their injury and imperil all the wider community. "

By causing governments to react too much and in counter-productive ways.

ALL the prior studies so far are deeply flawed and utterly useless for science, nothing we know so far is of any use in scientifically calculating the true mortality rate.

The fact is, until we have enough, as in billions of, active infection and anti-body test kits deployed and results returned and tabulated, until we have all the numbers I listed above, we cannot do anything meaningful about determining the true mortality rate.

At least Standford and the Navy are trying to get some wide-net date.

Each time we see new data, the estimated mortality rate goes DOWN, NO new data has pointed to a higher mortality rate.

When all the numbers are going in the same direction, you might want to reconsider your position.

> "Look at real data from NYC on the death rates last year and now,"
> That is utterly meaningless in calculating the true mortality rate.

Wrong. It is absolutely meaningful data. Add in Madrid, Italy, and the rural areas and it gives a good glimpse into what's happening.

> until we have enough, as in billions of, active infection and anti-body test kits deployed and results returned

True. And it's pure negligence that America is behind so many other countries in per capita testing.

Did you look at the New York Times article:
Web Link

When people say the death rates are skewed by over labeling deaths as COVID19 related, just look to see how many more people are dying in NYC these last 30 days than any other 30 days in modern history of NYC including 9/11, what else explains that jump if not COVID19 being very deadly to a small but still important subset of people?

I know people who died in NYC these last 30 days, and hearing people say it wasn't COVID19 is like hearing people say 9/11 didn't happen.

Unfortunately, the study's results are entirely consistent with the underlying false-positive rate of the tests they're using, which would still put Santa Clara at roughly the same prevalence as the underlying case rate. Just like hydroxychloroquine, science takes time and there's not going to be a single silver bullet to get us out of this.

Donald Trump is on tv right now (Saturday at 2:24 pm) campaigning. He cannot stay on script. When he varies from the speech written for him, Trump sounds like the know-nothing lightweight he is. If Trump is re-selected in November, buy a plot. You'll need it sooner than you are hoping.

Trump told us we could ALL get a test, in March, when we wanted one.

I want one. Where are they, Mr. (China-Loving) Trump?

Trump, January 24, THIS YEAR:

“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus, the United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”

I would like him to stop 'speaking' on my behalf, and actually do some WORK.

"It will all work out well."

I agree I know EVENTUALLY we will return to some kind of normalcy.

BUT

When Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, he assumed statutory responsibility to address the current situation as of April 2.

Thus any loss of income, public suffering, and death that occurs after that date is by statute his RESPONSIBILITY.

The fact that he has not required any testing production at all is intentional.

The president is looking for PLAUSIBLE deniability regarding his responsibility under that statute. This is by DESIGN. INTENTIONAL BLINDNESS so that the people cannot hold him accountable for his failure by the NUMBERS.

When are the people of this country finally say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH regarding the lack of testing?

@ R.F.
How are we "well on our way to herd immunity"? This data reflects that 50 out of 3,330 people tested positive for antibodies. That is 1.5% of the sample group. How is 1.5% considered well on our way to herd immunity?

When you take false positives into account (this test was not even FDA approved), and the fact that the sample pool was not random (self selection bias; these were volunteers who were more likely to have had covid like symptoms prior to the study), then the actual % of positive cases could be much lower.

Nobody is arguing that there are many more cases than the number that have been confirmed. But the 50-85x is blown way out of proportion. They took the 1.5% (which is probably over inflated to begin with), then marked it up to an even higher percentage (2.5-4.2%) and said that since x percent came back positive out of 3,330 then we have x number of cases in this county, which is y % higher than reported. The numbers they are using are too high. And you cannot extrapolate out to other areas of the country because we have such limited testing here compared to other areas like NYC. You can't say that just because our number of cases is 10x higher than reported that their number of cases is 10x higher than reported if they test 20x as many people as we do.

This is really shoddy work by Stanford. As mentioned by others, opponents of the shutdowns have latched on to the study and used it as justification to lift all restrictions. The good folks who work on the front lines at Stanford Medicine must be livid with their irresponsible colleagues who have botchd the public messaging of the study results.

Interestingly, the Stanford numbers do seem to hold up somewhat when looking at the Boston homeless shelter count and some aircraft carriers: Web Link

mvresident, weren't you hawking hydroxychloroquine earlier? Called it the "Trump pill" and wondered why we weren't spending more money on it? Maybe you take a break from the amateur epidemiology and virology for a little bit...