Asymptomatic « JoNova

German 15% Herd Immunity study: wasn’t random and may have tested for the common cold?

Studies may not be what they seem We need antibody tests to find the number of asymptomatic Covid-19 cases, but the German Heinsberg study was poorly done. Apparently there aren’t many good antibody tests available yet.

The early results of a small study in Germany on the town of Gangelt suggested that as many as 15% of the town might have caught an asymptomatic form of coronavirus and already had antibodies to it. This would mean that death rates to coronavirus were much lower — a mere 0.37%, not 2% (or so), and that aiming for Herd Immunity was a realistic policy. It was picked up in many newspapers and turned into headlines that may have misled a lot of people, including the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia.

“Coronavirus: Nearly 15% Europeans Now Immune in COVID-19”

“Many people may already have immunity to coronavirus, German study finds”

“Scientists say many more people than previously thought could have acquired coronavirus immunity after discovering 15% of people in city dubbed ‘German Wuhan’ could be carrying antibodies”

Five different reasons the results may be spurious The test may have detected antibodies to the harmless common cold form […]

Finally, Coronavirus random tests show only 1% infected: Herd Immunity is tiny

Herd Immunity is not realistic

For the first time we have true randomized testing –and it shows that Austria was officially picking up about a quarter of the real number of infections in the population. So when Austria was officially saying 7,000 were infected, the true number was 28,500. Finally, this puts a solid limit on the chance that asymptomatic rate of infection was high. There is no iceberg.

About 75% of cases were mild or truly asymptomatic (and thus not getting officially tested), but it was still only a small slice of the population — just one third of one percent.

Less than 1% of Austrians infected with coronavirus, study shows

Peter Beaumont, The Guardian

The co-founder of Sora, Christoph Hofinger, told a news conference: “Based on this study, we believe that 0.33% of the population in Austria was acutely infected in early April.” Given the margin of error, the figure was 95% likely to be between 0.12% and 0.76%.

99% of the population is still vulnerable

The Austrian chancellor estimates only 1% of the population had had the infection (presumably he is including an estimate of people who had already had the virus, cleared […]