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Coronavirus Reported Cases About 3% of Actual Cases
There is an interesting report out of Germany, from a study in a municipality called Gangelt in Germany, on the Dutch border. Gangelt is a small place, part of the District of Heinsberg in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. North Rhine-Westphalia is mostly the Ruhr, though Heinsberg is a bit east of the Ruhr area proper. Heinsberg is a small place itself, about 240 square miles (smaller than NYC and about the same size as the incorporated City of Tucson, where I live, though the Tucson metro area is much larger).
I. About 30 Times More People Had COVID-19 Than Reported
Heinsberg is apparently the most infected part of Germany, according to Wikipedia (here), with an infection rate of 0.5% as of March 29. They tested 1,000 people at random from Gangelt, with an antibody test, and found that 15% had previously had COVID-19. This is 30 times higher than the percentage of people with reported, “confirmed” cases.
Here is the paper (in German). Here is an amateur English translation, and here is a decent report in the Spectator.
As usual, the media seem quite incompetent and, frankly, the doctors performing the study don’t provide the obvious information. They never mention the reported “confirmed” case rate for the town or the district. They don’t even say when they drew the samples. There are many other reports in the media, which repeat the conclusion of the paper that the case fatality rate is 0.37%, much lower than previously reported, though neither the media outlets nor the paper explains how they performed this calculation.
Based on this limited information, it appears that the number of people who have already had COVID-19 is about 30 times higher than the number of reported “confirmed” cases. The calculation is simple. The percentage of people in this German district with reported, “confirmed” cases was 0.5%. The percentage testing positive in the antibody test was 15%, which is 30 times higher. Incidentally, they found that 2.0% were currently infected, 4 times the number of cumulative reported, “confirmed” cases.
Another way of looking at it is that cumulative total of reported “confirmed” cases is about 3% of actual infections.
This is preliminary data, but it is the best that I’ve seen thus far.
Let’s apply these numbers to New York. I just looked up the numbers for NYC for yesterday (April 10), and it has about 1,000 reported cases per 100,000 — which is just about exactly 1%. (Per 100,000, it is: Staten Island 1,362; Bronx 1,338; Queens 1,286; Brooklyn 957; Manhattan 781.)
Applying the 30x figure from the Gangelt data, this would imply that 30% of NYC residents have already been infected.
More evidence of the amazing ability of our politicians, and the leaders of the medical community, to resoundingly slam that barn door shut, just as soon as they notice that the horse is gone. Oh, and then burn the barn down.
II. “Contact Tracing” May Be Nonsense
By the way, if you’re interested in “contact tracing” and the hypothesis that those wonderful and brilliant Asians in South Korea and Singapore are so much better than we stupid, bumbling Americans because they implemented aggressive contact tracing right away, read the Wikipedia page (here) on the progress of the COVID-19 pandemic in North Rhine-Westphalia. I’ll give you a summary.
The very first case discovered in Germany was a guy named Bernd, who performed on stage with his dance team at a carnival celebration on Feb. 15 in Gangelt, attended by about 300 people. Bernd was already infected, but nobody knew it, and he later tested positive on Feb. 25. Then his wife tested positive the next day, and the authorities confirmed 14 new cases in Heinsberg (9 from tiny Gangelt). According to Wikipedia, “[a]ll of them were placed in home isolation.”
It didn’t matter. Heinsberg started to be called “Germany’s Wuhan” by the end of March. Here’s an example, from The Guardian in jolly old England. (If you don’t know The Guardian, they’re the most unbelievable pack of Leftist lunatics and idiots that I’ve yet encountered, who manage to make the buffoons at the NYT and even Rachel Maddow look reasonable by comparison. But that’s just my opinion.)
I acknowledge that this is only anecdotal evidence, but then so are all of the claims that the brilliant South Koreans and Singaporeans and other organized, disciplined Asians stopped this thing in its tracks with their testing and contract tracing. Maybe. Maybe we’re so bumbling and inefficient and stupid, here in the States, that we couldn’t do it.
But to believe that, you have to believe that the Germans are bumbling and inefficient. The Germans. Right.
III. My Apologies
I admit that I’m getting frustrated about all of this. I’m increasingly coming to believe that we’ve been lied to and played. By the politicians, and the media, and the medical “establishment” (whatever that it). It’s not just this new information reported in this post. I’ve been looking into these issues carefully, and the evidence has contradicted “the narrative” at nearly every turn.
It’s very annoying. It’s worst from the IHME, but maybe that’s because I’ve been watching them more closely. I’m not going to link it, but that Murray fellow said that the fact that we were reaching the peak earlier is evidence that martial law, I mean social distancing, is working.
Balderdash. They told us that social distancing would “flatten the curve.” Remember that? Well, flattening the curve means that the peak is reached later, but it is a shallower peak. Instead, the IHME’s data says that the peak is happening earlier than they expected, and is sharper. That’s the opposite of what we were told would happen under the house-arrest regime.
Sen. Portman, on the Ricochet podcast, basically said the same thing, taking credit for the lack of a catastrophe in Ohio because of the prompt imposition of martial law. I like Rob Portman, and I couldn’t bear to listen to that hogwash. I don’t blame him personally. I suspect that he’s relying on the so-called experts, and they’re talking nonsense. I do wish that he’d see through it.
I suspected, from the get-go, that this was a hysterical overreaction, but I did not expect that we would be misled so brazenly. I did appreciate our friend Doc Savage on the Ricochet podcast just released, essentially saying that we really messed this one up, and need to find a way to get everybody back to work.
Am I missing something?
ChiCom delenda est.
Published in Healthcare
You think you’re getting frustrated!!! I’m becoming more and more disillusioned, and for you folks who were trying to keep us informed, what a waste of time this might have been for you! I don’t know whether to hope your analysis was worthwhile after all the hard work you did, or to discover that it’s all a crock. Sheesh.
Thanks for an excellent post, Jerry.
I’ve looked at this event as a big picture guy and missed a great deal as a result. You’ve been a detail-oriented guy, and you’ve caught what I’ve missed (I understand details when I read them).
I had heard a 16% figure from the German study two days ago. I applied that the entire USA and calculated an IFR of 0.03%; That compares with seasonal flu of 0.10%. Maybe our actual infection rate is 5% and the IFR is 0.10% and matches seasonal flu.
I think the big lie is that “the experts” make their predictions without explaining their assumptions and massive uncertainties. It reminds me of the Climate Alarmist lie that we are on path to see 3C of warming and it is *certain*.
One way to fight back is civil disobedience… or riot
I am open to both
Actually, the figure is 33.175%. And, yes, I just made that up like all the other “experts.” How representative is the population of the small area the Germans studied and reported on?
I am convinced that everyone is just floundering around and coming up with something they can “report” on. Only time will tell; there are simply too many variables at this point to produce a reliable figure. As the constantly changes in projections illustrate.
I think there were large numbers of people infected, hospitalized and dead from this virus in China by the end of 2019. It had to be clear to Chinese government officials that this virus was very contagious to humans and deadly for certain classes humans. The WHO has not acted responsibly in the face of this fact alone because they had to know of the Chinese deception. I’m more concerned with a proper reaction of our government toward the Chinese than I am about the official domestic behavior of our government, that is as long as we restart reasonable economic activity soon. One thing I think I know is that the media and the Democrats are aligned with the Chinese Communist Party. They don’t have to have an official connection in order to believe and propound similar political views so unless we want to see America go the way of China we should retain Donald Trump as POTUS for another 4 years.
On the podcast today, peter mentioned that Dr. Jay B. had finished his testing (same idea as in Germany) and would have the results in a few days. I’m very, very interested in this.
@blueyeti, @peterrobinson, I’d love to hear you guys discuss this post w/ the good Dr!
Also known as The Groiniad.
The number of deaths in NYC (6361 in what? 3 weeks/) suggests this thing is much deadlier than the seasonal flu. I’m pretty certain that that many in NYC will die of the seasonal flue in the 2019-20 flu season, but that is 6 months compared to 3 weeks.
Its less deadly but way more infectious.
Jerry,
What we are seeing isn’t because of social distancing. This is weak herd immunity. The virus is acting like every other communicable epidemic. As the number of infections that result in weak cases goes up the number of people who have immunity goes up and this is what actually flattens the curve.
Strangely, the social distancing lockdown can actually weaken the herd immunity and make a recurrence of infections later more likely. The real concern was the number of hospital beds & supplies available and the danger of overwhelming the system. As we are now getting the information that we’ve already peaked and we are nowhere near our medical systems capacity limit, we may realize that the social distancing lockdown will make things worse. Once we know we can handle the pressure on the medical system it is time to back out of the lockdown stance and bring part of the population back to work. This will increase herd immunity and strengthen us against a recurrence.
Regards,
Jim
I’ve been following this study very closely and even wrote about it for my local paper. I’m a personal acquaintance of the virologist who is leading this study (Hendrik Streeck) and in my opinion, he’s been one of the most level-headed experts on the topic: he considers the virus to be a threat to be taken seriously and was in favor of the initial lockdown in Germany (and has said he thinks it spared Germany from thousands of deaths), but he has no patience for any modeling studies. He also thinks that, based on what we now know, the spread of the virus can be managed using rational measures that, while uncomfortable, would be much less drastic than total lockdown. Unlike most scientists, he seems to understand that there’s more to human well-being than just avoiding death.
Moreover, he recognized the need for speed in providing data to decision makers. The Robert Koch Institute (the German version of the CDC) is also undertaking antibody studies, but they’re going the usual slow-and-steady route, meaning by the time useful results emerge it may be too late to salvage much of the economy. That’s why Streeck is one of the good guys.
It’s also why I was incredibly disappointed that his press conference announcing his interim results was a total dumpster fire.
Here’s the problem: Germany only reports cases/deaths at the county level, but the study in question focused only on the hardest-hit village within one county. That 0.5% figure refers to the entire county, not the village in question – where the rates can be expected to be significantly higher, since the “super-spreader” event occurred directly in that village.
And one reason so many people are frustrated at Streeck (including myself) is because he didn’t say how many people in the town of Gangelt had actually been infected. During the Q&A session afterwards, a reporter grilled one of the other scientists on this very point. After a lot of hemming and hawing, that scientist finally said that they think the confirmed cases in Gangelt was about 5%. Right after that, one of the other scientists (not on mike) said something in the background that sounded like “well, that’s what we think”. (for German speakers see here: https://youtu.be/j4fEV3z8cPw?t=2081)
So if their figure of 5% confirmed cases is correct, that changes the statements in the OP by an entire order of magnitude.
But we really can’t be sure, since they themselves apparently aren’t sure.
What’s worse is that they said nothing about their methodology except that they used single-use quick antibody tests (as opposed to laboratory antibody tests). They didn’t say which one or how accurate it is. This is something of a problem, since many of the quick antibody tests that have been sold to date have been very inaccurate (the UK is sending back about 3 million tests they ordered after they were determined to be unreliable).
Bottom line: we’re not any smarter after this press conference or the hastily-drawn-up statement (that provides no further information). While I’m greatly disappointed that somebody I otherwise admire punted this one into the grandstands, I hold out hope that the study by Jay Bhattacharya and Eran Bendavid due out in a few days will involve a much higher standard of data reporting.
They almost certainly calculated this by asking the local hospital how many corona-related deaths there had been and then dividing that by the seropositive rate they detected. However, a simple back calculation from their figures reveals a total of 7 reported deaths in the town. Unfortunately, that’s far too few to be statistically meaningful.
At the same time, my gut feeling is that this figure is likely in the right ballpark. Interestingly, many of the other German experts who have been raking Streeck over the coals in the past few days have actually said they think this infection fatality rate is probably much closer to the truth than any of the figures of 1% or higher. It certainly seems much more plausible to me than any rate at or above 1% or any rate below 0.1% (considering that 0.1% or more of the total population has been reported dead from coronavirus within one month in places like Lombardy, Madrid, and soon NYC).
Yeah, I understand your point about the case fatality rate, which is accurate unless there are multiple strains of the virus with significantly different case fatality rates.
Addition: Unless these regions have unusual demographics. If a particular region has an unusually high proportion of elderly, this would have a very large effect on the case fatality rate.
That’s because in yet one more catastrophic way, we’ve been treating China as if it were a “normal” country that views its role in the world’s health (for other discussions, insert “economy,” or other sphere of human activity of your choice) in the same way as, for all their flaws, the EU countries do.
If you start with that false assumption, I suggest that the alarm about the disease was justified… . And a heck of a lot of experts started with that assumption. It would have been too horrible to contemplate the reality, and because, after all, China is on the UN Security Council, and participates in all sorts of conferences, and its scientists (some of whom are real scientists) publish internationally, and in so many ways China exhibits the surface behavior of a civilized country very well.
Because China covered up the timeline and the severity of the epidemic until the CCP couldn’t hide it any more. That’s where that assumption bites us.
The CCP’s coverup led outsiders to think that the time it took to reach 500 deaths or so was much faster than it really was. So the infectious disease people looked at it and said “Holy [expletive!] This thing is going up like a rocket!” That led to a whole lot of other assumptions, and policies built on them.
Several things complicate our understanding of this:
Watch now for a big push for action at the ‘global’ level to resolve the ‘coronavirus’ crisis.
Yes, as the weather gets better and the models continue to reduce their numbers and people are still being arrested for being outside or at Church and more and more people lose their life savings we will see civil disobedience. (Protect the aged, but let everyone else live their lives) Followed by uncivil disobedience if the “politicians” continue to hold a hard line.
I’m uncertain.
Wait, hold on. Death is an integral function. It sounds like you are minimizing something that has less chance of dying if the catch it. When something with a more average rate of death is more than average infectious, the resulting deaths can still be huge. Somebody help me out here. Where are we at in this situation?
We’re probably safe from any meaningful action at the global level in that case, because the Chinese leadership is never going to admit to any culpability here, in terms of failing to diagnose and/or restrict people in the Wuhan area when the severity of the virus became obvious. They’ll simply attempt to shift blame over to the U.S. or some other target, as seemingly is being done right now, in blaming black people living in China for second-wave coronavirus outbreaks (which I guess means there just aren’t that many Jews living in China).
Anything meaningful that gets done is likely going to end up being on a nation-by-nation basis, or at best cooperation between nations who trust each other to provide accurate health care and virology status updates. With nations like China, the U.S. and others are best served in the future treating Xi and his leadership the way South Korea and Taiwan did, by assuming that China’s lying about anything that might make the government look bad and to at least prepare for (if not implement) worst-case scenarios.
Jerry: “I admit that I’m getting frustrated about all of this. I’m increasingly coming to believe that we’ve been lied to and played. By the politicians, and the media, and the medical “establishment” (whatever that it). It’s not just this new information reported in this post. I’ve been looking into these issues carefully, and the evidence has contradicted “the narrative” at nearly every turn.”
Glad to see you see can’t accept the “narrative” like we have been told.
I have long thought the Corona Virus was here before we started registering cases. We have been on total lockdown here in LA for over 3 weeks and serious self quarantine for over 4 . It simply does not make sense that here and other places would still see the rise in cases like we have when the opportunity for infection is so restricted coupled with the allegedly fact that people are infectious for only 5-14 days. Something is very wrong with that story.
If it turns out that many more people were asymptomatically infected than thought as the German study suggests and that the idea that these infected can still infect people without knowing but perhaps only mildly that may explain where we are.
But it also suggests if 15% or more are already mildly infected the idea of a full lockdown quarantine starts to make less and less sense. The wearing of mask, social distancing coupled with vigorous testing and treatment along with the use of a vaccine when one becomes available would appear the route to go. End the lockdown!
We need to start thinking about what point – if any – there is to modelling things that are inherently one-off events. Listening to Erick Erickson’s show, he keeps going on and on about how the model changes with new data and that this is a good thing. But my thinking is beginning to be that if your model requires constant calibration so that it can accurately predict the present only after the crisis is apparently over, it really doesn’t have any value prospectively. I guess we can use if for whatever might be learned in hindsight. People have suggested that it will result in better projections in the future, but if each pandemic is different in significant ways (ease of contagion, mortality rates, etc.) such that a workable model for each event can’t be constructed on the fly, even that isn’t true.
I think in the current situation, it’s the difference between hypothetical projections with no available numbers to use as a base — which was the situation in February and March. because COVID-19 was new and because China lied and denied the world accurate information for at least a month — and the current hypothetical projections, which do have U.S. coronavirus cases, deaths and recovery rates to base off of. Each day brings new numbers to factor into where the curve is going, which is why the death projections have plunged from the worst-case scenarios.
Any new virus is going to create unknowns. You just can’t maintain worst-case restrictions based on those unknowns, once new data becomes available and the numbers are nowhere near worst case. You have to start easing off and assume that people will at least care enough about their own health to take certain precautions (or you mandate a few less-intrusive things, like masks, to allow things to reopen again).
Mendel, I’ve been thinking about this comment. You must know this area much better than I (since I know it not at all).
Gangelt is described as a “municipality,” within the “district” of Heinsberg. Wikipedia lists Gangelt with an area of about 19 square miles and a population of about 12,500. It lists Heinsberg with an area of about 242 square miles and a population of about 254,000.
I’m able to put this in perspective because my home town of Tucson is almost exactly the same size as Heinsberg physically (Tucson is 288 square miles) and about double the population (about 520,000 in Tucson). In the case of Tucson, these are only for the incorporated city, not the metro area, which has a population of about a million.
You refer to Heinsberg as a “county,” and maybe it is in the German sense of the word (or the New York sense — New York city is actually 5 counties). Where I come from, counties are way, way bigger — about the size of German states. West Rhine-Westphalia has an area of about 13,000 square miles, while my home county (Pima County) is almost as big, a bit over 9,000 square miles.
It seems a bit hard to believe that there could be such extreme differences in concentration of infection as you posit (citing the news conference, at which no one seemed to have the actual data). Heinsberg was reported to have a rate of 0.5 reported cases per 100,000; your suggestion is that Gangelt is ten times this high. That’s an extraordinary differential in a very small area.
It is possible, and I have no idea whether or not it is true. I do note that the boroughs of NYC do not exhibit such big differences in rates of reported cases (data here, currently ranging from a low of 718 cases per 100,000 in Manhattan to 1,598 in Queens).
I also don’t know what life is like in a German municipality. In my home town, there are probably hundreds of “super-spreader” events like the little festival in Gangelt every week, maybe more — every school, many at the University every day, dozens if not hundreds of churches, concerts, and more.
I do agree that my 3% figure is a bit speculative — I decided to put a bit of “clickbait” in the title of this one, though I think that it’s the most plausible estimate at present.
There’s actually good support for this in the US data. The daily death rate tells you how many new infections there were a day 10 to 24 days earlier. Going by this the number of actual new infections in mid March was around 200,000 when only 3000 had been confirmed.
We know that efforts to stop the virus are working because the death rate is peaking out, an effect of measures started in mid to late March. At this point we are probably a lot safer as there are probably few new infections. As long as we continue efforts to suppress the virus for a few more weeks, that is.
https://reason.com/2020/04/12/official-covid-19-numbers-represent-just-6-of-total-infections-a-new-analysis-suggests/
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And then what?
A few? How many do you think would be necessary?