Another opportunity to calc. fatality rate for 65 and under per the testing occurring in Salt Lake, Utah https://www.ksl.com/article/46757474/antibody-testing-shows-many-utahns-had-covid-19-but-did-not-know-it-results-higher-because-of-self-selection

“the rate for those who test positive for COVID-19 antibodies in two communities, after two days of testing, is more than twice that rate at 11%.”

Utah breaks out cases by age – https://coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts/

Salt Lake County Stat

Currently the stats above show a 1.5% fatality rate (69/4632). However we do have enough to compute the <65 infected.

Utah unlike other states and counties do not break out deaths by age – but we have this article noting over 90% death > 65 https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/5/11/21254629/pandemic-coronavirus-90-percent-of-covid-19-deaths-in-utah-over-age-65-officials-say

“More than 90% of COVID-19 deaths in Utah over age 65, officials say”

This is almost half of LA and NY county that we calculated before. Same disclaimer as before this does not mean getting covid-19 doesn’t come with long term issues – but the odds of dying when young – even with comorbidities is near zero. If you are healthy and young likely 0.

Of course I suspect this and all the antibody test will be discredited via a garbage headline article like this – https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/26/health/antibody-tests-cdc-coronavirus-wrong/

“Antibody tests for Covid-19 wrong up to half the time, CDC says”

No CDC does not say it like that – https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/resources/antibody-tests-guidelines.html

“For example, in a population where the prevalence is 5%, a test with 90% sensitivity and 95% specificity will yield a positive predictive value of 49%.”

CDC says AN EXAMPLE….IF you use a bad test you get bad results – no duh??

Lets go look at the test available and their efficacy – https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical-devices/eua-authorized-serology-test-performance

I would go with the Roche or Ortho-Clinical which is near 100% for sensitivity and specificity. The worse on the list is Chembio 77.4% and 87.1% respectively. But to put a headline like the above is just not right. Clearly its important to use devices that work well no matter what you are doing – particularly when health is on the line. I would hope most govt testing places are using the better devices vs. the inferior ones. IF CNN could have done more investigated journalism and identified the test used in the various antibody cases perhaps they could be right in their statement but I am not inclined to believe all these test places decided to use a Chembio test or the like.

Impact of media and sensationalism is real – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/25/who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine-trial-trump-coronavirus-safety-fears

“The WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in light of a paper published last week in the Lancet that showed people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of death and heart problems than those who were not, it would pause the hydroxychloroquine arm of its solidarity global clinical trial.”

As noted in the study we are talking about 3.7% of those who had heart issue while taking HCQ. This was also NOT a study but a big data exercise. This article does try to balance the hype by noting a rebuttal at the end.

“A controversial French doctor who has promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for coronavirus said on Monday he stood by his belief the drugs could help patients recover. He also rejected the Lancet study of the records of 96,000 patients across hundreds of hospitals.

“How can a messy study done with ‘big data’ change what we see?”, Prof Didier Raoult asked in a video posted on the website of his infectious diseases hospital in Marseille.

“Here we have had 4,000 people go through our hospital, you don’t think I’m going to change because there are people who do ‘big data’, which is a kind of completely delusional fantasy,” he said.”

We have a new leader of daily death – Brazil 1039…US 693…Mexico 501

NY is leading US deaths again but under 100 – only 73

Looks like Cook County IL coming down. LA county still is hot spot. Zooming into the NE you can see the dark red of NYC.

Opening states so far not showing much issue in terms of death – in fact down. Confirmation are staying flat – expected growth.

Brazil and Mexico shows no sign of abating.

Brazil is a clear outlier now. Mexico is right behind. India and Russia are both climbing steadily in daily deaths.