I’m generally skeptical of the theory in that paper being provable at all unless they’re very careful. There are just so many possible confounders.
(I had actually only skimmed it until now. Its theory seems to be that some low-symptom coronavirus cold did the priming? Ugh, given our current viral monitoring habits (bad), that sounds like a hopeless non-starter for study.)
I haven’t compared the exact death-rates. Off the top of my head, I remember Italy generating the impression that hospital overflow can make a difference that changes 0.5% to 4% in death rates, but I didn’t question or dissect it.
About the death rates I feel pretty informed (unlike with ADE), and I think there’s nothing that needs to be explained that isn’t already likely covered by varying degrees of hospital crowding and (in Italy’s case) demographics such as the early outbreak starting primarily in hospitals (as opposed to Germany where it started disproportionally in travellers who visited affected places).
Edit: It would be concerning to see unusually high death rates in countries that don’t seem to have hospital crowding yet, but I’m not aware of any such examples. The difference between death rates in France and Italy (high) and Germany (very low) are possibly worth looking into, but even that seem to me like it can be explained well through other factors (Germany had really good testing, and again demographics – it just makes a huge difference if the virus ever hits an entire hospital or nursing home or Church with elderly demographic).
Does Italy fit that line of thought?
I’m generally skeptical of the theory in that paper being provable at all unless they’re very careful. There are just so many possible confounders.
(I had actually only skimmed it until now. Its theory seems to be that some low-symptom coronavirus cold did the priming? Ugh, given our current viral monitoring habits (bad), that sounds like a hopeless non-starter for study.)
I haven’t compared the exact death-rates. Off the top of my head, I remember Italy generating the impression that hospital overflow can make a difference that changes 0.5% to 4% in death rates, but I didn’t question or dissect it.
I don’t think Italy has ever seen SARS before.
About the death rates I feel pretty informed (unlike with ADE), and I think there’s nothing that needs to be explained that isn’t already likely covered by varying degrees of hospital crowding and (in Italy’s case) demographics such as the early outbreak starting primarily in hospitals (as opposed to Germany where it started disproportionally in travellers who visited affected places).
Edit: It would be concerning to see unusually high death rates in countries that don’t seem to have hospital crowding yet, but I’m not aware of any such examples. The difference between death rates in France and Italy (high) and Germany (very low) are possibly worth looking into, but even that seem to me like it can be explained well through other factors (Germany had really good testing, and again demographics – it just makes a huge difference if the virus ever hits an entire hospital or nursing home or Church with elderly demographic).