Great information – thanks! Episode-2 format is more efficient in that it incorporated more evidence-based visual-learning elements for the audience. As the saying goes: a picture is worth a thousand words.
I like the second episode format slightly better. Seems a little more condusive when there are a lot of slides.
CDC (Redfield) says that the recent antibody study is misleading. I was holding my breath on that one as it was a CDC study ending in May yet the CDC increased their best esitmate for IFR by more than 2X to 0.65 on July 10th.
I wanted to suggest a topic which is.. has Covid deaths been undercounted or over counted. However in either Episode 1 or a prior blog you have already taken a position Covid-19 deaths are over counted because of ‘died with Covid’. The counter argument I read and tend to side with (most recently out of Yale) is that when you look at the past many years of deaths for all causes and put statistical upper & lower bounds for expectations, other causes of death are stastically and significantly above expectations. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0722-SARS-CoV-2-infections.html
I will likely revisit the issue of “over vs under” counts. There was a nice piece recently on CPR (Colorado Public Radio) that dealt with the issue. What they’re seeing now is an increase in total mortality, but believe it’s due to lack of medical care created by frightened patients who won’t go in to get what they need. For example, a patient in afib who knows that he needs to be converted or needs to get an ablation, but who won’t go near a hospital who strokes out and dies. That same patient last year would have gotten medical care and gone into normal sinus rhythm.
The problem with this is that much of the data was very dated, from 2-3 months ago. Sweden is now at least partially recanting its approach because of the very large number of deaths it has experienced and without developing anywhere near the percentage of herd immunity it was expecting from this strategy.. I don’t think that one should form conclusions based on such old data from collections done in March or April. And this was before the second wave hit and before a mutated form of the virus was. circulating.
You also forgot to mention rare but existing forms of inflammatory diseases that show up in kids as a result of viral infections including this one. That’s one of the reasons Fauci was holding back on recommending a return to school.
I’d like you to make all charts and graphs available separately for study without having to relisten to the broadcast. Also, I don’t like the reduced format. I think you can have a large picture of yourself and then a large pic of the charts as they come along.
Manny, the likelihood of a child dying or having complications from COVID is dramatically less than a child dying of cancer. For example, about 1,200 kids and teens under 15 years of age die of cancer every year in the US and many more have complications related to cancer and survive. Total COVID-19 deaths to date under 14 years are 36, see https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku . Let’s also take the next age group, 15-24. According to the NIMH, there are 6,252 suicides per year in that age group. According to the CDC website, there have been 190 COVID deaths. So if you’re worried about COVID deaths in kids or young adults or rare complications of viral illness, you should really be worried about donating to fight childhood cancer or volunteering on a teen suicide hotline.
Dr Centeno, I am so very thankful and grateful for you and the research you do to expose the FACTS of COVID-19!!
The Media, some complicit state and federal governments and pharmaceutical companies that fund research are hiding the facts.
Great episode so much positive information. The segment on Heparin is so encouraging yet the general public doesn’t know any of this. How can we get this information out in mass?
Awesome content Chris, dang refreshing to hear some common sense rather than an advertising or politicizing slant. Too bad more people don’t take their biased blinders off and listen to you. Like the format (and so do my eyes, sit at a computer all day, easy to get content with my ears rather than just my eyes). Thanks and keep up the good work!
thanks for presenting this research. In the spirit of looking at all sides: I thought that the sensitivity rate for antibodies was low, basically a coin flip (a positive antibody test means you have a 50% chance of really having antibodies), unless the % of people being tested was high. Was this factored into the JAMA study you referenced? In relation to the Sweden/ Finland vs. South Korea tests about schools and covid, the Sweden/ Finland reports just looked at what % of school children got covid symptoms, right? The South Korea one looked at the infection rate among families of school kids. If so, the first doesn’t address non-symptomatic transmission but the second does. Also, contact tracing in South Korea is not, as I understand it, simply a matter of people remembering who they had contact with. It involves extensive cell phone tracing. Basically, cell phone information is used to figure out who was near someone else. this might be a flaw in an equivalent U.S. study.
Chris, I think you’re discussing positive predictive value, which is poor when the prevalence is 1%, but rapidly improves as you get to the levels discussed in that paper. Both Finland and Sweden looked at the percentage of school children that had antibodies to the SARS-Cov2 virus, not COVID. Since both rates were the same despite vastly different scenarios, the conclusion was that kids are not getting infected and mounting antibodies. This likely means that they are fighting the virus through the killer T system before it even takes hold. Hence, kids are likely not capable of spreading the disease. On Korea, that was a contact tracing study that did show asymptomatic spread, however, with all of the uncertainty and myriad of variables baked into contact tracing.
Randy L. Sparacino says
Very good, I like the format.
Sam says
Great information – thanks! Episode-2 format is more efficient in that it incorporated more evidence-based visual-learning elements for the audience. As the saying goes: a picture is worth a thousand words.
Peter Salvatori says
I like the second episode format slightly better. Seems a little more condusive when there are a lot of slides.
CDC (Redfield) says that the recent antibody study is misleading. I was holding my breath on that one as it was a CDC study ending in May yet the CDC increased their best esitmate for IFR by more than 2X to 0.65 on July 10th.
I wanted to suggest a topic which is.. has Covid deaths been undercounted or over counted. However in either Episode 1 or a prior blog you have already taken a position Covid-19 deaths are over counted because of ‘died with Covid’. The counter argument I read and tend to side with (most recently out of Yale) is that when you look at the past many years of deaths for all causes and put statistical upper & lower bounds for expectations, other causes of death are stastically and significantly above expectations.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0722-SARS-CoV-2-infections.html
Chris Centeno, MD says
I will likely revisit the issue of “over vs under” counts. There was a nice piece recently on CPR (Colorado Public Radio) that dealt with the issue. What they’re seeing now is an increase in total mortality, but believe it’s due to lack of medical care created by frightened patients who won’t go in to get what they need. For example, a patient in afib who knows that he needs to be converted or needs to get an ablation, but who won’t go near a hospital who strokes out and dies. That same patient last year would have gotten medical care and gone into normal sinus rhythm.
Manny says
The problem with this is that much of the data was very dated, from 2-3 months ago. Sweden is now at least partially recanting its approach because of the very large number of deaths it has experienced and without developing anywhere near the percentage of herd immunity it was expecting from this strategy.. I don’t think that one should form conclusions based on such old data from collections done in March or April. And this was before the second wave hit and before a mutated form of the virus was. circulating.
You also forgot to mention rare but existing forms of inflammatory diseases that show up in kids as a result of viral infections including this one. That’s one of the reasons Fauci was holding back on recommending a return to school.
I’d like you to make all charts and graphs available separately for study without having to relisten to the broadcast. Also, I don’t like the reduced format. I think you can have a large picture of yourself and then a large pic of the charts as they come along.
Chris Centeno, MD says
Manny, the data from Sweden and Finland is recent. It includes data as of June 14, see https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbfde4a7899eb0d8ffdb57b09/covid-19-school-aged-children.pdf.
Chris Centeno, MD says
Manny, the likelihood of a child dying or having complications from COVID is dramatically less than a child dying of cancer. For example, about 1,200 kids and teens under 15 years of age die of cancer every year in the US and many more have complications related to cancer and survive. Total COVID-19 deaths to date under 14 years are 36, see https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku . Let’s also take the next age group, 15-24. According to the NIMH, there are 6,252 suicides per year in that age group. According to the CDC website, there have been 190 COVID deaths. So if you’re worried about COVID deaths in kids or young adults or rare complications of viral illness, you should really be worried about donating to fight childhood cancer or volunteering on a teen suicide hotline.
Amy says
Dr Centeno, I am so very thankful and grateful for you and the research you do to expose the FACTS of COVID-19!!
The Media, some complicit state and federal governments and pharmaceutical companies that fund research are hiding the facts.
The new format is wonderful!
Alfred Wekelo says
Great episode so much positive information. The segment on Heparin is so encouraging yet the general public doesn’t know any of this. How can we get this information out in mass?
Chris Centeno, MD says
Please share the video with all of your friends! You can also share directly to your social media accounts via youtube.
Scott V says
Awesome content Chris, dang refreshing to hear some common sense rather than an advertising or politicizing slant. Too bad more people don’t take their biased blinders off and listen to you. Like the format (and so do my eyes, sit at a computer all day, easy to get content with my ears rather than just my eyes). Thanks and keep up the good work!
Jenna says
As much as I love your blog posts… there is no comparison. I love this format even more!! Thanks so much!!
bob schwenkler says
I like written. Thanks much
Christine anderson-sprecher says
thanks for presenting this research. In the spirit of looking at all sides: I thought that the sensitivity rate for antibodies was low, basically a coin flip (a positive antibody test means you have a 50% chance of really having antibodies), unless the % of people being tested was high. Was this factored into the JAMA study you referenced? In relation to the Sweden/ Finland vs. South Korea tests about schools and covid, the Sweden/ Finland reports just looked at what % of school children got covid symptoms, right? The South Korea one looked at the infection rate among families of school kids. If so, the first doesn’t address non-symptomatic transmission but the second does. Also, contact tracing in South Korea is not, as I understand it, simply a matter of people remembering who they had contact with. It involves extensive cell phone tracing. Basically, cell phone information is used to figure out who was near someone else. this might be a flaw in an equivalent U.S. study.
Chris Centeno, MD says
Chris, I think you’re discussing positive predictive value, which is poor when the prevalence is 1%, but rapidly improves as you get to the levels discussed in that paper. Both Finland and Sweden looked at the percentage of school children that had antibodies to the SARS-Cov2 virus, not COVID. Since both rates were the same despite vastly different scenarios, the conclusion was that kids are not getting infected and mounting antibodies. This likely means that they are fighting the virus through the killer T system before it even takes hold. Hence, kids are likely not capable of spreading the disease. On Korea, that was a contact tracing study that did show asymptomatic spread, however, with all of the uncertainty and myriad of variables baked into contact tracing.