Floating on Coronavirus Research

A couple of early morning research tidbits.  One is a little more information on the Swedish study.  Here is another story, eventually we will get a translation.  (Swedish Story)  This story also describes the interim results as indicating that 11% of the population had antibodies.  The test used had a high rate of false negatives, meaning that the true percentage is likely higher.  The study continues.

And in a story that shows how much the over-focus on coronavirus is hurting other patients, some with very dire medical situations, the ability to receive organ and tissue transplants is down dramatically.  (Stat Story)  I work with a business that helps manage organ transplants and have seen first hand that volumes are declining.  These delays mean some patients will likely die.  But again, we have apparently decided that their lives aren’t as important as those of coronavirus patients.

It is non-peer-reviewed research, but a political scientist did an analysis comparing coronavirus numbers in states that do and don’t have extensive lockdowns and added some international comparisons.   (Lockdown Analysis)  He found that case and death rates did not vary by whether a state had an extreme lockdown or more moderate social distancing policies, if anything, the social distancing states had fewer. Now it could be that cause and effect are reversed; that states with higher early case loads decided to implement more stringent lockdowns.  But that effect would wear off over time.  He also found, as has been suggested elsewhere, that having more population density definitely is associated with more cases.

And finally, under the heading of typical one-sided thinking, is an article by someone who claims that lifting lockdowns will cause deaths.  (Stupid Article)  There is absolutely no explanation of why this would be so.  I hate to break it to the writer, but the lockdowns are also causing deaths, not to mention a lot of other damage.  And can we finally get it in our heads that the lockdowns are not saving lives, they are at most designed to delay infections and deaths.