Afternoon Delights (Nothing is Delightful about Coronavirus)

More evidence of the widespread nature of asymptomatic infections, which aren’t detected unless widespread, localized testing occurs.  This time the setting is a meatpacking plant, where there have been a number of outbreaks.  There are 2200 workers and the goal is to test all of them.  17% of those tested so far have been positive, or 373 employees, all of whom were asymptomatic at the time of testing.  (Mail Story)

And here is an analysis of the first 12000 deaths in the United Kingdom.  Under the age of 15, none.  Between ages 15 and 29, 28.  Ages 30 t0 39, 61.  Let us go to the other extreme, 70 plus year-olds, 9981 or almost 83% of all deaths.  The over 85 sub-segment was 4294 deaths.  So just like the US, you can see that the only group at any real risk is the elderly.

Iceland and New Zealand are celebrating how they think they have beaten the virus, with extensive testing and isolation, and in New Zealand’s case, an extreme lockdown, but they haven’t beaten anything.  The two island nations are heavily dependent on tourism, but now they can’t let anyone in from elsewhere without fear of restarting the outbreak, because they failed to allow population immunity to develop.  This is an insane policy given the low risk to most of their populations.  Contrast that to Sweden, which will have population immunity and will be able to open to international travel.  And by the way, in an Iceland random test of over 350 children, none tested positive.