3/n Fact 2: COVID-19 is MUCH more dangerous than influenza
For younger age groups, COVID-19 may be similarly lethal. For anyone over 30, it is much worse. @zorinaq has a nice graphic on thispic.twitter.com/e1DUdK1zcd
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14/n Fact 14: COVID-19 has been associated with large increases in excess mortality in many countries, including the US and much of Europe https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps pic.twitter.com/M3FAdMrB00
15/n Fact 15: COVID-19 is probably less deadly now than it was at the start of 2020 Fact 16: It is INCREDIBLY HARD to put a number on this differencehttps://gidmk.medium.com/is-covid-19-getting-less-lethal-f2907e06a0d …
16/n Fact 17: The cycle threshold (Ct) of PCR testing is not some magic silver bullet against a growing epidemic. @MackayIM again has an excellent read on this herehttps://virologydownunder.com/the-false-positive-pcr-problem-is-not-a-problem/ …
17/n Fact 18: The comparator to government action for COVID-19 is not "business as usual", it's "widespread epidemic", and anyone who pretends otherwise is being very sillypic.twitter.com/YwGcwqWFP3
18/n Fact 19: the corollary to Fact 18 is that a lot of the impact of lockdowns is UNCERTAIN
19/n Fact 20: Lockdowns clearly reduce COVID-19 case numbers in the short term. Other government actions can clearly limit case numbers in the long term. There are now numerous exampleshttps://www.devex.com/news/behind-vietnam-s-covid-19-success-story-98257 …
20/n (Whether this means that lockdowns "work" depends on your definition of "work" and "lockdowns", but in general it seems fair to say that COVID-19 can clearly be controlled through coordinated government responses)
21/n Fact 21: COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death for 2020 in the United States In the last few months of the year, it may have overtaken other causes of death to become THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH FOR >30 year oldshttps://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774465 …
22/n Fact 22: We still do not fully know the long-term chronic impacts of COVID-19, but they are likely to impact a non-trivial portion of the people who get the diseasehttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02598-6 …
23/n Fact 23: This is something of a repetition of Fact 4, but just to clarify that the evidence is clear that most people who are classified as having died of COVID-19 did indeed die of the diseasehttps://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1341175635700457472?s=20 …
24/n Fact 24: Another corollary, this time to Facts 9 and 10 - since many people are asymptomatic when testing positive (even though the majority will go on to develop symptoms) isolating PCR+ cases is simply good public health policy
25/n Fact 25: opioid-related mortality has been rising in the US for some time, and while it may have been exacerbated due to the pandemic it is inaccurate to ascribe all overdoses to lockdowns/COVID-19https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p1218-overdose-deaths-covid-19.html …
26/n Fact 26: While COVID-19 deaths only made up 40% of all excess deaths in young people in the U.S., it is likely that this is due to undercapture of the COVID-19 burden in this population (i.e. much of the remaining 60% is COVID-19 related as well) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445 …pic.twitter.com/2qS98xCpOM
27/n Fact 27: Much of the economic and social disruption that people have experienced this year is due to THE PANDEMIC ITSELF and not necessarily government action
28/n Fact 28: During lockdown, New Zealand's death excess deaths DROPPED. The NZ total excess deaths for the year are below usual, in contrast to other countries with large epidemicshttps://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32647-7/fulltext …
29n Fact 29: The average life expectancy for an 80-year-old person alive today in the United Kingdom is 9.12 years. The average death rate from COVID-19 for this group is ~8.5% https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/nationallifetablesunitedkingdom/2017to2019#national-life-tables-life-expectancy-in-the-uk-data …
30/n Fact 30: The UK has had a very large increase in excess mortality this year, orders of magnitude higher than in an average bad influenza seasonpic.twitter.com/TsgrJhQmx6
31/n Fact 31: COVID-19 reinfections occur. While we do not know the exact rate as of yet, and it may be very low, as time goes on the rate is likely to risehttps://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30764-7/fulltext …
32/n Fact 32: The WHO estimated that LESS THAN 10% of the world was infected in October, contrary to common mythshttps://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1315447821814775808?s=19 …
33/n Fact 33: Many of these facts are about NUANCE and UNCERTAINTY. Often what we DO know is just that we don't know VERY MUCH
34/n I wrote this thread up as a bit of a bloghttps://gidmk.medium.com/20-facts-about-covid-19-1afbb026bc98 …
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