Fact check: Does CDC study show '85 percent' of COVID-19 patients wore masks? https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/fa...-19-patients-wore-masks-not-exactly/19340391/ Fox News host Tucker Carlson misrepresented the findings of a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, amplifying misinformation from social media as he claimed on his TV show that the study showed masks don’t work like experts say. Running through a series of data points listed in the CDC’s report, Carlson said during his Oct. 13 show: "Almost everyone — 85% — who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask, and they were infected anyway. So clearly this doesn't work the way they tell us it works." The Fox News host’s take ran counter to comments he made in April touting the effectiveness of masks. It also contradicted the guidance of public health officials, who say mask wearing on a broad scale can slow the spread of the coronavirus. Carlson’s misleading claim about the CDC study appeared to make its way to North Carolina. Dan Forest, North Carolina's Republican candidate for governor, cited the study during his debate with incumbent Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday. “The CDC just this week released their study about mask wearing on COVID-positive cases: 85% of the positive cases in America are from people who say they wore the mask everyday, all the time, or at least almost all the time. 85% of the positive cases,” Forest said. President Donald Trump, a frequent Fox News watcher and guest, then mentioned it during his rally in Greenville on Thursday. "Did you see, the CDC, that 85% of the people wearing the masks catch it, OK?" Trump said. The data in the CDC report, however, cannot be generalized to say "almost everyone" who wore a mask in July got the coronavirus. It’s from a very small sample the authors said may not be representative of the United States, and mask use was self-reported. The report does not say masks don’t work to slow the spread of COVID-19. The CDC study wasn’t measuring mask effectiveness The CDC paper summarizes findings from a survey of 314 people. The total included a group of 154 symptomatic people who tested positive for the coronavirus in July and a control group of 160 symptomatic people who tested negative for the coronavirus in July. Based on the results of the survey, the CDC report said two activities were linked to a positive coronavirus test: close contact with someone who also tested positive, and going to locations with on-site eating and drinking options, such as bars and restaurants. Of the 160 survey participants who tested negative, 74.2% said they "always" wore a mask or face covering and 14.5% said they "often" did so. Of the 154 survey participants who tested positive, 70.6% said they "always" wore a mask or face covering and 14.4% said they "often" did so. Those numbers form the basis of Carlson’s claim that 85% of people "who got the coronavirus in July (were) wearing a mask." A Fox News spokesperson pointed to those figures and a segment from Carlson’s show the following night. In the segment, Carlson addressed a statement he said the CDC made to Fox News. Carlson said the agency called his commentary on the September study "misleading." "CDC guidance on masks has clearly stated that wearing a mask is intended to protect other people in case the mask wearer is infected," the CDC said in the statement. "At no time has CDC guidance suggested that masks were intended to protect the wearers." Carlson told viewers the CDC didn’t address his original claim. "The spokesman didn’t dispute that we had showed accurate data from the CDC, including that 85% of people who tested positive for coronavirus in July reported wearing a mask always or often," Carlson said. But the CDC study wasn’t measuring the impact of masks. "Participants were asked about mask use as an individual behavior," CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald told PolitiFact. "However, the aim of the study was to assess possible situations for community exposure, not mask use." Carlson misrepresented the CDC paper’s findings It’s misleading to leap to conclusions about the effectiveness of masks from the CDC report, since most participants reported wearing them and the study was not controlling for mask use. "You can’t just look at a table and draw conclusions without understanding the details of the study," said Cindy Prins, an epidemiologist with the University of Florida. "It is difficult to detect the effect of an exposure or intervention when it is widely deployed or used," McDonald added. He said both groups of participants had high levels of mask use, and that the rates of people who always wore a mask in each group were not "statistically different." The study did find a significant difference between the groups: whether participants went out for food or drink. The study authors wrote that those with positive test results were "approximately twice as likely to have reported dining at a restaurant" than those who tested negative. The link between restaurants and catching the coronavirus is important to Carlson’s claim, since most people lower their masks to sip their drink or eat their food. "Restaurants and coffee shops are places where people will tend to not wear a mask," Prins said. The study’s authors noted that masks "cannot be effectively worn while eating and drinking." But Carlson claimed that 85% of July cases were "wearing a mask" and "infected anyway." "Going to places where mask use and social distancing cannot be maintained might be an important risk factor for COVID-19," McDonald said. Carlson’s comment also ignored limitations listed in the study. The people were surveyed at 11 health care facilities, where they’d all sought testing because they were experiencing symptoms. So they "might not be representative of the United States population," the study’s authors wrote. Ben Neuman, a virologist with Texas A&M University, Texarkana, also took issue with the survey’s reliance on the participants’ self-reporting of their own mask use. "There are certain things that are embarrassing or politically and socially sensitive, and you generally won’t get honest answers if you just ask them on a questionnaire," Neuman said. Carlson misrepresented how masks work Carlson’s claim also mischaracterized the science behind masks. While masks do provide some protection for wearers, experts and public health officials say they are most effective as "source control," preventing infected people from transmitting the virus. "When a person who is infected with COVID-19 wears a mask, it helps to reduce the amount of virus that they release when they cough, talk, or even breathe," Prins said. The CDC recommends wearing masks in public and when social distancing isn’t possible. Neuman previously shared three studies with PolitiFact that found wearing masks reduces the likelihood of contracting the coronavirus. Other studies have said the same. "Growing evidence increasingly shows that wearing masks in community settings reduces transmission among individuals in that community," McDonald said. "There are laboratory studies, animal studies, community and epidemiological studies, as well as policy studies that show masking reduces transmission in communities by blocking exhaled respiratory droplets." The Fox News spokesperson cited CDC Director Robert Redfield’s September testimony as an example of how mask wearing "doesn’t work the way they tell us it works," as Carlson claimed. Redfield touted the effectiveness of masks relative to a potential coronavirus vaccine. "I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine," Redfield said in a clip Carlson played on his show. But Redfield never said that masks only protect the wearer — or that they offer complete and total protection in that regard. He was comparing masks to a potential early vaccine, which he said wouldn’t necessarily guarantee an immune response. "He was suggesting if everyone around him wore a mask, he would be protected until a vaccine became available," McDonald said. The CDC has been clear elsewhere that masks help keep infected people from passing the virus to others. The CDC’s website, for example, says masks help "prevent a person who is sick from spreading the virus to others." It adds: "The protective effects — how well the mask protects healthy people from breathing in the virus — are unknown." PolitiFact ruling: FALSE
Interesting approach for public buildings... Coronavirus: Germany improves ventilation to chase away Covid BBC - https://tinyurl.com/y53rugg7 The German government is investing €500m (£452m; $488m) in improving ventilation systems in public buildings to help stop the spread of coronavirus. The grants will go to improve the air circulation in public offices, museums, theatres, universities and schools. Private firms are not yet eligible. Viruses spread on tiny droplets called aerosols, exhaled by infected people - especially when they sneeze or cough. Studies suggest they can remain in a room's air for at least eight minutes. Colder weather puts more people at risk because they spend more time indoors. The main aim is to upgrade existing air conditioning systems, rather than install new ones, which costs more. Each upgrade is eligible for a maximum of €100,000. Funding is also available for CO2 sensors which indicate when the air in a room is unhealthily stale. The grants will be allocated from Tuesday. The government also wants schools lacking central air conditioning systems to at least get mobile air purifiers. But much will also depend on how easily rooms can be ventilated simply by opening the windows. The Bavarian broadcaster BR24 reports that the mobile ventilators, which filter out tiny particles and cost from €2,000 each, can effectively purify a room within minutes. But German experts say apparatus that relies on UV-light, ionisation or ozone can be ineffective against coronavirus, and in some cases worsen the air quality. According to Germany's latest official figures, 4,325 new cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, but Monday's figure is usually lower as fewer cases are reported at the weekend. The reported German death toll is 9,789. The infection rate has risen across Germany in recent weeks, but the surge is more marked in some neighbouring countries, notably the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and France. According to Germany's latest official figures, 4,325 new cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, but Monday's figure is usually lower as fewer cases are reported at the weekend. The reported German death toll is 9,789. The infection rate has risen across Germany in recent weeks, but the surge is more marked in some neighbouring countries, notably the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and France. Germans love open windows more than ever Many Germans are a bit bemused that their relationship with fresh air has provoked such curiosity in Britain of late. Why, after all, wouldn't you fling your windows wide open each morning to create a nice healthy draught? Fresh air has, for a while now, been seen as a key to dealing with coronavirus too. L for Luft (air) was recently added to A for Abstand (distance), H for Hygiene and A for Alltagsmaske (mask) - the official government directives on how to live in corona times. So choirs rehearse in rooms open to the elements. Train windows are cranked open. Diners are still being served outdoors at many establishments, prompting a national ethical debate over patio heaters. But, as the air turns sharper and colder, it is education ministers who are feeling the chill. It has been mooted - not always in jest - that children should attend lessons wrapped in coats, gloves, hats and perhaps a duvet, prompting fury among teachers. And many German classrooms, in poor repair after prolonged underinvestment, simply do not have windows that open. German engineers are on the case though. I recently visited a company which usually manufactures heating and ventilation systems. It has now created an air filtration system designed with windowless classrooms in mind. There are widespread fears that the new coronavirus wave will only intensify as the weather gets colder in Europe and more people share confined spaces. Windows will stay shut longer to keep out cold draughts. Virus particles also survive longer when they are not exposed to direct heat and sunlight. The cool air in abattoirs is reckoned to have contributed to several Covid-19 outbreaks in Germany in recent months. The tiny droplets that carry the virus can not only remain suspended in the air for more than eight minutes, they can also travel several metres. The German government's advice is to open windows for at least five minutes every hour, for example during class changeovers in schools. The UK's Health and Safety Executive also recommends fans to dissipate pockets of stale air in rooms and using a fresh air supply, instead of just recirculating air through the air conditioning system.
"This just in: The United Airlines study that concluded flying presents a low Covid-19 infection rate might not be accurate." 'Bad math': Airlines' COVID safety analysis challenged by expert https://www.reuters.com/article/instant-article/idUSL8N2H672K Scientist skipped industry event over low-risk analysis Describes IATA calculation as “bad math” Plane cabins still relatively safe - studies PARIS, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A campaign by coronavirus-stricken aviation giants to persuade the world it’s safe to fly has been questioned by one of the scientists whose research it draws upon. Dr David Freedman, a U.S. infectious diseases specialist, said he declined to take part in a recent presentation by global airline body IATA with planemakers Airbus, Boeing and Embraer that cited his work. While he welcomed some industry findings as “encouraging”, Freedman said a key assertion about the improbability of catching COVID-19 on planes was based on “bad math”. Airlines and planemakers are anxious to restart international travel, even as a second wave of infections and restrictions take hold in many countries. The Oct. 8 media presentation listed in-flight infections reported in scientific studies or by IATA airlines - and compared the tally with total passenger journeys this year. “With only 44 identified potential cases of flight-related transmission among 1.2 billion travellers, that’s one case for every 27 million,” IATA medical adviser Dr David Powell said in a news release, echoed in comments during the event. IATA said its findings “align with the low numbers reported in a recently published peer-reviewed study by Freedman and Wilder-Smith”. But Freedman, who co-authored the paper in the Journal of Travel Medicine with Dr Annelies Wilder-Smith of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said he took issue with IATA’s risk calculation because the reported count bore no direct relation to the unknown real number of infections. “They wanted me at that press conference to present the stuff, but honestly I objected to the title they had put on it,” the University of Alabama academic told Reuters. “It was bad math. 1.2 billion passengers during 2020 is not a fair denominator because hardly anybody was tested. How do you know how many people really got infected?” he said. “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” IATA believes its calculation remains a “relevant and credible” sign of low risk, a spokesman said in response to requests for comment from the industry body and its top medic Powell. “We’ve not claimed it’s a definitive and absolute number.” Wilder-Smith could not be immediately reached for comment. CLOSING RANKS While the pandemic has seen some airlines leave middle seats empty to reassure customers, the industry has opposed making such measures mandatory. Plane cabins are considered lower-risk than many indoor spaces because of their powerful ventilation and their layout, with forward-facing passengers separated by seat rows. Ceiling-to-floor airflows sweep pathogens into high-grade filters. That understanding is supported by simulations and tests run by the aircraft makers as well as a U.S. Defense Department study released on Thursday. The joint presentation with all three manufacturers signalled a rare closing of ranks among industrial archrivals, behind a message designed to reassure. Sitting beside an infected economy passenger is comparable to seven-foot distancing in an office, Boeing tests concluded, posing an acceptably low risk with masks. Standard health advice often recommends a six-foot separation. Airbus showed similar findings, while Embraer tested droplet dispersal from a cough. Some 0.13% by mass ended up in an adjacent passenger’s facial area, falling to 0.02% with masks. Dr Henry Wu, associate professor at Atlanta’s Emory School of Medicine, said the findings were inconclusive on their own because the minimum infective dose remains unknown, and risks increase in step with exposure time. “It’s simply additive,” said Wu, who would prefer middle seats to be left empty. “A 10-hour flight will be 10 times riskier than a one-hour flight.” Nonetheless, a commercial jet cabin is “probably one of the safer public settings you can be in,” he added. “Sitting at a crowded bar for a few hours is going to be much riskier.” ‘SUPERSPREADER EVENTS’ Scientists are poring over dozens of on-board infection cases, as well as flights with contagious passengers but no known transmission. In March, 11 infectious passengers on a five-hour Sydney-Perth flight passed the virus to 11 others, according to a paper in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal. Among those infected, two were seated three rows away from a contagious passenger and one was six rows away, suggesting that typical two-row contact-tracing might have missed them. One sufferer on a 10-hour London-Hanoi flight the same month infected 16 others including 12 in her business-class cabin, according to a study by Vietnamese and Australian academics. “Long flights ... can provide conditions for superspreader events,” the study said, adding that its findings “challenge” the airlines’ assertion that on-board distancing is unnecessary. IATA points out that many of the flights examined by scientists in published studies occurred before mask-wearing became widespread and reduced infection risks. Its presentation conceded that the 1-in-27 million statistic “may be an underestimate”, while maintaining that in-flight infections remained less likely than a lightning strike, even if only 10% of actual cases had made the count. “That’s misleading,” Emory’s Wu said. “Thinking about how hard it is to identify them, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s far less than 1%. The only thing I’m sure of is that it’s a fantastic underestimate.” (Reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Pravin Char)
Debunking the False Claim That COVID Death Counts Are Inflated President Trump, a congressman and conspiracy fantasists have repeated the myth. But three kinds of evidence point to more than 218,000 U.S. deaths https://www.scientificamerican.com/...e-claim-that-covid-death-counts-are-inflated/ A persistent falsehood has been circulating on social media: thenumber of COVID deaths is much lower than the official statistic of more than 218,000, and therefore the danger of the disease has been overblown. In August President Trump retweeted a post claiming that only 6 percent of these reported deaths were actually from COVID-19. (The tweet originated from a follower of the debunked conspiracy fantasy QAnon.) Twitter removed the post for containing false information, but fabrications such as these continue to spread. U.S. Representative Roger Marshall of Kansas complained in September that Facebook had removed a post in which he claimed that 94 percent of COVID-19 deaths reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “were the result of 2-3 additional serious illnesses and were of advanced age.”Now some facts: Researchers know beyond a doubt that the number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have surpassed 200,000. These numbers are supported by three lines of evidence, including death certificates. The inaccurate idea that only 6 percent of the deaths were really caused by the coronavirus is “a gross misinterpretation” of how death certificates work, says Robert Anderson, lead mortality statistician at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Now some facts: Researchers know beyond a doubt that the number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have surpassed 200,000. These numbers are supported by three lines of evidence, including death certificates. The inaccurate idea that only 6 percent of the deaths were really caused by the coronavirus is “a gross misinterpretation” of how death certificates work, says Robert Anderson, lead mortality statistician at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The scope of the coronavirus’s deadly toll is clear, even if final numberswill not be known until the pandemic is over. “We’re pretty confident about the scale and order of magnitude of deaths, but we’re not clear on the exact number yet,” says Justin Lessler, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. To understand why the figures contain some uncertainty, it is important to know how they are collected and calculated. The first source of death data is called case surveillance. Health care providers are required to report cases and deaths from certain diseases, including measles, mumps and now COVID-19, to their state’s health department, which, in turn, passes this information along to the CDC, Anderson says. The surveillance data are a kind of “quick and dirty” accounting, says Shawna Webster, executive director of the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems. The states gather all the information they can on these diseases, but this is the first pass of the accounting—no one has time to double-check the information or look for missing lab tests, she says. For that, you have to look for the next source of information: vital records. This second line of evidence comes from the National Vital Statistics System, which records birth and death certificates. When somebody dies, a death certificate is filed in the state where the death occurred. And after the records are registered at a state level, they are sent to the National Center for Health Statistics, which tracks deaths at a national level. Death certificates are not filed in the system until outstanding test results are in and the information is as complete as possible. By the time a record gets to the vital records system, “it is as close to perfect as it’s going to get,” Webster says. A physician, medical examiner or coroner fills out the cause of mortality on the death certificate, and they are instructed to include only those conditions that caused or contributed to death, Anderson says. One field lists the sequence of events leading to the death. “What we’re really trying to get at is the condition or disease that started the chain of events leading to the death,” Anderson says. “For COVID-19, that might be something like acute respiratory distress due to pneumonia due to COVID-19.” A second part of the certificate lists other significant conditions that may have contributed to the death yet were not part of the sequence of events that led up to it, he says. These are called comorbidities, and while they can be contributing factors, they cannot be directly involved in the chain of cause and effect that ended in death. Preexisting medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease are common comorbidities, and they can make a person more vulnerable to the coronavirus, Anderson says, “but the fact is: they’re not dying from that preexisting condition.” “When we ask if COVID killed somebody, it means ‘Did they die sooner than they would have if they didn’t have the virus?’” Lessler says. Even such a person with a potentially life-shortening preexisting condition such as heart disease or diabetes may have lived another five, 10 or many more years, had they not become infected with COVID-19. The 6 percent number touted by Trump and QAnon comes from a weekly CDC report stating that in 6 percent of the coronavirus mortality cases it counted, COVID-19 was the only condition listed on the death certificate. That observation likely means that those death certificates were incomplete because the certifiers only gave the underlying cause of death and not the full causal sequence that led to it, Anderson says. Even someone who does not have a preexisting condition and dies from COVID-19 will also have comorbidities in the form of symptoms, such as respiratory failure, caused by the coronavirus. The idea that a death certificate with ailments listed in addition to COVID-19 means that the person did not really die from the virus is simply false, Anderson says. The surveillance and vital statistics data provide a pretty good picture of how many deaths are attributable to the coronavirus, but they do not capture all of them, and that is where the final line of evidence come in: excess deaths. They are the number of deaths that occur above and beyond the historical pattern for that time period, says Steven Woolf, a physician and population health researcher at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. In a paper published in JAMA this month, Woolf and his colleagues examined death records in the U.S. from March 1 through August 1 and compared them with the expected mortality numbers. They found that there was a 20 percent increase in deaths during this time period—for a total of 225,530 excess deaths—compared with previous years. Two thirds of these cases were attributed to COVID-19 on the death certificates, and Woolf says there are two types of explanations for the rest: Some of them were COVID-19 deaths that simply were not documented as such, perhaps because the person died at home and was never tested or because the certificate was miscoded. And some of the extra deaths were probably a consequence of the pandemic yet not necessarily the virus itself. For instance, he says, imagine a patient with chest pain who is scared to go to the hospital because they do not want to get the virus and then dies of a heart attack. Woolf calls this “indirect mortality.” “The deaths aren’t literally caused by the virus itself but the pandemic is claiming lives,” he says. The numbers in Woolf’s study come from provisional death data, the kind that the CDC has not yet checked for miscoding or other issues, so it comes with some degree of imprecision. What builds his confidence in these results, however, is the fact that they have been replicated numerous times by his group and others. “All serious analyses of these data are showing that the number of deaths we’re hearing on the news is an undercount,” he says. COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Whether the deaths add up to 218,511, 219,681 or 219,541—as reported by the CDC, Johns Hopkins University and the New York Times, respectively, on October 19—it’s a staggering number of lives cut short.
The CDC's Latest Antibody Data Confirm Huge Interstate Differences in COVID-19 Fatality Rates The findings suggest that people infected in Connecticut were 10 times as likely to die as people infected in Utah or Oregon. https://reason.com/2020/10/20/the-c...state-differences-in-covid-19-fatality-rates/ The latest data from antibody studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) across the country confirm that the death rate among Americans infected by the COVID-19 virus varies very widely from one state to another. The CDC's prevalence estimates for August, combined with contemporaneous death counts, suggest that the infection fatality rate (IFR) was at least 10 times higher in Connecticut than in Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, or Utah, for example. The CDC estimated the number of people who had been infected in each state based on antibody screening of blood samples drawn for routine diagnostic tests unrelated to COVID-19. Those patients may not have been representative of the general population, and the number of samples tested was relatively small in most states, leading to wide confidence intervals. Still, the CDC's numbers give us a sense of the gap between confirmed cases and total infections (including cases with mild or no symptoms) in each state. I combined those estimates with the death tolls reported by Worldometer as of August 15 to estimate IFRs. The estimated IFRs range from less than 0.4 percent in Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, and Utah to 3.8 percent in Connecticut. Most states (27) had estimated IFRs below 1 percent, although 20 reached or exceeded that threshold. The CDC did not report prevalence estimates for Hawaii, South Dakota, or Wyoming. Based on data from other countries, the CDC has estimated that the nationwide IFR for the United States is 0.65 percent, although the estimate varies dramatically with age, from 0.003 percent among people 19 or younger to 5.4 percent among people in their 70s. If you look at the 10 states with the biggest populations, you can see that the estimated IFR based on the CDC's prevalence numbers is similar to the CDC's nationwide IFR estimate in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Georgia; lower in California; and higher in New York, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, and Michigan. The estimated IFR for New York, the state with the highest infection rate, is 0.75 percent. That IFR is somewhat higher than the estimate suggested by an antibody study that the New York State Department of Health conducted in April, when it put statewide infection prevalence at 14 percent, compared to the CDC's estimate of 22.5 percent in August. Given the uncertainties of extrapolating from the blood samples analyzed by the CDC, which were not randomly drawn from the general population, we should not put too much stock in these state-specific IFR estimates. But the high estimated IFRs for Northeastern states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island are consistent with their high case fatality rates (deaths as a share of confirmed cases). Conversely, the lower IFR estimates for states such as Arkansas, California, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, and Utah are consistent with their lower case fatality rates. Why do COVID-19 patients fare so much worse in some states than others? Possible explanations include age demographics, the prevalence of preexisting medical conditions, the quality and capacity of local health care systems (including the extent to which they are strained by the pandemic), and population density, which not only makes it easier for the virus to move from person to person but may result in larger virus doses and more dangerous infections. Another factor could be the timing of each state's epidemic, since the development of more effective treatments may have improved outcomes for people infected more recently.
Dr. Gottlieb warns US is a week away from ‘rapid acceleration’ of COVID-19 https://bgr.com/2020/10/20/coronavirus-wave-2-scott-gottlieb/ Former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned in interviews that the biggest coronavirus wave is yet to come, and the US is looking at a “rapid acceleration” of cases as soon as next week. Gottlieb said the US will face the “most difficult phase of this epidemic” without vaccines, and reminded us that safety measures, including face masks and social distancing, can still reduce the spread. Gottlieb also explained that the “biggest risks” for people are the places where they feel more comfortable and let their guards down, such as indoor gatherings. The nightmare coronavirus scenario that health experts have been warning about over the summer is unfolding. The US is witnessing a massive explosion of cases, which could lead to the third peak of its COVID-19 epidemic. The new surge in cases coincides with the colder season’s arrival, which pushes more people indoors and leads to transmission. The virus survives even longer in colder weather, according to studies. Health experts are also worried about the flu epidemic converging with the COVID-19, causing complications for patients and health systems. However, the flu season hasn’t started, and it might not be as pronounced if people respect health measures. Hand washing, social distancing, and mask-wearing can reduce the risk of flu transmission as well. But COVID-19 is spreading faster from day to day, and Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in recent interviews that the “biggest wave” is yet to come, warning that America is about “a week away from a rapid acceleration” of cases. “We’re going to have to endure this wave of spread right now,” the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Sunday on Face the Nation. “And it’s probably likely to be the biggest wave that we endure without the benefit of a vaccinated population.” Gottlieb explained that there’s really no backstop against the spread that we’re seeing” and that the “most difficult phase of this epidemic” is coming. The expert also said that without any health measures in place, “if people weren’t wearing masks generally and some states weren’t adhering to some mitigation tactics, and we weren’t testing and tracing, then we’d have much worse spread.” As of Tuesday morning, more than 8.46 million Americans tested positive, and over 225,000 lost their lives to COVID-19 complications. Gottlieb also said that the COVID-19 spread occurs mainly in “it’s occurring in congregate settings where people feel more comfortable, a local Elks Club, a large family gathering.” Those are the “biggest risk” places for people, he said, addressing the upcoming presidential election. Precautions are being taken at polling places, the public health expert added. In a separate interview with CNBC on Monday, the former FDA official said the US is about “a week away from seeing a rapid acceleration in cases.” The number of daily COVID-19 cases has been increasing since early September when it dropped below 30,000 for the first time since June. The number of cases neared 70,000 on Friday. “The summer was a backstop, of sorts, to the spring surge, and we have no therapeutic backstop,” Gottlieb said. “The fall and winter season is when this coronavirus is going to want to spread.” “We can look to happier days, but these are going to be some tough months ahead,” he added. The doctor said that he’s optimistic about vaccine trials, but the patients can look forward to COVID-19 immunity for early 2021, even if they get the first shots in late 2020. Gottlieb also sits on Pfizer’s board, one of the pharmaceutical companies currently testing vaccines in Phase 3 trials. Pfizer expects to seek emergency use authorization in late November if the drug is safe and effective.
And yet you have nothing to say about the U.S. estimated Infection Fatality Rate being a very high 0.65% --- much higher than the 0.1% IFR for COVID-19 being pushed by some posters.