Dr. Fauci and Data on Coronavirus Hospitalizations by Age, Race, and Conditions
Dr. Anthony Fauci gave a detailed lecture to the MIT Biology Course on the Coronavirus this morning. Here is the link to previous speakers, and Dr. Fauci’s talk will appear in a few days. Dr. Fauci has spent 36 years as the Director of the NIAID, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has increased scientific research funding, dealt with HIV/AIDS treatment, and dealt with past Coronaviruses, SARS in 2002-3, and MERS. The NIAID budget is $5.9 billion in 2020. He has advised six Presidents over nine Presidential terms.
He repeated the range of herd immunity for the Coronavirus of 50-75%. He noted that three vaccines are being tested, with 30,000, 44,000, and 60,000 subjects. These started at the end of July. He said that we will know if they are successful in November or December, and maybe in October. They are looking for at least 50% effectiveness and also safety.
The data and independent judgements on vaccine trials are done by the Data and Safety Monitoring Board. We don’t know what the data are yet. If the results of the double blind studies have not been unmasked yet, how can the President know that they are favorable?
We don’t know if we have to revaccinate every year, like colds that come back every year, even if we have had them in the past.
In the Southern Hemisphere’s winter during April to August, their Coronavirus prevention measures led to an almost non-existent flu season.
Here are four of Dr. Fauci’s key data slides.
It is now considered that only 20% of those infected with Coronavirus are symptom free. Diagnosing without a test gets more complicated during flu season, so get a flu shot. This makes temperature screening look more useful. Remember, that there are two to three days after infection when those infected are presymptomatic, but can still spread the Coronavirus
The number of hospitalizations per hundred thousand by age, mostly in ten year age intervals (note 50-64) is shown below.
The prevalence of conditions which can lead to complications from the Coronavirus is present in about 41% of American adults, of which 31% is from obesity, and 11% is from diabetes. The number exceed the total of 41% since some people have more than one condition.
The number of hospitalization by race and ethnicity per hundred thousand is heavily weighted to Blacks, Hispanic, and Native American, by a factor of almost 5 (4.7) compared to Whites. Asian Americans are hospitalized at 1.3 times Whites.
The number of deaths per hundred thousand by Race or Ethnicity show that Blacks are dying at 2.4 times that of Whites, and Latinos by 50% greater. Asians are about the same as Whites. There are many factors leading to this, such as minorities having more essential jobs contacting the public, possibly not being covered by health care, having more comorbidities, or receiving poorer health care.
Today is one day after the United States reached 200,000 Coronavirus deaths.
