New York City, April 1&2, 2020
Referred to in the interview, the following paper is a work-in-process and will continue to be updated as more data comes in. The first three months of the COVID-19 epidemic: Epidemiological evidence for two separate strains of SARS-CoV-2 viruses spreading and implications for prevention strategies Two epidemics of COVID-19 KNUT M. WITTKOWSKI ASDERA LLC, New York, NY Abstract About one month after the COVID-19 epidemic peaked in Mainland China and SARS-CoV-2 migrated to Europe and then the U.S., the epidemiological data begin to provide important insights into the risks associated with the disease and the effectiveness of intervention strategies such as travel restrictions and social distancing. Respiratory diseases, including the 2003 SARS epidemic, remain only about two months in any given population, although peak incidence and lethality can vary. The epidemiological data suggest that at least two strains of the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 virus have evolved during its migration from Mainland China to Europe. South Korea, Iran, Italy, and Italy’s neighbors were hit by the more dangerous “SKII” variant. While the epidemic in continental Asia is about to end, and in Europe about to level off, the more recent epidemic in the younger US population is still increasing, albeit not exponentially anymore. The peak level will likely depend on which of the strains has entered the U.S. first. The same models that help us to understand the epidemic also help us to choose prevention strategies. Containment of high-risk people, like the elderly, and reducing disease severity, either by vaccination or by early treatment of complications, is the best strategy against a respiratory virus disease. Social distancing or “lockdowns” can be effective during the month following the peak incidence in infections, when the exponential increase of cases ends. Earlier containment of low-risk people merely prolongs the time the virus needs to circulate until the incidence is high enough to initiate “herd immunity”. Later containment is not helpful, unless to prevent a rebound if containment started too early. About the Author
Dr. Wittkowski received his PhD in computer science from the University of Stuttgart and his ScD (Habilitation) in Medical Biometry from the Eberhard-Karls-University Tuüingen, both Germany. He worked for 15 years with Klaus Dietz, a leading epidemiologist who coined the term “reproduction number”, on the Epidemiology of HIV before heading for 20 years the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at The Rockefeller University, New York. Dr. Wittkowski is currently the CEO of ASDERA LLC, a company discovering novel treatments for complex diseases from data of genome-wide association studies. |
[00:36.03] JOHN: You gave recommendations for how best to deal with COVID-19. Could you just describe what you wrote? [00:44.20] WITTKOWSKI: As with every respiratory disease, we should protect the elderly and fragile because when they get pneumonia, they have a high risk of dying of the pneumonia. So that is one of the key issues that we should keep in mind. On the other hand, children do very well with these diseases. They’re evolutionarily designed to be exposed to all sorts of viruses during their lifetime, and so they should keep going to school and infecting each other. Then, that contributes to herd immunity, which means after about four weeks at the most, the elderly people could start joining their family because then the virus would have been extinguished. [01:36.02] JOHN: You mention in the piece that in fact you think containment would prolong the duration of the virus. Can you talk about that? [01:45.00] WITTKOWSKI: With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity. About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won’t even have recognized that they were infected, or they had very, very mild symptoms, especially if they are children. So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible, and then the elderly people, who should be separated, and the nursing homes should be closed during that time, can come back and meet their children and grandchildren after about 4 weeks when the virus has been exterminated. [02:33.24] JOHN: And so, what do you make of the policy that was enacted in the United States and England and most places throughout the world, this policy of containment, shelter-in-place, etc.? What’s your opinion of it? [02:47.05] WITTKOWSKI: Well, what people are trying to do is flatten the curve. I don’t really know why. But, what happens is if you flatten the curve, you also prolong, to widen it, and it takes more time. And I don’t see a good reason for a respiratory disease to stay in the population longer than necessary. [03:06.17] JOHN: And what do you say to people who just say, “We just didn’t know about the lethality of this virus and it was the smartest thing to do, to do what we did, and contain everybody, because we just didn’t have the data.” [03:23.16] WITTKOWSKI: We had two other SARS viruses before. Or, coronaviruses. It’s not the first coronavirus that comes out, and it won’t be the last. And for all respiratory diseases, we have the same type of an epidemic. If you leave it alone, it comes for two weeks, it peaks, and it goes for two weeks and it’s gone. [03:46.07] JOHN: You were speaking to my producer the other day on the phone, and you said, “The pandemic is over.” What do you mean by that? [03:56.04] WITTKOWSKI: There are no more new cases in China and in South Korea. The number of new cases in Europe is already beginning to decline. The virus came later to the US, so here we see a bit of an incline, maybe, and leveling off within the next couple of days. And if we see that the cases are not increasing dramatically, that means that the number of new infections has already declined substantially and peaked about a week ago. [04:27.09] LIBBY: Do you believe the Chinese statistics? Do you think they’ve lied to us? Do you believe the stats that have come out of China?
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From Ratical, here.
