Questions tagged [epidemiology]
The epidemiology tag has no usage guidance.
120
questions
0
votes
0
answers
64
views
Discordant optimal total cholesterol levels for lowest mortality?
The 2019 ESC/EAS dyslipidemia guidelines [1] recommend lowering LDL cholesterol as much as possible to reduce cardiovascular risk. They cite evidence that higher LDL cholesterol increases CVD risk and ...
- 139
2
votes
0
answers
43
views
Useful indices in epidemiology for assesing the performance of a country in Covid19 pandemic
In my dataset I have daily observations of Covid19 data for many countries. More specifically, I have daily observations about:
new_cases (New confirmed cases of COVID-19. Counts can include probable ...
- 21
-1
votes
1
answer
80
views
Likelihood of passing HSV1 when no sores are present
Prior research:
WHO Says
Both HSV-1 and HSV-2 are most contagious when sores are present, but can also be transmitted when no symptoms are felt or visible.
Question:
My problem is I am looking for ...
- 7
1
vote
1
answer
65
views
Negative COVID test day of event, positive next morning. What is the risk of transmission?
Imagine someone attends a relatively large social gathering during the day and evening. That morning they had a negative COVID test. There was substantial close contact, such as hugging.
The next day, ...
- 341
2
votes
0
answers
27
views
What is the normal range of platelet count and does this differ with age and sex?
I am trying to study the normal range of platelet counts and there are various sources out there on the internet on this topic. The article What do high or low platelet count levels mean? suggests ...
- 121
4
votes
1
answer
44
views
Pathophysiology of bronchiolitis vs. bronchitis
In most medical textbooks, bronchitis is said to be an inflammation of both bronchi and bronchioles, and to affect mostly adults.
On the other hand, bronchiolitis is said to be a specific inflammation ...
- 71
3
votes
1
answer
50
views
Workable statistics about diagnoses per disease / country / year
I'm looking for data/stats related to the number of diagnoses (per year) (per country) (per disease) at least from 2000 up to 2020/2021 for major diseases (like the 5-10 most related to deaths WW). ...
- 131
2
votes
1
answer
52
views
How accurate is this covid-19 article related to reinfection risk after recovering from omicron?
Sorry if this is wordy. I've tried to include the research I did, before asking. If anything is poorly worded, let me know, I'll try to fix it.
This article, although sketchy, and slightly ...
- 341
28
votes
7
answers
11k
views
Why do doctors ask for your race?
Things like gender and age and height and weight make perfect sense to me, but I don't really see why most doctors ask for your race. Is there a medical reason behind this or is it just for ...
- 443
1
vote
1
answer
26
views
How often is SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in plasma, for patients otherwise diagnosed?
I'm curious how sensitive the earliest retrospective diagnoses for SARS-CoV-2 (in China) might be. According to the paper which put the earliest case to December 1, 2019 that retrospective diagnosis ...
- 5,928
3
votes
2
answers
125
views
Was there a clear effect attributable to FFP2 (~N95) mask mandates in Germany in crowded environments (shops, buses, etc.)?
Back in January or so, Bavaria at least mandated FFP2 (roughly equivalent to US N95) masks be worn in shops, buses and presumably similar environments. At least Berlin followed suit some months later ...
- 5,928
2
votes
2
answers
59
views
How is "absolute risk of death" from covid (or something else) usually defined for infectious diseases?
There's been some discussion on Twitter regarding whether a BBC article is misleading or not. The article says:
Researchers estimate that 25 deaths in a population of some 12 million children in ...
- 5,928
0
votes
0
answers
45
views
How does knowing how COVID-19 originated help prevent future pandemics?
There's been an ongoing effort to investigate the origins of COVID-19. The motivation is allegedly to prevent another pandemic from happening.
How does knowing how COVID-19 originated prevent another ...
- 618
0
votes
1
answer
225
views
Do vaccinated people not have zero risk of mortality by Covid 19?
This video by Vox says people who are vaccinated have zero risk of mortality by Covid 19.
But NDTV reports (at 00:21 and again at 07:53 in the video) that even fully vaccinated 8 frontline medical ...
user20181
1
vote
0
answers
43
views
What is the historical or scientific basis for concern about COVID vaccines and pregnant women and their babies?
There's a lot of talk about whether COVID vaccines are safe for pregnant women and their fetuses. Current guidelines, while mentioning that there's little data, suggest that they are safe. However, I'...
- 111
1
vote
0
answers
19
views
Does the number of contacts people have follow some well known distribution?
In the context of contact tracing, I tried to find whether the number of contacts people have follows some well known distribution, e.g. Gaussian, Zipf etc. But I'm coming up empty. Were any such ...
- 5,928
2
votes
0
answers
26
views
Number of subsequent infections per case / overdispersion of COVID-19
I am aware that SARS-CoV-2 shows overdispersion, that is that many infected people cause no subsequent infections, but a small number of people cause very many infections (superspreading). The best ...
- 121
-1
votes
1
answer
25
views
Do health departments inform hospitals/doctors of disease trends?
For example, during a common cold epidemic, do doctors get reported beforehand that there is a trend going on so that they can use this information to suspect diagnosis?
Does every health care unit ...
- 1
0
votes
2
answers
30
views
Is there a term for "average time to transmit" in epidemiology?
The effective reproduction number gives us the average number of people an infected person will transmit a disease to. Though Rt doesn't include a time dimension, perhaps related would be the average ...
- 111
-1
votes
1
answer
58
views
For fighting COVID19, Why we give the body the RNA and not give the body the protien itself? [duplicate]
If I understand things correctly the popular COVID 19 vaccine gives the body RNA that teaches the body cells to create a protein that looks like the virus. And then the body learns to fight against it....
-1
votes
1
answer
61
views
How can "new viruses" exist? [closed]
Background: I have no background in medical sciences, and this is something I've been thinking about since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic; please ELI5 your answer if you can. Thanks!
We estimate ...
- 109
1
vote
0
answers
35
views
If HCoV-NL63 also binds to ACE2 (like SARS and SARS-CoV-2) why doesn't it cause a more severe disease (on one hand) or a pandemic (on the other)?
By all accounts the "common cold" virus HCoV-NL63 although much further away (genetically) from SARS and SARS-CoV-2 it actually uses the same ACE2 receptor for entry (or at least the S1A ...
- 5,928
1
vote
0
answers
18
views
Solve SIR in continuous or discrete form, which one is more accurate in epidemiology sense
Oftentimes, SIR model is used in epidemiology to model infection. Based on the model form, the original SIR model is continuous, and strictly should be solved with continous ode solver. However, it ...
- 123
4
votes
0
answers
57
views
What are the standard demographic equations for modeling virus spread?
I am wondering what the set of differential equations is that is used to model how viruses spread in a population?
I am also wondering how epidemiologists get around the highly irregular shape of a ...
- 41
1
vote
1
answer
26
views
Definition of 'transmission onset' in this paper
I am a nonmedical scientist trying to make sense of medical terms that were involved in the following study: Transmission onset distribution of COVID-19. I am attaching a link to the paper for your ...
- 113
3
votes
0
answers
58
views
Why do we seemingly not know how COVID will behave during winter, when it was winter in much of the world?
(Not sure if this is the right SE for this question)
Why COVID Outbreaks Could Worsen This Winter
Baker has tried to tease apart the effect of climate on the seasonal pattern of cases during the ...
- 618
1
vote
0
answers
56
views
UK - Sweden Covid-19 Comparison
I compared Covid-19 data on the 17th of October 2020, using this source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
UK population = 66650000
Uk cases = 708297
UK deaths = 43669
66650000 / 708297 = 1 ...
- 111
1
vote
0
answers
57
views
For how long can you wear a surgical mask? [closed]
I used to think that you can wear a mask for up to two hours, regardless of how many times you put it on and take it off. This guide says you can wear it for up to five times without any ...
- 141
1
vote
1
answer
111
views
What should you put on your face if you want to protect both yourself and others?
Surgical masks protect other people but provide almost no protection for the wearer (see https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/14/facebook-posts/face-masks-wildfire-smoke-protection-and-covid-...
- 141
2
votes
0
answers
45
views
How effective are reused surgical masks?
Let's say I have used a surgical mask multiple times. And say I left it on a safe place, untouched, for three days which is the longest that viable SARS-CoV-2 has been found on different materials (...
- 507
2
votes
0
answers
78
views
Are lockdowns good or bad? What is the scientific consensus, if any? [closed]
I thought doctors support lockdown measures and populist politicians oppose them, but then this "Barrington Declaration" cropped up and I don't know what to think now. Are lockdowns good or ...
- 141
5
votes
1
answer
60
views
How old is the suppression/mitigation distinction in epidemiology?
The question is in the title, really. I have seen this distinction being made since March this year in regards to COVID-19 strategies, but how long have epidemiologists used this categorization? Is it ...
- 51
2
votes
2
answers
62
views
How did WHO estimate the number of suspected worldwide COVID-19 cases?
A couple of days ago World Health Organization said that around 780 million people worldwide (or one in ten people worldwide) are suspected to have had COVID-19. (One in 10 worldwide may have had ...
- 507
5
votes
1
answer
129
views
Is there a simple plot comparing covid lethality to flu as a function of age?
There is so much arguing over covid-19 vs. influenza. I would like to have some solid data in my hands. Can anyone point to a simple graph of the following?
age vs. either CFR or IFR
with one line for ...
- 51
1
vote
0
answers
42
views
Why Pakistan can "flatten the curve" but India can't? [closed]
Comparing the Covid 19 trends between India and Pakistan:
One can immediately notice the stark difference: Pakistan managed to "flatten the curve", and India is unable to control the ...
- 545
3
votes
0
answers
101
views
Is it true that half of the COVID-19 patients, even seemingly without symptoms, obtain serious heart damage?
In this video, complex systems expert and physicist-turned-epidemiologist Yaneer Bar-Yam claims that according to recent findings, about half of the people that have been infected with COVID-19 will ...
- 131
8
votes
5
answers
6k
views
Why hasn't Russia's daily COVID-19 cases decreased as a result of its vaccine?
On August 11, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a new vaccine for COVID-19. Since then Russia's COVID charts have looked like this:
Evidently the vaccine has had a weak-to-no effect on both ...
- 618
1
vote
0
answers
19
views
Level of vaccination for safe, large, international event [closed]
I've read as much as I've been able about COVID-19 all these months, but nothing comes to mind that talks about what an appropriate level of vaccination would be among international guests to a large ...
- 111
2
votes
1
answer
54
views
Why is the lifetime prevalence of depression lower than the point prevalence? Figures from a study
From an article titled "Prevalence of Depression in the Community from 30 Countries between 1994 and 2014 (Lim et al., Scientific Reports, 2018)":
A random-effects model meta-analysis that ...
- 1,630
2
votes
1
answer
69
views
Are there independent studies on the efficacy of vaccines?
Is there a collection, meta analysis or review of significant, independent studies that prove the efficacy of vaccinations? I am in discussion with a anti-vaccinationist who claims that the efficacy ...
- 21
3
votes
1
answer
31
views
Are there quantified risk factors for suicide in the U.S.?
The CDC has a page on suicide risk factors/protective factors:
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/riskprotectivefactors.html
Are there any sources that quantifies how much each of these ...
- 1,074
1
vote
1
answer
37
views
Can cancer incidence rates, calculated from the general population, be used in primary care?
I calculated incidence rates (IR) for colorectal cancer using an age-period-cohort model. Is it useful for GPs to use such age, gender and anatomical sub-site specific IRs as a baseline risk, during ...
0
votes
1
answer
66
views
COVID-19 and genomic sequencing
The most common explanation given for the large amount of COVID-19 infections in Victoria (Australia) is that it has been transmitted from inbound people in quarantine via security guards to their ...
- 103
0
votes
1
answer
39
views
Epidemiological characteristics of SARS-CoV-1
SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 seem very similar in terms of their nature and the way in which they entered the human population. SARS-CoV-1 appears to have been driven to extinction, but SARS-CoV-2, which ...
user19808
1
vote
1
answer
39
views
What does it mean, that an epidemic curve is truncated at the level of diagnostic efficiency?
Recently I've heard in one interview with a Professor of Epidemiology, that in my country the epidemic curve of COVID-19 is not flattened (contrary to popular opinion), but rather is truncated at the ...
- 113
5
votes
1
answer
103
views
Is there a standard projection (or ensemble of proyections) about whether a second wave of COVID-19 will occur?
Several countries and states are leaving or have partially left the lockdown and, with constraints, are recovering economical activity after getting hit by the covid-19 crisis.
WHO has warned that ...
- 151
1
vote
0
answers
38
views
Confirmed, recovered, deaths, meaning
I am wondering about the exact definition of a few terms that are being used in connection with the COVID-19, specifically in data sets.
I am interested in the data at github specifically in the time ...
- 119
3
votes
2
answers
121
views
Have clusters of Covid-19 cases been linked to supermarkets?
BBC news about a traditional Indian vegetable market (mandi) as spreading ground for Covid-19:
Koyambedu: India's coronavirus cluster at a vegetable market [...]
On 8 May, Tamil Nadu officials said 1,...
- 5,928
2
votes
1
answer
41
views
What's the margin of error for the estimate on the percentage of people infected with latent tuberculosis?
According to a 2011 (news) article in Science
More than a third of the world's population is estimated to be infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Most people's immune system can keep the ...
- 5,928
1
vote
0
answers
25
views
Why Dengue is considered an Epidemic and not a Pandemic? [closed]
According to Pandemic (and many other sources with similar definitions) a Pandemic is
an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region, for
instance multiple continents or worldwide, ...
- 1,075