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Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

reuters.com

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Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#21

Post by chefkoch »

jbotz wrote: post #12
glofish wrote: post #4

I find this to be good even excellent news. It is quite possible the virus is not nearly as dangerous and lethal as people fear. If the young have nothing to worry about the prospects are pretty good. The best way to reach herd immunity is to have lots of immune people around you.

Since about a week ago data has been coming in from antibody testing in Europe... and the results are that IFR (infection fatality rate) is clearly less than 0.5% (0.37% in one city in germany[1]) and the number of actually infected people at least 15 times to 30 times higher than the confirmed number of cases. [1] https://www.n-tv.de/wissen/Heinsberg-Studie-entraetselt-Coro...

That study has been widely critized as there a many false positives with this kind of test and the counting method seems flawed.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#22

Post by Loughla »

manifestsilence wrote: post #9

So people who are fit enough to pass active duty basic training tend not to have symptoms. Solution: put everyone through basic training?

Solution: put everyone through basic training. Corequisite Solution: make everyone be 18-34 years old.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#23

Post by estebank »

cm2187 wrote: post #14
eximius wrote: post #10

This is mixed news. While this indicates the death rate may be lower and the infection rate higher among the general population, the demographic of individuals in the US military are going to be of significantly higher health than the general population. So, it doesn't necessarily ease the risk for demographics already identified as 'at-risk'. If anything, their risk might be understated given the higher infection ra…

It does, the more young healthy people are immune, the less likely the virus will make it to them.

Being asymptomatic is not the same as being immune. It means that more people will feel fine and spread the virus more because they don't know they have it.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#24

Post by richardw »

blakesterz wrote: post #6

>> The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say. I don't know much about this kind of thing, but isn't the most important word in that sentence "sailors"? I would think people living on an aircraft carrier are, on average, way different in many major ways than the average American. So it seems like making any kinds of assumptions based on this wouldn't be super relia…

It probably means this is your best possible case outside of an Olympic village.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#25

Post by kelnos »

glofish wrote: post #4

I find this to be good even excellent news. It is quite possible the virus is not nearly as dangerous and lethal as people fear. If the young have nothing to worry about the prospects are pretty good. The best way to reach herd immunity is to have lots of immune people around you.

The US military is not a representative sample of people; it's a bunch of people with better health and fitness than the general population. And the military is an institution that will reject people from joining based on a lot of the health conditions that make COVID-19 more dangerous to them.

It's useful data, to be sure, but it also highlights that the disease can be really dangerous for people outside certain groups.

> The best way to reach herd immunity is to have lots of immune people around you.

It's not at all clear yet that recovering from COVID-19 confers any lasting immunity.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#26

Post by sethammons »

manifestsilence wrote: post #9

So people who are fit enough to pass active duty basic training tend not to have symptoms. Solution: put everyone through basic training?

The same for people who want to be taller: get them into the NBA as data shows basketball players tend to be tall.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#27

Post by btilly »

This figure does not surprise me. It is in line with Iceland finding that 50% of people they tested were asymptomatic.

However as https://www.propublica.org/article/what-we-need-to-understan... notes, in other samples about 75% of people who were asymptomatic at the time of the test went on to develop symptoms. So the fact that these sailors are currently asymptomatic does not mean that they will remain so.

See https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-what-proportion-are-a... for more on how different data points are all over the place.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#28

Post by greedo »

alkonaut wrote: post #17

Were they testing for the virus or for antibodies? If it was testing for the virus tests only show positive for a few days then testing everyone on board will miss those who already had it, correct?

According to the Captain's email, sailors were tested, and results known the next day. I don't know what equipment they had onboard the Roosevelt, but the quick turnaround might indicate the type of test. These tests were also performed around Mar29.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#29

Post by inamberclad »

glofish wrote: post #4

I find this to be good even excellent news. It is quite possible the virus is not nearly as dangerous and lethal as people fear. If the young have nothing to worry about the prospects are pretty good. The best way to reach herd immunity is to have lots of immune people around you.

In the future, you might have a lot of immune people around you. Right now, however, it means you have a lot of invisibly sick people around you.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#30

Post by [deleted] »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #19
jbotz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since about a week ago data has been coming in from antibody testing in Europe... and the results are that IFR (infection fatality rate) is clearly less than 0.5% (0.37% in one city in germany[1]) and the number of actually infected people at least 15 times to 30 times higher than the confirmed number of cases. [1] https://www.n-tv.de/wissen/Heinsberg-Studie-entraetselt-Coro...

I'm not so sure that's clear yet. Just going on blunt metrics, the virus has already killed 0.1% of NYC's entire population, probably on pace to hit 0.2% if the down-curve even only roughly matches the up-curve. So it would have had to have spread to 50% of the population for the fatality rate there to be only 0.4%, which seems unlikely (there's only a smattering of antibody data around the world so far but nothing h…

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