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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

#81

Post by ashtonkem »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #65
cryoshon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a really good point. AFAIK, 100% of the canonical pre-existing conditions which are highly dangerous with COVID are disqualifiers for joining the military. this cohort will give us a much better picture of how the virus impacts a totally healthy and young population. as with countless other pieces of evidence, it should also help to put the "it's just a flu bro" falsehood to bed.

Does the mortality rate across entire population (not particular subpopulations) exceed that of the flu?

Yes. Current understanding of the mortality rate is that it’s roughly 10x more lethal than the flu across all age demographics. This means you might only have a 0.2% of dying as a 20 year old, but you only had a 0.02% chance of dying of the flu.

The caveat is that mortality rate is intimately tied with the availability of certain types of care; if you need a vent and the hospital is full, you die even if otherwise you would’ve lived. Thus case mortality rate will change dramatically once the hospitals fill up.

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

#82

Post by glofish »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #54
MikeAmelung wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So with a 1% IFR, that would mean 20% infected. Would you agree with that number? Has anywhere else found 20% infected at the level of a metropolis?

I think 20% is definitely in the range of plausibility. See 15% infection rate in a set of tested pregnant women in NYC[1] I think the preponderance of evidence currently points to an IFR of 1% or maybe a bit lower. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316

This is massively informative. If anything pregnant women take a lot more precautions than other people. They are most likely under representing the overall infection rate.

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

#83

Post by pesfandiar »

glofish wrote: post #74
pesfandiar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those death rates in US are optimistic in my opinion. What if the actual rate is higher because of worse health in impoverished demographics, or the simple fact people might avoid healthcare because of its prohibitive costs?

these death rates come from published research if anything the death rates over across all age groups are even lower - this is a very common observation as initially most non-symptomatic are missed. there is a very strong age dependence with this disease, and probably many other risk factors - predisposition to pneumonia etc.

If I understand correctly, research about the death rate is based on people who were tested positive (any source that's based on the general population?). This, depending on the region, could mean people with severe symptoms or non-randomly-selected test takers only. This adds much uncertainty to the estimated overall infection numbers.

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

#84

Post by wbronitsky »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #62
kelnos wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how that's relevant. Coronaviruses behave differently from each other, and it's not clear how this one behaves wrt post-recovery immunity. And to your point, many forms of the "common cold" are caused by coronaviruses, and it's not like herd immunity is a thing there.

Short to medium term immunity is conferred to survivors of other coronaviruses. No reason to expect it won't be the same with this one.

This reasoning seems like it needs data. Do we have any proof that Coronavirus immunity is similar across different viruses? Why should we expect that things that have the same name have the same immune response? This is a pretty cavalier take when lives are at stake.

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

#85

Post by dmoy »

btilly wrote: post #49
cm2187 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, though still a long way from herd immunity, which I understand starts at 50%-ish.

Herd immunity varies by disease. A lot. For each disease we estimate a number called R0, which is how many people the average person will transmit it to if no precautions are taken. Herd immunity sets in when only 1/R0 people have not managed to get it. With the flu, R0 is about 1.3. Meaning that herd immunity to a particular strain starts slowing the spread after about 1/4 of us are immune. (It can continue spreadin…

This is also why people refusing the MMR vaccine is really, really hurtful to vulnerable populations. Measles R0 is like 15 or something - it's crazy infectious. So one kid in a daycare or class of 20 with parents who don't believe in vaccines is enough to push you under herd immunity. Bake in the fact that MMR vaccine is only ~97% good against measles, and you end up with a bunch of dead kids.

We got lucky last time around in Seattle area, in that it only cost us $1m and 0 deaths to get it under control.

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

#86

Post by delecti »

londons_explore wrote: post #50
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…

I'd take issue at the use of the word 'sailor', when it's been an awfully long time since the navy used sails to get into battle...

Sailor - noun: a person whose job it is to work as a member of the crew of a commercial or naval ship or boat, especially one who is below the rank of officer.

Language evolves. Computers used to be people, my cellular telephone rarely conveys my voice, my laptop seldom touches my lap, I virtually never write anything at my desk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(job_description) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/telephone#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desk#Etymology

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

#87

Post by wbronitsky »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #47
coherentpony wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you of the opinion that this is simply just a slightly worse flu? > All the data points to the fact that coronavirus is more widespread and less deadly than most outlets are reporting You couldn't be more wrong. There are nurses and doctors working on the front lines dealing with patients, and they're completely and utterly overloaded. Lack of resources. Lack of help from local and federal governments. They're th…

> Are you of the opinion that this is simply just a slightly worse flu? I mean I'm about 95% sure I already had it. Had literally every single symptom but the local health authority (Alberta, Canada) wouldn't test me. My SO had it worse but again, they wouldn't test her. Felt like a worse flu + more coughing and shortness of breath. Worse fever. My symptoms were bad for about 3 days, then felt like a cold for about a…

This is the terrible take that will be everywhere in the next few weeks; “I think I had it, therefore I am an expert on the spread of this disease”. There is no data or coherent argumentation here. I’m sorry you were sick, but this isn’t an argument based on facts, it’s an anecdote based off of little that might put people in danger.

We need to inoculate ourselves from this argument because we are about to see it everywhere. Confirmation bias par excellence

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

#88

Post by lbeltrame »

btilly wrote: post #27

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…

Are there any data on the severity of the symptoms?

From what I've gathered, but without any hard data, in non-severe cases (i.e. not needing hospitalization) they can vary from a slight sore throat, dry cough and mild fever, to the same with a high fever and general sense of exhaustion.

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

#89

Post by Lewton »

btilly wrote: post #27

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…

bingo

It seems like most everyone keep glossing over the fact that if you have a disease that doubles its infection count every x days, and it takes around x days to show symptoms you would always expect about 50% of infected to be asymptomatic at the time of testing

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

#90

Post by feral »

ivoras wrote: post #40

Adding to that, Netherlands' study of antibodies in blood donors' samples shows about 10x difference between the number of reported / tested cases and actual cases in the general population (i.e. a lot more people got it and were not sick): https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/16/world/europe/16re... ?

The Netherlands has 3.3k deaths vs 29k confirmed cases, which would give a CFR of ~10%

I.e. the Netherlands aren't testing much.

A 10x reduction there brings it back to the CFR range we see in countries with bigger testing programs.

I'm not a specialist but have been following this for a while, and have yet to see evidence the IFR for this isnt around 0.5-1% (assuming decent healthcare).

That's what we saw in the Diamond Princess data, and a bunch of other places.

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