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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

#151
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for what it's worth, if they get the virus while on a long tour of duty, by the time they get back they should be good to contribute to the herd immunity.

Only if they form antibodies. Studies have been suggesting that people who get it in asymptomatic form are not all forming antibodies - leaving them wide open to be future communicators of the disease.

There are no studies that have suggested anything like this. There simply has not been sufficient time to perform a study of the type needed to prove such a claim: you would need to gather a cohort of people that you know had the virus, wait for them to recover, then test for antibodies.

Moreover, even if the percentage of such people were shockingly high (i.e. over a fraction of a percentage), you would need to conduct a huge survey to distinguish it from error rates on the tests themselves.

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

#152
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some percent of confirmed recovered cases never develop antibodies it seems.

Then how did they recover? If your body has no antibodies to the virus then why would the virus ever stop spreading within you?

Antibodies are produced by the humoral arm of the immune system, but there is another arm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell-mediated_immunity

Basically this other arm tells infected cells to kill themselves, and they comply.

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

#153
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we KNOW it's controlled? Asymptomatic people are not, as a rule, tested, so actual infection rates could be massive.

No country except Iceland or South Korea knows how many are infected, everyone else's numbers are horribly wrong. But death numbers and hospitalization numbers don't lie. Sure, different countries are counting deaths differently, making it hard to compare them to each other, but the trajectories don't lie. And if you look at growth trajectories, no country is experiencing uncontrolled exponential growth at this point…

The timeline matches aggressive control measures that reduced infection.

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

#154

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

I know you're joking, but putting everyone on a daily fitness regimen would likely save lives. (Obviously not something we can mandate.)

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that the asymptomatic thing is more wishful thinking in places where infection control has failed. Other countries have shown that you can contain the spread of Covid19, even if there are asymptomatic (or more realistic, low symptom severity) cases.

We need widespread antigen testing in a place like Italy or NYC or Sweden. Would be so informative.

> or Sweden

Please note that the reporting on Sweden from outside Sweden is completely bananas. The idea of how Sweden is handling the pandemic, alongside cherry-picked data, is being used to argue for whatever lockdown theory people seem to have.

The facts though are that Sweden is not an outlier in any way shape or form. Compared to other European countries, Sweden is boringly in the middle of the pack, and showing the same trajectories as every other country. Swedes are working from home, isolating themselves, going out less, traveling less, staying home from school, closing non-essential businesses, and washing their hands just like everyone else.

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

#157
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to be a doomer and ignore actual stats in favour of alarmism go ahead. It's your life. If you want to ever take your head out of the sand, here's some resources: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-... https://covid19.who.int/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/coronavirus-immun... Here's the only stat I actually, truly give a shit about: my province has 4 million people in…

> Here's the only stat I actually, truly give a shit about: my province has 4 million people in it and 50 deaths. What would you expect this to look like without a lockdown

Probably something more like Sweden but then again, our demographics are pretty good. Either way, I'd expect all the potential deaths in a shorter timeframe.

What I really would have preferred is a response more akin to Taiwan's. A lockdown was required because of how lax we were in allowing travellers to return from China and Europe with virtually no screening. Had we simply taken it seriously in January (our government was shockingly nonchalant back then) we could have avoided a lot.

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

#158
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we KNOW it's controlled? Asymptomatic people are not, as a rule, tested, so actual infection rates could be massive.

By lack of a pile of bodies.

I think that the reported numbers of deaths place some bounds on the kinds of hypotheses that are tenable, including those suggesting that there is already a protective level of herd immunity, or a vanishingly small death rate. For instance, one early hypothesis was that the virus was endemic in our population for a long time, but that doesn't explain why the death rate shot up suddenly over the past month. And 15000 people dying per week could not have escaped notice, even a month ago.

Many of those hypotheses coincided with claims that the lockdown was unnecessary or excessive.

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

#159
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for what it's worth, if they get the virus while on a long tour of duty, by the time they get back they should be good to contribute to the herd immunity.

Only if they form antibodies. Studies have been suggesting that people who get it in asymptomatic form are not all forming antibodies - leaving them wide open to be future communicators of the disease.

Or maybe it was a false positive.

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

#160
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the US has 33K deaths and the death rate is 0.6% then the US must have at least 5 million cases. If the death rate is lower (most likely around 0.3%) then it means 10 million infections. Also a good news actually.

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?

It's not just cost. I'm starting to think that if I get sick (covid or otherwise) until the hospital overload subsides, I might have better chances to recover in my own bed even in a relatively severe case.
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