Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by cycomanic » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #234

Jordanpomeroy wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But death numbers and hospitalization numbers don't lie. Well... there is some indication hospital staff are being directed to assume all cases are COVID19 until proven different. Patients that die with presumptive COVID19 are reported as COVID19 deaths. So agree, numbers don’t lie. But... handling emergencies effectively can lead to problematic numbers.

This is so tiresome. Someone has cancer for six months, gets COVID and dies 17 days later and now Tucker Carlson is here telling me not to count that death. How often do you really think it happens that someone is hospitalized with COVID (otherwise, they'd not even be getting tested most places in the world) and dies of something else a week later? I'm sure it has happened a few times, but what has also been happenin…

Especially because the same people always compare the numbers with influenza, which are almost entirely based on statistics and comparison to previous years. For example in Germany in 2017 25000 people died of influenza (the bad flu year), but people which had a confirmed death due to influenza (i.e. Being tested positive and died of it) were something like 300 IIRC.

Don't get me wrong I think it's perfectly valid to use statistics for estimating the impact/IFR but you can't like many people with an agenda pick and choose your counting methods.

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

#322

Post by system2 » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #103

Random testing in Germany has also revealed higher than expected rates of people with antibodies. Their IFR (infected fatality rate) was 2% overall based on non-random testing. Random testing has yielded an IFR or 0.37%. This does not increase the risk. These tests only test people who had coronavirus. The larger this portion, the more herd immunity there is in the population. It implies that there were a larger than…

If 0.37% is true, why are the hospitals in this shape?

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

#323

Post by nednar » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

It's the first time I see news about the aircraft carrier. Could someone summarize why the captain got fired for testing his whole crew in an environment where a lot of people have to live very closely together? My first assumption is that it was a really good decision.

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

#324

Post by ImaCake » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #236

ImaCake wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked into this a few weeks ago. The PCR test has an incredibly low false positive rate, below 1%. It is low enough that it is feasible to test a 100,000 people and expect basically zero false positives. The false negative rate is somewhere around 30%. So the real danger with PCR is that you will miss cases. The opposite is true for the antibody tests. The false negative rate is around 10% and the false positive r…

If not done well PCR has an incredibly high false positive rate. If you contaminate your set up area (or equipment) with past PCR amplification material you will get a very high rate of PCR positivity. Of course if you do things correctly this shouldn’t happen, but if the average pathology lab technician is as skilled as my ex-students and colleagues (and myself) then I would be not be so keen to rule out false posit…

I am familiar with these drawbacks, having worked as a research assistant doing RT-PCR and qPCR. My understanding from a brief stint in industry is that there is a lot more quality control to be found in industrial and diagnostic labs than is typically found in a research lab. So I imagine there is still an appreciable amount of false positives even in a diagnostic lab, but they do have a lot more quality control in place to reduce it.

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

#325

Post by roca » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

asdf21 wrote: post #204

I'm calling it now, I bet many people (>20%) have had it, whether they realize it or not. To be honest, I think it was all over the Bay Area in late December, Early January (when I'm pretty sure I had it) and Feb.

There is strong evidence against that, based on retesting flu survey samples collected in Seattle in Jan/Feb 2020. https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1249414291297464321

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

#326

Post by thomquaid » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

D-Coder wrote: post #198

henrikschroder wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> death numbers and hospitalization numbers don't lie. Death numbers are close but still have some uncertainty. New York for example is reporting much higher than usual numbers of people found dead at home. Not clear if they have been tested, if they are victims, or if maybe they had unrelated medical problems but couldn't/wouldn't go to a hospital under these circumstances.

More people are found dead at home because during a lockdown-at-home you're simply more likely to be at home at any given point in time overall, obviously.

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

#327

Post by ImaCake » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:38 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #260

ImaCake wrote: post #101

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.

Let's be realistic though. Given the way that this virus promiscuously spreads, if a relatively large portion of individuals weren't generally asymptomatic, by now we would have approximately zero healthcare workers.

I think you underestimate how effective proper sterile technique is. If all the equipment is available, and the staff appropiately trained, there should be a very small chance of becoming infected. In some countries this is not the case, but some places have demonstrated that they can keep their frontline workers from getting infected.

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

#328

Post by fungi » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

system2 wrote: post #322

manfredo wrote: post #103

Random testing in Germany has also revealed higher than expected rates of people with antibodies. Their IFR (infected fatality rate) was 2% overall based on non-random testing. Random testing has yielded an IFR or 0.37%. This does not increase the risk. These tests only test people who had coronavirus. The larger this portion, the more herd immunity there is in the population. It implies that there were a larger than…

If 0.37% is true, why are the hospitals in this shape?

Because the infection rate is so high.

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

#329

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:41 AM UTC

nednar wrote: post #323

It's the first time I see news about the aircraft carrier. Could someone summarize why the captain got fired for testing his whole crew in an environment where a lot of people have to live very closely together? My first assumption is that it was a really good decision.

He sent an email to his commander and his commander's commander about how the situation was deteriorating... which were then leaked to the press and was promptly relieved of command by Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly who later on resigned.

Most people think it was a good call but it also may have compromised the safety of the carrier because now it's known they may be operating under less than perfect condition.

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

#330

Post by amiantos » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

system2 wrote: post #322

manfredo wrote: post #103

Random testing in Germany has also revealed higher than expected rates of people with antibodies. Their IFR (infected fatality rate) was 2% overall based on non-random testing. Random testing has yielded an IFR or 0.37%. This does not increase the risk. These tests only test people who had coronavirus. The larger this portion, the more herd immunity there is in the population. It implies that there were a larger than…

If 0.37% is true, why are the hospitals in this shape?

The 2% number is 2% of people who have bad symptoms die. 0.37% is 0.37% of all people who get it, including those who have mild/no symptoms die. It simply means a much larger percentage of people get it, not that any less people are dying. I’d say there’s a good chance that many of us have gotten it, and spread it, without knowing it.