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In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

reuters.com

141–150 of 649 posts

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#141
post #14

Before the deluge of "But wait two weeks" comments, I just want to ask at what point we accept that the potentially of totally asymptomatic cases is insanely high, far higher than anyone thought?

There's also the nuance of US state prison care quality. "Without symptoms" could just mean "not obviously gasping for air" .

Sure, in New Mexico there are routinely lawsuits against the state and county’s for completely ignoring inmates’ communicated medical needs (or worse).

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/what-happe...

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#142
post #52

I've read that asymptomatic carriers are though to be less infectious than those with symptoms because of the lower concentration of virus in the saliva. Also, many virologists mentioned in recent texts that the initial concentration of the virus you receive can affect how sick you'll get - the more viruses you're exposed to, the faster they can invade the body and the more severe it will get. Can those two facts be…

Where did you read that? Superficially that might make sense - less virus particles == less obvious symptoms - but there are a wide variety of virus responses that show virulence and infectiousness aren't necessarily correlated. If anyone wants to read more about this I can't recommend highly enough the book Spillover by David Quammen, which was published in 2012, and covers zoonotic (animal-to-human transmission) vi…

I actually do remember reading that this was true specifically in the case of COVID — that more exposure so far seems to correlate with a worse infection.

Sadly, I have no idea where I read this. But... I know I did! Recently! Maybe NYT?

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#143

96% are without symptoms yet . There was a nursing home in Massachusetts which had 51 out of 98 residents testing positive but asymptomatic in early April. While this sounded encouraging in the sense no one was critically ill because of coronavirus, a few weeks later 19 had died and about 30 more had tested positive. Let’s wait a month until there is a clearer picture about the impact of the virus on a particular pop…

Is it indicated how long ago these inmates were tested? Seems like that's a key component in this mystery and I can't find it.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#144
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because that way counting is much more unambiguous: dead is dead Unrealistically low death stats coming from Turkey compared to cases easily refute that argument. Dead is dead, unless the state finds a way to claim that it was not a COVID19 dead.

> Dead is dead, unless the state finds a way to claim that it was not a COVID19 dead. It's just a matter of demanding tests to declare as a COVID death and do not providing enough tests. Brazil, for example, has an artificially low count of cases due to the lack of tests and a similarly low number of deaths. However, cases of death by "pneumonia", generic types of SARS and "unexplained respiratory diseases" skyrocket…

This has occurred in many countries and will presumably be part of way the final impact is finally measured. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#145
post #132
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll venture a guess that by Wednesday the news cycle will be deep in the implications of very high asymptomatic case count... Assuming we don't start seeing contradicting evidence.

Nah, that has too much risk of admitting that eternal house arrest isn't a good solution, so we can be certain that won't be the media narrative.

I’m confused about this version of events that some are supporting. In your view, why does the media have a motive to engage in a secret conspiracy to not present any solutions other than an endless shutdown? How would that benefit ‘The media’?

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#146
post #52

I've read that asymptomatic carriers are though to be less infectious than those with symptoms because of the lower concentration of virus in the saliva. Also, many virologists mentioned in recent texts that the initial concentration of the virus you receive can affect how sick you'll get - the more viruses you're exposed to, the faster they can invade the body and the more severe it will get. Can those two facts be…

>> Also, many virologists mentioned in recent texts that the initial concentration of the virus you receive can affect how sick you'll get - the more viruses you're exposed to, the faster they can invade the body and the more severe it will get.

That is basic infections 101. When you are exposed to any dangerous virus a race starts between the virus and your immune system. If the virus starts out only infecting a handful of cells, your immune system has a head start in developing antibodies before symptomatic infection sets in. (This is also a basic principle behind many vaccines.) But if you are hit will a massive viral load that instantly infects every cell in your lungs, the immune system is fighting uphill from day one. A massive initial viral exposure can also trigger an excessive immune response, for instance dangerously high fever. Such an immune response can be as deadly as the virus. Much covid research is going into not defeating the virus directly but regulating/slowing the immune response to the patient survives their own immune response.

This principal explains why healthcare workers are suffering so. They are exposed to constant massive doses of virus, possibly from multiple patients carrying slight different versions of the virus. So they get sicker than people who are exposed in the general community.

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#148
post #30
post #3

I've been tracking the antibody study results in a spreadsheet, and they are suggesting a 10-20x undercount of cases in the official "confirmed" numbers. You can see the data I've collected here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16onEUBWIV5IqN1RCvTla...

I did similar calculations, and found the institutions in charge give us very unreliable data. The term "corona case" is very, very, ambiguous and cannot the understood as such without a detailed explanation on how the counting was done. Thanks for sharing. I found the peek in all-case mortality also very interesting, because that way counting is much more unambiguous: dead is dead. They showed a clear diversion from…

Is this for the US? Do you have a link for the source?

Re: In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms

#149
Every article I see about people testing asymptomatic is followed by comments insisting they were asymptomatic when tested, with no idea of whether they stayed asymptomatic or whether virtually all of them had symptoms a few days later, thus basically invalid.

But this doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve, folks. Is nobody bothering to follow up with the asymptomatic people a week later? Just take their mobile phone number, and text them en masse with a quick Y/N question as to whether or not they got sick?

This stuff baffles me. This is literally a matter of life-and-death, and yet the most basic questions seem to be unanswered. (Or are these follow-up surveys being done but the media just refuses to report them because it now feels like week-old news? I'd love to know.)

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