In 4 US state prisons, 3,300 inmates test positive, 96% without symptoms • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by bumby » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #266

bumby wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr. David Katz was just in Bill Maher’s show indicating the test has a high false negative rate

That doesn't rule out a high false positive rate. The false positive rate can be even higher than the false negative rate.

Totally agree. The difference being a high false negative rate may be more dangerous because it may mean asymptomatic false negative carriers are still spreading the virus. The downside of a false positive is that people are self quarantining needlessly.

For a patient, a high false negative rate is usually worse. For an insurer, a high false positive rate is usually worse. The perspective matters.

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

#272

Post by covidSurvivor19 » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:24 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #211

jwlake wrote: post #137

One of the super-interesting things here, is that apparently everyone was in the specific window where they test positive for the virus. This implies the population was recently infected, had not been previously infected, and it spread almost completely within a tight window. This implies a shocking high R(effective) for that population. In 2 weeks we'll have super interesting data one way of the other on the CFR.

Covid-19 fatalities takes up to 2 months after infection, symptoms have a median of just over 5 days from first exposure.

Is this the new narrative/talking point to continue shutdowns? Because pretty sure the average time to symptoms was reported to be much (10X) lower

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

#273

Post by arcticbull » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:24 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #109

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…

The virus affects young and healthy folks without co-morbidities dramatically less than it does old folks at a nursing home. Based on New York City data, people without co-morbidities account for something like 6% of hospitalizations [1]. Old folks on a cruise ship full of old people, about 20% showed no symptoms. Is it a big stretch to think that scales to prisoners as shown? They're pretty young (only 2.8% of prisoners are over 65 [2]), and therefore pretty unlikely to show symptoms let alone require medical care. Age is unquestionably the biggest factor in outcomes for COVID [3].

"Asymptomatic" is kind of a sliding scale. Are you sick? No. Do you have a stuffy nose? Kinda.

[1] https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/nearly-all-nyc-ar...

[2] https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_age.j...

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6915e3.htm

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

#274

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

srl wrote: post #104

bobongo wrote: post #99

HN seems to have forgotten what happened in Wuhan, Bergamo, and New York in its newfound polemic of "the death rate is just like that of the flu" in the comments of the recent headlines. Either this is actually HN's denial of what's going on, or we are witnessing paid shills overwhelming actual users in the number of comments and votes.

Paid by who? Your comment would be much more interesting if you implied something concrete, instead of the more common (and boring) "people who disagree with me must be paid off by ... someone".

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by pavlov » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:27 PM UTC

not_a_moth wrote: post #267

ilamont wrote: post #109

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…

? You're comparing a prison to a nursing home Another data point, ~12k healthy foreign workers in Singapore have tested positive. The city-state has only 12 deaths total (all elderly, not the foreign workers). In Singapore the foreign workers may have already been asymptomatic for weeks. Based on NYC data, LA city data, Stanford's Santa Clara data, Singapore, Danish blood donor data, a picture is emerging that the vi…

Prisoners in America are not in great health. Many untreated conditions, often inadequate health care since birth.

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

#276

Post by bobongo » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #208

bobongo wrote: 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.

No. Not unless. You misunderstand what all cause mortality means. The state can count COVID19 deaths as all bungee-jumping related the number still shows up in the total death rate. If you know what is the usual statistic you can show if there is an effect. This is what “dead is dead” mean. One can argue what should count as a COVID19 case, and how exactly we are counting. There is a lot less argument over who is dea…

> You misunderstand what all cause mortality means.

It seems I actually missed the mention of "all-cause" while reading the comment.

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

#277

Post by bobongo » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #188

bobongo wrote: 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.

I said "dead is dead" in relation to all cause (not "only covid") mortality figures.

I saw it just now. My apologies.

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

#278

Post by covidSurvivor19 » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

At this point only thing I can ask is, forget the shutdowns, when we'll we recognize the most viral thing about COVID was the histeria? Having lived closely through the swine flu, it was quite a bit worse, affected people under 60 which tend to be more socially active and no shutdowns were required. In fact one of the learnings/facts of that crisis were that masks are mostly useless to prevent contagion.

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

#279

Post by not_a_moth » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #211

jwlake wrote: post #137

One of the super-interesting things here, is that apparently everyone was in the specific window where they test positive for the virus. This implies the population was recently infected, had not been previously infected, and it spread almost completely within a tight window. This implies a shocking high R(effective) for that population. In 2 weeks we'll have super interesting data one way of the other on the CFR.

Covid-19 fatalities takes up to 2 months after infection, symptoms have a median of just over 5 days from first exposure.

Only if you develop a severe case in the first place, which you would know about within 2 weeks average. Incubation on average is 3-5 days, severe symptoms then start in the second week.

After you're hospitalized, yes you might or might not then have a month long battle for survival.

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

#280

Post by shakna » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #259

CydeWeys wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about an actually randomly sampled test, for starters?

It's the "for starters" that concerns me. A lot of us were always saying that official case counts are much too low, and antibody surveys were supposed to be the definitive proof that we were responsibly waiting for. Now they're starting to come out, and still nobody believes it. I worry it's a moving goalpost, and no evidence will ever be enough to make people start reconsidering their beliefs.

> antibody surveys were supposed to be the definitive proof that we were responsibly waiting for.

Simple question: Why?

For most coronaviruses, antibodies reflect only a temporary immunity, that is usual gone in 6-24 months, due to the nature of these viruses.

All an antibody survey shows is that antibodies can be created, not that they are effective long term. Showing a longer term immunity takes statistical analysis, usually after that temporary window has ended.

In fact, antibody surveys may not even show an effective temporary immunity, if the wrong kinds of antibodies are being screened for.

Knowing this, why was the antibody surveys supposed to be some golden bullet? The advice from the medical community was "this is being actively studied, wait and see."

The surveys provide the medical community with important data, but they don't really provide us with policy making data, and they certainly don't predict the future for the general population when exposed to the virus.