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

reuters.com

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

#281

Post by CydeWeys »

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.

I totally agree that the confirmed case counts are way too low, because even most people who were symptomatic weren't able to get tested (e.g. me), let alone random people who were asymptomatic.

But the 21% study is seriously flawed because it didn't do a random sampling of the population. We need that at a minimum to know with any certainty what the actual exposure rate is. The figures that are coming back from studies using random samples in other places have been much lower.

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

#282

Post by arcticfox »

bumby wrote: post #271
vinceguidry wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The difference being a high false negative rate may be more dangerous

At an individual level, false negative seems more dangerous. But at a macro level, a high false positive rate could lead to taking dramatically policy decisions

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

#283

Post by arcticbull »

pavlov wrote: post #275
not_a_moth wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? 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.

I'm curious if these specific diseases actually make them more susceptible to COVID or not but this is fact.

- Over half of state prisoners and up to 90% of jail detainees suffer from drug dependence.

- Hepatitis C is nine to 10 times more prevalent in correctional facilities than in communities.

- Chronic health conditions, such as asthma and hypertension, and mental health disorders also affect prisoner populations at rates that far exceed their prevalence in the general population.

- About 40% of all inmates are estimated to have at least one chronic health condition. With a few exceptions, nearly all chronic health conditions are more prevalent among inmates than in the general population. [1]

With that said, the average age is much younger than the general population [2]. Age is by far the biggest factor in outcomes, followed by co-morbidities.

[1] https://issues.org/correctional-health-is-community-health/

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

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

#284

Post by makomk »

sharken wrote: post #222
pfarrell wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t believe this is not a new account. Blanket propagandistic statements are not the conversation we have in Hacker News comments.

Calling WHO a malicious institution is a bit too much, but let's just say that their track record is far from stellar, some examples: In the 2017/2018 flu season the WHO recommended a trivalent vaccine for the common flu ( https://www.who.int/influenza/vaccines/virus/recommendations... ) It turned out that another type B variant was the dominant one that year ( https://en.ssi.dk/surveillance-and-preparedness/surveill…

I'm not sure calling them a malicious institution is too much. The WHO pushed hard on the idea that there definitely were no asymptomatic cases and China had confirmed this for sure using arguments that seemed utterly nonsensical - like, they were essentially arguing that asymptomatic cases didn't exist because testing of people with symptoms didn't find them. They had a whole campaign of interviews with US publications to spread this, as part of a broader regurgitation of dubious Chinese propaganda about things like how exactly they contained their own outbreak.

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

#285

Post by monadic2 »

pavlov wrote: post #275
not_a_moth wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? 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.

In addition, concentrated and extended exposure to the virus, like what you see in prisons where it is impossible to maintain distance between yourself and other inmates during meals and in bed, is known to affect people of all ages. Look at the effects the virus has had on medical professionals who do not have access to PPE—eg Usama Riaz.

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

#286

Post by bumby »

arcticfox wrote: post #282
bumby wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The difference being a high false negative rate may be more dangerous At an individual level, false negative seems more dangerous. But at a macro level, a high false positive rate could lead to taking dramatically policy decisions

Sorry, I was editing my comment to add that very perspective just as you replied it seems.

I agree with the caveat that false negative rate is much more relevant for society when a disease is very contagious. Take measles, with an R0 in the teens. A high false negative rate can cause explosive growth in the numbers of people catching the disease, which I think is what makes it relevant to the COVID-19 scenario

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

#287

Post by marcosdumay »

bumby wrote: post #238
RangerScience wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Let's also ask if the tests have a high false positive rate?

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

The false negative rate isn't that relevant on this context, and has no obvious relation to the false positive rate.

Besides, the article you pointed down in a reply is about a different kind of test.

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

#288

Post by pbhjpbhj »

venning wrote: post #116
ck2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you ever make antibodies if you are perpetually asymptomatic though? do you carry it forever? does it attack eventually? what happens if you are an asymptomatic carrier and get a vax?

"Typhoid Mary" was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever for at least 38 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

FWIW I think that article shows her infecting people for only 15 years (1900-1915), then being quarantined for a further 23.

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

#290

Post by JoeAltmaier »

H8crilA wrote: post #98

This is actually not such a bad thing. It means that the true case rate is much much higher, and thus the true fatality rate is much much lower.

The total fatalities are still unsupportably high. The #1 cause of death in the US, and its been around just a month or two.

The rates are interesting data. But don't make the leap to "not dangerously infectious"

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