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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

#381

Post by jacquesm »

arcticbull wrote: post #302
13415 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're confused by this, you may need to check your news sources. Experts have been explaining all of this for months. First, people need to stay locked in and keep distance in order to slow down the spreading so health care systems don't get overwhelmed. Second, the disease itself can only be stopped once herd immunity is reached. Ideally, herd immunity is achieved by vaccination, once there is one. Until then, s…

Not sure why you're being downvoted, this is well established. Even with everyone indoors, the US new infection rate remains around 40,000 new cases per day recorded -- and holding steady. Now with states re-opening that can only go one direction, until herd immunity is established.

And that's assuming that herd immunity will be established, which we have no way of knowing until we know how long - and if - a person is immune after recovery.

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

#382

Post by wegs »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #151
wegs wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it isn't proof. It is evidence, though. And in two weeks, we will have a lot more evidence. A lot of this is like Russian Roulette -- there's a huge amount about this virus which we don't know, and it could be super-bad or not-that-bad. It could also be there are bad and not-so-bad strains. Or it could be bad down-the-line. Until we do have proof, I'm advocating being conservative. In 2 weeks, we'll know if peo…

> A lot of this is like Russian Roulette -- there's a huge amount about this virus which we don't know, and it could be super-bad or not-that-bad. I think at this point we know enough to say: 1) For most of the population, the virus is not that serious 2) For a subset of the population the virus is seriously deadly. For example, ~20% of NY state coronavirus deaths were from nursing homes, ~37% are 80 or older. By con…

We don't know the virus is not serious for most of the population. We know most of the population won't die of it in 2-3 months. We have evidence of lung damage, increased risk of stroke, and a slew of other things which /are/ serious, and may impact a broader segment of the population.

We've redefined "serious" to mean in an ICU, on a ventilator, within a few weeks of catching it (or in some cases, we've defined "serious" to mean dead within a few weeks). By that definition, AIDS isn't serious for most of the population.

There is a distinct lack of ROI calculations, but my ROI calculations lean towards a much stricter shutdown than we have in place right now, together with thoughtful actions to protect the economy.

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

#383

Post by [deleted] »

GuB-42 wrote: post #316
Retric wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Keyword "up to". The most common fatal case seems to be roughly: 1 week without symptoms, 1 week of mild symptoms, 1 week of severe symptoms, death. That's 3 weeks. In rare (1/10000) cases, incubation time can reach 14 days, that's where the 14 days quarantine recommendation comes from. But the median is closer to 5 days. Time to death can be much longer, the virus can cause all sorts of damage to the body, including…

[deleted]

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

#384

Post by icegreentea2 »

darkerside wrote: post #375
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.

I'm looking for this in the article and not seeing mention of a specific window. Can you help me find what you're referring to?

The sensitivity of PCR tests to SAR-COV-2 varies over time from time to infection. I think the the OP is overestimating how narrow this window is though. It's not like you need to test within a few days or a week to be positive - it's just that viral load is maximum for only a few days (roughly the +/-3 days around onset of symptoms).

Even after the viral load in the upper respiratory tract drops off, there's still lots of virus around. You'll likely test positive -1/+2 weeks around onset of symptoms.

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

#385

Post by joshuamorton »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #360
CydeWeys wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like you need to do your random sample based on a list of all residents, and not just go out and try to find people at various locations.

You say "almost like", but scientific studies rarely sample the population this way because researchers generally don't have access to a list of all residents.

Well, the type of information you're trying to gather is rather unique. Usually we just wait for a virus to run course then test lots of people to see the resulting case counts. But we can't do that here. Normally you just use a control and test group, but that doesn't work for figuring out underlying infection rates.

There are some tests trying to sample everyone in a geographic area (SF Mission census block) but the data isn't out yet because they're conducting tests as we speak.

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

#386

Post by taeric »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #319
taeric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I follow. I confess I'm biased in thinking we could have locked down nursing homes and shaved a large chunk of deaths. Catch is, we should have done that in January.

> locked down nursing homes // How would you do that without locking down the rest of the population? You're going to isolate all nursing home workers?

We could have done dedicated housing for them for cheaper than what we have currently done. So, maybe?

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

#387

Post by joe_the_user »

rubber_duck wrote: post #268
newacct583 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An IFR of even 1% is pretty bad To be clear: it would be the most dangerous general epidemic disease since the advent of vaccination, and by a significant amount. You need to go back to measles and polio to find general population outbreaks that were more lethal.

A very important thing is that % is concentrated among old and people with preexisting health conditions. Not every death is the same - a 80 year old with weak immune system could have lived 5 years longer without corona, but a healthy 20 year-old dying from cytokine storm caused by influenza has lost potentially 60 years of healthy life - the loss is much worse.

Not every death is the same - a 80 year old with weak immune system could have lived 5 years longer without corona, but a healthy 20 year-old dying from cytokine storm caused by influenza has lost potentially 60 years of healthy life - the loss is much worse.

In a triage situation, where you have to decide between different people dying, such choices are unavoidable or necessary. But I want highlight that you are talking about this stuff to say that it's OK to plan for the death of "a 80 year old with weak immune system could have lived 5 years longer" versus no death at all. And that's not OK.

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

#388

Post by wegs »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #365
fzeroracer wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A question for you: If you're so sure about the severity of the virus, then I'd like you to tell me what you know about the long term rammifcations of the virus on people that exhibit symptoms. If you can't, then perhaps it might be a good idea to reconsider advocating for reopening the economy. Because for all we know, this could end up being another Chickenpox situation leading to something similar to Shingles. We…

> If you can't, then perhaps it might be a good idea to reconsider advocating for reopening the economy. Can you prove that coronavirus didn't give me protection from some other more severe illness a la cowpox and smallpox? No? We can both come up with creative scenarios. We are severely impacting the quality of life of hundreds of millions of people. We should have a reason to do so grounded in fact and educated gue…

The major reason for suspecting long-term consequences were initially extrapolations from SARS and other related diseases. This was speculation. This was confirmed with chest x-rays in China: long-term lung scarring. People wrote this off, since it came from China. This was recently re-confirmed in Europe. Young people come off of COVID19 with reduced lung capacity.

What we should be doing is mitigating damage to those hundreds of millions of people. That's a lot easier to do than just about anything else in this equation.

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

#389

Post by jacquesm »

arcticbull wrote: post #362
greedo wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's no evidence to date that people who test for antibodies are immune to future infections.

Ah my old friend greedo. That's how it normally works, this time could be different, but we have no reason to believe that. Generally for as long as you show antibody response you won't be re-infected because that's what antibodies do . The link I provided to the study I referenced was specifically for the purpose of, and I quote: "to assess SARS patients’ risk for future reinfection." "To be clear, most experts do t…

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/warns-coronavirus-imm...
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