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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

#411

Post by XorNot »

sharken wrote: post #199
kfrzcode wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Marion Correctional Institution, Ohio it could look like the tests were conducted in mid-april according to https://drc.ohio.gov/Portals/0/DRC%20COVID-19%20Information%... . But as of 25-04-2020 at least 4 inmates have died to Corona virus according to https://eu.marionstar.com/story/news/local/2020/04/24/corona... . There are 2,564 inmates ( https://drc.ohio.gov/mci ).

As a note on sample size, given those numbers the general fatality rate would imply eventually 25 deaths.

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

#412

Post by darkerside »

mynegation wrote: post #397
darkerside wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Do not know if it is in the article or not but I guess the reasoning from GP goes like this: huge percentage of people are pre-symptomatic. The median time for symptoms to appear is 4-5 days from infection time, so they were probably infected in a very short period of time recently.

You're probably right, but I think that's flawed. We still don't know how many people are completely asymptomatic. It's a very weak assumption to base this argument on.

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

#413

Post by shakna »

Laforet wrote: post #320
shakna wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 analysi…

I think the argument being made is less about lasting immunity but reevaluating the actual risks for the general population. 8 million people live in NYC and there has been 0.155 million confirmed cases so far. If the actual infection rate is 20% then that represents a 10 fold overestimation of morbidity and mortality. A good place to keep an eye on for the short term would be Sweden. Despite the lack of lockdown the…

However, biased antibody studies (no self-selection criteria) that may have high rates of both false negatives and false positives do not represent anything about the current level of estimation whatsoever.

Which is why when these studies happen, the public is told to wait for it to be assessed, rather than pretending all of us are remotely qualified to judge the content and draw conclusions from it about what actual risks the general population might be facing.

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

#414

Post by darkerside »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #384
darkerside wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

Depending on the nature of the virus and how the PCR test works with it, I couldn't rule out that it could be much longer than that. Virii are not my area, but there are bacterial diseases that result in positive PCR years after infection. Disclaimer: microbiology is also not my area.

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

#415

Post by Fjolsvith »

danieltillett wrote: post #361
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.

A prison is very much like a cruise ship from a viral perspective. We know from the cruise ship data like the Diamond Princess that most people had no symptoms initially, but overtime most people became symptomatic [1]. Of course if we are really lucky and the prison was infected with a naturally attenuated strain we should make use of it [2]. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7078829/ 2. https://www.ti…

> A prison is very much like a cruise ship from a viral perspective.

Prisons are much worse. Chow line with men almost heel to toe. Commissary line. Med line. Recycled air. Big crowds in small spaces.

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

#416

Post by giardini »

The Reuters article is not useful. It doesn't tell us the type of tests being done, and certainly says nothing about false positives. Like most other articles, this article is what I call "bullshit" but John Ionnidis calls:

"Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science":

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-da...

Dr. Ioannidis on Why We Don't Have Reliable Data Surrounding COVID-19:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvWaxuurzQ&feature=emb_logo

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

#417

Post by shakna »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #306
shakna wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 analysi…

I'm not sure I follow what you're responding to. Antibodies are definitive proof of a previous infection, which is what I was talking about.

> Antibodies are definitive proof of a previous infection, which is what I was talking about.

When the studies in question have a high rate of false positives, that is absolutely not the case. It may simply be a statistical anomaly, from taking the incorrect confidence interval.

Currently, from the studies taken, it looks like we have high rates of both false negatives, and false positives. Which means that the testing does not give you an accurate picture of whether a population group has previous infections or not.

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

#418

Post by Retric »

newacct583 wrote: post #396
GuB-42 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In rare (1/10000) cases, incubation time can reach 14 days What's the cite for that number? I'd be very suspicious of anything claiming a 5-significant-figure result in a disease that has only (heh) 3M known cases. In fact there's significant supposition that the incubation time and asymptomatic contagious state can last much longer than originally guessed. This would go a long way to explaining the difficulty of d…

South Korea had a very rapid decline post peak. 1062 cases on 2/29 to 114 cases on 3/11. With an average of just under 10 cases per day for the last week.

Also, the number I have seen was ~1% of cases where asymptotic for 14 days. https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/03/09/coronavirus-incubation-period...

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

#419

Post by nradov »

wonnage wrote: post #409
rubber_duck wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Roughly 25% of males in the US 35-44 had hypertension in 2010, and this grows to over 50% by 55-64, an age I don't think anyone would consider especially old: https://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@sop/@smd... Basically everyone who dies from this has a preexisting condition, but basically everyone in the US will develop at least one of the big three (hypertension, diabetes, or obesity) at some point.

Fortunately those conditions are preventable in the majority of cases.

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

#420

Post by dboreham »

mgummelt wrote: post #113
jbritton wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been wondering about the effect of the degree of initial infection. I kind of assume the virus grows exponentially inside the body and would dwarf the initial constant. If a low initial dose affects the severity of the disease, I think that would be incredibly useful to know. I also wish there was info on percentage of infection via fomites vs inhalation.

> I kind of assume the virus grows exponentially inside the body and would dwarf the initial constant. Perhaps a more mild initial growth stage gives the immune system more time to respond.

If the immune response occurs in constant time, and is able to neutralize up to a constant number of viri at that engagement time, then you'd expect to see bimodal outcomes.
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