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

reuters.com

461–470 of 649 posts

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

#461

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…

Is this test sensitive to just SARS-CoV-2? What is the possibility that other corona viruses (like the ones that cause many of our colds) could create a false positive? I haven't heard anything from a reliable source on that.

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

#462

To add another data point, Singapore has been testing foreign workers living in dormitories extensively, uncovering about 10,000 cases (about 80% of the country's total cases). These are relatively fit individuals between the ages of 20 and 40. However, the number of people in the ICU has remained remarkably consistent at about ~20 people in the past 10 days (Fingers crossed it remains that way). https://www.moh.gov.…

Many migrant workers in Singapore are the only breadwinners for their families back home in Bangladesh/India/Myanmar. One of the reasons the Singapore government has done extensive testing way beyond global standards is that many of these foreign workers are financially disincentivized to seek medical help the moment the first symptoms appear. The fact that Singapore's leader has publicly promised stable incomes for this affected group speaks volumes of the government.

As a fellow south east asian, I am deathly afraid of the under-reporting and testing in other ASEAN countries. Singapore. A 2017 statista study of migrant worker populations in South East Asia (https://www.statista.com/statistics/711513/asean-number-of-m...) shows that Malaysia and Thailand have much larger migrant worker populations than Singapore. Their living conditions are either on par or worse than the ones living in Singapore, yet there are apparently no Covid-19 clusters among migrant populations in other ASEAN countries. This is extremely alarming.

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

#463
Some possibilities: there is widespread infection from a common source around the same time, and many of those "asymptomatic" inmates aren't going to stay that way; the test has false positives; the population of this prison is comprised mostly of people who tend to be asymptomatic carriers (for example, if most prisoners are in their early 20's); COVID-19 has a lot more asymptomatic carriers than we thought.

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

#464

Is there the possibility that these test results are wrong? The spread is far wider than what would be expected and that means that quarantining and contact tracing would be eseentially useless. But we've seen that both are very useful.

Look up Dr. Andrew Kaufman on Youtube. Medicamentum Authenticam.

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

#465
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…

We have no idea how long lived the antibodies we develop in response to SARS-CoV-2 last. And obviously, an initial infection to COVID-19 will generate antibodies that will immunize the patient, as long as the antibodies persist. Don't you think that if this was a foregone conclusion, we'd be able to demonstrate that? Isn't it odd, that with people having been infected and recovered months ago, that no one is saying how long the antibodies persist?

In science, it's incumbent on those making the claim to provide studies and proof. That means you...

And to say that this is unsupported, unsubstantiated is ridiculous, and you know it. It's straight from the WHO's mouth.

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

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nothing there is at all incompatible with what I had to say. In context, the WHO is saying that getting the disease once may not be a lifetime immunity to COVID guarantee and shouldn't be used as the basis for issuance of something along the lines of yellow fever prophylaxis certifications like these [1]. I agree. In fact, its highly unlikely, as with coronaviridae we've seen that the milder the disease the less like…

This is crystal clear from the WHO:

""There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.""

They were prompted to issue this because some people were touting this idea of immunity being granted perpetually and allowing people to safely return to work.

"Broadly speaking, a positive test for antibodies means you're pretty likely immune at the time the test is taken."

That's in complete contradiction to what the WHO is saying. Read carefully: There is no evidence.

You're using circular arguments to provide bad information. Something you've consistently been doing.

"...but we need a study."

Why? You've said it's unlikely to be different than other viruses. Of course we need a study, because we don't know.

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

#467
post #463

Some possibilities: there is widespread infection from a common source around the same time, and many of those "asymptomatic" inmates aren't going to stay that way; the test has false positives; the population of this prison is comprised mostly of people who tend to be asymptomatic carriers (for example, if most prisoners are in their early 20's); COVID-19 has a lot more asymptomatic carriers than we thought.

It's 4 prisons. The odds of there being one Typhoid Mary is unlikely.

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

#468
post #403
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here is for Europe if you are interested. There are charts for excess morality by country, by age, and by year. https://www.euromomo.eu/ There is a very noticeable spike in the worst hit countries: Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands and the UK. The cumulative excess deaths for all Europe in the last two months matches the COVID-19 reported deaths (around 100000).

The spike has all but receded. Maybe be we're just having 3 flues in one year. Reason enough to stop the world?

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

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

The Wikipedia article doesn't cover everything. Reference for the sibling comment: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

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

#470
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…

It depends. If you're not going to develop symptoms for another 14 days then yeah, you're not infectious. But for a few days before symptom onset you become just as infectious as you will be after symptom onset - which is one of the things that makes this virus hard to stop. A low initial dose doesn't seem to affect the course of the infection much, though. For a sufficiently low dose either none of the viruses find…

I'm very confused by this as I understand that asymptomatic patients are infectious. How does this square with your second sentence?
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