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

#571

Post by GuB-42 » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

usr1106 wrote: post #480

GuB-42 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cumulative excess deaths for all Europe in the last two months matches the COVID-19 reported deaths This article claims that most Covid-19 hotspots have significantly more excess deaths than reported covid deaths. Suggesting that there is a lot of underreporting. NYC being a notable exception. I think several countries count only corona deaths in hospitals, but systematically miss all deaths in care facilities.…

There is under-reporting that's for sure, but there is also a delay in all-cause mortality. In some cases, the same country both over and under reports. To be honest, I am surprised to see such a close match. I expected similar numbers, but this is within ~10%, which I suspect is a coincidence. But still, that's interesting.

Another coincidence is that the country that is most suspected of under-reporting, Germany, is also the least represented in EuroMOMO. There is data for only 2 regions.

Italy, Spain and France, the most significant contributors both in COVID-19 related deaths and excess mortality in general, all count deaths in care facilities now. I don't know about the UK though. Deaths at home are probably not counted, but according to the authorities, they are a minority: COVID-19 does not happen suddenly and people normally have time to go to the hospital. Still significant though.

My gut feeling is that there are actually ~50% more deaths than reported. But we'll have to wait for at least a few months to get proper statistics.

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

#572

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #386

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I'm in the UK, I can't see this being accepted: it would be pretty hard for every care home to have space found near it to create temporary housing for all the workers. And basically imprisoning workers just because of their current job wouldn't be popular with the population -- if they quit, how do you replace them? Who would sign up?

Confining people to their own home, and locking them in their workspace are markedly different.

I'm not sure there's a better solution; financial incentives and let the workers decide if they want to do it? Care home workers have their own families and dependents too, but that could make it possible for many of them without having to lock them up against their will.

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

#573

Post by zaroth » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #556

Laforet wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If the actual infection rate is 20% then that represents a 10 fold overestimation of morbidity and mortality. 10 fold over what? A problem since the beginning is that many people are confusing CFR and IFR. Worse is when people compare the IFR of COVID-19 to the CFR of the flu. Regardless, the IFR for COVID-19 has been thought to be .5-1% since the beginning. If we assume the NY antibody study is mostly correct (eve…

> If that IFR holds it still means 1.6-3.3M deaths in the US assuming the healthcare does not get overwhelmed.

You cannot assume that 100% of people will be infected. Looking at case studies like USS Roosevelt (840 of 5000) and Diamond Princess (712 of 3,711) as the worst case prevalence because they are much higher-R environments.

So basically your IFR based fatality numbers could be divided by roughly 5.

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

#574

Post by quickthrowman » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

ninkendo wrote: post #557

TylerE wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The table settings might be nicer, but it's still a chowline of people asses-to-elbows. https://c8.alamy.com/comp/B5D6CE/breakfast-buffet-served-onb...

We could make the same dumb jokes about: Popular restaurants, clubs, sporting events, concerts, movie theaters, stores on Black Friday, etc etc etc. (Personally, I’ve been on 5 different cruises and they’ve each been among the best vacations of my life. But lol lots of people so they must be just like prisons amirite?)

I don’t live at/in a restaurant, club, sporting event, concert, movie, or store for a week or more.

Perhaps you do. But if you don’t, none of those things are similar to a week-long cruise at all, since you are there for hours and not days.

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

#575

Post by matwood » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #573

matwood wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the actual infection rate is 20% then that represents a 10 fold overestimation of morbidity and mortality. 10 fold over what? A problem since the beginning is that many people are confusing CFR and IFR. Worse is when people compare the IFR of COVID-19 to the CFR of the flu. Regardless, the IFR for COVID-19 has been thought to be .5-1% since the beginning. If we assume the NY antibody study is mostly correct (eve…

> If that IFR holds it still means 1.6-3.3M deaths in the US assuming the healthcare does not get overwhelmed. You cannot assume that 100% of people will be infected. Looking at case studies like USS Roosevelt (840 of 5000) and Diamond Princess (712 of 3,711) as the worst case prevalence because they are much higher-R environments. So basically your IFR based fatality numbers could be divided by roughly 5.

In both case quarantines were put in place and/or people were eventually evacuated. Yes, there is a limit where not 100% of the population will be infected. Given the R0 of COVID-19, currently herd immunity is thought to be reached between 60%-80% of the population getting infected. So even if we are generous and take the low end of the IFR we get 960k - 1.28M deaths to reach herd immunity.

There is some news out that is putting the IFR closer to .3% on the low end. That is great news if it holds up. The problem is that the numbers out of NY, if flawed would bring the IFR lower than reality, and they are ~.75% IFR.

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

#576

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

venning wrote: post #469

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

That article has 1906 (her engagement as cook in the Warren household) to 1932 (her paralysis) as the period of her infection of others, assuming after her paralysis she didn't infect anyone else.

That's still not 38 years; it's not especially important a point - she infected others over at least 2 extended periods amounting to mor than a couple of decades in total.

It's interesting to me, I thought nih.gov was a scientific publication but at least one part of that document appears to be opinion asserted as fact (~"she never intended to abide by the conditions of her release").

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

#577

Post by adwi » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

laufj wrote: post #493

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.

We don't know if infection provides immunity, so they could be repeat infections, or even viruses that never cleared.

Why is this being downvoted?

Yesterday the World Health Organization said: "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection."

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

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

#578

Post by yaur » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #511

djsumdog wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

PCR is pretty selective for SARS-CoV-2

Is there a source that says they were using PCR testing? The article seems pretty light on technical details.

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

#579

Post by throwaway_pdp09 » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

bshanks wrote: post #532

danieltillett wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Since the hospitalization and mortality rates vary so much with age, it would be surprising if the rate of asymptomatic cases didn't. Since prisons skew young we would expect a much higher proportion of asymptomatics to be found there than in the general population.

If you are going to say they skew young (or make any claim), please provide some figures. I did a search, from https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_age.j...

  65   Over 65       4,746     2.8%

Whether this backs you up or not depends on what 'young' is.

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

#580

Post by klmadfejno » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

FiberBundle wrote: post #522

danieltillett wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read in the discussion they reference other data sets to show that more asymptomatic become symptomatic. It is also what the Icelanders found with their data too where most people started out asymptomatic, but many later developed symptoms.

In a region in Italy they tested [1] people twice, 2 weeks apart, and found that 43% were completely asymptomatic over the course of the infection. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v...

About 50% of the population in that study is over 50. I think it's a bad idea to draw generic conclusions about the disease from a diverse age range. You end up with conclusions that aren't relevant to either. Glossing over the tables I don't see any data about symptomatic over the two weeks by age. I'd be shocked if the rates of becoming symptomatic are not much higher for the elderly and much lower for the young. Didn't read it in depth though.