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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

#151

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

wegs wrote: post #33
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like with the death rate, I expect we'll seamlessly transition from "this isn't proof, in 2 weeks you'll see" to "this isn't news, everyone always believed that so it doesn't imply any changes in strategy".

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 contrast, there were 2 people under the age of 10 at the time of this post. [0]

> I think the key problem here is failure to understand risk management

I think another key problem is a failure to be frank about the cost-benefit of our actions. I have had to make stronger cases about changing the color of a button or optimizing a backend call than I've seen presented by authorities who are shutting down or reopening or anywhere in between.

[0] https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Track...

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

#152

Post by ScottBurson »

ketzo wrote: post #142
frereubu wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you read that? Superficially that might make sense - less virus particles == less obvious symptoms - but there are a wide variety of virus responses that show virulence and infectiousness aren't necessarily correlated. If anyone wants to read more about this I can't recommend highly enough the book Spillover by David Quammen, which was published in 2012, and covers zoonotic (animal-to-human transmission) vi…

I actually do remember reading that this was true specifically in the case of COVID — that more exposure so far seems to correlate with a worse infection. Sadly, I have no idea where I read this. But... I know I did! Recently! Maybe NYT?

Yeah, I saw it too. The hypothesis, as I recall, is that the more virions inhaled, the more likely some of them will get deep in the lungs where they can do the most damage.

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

#153

Post by JPKab »

ilamont wrote: post #109

96% are without symptoms yet . There was a nursing home in Massachusetts which had 51 out of 98 residents testing positive but asymptomatic in early April. While this sounded encouraging in the sense no one was critically ill because of coronavirus, a few weeks later 19 had died and about 30 more had tested positive. Let’s wait a month until there is a clearer picture about the impact of the virus on a particular pop…

Did you see the NYC antibody sample that showed that approximately 21 percent of citizens had antibodies? It seems like a nursing home is a pretty bad representation of a population.

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

#154

Post by jMyles »

marcell wrote: post #3

I've been tracking the antibody study results in a spreadsheet, and they are suggesting a 10-20x undercount of cases in the official "confirmed" numbers. You can see the data I've collected here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16onEUBWIV5IqN1RCvTla...

Here's a similar spreadsheet, with less detail but more studies:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/g6eqtt/...

It may be helpful to you.

Thank you for tracking these metrics.

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

#155

Post by lukevdp »

crazygringo wrote: post #149

Every article I see about people testing asymptomatic is followed by comments insisting they were asymptomatic when tested , with no idea of whether they stayed asymptomatic or whether virtually all of them had symptoms a few days later, thus basically invalid. But this doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve, folks . Is nobody bothering to follow up with the asymptomatic people a week later? Just take their mobile…

Yes, one study when the diamond princess was tested it was originally 50% asymptomatic and then later on that had gone down to under 20%

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

#156

Post by netcan »

frereubu wrote: post #123
ivanhoe wrote: 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…

Where did you read that? Superficially that might make sense - less virus particles == less obvious symptoms - but there are a wide variety of virus responses that show virulence and infectiousness aren't necessarily correlated. If anyone wants to read more about this I can't recommend highly enough the book Spillover by David Quammen, which was published in 2012, and covers zoonotic (animal-to-human transmission) vi…

Bucheight

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

#157

Post by belltaco »

frereubu wrote: post #123
ivanhoe wrote: 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…

Where did you read that? Superficially that might make sense - less virus particles == less obvious symptoms - but there are a wide variety of virus responses that show virulence and infectiousness aren't necessarily correlated. If anyone wants to read more about this I can't recommend highly enough the book Spillover by David Quammen, which was published in 2012, and covers zoonotic (animal-to-human transmission) vi…

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-viral-load-and-the-...

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

#158

Post by _2d30 »

samatman wrote: post #122
frereubu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're referring to this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/french-study-s... The idea is that nicotine may lower your chances of infection, but once established I imagine that smoking will definitely reduce your chances of survival.

Well, it lowers your chance of being listed as an infected person. Presuming this is true (lots of evidence but still much too early to be sure), there's two possibilities: nicotine makes a person less likely to be infected, or nicotine makes it less likely that the infected will develop any symptoms. No symptoms, no test, that's been the rule until quite recently. If it's the latter, it could explain what's going on…

There seems to be a reasonable path to effect regarding regulation of ACE2 which is the primary receptor molecule for COVID.

https://www.qeios.com/read/article/571

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

#159

Post by ilamont »

JPKab wrote: post #153
ilamont wrote: post #109

96% are without symptoms yet . There was a nursing home in Massachusetts which had 51 out of 98 residents testing positive but asymptomatic in early April. While this sounded encouraging in the sense no one was critically ill because of coronavirus, a few weeks later 19 had died and about 30 more had tested positive. Let’s wait a month until there is a clearer picture about the impact of the virus on a particular pop…

Did you see the NYC antibody sample that showed that approximately 21 percent of citizens had antibodies? It seems like a nursing home is a pretty bad representation of a population.

I agree, but so is a group of male inmates (many of them older) compared to the general population. Until more testing on this group is done in a few weeks and symptoms emerge, we won’t have a clear picture on how many are truly asymptomatic.

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

#160

Post by frereubu »

belltaco wrote: post #157
frereubu wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you read that? Superficially that might make sense - less virus particles == less obvious symptoms - but there are a wide variety of virus responses that show virulence and infectiousness aren't necessarily correlated. If anyone wants to read more about this I can't recommend highly enough the book Spillover by David Quammen, which was published in 2012, and covers zoonotic (animal-to-human transmission) vi…

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-viral-load-and-the-...

Thanks - that's the kind of thing I was looking for, but this line stuck out to me: "However, the evidence of the relationship is limited by the poor quality of many of the studies, the retrospective nature of the studies, small sample sizes and the potential problem with selection bias." The book I mention gives me enough reason to doubt that what we know about Covid-19 at this point is anything like the whole story.
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