Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free • Hacker News Board

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#291

Post by btilly » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

Jordanpomeroy wrote: post #209

henrikschroder wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No country except Iceland or South Korea knows how many are infected, everyone else's numbers are horribly wrong. But death numbers and hospitalization numbers don't lie. Sure, different countries are counting deaths differently, making it hard to compare them to each other, but the trajectories don't lie. And if you look at growth trajectories, no country is experiencing uncontrolled exponential growth at this point…

> But death numbers and hospitalization numbers don't lie. Well... there is some indication hospital staff are being directed to assume all cases are COVID19 until proven different. Patients that die with presumptive COVID19 are reported as COVID19 deaths. So agree, numbers don’t lie. But... handling emergencies effectively can lead to problematic numbers.

So agree, numbers don’t lie. But... handling emergencies effectively can lead to problematic numbers.

My brother and I discussed this at length.

He claims (and I have no reason to doubt) that New York has 5x the usual death rate right now. About 2x the usual death rate is clearly COVID-19, another 1x is probably COVID-19 but not tested, another 1x is unclear and the rest are people who likely would have died anyways.

An example of that unclear bucket are people dying from heart attacks. COVID-19 stresses the heart which can cause that. However thanks to COVID-19, EMTs have moved to "Do not do CPR and if we cannot revive, do not take to the hospital." This procedure makes sense because CPR on a COVID-19 patient sprays the whole room with COVID-19. And taking someone with it to a hospital likely will cause them to get it, and it is particularly bad in people with heart problems.

However it also means that heart attacks have a higher likelihood of killing you than usually.

So..people die of heart attacks. Is that heart attack attributable to COVID-19? Is it fatal just because COVID-19 has overwhelmed the health system? We don't know and aren't trying to find out because knowing isn't the priority in a world where our health care system is stretched to the breaking point. All we really know is that people are dying.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#292

Post by networkimprov » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #49

cm2187 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, though still a long way from herd immunity, which I understand starts at 50%-ish.

Herd immunity varies by disease. A lot. For each disease we estimate a number called R0, which is how many people the average person will transmit it to if no precautions are taken. Herd immunity sets in when only 1/R0 people have not managed to get it. With the flu, R0 is about 1.3. Meaning that herd immunity to a particular strain starts slowing the spread after about 1/4 of us are immune. (It can continue spreadin…

Herd immunity is derived from R0 and "susceptibility" percentage. The value for the latter also varies with disease and strain.

If you look at the Italian data, their % positive level never crossed ~30%, and overall averaged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_I...

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#293

Post by Scipio_Afri » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

capkutay wrote: post #271

sharemywin wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention. There's a giant filter called basic training which going to skew the numbers. you have a bunch of kids running around in the best shape of there lives and hey what do you know they handle the virus better than average.

What about pregnant women? They're known to be more vulnerable to certain types of illnesses (especially viral infections), yet 29 out of 33 pregnant women who tested positive of COVID-19 in NY were still asymptomatic: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85965

Women are less effected overall. It is thought it is due to ACE2 receptor distribution in the body being different than men, but they don't know. However there is statistically significant worse outcomes/disease severity for men.

Pregnant women basically puts the cap of the upper age at around 40. This disease the virus causes in the body is very much worse for those that are older.

The study tested pregnant women admitted to the hospital to give birth. There are a lot of doctor appointments and lab work to check things in their last trimester. So they could've contracted it through those high risk places or routine contact with health care workers who I would say are also high risk.

Still, the study showed on admission that they were positive so they probably didn't get it from the hospital, unless on admission actually means some time after. That assumes it might be able to be detected so soon into the infect as well. It is a bit strange in that regard that it is such a high number.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#294

Post by riffraff » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #282

henrikschroder wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but in that chart Italy for example has had a declining graph for over two weeks, which means you can be reasonably sure it's not growing exponentially there. And in Sweden's case, if you also look at the number of ICU admissions, they've been flat for weeks, and those numbers have very little lag. I'm not saying everything is fine, I'm not saying we're over the peak, but I am saying that it's not the case that…

You have to ask what phenomenon causes an exponential increase in deaths/day and does not increase ICU utilization. The answer I’ve seen seems to be “yes, the disease is killing a steadily growing number of people but they’re older and aren’t going to the ICU before they die.” This is where Italy was at one point; they just got there much later.

As someone pointed out to me, the euromomo website is useful for this, it tracks the total mortality rate across Europe and compares it with the historical data.

By ignoring the hospitalized/homestuck difference one can have a clearer idea of what is happening. Sadly I don't know of a way to get the data for the whole world.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#295

Post by jmckib » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

takeda wrote: post #285

Jommi wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think we should be more careful with using the word "asymptomatic" as that is quite different from "presymptomatic". AFAIK COVID seems to have some case where people are purely "asymptomatic", but with this current hot topic of symptoms or not, lots of articles are writing about presymptomatic people they assume will be asymptomatic. Confusing.

It is, but I don't think the tests are able to tell how long a given person was infected. That two weeks incubation makes a lot of things harder. For example after implementing shelter at home or didn't look like it has much impact, but suddenly after two weeks it became very visible. It makes things scary when we lift stay home, it will take again two weeks, and things can get bad quickly over that time.

We also don't know yet (or at least I don't) how easily asymptomatic people are able to transmit the infection, which is why I'm perplexed by this quote from the article.

> “With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#296

Post by jacob019 » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #283

btilly wrote: post #27

This figure does not surprise me. It is in line with Iceland finding that 50% of people they tested were asymptomatic. However as https://www.propublica.org/article/what-we-need-to-understan... notes, in other samples about 75% of people who were asymptomatic at the time of the test went on to develop symptoms. So the fact that these sailors are currently asymptomatic does not mean that they will remain so. See https…

My question is, of these asymptomatic people that do go on to have symptoms...how many are so severe that they would have likely missed work or gone to a doctor? I think that is important too. How do we know if a bunch of people have had it, but had such minor symptoms that they just went on about their day? I had a spout of shortness of breath around late Feb - early March, I just chalked it up as allergies. Maybe i…

We need widespread home antibody tests. I had a bad chest cold for a month recently, probably just a cold but I sure wish I knew for sure. If I found that I have antibodies I would try to volunteer to help in the fight and donate plasma. It would completely change my behavior, but I may never know unless I get sick as a dog with usual symptoms.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#297

Post by boomboomsubban » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

capkutay wrote: post #271

sharemywin wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention. There's a giant filter called basic training which going to skew the numbers. you have a bunch of kids running around in the best shape of there lives and hey what do you know they handle the virus better than average.

What about pregnant women? They're known to be more vulnerable to certain types of illnesses (especially viral infections), yet 29 out of 33 pregnant women who tested positive of COVID-19 in NY were still asymptomatic: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85965

This was testing people admitted to the hospital while going into labor. How easy would it be for a person to distinguish symptoms of being in labor from symptoms of having the illnesses?

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#298

Post by beerandt » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

Lewton wrote: post #89

btilly wrote: post #27

This figure does not surprise me. It is in line with Iceland finding that 50% of people they tested were asymptomatic. However as https://www.propublica.org/article/what-we-need-to-understan... notes, in other samples about 75% of people who were asymptomatic at the time of the test went on to develop symptoms. So the fact that these sailors are currently asymptomatic does not mean that they will remain so. See https…

bingo It seems like most everyone keep glossing over the fact that if you have a disease that doubles its infection count every x days, and it takes around x days to show symptoms you would always expect about 50% of infected to be asymptomatic at the time of testing

Only if testing can detect the infection at t=0.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#299

Post by zaidf » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

takeda wrote: post #285

Jommi wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think we should be more careful with using the word "asymptomatic" as that is quite different from "presymptomatic". AFAIK COVID seems to have some case where people are purely "asymptomatic", but with this current hot topic of symptoms or not, lots of articles are writing about presymptomatic people they assume will be asymptomatic. Confusing.

It is, but I don't think the tests are able to tell how long a given person was infected. That two weeks incubation makes a lot of things harder. For example after implementing shelter at home or didn't look like it has much impact, but suddenly after two weeks it became very visible. It makes things scary when we lift stay home, it will take again two weeks, and things can get bad quickly over that time.

To be fair, shelter at home not appearing impactful earlier on had as much to do with testing capacity ramping up + delayed results. If you’re massively undertesting, even if new infections are decreasing, you’ll likely see growing rate of confirmed positives as you scale daily tests.

Similarly, if the results are taking 5-7 days to return, it is entirely possible for new confirmed positives to skyrocket just as actual new infections are tumbling.

Re: Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

#300

Post by gvjddbnvdrbv » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

jmckib wrote: post #295

takeda wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but I don't think the tests are able to tell how long a given person was infected. That two weeks incubation makes a lot of things harder. For example after implementing shelter at home or didn't look like it has much impact, but suddenly after two weeks it became very visible. It makes things scary when we lift stay home, it will take again two weeks, and things can get bad quickly over that time.

We also don't know yet (or at least I don't) how easily asymptomatic people are able to transmit the infection, which is why I'm perplexed by this quote from the article. > “With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.

The know that presymtomatic people are highly contagious.