
73% Of Inmates At An Ohio Prison Test Positive For Coronavirus. 0 deaths so far - dmitriy_ko
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/20/838943211/73-of-inmates-at-an-ohio-prison-test-positive-for-coronavirus
======
georgewfraser
10 prisoners in Ohio have now died of COVID, 1 from the prison mentioned in
this article and 9 from another prison where most prisoners are infected:
[https://drc.ohio.gov/Portals/0/DRC%20COVID-19%20Information%...](https://drc.ohio.gov/Portals/0/DRC%20COVID-19%20Information%2004-21-2020%201313.pdf)

~~~
triyambakam
Did they actually die from Covid-19? There are many reports of patients
"presumed" to have died from it, i.e. officially counted but not tested, or
others already had severe complications

~~~
triyambakam
I'm confused at being downvoted - do people not see that this is happening?

~~~
sunkiss
> many reports of patients "presumed" to have died from it, i.e. officially
> counted but not tested

The link you replied to says 100% of inmates at Pickaway have been tested.
There are separate columns for "Probable" and "Confirmed COVID-19 Related
Inmate Deaths".

Pickaway has a prisoner population of 2100. If 7 died in the last month from
non-Covid causes, that would mean half the prison normally dies in a 14 year
period.

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robocat
If prisoners had a single test, and the false negative rate of the test is
25%, or if 25% had recovered, that would mean nearly 100% were infected. That
would mean a very high R0 (believable in highly crowded conditions), and a
high R0 would mean than most inmates had been infected recently?

Before anything can be implied about population death rate:

1\. need to wait about 3 weeks

2\. need to know the age demographics

3\. need to know if at-risk inmates were isolated

Edit: on reflection, R0 itself doesn’t mean anything about how quickly people
get infected. I think a fast rate of infection through the facility could be
implied.

~~~
threeseed
There is also this assumption that if you get COVID-19 and survive that
everything is all fine. But we are seeing permanent neurological and
physiological effects in at least a few people.

I still wonder if possible long term effects are being factored into the
decision making to just let healthy people get COVID-19.

~~~
chirau
Interesting. I hadn't heard about the neurological and physiological post
effects. Can you shed more light on that if you can?

~~~
URSpider94
[https://www.wired.com/story/what-does-covid-19-do-to-your-
br...](https://www.wired.com/story/what-does-covid-19-do-to-your-brain/)

[https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-kidney-
failu...](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-kidney-failure-rate-
is-forcing-doctors-to-share-dialysis-machines)

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bdcravens
"0 deaths so far" is an addition to the title. They probably didn't draw it
out in the title because it's not significant - there's generally about a 3
week time span for serious cases to turn deadly.

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classics2
You cannot count on prisons to accurately report on deaths. Even in normal
times they blatantly misrepresent causes of death.

~~~
taneq
Wouldn't that tend to increase reported virus deaths though? "Oh, yeah he got
in a fight and then abused a warden. The next day he committed coronavirus and
now he's dead."

~~~
boomboomsubban
Though I wouldn't be surprised to hear that happen, I doubt 73% of inmates are
in a situation where that could cause their imminent death. It would take a
ton of work for those kinds of events to happen while w medical team listing
some other health issue as the cause of death

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mirimir
Huh. So I wonder. Say I'm old and have emphysema or CHF. And I got convicted
of some crime that meant imprisonment.

Could my lawyer argue successfully that a year or whatever in prison was
tantamount to a death sentence?

Is there any precedent for that?

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mellosouls
The title has been editorialised; the lack of deaths _may_ be significant, but
without drilling down into demographics (example: average age of inmates is
around 40) and other conditions that's not obvious.

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RickJWagner
It's like the aircraft carriers, with large infection rates and low death
rates.

There's something to be said for being young and healthy, it seems.

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Roritharr
The biggest casualty in the pandemic so far has been public faith in news
media, governmental institutions and "experts".

The thought is really, really frightening how many people had a very
undeniable experience of their local Tinfoil-Hat being proven right not once,
but 3-5 times so far.

From the WHO recommending to sustain Airtravel to China and it's refusal to
declare the outbreak a pandemic, to renowned Virologists stating that facemask
usage is ineffective until the evidence was too overwhelming. From Governments
in the span of 3 weeks changing their tone from overconfidence to desperation.
Statistics released by research groups that could very easily be disproven by
anyone with first semester statistics knowledge...

If anything this will change the world and it is scary to me how much this
loss of trust will cost us.

I know a couple of well educated and rational people that are already stating
they will not take a vaccine once it's available, simply because they "can't"
trust any data and study done on it.

"Where are the adults?"

~~~
rumanator
> to renowned Virologists stating that facemask usage is ineffective until the
> evidence was too overwhelming.

Source? I saw nothing of that. What I did saw was health officials dissuading
the public from buying gloves and masks because they were in very short supply
and the spike in demand was forcing frontline workers, those who actually need
gloves and masks, to macguyver theirselves alternative protective equipment.

At most, I've only saw health officials state that mask usage among the
general public was not an assurance of immunity because wearing a mask
provided a false sense of protection, and could even be counterproductive
because it motivated users to keep touching their faces.

~~~
jariel
"> to renowned Virologists stating that facemask usage is ineffective until
the evidence was too overwhelming. Source? "

The 'source' is the authorities of most of the Western World.

Dr. Tam, the National Medical Honcho in Canada made the declaration that
'masks were not going to help' ... until the WHO and other nations changed
their mind and she followed suit.

Masks were officially not recommended, then recommended but not required, and
then required in some places.

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anigbrowl
What should happen to the wardens if it emerges that negligence led to
avoidable death/disability?

~~~
ahupp
Can you give an example of what negligence might be happening here?

~~~
bdcravens
Not enforcing policies among employees to prevent infection

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p1necone
It's astounding to see the amount of aggressive misinformation being posted on
every HN thread about Coronavirus - it's being downvoted fairly quickly but I
have to wonder - is it possible we're getting brigaded in some kind of
organized fashion?

Or is this just the classic engineers thinking they know better in _all_
fields, rather than just the one they're educated in?

~~~
triyambakam
I don't think we can even call it misinformation, there is simply so much yet
unknown that there are a lot of theories and ideas not yet validated. An
invalidated idea is different than something known to be untrue

~~~
p1necone
The specific comments I'm referring to have been downvoted and flagged into
oblivion now so they're probably not visible unless you have the 'showdead'
option in your user profile turned on (it's off by default). There is plenty
of legitimate conversation going on too.

~~~
triyambakam
Ok thanks I did not know of that feature

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papermachete
Would politicians go so far as human vaccine testing on inmates?

~~~
bdcravens
Inmates still have to consent, and the right of that choice.

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twomoretime
So there's a morbid silver lining here. If this continues, as I expect since
we probably won't release inmates in most places in the US, this will be a
good test to see what percentage of recoveries acquire immunity and possibly
whether reinfection is possible and deadly because of antibody dependent
enhancement[1], a property which is shared by SARS and MERS.

1\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-
dependent_enhanceme...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-
dependent_enhancement)

P.S. looks like that article has been modified since I last read it, based on
the new literature I'm pretty convinced that COVID19 is likely to be deadlier
the second time around. This is really, really bad. Vaccine is unlikely for
this reason as well. Our only real hope it seems is to find or develop a
prophylactic and/or treatment and stay in some form of isolation until then.

Edit: there is nothing factually incorrect about what I'm saying and all of
these bits and pieces have been floating around for months.

The fact that a virologist hasn't connected these particular dots on live TV
yet doesn't preclude us from speculating. We all have access to the same
literature.

~~~
adrianN
I doubt that the prison demographic is in any way representative of the whole
population so that data would be of limited use.

~~~
twomoretime
They're humans. This beats any animal model study for worst case infection
scenario. The data would be invaluable.

