
Ohio Prison Death Updates [pdf] - burgreblast
https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/static/DRCCOVID-19Information.pdf
======
burgreblast
17 days ago we heard that 3,330 inmates tested positive, 96% without symptoms.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22980932](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22980932)

There was much speculation, but many people agreed that in 2 weeks we would
have super interesting data.

It's been 17 days. We have an update from ohio.gov that tested individuals
climbed to 7536, 4439 are positive (59%), total 49 deaths (.01)

Not an epidemiologist. Does this data fit the Diamond Princess model? Or more
broadly, which model fits this data best?

Is there other data to show how many became symptomatic? How do we interpret
this update, more than 2 weeks after initial reports?

~~~
ecpottinger
Diamond Princess had a far higher percentage of older (over 70) people. I also
would like to know if the HVAC system is as centralize in a prison as it is on
a cruise ship.

~~~
vkou
HVAC is not the problem.

The problem is that prisoners routinely share common spaces. It doesn't matter
how the air circulates, when they all cook, eat, work, shower, and exercise in
the exact same communal rooms.

Combine that with insufficient sanitation, and it's a miracle that only half
of them got sick.

~~~
limaoscarjuliet
HVAC might be a problem, there was a CDC article demonstrating how A/C was
attributed to specific cases in China
[https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article)

~~~
vkou
I agree that HVAC can cause spread. My point is that prison life does not
allow for social distancing, and that the HVAC is irrelevant when everyone is
living in essentially the same space.

------
sdenton4
Just as an extra wrench in the works, an unknown number of prisoners have been
released or transferred, probably after being deemed higher risk:
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/regulation/court-
ba...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/regulation/court-
battles/494266-judge-says-ohio-prison-hit-by-coronavirus-is-fighting-a-
losing%3famp)

So death rates may still be reduced by interventions. Take care, arm chair
statisticians.

~~~
centimeter
> Take care, arm chair statisticians

FWIW, during this whole process, people reasonably described as “arm chair
statisticians” have been putting out higher-quality and more accurate
statistical analysis than any public-facing government or media source. The
only high-quality analysis I’ve seen has been from “amateurs” (I.e. not
employed by institutional sources of narrative information) and expensive
subscription-only financial analysis services.

~~~
slg
What is the size of the population of amateurs and what is the size of the
population of experts? I am guessing the former is a lot bigger than the
latter meaning more outcomes to pick from when retroactively trying to assign
credit for accuracy.

~~~
centimeter
If that’s the case, then I must have a really good selection algorithm,
because the people I talk with/pay attention to are pretty uniformly good.

~~~
Retric
Can you point to any actual posts from these people on the ship’s? As I have
seen a lot of horrifically bad statistics by random posters.

~~~
oneiftwo
There was a comprehensive literature review posted on /r/coronavirus some two
months ago that strong (and statistically robust in my opinion as a
professional data scientist) indicating that smokers were less likely to be
infected with the virus, with possible mechanisms from previous viruses like
SARS and MERS.

In fact that was one of the earliest common sources to mention ACE2 receptors.
A month or so later there is at least one study looking at nicotine patches as
prophylactic and/or treatment for covid. I'm having trouble finding the reddit
thread, standby.

------
romaaeterna
30 of the deaths are at PCI, which is basically a nursing home for older
prisoners.

EDIT: “Marion houses a high number of older individuals, many who have pre-
existing health conditions. Pickaway houses our long-term-care center similar
to a nursing home, and Franklin is our state prison medical center.”

Marion is 25% of the deaths. Pickaway 59%. And Franklin 10%.

~~~
elcritch
Then for the general population below whatever that age is (maybe 65?), you'd
get roughly `(51-30)/4449 ≈ 0.47% FR` (non-PCI deaths/total positive). It's a
bit unclear as it seems the numbers are changing as test results arrive. For
the PCI cohort: 30/1258 ≈ 2.38% (deaths/recovered).

The 0.47% FR would seem much more plausible given the spread of the virus and
the number of asymptomatic cases that appear to exist from serological
testing.

~~~
romaaeterna
You're hugely overestimating still. You seem to assume that all of the
over-65s in the system are at PCI. In fact, only a small fraction of older
people, even in late decades, need to be in long term medical care.

~~~
elcritch
True, it's more of an upper-bounds of sort. There's several preprints from
European researchers giving IFR's of 0.08% and 0.37%. So it works pretty well
from a Fermi estimation method ([https://what-if.xkcd.com/84/](https://what-
if.xkcd.com/84/)) (e.g. Bayesian inference really). Also, the age distribution
in prison isn't necessarily the same as that of the general population.
There's lots of limitations for a comparison to the general population but it
gives some bounds.

I'd think the statistic of "average years of life lost" based on expected
average of lifetime. Otherwise not sure of a better statistical way to measure
age-adjusted IFR, which would be helpful.

~~~
dmix
One thing I’m curious about is the influence of people having symptoms being
more likely to be tested. As others have mentioned this is only 15% of the
total prison population.

I’m also curious how you could account for that if you could. Besides random
sampling + tracking individuals afterwards even if they left the prison.

I’ve recently started digging more into statistics and probability theory and
looking forward to learning how these biases might be factored in.

------
dr_faustus
Considering they probably tested everyone so there are no unrecorded cases, a
1% death rate is pretty much in line with studies finding the CFR to be in the
0.5-1.5% neighborhood [1,2]. I would guess they are younger on average, but
the prison population probably has some risk factors in terms of nutrition,
insufficient Vitamin D, lack of exercise, etc.

[1]
[https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1327](https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1327)
[2]
[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v2)

~~~
skuhn
They tested 7541 people out of 39,082 inmates in quarantine. These numbers
aren't inclusive of staff -- 556 tested positive, but how many were tested?
Are staff quarantined to prevent spreading the infection out of the prisons?

The most recent information I could find says that Ohio has 48,765 inmates in
total. They have quarantined 80% of prisoners and tested 15%. Their infection
numbers are likely artificially low due to asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic
cases.

------
whycombagator
I'd also be interested in how many have detrimental side effects from the
virus, after recovery. Mostly all I see from covid numbers are black & white:
died/recovered.

There was an article recently on HN that talked about the possible lasting
effects of the virus[0]. I am interested to know how frequently lasting
effects occur

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127167](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127167)

~~~
GloriousKoji
The National Geographic article from a few months ago covers the lasting
effects much better.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-
is-w...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-what-
coronavirus-does-to-the-body/)

~~~
davidw
Given all we're learning, and how fast things are happening, a couple of
months ago is a long time.

------
subsubzero
I think the better report to look into will be Lompac(southern california)[1],
they have the higher % of infected prisoners, I think its been roughly 70% of
the prison population has tested positive for covid. Analyzing these closed
systems for a true death rate seems to be the only way we will get decent data
regarding mortality. I don't see govt. officials going door to door in cities
asking for people to prick their finger to analyze for covid antibodies. A few
things to watch out for is prisoner transfers due to extreme sickness, also
getting a age distribution for the prison like others have said here, another
thing to note is prison food and env. is bad on health.

[1] -
[https://beta.trimread.com/articles/14963](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/14963)

------
rayiner
It’s an interesting question: how do you figure out whether these numbers are
good or bad? Ohio has a prison population of about 44,000. So these numbers
(actual plus probable) represent a death rate of 120 per 100,000. That’s ten
times the death rate in Ohio as a whole. But it’s about half the death rate of
NYC (actual plus probable). What’s the correct reference point? NYC seems like
a reasonable reference, given that prison is an inherently high density living
situation.

~~~
rtkwe
It's also a place where you have the power to force people to follow
distancing and 'shelter in place' as long as it's not a dorm style prison. [0]

[0] Though even with those you can isolate it to particular rooms if you have
the testing capacity.

------
kregasaurusrex
While this is a small dataset of tested individuals which may be
proportionally representative to larger groups, it comes at odds with
releasing PII with respect to individual privacy to see potential comorbities
(old age, obesity, diabetes, lack of an auto-immune response, etc). We know
that people with exposure to recycled airspace and live in close proximity are
more likely to transmit covid to one another. Mask wearing and social
distancing are actions that will have to be obeyed by everyone as a collective
in order to work-- one may never know if they're an asymptomatic super-
spreader without widespread testing. Cloth masks aren't for protecting
yourself as much as they are everyone around you.

Within the data itself, it shows that quarantine and isolation are effective
practices against spreading covid in a hotspot. This may be a good stop-gap
measure while researchers are able to study it more, but government's
responsibility at all levels of keeping people safe in returning to work has
has greatly fallen short of expectations.

------
malkia
Stab in the dark - AFAIK, Testosterone level in males in Prisons is much
higher than usual (I can't back up that claim right now, but have been reading
posts related to it).

Then there is this -
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7185012/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7185012/)

just the two clicked together somehow, but might not be related after all..

------
lvs
This is likely just about population age distribution in prisons vs the
general population.

16% of the US population is 65+, but only 2.7% in (federal) prisons. So that
must account for a decent chunk of it.

[https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_age.j...](https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_age.jsp)

~~~
subsubzero
I agree that the age distribution does not match society in general, but take
one thing into account, you have one group of people who have an extremely low
death rate not in prison(children and teenagers) so this probably evens things
out, extreme old age is not represented in prisons either, 80+ .

------
m0zg
I've read somewhere (but don't know if it's true) that prison meals are
enriched with vitamins, and in particular with vitamin D. Could someone
confirm?

Also, there are fewer old prisoners than old people in the general population.

~~~
rwmurrayVT
Personal experience tells me that it's most likely not true. I have seen a
great deal of the food that we cooked in federal prison. I'd label the
beverages like fruit juice being enriched as a "maybe".

We typically had lower quality of the same food stuffs you'd buy at the
grocers. Protein/canned vegetables/"fresh" fruit/rice.

------
mellosouls
I can't see the document, but when a similar story recently popped up on here
the average age of prisoners was 38.

fwiw.

edit: the previous story
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22941493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22941493)

age stats:
[https://www.cleveland.com/news/erry-2018/08/84f4aab48f389/oh...](https://www.cleveland.com/news/erry-2018/08/84f4aab48f389/ohios-10-oldest-
and-10-younges.html)

(the underlying source is not accessible to me either at the moment)

