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This is mixed news. While this indicates the death rate may be lower and the infection rate higher among the general population, the demographic of individuals
by eximius 7y ago
This is mixed news. While this indicates the death rate may be lower and the infection rate higher among the general population, the demographic of individuals in the US military are going to be of significantly higher health than the general population.
So, it doesn't necessarily ease the risk for demographics already identified as 'at-risk'. If anything, their risk might be understated given the higher infection rate.
- scarface74 7y agoEspecially once you consider all of the pre-existing conditions that make you ineligible to be in the military.
- cryoshon 7y agothis is a really good point. AFAIK, 100% of the canonical pre-existing conditions which are highly dangerous with COVID are disqualifiers for joining the military. this cohort will give us a much better picture of how the virus impacts a totally healthy and young population. as with countless other pieces of evidence, it should also help to put the "it's just a flu bro" falsehood to bed.
- jjtheblunt 7y agoDoes the mortality rate across entire population (not particular subpopulations) exceed that of the flu?
- TheCoelacanth 7y agoAlmost certainly. The US had 27k deaths in the past two weeks. That's more than some entire years of flu related deaths. Give it another few weeks and it will be more than any recent year.
- ashtonkem 7y agoYes. Current understanding of the mortality rate is that it’s roughly 10x more lethal than the flu across all age demographics. This means you might only have a 0.2% of dying as a 20 year old, but you only had a 0.02% chance of dying of the flu. The caveat is that mortality rate is intimately tied with the availability of certain types of care; if you need a vent and the hospital is full, you die even if otherwise you would’ve lived. Thus case mortality rate will change dramatically once the hospitals fill up.
- usaar333 7y agoI don't think that's true. covid has stronger age dependence. Just look at the ratio of covid vs. influenza deaths on the CDC's website (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm). 3:1 covid:flu for over 85, but 1:1 for 25-35 and 1:10 for children. (relative ratios as we don't know total covid infections). This is especially striking with children: if the US had the same number of covid infections as seasonal flu, you'd probably have lower pediatric deaths from covid than flu.
- ashtonkem 7y agoThese statistics don’t support that conclusion, because these statistics are for total deaths. You can’t meaningfully compare the total deaths from a disease that’s done for the season (Flu) with one that’s still on going (COVID-19). What you should be comparing is case fatality rates.
- usaar333 7y agoBut can you not compare the ratios between age groups? That's all I'm doing here - showing deaths have a higher age correlation with covid than flu. - not making any statement about absolute CFR/IFR.
- ashtonkem 7y agoNo, because you don’t know what the infection rate is by each demographic. You have to compare just the case fatality rate. Comparing fatality ratios alone is too likely to measure unrelated factors.
- perl4ever 7y ago"AFAIK, 100% of the canonical pre-existing conditions which are highly dangerous with COVID are disqualifiers for joining the military." Including being "old".
- lostlogin 7y agoDisqualified from signing up, but you can age surely? I thought that smokers had elevated risks too, are smokers allowed in the military? As far as I can tell they are.
- perl4ever 7y agoOn average, people who start out older tend to end up older, after a given period of time. That's my theory, at least.
- yellowapple 7y ago> Disqualified from signing up, but you can age surely? To an extent. The US military caps military service at 30 years (20 for reserve officers), last I checked. So if you enlisted at 35 (right at the cutoff for the usual maximum age to enlist), you'd be forced to retire at 65, whereas if you enlisted at 17, you'd be forced to retire at 47. 65 (IIRC) is right on the edge of when age starts becoming a significant risk factor; for the vast majority of military personnel, it ain't gonna be a factor. There are of course exceptions to this based on rank or specialization; for example, had my grandpa been promoted to General, he would've been able to serve longer, but he wasn't selected for the promotion so he aged out as a Colonel (or at least that's how he explained it to me).
- jki275 7y agoMajority on the ship are going to be under 40. Most people start their military careers between 18 and 22, and most people leave at it before 20 years of service. Squadron commanders, senior medical officer, Dept heads and the CO and Admiral would most likely be in their forties or early fifties.
- mc32 7y agoI think we should also consider that some members of the military depending on their duties get exposed to chemicals that the civilian pop don’t get exposed to at the same levels.
- ashtonkem 7y agoOr at all. Most of us will never come within contact with TNT during our life, while most military members will be exposed to its residue constantly.
- pvaldes 7y agoGood point, yes, but I bet that Gulf war soldiers where also extra-healthy when they enlisted. Not so much when they returned home. Army, is an activity with lots of health risks, chemicals and strange diseases exposure attached. Not the best choice if you expect to live for one hundred years.
- lhuser123 7y agoThat reminded me of an Army recruiter well known for his “tactics”. People close describes him as a “Car salesman “. Apparently, is very good at making sure the candidate doesn’t change his/her mind.
- gnopgnip 7y agoThere are a lot of people who have pre existing conditions and have no idea, even in the military. There was a marine recruit who died during basic training because of a heart defect, it wasn't an issue his whole life and it didn't come up as a problem during the in depth physical you get before hand.
- __s 7y agoExistence doesn't exclude filtering beyond filtering every case
- tsimionescu 7y agoSure but that is irrelevant. It is absolutely certain that the rate of most diseases associated with increased Covid19 risks is much lower in the active army than in the general population, even if it is not 0.
- cm2187 7y agoIt does, the more young healthy people are immune, the less likely the virus will make it to them.
- estebank 7y agoBeing asymptomatic is not the same as being immune. It means that more people will feel fine and spread the virus more because they don't know they have it.
- falcor84 7y agoWell, for what it's worth, if they get the virus while on a long tour of duty, by the time they get back they should be good to contribute to the herd immunity.
- kian 7y agoOnly if they form antibodies. Studies have been suggesting that people who get it in asymptomatic form are not all forming antibodies - leaving them wide open to be future communicators of the disease.
- falcor84 7y agoThat sounds really interesting, could you please link to more info about this?
- kian 7y agoI'll check back in here later with links - didn't save it at the time I was reading through.
- koyote 7y agoWouldn't that mean that a vaccine is close to impossible? My layman understanding is that a vaccine relies on the body creating antibodies.
- jonny_eh 7y agoBut it would indicate the we may be closer to herd immunity than we thought, which would be great news.
- IAmEveryone 7y agoLet’s assume 100% in NY are or have been infected. 12,000 deaths / 20 million = 0.0006% fatality. Then scale that up to US population outside N.Y.: 18,0000 deaths / 0,0006 = 3,000,000 infected out of 300,000,000 for an infection rate of... 1%. Herd immunity takes about 66% to 70%. So: only 65% to 69% to go, or about 200,000 deaths. Lower the assumed infection rate in NY to anything realistic and it only gets worse. For (still high) 20% you’re looking at a million deaths to achieve herd immunity.
- fjk123 7y agothat would be 30 million, not 3 million
- DanBC 7y agoI don't quite understand why "more infectious but less lethal" is better than "less infectious but more lethal" -- both mean that lots of people are going to die.
- mannykannot 7y agoEven with the earlier estimates of how infectious it is, it seems quite likely that a large proportion of the population is likely to catch it sooner or later. If that is so, then the less lethal it is, the better.
- ashtonkem 7y agoThe former only holds if you assume that a large majority of asymptomatic carriers never develop symptoms. It’s entirely likely that an asymptomatic positive test is a precursor to developing symptoms.
- capkutay 7y ago> the demographic of individuals in the US military are going to be of significantly higher health than the general population. 29 out of 33 pregnant women who tested positive at Columbia University Medical in NYC were also asymptomatic: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85965 https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85965 With other viruses, pregnant women are typically considered at elevated risk. For example, they had a significantly higher fatality rate with the Spanish Flu. So it's still unclear who is most likely to be asymptomatic based on the data we have so far.
- ineedasername 7y agoImmune systems during pregnancy are vastly different than normal. It's quite possible that is a factor in the asymptomatic rate here. Many studies like this are using populations with inherent selection bias: that makes them interesting, for that population, but you cannot generalize from those results.
- nradov 7y agoIt would tend to add weight to the growing evidence that public health officials in most countries have been pursuing the wrong strategy all along. We could save more lives in the short term and avoid overwhelming the healthcare system by focusing our limited resources on providing safe voluntary quarantine spaces for the elderly and others at highest risk.