CDC reviewing ‘stunning’ universal testing results from Boston homeless shelter
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
BOSTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now “actively looking into” results from universal COVID-19 testing at Pine Street Inn homeless shelter.
The broad-scale testing took place at the shelter in Boston’s South End a week and a half ago because of a small cluster of cases there .
Of the 397 people tested, 146 people tested positive.
Not a single one had any symptoms.“It was like a double knockout punch. The number of positives was shocking, but the fact that 100 percent of the positives had no symptoms was equally shocking,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program , which provides medical care at the city’s shelters.
O’Connell said that the findings have changed the future of COVID-19 screenings at Boston’s homeless shelters.[ Experts: Homeless population vulnerable to coronavirus ]“
All the screening we were doing before this was based on whether you had a fever above 100.4 and whether you had symptoms,” said O’Connell. “How much of the COVID virus is being passed by people who don’t even know they have it?”
The 146 people who tested positive were immediately moved to two different temporary isolation facilities in Boston. According to O’Connell, only one of those patients needed hospital care, and many continue to show no symptoms.
“If we did universal testing among the general population, would these numbers be similar?” said Lyndia Downie, president and executive director at the Pine Street Inn. “I think there are no many asymptomatic people right now. We just don’t know. We don’t have enough data on universal testing to understand how many asymptomatic people are contagious.
”Hundreds of tests are now set to be conducted at additional Boston homeless shelters in the coming days.“It tells you, you don’t know who’s at risk. You don’t know what you need to do to contain the virus if you don’t actually have the details or facts,” said Marty Martinez, Boston’s chief of Health and Human Services.
About 250 people are expected to be tested on Thursday and Friday at the men’s Southampton Street shelter run by Boston Public Health Commission.
“Our goal within the next three or four days is to test everybody so we have a good understanding of who has it and who doesn’t,” added Martinez.
More than 900 isolation beds have been set up locally for people who are homeless. The majority of those beds have not yet been used, but local and state health officials aren’t sure if that could change after more testing is complete.
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Moral to the story...…. Don't shower …… be a dumpster diver...…. and.....JUST be Dirty !
You'll only be a carrier !
I wish this story had better information about the progression of the tested people. It says they didn't have any symptoms when they were tested. Some clearly developed symptoms eventually, but they don't say how many.
I have worked as a medical lab tech for almost 30 years. For the majority of my last stint, I worked up the stats for the lab, and always found the end of year stats, from the states and counties, especially interesting. You would see trends, tendrils of infection sweeping through communities and states (stuff like influenza strains, mono, strep, viral infections etc). These were not real time, they were garnered and extrapolated, from data over the past year. What you would see is definitive movement of infection, but not timed the same, due to when testing started becoming more widespread.
When practitioners start ordering more tests, that's when the data becomes available. That does not mean that suddenly there are a lot more cases, it means that suddenly knowledge of the cases are available. Over and over, every year, I've noticed the same thing: germs and their infections are present, regardless of our being cognizant of it or not. I believe that yes indeed, many Americans have probably already been infected with Covid-19 and do not know it.
Whether or not that means we are ready to open thing up or not, I'm not sure. I'll leave that up to you all to figure out.
I'd love to see the methodology for this test. It makes no sense in what is going on across the US. The death rate is increasing. Thursday was the worst yet, with 4,591 dying. Something is odd and needs further investigation.
I work for a major hospital system here in Ga. My practice has since today tested my main provider and my front office supervisor for antibody testing, they were our guinea pigs. I get tested on Monday. My practice on a normal day sees about 120 pts. Since Covid, we arent seeing much, 20, would be a high(that includes lab pts), busy day since we quit seeing sick pts and doing telemed. Since March 13, we have sent several pts for testing who several have come back positive. We quit seeing sick pts around 3/20. So far, everyone in my office has been in good health, not sick at all (knock on wood).
Maybe everybody should move into homeless shelters.
best post here
More evidence it is much more widespread than first reported and the mortality rate will be much lower than currently being reported by MSM.
The biggest problem with the idea of widespread testing is for it to be completely accurate, everyone in the country has to be tested at the exact same time and no one is allowed to leave their current location until all tests are back.
In other instances, say you go and get tested. You come back negative within an hour or so. In those days soon after your test comes back, you unknowingly come across someone that is a carrier with no symptoms and has not yet been tested. You speak to them for a few minutes then go on your way. You may now also be a carrier...unknowingly. You come across others, especially family that may have also been tested and came back negative and may end up transmitting the virus to them.
So can someone tell us what the purpose of widespread testing is supposed to be?