It's at least 33.
From the captain's letter:
"As an illustration, of the first 33 TR Sailors diagnosed with COVID-19, 21% (7 of those
33) infected Sailors were negative on a test, then subsequently presented with
of COVID-19 infection within 1-3 days post-test."
I don't have any doubt that that many (more than 5) would die. There's no magic bullet for this disease. I'm assuming "let it rip through the ship" means that everyone on board gets it, with that number. Young people die, quite commonly, and as far as I can tell it is not always limited to co-morbitities. And of course there are older sailors on the ship as well (35 and up).
I've no doubt there are more than 33 sailors who have, or had, the virus. As I said in my initial posts, Navy ships are basically plague boats.
But I highly,
highly doubt that even 5 sailors will pass from the disease from the ship, let alone 15.
Lets look at the statistics.
Worldometers has roughly 95% of the population who test positive, have minor symptoms. We're going to ignore that the data is likely skewed to severe cases since a lot of areas won't test you without showing severe symptoms (ie; Oregon) and use that as a base line. So, if
all 4k sailors get it on ship, that would end up being
200 people who have more severe reactions.
To get the possible death cases, we have to break up those 200 people into age brackets. Theoretically, most will be the older members, but we can't guarantee that little ol' Booter SN Schmuckatelly won't have the same reaction, so lets look at the over all age differences of the ship, and use that to extrapolate. I don't know the TR's demographics first hand, but we can use the over all US navy demographics as a base line.
It will be skewed to younger on ship in reality. The career of a Sailor goes "Sea duty, shore duty, sea duty, shore duty" on average, but 'sea duty' could also be non-ship going locations, like my own in Souda Bay. Those locations most often go to 2nd sea tour sailors because it's nicer and the Navy doesn't always try to screw us. Not always, mind, but it tries when it can.
45% of the Navy population,
in 2017, was under 25. 26-30 is another 21%, 31-35 is another 15.1%, and 36-40 is 10.4%. Added together that's
91.6% who are 40 and under. Multiply 91.4% to 200 is
16 people who are not the younger generation and may be a higher death rate, so
184 young who are severe, and we'll say for argument that the 16 people are in the age range of 40-70. I highly doubt someone aboard is older than 70, since you have joining age limitations, and career limitations. Join limit is 35 for enlisted (and the join age drops significantly after 25, we had two 30+ people in my 200 person boot camp troop, and one dropped out mid-way), and 36 years enlistment--so about 70 max. Officers are a bit different, but older ones tend to be doctors on shore duty at a hospital, or admirals in the pentagon, not aboard a ship.
Worldometer has a death percentage* chance for members 10-19 is .2%, 20-29 also .2%, as well as 30-39%. 40-49 is barely more at .4%, but for this guess we'll use the 39 and under at .2%. We'll average the death rate of 40-69 to make life easier (though it'd really be skewed towards younger, again) and get 1.8% for the older group.
184* .2% is 0.368 of a person, so rounded to
NONE. 16* 1.8% is 0.288 of a person, so rounded to
NONE. Even combined it's less than 1. Even attributing it to entire 4k people sick, 336 older, 3,664 younger, * respective percentages directly, it's only 7.3 for young and 6 older. So, combined, rounded to 15.
However, you have to remember that no only is the population young, but that they are
also screened for health prior to being assigned a ship (as in, you actually go to medical and see a doctor, screening). They don't even having nursing mothers, or pregnant sailors aboard a ship--they're removed once the pregnancy is determined, and sent to shore duty (the
Ike baby notwithstanding). Worldometers also has a list of conditions that make you more likely to die if you catch the disease--largely each are
disqualifying status for service, let alone service on a ship. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, cancer, etc. As blunt as it may be, the Navy doesn't want sickly people in it's force (such as cancer). It's too expensive to treat when they can just replace that person, and they need able bodies. Such members are generally denied entry if found prior, or quickly terminated if discovered after.
So, we'll remove the preexisting condition percentage from the higher 15 bodies count, since they'd over all not have it. 2 removed for cardio, 1 removed from diabetes, 1 from chronic resp, 1 from Hypertension, and 1 from cancer. 6 removed total, so
9. At
most. The meter has a no preexisting conditions modifier at 0.9%, so the 9 is probably still too high; it'd likely be
1.35, rounded to 1 person.
That's IF the entire ship gets it, and IF they get it all at roughly the same time, and IF they can only get enough medical responses to match the civilian sector, and IF the ship doesn't go underway, and IF the attributing numbers are all combined into one perfect death storm. This isn't even calculating the fact that ships are, as a whole, trained for disaster response (being a military fighting unit) so they'd be able to triage in a much more organized manner, and they're a part of the federal government who can and will simply order/take other government people to assist/supply. Guam even has a military hospital, not a clinic, a full
hospital.
I'm not saying some won't pass, worst case, but it'll be significantly less than the population at large. That's why I'm interested in how this ship handles it. The ship gives a pretty much opposite bias case than the cruise lines had, with the tight quarters and younger, healthier, mostly isolated population.
*Worldometer isn't percentage of those who have died, but percentage of a given age of dying. Since this example is built off everyone getting it, it's applied as a blanket number.
