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Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

www3.nhk.or.jp

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Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#61
post #24
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the German man [...] said he had a mild fever in the weekend and slept it off, and came to work on Monday, which must mean he had recovered. Unfortunately, this isn't a valid assumption. Lots of people come in to work sick - just yesterday we had to ask our boss to send someone home because they showed up to work caughing and sneezing all day (Today, two other coworkers aren't coming in because they're not feeling…

I would turn that around. There is a substantial amount of healthy individuals who end up in in ICU or worse due to the virus. This is certainly different from the common flu, for example.

The flu kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. So far, this virus has killed maybe 200, out of 7,000ish infections.

We’re a long way away from knowing how dangerous this virus is, but the media hype is waaaaay ahead of reality.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the way I read the report. I read it as it is confirmed that the virus can spread before the symptoms appear. No where is it stated that there is a new variant.

I'm not sure that et even says that, just that they tested everybody who arrived on the plane and found a few with the infection but no symptoms. It doesn't say whether they can spread the infection in that state.

Yes you are right. I misread.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#63

The article says a "new type of coronavirus", which is presumably a misunderstanding on the reporter's part; it seems more likely that these are asymptomatic carriers of the same virus. However, if there really is a symptomless or near-symptomless variant, this would actually be great news, since it would spread rapidly and provide immunity against virulent strains. And this in fact is what appeared to happen with th…

Haven't the genetic sequences shown that there's so far only one variant? It's not surprising that there would be symptomless carriers, since it apparently can have quite a long incubation period. They may develop symptoms within a couple of weeks.

Yes. Sequences strongly support single zoonotic introduction.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#64
post #61
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would turn that around. There is a substantial amount of healthy individuals who end up in in ICU or worse due to the virus. This is certainly different from the common flu, for example.

The flu kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. So far, this virus has killed maybe 200, out of 7,000ish infections. We’re a long way away from knowing how dangerous this virus is, but the media hype is waaaaay ahead of reality.

The flu has a mortality rate of something like 0.1%, 200 our of 7000 is already 3%, 30x as deadly. Of course these aren't final numbers but the flu infects and afflicts vastly many more people than it kills.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you figure that? Going off this source I see 170 deaths and 133 recovered. So of those 303 that have been infected with it, 170 have died which is 56%. You can't count the other 7783 that are currently infected since we haven't seen their outcome yet. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

This is not the right way of counting it. If it takes 40 days to be declared fully recovered, the recovered number is going to stay low at least 40 days (even though the people on their way to full recovery will most likely survive), while the death number will be increasing from the pool of people which became infected later. To count it properly you need to follow what happened to people infected at the same date.

Interesting, that makes sense!

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flu kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. So far, this virus has killed maybe 200, out of 7,000ish infections. We’re a long way away from knowing how dangerous this virus is, but the media hype is waaaaay ahead of reality.

The flu has a mortality rate of something like 0.1%, 200 our of 7000 is already 3%, 30x as deadly. Of course these aren't final numbers but the flu infects and afflicts vastly many more people than it kills.

Those 7000 infections are 7000 confirmed infections. Actual infections are going to be way higher than this (and hence, the mortality rate is going to be way lower) because of what was being discussed up-thread and in the article, i.e. infected people showing only minor symptoms and never getting admitted into a hospital where they would be tested for nCoV-2019.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#67
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China CDC official numbers are 170 dead and 1370 critical among 7711, as of 30th 00:00.

I imagine China is severely underreporting the numbers. I got downvoted last time I suggested it, but this is a modern day, protectionist, authoritarian state which controls what its people can say and see.

I don't know what particular phrasing you got downvoted for, but if it's along the lines of "China is authoritarian, therefore underreporting", that's a a non-sequitur and I can see why it would get downvoted.

What is true is that authoritarian regimes regularly use misreporting when it's in their own interest. If you want to make a solid argument, you need to explain why it is in the Chinese government's interest to underreport infection numbers.

For example, I could even imagine it being in their interest to overreport the mortality rate so they can afterwards boast about how effective their measures were in containing such a powerful and deadly disease. I don't say that's what happened, but it's within the realm of the imaginable.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#68
post #23
post #7

Missing "[of Coronavirus]". Yeah the guideline doesn't say it, and we probably can assume what infection they're talking about, but.. Reports say the German man who got the virus after having a business meeting with a Chinese visitor said he had a mild fever in the weekend and slept it off, and came to work on Monday, which must mean he had recovered. Reading that makes me think the virus isn't a death sentence like…

I am a bit more worried. There is a recent study that shows a mortality rate of diagnosed patients at 11% [1]. This is not the true case fatality rate, but a sample of patients seen in Wuhan hospital. The true percentage is probably lower due to bias. We simply cannot calculate #fatalities / #cases, for a multitude of reasons. One, there is lag due to the clinical journey of the patients. Since both numbers rise expo…

I'm too lazy to find the link but I've read the mortality rate is 3% - vs. 1% for a normal influenza infection. Obviously the information situation is really bad.

If it's really 11% that would be kind of worrisome. If it's just 3%, it's important to take care but in any case there's no point in panicking. The Chinese government indeed does well by building a new hospital complex so fast but the information politics is horrible. Also locking down a whole metropole region makes no sense. It's a signal to panic and people who are just a little sick might have a harder time to recover due to food shortage.

I'm sure, when this is over, the government will face some serious criticism, maybe this would even fuel protests on mainland China.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#69
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get to that number?

I'm just dividing the number of (known) deaths by the number of known infections. As other's have pointed out this isn't the most reliable way of doing it, but it gives some indication.

No, it does not give any information for a multitude of reasons.

1. Deaths are lagged by known cases

2. Both are skewed distributions

3. These people might have received professional care when it was available. During an outbreak, the available health care will decline.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#70
post #55
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would turn that around. There is a substantial amount of healthy individuals who end up in in ICU or worse due to the virus. This is certainly different from the common flu, for example.

According to Wikipedia, the flu causes 3-5 million severe cases and 650,000 deaths worldwide each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

Yes, but the mortality rate of the common flu is much, much lower. Mortality of admitted patients is around 11% according to latest Lancet article.
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