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50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

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Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#131

Post by easytiger »

confeit wrote: post #43

> "The vast majority of people infected with Covid-19, between 50 and 75%, are completely asymptomatic but represent a formidable source of contagion". The Professor of Clinical Immunology of the University of Florence, Sergio Romagnani > Asymptomatic infection has been reported, but the majority of the relatively rare cases who are asymptomatic on the date of identification/report went on to develop disease. The pro…

Well they aren't testing symptomatic people. How would they know to want to be tested other than personal election to do so because they had been in contacted with someone else?

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#132

Post by steve_adams_86 »

hellofunk wrote: post #68
alexanderhorl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the end the CFR will be the same as the regular flu.

It has already proven to be far worse than the flu in its strain on healthcare systems.

Isn't that largely due to a lack of immunity? Too many people getting it at once in clusters?

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#133

Post by trymas »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #77
blahedo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure, if you have sick leave. The above comment is perhaps aspirational, but otherwise it is woefully ignorant of the sad, sad state of US healthcare for most of its residents.

It's a problem everywhere. Sick leave is something you take when you have high fever or need surgery, not when you start coughing. Reasons include: there's only so much sick leave you can take, employers expect sick leave to be extremely rare and will "phase you out" if it isn't, getting a sick leave involves a visit to a doctor - which, like any visit to a healthcare facility processing sick people - comes with a ri…

> Every place on the planet needs to rethink how we handle infectious diseases. This requires both a cultural and legal shift, so that one can just not come to work when showing mild symptoms and not face any negative consequences

Do I live on another planet? Coming in sick even with mild symptoms is frowned upon at least for a decade where I live. As a tech worker I can easily work remotely, so on mild symptoms I inform my employer that I will work remotely and that's it. If I feel, that I am not capable to work productively - I get a sick leave from my doctor and that's it.

I am of course not from medieval US (though POTUS probably could easily call place where I live a "shithole" country) where sick leave is compensated to 80% of your salary (there's a cap, but it's high enough) and I am not aware of any time limits, if there is - it's a year or more. That's the reason I pay taxes! :)

So no "legal shift" required. There's a "cultural shift" needed for some employers though, where being unwell is a sign of weakness, though legally they cannot do anything to the employee.

All in all, I do not want my restaurant order to be handled by anyone who's is even mildly ill or have a runny nose. Same thing applies to doctors, nurses, grocery store staff, etc. All politicians, employers and people in general who cannot grasp this simple idea - belong to live in the dark middle ages.

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#134

Post by j-pb »

easytiger wrote: post #128
j-pb wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't add up, if it wasn't worse than seasonal influenza, then Italys hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed.

Italy did everything wrong. They basically turned hospitals into covid19 infection parties.

Italys transmission rate is exactly the same exponential curve as everywhere else, chinas hospitals were overwhelmed, spanish hospitals are being overwhelmed, and its currently starting in the netherlands and germany.

All year round is basically influenza infection party everywhere yet it doesn't overwhelm our medical systems.

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#135

Post by bsaul »

j-pb wrote: post #104
md224 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect the true numbers are about 10x-50x the reported confirmed cases. This is good in that it means the death rate is also off by that factor, but bad in that there will not be enough fear/incentive for the primary carriers (young adults) to adhere to adequate social distancing. If the death rate is off by 10x-50x, isn't this approaching the death rate of seasonal influenza, in which case we didn't actually ne…

That doesn't add up, if it wasn't worse than seasonal influenza, then Italys hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed.

a regular flu epidemic does between 10k to 20k over a span of two months in france alone. that's more than the total number of casualties of the covid-19 so far.My feeling so far is the problem is that most covid-19 emergencies can actually be cured if you've got a breathing machine, which requires special equipment not available at the moment.

I'd say the virus isn't more dangerous than the flu, it's just requiring a very specific set of equipment which we didn't need as much previously.

of course that will all depend on what the number evolves to over time.

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#137

Post by bsaul »

easytiger wrote: post #128
j-pb wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't add up, if it wasn't worse than seasonal influenza, then Italys hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed.

Italy did everything wrong. They basically turned hospitals into covid19 infection parties.

do you have sources for that ? i'm extremely interested in understanding why italy seems to be suffering that much compared to other countries. If it's just a matter of being the first, or if it's also something specific to them.

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#138

Post by vladvasiliu »

rixed wrote: post #58
uluyol wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is not an option for many people. I don't disagree with the sentiment - avoiding the spread of disease is good - but often the reward systems in place don't optimize for the best global outcomes.

Luckily we are born with "judgment" for all these cases were instincts or rewards do not point in the right direction. According to some, that's literally the reason d'etre of consciousness. I wish it worked better and I were not confined home right now.

Right. But how often does this actually happen in the real world ? And most importantly, what are we, as a society, ready to bet on the fact that not enough will make the "wrong" judgement ?

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#139

Post by Jedd »

easytiger wrote: post #130
Jedd wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't add up either -- immunity per individual is expected to last 'only a few months', opening the door to multiple infections per year per person.

> This doesn't add up either -- immunity per individual is expected to last 'only a few months', There is no evidence either way. Even if it is transient it will be enough for it to die down

There's some very strong indicators that immunity will be ephemeral.

It's possible the R naught will drop below the currently assessed 2.2 over time, but there's no evidence for that -- and if both these things stay as expected, it won't be transient enough to 'die down' naturally.

Re: 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic

#140

Post by robocat »

ncallaway wrote: post #54
username90 wrote: post #12

"Everyone we found to have Covid-19 had serious symptoms, so we don't want to waste money testing you if you don't!" I feel this is a trillion dollar mistake, testing more aggressively like South Korea means that you don't have to deploy the army and quarantine people. I had mild symptoms and they refused to test me, what am I to do? Self quarantine without a notice and hence without pay? I could work from home, but…

I'm not sure if you're quoting something or paraphrasing a position you disagree with. If it's a paraphrase, I'm not so sure it's a fair one. In the United States, for example, we are urging people not to be tested unless they have severe symptoms. The reason for that is not to save money, but it's for a lack of testing capacity. As a policy we would much prefer to be testing even the mild suspected cases. But we don…

> In the United States, for example, we are urging people not to be tested unless they have severe symptoms.

They should test randomly: e.g. use a hash of the person’s name.

Otherwise there is a huge risk of missing cases that matter...

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