50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 are asymptomatic • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by bryanrasmussen » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:16 AM UTC

pcl wrote: post #99

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…

The disease also appears to spread much faster than the flu. So even if the death rate is comparable, the infection rate is likely to be far higher.

let's say there were 320,000 people without symptoms in China, which seems unlikely, that would make the total cases approximately 400000, and if we just looked at the fatalities so far out of that it would be a fatality rate of 0.8% iirc the common flu is 0.1% fatality, so if this only had 0.8% but affects 40-70% of the world (which seems to me like it would be at the 70% end if there are lots of asymptomatic people)

so 40% of 7 billion and then 0.8% of that is 22,400,000 - my math is probably off here.

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

#162

Post by trymas » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #158

trymas wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 in…

As tech workers, we're particularly privileged. Ask your local grocery store clerk, or the person that handles your paperwork in the bank. I too am from a highly-developed (relative to the US) European country. It's all nice on paper. But in practice, a lot of these legal protections are commonly evaded (and government attempts at fixing it get badmouthed by a population considering itself "not exploited proletariat,…

I agree that everybody who can work remotely is a bit privileged compared to someone who cannot, and in general tech employers are richer and more liberal.

As I said in my reply above, some employers or employees need a cultural shift. Either employers put pressure on employees to not get sick leave (which is illegal and unethical), or as you say some employees think that they are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" (or just conditioned by decades of peer pressure), but I digress.

My point is that in my whole life I was _never_ rejected a sick leave by a doctor and my doctor definitely does not check if I am grocery store employee or "privileged" tech worker. Also it's not employers business to regulate how often employee can be ill or what "pre-existing conditions" employee has. People are not robots.

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

#163

Post by easytiger » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #26

I wonder if this will be like H1N1. At first we only identified extreme cases and we had these terrifying reported fatality rates. Then we identify more and more mild or asymptomatic cases and the rates drop and drop. We’ve already seen how CFR was reported as 3 or 4%. Then on the cruise ship full of people over 60 it’s 0.7%. If there are lots of mild or asymptomatic cases it will likely be much lower. H1N1 was ident…

The WHO predicted that 150 million people would be killed by avian flu

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2005/...

Using the same logic that had lead to the severe predictions for cv19.

For swine flu they promoted and stood by a CFR of 60%. Again turned out to be nonsense; nonsense known at the time to others

https://jech.bmj.com/content/62/6/555.abstract

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

#164

Post by wongarsu » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:20 AM UTC

md224 wrote: post #93

lend000 wrote: post #63

I'm not a confirmed case, but I'm a 90% sure case based on symptoms and symptoms of people I have been in close contact with, and so far the experience has been relatively mild, in the literal sense. The primary discomfort has likely been the anxiety of how the tightness in my chest might progress (which ironically can also cause chest tightness). I'm in a low risk group. I had lethargy and high fever the first day o…

> 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…

So far the actual problem seems to be the hospitalization rate, not the death rate in ideal conditions. Most countries just don't have the spare capacity to handle COVID in addition to the normal workload.

One factor in this is that a good portion of the at-risk population is vaccinating against the flu, greatly reducing the overall impact.

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

#165

Post by ash » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:20 AM UTC

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…

Are there countries who conduct serologic tests? PCR tests (widely used?) wouldn't catch people who got the infection, developed antibodies with no or mild symptoms, but didn't transmit the virus around at the moment test is taken.

From the article about Covid-19 serologic test development:

> The serologic tests, which are different from the ones used to diagnose active infection, would allow researchers to test the blood of people who were not confirmed cases of Covid-19 in communities where the virus spread. They would be designed to look for signs that people have mounted an immune response after being exposed to the virus.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/cdc-developing-serologic...

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

#166

Post by lm28469 » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #154

lm28469 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sick leave is something you take when you have high fever or need surgery No, you take it when you have a problem big enough that it impacts your ability to work OR when you have a contagious disease. It's a lose/lose situation for a company if a single person gets half the company sick. > there's only so much sick leave you can take, employers expect sick leave to be extremely rare and will "phase you out" In the…

More detailed response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22602990 . > Europe you can't fire someone for health reasons On some types of contracts. Probably not the most common ones in practice. Also, making the job a living hell for someone, or laying them off the first legal opportunity arises are common practice, and I think everyone outside our industry knows it (in most industries, employers have more po…

Well yes of course if you're employed with a contract that doesn't represent your working conditions, which is illegal in the first place, you're fucked. What I meant is that in some countries you can come to work on day x and be asked not to come on day x+1, even with a regular contract, that's going to be very hard to pull in europe, and especially not going to happen if the reason is "took a week of because of the flu".

That's also why there is such a big thing around uber, deliveroo &c. in europe. These types of contracts weren't the norm 20 years ago and are very limiting when shit hits the fan.

In my company we just had the opposite, some dude was very obviously sick, couching for weeks, the CEO couldn't legally force him to take his sick days. So he stayed, and got a few of use sick. So brave and heroic, right ?

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

#167

Post by ash » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

ash wrote: post #165

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…

Are there countries who conduct serologic tests? PCR tests (widely used?) wouldn't catch people who got the infection, developed antibodies with no or mild symptoms, but didn't transmit the virus around at the moment test is taken. From the article about Covid-19 serologic test development: > The serologic tests, which are different from the ones used to diagnose active infection, would allow researchers to test the…

Another source:

> "The current PCR test only tells you whether a person has the virus at this moment," Dr Meru Sheel, an epidemiologist and research fellow at the Australian National University said.

> "What it doesn't tell you is that a person may have had the infection, has recovered and is immune or not immune."

> Dr Sheel said a serological test would help understand at population level how many people have been exposed to the disease, have recovered and if there are populations that are not immune to the virus.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-experts-c...

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

#168

Post by kevingadd » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:31 AM UTC

krzat wrote: post #156

kevingadd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some of the logic behind "masks are useless" is that if people believe masks will prevent it, they'll get too reckless about going out as long as they have a mask. Sadly many people wear masks incorrectly and other people will wear masks that don't actually block viral particulates while out there acting more dangerously than otherwise, spreading disease. IIRC anything below N95 isn't going to do much, and fr…

That's very convoluted reasoning. I think the main goal of surgical masks for entire population would be to limit amount of virus floating in the air. They are also good at stopping people from touching their faces. IMO the goverments should make masks mandatory, even if it's DYI mask made from few layers of tshirt. And start teaching people how to use them and why.

If the supply was there I'd absolutely agree. At least in the US it's very hard to get adequate masks right now (this is partly due to a failure to maintain supply, there were some news stories recently about how a local manufacturer was begging the government to invest in this so he could maintain production)

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

#169

Post by trymas » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #153

Symbiote wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a problem everywhere. Sick leave is something you take when you have high fever or need surgery, not when you start coughing Do you be any experience outside the USA? Your description doesn't fit my experience in the UK and Denmark, or my general understanding of the rest of Europe. Europe will need to consider smaller changes — there are more gig economy workers than ever before, different countries have take…

I'm in Poland. We have free public healthcare and all the other nice employee privileges Europe boasts about. On paper . In practice, most of those are guaranteed when your contract is the regular full-time one. Which is minority of jobs in Poland. To avoid paying taxes, most employers strive to employ their workers via contracts meant for part-time or gig work, or through B2B (thus we have lots of sole proprietorshi…

> To avoid paying taxes, most employers strive to employ their workers via contracts meant for part-time or gig work, or through B2B (thus we have lots of sole proprietorships "entrepreneurs" in the country). Most protections don't kick in there.

I know that this "loop hole" exists where I live too, but AFAIK it's either used by very small companies, which can fly "under the radar" or it's not done at all, because inspecting agencies will quickly stop this.

Where I live if you work for employer like a full-time long-term employee - you are full-time long-term employee, and cannot work as a "freelancer"/sole proprietor-contractor (I do not know exact terms in English, but I think we'll understand each other). Work inspection will check this employer rather soon. Usually, because competitor or some employee will make an anonymous report.

If you agree to work on this loop hole - then it's your problem - work as a full time employee, or charge enough to compensate yourself for possible downtime during illness.

Big enterprises definitely do not use this kind of loop hole.

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

#170

Post by mPReDiToR » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #98

TeMPOraL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Sick leave is something you take when you have high fever or need surgery No, you take it when you have a problem big enough that it impacts your ability to work OR when you have a contagious disease. It's a lose/lose situation for a company if a single person gets half the company sick. > there's only so much sick leave you can take, employers expect sick leave to be extremely rare and will "phase you out" In the…

In England there are "n day off a year before being disciplined" clauses for many jobs.

Who can afford time off work when you're going to get fired for being ill?

It's wrong, and it does impact the whole company when someone comes in when they shouldn't, but there are several reasons why people get disciplined.

A lot of people would like to stay off work and get paid. Hangovers. Stress because of working conditions.

Just off the top of my head.

England is not a nice place to work for a lot of people.