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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

#361

I keep hearing “masks are useless”. If every person who has any cough or any chest tightness or any sore throat, however mild, put on a mask, wouldn’t that stop the spread? I live in Japan. It started here earlier but didn’t explode. Nothing is closed. Business as usual. everyone wears masks. Most cases in Hokkaido. Maybe because it is much colder there and easy to overexposed and tax the immune system.

I was one of those people discouraging masks a while back here. I was wrong. With what we know now asymptomatic people should have masks if there is a supply available. At the present, that supply isn't available in the US and many other countries, but as soon as it becomes so we need to normalize mask wearing in public for the duration of the pandemic.

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

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing a virus that early on was reported as 3-4% to one that early on was reported as 0.4%. The cruise ship and South Korea are probably closest to the true death rate of this virus. CFR in South Korea is currently around 0.8%. A common "educated guess" I see from people that work on this is its probably around 0.5%-1% assuming you can get the care needed for it.

Currently, we have 7 total reported deaths from the cruise ship and 696 confirmed cases. Seeing that it's been a long while since the outbreak, let's assume all current cases will survive; this puts us to 1% CFR. But note that Cruise Ship had a higher average age than public, so assuming you'll receive all the medical care you need, ~1% CFR seems to be a good approximate upper-bound estimate.

The majority of people on the cruise ship were older and it's not at all representative of the real population.

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

#364
post #237

I live in Japan and I experience mild symptoms since last Wednesday but not sure if my symptom is due to Covid-19. In Japan, You have meet two conditions to take a CPR test. 1. the symptoms with fever of 37.5 degrees or more continue for 4 days or more (for the eldery and those with underlying disease, "4 days" becomes "2 days") 2. you have strong laxity (malaise) or breathlessness (dyspnea), or you have underlying d…

Are you having issues with your smell/taste? A german virologist talked to symptomatic patients and found that most patients were stating that they lost smell/taste for days. "Almost all infected people we interviewed, and this applies to a good two thirds, described a loss of smell and taste lasting several days." https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/gesundheit/coronavi...

I have a terrible sense of smell to begin with. I always wonder what people with good senses of smell experience on a daily basis.

But I can generally taste things, so this is good to know.

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

#365

This article on hacker news a couple of days ago could explain a lot of this. There is a possibility that a very large number of the asymptomatic positive tests are in fact false-positives. This could be good news for the world, but I'm not betting on that yet. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32133832 .

Wouldn't it be great news if so many are asymptomatic or mild? It might explain why China seems to have so few current cases given its population. Maybe many people have already caught it and now have some form of immunity.

I suppose you have a point there. I was thinking that it could be bad that so many are spreading without knowing it.

Also, if many are asymptomatic, and the test is creating a large number of false-positives for those that are asymptomatic, there is a chance that this crisis is not as big as we think it is. Let's hope...

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, we have 7 total reported deaths from the cruise ship and 696 confirmed cases. Seeing that it's been a long while since the outbreak, let's assume all current cases will survive; this puts us to 1% CFR. But note that Cruise Ship had a higher average age than public, so assuming you'll receive all the medical care you need, ~1% CFR seems to be a good approximate upper-bound estimate.

IIRC all or almost all of those 7 were over 80.

I heard "all over 80" on HN and reddit multiple times as well, but could not confirm. Regardless, Italy's official average age of death is 81, so it wouldn't be surprising.

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

#367

I have shortness of breath, cannot go up the stairs in our house without having to stop and rest. 37 years old and otherwise quite healthy. Have underlying autoimmune disease, and am on immunomod. Coughing and light fever. I’ve had this for 5 days. When I called the hospital they told me to come in and get tested, but when I came to the hospital they did not test me. The doctor told me, it wouldn’t make a difference…

I hope you get better soon.

I think your comment describes very well the economics of the pandemic when it spreads further. Basically you can treat everyone with Corona-like symptoms like a corona patient. It doesn't make much difference anymore. Isolation and monitoring of the condition.

If it's a severe common cold the advice isn't that much off, too.

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

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, we have 7 total reported deaths from the cruise ship and 696 confirmed cases. Seeing that it's been a long while since the outbreak, let's assume all current cases will survive; this puts us to 1% CFR. But note that Cruise Ship had a higher average age than public, so assuming you'll receive all the medical care you need, ~1% CFR seems to be a good approximate upper-bound estimate.

The majority of people on the cruise ship were older and it's not at all representative of the real population.

That's why I said an "upper-bound" approximation. As in, CFR for general population is likely below 1%.

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

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> saturated hospitals citation needed. PS: you should easily be able to cite that statement in favor or in disfavor of your statement. Both citations will be equally valid and invalid.

> An anesthesiologist at a hospital in Bergamo, one of the cities with the most cases of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, told the paper that the intensive care unit was already at capacity, and doctors were being forced to start making difficult triage decisions, admitting people who desperately need mechanical ventilation based on age, life expectancy, and other factors. Just like in wartime. >…

That article is five days old. Find something from today suggesting the same. And make it relevant to the entire world. Italy is not a model for how this is going down in other countries. Every region is different (and more important has different data collection methods, making it hard to compare two areas)

Again, nobody knows what the fuck is going on. Chill out, stop spreading panic and think critically about things. It’s okay to question stuff.

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why there would be any reason to believe that would be the case. Generally viruses become less deadly over time, not more. The Spanish flu was an outlier.

I'm pretty sure the Spanish flu did become less deadly over time. I'm sure the virus didn't go away after the second wave, however humanity started developing an immunity to it.

SARS (including this new Coronavirus) does not mutate as fast as the flu, so it's even less likely to become more deadly than the common flu.

> But SARS has a molecular proofreading system that reduces its mutation rate, and the new coronavirus’s similarity to SARS at the genomic level suggests it does, too. “That makes the mutation rate much, much lower than for flu or HIV,” Farzan said. That lowers the chance that the virus will evolve in some catastrophic way to, say, become significantly more lethal.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor...

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