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Covid-19: four fifths of cases are asymptomatic, China figures indicate: Is economic meltdown a price worth paying to halt or delay what is already amongst us?
The BMJ ^ | 04/05/2020 | Michael Day

Posted on 04/05/2020 10:54:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

New evidence has emerged from China indicating that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms.

Chinese authorities began publishing daily figures on 1 April on the number of new coronavirus cases that are asymptomatic, with the first day’s figures suggesting that around four in five coronavirus infections caused no illness. Many experts believe that unnoticed, asymptomatic cases of coronavirus infection could be an important source of contagion.

A total of 130 of 166 new infections (78%) identified in the 24 hours to the afternoon of Wednesday 1 April were asymptomatic, said China’s National Health Commission. And most of the 36 cases in which patients showed symptoms involved arrivals from overseas, down from 48 the previous day, the commission said.

China is rigorously testing arrivals from overseas for fear of importing a fresh outbreak of covid-19.

Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down for?’”

Jefferson said that it was quite likely that the virus had been circulating for longer than generally believed and that large swathes of the population had already been exposed.

Users of Chinese social media have expressed fears that carriers with no symptoms could be spreading the virus unknowingly, especially now that infections have subsided and authorities have eased curbs on travel for people in previous hotspots in the epidemic.

Zhong Nanshan, a senior medical adviser to the Chinese government, said that asymptomatic infections would not be able to cause another major outbreak of covid-19 if such people were kept in isolation. Officials have said this is usually for 14 days.

Nanshan said that once asymptomatic infected people were identified, they and their contacts would be isolated and kept under observation.

Citing classified data, the South China Morning Post said that China had already found more than 43 000 cases of asymptomatic infection through contact tracing.

The latest findings seem to contradict a World Health Organization report in February that was based on covid-19 in China. This suggested that “the proportion of truly asymptomatic infections is unclear but appears to be relatively rare and does not appear to be a major driver of transmission.”1

But since that WHO report other researchers, including Sergio Romagnani, a professor of clinical immunology at the University of Florence, have said they have evidence that most people infected by the virus do not show symptoms. Romagnani led the research that showed that blanket testing in a completely isolated village of roughly 3000 people in northern Italy saw the number of people with covid-19 symptoms fall by over 90% within 10 days by isolating people who were symptomatic and those who were asymptomatic.2

In an article on the website of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Jefferson and Carl Heneghan, director of the centre and editor of BMJ EBM, write, “There can be little doubt that covid-19 may be far more widely distributed than some may believe. Lockdown is going to bankrupt all of us and our descendants and is unlikely at this point to slow or halt viral circulation as the genie is out of the bottle.

“What the current situation boils down to is this: is economic meltdown a price worth paying to halt or delay what is already amongst us?”3

References

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; covid19; economy; infection
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To: SeekAndFind

We don’t need China running their mouths with advice on how to clean up the mess they made!


41 posted on 04/05/2020 11:36:17 AM PDT by EnglishOnly (eWFight all out to win OR get out now. .)
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To: SeekAndFind

Any independent studies —not— from China, to back this up?

Such as the study in Italy ?


42 posted on 04/05/2020 11:36:23 AM PDT by WildHighlander57 ((WildHighlander57 returning after lurking since 2000)
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To: SeekAndFind

Test EVERYONE. Quarantine carriers, take plasma donations from those recovered to treat the sufferers.


43 posted on 04/05/2020 11:38:05 AM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: abigkahuna

Just wash your hands before touching any opening in your body (2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 1 mouth, 2 ears, 1 anus, 1 penis or vagina) and you won’t need HCQ, and won’t need hospital, and won’t need a ventilator, and won’t need a doctor, and won’t need a nurse, and WILL SAVE YOU A TON OF MONEY AND AGGRAVATION.


44 posted on 04/05/2020 11:41:10 AM PDT by entropy12 (You are either for free enterprise or want gov't to guarantee your wages.)
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To: TexasGator

“We screwed all the stats by testing only sick folks instead of random sectionalized testing.”

90% test negative.

Only testing those with symptoms


45 posted on 04/05/2020 11:42:42 AM PDT by RonnG (')
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To: SeekAndFind

I couldn’t be more convinced if CNN had published these figures. ;>)


46 posted on 04/05/2020 11:45:40 AM PDT by Mr Rogers (Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools)
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To: BunnySlippers

BJM = British Journal of Medicine. Journal of the British Medical Association.


47 posted on 04/05/2020 11:46:09 AM PDT by SauronOfMordor (A Leftist can't enjoy life unless they are controlling, hurting, or destroying others)
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To: SeekAndFind

if any of this is true that 80% are asymptomatic, then why are we dragging our feet in using the Abbott Lab machines to see if a person tests positive or negative?

We have 18,000 Abbott Lab machines in place.

It is past time for those machines to be in use 24 hours per day and 7 days a week.


48 posted on 04/05/2020 11:47:59 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: SeekAndFind

We have tested almost two million now. Of those who tested positive, do they know how many were asymptomatic??


49 posted on 04/05/2020 11:49:02 AM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said theoal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Many experts believe that unnoticed, asymptomatic cases of coronavirus infection could be an important source of contagion.”

Yet no studies confirm, clinically and empirically transmission before viral shedding and no peer reviewed studies have confirmed that CONTAGIOUS viral shedding (as opposed to random non-infectious snippets of RNA) is occurring BEFORE symptoms in most asymptomatic cases. The last study on the whole family of the Corona viruses found viral shedding was NOT occurring in 85% of cases with no symptoms. Nothing about Covid-19 has shown it to be different in any way that would determine a different outcome.


50 posted on 04/05/2020 11:50:26 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: All

HCQ is most effective when used for at least 4-5 days.

If patients don’t get it until their immune system is already crashing (day 10 or 11 or so) then the success rate decreases dramatically.

States and agencies with Democrats in charge don’t want success from HCQ because they hate Trump, and treatment with HCQ was popularized by him and conservative media (esp. Laura Ingraham). They hate Trump more than they love America, and more than they love life itself.

Crashing the country’s health system, and allowing what would realistically result in 2 million dead, in order to “protect the economy” as this manifesto seems to advocate is, well, the path the Chinese might recommend for us — even though they didn’t follow it. Because they want this virus to destroy us.

We have promising treatments, we have new antibody tests, and we have new COVID-19 tests. We must accelerate the race toward universal testing and universal antibody screening. We must manage the number of cases to the point where we aren’t overloading our hospitals, and especially the ICU’s equipped with respirators.

That is what this administration is doing under Trump.


51 posted on 04/05/2020 11:50:40 AM PDT by zipper (In their heart of hearts, all Democrats are communists.)
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To: Presbyterian Reporter

RE: Abbot Lab Machines

Are we certain that their 15 minute tests are reliable compared to the standard ones we are using now?


52 posted on 04/05/2020 11:50:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: Paladin2

“US peak is around 15 April”
NOT in every geographical location -—> NOT at every hospital.

Yes, but I didn’t feel like breaking it down by state.

Hence the term “US”


53 posted on 04/05/2020 11:57:38 AM PDT by Ceebass (judas, arnold, quisling, romney)
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To: Wuli; SeekAndFind

Wuli wrote:


“Many experts believe that unnoticed, asymptomatic cases of coronavirus infection could be an important source of contagion.”

Yet no studies confirm, clinically and empirically transmission before viral shedding and no peer reviewed studies have confirmed that CONTAGIOUS viral shedding (as opposed to random non-infectious snippets of RNA) is occurring BEFORE symptoms in most asymptomatic cases. The last study on the whole family of the Corona viruses found viral shedding was NOT occurring in 85% of cases with no symptoms. Nothing about Covid-19 has shown it to be different in any way that would determine a different outcome.”

That leaves 15% where viral shedding IS occurring in cases with no symptoms.

Were Washington State, L.A. and New York —each— from one symptomatic person?


54 posted on 04/05/2020 12:03:13 PM PDT by WildHighlander57 ((WildHighlander57 returning after lurking since 2000)
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To: SoCal Pubbie
Do you always post stupid comments, or just when you’re feverish?

I told you not to lick that toilet seat!

55 posted on 04/05/2020 12:06:09 PM PDT by zipper (In their heart of hearts, all Democrats are communists.)
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To: Ceebass

If the whole country is locked down [Unnecessarily in many places. How does shutting down Wyoming help NYC?] to save the people in NYC, will NYC still be locked down to save the people in Kentucky [Projected Peak May 16, 2020]?


56 posted on 04/05/2020 12:06:52 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: SeekAndFind
One of the avoidable reasons for the economic meltdown is this imo. People no longer save for a “rainy day.” This is mainly because the constitutionally low-information state government leaders that misguided, likewise low-information voters elect are clueless that the feds are regularly stealing citizen's wallets in the form of unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

Patriots need to support PDJT in working with the states to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes by sending "Orange Man Bad" federal and state government Democrats and RINOs home in November!

MAGA, also KAGA! (Keep America Great Always!)

Supporting PDJT with a new patriot Congress and state governemnt leaders that will promise to fully support his already excellent work for MAGA and stopping COVID-19 will effectively give fast-working Trump a third term in office imo.


57 posted on 04/05/2020 12:12:33 PM PDT by Amendment10
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To: null and void

CHINESE DATA!</warning label> (may contain MSG)


58 posted on 04/05/2020 12:15:07 PM PDT by Redcitizen (Nobody needs a 10 round magazine. You need a 30 round magazine.)
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To: WildHighlander57

“Were Washington State, L.A. and New York —each— from one symptomatic person?”

Are you, or someone, claiming they were?

“Not tested” (positive) before, as well as “not reported to be” (ill) are not synonyms for “asymptomatic”. It is my expectation that there is a lot of little denials that goes on with folks, just as there always is with flu - thought it was just a headache, just the sniffles, just a dry cough, just stuffed up sinus, ect., ect, ect.

Asymptomatic means THE BODY IS NOT EXPRESSING SYMPTOMS. That can be different than what many folks claim they are, or were experiencing. REFUSING to admit “minor” symptoms as possibly part of a larger infection is how people convince themselves they can still go to work - and wind up spreading the seasonal flu among their co-workers. They are not “asymptomatic”, just in denial.


59 posted on 04/05/2020 12:15:47 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: SeekAndFind

Today spent among the brainwashed lemmings with their stupid face masks making every shopping visit excruciating. Costco had some Hispanic rent a cop with an accent scolding people for being only 4 feet away instead of the Politburo-dictat of 6. America has gone insane for no reason whatsoever. Truly pathetic.


60 posted on 04/05/2020 12:17:48 PM PDT by montag813
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