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
If so this is going to throw us into another depression if this keeps up. Everybody I know including me has been laid off, before this I didn’t know anyone who was unemployed and this is going to peak in another month? PEAK meaning, not even begin to come to an end which will take what? Another few weeks? Another few months? The economy is utter toast.
I damn well know the Rat/RINO uniparty of treason is involved in this, I just know it. The deep state commie bastards where the people and the country comes 2nd to their blood thirst for power. During an election year, WHAT a coincidence, and it destroyed two of Trumps best running platforms - the economy and jobs, WHAT a coincidence! And this guy from Harvard Charles Lieber, what the hell was he doing in Wuhan last year helping the Chinese with a bio lab? WHAT a coincidence. Completely ignored by the media........
Maybe this explains the comment by Yaneer Bar-Yam:
"...the article should be retracted immediately."
i have been around when other new viruses were going through the population, the last being H1N1. so far this is not as bad but building. We would notice a peak of respiratory illness this late in the spring. What I don’t know is if all the lockdowns are doing anything to slow the spread. The simple truth is most of us will get this. What i do know is there has been tremendous cost to our economy and civil liberties. Maybe for very little benefit
So what would be your exit plan?
It might be lower then that. Between 1.88% and 11.43% of the population in Italy tested positive.
Which means if you take the actual death rate of those infected it's between 0.2% and 1.3%. If you take death rate of those TESTED it's what the BS media is giving between 2% to 20% depending who you ask.
Waiting for some more Freepers to declare — with no evidence — that the asymptomatic cases are all Typhoid Mary-type carriers.
HA! Since I doubt you asked him for proof of citizenship, I take it you live in California.
Why are you still there?
We should actually get rid of the CDC. Just have aggregate medical journals available to the public and let us figure this stuff out. I’m ok with mild public health controls that are more for info than anything. We must never protect so hard as to deny all our freedoms. See: the Constitution
Catholic in good standing (not denied Holy Communion) Nancy Pelosi apparently hates unborn babies more than she loves God.
Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. I think at the very least anything coming out of China has to be given the consideration that the information may be being put out to cause even more damage to places outside of China.
Well I guess that means all of the older folks are staying at home for the next 2 or 3 years, until they find a vacine or it burns itself out.
True. How could she be any more cynical, inserting abortion money into an emergency bill?
I figure I'll die. Eventually. Of something. Body parted out, remains taken care of in what ever way my children are most comfortable with. Real property sold off and proceeds divided evenly to my children. Personal property; children keep whatever has sentimental value, sell anything that has value and divide the proceeds, all else recycled where possible.
Beyond that, as an agnostic, don't know what else I'll be doing.
I'm sure she'll rise to the challenge.
Several times, and that's just before the election...
1/4 asymptomatic is the estimate in the US. I would take anything reeking of panda breath with a grain of salt.
RE: 1/4 asymptomatic is the estimate in the US.
Could you kindly cite the source for thus data? Thanks.
Guess I should have been more clear: What would be your exit plan to say we can go back to life as normal post Covid-19?
null and void:
You said, “If a quarantine saves just one child’s or one old fart’s life, it’s worth it.”
While I truly appreciate the sentiment, who is to say whose live/livelihoods are most important? Children are typically not affected by the virus, but you want to destroy millions of lives/livelihoods for something that is almost nonexistent? And the older, most-vulnerable people should be and are being protected from infection by several means: social distancing, masks, self-quarantining, and so forth. It ultimately comes down to personal responsibility, whether you are a parent of children or caretaker of seniors. Parents should be taking every precaution to protect their children even if there is low risk of death. Same with seniors and caretakers of seniors.
How many suicides (let’s hope there are none) are you willing to accept because people’s lives/livelihoods are being destroyed by a prolonged shut down? How many bankruptcies are you willing to accept? Because “the economy” equals lives/livelihoods - it is not some inanimate object like a car or house that can survive this indefinitely.
These are tough and emotional choices, but that is life. And life is a risk from the time you get out of bed in the morning until the time you go to sleep at night.
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