COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...

[theRU]

Probably stupid questions.

1.Is this dangerous because it is novel or is it dangerous simply because of what it does?
2. Are children better at fighting off a virus they have never encountered before? And is that why we're seeing less severe disease in that age group?

3. Some coronavirus apparently cause the common cold and are in circulation. Assuming that we can't have a vaccine for them because if we could we probably already would have done that. What would make this coronavirus different and allow for a vaccine? Seems like everyone has their hopes on a vaccine being developed when maybe we need to consider this will be with us forever.

 

[koleszar]

Not as much, I get post nasal drip which leads to a dry cough at times. I actually had that last night when I went to the store, just kept it under control.

I too suffer from a horrible case of post nasal drip and hack away every spring. I looked at my wife and thought just great one of the symptoms is a dry hacking cough. Everyone's going to think I've got the Corona.

 

[RUhasarrived]

Right now,Times Square resembles that Vincent Price movie "The Last Man On Earth."

 

[rutgersguy1]

Probably stupid questions.

1.Is this dangerous because it is novel or is it dangerous simply because of what it does?
2. Are children better at fighting off a virus they have never encountered before? And is that why we're seeing less severe disease in that age group?

3. Some coronavirus apparently cause the common cold and are in circulation. Assuming that we can't have a vaccine for them because if we could we probably already would have done that already. What would make this coronavirus different and allow for a vaccine? Seems like everyone has there hopes on a vaccine being developed when maybe we need to consider this will be with us forever.

It does seem to affect children less but there have been cases where children get it and a handful die from it but that's worldwide IIRC. I read yesterday or day before first person under 18 in this country (in California) passed away from it.

 

[UMRU]

Probably stupid questions.

1.Is this dangerous because it is novel or is it dangerous simply because of what it does?
2. Are children better at fighting off a virus they have never encountered before? And is that why we're seeing less severe disease in that age group?

3. Some coronavirus apparently cause the common cold and are in circulation. Assuming that we can't have a vaccine for them because if we could we probably already would have done that already. What would make this coronavirus different and allow for a vaccine? Seems like everyone has there hopes on a vaccine being developed when maybe we need to consider this will be with us forever.

Those are all great questions that are under intensive study.

#1) It is dangerous for both these reasons. Because it is novel, nobody has protective immunity against it (no antibodies, etc. to fight it off), so everyone can get it. But there are also features of this virus that make is worse - it has a much higher affinity (binds ~20x better) to the receptor (the protein, ACE2, that is expessed on our cell surfaces) that allows entry into cells. It also seems to be getting deep into the lungs, which is what causes the pneumonia.

#2) It is still not clear why children do better, but, in general, the immune system weakens as you age, so that could play a role. There is also speculation that the virus is causing less damage to the epithelial cells that line the throat and lungs in kids. More complicated is something called antibody enhanced disease (AED). Antibodies that we would expect to protect us from the virus are actually causing the disease to be much worse. So preexisting antibodies to other coronaviruses that older people might have actually can make things worse. This has been shown to happen with other viruses like HIV, dengue and ebola. This is pretty scary.

#3) The virus that causes Covid 19 is called SARS-CoV-2. It is very similar to SARS-CoV that caused the 2003 worldwide disease. 17 years later and we still do not have a vaccine against SARS, or any other coronavirus. Fortunately, we do have 17 years of trying and there are several new approaches being taken to develop a vaccine. None, unfortunately, are ready for prime time yet - they are still in phase 1 safety testing. Plus, vaccines work when they cause antibodies to be made and then we need to worry about AED. This is very different than the H1N1 outbreak in 2009 - H1N1 is an influenza subtype. We know how to make vaccines against the flu, so we had a vaccine up and going within about 6 months of the outbreak. That was a huge game changer in the fight agains H1N1.

The questions you asked are at the heart of why scientists and physicians are freaking out about this. The most likely outcome that we can hope for at this point is that enough people become immune to the virus that it stops spreading so easily and peters out. Also, we will learn our lessons about the best way to recognize and treat infected people. At this point this is all trial and error.

 

[RU-05]

Number one, the minimal amount of tests available were controlled by the government and were flawed from the outset. It was realized when an outside person (physician I believe) was touring the plant and happened to notice an issue..and he wasn't even there as an inspector. Second, once the error was corrected, the number of tests available was still paltry. The testing was controlled by the government who provided very few tests to facilities throughout the country and the turnaround time was 5-7 days to report positive cases. Third, once they knew they didn't have a sufficient number of tests, they still disallowed facilities to do their own testing and consider them valid. Hospitals started doing their own testing and if positive, the patients were "presumed positive". Guess what? They still had to send a sample for government testing to be considered positive for Covid-19 which took 5-7 days. During all this time when the floodgates should have been opened up with testing, people circulated about their daily lives and transmitted this virus. The new hosts then transmitted it to multiple other hosts. Remember the TV commercial "They told two friends, and they told to friends, and they told two friends, and so on...and so on...and so on. That's how we arrived at this juncture. Spanky, mentioning the government is relevant in discussing how and why we got here, which I why I did it. I will fully disclose I have no party lines, but I won't shy away to place blame on a person or entity if I see fit...no matter who they are.

.

Well I should revise my comment. Could we have done more out of the gate? Sure, but it's very easy to be critical in hindsight, and I do think we have a public, which is made up of a combined zero perfect people, who like to be critical when something is not done perfectly, and not just of the gov't but of everyone who they don't watch brush their teeth in the morning.

And while the initial portion of the testing did look to be poorly done, is that offset by the fact that we are testing are very high rate now? I dunno, maybe. Is there a person in this country who would have handled this thing so well that there would have been near zero spread? I doubt that.

Now I do think we need to be critical of our response to this so that we can improve it going fwd, but this thing was going to be difficult to contain no matter how on our toes we were from the get go.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Will new cases announced tomorrow be under 11,000?

fingers crossed

 

[RU848789]

Will new cases announced tomorrow be under 11,000?

fingers crossed

Positive test results will likely be slowing down because most areas are now only testing people with significant symptoms (since Saturday), due to lack of PPE/supplies for testing. I get that PPE is important, but it's just one more place where we weren't prepared, causing us to not continue with the aggressive testing we were pursuing last week.

This also means people with mild symptoms are being sent back home, which is the absolute worst place to send them, since ~80% of transmissions in China occurred in the home, where there is typically more contact (in China, SK, etc. such people were quarantined in facilities to prevent further spread).

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news...cBEdnp2cfQXrq8I4JKClqV7Ugfby4RCMAEbwEn3pINDAE

If we were starting mass antibody testing instead, I'd be more ok with that, since that will tell us who is already exposed and likely now immune and not contagious, but we're not, yet; the UK says they're going to test millions soon (and Telluride, CO is doing this) and many in the US are pushing for the same The test is a blood serum test for IGG antibody and it's quicker/easier than the virus test.

Usually antibody testing is done late in an outbreak to sum up the endpoint, but with this virus many feel we're flying so blind that people will only feel comfortable going back into the world when they know they have antibodies to the virus, plus we know a decent percentage of people who have been tested positive have no symptoms, which means there might be many people who test negative from the PCR virus test, which is much less sensitive than an antibody test, but might actually have been infected and have antibodies and be immune and not contagious.

https://www.wired.com/story/researchers-push-for-mass-blood-tests-as-a-covid-19-strategy/

 

[Scarlet4Shore]

I'd volunteer for the blood test to see if I had the antibodies.

 

[RU848789]

Horrific story brewing in Woodbridge, NJ, as it looks like all 94 residents of the St. Joseph's Nursing Home might have the coronavirus (24 do and all have been exposed) and we know what happened in Kirkland, WA. Lots of chatter on local social media about this being even worse than it sounds.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...sf871H30EuPI4xBC9ZSGxg2TZjluiybuRvsR63WMbTkWM

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Testing only the sick is part of the problem.

However it is an apples to apples comparison when getting a guess on this thing growing in the US.

 

[RU848789]

I'd volunteer for the blood test to see if I had the antibodies.

In a heartbeat - and it can be combined with donating blood, if the facility has the kits, so no "extra" work for the person.

 

[RU848789]

Testing only the sick is part of the problem.

However it is an apples to apples comparison when getting a guess on this thing growing in the US.

But we're missing a huge opportunity to "catch" and quarantine many more positive folks (with or without symptoms) who are the most likely people to be spreading the virus, which is sad, really.

 

[NickKnight 1]

Story doesn't say it, but he lives in Metuchen now. Heard about it from John Otterstedt who was his teacher in Ridgewood and said he's just a great kid and the whole town is pulling for him. Lousy situation...

https://dailyvoice.com/new-jersey/m...t-experimental-covid-19-drug-mom-says/785436/

The mother said she can't understand why celebrities, NBA players, and politicians get special treatment. Let me tell
you what happened at my house this week. My wife woke up feeling very sick, and had a temperature of 100.5
the next day after taking tylenol for 2 days had a 100.7. She explained this to her doctor, he says come in. Checks her
out and tell her he won't prescribe a test unless she hits 101. I was sick at the same time and also a bad case of
diarrhea. I put on the news and the United Kingdom found out many of their covid 19 cases started with diarrhea.
I call my doctor, says" can't get you tested unless you have a fever. My daughter who is totally handicapped was also
sick for 4 days, her doctor says he can't have her tested without a fever. Later on I put on the news. Jon Von Jovi's
Keyboard player gets ill, calls his doctor, who calls his connection, they test him and he tests positive. and immediately
gets him the Malaria medicine. My wife and I were worried because she is over 70 and a diabetic, with high blood
pressure, I am several years older then her, also diabetic and high blood pressure which makes us prone to the virus
killing us. Very bad week for the three of us. We are better though.

 

[RU848789]

If anyone doubts that we are capable of doing effective social distancing, take a look at the New Rochelle case in NY's Westchester County, which was the first hotspot in the NY area. The first patient was identified on 3/2, after which the number of cases went up to 108 in 8 days, driving implementation of the containment zone 2 days later, leading to an increase of only another 117 cases over the next 2 weeks. I'd like to think we've been doing this well in many towns around the region, but hard to say (I absolutely know Metuchen is, from social media and the town being a ghost town).

"The numbers bear out that success. The first known case in New Rochelle was discovered March 2. By March 10, that number had shot up to 108 coronavirus cases, evidence of exponential growth. The containment zone was established two days later. As of Tuesday, the New Rochelle mayor's website said there are 225 confirmed coronavirus cases in New Rochelle. That's an increase, yes, but a manageable one sharply lower than its earlier growth.

Prior to his positive test, Garbuz attended religious events at the Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue. So on March 10, officials announced the creation of a containment zone that encircled the synagogue. They closed schools within the area, banned large gatherings and set up satellite facilities for people to get tested.

The containment area did not limit people's movement and was more focused on gatherings and schools within the zone. It was initially billed as a two-week plan, but stricter orders applying to the entire tri-state region make that moot."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/us/n...vziFImBW9hTaLwX54tg_yMHke2hFedtG0iS0dQr4mdcEM

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

But we're missing a huge opportunity to "catch" and quarantine many more positive folks (with or without symptoms) who are the most likely people to be spreading the virus, which is sad, really.

I agree 100% with that and everything you say. My point has been that I am encouraged that we have some data points showing there may be light at the end of the tunnel and this might not hit the worse case scenarios.

if we had a coordinated effort with all 50 states I’d have high confidence in this thing being past us in 28 or so days. Jackasses like the MS governor is going to keep this circulating in the US longer than it needs to be.

 

[RUBOB72]

You don’t need to test every person ... You could test person (A) with say no symptoms today ... (A) comes back negative... Then 5 days later ...patient (A) comes back again with actual symptoms and tests positive ... so you wasted a test the first time that could have been used for someone else... if we had a serology test and could check for antibodies then that would be ideal ...the ability to distinguish and isolate the infected from the higher risks... Sorry if people don’t get it... we were failed by the past 4-5 administrations before Trump...is he guilty for some mistakes ? Sure he’s made many... The Senate and House need to be held accountable by the citizens come next election...when you see an article that pretty much calls this disaster the fault of Old White Men ...well that’s blatant racism at it’s finest.. writer Michael Arceneaux is the poster boy of racism in America.

 

[RU848789]

I agree 100% with that and everything you say. My point has been that I am encouraged that we have some data points showing there may be light at the end of the tunnel and this might not hit the worse case scenarios.

if we had a coordinated effort with all 50 states I’d have high confidence in this thing being past us in 28 or so days. Jackasses like the MS governor is going to keep this circulating in the US longer than it needs to be.

Agreed and that MS Gov is an effing idiot - almost as bad as the TX Lt. Gov who wants to sacrifice all the old and infirm people. And I think our social distancing has likely been working at least to some extent (and probably much better in the suburbs), based on the New Rochelle data. But to me, the NY antibody plasma therapy announcement is the single biggest piece of positive news since this whole mess started. It could - could - be a gamechanger.

 

[RU848789]

You don’t need to test every person ... You could test person (A) with say no symptoms today ... (A) comes back negative... Then 5 days later ...patient (A) comes back again with actual symptoms and tests positive ... so you wasted a test the first time that could have been used for someone else... if we had a serology test and could check for antibodies then that would be ideal ...the ability to distinguish and isolate the infected from the higher risks... Sorry if people don’t get it... we were failed by the past 4-5 administrations before Trump...is he guilty for some mistakes ? Sure he’s made many... The Senate and House need to be held accountable by the citizens come next election...when you see an article that pretty much calls this disaster the fault of Old White Men ...well that’s blatant racism at it’s finest.. writer Michael Arceneaux is the poster boy of racism in America.

Sorry, you simply don't understand the logic of testing. Nobody is saying test everyone, but every country that has contained the outbreak has tested all symptomatic people and all asymptomatic people who were in contact with that person - that's a far, far smaller population. By testing those people and isolating any who are positive, it takes away major sources of transmission, including, likely, some of the "superspreaders" who have been found to have infected dozens to hundreds of people. The rest of your rant should go on the CE board somewhere.

 

[RUBOB72]

Agreed and that MS Gov is an effing idiot - almost as bad as the TX Lt. Gov who wants to sacrifice all the old and infirm people. And I think our social distancing has likely been working at least to some extent (and probably much better in the suburbs), based on the New Rochelle data. But to me, the NY antibody plasma therapy announcement is the single biggest piece of positive news since this whole mess started. It could - could - be a gamechanger.

Why do you make shit up? Nobody is sacrificing people and to put that type of message out there is irresponsible on all fronts.

 

[LETSGORU91]

Well I should revise my comment. Could we have done more out of the gate? Sure, but it's very easy to be critical in hindsight, and I do think we have a public, which is made up of a combined zero perfect people, who like to be critical when something is not done perfectly, and not just of the gov't but of everyone who they don't watch brush their teeth in the morning.

And while the initial portion of the testing did look to be poorly done, is that offset by the fact that we are testing are very high rate now? I dunno, maybe. Is there a person in this country who would have handled this thing so well that there would have been near zero spread? I doubt that.

Now I do think we need to be critical of our response to this so that we can improve it going fwd, but this thing was going to be difficult to contain no matter how on our toes we were from the get go.

There in lies the problem. I can't speak for the entire medical community, but our hospital had a task force in place when this was picking up a little steam in the state of Washington. So people had the foresight to investigate and monitor the virus which makes some here a bit angry in hindsight on how it was handled. I shudder to think of the lost opportunities to identify people, who were quickly sent home and told their influenza panels were negative (because that's all we could test for). Call these people group 1. Group 1 went back put into the public and potentially exposed numerous family, friends and strangers (call them group 2). Those people (2) who contracted the virus then went out and reinfected a whole new group (3) while group 1 continued to spread. I'm guessing just about this time, the new and improved testing kits were ready to use but were not distributed or done so in miniscule quantities so no or little detection of the virus. Meanwhile groups 1, 2, and 3 were exponentially spreading to group 4....etc., etc., etc. Rut roh... we got a problem and we can't even test them. Cycles and cycles and cycles of this happened before the decision was made to dramatically increase testing in suspected individuals. Probable exponential growth is a term I heard many a times in reference to this virus before most were even aware it existed. It's not hindsight and it was bungled big time.

 

[RUBOB72]

Sorry, you simply don't understand the logic of testing. Nobody is saying test everyone, but every country that has contained the outbreak has tested all symptomatic people and all asymptomatic people who were in contact with that person - that's a far, far smaller population. By testing those people and isolating any who are positive, it takes away major sources of transmission, including, likely, some of the "superspreaders" who have been found to have infected dozens to hundreds of people. The rest of your rant should go on the CE board somewhere.

So you are saying Fauci and Birx are lying about the testing. Yes if you are testing those who had contact you would need the serology test. Nobody is saying no to that but the other test will come back negative on an asymptomatic individual.

 

[RUBOB72]

Sorry, you simply don't understand the logic of testing. Nobody is saying test everyone, but every country that has contained the outbreak has tested all symptomatic people and all asymptomatic people who were in contact with that person - that's a far, far smaller population. By testing those people and isolating any who are positive, it takes away major sources of transmission, including, likely, some of the "superspreaders" who have been found to have infected dozens to hundreds of people. The rest of your rant should go on the CE board somewhere.

Asymptomatic means no sign of infection in my understanding of spread.

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

Test everyone

 

[RUBOB72]

Sorry, you simply don't understand the logic of testing. Nobody is saying test everyone, but every country that has contained the outbreak has tested all symptomatic people and all asymptomatic people who were in contact with that person - that's a far, far smaller population. By testing those people and isolating any who are positive, it takes away major sources of transmission, including, likely, some of the "superspreaders" who have been found to have infected dozens to hundreds of people. The rest of your rant should go on the CE board somewhere.

No country other than China has contained the covid19 virus...S.Korea is not out of the woods...

 

[RU848789]

Asymptomatic means no sign of infection in my understanding of spread.

That's correct, but there are asymptomatic people who are infected and capable of transmitting the virus to others, especially since the median time from infection to symptoms is 5+ days and even people who never show symptoms but are positive can transmit the virus.

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

That's correct, but there are asymptomatic people who are infected and capable of transmitting the virus to others, especially since the median time from infection to symptoms is 5+ days and even people who never show symptoms but are positive can transmit the virus.

Why do you think some never show symptoms?

Simply a strong immune system?

Or combined with other factors such as a certain blood type?

 

[RU848789]

No country other than China has contained the covid19 virus...S.Korea is not out of the woods...

Nobody is out of the woods when only <0.1% of a population has been infected and we don't know what % could ultimately get it, but practically speaking, China, SK, and Taiwan (and a few others) have contained the outbreak with respect to having far far fewer new cases than their peak case levels, plus most of their new cases are from travelers from other areas, which is why they're either banning folks from countries with outbreaks or testing and quarantining them for 14 days, like my good friend who just flew to Singapore yesterday.

 

[LETSGORU91]

P.S. We will soon overtake the worldwide in positive cases diagnosed. I wanted to vomit yesterday (or the day before) when the administration touted how they "tested more in the last 8 days than were tested in the last 8 weeks." Horray for you!! You tested and identified Covid-19 in all the people you could have possibly PREVENTED from getting it in the first place!!!

:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown

 

[RU848789]

Why do you think some never show symptoms?

Simply a strong immune system?

Or combined with other factors such as a certain blood type?

Great question, don't know the answer - have seen some say there could be "natural immunity" especially in children with stronger immune systems. And some have also theorized that older people have worse outcomes because of all the previous antibodies they have from other viruses becoming too active in trying to fight the new virus, but unsuccessfully (leading to ultra-inflammation in the lungs - which I've seen called the "cytokine storm").

 

[RU848789]

P.S. We will soon overtake the worldwide in positive cases diagnosed. I wanted to vomit yesterday (or the day before) when the administration touted how they "tested more in the last 8 days than were tested in the last 8 weeks." Horray for you!! You tested and identified Covid-19 in all the people you could have possibly PREVENTED from getting it in the first place!!!

:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown:ThumbsDown

It's also a misleading statement, as the US has now tested about as many as SK, but we have 6.5X their population, so we're nowhere close to having tested as many, per capita as they did, plus we started testing heavily later in the growth curve.

 

[LETSGORU91]

It's also a misleading statement, as the US has now tested about as many as SK, but we have 6.5X their population, so we're nowhere close to having tested as many, per capita as they did, plus we started testing heavily later in the growth curve.

Hence my exponential growth concerns.

That's correct, but there are asymptomatic people who are infected and capable of transmitting the virus to others, especially since the median time from infection to symptoms is 5+ days and even people who never show symptoms but are positive can transmit the virus.

If I remember correctly, viral shedding increases heavily during the asymptomatic phase and starts a downward trend once symptoms occur. The longer latent/asymptomatic phase coupled with the increase of viral shedding leads to higher rates of unknown transmission.

 

[cohwx]

These scenes are starting to look too much like videos from Wuhan a couple of months ago.

 

[RU848789]

These scenes are starting to look too much like videos from Wuhan a couple of months ago.

View embedded media

I feel like a broken record, but I've been very worried about the DC-Boston corridor (and any densely populated cities really and especially for NYC, which has the greatest population density in the US) for weeks now, as population density, combined with heavy mass transit usage and many large public gatherings are the worst conditions for breeding an out-of-control outbreak. NYC is almost as densely packed as the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

 

[RU848789]

These scenes are starting to look too much like videos from Wuhan a couple of months ago.

View embedded media

Thanks, this is heartbreaking and it's almost certainly going to get worse. The POTUS and everyone in Congress should watch this video and realize that this is truly a national emergency (that happens to just be worst in NYC at this time, but will likely get much worse in most other locations, especially any urban ones) and do more to get the fukkin masks and gloves, and swabs and test kits and ventilators and beds and everything else these selfless heroes on the front lines of this War need. And it is a War, and our leaders in both parties need to treat it as such and declare it as such and do a lot more than they've been doing.

 

[cohwx]

Thanks, this is heartbreaking and it's almost certainly going to get worse. The POTUS and everyone in Congress should watch this video and realize that this is truly a national emergency (that happens to just be worst in NYC at this time, but will likely get much worse in most other locations, especially any urban ones) and do more to get the fukkin masks and gloves, and swabs and test kits and ventilators and beds and everything else these selfless heroes on the front lines of this War need. And it is a War, and our leaders in both parties need to treat it as such and declare it as such and do a lot more than they've been doing.

We've both been hammering on these points for probably about a month and a half now, yet I still see people on the forum arguing minutiae like "you predicted 70,000 cases and it's only 62,000", or "this is really only going to affect the old sick people." And still seeing people trying to compare this to seasonal flu. This forum is just a microcosm of the country, lots of people out there who are still downplaying this and that is going to make things worse for everyone. Control will take longer and be less effective.

Really glad I don't live anywhere near NYC right now.

 

[theRU]

Some of you are talking containment are crazy.. this is everywhere.... 1 month we think it's in China only and within 30 days we're getting confirmation all over the globe. This has been slowly spreading for a while and it wasn't until it hit critical mass and started filling hospitals with pneumonia that folks caught on to it.. let's be real here.

I don't trust a single number out of China.. same way Russia was claiming their numbers were low yet deaths attributed to pneumonia were skyrocketing.

 

[RU848789]

So you are saying Fauci and Birx are lying about the testing. Yes if you are testing those who had contact you would need the serology test. Nobody is saying no to that but the other test will come back negative on an asymptomatic individual.

Asymptomatic means no sign of infection in my understanding of spread.

Please, try reading the links I usually provide if you don't believe me or at least the excerpt below in italics. This isn't "fake news" - it's real science. In multiple locations it has been demonstrated that there are people who become infected with the virus and never show symptoms (asymptomatic means "no symptoms" not "no infection") and some of these people test positive for the virus, while some test negative, because the viral PCR test is simply not sensitive enough to detect low levels of the virus (which goes from low levels in the first day or two to much higher levels by day 5/6 normally and then declines a bit as the person has more symptoms or gets better).

These people are the most "dangerous" people in the transmission chain as they have no idea they're infected and some (not all, although data is not definitive on percentages here) of them are moderately to even highly contagious for a period of at least a few days. Some of these people have become "superspreaders" who infect dozens to hundreds of people. Of course, we can't "catch" all of these folks, but if contact tracing of symptomatic, infected people is done well, many of these asymptomatic/infected folks who they came in contact with can be identified, tracked down and tested and quarantined if needed (at least until the test result).

The other problem with the latest US testing guidelines is not even testing mildly symptomatic people, so as to not "waste" the test/PPE. I get that and maybe they'll self-quarantine, but maybe not and if actually positive, they might be infecting more people. I'd rather test all of these people immediately and know for sure who's infected (as symptomatic people will not test negative). Plus, by identifying these people as infected, you can then work to trace their contacts and test/quarantine them. Testing, tracking, more testing and quarantining are the playbook to control the outbreak and we're simply not doing it anywhere near as well as the Asian countries that have largely controlled the outbreak. And that's sad.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...e-coronavirus-without-realising-youve-got-it/

The study concluded that 86 per cent of cases were “undocumented” – that is, asymptomatic or had only very mild symptoms (Science, doi.org/ggn6c2). The researchers also analysed case data from foreign nationals who were evacuated from the city of Wuhan, where the first cases were seen, and found a similar proportion of asymptomatic or very mild cases.

Such undocumented cases are still contagious and the study found them to be the source of most of the virus’s spread in China before the restrictions came in. Even though these people were only 55 per cent as contagious as people with symptoms, the study found that they were the source of 79 per cent of further infections, due to there being more of them, and the higher likelihood that they were out and about.

Even people who develop symptoms are at risk of unwittingly spreading the virus. A study in China suggests that infectiousness starts about 2.5 days before the onset of symptoms, and peaks 15 hours before (medRxiv, doi.org/dqbr).

We know that coughs and sneezes spread the virus, so how is it possible for asymptomatic people to spread the infection?

People with mild or no symptoms can have a very high viral load in their upper respiratory tracts, meaning they can shed the virus through spitting, touching their mouths or noses and then a surface, or possibly talking. Even people who don’t feel ill occasionally cough or sneeze.

Once symptoms develop, a person’s viral load declines steadily, and they become increasingly less infectious. However, people appear to keep shedding the virus for around two weeks after they recover from covid-19, both in their saliva and stools (medRxiv, doi.org/dqbs). This means that even once a person’s symptoms have cleared, it may still be possible to infect other people.

 

[ashokan]

Taiwan, Singapore, S Korea, Japan, Honk Kong = mask culture = less CV impact. If US lets people get back on subways etc without masks it would be a mistake

 

[RU848789]

Taiwan, Singapore, S Korea, Japan, Honk Kong = mask culture = less CV impact. If US lets people get back on subways etc without masks it would be a mistake

Agree 1000% and have been calling for masks for weeks for everyone who can't keep more than 4-5 feet away from others - the masks work well to keep germs in from infected people.