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| Science & Technology |
| How the World Missed Covid-19's Silent Spreaders |
| 2020-06-28 |
| [NYT] - Dr. Camilla Rothe was about to leave for dinner when the government laboratory called with the surprising test result. Positive. It was Jan. 27. She had just discovered Germany’s first case of the new coronavirus. But the diagnosis made no sense. Her patient, a businessman from a nearby auto parts company, could have been infected by only one person: a colleague visiting from China. And that colleague should not have been contagious. The visitor had seemed perfectly healthy during her stay in Germany. No coughing or sneezing, no signs of fatigue or fever during two days of long meetings. She told colleagues that she had started feeling ill after the flight back to China. Days later, she tested positive for the coronavirus. Scientists at the time believed that only people with symptoms could spread the coronavirus. They assumed it acted like its genetic cousin, SARS. Assume makes an ass of u and me "People who know much more about coronaviruses than I do were absolutely sure," recalled Dr. Rothe, an infectious disease specialist at Munich University Hospital. But if the experts were wrong, if the virus could spread from seemingly healthy carriers or people who had not yet developed symptoms, the ramifications were potentially catastrophic. Public-awareness campaigns, airport screening and stay-home-if-you’re sick policies might not stop it. More aggressive measures might be required — ordering healthy people to wear masks, for instance, or restricting international travel. Dr. Rothe and her colleagues were among the first to warn the world. But even as evidence accumulated from other scientists, leading health officials expressed unwavering confidence that symptomless spreading was not important. Because, otherwise, you'd have to quarantine China? ...Interviews with doctors and public health officials in more than a dozen countries show that for two crucial months — and in the face of mounting genetic evidence — Western health officials and political leaders played down or denied the risk of symptomless spreading. Leading health agencies including the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control provided contradictory and sometimes misleading advice. A crucial public health discussion devolved into a semantic debate over what to call infected people without clear symptoms. Now the critical question is: if symptomless infected can infect, are there some infected/infecting who never develop symptoms? |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #15 "in America, about 99% of the population has yet to be infected." If you start off with an unproven assertion (commonly known as "a lie", or mopre courteously as a "misrepresentation"), the rest of what you say is extremely suspect. And the "herd immunity" has some decent mathematical underpinnings. Please post credible citations to the contrary - you're marking the assertion, show your work. Otherwise you're just another ass, braying at barnyard. |
| Posted by: Marilyn Tojo7566 2020-06-28 22:11 |
| #14 The longterm health hazards from Pandemic M@sturbation, Grom are not in your favor |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-06-28 20:26 |
| #13 The Universe, Robert, doesn't give a f*ck about what we want. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB 2020-06-28 20:17 |
| #12 Go back and look at #1. We are a long, long, long way from being finished with this. Never did 'finidh' with the Hong Kong flu, by the way. So we either lock down until we get a vaccine we know is safe and effective and plentiful, or we get on with life until the death toll gets so high no one wants to go out. Pick one. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-06-28 20:02 |
| #11 I guess the libtards only "follow the science" when it's PC/convenient: |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-06-28 18:34 |
| #10 ^Good Joe. Good. You defeated me. Now defeat covid. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-06-28 18:23 |
| #9 Not buying this chicken little nonsense any more Grom. You have completely discredited yourself as far as I am concerned. |
| Posted by: Regular joe 2020-06-28 18:08 |
| #8 ^Only in the sense that everyone dies, Frank. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-06-28 17:29 |
| #7 Most of whom might've died regardless? Pffft |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-06-28 17:19 |
| #6 ^Tell it to 1/2 a million who died already. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-06-28 17:06 |
| #5 So if you have no symptoms and you dont die, is it really a deadly pandemic? Asked and answered. |
| Posted by: Regular joe 2020-06-28 16:58 |
| #4 Sloppier. At least imperial model had death rates in it. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-06-28 10:46 |
| #3 Sloppy like the "modeling" from Imperial College, the |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-06-28 10:41 |
| #2 ^Robert. (a) So far, and you'd expect some, there is no evidence that recovered CV19 patients are immune. (b) There never was any evidence for "herd immunity". It's an artifact of sloppy mathematical modeling. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-06-28 10:38 |
| #1 Yet, in America, about 99% of the population has yet to be infected. Even in Israel,more than 99% remain uninfected/undetected. Are we done flattening the curve yet? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-06-28 10:24 |