Biotech Values

[hptaxis]

Comments, Thoughts, Opinions, ... Tia

“Evidence for widespread infection already (including asymptomatic). Accumulating evidence in this direction will mean going back to normal sooner, will vindicate skeptics like Ioannidis, and require revisiting prognositications of months to years social distancing.”

Evidence for widespread infection already (including asymptomatic).

Accumulating evidence in this direction will mean going back to normal sooner, will vindicate skeptics like Ioannidis, and require revisiting prognositications of months to years social distancing https://t.co/wK9EvL8HLv

— Antonio Regalado (@antonioregalado) April 3, 2020

Day M. Covid-19: four fifths of cases are asymptomatic, China figures indicate. BMJ 2020;369:m1375. http://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375.abstract

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?’”

…

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 [Covid-19 – The tipping point? https://www.cebm.net/2020/03/covid-19-the-tipping-point ]