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Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

@Airborne_Again

Fair point. For practical purposes, I would define it as sufficient to show a positive test. Otherwise there is no way of knowing and so researching the matter is impossible. That said, if people were infected (and infectious) whilst still not having sufficient virus in their body to show a positive test, that makes the spread all the more difficult to contain.

Like pregnancy, a viral infection can be present but at so early a stage that it doesn’t show (reliably) on a test.

EGLM & EGTN

The reason that bit is very difficult to assess is that

  • an asymptomatic individual is less infectious than a coughing, sneezing symptomatic individual (Duh!)
  • but many of the symptomatic ones will sensibly stay at home and/or will be shunned

That means that, seemingly paradoxically, a large proportion of the actual spread will be by asymptomatic carriers, because they circulate more. This is a similar to the seemingly paradoxical fact that in a highly vaccinated population, a large proportion of ill people will be vaccinated, because there are more of them.

So at some point, asymptomatic spread could even overtake symptomatic spread.

Biggin Hill

Has there been a documented case of asymptomatic spread anywhere so far?

There were several studies which came to that conclusion; a meta-analysis here;
in summary

“…household transmission from AIC [Asymptomatic Index Carriers] was 0–4.9% compared to 18.0%; for SIC [Symptomatic Index Carriers] [3]. In another household study, AIC were four times less likely to pass the virus to a household contact, but ultimately caused one fifth of household infections [4]. All of these studies agree that AIC transmit SARS-COV2 to contacts, although to a somewhat lesser extent than SIC.

“somewhat” here means around 20%-25% less likely.

The document I link to tries to reconcile this with a Wuhan study that did NOT find such transmission. References to the source studies are in the appendices.

Last Edited by Cobalt at 02 Dec 20:59
Biggin Hill

The Omicron variant could be a “Christmas gift” and may make the pandemic end sooner, a German clinical epidemiologist has said.

Professor Karl Lauterbach, who is running to be Germany’s next health minister, said the new variant could be positive if it causes milder illness.

He suggested that Omicron has so many mutations – 32 on the spike protein alone, which is twice as many as Delta – meaning it could be optimised to infect and be less severe, in line with how most respiratory viruses evolve.

It comes as experts in South Africa claim Omicron is causing milder symptoms than previous variant

Meanwhile in the UK, the timid Politicians are reacting and are driven by the clickbait press which has been running headlines like “super mutant variant set to become dominant in 2 weeks” – totally ignoring that fact that all of the evidence is very mild. Even the WHO has said it looks mild.

Again, whilst the timid politicians are paying doctors £ 15 per booster jab to administer these to fit and healthy 20 year olds who would only ever experience Covid as a mild cold at worst, there are currently 740,000 cancer MRI’s and other tests which have not been done in the last 18 months.

So the message is – if you have cancer tough – we are going to be driven by “Clickbait” – that is not a way to run a health service.

Last Edited by Archer-181 at 03 Dec 07:14
United Kingdom

Archer-181 wrote:

Again, whilst the timid politicians are paying doctors £ 15 per booster jab to administer these to fit and healthy 20 year olds who would only ever experience Covid as a mild cold at worst,

Vaccination campaigns are vital in this pandemic, also against Omrikon, no matter how severe it is. Also the myth of 20 year old healthy people who will get a “cold at max” are wrong. While they have less chances of getting seriously ill, quite a few do. And every seriously ill person occupies space and time in hospitals. You also don’t need docs to do these shots, you need one or two per center to be on stand by. That is how it is handled in Switzerland and it works well. More and more, also normal GPs can do vaccinations on their premises.

Archer-181 wrote:

there are currently 740,000 cancer MRI’s and other tests which have not been done in the last 18 months.

If the vaccination campaign is given as a reason for this, it’s an outright lie. The reason many hospitals can’t do elective surgery or other stuff is that their people are occupied in ICU’s and Covid wards with people who predominantly did NOT get vaccinated.

Clickbait on the other hand is a M A S S I V E problem. Not only with Covid but also with it. Currently, the worst of that is that totallly preliminary and unproven theories about Omrikon are spread as “good news”, again undermining the vaccination campaign.

This pandemic is NOT going to end, unless 90% of the population, better 100% are vaccinated, if necessary multiple times.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Archer-181 wrote:

Again, whilst the timid politicians are paying doctors £ 15 per booster jab to administer these to fit and healthy 20 year olds who would only ever experience Covid as a mild cold at worst, there are currently 740,000 cancer MRI’s and other tests which have not been done in the last 18 months.

While I agree that the health care systems must strike a balance between treating/preventing Covid-19 and all other things they need to do, you’re wrong in saying that fit and healthy 20 years old will experience Covid-19 as “a mild cold at worst.” I know of a “fit and healthy” 20 year old who has been in an ICU on ventilator for 2 weeks and is only now showing signs of recovery.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 03 Dec 08:35
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Airborne_Again wrote:

I know of a “fit and healthy” 20 year old who has been in an ICU on ventilator for 2 weeks and is only now showing signs of recovery.

Absolutely! Plus we see lots of more or less severe forms of Long Covid and don’t even now yet, how many of these cases are somatic by the virus vs. how many are psychosomatic.

I am, however, always amazed how many people who are skeptical about vaccines because “we do not have enough data yet” are so much less scared about Long Covid where we have much less to none data beyond the fact that it is extremely likely that it is much more common than severe vaccination side effects.

Germany

Airborne_Again wrote:

health care systems must strike a balance between treating/preventing Covid-19 and all other things they need to do

The problem is capacity, not striking a balance. My friends who work there say their biggest issue is that the current ICU occupancy takes away vital personell without whom they can’t do other things that need doing. Anesthologists are in extreme demand, I know a guy who was retired who went back to volonteer because they asked for anyone capable. They are also pulling out nurses and other people from other wards to tend to the non-ICU’d covid patients and sometimes to help out in the ICUs themselfs. I’ve had several friends and relatives who had to wait for operations because of lack of staff.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

I’ve just learned about a “theory” about vaccines, which is so stupid that it makes my head hurt.

The first part is that the vaccines (specifically spike proteins) are poisonous. (That’s theoretically possible, I guess.)
But the second part is that this poison is contagious – i.e. it can spread from vaccinated people to unvaccinated people close by.

It was reported in Swedish media that a car service company had made a facebook post with the text: “Are you injected? You are welcome anyway! We do ask you to keep your distance as it has been proven that the poisons and spike proteins from these injections can be transmitted by close proximity (shedding).”

Googling “shedding” shows that this is not a new idea and that it has global reach. What can you say…?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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