you are going to have to document that....
I know from talking with Doctors many people in hospitals in San Diego are now getting tested... Some are found positive for Covid and have no symptoms.
Yesterday... I specifically asked if they were being tested with the swab test and not the antibody test (because I also suspect some antibody tests are not accurate) ... they said of course.
The "swab test" is for live virus. It also has problems because it is PCR based and therefore tremendously sensitive to a few molecules of contamination. It depends very much on the skill and knowledge of those doing the lab work. When done properly, it is highly reliable. In the best of world's all positive tests, without symptoms, would be repeated and followed for ten days, and all negative tests with symptoms would be repeated. Seldom happens however.
Based on meticulous studies of SARS Covid, the percent of Covid-2 infections that remain asymptomatic but produce antibodies specific to Covid-2 should be ~7% . Numbers such as 50-80% are just not believable, and when one looks into the origin of these numbers one invariably finds finger prick antibody tests.
Redfield here is muddying the waters by speaking of the pre-symptomatic, who are at the time also asymptomatic, but all but ~7-15% of them will go on to develop symptoms. This must not be conflated with the large number of people who tested positive for antibodies but never experienced any symptoms. The data re asymptomatic transmission is incorrect because it includes many who were asymptomatic because they were never infected. And I have explained why. Read my posts carefully if you want to know why so many asymptomatic persons were being reported.“Of those of us that get symptomatic, it appears that we’re shedding significant virus in our oropharyngeal compartment, probably up to 48 hours before we show symptoms,” Redfield said. “This helps explain how rapidly this virus continues to spread across the country because we have asymptomatic transmitters.”
Redfield here is muddying the waters by speaking of the pre-symptomatic, who are at the time also asymptomatic, but all but ~7-15% of them will go on to develop symptoms. This must not be conflated with the large number of people who tested positive for antibodies but never experienced any symptoms. The data re asymptomatic transmission is incorrect because it includes many who were asymptomatic because they were never infected. And I have explained why. Read my posts carefully if you want to know why so many asymptomatic persons were being reported.
In summary, the reason they were asymptomatic is that they were never infected. ~7-15% of those infected will be asymptomatic based on carefully collected data for the very closely related SARS-Covid virus. Greater numbers than this are wrong. They are based on simple, but insufficiently-specific, finger-prick antibody tests. These tests, that were being widely used, gave a very high number of false positives. The situation is no more complicated than that.
Well then people were just making a wild guess then weren't they? We had ELIZA, an expensive, but highly specific test, however the first antibody tests for Covid-2 made widely available in the U.S., and elsewhere, were insufficiently specific finger prick tests. These are quick and relatively inexpensive, but when applied to Covid-2 antibodies give a very high number of false positives. (These test do detect the presence of antibodies, but they're insufficiently specific for Covid-2; some improved quick tests may now be available.)I am saying the stats we have about the asymptomatic came from before we had antibody tests.
Well then people were just making a wild guess then weren't they? We had ELIZA, an expensive, but highly specific test, however the first antibody tests for Covid-2 made widely available in the U.S., and elsewhere, were insufficiently specific finger prick tests. These are quick and relatively inexpensive, but when applied to Covid-2 antibodies give a very high number of false positives. (These test do detect the presence of antibodies, but they're insufficiently specific for Covid-2; some improved quick tests may now be available.)
The bottom line is that people who are not infected with live virus can not transmit regardless of whether they test positive, false positive, negative or false negative for antibodies. The CDC has never explained why they pooled highly unreliable finger prick antibody Covid-2 tests, with ELIZA and PCR tests. The cheapest, quickest, most readily available tests were the finger prick antibody tests. Consequently the results from these tests, many of which are false positives, outnumber those from the more reliable tests. Because the largest fraction of the entire co-mingled data set was coming from false positives it appeared that far more were infected with Covid-2 than anyone would think possible, and a large number of these were entirely asymptomatic. Hence all the jumping to false conclusions before it was realized how the data had been screwed with and how unreliable the quick antibody tests were.*
In fact very carefully carried out ELIZA tests for antibodies to SARS-Covid have been published. These studies report, once the pre-symptomatic are weeded out, ~7% of those with SARS-Covid antibodies never experienced symptoms. This is a reasonable number. Covid-2 is very very similar to SARS Covid. there is no reason to think its inherent transmission rate and fraction of asymptomatic antibody carriers will be significantly different from what was found in careful studies for SARS-Covid. It is my personal opinion that current "Expert" opinion that there are large numbers of asymptomatic persons capable of transmitting the disease is wrong.
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*A sinister interpretation of what happened would be that someone wanted to make the Covid-2 virus appear to be far less dangerous than it actually is, by making it appear that that few of many infected get sick. What better way to do that than to adopt an unproven, non-specific test for antibodies gives many false positives. In reality, based on SARS studies, about 7-15% of those infected with Covid-2 should experience no, or mild symptoms. This is a far cry from numbers as high as 80% being reported.
Far from it.
THE WHO IS CORRECT -- Asymptomatic transmission is very rare!
You are right , jem. the U.S., has made a mess of the data. The WHO finding that asymptomatic transmission is very rare is undoubtedly correct. It is consistent with all the facts as known now, and is supported by very careful studies with a closely related corona virus, SARS.1. but in you are trying qualify that statement by claiming that because its was all about false positives are you not?
2. Have you adjusted you position to accept 30 to 50 percent of those infected are asymptomatic?
Please clarify. What WHO statements regarding transmission of Covid 19 are you accepting and what WHO statements are you denying?
You are right , jem. the U.S., has made a mess of the data. The WHO finding that asymptomatic transmission is very rare is undoubtedly correct. It is consistent with all the facts as known now, and is supported by very careful studies with a closely related corona virus, SARS.
30 to 40 percent (or higher in some cases) of those being reported as infected and asymptomatic are not. They are not infected, and have never been, not yet anyway, so of course they don't have symptoms.. They have neither the live virus nor antibodies to it. But when tested for antibodies with a simple test that gives a very high number of false positives, they test positive.