As a Canadian, I'm shaking my head at our officials who said "we do know that asymptomatic people are not the key driver of epidemics" as a response to concerns back in January of the potential for the virus to grow in our country via incoming travelers who came from hot spots and were not screened or forced to isolate if they expressed no symptoms.
Now our long term care facilities are being overrun with cases potentially because we waited until deaths piled up before testing asymptomatic caretakers for the virus.
Agreed 100%. Here in BC, public health wasn't even saying, "It's not known whether asymptomatic carriers can spread the virus," but actually, "Evidence suggests asymptomatic carriers can not spread the virus." Something that as far as I can tell was never actually true. This was reported in public briefings, was repeated by public health nurses on the call-in lines, and was distributed as the government's official position to daycare workers, presumably among others. Really mind-boggling to me. I can only assume somewhere along the line lack of evidence got confused for evidence of lack, and just kept getting parroted from there.
> "Evidence suggests asymptomatic carriers can not spread the virus."
I don't understand this. How would that even work? If you're infected, what would stop you from shedding virus like anyone else? Is there a precedent for this, for respiratory viruses?
Influenza starts being contagious a few days before symptoms start and stops being contagious a few days before symptoms end, so yes. But the profile for SARS-CoV-2 is particularly front-loaded compared to other viruses where peak infectivity is basically right as symptoms appear. With many other diseases if you catch all symptomatic cases that's enough to drive R well below 1 and from a public health perspective that's all you need.
I think the rationale behind this argument was a thought/hope that the disease was primarily being spread by sneezing or coughing, and if you weren't doing that then you weren't going to spread it.
Typhoid Mary was a real thing. No matter the precedent for a particular class of virus, this is still a different virus that has clearly evolved higher virulence, and better safe than sorry. In this case, we're sorry
Exactly like in Sweden. Our ministry of health has _almost_ given up the claim that asymptomatic carriers don't spread the virus by now, so... Progress!
So, in two weeks, if these prisons are still 96% asymptomatic - then what?
I hope that’s the case, everyone should. I have yet to see a single indication this is worse than than anyone’s projections. I think that’s a dangerous scenario for the next time a virus comes along.
If there is any perceptionat all of overreacting, it’ll be a cry-wolf scenario with a lot of people.
Then that would be really weird given other closed groups we've observed and tested closely like the Diamond Princess and would probably be evidence for a significant mutation.
A test is a snapshot of time. A person could pass a test and be shedding viruses two days later. A person could shed viruses, get over it, and pass a test.
Its the same story in Wuhan, probably quite a few asymptomatic carriers until the death toll start rising because of the exponential growth and came on the radar.
Blanket implies "all". Are the OP's following statements incorrect?:
"no evidence of Human-to-human spread" when they had evidence, "no evidence of asymptomatic spread" when we all had evidence, "no evidence of aerosol spread" when there was evidence in public view
Taiwan warned the WHO with respect to human-to-human transmission. Is this in dispute?
From your link, the message that Taiwan sent to the WHO:
""News sources indicate at least seven atypical pneumonia cases were reported in Wuhan, China". It also said while China's health authorities replied to the media that the cases were believed not to be SARS, "they have been isolated for treatment"."
Furthermore, from the picture: "I would gladly appreciate if you have relevant information to share with us."
So Taiwanese authorities read publicly available news sources about seven atypical pneumonia cases in Wuhan, and because the media reports said the cases were being isolated for treatment, they asked the WHO if they had any additional information.
Unless I'm reading it wrong, this does not mean that Taiwan had any additional knowledge other than what they had read from publicly available information.
> Unless I'm reading it wrong, this does not mean that Taiwan had any additional knowledge other than what they had read from publicly available information.
You are reading it wrong. Taiwan also relayed that PRC doctors were talking to ROC doctors, letting them know that the staff at hospitals were being infected with a new respiratory illness, which would indicate human-to-human spread. They told the WHO about this in December, the WHO continued to contend that there was "no evidence" to suggest human to human spread.
It turned out that another type B variant was the dominant one that year (https://en.ssi.dk/surveillance-and-preparedness/surveillance...) which caused a total of 1,644 deaths in Denmark, which is almost four times the current death toll for Corona virus in Denmark.
It says for example this:
"Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days."
And yet here we are with a 96% asymptomatic rate being reported in a prison.
I would rather that the WHO delayed their news flow, instead of reporting too soon on what they think. Oh, and probably they should trust the Chinese regime less than they do.
I'm not sure calling them a malicious institution is too much. The WHO pushed hard on the idea that there definitely were no asymptomatic cases and China had confirmed this for sure using arguments that seemed utterly nonsensical - like, they were essentially arguing that asymptomatic cases didn't exist because testing of people with symptoms didn't find them. They had a whole campaign of interviews with US publications to spread this, as part of a broader regurgitation of dubious Chinese propaganda about things like how exactly they contained their own outbreak.
Now our long term care facilities are being overrun with cases potentially because we waited until deaths piled up before testing asymptomatic caretakers for the virus.