5 ms·
Where did you read that? Superficially that might make sense - less virus particles == less obvious symptoms - but there are a wide variety of virus responses t
by frereubu 7y ago
Where did you read that? Superficially that might make sense - less virus particles == less obvious symptoms - but there are a wide variety of virus responses that show virulence and infectiousness aren't necessarily correlated.
If anyone wants to read more about this I can't recommend highly enough the book Spillover by David Quammen, which was published in 2012, and covers zoonotic (animal-to-human transmission) viruses, including SARS. Reading the section on SARS made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It's uncannily similar to what's happening with Covid-19, and explains a lot of the background involved in these kinds of viruses.
- ketzo 7y agoI actually do remember reading that this was true specifically in the case of COVID — that more exposure so far seems to correlate with a worse infection. Sadly, I have no idea where I read this. But... I know I did! Recently! Maybe NYT?
- ScottBurson 7y agoYeah, I saw it too. The hypothesis, as I recall, is that the more virions inhaled, the more likely some of them will get deep in the lungs where they can do the most damage.
- phkahler 7y agoI read something like that too. I came away thinking that ingestion might be a better way to get it than inhalation. I think you really need to keep it out of the lungs and nervous system. But that's all my impression from who knows where.
- snowmaker 7y agoThis is the article you meant: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/opinion/coronavirus-viral-dose.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/opinion/coronavirus-viral...
- netcan 7y agoBucheight
- belltaco 7y agohttps://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-viral-load-and-the-severity-of-covid-19/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-viral-load-and-the-...
- frereubu 7y agoThanks - that's the kind of thing I was looking for, but this line stuck out to me: "However, the evidence of the relationship is limited by the poor quality of many of the studies, the retrospective nature of the studies, small sample sizes and the potential problem with selection bias." The book I mention gives me enough reason to doubt that what we know about Covid-19 at this point is anything like the whole story.
- throwaway7614 7y agohttps://www.newscientist.com/article/2238819-does-a-high-viral-load-or-infectious-dose-make-covid-19-worse/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238819-does-a-high-vir...
- alkonaut 7y agoA crude mathematical model from Swedish authorities on the Stockholm outbreak used two parameters: 1: the fraction of undetected cases (assumed to be mild or asymptomatic) and 2: the relative infectiousness of that group compared to the “detected” group. The larger the undetected group is, the lower their relative infectiousness has to be in order to fit the observations. The best fit I believe was 1/25 detected and 11% infectiousness of the undetected group.
- jacobush 7y agoFor the particular conditions in Stockholm, such as testing prevalence etc
- alkonaut 7y agoYes absolutely. The actual parameters would be different everywhere but they seem to indicate that the symptomatic group is more infectious (which I guess is the base hypothesis for a droplet transmitted disease).