4 ms·

> Now, a paper from researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine and Stanford Hospitals, raises an extraordinary prospect: transmission from asymptomat

> Now, a paper from researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine and Stanford Hospitals, raises an extraordinary prospect: transmission from asymptomatic people is far, far less common than we were led to believe. > From a special test they developed, the researchers found a remarkable 96 percent of people who were PCR-positive but without symptoms were not infectious. > Most people who don’t have symptoms, of course, are not infected. So the likelihood of someone who is not noticeably sick actually being infected and infectious was exceedingly rare. This means that much of the actions we were told—or compelled—to take, including an acceptance of all those closed or half-empty schools, had little to no benefit. 1. Can we really sweep away all the evidence of asymptomatic spread because of a "special PCR test" years after the fact? We had a lot of good reasons to believe this at the time, and none of them are engaged with here. 2. If asymptomatic people rarely spread COVID and it spread anyway, that means that symptomatic people were going out in public and spreading it. Even though they were getting plenty of messaging not to do this. That means that symptomatic people don't cooperate with public health measures enough to slow the spread, either because they did not understand their symptoms or didn't care. So what do you do, other than require masks by default? What does this change?

WA 3y ago
Furthermore, the author essentially says: "4% is low and can be neglected", but gives no reason why that number is supposed to be low. It reads like gut feeling. Think about it: you have a room of 100 people, 4 of them might be asymptomatic spreaders. From what we observed during the pandemic, there were super spreader events, where one person infected hundreds of others. 4% doesn’t seem irrelevant.
- civilized 3y ago
  Agreed. Also, our understanding at the time was that people were spreading it in the days before developing symptoms. Does the Stanford study adequately sample that population? We have no idea, because this study wasn't designed to answer questions about asymptomatic spread. All they did was run a special PCR test on a convenience sample of people they had lying around in the hospital, and report the results they got from that. Maybe most of those people were post-symptomatic, which would explain why they had a lot of dead virus lying around to be collected in the swabs. If these findings had revolutionary implications, they could have been surfaced at the time. Other people at Stanford had no issue broadcasting their opinions and getting heard.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Not to mention that even standard testing wasn’t scaled up adequately in the time period in question. A better test would’ve been better, but we couldn’t even get the less-good test rolled out at scale in 2020. It’s irritating to have to rehash these fairly moonshot-in-retrospect ideas when there is ample unambiguous, generally useful low-hanging fruit: hospitals should not run out of PPE; schools & hospitals should have excellent air filtration systems; tests, once developed, should be able to occupy nearly all relevant manufacturing capacity immediately
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  How can an asymptomatic spreader, that is without sneezing/coughing, effectively infect 100s of people? That’s never made sense to me.
  - unterdenlinden 3y ago
    They just need to infect one superspreader
  - eynsham 3y ago
    Forced ventilation might do it.
  - civilized 3y ago
    It's about the size of the water droplets needed to transmit the virus. If big ones are required, you need close contact and/or sneezing/coughing. If smaller droplets are sufficient, other vigorous oral activities like singing or excited close-quarters talking could spread the virus more effectively (choirs and professional conferences were important superspreader events in the early pandemic). Or maybe even just being together for long periods of time in unfavorable ventilation conditions. In my recollection, epidemiological case studies have suggested that being together in unfavorable ventilation was the biggest risk factor overall. There were papers that looked at people's status, contacts over time, the rooms they were together in, and the ventilation conditions, all in a very detailed way and basically inferred the exact course of transmission between specific individuals.
- ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
  I think your point still stands, but it's not 4% of the general population. If you have a room of 100 people with asymptomatic COVID, it wouldn't matter if any of them are spreaders; there wouldn't be anyone to spread to. I have no idea how you could determine the prevalence of asymptomatic COVID though.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
duxup 3y ago
I feel like I read a lot of “this research came later and is right” but often it is just two different sets of research with different results and neither addresses the other exactly. That’s ok as any given research can’t address all other research. But it’s frustrating to read when presented as we should just disregard some other research…as I don’t know why we would disregard either.
ghastmaster 3y ago
> 1. Can we really sweep away all the evidence of asymptomatic spread because of a "special PCR test" years after the fact? We had a lot of good reasons to believe this at the time, and none of them are engaged with here. What evidence are you referring to? The article seemingly contradicts this in the following: > In June 2020, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the World Health Organization’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said that transmission from asymptomatic people was “very rare.” This conclusion was based on a number of countries doing very detailed contact tracing, she said Point #2: > that means that symptomatic people were going out in public and spreading it. That is precisely what happened. There were many reports of "outbreaks" that were traced back to very symptomatic people that attended parties or duties and infected large groups. > either because they did not understand their symptoms or didn't care. So what do you do, other than require masks by default? What does this change? There were many reasons people did not comply with the directives. Some right, some wrong. Requiring masks, social distancing, etc. for everyone would make sense even if asymptomatic people cannot spread the virus, given that some people are going to ignore their symptoms and expose others. This assuming masks and distancing work, the directives were legal and/or moral, and the virus was not going to get around to everyone eventually anyway and harm the same amount to the same extent. People lied, ignored, and obfuscated the truth about their symptoms and contributed to the spread of the virus. People also lied, ignored, and obfuscated the truth about the nature of the virus and contributed to bad policy.
graderjs 3y ago
What were those reasons?
lamontcg 3y ago
We're still not being careful about asymptomatic, presymptomatic and paucisymptomatic. If someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2 and feeling nonspecific aches and pains and doesn't realize they're sick yet, and they only start feeling very ill a day or two later was that person "asymptomatic"? I can fairly well believe that people who are truly asymptomatic under the strictest definition and never fall ill are very unlikely to transmit the virus. At the same time people who are going to get sick and are ignoring or in denial about the first symptoms they might be feeling are probably very likely to be walking around transmitting virus.

WA 3y ago

Furthermore, the author essentially says: "4% is low and can be neglected", but gives no reason why that number is supposed to be low. It reads like gut feeling. Think about it: you have a room of 100 people, 4 of them might be asymptomatic spreaders. From what we observed during the pandemic, there were super spreader events, where one person infected hundreds of others. 4% doesn’t seem irrelevant.

civilized 3y ago
Agreed. Also, our understanding at the time was that people were spreading it in the days before developing symptoms. Does the Stanford study adequately sample that population? We have no idea, because this study wasn't designed to answer questions about asymptomatic spread. All they did was run a special PCR test on a convenience sample of people they had lying around in the hospital, and report the results they got from that. Maybe most of those people were post-symptomatic, which would explain why they had a lot of dead virus lying around to be collected in the swabs. If these findings had revolutionary implications, they could have been surfaced at the time. Other people at Stanford had no issue broadcasting their opinions and getting heard.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Not to mention that even standard testing wasn’t scaled up adequately in the time period in question. A better test would’ve been better, but we couldn’t even get the less-good test rolled out at scale in 2020. It’s irritating to have to rehash these fairly moonshot-in-retrospect ideas when there is ample unambiguous, generally useful low-hanging fruit: hospitals should not run out of PPE; schools & hospitals should have excellent air filtration systems; tests, once developed, should be able to occupy nearly all relevant manufacturing capacity immediately
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
How can an asymptomatic spreader, that is without sneezing/coughing, effectively infect 100s of people? That’s never made sense to me.
- unterdenlinden 3y ago
  They just need to infect one superspreader
- eynsham 3y ago
  Forced ventilation might do it.
- civilized 3y ago
  It's about the size of the water droplets needed to transmit the virus. If big ones are required, you need close contact and/or sneezing/coughing. If smaller droplets are sufficient, other vigorous oral activities like singing or excited close-quarters talking could spread the virus more effectively (choirs and professional conferences were important superspreader events in the early pandemic). Or maybe even just being together for long periods of time in unfavorable ventilation conditions. In my recollection, epidemiological case studies have suggested that being together in unfavorable ventilation was the biggest risk factor overall. There were papers that looked at people's status, contacts over time, the rooms they were together in, and the ventilation conditions, all in a very detailed way and basically inferred the exact course of transmission between specific individuals.
ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
I think your point still stands, but it's not 4% of the general population. If you have a room of 100 people with asymptomatic COVID, it wouldn't matter if any of them are spreaders; there wouldn't be anyone to spread to. I have no idea how you could determine the prevalence of asymptomatic COVID though.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

duxup 3y ago

I feel like I read a lot of “this research came later and is right” but often it is just two different sets of research with different results and neither addresses the other exactly. That’s ok as any given research can’t address all other research. But it’s frustrating to read when presented as we should just disregard some other research…as I don’t know why we would disregard either.

ghastmaster 3y ago

> 1. Can we really sweep away all the evidence of asymptomatic spread because of a "special PCR test" years after the fact? We had a lot of good reasons to believe this at the time, and none of them are engaged with here. What evidence are you referring to? The article seemingly contradicts this in the following: > In June 2020, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the World Health Organization’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said that transmission from asymptomatic people was “very rare.” This conclusion was based on a number of countries doing very detailed contact tracing, she said Point #2: > that means that symptomatic people were going out in public and spreading it. That is precisely what happened. There were many reports of "outbreaks" that were traced back to very symptomatic people that attended parties or duties and infected large groups. > either because they did not understand their symptoms or didn't care. So what do you do, other than require masks by default? What does this change? There were many reasons people did not comply with the directives. Some right, some wrong. Requiring masks, social distancing, etc. for everyone would make sense even if asymptomatic people cannot spread the virus, given that some people are going to ignore their symptoms and expose others. This assuming masks and distancing work, the directives were legal and/or moral, and the virus was not going to get around to everyone eventually anyway and harm the same amount to the same extent. People lied, ignored, and obfuscated the truth about their symptoms and contributed to the spread of the virus. People also lied, ignored, and obfuscated the truth about the nature of the virus and contributed to bad policy.

graderjs 3y ago

What were those reasons?

lamontcg 3y ago

We're still not being careful about asymptomatic, presymptomatic and paucisymptomatic. If someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2 and feeling nonspecific aches and pains and doesn't realize they're sick yet, and they only start feeling very ill a day or two later was that person "asymptomatic"? I can fairly well believe that people who are truly asymptomatic under the strictest definition and never fall ill are very unlikely to transmit the virus. At the same time people who are going to get sick and are ignoring or in denial about the first symptoms they might be feeling are probably very likely to be walking around transmitting virus.