So in keeping with "keeping it real" about COVID-19, I have hypothesized that the virus is far more widespread than we think because a lot of people probably got it and toughed it out. Now
a paper subject to review provides some evidence of this:
I'm going to screencap the text because of the recent discovery of papers and reports being changed after the fact with no notice on the replacement pages.
People who contract the novel coronavirus emit high amounts of virus very early on in their infection, according to a new study from Germany that helps to explain the rapid and efficient way in which the virus has spread around the world.
Importantly:
The researchers found very high levels of virus emitted from the throat of patients from the earliest point in their illness —when people are generally still going about their daily routines. Viral shedding dropped after day 5 in all but two of the patients, who had more serious illness. The two, who developed early signs of pneumonia, continued to shed high levels of virus from the throat until about day 10 or 11.
Osterholm said the data in the paper confirm what the spread of the disease has been signaling — “early and potentially highly efficient transmission of the virus occurs before clinical symptoms or in conjunction with the very first mild symptoms.”
I'm not clear as to what "earliest point" is. Is that a cough that makes you go "hmmmm" but not enough to get you alarmed? Is it a runny nose but no other symptoms? Is it a scratchy throat but nothing else? These are symptoms that many people will go to work (and whatever) while having. If that is the case, before they even get to a point of getting tested for anything they would be highly contagious. It would also mean that if we're depending on "have symptoms, let me get tested" as a means of tracking cases, that's not going to "work". By "work" I mean contain the spread. I'm already on record as saying that the data shows that "infection", "dead" and "hospitalization" should not be automatically linked unless talking about the elderly.
