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posted by martyb on Friday April 09 2021, @01:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the hidden-in-plain-sight dept.

More than half of people with strong Covid infection are asymptomatic, new figures show:

More than half of people with a strong Covid infection did not report any of the major symptoms, new figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed.

This underlines the risk of people spreading the virus without knowing they are infected which is thought to be one of the main ways the coronavirus pandemic has been able to spread so easily around the world.

The ONS said 53 per cent of people with a strong positive, or high viral load, between December and March did not report having any symptoms compared to 47 per cent who did. It excluded patients likely to be at the start of their infection when transmission and symptoms are thought to be less likely.

Fatigue, headache and cough were the most commonly reported symptoms amongst people who had a strong positive test for Covid-19.

[...] "Around half of those we tested did not report any symptoms even whilst having high levels of the virus present in their body. This underlines that people in the community may unknowingly have the virus and potentially transmit it to others."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday April 09 2021, @01:56AM (19 children)

    by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Friday April 09 2021, @01:56AM (#1135139)

    I'm going to keep wearing mine in public even after my vaccination takes hold. I know the difference between 90% and 100%, and I choose to minimize the chance of my being in a chain of transmission that hits somebody vulnerable.

    It's after case rates go way down that I'll reconsider.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:00AM (#1135146)

    Careful, that makes you a decent human being and that rigamarole ain't tolerated round these parts!

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:29AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:29AM (#1135171)

    Vaccine doesn't prevent infection - it helps you to fight it off if you get infected.

    Some new research suggests vaccination also helps to prevent spread of infection.

    But all researches are preliminary at this point, and your call is what a decent human being would do.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday April 09 2021, @02:41AM (4 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday April 09 2021, @02:41AM (#1135177)

      Infection isn't a binary thing: Viral load (i.e. how much of the bad stuff is in your body) also matters, and that's why vaccination also helps prevent the spread to unvaccinnated people.

      It makes total sense when you think about it: Vaccination means your body has antibodies to the virus. The antibodies help by preventing the virus from invading your cells and reproducing with your cells' organelles and proteins. Which means that there's fewer copies of the virus floating around your body, which means that there's less that you can expel onto somebody else. And as an added bonus, if you get vaccinated, you aren't helping the virus mutate into a new version as easily, because mutation requires reproduction to turn into a new strain or variant.

      It's the difference between trying a password-guessing attack from 1 machine, or a password-guessing attack from a botnet of 100,000 machines.

      And yes, keep wearing a mask and socially distancing in public places too. This isn't an either-or.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:47AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:47AM (#1135179)

        That's what I said, but bit more succinctly, windbag.

        Whatever, I'm in total agreement.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @03:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @03:49AM (#1135196)

        Vaccination also puts selection pressure on the virus that is different
        than a non-vaccinated immune response.

        So vaccination is not just "all good".

        And these new vaccines have an "emergency use" qualification.
        What about 10 years down the road?

        So I'd say there are still BIG unknowns with the covid vaccines.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @08:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @08:46AM (#1135238)

        and that's why vaccination also helps prevent the spread to unvaccinnated people.

        Not necessarily. This isn't proven yet for any of the covid-19 vaccines being used. Some vaccines on some people could just make them more like those asymptomatic people who still shed lots of viruses.

        It may well be that some covid-19 vaccinations reduce spread and others don't. See the case of the whooping cough vaccines for an example:
        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150624071018.htm [sciencedaily.com]

        The problem is, the newer vaccines might not block transmission. A January 2014 study in PNAS by another research team demonstrated that giving baboons acellular pertussis vaccines prevented them from developing symptoms of whooping cough but failed to stop transmission.

        Building on that result, Althouse and Scarpino used whopping cough case counts from the CDC, genomic data on the pertussis bacteria, and a detailed epidemiological model of whooping cough transmission to conclude that acellular vaccines may well have contributed to -- even exacerbated -- the recent pertussis outbreak by allowing infected individuals without symptoms to unknowingly spread pertussis multiple times in their lifetimes.

      • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday April 09 2021, @03:16PM

        by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Friday April 09 2021, @03:16PM (#1135322)

        Sound point, and I'll amplify by passing along that the Israelis have put numbers on the reduced viral load. Among vaccinated people with breakthrough infections, it averages a quarter what would have been expected in unvaccinated people.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @09:31PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @09:31PM (#1135505)

      it's not a vaccine. it's an experimental gene therapy that just happens to sterilize you and make sure you don't ever collect your retirement benefits. good luck with that, slave..

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10 2021, @06:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10 2021, @06:05AM (#1135626)

        sterilize you and make sure you don't ever collect your retirement benefits

        are these two things supposed to be connected? lol

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @04:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @04:14AM (#1137302)

        Oh, look! It's TMB's demented "real" Doctor! Remember? The one going on about the "demon semen"?

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 09 2021, @02:34AM (6 children)

    The vaccine does not stop you from contracting or transmitting the virus. It's not that kind of vaccine.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Friday April 09 2021, @05:32AM (3 children)

      by https (5248) on Friday April 09 2021, @05:32AM (#1135219) Journal

      There is exactly zero reason to trust anything from you.

      It does exactly that. [nbcnews.com]

      It bears repeating: you have murder in your heart. You contribute (with lies) towards a world with more people dying untimely deaths.

      --
      Offended and laughing about it.
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @10:04AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @10:04AM (#1135249)

        you have murder in your heart.

        Damn. I don't think I've ever seen or heard someone get called out like this, without it being exaggeration. Just... damn. True, and cold, but that's fitting.

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @12:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @12:54PM (#1135278)

        If the same type of study was about a vitamin you'd call it observational and unreliable. Instead it is "real world data" and you take it as fact.

        Pfizer's marketing has really done a number on you.

      • (Score: 2) by dak664 on Friday April 09 2021, @02:27PM

        by dak664 (2433) on Friday April 09 2021, @02:27PM (#1135298)

        Well it's NBC and the quote is "real-world data from Israel suggests that their Covid-19 vaccine is 94 percent effective in preventing asymptomatic infections, meaning the vaccine could significantly reduce transmission."

        Whatever they did there, it isn't science.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 09 2021, @03:13PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 09 2021, @03:13PM (#1135318) Journal

      The vaccine does not stop you from contracting or transmitting the virus.

      Most things risk management things we do, reduce risk, they don't stop it. Here, these vaccines would reduce the contracting and thus, transmitting of the covid virus (well, covered strains that is). Enough people get immunity from either vaccines or having the disease and we can stop it for real.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10 2021, @12:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10 2021, @12:23AM (#1135551)

      Is that before or after you guzzled a bunch of hydroxychloroquine?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2021, @02:48AM (#1135181)

    That is not enough. You must wear the correct mask in the correct fashion.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11 2021, @06:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11 2021, @06:29AM (#1135961)

    Did you cum from the sense of selfsatisfaction as you typed this, or after you hit submit?