Ask HN: Is it possible 2019-nCoV is already endemic?
Is it possible that 2019-nCoV is already endemic and the outbreak in Wuhan just represents a particularly virulent strain?
The “ease of transmission” — asymptomatic, across 12 floors of a building, etc — Occam’s razor might suggest it’s simply a previously unidentified mild pathogen and a recent mutation is wreaking more havoc in Wuhan than the typical presentation — which, under this hypothesis, would be very mild.
The facts as I understand them are that sick people we test for 2019-nCoV sometimes have it. But we only test people (right now) with connections to Wuhan.
Assuming we keep finding asymptomatic transmission cases pop up, we’re faced with two possibilities; this is the fastest-transmitting and most robust coronavirus we’ve ever seen OR people keep turning up infected because it’s already endemic in the global population.
If my assumptions are correct about how we’re testing for the virus right now there’s huge sampling bias, both hypotheses will produce identical results unless we start testing control groups in completely unrelated areas.
Is there something I’m missing? Can any real epidemiologists weigh in? I would think folks at the WHO / CDC must already be thinking about this?