Doesn't the median age of 60 years for positively diagnosed patients suggest a huge number of non-detected cases?
We’re only seeing the sickest, most critical patients and the most overwhelmed hospital systems in cities.
I think MOST patients being tested in hotspots like Lombardy are those who are already at the hospital, and if you’re at the hospital you’re not in good shape.
Probably tons of positive cases at home with a fever, or mild symptoms or no symptoms.
And of course, tons of people who are not tested and probably never will be. Totally asymptomatic.
We can’t get an accurate fatality rate without these “infected but asymptomatic” cases.
Didn’t an Italian doctor do a small study showing 98% asymptomatic positive cases?
(of course, this comment will probably age poorly)
Sorry about the paywall. If you search for it via google and click it from there that's how I found it (and why I didn't realize it was paywall)
Basic summary: Too Early to tell. But Germany is doing 160,000 tests/week, which is more than lots of countries. They may be getting a more complete picture of who is all infected.
Given that age is a very large component here, I don't think you can extrapolate data from the Diamond Princess to the general population.
Aka super carriers.
The virus is smart and has evolved from an evolutionary standpoint. Infect younger and asymptomatic patients with the goal of spreading and infecting as many as possible. Eventually, the more infected, the more that will die. The young are just carrier pigeons and don’t even know it.
I think you are giving a bit too much agency to the virus. It has evolved in such a way that optimises for further spreading for sure, but I do not think it has a sneaky strategy to use young people as attack vectors.
What's more likely is that it has evolved to replicate and spread within the human population, while not acting so fast as to kill most people. The problem is that replicating at a rate that doesn't kill most people will kill some of the oldest and sickest within a population.
That assumption has no basis at all. Evolutionary pressures don't happen due to a intentional guidance from the evolving species. Individuals mutate by chance and replicate as they can. That's it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/science/ancient-viruses-d...
You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. The virus spreads as it's possible, and those who carry the virus experience the infection differently depending on some traits.