10ofRods
Verified Anthropologist
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There are obviously conflicting reports regarding the percent of population that are asymptomatic. I recall the woman from China, who attended a meeting in Germany, claimed to be asymptomatic. Then we heard that she was taking medications to suppress symptoms.
I'm inclined to believe reports that are not based on Chinese stats.
Well, all the other reports say the same thing. Did you actually read the methodology? This was a pretty well-done study, not done by Chinese doctors, but by epidemiologists in UK.
Every single place they've done studies of this aspect, it comes to about 80% are asymptomatic (and there's secondary literature on why and who - as we all know, people under 20 are not showing symptoms for the most part - indeed, people under 40 are relatively immune from symptoms - and that includes moderate symptoms).
But there's way more to learn from the asymptomatic who have the antibodies. We don't have a lot of US data (and Canada has zero data on antibodies that I've read). No one in the Western hemisphere is studying this.
So Asian databases remain a good source of information about the course of this virus.
Here's the study again for those who might not have seen it.
Covid-19: four fifths of cases are asymptomatic, China figures indicate
This is why it's so hard for younger people to self-isolate. Not only do they feel immune, they pretty much are immune and are not dying in great numbers from CoVid. Nearly all the youthful dead are found to have prior conditions, sometimes undiagnosed. That we do know from non-Chinese data.
Is there a reason you think that all doctors in China would falsify the course of the illness? They are not all Chinese (some were American, some were British). I can see China refusing to estimate total number of deaths, but not their antibody studies, which are done by reputable doctors and scientists.