Monday, 29 June 2020

Silent Spreaders

 
In the early days of Covid-19's arrival in Europe, some scientists suggested (on the basis of their experiences with testing at a German motor manufacturers with foreign visitors from China), that infected people could spread the disease but be asymptomatic. Their view was, however, generally initially dismissed as it didn't fit with their critic's understanding of what happened in cases of Sars (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/world/europe/coronavirus-spread-asymptomatic.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20200628 ). This now appears to be a missed opportunity, as the virus had almost 2 months to travel world-wide, before asymptomatic spreading was recognised. With any new disease, we clearly have to attempt to use comparable conditions to guide our thinking. We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that any new disease may have its own unique characteristics. So, perhaps suggestions should not be dismissed before the possibilities have been fully trialled?

No comments:

With Your Christmas Turkey?

Devi Sridhar (University of Edinburgh) is reminding folk about the distinct probability of a pandemic stemming from Bird 'flu. She note...