Yesterday, we discussed the possibility of these being more than the claimed 3/10 Asymptomatic Coronavirus cases.
Since then, the ONS, the Office For National Statistics, has revealed that a nationwide study has shown around 7/10 people who test positive have no Coronavirus symptoms. This just reinforces the need for social distancing, because you really don’t know who has the virus.
The data was from our UKs testing system, in which around 8,000 people have been testing positive per day. However, some scientists are skeptical of this worrying claim, and say that some tests are simply false positives. But considering all the other studies and all the other evidence, from multiple countries and sources, it’s hard to deny the fact that it’s very likely around 7/10 people with Coronavirus don’t show any symptoms.
When speaking about the infection rate, the governments chief scientific advisor reminded the public that: “It’s worth remembering that we still have a significant burden of infection. We are still seeing new infections every day at quite a significant rate. There’s not a lot of room to do things, and things need to be done cautiously.”
Almost 80% of people who tested positive revealed they had no symptoms at all on the day of the test, whilst a further 70% of people who tested positive said they showed no symptoms a week before and after the test.
Peter Benton, who works at the ONS, said: “If 70 per cent of people are asymptomatic that probably means there are people who are infectious and don’t know it, and therefore continuing with social distancing is important.”
Scientists have admitted, though, that the test can’t show if the Asymptomatic positive people are actually infectious or not, so the government stresses great caution regarding being near people, whether you’ve had a test or not.
Carl Heneghan, of Oxford University, said of the asymptomatic figures: “If this is a true phenomenon it is hugely important. But you have to ask, is it a false positive problem? When someone says ‘I didn’t have any symptoms’ is that true or is that a false positive? Right now they are both equally likely.”
But they problem here the tests are around 95% accurate, meaning only 5% are false positives which is not a crazy amount. Even if some cases are false positives, it still leave a very high percentage of people testing positive without displaying symptoms, which could cause many problems to arise, but it could also suggest that more of the population has had it than scientists initially thought.
The new tests and trace system may be seriously disrupted if there are this many positive people walking around with so symptoms, and this is something the government is going to have to think about in coming days and weeks.
