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clarenceisacat t1_iwebwny wrote

Reply to comment by TheScienceTM in PSA: Sicknesses in the coming months by SpringLover455

'If I'm not sick I'm not infecting anyone.'

In general, this isn't true. Sometimes, you can be:

  • asymptomatic but still capable of infecting others
  • infectious even if you haven't realized you're sick
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TheScienceTM t1_iwedy1r wrote

Both of those are rare cases. In my opinion it's negligible. Regardless if the solution to that 1% chance is wearing a mask indefinitely then I will pass. To each their own.

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clarenceisacat t1_iwek3nb wrote

A meta-analysis published in JAMA Online looked at more than 29 million individuals and determined that the pooled percentage of asymptomatic infections was 40.50% among the population with confirmed COVID-19. Another meta-analysis looked at 350 studies and determined that the percentage of asymptomatic infections was 35.1%.

Recently recovered from a bout of norovirus? You can still spread the virus for two weeks despite having no symptoms yourself.

I'm not telling you to wear a mask, but I am telling you that your understanding of disease transmission is wrong.

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TheScienceTM t1_iwes0v9 wrote

There's science on both sides. Like I've said, in my opinion the amount of time that someone could be sick asymptomatic is such a small window that it's negligible. Especially for illnesses with 99% survival for reasonably healthy people.

"we conclude that the infectivity of some asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers might be weak." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32513410/

Covid-19: Asymptomatic cases may not be infectious, Wuhan study indicates https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4695

Evidence of asymptomatic spread is insufficient to justify mass testing for Covid-19 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4436/rr-10

"This screening programme identified 300 asymptomatic cases. But the virus cultures indicated no viable virus in the identified asymptomatic cases. This means that these people were not likely to infect anyone else." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w

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