https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asy...-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html
Yes, it is the WHO, so based on their recent performance they'll probably change their mind tomorrow.
But if the risk from asymtomatic cases is negligible, that sheds new light on the supposed need for ongoing 'social' distancing, masking, etc.
I've always been led to understand that airborne viruses like these not only utilise human cells for reproduction, but also exploit how our bodies actually react, i.e. coughing & sneezing. And it is quite logical, the further the virus can induce spread, the more successful it is likely to be. Whereas if someone has the virus and are not projecting its offspring as far, the likelihood of cross-infection reduces and the virus risks being taken out by the human immune system without having successfully passed on copies of itself to another host.
So with this in mind we look critically at social distancing, mask wearing etc and ask, who is most likely to be passing enough viable copies of the virus into the environment, someone with symptoms or someone without. Clearly it is those with the symptoms, which is why in some countries people with them have previously taken to wearing masks, and why those without did not. Furthermore someone without symptoms may not only not be spreading as many copies of their invader, they may actually be destroying them before enough become viable and be passed on. And of course there is also the possibility, nay probability that someone without symptoms actually doesn't have the virus at all.
And yet the world's kneejerk reaction has been to suggest that healthy people are as much as a risk as those displaying symptoms. I suspect in the coming weeks and months that idea will be broken down piece by piece, and this is just such one of them.
Life won't return to normal until the media push more stories like this rather than the doom and gloom that they do.
Cases are falling and have fallen considerably, deaths are falling and have fallen considerably, the R rate has fallen from 3 to under 1, deaths in care homes are under control, carriers of the virus are less prevalent in society than they were. Hospitals only have 8% of their ventolator capacity in use.......
Kids can't go back to school for another three months because Unions and parents say it isn't safe. Put more stories like the one above out to change the public perception of this virus into what it should have always been.,,,,,a virus which affects very few of the overall population and kills even fewer, rather than comparing it to the Plague.
Indeed, it does seem increasingly that the decision making is being driven by risk adversity rather than on data & science. The data does now very blatantly point to the people by far and away most at risk, and the environments they frequent. The science, understandably to be fair, is a lot more cautious about it, but even so is starting to move away from the worst case thinking to a more rational and peer-based understanding of the impact of the virus. So one is left increasingly with the feeling that the decisions are becoming more political and appeasing. However as discussed on many other threads, economic pressures are starting to bite, so political stances will change very quickly.
And now the WHO has backtracked on this claim. They're just agitating the already muddy waters that cover our understanding of this virus!
I think the WHO are trying to balance themselves between the data, science and political pressures. Sadly whilst they held their nerve for months on the position with masks, I think the growing pressure from the Trump administration on them has had a negative effect in so much that they are now trying to make the political positions already held around the globe more equal than the science or data.
