Fears about silent spreaders of Covid — who suffer no symptoms but can pass the virus to others — were almost certainly overblown, according to a huge new study. MailOnline has more.
A study of nearly 30,000 people has found asymptomatic carriers are about 68% less likely to pass the virus on than those who get sick.
No 10 used concerns about asymptomatic spread to justify forcing Britons to obey lockdowns and wear masks.
They were thought to account for up to a third of all infections and many scientists claimed asymptomatic patients were just as infectious as the sick.
But a new global study spanning 42 countries, including the U.K. and U.S., found they were only responsible for as little as 14% of cases.
They also estimate that their overall risk of passing the virus to someone else “about two-thirds lower”.
Scientists claimed Covid’s ability to spread asymptomatically was one of the reasons for harsh social curbs.
During one of the national lockdowns in January 2021, the Government said about a third of people with Covid had no symptoms and urged people to “act like you’ve got it”.
Experts analysed data from 130 studies from 42 countries.
They involved 28,426 people who caught Covid between April 2020 and July 2021.
Of these patients, nearly 12,000 had an asymptomatic infection, having tested positive on a PCR but having suffered no symptoms.
All of the studies included the results of community screening programmes, contact tracing, and investigations into specific outbreaks like on cruise ships.
They found the ‘secondary attack rate’, how likely people infected with Covid are to pass the virus to others, was 68% lower for asymptomatic cases, compared to those with symptoms.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: You can read the paper In PLOS Medicine – “Occurrence and transmission potential of asymptomatic and presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections: Update of a living systematic review and meta-analysis” – here.
Stop Press 2: The investigation of the impact of lockdowns on Covid mortality published in Studies in Applied Economics that I posted about earlier today concludes that the lockdowns in March of last year saved fewer than 10,000 lives in Europe and the U.S. combined. MailOnline has more.
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Mate, please don’t waste your time with useless questions!!!
Asymptomatic transmission is a MYTH, a gigantic LIE !!!
It doesn’t exist in science !!!
‘Fewer than 10,000’ ie zero
I Toby, I remember a running battle you had with Chrisopher Snowdon last year about the efficacy of lockdowns, with him claiming the three (!!) in 2020+ were justified.
Sigh, such blind arrogance.
This is absolute NONSENSE. If you’re asymptomatic you are well.
You can’t have an asymptomatic cold or influenza.
Anyone who believes in an asymptomatic virus is a nitwit.
Disease is symptoms. No symptoms, no disease. No disease not infectious.
Initial symptoms are the result of the immune system fighting the infection. If the infection is so slight, or the immune system so quick and effective = no symptoms = no disease = not infectious.
Right now I am asymptomatic for bubonic plague but I should act like I’ve got it?
On that basis I should act like I have every disease known to Man.
Hmm, scary. I have an asymptomatic broken arm at the moment – I better stay home and call in sick to work.
Assume the 10,000 “saved” were in the UK, assume they died at an average of 72 (not 83 .. the average age of death before and during covid). Now assume the cost of the covid measures were 300,000,000,000 (a figure from way back). That means the average cost per year of life saved was £3million per year of life “saved”. If we take a more realistic figure that most people who died were going to die within the year (hence the same average age of death as normal), then the cost is only £30million per year of life saved.
If, we then only take the UK proportion of that figure … it’s be well over £100million per year of life saved … which is a bargain … although, normally the NHS would not fund medical intervention that costs more that £24,000 per year of life saved … which just shows how important it was to save grannies with covid … but not grannies without.
Party anyone?
Another acquaintance ….. 63, female, massive stroke and in hospital. Won’t ever be going home.
Well slap me with a wet kipper. Who could possibly have known this back in 2020? Only a very large number of (silenced) scientists/medical experts.
This article is garbage from a medical and scientific perspective. Covid ‘cases’ are based on demonstrably fraudulent upcycled PCR testing. The author of this article has missed the essential point which is, as Lord Denning clarified in his famous 1956 judgement, that fraud vitiates everything it touches. All covid data are inherently fraudulent because the PCR test is inherently fraudulent whenever used for diagnosis. This destroys the absurd notion of asymptomatic transmission, which does not happen significantly with any other respiratory viral illness, and covid is no exception.
I’m acting like I’ve got a bad back, don’t want to clear out the shed. Also how did they get into so many heads that they are now saying they ‘wanted to do their bit’
In the DM article on lockdown ineffectiveness, I read this sentence with interest:
“They said some studies hinted that measures may have even driven up Covid deaths. This may be because an infected person isolating at home may pass on a higher viral load of Covid to their family members, who then suffer more severe illness, the team said.”
I recently read a book about London in the Seventeenth Century that included a section on the Great plague of 1666. In it, the author comments that infected people were forced to stay at home with their families and as a result, the whole family would die. It seems that in almost 400 years we have learned nothing.
Sorry, but this word asymptomatic, which suddenly entered the vocabulary in the last two years is quite simply a load of nonsense. You have either got a disease/illness and show signs of it or you haven’t. Using a dodgy test, advised against by its inventor, which can find anything from anything does not make a person a walking carrier of death! Total male cow manure I’m afraid!
Licenced sadism.
Asymptomatic transmission is complete bollocks and a lie……In fact symptomatic transmission hasn’t really been proven either……..It’s just germ theory, Rockafella medicine bullshit that isn’t open to question, or else
I haven’t read the article yet, but I would say ‘yes’, yes they were overblown…
Mike Yeadon explained this as a non thing way back in 2020, which presumably, amongst other things, was why he had to be shut down and vilified.
The “acting” like you’ve got it, and “playing” your part, the “drama” passes, covid theatrics in shops and businesses, and the meaningless applauding of the thin air…that became the almighty sh*t show it was, and it still ain’t over! Mind you I walked out during the first scene.
Probably even less if they took into account pre-symptomatic versus true asymptomatic.
Just wait for asymptomatic monkeypox…..
Just wait for asymptomatic monkeypox…..
= Achimptomatic.
Nothing quite like repeating a somewhat lame joke that’s been going around on the Internet for the past 2 weeks.
Asymptomatic transmission was always a fraud, but as a means of terrifying the zombies, it was brilliant. No matter how well they felt, they were convinced they’d got It. And every single person they met, however healthy-looking, was riddled with covvie and a carrier of death. The remaining muzzleoids still believe this.
The asymptomatic lie justified everything: incarceration, muzzling, bullying, snitching, permanent terror, wishing death on the filthy carriers who refused to be exorcised by the Jabbo Jumbo. The most potent lie in the covvie thugs’ armoury of lies.
how does one “act like you got it”? are you supposed to fake sneeze and cough and run your head under the hot tap for a high temp?
You wear your face nappy over your head and you then stand near true face-wearing Branch Covidian believers in supermarkets to show them that you also follow the rules and ‘The Science’.
I’ve only got through the first few pages, but the second study referenced seems comprehensive and worth a read if anyone still cares / has the energy.
Not perfect, but it’s nuanced and has sensible disclaimers and backs up a lot of what people here argue in that the positive effects of lockdown tend to be massively overhyped in conventional media.
https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/05/A-Systematic-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-of-COVID-19-Mortality-II.pdf
I spent six months acting like I had covid; coughing all the time and collapsing on the street. I’m still not convinced it did any good.
What percentage of ‘cases’ are asymptomatic has always been a very important question.
One way the public could have gotten a better answer to this is simply check the testing results from some cohort that was tested all the time. Such a cohort is college and pro athletes, who had to be tested at least 3 times every week for months.
Positive tests resulted not only in the positive athlete being quarantined but also every non-positive athlete this person had a close contact with. Because of these protocols, scores of athletes were disqualified from practicing or participating in games. Because of this, many games were cancelled, which resulted in untold economic losses for university athletic programs and the cities that hosted these big games.
I’ve always thought these tests could give us answers on how serious a risk this virus posed to young athletes. If most athletes were actually asymptomatic or had very mild symptoms, the public would learn that the health risk to these young athletes was tiny, which it of course was and is. (As far as I am aware, to this day no professional or college athlete in America has died from Covid).
I actually contacted the… Read more »
So where and to whom do I address my blistering letter of complaint – Cabinet Secretary? Ofcom? Vallance?
It’ll do no good but will make me feel better. I did complain in 2020 to Advertising Standards about the scare ads but they reckoned the fear porn was ‘proportionate’.
Somebody needs to start getting payback for all the lies they told and the misery they caused.
If we feel totally fit and well but must act like we are dangerous to others, then life as we know it is over.
That’s why I knew it was bullshit.
It was always rather odd that so much emphasis was placed on asymptomatic transmission.
It really did smell of a policy designed to suppress the freedoms of those that clearly didn’t have an infection of any relevance.
Ie, part of project fear, not ‘follow the science’.
Yes indeed, asymptomatic transmission was an essential component of the propaganda. What’s astonishing is that medical experts barely seemed to challenge it. The power of persuasion and groupthink.
No, they weren’t overblown they were completely fabricated.
I laugh at the idea that a spot of number-crunching could pick out a number as small as 10,000. Heavens, we don’t even know the number of deaths caused by Covid with anything like that accuracy.
Also: the toll of the lockdowns will take years to accumulate. How did they allow for that?
Put otherwise: I’ll bet they didn’t.
“The results of our meta-analysis support the conclusion that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.” Stone the crows! Who’da thunk it?
Does SP2 have any credibility?
Please provide the source of your quote.