ICYMI: Study finds treatment reduces transmission of COVID-19 by nearly 75-percent, Mississippi numbers explained, exploring what asymptomatic means

That treatment is pretty simple: Wear a mask.

In the paper, “The role of community-wide wearing of face mask for control of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic due to SARS-CoV-2” authors looked at a small population of mask-wearing people versus non-mask-wearing people and found a reduction in transmission of 73-percent.

From the paper:

Within first 100 days (31 December 2019 to 8 April 2020), 961 COVID-19 patients were diagnosed in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The COVID-19 incidence in HKSAR (129.0 per million population) was significantly lower (p<0.001) than that of Spain (2983.2), Italy (2250.8), Germany (1241.5), France (1151.6), U.S. (1102.8), U.K. (831.5), Singapore (259.8), and South Korea (200.5). The compliance of face mask usage by HKSAR general public was 96.6% (range: 95.7% to 97.2%). We observed 11 COVID-19 clusters in recreational ‘mask-off’ settings compared to only 3 in workplace ‘mask-on’ settings (p = 0.036 by Chi square test of goodness-of-fit).

This is also something that was echoed by Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves as well as Dr. Dobbs: Wear a mask.

Making a mask

Antibody tests included in daily Mississippi totals

This was asked via facebook so I went and did some research. Back on May 21st, Dr. Dobbs mentioned that of the 4,000 serology tests (the ones that look for the antibodies) only 80 had come back positive. And those positive tests were added to the total number.

Since that point, I haven’t been able to find a record of the individual number of serology tests that have come back positive. That may be due to the fact that Dr. Dobbs mentioned during the press conference back in May that the number of positive antibody test were numerically insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

But we can use the original numbers to make an estimation. 80 positive cases of 4,000 cases given is two percent.

So, of the 12,207 serology tests administered to date, that means a total of 244 cases have been tallied this way. That is 0.8-percent of the total number of cases, 29,684 since this began. Pretty small, indeed.

But we can extrapolate that even further if we choose! How about to daily counts? For today, Mississippi reported 914 new cases. That means 7 or 8 of those were found via the serology test and are thus not capable of spreading the virus.

New Numbers

Based on previous research, we can take the new numbers and make estimations on the number of asymptomatic and possibly contagious people.

	Newly Positive	Newly Asymptomatic (est)	Still Sick (est)	Contagious (est)	Deaths
07/02/20	914	306	9043	14648	11

Those estimates are far from perfect, but I know many people are looking for some kind of ballpark estimate about the current number of active cases and this is the best we can do. All of those numbers are based on previous research done by people within the medical community. All have been discussed on previous posts.

If so many people are asymptomatic, why does it matter?

That’s a good question. And I can understand the thought-process behind it. The idea being, if everyone is getting this thing and not as many people are getting “sick” and fewer people are dying, then maybe it is okay for us to just go about our lives.

But it isn’t that simple, sadly. Research dating back to February shows that even asymptomatic people end up with lung damage in some cases from COVID-19.

In a paper titled, “Chest Computed Tomography Findings in Asymptomatic Patients with COVID-19” a very small sample of people were selected and authors found, “all patients (100%) had ground glass opacity (GGO) on chest CT. Further, the GGO lesions were predominantly distributed peripherally and posteriorly in all patients. In 9 (90%) patients, the GGO lesions were combined with reticular opacity. Air-bronchogram due to bronchiolectasis surrounded by GGO was observed in 8 patients (80%)”

This research was expanded upon through the Spring. In June, researchers published an article titled, “Clinical and immunological assessment of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections” where they looked at the lungs of more than 2,000 asymptomatic people via CT scans and more than 50-percent of those scanned had lung damage.

And lung damage may be a long term concern for some people. So while they may skate through the illness without a fever, cough or loss of taste. Down the line they may develop complications from the lung scar tissue.

Recent data and research suggest asymptomatic people could possibly make up about between 25- and 40-percent of infected people. There is some research, though, that also shows that presymptomatic people (the people who don’t feel sick right now, but will eventually feel sick later) at any given time is as high as about 20-percent of those infected.

That means, if right now there are 100 people who have the virus, 20 people don’t know they have it yet. Another 25 to 40 have it, but show no signs, and will never show signs. And the remaining 40 will get sick. About five of those people will end up in the hospital (based on regional data). Three of those people will die.

Re-rack those numbers

So, think about those numbers when the daily COIVD-19 totals are released.

For every 100 known-infected people….

— Five end up in the hospital
— Three die
— An additional 20 people have it, but don’t know it yet
— Another 32 are asymptomatic

Or another way to look at it is for every 300 new cases (because that is within the average for new cases in Mississippi daily)…

— 15 of those will end up in the hospital
— Six will end up in the ICU (based on research, here)
— Nine will eventually die
— 60 more cases to develop during the next five days from this one day alone
— 96 people are walking around spreading the virus to others without knowing it

People do survive this thing, though

In case you feel as though I am being one-sided, it also means that 285 will not be hospitalized, 293 will not end up in the ICU, and 291 will survive. That is “good” news. And the death rate data shows it to be lowering day-by-day slightly. Also “good” news.

I know that getting sick is never good news, but we have to take the wins where we can get them, I suppose.

The Bottom Line

Please try your best to follow the CDC guidelines to wear a mask, practice good social distancing, and wash your hands frequently. That is the easiest way we can all work together to beat this thing.