(08-03-2020, 08:37 PM)TamaraEnLaPlaya Wrote: Several times I've seen it reported that a new case has been confirmed but the person is not showing any symptoms. So why were they tested? How were they identified etc? Are they just known to have associated with another infected person?
Different countries are testing to different levels (Korea being one of the few to provide opt-in testing for anyone who wants it; Ireland recently having switched from an "only if you've had contacted with an infected person" to a "anyone showing symptoms" model), but generally asymptomatic people are only tested if they've had close contact with known infected persons, or people who've had close contact with infected persons.
Let's say Alex has the virus and hasn't yet started showing symptoms. He sees his brother Bert for lunch. Bert then goes home to his wife Claire. Alex gets sick, goes to hospital, tests positive. He's asked who he's had close contact with recently. He says Bert, and because of this, Bert is called for testing. Bert tests positive, but has no symptoms. He's asked who he's had contact with, he says Claire. Claire is also tested, is also positive, but has such mild symptoms that she probably wouldn't have bothered doing anything about it if not for the testing. So now we have two people who have either mild or no symptoms, but are testing positive. Different countries are handling Bert and Claire different ways: some are keeping them in hospital to minimise their risk of infecting others, others are sending them off to recover at home under self-isolation protocol.
Self-isolation is different to social distancing, by the way. Social distancing (which we should all be practising right now to slow the spread of this virus!) means not shaking hands, washing hands regularly, trying not to touch your face, and limiting your engagement with people (less than fifteen minutes duration, more than one metre's distance). Self-isolation means sitting inside in your home, not going outside, and not having any contact with others.
While the genie is now out of the bottle and we cannot stop the spread of this virus, we can slow it down so that our health systems are not completely overwhelmed with too many cases too fast to treat. Look at Italy today— nearly 1500 new cases today, and 200+ new dead! The NHS and HSE in the UK and Ireland would really struggle to cope with these numbers. God knows what will happen here on the island.
This is something I think we should be taking fairly seriously. I do not ever remember, in my lifetime, European countries enforcing lockdown the way Italy is right now. They certainly don't do it every year with the standard flu, and I think that should be a good clue that this is not "just the flu". I do not believe Italy will be the last country needing to do this either.
Panic helps nobody, but this is serious, and we should take it more seriously. By practising good hygiene and moderate social distancing techniques, we can slow the spread of this disease enough that our already strained healthcare bodies can keep up with the influx of new patients. The better the healthcare systems perform, the lower the death toll will be. The more pressure that is put on them, the more people will die from this virus— in indeed from other illnesses where there just aren't enough beds/doctors/equipment to go around. We all need to do our part and act responsibly now.
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