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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by btilly on Thursday January 30, 2020 @04:23PM (#22195809)
The number of infections is likely much much higher than the confirmed cases (laboratories have only so many test kits available per day) but most people stay asymptomatic.

Do you have evidence of that in this case?

Viruses vary widely on how many are asymptomatic. My understanding is that having people be infectious and asymptomatic only happens with diseases that are well-adapted to their hosts. Which this one, having recently crossed a species barrier, isn't. (Its fatality rate is also high for the same reason.)

However that is a general understanding and I don't have data to base it on on this case. Do you?

Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by jcfrei on Thursday January 30, 2020 @04:35PM (#22195952)
There have been quite a few cases covered in the press about patients which carried the virus but didn't show any symptoms. Most recently: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus-outbreak/Three...
Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by btilly on Thursday January 30, 2020 @04:41PM (#22196026)
Thanks.

If they in fact can't transmit, then this is OK. If they can or, even worse, have a long latency period and will show symptoms in 2 weeks, that is very, very scary.

Our best tool for diseases like this is contact tracing. And asymptomatic carriers make that very hard.

(Useless trivia, the first documented asymptomatic carrier who was infectious was a short order cook named Mary Mallon. She is better known as Typhoid Mary.)

Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by underwater on Thursday January 30, 2020 @05:02PM (#22196252)
She wasn't a short order cook, she cooked for a number of families.
Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by btilly on Thursday January 30, 2020 @05:35PM (#22196615)
She was both.

When she was first identified, she cooked for a number of families. The outbreak that got her put away for life was due to working as a cook at Sloane Hospital for Women.

I cannot immediately find record of her being a short order cook specifically. However that is my recollection from https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Trust-Collapse-Global-Public...

Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by Zod666 on Thursday January 30, 2020 @06:54PM (#22197366)
There's a good docu on her story. It might be on YouTube.