Thread by @fascinatorfun

South Korean: Look at the asymptomatic positives

“In Daegu, we had more than 10k members of Shincheonji. When we tested those who were symptomatic, 87.5 % turned out to be positive. When we tested a sample of people who weren’t symptomatic, it was 74.4%” wired.com/story/a-south-…

That is the figure that keeps winking at me and makes me wonder how wide CV has really spread asymptomatically.

This S Korean #CV19 Czar rightly points with pride to the speed with which they recognised that quarantining them all was critical.

They could already see the risks.

Even in S Korea, whilst this doctor and others working with him realised that as they had 5k cases in Daegu then they must have 10k in Seoul and that would be a disaster, the doctors advising the president were saying everything was fine.
No problem.

Happens all over the world

However they quickly showed up supplies with the assistance of the Government and the military.

In a country of 51 mill they set up 5.5k hospital beds.

They relied heavily on volunteers
This CV19 czar, whilst normally a doctor in a clinic took one month’s unpaid leave to go & work there.

On Feb 21st someone suggested a drive thru clinic. On 23rd they were delivering it

The key to keeping mortality low is to quickly differentiate between the young with no underlying disease from the older
or those with underlying disease. The latter must be routinely tested and have chest X-rays .

People who are 40 yrs or less who lose their sense of smell but otherwise asymptomatic should be examined.

He is very blunt about both Trump and the British Government’s initial efforts. “Are these people in their right minds”

Suspect he will think the same about Sweden.

He ends with a warning to ALL Global leaders.

“This is a virus that can evolve and recur, so the most important thing is to reduce infection. Also, it’s an RNA virus, which means it tends to mutate—it’s very difficult to stop.”

“That’s why I keep saying that it’s not enough for Korea to do a good job. If Korea stops it, but Japan doesn’t, then an infected visitor can come in from Japan. This is a global virus. We need global cooperation.

Top government leaders don’t seem to get that yet.”

This is going to need some humility from Western Governments and an acceptance that perhaps they don’t know best before they have killed tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of people avoidably.

Because of its asymptomatic nature in many instances, it is a disease that can come back stealthily and be in the front door before anyone realises what has happened.

And we cannot be sure that even if a vaccination is found that it will be effective against any mutation.

Remember that number at the beginning?

In the Daegu community “When we tested a sample of people who weren’t symptomatic, it was 74.4%”

That is quite a scary number.