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Comment by farresito | Hacker News Reader

A few days ago my mother mentioned that she had gone buy groceries, stopped before a florist, and tried to smell some lavender, but for some reason could not feel absolutely anything, which she found interesting, as it has a relatively strong smell and she didn't have a cold. Looking back, none of us felt particularly great around that week, so I wouldn't be surprised if that had been covid-19. I guess looking back it makes more sense. It seems a lot of people go through it barely having any symptoms.

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> It seems a lot of people go through it barely having any symptoms.

That's also what makes it so dangerous. During the early outbreaks people were constantly joking about how people with COVID-19 felt up to taking intercontinental flights, going to megachurch services, going to the gym, visiting Disneyland....

Compare to Ebola, which is pretty awful, but if you get sick with Ebola you're not going to transmit it very much because you're going to feel absolutely miserable and there's a really good chance you'll die soon. Which sucks and I'm grateful that the world managed to stop the various Ebola outbreaks we've seen, but if you want a real pandemic, you want something with a nice long incubation period that presents asymptomatically to enough people that it can really spread around a lot. And that's what we have here.

>That's also what makes it so dangerous. During the early outbreaks people were constantly joking about how people with COVID-19 felt up to taking intercontinental flights, going to megachurch services, going to the gym, visiting Disneyland

What if the virus caused this? raise the threshold for people to feel anything, so they go out and spread it while seeking sensation?

That would be right up there with toxoplasmosis. It's entirely plausible, too.

I've also heard that 93% of people who think they have Covid-19 are wrong.

You've heard nothing and have no data, because we don't have any Covid-19 antibody tests, so we have no clue who has had and recovered from the disease, unless they were tested while contagious.

Not to support a dataless claim...but...isn't the fact that ~90% of tests come back negative (and tests are hard to get) indicative of their point that the vast majority of people who think they have the disease, do not? AFAIK the testing is not random at this time.

https://covidtracking.com/data/

there is a ~30% chance you can still have it even with a negative test though

No, because by the time they get around to testing you, you could be completely devoid of the virus, or it could be only in your lungs, or the test just fails for whatever reason.

The 93% I last saw is in flux and will continue to go down as flu and colds abate in the northern hemisphere and real coronavirus cases increase. This also doesn't include people who could not get tested because their symptoms were mild, even though they thought they had it.

> This also doesn't include people who could not get tested because their symptoms were mild

My partner and I are in that boat (in the NYC area). We had a full week of mild Covid-19 symptoms (I still do not recommend); initially, we couldn't get tested because our fevers weren't high enough and we had no known exposure. By the time we established a known exposure (one of my colleagues got a test while hospitalized with pneumonia, it took a week to come back positive) our symptoms had mostly abated and they would only test sick people. So we'll never know if we had it, but have to both a) continue to isolate (for a variable amount of time, depending on who you ask) under the assumption that we're contagious and b) continue to assume we're still at risk of acquiring it.

Strangely, the only symptom I have left is an oscillating sinus headache and anosmia. Fortunately, some testing I did with vanilla extract this morning indicates that my sense of smell might be healing slowly, instead of somehow permanently damaged.

The last numbers for tests in NY is 28% positive, and apparently suggesting and infection rate of 1 in 700.

Well if you think you might have the disease but you're asymptomatic you might not get the test.

I wouldn't go to such a precise number, but you are right that the majority do not end up testing positive. The test quantities are limited, so they try to select candidates that are likely to have it. Even among these, the rate of positive tests seems to have ranged from ~5% up to ~20%.

Know some family members with it their all near non-working capacity some of them bedridden if you got it you know you got it there's no question it it puts you in bed unable to walk.

It's widely reported to be asymptomatic for many. Iceland did random testing and I think half the positives had, and developed, no symptoms at all.

Edit...should have cited a source:

"Early results from deCode Genetics indicate that a low proportion of the general population has contracted the virus and that about half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic,” said Guðnason. “The other half displays very moderate cold-like symptoms."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/coronavirus-testing... (Yes, I know, BuzzFeed...but it's a direct quote, not their interpretation)

It's certainly an interesting characteristic. If the person is asymptomatic then they spead the contagion, it continues to be effectively undetected. Then it finally strikes. And so on. In theory this aided the original spread. By the time say there were 100 cases showing symptoms, there were actually plenty more roaming around. By the time enough detectable cases were racked up, it was already too late. The numbers favored the virus.

Anyone know how common this is in viruses?

It is not unusual. Cases in point: HPV, herpes virus.

> Anyone know how common this is in viruses?

It is the norm. It's not just a matter of being common; diseases face strong selective pressure against virulence by the exact mechanism you describe -- virulent diseases inhibit their own spread by disabling their hosts.

I've found this:

https://www.covid.is/data

The private company did there the randomized tests (deCode). But I don't know where the support for your claim ("half the positives no symptoms") can be found.

Edit: thanks for source, note however, in your statement "had, and developed, no symptoms at all" the part "and developed" doesn't necessary follow from the original quote and what we know about the test -- apparently it is already known that it can take up to 14 days before the symptoms develop, and checking, the said tests are the orange stacks in the bars on the page I've linked -- the tests are too recent to know that.

I updated with a source.

Just because asymptomatic folks are testing positive doesn't mean they stay asymptomatic.

My understanding is this is just a temporary phase of the infection where most people are asymptomatic while spreading the virus. Eventually, without treatment, it usually escalates to a symptomatic phase.

From the source I linked to:

"The population was tested again after a two-week lockdown and isolation. Researchers found that transmission was reduced by 90% and all those still positive were without symptoms and could remain quarantined."

Did you even read the article?

"in South Korea, where testing has been widespread, 30 percent of 2,000 patients who tested positive experienced anosmia as their major presenting symptom"

and:

"mounting anecdotal evidence indicates that lost or reduced sense of smell and loss of taste are significant symptoms associated with Covid-19, and that they have been seen in patients who ultimately tested positive with no other symptoms."

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