Heinsberg Study - preprint is out

[Prokupatuscrakedatus]

For those of you who know German

www.uni-bonn.de/neues/111-2020

[Prokupatuscrakedatus]

we need an edit button

the pdf is in English

[Worriedmummy1976]

Can you link to the pdf please? I can’t see it.

[Maxandezra]

oh, that is interesting. admittedly a limited study but I was interested that rates of infection were 5 times higher than previously thought, 22% were asymptomatic and IFR came out at only 0.36.
very interesting.

[Prokupatuscrakedatus]

Worriedmummy
Scroll down to the bottom of the page, the pdf button downlodas the pdf (that's how I found out it's in English )

[Maxandezra]

worried scroll down the page till you see the pdf sign - Link Zum Manuskript

[Bluntness100]

I was very interested in this, do you have the English link please?

[Bluntness100]

Sorry still can’t find it, is this some form of challenge,🤣🤣🤣

[Bluntness100]

Got it,,🤣

[cologne4711]

The point about so many people having no symptoms at all is interesting. I had been very sceptical that people wouldn't have any symptoms at all for the entire duration for their infection.

The point about the higher viral load for those attending carnival is very interesting too.

[Bluntness100]

This shows a low fatality rate, approx half a percent and a relatively low risk of even transmission in the same house. Which indicates their initial thoughts were correct, it doesn’t transmit in places like just going shopping in the supermarket etc, it’s social events where people are up close and sweaty, or workplaces like that, and it’s based on how long you spend with someone. Even worst case it’s a fifty fifty you would catch it from someone you live with.

Which could indicate why Charles got it and camilla didn’t, if I use one famous couple..

[Bluntness100]

Which means it is no where near as infectious and no where near as fatal as originally thought.

[glittervalks]

Apparently one in five infections occurs without noticeable symptoms suggests that infected persons who secrete virus and can infect others cannot be reliably identified on the basis of recognizable symptoms of the disease,” says Prof. Dr. Martin Exner, head of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health and co-author of the study. This confirms the importance of general rules of distance and hygiene in the corona pandemic. "Every supposedly healthy person we encounter can unknowingly carry the virus. We must be aware of this and act accordingly," says the hygiene expert.
Studies of multi-person households showed that the risk of infecting another person was surprisingly low. “The infection rate in children, adults and elderly is very similar and is apparently not dependent on age,” says Prof. Streeck. There are also no significant differences between genders.

[glittervalks]

This shows a low fatality rate, approx half a percent and a relatively low risk

Germany is low say compared to lombardy. Can someone explain this please?

[glittervalks]

low risk of even transmission in the same house.

In the house yes but then it says asymptomatic can transfer un knowing which is worse and also all ages transmit it the same.

I am very confused with this virus.

[Maxandezra]

glitter it doesn't say all ages transmit it the same, we have no way of knowing that, just that your chances of being infected appear not to be influenced by age.
You need to be a bit cautious with this study though.
So some things are clear eg out of those they tested 22%were asymptomatic. That is straight forward and clear. Also, the fatality rate as a percentage out of those testing positive, again straight forward at 0.36
Where it is less reliable are the complex comparisons it makes. For example, those attending the carnival had more symptoms. This seems to have been measured by people ticking a box to say they had been to the carnival. We know nothing else though. How long were they at the carnival? Was there possibly confounding factors eg were all those at the carnival more likely to be of a certain age/gender/socioeconmic background? Was their alcohol consumption/drug use etc increased at the time of infection? There could be millions of other factors which weren't controlled for so some of the conclusions need to treated with caution.

[nellodee]

I really wish we knew why Germany's IFR seems so much lower than other places. There has to be something they are doing which could be emulated elsewhere. I understand that they test far more people, but this alone cannot account for the discrepancy. Perhaps their testing is better targetted, or perhaps they are treating people differently in some way. There has to be a way of figuring it out.

[Bluntness100]

I suspect it’s in either the way the deaths are reported, we have a lot of over lap, those who die with it v because of it. Or a higher detection of cases Ie the more you detect the lower the percentage of deaths as a total of those cases,

Whatever it is, I think we will find it doesn’t differ when the reporting is eventually put on the same smoothed level.

I understand this study is the first of its kind in the world, and the scientists said their initial findings showed in the houses they visited, even ones with four confirmed cases in the house, they couldn’t find any samples of “live” virus on any surfaces, none at all.

They also referred to the patient zero, who stayed at a hotel and infected no one in the hotel, she did however infect her colleagues.

As such they felt the findings would show you couldn’t catch it in the supermarket or you didn’t have to wipe down your shopPing etc, these activities are very very low risk, someone would have to directly cough or sneeze on you or shout and spit at you or on a surface and you would need to touch it fairly immediately and then touch your mouth or eyes, even then your viral load would be so low you’d get little to no symptoms.

The thoughts were you were going to catch it at social events where people were close together for an extended period, or in a work place where you were in close proximity for a long period which also increases your viral load.

Really what it does is tell us shopping etc is fine due to the low time you’re near anyone and the proximity , but you can’t be in a busy pub or a gig, nor can you work in a cramped office environment sitting close to the same colleagues for hours on end.

[AlandAnna]

Interesting. These asymptomatic cases and estimation of the proportion that they make up are soooo crucial for calculating the risk and how many of us have been exposed already. Watching the news and mild cases / asymptomatic are hardly mentioned now.

[JacobReesMogadishu]

So 22% of people infected had no symptoms.

Good in one way, but nightmare as we move into the test and trace era. Will asymptomatic people be tested? Doubtful. And unless you test everyone on a weekly basis you’re going to have a lot of asymptomatic spreaders walking about.

[AlandAnna]

Yes, they will tested. That’s the whole point of track and trace

[JacobReesMogadishu]

Firstly I don’t believe they will ever have enough tests or be organised enough to test people without symptoms.

Secondly how often do you test them? Because if they’re negative week 1 they could have got it by week 2. So do you test everyone every week until they test positive?

[JamieLeeCurtains]

I encountered a spittle-talk spreader in a job once - revolting colleague at the best of times, oblivious to their own showers of rant-propelled saliva. Hopefully they'll be compulsorily masked now.

[Pomegranatepompom]

This is really interesting and fits in with the pattern of people who have been very unwell
who very likely had transmission while at work.

[Purplewithred]

And care homes, everyone in close proximity, lots of shared spaces and relatively prolonged quite close contact.

[nellodee]

Contact tracing works if person A (symptomatic) infects person B (asymptomatic) because then person B isolates as soon as person A is tested. If person A is asymptomatic, I suppose you have to hope that the person who infected them was symptomatic and so they are traced in their turn. If an asymptomatic person infects another asymptomatic person, then they won't get traced, but based on a 20% likelihood of being asymptomatic, this would be a maximum of 0.2 x 0.2 = 0.04 4% of the time, and that's presuming that asymptomatic people spread at the same rate as symptomatic, which seems unlikely, given the lack of coughing.

Obviously, those figures are really rough, as not every case gets traced, with or without symptoms, but pruning any part of the exponential infection tree surely helps lower R.