Why do they keep lying about asymptomatic transmission

[strangeshapedpotato]

The government keep pretending that we did all we could at the start of the epidemic and the problem was that we didn't know about asymptomatic transmission until much later...

But SAGE's own minutes show that this was not true!
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888771/S0372_Fourth_SAGE_meeting_on_Wuhan_Coronavirus__WN-CoV__.pdf

Papers already existed suggesting it was a thing:

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762028
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468

I think the intention is to lie so much that we can't remember what was what and will therefore 'move on'. People don't like experts so presenting evidence doesn't make the slightest difference.

One would have thought they'd have erred on the side of caution really.

We paid lots of attention to surface transmission (a good thing in those early awful weeks), although that now looks like low risk so we can chill out a bit. But asymptomatic transmission wasn't taken seriously.

They lie all the time, they work on the premise that most of the public are
A: too stupid to spot the lies
B: too stupid to care about being lied to.

It appears to work.

@Orf1abc

I think the intention is to lie so much that we can't remember what was what and will therefore 'move on'. People don't like experts so presenting evidence doesn't make the slightest difference.

Definitely this!

The SAGE document says

"Asymptomatic transmission cannot be ruled out"

"We don't know if it's possible" doesn't mean "We should act as though we do know it's definitely a huge problem"

The 2 case studies OP linked to hypothesised aysmpt. transmission. They are poor quality evidence, they belong at the bottom of the evidence pyramid. The NEJM case study was specifically widely publicly criticised for poor quality, with calls for it to be retracted after the index case admitted nobody had ever interviewed her.

Disingenous, OP. Even now, asymptomatic transmission is thought to be very rare, from the carefully collected evidence.

“Disingenous, OP. Even now, asymptomatic transmission is thought to be very rare, from the carefully collected evidence.”

Then why is there a government advert banging on about asymptomatic transmission (I think it’s voiced by Mariella Frostrup) every time I turn on the radio?!

What MedSchoolRat said.

At the beginning of the pandemic we were relying on sketchy, and non evidenced based assumptions. Don't forget WHO didn't accept aerosol transmission until well into the pandemic. One of the reasons so many old folk were transferred back into care homes without testing, was that asymptomatic transmission was not suspected. Hence, also, the testing regime requiring one of the three main symptoms. This was universally accepted and promoted by ALL governments, and the WHO.

@MargaretThatcherMilkSnatcher

“Disingenous, OP. Even now, asymptomatic transmission is thought to be very rare, from the carefully collected evidence.”

Then why is there a government advert banging on about asymptomatic transmission (I think it’s voiced by Mariella Frostrup) every time I turn on the radio?!

There's banners through the small towns in my county alledging that one in three cases is assymptomatic.

I suspect that a lot of it is fear agenda to stop the masses getting too twitchy. Unfortunately it is damaging long term to people with excessive anxiety regarding health.

The fomite transmission measures continue to be excessive too, but better a lengthy risk asseaament document with lots of lovely visible measures than the reality that it's airborne and more awkward to mitigate.

This was universally accepted and promoted by ALL governments, and the WHO.

Not ALL governments. Some realised it was airborne. It was actually very obviously the case - but whilst yes many governments wanted to pretend otherwise, some acknowledged the risk and took precautions accordingly.

As for the lying. Well it's simple. They keep getting away with it. The media doesn't robustly challenge their lies and too many of the public are happy to believe the lies (because they don't want to accept the reality).

Very early on - in January 2020 - China made the airborne transmission public...by their actions rather than words. They had people in full hazmat spraying the streets with disinfectant. That wasn't for the flu. It was very obvious to anyone who didn't want to deny reality.

@MedSchoolRat

The SAGE document says

"Asymptomatic transmission cannot be ruled out"

"We don't know if it's possible" doesn't mean "We should act as though we do know it's definitely a huge problem"

The 2 case studies OP linked to hypothesised aysmpt. transmission. They are poor quality evidence, they belong at the bottom of the evidence pyramid. The NEJM case study was specifically widely publicly criticised for poor quality, with calls for it to be retracted after the index case admitted nobody had ever interviewed her.

Disingenous, OP. Even now, asymptomatic transmission is thought to be very rare, from the carefully collected evidence.

Disingenous, OP. Even now, asymptomatic transmission is thought to be very rare, from the carefully collected evidence.

Utter nonsense - it's widely held to be the MAIN driving force for the epidemic!

And while yes, asymptomatic transmission wasn't PROVEN back then,

neither was surface transmission (still not even any circumstantial evidence regarding this incidentally) or ANY OTHER form of transmission for that matter.... your point was again??

@BigWoollyJumpers

What MedSchoolRat said.

At the beginning of the pandemic we were relying on sketchy, and non evidenced based assumptions. Don't forget WHO didn't accept aerosol transmission until well into the pandemic. One of the reasons so many old folk were transferred back into care homes without testing, was that asymptomatic transmission was not suspected. Hence, also, the testing regime requiring one of the three main symptoms. This was universally accepted and promoted by ALL governments, and the WHO.

Don't forget WHO didn't accept aerosol transmission until well into the pandemic.

Nope - that's not true either - you're confusing it with their advice on face masks which was as it was for many other reasons - in particular a desire NOT to have the wealthy nations buy up ALL the face masks in the world for the general population and leave medical staff in poorer countries with nothing.

Wrong about the testing regime requirements being universally accepted too. Each country had their own rules regarding who got tested. Of note, in the UK, you ONLY got tested if you had recently returned from a very narrow and specific set of locations AND had symptoms. This was then amended to NOBODY getting tested unless hospitalised.

@BogRollBOGOF

There's a lot of confusion in the press and public about "asymptomatic".

It's used to refer to people who NEVER have symptoms, but also those BEFORE they develop symptoms. Context is key. Sometimes the term includes BOTH, because it refers to the period of time - i.e. a person is asymptomatic at this point. Sometimes it refers to a CASE, i.e. a person HAD an asymptomatic infection. Confusion of the two is why many believe the number of true asymptomatic cases is far higher than it actually is.

The virus is at its most transmissable in the first 7-10 days while it is mainly in the upper respiratory tract - it overlaps significantly with the period prior to symptom development (4-5 days), hence people without symptoms are the key drivers of the epidemic - as once symptoms develop, most would enter isolation.

I don't think asymptomatic transmission was still thought to be rare.

Hence why LFT are twice weekly in schools because it's well documented children don't show symptoms but are also 2-7 times more likely to be index case in a household?

Can someone link to the evidence that asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic) Covid has been the "main driver of the epidemic" please?

@MedSchoolRat

The SAGE document says

"Asymptomatic transmission cannot be ruled out"

"We don't know if it's possible" doesn't mean "We should act as though we do know it's definitely a huge problem"

The 2 case studies OP linked to hypothesised aysmpt. transmission. They are poor quality evidence, they belong at the bottom of the evidence pyramid. The NEJM case study was specifically widely publicly criticised for poor quality, with calls for it to be retracted after the index case admitted nobody had ever interviewed her.

Disingenous, OP. Even now, asymptomatic transmission is thought to be very rare, from the carefully collected evidence.

I would have thought, after millions of cases around the world, that if assymptomatic cases were rife, it would have become quite obvious after all these months.

As an aside though, or maybe not, I could be wrong, but I think the government is all out to get people vaccinated. Who knows why.

I am angry about it. It was making my head explode at the time. There was a lot of great data that came out of the Diamond Princess which was very early on but they acted like the data didn’t exist. The level of proof required only ever seemed to be met when it was convenient.

Similarly it took them a long time to add loss of smell to the list of symptoms indicating a test. They had people in the NHS refused tests and told to work even when there were multiple reports, medical and news, that this was an important sign of infection.

It is very important to get to the bottoms of Theo’s because asymptomatic transmission was one the main routes of the virus into the care homes ( and therefore a significant contributor of the UKs high mortality rate) with asymptomatic patients being discharged back to care without tests.

This reads like gaslighting on an industrial scale. It was because of the possiblity of asymptomatic transmission that, at the start of the pandemic I went out of my way to maintain a social distance between myself and others, for fear that I might have covid and pass it on unknowingly, not because I was scared of getting it. It was only fourteen months ago, I'm old but haven't got Alzeimer's yet.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

Can someone link to the evidence that asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic) Covid has been the "main driver of the epidemic" please?

For *asymptomatic transmission" read "asymptomatic at the time of transmission". The only practical difference between someone infecting a load of other people then developing symptoms and infecting a lot of people without ever developing symptoms is that we're more likely to spot the case and do some contact tracing if the person develops symptoms than if they don't.

@Tealightsandd

Very early on - in January 2020 - China made the airborne transmission public...by their actions rather than words. They had people in full hazmat spraying the streets with disinfectant. That wasn't for the flu. It was very obvious to anyone who didn't want to deny reality.

Yes agree.

I am an average person and it was obvious that breathing on people would be a bad idea. At work we were all talking about the spread across borders in February 2020. I also cancelled my trip away over half term in that month.

There is none so blind as those who will not see springs to mind. We have to get to grips with why the government and the population buried their heads on the sand.

I am very sad about the obstinacy/denial that has got us into such a dreadful mess.

The government is lying about the early stages because it is their only political option. They clearly got it incredibly wrong and it isn't hindsight - some of us were screaming at the TV in February 2020 when we saw people were coming home from skiing trips with no attempt to prevent transmission.

FFS - we all have known for ages that you can catch a cold from someone who doesn't sneeze on you.

@MedSchoolRat

The SAGE document says

"Asymptomatic transmission cannot be ruled out"

"We don't know if it's possible" doesn't mean "We should act as though we do know it's definitely a huge problem"

The 2 case studies OP linked to hypothesised aysmpt. transmission. They are poor quality evidence, they belong at the bottom of the evidence pyramid. The NEJM case study was specifically widely publicly criticised for poor quality, with calls for it to be retracted after the index case admitted nobody had ever interviewed her.

Disingenous, OP. Even now, asymptomatic transmission is thought to be very rare, from the carefully collected evidence.

Agree with this

Interesting on schools, masks and public gatherings:

Measures within the UK – such as shutting down public transport and suspending public gatherings – would probably be relatively ineffective in limited spread of WN-CoV.
40. SAGE heard that NERVTAG advises that there is limited to no evidence of the benefits
of the general public wearing facemasks as a preventative measure.

Also mention of avoiding winter peak in document, and delay

Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
I've noticed that the new line from the government is 'well, we tried our best and did everything we could.' They all parrot the same platitudes.

An inquiry should be started (imo) ASAP, while the relevant ministers are still in situ.