Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Medicine

'Globally It's Worsening,' WHO Says of Coronavirus Pandemic (pbs.org) 274

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PBS NewsHour: The head of the World Health Organization warned that the coronavirus pandemic is worsening globally, even as the situation in Europe is improving. At a press briefing on Monday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that about 75% of cases reported to the U.N. health agency on Sunday came from 10 countries in the Americas and South Asia. He noted that more than 100,000 cases have been reported on nine of the past 10 days -- and that the 136,000 cases reported Sunday was the biggest number so far. Tedros said most countries in Africa are still seeing an increase in cases, including in new geographic areas even though most countries on the continent have fewer than 1,000 cases. "At the same time, we're encouraged that several countries around the world are seeing positive signs," Tedros said. "In these countries, the biggest threat now is complacency." There was some good news to come from the media briefing. "From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual," said Maria Van Kerkhove on Monday. "We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It is very rare -- and much of that is not published in the literature," she said. "We are constantly looking at this data and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question. It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward."

Tedros also dedicated time to addressing protests across the globe fighting against police brutality and systemic racism. "WHO fully supports equality and the global movement against racism," Tedros said during the briefing. "We reject discrimination of all kinds. We encourage all those protesting around the world to do so safely."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

'Globally It's Worsening,' WHO Says of Coronavirus Pandemic

Comments Filter:
  • We can't just take care of people during a natural disaster. So if course it's getting worse. And it's our fault.
  • Some questions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @08:17AM (#60163240)

    1. If asymptomatic people aren't infectious, then how did this virus spread so far and wide in such a short amount of time?
    2. Does this signal the end of lockdowns and return to normalcy?
    3. If #2 is true, does this mean we don't really need to worry about a "second wave"?

    • Re:Some questions (Score:4, Insightful)

      by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @08:36AM (#60163292) Homepage

      1. If asymptomatic people aren't infectious, then how did this virus spread so far and wide in such a short amount of time?

      Because symptomatic people came in through major international airports and many went to hospitals operating normally. Actually sick people went to grocery stores and large events.

      Yeah - we shut everything down. But we don't know which things actually needed shut down until we look back in hindsight.

      2. Does this signal the end of lockdowns and return to normalcy?

      I don't know about your area, but my state is moving in measured steps to exactly that.

      3. If #2 is true, does this mean we don't really need to worry about a "second wave"?

      I think this depends entirely on how seriously we take actually being sick. Schools, daycares and nursing homes are not open. People aren't going to large-scale events. If people start to think it's all overblown before things actually re-open, then they will go to work sick; they won't stay home and miss the game; they'll send their kids to school.

      Goes back to #1. When people aren't careful, it spreads like wildfire. It might only take being a little bit careful to slow it to almost zero transmission.

    • Remember, NZ is already done with COVID-19, and had a much shorter lockdown than the US. They just had a real lockdown without idiots constantly walking around.

    • 1. If asymptomatic people aren't infectious, then how did this virus spread so far and wide in such a short amount of time?

      Their definition of "asymptomatic" is that the person never showed any symptoms. This is distinct from "pre-symptomatic" where the symptoms are not present yet but will eventually be so. The peak time to infect others seems to be sometime before the onset of symptoms, while pre-symptomatic (but not asymptomatic).

      Because of the wording, I think this report is unfortunately going to cause a lot of people to think pre-symptomatic people aren't infectious.

  • Famine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lobiusmoop ( 305328 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @08:33AM (#60163280) Homepage

    Swarms of locusts are devastating crops throughout Africa and Asia right now, a global famine in the coming months would wreck people's immune systems throughout the third world, making them much more prone to infection and serious consequences. Scary times.

  • by nsxdavid ( 254126 ) <dw@nOSPam.play.net> on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @08:50AM (#60163352) Homepage

    Unfortunately WHO confused a lot of people with that news. They are distinguishing between those who never get symptoms (asymptomatic) and those who eventually do, pre-symptomatic. About 20% of the people who get the virus are asymptomatic. For those who do eventually develop symptoms, it looks like 40-60% of them spread the virus prior to symptoms.

    Sadly, this will not make headlines. The damage is done.

    • by businessnerd ( 1009815 ) on Tuesday June 09, 2020 @09:23AM (#60163490)
      This.
      Very confusing communication from WHO. This article from Forbes actually tries to parse out the distinction, but even still it's hard to tell exactly which the WHO was referring to. Language matters.
      https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
    • Unfortunately WHO confused a lot of people with that news. They are distinguishing between those who never get symptoms (asymptomatic) and those who eventually do, pre-symptomatic. About 20% of the people who get the virus are asymptomatic. For those who do eventually develop symptoms, it looks like 40-60% of them spread the virus prior to symptoms.

      Sadly, this will not make headlines. The damage is done.

      Where do you get that only 20% are asymptomatic? All studies I've seen suggest half or more infections are asymptomatic. You can still have largely presymptomatic spread with largely asymptomatic infection.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        All studies I've seen suggest half or more infections are asymptomatic

        Asymptomatic OR pre-symptomatic, probably.

        Asymptomatic means someone who NEVER gets symptoms. That's the distinction the WHO is making (a stupid distinction, IMHO. If someone spreads it without visible symptoms, it doesn't really matter if that is technically asymptomatic or pre-symtomatic)

        In short, you guys are saying the same thing. Tons of transmissions, around half, occur from people with no symptoms. (But most of these are actuall

        • Asymptomatic OR pre-symptomatic, probably.

          Asymptomatic means someone who NEVER gets symptoms. That's the distinction the WHO is making (a stupid distinction, IMHO. If someone spreads it without visible symptoms, it doesn't really matter if that is technically asymptomatic or pre-symtomatic)

          It's not a stupid distinction because it is much harder to do contact tracing among people who never exhibit symptoms.

      • Where do you get that only 20% are asymptomatic? All studies I've seen suggest half or more infections are asymptomatic. You can still have largely presymptomatic spread with largely asymptomatic infection.

        Correct. Many serology studies are showing asymptomatic rates approaching 80%. USC's study was very interesting.

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli

Working...