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Going back to the #asymptomatic, there is no doubt in anyone& #39;s mind now that #COVID-19 spread readily from those without symptoms. Great work by Dr. Topol, others place proportion of #asymptomatic infection 40-45%.
Best studies to estimate true proportion of #asymptomatic will mass test regardless of symptoms AND follow pts over time to ensure don& #39;t get symptoms. Mass testing campaign in Mission district in SF fulfills these criteria and proportion ~42%. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.15.20132233v1">https://www.medrxiv.org/content/1...
Ok, going back to viral #inoculum theory, masks filter out most viral particles but not all, depending on type. Hamsters less likely to contract #SARSCoV2 infection w/ mask partition, but hamsters that did contract COVID-19 with masking had milder disease. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa644/5848814">https://academic.oup.com/cid/artic...
Sorry, this is a thread (am I doing this right?) - More evidence about viral #inoculum theory & severity of disease: Healthy human volunteers exposed to wild-type influenza A virus developed more severe symptoms at higher inoculums of administered virus: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25416753/ ">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25416753/...
So, if masks are even more effective than lock-downs, at this point, as cases surge in U.S. places, masks more important to enforce than new lockdowns, which have effects on people& #39;s livelihoods, poverty, food insecurity, other health concerns: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2020.0376">https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.10...
I KNOW we can do it. I know we can become a society of population-level facial masking. I KNOW we can take politics out of masking. If we do this, we can track severe illness, hospitalizations, deaths as our metric of when to become concerned, not cases of #asymptomatic COVID19
So, to conclude, #COVID19 highly transmissable (contagious) even w/o symptoms; curse but blessing in that having no symptoms means no severe illness; if masking increases rate of #asymptomatic dz due to low #inoculum, masking is major pillar of control. I have faith we can mask!
