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https://www.yahoo.com/news/big-pool-coronavirus-cases-going-093000201.html
Big pool of coronavirus cases going undetected, German researchers say
[South China Morning Post]
Linda Lew and Stuart Lau
,South China Morning Post•April 9, 2020
Most coronavirus cases around the world go undetected, raising the risk of fresh outbreaks if social distancing measures and travel restrictions are lifted too early, researchers have warned.
The researchers, from the University of Gottingen in Germany, made the assessment after comparing estimates of coronavirus infection fatality rates in a previous study with the confirmed number of cases and United Nations population data.
They concluded that on average about 6 per cent of cases were detected in the 40 countries studied, and the only way to prevent a renewed outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, was to do widespread testing followed by isolation of infected people.
"Once we are able to guarantee that this can be done, we can talk about relaxing restrictions. This is why increasing testing capacity is so important," said Christian Bommer, from the Centre for Modern Indian Studies and a co-author of the paper with Sebastian Vollmer.
The paper was posted on the websites of the university and German education ministry, but it has not been published on a preprint server or in an academic journal.
Vollmer and Bommer calculated the detection rate using an estimate of the infection fatality rate published on The Lancet Infectious Diseases site on March 30. The authors of the Lancet study estimated that 0.66 per cent of people who became infected died.
The German researchers then divided the number of deaths on a given date by this infection fatality rate and compared this to the number of reported cases 14 days earlier, the estimated time period between diagnosis and death, also based on the Lancet study.
Adjusting for differences in age groups using UN population data, they calculated detection rates for 40 countries.
South Korea had the highest detection rate at almost 50 per cent while the US was 1.5 per cent. Turkey had the lowest detection rate at 0.12 per cent. On average, the detection rate globally might only be 6 per cent, they said.
Vollmer and Bommer concluded that the actual number of infections worldwide could be in the tens of millions.
Big pool of coronavirus cases going undetected, German researchers say
[South China Morning Post]
Linda Lew and Stuart Lau
,South China Morning Post•April 9, 2020
Most coronavirus cases around the world go undetected, raising the risk of fresh outbreaks if social distancing measures and travel restrictions are lifted too early, researchers have warned.
The researchers, from the University of Gottingen in Germany, made the assessment after comparing estimates of coronavirus infection fatality rates in a previous study with the confirmed number of cases and United Nations population data.
They concluded that on average about 6 per cent of cases were detected in the 40 countries studied, and the only way to prevent a renewed outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, was to do widespread testing followed by isolation of infected people.
"Once we are able to guarantee that this can be done, we can talk about relaxing restrictions. This is why increasing testing capacity is so important," said Christian Bommer, from the Centre for Modern Indian Studies and a co-author of the paper with Sebastian Vollmer.
The paper was posted on the websites of the university and German education ministry, but it has not been published on a preprint server or in an academic journal.
Vollmer and Bommer calculated the detection rate using an estimate of the infection fatality rate published on The Lancet Infectious Diseases site on March 30. The authors of the Lancet study estimated that 0.66 per cent of people who became infected died.
The German researchers then divided the number of deaths on a given date by this infection fatality rate and compared this to the number of reported cases 14 days earlier, the estimated time period between diagnosis and death, also based on the Lancet study.
Adjusting for differences in age groups using UN population data, they calculated detection rates for 40 countries.
South Korea had the highest detection rate at almost 50 per cent while the US was 1.5 per cent. Turkey had the lowest detection rate at 0.12 per cent. On average, the detection rate globally might only be 6 per cent, they said.
Vollmer and Bommer concluded that the actual number of infections worldwide could be in the tens of millions.
