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Originally Posted by Hugh
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Yes, I know about it
hence saying the obvious signs were symptoms, not that only people with symptoms could have the virus.
But I don't think it's fully known yet how much asymptomatic people do spread it, considering that in reality, they aren't going to be doing much which would, compared to someone with the virus (i.e. they aren't going to be coughing, sneezing etc) and how much aerosol spread from simply breathing or talking is not understood yet particularly how this actually dissipates for a while.
In the earlier times of the pandemic they were saying that a lot of the younger age groups were getting covid but with no symptoms, this appears to be much less of an issue with the Delta variant as kids are actually getting signs.
It may not be perfect but in the vast majority of cases people who have been double-jabbed and been exposed to the virus don't get an infection. You can see that with the ONS data where school age kids are mainly getting it and there isn't really any marked increase in the people they are in contact with e.g. teachers, parents, other family members, which you would expect if immunity is waning, given that close contacts of a positive test are being recommended to get a PCR test, they too would register positive even with no symptoms.
But this is something I'd like to see more official detail on - whether people testing positive have symptoms or not, which would perhaps also help any leverage on people doing more LFTs or wearing face coverings if they were still seeing a high amount of double jabbed people testing positive with no symptoms.
However, we also have to consider the nature of a PCR test is ultimately flawed because someone testing positive for a virus isn't necessarily infectious. So your asymptomatic positive tests could well have had the virus in the samples but if their cells aren't replicating and emitting the virus then they aren't infectious and the virus fragment could have got into the sample another way. I recall reading there is now a saliva test which is actually able to detect transmissible covid infections rather than a person who simply has a covid fragment of mRNA in their throat/nose swab.
If we look at the current data, as well as a massive bias in school age kids, we're also seeing at the moment, the effects of the lab returning a large number of positive samples as negative, which is showing in the SW and Wales in particular where rates have gone up in comparison to the rest of the country which is more static (most authorities in Notts have been relatively constant in the 70-100 per day). It will probably take a few days for the effects of this transmission to show in the figures and to show in the effects of people now testing positive who are isolating where they weren't before and this in itself will probably drive these rates down.