THERE IS STILL NO CONSENSUS ON THE ASYMPTOMATIC RATE OF COVID-19

 From Worldometer:

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093    4732        1185       246          82

July    22     1205    7128         1293     1120         572

Aug    12     1504     6556       1242       835         130

Sept     3     1094    5886         830     1083         174
            9      1208    6222        1136      1168           82

Oct      8       957     6420         730       967        160

          12       316     3757           203       710          83

          13       843     5006           354      723       165

          14       970     6075           716       694       123

          15       873     6106           734       835       158

          16       928     6189           716       886         61

          17       638     5639           461     1032         38

          18       448     4040           215       578         63

          19       442     4392           321       594         21

          20       952     6169           662       714       164

          21     1225     6849           571       703         85

Summary:

• The USA had the most number of new deaths since August.
• We led the world with 63,663 new cases and are ahead of India at #2 with 56,000.
• However, #3 now is the UK with 26,684 new cases and #4 is France with 26,676.
• When you add Italy with 15,198 new cases, these three had 68, 558, or higher than the U.S.
• The sum of these three European countries for new deaths was 481, less than half that of the USA.
• Why?  It's not the mortality rate.
• U.S. is 2.64%
• UK = 5.6%
• France =  3.6%
• Italy = 8.2%
• So must be something else.  It takes around two weeks for the new death rate to increase, so maybe Europe's current third wave lags behind the U.S.
• Plus, the World mortality rate was once around 6%.  It is now 2.7%.  This drop reflects the increase in the number of tests, more success with treating COVID-19 patients with therapeutics and experience, and the fact that the average age of latest infections has dropped.  

Then there is the matter of asymptomatic cases, which still is a huge question mark:

• The rate on the Diamond Princess is still a mystery.  The asymptomatic rate ranged from 18% to 72%.
• However, 88% of 147 infected residents at a Boston homeless shelter were asymptomatic.
• More so, 95% of the 481 people infected at a Tyson Foods factory showed no symptoms.
• A September review of 2,454 articles resulted in a range:  4% to 41% asymptomatic incidence.
• CDC planning scenarios show a range of 10% to 70%.  So if you take the average, their latest guess seems to be 40%.
• From Europe, after a review of 94 studies, an asymptomatic rate of 20% was suggested.  Their point was that, while this figure is much higher, at some point most of the asymptomatic people later showed some effects, so the final rate, while initially high, dropped to 20%.  The danger is that while showing no symptoms, they were still able to transit this disease.

The whole point of the above is that the field still seems perplexed, with an unexplained wide range of percentage values.  

Here is something that will probably shock you.  There is also a wide range of asymptomatic cases for the following:

• Gonorrhea and chlamydial infections:  45% to 77%.  You wonder how many divorces have been caused by this ignorance.
• Seasonal flu:  50%...or 75%.

If these common infections have so high an asymptomatic rate, you can probably expect COVID-19 to eventually be as high, if not higher.  One sign is that from early on, it was known that this coronavirus would show the same mortality rate difference with age.  Ten % and higher rate of death for older people and 0.1% and lower for the more youthful.  But early studies seemed to indicate that while the mortality rate of the flu was around 0.1%, the expectation rate for COVID-19 would be four or six times higher, or maybe around 0.6%.  The 1918-20 Spanish Flu had a mortality rate of 5%.  But what was the asymptomatic rate?

So why is the mortality rate by these Worldometer data at around 2.6% for both the USA and World?  Let's look at the World.  For those 1,135,698 total deaths, to get 0.5%, this means there should be 227,139,600 cases, not 41,464,030.  Or the asymptomatic rate is 82%!  

Whether it's 20% or 82%, the danger of these asymptomatic cases is that they unknowingly are infecting others.  The only option today is to test everyone weekly for a couple of months.  The White House and most professional and college sports teams do this.  As less than 40% the total U.S. population thus far has been tested, this solution is not possible for the nation.  

The other alternative is to have a vaccine that is very effective.  If only 60% with 50% of the population willing to actually get that shot or two, herd immunity will still be too low by a factor of two.  My guess is that some kind of mandatory requirement will be made, hoping that the vaccine effectiveness is around 75%, to reach a herd immunity of 60%-70% safe people.  However, sometime soon I will compare COVID-19 with the other pandemic, HIV/AIDS, and it is worth noting that there is yet NO VACCINE for the latter.

I'm down to #69 of my favorites, and the finalists are:

• Lady of Spain:  Eddie Fisher
• The Little Shoemaker:  Gaylords
• Mr. Sandman:  Chordettes

Lady of Spain was written by Tolchard Evans and Erell Reaves in 1931, first recorded by Al Bowlly that year.  Eddie Fisher with Hugo Winterhalter and his orchestra made it a hit in 1952, but reached only #6.  However, even though he had 17 hits in the top ten, his dumping of Debbie Reynolds to marry Liz Taylor cannot be forgiven.  This was kind of like Tennessee Waltz, for Taylor, Fisher, Reynolds and Mike Todd were the best of friends.  Debbie Reynolds had recently been in Singing in the Rain, and she served as matron of honor when Taylor and Todd got married, with Fisher as best man.  You know how long ago this was?  Well, the daughter of Reynolds and Fisher is Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame, who was born in 1956 and died nearly four years ago at the age of 59.  Of all the things, Reynolds and Taylor again became friends much later on.

The Little Shoemaker is a popular French song called Le Petit Cordonnier.  An American group, the Gaylords, had a 1952 hit, Tell Me You're Mine, which reached #2 in the nation.  In 1954 they recorded The Little Shoemaker, which also made it to #2.

Mr. Sandman reached #1 in an unusual way.  It was recorded in 1954 by the Chordettes, Four Aces, Buddy Morrow, Vaughn Monroe, Les Elgart, and others, and all charted in some way.  My favorite was by the Chordettes, with Cadence's founder Archie Bleyer's orchestra providing the rhythmic beat.  It is Archie himself that says "Yes."  Liberace is mentioned as is the opera Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo.  So Mr. Sandman by the Chordettes is my #69.  They reached #2 with Lollipop in 1958.

The Chordettes have changed personnel over time, but first attained notice from Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts in 1949.  Archie Bleyer led the orchestra for this program.  He thus was involved with the song, and, in fact married one of the group, Janet Ertel.  Their daughter married Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers.   Here more recently are the Chordettes on PBS.  Lynn Evans Mand (right) was the lead singer, and she passed away earlier this year at the age of 95.

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